Download or read book Maverick Jetpants in the City of Quality written by Bill Peters and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2012-10-09 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1999 Rochester, a mysterious spate of arsons threatens a hilarious and heart–breaking friendship based on a language of inside jokes in "one of the most inventive novels published this year" (The Los Angeles Review). Rochester, New York, 1999: An arsonist is loose on the streets of a city in decline. Gone are the days of Rioting in the Vomit Cruiser, searching for a possible Tokyo Rocking Horse. In this hilarious, wildly original debut novel, Nathan Gray and best friend Necro live by the code of Joke Royalty, a system of in–jokes known only to a select few. But as the reality of full–time employment, possible spouses, and Neo–Nazis encroaches, their friendship unravels, threatening their dreams of becoming Kodak Park Winjas. Among the gravest Hellstacheries: Necro’s strangely vicious drawings and his sudden interest in a group of weapons enthusiasts who may or may not be responsible for the fires erupting through downtown. With no Holy Grail Points left to his name, Nate ventures into Rochester’s strangest corners to find out if his best friend is a domestic terrorist Pinning Bow Ties on the Dead or simply Maverick Jetpantsing on with his life—perhaps even beyond The City of Quality. "Bill Peters belongs in the ranks of serious literary artists."—The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice
Download or read book Still Points North written by Leigh Newman and published by Dial Press. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part adventure story, part love story, part homecoming, Still Points North is a page-turning memoir that explores the extremes of belonging and exile, and the difference between how to survive and knowing how to truly live. Growing up in the wilds of Alaska, seven-year-old Leigh Newman spent her time landing silver salmon, hiking glaciers, and flying in a single-prop plane. But her life split in two when her parents unexpectedly divorced, requiring her to spend summers on the tundra with her “Great Alaskan” father and the school year in Baltimore with her more urbane mother. Navigating the fraught terrain of her family’s unraveling, Newman did what any outdoorsman would do: She adapted. With her father she fished remote rivers, hunted caribou, and packed her own shotgun shells. With her mother she memorized the names of antique furniture, composed proper bread-and-butter notes, and studied Latin poetry at a private girl’s school. Charting her way through these two very different worlds, Newman learned to never get attached to people or places, and to leave others before they left her. As an adult, she explored the most distant reaches of the globe as a travel writer, yet had difficulty navigating the far more foreign landscape of love and marriage. In vivid, astonishing prose, Newman reveals how a child torn between two homes becomes a woman who both fears and idealizes connection, how a need for independence can morph into isolation, and how even the most guarded heart can still long for understanding. Still Points North is a love letter to an unconventional Alaskan childhood of endurance and affection, one that teaches us that no matter where you go in life, the truest tests of courage are the chances you take, not with bears and blizzards, but with other people. Praise for Still Points North “Newman has crafted a vivid exploration of a broken family. . . . Her pain will resonate strongly with readers, and she vividly brings both Alaska and Maryland to life. . . . A natural for book clubs.”—Booklist “Newman’s adult search for her own true home is riveting, as are her worldwide adventures; it’s a joy to be in on the ride.”—Reader’s Digest “What really sets this fearless memoir apart is the heartfelt, riotously funning writing, which will have you reading passages aloud, and rooting for Newman all the way.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Newman writes so lucidly about bewilderment, so honestly about self-deception, so courageously about fear, so compassionately about insensitivity, so hilariously about suffering and loss. Still Points North is a remarkable book: a travel memoir of the mapless, dangerous seas and territories between childhood and adulthood.”—Karen Russell, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Swamplandia! “A wise, refreshing and enjoyable read.”—New York Daily News “[Newman is] at her best bringing to life the chapters on her near-feral Alaskan upbringing. You can practically smell the freshly killed game.”—Entertainment Weekly
Download or read book And Every Day Was Overcast written by Paul Kwiatkowski and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This photography-driven fiction about coming of age in the creep show of south Florida's swamps and strip malls is "unlike any book I've ever read . . . A completely original and clearheaded voice" (Ira Glass, host of This American Life) Out of South Florida's lush and decaying suburban landscape bloom the delinquent magic and chaotic adolescence of And Every Day Was Overcast. Paul Kwiatkowski's arresting photographs amplify a novel of profound vision and vulnerability. Drugs, teenage cruelty, wonder, and the screen-flickering worlds of Predator and Married . . . With Children shape and warp the narrator's developing sense of self as he navigates adventures and misadventures, from an ill-fated LSD trip on an island of castaway rabbits to the devastating specter of HIV and AIDS. This alchemy of photography and fiction gracefully illuminates the travesties and triumphs of the narrator's quest to forge emotional connections and fulfill his brutal longings for love.
