Discover how animals influenced 20 of the world’s most beloved authors, from Charles Dickens to J.K. Rowling. Did you know that a dog saved Pablo Neruda’s life? Or that Mark Twain had a cat named Bambino? Or that Edgar Allen Poe wrote with a cat on his shoulders? Writers and Their Pets tells these stories and many more with playful full-color illustrations that will delight not only children, but also literary experts, history lovers, and animal enthusiasts. Each short chapter focuses on one author’s life, using simple and entertaining text to weave tales of the pets that affected the lives and works of these writers, with illustrative artwork sprinkled throughout each page. This title features a diverse list of both male and female international authors, spanning from the 19th to the 21st century, including Beatrix Potter, E.B. White, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Kurt Vonnegut, Maurice Sendak, Ernest Hemingway, and and more.

A vivid, moving novel reminiscent of Anthony Doerr and Michael Ondaatje, about the entwined fates of two very different refugees. In 1940, as the shadow of war lengthens over Europe, three mysterious travelers enter a village in Spain. They have the appearance of Parisian intellectuals, but the trio of two men and a woman are starving and exhausted from crossing illegally through the Pyrenees. Their story, told over a period of 48 tense hours, is narrated by one of the men, who slowly accepts his unthinkable fate. In a voice despairing and elegant, he calmly considers what he should do, and weighs what any one life means. As he does so, his attention is caught by a five-year-old named Pia who wanders near his cafe table. To Pia he begins to address all that he thinks and feels in his final hours--envisioning a rich future life for her that both reflects and contrasts with his own. Meanwhile, in the 1980s, a woman named Pia seeks solitude on a remote island in the Atlantic, where she works at an inn and reflects on her chaotic childhood. As Pia's story begins, a raging storm engulfs the island and a boat flounders offshore. Pia and her fellow islanders rush to help--and past and present calamities collide. By turns elegiac and heart-pounding, a love letter in the guise of a song of despair, The Certainties is a moving and transformative blend of historical and speculative fiction--a novel that shows us what it means to bear witness, and to attend to those who seek refuge, past and present.

"Come for the behind-the-scenes stories.stay for the cutest picture of a kitten-covered Stephen King ever." — O, The Oprah Magazine Every great writer needs a mews: Mark Twain, Alice Walker, Haruki Murakami, Ursula K. Le Guin—this volume celebrates many famous authors who have shared their homes and hearts with furry feline friends. From the six-toed kitties who still inhabit the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Florida to the mewling muses of mystery writer Lilian Jackson Braun, cats are clearly, in the words of Gloria Steinem, "a writer's most logical and agreeable companion." • Features photographs and stories from 45 famous authors that capture the special bond between wordsmith and mouser • Sorted by alphabetical order, you'll see photographs from some of the most well-known authors including Beverly Cleary, Mark Twain, Stephen King, Sylvia Plath, and many more • Alison Nastasi is a journalist and the author of Artists and Their Cats, also from Chronicle Books. She lives in Los Angeles, California "Full of charming anecdotes and feline whimsy, this collection is catnip for lit nerds." — Shelf Awareness • Makes a charming and thoughtful gift for any fan of great literature and cats • An excellent addition to your coffee table books for guests to enjoy browsing

A unique anthology of articles and essays to inspire animal-themed creative writing.

Now in paperback, an irresistible gift for dog lovers: poems from the dogs' point of view, written by the well known writers and poets who love them. List of contributors: Edward Albee, Jennifer Allen, Danny Anderson, Lynda Barry, Rick Bass, Charles Baxter, Robert Benson, Roy Blount, Jr., Ron Carlson, Jill Ciment, Bernard Cooper, Stephen Dobyns, Mark Doty, Stephen Dunn, Anderson Ferrell, Amy Gerstler, Matthew Graham, Ron Hansen, Brooks Haxton, Cynthia Heimel, Amy Hempel, Noy Hollan, Andrew Hudgins, John Irving, Denis Johnson, R.S. Jones, Walter Kirn, Sheila Kohler, Maxine Kumin, Natalie Kusz, Anne Lamott, Gordon Lish, Ralph Lombreglia, Merrill Markoe, Pearson Marx, Erin McGraw, Heather McHugh, Arthur Miller, George Minot, Susan Minot, Honor Moore, Mary Morris, Alicia Muñoz, Elise Paschen, Padgett Powell, Wyatt Prunty, Lawrence Raab, Mark Richard, John Rybicki, Jeanne Schinto, Bob Shacochis, Jim Shepard, Karen Shepard, Lee Smith, Ben Sonnenberg, Kate Clark Spencer, Gerald Stern, Terese Svoboda, William Tester, Abigail Thomas, Lily Tuck, Sidney Wade, Kathryn Walker, William Wegman

