Books published by publisher Coffee House Press

Rosa Guy’s tropical retelling of "The Little Mermaid" is the gorgeous, tragic love story of Désirée, a beautiful peasant girl who devotes herself to the handsome, aristocratic young man whose life she has saved. When his upper-class fami-ly feels that Désirée’s skin is too dark and her family too poor for a boy destined for power and wealth, Désirée proves that she is willing to give everything for love. This lovely reprint will break your heart.Born in Trinidad, Rosa Guy has written 15 novels and has received the Coretta Scott King Award, and The New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year citation.

This dark, gripping tale of an obsessed college wrestler is “one of the best novels of the year” (NPR). Stephen is in his final wrestling season at his North Dakota school, and he intends to win the divisional championship in his weight class. He thinks about little else, in fact. It will make up for the failures of the past. It will prove something to the world. It will be the fulfillment of a promise to himself, and a tribute to his late grandmother, who raised him after his parents’ fatal car crash. As the competition in Kenosha, Wisconsin, grows ever closer, Stephen will grow ever more consumed—and unsure of what comes next—in this “utterly engrossing” literary debut (Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will). “[A] burningly, bitterly funny tale of college student Stephen, who throws himself into wrestling to face down his fears.” —Library Journal “Stephen Florida’s grim portrait of ambition led astray captures how competitiveness and masculinity can unravel those who blindly follow its codes.” —The Atlantic “Habash writes about the raw physicality of wrestling better than anybody this side of John Irving . . . A lively, occasionally harrowing journey into obsession.” —Kirkus Reviews

True crime, memoir, and ghost story, Mean is the bold and hilarious tale of Myriam Gurba’s coming of age as a queer, mixed-race Chicana. Blending radical formal fluidity and caustic humor, Gurba takes on sexual violence, small towns, and race, turning what might be tragic into piercing, revealing comedy. This is a confident, intoxicating, brassy book that takes the cost of sexual assault, racism, misogyny, and homophobia deadly seriously.We act mean to defend ourselves from boredom and from those who would cut off our breasts. We act mean to defend our clubs and institutions. We act mean because we like to laugh. Being mean to boys is fun and a second-wave feminist duty. Being mean to men who deserve it is a holy mission. Sisterhood is powerful, but being mean is more exhilarating.Being mean isn't for everybody.Being mean is best practiced by those who understand it as an art form.These virtuosos live closer to the divine than the rest of humanity. They're queers.Myriam Gurba is a queer spoken-word performer, visual artist, and writer from Santa Maria, California. She's the author of Dahlia Season (2007, Manic D) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, Wish You Were Me (2011, Future Tense Books), and Painting Their Portraits in Winter (2015, Manic D). She has toured with Sister Spit and her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. She lives in Long Beach, where she teaches social studies to eighth-graders.

"The Little Free Library is a terrific example of placing books—poetry included—within reach of people in the course of their everyday lives. Free is always a good thing, and the project has a nice give-and-take feel to it. Here's hoping we bump into literature when we turn the next corner—before we have time to resist!"—Billy Collins"Take a book. Return a book." In 2009, Todd Bol built the first Little Free Library as a memorial to his mom. Five years later, this simple idea to promote literacy and encourage community has become a movement. Little Free Libraries—freestanding front-yard book exchanges—now number twenty thousand in seventy countries. The Little Free Library Book tells the history of these charming libraries, gathers quirky and poignant firsthand stories from owners, provides a resource guide for how to best use your Little Free Library, and delights readers with color images of the most creative and inspired LFLs around.Margret Aldrich is a freelance writer and editor. Her articles have appeared in the Utne Reader, Experience Life!, and elsewhere. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her family.

“A painfully timely story . . . an artful memoir . . . a powerful, vital book about damage and the ghostly afterlives of abuse.” —Los Angeles Review of Books True crime, memoir, and ghost story, Mean is the bold and hilarious tale of Myriam Gurba’s coming of age as a queer, mixed-race Chicana. Blending radical formal fluidity and caustic humor, Gurba takes on sexual violence, small towns, and race, turning what might be tragic into piercing, revealing comedy. This is a confident, intoxicating, brassy book that takes the cost of sexual assault, racism, misogyny, and homophobia deadly seriously. We act mean to defend ourselves from boredom and from those who would chop off our breasts. We act mean to defend our clubs and institutions. We act mean because we like to laugh. Being mean to boys is fun and a second-wave feminist duty. Being rude to men who deserve it is a holy mission. Sisterhood is powerful, but being a bitch is more exhilarating . . . “Mean calls for a fat, fluorescent trigger warning start to finish—and I say this admiringly. Gurba likes the feel of radioactive substances on her bare hands.” —The New York Times “Gurba uses the tragedies, both small and large, she sees around her to illuminate the realities of systemic racism and misogyny, and the ways in which we can try to escape what society would like to tell us is our fate.” —Nylon “With its icy wit, edgy wedding of lyricism and prose, and unflinching look at personal and public demons, Gurba’s introspective memoir is brave and significant.” —Kirkus Reviews “Mean will make you LOL and break your heart.” —The Millions