Download or read book A Proust Questionnaire written by Joanna Neborsky and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern twist on the famous Proust Questionnaire -- part guided journal, part parlor game, and a great way to explore who you really are The Proust Questionnaire has become a classic personality test and parlor game. Originating in Victorian times, and first popularized by a young Marcel Proust, this list of questions is now a staple in Vanity Fair and is often imitated in magazine quizzes and celebrity media coverage. Illustrator and collage artist Joanna Neborsky brings a quirky, richly layered visual style to her unique version of the questionnaire, along with cheeky, witty prompts and asides that transform this classic quiz into a lively interactive journal, inviting readers to reflect, write, doodle, collage, and otherwise personalize the colorful pages.
Download or read book In Plain Sight written by C. J. Box and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-05-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Don’t miss the JOE PICKETT series—now streaming on Paramount+ Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett's hunt for a missing woman forces him to confront his own past in this gripping novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. Ranch owner and matriarch Opal Scarlett has vanished under suspicious circumstances during a bitter struggle between her sons for control of her million-dollar empire. Joe Pickett is convinced one of them must have done her in. But when he becomes the victim of a series of wicked and increasingly violent pranks, Joe wonders if what's happening has less to do with Opal's disappearance than with the darkest chapters of his own past. Whoever is after him has a vicious debt to collect, and wants Joe to pay...and pay dearly.
Download or read book From Behind the Bench written by Vinny Pezzimenti and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2011-07-19 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a March afternoon in Cleveland, St. Bonaventure battled powerful Kentucky for 40 minutes and two overtimes in the first round of the 2000 NCAA Tournament. Though the Bonnies would lose that day, the moments that accompanied that game provided St. Bonaventure's proud alumni a vast sense of pride. For a men's basketball program that was once considered an elite entity, it was fulfilling return to glory. No one could have envisioned then that St. Bonaventure basketball would endure lowest of lows almost exactly three years later. The St. Bonaventure basketball scandal of 2003 created national headlines and rocked to its core a proud institution. The university president schemed to allow an ineligible player, by NCAA standards, on the court, leading to series of damning events. Victories were forfeited, a team in turmoil quit on its season, several of those involved were fired and the president of the board of trustees, ripped by his role in the sorry state of affairs, committed suicide. As student-managers, we closely witnessed the circumstances that led to the upheaval. We were in the locker room, the coaches offices and on the team bench. We were there for all the corruption, deceit and greed. We were there when an ill-conceived plan came tumbling down in the harshest of manners and St. Bonaventure's lost ways became a punchline across the country.
Download or read book Venus Drive written by Sam Lipsyte and published by Picador. This book was released on 2010-03-02 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intense, mordantly funny collection of short fiction from Sam Lipsyte, author of Home Land and The Ask. The Picador paperback edition includes an excerpt from The Ask. A man with an "old soul" finds himself at a Times Square peep show, looking for more than just a little action. A young man goes into some serious regression after finding his deceased mother's stash of morphine. A group of summer-camp sadists return to the scene of the crime. Lipsyte's brutally funny narratives tread morally ambiguous terrain, where desperate characters stumble over hope, or sometimes merely stumble. Written with ferocious wit and surprising empathy, Venus Drive is a potent collection of stories from "a wickedly gifted writer" (Robert Stone).
