Swallowing a World offers a new theorization of the maximalist novel. Though it’s typically cast as a (white, male) genre of U.S. fiction, maximalism, Benjamin Bergholtz argues, is an aesthetic response to globalization and a global phenomenon in its own right. Bergholtz considers a selection of massive and meandering novels that crisscross from London and Lusaka to Kingston, Kabul, and Kashmir and that represent, formally reproduce, and ultimately invite reflection on the effects of globalization. Each chapter takes up a maximalist novel that simultaneously maps and formally mimics a cornerstone of globalization, such as the postcolonial culture industry (Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children), the rebirth of fundamentalism (Zadie Smith’s White Teeth), the transnational commodification of violence (Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings), the obstruction of knowledge by narrative (Zia Haider Rahman’s In the Light of What We Know), and globalization’s gendered, asymmetrical growth (Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift). By reframing analysis of maximalism around globalization, Swallowing a World not only reimagines one of the most perplexing genres of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries but also sheds light on some of the most perplexing political problems of our precarious present.

An American half-dollar. A beaded crucifix. Tooth roots shaped like a tiny pair of pants. A padlock. Scads of peanut kernels and scores of safety pins. A metallic letter Z. A toy goat and tin steering wheel. A Perfect Attendance Pin. One of the most popular attractions in Philadelphia's world-famous Mtter Museum is the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection; a beguiling set of drawers filled with thousands of items that had been swallowed or inhaled, then extracted nonsurgically by a pioneering laryngologist using rigid instruments of his own design. How do people's mouths, lungs, and stomachs end up filled with inedible things, and what do they become once arranged in Jackson's aura-laden cabinet? What drove Dr. Chevalier Jackson's peculiar obsession not only with removing foreign bodies from people's upper torsos but also with saving and cataloging the items that he retrieved? Animating the space between interest and terror, curiosity and dread, award-winning author Mary Cappello explores what seems beyond understanding; the physiology of the human swallow, and the poignant and baffling psychology that compels people to ingest non-nutritive things. On a quest to restore the narratives that haunt Jackson's uncanny collection, she discovers that all things are secretly edible. Combining original research with a sympathetic and evocative sensibility, Cappello uncovers a history of racism and violence, of forced ingestion and hysteria, of class and poverty that left children to bank their family's last quarters in their mouths. Here, the seemingly disparate but equally marvelous worlds of the circus and the medical amphitheater meet in characters ranging from sword swallowers and women who lunched on hardware to the sensitive, bullied boy who grew up to be the father of endoscopy.

Wiola lives in a close-knit agricultural community. Wiola has a black cat called Blackie. Wiola's father was a deserter but now he is a taxidermist. Wiola's mother tells her that killing spiders brings on storms. Wiola must never enter the seamstress's 'secret' room. Wiola collects matchbox labels. Wiola is a good Catholic girl brought up with fables and nurtured on superstition. Wiola lives in a Poland that is both very recent and lost in time. Swallowing Mercury is about the ordinary passing of years filled with extraordinary days. In vivid prose filled with texture, colour and sound, it describes the adult world encroaching on the child's. From childhood to adolescence, Wiola dances to the strange music of her own imagination.

Dual perspectives reveal the aftermath of seventeen-year-old Michael MacKenzie's birthday celebration during which he discharges an antique Winchester rifle and unknowingly kills the father of high school classmate Jenna Ward.

