An “eerie, elliptical masterpiece set in a South African boarding school in the early 1960s. . . . First-rate psychological suspense . . . played out flawlessly” (Kirkus Reviews). The members of an elite girls swim team are the reigning queens at their South African boarding school. And then Italian student Fiamma Coronna joins their ranks. Beautiful, athletic, and suddenly commanding all the coach’s attention, Fiamma is the envy of every girl on the team—until the summer she walks into the rural grasslands surrounding the school and disappears. Forty years later, the former teammates return to the school for a reunion, and the memory of that summer emerges like a long buried secret, the shocking, violent truth of what really happened to Fiamma no longer able to be contained . . . “Riveting . . . while evocative of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Picnic at Hanging Rock, Kohler’s writing is so smoothly confident and erotic that she has produced a tale resonant with a chilling power all its own.” —Elle “A stunning and singular tale of the passion and tribalism of adolescence, Cracks lays bare the violence that lurks in the heart of even the most innocent. Shocking, reminiscent of Lord of the Flies . . . conjures up the wildness of the veld and the passion and drama of adolescence . . . peculiarly satisfying.” —The Times Literary Supplement “A disturbing, note-perfect novel. Dissection of evil has rarely been so extravagantly executed.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Polished, compact and chilling . . . Powerful.” —Publishers Weekly A Library Journal and Newsday Best Book of the Year, now a major motion picture starring Eva Green

Stella greets Christopher when he shrinks and falls through the cracks in the school floor due to boredom. The two decide to look around and discover some classrooms where children are actively participating in their education and enjoying learning.

Fifteen-year old Victoria is fuming when her dad fails once again to be at the train station like he’s promised. When she sees a teen mother stash her bruised little boy in the train’s bathroom and get off the train alone, Victoria makes a split-second decision. She boards the next train out of town—taking the toddler with her.

When Bull Mastrick and Victor Konig wind up in the same psychiatric ward at age 16, each recalls and relates in group therapy the bullying relationship they have had since kindergarten as well as facts about themselves and their families that reveal how much they have in common. A first novel.

Cracks and Fracture consists of nine chapters in logical sequence. In two introductory chapters, physical processes in the vicinity of the crack edge are discussed and the fracture process is described. Chapter 3 develops general basic concepts and relations in crack mechanics, such as path independent integrals, stress intensity factors and energy flux into the crack edge region. Chapters 4-7 deal with elastostatic cracks, stationary or slowly moving elastic-plastic cracks, elastodynamic crack mechanics and elastoplastic aspects of fracture, including dynamic fracture mechanics. Appendices include general formulae, the basic theory of analytic functions, introduction to Laplace and Hankel transforms and description of certain basic relations, for instance for stress waves in solids. There is an extensive bibliography, containing references to both classical and recent work, and a comprehensive index. Presents an extensive bibliography containing references to both classical and recent works and a comprehensive index Appendices include general formulas, the basic theory of analytic functions, introduction to Laplace and Hankel transforms, and descriptions of certain basic relations, for instance for stress waves in solids

In a small Southern town in 1944, two girls secretly help a seriously ill army deserter, a decision that changes their perceptions of right and wrong. Issues of moral ambiguity and accepting consequences for actions are thoughtfully considered in this deftly crafted story.

Woven throughout with rich details of everyday life, this original, on-the-ground study of poor neighborhoods challenges much prevailing wisdom about urban poverty, shedding new light on the people, institutions, and culture in these communities. Over the course of nearly a decade, Martín Sánchez-Jankowski immersed himself in life in neighborhoods in New York and Los Angeles to investigate how social change and social preservation transpire among the urban poor. Looking at five community mainstays—the housing project, the small grocery store, the barbershop and the beauty salon, the gang, and the local high school—he discovered how these institutions provide a sense of order, continuity, and stability in places often thought to be chaotic, disorganized, and disheartened. His provocative and ground-breaking study provides new data on urban poverty and also advances a new theory of how poor neighborhoods function, illuminating the creativity and resilience that characterize the lives of those who experience the hardships associated with economic deprivation.