Life Between Seconds

For fans of Karen Russell's Swamplandia! comes a new tale of found family and magic.After his mother dies, Peter Berry collects memories in broken watches the way others collect photographs. Peter takes his box filled with broken watches and flees his childhood home to a battered apartment complex in San Francisco—his mother's favorite city—in an attempt to bury the box with the dark truths of her haunting memory before she returns to take him too. The night Sofia Morales's daughter disappears, Sofia begins to hear her daughter's voice. Her world crumbles—her marriage crumbles. After demanding her husband leave, Sofia runs from Buenos Aires, Argentina to San Francisco—a city she always wanted to visit—renting an apartment in a beat-up complex at the edge of North Beach and blasting the radio to escape the voice of whom she can't bear to listen. Peter and Sophia become close friends in the confined space of the city, finding companionship in the shadow of their unspoken nightmares. When Sofia receives a letter from her estranged husband, and Peter proves unable to bury his box of watches, the ghosts of their pasts once more threaten the lives they have created, now tearing at the fabric of their friendship with the tormented memories they keep, whether real or imagined. Unfolding over three decades, Life Between Seconds sets Peter and Sophia on a collision course with their respective pasts propelling them toward either redemption or damnation. Engrossing, heartbreaking, and surreal Douglas Weissman's first adult novel is a meditation on trauma, family, and how to heal after a great loss.

Shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by Bookpage, NPR, Washington Post, and The Economist A moving novel on the power of friendship in our darkest times, from internationally renowned writer and speaker Elif Shafak. In the pulsating moments after she has been murdered and left in a dumpster outside Istanbul, Tequila Leila enters a state of heightened awareness. Her heart has stopped beating but her brain is still active-for 10 minutes 38 seconds. While the Turkish sun rises and her friends sleep soundly nearby, she remembers her life-and the lives of others, outcasts like her. Tequila Leila's memories bring us back to her childhood in the provinces, a highly oppressive milieu with religion and traditions, shaped by a polygamous family with two mothers and an increasingly authoritarian father. Escaping to Istanbul, Leila makes her way into the sordid industry of sex trafficking, finding a home in the city's historic Street of Brothels. This is a dark, violent world, but Leila is tough and open to beauty, light, and the essential bonds of friendship. In Tequila Leila's death, the secrets and wonders of modern Istanbul come to life, painted vividly by the captivating tales of how Leila came to know and be loved by her friends. As her epic journey to the afterlife comes to an end, it is her chosen family who brings her story to a buoyant and breathtaking conclusion.

Kicking ass and taking notes—what it’s like to be a woman in the ring. Alison Dean teaches English literature. She also punches people. Hard. But despite several amateur fights under her belt, she knows she will never be taken as seriously as a male boxer. “You punch like a girl” still isn’t a compliment — women aren’t supposed to choose to participate in violence. Her unique perspective as a 30-something university lecturer turned amateur fighter allows Dean to articulately and with great insight delve into the ways martial arts can change a person’s — and particularly a woman’s — relationship to their body and to the world around them, and at the same time considers the ways in which women might change martial arts. Combining historical research, anecdotal experience, and interviews with coaches and fighters, Seconds Out explores our culture’s relationship with violence, and particularly with violence practiced by women. "An important addition to women’s martial arts scholarship, Dean provides personal insight into the radical space women occupy in sport fighting. Seconds Out is a must-read for all fighters looking for mentors in the complicated world of martial arts." —L.A. Jennings, author of Mixed Martial Arts: A History from Ancient Fighting Sports to the UFC "Dean brings a fresh new female voice to the topic of combat sports." —Trevor Wittman, renowned MMA trainer, UFC analyst, and founder of ONX Sports "Trained in the discipline and art of both fighting and literature, Dean combines both with style. She honors the fighters, writers, and historians who have come before her and definitively ends the idea of women fighters as a novelty. Seconds Out is a must-read for anyone who feels the call of the bell and reverence for a good fight." —Sue Jaye Johnson

In N. Y. Haynes' The Space Between Seconds you'll see there is an extremely intimate wireless communication that affects both your mental and emotional state and your physical health. You'll discover how unresolved patterns when observed and embodied allow you to claim a more vigorous and graceful life. With creative, heartfelt insights and experience The Space Between Seconds engages you to open, nurture communication, and respond to this priceless energy. N.Y. Haynes draws a map providing challenging opportunities for fulfillment and pleasure in constructing a fear-free body that's lovely to look at...fun to own...and great to live in! So come on, dive in, laugh, and learn to live like the power of the ocean and the melody of the sky, because "It's what you learn after you think you know it all that counts."

This action-packed second book in international bestseller Harlan Coben’s Mickey Bolitar young adult series follows Mickey as he continues to hunt for clues about the Abeona Shelter and the mysterious death of his father—all while trying to navigate the challenges of a new high school. When tragedy strikes close to home, Mickey and his loyal new friends—sharp-witted Ema and the adorkably charming Spoon—find themselves at the center of a terrifying mystery involving the shooting of their classmate Rachel. Now, not only does Mickey need to keep himself and his friends safe from the Butcher of Lodz, but he needs to figure out who shot Rachel—no matter what it takes. Mickey Bolitar is as quick-witted and clever as his uncle Myron, but with danger just seconds away, it is going to take all of his determination and help from his friends to protect the people he loves, even if he does not know who—or what—he is protecting them from. From Kirkus Reviews: “Coben deftly weaves…multiple plot threads into a compelling whole. An involving thriller that moves like lightning.”

“Clever and entertaining . . . contains everything you’d want to know about the ticking away of seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, decades and centuries.” —Time.com Our relationship to time is complex and paradoxical: Time stands still. Time also flies. Tomorrow is another day. Yet there’s no time like the present. We want to do more in less time, but wish we could slow the clock. And despite all our time-saving devices—smart phones, AI, high-speed trains—Americans feel that they have less leisure time than ever. In an era when our time feels fractured and imperiled, The Book of Times encourages readers to ponder time used and time spent. How long does it take to find a new mate, digest a hamburger, or compose a symphony? How much time do we spend daydreaming, texting, and getting ready for work? The book challenges our beliefs and urges us to consider how, and why, some things get faster, some things slow down, and some things never change (the need for seven to eight hours of sleep). Packed with compelling charts, lists, and quizzes, as well as new and intriguing research, The Book of Times is an addictive, browsable, and provocative look at the idea of time from every direction. “Alderman’s greatest achievement is the continual delivery of quirky knowledge that our collective curiosities crave.” —Forbes “Fascinated by how we spend—and waste—our most precious commodity, journalist Lesley Alderman gathered the sometimes-surprising stats for her debut, The Book of Times.” —People “A fascinating foray into familiar terrain and a revealing look at how we really spend our lives.” —Mental Floss

A blind psychic with a remarkable gift--she can see the last 18 seconds of a murder victim's life--helps a newly minted female police lieutenant hunt down a brutal serial killer in this gripping debut thriller.

It takes only a single, 30-second decision to change your work or personal life for the better. Getting to that point is what is more complex, and getting there depends on the decisions you make and the context you use to make those decisions.