Ceiling Of Sticks

Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, Shane Book's collection,Ceiling of Sticks, is a powerful and unflinching sort of documentary poetics. It bears elegiac witness to the effects of global politics on individual lives. Book's poems carry us to Uganda, Ghana, Mali, Trinidad, and Canada's west coast; from a religious sacrifice in Tarahumara, Mexico, to Book's ailing grandfather's bedside. They bring an intimate vision of humanity to scenes of inhuman atrocity and suffering; a moment of clarity and empathy to individuals overwhelmed by war or other man-made catastrophes. The attentiveness of the poems and meditative lyrics reveal a careful allegiance to their subjects and a fearless refusal to turn away. Filled with experiences of Africa and Latin America, California and the Caribbean, family and lost love, these poems resonate with the intensity of truth as it is lived and written.

"[Savaş] writes with both sensuality and coolness, as if determined to find a rational explanation for the irrationality of existence..." -- The New York Times "I fell in love with this book." -- Katie Kitamura, author of A Separation A mesmerizing novel set in Paris and a changing Istanbul, about a young Turkish woman grappling with her past and her complicated relationship with a famous British writer. After her mother's death, Nunu moves from Istanbul to a small apartment in Paris. One day outside of a bookstore, she meets M., an older British writer whose novels about Istanbul Nunu has always admired. They find themselves walking the streets of Paris and talking late into the night. What follows is an unusual friendship of eccentric correspondence and long walks around the city. M. is working on a new novel set in Turkey and Nunu tells him about her family, hoping to impress and inspire him. She recounts the idyllic landscapes of her past, mythical family meals, and her elaborate childhood games. As she does so, she also begins to confront her mother's silence and anger, her father's death, and the growing unrest in Istanbul. Their intimacy deepens, so does Nunu's fear of revealing too much to M. and of giving too much of herself and her Istanbul away. Most of all, she fears that she will have to face her own guilt about her mother and the narratives she's told to protect herself from her memories. A wise and unguarded glimpse into a young woman's coming into her own, Walking on the Ceiling is about memory, the pleasure of invention, and those places, real and imagined, we can't escape.

Senlin continues his ascent up the tower in the word-of-mouth phenomenon fantasy series about one man's dangerous journey through a labyrinthine world. "One of my favorite books of all time" -- Mark Lawrence on Senlin Ascends The Tower of Babel is proving to be as difficult to reenter as it was to break out of. Forced into a life of piracy, Senlin and his eclectic crew are struggling to survive aboard their stolen airship as the hunt to rescue Senlin's lost wife continues. Hopeless and desolate, they turn to a legend of the Tower, the mysterious Sphinx. But help from the Sphinx never comes cheaply, and as Senlin knows, debts aren't always what they seem in the Tower of Babel. Time is running out, and now Senlin must choose between his friends, his freedom, and his wife. Does anyone truly escape the Tower?

This novel-in-verse—at once literary and emotionally gripping—follows the unfolding friendship between two very different teenage girls who share a hospital room and an illness. Chess, the narrator, is sick, but with what exactly, she isn’t sure. And to make matters worse, she must share a hospital room with Shannon, her polar opposite. Where Chess is polite, Shannon is rude. Where Chess tolerates pain silently, Shannon screams bloody murder. Where Chess seems to be getting slowly better, Shannon seems to be getting worse. How these teenagers become friends, helping each other come to terms with their illness, makes for a dramatic and deeply moving read. "An emotional and innovative novel.... There is so much pathos and humor in these two hospital beds." —E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars "A story told with the utmost economy of language—intense, compelling, and satisfying." —Susan Patron, author of the Newbery Medal winner The Higher Power of Lucky "Riveting, humanizing and real." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred "A raw, unsentimental perspective on the fight to keep an illness from overpowering one's identity." —Publishers Weekly From the Hardcover edition.

For any of us, what stays? For the arsonist's wife who has not yet left? The devout saint trudging another mile in his nail-shoes? The lost couple in their dying moments in a Nebraska blizzard? The old woman who refuses to leave her home in Chernobyl? With an unflinching eye, James Crews gives us the forbidden love, forbidden unions, and secret lives that, whatever the loss, the attrition, the cost, we must acknowledge, must hold, must keep. And here, in Crews's finely wrought, deeply felt poems, is their testimony.

He's bad at sports and not much better at school, but Jimmy sure can draw terrific cartoons. And his dream, like that of his Uncle Lester, who writes flop Broadway musicals'is to be recognized for what he loves doing most.

Once upon a time, the New York Islanders were the embodiment of greatness: four-time Stanley Cup champions and a model franchise in the National Hockey League during the early '80s. The dynasty quickly crumbled, however, and the team found itself in a seemingly never-ending freefall. One embarrassing episode after another befell the once-mighty Islanders: Kirk Muller balked at being traded to the team; the team's classic logo was replaced with one that was vehemently ridiculed, earning the team the nickname "Fish Sticks"; a slick con artist managed to buy the team with nothing more than his charm; the team failed to make the playoffs seven seasons in a row as miserly owners purged players salaries; Hall of Fame great Bryan Trottier feuded with the team and blocked the retirement of his jersey; embattled general manager "Mad Mike" Milbury couldn't do anything to get himself fired. Yet, having finally hit bottom after enduring countless trials and near-unbelievable tribulations, the team has begun its climb to the top. New owner Charles Wang has brought not only a desire to return the Islanders to their place of pride, but also the money to do it. The team experienced a remarkable resurgence during the 2001-02 season. Ticket sales have skyrocketed since that breakthrough success, with the team expecting to fight its way back into the playoffs for a second straight season.

Via memory, material objects, music, people and place, Hip Hop In The Sticks picks up where Scratching the Surface left off. Through the eyes of an adolescent rural hip hop head, questions of identity, heritage and one’s own location in the world emerge through rich lived experience. Often idiosyncratic, humorously dry, and underpinned by comprehensive and informative endnotes, Hip Hop In The Sticks presents a deep non-fiction contextual narrative, intersecting family secrets, a different sense of community and kinship, embryonic hip hop and graffiti practice. Hip Hop In The Sticks makes visible a different account of life in late 1980s rural Britain and an alternative version of hip hop history.

The House of the Cylinder Jars details the archaeological excavations led by Patricia L. Crown at Pueblo Bonito’s famed Room 28 in Chaco Canyon in 2013. Originally excavated in 1896 by the Hyde Exploring Expedition, Room 28 gained notoriety for its incredible assemblage of 174 whole ceramic vessels. Crown and her team reopened Room 28 after she and Jeffrey Hurst discovered residues of chocolate in cylinder jar fragments from Pueblo Bonito in 2009. Their research revealed the first evidence of chocolate north of the US-Mexico border and possibly linked Chacoan rituals surrounding cacao use to Mesoamerica. The House of the Cylinder Jars documents the re-excavation of Room 28, and places it within the context of other rooms at Pueblo Bonito, and describes the ritual termination by fire of the materials stored in the room. The contributors also offer a modern interpretation of the construction and depositional histories of surrounding spaces at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon.