Download or read book The Night Listener written by Armistead Maupin and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gabriel Noone is a writer whose late night radio stories have brought him into the homes of millions. Noone is in the midst of a painful separation from his lover of ten years when a publisher sends him proofs of a remarkable book: the memoir of a sickly thirteen-year-old boy who suffered horrific sexual abuse at the hands of his parents. Now living with his adoptive mother, Donna, Pete Lomax is not only a brave and gifted diarist but a devoted listener of Noone's show. When Noone phones the boy to offer encouragement, it soon becomes clear that Pete sees in this heartsick, middle-aged storyteller the loving father he's always wanted. Thus begins an extraordinary friendship that grows deeper only as the boy's health deteriorates, freeing Noone to unlock his innermost feelings. Then, out of the blue, troubling new questions arise, exploding Noone's comfortable assumptions and causing his ordered existence to spin wildly out of control. As he walks a vertiginous line between truth and illusion, he is finally forced to confront all his relationships - familial, romantic and erotic. As complex and hypnotically engrossing as the best of mysteries, The Night Listener is an astonishing tour de force that moves and challenges Maupin's readers as never before.

Download or read book Significant Others written by Armistead Maupin and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspiration for the Netflix Limited Series, Tales of the City The fifth novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin’s best-selling San Francisco saga. Tranquillity reigns in the ancient redwood forest until a women-only music festival sets up camp downriver from an all-male retreat for the ruling class. Among those entangled in the ensuing mayhem are a lovesick nurseryman, a panic-stricken philanderer, and the world’s most beautiful fat woman. Significant Others is Armistead Maupin’s cunningly observed meditation on marriage, friendship, and sexual nostalgia.

Download or read book Maybe The Moon written by Armistead Maupin and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maybe the Moon, Armistead Maupin's first novel since ending his bestselling Tales of the City series, is the audaciously original chronicle of Cadence Roth -- Hollywood actress, singer, iconoclast and former Guinness Book of Records holder as the world's shortest woman. All of 31 inches tall, Cady is a true survivor in a town where -- as she says -- 'you can die of encouragement'. Her early starring role as a lovable elf in an immensely popular American film proved a major disappointment, since moviegoers never saw the face behind the stifling rubber suit she was required to wear. Now, after a decade of hollow promises from the Industry, she is reduced to performing at birthday parties and Bar Mitzvahs as she waits for the miracle that will finally make her a star. In a series of mordantly funny journal entries, Maupin tracks his spunky heroine across the saffron-hazed wasteland of Los Angeles -- from her all-too-infrequent meetings with agents and studio moguls to her regular harrowing encounters with small children, large dogs and human ignorance. Then one day a lanky piano player saunters into Cady's life, unleashing heady new emotions, and she finds herself going for broke, shooting the moon with a scheme so harebrained and daring that it just might succeed. Her accomplice in the venture is her best friend, Jeff, a gay waiter who sees Cady's struggle for visibility as a natural extension of his own war against the Hollywood Closet. As clear-eyed as it is charming, Maybe the Moon is a modern parable about the mythology of the movies and the toll it exacts from it participants on both sides of the screen. It is a work that speaks to the resilience of the human spirit from a perspective rarely found in literature.

Download or read book It Devours written by Joseph Fink and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new page-turning mystery about science, faith, love and belonging, set in a friendly desert community where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are commonplace parts of everyday life. Welcome to Night Vale… “Brilliant, hilarious, and wondrously strange. I’m packing up and moving to Night Vale! –Ransom Riggs, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. From the authors of the New York Times bestselling novel Welcome to Night Vale and the creators of the #1 international podcast of the same name, comes a mystery exploring the intersections of faith and science, the growing relationship between two young people who want desperately to trust each other, and the terrifying, toothy power of the Smiling God. Nilanjana Sikdar is an outsider to the town of Night Vale. Working for Carlos, the town’s top scientist, she relies on fact and logic as her guiding principles. But all of that is put into question when Carlos gives her a special assignment investigating a mysterious rumbling in the desert wasteland outside of town. This investigation leads her to the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God, and to Darryl, one of its most committed members. Caught between her beliefs in the ultimate power of science and her growing attraction to Darryl, she begins to suspect the Congregation is planning a ritual that could threaten the lives of everyone in town. Nilanjana and Darryl must search for common ground between their very different world views as they are faced with the Congregation’s darkest and most terrible secret.

