Offers tongue-in-cheek insight into American democracy with coverage of such topics as the republican qualities of ancient Rome, the antics of our nation's founders, and the ludicrous nature of today's media. 

A war hero and the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, Sergeant Raymond Shaw is keeping a deadly secret-even from himself. During his time as a prisoner of war in North Korea, he was brainwashed by his Communist captors and transformed into a deadly weapon-a sleeper assassin, programmed to kill without question or mercy at his captors' signal. Now he's been returned to the United States with a covert mission: to kill a candidate for US...

From the author of A Thousand Acres comes this serious and tragic, funny and uplifting look at humanity - set in the world of horses. "Eight or nine times a day, day after day, men and horses go out and line up and start running, and the next thing you know, you are in mystery-land." So says Leo, a sad-sack gambler with an incredibly intricate betting system. Leo is one of dozens of characters - some human, some equine - who struggle through two years...

Recently suspended for a so-called outburst, high school English teacher Anna Crawford is stewing over the injustice at home when she is shocked to see herself named on television as a suspect in a shooting at the school where she works. Though she is quickly exonerated, and the actual teenage murderer identified, her life is nevertheless held up for relentless scrutiny and judgment as this quiet town descends into media mania. This is a piercing...

Struggling with encroaching middle age and a broken engagement, advertising agent Finbar Dolan is forced to cancel his Christmas plans to tackle a last-minute work assignment only to learn that his estranged and abusive father has taken ill and that his siblings are unwilling to help, a situation that forces Fin to re-evaluate his choices.

"A daring first novel in the great picaresque tradition-both buoyant comedy and devastating satire-by the author of the best-selling story collection Say You're One of Them. Ekong Udousoro is a Nigerian editor undertaking a reckoning with the brutal recent history of his homeland by curating a collection of stories about the Biafran War. He is thrilled when a publishing fellowship gives him the opportunity to continue his work in Manhattan while learning...

Nobody blows smoke like Nick Naylor. He's a spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies-in other words, a flack for cigarette companies, paid to promote their product on talk and news shows. The problem? He's so good at his job, so effortlessly unethical, that he's become a target for both anti-tobacco terrorists and for the FBI. In a country where half the people want to outlaw pleasure and the other want to sell you a disease, what will become...

A young boy must convince his parents that a toy rifle is the only Christmas gift that will make Christmas worthwhile. Not only do his parents face what many other parents do during that time of the year, but their actions fit in with the All-American Christmas.

"From best-selling novelist T. C. Boyle, a satirical yet ultimately moving take on contemporary American life in the glare of climate change"-- Denied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful fiance, Cat suddenly craves a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like "jewelry, living jewelry" to match her black jeans. But when the budding social media star promptly loses the young "Burmie" she buys from a local pet store, she inadvertently...

"A book that's also the beginning of a movement, Bill McKibben's debut novel Radio Free Vermont follows a band of Vermont patriots who decide that their state might be better off as its own republic. As the host of Radio Free Vermont--'underground, underpowered, and underfoot'--seventy-two-year-old Vern Barclay is currently broadcasting from an 'undisclosed and double-secret location.' With the help of a young computer prodigy named Perry Alterson,...