Download or read book Last Last Chance written by Fiona Maazel and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-03-18 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Last Last Chance, Fiona Maazel’s first novel, is one of the most distinctive debuts of recent years: a rollicking comic tale about (in no particular order) plague, narcotics recovery, and reincarnation. A lethal strain of virus vanishes from a lab in Washington, D.C., unleashing an epidemic—and the world thinks Lucy Clark’s dead father is to blame. The plague may be the least of Lucy’s problems. There’s her mother, Isifrid, a peddler of high-end hatwear who’s also a crackhead and pagan theologist. There’s her twelve-year-old half sister, Hannah, obsessed with disease and Christian fundamentalism; and Lucy’s lover, Stanley, who’s hell-bent on finding a womb for his dead wife’s frozen eggs. Lastly, there’s her grandmother Agneth, who believes in reincarnation (and who turns out to be right). And then there is Lucy herself, whose wise, warped approach to life makes her an ideal guide to love among the ruins. Romping across the country, from Southern California to the Texas desert to rural Pennsylvania and New York City, Lucy tries to surmount her drug addiction and to keep her family intact—and tells us, uproariously, all about it. Last Last Chance is a novel about survival and recovery, opportunity and despair, and, finally, love and faith in an age of anxiety. It introduces Maazel as a new writer of phenomenal gifts.
Download or read book First Force Recon Company written by Bill Peters and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 1999-01-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1st Force Recon you performed at a very high level of proficiency. Or you died. . . . In 1969, First Lieutenant Bill Peters and the Force Recon Marines had one of the most difficult, dangerous assignments in Vietnam. From the DMZ to the Central Highlands, their job was to provide strategic and operational intelligence to insure the security of American units as the withdrawal of the troops progressed. Making perilous helicopter inserts deep in the Que Son Mountains, where the constant chatter of AK-47 rifle fire left no doubt who was in charge, Peters and the other men of 1st Force Recon Company risked their lives every day in six-man teams, never knowing whether they would live to see the sunset. Peters's accounts of silently watching huge movements of heavily armed NVA regulars, prisoner snatches, sudden-death ambushes, and extracts from fiercely fought firefights vividly capture the realities of Recon Marine warfare, and offer a gritty tribute to the courage, heroism, and sacrifice of the U. S. Marines. . . .
Download or read book Always Want More written by Banke Awopetu McCullough and published by Hillcrest Publishing Group. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracy Mitchell's rise in the hip-hop journalism world was swift and fierce. Having secured a position at her dream publication, she hopes to write stories that make an impact. While the assignments are not what she envisioned, Tracy is lured into the luxurious lifestyle of the hip-hop subjects she meets. After a crazy, drug-fueled night with a famous artist, Tracy is blacklisted and banished to her home town of Rochester, New York. Tracy has a choice-she can resent what has happened or start fresh. Tracy chooses to try and make a difference; something she failed to do in the big city. Teaching English at the failing public school system, Tracy is finally on the right track. Just as things are falling into place, Tracy meets X, and falls into the same whirlwind lifestyle of her past, unearthing the darker side of her hometown. Can Tracy pull herself out of her pattern of excess to live a life of peace and meaning? Or will she always want more?
Download or read book Undermajordomo Minor written by Patrick deWitt and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling, Man Booker–short-listed author of The Sisters Brothers comes a brilliant and boisterous novel that reimagines the folk tale A love story, an adventure story, a fable without a moral, and an ink-black comedy of manners, Undermajordomo Minor is Patrick deWitt's long-awaited follow-up to the internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Sisters Brothers. Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, Lucy is a compulsive liar, a sickly weakling in a town famous for producing brutish giants. Then Lucy accepts employment assisting the Majordomo of the remote, foreboding Castle Von Aux. While tending to his new post as Undermajordomo, Lucy soon discovers the place harbors many dark secrets, not least of which being the whereabouts of the castle's master, Baron Von Aux. He also encounters the colorful people of the local village—thieves, madmen, aristocrats, and Klara, a delicate beauty for whose love he must compete with the exceptionally handsome soldier Adolphus. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery, and cold-blooded murder in which every aspect of humanity is laid bare for our hero to observe. Undermajordomo Minor is an adventure, a mystery, and a searing portrayal of rural Alpine bad behavior, but above all it is a love story—and Lucy must be careful, for love is a violent thing.
