Valeria Luiselli is an evening cyclist; a literary tourist in Venice, searching for Joseph Brodsky's tomb; an excavator of her own artifacts, unpacking from a move. In essays that are as companionable as they are ambitious, she uses the city to exercise a roving, meandering intelligence, seeking out the questions embedded in our human landscapes.

Borrowing its title from a William Carlos Williams poem, A Strange Commonplace lays bare the secrets and dreams of characters whose lives are intertwined by coincidence and necessity, possessions and experience. From the boozy 1950s to the culturally vacuous present, through the jungle of city streets and suburban bedroom communities, lines blur between families and acquaintances, violence and love, hope and despair. As fathers try to connect with...

In this beguiling work Posnett journeys to some of the most far-flung locales on the planet to bring seven wonders of the natural world--eiderdown, vicuña fiber, sea silk, vegetable ivory, civet coffee, guano, and edible birds' nests--that promise ways of using nature without damaging it.

"When her best but most difficult employee switches sides days before a state barista championship, coffee-shop owner Lana Lewis investigates jilted lovers, a shrimp-boat captain, and a mafia-connected surfer to prove her innocence of a rival's murder."--Publisher description. When Lana Lewis' best -- and most difficult -- employee abruptly quits and goes to work for the competition just days before the Sunshine State Barista Championship, her café's...

"After a public split from her NFL superstar husband, Chelsea takes a bold step out of the limelight and behind the counter of the Higher Grounds Café, an old-fashioned coffee shop in dire need of reinvention. But when her courage, expert planning, and out-of-this-world cupcakes fail to pay the bills, this newly single mom finds herself desperate for help. Better yet, a miracle"--Dust jacket flap.

"Most people just laugh when they hear that the secret to success is giving. . . . Then again, most people are nowhere near as successful as they wish they were." The Go-Giver tells the story of an ambitious young man named Joe who yearns for success. Joe is a true go-getter, though sometimes he feels as if the harder and faster he works, the further away his goals seem to be. Desperate to land a key sale at the end of a bad quarter, he seeks advice...

Enraged about the literary successes of his ex-girlfriend and her new lover, Ian, an aspiring writer and coffee shop employee, becomes involved in a scheme to pen a bogus memoir and discovers unsettling industry hypocrisies.

A multi-layered story told by two narrators: a 21st-century Emily Dickinson living in Mexico City who relates to the world vicariously through her children and a past that both overwhelms and liberates her, and a dying poet living in a run-down apartment in Philadelphia in the 1950s. While she tells the story of her past as a young editor in New York City desperately trying to convince a publisher to translate and publish the works of Gilberto Owen-an...

Few books can make the promise of this one: if you adapt these five simple, virtually-free suggestions you will live a longer and healthier life, guaranteed. Presented by a trusted expert, The Big Five includes easily digestible data and startling results from real studies conducted by reputable universities and involving thousands of subjects. Readers can see for themselves that, without a doubt, these five simple actions offer many more proven benefits...

"Commissaire Georges Dupin, a Parisian-born caffeine junkie recently relocated from the glamour of Paris to the remote (if picturesque) Breton coast, is not happy when he is dragged from his morning croissant and coffee to the scene of a curious murder. The local village of Pont-Aven--a sleepy community by the sea where everyone knows one other and nothing much seems to happen--is in shock. The legendary ninety-one-year-old hotelier Pierre-Louis Pennec,...