The best-selling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with “dignity.” Fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for their dead. In rural Indonesia, she observes a man clean and dress his grandfather’s mummified body. Grandpa’s mummy has lived in the family home for two years, where the family has maintained a warm and respectful relationship. She meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and introduces us to a Japanese kotsuage, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones’ bones from cremation ashes. With curiosity and morbid humor, Doughty encounters vividly decomposed bodies and participates in compelling, powerful death practices almost entirely unknown in America. Featuring Gorey-esque illustrations by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity introduces death-care innovators researching green burial and body composting, explores new spaces for mourning—including a glowing-Buddha columbarium in Japan and America’s only open-air pyre—and reveals unexpected new possibilities for our own death rituals.

'A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways'Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See HereA hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend... The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Now at twenty-three, after getting dumped and dropping out of college, Vi works as a front desk attendant at a hotel where she refills cucumber water samovars and fends off overtures of friendship from her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. But when Vi decides to accompany Rachel to a local drag show, her life changes forever. In the alley outside the bar, next to a trash can, is a blob with beady black eyes. Unable to leave it behind, Vi picks up the creature and, in a moment of drunken desperation, takes it home with her. As her pet blob becomes sentient, Vi realizes it obeys her commands and she decides to mold the blob into her ideal partner. She feeds it sugary cereal and a stream of pop culture, and soon the creature transforms into a movie-star handsome white man. But as Vi's desire to be loved unconditionally threatens to spiral out of control, she is forced to confront her lonely childhood, the ex-boyfriend who has unfriended her, and the racial marginalization that has defined her relationships. Ultimately, Vi embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns that it's impossible to control those you love. Blending the familiar with the fantastical, BLOB tells a witty, heartfelt story of what it means to be human.'An inventive, utterly unique debut'Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light

'A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways'Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See HereA hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend... The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Now at twenty-three, after getting dumped and dropping out of college, Vi works as a front desk attendant at a hotel where she refills cucumber water samovars and fends off overtures of friendship from her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. But when Vi decides to accompany Rachel to a local drag show, her life changes forever. In the alley outside the bar, next to a trash can, is a blob with beady black eyes. Unable to leave it behind, Vi picks up the creature and, in a moment of drunken desperation, takes it home with her. As her pet blob becomes sentient, Vi realizes it obeys her commands and she decides to mold the blob into her ideal partner. She feeds it sugary cereal and a stream of pop culture, and soon the creature transforms into a movie-star handsome white man. But as Vi's desire to be loved unconditionally threatens to spiral out of control, she is forced to confront her lonely childhood, the ex-boyfriend who has unfriended her, and the racial marginalization that has defined her relationships. Ultimately, Vi embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns that it's impossible to control those you love. Blending the familiar with the fantastical, BLOB tells a witty, heartfelt story of what it means to be human.'An inventive, utterly unique debut'Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light

A delightfully insightful exploration of our obsession with gossip that weaves together journalism, cultural criticism, and memoir, from the host of the massively popular Normal Gossip podcast. Can you keep a secret? As the pandemic forced us to socialize at a distance, Kelsey McKinney was mourning the juicy updates, jaw-dropping stories, and idle chatter that she’d typically collect over drinks with friends. She realized she wasn’t the only one missing these little morsels and her hunger for this aspect of normalcy took on a life of its own and the blockbuster Normal Gossip podcast was born. With listenership in the millions and gossip quickly becoming her day job, Kelsey found herself with the urge to think more critically about gossip as a form, to better understand the role that it plays in our culture. In YOU DIDN'T HEAR THIS FROM ME, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Why is gossip considered a sin and how can we better recognize when gossip is being weaponized against the oppressed? Why do we think we’re entitled to every detail of a celebrity’s personal life because they are a public figure? And how do we even define “gossip,” anyway? She dishes on the art of eavesdropping and dives deep into how pop culture has changed the way that we look at hearsay. But as much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend’s ear. With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we're actually searching for when we demand to know the truth – and how much the truth really matters in the first place.  

A delightfully insightful exploration of our obsession with gossip that weaves together journalism, cultural criticism, and memoir, from the host of the massively popular Normal Gossip podcast. Can you keep a secret? As the pandemic forced us to socialize at a distance, Kelsey McKinney was mourning the juicy updates, jaw-dropping stories, and idle chatter that she’d typically collect over drinks with friends. She realized she wasn’t the only one missing these little morsels and her hunger for this aspect of normalcy took on a life of its own and the blockbuster Normal Gossip podcast was born. With listenership in the millions and gossip quickly becoming her day job, Kelsey found herself with the urge to think more critically about gossip as a form, to better understand the role that it plays in our culture. In YOU DIDN'T HEAR THIS FROM ME, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Why is gossip considered a sin and how can we better recognize when gossip is being weaponized against the oppressed? Why do we think we’re entitled to every detail of a celebrity’s personal life because they are a public figure? And how do we even define “gossip,” anyway? She dishes on the art of eavesdropping and dives deep into how pop culture has changed the way that we look at hearsay. But as much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend’s ear. With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we're actually searching for when we demand to know the truth – and how much the truth really matters in the first place.  

