A wide-ranging account of the twenty-first century’s fascination with the weird.   Twenty-first-century fiction and theory have taken a decidedly weird turn. They both show a marked interest in the nonhuman and in the preternatural moods that the nonhuman often evokes. Writers of fiction and criticism are avidly experimenting with strange, even alien perspectives and protagonists. Kate Marshall’s Novels by Aliens explores this development broadly while focusing on problems of genre fiction. She identifies three key generic hybrids that harness a longing for the nonhuman: the old weird, an alternative tradition within naturalism and modernism for the twenty-first century’s cowboys and aliens; cosmic realism, the reach for words legible only from space in otherwise terrestrial narratives; and pseudoscience fiction, which imagines speculative futures beyond human life on earth. Offering sharp and surprising insights about a breathtaking range of authors, from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Kazuo Ishiguro, Willa Cather to Maggie Nelson, Novels by Aliens tells the story of how genre became mood in the twenty-first century.

Following Kate Marshall's first year in the mortuary at a north of England NHS hospital, with each month exploring the people she meets, in life and death, as well as her own growing awareness of life behind the veil. Meet Mr X Found in his apartment months after his death, Mr X has no relatives that can be traced. He is the longest-serving resident of the mortuary, having been there for almost a year while the search for his elusive family continues. The staff talk to him like an old friend, but Mr X is disintegrating and a decision has to be made soon. Meet Mary Her baby girl has been lost in the 15th week of pregnancy, Mary's last chance to have a child. Mary won't allow Abigail to leave the mortuary until she has finished reading a book to her. She visits twice each day, sitting with her baby, reading to her, speaking to no one, until she finally opens up to Kate. Meet Joe A loving husband and father who has died suddenly of a heart attack. Joe is visited by his wife, his children - and his mistress. On the day that all his worlds collide, Kate witnesses how death can finally reveal the truth of years of lies. Sorry for Your Loss is haunting, uplifting and informative, with many moments of laughter, and shows us that the way we approach death can make life all the more precious.

A wide-ranging account of the twenty-first century’s fascination with the weird.   Twenty-first-century fiction and theory have taken a decidedly weird turn. They both show a marked interest in the nonhuman and in the preternatural moods that the nonhuman often evokes. Writers of fiction and criticism are avidly experimenting with strange, even alien perspectives and protagonists. Kate Marshall’s Novels by Aliens explores this development broadly while focusing on problems of genre fiction. She identifies three key generic hybrids that harness a longing for the nonhuman: the old weird, an alternative tradition within naturalism and modernism for the twenty-first century’s cowboys and aliens; cosmic realism, the reach for words legible only from space in otherwise terrestrial narratives; and pseudoscience fiction, which imagines speculative futures beyond human life on earth. Offering sharp and surprising insights about a breathtaking range of authors, from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Kazuo Ishiguro, Willa Cather to Maggie Nelson, Novels by Aliens tells the story of how genre became mood in the twenty-first century.

"What I Love About You" offers a fresh way to say "I love you."
This fill-in-the-blank book prompts you to say what is in your heart, but may not always be at the tip of your tongue. Tell the most important person in your life just how much they mean to you by completing the scores of unique, evocative checklists, short answers, and phrases in this attractive gift book:
If we'd first met in a comic strip, the thought bubble over my head would have said...
I adore this little daily ritual or habit we have...
One of your most irresistible physical features is...
I missed you when...
Playful, tender, and personal, this is the perfect gift for the person in your life who makes your pulse race.

An updated edition of the perfect do-it-yourself memoir that helps you record and preserve the experiences and knowledge of a lifetime for years to come. Divided into Early, Middle, and Later Years, this keepsake volume contains 201 questions that guide you through the process of keeping memories on subjects such as family and friends, learning and education, work and responsibilities, and the world around you. Created by a grandson and grandfather, The Book of Myself is the perfect way for you, or someone close to you, to remember the turning points and everyday recollections of a lifetime and share them with future generations. The new edition has been updated with reordered questions to start with more objective, easy-to-answer prompts, then move to reflective queries, followed by deeper interpretive questions. It also includes aunts, uncles, and those who did not have children.

