From the author of Apathy and Other Small Victories, this darkly comic novel set in the near future about the race to find a missing cyber program with the power to bend reality—all before a fast-approaching comet destroys the earth. In the near future, after the internet grinds to a halt amid a wave of cyber-attacks, a company named Zodiac steps in to replace it with an evolved, augmented-reality version called The Grid. Harrigan, a hard-drinking private detective living as off-Grid as possible, is about to be evicted from his apartment when a stranger shows up asking for his help in finding Anna, an escort who he claims he's desperately in love with. Turns out that through Harrigan's new client, Anna has come into possession of a program/entity called Mirror, Mirror, which has the capacity to merge The Grid and reality, bending both to the whims of the program's user. Soon Harrigan finds himself up against the last surviving organized crime gangs in Los Angeles, Zodiac's mercenaries, and a mysterious group called The First Church Multiverse, all of whom are hot on the trail of Mirror, Mirror—if the comet rapidly approaching Earth doesn't kill them all first.

From the author of Apathy and Other Small Victories, this darkly comic novel set in the near future about the race to find a missing cyber program with the power to bend reality—all before a fast-approaching comet destroys the earth. In the near future, after the internet grinds to a halt amid a wave of cyber-attacks, a company named Zodiac steps in to replace it with an evolved, augmented-reality version called The Grid. Harrigan, a hard-drinking private detective living as off-Grid as possible, is about to be evicted from his apartment when a stranger shows up asking for his help in finding Anna, an escort who he claims he's desperately in love with. Turns out that through Harrigan's new client, Anna has come into possession of a program/entity called Mirror, Mirror, which has the capacity to merge The Grid and reality, bending both to the whims of the program's user. Soon Harrigan finds himself up against the last surviving organized crime gangs in Los Angeles, Zodiac's mercenaries, and a mysterious group called The First Church Multiverse, all of whom are hot on the trail of Mirror, Mirror—if the comet rapidly approaching Earth doesn't kill them all first.

A scathingly funny debut novel about disillusionment, indifference, and one man's desperate fight to assign absolutely no meaning to modern life. The only thing Shane cares about is leaving. Usually on a Greyhound bus, right before his life falls apart again. Just like he planned. But this time it's complicated: there's a sadistic corporate climber who thinks she's his girlfriend, a rent-subsidized affair with his landlord's wife, and the bizarrely appealing deaf assistant to Shane's cosmically unstable dentist. When one of the women is murdered, and Shane is the only suspect who doesn't care enough to act like he didn't do it, the question becomes just how he'll clear the good name he never had and doesn't particularly want: his own. “The malaise of cubicle culture may be well-trodden comedic territory by now, but Neilan's debut skewers office life with a flourish for the grotesque.” —The Village Voice

Warning! Anyone caught reading this notebook without my permission will be tossed in the bayou with a rabid snapping turtle! Seriously, I mean it! My name is Russell Weinwright and if you think you've got problems in middle school, try being a half kid, half algae swamp creature who's terrible at sports! It's not easy. I eat sunlight for lunch, I've got duck weed for hair, and I think a frog might be living in my tree trunk arm. I'm literally pond scum! Some kids call me Swamp Kid, but my best friends Charlotte and Preston keep me sane. I wish I could let you read this notebook to get the real scoop on being an eighth-grade outsider (please ignore the doodles and ketchup stains!), but things have gotten a little crazy lately. Men in black are spying on me, my science teacher might be an evil mastermind, and a hulking beast in the bayou may or may not be my super swamp mentor. Believe me, you don't wanna know! Turn back now! This is The Secret Spiral of Swamp Kid by writer and illustrator Kirk Scroggs, and you'll never look at middle school the same way again.

A scalding exploration of love, marriage, fidelity, and betrayal. “Meet me at five,” the voice said on the answering machine. Four ordinary words yet, when heard by the wrong person, enough to change the course of a marriage. Marooned in Hollywood while writing a screenplay based on his latest bestselling novel, Miles King records in his journals his escalating conviction that his glamorous wife, a New York-based journalist named Maggie, is having an affair with Miles’s favorite student. Amidst the sun-buffed egos and the longing for connection and fame he encounters at every cocktail party and no-name bar in Hollywood, Miles finds unexpected comfort in an affair of his own with Lucy, a young mother whose open, eager mind sparks an irresistible passion in him. A potent brew of lust, guilt, anger, and betrayal, Miles’s journals reveal his constantly shifting emotional state and the perils he must navigate as his fantasies become increasingly hard to distinguish from reality. In Hollywood Savage, acclaimed novelist Kristin McCloy probes one modern man’s psychological depths with stunning accuracy, and illuminates the ways men and women try desperately to reveal themselves to one another, while still always keeping a part of their hearts a secret. Kristin McCloy was born in San Francisco and spent her childhood in Spain, India, and Japan. A graduate of Duke University, she is the author of the novels Velocity and Some Girls. Her novels have been published in more than fifteen countries. She currently lives in Oakland, California.

Built by Sid Grauman in 1927, the most famous motion picture palace in the world towers majestically above the 6900 block of Hollywood Boulevard. The Chinese Theatre's Forecourt of the Stars attracts more than two million visitors annually. Throughout its history and up to the present day, the theatre has served as a magnet to thousands of fans and tourists who flock to the site daily to view the flamboyant architecture and the historic cement squares in the theatre's forecourt. The footprints, handprints, and signatures of 176 of Hollywood's most famous celebrities have been placed here, plus those of three comedy teams, one group of quintuplets, two robots and a villainous sci-fi character, on ventriloqist's dummy, a radio character, and the world's best known duck.

Originally published in 1994, Homelands, Harlem & Hollywood examines the anti-colonialist struggle against apartheid, and the ways in which American and South African culture have been fascinated with and influenced by one another. Rob Nixon’s wide-ranging analysis looks at Hollywood representations of the struggle for liberation, the impact of the Harlem Renaissance on the Sophiatown writers, the banning and censorship of television under apartheid, Mandela and messianic politics, the sports and cultural boycotts, ethnic nationalism, and the culture of violence. Nixon concludes with an investigation of how the collapse of communism and anti-communism and the rise of ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union had powerful implications for the shape of post-apartheid South Africa.