Download or read book The Lives of Literature written by Arnold Weinstein and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-16 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A passionate, wry, and personal book about how the greatest works of literature illuminate our lives Why do we read literature? For Arnold Weinstein, the answer is clear: literature allows us to become someone else. Literature changes us by giving us intimate access to an astonishing variety of other lives, experiences, and places across the ages. Reflecting on a lifetime of reading, teaching, and writing, The Lives of Literature explores, with passion, humor, and whirring intellect, a professor’s life, the thrills and traps of teaching, and, most of all, the power of literature to lead us to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the worlds we inhabit. As an identical twin, Weinstein experienced early the dislocation of being mistaken for another person—and of feeling that he might be someone other than he had thought. In vivid readings elucidating the classics of authors ranging from Sophocles to James Joyce and Toni Morrison, he explores what we learn by identifying with their protagonists, including those who, undone by wreckage and loss, discover that all their beliefs are illusions. Weinstein masterfully argues that literature’s knowing differs entirely from what one ends up knowing when studying mathematics or physics or even history: by entering these characters’ lives, readers acquire a unique form of knowledge—and come to understand its cost. In The Lives of Literature, a master writer and teacher shares his love of the books that he has taught and been taught by, showing us that literature matters because we never stop discovering who we are.
Download or read book The Tunnel written by William H. Gass and published by Commonwealth Secretariat. This book was released on 1999 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Gass has produced a book that burrows inside us then wails like a beast, a book that mainlines a century's terror direct to the brain."--Voice Literary Supplement
Download or read book Frolic of His Own written by William Gaddis and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 709 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling fourth novel by the author of The Recognitions, Carpenter’s Gothic, and JR uses his considerable powers of observation and satirical sensibilities to take on the American legal system.
Download or read book The Special Ops Church written by Bill Peters and published by Charisma Media. This book was released on 2008 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ministry leader and author Dr. Bill Peters is a highly decorated former Marine Corps combat officer, having served in special operations as a Marine Force Recon team leader in 1969 during the Vietnam War. As the leader of 23 missions with six and eight-man teams, Dr. Peters successfully planned and executed missions deep in enemy-controlled territory. Bringing his faith, experience, and perspective to bear, Dr. Peters's powerful book shows readers how the Holy Spirit uniquely equips individuals-and the church as a whole-for the special task of winning others to Christ in a turbulent and sometimes volatile world. In Special Ops Church, Dr. Peters shows readers how small special ops churches or mega-churches with a special ops ministry can prepare for and achieve the mission of discipling the nations. Book jacket.
Download or read book Kaleidoscopic Omniscience written by Will Alexander and published by Skylight Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kaleidoscopic Omniscience is a new collection from lingual contortionist and poetic sage Will Alexander, featuring his early works - Asia & Haiti, The Stratospheric Canticles, and Impulse & Nothingness. Alexander's prismatic and oracular voice cascades around bi-geographic confrontations, painterly morphologies, and the cosmology of the void. " Alexander is] acutely conscious of the issue of poetic voice, and is unwilling to let poetry's potential for ventriloquizing or exploring the voices of others be subsumed in an impersonal criture or ultimately homogenous montage. He seems as well interested in the spiritual dimension of poetry, especially in the degrees to which poetry can give us access to spiritual or emotional states beyond those we normally experience." - Mark Scroggins, American Book Review
Download or read book So Long See You Tomorrow written by William Maxwell and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-04-27 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this magically evocative novel, William Maxwell explores the enigmatic gravity of the past, which compels us to keep explaining it even as it makes liars out of us every time we try. On a winter morning in the 1920s, a shot rings out on a farm in rural Illinois. A man named Lloyd Wilson has been killed. And the tenuous friendship between two lonely teenagers—one privileged yet neglected, the other a troubled farm boy—has been shattered. Fifty years later, one of those boys—now a grown man—tries to reconstruct the events that led up to the murder. In doing so, he is inevitably drawn back to his lost friend Cletus, who has the misfortune of being the son of Wilson's killer and who in the months before witnessed things that Maxwell's narrator can only guess at. Out of memory and imagination, the surmises of children and the destructive passions of their parents, Maxwell creates a luminous American classic of youth and loss.