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Girls Can Kiss Now
by Jill GutowitzNamed One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022 by Vogue, BuzzFeed, Bustle, Marie Claire, Harper&’s Bazaar, Electric Lit, Thrillist, and Glamour &“Wickedly funny and heartstoppingly vulnerable…every page twinkles with brilliance.&” —Refinery29 Perfect for fans of Samantha Irby and Trick Mirror, a funny, whip-smart collection of personal essays exploring the intersection of queerness, relationships, pop culture, the internet, and identity, introducing one of the most undeniably original new voices today.Jill Gutowitz&’s life—for better and worse—has always been on a collision course with pop culture. There&’s the time the FBI showed up at her door because of something she tweeted about Game of Thrones. The pop songs that have been the soundtrack to the worst moments of her life. And of course, the pivotal day when Orange Is the New Black hit the airwaves and broke down the door to Jill&’s own sexuality. In these honest examinations of identity, desire, and self-worth, Jill explores perhaps the most monumental cultural shift of our lifetimes: the mainstreaming of lesbian culture. Dusting off her own personal traumas and artifacts of her not-so-distant youth she examines how pop culture acts as a fun house mirror reflecting and refracting our values—always teaching, distracting, disappointing, and revealing us. Girls Can Kiss Now is a fresh and intoxicating blend of personal stories, sharp observations, and laugh-out-loud humor. This timely collection of essays helps us make sense of our collective pop-culture past even as it points the way toward a joyous, uproarious, near—and very queer—future.
The Last Thing to Burn
by Will Dean&“Immediate, intense, gripping, taut, terrifying, moving, and brilliant.&” —Lisa Jewell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Invisible Girl &“Brilliantly written...terrifying.&”—Ruth Ware, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One by One A woman being held captive is willing to risk everything to save herself, her unborn child, and her captor&’s latest victim in this &“intense, dark, and utterly chilling&” (Jennifer Hillier, author of Jar of Hearts) thriller in the tradition of Misery and Room.He is her husband. She is his captive. Her husband calls her Jane. That is not her name. She lives in a small farm cottage, surrounded by vast, open fields. Everywhere she looks, there is space. But she is trapped. No one knows she is there. Visitors rarely come to the farm; if they do, she is never seen. Her husband records her every movement during the day. If he doesn&’t like what he sees, she is punished. For a long time, escape seemed impossible. But now, something has changed. She has a reason to live and a reason to fight. Now, she is watching him, and waiting…
Becoming My Sister
by V.C. AndrewsTwo sisters face love, rivalry, and a shocking disappearance amidst the luxury of Palm Springs from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Flowers in the Attic series and Landry series—now popular Lifetime movies.Like everyone else in Palm Springs, Gish idolizes her smart, beautiful, kind older sister. Even their parents compare Gish unfavorably to Gloria—threatening to send her to boarding school once the more perfect sister leaves for college. But Gloria has an unwavering love for Gish, even if that connection belies a weariness with her own accomplishments. Wanting a better life for her overlooked sibling, Gloria teaches Gish how to talk to boys, embrace her femininity, and finally develop a life of her own. And just as life is looking up for Gish, Gloria meets a handsome, mysterious boy. Obsessed with the stranger, Gloria closes off her life to her sister—then disappears without a trace. A police search yields nothing. Their father&’s manic investigation proves fruitless. And their already starstruck mother becomes increasingly lost in daydreams of the celebrities who partied in their house decades ago when the town was a Hollywood getaway. Untethered from the weight of her sister&’s presence—but also missing her sister&’s love—what will Gish do with this new terrible freedom, with this sense she could become anything?
Undermoney
by Jay NewmanFrom a seasoned global finance insider comes &“a gripping thriller that takes you into the world of New York hedge funds, Russian money launderers, and DC power politics [that] makes you feel like you&’re actually there&” (Bill Browder, author of Red Notice).When a US airdrop of billions of dollars disappears in the desert sands of Syria, only a small group of military operatives knows its ultimate destination or why it has been stolen. Their goal is no less than the restoration of America&’s geopolitical dominance on the global stage. Essential to this scheme are Greta Webb, a sophisticated CIA operative who is an expert on dark money, not to mention lethally skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and Elias Vicker, the damaged, dangerous soul who runs the world&’s largest hedge fund. To achieve its goals, the group must form dangerous alliances. One is with the hidden family that manages the largest private pool of capital that has ever existed. Another is with Fyodor Volk, the ruthless founder of Russia&’s most successful private military company, a mercenary with ties to Vladimir Putin. Volk has his eye on Greta. She would be wise to avoid him but cannot. Arcing from Manhattan&’s finest apartments to Washington, DC, from Middle Eastern war zones to private European bank vaults, Undermoney follows the Americans as they are enmeshed in the world of dark money and confront ever-increasing danger. Ultimately, they must decide whether their objectives are worth the cost of sacrificing not just a few but potentially many human lives. &“Unexpectedly timely&” (The New Yorker),Undermoney is a &“wildly entertaining peek behind the curtain of American politics, financial skullduggery, and high-stakes global conflict&” (Nelson DeMille).
The Children on the Hill
by Jennifer McMahonFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Drowning Kind comes a genre-defying new novel, inspired by Mary Shelley&’s masterpiece Frankenstein, that brilliantly explores the eerie mysteries of childhood and the evils perpetrated by the monsters among us.1978: At her renowned treatment center in picturesque Vermont, the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hildreth, is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when she&’s home with her cherished grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she&’s just Gran—teaching them how to take care of their pets, preparing them home-cooked meals, providing them with care and attention and love. Then one day Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Iris—silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral—does not behave like a normal girl. Still, Violet is thrilled to have a new playmate. She and Eric invite Iris to join their Monster Club, where they catalogue all kinds of monsters and dream up ways to defeat them. Before long, Iris begins to come out of her shell. She and Vi and Eric do everything together: ride their bicycles, go to the drive-in, meet at their clubhouse in secret to hunt monsters. Because, as Vi explains, monsters are everywhere. 2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast Monsters Among Us, is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. She&’s determined to hunt it down, because Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real—and one of them is her very own sister. A haunting, vividly suspenseful page-turner from the &“literary descendant of Shirley Jackson&” (Chris Bohjalian, author of The Flight Attendant), The Children on the Hill takes us on a breathless journey to face the primal fears that lurk within us all.
Live Free Or Die
by Sean Hannity#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER America&’s top-rated cable news host offers his first book in over ten years: a look at America&’s fight against those who would reverse our tradition of freedom.America is great for a reason. Built on principles of freedom, rugged individualism, and self-sufficiency, no country has ever accumulated more power and wealth, abused it less, or used that power more to advance the human condition. And yet, as America blossomed, leftwing radicalism and resentment festered beneath the surface, threatening to undermine democracy in the form of social justice warriors, the deep state, and compromised institutions like academia and the mainstream media. With the Democratic victory in 2020, we are now at risk for a big step toward full-blown socialism along with the economic dysfunction and social strife that are its hallmarks. With radical Democrats demanding the Green New Deal, socialized medicine, abortion on demand, open borders, abolishing the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, and an end to free speech, our great nation will be fundamentally transformed beyond recognition. Ronald Reagan once said, &“Freedom is but one generation away from extinction,&” and his words have never rung truer. In Live Free or Die, Sean demonstrates why now is an All Hands on Deck moment to save the Republic.
