Genre Literature

Missing Links is the story of four middle-class buddies who live outside Boston and play golf together at Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Links and Deli, not so fondly known as Ponky. An 18-hole garbage dump with hazards that include a concrete river surrounded by a chain-link fence and the pillars of the elevated train that runs through the course, it is reputed to be the worst golf course in America.

Barnes, the supervisor of a Hot Shot wildfire suppression crew, is haunted by the season past, when many members of his dedicated, young team were killed in a Colorado forest fire that went all wrong, scorching the Hot Shots as they fled, some as they struggled into their fire shelters. He wakes each morning in the presence of their ghosts as they proceed across his bedroom or assemble at his kitchen table, their eyes asking questions that he cannot answer.

Almost ten years have passed since Julia Win came back from Burma, her father's native country. Though she is a successful Manhattan lawyer, her private life is at a crossroads; her boyfriend recently left her, she has suffered a miscarriage, and she is, despite her wealth, unhappy with her professional life. Julia is lost and exhausted. One day, in the middle of an important business meeting, she hears a stranger's voice in her head that causes her to leave the office without explanation.

The life of Mr. Badman forms a third part to The Pilgrim’s Progress, but it is not a delightful pilgrimage to heaven. On the contrary, it is a wretched downward journey to the infernal realms. The author’s goal is to warn poor, thoughtless sinners, not with smooth words they can ignore, but with words that thunder against their consciences regarding the danger of their souls and the increasing wretchedness into which they are madly hurrying.

The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing who is intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts; or the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch. As Nicola leads her suitors towards the precipice, London--and, indeed, the whole world--seems to shamble after them in a corrosively funny novel of complexity and morality.

On the eve of Katie's wedding to widower Bishop John, startling news staggers out of her anguished parents, and nothing prepares Katie for the devastation their confession brings. Feeling betrayed, Katie watches as the only life she has ever known begins to unravel, leaving in its wake a furrow of pain and a future of hope.

Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.

After tracking down a crazed sniper last year, homicide detective Mike Houston opted to leave Boston for the isolated mountains of Maine. He adjusted nicely to chopping his own firewood, relaxing in his log cabin, and simply enjoying the solitude of the mountains. But then his former partner, Lt. Anne Bouchard, pays him a visit and dangles the words serial killer in front of him. And suddenly he finds himself back in the game beside her - though not "officially".

Sal seems to appear out of nowhere - a bruised and tattered 13-year-old boy claiming to be the devil himself answering an invitation. Fielding Bliss, the son of a local prosecutor, brings him home, where he's welcomed into the Bliss family, who assume he's a runaway from a nearby farm town. When word spreads that the devil has come to Breathed, not everyone is happy to welcome this self-proclaimed fallen angel. Murmurs follow him, and tensions rise along with the temperatures as an unbearable heat wave rolls into town right along with him.

The second born son in a broken marriage, Joey Lynch has spent a lifetime picking up the pieces of a family unraveling. When his older brother Darren skips town on his first day of secondary school, twelve-year-old Joey finds himself thrown into the role of protector to his younger siblings and mother. Plagued by self-loathing, and furious with the world, he grapples with teenage life, his unwavering sense of duty to his family, while balancing precariously close to a life of addiction that threatens to swallow him whole.

From one of America's most beloved and respected writers comes the classic story of Homer Wells, an orphan, and Wilbur Larch, a doctor without children of his own, who develop an extraordinary bond with one another.

Un hombre regresa al pueblo donde ocurrió un asesinato desconcertante 27 años atrás, con la determinación de descubrir la verdad. Todos parecen estar de acuerdo en que Bayardo San Román, sólo unas horas después de su matrimonio con la bella Ángela Vicario, la devuelve por deshonrada a la casa paterna. La atribulada familia fuerza a la novia a revelar el nombre de su primer amante; y los hermanos gemelos de ella anuncian su intención de matar a Santiago Nasar por haber deshonrado a su hermana.

I never wanted to disappear more than while around my family. Briar Lane, the girl only useful for one thing: my surname. A business handshake and pawn to be traded. My father's chess piece shuffled between empires. That was my life back in L.A., but all it took was finding the dirty secret stuffed in a jacket pocket, and my entire world unraveled.

Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent Midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously - and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas that sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein’s own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire.

Therese Wolley is a mother who has made a promise. She works as a secretary, shops for groceries on Saturdays, and takes care of her two girls. She doesn’t dwell on the fact that her girls are fatherless, mostly because her own father abandoned her before she was born and she has done just fine without him. Even though her older daughter regularly wakes with nightmares and her younger one whispers letters under her breath, she doesn't shift from her resolve that everything will be fine.

Long listed for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Lemon is the story of a teenaged girl with the numbers against her: Three mothers, one deadbeat dad, one cancer-riddled protégé, two friends, one tree-hugging stepbrother, and a 60 percent average. The adults in her life are all mired in self-centeredness and the other kids are busy getting high, and she just can't be bothered to fit in.

On a scorching day in August 1954, 13-year-old Jubie Watts leaves Charlotte, North Carolina, with her family for a Florida vacation. Crammed into the Packard along with Jubie are her three siblings, her mother, and the family’s black maid, Mary Luther. For as long as Jubie can remember, Mary has been there - cooking, cleaning, compensating for her father’s rages and her mother’s benign neglect, and loving Jubie unconditionally.

A perfect next listen for fans of Abbi Waxman and Katherine Center, Can't Take It Back is a fast-paced and relatable debut telling the interconnected stories of four women over the course of a kindergarten school year. Huddled on their favorite park bench in a quiet Seattle suburb, Holly, Avery, Zoe, and Sasha might look like they've got it all figured out - but there’s more to their stories than meets the eye.

“A ‘World’s Fittest Santa’ contest? Please tell me you’re joking." My store manager is in fact not joking. All I want for Christmas this year is to finally quit my job and figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life. Instead, here I am, auditioning sexy, shirtless men in fake white beards so hundreds of horny mall shoppers can sit on their laps. A dream come true for some women, I’m sure. For me? This is my personal nightmare. As a former professional dancer, my days of excessive exercise and counting calories are behind me. The last thing I need is a Santa with a six-pack.

Part human comedy and part mystery, Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told is an enthralling, masterful story about what holds a village together and what keeps people apart. When journalist Patrick Bracken returns to Gohen, the Irish village where he was born, he knows the eyes of the townspeople are on him. He has come home to investigate two deaths that happened decades earlier when he was a child, deaths that were ruled accidental.