Our Books
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...
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...
The world is always in motion—both toward and away from us—and it is also full of risk: from sharks unexpectedly lurking beneath estuarial rivers to the dangers of New York City. In such a world, how should one proceed? These poems suggest that...
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...