A Conspiracy of Bones
by Kathy Reichs#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with an &“edgy, eerie, irresistible&” (Sandra Brown) novel with &“plenty of twists&” (The New York Times Book Review) featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who must use her skills to discover the identity of a faceless corpse, its connection to a decade-old missing child case, and why the dead man had her cell phone number.It&’s sweltering in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Temperance Brennan, still recovering from neurosurgery following an aneurysm, is battling nightmares, migraines, and what she thinks might be hallucinations when she receives a series of mysterious text messages, each containing a new picture of a corpse that is missing its face and hands. Immediately, she&’s anxious to know who the dead man is, and why the images were sent to her. An identified corpse soon turns up, only partly answering her questions. To win answers to the others, including the man&’s identity, she must go rogue, working mostly outside the system. That&’s because Tempe&’s new boss holds a fierce grudge against her and is determined to keep her out of the case. Tempe bulls forward anyway, even as she begins questioning her instincts. But the clues she discovers are disturbing and confusing. Was the faceless man a spy? A trafficker? A target for assassination by the government? And why was he carrying the name of a child missing for almost a decade? With help from law enforcement associates including her Montreal beau Andrew Ryan and the quick-witted, ex-homicide investigator Skinny Slidell, and utilizing new cutting-edge forensic methods, Tempe draws closer to the astonishing truth. &“A complete success&” (Booklist, starred review), &“this is Kathy Reichs as you&’ve never read her before&” (David Baldacci).
The Deadline Effect
by Christopher CoxIn the tradition of Charles Duhigg&’s The Power of Habit, Christopher Cox&’s The Deadline Effect is a wise and counterintuitive book that explores the power of deadlines as uniquely effective tools of motivation and empowerment.Perfectionists and procrastinators alike agree—it&’s natural to dread a deadline. Whether your goal is to complete a masterpiece or just check off an overwhelming to-do list, the ticking clock signals despair. Christopher Cox knows the panic of the looming deadline all too well—as a magazine editor, he has spent years overseeing writers and journalists who couldn&’t meet a deadline to save their lives. After putting in a few too many late nights in the newsroom, he became determined to learn the secret of managing deadlines. He set off to observe nine different organizations as they approached a high-pressure deadline. Along the way, Cox made an ever greater discovery: these experts didn&’t just meet their big deadlines—they became more focused, productive, and creative in the process. In The Deadline Effect, Cox shares the strategies these teams used to guarantee success while staying on schedule: a restaurant opening for the first time, a ski resort covering an entire mountain in snow, a farm growing enough lilies in time for Easter, and more. Cox explains how readers can understand the psychological underpinnings of expectations and time, the dynamics of teams and customers, and techniques for using deadlines to make better, more assured decisions.
The Whole Language
by Gregory BoyleGregory Boyle, the beloved Jesuit priest and author of the inspirational bestsellers Tattoos on the Heart and Barking to the Choir, returns with a call to witness the transformative power of tenderness, rooted in his lifetime of experience counseling gang members in Los Angeles. Over the past thirty years, Gregory Boyle has transformed thousands of lives through his work as the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest and most successful gang-intervention program in the world. Boyle&’s new book, The Whole Language, follows the acclaimed bestsellers Tattoos on the Heart, hailed as an &“astounding literary and spiritual feat&” (Publishers Weekly) that is &“destined to become a classic of both urban reportage and contemporary spirituality&” (Los Angeles Times), and Barking to the Choir, deemed &“a beautiful and important and soul-transporting book&” by Elizabeth Gilbert, and declared by Ann Patchett to be &“a book that shows what the platitudes of faith look like when they&’re put into action.&” In a community struggling to overcome systemic poverty and violence, The Whole Language shows how those at Homeboy Industries fight despair and remain generous, hopeful, and tender. When Saul was thirteen years old, he killed his abusive stepfather in self-defense; after spending twenty-three years in juvenile and adult jail, he enters the Homeboy Industries training and healing programs and embraces their mission. Declaring, &“I&’ve decided to grow up to be somebody I always needed as a child,&” Saul shows tenderness toward the young men in his former shoes, treating them all like his sons and helping them to find their way. Before coming to Homeboy Industries, a young man named Abel was shot thirty-three times, landing him in a coma for six months followed by a year and a half recuperating in the hospital. He now travels on speaking tours with Boyle and gives guided tours around the Homeboy offices. One day a new trainee joins Abel as a shadow, and Abel recognizes him as the young man who had put him in a coma. &“You give good tours,&” the trainee tells Abel. They both have embarked on a path to wholeness. Boyle&’s moving stories challenge our ideas about God and about people, providing a window into a world filled with fellowship, compassion, and fewer barriers. Bursting with encouragement, humor, and hope, The Whole Language invites us to treat others—and ourselves—with acceptance and tenderness.