In 2008 these three a-musing poets appeared together in the women's poetry anthology, Not A Muse. But in this new anthology, they take turns being Thalia, muse of comedy, Clio, muse of history and Polyhymnia, muse of sacred poetry. They know each other and appear to have inspired each other-all three write about spirituality and silent reflection. For Kate Marshall Flaherty "the quietest time" is "empty yet full." In the early morning, she stares "at everything / in the absence of light." Deborah Panko's poems hover over the world while celebrating epiphany and longing, like her "Hummingbird," the "Native Indian symbol for healing." In a sestina moving as a prayer, Donna Langevin gives "alibis to angels." Real life is depicted with wit and insight. Deborah manages to blend reflection with compassion and irony in "Faith Bought in a Crystal Shop in Toronto, Canada, at the End of the 20th Century," and "With vision clear and strong as a clap of thunder," she portrays a visceral and elemental spirituality-"a faith that could make sense of it all." In "National Geographic Photograph," Kate describes the raw horror of the image of a starving woman, her "skeleton draped / in a dark sari of skin." Donna's "Hot Chocolate Rag" celebrates a tune "composed / in a New York coffee shop / in the middle of a snowstorm / 100 years ago" and how it "steams from the keyboard" of her "ragster son." You will enter this anthology with an "Oooo" of wonder and hang, like Kate Marshall Flaherty, "suspended like a halo" over the spiritual pieces. Deborah Panko's "History Lesson" will fill you with visceral regret as you read about how the narrator has shut desire in a book. And the final section will snow down on you with grace as Donna Langevin reflects on the multiple shapes of love and snow. - Kate Rogers, Co-editor, Not A Muse: the inner lives of women; Haven Books.

Corridor offers a series of conceptually provocative readings that illuminate a hidden and surprising relationship between architectural space and modern American fiction. By paying close attention to fictional descriptions of some of modernity's least remarkable structures, such as plumbing, ductwork, and airshafts, Kate Marshall discovers a rich network of connections between corridors and novels, one that also sheds new light on the nature of modern media. The corridor is the dominant organizational structure in modern architecture, yet its various functions are taken for granted, and it tends to disappear from view. But, as Marshall shows, even the most banal structures become strangely visible in the noisy communication systems of American fiction. By examining the link between modernist novels and corridors, Marshall demonstrates the ways architectural elements act as media. In a fresh look at the late naturalist fiction of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, she leads the reader through the fetus-clogged sewers of Manhattan Transfer to the corpse-choked furnaces of Native Son and reveals how these invisible spaces have a fascinating history in organizing the structure of modern persons. Portraying media as not only objects but processes, Marshall develops a new idiom for Americanist literary criticism, one that explains how media studies can inform our understanding of modernist literature.

DON'T SAY A WORD is the empowering memoir of Kate Marshall, a mother-of-four from Manchester. Ripped from her many brothers and sisters at the age of eight, Kate's mother uproots her to a new life in which love and safety are not priorities. With little explanation, Kate is thrown into a world of chaos and neglect, a world which her Uncle Phil exploits through a campaign of shocking abuse over many years. The lessons Kate learns in those early years leave her extremely vulnerable and, while still a teenager, she marries an emotionally abusive, gaslighting fraudster, spending years in a controlled marriage punctuated by bulimia and a fierce desire to protect her beloved children. Finally finding the courage to leave, she seizes control of her own destiny by taking her paedophile uncle to court, where his guilt on all charges sees him finally brought to justice for what he has done. From that moment, Kate vows she will never again be the victim of those who chose to control and abuse her - that she will fight for herself and for others with every breath she has and will never be silenced again.