'A legendary writer entirely on his own account' Observer 'Stunningly good' Guardian Gloria Goltz's intellectual ambitions are derailed when she meets Leonard at college. Self-taught, blue-collar, possessor of an aggressive intelligence, Leonard claims to hold the key to unlocking her potential. After making her pregnant, he disappears. Her son Corey grows up without a father, looking for a male role model - and restless, dreaming of a great adventure. Instead, when Corey is fifteen, Gloria is diagnosed with motor neuron disease, and his estranged father - this man of domineering charisma and dubious moral character - returns. Determined to be his mother's hero at any cost, Corey begins shouldering responsibility for her expensive medical care, pushing himself to his physical and emotional limits as her disease progresses. And as Leonard's influence over son and mother grows, Corey must dismantle the myth of his father's genius and confront the evil that lurks beneath it. Atticus Lish won a Pen/Faulkner award for his debut Preparation for the Next Life, a novel 'described as the finest and most unsentimental love story of the new decade' in The New York Times. His second novel confirms Lish as a beguiling storyteller and a prose stylist of extraordinary emotional reach and beauty.

Imagine a life of virtual reality -- a childhood contained in a controlled environment, with no human contact or experiences outside of the world of computer-generated images. Corgan has been genetically engineered by the Federation for quick reflexes, high intelligence, and physical superiority. Everything Corgan is, everything he has ever seen or done, was to prepare him for one moment: a bloodless, computer-controlled virtual war. When Corgan meets his two fellow warriors, he begins to question the Federation. Now Corgan must decide where his loyalties lie, what he's willing to fight for, and exactly what he wants in return. His decisions will affect not only these three virtual warriors, but all the people left on earth.

What are Amy and Adam going to do about their love life? Neither Amy's traditionalist Japanese parents nor Adam's snobby, upper-class mother will accept their relationship. To make things worse, Amy and Adam are involved in the "color game" at school, an experiment that's designed to make students aware of class and racial prejudices. Now the experiment threatens to alienate Amy from her friends and tear her apart from Adam. She knows it's time to rebel against the color game. But will the rest of the class follow her lead?

When war erupts between England and America in 1812, it brings change and uncertainty—even to Michigan's remote Mackinac Island. For young Mary O'Shea, the hardest change is the departure of her father, who leaves Mackinac to join the American Army. With her sister and brother, Mary must tend the farm, deal with the hardships of British occupation, and hope for the safe return of their father.

It's the summer of 1942. At her grandparents' island cottage in Michigan, 14–year–old Belle excitedly awaits the arrival of her exotic older cousin, Carolyn. Belle's expecting worldly sophistication and French style. But Carolyn brings much more than that: she carries the troubling reality of the World War that is ravaging her home. Turtle Island will never be the same again. Set against the backdrop of breezy island cottages, this heartrending tale from National Book Award medalist Gloria Whelan is the story of a beautiful place and a special friendship–and how events thousands of miles away shaped them both.

“[A] quiet, powerful novel” of a young woman caught in the chaos of Argentina in the mid-1970s, when speaking against the government could mean death (Publishers Weekly). March 23, 1976. Berta watches horrified as her lover, a union organizer named Atilio, is thrown from a window to his death by soldiers. The next day, Colonel Jorge Rafael Videla stages a coup d’état and a military dictatorship takes control of Argentina. And even though she was never a part of Atilio’s union efforts, Berta is on a list to be “disappeared.” Fleeing to relatives in the countryside, she becomes part of the family she knows only from old photographs: Aunt Avelina, who blasts music from an old record player; Uncle Nepomuceno, who watches slugs slither in the garden every afternoon; and Uncle Javier, who sits in his tiny grocery store day and night. But soon enough, Berta realizes she must run even further to save her life—and those she has come to love. With a prose that is light yet penetrating, Gloria Lisé has written “a beautifully simple, poetic story of solidarity and love, with memorable characters painted in the tender strokes of a watercolor” (Luisa Valenzuela, author of Black Novel with Argentines).

Zou Lei is an illegal immigrant who works at a Chinese restaurant in Queens in search of a better life in the 'Land of the Brave'. Brad Skinner has recently arrived in New York following a tour in Iraq and is determined to party as hard as he can in order to start 'wanting to live again'. When their paths cross, they discover that new starts may be possible for both of them, if they can survive homelessness, lockup and Skinner's post-traumatic stress disorder, which may be more prophecy than madness.

Previously published as "The Revolt" and "The Choice," this bind-up finds the virtual battle spilling into the real world, when Corgan is challenged by Brigand, the product of a clone experiment gone wrong.

A critically acclaimed historical novel “that roars” (Kliatt), from the author of the National Book Award-winning novel Homeless Bird. Africa is the only home Rachel Sheridan has ever known. But when her missionary parents are struck with influenza, she is left vulnerable to her family’s malicious neighbors. Surrounded by greed and lies, Rachel is entangled in a criminal scheme and sent to England, where she's forced into a life of deception. Like the lion, she must be patient and strong, awaiting the moment when she can take control of her own fate—and find her way home again at last. Named one of New York Public Library's One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing, this tale of a strong young heroine “in the tradition of Frances Hodgson Burnett” (School Library Journal), by award-winning master of historical fiction Gloria Whelan, is a perfect read for schools and classrooms, as well as for fans of A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park.

With his first three works of fiction—the novels You Bright and Risen Angels and The Ice-Shirt, and the collection The Rainbow Stories—William T. Vollmann announced himself as a writer of rare and ferocious talent, with critics comparing him to William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, and T.C. Boyle. His new novel is the story of Jimmy, who has been deserted by his lover, a prostitute by the name of Gloria. In the despair of his loneliness, and his drunken grief, he reassembles Gloria’s presence out of whatever he can buy from the hookers on the street—the fragments of their lives and dreams, and locks of hair they are willing to share for a price. In his search for these snatches of intimacy he meets the hustlers, drunks, and prostitutes of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district: Candy, who beats her customers when they ask for it but refuses to let them call her a bitch; Snake, who pimps his wife; Nicole, whose job it is to give men AIDS; Jack, who shoots his woman’s earnings into his arm but still likes Chopin even though he doesn’t have a record player; and Gloria, who may or may not be a figment of Jimmy’s imagination. Vollmann writes with explosive power of the inner city, unflinching in the way he confronts the solitude of the homeless and unloved, the insulted and the injured of skid-row America. His exhilarating, high-voltage style and lyric language touch the heart and retrieve a jubilant integrity from the harsh struggles of his characters. Here is a world of harrowing truth, beautifully expressed by a writer of prodigious gifts.