Our Books
These haunting and crystalline poems examine the moment when solitude slips into separation, when a person realizes he can barely see the place he set out from, and must make his way back to the present. In this journey, Thoreau’s “border life”...
Touching on the works of Emerson, Thoreau, Proust, and Plato, among others, this collection of nonfiction and fables provides a walking tour of the creative mind. This is a rich investigation of what it means to think, read, write, and learn,...
Frigid, lethal, and wildly beautiful, Lake Superior is as alluring as it is dangerous. Featuring three women living on its shores in three different centuries, this novel—haunting, rich in historical detail, and universal in its exploration of...
This groundbreaking anthology presents a revelatory portrait of contemporary Vietnamese poetry. What emerges from this conversation of outsiders and insiders, Vietnamese and American voices, is a worldly sensibility descended from the...
Cosmos and Niner dream of going to the sea, where it’s always summer. And to do that they need to raise money. Cosmos knows a woman who might be able to help them. When she asks them to exchange something precious for the money, Niner and Cosmos...
At the farthest extent of Australia’s Blue Mountains, on the threshold of the country’s arid interior, the blue plateau reveals the vagaries of a hanging climate: the droughts last longer, the seasons change less, and the wildfires burn hotter...
Can the love reserved for family and friends be extended to a place? These essays—set on a small island in the Pacific Northwest—beautifully explore the island as a metaphor for the paradoxical connections that bind us despite our apparent...
When a small unit of soldiers is separated from their command and left to fend for themselves in a hostile city, their only option is to keep moving. As they wander, the line between friend and enemy is blurred beyond recognition, and with it the...
When Libby winds up raising her younger sister’s daughter, she sets out to give baby Amber the childhood she never had. But then Libby—who is only twenty-two—loses her job, and Amber’s father shows up with a custody claim. With spirit and a kind...
On Hell’s Bottom Ranch, a section of land below the Front Range, there are women like Renny, who prefer a “little Hell swirled with their Heaven,” and men like Ben, her husband, who’s “gotten used to smoothing over Renny’s excesses.” This work of...
These essays travel from jungle to desert to sea, from cities to ruins, exploring how history is shaped by ceremonies, expeditions, and wars. Along the way, they pose fundamental but nonetheless provocative questions: Where do we come from?...
A breakout collection that showcases the voice of a young poet striking out, dramatically, emphatically, to stake his claim on “the City”—an unnamed, crowded place. These poems—in turn elegiac, celebratory, haunting, grave, and joyful—give hum to...
Strange things begin to happen after eleven-year-old Sebby finds a secret cave behind his home: he falls ill, his family’s chickens disappear, and he finds a special pair of eyeglasses that show him a world where colors come alive and fly through...
Drawing on a dizzying array of sources—including Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Korean folklore, and Turkish proverbs—this winner of the American Book Award explores the entangled myths that accompany the experience of immigration. These poems...
With a tragically leaky canoe, a broken cell phone, a cooler of beer, and a passionate environmental planner in tow, the author sets off on a rough-and-tumble journey down Boston’s Charles River. Along the way, the vision of a new sort of eco-...
A fabulist’s compendium of poetry and prose, from one of our most fanciful and “disturbingly original” (Chicago Tribune) writers. These experimental pieces ask the reader not to imagine the world for what it is, but for what it could be...
The Fulbright Triptych is widely considered a masterpiece of contemporary art: a striking family tableau that has quietly inspired, exhorted, and challenged its viewers for years. This collection of essays directly reflects the painting’...
As a young man, Neil Fox made a healthy living on heads-I-win-tails-you-lose venture capital deals. Now, years later, that cunning has calcified into a principled isolation, which Neil hopes to preserve even as a new neighbor builds his home in...
Ariel, Nicki, and M have been inseparable friends since they were kids, but now M’s mom has decided to move away. So the friends concoct a plan that will keep M in the Bay Area—she’ll move in with Ariel and her family. But everything M does gets...
In these exquisitely crafted prose poems, image collides with image to produce a singular ecological and poetic vision. Touching on mortality, temporality, and eternity, this collection asks the reader: how do we tie ourselves to the world when...
For centuries, the richness of our world’s diverse stories has been widely overlooked by readers of environmental literature. This collection works against this blind spot, exploring the relationship between culture and place, emphasizing the...
Taken from his ancestral home, Dshurukuwaa reunites with his siblings at a boarding school, where his brother also serves as the principal. But soon he comes to understand that the main purpose of the school—and for that matter, of the state—is...
Engaging in a deep and richly entertaining study of “campus ecology,” this fascinating, highly original book explores one day in the life of the average student. Along the way, it repurposes the great and timeless opportunity presented by college...
After a moment of kindness turns tragic, Tommy Jack McMorsey is forced to revisit his past: the horrors of Vietnam, a love affair, and the suicide of his closest friend. Exploring the ways images, stereotypes, and depictions of identity intersect...
Scorned and feared by their neighbors, Reuben Sledge’s family persists on the outskirts of Des Moines, near the edge of the City—a surreal place, from which no one who enters has ever returned. But when the woman Reuben loves ventures into the...
From U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, an extraordinary collection—at once urbane and earthy—that navigates the thoroughfares and tributaries of human nature.
As the young daughter of an affluent Parsee family in Lahore, Lenny is keenly observant of the city’s astonishing diversity—Muslims and Hindus, Christians and Sikhs, coexisting together. But as Lahore descends into sectarian violence, Lenny’s...
It is 1942. Korinna is an active member of the local Nazi youth group. When she discovers that her parents—who are secretly members of an underground resistance group—are sheltering a family of Jewish refugees behind her bedroom wall, she is...
In this modern classic, the charges of a young Sioux woman force David Hayden’s father, the sheriff of their small town, to confront his older brother, a charming war hero and respected doctor. This novel is an astonishing tale of love and...
Born and raised in the idyll of Sharon Center, Iowa—a life of four-leaf clovers, dogs, and fishing—July Montgomery is rocked by the tragic death of his parents, a blow that precipitates his bitter exile from Eden. After an escape to Philadelphia...