For playwright Ruhl, life has been a history of teachers. From her parents, through her kindergarten and school years, through college and graduate school, to professional life, Ruhl learns from everyone. She shows us how even the smallest moment can instruct, how a child can teach a parent, and how true creativity demands a willingness …
“This book is never trying to say anything even close to important,” writes comedian Bargatze, whose following has been blowing up lately thanks to a couple of well-received Saturday Night Live appearances—a surprise, perhaps, given his G-rated approach to comedy. Yet Bargatze, a native Tennessean, does dig a little deeper into important territory here, writing, …
When cops show up at 15-year-old Grady’s house asking about the wildfire resulting from fireworks the night before, he immediately confesses. His own father died fighting a fire—a tragedy that Grady feels guilt around, due to regrets about the last words he said to his father on that terrible day five years earlier. Grady, who …
There was a time when there was a vast network of American military bases around the world, many of them in places that were, to say the least, inhospitable. A historian at Northeastern University, Heefner begins the story in the latter stages of World War II, when attempts to build bases in North Africa went …
In a future beset by climate-change strife in the “Aboves” zone, Southern California teenager and math prodigy (and recreational super-hacker) Dorothy “Doro” Campbell had been initiated into a secretive society called Seneca. Operating out of a vast and advanced subterranean complex (with satellite installations around the world), Seneca ostensibly grooms elite youths to become the …
A scientific experiment goes horribly wrong, unleashing destruction on Betelgeuse, New Mexico, and U.S. Army Capt. Gabriel Rodriguez and Dr. Tamarind “Tam” Sinclair are among the few survivors. Now, demonic monsters prowl suburban streets and a mysterious illness wreaks havoc on the human populace. Joined by a fellow traumatized survivor, whom they nickname Ripley (as …
In the forlorn aftermath of his parents’ deaths during the Covid-19 epidemic, 30-something Dawson Wozniak moves from California to Puerto Vallarta; as a book editor, he’s able to work remotely, and he pines to start his life anew. One evening, he shares a furtive kiss with Ivan, who works at the apartment complex where Dawson …
Ridolfo started working when he was only 12 years old, manning the counter at his parents’ grocery store, the humble beginning to an extraordinarily long, diverse list of jobs. Before he broke into show business as an actor and an indie filmmaker, he had no choice but to support himself with a “lifetime of phantom …
Peripatetic 11-year-old twins Josh and Lizzie started up north, racing dogs in rural Alaska. Next, they traveled to Massachusetts, where they helped find a missing museum artifact. Now, the siblings are in Ohio, embarking on an adventure involving Indigenous American mounds and artifacts. The twins, who are staying with family friends, befriend William, who once …
In a quaint little town, 12 chefs are hard at work making the best pies, cakes, and cookies. Everyone at The Bakers Dozen does their job just right, like a well-oiled machine. One day, a girl named Kristen arrives asking for a job and noting that the bakery doesn’t offer her specialty: doughnuts. Kristen entices …