The Harbor
by Katrine EngbergThis third novel in the &“thrilling, nerve-wracking&” (Shelf Awareness) Korner and Werner series follows the two detectives as they search for a missing teenager and uncover the web of lies that has threatened his life—and may prevent him from ever being found.When fifteen-year-old Oscar Dreyer-Hoff disappears in this &“masterpiece of Nordic noir&” (Booklist, starred review), the police assume he&’s simply a runaway—a typically overlooked middle child doing what teenagers do all around the world. But his frantic family is certain that something terrible has happened. After all, what runaway would leave behind a note that reads: He looked around and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward. He had cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it. It was bright and glistened. As it had killed the painter, so it would kill the painter&’s work, and all that that meant. It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free. It&’s not much to go on, but it&’s all that detectives Jeppe Kørner and Anette Werner have. And with every passing hour, as the odds of finding a missing person grow dimmer, it will have to be enough.
Drop Dead Gorgeous
by Rachel GibsonThis hilarious fish-out-of-water tale—from the New York Times bestselling author of the &“endearing, funny, and heart-tugging&” (Karen Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author) novel How Lulu Lost Her Mind—explores what happens when a small-town Texas girl swaps bodies with a filthy rich socialite. On her way from singing in church to hooking up with a Tinder date, Brittany Lynn Snider crashes her momma&’s minivan, and her life is changed forever. One moment she&’s texting HotGuyNate, and in the next she&’s at a hospital in El Paso watching doctors operate on her near-lifeless body. If that wasn&’t bad enough, she finds herself trapped in the Limbo Lounge where patients await their fate, playing cards and watching reruns of 7th Heaven and Heaven Help Us. When a shimmering portal appears, it pulls Brittany upward toward heaven—until the lounge&’s resident bully, a wealthy socialite named Edie, leaps through first and steals Brittany&’s place. Brittany now has a second chance at life on Earth, but with a catch: she must inhabit Edie&’s body. Waking up as Edie in a mental facility where doctors try to cure her alleged retrograde amnesia, Brittany resumes a life of privilege in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Yet even as she basks in luxury and reconnects with Edie&’s old flame, Brittany plans to return to her old life in Texas. But when things don&’t go according to her plan, she must ask herself: Who is Brittany Lynn Snider, and what does she want now? And where&’s Edie? Did she manage to make it past the pearly gates?
Under the Southern Sky
by Kristy Woodson HarveyThis instant New York Times bestseller—that&’s &“perfect for fans of beach reads, P.S. I Love You, and anything by authors Jennifer Weiner and Elin Hilderbrand&” (Country Living)— follows two childhood friends who discover that love and family can be found in unconventional ways.Recently separated Amelia Saxton, a dedicated journalist, never expected that uncovering the biggest story of her career would become deeply personal. But when she discovers that a cluster of embryos belonging to her childhood friend Parker and his late wife Greer have been deemed &“abandoned,&” she&’s put in the unenviable position of telling Parker—and dredging up old wounds in the process. Parker has been unable to move forward since the loss of his beloved wife three years ago. He has all but forgotten about the frozen embryos, but once Amelia reveals her discovery, he knows that if he ever wants to get a part of Greer back, he&’ll need to accept his fate as a single father and find a surrogate. Each dealing with their own private griefs, Parker and Amelia slowly begin to find solace in one another as they navigate an uncertain future against the backdrop of the pristine waters of their childhood home, Cape Carolina. The journey of self-discovery leads them to a life-changing lesson: family is always closer than you think. &“Deliciously plotted, intricately constructed, gorgeously written, and brimming with hope, Under the Southern Sky will steal your heart and make you think about first loves, second chances, and the unforeseeable twists of fate that guide us all&” (Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author).
The Winemaker's Wife
by Kristin HarmelThe author of the &“engrossing&” (People) international bestseller The Room on Rue Amélie returns with a moving story set amid the champagne vineyards of France during the darkest days of World War II, perfect for fans of Heather Morris&’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz.Champagne, 1940: Inès has just married Michel, the owner of storied champagne house Maison Chauveau, when the Germans invade. As the danger mounts, Michel turns his back on his marriage to begin hiding munitions for the Résistance. Inès fears they&’ll be exposed, but for Céline, the French-Jewish wife of Chauveau&’s chef de cave, the risk is even greater—rumors abound of Jews being shipped east to an unspeakable fate. When Céline recklessly follows her heart in one desperate bid for happiness, and Inès makes a dangerous mistake with a Nazi collaborator, they risk the lives of those they love—and the vineyard that ties them together. New York, 2019: Recently divorced, Liv Kent is at rock bottom when her feisty, eccentric French grandmother shows up unannounced, insisting on a trip to France. But the older woman has an ulterior motive—and a tragic, decades-old story to share. When past and present finally collide, Liv finds herself on a road to salvation that leads right to the caves of the Maison Chauveau.
The Institute
by Stephen KingFrom #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King whose &“storytelling transcends genre&” (Newsday) comes &“another winner: creepy and touching and horrifyingly believable&” (The Boston Globe) about a group of kids confronting evil.In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis&’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there&’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, &“like the roach motel,&” Kalisha says. &“You check in, but you don&’t check out.&” In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don&’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute. As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is &“first-rate entertainment that has something important to say. We all need to listen&” (The Washington Post).
The Last Garden in England
by Julia KellyFrom the author of the international bestsellers The Light Over London and The Whispers of War comes &“a compelling read, filled with lovable characters and an alluring twist of fates&” (Ellen Keith, author of The Dutch Wife) about five women living across three different times whose lives are all connected by one very special garden.Present day: Emma Lovett, who has dedicated her career to breathing new life into long-neglected gardens, has just been given the opportunity of a lifetime: to restore the gardens of the famed Highbury House estate, designed in 1907 by her hero Venetia Smith. But as Emma dives deeper into the gardens&’ past, she begins to uncover secrets that have long lain hidden. 1907: A talented artist with a growing reputation for her work, Venetia Smith has carved out a niche for herself as a garden designer to industrialists, solicitors, and bankers looking to show off their wealth with sumptuous country houses. When she is hired to design the gardens of Highbury House, she is determined to make them a triumph, but the gardens—and the people she meets—promise to change her life forever. 1944: When land girl Beth Pedley arrives at a farm on the outskirts of the village of Highbury, all she wants is to find a place she can call home. Cook Stella Adderton, on the other hand, is desperate to leave Highbury House to pursue her own dreams. And widow Diana Symonds, the mistress of the grand house, is anxiously trying to cling to her pre-war life now that her home has been requisitioned and transformed into a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers. But when war threatens Highbury House&’s treasured gardens, these three very different women are drawn together by a secret that will last for decades. &“Gorgeously written and rooted in meticulous period detail, this novel is vibrant as it is stirring. Fans of historical fiction will fall in love with The Last Garden in England&” (Roxanne Veletzos, author of The Girl They Left Behind).
Ask Again, Yes
by Mary Beth KeaneA profoundly moving novel about two neighboring families in a suburban town, the friendship between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness.
How much can a family forgive? Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come.
Ask Again, Yes is a deeply affecting exploration of the lifelong friendship and love that blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next 40 years.
Luminous, heartbreaking, and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood—villains lose their menace and those who appeared innocent seem less so. Kate and Peter’s love story, while haunted by echoes from the past, is marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace.
