The word is out in Spanish Harlem: Willy Bodega is king. Need college tuition for your daughter? Start-up funds for your fruit stand? Bodega can help. He gives everyone a leg up, in exchange only for loyalty--and a steady income from the drugs he pushes. Bodega turns to Chino, a smart, promising young man, for a favor. Chino is drawn to Bodega's street-smart idealism, but soon finds himself over his head, navigating an underworld of switchblade tempers,...

"One minute, Oliver 'Boo' Dalrymple is next to his locker at school reciting the periodic table from heart; the next he finds himself in 'Town,' an afterlife exclusively for thirteen-year-olds. As Boo works to acclimate himself to his new home, another boy from his hometown--Johnny--appears, seemingly a victim of the same school shooter. A social outcast back in America, Boo quickly finds the friendship and joy that he never knew in life, but as he...

"An enchanting story about a writer remembering her short time in Paris and her reflections on friendships, relationships, and her younger self in a beautiful dual-language edition. Paris has long been romanticized as the city of light. A city with a vibrant literary and artistic expatriate community. Corina--nicknamed Puffina--is a young writer hoping to find that idealized community, but when her money runs out sooner than expected, she finds a...

Seven stories of people facing turning points in their lives feature a grief-stricken father, a brother whose mother has just left home, and a woman whose many lovers cause her to doubt she will ever truly know love.

This volume of previously uncollected work represents the final legacy of one of the great and truly American writers of our time. It includes five of Raymond Carver's early stories (including the first one he ever published), a fragment of an unpublished novel, poems that have previously appeared only in small-press editions, and all of his uncollected nonfiction. Included here as well is Carver's last essay, "Friendship" about a London reunion with...