"In Stephen Florida, Gabe Habash has created a coming-of-age story with its own, often explosive, rhythm and velocity. Habash has a canny sense of how young men speak and behave, and in Stephen, he's created a singular character: funny, ambitious, affecting, but also deeply troubled, vulnerable, and compellingly strange. This is a shape-shifter of a book, both a dark ode to the mysteries and landscapes of the American West and a complex and convincing character study."―Hanya Yanagihara, author of A Little LifeFoxcatcher meets The Art of Fielding, Stephen Florida follows a college wrestler in his senior season, when every practice, every match, is a step closer to greatness and a step further from sanity. Profane, manic, and tipping into the uncanny, it's a story of loneliness, obsession, and the drive to leave a mark.Gabe Habash is the fiction reviews editor for Publishers Weekly. He holds an MFA from New York University and lives in New York.

“With this hilarious and tragic novel, Travis Nichols has captured the menace and pathos and ridiculousness and dead-seriousness of the Internet.” —Emily Gould, author of Friendship Charli and Nico’s wedding blog has an uninvited guest: a commenter convinced the bride is being romanced by the brother of the groom. To save her from a terrible mistake he adopts multiple identities on multiple message boards, sharing his fears for Charli, his outrage at being thwarted, and the romance, years ago in his analog past, that first attracted his meddlesome care. Cranky, hilarious, and incisive, The More You Ignore Me takes on Internet etiquette, the distortions of voyeurism, and the incessant, expansive flow of words that may not be able to staunch loneliness, but holds out the hope of talking it to death. “Nichols has engaged in a flabbergasting act of literary ventriloquism . . . The More You Ignore Me is a Notes from Underground by way of the Huffington Post.” —The Stranger (Seattle) “Want a reminder what you can do with fiction? Told entirely as a blog post comment from the perspective of a dude crashing a wedding website, this psychologically-driven novel is what you’re looking for.” —Bustle “[Nichols] captures the wheedling tone, the aggravating escalation, the stultifying self-involvement of the Internet troll . . . Raw enough to bring the dark laughter of recognition.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune “An experimental novel of obsession and violation that makes Nicholson Baker and Mark Leyner look positively banal.” —Kirkus Reviews

“’Twas the night before X” in Dave Morice’s lighthearted and enchanting poem, A Visit from St. Alphabet:The S’s were hung by the T’s with care In hopes that St. Alphabet soon would be there.Without fail, he arrives and presents quite a sight:His I’s, how they twinkled! his J’s, how merry! His K’s were like roses, his L like a cherryMeet St. Alphabet, the jolly star of this ingenious little book, first published over 20 years ago in a limited letterpress edition and now available once again. Under the tree or tucked into a stocking, language-lovers and children of all ages will fall in love with St. Alphabet, whose antics are guaranteed to awaken the imagination. Satisfy your craving for literary hijinks and experience the joy of hearing this classic poem reinterpreted as you revel in discovering the hidden wit in each hand-colored illustration. If you’re seeking the perfect gift to encourage the writer in your life, you can’t beat St. Alphabet, who exclaims, as he dashes away in his sleigh, “Happy Alphabet to all, and to all a good write!”Poet and artist Dave Morice received his PhD in library science from the University of Iowa and continues to bring the magic of poetry to people of all ages through his work in senior centers and public schools. He is the author and illustrator of many books for children and adults, including The Dictionary of Word Play, The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet, and Poetry Comics: An Animated Anthology.

A universal portrait and an insider’s look at life in Latin America in this “vivid, graceful, tautly constructed” novel of love, anger, hope, and tragedy (Tim O’Brien). At the heart of this “profound . . . quietly stunning work that leaves soft tracks in the heart” is Chayo, the flower-seller, and her husband Candelario, the salad-maker, who finally may be blessed with the child they thought they would never have (The Washington Post Book World). Their cause for happiness, however, triggers a series of events that marks the lives of everyone in the small village of Santiago, Mexico. Woven into Chayo’s and Candelario’s story are an unforgettable array of characters: Marta, the hotel maid who reads cast-off American magazines and dreams of El Paso; don Justo, the heartbroken fortune-teller; Esperanza, the midwife who finds new love with Rafael, the shy schoolteacher. Their secret dreams and desires are known only to the omniscient sea and to the curandera Remedios, a healer who hears them all. Winner of the Minnesota Book Award for FictionFinalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award