"In the madcap, outspoken, yet hauntingly vulnerable Ruby, Kaufman has created an indelible character, one whose full life arc is succinctly yet voluptuously rendered through the incandescent vignettes of Kaufman's masterful first novel-in-stories."—Booklist

Named a "Great Group Read" by the Women's National Book Association

Where Somebody Waits instantly transports you to small-town Arkansas more than a half-century ago—a

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2022 Hudson Prize WinnerA young couple raises crickets for food, a woman in a caged complex is witness to the deterioration of her neighbor, a homeless man contemplates an infantís grave from the Westward Expansion, and an uncompromising ego takes on a Biblical rain. These are among the stories from HIGHWIRE ACT & OTHER TALES OF SURVIVAL, where the climate crisis arrives not just as strange and violent weather, but as upheavals in our political and...

"We Install offers a showcase of styles, from humor--in "Father of the Groom," a scientist with a penchant for wild experimentation helps his love-struck son by synthesizing a wedding ring out of two carrots--to classic science fiction, as in the Hugo Award-winning "Down in the Bottomlands" and "Hoxbomb," in which a regular guy just trying to make a living selling scooters has to deal with some very odd competition. The alternate history tale "Drang...

While studying the Harlem Renaissance, students at a Bronx high school read aloud poems they've written, revealing their innermost thoughts and fears to their formerly clueless classmates.

"The Caretaker In an 1875 winter, a Scandinavian farm family prepares for the arrival of a baby. When the baby wants to arrive too soon, eleven-year-old Selma must take a journey that transforms her life. Snow Angels of San Marcial Young Angelina wants to give her hard-working widowed mother a special Christmas gift. But will her unpredictable brothers cooperate? A recent widow, hires a carpenter to make her baby son a crib before Christmas. The carpenter...

"Alaska, 1974. Ernt Allbright came home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes the impulsive decision to move his wife and daughter north where they will live off the grid in America's last true frontier. Cora will do anything for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown. Thirteen-year-old Leni, caught in the riptide of her parents' passionate, stormy relationship, has little...

"In this work of crime fiction, forensic accountant Peter Strand investigates an arts-oriented nonprofit."--

"Searching and erudite new essays on writing from the author of Burning Down the House. Charles Baxter's new collection of essays, Wonderlands, joins his other works of nonfiction, Burning Down the House and The Art of Subtext. In the mold of those books, Baxter shares years of wisdom and reflection on what makes fiction work, including essays that were first given as craft talks at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. The essays here range from brilliant...