After an autistic man ends up in the trenches of World War I, a nun-turned-journalist dances with treason to care for him, and a candy store clerk posing as Santa Claus risks everything to bring him home. Luther Baker is a kind-hearted autistic man with a savant's knack for making chocolate truffles. His entire life, he has worked in his family's sweet shop alongside his single mother—until he is illegally thrust into the horrors of World War I. While in France, Luther meets Ethyl, an aspi...

A sweeping historical saga of love, duty, and identity in a world on the brink of change.In 1912, Anna DiNicola reluctantly leaves Brooklyn for Tunisia, seeking a cure for her asthma. There, she finds independence as a wedding shawl weaver, but faces pressure to marry her mentor's son, even as her heart yearns for another.Antonio Orlando dreams of his family's Sicilian barber shop, shuttered by the mafia. Forced to Tunisia, he befriends Anna, questioning if...

In 2002 a burial box of skeletal remains purchased anonymously from the black market was identified as the ossuary of James, the brother of Jesus. Transformed by the media into a religious and historical relic overnight, the artifact made its way to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, where 100,000 people congregated to experience what had been prematurely and hyperbolically billed as the closest tactile connection to Jesus yet unearthed. Within a few months, however, the ossuary was reve...

New Directions in Childhood Studies: Innocence, Trauma, and Agency in the Twenty-first Century acknowledges that the conceptual frameworks for understanding the experience of childhood in the twentieth century are no longer adequate and offers important updates to the construct of American childhood. The chapters in this collection examine contemporary children’s literature, film, and video games to explore the ways in which everyday realities like trauma, disaster, and death impa...

This issue of Profession contains Russell A. Berman’s introduction to his Presidential Forum, Language, Literature, Learning, held at the 2012 MLA convention, and the essays of the forum participants Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Christopher Freeburg, Jack Halberstam, B. Venkat Mani, and Imani Perry. To mark the journal’s thirty-fifth anniversary, the issue also features a retrospective sampling of articles that illustrate the evolution of the profession and of the professional issues...

Eating disorders know no boundaries. They don't discriminate.Every story of living with an eating disorder is unique. Eating Disorders Don't Discriminate brings together thirty-one of them, each tackling the stereotypes and misconceptions about what eating disorders look like and who they impact.Athletes, activists, directors, models, health professionals, and more share their experiences of eating disorders, including binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa,...

Skies darken. Sirens wail. Buildings tremble with each distant boom. You grasp your loved ones close to you. Any second could be your last.Howls From the Wreckage will push you to the edge of imminent disaster—and drown you in the heartbreak of its fallout.HOWL Society Press presents its thrilling anthology of disaster horror, fittingly introduced by Nick Cutter, acclaimed author of The Troop and The Deep.Foreword by Nick Cutter |...

A landmark feat of innovation is about to change the American West forever. With electric cables stretching from the Colorado River to Gallup, New Mexico, a new telegraph system will connect the settlers of the Arizona Territory to rest of the country—a dream come true for rancher Chet Byrnes and his family. But laying four hundred miles of steel wire can be a deadly task. Chet has to face off with hired henchmen who would kill to sabotage the project. Chet's nephew JD has his hands full w...

Daily life in this day and age can be trying and exhausting. Who couldnt use more love, encouragement, and grace in their life? Find yourself in the feelings of these stories, get lost in them, and take away something that you can use. Joy and grace are accessible right now to you, more than youve really thought.For we helpfully know in our spirit that, All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable, and that all things are lawful, but not all things edify. This is our gi...