“One of Thailand’s preeminent female writers . . . Each of her stories poses its own moral challenge, pleasurable and unsettling at once . . . phenomenal.” —NPR.org In thirteen stories that investigate ordinary and working-class Thailand, characters aspire for more but remain suspended in routine. They bide their time, waiting for an extraordinary event to end their stasis. A politician’s wife imagines her life had her husband’s accident been fatal, a man on death row requests that a friend clear up a misunderstanding with a sex worker, and an elevator attendant feels himself wasting away while trapped, immobile, at his station all day. With curious wit, this collection offers revelatory insight and subtle critique, exploring class, gender, and disenchantment in a changing country. “Arid Dreams is stark, sly, and unsparingly brilliant. Here is a writer unafraid to pick up the scalpel of her prose and use it to cut to the bone. Each story is more compelling than the last, each combines dark humor with deeper truths about human desire and depravity. I couldn’t look away.” —Preti Taneja, author of We That Are Young “Pimwana’s characters, whether they are truck drivers or farmers, doctors or prisoners, are realized with depth, affection, and a good degree of humor. The petty concerns of their daily lives—frustrated careers, infidelity, reconnecting with distant family—are hypnotically rendered in Pimwana’s telling. This is an exciting debut.” —Publishers Weekly “A deep and thoughtful exploration of human psyches and the dreams of ordinary Thais in an ever-changing socio-economic environment.” —Bangkok Post “An exacting look at the moments of joy and tragedy, of hope and desire.” —Independent Book Review

"What would you do if you were going to live your life as if you only had a year to live?" When a stranger poses this question in the supermarket checkout line, Cricket Thompson is jolted out of her everyday life to face a startling revelation: after seventeen years of marriage to solid, reliable Jim, and despite her love for her teenage daughters, Janis and Grace, Cricket is lonely. The tides of change are pulling her toward something new and barely recognizableŠan internal shift that leads her to spend time with a man named Pass Christian, who offers her a special kind of acceptance and understanding. But in a single moment, Cricket's world comes crashing down when an act of deadly violence erupts at the local shopping mall -- and she faces a devastating, heartbreaking loss. Through the prism of this surreal crisis, Cricket's life path is irrevocably altered; without her knowledge or consent, she has been plunged into the kind of cataclysmic event that by its very nature forces transformation. For Cricket, the world of dreams and fantasy comes up against the sting of reality with relentless force. Life as she knew it has been left in the past; yet Jim refuses to acknowledge the changes that confront them both. And suddenly, for Cricket, the love that Pass has to offer just about overwhelms her.... Exploring the solace of dreams and the fragility of being wide awake, Barbara Chepaitis has written an astoundingly powerful and heartwrenching novel. These Dreams beautifully portrays the love that grows in the most desolate of circumstances, when even the very will to endure is challenged by the inexplicable design of the world we must live in.

WINNER OF THE NEUSTADT PRIZE This novel of post-9/11 London is a masterful dissection of racism, aging, and the perturbing nature of desire. Ananda Devi's "fluid, poetic language memorably conjures a union of two outcasts" (The New Yorker). A chance encounter on Portobello Road incites an unsettling, magnetic attraction between Mary, a seventy-five-year-old white British spinster, and Cub, a thirteen-year-old Jamaican boy from Brixton. Mary increasingly clings to phantoms as dementia overtakes her reality, latching on to Cub and channeling all of her remaining energy into their relationship. But their macabre romance comes to a horrific climax, as white supremacy, poverty, and class conflict explode on the streets of London. Through exquisite juxtaposition, Devi uses lush prose to confront the tensions of an increasingly nationalistic metropolis, and the queasy nature of desire muddled with power. “A gorgeously written, profoundly upsetting fairy tale of race, class, power, and desire.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Brutal and entirely believable, a gorgeous and haunting depiction of London and the real lives and memories of those unseen within it." —Publishers Weekly

A Canopic Jar by Leonora von Stosch Speyer, first published in 1921, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

Dream Cycles offers a new and exciting aproach to dream interpretation. The premise is that dreams come from an inner source full of symbolism. Using the nine basic cycles in your life, you can open your dreams and read them in the full context of the events in your life.

The poems first capture sorrow and pain but through the spiritual journey, a transformation takes hold. In the background is a depiction of the world of New York City and the human dramas that unfold, from the petty to the sublime.

"Epic in its scale, fearless in its scope" (Hampton Sides), this masterfully told account of the American West from a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist sets a new standard as it sweeps from the California Gold Rush and beyond. In Dreams of El Dorado, H. W. Brands tells the thrilling, panoramic story of the settling of the American West. He takes us from John Jacob Astor's fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. He shows how the migrants' dreams drove them to feats of courage and perseverance that put their stay-at-home cousins to shame-and how those same dreams also drove them to outrageous acts of violence against indigenous peoples and one another. The West was where riches would reward the miner's persistence, the cattleman's courage, the railroad man's enterprise; but El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it ever was in the East. Balanced, authoritative, and masterfully told, Dreams of El Dorado sets a new standard for histories of the American West.

APA's popular primer for citizens is all new! For decades, planning officials and engaged citizens have relied on this book for a better understanding of the basics of planning. Now the authors have revised this perennial bestseller into a 21st-century guide for anyone who wants to make his or her community a better place. This book describes the land-use planning process, the key players in that process, and the legal framework in which decisions are made. The authors advocate principles and disciplines that will help those involved in the process make good decisions. In easy-to-understand language, they offer nuts-and-bolts information about different types of plans and how they are implemented. Chapters cover the goals and values of planning, the history of planning, the different people and organizations involved, the creation and implementation of a comprehensive plan, sustainability, the application review process, and legal and ethical questions.