Download or read book The Silent Listener written by Lyn Yeowart and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Silent Listener is simply unforgettable.' Sydney Morning Herald 'A tale of suspense and revenge, beautifully written.' The Age 'A deftly wrought suspense novel from a remarkable new literary talent . . . A book that should be atop of everyone's reading list.' J. P. Pomare, author of Call Me Evie Propelling the reader back and forth between the 1940s, 1960s and 1980s, The Silent Listener is an unforgettable literary suspense novel set in the dark, gothic heart of rural Australia. In the cold, wet summer of 1960, 11-year-old Joy Henderson lives in constant fear of her father. She tries to make him happy but, as he keeps reminding her, she is nothing but a filthy sinner destined for Hell . . . Yet, decades later, she returns to the family’s farm to nurse him on his death bed. To her surprise, her ‘perfect’ sister Ruth is also there, whispering dark words, urging revenge. Then the day after their father finally confesses to a despicable crime, Joy finds him dead - with a belt pulled tight around his neck . . . For Senior Constable Alex Shepherd, investigating George’s murder revives memories of an unsolved case still haunting him since that strange summer of 1960: the disappearance of nine-year-old Wendy Boscombe. As seemingly impossible facts surface about the Hendersons – from the past and the present – Shepherd suspects that Joy is pulling him into an intricate web of lies and that Wendy’s disappearance is the key to the bizarre truth. **** 'A book that should be atop of everyone's reading list. The prose is spectacular, and the characters so richly imagined. This is a novel about inherited violence and redemption packaged as a cracking psychological thriller.' J. P. Pomare, author of Call Me Evie 'Intense, intricate, emotionally devastating. This is proper Australian gothica.' Liam Pieper, author of Sweetness and Light 'Totally addictive.' Books+Publishing 'A cracking thriller with heart. It intrigues, it twists and turns, it deftly combines the muddy domestic details of life on a Victorian farm with a black, Gothic sensibility of lies and violence and the heartbreaking fantasy world of a young child.' Jane Sullivan 'A heartbreaking, terrifying and stunningly accomplished novel that had me holding my breath. Yeowart instantly pulled me into the life of a rural family dominated by an angry, insecure despot from its unnerving beginnings to its shocking end.' Kirsten Alexander, author of Half Moon Lake 'Steeped in atmosphere and with taut, intricate plotting, The Silent Listener, contrary to its title, had me audibly gasping throughout.' Benjamin Stevenson, author of Either Side of Midnight 'An ingenious form of storytelling archaeology: down through layers of family trauma, the truths are finally brought to light.' Jock Serong, author of The Rules of Backyard Cricket

Download or read book The Listener written by Robert McCammon and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling author “masterfully combines historical thriller and supernatural horror . . . [for] fans of occult thrillers like those by Dean Koontz” (Booklist, starred review). Economic collapse. Crushing unemployment and breadlines crowding city streets as crime spirals out of control. The Great Depression has enough misery for all, and some to spare. But for angel-faced grifter John Partlow, the American South in 1934 is a land of opportunity. The small-time confidence man stumbles into the big leagues when he partners up with beautiful hustler Ginger LaFrance. Seduced into her high stakes plot to kidnap the young children of a New Orleans shipping magnate, John realizes he’s in over his head when Ginger’s fierce desire to see her scheme succeed could mean a gruesome end for their innocent victims. Unless young Nilla can wield her secret gift in time. Though she’s never heard the term, nine-year-old Nilla is a Listener—someone who can telepathically pick up on the thoughts of others like themselves. Nilla has started to communicate with another Listener—a young black man struggling to find his way as a porter at the Union Station. Their lives couldn’t be more different, and though they have never met, their shared bond is so strong that Curtis is ready to risk it all to answer her cry for help. But will it be enough to save two children from the merciless hands of hardened criminals? “Race relations are one subject of this seductive slice of supernatural noir set in 1934 New Orleans . . . McCammon conjures believable characters whose sympathetic plight pulls the reader headlong into the novel’s volatile mix of crime and fantasy. Its tense finale, paced at breakneck speed, will have readers turning pages until its surprise-packed end.” —Publishers Weekly