El protagonista de esta novela es uno de los personajes más memorables de la literatura norteamericana: Ignatius Reilly –una mezcla de Oliver Hardy delirante, Don Quijote adiposo y santo Tomás de Aquino perverso, reunidos en una persona–, que a los treinta años aún vive con su estrafalaria madre, ocupado en escribir una extensa y demoledora denuncia contra nuestro siglo, tan carente de «teología y geometría» como de «decencia y buen gusto»; un alegato desquiciado contra una sociedad desquiciada. Por una inesperada necesidad de dinero, se ve «catapultado en la fiebre de la existencia contemporánea», fiebre a la que Ignatius añadirá unos cuantos grados más. La conjura de los necios se hizo acreedora al Premio Pulitzer, y en Francia fue galardonada el año de su publicación como «la mejor novela en lengua extranjera». «Una novela disparatada, bufa, rabelesiana y sorprendente, que rompe con los cauces habituales de la narrativa norteamericana actual. Una tragicomedia cósmica, cuya lectura hace alternar la carcajada y la angustia» (El País). «Irresistiblemente divertida, una comedia épica en la gran tradición de Cervantes y Fielding» (Monroe K. Spears). «Este libro se ha reseñado en todas partes, y a todos los críticos les ha entusiasmado. Por una vez, todos tenían razón» (Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone).

The best-selling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with “dignity.” Fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for their dead. In rural Indonesia, she observes a man clean and dress his grandfather’s mummified body. Grandpa’s mummy has lived in the family home for two years, where the family has maintained a warm and respectful relationship. She meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and introduces us to a Japanese kotsuage, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones’ bones from cremation ashes. With curiosity and morbid humor, Doughty encounters vividly decomposed bodies and participates in compelling, powerful death practices almost entirely unknown in America. Featuring Gorey-esque illustrations by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity introduces death-care innovators researching green burial and body composting, explores new spaces for mourning—including a glowing-Buddha columbarium in Japan and America’s only open-air pyre—and reveals unexpected new possibilities for our own death rituals.

Entrar a este entrañable, lúcido y por momentos demoledor libro, es explorar los hábitos, los ritmos y las políticas familiares al interior de un hogar marcado por la exigente cultura del trabajo en una ciudad industrializada como Apodaca, Nuevo León. Con Neblina afuera Iveth Luna Flores se inscribe en la tradición de autoras como Vivian Gornick, para quienes la frontera entre vida y literatura es un espacio de tensión donde por medio de la escritura se sustraen saberes profundamente humanos que se encarnan en historias cotidianas. La escritora desarma los afectos y los dogmas de las mujeres de su genealogía para revelar las estructuras tradicionales y, a la vez, intentar desmarcarse de ellas. La escritura es entonces una forma de resistencia para darle frente a un sistema abrasador que moldea y consume los cuerpos de su comunidad. En cada uno de estos ensayos autoficcionales, que también podrían leerse como una novela fragmentada, nos adentramos a diferentes etapas de la vida de la narradora: la infancia en una región signada por el calor, las primeras y apasionadas lecturas fundacionales, el ingreso a la facultad de Letras, la inevitable huida de casa, el cruce fortuito con la poesía, los trabajos para sobrevivir y el cuestionamiento de los propios ideales y prejuicios que conformaron su identidad. Así nos dice en esta potente e iluminadora obra sobre la literatura como una manera de existir: «Era entonces la escritura mi pedacito milimétrico de libertad, mi territorio no heredado. Me lo apropié, lo tomé a la fuerza, se lo arrebaté al aire. Ocupamos la escritura como quien se mete a un terreno baldío para habitarlo. Tomamos la poesía como quien entra a una casa vacía, en ruinas, y la vuelve su hogar». Iveth Luna Flores nos lleva a transitar el deseo por un destino alternativo de vida, donde el lenguaje poético es el móvil para marcar distancia y traducir la literalidad del mundo a otras miradas más amplias.

The first in a gripping new historical fantasy series that intertwines Irish mythology with real-life history, The Children of Gods and Fighting Men is the thrilling debut novel by Shauna Lawless. They think they've killed the last of us... 981 AD. The Viking King of Dublin is dead. His young widow, Gormflaith, has ambitions for her son – and herself – but Ireland is a dangerous place and kings tend not to stay kings for long. Gormflaith also has a secret. She is one of the Fomorians, an immortal race who can do fire-magic. She has kept her powers hidden at all costs, for there are other immortals in this world – like the Tuatha Dé Danann, a race of warriors who are sworn to kill Fomorians. Fódla is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann with the gift of healing. Her kind dwell hidden in a fortress, forbidden to live amongst the mortals. Fódla agrees to help her kin by going to spy on Brian Boru, a powerful man who aims to be High King of Ireland. She finds a land on the brink of war – a war she is desperate to stop. However, preventing the loss of mortal lives is not easy with Ireland in turmoil and the Fomorians now on the rise...

El protagonista de esta novela es uno de los personajes más memorables de la literatura norteamericana: Ignatius Reilly –una mezcla de Oliver Hardy delirante, Don Quijote adiposo y santo Tomás de Aquino perverso, reunidos en una persona–, que a los treinta años aún vive con su estrafalaria madre, ocupado en escribir una extensa y demoledora denuncia contra nuestro siglo, tan carente de «teología y geometría» como de «decencia y buen gusto»; un alegato desquiciado contra una sociedad desquiciada. Por una inesperada necesidad de dinero, se ve «catapultado en la fiebre de la existencia contemporánea», fiebre a la que Ignatius añadirá unos cuantos grados más. La conjura de los necios se hizo acreedora al Premio Pulitzer, y en Francia fue galardonada el año de su publicación como «la mejor novela en lengua extranjera». «Una novela disparatada, bufa, rabelesiana y sorprendente, que rompe con los cauces habituales de la narrativa norteamericana actual. Una tragicomedia cósmica, cuya lectura hace alternar la carcajada y la angustia» (El País). «Irresistiblemente divertida, una comedia épica en la gran tradición de Cervantes y Fielding» (Monroe K. Spears). «Este libro se ha reseñado en todas partes, y a todos los críticos les ha entusiasmado. Por una vez, todos tenían razón» (Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone).