Riverhead Books, New York

A virtuosic debut [and] a wry look at immigrant life in the global age. "Vogue" Having left Odessa for Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, with a sense of finality, the Nasmertov family has discovered that the divide between the old world and the new is not nearly as clear-cut as they had imagined. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, returning is just a matter of a plane ticket, and the Russian-owned shops in their adopted neighborhood stock even the most obscure comforts of home. Pursuing the American Dream once meant giving up everything, but does the dream still work if the past refuses to grow distant and mythical, remaining alarmingly within reach? If the Nasmertov parents can afford only to look forward, learning the rules of aspiration, the family s youngest, Frida, can t help looking back and asking far too many questions. Yelena Akhtiorskaya s exceptional debut has been hailed not only as the great novel of Brighton Beach but as a breath of fresh air [and] a testament to Akhtiorskaya s wit, generosity, and immense talent as a young American author (NPR)."

A brilliant, life-affirming, and hilarious memoir from a ?genius? (TheNew York Times) and master storyteller. The seven years between the birth of Etgar Keret?s son and the death of his father were good years, though still full of reasons to worry. Lev is born in the midst of a terrorist attack. Etgar?s father gets cancer. The threat of constant war looms over their home and permeates daily life. What emerges from this dark reality is a series of sublimely absurd ruminations on everything from Etgar?s three-year-old son?s impending military service to the terrorist mind-set behind Angry Birds. There?s Lev?s insistence that he is a cat, releasing him from any human responsibilities or rules. Etgar?s siblings, all very different people who have chosen radically divergent paths in life, come together after his father?s shivah to experience the grief and love that tie a family together forever. This wise, witty memoir?Etgar?s first nonfiction book published in America, and told in his inimitable style?is full of wonder and life and love, poignant insights, and irrepressible humor.

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Wise and addictive...The Gifted Schoolis the juiciest novel I've read in ages... a suspenseful, laugh-out-loud page-turner and an incisive inspection of privilege, race and class."J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Friends and Strangers, inThe New York Times Smart and juicy, a compulsively readable novel about a previously happy group of friends and parents that is nearly destroyed by their own competitiveness when an exclusive school for gifted children opens in the community This deliciously sharp novel captures the relentless ambitions and fears that animate parents and their children in modern America, exploring the conflicts between achievement and potential, talent and privilege. Set in the fictional town of Crystal, Colorado,The Gifted Schoolis a keenly entertaining novel that observes the drama within a community of friends and parents as good intentions and high ambitions collide in a pile-up with long-held secrets and lies. Seen through the lens of four families who've been a part of one another's lives since their kids were born over a decade ago, the story reveals not only the lengths that some adults are willing to go to get ahead, but the effect on the group's children, sibling relationships, marriages, and careers, as simmering resentments come to a boil and long-buried, explosive secrets surface and detonate. It's a humorous, keenly observed, timely take on ambitious parents, willful kids, and the pursuit of prestige, no matter the cost.

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . . A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?