This story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spaniel, Flush, enchants right from the opening pages. Although Flush has adventures of his own with bullying dogs, horrid maids, and robbers, he also provides the reader with a glimpse into Browning's life. Introduction by Trekkie Ritchie.

The Letter Killers Club is a secret society of self-described “conceivers” who, to preserve the purity of their conceptions, will commit nothing to paper. (What, after all, is your run-of-the-mill scribbler of stories if not an accomplished corruptor of conceptions?) The logic of the club is strict and uncompromising. Every Saturday, members meet in a firelit room filled with empty black bookshelves where they strive to top one another by developing ever unlikelier, ever more perfect conceptions: a rehearsal of Hamlet hijacked by an actor who vanishes with the role; the double life of a merry medieval cleric derailed by a costume change; a machine-run world that imprisons men’s minds while conscripting their bodies; a dead Roman scribe stranded this side of the River Acheron. But in this book set in an ominous Soviet Moscow of the 1920s, the members of the club are strangely mistrustful of one another, while all are under the spell of its despotic President, and there is no telling, in the end, just how lethal the purely conceptual—or, for that matter, letters—may be.

“No Dog Should Die Alone” was the attention-grabbing — and heart-stirring — headline of journalist Laura T. Coffey’s TODAY show website story about photographer Lori Fusaro’s work with senior shelter pets. While generally calm, easy, and already house-trained, these animals often represent the highest-risk population at shelters. With gorgeous, joyful photographs and sweet, funny, true tales of “old dogs learning new tricks,” Coffey and Fusaro show that adopting a senior can be even more rewarding than choosing a younger dog. You’ll meet endearing elders like Marnie, the irresistible shih tzu who has posed for selfies with Tina Fey, James Franco, and Betty White; Remy, a soulful nine-year-old dog adopted by elderly nuns; George Clooney’s cocker spaniel, Einstein; and Bretagne, the last known surviving search dog from Ground Zero. They may be slower moving and a tad less exuberant than puppies, but these pooches prove that adopting a senior brings immeasurable joy, earnest devotion, and unconditional love.

"For those unaware—as I was until I read this book—that Mark Twain was one of America's early animal advocates, Shelley Fisher Fishkin's collection of his writings on animals will come as a revelation. Many of these pieces are as fresh and lively as when they were first written, and it's wonderful to have them gathered in one place." —Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation and The Life You Can Save “A truly exhilarating work. Mark Twain's animal-friendly views would not be out of place today, and indeed, in certain respects, Twain is still ahead of us: claiming, correctly, that there are certain degraded practices that only humans inflict on one another and upon other animals. Fishkin has done a splendid job: I cannot remember reading something so consistently excellent."—Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep and The Face on Your Plate "Shelley Fisher Fishkin has given us the lifelong arc of the great man's antic, hilarious, and subtly profound explorations of the animal world, and she's guided us through it with her own trademark wit and acumen. Dogged if she hasn't." —Ron Powers, author of Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain and Mark Twain: A Life

Don’t miss Philippa East’s gripping and suspenseful new novel, A Guilty Secret available to pre-order now! ‘Breathtaking suspense. A phenomenal talent’ HOLLY SEDDON ‘Terrifically engaging’ JO SPAIN ‘Addictive. I couldn’t put it down’ PHOEBE MORGAN