“The road novel—or the road half-novel—has rarely been funnier or more appealing.”—Benjamin Moser, Harper’s In the great American tradition of funny road narratives— from Mark Twain to Hunter S. Thompson—a young journalist searches for his first big break down the lonesome highways of the Southwest and northern Mexico. Alternating chapters of fiction and nonfiction provide a hilarious account of Jake Silverstein’s misadventures on the hunt for an elusive magazine article—a journey that becomes a quest to understand the purpose of journalism and the nature of storytelling.

The timing couldn't be better--as scandals erupt over journalists and memoirists who've cooked their books--for a work that explores our difficulty in separating fact and fiction, while explicitly demonstrating how they differ and what they share. In prose so fine and wry it makes the back of your neck prickle, Jake Silverstein narrates a journey he undertook through the American Southwest and Mexico, looking to become a journalist. His picaresque travels are filled with beguiling and hilarious characters: nineteenth-century author Ambrose Bierce; an unknown group of famous poets; a twenty-first-century treasure hunter in the Gulf of Mexico; an ex-Nazi mechanic shepherding an old Mexican road race; a stenographer who records every passing moment; and various incarnations of the trickster devil. As bold, ambitious, and funny as it is unconventional, Nothing Happened and Then It Did is a deep and lasting pleasure.

Named a Best Book of the Year by Time, The Washington Post, and Harper's Bazaar “A tender, spiky family saga about love in all its mysterious incarnations.” —Lorrie Moore, author of A Gate at the Stairs and Birds of America “Absolutely luminous . . . Weaves the transience of suburbia between the highs and lows of a family saga . . . Shocks, awes, and delights.” —Bryan Washington, author of Memorial From the outside, the Chengs seem like so-called model immigrants. Once Patty landed a tech job near Dallas, she and Liang grew secure enough to have a second child, and to send for their first from his grandparents back in China. Isn’t this what they sacrificed so much for? But then little Annabel begins to sleepwalk at night, putting into motion a string of misunderstandings that not only threaten to set their community against them but force to the surface the secrets that have made them fear one another. How can a man make peace with the terrors of his past? How can a child regain trust in unconditional love? How can a family stop burying its history and forge a way through it, to a more honest intimacy? Nights When Nothing Happened is gripping storytelling immersed in the crosscurrents that have reshaped the American landscape, from a prodigious new literary talent.

A “creatively captivating and intellectually challenging” existential mystery from the great Polish author—“sly, funny, and . . . lovingly translated” (The New York Times). Winner of the 1967 International Prize for Literature Milan Kundera called Witold Gombrowicz “one of the great novelists of our century.” Now his most famous novel, Cosmos, is available in a critically acclaimed translation by the award-winning translator Danuta Borchardt. Cosmos is a metaphysical noir thriller narrated by Witold, a seedy, pathetic, and witty student, who is charming and appalling by turns. In need of a quiet place to study, Witold and his melancholy friend Fuks head to a boarding house in the mountains. Along the way, they discover a dead bird hanging from a string. Is this a strange but meaningless occurrence or is it the first clue to a sinister mystery? As the young men become embroiled in the Chekhovian travails of the family that runs the boarding house, Grombrowicz creates a gripping narrative where the reader questions who is sane and who is safe. “Probably the most important 20th-century novelist most Western readers have never heard of.” —Benjamin Paloff, Words Without Borders

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • From the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes the gripping story of the murder of a young aristocrat that puts an entire society—not just a pair of murderers—on trial. A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees, Bayardo San Roman returned his bride in disgrace to her parents. Her distraught family forced her to name her first lover; and her twin brothers announced their intention to murder Santiago Nasar for dishonoring their sister. Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to stop it? The more that is learned, the less is understood, as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion.

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

This book provides a student introduction to contemporary historiographical debates. Jenkins explores the influence of Carr and Elton, and argues that historians need to embrace the postmodern-type approach of thinkers like Rorty and White.

From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore: A magnificent coming-of-age story steeped in nostalgia, “a masterly novel” (The New York Times Book Review) blending the music, the mood, and the ethos that were the sixties with a young man’s hopeless and heroic first love. Now with a new introduction by the author. Toru, a serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. As Naoko retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. Stunning and elegiac, Norwegian Wood first propelled Haruki Murakami into the forefront of the literary scene.

EUDORA IS A SMALL TOWN WHERE SECRETS SIMPLY DON’T EXIST, THANKS TO NOSY NEIGHBORS AND LIGHTNING-FAST GOSSIP. As summer descends on Eudora, tempers rise with the scorching sun. The romance of Janey Lane and Mark Ramirez is a perfect example of how the town has resolved its racial tensions, but misunderstandings (compounded by a late-night discovery of beautiful Kylie Requena in Mark’s living room) lead Janey and Mark to call it off. And theirs is not the only split. Patti and Phil Walker, with three mischievous boys and another baby on the way, have not been seen together in weeks. Now Phil has moved in with Chuck from the Beer and Bowl, and the two seem to be plotting something with retiring wheat farmer Jim Evans. It’s suspected that Jim Flory (the town’s confirmed bachelor) might be in on it, but nobody’s sure what “it” might be. The over-the-hedge talk ignites as Mark fumbles his attempt to re-woo Janey (honestly, a ring and a wedding date would have sealed the deal). Toss in mounting pressure on the farming community, political conflicts (local and beyond), some strange crops growing in a certain backyard, and even more babies–now that herbalist and part-time spell maker Lottie, who is conspiring to save Patti’s and Janey’s romances, is herself pregnant–and Eudora must take collective cover as sparks fly. Happily, the town is quick to forgive its all-too-human citizenry, as profound questions of existence take comic and heartfelt turns in a place where nothing much ever happens–except life.