This “brutal and unflinching” novel of fleeting love in Sin City inspired the film starring Nicholas Cage and Elizabeth Shue (Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City). John O’Brien’s debut novel, Leaving Las Vegas, is an emotionally wrenching story of a woman who embraces life and a man who rejects it; a powerful tale of hard luck, hard drinking, and a relationship of tenderness and destruction. An avowed alcoholic, Ben drinks away his family, friends, and, finally, his job. With deliberate resolve, he burns the remnants of his life and heads for Las Vegas to end it all in the last great binge of his hopeless life. On the Strip, he picks up Sera, a prostitute, in what might have become another excess in his self-destructive jag. Instead, their chance meeting becomes a respite on the road to oblivion as they form a bond that is as mysterious as it is immutable.

This is a reissue of the novel inspired by Hunter S. Thompson's ether-fuelled, savage journey to the heart of the American Dream: We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold... And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas.

A travel guide to Las Vegas that also focusses on the neglection of its historic places.

Launched by the summer '04 award-winning bestseller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. In this chilling portrait of America's Sin City, lady luck is just as likely to dispense cold hard cash as a cold-hearted killing. Brand-new stories by: John O'Brien, David Corbett, Scott Phillips, Nora Pierce, Bliss Esposito, Felicia Campbell, Jaq Greenspon, Jos Skinner, Pablo Medina, Christine McKellar, Lori Kozlowski, Vu Tran, Celeste Starr, Preston L. Allen, Tod Goldberg, and Janet Berliner. Las Vegas provides the classic sophistication and darkness necessary for a deadly noir story. Stylish, sultry, brimming with ambition and greed, the characters that populate this literary Las Vegas are pushed to the extremes of human experience. From the neon glitter of the Strip to the treacherous views of Red Rock Canyon and Boulder City, from the desperation of Naked City to the racial tensions of the Westside, no other location offers so many different avenues leading to serious trouble. Many legendary authors have turned their attention to Vegas to investigate the city's moods and mysteries. Now, the most recent crop of acclaimed writers explore the secret neighborhoods and byways of America's most sinful city, offering readers not only compelling noir tales but also an insider's understanding of this steamy oasis. These authors take readers beneath the surface flash of Freemont Street and the Strip and into the gritty multicultural environs of underground Vegas. Jarret Keene is author/editor of three books, including the poetry collection Monster Fashion, the alt-travel tome The Underground Guide to Las Vegas, and the unauthorized rock bio The Killers: Destiny Is Calling Me. He lives in Las Vegas. Todd James Pierce is the author of three books, including the novel A Woman of Stone and the short story collection Newsworld, which won the 2006 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. He is an assistant professor of English at Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, California.

This is a book of jazzy, edgy, adventuresome poems from the author of Earthquake Weather and Like Cities, Like Storms. Ever aware, ever vivid, ever focused, Kleinzahler's are some of the finest lyrics being produced in American poetry today. "Pieces of ordinary talk are Kleinzahler's strong suit," as Helen Vendler observed in Parnassus, "because they occur in his glancing, alert rhythms. . . . [His] jaunty skips and riffs solace the ear." Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow presents an experimental poetry of exceptional wit and control.

1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In Green Sees Things in Waves, a powerful and inventive collection, August Kleinzahler succeeds in creating a new idiom for American lyric poetry that captures the velocity and swerves of contemporary life in the city. He pushes the language very hard to get there, and the results are breathtaking: an angular, propulsive poetry that transforms character, voice, and setting into buzzing, luminous events.

Being gay in Las Vegas until the 1990s was a felony with a hefty fine and long prison sentence. The Las Vegas LGBTQ community did not organize to fight for its rights until the late 1970s and by the early 1980s had made headway, before AIDS stopped their momentum. While AIDS was devastating, it taught compassion, self-reliance, and political savvy. By 2017, Las Vegas was a city among the most welcoming of the nation's queer community.