Leapfrog Press

“Exemplary storytelling that grapples with important themes. LaBrie’s collection of misanthropic short stories offers meditations on death, dying, grief, and organ donation.” — Kirkus Reviews

In her award-winning collection of short stories, Rage and Other Cages, LaBrie offers lessons on grief, loneliness, and relationships that examine what it means to be female in today's America. 

The characters range from a former child actress turned real estate agent who yearns for her past, to a nurse who must convince a murderer to donate his girlfriend's organs, to a bartender at Ray's Happy Birthday Bar who is kidnapped by a customer searching for a mysterious key. Bad dates, bad jobs, and bad situations force these characters to use their wits and wiles to survive. In a voice akin to Lorrie Moore meets Mary Gaitskill, LaBrie has her readers laughing on one page and raging on another. Her voice is memorable, raw, and undeniably skillful.

NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST

“Irene Butter’s book is a triumph of clarity and concision, written with a passionate intent to inform and with not a shred of self-pity. It is by turns profound and intimate, and bears witness to the resilience of a family who drew strength from one another even through the darkness of the Holocaust. It is a shockingly honest and hopeful book.” Andrew Solomon, National Book Award Winning Author of The Noonday Demon and author of Far From The Tree Parent's Children, And The Search For Identity

“Irene Butter’s story is not your standard holocaust memoir. Instead, it recounts what happened to one family both during and after the war, and captures vividly the time from release from concentration camp to greeting a life back. It is compelling reading, and makes one realise how what happened in the immediate aftermath may have overshadowed the rest of Irene Butter’s life..” Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger

Irene Butter’s memoir of her experiences before, during and after the Holocaust is not a recounting of misery and tragedy; rather it is the genuine story of a girl coming to terms with a terrible event and choosing to view herself as a survivor instead of a victim. When the Dutch police knock on their door, Irene and her family are forced to leave their home and board trains meant for cattle. They are taken to Nazi-controlled prison camps and finally to Bergen-Belsen, where Irene is a fellow prisoner with Anne Frank. With limited access to food, shelter, and warm clothing, Irene’s family needs nothing short of a miracle to survive. Irene’s memoir tells the story of her experiences as a young girl before, during, and after the Holocaust, highlighting how her family came to terms with the catastrophe and how she, over time, came to view herself as a survivor rather than a victim. Throughout the book, her first-person account celebrates the love and empathy that can persist even in the most inhumane conditions.

Plenty of things in Zora’s youth would seem strange to others, but they’re perfectly normal to her. Her mother’s fixation with germs, and parties, and the power of names. Her father, who Zora rarely sees, disappearing among the stars as his biggest claim to fame. Her role in explaining things to her younger sister, even as Zora works to discover her own philosophies of life. And her neighborhood, a one-way street with an entrance but no exit called "the Aves."

Zora wants more. More than an honorable name. More than glimpses of glory captured in window frames. Surviving childhood can be as intricate as the intertwined streets of Los Angeles. But as Zora grows, so does her story. And in the process, her desire for more is transformed into a tribute of the magnificent people who live alongside her.

NOW AN INDEPENDENT FEATURE FILM
“The Ghost Trap tells a harrowing tale of love, survival, and heartbreak” – Kyle Bain, Bain’s Film Reviews, rated 8/10 

“Stephens gives the reader an unvarnished view of the subculture of lobster fishermen in small-town coastal Maine.” — James Acheson, author of The Lobster Gangs of Maine

“Stephens has a wonderful clear eye for people, especially Maine people, and The Ghost Trap is populated with dozens from all walks of Maine life.” — Bill Roorbach, author of Temple Stream

“A salty, tangy read. . . . Stephens plunges you into the back-breaking, heart-breaking life of one lobsterman.” — Richard Grant, author of Another Green World

“Stephens nails harbor life down to the unwritten rules and defense of imaginary territory lines. . . . Peppered with dark humor and brutal honesty, The Ghost Trap gives it to you straight, the way life should be.” — Ryan Post, fourth-generation lobsterman, creator of Mainebuggin.com

“Characters and setting that reflect a real, raw piece of Maine. . . . With Anja and Jamie, Stephens introduces us to characters whose stories and situations are heartbreaking. This book reminds us that as complicated as lobster fishing might be, human relationships are always more fraught with difficulty.” — Portland Phoenix

In Reading Claudius, Caroline Heller does what Rilke called the “heart-work,” exploring moral accountability and the toll exacted by the fact of survival. Her family story begins in pre-war Czechoslovakia, passes through the Nazi holocaust, and continues on in postwar America, affirming that events may end but repercussions never do. A searching and humane memoir. —Sven Birkerts, author of The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again

In this unforgettable dual memoir of her parents’ lives and her own, Caroline Heller brings to life the lost world of European café culture, and reminds us of the sustaining power of literature in the most challenging of times.

