This debut collection of stories — featuring a talk-show host and her talking hand, a womens activity group that writes to prisoners, and a poncho-making nudist — is as unique as it is compelling. Set in their own melodramatic worlds, the stories take inspiration from Old Hollywood, Gothic novels, art-world gossip, and maybe a Lifetime movie or two. Balzer's observations are as sharp as Flauberts, and his characters are drawn with the complexity of George Saunders (and the wit of George Sa...

Praise for Curationism: “Balzer writes with zest, scepticism and sly humour” Sheila Heti, author of Pure ColourWhat does it mean to call something “new”? Why is Western art and culture, even after postmodernism, still so obsessed with the concept? What are the consequences of relying on culture to bring about social change?In this provocative book, David Balzer argues that Western culture was never designed to produce truly new or original...

Now that we 'curate' even lunch, what happens to the role of the connoisseur in contemporary culture?‘Curate’ is now a buzzword, applied to everything from music festivals to artisanal cheese. Inside the art world, the curator reigns supreme, acting as the face of high-profile group shows and biennials in a way that can eclipse and assimilate the contributions of individual artists. Curatorial-studies programs continue to grow, and the business world is adopting cu...

Praise for Curationism: "Balzer writes with zest, skepticism, and sly humor" —Sheila Heti, author of Pure ColourWhat does it mean to call something "new"? Why is Western art and culture, even after postmodernism, still so obsessed with the concept? What are the consequences of relying on culture to bring about social change?In this provocative book, David Balzer argues that Western culture was never designed to produce truly new or origina...

Henrik Nordmark is a bald, middle-aged security guard with few friends and no romantic possibilities. Tired of being the weed sprouting out of the wallflower, generic in his generality, Henrik has an epiphany. He will have one moment of inimitable distinction, even if it kills him.Henrik first sets out to experience the throes of addiction, then to become virtuous, and barring this to be known as a public menace. Inevitably he resolves to find true love and fails miserably. Along his jour...

"A strange and surprisingly touching novel about how people find good and evil where they look for them" ( Booklist).In 1930s Russia, an eight-year-old boy named Vladimir is suddenly stricken with a chronic case of the hiccups. He soon finds himself spirited away to a Moscow hospital by the famous physician Sergei Namestikov, who puts him through a series of extraordinary—and often bizarre—treatments in an effort to find a cure.Then Sergei's chief ...

What if you’re doing everything right—living a healthy, virtuous, conscientious life—and something goes terribly wrong?Gillian Deacon was the paragon of virtue, the standard-bearer for how to live responsibly on the Earth. So when the all-natural, vegetarian, yoga-practising, marathon-running mother of three young boys was diagnosed with breast cancer, the world stopped making sense.In an increasingly perilous environment, the promise of order amid chaos is so tantalizing. ...

Does one honor one’s country or one’s heart? Malka Marom explores this classic dilemma in her stunningly powerful first novel, an extraordinary tale of people caught up in a violent and seemingly endless historical conflict, compelled by love and grief to transcend it.Sulha tells the story of Leora, who, twenty years after her husband was killed in the Sinai War, is empowered by law to decide whether or not to allow her only son to serve high-risk duty as his father did. As Abraham...

"An immaculately constructed page-turner that is also, miraculously, a redemptive meditation on loneliness and community" (Carrie Snyder, author of Girl Runner).The inhabitants of Edgewood Drive in the small Canadian town of Parkville seem to live simple, peaceful lives, but as the children attend elementary school and the senior ladies play Leisure League hockey, secrets and hardships and menaces lurk not far from the surface. This suspenseful novel takes...

Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire's second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly.Until, that is, she receives a summons that cannot be ignored. With husband, child, and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even...

In the wise and beautiful second collection of literary short stories from the acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize–winning #1 New York Times bestselling author of All the Light We Cannot See, and Cloud Cuckoo Land, "Doerr writes about the big questions, the imponderables, the major metaphysical dreads, and he does it fearlessly" (The New York Times Book Review).Set on four continents, Anthony Doerr's new stories are about memory and memory...

Class is back in session in this glorious steampunk series from a New York Times bestselling author, as Sophronia and her friends do whatever it takes to stop a dangerous plan from unfolding and reeking havoc on London.Sophronia continues her second year at finishing school in style—with a steel-bladed fan secreted in the folds of her ball gown, of course. Such a fashionable choice of weapon comes in handy when Sophronia, her best friend Dimity, sweet soot...