Download or read book Apathy and Other Small Victories written by Paul Neilan and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A scathingly funny debut novel about disillusionment, indifference, and one man's desperate fight to assign absolutely no meaning to modern life. The only thing Shane cares about is leaving. Usually on a Greyhound bus, right before his life falls apart again. Just like he planned. But this time it's complicated: there's a sadistic corporate climber who thinks she's his girlfriend, a rent-subsidized affair with his landlord's wife, and the bizarrely appealing deaf assistant to Shane's cosmically unstable dentist. When one of the women is murdered, and Shane is the only suspect who doesn't care enough to act like he didn't do it, the question becomes just how he'll clear the good name he never had and doesn't particularly want: his own. “The malaise of cubicle culture may be well-trodden comedic territory by now, but Neilan's debut skewers office life with a flourish for the grotesque.” —The Village Voice

Download or read book The Hollywood Spiral written by Paul Neilan and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Apathy and Other Small Victories, this darkly comic novel set in the near future about the race to find a missing cyber program with the power to bend reality—all before a fast-approaching comet destroys the earth. In the near future, after the internet grinds to a halt amid a wave of cyber-attacks, a company named Zodiac steps in to replace it with an evolved, augmented-reality version called The Grid. Harrigan, a hard-drinking private detective living as off-Grid as possible, is about to be evicted from his apartment when a stranger shows up asking for his help in finding Anna, an escort who he claims he's desperately in love with. Turns out that through Harrigan's new client, Anna has come into possession of a program/entity called Mirror, Mirror, which has the capacity to merge The Grid and reality, bending both to the whims of the program's user. Soon Harrigan finds himself up against the last surviving organized crime gangs in Los Angeles, Zodiac's mercenaries, and a mysterious group called The First Church Multiverse, all of whom are hot on the trail of Mirror, Mirror—if the comet rapidly approaching Earth doesn't kill them all first.

Download or read book Everything Changes written by Jonathan Tropper and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2005-03-29 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Tropper’s novel The Book of Joe dazzled critics and readers alike with its heartfelt blend of humor and pathos. Now Tropper brings all that–and more–to an irresistible new novel. In Everything Changes, Tropper delivers a touching, wickedly funny new tale about love, loss, and the perils of a well-planned life. EVERYTHING CHANGES To all appearances, Zachary King is a man with luck on his side. A steady, well-paying job, a rent-free Manhattan apartment, and Hope, his stunning, blue-blooded fiancée: smart, sexy, and completely out of his league. But as the wedding day looms, Zack finds himself haunted by the memory of his best friend, Rael, killed in a car wreck two years earlier–and by his increasingly complicated feelings for Tamara, the beautiful widow Rael left behind. Then Norm–Zack’s freewheeling, Viagra-popping father–resurfaces after a twenty-year absence, looking to make amends. Norm’s overbearing, often outrageous efforts to reestablish ties with his sons infuriate Zack, and yet, despite twenty years of bad blood, he finds something compelling in his father’s maniacal determination to transform his own life. Inspired by Norm, Zack boldly attempts to make some changes of his own, and the results are instantly calamitous. Soon fists are flying, his love life is a shambles, and his once carefully structured existence is spinning hopelessly out of control. Charged with intelligence and razor sharp wit, Everything Changes is at once hilarious, moving, sexy, and wise–a work of transcendent storytelling from an exciting new talent.

Download or read book Chuck Klosterman IV written by Chuck Klosterman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-09-05 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bestselling pop culture guru and author of "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" takes a unique look at his career in journalism, in this collection of work that includes the legendary chicken McNuggets experiment and an uncensored profile of Britney Spears.

Download or read book Called Out of Darkness written by Anne Rice and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-03-09 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate memoir of Anne Rice’s Catholic girlhood, her unmaking as a devout believer, and her return to the Church – what she calls a decision of the heart. Moving from her New Orleans childhood in the 1940s and ‘50s, with all its religious devotions, through how she slowly lost her belief in God, Called Out of Darkness also recounts Anne’s years in radical Berkeley, where she wrote Interview with the Vampire (a lament for her lost faith) and where she came to admire the principles of secular humanists. She writes about loss and alienation (her mother’s drinking, the deaths of her young daughter and later, her husband); about the birth of her son, Christopher; and about how, after 38 years as an atheist, she once again came to believe in Christ. Anne Rice makes a spiritual confession that is a celebration: a brilliant, subtle exploration of the journey through life that allows one to answer the call out of darkness.