A New York Times Bestseller
The End of Everything
by Katie MackFrom one of the most dynamic rising stars in astrophysics, an accessible and eye-opening look at five ways the universe could end, and the mind-blowing lessons each scenario reveals about the most important concepts in cosmology.We know the universe had a beginning. With the Big Bang, it expanded from a state of unimaginable density to an all-encompassing cosmic fireball to a simmering fluid of matter and energy, laying down the seeds for everything from black holes to one rocky planet orbiting a star near the edge of a spiral galaxy that happened to develop life as we know it. But what happens to the universe at the end of the story? And what does it mean for us now? Dr. Katie Mack has been contemplating these questions since she was a young student, when her astronomy professor informed her the universe could end at any moment, in an instant. This revelation set her on the path toward theoretical astrophysics. Now, with lively wit and humor, she takes us on a mind-bending tour through five of the cosmos&’s possible finales: the Big Crunch, Heat Death, the Big Rip, Vacuum Decay (the one that could happen at any moment!), and the Bounce. Guiding us through cutting-edge science and major concepts in quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory, and much more, The End of Everything is a wildly fun, surprisingly upbeat ride to the farthest reaches of all that we know.
Leadership Team Coaching in Practice
by Peter HawkinsA high-performing and cohesive leadership team is essential for organizational success. Leadership Team Coaching in Practice provides an overview of the tools and techniques for coaching leadership teams and shows how these approaches have been applied around the world in a variety of team types and industries.Featuring expert contributions from chief executives, team coaches, team leaders and consultants in organizations including Comair and the UK National Health Service (NHS), this practical guide illustrates best practice tailored to the needs of each organization. The new and updated third edition of Leadership Team Coaching in Practice incorporates the latest research and thinking in the field, including new material on developing the personal core capacities for systemic team coaching.Alongside updates to case studies to offer a long-term view of interventions, the third edition contains new case studies including team coaching in Toyota through a period of transformation. There is a new medley chapter of short case stories that address some of the regularly asked questions by new team coaches and new material that explores ways of creating a teaming and 'team of teams' culture. This book remains an essential resource for executive and team coaches, CEOs, team leaders, organizational development consultants, and those studying coaching as part of a degree or coaching qualification.
Future History 2050
by Thomas HardingThis future history of the next thirty years, imagined by bestselling author Thomas Harding, is a compelling and startling call to action. In 2020, a researcher is shocked to find a set of notebooks detailing the history of the next thirty years. Is this a hoax? Or could it be real? The notebooks, written in the year 2050, contain interview transcripts between teenage Billy and Gran Nancy. We learn about the great climate SHOCK, when global temperatures rise much faster than anticipated, resulting in catastrophic consequences for humanity. We learn about a shift away from democracy, toward unelected “ethnarchs” — heads of corporations who use their access to our personal data to competently run the world. We learn about the giant city towers where most people live, work and play inside — where it's safe from natural disasters and viral outbreaks. And between these interviews, we learn more about Billy, whose interest in the history that has been erased from the official record is causing trouble in 2050. Is it too late to change the past to save the future? Key Text Feature glossary
Last Week
by Bill RichardsonA child cherishes every second of their grandmother's last week of life in this sensitive portrayal of medical assistance in dying (MAiD). “In this last week, there are seven days.” That's one hundred and sixty-eight hours. Or ten thousand and eighty minutes. Or six hundred four thousand and eight hundred seconds. A child counts every second because this is their grandmother’s last week of life. As friends and family come to call on Flippa—as Gran is fondly known—the child observes the strange mix of grief, humor, awkwardness, anger and nostalgia that attends these farewell visits. Especially precious are the times they have alone, just the two of them. Flippa, the child sees, has made up her mind. Like time, she is unstoppable. So as Sunday approaches, the child must find a way to come to terms with Flippa’s decision. What is the best way to say goodbye? Beautifully illustrated in black and white—with one unexpectedly joyful splash of color—Last Week is a nuanced look at what death with dignity can mean to a whole family, with an afterword and additional resources by MAiD expert Dr. Stefanie Green. Key Text Features illustrations afterword explanation resources Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3 Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.
Horrible Dance
by Avery LakeA brilliant poetic debut about gender-based violence that dismantles received definitions of both gender and violence, Horrible Dance is an accomplished addition to transfeminist thought and theory. By turns darkly comic, emotionally connected, playful, incisive, lyrical and irreverent, Lake’s poems navigate a harrowing personal and political terrain with understated, expansive wisdom. Lake persistently returns us to the search for love that lies at the core of relational trauma, even as she shows us how catastrophically such a search can be derailed. This is a rare text able to hold the full velocity of a survivor’s hurt and rage alongside a clear-eyed understanding of the extent and complexity of harm. In their honest accounting of a wide array of bad encounters, these poems point us, again, toward compassion, tenderness, and solidarity. can you forgive mefor how you hurt me so bad—“On Shame”
The Cyborg Anthology
by Lindsay B-EPoems written by Cyborgs in the future – this collection melds sci-fi and poetry, human and machine. The Cyborg Anthology takes place in a future where there was a thriving world of Robots and Cyborgs living peacefully beside Humans, but a disaster destroyed all Robot and most Cyborg life. The book is organized like a typical anthology of literature, split into sections that include a biography of each poet and a sample of their poetry. It covers early Cyborg poetry, political, celebrity, and pop culture poets, and ends with the next generation of Cyborg poets. The narrative takes place in the time after a cataclysmic event, and the collection wrestles with this loss. Through the lives of the poets, the book chronicles the history of personhood for technological beings, their struggle for liberation, and demonstrates different ways a person can be Cyborg. The poems and biographies together tell the story of a complex and enthralling world-to-come, exploring topics that are important in the future, and also urgent right now. “With mordant wit and a playful satiric touch, these Cyborg poems showcase a dazzling range of poetic forms and ideas: imaginative and charmingly subversive. Move over Norton Anthology of Poetry, there’s a new force in town, and they are a delight.” —Renée Sarojini Saklikar, author of Listening to the Bees and Children of Air India "The premise of this collection alone is fabulous. The poems are potent and powerful. With echoes of Le Guin, Brunner and Monáe, Lindsay B-e’s debut is layered and smart, provocative, and deeply satisfying. I was moved and fascinated. Speculative poetry at its best." —Hiromi Goto, author of Chorus of Mushrooms and Darkest Light
Gertrude and Alice
by Evalyn Parry and Anna ChattertonVisiting the audience in the present day, Gertrude and Alice come to find out how history has treated them. The couple recounts stories of their forty-year relationship; of meetings with iconic artists and writers; and of Alice’s overwhelming, consuming devotion to Gertrude’s genius. Before they leave, they want to find out what has become of their artistic and cultural influence, and how their lives and work are—or are not—remembered.
Up the Garden Path & The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God
by Lisa CodringtonIn Up the Garden Path, Rosa, a young Barbadian seamstress, offers to pose as her brother to go to the Niagara Region in Ontario to work. There, she meets an aspiring actress obsessed with Joan of Arc, the ghost of a black Loyalist soldier who wants to die and a boss who can’t keep the starlings away from his failing vineyard. Finding it impossible to ignore their demands, but not wanting to be found out and sent home, Rosa has to stop and figure out what she really wants instead of what everyone around her needs. Based on Bernard Shaw’s short story, The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God follows a black girl who is abandoned by a white missionary for asking too many questions. Taking matters into her own hands, the Black Girl sets off to find out who or what God really is. Along the way she meets a number of characters who have very different views on God, but the Black Girl’s unrelenting questions create conflict, and in the end she’s forced to make her own decisions on God and her search.
This Is How We Got Here
by Keith BarkerIt’s been a year since Paul and Lucille’s son Craig committed suicide, and their once-solid family bonds are starting to break down. While the now-separated couple tries to honour their son, Lucille’s sister Liset and her husband Jim refuse to discuss their nephew. The ties that keep the four together as sisters, best friends, and spouses are strained by grief and guilt… until a visit from a fox changes everything.