Joseph Sutton has an eye -- for navel oranges and red rubies, for heroic cats and noble geckoes, for perfect mouths and super-sized bartenders. He has an ear -- for festival rhythms and regional accents, bedtime stories and cautionary tales. He has a heart -- for the pull of tradition and the call of the road, for bright-eyed Greek beauties and unresponsive ladies of the night, for boys becoming men, and writers scraping by Most of all, Joseph Sutton has a voice that emerges strong and true in this remarkable collection of stories.

Five of Saul Bellow’s most moving, richly textured, and exquisitely plotted short stories make up this volume, each providing a history of personality and self-awakening. The title story, “Him with His Foot in His Mouth,” follows a musicologist narrator who for years has scattered wounding witticisms “from the depths of my nature, that hoard of strange formulations.” As the story unfolds he tries to discover what led him into a “deep legal-financial hole,” while he awaits extradition from a refuge in British Columbia. “What Kind of Day Did You Have?” follows a divorced suburban woman and her lovers—would-be and actual—through a frantic day in their lives. Their needs and passions, as well as their comic conflicts, are matters of life and death. In “Zetland: By a Character Witness” and in “A Silver Dish,” Bellow returns, with his unequaled command of eloquent recollected detail, to a bygone Chicago, “Zetland” is a brilliant portrait of an artist as a young boy and a man, precocious and eccentric; “A Silver Dish” is a memorable story of a raffish, willful father and his affectionate son. “Cousins,” the final story in the volume, explores the mysteries of family feeling—mysteries that defy both logic and the worthiness of their objects, as Ijah Brodsky, successful in the larger world, is drawn into an encounter with criminal and naively idealistic forces. This collection represents a turning point in the bountiful career of Saul Bellow, a felicitous rendering of the human condition in all its absurd complexity.

After the Giants moved from New York to San Francisco in 1958, it took them 53 years to win their first World Series in 2010. Incredible . Their next title came in 2012. Miraculous . Then, in 2014, they became world champions again! Magical . Drawn from his personal journal, Joseph Sutton has combined all three of the Giants' World Series seasons into this one book. His unique observations will bring back a flood of memories for Giants fans, both young and old, on how the Giants, underdogs each year, reached the pinnacle of the baseball world three times in five years. What makes this book truly distinct is that it's interwoven with the story of how baseball has influenced Sutton's relationship with his son Ray, from the time Ray was a Little Leaguer through high school. It shows how the game of baseball, ever since its very beginnings, has cemented relationships between fathers and sons, and some daughters, too.

What is the writer's method? How does she or he get strings of inspired words down on a page or onto a monitor screen? Not very damn well if you're Ben Halaby, filled with dedication but suffering the throes of chronic Writer's Block. The spiritual Kaopectate that gets Ben aflow at long last is Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way (an actual book for those of you who don't know). It's dictum is to begin each day by writing-3-pages-of-anything-that-pops-into-your-head-no-matter-how-mediocre-for-84-days -- morning pages. Through this process, or rather along with it, out from Ben's harvesting mind spring anecdotes from his past, or derivations of same. It doesn't matter! Ben Halaby can write again -- There's hope for us all! Sutton's amusing, wise, and inspirational book is not intended to sell more copies of Cameron's. But, convincing as it is, it just might.

A short, invaluable used car buying guide that is sure to save you money, whether buying from a private party or a car salesperson.

In her debut story collection DEER, Susan Tepper takes us into the forest of her imagination, shining a light on a pack of off-kilter characters caught in unusual and compelling circumstances. Tepper is one of the most original voices in fiction I've heard in quite a while. While reading her loopy-beautiful dark narratives, I was reminded of the first time I read Denis Johnson. Yes, she 's that good. This is a writer to watch! - Jamie Cat Callan, The Writer's Toolbox & French Women Don't Sleep Alone

The Sins of Childhood and Other Stories explores the depth of thought, human warmth, powers of observation, and technical excellence for which Prus has been justly praised through twelve of his classic short pieces.