American Literature Anthology

"In almost any culture, at any time, you can find food writing,” writes guest editor Mark Bittman in his introduction. “Food means growing and hardship, and health and medicine, and work and holiday. In its abundance it is a gift and a joy, and in its absence a curse and a tragedy. If a culture has writing, that culture has food writing.” The stories in this year’s Best American Food Writing are brilliant, eye-opening windows into the heart of our country’s culture.

This magnificent volume gathers the published verse of Allen Ginsberg in its entirety, a half-century of brilliant work from one of America's greatest poets.

Elizabeth Gaskell, famed author of Cranford, is cherished for her incise social observations and portrayals of the changing nature of English life through the Industrial Revolution of the Victorian era. In Cousin Phillis, Paul Manning has only recently left home to work on the railway line for the dashing Mr Holdsworth. Lodging with an Independent Minister on the outskirts of London, he becomes acquainted with his distant cousins, where he is delighted to meet his genial relations, and not least his cousin Phyllis

A livewire debut from Dantiel W. Moniz, one of the most exciting discoveries in today's literary landscape, Milk Blood Heat depicts the sultry lives of Floridians in intergenerational tales that contemplate human connection, race, womanhood, inheritance, and the elemental darkness in us all. Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning.

Transgressive, foulmouthed, and brutally funny, Brontez Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends is a revelatory spiral into the imperfect lives of queer men desperately fighting the urge to self-sabotage. As they tiptoe through minefields of romantic, substance-fueled misadventure - from dirty warehouses and gentrified bars in Oakland to desolate farm towns in Alabama - Purnell’s characters strive for belonging in a world that dismisses them for being Black, broke, and queer. In spite of it - or perhaps because of it - they shine.

As a window into the magic and potential of the Northwest Territories, Richard Van Camp's fourth short-story collection is hilarious and heartbreaking. A teenaged boy confesses to a vicious assault on a cross-dressing classmate; Lance tells the sensual story of becoming much closer to his wife's dear friend Juanita; while a reluctant giant catches up with gangsters Torchy and Sfen in a story with shades of supernatural and earthly menace.

A rural town finds itself under the authoritarian sway of a tree that punishes children. A pair of old friends navigate their fraught history as strange happenings escalate in a Mexican restaurant. A pair of narcissistic friends wreak havoc on an activist community. An aloof young man finds himself living through his lover’s memories. And a day of LARPing takes a cosmic turn.

Alexander Chee, an essayist of “virtuosity and power” (Washington Post), selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a poet, novelist, and literary critic. He created the enchanting world of fairyland inhabited by characters like the snow-queen, the mermaid's son, ogres, dwarfs, monsters, magicians, and giants. The Pink Fairy Book contains 41 tales from Africa, Japan, Scandinavia, and Europe. They range from familiar stories like "The Snow-Queen" and "The Fir-Tree" to the obscure tales of the Tanuki. This collection contains stories like "The Cats' Elopement", The "Princess in the Chest", "Snowflake", and more....

In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness.

“Imparting some piece of yourself—any part—is arduous and warrants some kind of commendation,” writes guest editor Wesley Morris in his introduction. Both personal and personable, the essayists in this volume use their own vulnerability to guide listeners on excursions that unfold on uncomfortable edges. From contemplating the nuances of memory to exploring the complexities of family, romance, gender identity, illness, and death, Morris’s selection of essays presents a roundup of the thinkers who masterfully grapple with the issues of our time.

The American Classics Collection is a century-spanning collection of 17 classic novels, short stories, essay, and poetry by American authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Kobna Holdbrook-Smith; Nathan Osgood; Robert G. Slade; Jonathan Keeble, and more. Included here are stories by some of the greatest writers of all time, including Ernest Hemingway; Mark Twain; F. Scott Fitzgerald; Edith Wharton; Frederick Douglass; and H.P. Lovecraft, amongst a host of others.

“The People Could Fly,” the title story in Virginia Hamilton’s prize-winning American Black folktale collection, is a fantasy tale of the slaves who possessed the ancient magic words that enabled them to literally fly away to freedom. And it is a moving tale of those who did not have the opportunity to “fly” away, who remained slaves with only their imaginations to set them free as they told and retold this tale.

The critically acclaimed author of The Rib King returns with an eagerly anticipated collection of interlocking short stories including the title story written exclusively for this volume, that explore relationships between friends, family and strangers in a Black neighborhood over fifteen years. The twelve gripping tales In The Last Suspicious Holdout, the new story collection by award-winning author Ladee Hubbard, deftly chronicle poignant moments in the lives of an African American community located in a “sliver of southern suburbia.”

In the city of Houston - a sprawling, diverse microcosm of America - the son of a black mother and a Latino father is coming of age. He's working at his family's restaurant, weathering his brother's blows, resenting his older sister's absence - and discovering he likes boys.

Hot Water Music is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, published in 1983. The collection deals largely with: drinking, women, gambling, and writing. It is an important collection that establishes Bukowski's minimalist style and his thematic oeuvre.

Flexin' & Sexin' is back with it's second installment of urban erotic tales. This anthology is jammed packed with sexy street tales featuring some of today's hottest urban & erotic authors. This book is filled with sex, drama, and violence with amazing twist, leaving you shocked.

In New York City, an art student finds an unexpected subject when she moves in with a grandmother from Xi’an, and boundaries are put into question. When a newlywed couple moves to Arizona, adapting to unfamiliar customs keeps their marriage from falling apart. A woman grapples with what it means to care for another, and the limits of that care, when her dying husband returns from Beijing years after abandoning her. And during a rainy summer in Texas, a visitor exposes the unspoken but unburiable history that binds two families together.

Step into the magical world of Wonderland in this gloriously illustrated picture book retelling of Lewis Carroll’s enduring classic, from the highly-regarded, prize-winning illustrator of Blue Kangaroo and Melrose and Croc.When Alice follows a white rabbit down a hole she discovers the extraordinary world of Wonderland, where a magical adventure begins.

In Temple Folk, Black Muslims contemplate the convictions of their race, religion, economics, politics, and sexuality in America. The ten “beautiful and vivid” (Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award­–winning and New York Times bestselling author) stories in this collection contribute to the bounty of diverse narratives about Black life by intimately portraying the experiences of a community that resists the mainstream culture to which they are expected to accept and aspire to while functioning within the country in which they are born.