Graciela Harper thought that getting rid of Anne Bonny’s ghost would be the first step toward putting all of the problems of her past behind her. Maybe things would work out with Beauregard Drayton, Heron Creek’s charming mayor. Maybe she and her cousin Amelia, and their childhood friends Melanie and Will, could find a way back to the comfortable friendship that defined their lives. But when the ghost of Glinda Davis, the town’s longtime, quirky hairdresser, puts a stop to Gracie and Beau’s relationship consummation, Graciela knows her life has changed for good. The insistent ghost drags Graciela into a world she’s only seen on reality television shows—one filled with moonshiners and backwoods politics that are solved by burying bodies, not friendly conversations. Graciela needs to figure out exactly what Glinda’s spirit requires so she’ll get the heck out of dodge, but the further she digs into the woman’s past, the more dangers seep into the present. As Graciela gets closer to the answers she seeks, she starts to wonder if she’s going to solve a murder in the process—or die trying.

The inaugural winner of The Novel Prize, an international biennial award established by Giramondo (Australia), Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) and New Directions (USA). Cold Enough for Snow was unanimously chosen from over 1500 entries. A novel about the relationship between life and art, and between language and the inner world – how difficult it is to speak truly, to know and be known by another, and how much power and friction lies in the unsaid, especially between a mother and daughter. A young woman has arranged a holiday with her mother in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafés and restaurants and walk along the canals at night, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother’s family in Hong Kong, and the daughter’s own formative experiences. But uncertainties abound. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken? Cold Enough for Snow is a reckoning and an elegy: with extraordinary skill, Au creates an enveloping atmosphere that expresses both the tenderness between mother and daughter, and the distance between them. 'So calm and clear and deep, I wished it would flow on forever.' — Helen Garner 'Rarely have I been so moved, reading a book: I love the quiet beauty of Cold Enough for Snow and how, within its calm simplicity, Jessica Au camouflages incredible power.' — Edouard Louis 'Au’s prose is elegant and measured. In descriptions of bracing clarity she evokes ‘shaking delicate impressions’ of worlds within worlds that are symbolic of the parts of ourselves we keep hidden and those we choose to lay bare. Put simply, this novel is an intricate and multi-layered work of art — a complex and profound meditation on identity, familial bonds and our inability to fully understand ourselves, those we love and the world around us.' — Jacqui Davies, Books+Publishing

All the numbers have frozen! Children must trace, blow on, and count the numbers to unfreeze them, and in the process, they will learn colors, seasons, patterns, and numbers.

For the living, the dead, and the people stuck somewhere in between, Heron Creek has become a battleground. Graciela Harper might be new seeing ghosts, fighting curses, and just living with her old friends again, but there’s no doubt she’s on the front lines—and overwhelmed. Leo and Mel have been arrested. Amelia teeters on the edge of a deep depression that could cost her her child. Beau, her boyfriend who might not quite be her boyfriend anymore, is breaking her heart. None of that will matter if Gracie can’t figure out how to break the hundreds year old curse on the male line of her family. She knows she needs to focus on that, but with the future of one of South Carolina’s oldest and most prestigious families hanging in the balance, she’s tempted to try to save them, too. What Gracie’s about to learn is that she can’t do this alone, and every single person who has entered her life since her return to Heron Creek will need to pitch in for her to succeed. Well, that and the fact that she might not be able to save everyone…not even herself.

The masterly debut novel from “an exquisitely astute writer” (The Boston Globe), about growing up in—and out of—the suffocating constraints of small-town America. “Compact and beautiful . . . This novel bordering on a novella punches above its weight.”—The New York Times “Very Cold People reminded me of My Brilliant Friend.”—The New Yorker ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Good Housekeeping “My parents didn’t belong in Waitsfield, but they moved there anyway.” For Ruthie, the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is all she has ever known. Once home to the country’s oldest and most illustrious families—the Cabots, the Lowells: the “first, best people”—by the tail end of the twentieth century, it is an unforgiving place awash with secrets. Forged in this frigid landscape Ruthie has been dogged by feelings of inadequacy her whole life. Hers is no picturesque New England childhood but one of swap meets and factory seconds and powdered milk. Shame blankets her like the thick snow that regularly buries nearly everything in Waitsfield. As she grows older, Ruthie slowly learns how the town’s prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm—from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive. In her eagerly anticipated debut novel, Sarah Manguso has written, with characteristic precision, a masterwork on growing up in—and out of—the suffocating constraints of a very old, and very cold, small town. At once an ungilded portrait of girlhood at the crossroads of history and social class as well as a vital confrontation with an all-American whiteness where the ice of emotional restraint meets the embers of smoldering rage, Very Cold People is a haunted jewel of a novel from one of our most virtuosic literary writers.

A brilliant and exhilarating sequence of aphorisms from one of our greatest essayists There will come a time when people decide you’ve had enough of your grief, and they’ll try to take it away from you. Bad art is from no one to no one. Am I happy? Damned if I know, but give me a few minutes and I’ll tell you whether you are. Thank heaven I don’t have my friends’ problems. But sometimes I notice an expression on one of their faces that I recognize as secret gratitude. I read sad stories to inoculate myself against grief. I watch action movies to identify with the quick-witted heroes. Both the same fantasy: I’ll escape the worst of it. —from 300 Arguments A “Proustian minimalist on the order of Lydia Davis” (Kirkus Reviews), Sarah Manguso is one of the finest literary artists at work today. To read her work is to witness acrobatic acts of compression in the service of extraordinary psychological and spiritual insight. 300 Arguments, a foray into the frontier of contemporary nonfiction writing, is at first glance a group of unrelated aphorisms. But, as in the work of David Markson, the pieces reveal themselves as a masterful arrangement that steadily gathers power. Manguso’s arguments about desire, ambition, relationships, and failure are pithy, unsentimental, and defiant, and they add up to an unexpected and renegade wisdom literature.

The award-winning author of Wiggle and Waggle explains how people and animals living in different parts of the world survive in hotter and colder climates using remarkable adaptive strategies and behaviors. Simultaneous.

Courage and vulnerability are intertwined in this once-in-a-lifetime journey. To undertake such a trip alone, push the self beyond the comfort zone, and venture into unfamiliar territories without any specific time limits or set goals is, without a doubt, a test of true strength. Feelings, mistakes, "acts of stupidity," and constant mind chatter are laid bare in the writing. Mix in the joy and delights of exploring new places, learning about other areas, the excitement of discovery and this book has a little bit of everything. Too Cold for Alligators combines personal journey, photographs, stories, and historical facts. Words and phrases that stand out about the experience include: "Incredible, magical, awesome " "Being scared and excited at the same time." "Experiencing 'OH, my GOD ' moments." "Seeing things for which there were no words."

Funny, feisty and all-too-true, A Not Quite Perfect Family by Claire Sandy is for anyone who loves their family so much they’d just like a weekend away from them. Fern Carlile has a lot on her plate. It’s a good thing she loves her big, imperfectly perfect family, because she’s the one who washes their pants, de-fleas the dog and runs her own business. A hearty meal is the one thing that brings the Carliles together – but over the course of a year, the various courses also pull them apart. Around the table sits an eight-year-old militant feminist, a pair of teenage accidental parents, and a cantankerous OAP. Fern’s husband needs an extra seat for his spectacular midlife crisis. Will Fern’s marriage be over by the time coffee is served? Perhaps she’ll give in and have the hot new dish that looks so tempting. Decisions, decisions . . .

A startup executive and investor draws on expertise developed at the premier venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and as an executive at Uber to address how tech’s most successful products have solved the dreaded "cold start problem”—by leveraging network effects to launch and scale toward billions of users. Although software has become easier to build, launching and scaling new products and services remains difficult. Startups face daunting challenges entering the technology ecosystem, including stiff competition, copycats, and ineffective marketing channels. Teams launching new products must consider the advantages of “the network effect,” where a product or service’s value increases as more users engage with it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants utilize network effects, and most tech products incorporate them, whether they’re messaging apps, workplace collaboration tools, or marketplaces. Network effects provide a path for fledgling products to break through, attracting new users through viral growth and word of mouth. Yet most entrepreneurs lack the vocabulary and context to describe them—much less understand the fundamental principles that drive the effect. What exactly are network effects? How do teams create and build them into their products? How do products compete in a market where every player has them? Andrew Chen draws on his experience and on interviews with the CEOs and founding teams of LinkedIn, Twitch, Zoom, Dropbox, Tinder, Uber, Airbnb, and Pinterest to offer unique insights in answering these questions. Chen also provides practical frameworks and principles that can be applied across products and industries. The Cold Start Problem reveals what makes winning networks thrive, why some startups fail to successfully scale, and, most crucially, why products that create and compete using the network effect are vitally important today.