"Place is a character in Patrick Michael Finn's fiction. It's almost as if the setting, like the working-class characters who people his stories, has an ethnicity. The characters try to go on with their lives while the place broods and mourns around them. And all the while the narratives driven by credible psychological pressure grow increasingly threatening until the elegiac becomes rage. This is artful storytelling." --Stuart Dybek, author of 'I Sailed with Magel lan' "Let us all hope that 'From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet' is just the first of many story collections by Patrick Michael Finn. Populated with destitute strippers, damaged punks, polka lovers, bereaved widows, and the chronic unemployed amid lard factories and Catholic churches and gritty streets, these are the kind of stories that Balzac might have written if he had visited the economically ravaged American Midwest in the early 1980s. With the force of a massive heart attack brought on by a steady diet of corn-beef hash and Camel cigarettes and hard, hard living, Finn has put Joliet, Illinois on the literary map forever. It is an awesome book by a great, great writer." --Donald Ray Pollock, author of 'Knockemstiff' Brutality, defeat, loneliness, mournful longing, and comic absurdity haunt and ignite the eight stories in Patrick Michael Finn's prize-winning collection with a vast assembly of unforgettable characters confronted by life-changing crises that force them to make impossible choices. Some redeem their dignity while others are crushed by irreversible loss and spiritual destruction. Patrick Michael Finn is the author of 'A Martyr for Suzy Kosasovich', and his stories have appeared in 'Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Third Coast, Quarterly West, The Clackamas Literary Review, The Yalobusha Review, Punk Planet', and Houghton Mifflin's 'The Best American Mystery Stories 2004'. His fiction has also received citations in the 2005 Pushcart Prize and 'The Best American Short Stories 2008'. He lives in Arizona with his wife, poet Valerie Bandura, and their son James.

Say It Hot Volume II: Industrial Strength is a collection of essays on American poets, fiction writers, nonfiction writers, and issues of interest to artists and academics. A companion volume to Say It Hot, these essays are brutally honest and acutely intelligent. From the book: “Literary authors these days no longer make livings off their work. Their books are not to be found in bookstores, and the books are rarely printed by major New York publishing houses. No one reads their works except for other literary authors and the professors who are evaluating their tenure and promotion folders at the colleges and universities at which they are employed, and it’s a minor miracle if a literary book from a small press sells a thousand copies. Fiction writers from wealth write about writing or they write about the ridiculous “sufferings” of the rich. Fiction writers from the lower classes write about the primordial filth from which they’ve physically escaped but from which they’ll never mentally be able to leave behind. Like war veterans, people who’ve fought it out in the miasma of poverty and blue- collar hell can never get the stink out of their skins, try as they may. Just like people who haven’t been to war can spot vets who have, middle-class people and the rich can spot people who’ve grown up poor, no matter what their position in life or the quality of their designer suits. Those suits just don’t fit right, and the neckties make them fidget and sweat. What the well-heeled authors and the working-class writers have in common is that they’ve been trained not to pronounce moral judgment.”

"The right story at the right time. . . . It’s not just a narrative; it’s an experience. It’s the novel we’ve been waiting for." —The New York Times A boy tries to steer a safe path through the projects in Harlem in the wake of his brother’s death in this outstanding debut novel that celebrates community and creativity. Winner of the Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award for New Talent and soon to be a major motion picture directed by Michael B. Jordan! It’s Christmas Eve in Harlem, but twelve-year-old Lolly Rachpaul and his mom aren’t celebrating. They’re still reeling from his older brother’s death in a gang-related shooting just a few months earlier. Then Lolly’s mother’s girlfriend brings him a gift that will change everything: two enormous bags filled with Legos. Lolly’s always loved Legos, and he prides himself on following the kit instructions exactly. Now, faced with a pile of building blocks and no instructions, Lolly must find his own way forward. His path isn’t clear—and the pressure to join a “crew,” as his brother did, is always there. When Lolly and his friend are beaten up and robbed, joining a crew almost seems like the safe choice. But building a fantastical Lego city at the community center provides Lolly with an escape—and an unexpected bridge back to the world. David Barclay Moore paints a powerful portrait of a boy teetering on the edge—of adolescence, of grief, of violence—and shows how Lolly’s inventive spirit helps him build a life with firm foundations and open doors. A New York Times Notable Book A Time Magazine Top 10 Children's Books of the Year A Boston Globe Best Children's Book of the Year Six Starred Reviews “A fast and furious read in which we meet some amazing people, people that stay with us. David Barclay Moore is an exciting new voice. We definitely haven’t heard the last of his brilliance.” —Jacqueline Woodson, Newbery Honor and National Book Award–winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming “The Stars Beneath Our Feet is about the weight of the world on the back of a child, and the creative tools necessary to alleviate that pressure. I found myself rooting for Lolly, and you will too.” —Jason Reynolds, Coretta Scott King Honor Winner for As Brave As You

