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“Extraordinary...beautifully precise...[an] earnestly ambitious debut.” —The New York Times Book Review “A wild, angry, and devastating masterpiece of a book.” —NPR “[A] descendent of the Dickensian ‘social novel’ by way of Jonathan Franzen: epic fiction that lays bare contemporary culture clashes, showing us who we are and how we got here.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “A book that has stayed with me ever since I put it down.” —Seth Meyers, host of Late Night with Seth Meyers One sweltering night in 2013, four former high school classmates converge on their hometown in northeastern Ohio. There’s Bill Ashcraft, a passionate, drug-abusing young activist whose flailing ...
From the author of Ohio (Best Books of Summer 2018 Selection in Time, Vulture, and the New York Post) comes a brilliant, hilarious, and deeply touching memoir that blows the roof off the genre. Fed up with the complicated quest of trying to get a book published, Stephen Markley decided to cut to the chase and simply write a memoir about trying to publish a book—this book, to be precise. It's the most "meta" experiment he's ever untaken, and like a Mobius strip in book form, the concept is circular, self-indulgent, and—maybe, possibly, hopefully—brilliant. For fans of Dave Eggers and David Sedaris, Publish This Book is the modern day saga of an idealistic, ambitious, audacious, unyieldi...
From drinking late into the night with gorgeous Icelandic blondes to traveling to the farthest reaches of the country; from hiking over glaciers to encountering a drunk, raging Kiefer Sutherland; from interviewing Jón Gnarr, the comedian mayor of Reykjavik (who ran on a platform of having free towels at all the swimming pools), to touring the homes of Iceland's hidden elves; Markley delivers the fastest, funniest memoir of an American experience in Iceland. -- p. [4] of cover.
Since 2008, Stephen Markley has been one of the most popular, least popular, controversial, skippable, unflappable, deranged, and all around thorn-in-sideable columnists for Chicago's RedEye. Covering topics as diverse as presidential politics, climate change, sex, international diplomacy, and why dogs actually really, really suck and are annoying, Markley's column has been a must-read for those who care about the state of the world, democracy, why "The Dark Knight Rises" was actually a terrible movie. The author of "Publish This Book" and "Tales of Iceland," Markley's unique blend of humor and passion in this collection of his most irreverent and/or insightful columns. Just to prove that he's bit-time, this mix tape also includes his interview with author and environmental activist Bill McKibben of 350.org (ask your parents what a mix tape is).
*Longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award * One of The Millions and BuzzFeed’s Most Anticipated Books * A spectacularly inventive debut novel that reinvents the tall tale for our times—“Cuyahoga defies all modest description…[it] is ten feet tall if it’s an inch, and it’s a ramshackle joy from start to finish” (Brian Phillips, author of Impossible Owls). Big Son is a spirit of the times—the times being 1837. Behind his broad shoulders, shiny hair, and church-organ laugh, Big Son practically made Ohio City all by himself. The feats of this proto-superhero have earned him wonder and whiskey toasts but very little in the way of fortune. And without money, Big cannot become an hone...
That our ecological future appears grave can no longer come as any surprise. And yet we have so far failed, collectively and individually, to begin the kind of action necessary to shift our path away from catastrophic climate collapse. In this stark and startling little book, Rupert Read helps us to understand the direness of our predicament while showing us a metaphor and a method a way of thinking by which we might transform it. From the relatively uncontroversial starting point that we love our own children, we are introduced to a logic of care that iterates far into the future: in caring for our own children, we are committed to caring for the whole of human future; in caring for the whole of human future, we are committed to caring for the future of the natural world. Out of such thinking, hope emerges. As Read demonstrates in this urgent call to action, accepting that we care for our own offspring commits us to a struggle on behalf of us all.
Few crises in modern history have so completely disrupted every aspect of daily life as has the Covid-19 pandemic. What began as a small medical ripple in Wuhan, China, a city many of us had never heard of, quickly erupted into a tsunami of epic proportions. Every market, industry, vertical, profession, service, and category of product was in some way rocked by its impact. And, for the first time in recorded history, every wheel, cog and gear in the global retail industry ground to a virtual halt. From two-time, international best-selling author and futurist Doug Stephens, Resurrecting Retail is not just a riveting story of the unprecedented crash of an industry during this time of crisis but a roadmap for its rebirth. Meticulously researched in real time from inside the crisis, Resurrecting Retail provides a comprehensive and surprising vision of how Covid-19 will reshape every aspect of consumer life, including the very essence of why we shop.
For fans of Celeste Ng and Mary Beth Keane comes an impeccably paced and transfixing debut novel that “vividly renders the messiness of a single human life in all its joy and heartbreak” (Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author). It’s 5 p.m. on a Wednesday when Emma settles into her hometown bar with a motley crew of locals, all unaware that a series of decisions over the course of a single night is about to change their lives forever. As the evening unfolds, key details about Emma’s history emerge, and the past comes bearing down on her like a freight train. Why has Emma, a powerhouse in the business world, ended up here? What is she running away from? And what is she willing to give up to recapture the love she once cherished? A “crisp, haunting, and intelligent” (Stephen Markley, author of Ohio) exploration of modern love, guilt, and the place we call home, Ordinary Hazards follows one woman’s epic journey back to a life worth living.
A terrifying 1930s ghost story set in the haunting wilderness of the far north. January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year. Gruhuken. But the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice. Stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return - when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. And Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark...
SHIRT: SPORTS JERSEY. JEANS: EMBELLISHED. HAIR: OVERLY GELLED. STATUS: UNDATEABLE. Did your date show up wearing socks with sandals? Are tighty-whities a deal-breaker for you? Do fanny packs make you want to run for the door? Now, for the very first time, we're revealing the secret list of things that so many perfectly eligible guys manage to wear, say, or do to make themselves completely undateable. With an essential rating system that ranges from minor red-flag offenses all the way to the irreversible kiss of death, this hilarious handbook exposes the many common mistakes that can turn an otherwise acceptable man from a "maybe" into a "no way." From pleated shorts and soul patches to ordering girly drinks and owning more than one cat, the evidence is painfully funny to behold. No more double denim, corporate swag, or exclaiming "Booya!" No more jogging in place at stoplights, and definitely no more "going dutch" on the first date. This book is for every woman who's ever wondered where to draw the line, and every guy who's ever asked, "What did I do wrong?" Here's what you did.