Heller vividly evokes prewar Prague, where her parents lived, loved, and studied. Her mother, Liese Florsheim, was a young German refugee initially drawn to Erich Heller, a bright but detached intellectual, rather than to his brother, Paul. As Hitler’s power spreads and World War II becomes inevitable, their world is destroyed and they must flee the country and continent. Paul, who will eventually become the author’s father, is trapped and sent to Buchenwald, where he survives under hellish conditions.

Though Paul’s life nearly ends in Europe, he reunites with Liese in the United States, where they marry. Their daughter Caroline, restless and insecure, carries the trauma of her parents’ story with her, but her quest to make peace with her heritage is eased by her love of books and writers, part of her family legacy. Through the darkest years of Hitler’s rule, Caroline’s parents and uncle had turned time and time again to literature to help them survive—and so she does as well.

Written with sensitivity and grace, Reading Claudius is a profound meditation on the ways we strive to solve the mysteries of our pasts, and a window into understanding the ones we love.

Like Sir Francis Drake and Lord Horatio Nelson in Kevin Jackson’s acclaimed maritime history series, Captain James Cook was also born of humble means. The son of a Scottish farm labourer and a mother from Yorkshire, Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager on June June 1755, and would go on from his humble beginnings to become an explorer, master navigator, cartographer and one of the most celebrated naval Captains in British history. 

Cook’s Endeavour is Jackson’s masterful chronicle of Captain Cook’s first Pacific Ocean voyage; a landmark journey which resulted in the mapping of largely uncharted areas of New Zealand and Australia, first encounters with aboriginal tribes and leaps and bounds in botanical discovery. Aboard the Endeavour, Cook mapped a whole new world.

But Cook’s historic journey was not without tribulation, or without challenge – the famed botanist Joseph Banks, Cook’s contemporary and natural science expert on the Endeavour, was everything Cook was not; dapper, aristocratic, awarded with instantaneous fame for his discoveries in the aptly named Botany Bay. 

Cook’s Endeavour is the thrilling and inspiring story of a boy, lured in his youth to the sea, who became a man forever synonymous with discovery, legacy and adventure.

Through the eyes of her protagonist, Hazel Hawthorne, Faith Shearin shows us how one family can endure danger, illness, separation, and grief, using folklore as both escape and salvation. 

My Sister Lives in the Sea weaves together folklore and life on a barrier island; the Hawthorne family fights through divorce and loss as Bigfoot lurks nearby. 

FIRE ON THE ISLAND is a playful, romantic thriller set in contemporary Greece, with a gay Greek-American FBI agent, who is undercover on the island to investigate a series of mysterious fires. 

Set against the very real refugee crisis on the beautiful, sun-drenched Greek islands, this novel paints a loving portrait of a community in crisis. As the island residents grapple with declining tourism, poverty, refugees, family feuds, and a perilously damaged church, an arsonist invades their midst.

Nick Damigos, the FBI agent, arrives on the island just in time to witness the latest fire and save a beloved truffle-sniffing dog. Hailed as a hero and embraced by the community, Nick finds himself drawn to Takis, a young bartender who becomes his primary suspect, which is a problem because they're having an affair. Theirs is not the only complicated romance in the community and Takis isn't the only suspicious character on the island. Nick has to unravel the truth in time to prevent catastrophe, as he comes to terms with his own past trauma. In saving the village, he will go a long way toward saving himself.

WHAT I FORGOT TO TELL YOU is an engrossing coming-of-age love story, sans any sugar-coating, about two neurodivergent young people dealing with the often unjust, ableist world and their right and ability to find love and joy. 

Insightful, touching, gut-wrenching, original and important. A book which gives voice to characters we rarely ever hear from in fiction. A story that is a resource to pen our minds to other ways of experiencing the world and everyone's right to experience love and commitment.

It didn't always look as though Raheem Sterling would make it as a world-class player. From a difficult start in life to a tough time in the spotlight, Raheem has always had to think on his feet. This is the incredible story of how a boy who grew up in the shadow of Wembley Stadium used his grit and passion to steer himself to the very top.

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So, meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

A SPECULATIVE LITERATURE FOUNDATION AWARD WINNER

“Beautifully written and exquisitely conceived . . . an adventure for the coming climate change apocalypse. Jack leads readers through a forbidding continent of ice and other environmental consequences with little more than a willing heart and a fierce intelligence.” – Jane Rosenberg LaForge, author of The Hawkman

Jack, a 200-year-old intersex street kid, knows the world didn’t always look like it does now, with the Great Garbage Ocean spewing plastic and jellyfish along the shores and humanity on the brink of extinction.

As he travels through the desert in search of answers, his love, Joon, by his side, he remembers things from his lives before this one. The massive tidal wave that separated him from everyone he knew. His encounter with a trickster god. A world blanketed in never-ending ice, and his desperate trek across frozen lakes, through still-standing monuments to the past, and over roaring waterfalls to reach the salt sea.

In every life Jack has lived though, one thing has stayed the same: people’s will to survive.

