From stand-up comedian and Broad City writer/star Eliot Glazer comes a hilarious and heartfelt essay collection for Las Culturistas listeners, 30 Rock fanatics, and any reader who wishes David Sedaris were just a tad filthier.Comedian and writer Eliot Glazer may occasionally get some stuff right, but being gay is not one of them. Poppers make him dizzy. Parties make him panicked. And the term “guncle” makes him queasy. When it comes to being part of the LGBTQ+ community, Eliot just can’t seem to find his shade of the rainbow, which is precisely why he repeatedly suggests a grayscale one instead (although no one seems to listen). In a community built around the “chosen family,” Eliot can’t even get adopted. The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay is for anyone who fully spirals while shopping for a throw pillow, does breathing exercises before entering a pool party, or has a full-fledged breakdown after accidentally dyeing their fake front tooth bubblegum blue amid a torrid affair with a guy under house arrest. (Okay, that might just be Eliot, but it’s one hell of a story.) This collection of essays is for Las Culturistas listeners, 30 Rock fanatics, and any reader who wishes David Sedaris were just a tad filthier. Eliot’s laugh-out-loud yet quietly heartbreaking stories capture the glory, chaos, and contradictions of queer modern life—a rallying cry for anyone who’s ever felt like the odd one out, the minority within the minority, and the one who always seems to “do it wrong.”

From stand-up comedian and Broad City writer/star Eliot Glazer comes a hilarious and heartfelt essay collection for Las Culturistas listeners, 30 Rock fanatics, and any reader who wishes David Sedaris were just a tad filthier.Comedian and writer Eliot Glazer may occasionally get some stuff right, but being gay is not one of them. Poppers make him dizzy. Parties make him panicked. And the term “guncle” makes him queasy. When it comes to being part of the LGBTQ+ community, Eliot just can’t seem to find his shade of the rainbow, which is precisely why he repeatedly suggests a grayscale one instead (although no one seems to listen). In a community built around the “chosen family,” Eliot can’t even get adopted. The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay is for anyone who fully spirals while shopping for a throw pillow, does breathing exercises before entering a pool party, or has a full-fledged breakdown after accidentally dyeing their fake front tooth bubblegum blue amid a torrid affair with a guy under house arrest. (Okay, that might just be Eliot, but it’s one hell of a story.) This collection of essays is for Las Culturistas listeners, 30 Rock fanatics, and any reader who wishes David Sedaris were just a tad filthier. Eliot’s laugh-out-loud yet quietly heartbreaking stories capture the glory, chaos, and contradictions of queer modern life—a rallying cry for anyone who’s ever felt like the odd one out, the minority within the minority, and the one who always seems to “do it wrong.”

The “diabolically clever, shamelessly brass-balled, wrenchingly funny” ( NY Native ) story of love, lust, and the agony of romantic disillusionment. Adored by the likes of Amy Sedaris, Madonna (who optioned the film rights), and Gordon Lish,  Love Junkie is Robert Plunket’s cult novel of the heady heyday of gay New York at the dawn of the AIDS scandalously long out of print, it is now gloriously reissued for a new generation of readers. Mimi Smithers, a modern-day Emma Bovary, is a fortyish suburban housewife who has an eye for décor and dreams of hosting lavish cocktail parties. Reflecting on her time in Tehran with her Union Carbide executive husband, she says, “In the waning months of the Shah’s regime, entertaining became more and more difficult. Hams―always a problem in Islamic countries―were as rare as hen’s teeth.” After their move to Westchester, a party she hosts for Mrs. Rockefeller goes south, and she falls into a deep funk. But then life takes an unexpected turn when she stumbles down into the gay rabbit hole of Manhattan and Fire Island society and meets Joel, a porn star with a chest “as smooth as a Ken doll.” Soon she’s helping him with his lucrative mail order business (signed photographs, used underwear, “verbal abuse audiotapes”), and her real dreams and adventures begin.

“[S]o good that almost any novel you read immediately after it will seem at least a little bit posturing.”—Jonathan FranzenNo Purdy work has dazzled contemporary writers more than this haunting tale of unrequited love in an indifferent world. A seedy Depression-era boardinghouse in Chicago plays host to “a game of emotional chairs” (Guardian) in a novel initially condemned for its frank depiction of abortion, homosexuality, and life on the margins of American society.

For fans of Lisa McInerney, Gabriel Krauze, and Graeme Armstrong, All Them Dogs is a fizzing debut from one of Ireland's most striking new voices Things are different since Tony Ward landed back in town. The West Dublin gangland has changed. His old mentor is dead, and his best pal Kenny Boyle is on the straight and narrow. After five years keeping quiet across the way, Tony is keen to reinstate himself, and when the opportunity to work side by side with Darren 'Flute' Walsh, a top enforcer of notorious crime boss Angus Lavelle, it feels like a no brainer. Biting off more than he can chew has never bothered Tony Ward, but Flute Walsh is not the meek, quiet boy Tony remembers from school. Brooding, stoic, and unpredictably dangerous, Tony finds himself drawn to his new associate in more ways than one. With retribution from his past actions always close in the rear view, the protection offered by Flute's standing in the gang is crucial. But how safe is Tony really, when a mutual attraction starts to complicate matters?

From Marlon James, author of the Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings: a propulsive novel about the murder of a gay man in 1980s Jamaica and its tragic consequences.In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. The men are strangers to one another and each has a different reason for being involved. But they all share one inescapable All of them are gay―a "batty man" in Jamaican argot―and all of them must contend with the dangers that such a truth lays bare.One night a mob savagely attacks them, killing one of the men. For the survivors, their recovery is as much emotional as it is As their bodies heal, each man grapples with the violence, the hatred and the rage that the attack made plain. Some try to ignore what the attack has unearthed, while others double down on retribution.In The Disappearers, Marlon James has written a riveting and deeply human story of men forced to make compromises to survive what the society they live in demands. It is both a dramatic page-turner and an unflinching exploration of queer life in Jamaica during the 1980s and 1990s.

The acclaimed author of the “disorienting, creepy, paranoia-inducing” (Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World) A History of Fear returns with a spine-tingling new thriller about a weight loss treatment with potentially murderous side effects.Retail worker Emmett Truesdale has never fit the Southern California mold of six-pack, suntanned masculinity. Over three hundred pounds, he carries the weight of his childhood trauma and millennial ennui around his waist and in his soul. After trying every diet under the sun, he remains stuck—in his dead-end job, in love, and in his body. Desperate for help, he enrolls in a clinical trial for a new weight loss product called Obexity. The treatment is as horrifying as the results are miraculous and as Emmett sheds pounds at superhuman speed, every part of his life improves overnight. Unfortunately, Obexity comes with some killer side effects, including lost stretches of time and overwhelming cravings. Worse, people who were cruel to him have started disappearing and when the police warn of a cannibalistic killer on the loose, he fears that Obexity is turning him into a monster. But how can he give it up now that people are finally starting to treat him like he’s human? Nerve-racking, sinister, and at times surreal, Nothing Tastes as Good is an unputdownable thriller that combines The Substance with the best of Stephen King and keeps you guessing until the final page.

In the spirit of The Known World and The Underground Railroad, a profound debut about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance will alter their lives, and his, forever. In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. The young men, recently returned from the war to the town of Old Ox, hold their trysts in the woods. But when their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community. In the aftermath of so much turmoil, it is Isabelle who emerges as an unlikely leader, proffering a healing vision for the land and for the newly free citizens of Old Ox. With candor and sympathy, debut novelist Nathan Harris creates an unforgettable cast of characters, depicting Georgia in the violent crucible of Reconstruction. Equal parts beauty and terror, as gripping as it is moving, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.

