National Network for Equitable Library Service

In his confident debut, Greg Bechtel offers ten charged stories about the impossible-turned-possible—secrets, paranoia, sex, conspiracies, and magic—that the strangeness of the world around us.

The Crow Who Tampered With Time blossoms with essays that find radiance and coherence in a world (both natural and human) which formal religious dogma has forgotten.

Backwater Mystic Blues is a suite of intimate essays that summon the secret hiding spots, makeshift rafts and uncomplicated childhood joys that lay the foundations for adult philosophy.

In a series of reflections focused on his uneducated yet hard-working Mennonite family and touching on childhood exploits from shoplifting and go-kart racing to the juvenile fear of dying (which sp