Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh
The ultimate confidence man, Ken Kimble isn’t in it for the hour or the week, but for years. More threatening than Humbert or Raskolnikov without approaching their crimes, Kimble reminds us how little we know about those close to us and how great the stakes of our trust can be. Buy the book Visit the author’s... read moreAlain de Botton
The author’s incisive intellect, compassionate soul and elegant writing have produced several companionable, brilliant, reassuring books of essays. Each and every one will expand your knowledge and your sympathies. Buy the Book Visit the Author’s... read moreHouse of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
A modern tragedy, this deeply moving novel offers a page-turning plot, beautiful language and compelling characters while exploring so much of what literature strives to understand: poverty, patriotism, the American Dream, immigration, love, recklessness, family…and more. Buy the Book Visit the Author’s... read moreGods and Monsters by Christopher Bram
Written with a keen sense of psychology during an intriguing historical moment and featuring a page-turning plot, this gem of a novel has it all, including beautiful sentences. Bram is a master of the overt as well as the implied simile and his sense of pacing can’t be improved. Don’t see the movie adaptation first. First, read the book. Then, read it again. Buy the Book Visit the Author’s... read more
Advance Praise for You Should Pity Us Instead: Stories by Amy Gustine
“Gustine excels at dramatizing the cunning of the human animal—a creature renowned for its skill at self-sabotage—as well as celebrating the freakish grace that can sometimes strike an ordinary life. You Should Pity Us Instead is a devastating, funny, and astonishingly frank collection.”
–Karen Russell, Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and author of Swamplandia!
“Intense situations plumbed with candor and a finely focused attentiveness to nuance…You Should Pity Us Instead is an authoritative debut.”
–Rosellen Brown, award-winning author of Before and After and Tender Mercies
“The stakes are high in every story, and not one of them ends without a moment both understated and haunting. This is exactly the kind of prose a poet would write, and the kind of poetry out of which the best stories are spun.”
–Laura Kasischke, author of Mind of Winter
“Compassionate, subtle, utterly unsentimental, and lit with a rare wisdom. The stories are fearless.”
–Jane McCafferty, winner of the Drue Heinz Prize and author of First You Try Everything
“Amy Gustine’s stories cross impossible borders both physical and moral. Brave, essential, thrilling, each story takes us to those places we’ve never dared visit before.”
–Ben Stroud, winner of the Bakeless Prize and author of the award-winning Byzantium: Stories
“What a set of marvels these stories are…profound and moving works of art.”
–Lawrence Coates, author of The Goodbye House
“Searingly honest and deeply moving…a beguiling and beautiful debut.”
–Margo Rabb, author of Kissing in America and Cures for Heartbreak