Download or read book Traveling Mercies written by Anne Lamott and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2000-09-05 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of Bird by Bird comes a personal, wise, very funny, and “life-affirming” book (People) that shows us how to find meaning and hope through shining the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life. "Anne Lamott is walking proof that a person can be both reverent and irreverent in the same lifetime. Sometimes even in the same breath." —San Francisco Chronicle Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are: "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She has a friend whose morning prayer each day is "Whatever," and whose evening prayer is "Oh, well." Anne thinks of Jesus as "Casper the friendly savior" and describes God as "one crafty mother." Despite—or because of—her irreverence, faith is a natural subject for Anne Lamott. Since Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her fans have been waiting for her to write the book that explained how she came to the big-hearted, grateful, generous faith that she so often alluded to in her two earlier nonfiction books. The people in Anne Lamott's real life are like beloved characters in a favorite series for her readers—her friend Pammy, her son, Sam, and the many funny and wise folks who attend her church are all familiar. And Traveling Mercies is a welcome return to those lives, as well as an introduction to new companions Lamott treats with the same candor, insight, and tenderness. Lamott's faith isn't about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, "My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers."

Download or read book Malice in Blunderland written by Jonny Gibbings and published by Cutting Edge Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Special Interest written by Terry M. Moe and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are America's public schools falling so short of the mark in educating the nation's children? Why are they organized in ineffective ways that fly in the face of common sense, to the point that it is virtually impossible to get even the worst teachers out of the classroom? And why, after more than a quarter century of costly education reform, have the schools proven so resistant to change and so difficult to improve? In this path-breaking book, Terry M. Moe demonstrates that the answers to these questions have a great deal to do with teachers unions—which are by far the most powerful forces in American education and use their power to promote their own special interests at the expense of what is best for kids. Despite their importance, the teachers unions have barely been studied. Special Interest fills that gap with an extraordinary analysis that is at once brilliant and kaleidoscopic—shedding new light on their historical rise to power, the organizational foundations of that power, the ways it is exercised in collective bargaining and politics, and its vast consequences for American education. The bottom line is simple but devastating: as long as the teachers unions remain powerful, the nation's schools will never be organized to provide kids with the most effective education possible. Moe sees light at the end of the tunnel, however, due to two major transformations. One is political, the other technological, and the combination is destined to weaken the unions considerably in the coming years—loosening their special-interest grip and opening up a new era in which America's schools can finally be organized in the best interests of children.

Download or read book The Legacy of the Civil War written by Robert Penn Warren and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2015-11 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this elegant book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer explores the manifold ways in which the Civil War changed the United States forever. He confronts its costs, not only human (six hundred thousand men killed) and economic (beyond reckoning) but social and psychological. He touches on popular misconceptions, including some concerning Abraham Lincoln and the issue of slavery. The war in all its facets “grows in our consciousness,” arousing complex emotions and leaving “a gallery of great human images for our contemplation.”

Download or read book Satan Burger 15th Anniversary Edition written by Carlton Mellick III and published by Eraserhead Press. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Satan Burger was first being passed around among teenage punks and fans of weird art and film, there was nothing else like it. A book of rebellious spirit that simplistically captured the postmodern malaise of a culture obsessed with consumerism. It quickly gained an underground following, was transcribed by fans and bootlegged online, was translated into Russian and made its way around the world attracting the attention of readers bored with typical mainstream fare. Combining a satirical wit and style on par with legendary humorists such as Kurt Vonnegut and Russell Edson with the crazy punk ethos of cult film directors such as Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, and Takashi Miike, this was a book overflowing with so many new ideas and absurd philosophies that it not only launched the career of underground author Carlton Mellick III, but inspired an entire literary movement. For the fifteenth anniversary of the release of this Bizarro Fiction classic, Eraserhead Press is thrilled to present this special hardcover edition, featuring an introduction by splatterpunk legend John Skipp, illustrations by Ryan Ward, and a new preface by the author. Satan Burger explores a new kind of apocalypse. Not an apocalypse caused by disease or nuclear war, but an apocalypse of boredom. A plague of monotony has spread across the countryside, sucking all passion and inspiration out of everyone over the age of twenty-five, leaving only the disenfranchised youth to fend for themselves in a world crumbling around them. Featuring a narrator who sees his body from a third-person perspective, a man whose flesh is dead but his body parts are alive and running amok, an overweight messiah, the personal life of the Grim Reaper, a race of women who feed on male orgasms, and a motley group of squatter punks that team up with the devil to find their place in a world that doesn't want them anymore.

Download or read book The Football Girl written by Thatcher Heldring and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For every athlete or sports fanatic who knows she's just as good as the guys. This is for fans of The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, Grace, Gold, and Glory by Gabrielle Douglass and Breakaway: Beyond the Goal by Alex Morgan. The summer before Caleb and Tessa enter high school, friendship has blossomed into a relationship . . . and their playful sports days are coming to an end. Caleb is getting ready to try out for the football team, and Tessa is training for cross-country. But all their structured plans derail in the final flag game when they lose. Tessa doesn’t want to end her career as a loser. She really enjoys playing, and if she’s being honest, she likes it even more than running cross-country. So what if she decided to play football instead? What would happen between her and Caleb? Or between her two best friends, who are counting on her to try out for cross-country with them? And will her parents be upset that she’s decided to take her hobby to the next level? This summer Caleb and Tessa figure out just what it means to be a boyfriend, girlfriend, teammate, best friend, and someone worth cheering for. “A great next choice for readers who have enjoyed Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen and Miranda Kenneally’s Catching Jordan.”—SLJ “Fast-paced football action, realistic family drama, and sweet romance…[will have] readers looking for girl-powered sports stories…find[ing] plenty to like.”—Booklist “Tessa's ferocious competitiveness is appealing.”—Kirkus Reviews “[The Football Girl] serve[s] to illuminate the appropriately complicated emotions both of a young romance and of pursuing a dream. Heldring writes with insight and restraint.”—The Horn Book

