A deft analysis and appreciation of fiction—what makes it work and what can make it fail.Here is a book about the craft of writing fiction that is thoroughly useful from the first to the last page—whether the reader is a beginner, a seasoned writer, or a teacher of writing. You will see how a work takes form and shape once you grasp the principles of momentum, tension, and immediacy. "Tension," Stern says, "is the mother of fiction. When tension and immediacy combi...

An eventful train ride. A fatefully timed snowstorm. Late night confessions, half-baked schemes, and bumbling sexual interludes leading nowhere. An endless string of office temp jobs, basement apartments, and crushing heartache. Relive the era at the precipice of a new millennium, when life was supposedly less complicated yet just as crazy.Written between 1985 and 1995, when the author was in his twenties, these stories were once a young man's singleminded obsession-until, abruptly...

Never has contemporary fiction been more widely discussed and passionately analysed; recent years have seen a huge growth in the number of reading groups and in the interest of a non-academic readership in the discussion of how novels work. Drawing on his weekly Guardian column, 'Elements of Fiction', John Mullan examines novels mostly of the last ten years, many of which have become firm favourites with reading groups. He reveals the rich resources of novelistic technique, settingrecent f...

What is literary theory? Is there a relationship between literature and culture? In fact, what is literature, and does it matter?These are some of questions addressed by Jonathan Culler in this Very Short Introduction to literary theory. Often a controversial subject, said to have transformed the study of culture and society in the past two decades, literary theory is accused of undermining respect for tradition and truth and encouraging suspicion about the political and psychological impl...

The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transformed the criticism of fiction and soon became a classic in the field. One of the most widely used texts in fiction courses, it is a standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its concepts and terms—such as "the implied author," "the postulated reader," and "the unreliable narrator"—have become part of the standard critical l...

Discover a more lighthearted side of the funeral industry in this collection of real-life stories from the authors of Mortuary Confidential.Not knowing what to do, I sat on the church steps and waited. As the gravity of my failure began to well up in me, I began to cry . . . I Had Lost The Hearse!Funerals and the all the things that accompany them are traditionally somber, contemplative events in which the bereaved look to their undertaker...

NATIONAL BESTSELLERPeople make a mess.Marc Maron was a parent-scarred, angst-filled, drug-dabbling, love-starved comedian who dreamed of a simple life: a wife, a home, a sitcom to call his own. But instead he woke up one day to find himself fired from his radio job, surrounded by feral cats, and emotionally and financially annihilated by a divorce from a woman he thought he loved. He tried to heal his broken heart through whatever means he could fi...

"Unflinching, rich and revelatory."—MEGAN ABBOTT“Gorgeous, moody, and evocative . . . half coming-of-age story and half exhaustively researched true crime.” —VANITY FAIR“Bracingly honest and extremely discomfiting, this book is like a riveting episode of Law & Order: SVU set at a Manhattan prep school with the U.S. Open as a backdrop.”—MARIE CLAIREA riveting blend of true crime and coming-of-age memoir— The Stranger Beside Me meets Prep—that presents an intimate and...

This hilarious collection of short stories from the award-winning humorist Simon Rich includes the story that inspired the Seth Rogen comedy An American Pickle.Having skewered the problems of falling in and out of love in The Last Girlfriend on Earth, Simon Rich's next book is another subject we can all relate to: parents and their kids. From the perils of raising an actual monster in Manhattan - it's pretty hard to find teachers who really unders...

A "fascinating" ( MetroSource) collection of uncensored, confessional, and at times outrageously funny essays about coming of age, coming out, and the wildest experiences that define us.Collecting the most celebrated stories from the hit podcast RISK!, along with all-new true tales about explosive secrets and off-the-wall adventures, this book paints a spellbinding portrait of the transformational moments we experience in life but rarely talk about...

**Written with unexpected humor and great warmth, The Widower's Notebook is a portrait of a marriage, an account of the complexities of finding oneself single again after losing your spouse, and a story of the enduring power of familial love."This is deeply moving ... beautifully written and modulated, with a dollop of droll, black humor. It is such an achievement, like running uphill against a strong wind."--Joyce Carol Oates**On a summer day in New York Jonathan ...

What do shipwrecks, college slums, bisexuals, and Blink 182 have in common? Gaby Dunn. Gaby is a writer, journalist, and comedian in New York City whose work has appeared everywhere from ROOKIE to New York Times Magazine. “Maybe In Another Universe: The Best of Gaby Dunn, Vol. 1” is a collection of her most humorous, poignant, and touching essays to appear on Thought Catalog.