“An inventive prequel to Jellyfish Dreaming . . . [with] post-apocalyptic settings that evoke more of Maurice Sendak than Mad Max, overcoming mounting cynicism about humanity to reactivate a sense of play.” – Michael J. Deluca, author of The Jaguar Mask

“In this strangely comforting skid into the apocalypse, D. K. McCutchen spins ice into electricity.” – Kirsten Mosher, author of Plea$e Steal Me for 100 Plus Dollar-zz

Born in a small Pennsylvania town, it was never certain that Christian Pulisic would be able to realize his full potential. But his youth, agility and impressive skills have taken Christian to some of the most demanding leagues in the world - and made him captain of the United States national team. After playing a crucial role in Chelsea's 2021 Champions League victory, Pulisic has now moved to serial Champions League winner, AC Milan.

This is the astonishing story of how this impressive youngster became the most expensive American soccer player in history.

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format.

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So, meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

In this coming-of-age literary thriller, Ahdaf, a gay Syrian refugee, after watching his cousin executed by ISIS for being homosexual, flees to Istanbul for safety. 

Ahdaf’s reputation as a people smuggler has put him in danger once more. A Syrian refugee himself, Ahdaf earns a meager living in Istanbul helping others make the crossing to Greece – a perilous line of work, but no less so than what he would face if the truth of his sexuality were discovered by ISIS.

Yet when the CIA and ISIS approach him about transporting high-profile individuals and serving as a double agent for their causes, Ahdaf ’s life is thrown into turmoil. And when his feelings for one of his clients come to light and as another possible relationship grows, the decision is taken out of his hands. Now a new choice lies before him, between two men and two different futures – if Ahdaf will live to see either of them. Istanbul Crossing is a story of adversity, love, and the courage of an ordinary man who must brave impossible situations in order to survive.

Desmond Morris was born in 1928. Educated at Birmingham and Oxford universities, he became the Curator of Mammals at London Zoo in 1959, a post he held for eight years.

In 1967 he published The Naked Ape which has sold over 10 million copies worldwide and has changed the way we view our own species forever.

An accomplished artist, TV presenter, film maker and writer, Desmond Morris's books have been published in over thirty-six countries.

"Coe writes like a man with polished wings, flying above it all while watching the high and low tides of life." – E. Ethelbert Miller, co-editor, Poet Lore magazine

Meet Sam: the last good man on earth. 

A man has lived on his own beside the sea for many years. From a choice made long ago, he keeps himself separate from the world of people, and is completely at one with his environment. His solitude is broken by the discovery, one early morning on the flat sands of a low tide, of a child washed up on the beach. Somehow, she is still alive. 

In the village, a woman reflects on a lifelong fascination with an ancient love story as she faces an unknown future. The new arrival on the beach sets in chain a sequence of events that no one can alter, and in this mystical and powerful novel, we witness a man experiencing our world as though for the first time. Discover Sam, the last good man on earth.

From humble beginnings in Brazil to becoming part of the most feared attacking trio in world soccer, Neymar has come a long way. But his path to the top was far from straightforward. After overcoming an injury that nearly finished his career, he struggled with the burdens and frustrations of carrying the dreams of a nation, at the age of just 24. Join the new Prince of Santos as he embarks on a personal quest – and wins some of the biggest trophies in soccer on the way. Neymar plays for Al Hilal in the Saudi Pro League and the Brazil National Team. 

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format.

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So, meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

Strong, quick, and physically dominant – Erling Haaland is the Manchester City striker who has it all. From an early age, his impatience and his determination to succeed always singled him out as a player to watch. This is the inspiring story of how a boy from Bryne in Norway used his extraordinary skill and his total self-belief to become one of the greatest strikers in the world.

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format.

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So, meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

"A poignant what-if tale that brings it all back." KEVIN RING, BEAT SCENE

It's December 1964 in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, who has just lost the Presidential election to Lyndon B Johnson, is driving alone one evening back to the house he shares with his wife, Peggy. On one side of the road, he sees a figure trudging back towards town and he stops to offer him a lift. 

So begins a highly unusual and emotional fictional friendship between Goldwater and the author, Jack Kerouac. 

Over the course of the next two days, the two men engage in a strange, wary exploration of each other's lives: one, an ebullient but bruised political animal; the other, a weary and almost defeated literary icon whose totemic novel, On The Road, was first published seven years before. 

Such an unlikely pairing brings about a soulful exploration of man's ambition and the bitter fruit it can deliver, set against the dramatic mountainous landscape of 1960s Arizona.

Messi was Barcelona's star player and one of the world's best footballer players. But as a boy he stopped growing at 11 and coaches worried he wasn't big enough. 

Discover the story of how Messi proved them wrong and how this boy from South America fought to become possibly the greatest football player of all time.

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format.

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So, meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

Mohamed Salah is Liverpool's superstar forward, and he is on a mission to become the best player in the world. This exciting book follows his adventures across the world – from the heat of Egypt to the magic of Rome, the roar of Anfield stadium and – finally – his big chance in a Champions League Final.

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format. 

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So, meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

Scoring over 790 goals during his career so far, Cristiano Ronaldo is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. Winning trophies as both a forward for Manchester United and Captain of the Portuguese national team, Ronaldo is one of the biggest names in football. 

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format. 

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So, meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

The South Korean player Son Heung-min is now considered to be one of the best wingers in the world. Currently playing for Tottenham Hotspur as a winger and a striker, he is also captain of the South Korea National Team. Son was selected as one of the 30 best players in the world for 2019. 

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offers a fresh take on the familiar football biography format. 

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

Quick, composed and physically dominant – Virgil van Dijk is the defender who has it all. But from washing dishes while he tried to secure his first professional contract to facing rejection and serious illness, it didn't always seem as if Virgil was going to make it to the top. 

This is the inspiring story of how a boy from Breda used his determination and self-belief to become one of the greatest defenders in the world. 

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format. 

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

Now a lethal striker for his boyhood club – and an international superstar – Marcus Rashford is living his dream. But from navigating a ruthless academy to playing under one of the fiercest managers in the game, Marcus's meteoric rise to the top of Manchester United wasn't always easy. 

This is the story of how a boy from Manchester used his passion and his talent to steer himself on a path to greatness. 

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format.

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So, meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

As a teenager, Kylian Mbappé was one of the best footballers on the planet. Now – he just keeps on getting better. Kylian's skill, pace and sensational finishing have fired his clubs and his country to incredible victories, whilst he has established himself firmly in the record books. Follow the whirlwind journey of this football-mad boy from Paris, who never let the weight of the world's expectations slow his journey to becoming a legend. 

This fictionalised biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format.

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. Printed on cream paper with a dyslexia-friendly font, these are also ideal books for reluctant and dyslexic readers. So, meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

A Football-Lover's Guide to Harry Kane

Harry Edward Kane MBE is regarded as one of the best strikers in football, with an incredible goal scoring record to his name. He plays for Bayern Munich having spent 14 years with Tottenham Hotspur where he was the club's highest goal scorer.

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format.

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury, and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
• And each player’s story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game.

Robert Lewandowski is one of the best strikers of his generation – but his journey to the top wasn't always easy. Finding himself without a club at the age of 17, Robert had no choice but to claw his way upthrough the ranks of Polish football. It led him to the top of one of the world's toughest leagues, the German Bundesliga. 

Join Robert on his unwavering mission to become one of the greatest players of all time. 

This biography is one of the new titles in Leapfrog's Tales from the Pitch series. These fast-moving reads offer a fresh take on the familiar football biography format.

• Each book focuses on one up-and-coming football superstar, often players who are still to reach the summit of their career. 
  
• The players are from all walks of life and have faced failure, injury and rejection, making these moving and inspirational stories. 
  
• The books are brimming with football banter that will have the knowing fans smiling. 
  
• And each players story is littered with football tricks and tips, so readers can learn the arts of the glorious game. 
  

At only 120 pages long, Tales from the Pitch are easy to read and very fast-paced reads. So, meet the footballers behind the iconic tackles and goals, and find out what makes each of these players so special.

“Coe is a poet’s poet, a jazzy, postmodern Ben Johnson . . . understated, but shimmering with wit, compassion, integrity of purpose.” — The Phoenix

"Duke used to say that the individual sound of a musician revealed his soul. Mick Carlon is a 'soul' storyteller."—Nat Hentoff, author of Jazz Country

"A ripping good yarn. . . . Plunges the reader into the world of Duke Ellington and the America of 1939."—Brian Morton, author of The Penguin Guide to Jazz

"Wonderfully convincing and authentic characterizations. . . . A thoroughly enjoyable read."—Dan Morgenstern, author of Living with Jazz 

"We encounter not only Duke's genius, but his character and humanity. This is one train you won't want to get off!"—Dick Golden, radio host

"When this marvelously evocative novel finds a home in the school curriculum, kids across America will be downloading Duke."—Jack Bradley

"Excellent command of voice, period, and ethnic dialect . . . clear love and in-depth knowledge of Ellington and his band."—Alexandria LaFaye, author of The Keening

Nine-year-old Danny stows away on Duke Ellington's train one Georgia night. Through Danny's eyes, we meet some of America's finest musicians as he accompanies them on their 1939 European tour, when the train was briefly held in Germany. Says Nat Hentoff, "I knew Duke Ellington for twenty-five years. The Ellington in this book is the man I knew."

Mick Carlon is a twenty-seven-year veteran English/journalism high- and middle-school teacher. A lifelong jazz fan, he regularly plays jazz in his classroom and has turned hundreds of students into jazz fans. He says, "If young people are simply exposed to the music and stories of these American artists, they will make a friend for life."