Download or read book Michael Tolliver Lives written by Armistead Maupin and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspiration for the Netflix Limited Series, Tales of the City The seventh novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin’s best-selling San Francisco saga. Nearly two decades after ending his groundbreaking Tales of the City saga of San Francisco life, Armistead Maupin revisits his all-too-human hero Michael Tolliver—the fifty-five-year-old sweet-spirited gardener and survivor of the plague that took so many of his friends and lovers—for a single day at once mundane and extraordinary... and filled with the everyday miracles of living.

Download or read book A Rock and a Hard Place written by Anthony Godby Johnson and published by Sphere. This book was released on 1993 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The autobiography of a 15-year-old New Yorker who is dying of AIDS. Anthony Johnson was born in 1977 and for 11 years was physically and sexually abused by his parents. However, this book is not a grimly explicit account of those years; it is a journal about the strength of friendship and the joy of growing up in New York, the wonders of knowledge and the happiness in his new adopted family. The voice is that of a bright teenager who has belief in the goodness of mankind despite the horrors he has and is suffering.

Download or read book Night Rooms written by Gina Nutt and published by Two Dollar Radio. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * 2021 Foreword INDIES, Finalist * 2022 IPPY MEDALISTS for Essay, bronze "A Best Book of 2021" —NPR "A Most Anticipated Book of 2021” —Refinery29, Thrillist, Book Riot, Lit Hub “In a horror movie, an infected character may hide a bite or rash, an urge, an unwellness. She might withdraw or act out, or behave as if nothing is the matter, nothing has happened. Any course of action opposite saying how she feels suggests suffering privately is preferable to the anticipated betrayal of being cast out.” Night Rooms is a poetic, intimate collection of personal essays that weaves together fragmented images from horror films and cultural tropes to meditate on anxiety and depression, suicide, body image, identity, grief, and survival. Whether competing in shopping mall beauty pageants, reflecting on childhood monsters and ballet lessons, or recounting dark cultural ephemera while facing grief and authenticity in the digital age, Gina Nutt’s shifting style echoes the sub-genres that Night Rooms highlights—spirit-haunted slow burns, possession tales, slashers, and revenge films with a feminist bent. Refracting life through the lens of horror films, Night Rooms masterfully leaps between reality and movies, past and present—because the “final girl’s” story is ultimately a survival story told another way. The audiobook of Night Rooms is available now, and narrated by the author.

Download or read book Armistead Maupin written by Patrick Gale and published by Absolute Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Armistead Maupin has done more than any other writer this century to help straight readers love gay people, to help gay readers love straight ones, to make anyone who is different feel good about themselves and to make an extraordinary number of otherwise rational people suddenly yearn to live in an imaginary rooming house in San Francisco so they could become a cherished intimate of its all-wise pot-growing, transsexual landlady." "Patrick Gale's Outline is a biographical tribute to his longstanding friendship with Maupin. Based on long, candid and hilarious conversations between these two outstanding novelists, it covers everything from Maupin's aristocratic Southern background and extreme right wing youth to his battle to wrench open the door on the Hollywood closet and the difficulty of sustaining a highly publicised gay "marriage"."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Download or read book More Tales of the City written by Armistead Maupin and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Remarkable. . . delectable, addictive." —New York Times Book Review The second novel in the beloved Tales of the City series, Armistead Maupin’s bestselling San Francisco saga. The tenants of 28 Barbary Lane have fled their cozy nest for adventures far afield. Mary Ann Singleton finds love at sea with a forgetful stranger, Mona Ramsey discovers her doppelgänger in a desert whorehouse, and Michael Tolliver bumps into his favorite gynecologist in a Mexican bar. Meanwhile, their venerable landlady takes the biggest journey of all—without ever leaving home.

