Award-winning comedian Andrew Heaton brings wit and warmth to his vision of humanity, the supernatural, and bureaucrats in his debut short story collection. Learn the pitfalls of settling resurrected Neanderthals in Detroit. Explore the work-life balance of a professional who assumes other people’s hangovers. Or the travails of a State Department diplomat posted to a planet with relentless boredom and allergies. Discover the challenges time-travel regulators face when everyone tries to kill Hitler.

Jude never thought she’d be leaving her beloved older brother and father behind, all the way across the ocean in Syria. But when things in her hometown start becoming volatile, Jude and her mother are sent to live in Cincinnati with relatives. At first, everything in America seems too fast and too loud. The American movies that Jude has always loved haven’t quite prepared her for starting school in the US - and her new label of “Middle Eastern”, an identity she’s never known before. But this life also brings unexpected surprises.

I’ve fallen in love with a man called Sam. And he’s perfect, just perfect. It’s a whirlwind romance. And when our dream home falls through just before our wedding, we decide to move in with his parents. He says his mother, Evelyn, is the sweetest person. But I’m not so sure. She’s obsessively protective over Sam. She wants to know where he is all the time. She wakes us up in the morning, bustling into our room like he’s a small child, not a grown man. She doesn’t want me to be alone with him.

In her first foray into the sleuthing game, resourceful, red-headed Hannah Swensen must find the right ingredients to solve two perplexing murders. One chilly morning on her way to The Cookie Jar, Hannah discovers Ron, the dairy delivery man, shot dead in his truck. When she begins to investigate, she suspects the dairy owner. But when he, too, is murdered, Hannah must look further afield for the culprit.

Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich's plans while at her husband's side, understanding more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee in disguise from their castle, and the whirlwind escape landed her in Hollywood. She became Hedy Lamarr, screen star.

Just This is a collection of brief and evocative meditations and practices that invite us to cultivate the gift of waking up to the beauty of reality in all its glorious ordinariness. With his signature blend of contemplation, theology, and pastoral sensitivity, Fr. Richard Rohr creates a spaciousness for the soul to grow into a kind of seeing that goes far beyond merely looking to recognizing and thus appreciating.

Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.

Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she has been writing for six years. At 31, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life.

When Annie Jacobson's brother Mike enlists as a medic in the Army in 1967, he hands her a piece of paper with the address of their long-estranged father. If anything should happen to him in Vietnam, Mike says, Annie must let their father know. In Mike's absence, their father returns to face tragedy at home, adding an extra measure of complication to an already tense time. As they work toward healing and pray fervently for Mike's safety overseas, letter by letter the Jacobsons must find a way to pull together as a family, regardless of past hurts.

Mother of two Liv Green barely scrapes by as a maid to make ends meet, often finding escape in a good book while daydreaming of becoming a writer herself. So she can't believe her luck when she lands a job housekeeping for her personal hero, megabestselling author Essie Starling, a mysterious and intimidating recluse. The last thing Liv expected was to be the only person Essie talks to, which leads to a tenuous friendship.

Adam Diehl is an 11-year-old in crisis. He knows his parents are going to split up - today - and he'd do anything in his power to stop them. If only he could turn back time.... As it turns out, he can. What his parents don't know - what his sister and brother would never suspect - is that Adam is a genius, and the computer he stares at all day has opened a gateway to knowledge beyond our comprehension. But not Adam's. Now, he has a plan. He's going to repeat this day over and over until he finds the version of it that ends with his parents staying together.

When a man’s body is discovered in a Swiss glacier thirty years after he went missing, his son, Foster Treherne, hopes he’ll finally have closure on what happened to the father he never met. But then the autopsy reveals signs of a struggle, and what was assumed to be a tragic accident suddenly looks more sinister. Foster tracks down his father’s old friends, but when he starts to ask questions it becomes clear that there’s something they don’t want to tell him.

What happens when you learn to communicate better with everyone? No doubt you’ve had to endure a painfully awkward conversation, more than once in your life. Maybe it was a stranger, a colleague, or a date. Maybe it was a group discussion. You found yourself breaking a sweat, not knowing what to say. The more time passed, the more tense you became. You thought about all the communication books you’ve read in your life and wished you had them with you…to knock yourself unconscious as a way out of the conversation. The best thing about the whole situation was the moment it ended.

In tales from 21 knitters, Clara Parkes examines a subject that is irresistible to us all: the yarn stash. Anyone with a passion has a stash, whether it is a collection of books or enough yarn to exceed several life expectancies. With her trademark wry, witty approach, Parkes brings together fascinating stories from all facets of stash-keeping and knitting life - from KonMari minimalist to joyous collector, designer to dyer, spinner to social worker, scholar to sheep farmer.

Ellie’s a girl who tells it like it is. That surprises some people, who see a kid in a wheelchair and think she’s going to be all sunshine and cuddles. The thing is, Ellie has big dreams: She might be eating Stouffer’s for dinner, but one day she’s going to be a professional baker. If she’s not writing fan letters to her favorite celebrity chefs, she’s practicing recipes on her well-meaning, if overworked, mother.

Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.

When Annie Jacobson's brother Mike enlists as a medic in the Army in 1967, he hands her a piece of paper with the address of their long-estranged father. If anything should happen to him in Vietnam, Mike says, Annie must let their father know. In Mike's absence, their father returns to face tragedy at home, adding an extra measure of complication to an already tense time. As they work toward healing and pray fervently for Mike's safety overseas, letter by letter the Jacobsons must find a way to pull together as a family, regardless of past hurts.

Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.

By the time of his early death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as one of the great practitioners of the American short story. Where I'm Calling From, his last collection, encompasses classic stories from Cathedral, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and earlier Carver volumes, along with seven new works previously unpublished in book form.

When Frankie’s mother died and her father left her and her siblings at an orphanage in Chicago, it was supposed to be only temporary - just long enough for him to get back on his feet and be able to provide for them once again. That’s why Frankie's not prepared for the day that he arrives for his weekend visit with a new woman on his arm and out-of-state train tickets in his pocket. Now, Frankie and her sister, Toni, are abandoned alongside so many other orphans - two young, unwanted women doing everything they can to survive.

With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story and instantly became both the recognized master of the form and one of our best-loved fiction writers. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.

Among the longleaf pines and family farms of eastern North Carolina, days seem to pass without incident for Margaret Clayton and Bernice Stokes until they discover each other in a friendship that will take them on the most important journey of their lives. Margaret, droll and whip smart, has a will of iron that never fails her even when her body does, while Bernice, an avid country-music fan, is rarely lucid.

It's 1969, and the Apollo 11 mission is getting ready to go to the moon. But for half-black, half-Japanese Mimi, moving to a predominantly white Vermont town is enough to make her feel alien. Suddenly, Mimi's appearance is all anyone notices. She struggles to fit in with her classmates, even as she fights for her right to stand out. This historical middle-grade novel is told in poems from Mimi's perspective over the course of one year in her new town, and shows listeners that positive change can start with just one person speaking up.

The Center of Everything is the fictional story of 10-year-old math prodigy Evelyn Bucknow. Living in Kansas with her single mother and deeply religious grandmother, Evelyn believes she is destined to marry Travis, the boy next door. But as she grows up, she experiences the heartbreak of a love not meant to be. Author Laura Moriarty was a recipient of the George Bennet Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at a local diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows” her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.

In a novel as warm and embracing as a family kitchen, Barbara O’Neal explores the poignant, sometimes complex relationships between mothers and daughters - and the healing magic of homemade bread. Professional baker Ramona Gallagher is a master of an art that has sustained her through the most turbulent times, including a baby at 15 and an endless family feud. But now Ramona’s bakery threatens to crumble around her. Literally. She’s one water-heater disaster away from losing her grandmother’s rambling Victorian and everything she’s worked so hard to build.

Macey and Ben Samuelson have much to be thankful for: great friends, a beautiful - if high-maintenance - Victorian house on idyllic Tybee Island, and a rock-solid marriage. The only thing missing is what they want the most. After her fifth miscarriage in six years, Macey worries that the family they’ve always dreamed of might be out of reach. Her sister suggests adoption, but Macey and Ben aren’t interested in pursuing that path...until a three-legged Golden Retriever named Keeper wags his way into their home and their hearts.

Chocolatier Lanie Heaven has good friends, a booming business, and the adoration of the citizens of Merritt, Alabama. But she also has a secret. After the devastating breakup with her longtime college boyfriend, she lost a baby and the hope of ever having a child - the thing she desires above all else.

Frannie doesn't know what to make of the poem she's reading in school. She hasn't thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more "holy". And there is a new boy in class everyone is calling the Jesus Boy.

Quincy and Biddy are both graduates of their high school's special ed program, but they couldn't be more different: suspicious Quincy faces the world with her fists up, while gentle Biddy is frightened to step outside her front door. When they're thrown together as roommates in their first "real world" apartment, it initially seems to be an uneasy fit.