“We read Wodehouse because he was a master of words. We can read Kent for the same reason”. Wooster Sauce, journal of The P.G. Wodehouse Society (UK)

A TOUR OF THE COMIC IMAGINATION OF P.G. WODEHOUSE

P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) is widely acknowledged as the greatest English comic writer of the 20th century. The creator of Jeeves & Wooster, Lord Emsworth and Blandings, Ukridge, Mr. Mulliner, the Oldest Member and the Eggs, Beans and Crumpets of the Drones Club, the consistently upbeat tone of his 100 or so books represents one of the largest-ever literary bequests to human happiness by one man. Indeed, Wodehouse was not just a writer for his time, but for all time, and in 2019, a memorial commemorating his life and work was dedicated in Westminster Abbey, London, the only one to honour an out-and-out humourist. 

In this concluding volume of his groundbreaking trilogy, lifelong enthusiast Paul Kent sets out to explain the enduring, global appeal of PGW’s comic world from the U.K. to Japan via India and Russia. Granted unprecedented access to Wodehouse’s papers and library, it contains a wealth of fresh insight and scholarship that gets right to the heart of Wodehouse’s comic vision and is a must for both casual fan and devotee alike.

“Paul Kent has added his joy and light while giving us new insights into Wodehouse . . . Your time with his books will breeze by, and you will clamor for more. Hear that distant sound? That’s me already clamoring”.

GARY HALL, PLUM LINES, THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE WODEHOUSE SOCIETY (US)

“Kent is forging the new path in the way I hope writing about Wodehouse will go”.

As the Irvings head into their second decade of marriage, they’ve mostly abandoned their dreams and are committed to just getting by. There are children to love, jobs to do, and secrets to keep. But on a warm night in October, a falling woman changes everything.

When Cassie Irving discovers that her husband Danny is missing, she assumes he has left her for good. But within hours, he’s on the local news described as a gunshot victim, hospitalized after a violent incident on the roof of an apartment building—one that has left a woman dead, her body found on the sidewalk below. Danny, a little too conveniently, has no memory of the incident or the mysterious dead woman. The best way for the family to move on is to embrace silence and Danny’s plans for a golden future, but Cassie is haunted by the falling woman and a lingering suspicion that Danny is somehow responsible for her death.

As details from Danny’s past begin to emerge, Cassie sets out on a journey of discovery, reexamining her own choices while she untangles her husband’s years of secrets: youthful mistakes, missing persons, an ill-gotten artifact linked to misfortune—they all lead inevitably to a rooftop on a tragic October night. While Danny tries to patch over the past, Cassie races to avert the consequences of his good intentions, fearing that she will soon be forced to choose between silence and truth.

For more than four centuries, Sir Francis Drake has been world-famous for his feats as a master mariner – the captain who “singed the King of Spain’s beard” with his daredevil attack on the fleet at Cadiz, and who led the British Navy to victory against the Spanish Armada in 1588.

But Drake’s exploits in his earlier years, though less well known, are even more remarkable. Born into a poor, obscure family, he worked his way rapidly up in the maritime world to his first captaincy. Before long, he was the most successful of all English pirates, admired by his countrymen, hated and feared by the Spanish.

Queen Elizabeth and her ministers saw the potential in this rough-mannered but enterprising young man, and gave him their blessing for the first British venture into the Pacific Ocean. This success of this voyage, which lasted for three years, exceeded their wildest hopes. Not only did Drake come home with a vast treasure of captured gold, silver and jewels; he became the first man ever to circumnavigate the globe in a single mission, and bring most of his crew home alive and well. Soon after his triumphant return, Elizabeth knighted this newly rich adventurer, and gave her blessing to his acts of pillage. It was a gesture that made war with Spain inevitable. And Drake’s part in the coming war changed the course of world history.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE: THE QUEEN’S PIRATE tells the extraordinary story of Drake’s early years and his journey around the world on his famous ship, the Golden Hind.

Leslie Daniels, author of Cleaning Nabokov's House.

Molly Giles is the WINNER of a Pushcart Prize, The Flannery O' Connor Prize and The Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize.

At forty-four, Kay Sorensen has quit drinking, smoking, and overeating, and she has almost quit reading self-help books about quitting drinking, smoking and overeating. She has divorced her deadbeat husband, finished college, and landed a job she loves directing a small branch of the county library.

But Kay still has one unconquered addiction: she just can’t say no to someone who needs her.

Praise for other books by Molly Giles

“What an irreverent, original voice!”

– Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club

"Roll over, Evelyn Waugh, here's Molly Giles. She's the authentic satiric voice – a rare bird in American Letters – wicked, affectionate, and amused."

– Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun

"Molly Giles is the funniest writer of tragedy this country possesses." 

– Lucy Ferriss, author of The Misconceiver

"Molly Giles is like a dancer who can't put a foot down wrong."
– Cyra McFadden, author of The Serial

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD longlist nominee, Helen Phillips's debut novel, And Yet They Were Happy is "A gallery of marvels."--Washington Post

A young couple comes of age in a surreal world of apocalypse, delight, longing, and tenderness. 

A young couple sets out to build a life together in an unstable world haunted by monsters, plagued by disasters, full of longing—but also one of transformation, wonder, and delight, peopled by the likes of Noah, Bob Dylan, the Virgin Mary, and Anne Frank. Hovering between reality and fantasy, whimsy and darkness, these linked fables describe a universe both surreal and familiar.

