Set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, the mesmerizing stories in After the Quake are as haunting as dreams and as potent as oracles. An electronics salesman who has been deserted by his wife agrees to deliver an enigmatic package— and is rewarded with a glimpse of his true nature. A man who views himself as the son of God pursues a stranger who may be his human father. A mild-mannered collection agent receives a visit from a giant talking frog who enlists his help in saving Tokyo from destruction. The six stories in this collection come from the deep and mysterious place where the human meets the inhuman—and are further proof that Murakami is one of the most visionary writers at work today.

The celebrated physician and anthropologist offers a vivid on-the-ground account of the relief effort in the aftermath of Haiti's earthquake—and issues a powerful call to action. Reprint.

We're in the land of loss, but not lamentation. Jackson's characters love and laugh, dance and argue in a way that honors their bittersweet survival. Tender emotions are much harder to achieve onstage than pathological ones; it's a pleasure to see goodne The exiles whose tales of displacement are related here may be embodied by actors, but you often feel that it's the people they are portraying who are demanding the courtesy of your attention. How can you turn away? This aura of fraught intimacy has been

The Good Friday, 1964, Anchorage, Alaska earthquake, and newscaster Genie Chance remaining on-air to broadcast events.

On March 27, 1964, at 5-36 p.m., the biggest earthquake ever recorded in North America--and the second biggest ever in the world, measuring 9.2 on the Richter scale--struck Alaska, devastating coastal towns and villages and killing more than 130 people in what was then a relatively sparsely populated region. In a riveting tale about the almost unimaginable brute force of nature, New York Times science journalist Henry Fountain, in his first trade book, re-creates the lives of the villagers and townspeople living in Chenega, Anchorage, and Valdez; describes the sheer beauty of the geology of the region, with its towering peaks and 20-mile-long glaciers; and reveals the impact of the quake on the towns, the buildings, and the lives of the inhabitants. George Plafker, a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey with years of experience scouring the Alaskan wilderness, is asked to investigate the Prince William Sound region in the aftermath of the quake, to better understand its origins. His work confirmed the then controversial theory of plate tectonics that explained how and why such deadly quakes occur, and how we can plan for the next one.

A boy and his dog navigate dangerous rubble, prejudices, and survival in this riveting fictional account of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. It's before daybreak in San Francisco on April 18, 1906. Mourning the loss of his mother, thirteen-year-old Jacob Kaufman slips out of the cramped boarding house where he lives with his immigrant father and little sister Rosie. Why couldn't Papa just let him keep the stray dog—the one thing that has made him happy in months? But he forgets all his frustrations when the ground beneath his feet begins to rumble. Buildings collapse, and the street splits wide open as Jacob runs for safety from a devastating earthquake. With just his dog, he embarks on a perilous search for shelter, food and water, and missing loved ones while grappling with his Jewish traditions and fighting prejudices against a new Chinese friend. In Gail Langer Karwoski's stirring fictional account of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, young readers will relive the drama of the actual event and its devastating aftermath. An author's note carefully separates fact from fiction, giving young readers a glimpse into one of the worst earthquakes in modern history.

From the beloved and award-winning author Junot Díaz, a spellbinding saga of a family’s journey through the New World. A coming-of-age story of unparalleled power, Drown introduced the world to Junot Díaz's exhilarating talents. It also introduced an unforgettable narrator— Yunior, the haunted, brilliant young man who tracks his family’s precarious journey from the barrios of Santo Domingo to the tenements of industrial New Jersey, and their epic passage from hope to loss to something like love. Here is the soulful, unsparing book that made Díaz a literary sensation.