A man wins big only to lose his shoes in Las Vegas…A poet confronts his past and confounds his present…A close encounter changes a family forever…A man walks into a bar and meets an author on a secret mission. These and other stories lie within.

October, 1972. Will Porter joins the CIA's secret war against Chile's Marxist president, Salvador Allende. Working under cover, Will's job is to manage the dirty money flowing to the opposition. As protests, general strikes and paramilitary terrorism bring Chile to the brink of civil war, Will learns just how far the CIA will go to achieve its objective.A budding friendship with a university student and his beautiful sister complicates Will's job and threatens to blow his cover. In...

One of The New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of the Year“Amy Hempel’s dazzling wit and exquisite use of language are impossible to disclaim” (San Francisco Chronicle) and this celebrated volume gathers together her complete work—four short collections of stunning stories about marriages, minor disasters, and moments of revelation.Amy Hempel is a master of the short story. With her inimitable compassion and ...

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author presents a sterling selection of short fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin, Jeffrey Eugenides, and others."As soon as you complete a description of what a good story must be, a new example flutters through an open window, lands on your sleeve, and proves your description wrong," writes Anthony Doerr about the task of selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019. The year's best stories are a diverse, addictive group exploring e...

'All the staples of the prison memoir are here: sadistic guards and attempted break-out, the terrors of solitary confinement, the joys of freedom . . . The result is a truly gripping piece of testimony'Sunday TelegraphA darkly comic, sometimes shocking account of life in San Pedro, the world's most bizarre prison, through the eyes of one bemused Englishman.When Thomas McFadden was arrested trying to smuggle five kilos of coc...

"When you're dumb enough for long enough, you're gonna meet someone too smart to love you, and they're gonna love you anyway, and it's gonna go so poorly," Neil Hilborn writes in his debut full-length collection, OUR NUMBERED DAYS. In 2013, Hilborn's poem "OCD" went viral, and has amassed over 11 million views to date. While this collection ruminates on love, heartbreak, and mental illness, these poems are anything but saccharine. Hilborn uses the same humor and self-deprecation that prope...

**The international bestseller that inspired the must-watch drama on USA Network starring Alice Braga as Teresa Mendoza.From “master of the intellectual thriller” Arturo Pérez-Reverte, a remarkable tale, spanning decades and continents—from the dusty streets of Mexico to the sparkling waters off the coast of Morocco, to the Strait of Gibraltar and Spain—in a story encompassing sensuality and cruelty, love and betrayal, and life and death.**Teresa Mendoza's boyfriend is a dr...

The New York Times–bestselling author reveals dark secrets from the life of assassin Evan Smoak in this special novella.Orphan X . . . The Nowhere Man . . . An assassin trained by the department of defense, Evan Smoak behaves unremarkably in public, just an average person among regular folks. His instinct is to hide in plain sight and not draw any attention to himself, so he'll remain unmemorable whenever he fulfills a contract.But Josephine "Joey" M...

Six-year-old Carmen Aguirre fled to Canada with her family following General Augusto Pinochet's violent 1973 coup in Chile. Five years later, when her mother and stepfather returned to South America as Chilean resistance members, Carmen and her sister went with them, quickly assuming double lives of their own. At eighteen, Carmen became a militant herself, plunging further into a world of terror, paranoia and euphoria.Something Fierce takes the reader inside war-ridden Per...

"A stunningly beautiful new memoir . . . a near-perfect work of literature." —Stephen Elliot, San Francisco ChronicleNick Flynn met his father when he was working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger father, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City tells the story of the trajectory that led Nick and his father onto the str...

"I have many scars. Some of them are physical, but many more are scars on my soul. A bomb sent to kill me while I was in a maximum security prison has made me blind, yet now I see the world more clearly than I have ever seen it before. I have lived an incredible adventure. I watched as my brother, Pablo Escobar, became the most successful criminal in history, but also a hero to many of the people of Colombia. My brother was loved and he was feared. Hundreds of thousands of people marched i...

Lee Child recruits Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Ames, Cara Black, and others to reveal nicotine's scintillating alter egos."Sixteen tributes to America's guiltiest pleasure . . . Even confirmed anti-smokers will find something to savor." — Kirkus ReviewsIn recent years, nicotine has become as verboten as many hard drugs. The literary styles in this volume are as varied as the moral quandaries herein, and the authors have successfully unleas...