Legion tells the astonishing life story of an man who was far more than a war hero; for Lawrence was also an archaeologist, a linguist and translator, a historian and classicist, a marine engineer, an airman and one of the great English writers of the 20th century.

He was also an enigma, even at times to himself, tormented by guilt and shame, by his masochism, self-loathing and his fear of his own sexuality.

Legion unearths not only a trove of little-known facts and stories about Lawrence's life, but also the fascinating details of what he has meant to many people, both in his lifetime and ever since. 

He has been hailed as the last romantic hero, despised as an agent of imperialism, blamed for the disasters of Middle Eastern politics and admired as a genius by countless eminent people - from statesmen such as Winston Churchill and Andre Malraux, to writers such as E. M. Forster and George Bernard Shaw. And, of course, he found a new form of immortality in David Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia.

Legion argues that Lawrence's true genius lies not in any one of his remarkable astonishments, but in their totality. Its novel approach to the hero will delight his many fans and surprise and enlighten those who know nothing of him save the popular myth.

BRITISH COMEDY AWARD winner, Chips Hardy's debut novel, Each Day a Small Victory is "...is not just a rich, sensuous, deeply humorous animal story - it is also a brilliant celebration of life, death and the whole damn thing."

Meet Max. He's made a name for himself as a rabid psychopath who uses random acts of violence to instigate a campaign of terror. He feels his blood thirsty reputation is undeserved and wants to set the record straight.

Each Day a Small Victory is a month-by-month look at Max's fraught and bloody encounters, as both the hunter and the hunted. 

"Pulp Fiction meets Wind in the Willows."  — Jake Arnott, Author of The Long Firm

"The memorable feat of a quirky and engaging imagination." Sir Roy Strong

"I've been reading a remarkable little book - Each Day a Small Victory by Chips Hardy. It's a kind of cute animal tale with a twist - it ain't cute! Far from it. This is anthropomorphic nature red in tooth and claw, with a twist of black humour. The anti-hero of the book, Max, is a stoat whose only aim in life is to find his next meal, while avoiding becoming someone else's. In that sense, it's the most honest animal story I've ever come across, and it's a great read. Chips clearly knows his countryside very well indeed - there is plenty of detail about the various animal characters and their habits. He is a British Comedy Award winner. The book has some stunning illustration by Oscar Grillo, who has worked on Monsters Inc and Men in Black, among others." — Sporting Shooter Magazine

Plum would steadily re-visit these characters and locations for another half-century, interspersing his tales with one off novels, stories and further, less voluminous sub series until his death in 1975. These were truly golden years, with Plum at the height of what he called his “mid-season form”. 

Paul Kent continues his groundbreaking study of Wodehouse’s imagination by casting a fresh eye over his created world, whose characters and stories have made our world feel better about itself for well over a century.

– Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and This Isn’t Going to End Well 

Port Kydd, 1929. Joshua Rivers, his pregnant wife Lily, his criminal sister Olive, a geriatric dog Orla, and a cast of ne'er-do-wells eke out life in The Swill, a speakeasy passed down through the Rivers family. Outside, political and race wars rage in The Bonny, the rough Irish neighborhood where they have always lived. But when Olive's in trouble and asks her brother to help her pull a job--one with roots that reach way back into the Rivers family history--who will take the fall? Can The Swill shelter the family, as it always has, or is their luck gone for good? 

“The Swill takes the reader on a winding and unpredictable path through history and class where every surface sparkles brilliantly with period detail. Gutierrez twines a half century of skullduggery, of Pinkertons, gangsters, speakeasies, of family, family secrets, and betrayals, into an arresting tale that is brutal, tender, and riveting. He writes unsentimentally, with humor, and with a deep and abiding love for the novel’s real subject, which is that of history and how deeply and intimately it connects us and shapes our fates. That is Gutierrez’s real genius and what makes this thriller so much more, what makes it so memorable.” 

– Alexander Parsons, director of creative writing at the University of Houston and author of In the Shadows of the Sun 

“Atmospheric and taut, Michael Gutierrez’s The Swill is an enthralling, raucous novel about art and history and violence. Imagine a barroom, low lit and pulsing with story, and imagine that story being told by Hemingway, Tarantino and Denis Johnson. That is Michael Gutierrez and his fabulous novel, The Swill.” 

– Travis Mulhauser, author of Sweet Girl 

“Why these novels aren’t on the way to a Netflix studio right now is beyond me. Whoever gets to play detective Franz Kafka will have the role of a lifetime.” - Mark Stevens, Author of the Allison Coil Mystery series

The fourth title in Kevin Jackson’s magnificent maritime history series, Nelson’s Victory, explores the remarkable achievements of the British naval and national hero Horatio Nelson and his victory and death at The Battle of Trafalgar. As with other titles in the series, Jackson demolishes the myths that abound about Nelson’s nature and reveals the real man behind hyperbole. Nelson was a smooth operator who demonstrated considerable political instincts and worked his way up the naval ladder with ruthless ambition.

