Everyone wants to escape their boring, stagnant lives full of inertia and regret. But so few people actually have the bravery to run, run away from everything and selflessly seek out personal fulfillment on the other side of the world where they don't understand anything and won't be expected to. The world is full of cowards. Tim Anderson was pushing thirty and working a string of dead-end jobs when he made the spontaneous decision to pack his bags and move to Japan,?where my status as a U.S. passport holder and card-carrying?American English? speaker was an asset rather than a liability.? It was a gutsy move, especially for a tall, white, gay Southerner who didn?t speak a lick of Japanese. But his life desperately needed a shot of adrenaline, and what better way to get one than to leave behind everything he had ever known to move to?a tiny, overcrowded island heaving with clever, sensibly proportioned people that make him look fat In Tokyo, Tim became a?gaijin,? an outsider whose stumbling progression through Japanese culture is minutely chronicled in these sixteen howlingly funny stories. Yet despite the steep learning curve and the seemingly constant humiliation, the gaijin from North Carolina gradually begins to find his way. Whether playing drums on the fly in an otherwise all-Japanese noise band or attempting to keep his English classroom clean when it's invaded by an older female student with a dirty mind, Tim comes to realize that living a meaningful life is about expecting the unexpected?right when he least expects it.

Sometimes one night can change everything. On this particular night, Wren and her three best friends are attending a black-tie party at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate the opening of a major exhibit curated by her father. An enormous wind blasts through the city, making everyone feel that something unexpected and perhaps wonderful will happen. And for Wren, that something wonderful is Nolan. With his root-beer-brown Michelangelo eyes, Nolan changes the way Wren's heart beats. In Isabel Gillies's Starry Night, suddenly everything is different. Nothing makes sense except for this boy. What happens to your life when everything changes, even your heart? How much do you give up? How much do you keep?

“Family Tree” by novelist Andrea N. Carr with a family saga where an incarcerated woman gains a four-day release to attend the funeral after her sister’s suicide. Story uncovers dark secrets with suspense and pacing that is in comparison to Raymond Carver. I’ve conducted an interview with the author on the power of storytelling to create empathy and change. Cristina Deptula, Literary Publicist

Zoe Daniel is the ABC's fifteenth South East Asia Correspondent, and one of only a handful of women to combine one of the most dangerous jobs in the world with one of the most demanding - motherhood. From the political unrest in Bangkok and the bittersweet story of conjoined twins in India, to a tragic plane crash in Laos and the destruction of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Storyteller is a frank and brave memoir, as much about the events that capture our attention as it is about a personal story of the universal juggle of work, ambition and family amid the unpredictability of life and the predictability of the 24/7 media cycle. Storyteller is a timely reminder of the bravery and audacity of the men and women who bring us the news - the journalists, the local 'fixers', the cameramen - but above all it is a tribute to ordinary people who find themselves eyewitnesses to the extraordinary.

Absurdity abounds when a curious teenage dweeb longing to be cool meets a charismatic Jesus-freak barefoot hippie in 1975 California

When Dan and his family go from middle class to homeless, issues of injustice rise to the forefront in this relatable, timely novel from Todd Strasser.It seems like Dan has it all. He's a baseball star who hangs with the popular crowd and dates the hottest girl in school. Then his family loses their home. Forced to move into the town's Tent City, Dan feels his world shifting. His friends try to pretend that everything's cool, but they're not the ones living among the homeless. As Dan struggles to adjust to his new life, he gets involved with the people who are fighting for better conditions and services for the residents of Tent City. But someone wants Tent City gone, and will stop at nothing until it's destroyed...

"A riveting journey." —Julie Metz, author of Perfection "A perfect book. I want to tell everyone, every mother, every daughter, to read it." —Abigail Thomas, bestselling author of A Three Dog LifeFor the first time in decades I'm remembering Mom, all of her—the wonderful and terrible things about her that I've cast out of my thoughts for so long. I'm still struggling to prevent these memories from erupting from their subterranean depths. Trying to hold back the flood. I can't, not today. The levees break. Thirty years after her death, Alice Eve Cohen's mother appears to her, seemingly in the flesh, and continues to do so during the hardest year Alice has had to face: the year her youngest daughter needs a harrowing surgery, her eldest daughter decides to reunite with her birth mother, and Alice herself receives a daunting diagnosis. As it turns out, it's entirely possible for the...

"A masterpiece. Powers has written a novel that includes all the ferocity, complexity, and racial violence of the American South" —- Philipp Meyer, author of American Rust Set in Virginia during the Civil War and a century beyond, this novel by the award-winning author of THE YELLOW BIRDS explores the brutal legacy of violence and exploitation in American society.Spanning over one hundred years, from the antebellum era to the 1980's, A Shout in the Ruins examines the fates of the inhabitants of Beauvais Plantation outside of Richmond, Virginia. When war arrives, the master of Beauvais, Anthony Levallios, foresees that dominion in a new America will be measured not in acres of tobacco under cultivation by his slaves, but in industry and capital. A grievously wounded Confederate veteran loses his grip on a world he no longer understands, and his daughter finds herself married to Levallois, an arrangement that feels little better than...

Private Eye John Taylor is the only thing standing between his not-quite-human mother and the destruction of the magical realm within London known as the Nightside.