Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, American Rust is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation—as well as the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love—that arises from its loss. From local bars to trainyards to prison, it is the story of two young men, bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia, and the beauty around them, who dream of a future beyond the factories and abandoned homes.

“Philipp Meyer’s American Rust is written with considerable dramatic intensity and pace. It manages an emotional accuracy, a deep and detailed conviction in its depiction of character. It also captures a sense of a menacing society, a wider world in the throes of decay and self-destruction.” — Colm Tóibín, author of The Master

Luke May teaches local history—his lifelong obsession—at his old high school in Loring, Mississippi. Having been mentored by his hometown newspaper’s publisher, a survivor of the civil rights turmoil, he now passes these stories along to students far too young to have experienced them. But when a long-lost friend suddenly returns to Loring, where years ago her family had been consumed by an act of spectacular violence, Luke begins to realize that his connection with her runs deeper, both personally and politically, than he ever imagined. Just children in 1962, they had no sense of what was happening when James Meredith’s enrollment at Ole Miss provoked a bloody new battle in the old civil war, much less its impact on their fathers’ ambiguous friendship. Once his daughters leave for Ole Miss, Luke’s investigation of this decades-old trauma spills over into his own life. With his parents unwilling, or unable, to help him unlock secrets whose existence he had never suspected, this amateur historian is soon entirely consumed by an obscure past he can neither explain nor control—a gripping reminder that the past isn’t dead, or even past.

“Once again Steve Yarbrough powerfully evokes—as David Guterson put it—‘not only historical grief but the grief of our own time.'" – Random House

Hot yet sensitive and sometimes funny love poems by a rising star among gay poets. What We Have Learned to Love is the winner of the 2009 Stonewall Chapbook Competition.

“Charlie Bondhus, in the poems of What We Have Learned to Love, updates the lineage of Whitman and Ginsberg with energy, passion, and confession. The verve of these poems is palpable.” -- Kenny Fries, author of The History of My Shoes and The Evolution of Darwin's Theory

The monthly Shakespeare discussion group, led by UMASS English professor Arthur F. Kinney, will discuss The Winter's Tale. The month’s selection is discounted 20%.

Caught up in a terrifying war, facing choices of life and death, two Iraqi sisters take us into the hidden world of women’s lives under U.S. occupation. Through their powerful story of love and betrayal, interwoven with the stories of a Palestinian American women’s rights activist and a U.S. soldier, journalist Christina Asquith explores one of the great untold sagas of the Iraq war: the attempt to bring women’s rights to Iraq and the consequences for all those involved.

“Christina Asquith’s description of the wild incompetence–and dedication–of early American efforts in Iraq reads like a great novel but with the added weight of history. And her focus on women, both American and Iraqi, makes this book uniquely valuable among the many on this long war. Asquith is a fine writer and, clearly, a very brave reporter. She has filled in several crucial pieces of the Iraq puzzle, and done it beautifully.” —Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm