Personal essays share the author's adventures after buying a vacation house on the Carolina coast and his reflections on middle age and mortality

"A beautiful and utterly original novel about making art, love, and children during the twilight of an empire Ben Lerner's first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, was hailed as "one of the truest (and funniest) novels. of his generation" (Lorin Stein, The New York Review of Books), "a work so luminously original in style and form as to seem like a premonition, a comet from the future" (Geoff Dyer, The Observer). Now, his second novel departs from...

"From Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford: the final novel in the world of Frank Bascombe, one of the most indelible characters in American literature Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive, and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is once more our guide to the great American midway....

Offers insight into healthcare practices, identifying the cellular sources of aging and illness and revealing that aggressive treatments provide an illusion of control and survivability at the cost of life quality.

At the age of sixty-one, George Hall settles to a comfortable retirement. His tempestuous daughter, Katie, then announces that she is getting remarried to the deeply inappropriate Ray to her family's displeasure. Her mother, Jean, is disgusted with the huge preparation the wedding entails, which also disrupts her late-life affair with one of her husband's ex-colleagues. The seemingly neat and pleasant life of George and Jean's son, Jamie, disintegrates...

"A vibrant, heartfelt memoir about confronting mortality, surviving loss, finding resilience in one's Midwest roots and seeking a father's wisdom through an unusual woodworking project--constructing his own coffin"--Amazon.com

The author traces the documentation of her own life in diaries over twenty-five years, exploring the struggle to find clarity in life. "In her third book that continues to define the contours of the contemporary essay, Sarah Manguso confronts a meticulous diary that she has kept for twenty-five years. "I wanted to end each day with a record of everything that had ever happened," she explains. But this simple statement belies a terror that she might...

"Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn returns with his signature morbid wit, intellectual daring, and emotive powers on full display. In this meditative and incisive collection, Stephen Dunn draws on themes of morality and mortality to explore the innermost machinations of human nature. Shifting in tone but never wavering in their essential honesty, these poems reflect on desire, restraint, and the roles we play in an ever- evolving society. A stunning...

Based on his popular series in the 'New York Times' chronicling his cross-country bicycle trip, bestselling author Bruce Weber shares his adventures from his solo ride across the USA. Riding a bicycle across the US is one of those bucket-list goals that many dream about but few achieve. Bestselling author and 'New York Times' reporter Bruce Weber made the trip, solo, over the summer and fall of 2011-at the age of fifty-seven. Expanding upon his popular...

Jo Gillespie is a policewoman whose detective husband is killed in the line of duty while working undercover on a case. Her coworkers expect her to stay out of the investigation, but when alarming information about her husband comes to light, Jo loses faith in her police family and sets out to find the killer herself. Along the way she learns of the many dark secrets surrounding her husband, his colleagues, and the criminals they were investigating....