Winner of the 2011 National Poetry Series Prize as selected by D.A. Powell, Marcus Wicker's Maybe the Saddest Thing is a sterling collection of contemporary American poems by an exciting new and emerging voice.

“Tough talk for tough times. Silencer is both lyrical and merciless–Wicker’s mind hums in overdrive, but with the calm and clarity of a marksman.” —Tim Seibles, author of One Turn Around the Sun and finalist for the National Book Award A suburban park, church, a good job, a cocktail party for the literati: to many, these sound like safe places, but for a young black man these insular spaces don’t keep out the news—and the actual threat—of gun violence and police brutality, or the biases that keeps body, property, and hope in the crosshairs. Continuing conversations begun by Citizen and Between the World and Me, Silencer sings out the dangers of unspoken taboos present on quiet Midwestern cul-de-sacs and in stifling professional settings, the dangers in closing the window on “a rainbow coalition of cops doing calisthenics around/a six-foot, three-hundred-fifty-pound man, choked back into the earth for what/looked a lot, to me, like sport.” Here, the language and cadences of hip-hop and academia meet prayer—these poems are crucibles, from which emerge profound allegories and subtle elegies, sharp humor and incisive critiques. “There is not a moment in this book when you are allowed to forget the complexities of a black man's life in America. These poems evoke so much—strength, beauty, passion, fear. There is the quiet, ironic pleasure of life on a cul-de-sac juxtaposed with the tensions of always wondering when a police officer's gun or fists might get in the way of the black body. The stylistic range of these poems, the wit, and the intelligence of them offers so much to be admired. There is nothing silent about Silencer. What an outstanding second book from Marcus Wicker.” —Roxane Gay “Marcus Wicker’s masterful and hard-hitting second collection is exactly the book we need in this time of malfeasance, systemic violence, and the double talk that obfuscates it all... He writes the kinds of vital, clear-eyed poems we can turn to when codeswitching slogans and online power fists no longer get the job done. These are poems whose ink is made from anger and quarter notes. They remind us that to remain silent in the face of aggression is to be complicit and to be complicit is not an option for any of us.” —Adrian Matejka, author of The Big Smoke and finalist for the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize “Silencer is an important book of American poetry: wonderfully subtle, wholly original, and subversive. Politics and social realities aside, this is foremost a book that delights in language, how it sounds to the ear and plays to the mind. We have suburban complacency played against hip-hop resistance, Christian prayers uttered in the face of dread violence, real meaning pitted against materialism, and love, in its largest measure, set against ignorance.To say Silencer is a tour de force would be an understatement. What a work of true art this is, and what a gift Marcus Wicker has given to us.” —Maurice Manning, author of One Man’s Dark and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize "Silencer disarms and dazzles with its wisdom and full-throated wit. [This] collection snaps to attention with a soundtrack full of salty swagger and a most skillful use of formal inventions that’ll surely knock you out. Here in these pages, sailfish and hummingbirds assert their frenetic movements on a planet simmering with racial tensions, which in turn forms its own kind of bopping and buoyant religion. What a thrill to read these poems that provoke and beg for beauty and song-calling into the darkest of nights." —Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of Lucky Fish and poetry editor at Orion Magazine

Newbery-winning Rules meets Counting by 7s in this affecting story of a girl’s devotion to her brother and what it means to be home When eleven-year-old Thyme Owens’ little brother, Val, is accepted into a new cancer drug trial, it’s just the second chance that he needs. But it also means the Owens family has to move to New York, thousands of miles away from Thyme’s best friend and everything she knows and loves. The island of Manhattan doesn’t exactly inspire new beginnings, but Thyme tries to embrace the change for what it is: temporary. After Val’s treatment shows real promise and Mr. Owens accepts a full-time position in the city, Thyme has to face the frightening possibility that the move to New York is permanent. Thyme loves her brother, and knows the trial could save his life—she’d give anything for him to be well—but she still wants to go home, although the guilt of not wanting to stay is agonizing. She finds herself even more mixed up when her heart feels the tug of new friends, a first crush, and even a crotchety neighbor and his sweet whistling bird. All Thyme can do is count the minutes, the hours, and days, and hope time can bring both a miracle for Val and a way back home. With equal parts heart and humor, Melanie Conklin’s debut is a courageous and charming story of love and family—and what it means to be counted.

Hip-Hop is the largest youth culture in the history of the planet rock. This is the first poetry anthology by and for the Hip-Hop generation. It has produced generations of artists who have revolutionized their genre(s) by applying the aesthetic innovations of the culture. The BreakBeat Poets features 78 poets, born somewhere between 1961-1999, All-City and Coast-to-Coast, who are creating the next and now movement(s) in American letters. The BreakBeat Poets is for people who love Hip-Hop, for fans of the culture, for people who've never read a poem, for people who thought poems were only something done by dead white dudes who got lost in a forest, and for poetry heads. This anthology is meant to expand the idea of who a poet is and what a poem is for. The BreakBeat Poets are the scribes recording and remixing a fuller spectrum of experience of what it means to be alive in this moment. The BreakBeat Poets are a break with the past and an honoring of the tradition(s), an undeniable body expanding the canon for the fresher.

A National Indie Bestseller An NPR Best Book of the Year A New York Times Best Book of the Year An Amazon Best Book of the Year A Booklist Editors' Choice A BookPage Best Book of the Year A NECBA Windows & Mirrors Selection A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year A Today.com Best of the Year PRAISE "A modern masterpiece." —The New York Times Book Review "Supple, sparkling and original." —The Wall Street Journal "Mesmerizing." —TODAY.com "This book could change the world." —BookPage "Like nothing else you've read or ever will read." —Linda Sue Park "It hooks you right from the opening line." —NPR SEVEN STARRED REVIEWS ★ "A modern epic." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review ★ "A rare treasure of a book." —Publishers Weekly, starred review ★ "A story that soars." —The Bulletin, starred review ★ "At once beautiful and painful." —School Library Journal, starred review ★ "Raises the literary bar in children's lit." —Booklist, starred review ★ "Poignant and powerful." —Foreword Reviews, starred review ★ "One of the most extraordinary books of the year." —BookPage, starred review A sprawling, evocative, and groundbreaking autobiographical novel told in the unforgettable and hilarious voice of a young Iranian refugee. It is a powerfully layered novel that poses the questions: Who owns the truth? Who speaks it? Who believes it? "A patchwork story is the shame of the refugee," Nayeri writes early in the novel. In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family's history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel's story of how they became refugees—starting with his mother's vocal embrace of Christianity in a country that made such a thing a capital offense, and continuing through their midnight flight from the secret police, bribing their way onto a plane-to-anywhere. Anywhere becomes the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy, and then finally asylum in the U.S. Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore. Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights in a hostile classroom, Daniel spins a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE (a true story) is a tale of heartbreak and resilience and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

During and after the Second World War, Harold, a young sailor in the British Merchant Navy, serving on the Queen Mary, falls in love with the wild, impetuous Kate. But Kate's dreams to become an actress and a singer, and her growing success, prevent her from making a life with Harold. So Harold meets and marries Maggie... Fifty years later, Gregory, the middle-aged son of Harold and Maggie, hears the tumultuous story of his parents' lives from the now elderly Kate, living in present day Switzerland. What he learns turns his life upside down. This is a confronting and moving love story, set mainly against the background of wartime and postwar Britain. Who we are, who we choose to become; the decisions we make and their consequences. This is the stuff of life with which the story confronts the reader.