""What about the guy in New York who looks like me?" he asked. "Were you close?"She gave him a dismissive look as if it wasn't any of his business but did not duck the question, answering in a near-whisper."He was someone I cared about.""What happened to him?"Her eyes grew cold as she stared right through him."He died fifteen years ago in the Nine-Eleven attacks."April first, the annual celebration of lies, practical jokes and hoaxes. Carson Graham...

All of life's chapters reach closures ...People seek closures, accept closures, or are desperate to prevent closures. Grieved or celebrated, closures are human experiences preceding death, life's final closure. As the stories in this collection reveal, closures can be positive or negative … and sometimes both.Jeff Boyle is the author of the award-winning novel Nam World (2015), the award-winning story collection Hidden Truths (Bold Venture Press, 2016), and the novel The Bo...

"A yearning for connection binds many of the stories in Jeff Boyle's fine collection. His lean, muscular prose reads as smooth as a flat sea. Yet still waters can disguise powerful undertows, and to slip into Boyle's world is to risk being swept away. Let yourself go, and when the current releases you back on shore you'll have more to contemplate than the view of the ocean many of his characters enjoy .… It's in the premise that we find commonalities among Boyle's sixteen stories. In a wor...

When Dave Barry is on the loose, no one is safe!What Dave Barry did for the men’s movement in his Complete Guide to Guys and for foreign relations when he did Japan he now does for . . . everything in America. The rapacious observer of Tupperware ladies and leisure concept salesmen sounds off on:Football—Football is more than just a game. It is a potential opportunity to see a live person lying on the ground with a bone sticking out of his leg, whi...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • You can't make this stuff up. Dave Barry wouldn't lie—and here are the real life, laugh-out-loud stories from across America to prove it.Get up-close with Dave as he examines UFO thrillseekers and Elvis-worshippers, plays lead guitar with a horrifying rock band that includes Stephen King, and swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in stories like these:• a U.S. Supreme Court justice shares h...

Over 200 true stories of boneheadedness and buffoonery from the New York Times-bestselling author of Stupid History!Former Saturday Night Live writer Leland Gregory has shown us gray matter-challenged examples in everything from the criminal world to the hallowed halls of government. This time, though, everyone, everywhere is fair game if they've exhibited outrageously stupid behavior. Consider:* The forgetful fireman who left coo...

Doug DeMuro is sharing his perspective on today’s top issues.On moving: "My new place is much bigger than my old one. This means, as an American, that I must fill each room with furniture, even if its sole purpose is to give me with a new place to stub my toe when I get up at night to use the bathroom."***On the weathe***r: "Seattle gets so much rain that an entire computer industry was started there by schoolchildren who never had the chance to pl...

"Citizen Kane does Adventureland." —The Washington PostThe outlandish, hilarious, terrifying, and almost impossible-to-believe story of the legendary, dangerous amusement park where millions were entertained and almost as many bruises were sustained, told through the eyes of the founder's son.Often called "Accident Park," "Class Action Park," or "Traction Park," Action Park was an American icon. Entertaining more ...

**From the New York Times bestselling author of Detroit: An American Autopsy"Except for a few drinks, nothing is free in Charlie LeDuff's blunt and touching Work and Other Sins. The laughter and wisdom are hard won, the lessons are often painful... the sad tales and wit from the bar rail are endless and timeless." --The New York Times Book Review**Charlie LeDuff is that rare breed of news reporter—one who can cover hard-to-get-at stories ...

A whodunit without the who, this illustrated compendium of mayhem and misfortune spirals out from an investigation into two disappearances.The Baltimore Atrocities is a mordant, deadpan collection of more than one hundred murders, betrayals, heartbreaks, suicides, and bureaucratic snafus—each with a half-page illustration by the author—that tells the story of a couple who spends a year in Baltimore in search of their respective siblings, who were abducted ...

“Timely . . . [the collection] paints intimate portraits of neglected places that are often used as political talking points. A good companion piece to J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy.”—BooklistThe essays in Voices from the Rust Belt "address segregated schools, rural childhoods, suburban ennui, lead poisoning, opiate addiction, and job loss. They reflect upon happy childhoods, successful community ventures, warm refuges for outsiders, and ...

A haunting and often hilarious memoir of growing up in 80s Miami as the son of Big Tony, a flawless model of the great American pot baron.To his fellow smugglers, Anthony Edward Dokoupil was the Old Man. He ran stateside operations for one of the largest marijuana rings of the twentieth century. In all they sold hundreds of thousands of pounds of marijuana, and Big Tony distributed at least fifty tons of it. To his son he was a rambling man who was also somehow a present father, a ...