“Pink is a keen observer of the culture of minimum-wage jobs and low-rent studio apartments that is the reality of life for all those who don't find a cog space in today’s hyper-capitalist economy.” —The GuardianCone dealer, sunshine stealer, alleyway counselor, lunch lady to the homeless, friend to the dead, maker of sandwiches. Metal wrangler. Stag among stags. And so it goes—another journey through time spent punched in. A life's work of working for a l...

Sam Pink’s Rontel, the first novel from innovative publisher Electric Literature, is a love letter to Chicago that's full of unrequited affection, brimming with contempt and admiration, gratitude and spite. Subversive and shamelessly honest, Rontel is Knut Hamsun's Hunger for the millennial generation, and deserves a place among the great works of loner fiction next to Céline, Fante, Camus, and Bukowski. Joe Meno (Office Girl, Hairstyles of t...

“I love the pulse of Sam Pink’s sentences, the way they can hold the gorgeous and the grisly and the hilarious all at the same time. The Garbage Times/White Ibis thrilled me and messed me up, left me feeling a little dazed and a lot changed.” —Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel and Find MeFrom the freezing alleys of Chicago to the dew-blanketed bayou of Florida. From bouncing drunks and cleaning up puke to biking through the sw...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST FICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY AND BUZZFEED • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWOne of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century**A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: People, The New York ...

Based on the award-winning 10-million-plus-hit blog 1000 Awesome Things, The Book of Awesome is an international bestselling high five for humanity and a big celebration of life’s little moments.Sometimes it’s easy to forget the things that make us smile. With a 24/7 news cycle reporting that the polar ice caps are melting, hurricanes are swirling in the seas, wars are heating up around the world, and the job market is in a deep freeze, it’s tempting to fe...

THE MAN WHO LEFT is about the importance of fathers. It's about the men who leave, and the men who stay.It's a familiar story. Father leaves his wife and children and never looks back. Theresa Weir was five when her father left his family for a better life with a wealthy socialite. Many years passed with only occasional and grudging contact by Theresa's father. When Theresa married into a successful farm family, her father resurfaced, but she couldn't help but be suspicious of his ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Laurie Notaro has an uncanny ability to attract insanity—and leave readers doubled over with laughter. Need proof? Check out The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death and try not to bust a gut.Join Notaro as she experiences the popular phenomenon of laser hair removal (because at least one of her chins should be stubble-free); bemoans the scourge of the Open Mouth Coughers on America’s airplanes and in similarly c...

*This diary of a runaway girl and her search for a home celebrates hope, resilience, and happy endings.Holly's run away before, but this time she actually gets away—and what felt like an escape at first soon becomes a daily struggle for survival. She is smart and resourceful, and she manages to make it across the country on her own. But how long can this go on? It's getting harder to avoid the truth—Holly is now homeless.Runaway is a remarkably uplifting po...

She thought she’d have more time. Laurie Notaro figured she had at least a few good years left. But no–it’s happened. She has officially lost her marbles. From the kid at the pet-food store checkout line whose coif is so bizarre it makes her seethe “I’m going to kick his hair’s ass!” to the hapless Sears customer-service rep on the receiving end of her Campaign of Terror, no one is safe from Laurie’s wrath. Her cranky side seems to have eaten the rest of her–inner-thigh Chub Rub and all. A...

"Finally a funny book about parenting. Great observations. Great writing. Actually funny." —Jim Gaffigan, New York Times –bestselling authorIt's hard being a person, especially in a family, and no one knows that better than stand-up comedian, family man, and Live From Here head writer and performer, Tom Papa.How do you deal with a life filled with a whole host of characters and their bizarre, inescapable ...

A tender, provocative story about the power of friendship, the thrill of self-discovery, and the strength it takes to escape the past.Catherine Madison is headed West with a suitcase full of cash that isn't hers. She's just left the only home she's ever known, a small town in Nebraska, after the only man she had ever known, her husband, Thomas, deserted her. She's also left behind her deepest, most shameful secrets-among them a dysfunctional family she's never quit...

"My imagination is always skulking about in a wrong place." And now Doyle Redmond, thirty-five-year-old nowhere writer, has crossed the line between imagination and real live trouble. On the lam in his soon-to-be ex-wife's Volvo, he's running a family errand back in his boyhood home of West Table, Missouri -- the heart of the red-dirt Ozarks. The law wants his big brother, Smoke, on a felony warrant, and Doyle's supposed to talk him into giving up. But Smoke is hunkered down in the hills w...