"History as you long to read it, charismatic, concise and unputdownable." HORATIO CLARE

“We read Wodehouse because he was a master of words. We can read Kent for the same reason”. Wooster Sauce, journal of The P.G. Wodehouse Society (UK)

A TOUR OF THE COMIC IMAGINATION OF P.G. WODEHOUSE

P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) is widely acknowledged as the greatest English comic writer of the 20th century. The creator of Jeeves & Wooster, Lord Emsworth and Blandings, Ukridge, Mr. Mulliner, the Oldest Member and the Eggs, Beans and Crumpets of the Drones Club, the consistently upbeat tone of his 100 or so books represents one of the largest-ever literary bequests to human happiness by one man. Indeed, Wodehouse was not just a writer for his time, but for all time, and in 2019, a memorial commemorating his life and work was dedicated in Westminster Abbey, London, the only one to honour an out-and-out humourist. 

In this concluding volume of his groundbreaking trilogy, lifelong enthusiast Paul Kent sets out to explain the enduring, global appeal of PGW’s comic world from the U.K. to Japan via India and Russia. Granted unprecedented access to Wodehouse’s papers and library, it contains a wealth of fresh insight and scholarship that gets right to the heart of Wodehouse’s comic vision and is a must for both casual fan and devotee alike.

“Paul Kent has added his joy and light while giving us new insights into Wodehouse . . . Your time with his books will breeze by, and you will clamor for more. Hear that distant sound? That’s me already clamoring”.--GARY HALL, PLUM LINES, THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE WODEHOUSE SOCIETY (US)

“Kent is forging the new path in the way I hope writing about Wodehouse will go”.--TIM ANDREW, CHAIRMAN, THE P.G. WODEHOUSE SOCIETY (UK)

"History as you long to read it, charismatic, concise and unputdownable." Horatio Clare

A RIVETING ACCOUNT OF THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER that looks at the reality behind the mythical status and the journey that created the New World. Most of the voyagers of that famed 1620 crossing of the Atlantic were not in fact religious pilgrims but people intent on forging a better life for themselves in the virgin territory of America's east coast. 130 hardy souls were confined in a space no bigger than a tennis court, braving the "Northern Crossing' without any firm idea of what awaited them in the New World.

A rollicking rapid read, written so compellingly that the reader will feel the swell of the sea on every page. Kevin Jackson brings the stories of these great adventurers and mariners to life, all packed into just 128 pages.

Published to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the fabled crossing of the “Pilgrim Fathers” from Plymouth, England. The pilgrims, who held Puritan Calvinist religious beliefs, sighted land at Cape Cod and first anchored in Provincetown Harbour on November 11/12 1620. And from there went on to found the Plymouth Colony.

Lost River is the story of the Van Beest family, which inherits a house at the edge of a magical forest where the dead return from the afterlife. When 13-year-old Anne’s mother, a midwife, delivers a stillborn baby and her father, a mortician, accidentally brings that infant back to life, the Van Beests find themselves at the center of a drama that raises questions about the relationship between the living and the dead. 

Winner of the Pushcart Prize and the Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize

"Molly Giles’ stories have always been among my favorites since I first read her work thirty-seven years ago. This collection is her best ever. What an irreverent, original voice! I found myself gasping in shock and laughter, feeling at the end of each tale that I had garnered strange wisdom on the human heart and its unerring sense for finding trouble."--Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club

The speakers in Molly Giles’s Wife With Knife offer their truths with surprising starkness: “[T]he actual heart looks more like a tongue than a valentine” states the grief-flayed aunt of “Agate Beach,” while the careless driver of “Accident” thinks “If I rear-ended anyone in California, I might be sued or shot but I would not be prayed upon.” Many of the stories are not traditional narratives but glimpses of the trouble or healing that lies ahead: teens refusing to heed traffic, lovers staring down death and betrayal and closure. Like a street magician’s trick, Wife With Knife holds out each everyday tragedy or quiet triumph only to replace it seamlessly with another.

A first-class adventure story, as engaging as vintage Jules Verne. – Natural History 

A long-extinct beetle appears in a physics lab. Four-and-a-half people and a dog are hurled 65 million years through time, to the Age of the Dinosaurs, and paleontologist Julian Whitney and his companions have only one chance for rescue. 

Meanwhile in the lab, police chief Sharon Earles must solve the mystery of why half a body remains where five people had just been. Physicists try to determine what went wrong but can they fix the vault in time to retrieve the missing people—and do they want to?

The young Charles Darwin was like a young Indiana Jones. For five years in his mid-twenties, he sailed on the BEAGLE around the world, exploring jungles, climbing mountains, trekking across deserts. With every new landfall, he had new adventures: he rode through bandit country, was thrown into jail by revolutionaries, took part in an armed raid with marines, survived two earthquakes, hunted and fished. He suffered the terrible cold and rain of Tierra del Fuego, the merciless heat of the Australian outback and the inner pangs of heartbreak. He also made the discoveries that finally led him to formulate his theory of Natural Selection as the driving force of evolution. The five-year voyage of the BEAGLE was the basis for all Darwin's later work; but it also turned him from a friendly idler into the greatest scientist of his century.

"Move over Walt Longmire. Make room for Franz Kafka, aka 'K.' Expertly plotted, beautifully written, eloquent, colloquial, wry, insightful . . . Medhat demonstrates a keen sense of place and Navajo culture and history, with superior attention to language; smart, witty, often humorous and always precise analogies, metaphors, and similes. A sharp eye for detail and sprachgefühl for putting observations into words. Style, grace, a confident, compelling, and controlled narrative voice. The sophisticated narration dances from omniscient to close-third without any false steps or trips. A very smooth operator, this writer. The characters glide off the page. This book is a high-wire act, and the author shines a bright, steady beam on the dark stage where clashing cultures meet."—Sara Pritchard, author of Crackpots

Quixotic cop Franz Kafka's small-town routine is disrupted by a mysterious death at Chimney Rock. Navajo cop Robbie Begay joins the murder investigation, which leads the mismatched duo across the reservation into the victim's fraught past, to associates living under the shadow of heinous crimes, cunningly camouflaged meth-merchants, and sweet-natured squash-growers. The killer, it turns out, is much closer to home.

Katayoun Medhat was raised in Iran and Germany and studied anthropology in Berlin and London. Before training as an intercultural therapist, she worked in an adolescent psychiatric unit, which taught her much about human resilience. For her PhD in medical anthropology, she researched mental health and alcohol rehab services on the Navajo Nation, and along the way learned to appreciate the healing power of humor as life force.

The 'Grrrl' phenomenon is a contemporary expression of young women's humor and rage exploding in books and zines, concerts, films, and the internet. In homage to a new generation of tough young feminists, Marge Piercy presents a gathering of poems that reveal the poet as an early 'Grrrl.' 

Comprising over ninety poems selected from four books now out of print; poems previously published in literary magazines but never before collected and very early poems never published, this volume presents the bold and passionate political verse for which Piercy is well known alongside poems celebrating the sensual pleasures of gardening and cooking and sex; funny poems about New Year's Eve and warring boom boxes; vulnerable poems in which a young working class woman from the Midwest takes stock of herself and the limits of her world. 

For longtime fans and those new to Piercy's early work, this volume is an indispensable addition to the oeuvre of one of America's best-known and best-selling poets.

Marge Piercy is the author of fifteen novels and fifteen books of poetry, most recently The Art of Blessing the Day (Knopf, 1999) a selection of Piercy's Jewish-themed poems. What Are Big Girls Made Of?(Knopf, 1997) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and selected as one of their Most Notable Books of the Year by the American Library Association. In October, 1999, she will be a featured poet on the Bill Moyers' PBS-TV poetry specials "Fooling with Words" and "The Sounds of Poetry" and her newest novel, Three Women will be published by William Morrow.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface, .xi

From THE TWELVE SPOKED WHEEL FLASHING

The meaningful exchange, 4
Five thousand miles, 5
The summer invasion, and the fall, 6
Nothing you can have, 9
Archipelago, 12
The first salad of March, 15
Exodus, 16
Ask me for anything else, 18
What is permitted, 20
A gift of light, 22
Short season, 27
Ghosts, 29
The new novel, 31
Women of letters, 32

From LIVING IN THE OPEN

The token woman, 37
The clearest joy, 39
Make me feel it, 40
Sage and rue, 42
River road, High Toss, 44
Paradise Hollow, 45

"Renders transient moments of great beauty, to reveal the way we might transcend sorrow by our unwavering attention to exquisite detail and the mystery of creation."—Melanie Rae Thon

"Time jumps in this accomplished story cycle, as does the boundary betwixt reality and dream, memory and imagination. . . . And war, as it will, soaks all. Learst writes with the special visceral authority of combat seen and visions earned. Vital, necessary reading."—Donald Anderson, author of Fire Road

"The destruction of the human spirit at the hands of an experience that is as emotionally pyrotechnic and morally absurd as the behavior of [Learst's] characters."—Gordon Weaver, author of Count a Lonely Cadence

A young naval officer crashes his F-16 fighter jet in the South China Sea, forever changing the lives of the five soldiers who find his body. They move through gritty post-Vietnam Detroit with the women they love in this linked collection of psychological drama, sexual escapades, and latent violence tinged with compassion, grief, and love, arriving finally at the death of one man's son in Iraq. 

Allen Learst's writing explores an interior war—the war of the psyche fought by all returning soldiers—and their attempts to adapt and survive without the knowledge it takes to heal or alleviate their pain.

Allen Learst, a Vietnam combat infantryman, worked for Detroit's auto industry, attended college on the GI Bill, and earned his PhD in creative writing. He is a senior lecturer at the University of Wisconsin, Marinette.