Download or read book The Lost Girls written by Jennifer Spence and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A haunting tale of love and loss that will make you think twice … What would you do if you had the chance to change a pivotal moment from your past? How far would you go to save someone you loved? These are just two of the fateful choices a woman must face in this highly original and hauntingly evocative detective story of love and loss. At the core of the enigmatic Stella’s story, past and present, is a mystery she is compelled to solve, a beautiful young woman who went missing fifty years ago – and a tragedy much closer to home she must try to prevent. As Stella unravels the dark secrets of her family's past and her own, it becomes clear that everyone remembers the past differently and the small choices we make every day can change our future irrevocably. This utterly original, gripping and mind-bending tale will stay with you long after the last page. 'A beautifully compelling book that dares to not only ask “What if?” but to explore that question with heart-busting yearning, wry humour and masterful storytelling.' Kate Mulvany, playwright and actor? ‘The Lost Girls is a wonderfully unsettling novel about anger, loss and hope. Tightly written and compulsive, its twists had me frantically turning the pages.’ Emma Viskic, award-winning author of And Fire Came Down and Resurrection Bay

Download or read book Victory Deferred written by John-Manuel Andriote and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-06 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John-Manuel Andriote chronicles the impact of the disease from the coming-out revelry of the 1970s to the post-AIDS gay community of the 1990s, showing how it has changed both individual lives and national organizations. He tells the truly remarkable story of how a health crisis pushed a disjointed jumble of local activists to become a nationally visible and politically powerful civil rights movement, a full-fledged minority group challenging the authority of some of the nations most powerful institutions. Based on hundreds of interviews with those at the forefront of the medical, political, and cultural responses to the disease. Victory Deferred blends personal narratives with institutional histories and organizational politics to show how AIDS forced gay men from their closets and ghettos into the hallways of power to lobby and into the streets to protest.

Download or read book The Book on the Bookshelf written by Henry Petroski and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the highly praised The Pencil and The Evolution of Useful Things comes another captivating history of the seemingly mundane: the book and its storage. Most of us take for granted that our books are vertical on our shelves with the spines facing out, but Henry Petroski, inveterately curious engineer, didn't. As a result, readers are guided along the astonishing evolution from papyrus scrolls boxed at Alexandria to upright books shelved at the Library of Congress. Unimpeachably researched, enviably written, and charmed with anecdotes from Seneca to Samuel Pepys to a nineteenth-century bibliophile who had to climb over his books to get into bed, The Book on the Bookshelf is indispensable for anyone who loves books.

Download or read book The Fuck Up written by Arthur Nersesian and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1999-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Doesn't the title say it all? After a series of set-backs, an unnamed slacker pretends to be gay to get a job which launches him on a darkly hilarious odyssey through New York City grit.

Download or read book Murder in Mississippi written by John Safran and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-05-22 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2009 John Safran, a controversial Australian journalist, spent an uneasy few days interviewing one of Mississippi's most notorious white supremacists. A year later, he hears that the man has been murdered by a young black man. But this is far from a straightforward race killing. Safran flies back to Mississippi in a bid to discover what really happened, immersing himself in a world of clashing white separatists, black lawyers, police investigators, oddball neighbours and the killer himself. In the end, he discovers just how profoundly complex the truth about someone's life - and death - can be. A brilliantly innovative true-crime story. Safran paints an engrossing and revealing portrait of race, money, sex and power in the modern American South. 'John Safran's captivating inquiry into a murder in darkest Mississippi is by turns informative, frightening and hilarious' - John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Download or read book Men Women Children written by Chad Kultgen and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-06-21 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theauthor of The Average American Male and The Lie returns with ashocking, salacious, and surprisingly subtle new novel of the average Americanfamily. Like Neil Strauss and Nick Hornby, Chad Kultgenhas the capacity to enthrall and astonish even the most ardent readers ofcontemporary literary fiction. In Men, Women, and Children, his incisivevision, unerring prose, and red-light-district imagination are at their mostambitious and surprising, as he explores the sexual pressures of junior highschool students and their parents navigating the internet’s shared landscape ofpornography, blogs, social networking, and its promise of opportunities,escapes, reinvented identities, and unexpected conflicts.