In an almost foolproof scheme, a man parachutes from an airplane with a large amount of money, only to be seen by a boy who has a reputation for seeing things in the clouds.

A PBS NewsHour/New York Times Book Club Pick A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION "5 UNDER 35" HONOREE WINNER OF THE 2017 KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER OF THE NYPL'S YOUNG LIONS FICTION AWARD FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE LEONARD PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE A dazzlingly accomplished debut collection explores the ties that bind parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home. In “Who Will Greet You at Home,” a National Magazine Award finalist for The New Yorker, A woman desperate for a child weaves one out of hair, with unsettling results. In “Wild,” a disastrous night out shifts a teenager and her Nigerian cousin onto uneasy common ground. In "The Future Looks Good," three generations of women are haunted by the ghosts of war, while in "Light," a father struggles to protect and empower the daughter he loves. And in the title story, in a world ravaged by flood and riven by class, experts have discovered how to "fix the equation of a person" - with rippling, unforeseen repercussions. Evocative, playful, subversive, and incredibly human, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky heralds the arrival of a prodigious talent with a remarkable career ahead of her.

When a child looks up to find drawings on the ceiling of a cave, she wonders how they were painted. Planets that spin, the birds and the beasts, woman and man--how did the old man in the sky paint it all? Based on the 1879 discovery of ceiling paintings in Spain's Altamira Cave, this imaginative story expresses the awe of contemplating the creation of the world and locating beauty in an unexpected place. Children will revel in this timeless tale with truly breathtaking images.

“A satire of writerly ambition wrapped in a psychological thriller . . . An homage to Patricia Highsmith, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe, but its execution is entirely Boyne’s own.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent—but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful – but desperately lonely – older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel. Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall. . . . Sweeping across the late twentieth century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso. Praise for A Ladder to the Sky “Boyne's mastery of perspective, last seen in The Heart's Invisible Furies, works beautifully here. . . . Boyne understands that it's far more interesting and satisfying for a reader to see that narcissist in action than to be told a catchall phrase. Each step Maurice Swift takes skyward reveals a new layer of calumny he's willing to engage in, and the desperation behind it . . . so dark it seems almost impossible to enjoy reading A Ladder to the Sky as much as you definitely will enjoy reading it.”—NPR “Delicious . . . spins out over several decades with thrilling unpredictability, following Maurice as he masters the art of co-opting the stories of others in increasingly dubious ways. And while the book reads as a thriller with a body count that would make Highsmith proud, it is also an exploration of morality and art: Where is the line between inspiration and thievery? To whom does a story belong?”—Vanity Fair

Poetry. "This is a book by a man who is sputtering gray zeppelin in what used to be sky, a man out of bicycle parts, who likes when trees sizzle and who knows that although there are no angels to speak of out here, the neighbors shout and call the cops for all the noise not there. This book is full of crazy, vital energy. Full of miraculous and mundane, full of coke bottles, subways, cotton swabs, wasps, sharp nipples, and voices from the great soup that Frank Stanford once tried to feed all hungry mouths of America. And, the poet who is the child, stands at the window, as night becomes morning. This too, is magic. Just pick up your feet and watch." Ilya Kaminsky"

When Joe Kittinger finally came to a halt, he found himself in a paradoxical world of preternatural colour where the sun blazed from a sky as black as pitch. A few minutes on the very border of space were enough to persuade him to throw himself form his open gondola with relish.

"Carl Gallups challenges both believers and non-believers to consider the consequences of either accepting or rejecting the countless and timeless truths he presents. Based on biblical, scientific and logical theory, Pastor Gallups provides startling insight into the many, often unanswered questions of evolutionary theory and life's deepest mysteries."--Page 4 of cover.