'The best Australian novel I have read in more than a decade' Sydney Morning Herald 'Astonishing, captivating ... a wild, beautiful, heart-exploding ride' Elizabeth Gilbert The bestselling novel that has taken Australia, and the world, by storm. Winner of Book of the Year at the 2019 Indie Book Awards, winner of a record four Australian Book Industry Awards in 2019, including the prestigious Book of the Year Award, and winner of the 2019 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, NSW Premier's Literary Awards Brisbane, 1985: A lost father, a mute brother, a junkie mum, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli Bell's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart and understand what it means to be a good man, but fate keeps throwing obstacles in his way - not the least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer. But now Eli's life is going to get a whole lot more serious: he's about to meet the father he doesn't remember, break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day to rescue his mum, come face to face with the criminals who tore his world apart, and fall in love with the girl of his dreams. A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year. Awards: 2019 ABIA Book of the Year Award, Winner 2019 Indie Book Award, Winner 2019 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Winner 2019 People's Choice Award, NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Winner MUD Literary Prize 2019, Winner 2019 ABIA Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year, Winner 2019 ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year, Winner 2019 ABIA Audiobook of the Year, Winner 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award, Longlisted 2019 Colin Roderick Award, shortlist Reviews: 'Boy Swallows Universe is a wonderful surprise: sharp as a drawer full of knives in terms of subject matter; unrepentantly joyous in its child's-eye view of the world; the best literary debut in a month of Sundays.' The Australian 'Boy Swallows Universe hypnotizes you with wonder, and then hammers you with heartbreak.' Washington Post 'This thrilling novel' New York Times Book Review 'Marvelously plot-rich ... filled with beautifully lyric prose ...At one point Eli wonders if he is good. The answer is "yes," every bit as good as this exceptional novel.' Booklist 'Dalton's splashy, stellar debut makes the typical coming-of-age novel look bland by comparison ... This is an outstanding debut.' Publisher's Weekly (starred review) 'Extraordinary and beautiful storytelling' Guardian

--WINNER OF THE 2009 EISNER AWARD FOR BEST NEW GRAPHIC NOVEL! --NOMINATED FOR THREE 2009 EISNER AWARDS INCLUDING BEST GN & BEST CARTOONIST! --WINNER OF THE 2008 IGNATZ AWARD FOR "OUTSTANDING DEBUT"! --ONE OF YALSA'S "GREAT GRAPHIC NOVELS FOR TEENS"! --FINALIST FOR THE LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE! ----Swallow Me Whole is the first graphic novel since 1992's Maus to be nominated for this prize in any category. --WINNER OF THE 2009 IGNATZ AWARD FOR "OUTSTANDING ARTIST"! "Nate Powell's Swallow Me Whole, a disturbed, haunting book, is impossible to describe... It's not an easy book, but its dark brilliance marks its creator as a writer-artist of genius."--Neel Mukherjee, The Times (UK) "Scaldingly dark ... Powell's flowing, impressionistic artwork, with its ravenous expanses of negative space, swirls the reader's perspective through his characters' perceptions and back out again."--Douglas Wolk, The New York Times "Honest and lovingly portrayed. Every word in this graphic novel is carefully chosen, dialogue is realistic, and background "noise"masterfully done. Powell's detailed pen-and-ink drawings are well executed with lettering and images so brilliantly intertwined that they are one and the same."--Lara McAllister, School Library Journal "Darkly sublime."--Booklist "His layouts, his touch with shadow and darkness, the way he brings you close enough to Ruth that you can watch her sleep without disturbing her dreams, all that stuff is amazing. ... Nate Powell can do it all. In his hands, even the high-school parking lots and the booths at the local diner are equal parts hope and foreboding."-- Steve Duin, The Oregonian "[Swallow Me Whole] achieves some stunning effects with the art and the lettering ... Powell has a look halfway between Charles Burns and Craig Thompson, and at times, Swallow Me Whole enters that rarified sphere of art comics where the page design alone achieves the mood and meaning that that the artist is shooting for... Swallow Me Whole captures the desperation of the clinically obsessed, and how from the right angle, it can look like genius."--The AV Club "Both provocative and thoughtful ... not since Robert Altman's Images has a medium so perfectly conveyed the experience of schizophrenia ... It's the best graphic novel since Craig Thompson's Blankets."--Chris DeVito, CD Syndicated Swallow Me Whole is a love story carried by rolling fog, terminal illness, hallucination, apophenia, insect armies, secrets held, unshakeable faith, and the search for a master pattern to make sense of one's unraveling. In his most ambitious book to date, Nate Powell quietly explores the dark corners of adolescence -- not the clich_d melodramatic outbursts of rebellion, but the countless tiny moments of madness, the vague relief of medication, and mixed blessing of family ties. As the story unfolds, two stepsiblings hold together amidst schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, family breakdown, animal telepathy, misguided love, and the tiniest hope that everything will someday make sense. Deliberately paced, delicately drawn, and drenched in shadows, Swallow Me Whole is a landmark achievement for Nate Powell and a suburban ghost story that will haunt readers long after its final pages.

When Laura Flynn was a little girl, her beautiful, dynamic mother, Sally, was the center of her imagination. It wasn't long, however, before Sally's fun-loving side slowly and methodically became absorbed by madness. As Laura's parents divorced and her father struggled to gain custody, Sally's symptoms bloomed in earnest while Laura and her sisters united in flights of fancy of the sort their mother taught them so that they might deflect the danger threatening their fragile family. Set in 1970s San Francisco, Swallow the Ocean is redolent with place. In luminous prose, this memoir paints a most intimate portrait of what might have been a catastrophic childhood had Laura and her sisters not been resilient and determined enough to survive their environment even as they yearned to escape it.

Driven from her home by war, Isabella must make the daunting journey with her father, to his childhood home in the north of England. Swallow Fell is deserted - another casualty of the conflict which has spread worldwide - but when her father goes in search of help, Isabella discovers that there are other children, just like her. They are surviving against the odds, but can Isabella and her new found friends learn to not simply survive but to thrive? Where there is love there is hope.

When Zeina was born, the civil war in Lebanon had been going on for six years, so it's just a normal part of life for her and her parents and her little brother. The city of Beirut is cut in two, separated by bricks and sandbags and threatened by snipers and shelling. East Beirut is for Christians, and West Beirut is for Muslims. When Zeina's parents don't return one afternoon from a visit to the other half of the city, and the bombing grows ever closer, the neighbors in her apartment house create a world indoors for Zeina and her brother where it's comfy and safe, where they can share cooking lessons and games and gossip. Together they try to make it through a dramatic day in the one place they hoped they would always be safehome. Zeina Abirached, born into a Lebanese Christian family in 1981, has collected her childhood recollections of Beirut in a warm story about the strength of family and community.

Communication and Swallow Changes in Healthy Aging Adults compiles and presents the available research on healthy aging adults’ performance and abilities in the following areas: auditory comprehension, reading comprehension, speaking, writing, voice and motor speech abilities, cognition, and swallowing. This text also presents principles from the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health and its applications to aging adults. One of the first texts to cover these principles, this book will address the need for a comprehensive view of communication and swallow issues in aging for students of speech-language pathology. Speech-language pathologist students will learn how to fully compare what would be considered normal for their elderly patients rather than overestimating or underestimating what aging adults are capable of doing. Knowing what would be considered within the spectrum of normal, will help speech-language pathologists to address therapy as effectively as possible. Having this information at hand is particularly important as the nation’s population is aging at a rapid rate and there is a need for evidence-based practice in speech-language pathology. Written in an easy to follow format, Communication and Swallow Changes in Healthy Aging Adults includes original research data, discussion questions and a list of Quick Facts at the end of each chapter to summarize key points. This text will serve as a useful resource as students see elderly clients in on-campus speech and hearing clinics and when they intern at hospitals and long-term care facilities. Instructor Resources: PowerPoint Slides and an Image Bank Testimonial: “Communication and Swallowing Changes in Healthy Aging Adults is a handy text, portable, and logically organized. The information is easy to follow complimented by information presented in tables/charts. This text would be helpful to a practicing therapist when making a differential diagnosis between a normal vs. atypical aging process. Communication and Swallowing Changes in Healthy Aging Adults would be an appropriate text for courses in Communications Disorders Departments for graduate students in a neuro course or a neurogenic communication disorders course, and in lifespan development courses as in the field of Psychology and Gerontology.” ~ Susan Durnford, M.S.,CCC-SLP, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology, Ithaca College