In the public imagination, Midwestern literature has not evolved far beyond heartland laborers and hardscrabble immigrants of a century past. But as the region has changed, so, in many ways, has its fiction. In this book, the author explores how shifts in work, class, place, race, and culture has been reflected or ignored by novelists and short story writers. From Marilynne Robinson to Leon Forrest, Toni Morrison to Aleksandar Hemon, Bonnie Jo Campbell to Stewart O'Nan this book is a call to rethink the way we conceive Midwestern fiction, and one that is sure to prompt some new must-have additions to every reading list.

National Bestseller • New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year" • NPR "Favorite Books of 2019" • Guardian "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" • Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award "Mesmerizing…Underland is a portal of light in dark times." —Terry Tempest Williams, New York Times Book Review In Underland, Robert Macfarlane delivers an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself. Traveling through the dizzying expanse of geologic time—from prehistoric art in Norwegian sea caves, to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, to a deep-sunk "hiding place" where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come—Underland takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Global in its geography and written with great lyricism, Underland speaks powerfully to our present moment. At once ancient and urgent, this is a book that will change the way you see the world.

Much-Afraid had been in the service of the Chief Shepherd, whose great flocks were pastured down in the Valley of Humiliation. She lived with her friends and fellow workers Mercy and Peace in a tranquil little white cottage in the village of Much-Trembling. She loved her work and desired intensely to please the Chief Shepherd, but happy as she was in most ways, she was conscious of several things which hindered her in her work and caused her much secret distress and shame. Here is the allegorical tale of Much-Afraid, an every-woman searching for guidance from God to lead her to a higher place.

Sleeping medicine, he said, pointing to the teapot. "He not have pain. You stay until he awake, then you ride on to Fort o' Farewell. You take some food. You leave some for us. You send wagon, take him home. I stay with him. Maybe four, five days before you get there and send wagon back. You trust me? I give him sleeping medicine. I watch him. You trust me--Five Feathers?"

For the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Matthew Bartholomew series, Sphere is delighted to reissue all of the medieval monk's cases with beautiful new series-style covers. ------------------------------------ The winter of 1353 has been appallingly wet, there is a fever outbreak amongst the poorer townspeople and the country is not yet fully recovered from the aftermath of the plague. The increasing reputation and wealth of the Cambridge colleges are causing dangerous tensions between the town, Church and University. Matthew Bartholomew is called to look into the deaths of three members of the University of who died from drinking poisoned wine, and soon he stumbles upon criminal activities that implicate his relatives, friends and colleagues - so he must solve the case before matters in the town get out of hand... On St Scholastica's Day in February 1355, Oxford explodes in one of the most serious riots of its turbulent history. Fearing for their lives, the scholars flee the city, and some choose the University at Cambridge as their temporary refuge. However, they don't remain safe for long. Within hours of their arrival, the first of their number dies, followed quickly by a second. When Bartholomew and Brother Michael begin to investigate the deaths, they uncover evidence that the Oxford riot was not a case of random violence, but part of a carefully orchestrated plot. With the Archbishop of Canterbury about to honour Cambridge with a Visitation, and a close colleague accused of a series of murders Bartholomew is certain he didn't commit, the race is on to solve the riddles and bring a ruthless killer to justice.

The Willie Handcart Company of 1856 was a trial and a miracle. You will feel a part of the company as you follow three of its members in a moving masterpiece that will take you from the green fields of Denmark to the icy peaks of the Rockies in a saga that elevates and enriches those that it touches.