Download or read book Dreamthorp written by Chet Williamson and published by Crossroad Press. This book was released on 2015-03-26 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to Dreamthorp A sleepy little Pennsylvania resort town where city folks can get away from it all… A town where a woman who saw her best friend mutilated by a crazed sex killer can hide – and forget… …until haunted relics of another age awaken an ancient evil and unleash a human horror that has no place outside of Hell…

Download or read book Logical Family written by Armistead Maupin and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A book for any of us, gay or straight, who have had to find our family. Maupin is one of America’s finest storytellers."—Neil Gaiman "I fell in love with Maupin’s effervescent Tales of the City decades ago, and his genius turn at memoir is no less compelling. Logical Family is a must read."—Mary Karr In this long-awaited memoir, the beloved author of the bestselling Tales of the City series chronicles his odyssey from the old South to freewheeling San Francisco, and his evolution from curious youth to ground-breaking writer and gay rights pioneer. Born in the mid-twentieth century and raised in the heart of conservative North Carolina, Armistead Maupin lost his virginity to another man "on the very spot where the first shots of the Civil War were fired." Realizing that the South was too small for him, this son of a traditional lawyer packed his earthly belongings into his Opel GT (including a beloved portrait of a Confederate ancestor), and took to the road in search of adventure. It was a journey that would lead him from a homoerotic Navy initiation ceremony in the jungles of Vietnam to that strangest of strange lands: San Francisco in the early 1970s. Reflecting on the profound impact those closest to him have had on his life, Maupin shares his candid search for his "logical family," the people he could call his own. "Sooner or later, we have to venture beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us," he writes. "We have to, if we are to live without squandering our lives." From his loving relationship with his palm-reading Grannie who insisted Maupin was the reincarnation of her artistic bachelor cousin, Curtis, to an awkward conversation about girls with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office, Maupin tells of the extraordinary individuals and situations that shaped him into one of the most influential writers of the last century. Maupin recalls his losses and life-changing experiences with humor and unflinching honesty, and brings to life flesh-and-blood characters as endearing and unforgettable as the vivid, fraught men and women who populate his enchanting novels. What emerges is an illuminating portrait of the man who depicted the liberation and evolution of America’s queer community over the last four decades with honesty and compassion—and inspired millions to claim their own lives. Logical Family includes black-and-white photographs.

Download or read book Love Later On written by Peggy Knickerbocker and published by Gatekeeper Press. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peggy Knickerbocker, a native San Franciscan, and daughter of a drama critic and a political activist, had a long and charmed career in the world of food. She taught cooking, ran a catering business in the 1970’s and co-owned, with her childhood friend, Flicka McGurrin, two colorful restaurants, one still thrives on the waterfront with McGurrin as sole owner. In 1989 she left the business to write about food. At first she wrote steadily for magazines such as Saveur, Food and Wine and Gourmet and then went on to write four cookboo ks, the last won a James Beard Award. She’d eaten her way through every continent by the time she was done writing about food. Along the way, Knickerbocker had the greatest friends and a fascinating life, including years in Paris. She’d wrestled most of her demons to the mat, but with men, she’d faltered. After an early divorce and one or two good relationships, she repeatedly under-served herself with her choices. Late in middle age, Peggy realized that she was quite satisfied with her life. That was when the man appeared. She’d never considered a businessman, let alone one originally from the Midwest. Since Knickerbocker had come of age in San Francisco’s Bohemian North Beach during 70’s, she’d gone for unconventional and often unavailable men. Robert Fisher, a widower, a man with innumerable attractions, pursued her hotly. She clung to her independence only to realize she could have it all. She discovered the man with whom she’d spend her life, and, along the way, the subject of this book.

Download or read book The Night of the Dance written by James Hime and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sissy Fletcher, the preacher's daughter, disappeared on the night of the Rodeo Dance ten years ago and has been missing ever since. Until now, that is—a team drilling an oil well has made a grisly discovery in an isolated pasture. Seeing as how it's an election year, finding her killer is a bigger priority than it might usually be in sleepy Washington County, Texas, where not much ever happens anyway. Though it's becoming clear that the town isn't quite as sleepy as it seems. Martin Fletcher, Sissy's brother, seems to believe he's on a mission from God to raise hell in Washington County. He and his partner, Dud Hughes, aim to start small, with armed robbery, and work their way up to bigger things, but an inquiry into his sister's death threatens to draw a little more attention his way than he wants just now. As the mood begins to the shift in the town, three men put their heads together to work the case: ex-Texas Ranger Jeremiah Spur, who is retired but can't get the thrill of the chase out of his blood; the current sheriff, Dewey Sharpe, who just may not be as dumb as he looks; and Deputy Clyde Thomas, an African-American ex-Dallas cop who is probably the savviest of the bunch. All in all, James Hime's TheNight of the Dance, is a terrifically original, jaunty, and action-packed debut from a writer to watch.

Download or read book You re Not Listening written by Kate Murphy and published by Celadon Books. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When was the last time you listened to someone, or someone really listened to you? "If you’re like most people, you don’t listen as often or as well as you’d like. There’s no one better qualified than a talented journalist to introduce you to the right mindset and skillset—and this book does it with science and humor." -Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take **Hand picked by Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink for Next Big Ideas Club** "An essential book for our times." -Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone At work, we’re taught to lead the conversation. On social media, we shape our personal narratives. At parties, we talk over one another. So do our politicians. We’re not listening. And no one is listening to us. Despite living in a world where technology allows constant digital communication and opportunities to connect, it seems no one is really listening or even knows how. And it’s making us lonelier, more isolated, and less tolerant than ever before. A listener by trade, New York Times contributor Kate Murphy wanted to know how we got here. In this always illuminating and often humorous deep dive, Murphy explains why we’re not listening, what it’s doing to us, and how we can reverse the trend. She makes accessible the psychology, neuroscience, and sociology of listening while also introducing us to some of the best listeners out there (including a CIA agent, focus group moderator, bartender, radio producer, and top furniture salesman). Equal parts cultural observation, scientific exploration, and rousing call to action that's full of practical advice, You're Not Listening is to listening what Susan Cain's Quiet was to introversion. It’s time to stop talking and start listening.

Download or read book The Night Swim written by Megan Goldin and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A blistering plot and crisp writing make The Night Swim an unputdownable read.” –Sarah Pekkanen, bestselling author of The Wife Between Us In The Night Swim, a new thriller from Megan Goldin, author of the “gripping and unforgettable” (Harlan Coben) The Escape Room, a true crime podcast host covering a controversial trial finds herself drawn deep into a small town’s dark past and a brutal crime that took place there years before. Ever since her true-crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall has become a household name—and the last hope for people seeking justice. But she’s used to being recognized for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help. The new season of Rachel's podcast has brought her to a small town being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. A local golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season 3 a success, Rachel throws herself into her investigation—but the mysterious letters keep coming. Someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insist she was murdered—and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody in town wants to answer. The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases—and a revelation that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved. Electrifying and propulsive, The Night Swim asks: What is the price of a reputation? Can a small town ever right the wrongs of its past? And what really happened to Jenny?