Civilization is Elizabeth Arnold's second volume of poetry. In deft yet emphatic syntax, these poems move from politics and history to an intimate gesture, from ancient fragments and architectural facades to a father's face. The layers she excavates in the process are both archaeological and psychological; at the limits of civilization we find both silence and archaic force, "the white-noise granulated light, a sand-storm whiteout." As Eleanor Wilner writes, "These spare and unsparing lines, taut with a formidable restraint, vibrate to frequencies that her almost preternaturally acute perception allows us to share."

Agnes George de Mille (1905-1993) was one of the most popular choreographers of American theater and film in the twentieth century. She was also one of the greatest writers on dance in English, alongside Edwin Denby, Arlene Croce, and Alastair Macaulay. De Mille published eleven books, a review of the London première of Balanchine’s Prodigal Son, and a monograph ("Russian Journals"). Sadly, of these, only her biography of Martha Graham remains in print. Leaps in the Dark is a dazzling collection that reintroduces de Mille’s astounding written legacy to a new generation of dance enthusiasts. Mindy Aloff’s brief introductions provide just enough context to allow de Mille’s brilliant portraits to shine all the brighter. This anthology presents the Prodigal Son review in full, alongside excerpts from the monograph and eight of de Mille’s ten books now out of print. The result is a beautifully crafted volume that highlights some of the most engaging, witty, and evocative dance writing ever penned.

"Allen fuses intellect with images. Our language sparkles in his hands. His poems are word sculptures on paper. Allen seems to be following the tradition of Robert Hayden, Sterling Brown and Melvin Tolson. It's the place to be."

—E. Ethelbart Miller, Director, African-American Resource Center, Howard University

The world of Jeffery Renard Allen’s stunning short-story collection is a place like no other. A recognizable city, certainly, but one in which a man might sprout wings or copper pennies might fall from the skies onto your head. Yet these are no fairy tales. The hostility, the hurt, is all too human. The protagonists circle each other with steely determination: a grandson taunts his grandmother, determined to expose her secret past; for years, a sister tries to keep a menacing neighbor away from her brother; and in the local police station, an officer and prisoner try to break each other’s resolve. In all the stories, Allen calibrates the mounting tension with exquisite timing, in mesmerizing prose that has won him comparisons with Joyce and Faulkner. Holding Pattern is a captivating collection by a prodigiously talented writer.

Nelson’s life is not turning out the way he hoped. His girlfriend is sleeping with another man; his brother has left their South American country, leaving Nelson to care for their widowed mother; and his acting career can’t seem to get off the ground. That is, until he lands a starring role in a touring revival of The Idiot President, a legendary play by Nelson’s hero, Henry Nuñez, leader of the storied guerrilla theater troupe Diciembre. And that’s when the real trouble begins. Nelson’s fate is slowly revealed through the investigation of the narrator, a young man obsessed with Nelson’s story—and perhaps closer to it than he lets on. In sharp, vivid, and beautiful prose, Alarcón delivers a compulsively readable narrative and a provocative meditation on fate, identity, and the large consequences that can result from even our smallest choices.

At Night We Walk in Circles was one of the books chosen for the We Second That list of second novels compiled by Whiting and Slate in 2014.

Recruited to market Governor John Anderson in his bid for the presidency and then hired as an advisor when he wins, former filmmaker Ann Matter becomes involved in scandals involving his administration.

Joey Taylor's childhood went awry somewhere. Now that she's alone, fourteen years old, her father dead, her mother gone adventuring, she sees the opportunity to bring herself up right. But just as she's starting, Joey meets David Giffard, an eccentric loner whose mysterious habits draw her into his own strange and solitary life. Giffard gives her piano lessons and then begins to show her bits and pieces of a film that seems to hold a lesson, too, if she could just make sense of it. When at last she has to learn the secret of this odd home movie, Joey sets off for Los Angeles to find the actor whose role in the film is somehow crucial to Giffard's story—and, now, to her own. Along the way her path crosses those of a male stripper who wants no trouble, a dancer who wants to disappear, a philosophical truck driver who wants to settle down, and finally the hapless actor who bitterly wants out of the movie of Giffard's life. Joey's search involves them all in a story where certain knowledge surprises, recognition looks strange, and the only way to come home is to keep moving.

In these fourteen essays André Aciman, one of the most poignant stylists of his generation, dissects the experience of loss, moving from his forced departure from Alexandria as a teenager, though his brief stay in Europe and finally to the home he's made (and half invented) on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Eight White Nights is an unforgettable journey through that enchanted terrain where passion and fear and the sheer craving to ask for love and to show love can forever alter who we are. A man in his late twenties goes to a large Christmas party in Manhattan where a woman introduces herself with three words: “I am Clara.” Over the following seven days, they meet every evening at the same cinema. Overwhelmed yet cautious, he treads softly and won’t hazard a move. The tension between them builds gradually, marked by ambivalence, hope, and distrust. As André Aciman explores their emotions with uncompromising accuracy and sensuous prose, they move both closer together and farther apart, culminating on New Year’s Eve in a final scene charged with magic and the promise of renewal.

Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. During the restless summer weeks, unrelenting but buried currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them and verge toward the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. André Aciman's critically acclaimed debut novel is a frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion.