Download or read book A Little Life written by Hanya Yanagihara and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Download or read book How to Write Funny written by John Kachuba and published by Writer's Digest Books. This book was released on 2001-07-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A discussion of the basics and genres of the comic point of view includes essays and interviews with such authors as Dave Barry, Sherman Alexie, and Melissa Bank.

Download or read book Would Everybody Please Stop written by Jenny Allen and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty-five humorous essays exploring middle age, motherhood, marriage, divorce, cancer, and other potholes along the road of life. Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor In Would Everybody Please Stop?, Jenny Allen asks the tough questions: Why do people say “It is what it is”? What’s the point of fat-free half-and-half? Why don’t the women detectives on TV carry purses, and where are we supposed to think they keep all their stuff? And haven’t we heard enough about memes? Reporting from the potholes midway through life’s journey, Allen addresses these and other more serious matters, like the rude awakenings of being single after twenty-five years, of mothering a teenager, and of living with a serious illness. She also discusses life’s everyday trials, like the horrors of attempting a crafts project, the anxieties of being a houseguest, and the ever-changing rules of recycling. Allen is a performer at heart—her one-woman show I Got Sick Then I Got Better premiered in 2009, and she regularly acts in other plays—and she brings that same spirit to these thirty-five short essays, which read like the work of a female Dave Barry. Writing on places both real (like a swag den for celebrities at Sundance and the parking lot at L.L.Bean’s flagship store) and imaginary (a Buddhist retreat attended by Martha Stewart, Elmer Fudd’s psychotherapy appointment), Allen’s wit and compassion give a fresh slant on life’s ups and downs.

Download or read book Kafka written by Reiner Stach and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eagerly anticipated final volume of the award-winning, definitive biography of Franz Kafka How did Kafka become Kafka? This eagerly anticipated third and final volume of Reiner Stach's definitive biography of the writer answers that question with more facts and insight than ever before, describing the complex personal, political, and cultural circumstances that shaped the young Franz Kafka (1883–1924). It tells the story of the years from his birth in Prague to the beginning of his professional and literary career in 1910, taking the reader up to just before the breakthrough that resulted in his first masterpieces, including "The Metamorphosis." Brimming with vivid and often startling details, Stach’s narrative invites readers deep inside this neglected period of Kafka’s life. The book’s richly atmospheric portrait of his German Jewish merchant family and his education, psychological development, and sexual maturation draws on numerous sources, some still unpublished, including family letters, schoolmates’ memoirs, and early diaries of his close friend Max Brod. The biography also provides a colorful panorama of Kafka’s wider world, especially the convoluted politics and culture of Prague. Before World War I, Kafka lived in a society at the threshold of modernity but torn by conflict, and Stach provides poignant details of how the adolescent Kafka witnessed violent outbreaks of anti-Semitism and nationalism. The reader also learns how he developed a passionate interest in new technologies, particularly movies and airplanes, and why another interest—his predilection for the back-to-nature movement—stemmed from his “nervous” surroundings rather than personal eccentricity. The crowning volume to a masterly biography, this is an unmatched account of how a boy who grew up in an old Central European monarchy became a writer who helped create modern literature.

Download or read book Welcome to Spirit Quest The Beginning written by The Scribe and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2011-10-20 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Welcome to Spirit Quest: The Beginning"is the first book to a future series featuring a thrilling allegory on spiritual manifestation. Join the tripped-out author, pen named, The Scribe, and her immortal fantasy character, Elizabeth, as they join forces to venture though an apocalyptic, demon-slaying world. This trek oddly leads them to creatively define the mystery of love. Be warned, this journey may just lead you to your own imaginative destiny. Live the adventure, if you dare. All you have to do is believe.

Download or read book Under the Chinaberry Tree written by Ann Ruethling and published by Crown. This book was released on 2003-02-11 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrating Chinaberry's twentieth anniversary, the women behind America's beloved children's book catalog share their wisdom about the joys of children's literature and parenting. The Chinaberry catalog was created when Ann Ruethling became troubled by the violence in many old-fashioned nursery stories and the poor grammar or mediocre plots in newer children's books. Handpicking a hundred high-quality titles a year, she has become an indispensable friend to thousands of parents, and Chinaberry has become a gold standard for its industry. Under the Chinaberry Tree celebrates the world of children's books. In warm "one-mother-to-another" prose, Ruethling and her business partner, Patti Pitcher, reflect on the family-first concepts that resonate so strongly with Chinaberry fans and all parents. Exploring the books that have made a difference in their children's lives, the tender experience of reading with children and the moments that make parenting a unique journey, this guide is sure to enrich every family's bookshelf.

Download or read book Soviet Life written by and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Where I Lived and What I Lived For written by Henry Thoreau and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-08-25 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Thoreau's account of his solitary and self-sufficient home in the New England woods remains an inspiration to the environmental movement - a call to his fellow men to abandon their striving, materialistic existences of 'quiet desperation' for a simple life within their means, finding spiritual truth through awareness of the sheer beauty of their surroundings.

Download or read book Poking a Dead Frog written by Mike Sacks and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR Amy Poehler, Mel Brooks, Adam McKay, George Saunders, Bill Hader, Patton Oswalt, and many more take us deep inside the mysterious world of comedy in this fascinating, laugh-out-loud-funny book. Packed with behind-the-scenes stories—from a day in the writers’ room at The Onion to why a sketch does or doesn’t make it onto Saturday Night Live to how the BBC nearly erased the entire first season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus—Poking a Dead Frog is a must-read for comedy buffs, writers and pop culture junkies alike.

Download or read book The Sense of an Ending written by Julian Barnes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-10-05 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

Download or read book God Mocks written by Terry Lindvall and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-11-13 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2016 Religious Communication Association Book of the Year Award In God Mocks, Terry Lindvall ventures into the muddy and dangerous realm of religious satire, chronicling its evolution from the biblical wit and humor of the Hebrew prophets through the Roman Era and the Middle Ages all the way up to the present. He takes the reader on a journey through the work of Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales, Cervantes, Jonathan Swift, and Mark Twain, and ending with the mediated entertainment of modern wags like Stephen Colbert. Lindvall finds that there is a method to the madness of these mockers: true satire, he argues, is at its heart moral outrage expressed in laughter. But there are remarkable differences in how these religious satirists express their outrage.The changing costumes of religious satirists fit their times. The earthy coarse language of Martin Luther and Sir Thomas More during the carnival spirit of the late medieval period was refined with the enlightened wit of Alexander Pope. The sacrilege of Monty Python does not translate well to the ironic voices of Soren Kierkegaard. The religious satirist does not even need to be part of the community of faith. All he needs is an eye and ear for the folly and chicanery of religious poseurs. To follow the paths of the satirist, writes Lindvall, is to encounter the odd and peculiar treasures who are God’s mouthpieces. In God Mocks, he offers an engaging look at their religious use of humor toward moral ends.

Download or read book Growing in Godliness written by Lindsey Carlson and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 75 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hands down my favorite book for teen girls." Rosaria Butterfield, author, The Gospel Comes with a House Key Your teen years matter. Of all the ways you're learning and changing during the busy teenage years, your growth in Christ is the most important. God intends to use your teen years as a launching pad into a lifelong pursuit of looking more like Jesus. This book will help you prioritize your Christian growth—pointing you to the resources God has given you in his Word, in prayer, and in the church; offering help for managing your emotions, watching your words, and bearing spiritual fruit; and challenging you with ways to center your life around this important task. Even as a teenager, you have all it takes to grow in godliness.

Download or read book Humor in Modern American Poetry written by Rachel Trousdale and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-11-16 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern poetry, at least according to the current consensus, is difficult and often depressing. But as Humor in Modern American Poetry shows, modern poetry is full of humorous moments, from comic verse published in popular magazines to the absurd juxtapositions of The Cantos. The essays in this collection show that humor is as essential to the serious work of William Carlos Williams as it is to the light verse of Phyllis McGinley. For the writers in this volume, the point of humor is not to provide “comic relief,” a brief counterpoint to the poem's more serious themes; humor is central to the poems' projects. These poets use humor to claim their own poetic authority; to re-define literary tradition; to show what audience they are writing for; to make political attacks; and, perhaps most surprisingly, to promote sympathy among their readers. The essays in this book include single-author studies, discussions of literary circles, and theories of form. Taken together, they help to begin a new conversation about modernist poetry, one that treats its lighthearted moments not as decorative but as substantive. Humor defines groups and marks social boundaries, but it also leads us to transgress those boundaries; it forges ties between the writer and the reader, blurs the line between public and private, and becomes a spur to self-awareness.

Download or read book The Century Dictionary The Century dictionary written by and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 862 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Born Standing Up written by Steve Martin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steve Martin has been an international star for over thirty years. Here, for the first time, he looks back to the beginning of his career and charmingly evokes the young man he once was. Born in Texas but raised in California, Steve was seduced early by the comedy shows that played on the radio when the family travelled back and forth to visit relatives. When Disneyland opened just a couple of miles away from home, an enchanted Steve was given his first chance to learn magic and entertain an audience. He describes how he noted the reaction to each joke in a ledger - 'big laugh' or 'quiet' - and assiduously studied the acts of colleagues, stealing jokes when needed. With superb detail, Steve recreates the world of small, dark clubs and the fear and exhilaration of standing in the spotlight. While a philosophy student at UCLA, he worked hard at local clubs honing his comedy and slowly attracting a following until he was picked up to write for TV. From here on, Steve Martin became an acclaimed comedian, packing out venues nationwide. One night, however, he noticed empty seats and realised he had 'reached the top of the rollercoaster'. BORN STANDING UP is a funny and riveting chronicle of how Steve Martin became the comedy genius we now know and is also a fascinating portrait of an era.

Download or read book Normal Instructor and Teachers World written by and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The American Hebrew written by and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: