Our Books
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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-...
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...
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...
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...
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...
A Minnesotan of Icelandic ancestry, the author’s travels have taken him all over the world. Here he repairs to Brimnes, his fisherman’s cottage on the shore of a fjord in northern Iceland. Looking west from this place of seemingly endless and...
Founded nearly four decades ago by a group of young writers, the Loft has become our nation’s largest independent literary center. This anthology gathers the collected wisdom of that community, from practical tips and suggestions to ruminations...
Welcome to the off-kilter world of Finley, an investigator of indiscernible origins and prowess. Her assignment: the mysterious Professor Uppal and his puppets. The objective: impossible to say. Captivating and whimsical, idiosyncratic and deeply...
Seamlessly bridging the material and spiritual worlds, these poems take the reader into the mind of a true visionary: Mother Ann Lee, the founder of the Shaker religion in colonial America. This remarkable collection captures the ineffable...
Born into an artistic and eccentric family, Lyza laments that her only talent is carving letters into wood. At least, that is, until the devastating loss of her mother during the pandemic of 1918. When her unconventional father begins to prepare...
Since her father remarried, Nissa feels like a stranger in her own home. Hoping to restore the life she knew, Nissa accepts an invitation from her mother and moves to Chicago—but life in the big city is overwhelming. How can Nissa fit in when...
California wildfires, the 2008 election, plastic surgery, Larry Craig, wildfires, Wal-Mart, and rampant commercialism—these poems take on American media culture, the obscene foil for personal legacies of violence and violation. This collection...