by Perry Lentz — The riveting narrative of a Confederate provocateur in 1863 Manhattan who changes the course and outcome of the War Between the States. A tale of  personal disintegration foretelling that of a nation, Perish From The Earth creates a luminous flicker-show of Manhattan street battles and the lives of mobs — the product of political chicanery, public corruption, immigrant misery, the gangs of New York peopled with vivid historical characterizations. John Patrick Callahan’s first-hand account of the Great New-York Rebellion of 1863 is flanked by commentary from a prominent military historian, ca. 1880, as this volume is published to a fractured nation seeking to fight itself back together in 1880. A fine layered fiction and a great read, this sweeping novel will become one of your all-time favorites.

by August Franza — A sobering while amusing look at inter-generational and class conflict. Peopled with rich characters, this vivid story rings in the mind of an inveterate outsider — one who finds himself drawn into drama he never sought, with his life changed in the telling.

by Robert Hamburger — This vivid novel depicts a group of young Americans in mid-1970′s Iran, in the waning days of the Shah’s reign — a decisive turning point for Iran and for the U.S. in the Middle East. Shiraz reveals cracks and shadows in that time that have since deepened and widened, providing a vivid back story to present disasters.

by P.F. Kluge — Who would want to kill a college? As a series of grisly murders unfolds at a small liberal arts school, that question slowly climbs the stairs. “Like some of my favorite movies,” wrote director Martin Scorcese, “Final Exam uses a classic genre and twists it into something new and compelling and memorable.”

by Charlene Fix — An extraordinary exploration of human and animal communication, and the worlds we share. Sweet and searing poems of a beloved dog, complemented by Susan Josephson’s artful illustrations.

Verse translation by Michael Barich — This 1st-century AD Latin version of the earlier Greek epic features exotic lands, wondrous monsters and a sea voyage over swells of young love. Valerius Flaccus lent sharp Roman refinements and erotic passion to the tale, which are skillfully sustained in this careful and appealing modern translation in English verse.

by Fielding Dawson — His last collection to appear during his lifetime. “The legendary Dawson has written 20 new stories, collected here in a handsome volumette. ‘Voices wise … deeply human … and searching,’ is what I once wrote, about another book by Dawson. Still true,” wrote Andrei Codrescu.

by Robert Flanagan — In this new collection of stories, Robert Flanagan again works muscular magic — bobbing, jabbing, and weaving with vivid dialogue and lively movements. We come across chiseled characters boxing, acting, attending Catholic grammar school, surviving Marine Corps basic — they grunt, swear, sweat, tell lies, and stumble over truth cloaked in a rueful, gimlet-eyed Irish humor. In my favorite of this collection, a Chautauqua actor makes his way as John L. Sullivan, owning fame, pain and shame, preaching temperance beside Sojourner Truth, reaching for redemption as life and time glide on. Each of these stories is a fine little film, speckled with credible dialogue from nuanced personae, shaded with bittersweet longing and generous humor.

by Loranne Temple — Runner-up for the 2009 Drake Emerging Writer Award. “Loranne Temple’s extraordinarily graceful stories are as inviting as a cool drink on a hot day. And like certain kinds of cool drinks, the stories in Coming To You from the Blue Room are deceptive, revealing their power only after we try to move away from them. A pleasure to read, these stories linger long in the mind.” Erin McGraw, author of The Baby Tree and The Good Life.

by Fielding Dawson — Thirteen stories (twelve new, one renewed) and five collages by Fielding Dawson. The collection opens with a 1975 classic, Dialogue, Dialogue, Monologue, Log and continues with more recent work. This is Fielding’s first posthumous volume, edited by Susan Maldovan.

by Peter Rutkoff — A fabric of memorable stories connecting a son with his lost father.

by Mike Newell — Poet and wildland firefighter Mike Newell in an absorbing dialogue with literary virtuoso and fellow Earth-attendant Barry Lopez. Lewis Hyde wrote, “This book shows once again why many of us think of Barry Lopez as a national treasure,” while Patrick Meanor added, “What emerges is as inevitable as a Bach fugue–sharp clarity and an elaborate mandala of insight into Lopez’s life work.” Includes a compelling interview and a Newell essay on Lopez’s short fiction.

