Jagged Edge Of The Sky

A free black man in London wanders too close to the docks on the wrong day. A woman gives birth alone in a barn loft near an Australian outback crossroads. A mother removes her apron, walks away from her family, and tells her secrets only once. A woman in a California living room sobs as her husband informs the assembled adult children that the youngest is only half-brother to the rest. A mental health agent in Idaho struggles with addiction, bureaucracy, and an affection for one of her charges, a dark-haired transient from Australia. In Paula Marie Coomer's Jagged Edge of the Sky connections of blood and circumstance emerge from a kaleidoscopic narrative in which these and other characters navigate rugged personal terrains of loss and hope. The resulting literary landscape is spare and challenging as the Australian outback, mythical as the American West. With a relentless eye, Paula Marie Coomer flinches from neither the gruesome nor the humorous in this fractured tale of loners, siblings, parents, and lovers.

For René Magritte, painting was a form of thinking. Through paintings of ordinary objects rendered with illusionism, Magritte probed the limits of our perception—what we see and cannot see, the nature of representation—as a philosophical system for presenting ideas, and explored perspective as a method of visual argumentation. This book makes the claim that Magritte’s painting is about vision and the act of viewing, of perception itself, and the process of how we see and experience things in the world, including paintings as things.

A revised and expanded edition of the music icon's definitive biography incorporates newly discovered personal writings, additional details on Hendrix's romantic relationships, and additional research into his creative life.

My blood is toxic to vampires . . . If there's one thing I want, it's to get off this iceberg. I'm thinking college on the East Coast. ANYWHERE besides Alaska. Then a near-fatal car wreck changes everything. Government agents jump in and save my life in exchange for my services as a vampire hunter. Did they just say vampires? Yep. And they're not the kind that sparkle. They're rabid, disgusting, rude . . . and way too suave. Those are the ones I really have to watch out for. A knife isn't my only weapon. My rare blood type sends vampires into temporary paralysis right before I have to finish the job by hand. Basically, I'm a glorified chew toy. Now I'm stuck with an overzealous partner, a group of suck junkies, and a maddening attraction to Mr. Joe Cool, dresses all in black, Fane Donado. Clearly, he's keeping secrets of his own. The old Aurora is gone forever. Destroyed in the wreckage. I don’t know who I am anymore, only that I suddenly have intense cravings and a V.I.P. pass into Alaska’s underworld. If vampires found out who I worked for it would be lights out forever. In the meantime, I have some undead ass to kick so long as it doesn't kick mine first. Fans of young adult dark fantasy, vampires, action, and forbidden romance will devour this story. Get your copy and start reading today!

In Amanda Skenandore’s provocative and profoundly moving debut, set in the tragic intersection between white and Native American culture, a young girl learns about friendship, betrayal, and the sacrifices made in the name of belonging. On a quiet Philadelphia morning in 1906, a newspaper headline catapults Alma Mitchell back to her past. A federal agent is dead, and the murder suspect is Alma’s childhood friend, Harry Muskrat. Harry—or Asku, as Alma knew him—was the most promising student at the “savage-taming” boarding school run by her father, where Alma was the only white pupil. Created in the wake of the Indian Wars, the Stover School was intended to assimilate the children of neighboring reservations. Instead, it robbed them of everything they’d known—language, customs, even their names—and left a heartbreaking legacy in its wake. The bright, courageous boy Alma knew could never have murdered anyone. But she barely recognizes the man Asku has become, cold and embittered at being an outcast in the white world and a ghost in his own. Her lawyer husband, Stewart, reluctantly agrees to help defend Asku for Alma’s sake. To do so, Alma must revisit the painful secrets she has kept hidden from everyone—especially Stewart. Told in compelling narratives that alternate between Alma’s childhood and her present life, Between Earth and Sky is a haunting and complex story of love and loss, as a quest for justice becomes a journey toward understanding and, ultimately, atonement.

Selected by Barry Hannah as the 1996 winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction.

Sources show Qu Yuan (?340–278 BCE) was the first person in China to become famous for his poetry, so famous in fact that the Chinese celebrate his life with a national holiday called Poet's Day, or the Dragon Boat Festival. His work, which forms the core of the The Songs of Chu, the second oldest anthology of Chinese poetry, derives its imagery from shamanistic ritual. Its shaman hymns are among the most beautiful and mysterious liturgical works in the world. The religious milieu responsible for their imagery supplies the backdrop for his most famous work, Li sao, which translates shamanic longing for a spirit lover into the yearning for an ideal king that is central to the ancient philosophies of China. Qu Yuan was as important to the development of Chinese literature as Homer was to the development of Western literature. This translation attempts to replicate what the work might have meant to those for whom it was originally intended, rather than settle for what it was made to mean by those who inherited it. It accounts for the new view of the state of Chu that recent discoveries have inspired.

Expect this generational story of love to sweep you off your feet, break your heart, and mend it. You won't forget this story any time soon. Emma Whitney has been alone most of her life. After her mother died when Emma was in fourth grade, the Washington State foster care system became her home. All grown up, she follows the few clues she has to her mother's past, a journey that takes her from Tacoma, Washington, to Draper, a small town in North Texas. There she meets the handsome Adam Scott, and he's everything you'd imagine in a Southern gentleman. Their attraction is immediate, but Adam's dad, Jasper, seems almost repelled by Emma. The mystery deepens as Emma reads a 1923 journal written by one of Adam's relatives, Dr. Frank. His entries reveal tragic events in the past that tell Emma things she never imagined, things about her and others in this small Texas town. As she struggles to understand herself in this new light, her relationship with Adam can't get past Jasper's dislike of her. As Emma navigates the truth, she makes connections that help her, for the first time, understand the meaning of family. Buy the book today, and join Emma and a memorable cast of characters on this emotional ride of self-discovery, family, perseverance, and ultimately, love.