A latest collection of short fiction by the award-winning author of Swamplandia! includes the title story, in which a desperate new mother strikes a bargain to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection over her baby.

The best-selling author of The Road to Character presents a thought-provoking exploration of the qualities of a meaningful life, drawing on inspirational examples to offer advice about personal philosophies, a vocation, faith, relationships and community life.

Studying medicine and falling in love in 1914 France, the son of a wealthy Palestinian textile merchant returns home to find his loyalties tested by conflicts between the British government and the independence-minded nationalists of his community.

The celebrated singer-songwriter and social activist recounts the fiercely independent spirit that shaped her early life and career, discussing such subjects as her first album release and the creation of her Righteous Babe Records label.

For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents—moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted. In her rugged Italian village, Stella is considered an oddity—beautiful and smart, insolent and cold. Stella uses her peculiar toughness to protect her slower, plainer baby sister Tina from life’s harshest realities. But she also provokes the ire of her father Antonio: a man who demands subservience from women and whose greatest gift to his family is his absence. When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and Tina must come of age side-by-side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them. Soon Stella learns that her survival is worthless without the one thing her family will deny her at any cost: her independence. In present-day Connecticut, one family member tells this heartrending story, determined to understand the persisting rift between the now-elderly Stella and Tina. A richly told debut, The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna is a tale of family transgressions as ancient and twisted as the olive branch that could heal them.

A counterintuitive guide to hope looks at contemporary society's relationships with religion, politics, money, entertainment, and the internet and challenges people to be honest with themselves and connect with the world in ways they had not considered before.