Humorous and wry stories of misfits and ordinary people in an Appalachian community struggling creatively to make sense of an often nonsensical world.“It seems like everybody but people from here are sure about what we’re about, and they make money being wrong about it.” The residents of Labor County, a fictional small community in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky, may be short on cash, but they are rich in creativity and tirelessly inventive as they...

What scares you more? The monster under your bed or the one staring back at you in the mirror? Authors C.M. Chapman and Larry Thacker blur the lines between the kinds of monsters that roam the earth in their latest short story collection, EVERYDAY, MONSTERS.In twenty-one stories, readers encounter monsters ranging from mythological, psychological, maliciously human, and darkly comical. Monsters creep from the deepest parts of humanity, the kind that we are born with, proving that e...

We're set loose, untended, like beings from a menagerie of sorts, one day cooped up, the next fending for ourselves out in the oddness of the world doing for ourselves. This is the motif pursued in GATELESS MENAGERIE. We intersect with the wild as well when out roaming, reacquainting with the animal kingdom and it with us. We are one in the same: gateless and viewed. How do the animals see us? How do we appear to them? Are we in harmony or only tolerating one another?

New York Times bestselling author Lee Child and the International Thriller Writers, Inc. present a collection of remarkable stories in First Thrills. Showcasing many of the organization's bestselling authors as well as rising stars in the genre, here are twenty-five brand-new, never-before published, stories packed with murder, mystery, and mayhem.*A cunning criminal thinks he can use a child to take the rap for his crimes.*A hospital intern turned body-snat...

With a noisy giant crashing around the kingdom, the Princess in Black uses the Sparkle Signal to call ALL her heroic friends together—for the biggest adventure yet.The Princess in Black is ready for her snowy playdate with the Goat Avenger and the Princess in Blankets. It’s a perfect day to build snow monsters and battle them for practice. But just when they’re about to wage battle, a huge foot smashes their snow monster. “SQUASHY!”It’s a giant, and it’s sm...

Odd Interlude, Dean Koontz’s New York Times bestselling three-part digital series—now in one volume for the first time.THERE’S ROOM AT THE INN. BUT YOU MIGHT NOT GET OUT.Nestled on a lonely stretch along the Pacific coast, quaint roadside outpost Harmony Corner offers everything a weary traveler needs—a cozy diner, a handy service station, a cluster of cottages . . . and the Harmony family homestead presiding over it all. But when Odd Thom...

You can't kill the dead!Like any good monster, the zombie has proven to be ever-evolving, monumentally mutable, and open to seemingly endless imaginative interpretations: the thralls of voodoo sorcerers, George Romero's living dead, societal symbols, dancing thrillers, viral victims, reanimated ramblers, video gaming targets, post-apocalyptic permutations, shuffling sidekicks, literary mash-ups, the comedic, and, yes, even the romantic. Evidently, we have an enduring hunger for thi...

NBCC Award Winner: "The narrative lyrics in this remarkable collection . . . could stand as compressed stories about anxiety and the body." — The New York TimesVulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. A daughter tends to aging parents. A woman struggles with infertility—"What if, instead of carrying / a child, I am supposed to carry ...

A beautiful reporter. A secret ritual in a graveyard. A disembodied hand on the side of the road. Mike Hammer returns in one of the most shocking cases of his storied career.Private Investigator Mike Hammer may be getting older, but he hasn’t lost his step. So when he spots a brutally destroyed corpse on the side of the road in upstate New York, unrecognizable as human except for the disembodied hand lying next to it, there’s no question of him not taking the case....

"In Young's work, the big essential questions-mortality, identity, the meaning of life-aren't simply food for thought; they're grounds for entertainment."-Toronto Star"Surrealism seldom seems as much like real life as in Young's hilarious and cautionary poems."-BooklistBender gathers a generous selection of new work along with treasure from Dean Young's twelve volumes. Strongly influenced by Surrealism, Dean Young's poems flash with extravagant im...

"Young has always stood out for his sharp humor, boundless poetic energy, and sheer readability. If adventurous poetry can sometimes feel like a tenuous tightrope walk, Young's poems feel more like zip lines."-The Boston Globe"This book reads like a long, breathless thank-you for life's seemingly random jumble of beauty, strangeness, tenderness, and joy."-Los Angeles TimesFall Higher is a major collection by one of America's most inventive and ent...

What if somebody finally wrote to his high school alumni bulletin and told...the truth! Home Land is a brilliant work from novelist Sam Lipsyte, whom Jeffrey Eugenides calls "original, devious, and very funny" and of whose first novel Chuck Palahniuk wrote, "I laughed out loud--and I never laugh out loud."The Eastern Valley High School Alumni newsletter, Catamount Notes, is bursting with tales of success: former students include a bankable politician and a...