Adam

Beginner's Guide to a Head-on Collision offers the deeply moving poetic memoir of Sebastian Matthews's life in the years after the car accident that devastated him and his wife and son. The poems, which often feel like electric improvised prayer-songs, intimately evoke the terrors and wonders of catastrophic physical injury and of life re-booted. They are disturbing, eerie poems that embody the paradoxes of being The Dead Man at the crossing.

Ben Loory returns with a second collection of timeless tales, inviting us to enter his worlds of whimsical fantasy, deep empathy, and playful humor, in the signature voice that drew listeners to his highly praised first collection. In stories that eschew literary realism, Loory's characters demonstrate richly imagined and surprising perspectives, whether they be dragons or swordsmen, star-crossed lovers or long-lost twins, restaurateurs dreaming of Paris or cephalopods fixated on space travel.

An "unleashed love song" to her late grandmother, Nickole Brown's collection brings her brassy, bawdy, tough-as-new-rope grandmother to life. With hair teased to Jesus, mile-long false eyelashes, and a white Cadillac Eldorado with atomic-red leather seats, Fanny is not your typical granny rocking in a chair. Instead, think of a character that looks a lot like Eva Gabor in Green Acres, but darkened with a shadow of Flannery O'Connor.

An Unferth story lures you in with a voice that seems amiable and lighthearted, but it swerves in sudden and surprising ways that reveal, in terrifying clarity, the rage, despair, and profound mournfulness that have taken up residence at the heart of the American dream. These stories often take place in an exaggerated or heightened reality, a quality that is reminiscent of the work of Donald Barthelme, Lorrie Moore, and George Saunders, but in Unferth's unforgettable collection she carves out territory that is entirely her own.

In Viking Economics - perhaps the most fun economics audiobook you've ever listened to - George Lakey dispels these myths. He explores the inner-workings of the Nordic economies that boast the world's happiest, most productive workers, and explains how, if we can enact some of the changes the Scandinavians fought for, surprisingly recently, we too can embrace equality in our economic policy.

Beautiful, bored, and bourgeoisie, Sabina leads a double life inspired by her relentless desire for brief encounters with near strangers. Fired into faithlessness by a desperate longing for sexual fulfillment, she weaves a sensual web of deceit across New York. But when the secrecy of her affairs becomes too much to bear, Sabina makes a late-night phone call to a stranger from a bar and begins a confession that captivates the unknown man and soon inspires him to seek her out....

Reverend Maloney isn't the world's greatest spiritual advisor. He drinks gin out of his coffee cup and has sex dreams about the Holy Ghost. His best friend Eli isn't perfect either, but he's a chess genius, so Maloney sees an opportunity in traveling around the country so Eli can win major chess tournament after chess tournament (while Maloney pockets Eli's winnings).

Somewhere in a Town You Never Knew Existed Somewhere is a book that speaks directly to society's "elephants in the living room" through kooky hooliganism and satire. Five year-old Bonanza's mother tells her to "keep digging" as she buries her dolls, and ultimately, herself. The dead poet Robert Lowell reappears as a high school student. Meanwhile, at a butterfly farm, the protagonist dishes up some unconventional environmental justice.

Following a summer's worth of drug abuse, epic alcohol benders, and promiscuous sexual misadventures. You cope with your impoverished living arrangements while mourning the senility of your beloved grandmother, the destructive idiocy of your only two friends, and most importantly, the devastating loss of your free-spirited lover. There are things to consider, of course, and it's real tough to think sometimes.

In the winter of 1968, a young woman named Harriet disappears outside of Denver. Soon after, her father dies mysteriously. The family's three remaining sons - Wayne, Roy, and Conrad - grow increasingly distant as the specters of murder, family, and suspicion loom. As the brothers grow older, they learn that loss comes in many forms - in absence and silence, and in death. Decades later, Wayne's only child confronts the brothers, uncovering long-buried resentments that have plagued the family for generations.