A magnetic, stirring debut novel about an adrift young woman whose growing fascination with her boyfriend’s cat ushers her into the possibilities of her own life—but not without first threatening to unravel it. Katie is far from home and fresh out of college, desperate to skirt adulthood’s demands, and all too willing to let her wealthy boyfriend James make decisions for them both. It doesn’t help that she’s no longer speaking to her mother. Or that her roommate has abruptly moved out of their New York City apartment. But when James takes Katie on vacation to his family’s seaside house, he brings Silver, his childhood cat, and Katie discovers a sudden, strange, and giddy sense of connection. Silver doesn’t mind that Katie can’t seem to get a job, hold her own at dinner parties, or make amends with her mother. Silver, who gets to lie around all day, misbehave spectacularly, be cute, gross, and still get fed, seems to have the life Katie increasingly longs for. Soon enough, they’re inseparable, and something inside Katie begins to crack open, or maybe just…crack. Because if Katie has learned anything from her estranged mother, it’s that devotion comes at a price. As Katie’s affection for Silver deepens, all of her other relationships begin to falter. Soon, Katie must confront what it is she desires from her life, and what she might have to risk to get it. Both darkly playful and unexpectedly heartfelt, this debut from a major new voice in fiction is a timeless reckoning with the uncertainty of becoming a person in a world that is as disorienting as it is full of hope and promise.

“Take What You Can is so brilliantly, unbelievably good I have a burning in my heart…. Love is utterly bewildering, and nobody writes about it better than Naima Coster.”—Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich From the New York Times bestselling author of What’s Mine and Yours, a rich, panoramic exploration of friendship, class, new motherhood, and independence Val and Milly fell in love with France at the same time they fell in love with each other and became immediate best friends. Then, they bonded as the only Black students on a study-abroad trip. Now they are in their thirties, each married and with a baby girl on the way. When Milly suggests Val move to New York so they can raise their daughters together after a decade apart, it’s a resounding yes. Despite their excitement, the pair secretly wonders if their friendship has always worked best as a trio. On that first trip to France, these two motherless daughters were taken under the wing of an older woman named Helene. She showered them with money, love, and attention and showed them the possibilities of an independent and abundant future. But now, without Helene and her guidance, who are Milly and Val? Milly, a successful influencer married to restaurant royalty, is occupied with her desire for freedom. Val, a brilliant journalist, is unsure whether she fits into Milly’s new world. The realities of class and social capital, of strained marriages and the demands of motherhood, serve as constant reminders of how far apart they’ve grown. And no matter how much they try to avoid it, everything comes back to the rift that began all those years ago in France. What they’ve long tried to bury may finally destroy their sisterhood. Weaving between Brooklyn brownstones and the glittering beaches of southern France, Take What You Can is a dazzling novel exploring what it means to be a mother when you have none, a sister without blood ties, and a woman in pursuit of the life she wants. With her signature sharply observed prose, Naima Coster illustrates how to be—and to stay—someone’s person through all phases of life.

Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art. As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a novel of shocking narrative energy and power. It combines unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

A sexy modern take on ancient Greek myths. She keeps her eyes on me while she lights the end of my cigarette. I stare back at her. Something in the pills and in her eyes is opening up my muscles like hands parting from prayer, like trees breathing. Eros is a stunning collection of short stories, grounded in truth and coloured with dazzling imagination and alluring, unpredictable mystery. Revealing how queerness, nature and myth have been intertwined for eternity, these are stories of gods and goddesses. Of Zeus, of Eurydice, of Hermaphroditus, of Icarus before he flew into the sun. Stories of queer life, lust, revenge, wrath, passion and sex. Of yearning, love, loss. Some transformations span across a life, and others, an evening. Perspectives will shift. Houses will burn. Lovers will learn their fate. Zoe Terakes has skilfully blended myth and modernity to illuminate the complex and enduring truth of trans lives, resisting a history of erasure and delivering a sexy, soul-touching book to read to your lover . . . or yourself.

A brilliant, towering, puzzle-box novel about perfect summers and forbidden knowledge, somewhere in the mad interstice of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and A.S. Byatt’s Possession. Summer, 1993, and university student Alex Lane finds himself at the end of the summer term, broke and without plans. When offered the chance to join students – including beautiful, mercurial Ella – clearing out Solace House, a Victorian residence left by reclusive hoarder Edwin Flayne, he accepts. Initially the house seems ordinary, if slightly mad. But sorting through junk, they discover Flayne’s journals detailing his obsession with his missing mother, his discovery of strange place Bewise, and his belief in another parallel realm, with coded instructions for reaching it. One of the students becomes increasingly obsessed with the house’s secrets and gaining forbidden knowledge – assuming they’re willing to sacrifice everything and everyone.

Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art. As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a novel of shocking narrative energy and power. It combines unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.