Tin House's Theft Issue spends some time in the larcenous land of literature with stolen stories, embezzled essays, and pick-pocketed poetry. “Talent borrows, genius steals” is usually attributed to Oscar Wilde, and occasionally Pablo Picasso. There is, however, no record of either one actually saying or writing this. T. S. Eliot, on the other hand, wrote, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” Theft and appropriation have always been artistic engines, and in this issue of Tin House, those engines run hot . . . Featuring new work from Laura Lippman, Kevin Young, Mary Ruefle, George Singleton, Victor LaValle, Alissa Nutting, and more.

This book explores the little-known world of scrappers and metal thieves. Benjamin F. Stickle bases his study on field research collected while traversing communities with thieves and scrappers. Drawing on candid interviews, observations of criminals at work, and participation in the scrapping subculture, the volume describes the subculture of scrappers and identifies differences between scrappers and metal thieves. Through the offenders’ perspective, often quoting their candid responses, Stickle explores the motivations for metal theft as well as the techniques and methods for successfully committing theft. The book discusses how these methods and techniques are learned and identifies ways—often through the thieves’ own words—to prevent metal theft. Throughout the book, Stickle also challenges common assumptions about this community and identifies wider policy implications.

Waguih Ghali was raised in Cairo but spent much of his adult life studying and working in Europe. In Beer in the Snooker Club, Ghali chronicles the lives of Cairo's upper crust who, after the fall of King Farouk, are thoroughly unprepared to change its neo-feudal ways. Beer in the Snooker Club was the only book written by Ghali before his suicide in 1968. "Ghali's novel reproduces a cultural state of shock with great accuracy and great humor."–James Marcus of The Nation

Britt and Leo have spent ten years establishing Winesap as the best restaurant in their small Pennsylvania town. They cater to their loyal customers, they don’t sleep with the staff, and business is good, even if their temperamental pastry chef is bored with making the same chocolate cake night after night. But when their dilettante younger brother, Harry, opens his own restaurant, Britt and Leo find their lives thrown off-kilter. Important employees quit and reappear in Harry’s kitchen, their “classic” menu starts to seem overly safe, and romance threatens to bubble up in the most inconvenient of places. As the brothers struggle to find a new family dynamic, Bread and Butter proves to be a dazzling novel that’s as much about siblinghood as it is about the mysterious world behind the kitchen door.