"Mary Miller seizes the mantle of southern literature with this wry tale of middle age and the unexpected turns a life can take. Like her predecessors Ann Beattie and Raymond Carver, Mary Miller brings an essential voice to her generation. Building on her critically acclaimed novel, The Last Days of California, and her biting collection, Always Happy Hour, Miller slyly transports readers to her unapologetic corner of the South--this time, Biloxi,...

"The myths and beliefs of the great Precolumbian civilizations of Mesoamerica have baffled and fascinated outsiders ever since the Spanish Conquest. Yet, until now, no single-volume introduction has existed to act as a guide to this layrinthine symbolic world. In The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya nearly 300 entries, from accession to yoke, describe the main gods and symbols of the Olmecs, Zapotecs, Maya, Teotihuacanos, Mixtecs,...

After she is accused of playing a role in her best friend's death, a young woman battles depression, anger, guilt, loneliness, and the problems of her own family as well as those of the families of her old friends.

Traces the roots of the Gulf wars and the role women played in the military, as correspondents, as medics, and on the homefront.

Elite local patron, Joanna Silver, welcomes Liu Xing, a Chinese student, to Valley State University. He enters the university with dreams of fame and a Nobel Prize. Cultural differences and school politics threaten his ambitions and result in unimaginable violence.