by Patrick Meanor — An informed and hilarious look at what it means to be hung over, a wry take on film and television culture, and a smart & hopeful guide to imaginative redemption.

by Bruce Haywood — A penetrating look at the present state and future prospects of liberal arts education in America, as well as a fascinating chronicle of one man’s life in higher education.

by Peter White — The primacy of the quest for meaning, the interrelatedness of systems, and the idea that how we see determines the quality of the world are the central themes of this generous meditation. A former Chairman of U.S. Trust bank in New York, Peter White brings fresh thinking and keen sensitivity to the human condition.

by Fred Andrle — An extended set of passionate poems from a beloved central Ohio NPR host and commentator, with a CD of selected readings. “These poems tell of mystical meanings hiding in ordinary life,” wrote Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul. Well-known Columbus poet Charlene Fix, author of Flowering Bruno: A Dography from this press, who teaches at Columbus College of Art & Design and is a longtime collaborator with Andrle in the House of Toast poetry series, wrote “Fred Andrle is an heir of Walt Whitman… the vision is soaring, inclusive, exuberant.”

by Mark Sebastian Jordan — subtitled “A Complete History of the United States, At Least As Much Of It As Can Be recalled Without Actually Looking Anything Up,” this is a comic sweep across a dazed vision of U.S. history as related by a pompous pseudo-academic given to preposterous malapropism.

by Harry Marten — A long, comfortable walk in the woods with the hounds of memory, this memoir considers life and memory not as a “summoning of the completed past to give shape to a fluid present,” but more as invention — “putting up a fiction of ‘then’ shaped by the needs of ‘now.’” Anita Diamant, author of The Red Tent and The Last Days of Dogtown wrote, “I felt blessed reading But That Didn’t Happen To You — being in the presence of profound tenderness. Blessed. Wow.”

by Bruce Haywood — A charming and thoughtful gaze back across the Atlantic at a very specific place in time — Bruce Haywood’s home ground, a Yorkshire coal mining town of the 1930′s and 40′s. The peculiar human ways of that place and its people come across clearly and endearingly in this lively memoir. The process of becoming American and seeing his old home ground anew, through American eyes, is an insightful thread woven throughout. “This work is an entertaining tale of a Renaissance figure growing up to play the piano and saxophone, to marry an American woman and to father two daughters. Simply and eloquently written with touches of unexpected humor, it is a gem of a memoir.” (Amazon reviewer)

by Galbraith Crump — This beautiful and moving memoir is deceptively simple. It weaves together memories, scenes, characters in a powerful warp and weft across decades. At the center is the enchanting figure of Joan, a woman who ignites each scene just as she provided light and life for her large and far-flung family. Galbraith Crump’s meditations on Joan and their life together are vivid and particular to be sure and breathtakingly powerful but they also evoke larger considerations of meaning and mortality that will touch any reader. — David H. Lynn, Editor, The Kenyon Review

by Johnnie Wilson, Jr. as told to Susan Gluck Rothenberg — “Johnnie Wilson’s oral history, lovingly assembled by Susan Rothenberg, provides windows into large segments of American life seldom so carefully recaptured: rural black America, baseball, the waterfront and, above all, family life in the early twentieth century. Wilson was an ‘ordinary’ decent, fascinating citizen whose story I found simply extraordinary.” Fay Vincent, former commissioner, Major League Baseball

by Laura McCullough — A zesty collection of poems from the poet who brought us The Dancing Bear and Speech Acts, What Men Want is, according to Kurt Brown, “poems of formal grace and searching intelligence.” Reviewer Denise Duhamel wrote, “McCullough elbows Sigmund Freud and winks. This is a book of audacious love poems, gutsy pronouncements [and] unabashed desire. McCullough is a bombshell dropping bombshells.”