Интелигентен и проникновен роман, който ни потапя дълбоко в непонятното. В един миг милиони хора по света изчезват. Бебета се изпаряват от количките си пред очите на майките си, мъже и жени потъват вдън земя на връщане от работа, цели семейства се стопяват във въздуха, докато вечерят заедно на масата. Никой от тях не се завръща. Възнесението ли е това, или апокалипсисът на скептиците? Трагедията е необяснима. Изправени пред загадка, която не могат да разрешат, и загуба, която не е по силите им да превъзмогнат, останалите започват да губят себе си. Три години по-късно жителите на някога китното предградие Мейпълтън все още са травматизирани от случилото се. Вярващите са...

Tom Perrotta's thirty-ish parents of young children are a varied and surprising bunch. There's Todd, the handsome stay-at-home dad dubbed "The Prom King" by the moms of the playground; Sarah, a lapsed feminist with a bisexual past, who seems to have stumbled into a traditional marriage; Richard, Sarah's husband, who has found himself more and more involved with a fantasy life on the internet than with the flesh and blood in his own house; and Mary Ann, who thinks she has it all figured out, down to scheduling a weekly roll in the hay with her husband, every Tuesday at 9pm. They all raise their kids in the kind of sleepy American suburb where nothing ever seems to happen-at least until...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Leftovers comes a darkly hilarious novel about a high school election that brings out the worst in everyone - the basis for the film starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick! Tracy Flick wants to be President of Winwood High. She's one of those ambitious girls who finds time to do it all: edit the yearbook, star in the musical, sleep with her English teacher. But another teacher, staunch idealist Jim McAllister (aka "Mr. M."), thinks the students deserve better. So he persuades Paul Warren - a well-liked, good-hearted jock - to throw in his hat. But that puts Paul's sister, Tammy, in a snit. So she runs, too, on an apathy platform...

The Best American Series First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected - and most popular - of its kind. The Best American Short Stories 2012 includes Nathan Englander, Mary Gaitskill, Roxane Gay, Jennifer Haigh, Steven Millhauser, Alice Munro, Lawrence Osborne, Eric Puchner, George Saunders, Kate Walbert, and...

New York Times bestselling author Tom Perrotta's first book is "more powerful than any coming-of-age novel" - The Washington Post Bad Haircut explores the themes that have fascinated Perrotta throughout his career: suburban rituals and mores; sports and religion; the cheerful cheesiness of American consumer life; public tests of manliness; and the moral dilemmas faced by ordinary people, parents, and teenagers alike. Perrotta has continued to explore these subjects in novels from Election to The Abstinence Teacher. The ten rich stories here are linked by a single protagonist: Buddy, an adolescent suburban New Jersey boy who is truly seeing his world for the first time and already...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Leftovers and Little Children comes a penetrating and hilarious new novel about sex, love, and identity on the frontlines of America's culture wars. Eve Fletcher is trying to figure out what comes next. A forty-six-year-old divorcee whose beloved only child has just left for college, Eve is struggling to adjust to her empty nest when one night her phone lights up with a text message. Sent from an anonymous number, the mysterious sender tells Eve, "U R my MILF!" Over the months that follow, that message comes to obsess Eve. While leading her all-too-placid life - serving as Executive Director of the local senior center by day and taking a...

The public and private self-images of a high school math teacher uncomfortably collide when she has a coffee date with a student who has posted negative comments about her on grademyteacher.com The story, Grade My Teacher, set at and around small-town Gifford High School, explores favorite themes of Perrotta's, who Time magazine called the "Steinbeck of surburbia."

Dave Raymond, lead guitarist of New Jersey wedding band The Wishbones, dreams of rock fame. Unfortunately, the future of the band is in jeopardy. Then the Wishbones get a gig on a cable TV show fronted by a Nazi, and Dave's problems grow even more complex.

A glimpse into parallel lives in a suburban town Tom Perrotta has made recognizably his in novels like ELECTION, LITTLE CHILDREN and this fall's THE LEFTOVERS. Clay wouldn't have said his life was defined by his place on the high school football team's roster, but when he's sidelined by injury, everything, including his sense of self, seems different. And it's not just that his concussion was bad enough to cause his parents and doctors to worry, to make him have trouble concentrating. It's that he's seeing the previously familiar people in his world - from his girlfriend Megan to his geriatric neighbor Mrs. Scotto - from a new perspective. Perrotta's warmth and ability to describe the...

Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise children: it has the proverbial good schools, solid values and a healthy real estate market. It's the kind of place where parents are involved in their children's lives - coaching sports, driving carpool, taking an interest in their development at every level. The Abstinence Teacher focuses on two divorced parents who each play key roles in the lives of other people's children: Ruth Ramsey is the human sexuality teacher at the local high school who believes that “pleasure is good, shame is bad, and knowledge is power.” Her younger daughter's soccer coach is Tim Mason, a former stoner and rocker whose response to hitting rock bottom was to...