When a down on his luck video store clerk accidently glances at a file he was never supposed to see, he becomes the target of a ruthless business magnate who attempts to silence him at all costs. Without knowing who is after him, or why, he goes on the run and slowly pieces together the mystery. Against heavy odds, he devises a plan to save his life - and bring down the powerful people who are trying to kill him. With the colorful city of New Orleans as a backdrop, 'The Haymaker File' blends humor and intrigue in the story of an ordinary man put into an extraordinary situation.

Tells a story of the labour and heartbreak suffered by five families struggling to make the hay that fed their livestock, a story not just about grass, alfalfa, and clover, but also about sweat and tears, toil and loss. This is an epic -- the history of a man's struggle with nature as well as man's struggle against machines. It relates the story of farmers and their obligations to their families, to the animals they fed, and to the land they tended.

Nether Stapling Manor nor any of the fine family possessions of this stately home really belonged to Lady Laura, but for more than twenty years she had enjoyed them undisturbed. Many people in the nearby little town of Rivering were well aware of the situation. No one was worried except nice old Cosmo Brierley, trustee of the Estate, and he had no control whatever over this eccentric aristocrat. His one comfort was that Lady Laura was a wonderful custodian of the place, keeping all intact and cherished, even making money by son et lumière in summer and her successful (if unlawful) use of the Stapling land. But when the beautiful young blonde owner of the estate arrives from America, there are certain surprises in store for everyone…

From one of Norway’s leading writers, translated into English for the very first time, comes a transatlantic novel of dreams, sacrifice, and transformation set at the turn of the twentieth century. The year is 1874. Nesje is a recent widower with a young son, working as a haymaker on an estate in the town of Molde and steadily clearing his own small holding. Then he meets Serianna—an outsider, looking for work, who takes him fishing and smokes a pipe and is thoroughly unlike anyone he’s met before. Soon the two fall in love and marry, and Nesje begins to dream of a prosperous future. But prosperity is hard to come by. Some Norwegians—including Serianna’s spirited sister, Gjertine—have begun to immigrate to the American West, attracted by the glimmer of land and commerce. One of Nesje’s sons follows, while another moves to the city and becomes a wealthy merchant, and another is adopted by Serianna’s childless brother and sister-in-law. In Norway and in America, however, the turn of the century is approaching: mechanization is superseding skilled labor, the moneyed classes are growing ever more powerful, and sacrifices don’t always deliver what was promised. Haymaker in Heaven is a sprawling saga—drawn from Edvard Hoem’s own family history—and a vivid portrait of two countries at a critical moment of intersection.

In a political culture infused with debates about personal liberties, the role of government, and even the definition of "freedom" itself, Haymaker tells the story of an isolated Michigan town that becomes the flashpoint for some of the principal ideological debates of our day. When a libertarian organization selects the town as its flagship community, hundreds of its members migrate and settle within the town's borders. The resulting clash with local townspeople is violent and impassioned, even as the line that divides the two sides increasingly blurs. The story follows characters on both of these sides: an eccentric millionaire known as The Man in White, who is still viewed as an outsider even after living in Haymaker for thirty years; a policewoman trained in hostage and suicide negotiations who questions raising children in this new environment; a teenage girl devoted to basketball and her desire to leave home, who has a close but complicated relationship with her uncle, a local who fistfights outsiders in an annual challenge; a libertarian PR expert, just hoping to calm the storm; and the town's mayor, who owns a local diner and is raising a baby daughter as her husband becomes tragically unhinged. A town first settled by lumberjacks, prostitutes, and roughnecks, Haymaker's present becomes as volatile as its past. Haymaker is a story about the failure of best intentions and the personal freedom of individuals to do good or to harm. This witty and politically charged novel will certainly appeal to Michiganders and Midwesterners, but will also interest those looking for an entertaining fictional account of a situation that could plausibly play out in one of the many small, remote towns in the country.

In the follow-up to his critically lauded debut An End To All Things, Jared Yates Sexton presents twenty-three new stories that pick up where his first book left off. Whether they're set in a sweat-saturated sparring ring, the backroom of a gas station speakeasy, or in the kitchen of the house down the street, these are glimpses into an America that too-often goes unseen. Witness here the untold tales of the losers and the should've-beens, the dreamers and the hustlers, all of them just spoiling for their turn at glory or the inevitable one-two punch that puts them down for good.

The Troy Haymakers were a pioneer baseball team legendary for exploits on and off the field. Formed in 1860 in Troy, New York--a rapidly growing industrial city--the team was embraced by the tough-minded Trojans as emblematic of their vigorous boomtown, rivaling larger, better established cities. The Haymakers were a strong amateur club before becoming a charter member of baseball's first major league, the National Association, and subsequently gaining a franchise in the National League. The team rosters were filled with characters and scalawags along with talented players, including four future Hall of Famers. After losing its National League franchise in 1882, Troy fielded minor league teams for 34 years--with a wistful eye to Haymaker history.

The history of the United States of America is also the history of the energy sector. Natural gas provides the fuel that allows us to heat our homes in winter and cool them in summer with the touch of a button or turn of a dial—when the industry runs smoothly. From the oil crisis of the 1970s to the fall of Enron and the California electricity crisis at the turn of the century to contemporary issues of hydraulic fracking, poorly conceived government policies have sometimes left us shivering, stranded, or with significantly lighter wallets. In this expansive narrative, Charles Blanchard traces the rise of natural gas and the regulatory missteps that nearly ruined the market. Beginning in the 1880s, The Extraction State explains how the New Deal regulatory compact came together in the 1920s, even before the Great Depression, and how it fell apart in the 1970s. From there, the book dissects the policies that affect us today, and explores where we might be headed in the near future.