Soft skull press (Más de 3000 resultados)

Hardback. Condición: Very Good. Jamestown chronicles a group of "settlers" (more like survivors) from the ravaged island of Manhattan, departing just as the Chrysler Building has mysteriously plummeted to the earth. This ragged band is heading down what's left of I-95 in a half-school bus, half-Millennium Falcon. Their goal is to establish an outpost in southern Virginia, find oil, and exploit the Indians controlling the area. Based on actual accounts of the Jamestown settlement from 1607 to 1617, Jamestown features historical characters including John Smith, Pocahontas, and others enacting an imaginative re-version of life in the pioneer colony. In this retelling, Pocahontas's father Powhatan is half-Falstaff, half-Henry V, while his consigliere is a psychiatrist named Sidney Feingold. John Martin gradually loses body parts in a series of violent encounters, and John Smith is a ruthless and pragmatic redhead continually undermining the aristocratic leadership. Communication is by text-messaging, IMing, and, ultimately, telepathy. Punctuated by jokes, rhymes, "rim shot" dialogue, and bloody black-comic tableaux, Jamestown is a trenchant commentary on America's past and present that confirms Matthew Sharpe's status as a major talent in contemporary fiction. …

Paperback. Condición: Good. "A witty and grisly gothic unlike anything I've ever read. You should absolutely read this." --Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble A new arrival at an isolated school for orphaned boys quickly comes to realize there is something wrong with his new home. He hears chilling whispers in the night, his troubled classmates are violent and hostile, and the Headmaster sends cryptic messages, begging his new charge to confess. As the new boy learns to survive on the edges of this impolite society, he starts to unravel a mystery at the school's dark heart. And that's when the corpses start turning up. A coming-of-age tale, a Gothic ghost story, and a murder mystery all in one, The Job of the Wasp is a bloodcurdling and brilliantly subversive novel about paranoia, love, and the nightmare of adolescence.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. What does it mean when a band is judged by how hard they pray rather than how hard they rock? Would Jesus buy "Got Jesus?" T-shirts or sport "witness wear"? What do Christian skate parks, raves, and romance novels say about evangelicalism -- and America? Meticulously reported, with the perfect blend of amusement and respect, Rapture Ready! is the story of Daniel Radosh's investigation into the wondrous but deeply weird world of Christian pop culture. This sprawling subculture -- a $7 billion industry and growing -- provides crucial insight into the social, spiritual, and political aspirations of evangelical Christians. In 18 towns from the Bible Belt to the outskirts of Hollywood, Radosh encounters dozens of memorable characters, including Bibleman, the Caped Christian; Rob Adonis, the founder and star of ultimate Christian wrestling; Ken Ham, the nation's leading prophet of creationism; and Jay Baker, the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and pastor of his own liberal, punk rock church. From Christian theme parks to Passion plays and comedy nights, Radosh combines gonzo reporting with a keen eye for detail and just the right touch of wit. Rapture Ready! is a revealing survey of a parallel universe, a unique perspective on one of America's most important social movements.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. An anthology of poetry for young adults that realistically and beautifully deals with what it means to come of age as gay, lesbian, transgender, or, as is perhaps more often the case in adolescence, totally confused. The anthology approaches the seemingly unnavigable territory of teenage sexuality and confusion with poems written by adults who keenly remember the turmoil, pain and excitement of adolescence and sexual coming- of-age. These poems bring comfort, consolation and joy to an audience for whom poetry itself might seem as unfathomable as the adulthood they face.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. For readers of Michael Cunningham's The Hours and Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles, this genre-bending exploration of the tragic figure of Branwell Brontë and the dismal, dazzling landscape that inspired his sisters to greatness is now available in a new edition with an introduction by Darcey Steinke. Branwell Brontë--brother of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne-has a childhood marked by tragedy and the weight of expectations. After the early deaths of his mother and a beloved older sister, he is kept away from school and tutored at home by his father, a curate, who rests all his ambitions for his children on his only son. Branwell grows up isolated in his family's parsonage on the moors, learning Latin and Greek, being trained in painting, and collaborating on endless stories and poems with his sisters. Yet while his sisters go on to write Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Agnes Grey, Branwell wanders from job to job, growing increasingly dependent on alcohol and opium and failing to become a great poet or artist. With rich, suggestive sentences "perfectly fitted to this famously imaginative, headstrong family" (Publishers Weekly), Branwell is a portrait of childhood dreams, thwarted desire, the confinements of gender-and an homage to the landscape and milieu that inspired some of the most revolutionary works of English literature.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. A werewolf hybrid-slash-serial killer of the wicked prowls Portland's shadows--until a sinister tech corporation hunting his kind forces him into a deadly game, awakening old ghosts and an unstoppable fury in this addictive paranormal thriller "This is the werewolf as you haven't seen it before: talking like a Richard Kadrey novel, walking through Charlie Huston's dark streets, and snarling like a Jim Harrison creature." --Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels Born in Missouri more than a century ago and raised in a Pentecostal orphanage, the creature now calling himself Gelson Verber has changed his name countless times. He's part-werewolf, and makes his living hunting certain kinds of bad men--criminals, rapists, thugs--in an often grotesque parody of the natural order. Verber is clearly suffering from the kinds of things a werewolf would be uniquely vulnerable to in the modern world: the horror of war, drug abuse, and isolation in the rain-drenched environment of Portland, Oregon. He has PTSD, but in a unique way, often flashing back to his time with a regiment in World War II. His smooth life as a serial killer takes a turn when he falls into the crosshairs of Salt Street, a development corporation running pirated criminology software and Big Data sieves to identify werewolf hybrids, who are then forced into servitude. As he falls deeper into the trap that has been set for him, his introduction to its evil architect triggers within Verber a string of recollections, conversations with the late werewolf-hybrid, John Jack Bridger. Salt Street's trap is masterful, but it does have one terrible flaw: you cannot cage someone--or something--like Gelson Verber.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Mike knew June in New York's downtown music scene in the eighties. Back then, he thought she was 'the living night - all the glamour and potential of a New York night when you're 25.' Now he's twice divorced and happy to be alone - so happy he's writing a book about it. Then he meets June again. Told in fragments of narrative, reveries, recipes, bits of conversation and snatches of weather, the book collapses a decade in Mike and June's life and shifts a reader to a glowing nostalgia for the present. …

Hardback. Condición: Good. In the wake of her parents' death, Aretha, a habitually single Black lawyer, has had only one obsession in life - success - until she falls for Aaron, a coffee entrepreneur. Moving into his Brooklyn brownstone to live along with his Hurricane Sandy - traumatized, illegal-gun-stockpiling, optimized-soy-protein-eating, bunker-building roommates, Aretha finds that her dreams of making partner are slipping away, replaced by an underground world, one of selling guns and training for a doomsday that's maybe just around the corner. For readers of Victor LaValle's The Changeling, Paul Beatty's The Sellout, and Zakiya Harris's The Other Black Girl, The Survivalists is a darkly humorous novel from a smart and relevant new literary voice that's packed with tension, curiosity and wit, and unafraid to ask the questions most relevant to a new generation of Americans: Does it make sense to climb the corporate ladder? What exactly are the politics of gun ownership? And in a world where it's nearly impossible for young people to earn enough money to afford stable housing, what does it take in order to survive. …

Paperback. Condición: Good. What if God told you to be a better person but the world wouldn't allow it? Such is the dilemma facing Joe Smith, a run-of-the-mill white collar businessman who survives an office shooting and is subsequently touched by what he believes to be divine vision. His journey toward personal enlightenment - past greed and lust and the other deadly sins - is, by turns, tense, hilarious, profane and heartbreaking. Exploring the narrow path to spiritual fulfilment, this play showcases Neil LaBute at his discomfiting best.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. Dorte is twenty and adrift, pretending to study literature at Copenhagen University. In reality she is riding the trains and clocking up random encounters in her new home by the railway tracks. She remembers her ex, Per - the first boyfriend she tells us about, and the first she leaves - as she enters a new world of transient relationships, random sexual experiences and awkward attempts to write.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. An embittered dog walker obsessed with a social media influencer inadvertently puts a curse on a young man - and must adventure into mysterious dimension in order to save him - in this wildly inventive, delightfully subversive, genre-nonconforming debut novel about illusion, magic, technology, kinship, and the emergent future.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. The human race has invented nearly every toxin imaginable. In our food, there are chemicals that kill pests, make foods ripen faster and grow bigger, and lengthen shelf life. In our clothing, chemicals make fabrics soft, keep them from wrinkling, make them fire retardant and resistant to stains, and keep them from collecting static. In our kitchens and bathrooms, chemicals create suds, remove grease, stiffen our hair, make our skin feel smooth, stop us from perspiring, change our hair color, lengthen our lashes, and make us smell good. Unfortunately, many of these chemicals, designed to improve and simplify our lives, cause birth defects, hyperactivity, learning disabilities, attention deficit, early puberty, and developmental problems--to name a few. The Pure Cure takes readers to a new level of awareness regarding the dangers of the toxins in everyday products and services. Taking a thorough and comprehensive approach, the book guides readers through every room in the house and beyond, identifying problematic toxins and a course of action for eliminating them. The author also points to surprising new areas of concern, makes suggestions for healthy solutions, and provides a lists of products and companies that can offer safer alternatives.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Written by authors born into the so-called "dilemma of intermarriage," the stories in Half/Life explore the experience of being raised in a half-Jewish home. Though each essay is distinct, and the experiences are vastly different, each describes growing up without a streamlined identity, unsure of community or religious direction. From Jenny Traig, whose experiences led her to extreme devotion in the form of religious-obsessive compulsion (scrupulosity) to Thisbe Nissen, who finally felt Jewish after discovering a rosary in her boyfriend's sock drawer, these authors examine the complicated relationships they felt with the Jewish community and the world at large. By turns tragic and funny, religious and heartbreaking, angry and surprisingly familiar, Half/Life represents the altogether diverse memories and reflections of a handful of men and women who have spent a lifetime grappling with how to define themselves, or not. Resulting from that struggle is a complex exploration, and some truly brilliant prose.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. In the wake of her parents' death, Aretha, a habitually single Black lawyer, has had only one obsession in life - success - until she falls for Aaron, a coffee entrepreneur. Moving into his Brooklyn brownstone to live along with his Hurricane Sandy-traumatised, illegal-gun-stockpiling, optimised-soy-protein-eating, bunker-building roommates, Aretha finds that her dreams of making partner are slipping away, replaced by an underground world, one of selling guns and training for a doomsday that's maybe just around the corner. For readers of Victor LaValle's The Changeling, Paul Beatty's The Sellout, and Zakiya Harris's The Other Black Girl, The Survivalists is a darkly humorous novel from a smart and relevant new literary voice that's packed with tension, curiosity and wit, and unafraid to ask the questions most relevant to a new generation of Americans: Does it make sense to climb the corporate ladder? What exactly are the politics of gun ownership? And in a world where it's nearly impossible for young people to earn enough money to afford stable housing, what does it take in order to survive. …

Paperback. Condición: Good. For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world - and the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees. In a comprehensive, fast-paced account full of larger-than-life personalities, Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper shows that, after the incredible wealth and excess of the '80s and '90s, Sony, Warner, and the other big players brought about their own downfall through years of denial and bad decisions in the face of dramatic advances in technology. Based on interviews with more than two hundred music industry sources - from Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. to renegade Napster creator Shawn Fanning - Knopper is the first to offer such a detailed and sweeping contemporary history of the industry's wild ride through the past three decades. From the birth of the compact disc, through the explosion of CD sales in the '80s and '90s, the emergence of Napster, and the secret talks that led to iTunes, to the current collapse of the industry as CD sales plummet, Knopper takes us inside the boardrooms, recording studios, private estates, garage computer labs, company jets, corporate infighting, and secret deals of the big names and behind-the-scenes players who made it all happen.…

Paperback. Condición: Fair. For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world - and the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees. In a comprehensive, fast-paced account full of larger-than-life personalities, Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper shows that, after the incredible wealth and excess of the '80s and '90s, Sony, Warner, and the other big players brought about their own downfall through years of denial and bad decisions in the face of dramatic advances in technology. Based on interviews with more than two hundred music industry sources - from Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. to renegade Napster creator Shawn Fanning - Knopper is the first to offer such a detailed and sweeping contemporary history of the industry's wild ride through the past three decades. From the birth of the compact disc, through the explosion of CD sales in the '80s and '90s, the emergence of Napster, and the secret talks that led to iTunes, to the current collapse of the industry as CD sales plummet, Knopper takes us inside the boardrooms, recording studios, private estates, garage computer labs, company jets, corporate infighting, and secret deals of the big names and behind-the-scenes players who made it all happen.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. An eye-opening introduction to the timelessly relevant ideas of Noam Chomsky, "arguably the most important intellectual alive" (The New York Times), this book is a penetrating, illusion-shattering look at how things really work Offering something not found anywhere else, How the World Works is pure Chomsky, but tailored for those who are new to his work. The book is made up of meticulously edited speeches and interviews, and every dazzling idea and penetrating insight is kept intact and delivered in clear, accessible, reader-friendly prose. Originally published as a series of short works--What Uncle Sam Really Wants; The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many; Secrets, Lies and Democracy; and The Common Good--these volumes together sold nearly 600,000 copies. Now collected into one comprehensive anthology, How the World Works reveals how Chomsky's then-revolutionary ideas have only become more relevant as time has gone by. From the concept that extreme wealth and democracy cannot exist side-by-side; to how the assumptions of mainstream media purposefully limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion; to the decline of unions and workers' rights thanks to corporations and their unconstrained quest for profit, Chomsky's prescient theories of the future--not only the future of the United States, but of the world--make it very clear that our society is paying the price now for not heeding him then. …

Paperback. Condición: Good. Titled for the last girl left alive in the classic horror movie, Final Girl traces the history of the archetypal lone survivor and her counterpart, the femme fatale. Sexy and tart, dark and comic, low-down and high hearted, in poems such as Slash', 'Vamp', 'Bride of Reanimator' and the 'Babysitter', Gottlieb identifies and articulates the desires, fears and traumas out of which pop culture is made - and then feeds pop culture back to itself. Poems explore the ways in which we're betrayed by our cultural assumptions and fantasies about abduction, gender, literature and pleasure.'.…

Hardback. Condición: Good. A memoir in cuts that illustrates for readers and foodies alike how they can improve the meat industry by participating in it. America is in the midst of a meat zeitgeist. Butchers have emerged as the rock stars of the culinary world, and cozy gastropubs serving up pork belly, lamb burgers, and sweetbreads rule the restaurant scene. In New York, the humble meatball enjoys entree status from upscale Gramercy Tavern to The Meatball Shop. Across the country in San Francisco, savvy chefs flock to hip meat markets like The Fatted Calf. If butchers are our new rock stars, then Berlin Reed is their front man. Reed is "The Ethical Butcher," a former self-described militant vegan punk who grudgingly took a job as a butcher's apprentice in Brooklyn when he could find no other work. Shockingly, he fell in love with the art of butchering, and a food revolution was born. Along the way he saw how corporate greed, unsustainable food practices, and outright misinformation gave birth to such falsities as the USDA label "organic" and the conglomerate of eco-friendly supermarkets. Most people, even those that try to be healthy and green, are not really eating what they think they are eating. The Ethical Butcher will shine a light on these untruths and show a better way towards food justice and the sustainable living of a mindful omnivore.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Welcome to the bizarre, obsessive world of Alby Starvation. Alby's doctor refuses to believe he's allergic to just about everything (which he is), especially milk. But when Alby soon discovers that his ongoing ailments are directly linked to the consumption of said product, he gives it up and is cured. Only thing is, he goes on to suggest this remedy to a number of other people suffering from milk allergies. In Millar's surreal backyard, the Milk Marketing Board sees sales slump to an all-time low. So there's only one thing left to do: put out a contract on Alby Starvation.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. Welcome to the bizarre, obsessive world of Alby Starvation. Alby's doctor refuses to believe he's allergic to just about everything (which he is), especially milk. But when Alby soon discovers that his ongoing ailments are directly linked to the consumption of said product, he gives it up and is cured. Only thing is, he goes on to suggest this remedy to a number of other people suffering from milk allergies. In Millar's surreal backyard, the Milk Marketing Board sees sales slump to an all-time low. So there's only one thing left to do: put out a contract on Alby Starvation.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. How do young black fathers relate to their children, as well as to their own fathers? How do they see their roles in both family and community? Written by both popular commentators and those who have tackled these questions first-hand, Be a Father to Your Child begins with a frank discussion of how family formation has changed since the 1960s, especially for black communities. In addition, the book presents more personal, anecdotal pieces that form a powerful composite portrait of the challenges facing these communities, and how to overcome them.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. Second. It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting.

Paperback. Condición: Good. Three generations of women struggle with oppression in this prize-winning historical saga from "a natural born storyteller" (Julia Alvarez). When I remember Russia, I ache with longing for the village of my birth, where the beloved grandparents magically produced candy in a handshake and told stories of long ago when God spoke to humans and enchantments filled the world . . . Two Jewish sisters, born in Russia shortly before the Communist Revolution, are forced to flee the pogroms and persecution and travel with their parents to British-occupied Palestine. The girls' parents befriend a widower with two children and join forces, creating a blended family. When the girls are teenagers, World War II tears the family apart, sending the girls separately to France and America. Their lives unfold in tandem: babies are born, friendships forged, and cherry pies baked-despite the brutal backdrop of the Holocaust. As the family grows into the next generation, one of the daughters, an artist drawn to a bohemian lifestyle, surrounds herself with a multicultural circle of friends the likes of which her ancestors could not have imagined. Subsequently, the artist's turns her passion to providing aid to Salvadoran refugees fleeing the death squads in their homeland, just as her own grandmother once fled the pogroms of Russia. As she follows her vocation of reversing the damage that torturers inflict on their victims, she must also overcome a past-life trauma that haunts her very core. A winner of the Fabri Literary Prize, Memories from Cherry Harvest spans seventy years and five continents, explores the physics of memory, and shows how the tenacity of good can ultimately withstand and overcome the memory of tragedy. "Like Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies and Doris Lessing's Martha Quest novels, this story about fighting the injustices of the 20th century will engage readers of politically charged fiction." -Library Journal.…

Paperback. Condición: Fair. Our narrator is a gifted photographer, an uncertain wife, an infertile mother, a biracial woman in an unraveling America. As she grapples with a lifetime of ambivalence about motherhood, yet another act of police brutality makes headlines, and this time the victim is Noah, a boy in her photography class. Unmoored by the grief of a recent devastating miscarriage and Noah's fight for his life, she worries she can no longer chase the hope of having a child, no longer wants to bring a Black body into the world. Yet her husband Asher - contributing white, Jewish genes alongside her Black-Japanese ones for any potential child - is just as desperate to keep trying. Throwing herself into a new documentary on motherhood, and making secret visits to Noah in the hospital, this when she learns she is, impossibly, pregnant. As the future shifts once again, she must decide yet again what she dares hope for the shape of her future to be. Fearless, timely, blazing with voice, Blue Hour is a fragmentary novel with unignorable storytelling power.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. Our narrator is a gifted photographer, an uncertain wife, an infertile mother, a biracial woman in an unraveling America. As she grapples with a lifetime of ambivalence about motherhood, yet another act of police brutality makes headlines, and this time the victim is Noah, a boy in her photography class. Unmoored by the grief of a recent devastating miscarriage and Noah's fight for his life, she worries she can no longer chase the hope of having a child, no longer wants to bring a Black body into the world. Yet her husband Asher - contributing white, Jewish genes alongside her Black-Japanese ones for any potential child - is just as desperate to keep trying. Throwing herself into a new documentary on motherhood, and making secret visits to Noah in the hospital, this when she learns she is, impossibly, pregnant. As the future shifts once again, she must decide yet again what she dares hope for the shape of her future to be. Fearless, timely, blazing with voice, Blue Hour is a fragmentary novel with unignorable storytelling power.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. This "book that strips off the traditional trappings of Islamic womanhood to expose the special strengths and vulnerabilities that lie beneath" (The Washington Post) affirms the reality of the romantic lives of Muslim women. Romance, dating, sex and-Muslim women? In this groundbreaking collection, twenty-five American Muslim writers sweep aside stereotypes to share their search for love openly for the first time, showing just how varied the search for love can be-from singles' events and online dating, to college flirtations and arranged marriages, all with a uniquely Muslim twist. These stories are filled with passion and hope, loss and longing: A quintessential blonde California girl travels abroad to escape suffocating responsibilities at home, only to fall in love with a handsome Brazilian stranger she may never see again. An orthodox African-American woman must face her growing attraction to her female friend. A young girl defies her South Asian parents' cultural expectations with an interracial relationship. And a Southern woman agrees to consider an arranged marriage, with surprising results. These compelling stories of love and romance create an irresistible balance of heart-warming and tantalizing, always revealing and deeply relatable. "A beautiful collection that reminds us all not only of the diversity of the American Muslim community, but the universality of the human condition, especially when it comes to something as magical and complicated as love." -Reza Aslan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of God: A Human History "Portraits of private lives that expose a group in some cases kept literally veiled, yet that also illustrate that American Muslim women grapple with universal issues." -The New York Times.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. A tour de force, voice-driven debut that examines how one woman finally found the middle ground between Heaven and Hell--an NPR Best Book of the Year. As a young girl, Maggie Rowe took the idea of salvation very seriously. Growing up in a moderately religious household, her fear of eternal damnation turned into a childhood terror that drove her to become an outrageously dedicated Born-again Christian --regularly slinging Bible verses in cutthroat scripture memorization competitions and assaulting strangers at shopping malls with the "good news" that they were going to hell. Finally, at nineteen, crippled by her fear, she checked herself in to an Evangelical psychiatric facility. And that is where her journey really began. Surrounded by a ragtag cast of characters, including a former biker meth-head struggling with anger management issues, a set of identical twins tormented by erotic fantasies, a World War II veteran and artist of denial who insists that he's only "locked up for a tune-up," and a warm and upbeat chronic depressive who becomes the author's closest ally, Maggie launches a campaign to, in the words of Martin Luther, "Sin bravely in order to know the forgiveness of God.".…

Paperback. Condición: Good. A tour de force, voice-driven debut that examines how one woman finally found the middle ground between Heaven and Hell--an NPR Best Book of the Year. As a young girl, Maggie Rowe took the idea of salvation very seriously. Growing up in a moderately religious household, her fear of eternal damnation turned into a childhood terror that drove her to become an outrageously dedicated Born-again Christian --regularly slinging Bible verses in cutthroat scripture memorization competitions and assaulting strangers at shopping malls with the "good news" that they were going to hell. Finally, at nineteen, crippled by her fear, she checked herself in to an Evangelical psychiatric facility. And that is where her journey really began. Surrounded by a ragtag cast of characters, including a former biker meth-head struggling with anger management issues, a set of identical twins tormented by erotic fantasies, a World War II veteran and artist of denial who insists that he's only "locked up for a tune-up," and a warm and upbeat chronic depressive who becomes the author's closest ally, Maggie launches a campaign to, in the words of Martin Luther, "Sin bravely in order to know the forgiveness of God.". …

Hardback. Condición: Very Good. From the author of The Dogfighter, hailed by Geoff Dyer as "the most exciting debut.by an American writer since Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides," comes Journeyman, a tightly wound novel about dwelling, building, belonging, love, and the value of a place to call home. Nolan Jackson is a journeyman carpenter by trade and a wanderer by nature. Set in 2007, while fellow Americans fight in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Nolan builds tract homes across California, travelling between jobs. Following a shocking workplace accident in his temporary home of Las Vegas, he uproots himself from the tentative relationships he has made and heads west towards the ocean. On his way he passes through his brother's town where circumstances force him to stay put. Bereft of his trailer and his tools, Nolan turns to the task of building the foundations of a meaningful life. The specter of war and questions of the Western-film notions of masculinity are woven throughout the novel; from the damage to Nolan's family by the Vietnam War in which his father fought, to the ubiquity and consequence of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to slow unraveling of his brother's marriage and mental state, to the mysterious series of arsons being set around their small town. Ultimately, Journeyman is an important, timely novel about men and brothers finding their way in the 21st century West. …