Publisher: Sovereign
One day when she was younger and better-looking, and when her voice was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting in the outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and stifling. Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of inferior port, felt ill-humoured and out of sorts. Both were bored and waiting for the heat of the day to be over in order to go for a walk.
Three hilarious and insightful books on getting through the challenges of modern motherhood—featuring interviews with moms around the country. This bundle gives you three books for the price of two and includes: I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids, I’d Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper, and Dirty Little Secrets from Otherwise Perfect Moms. Popular authors Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile tackle the tough issues of twenty-first century parenthood and marriage with a frank, yet encouraging tone. Interviewing hundreds of mothers (and fathers too), they extend a loving hand in the middle of the madness and help readers see their marriages and families in new lights.Show book
Emily Forrest runs Exalted, the hottest astrology account on Instagram, from her studio apartment in Los Angeles. Burned out on meme-making and listicles, Emily's passion for astrology is waning despite her gift for deciphering the signs, until she comes across a birth-chart that could potentially change her mind. Beau Rubidoux's planets are aligned, each paired with its optimum sign—his chart is exalted. She decides that Beau, a well-connected photographer in Echo Park, could potentially be the love of her life and help her fulfill her true destiny: to be a star.Meanwhile in Riverside, Dawn Webster has been dumped once again. At forty-eight, she is forced to return to the same restaurant where she started waiting tables at eighteen. With no girlfriend, no career, and her only son gone to Hollywood, the once-vivacious Dawn is aimless and alone. She guzzles cheap champagne and checks Exalted to feel seen. She is a fiery Leo, and one day she will get her due.Alternating between Emily and Dawn's points of view, Exalted is a deliciously dark novel that explores desire, the projection of our need for love, and what we're really searching for when we keep scrolling. Anna Dorn's signature wit and biting social commentary takes listeners across Southern California until Emily and Dawn's shocking connection is finally revealed.Show book
An oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For 2,000 years, cadavers-some willingly, some unwittingly-have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure-from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery-cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way.In this fascinating, ennobling account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries-from the anatomy labs and human-sourced pharmacies of medieval and nineteenth-century Europe to a human decay research facility in Tennessee, to a plastic surgery practice lab, to a Scandinavian funeral directors' conference on human composting. In her droll, inimitable voice, Roach tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.Show book
Whoever said singles were missing out by not finding true love and getting married before the age of 30 had never experienced the sheer pleasure of nightly romantic comedy viewings in their underwear while eating one of Licked's famous Crazy Cat Lady sundaes. Because life just doesn't get better than that. At least, it doesn't for Shayne Callahan. It didn't take more than a handful of broken hearts after college to solidify that she was better at pairing up those around her than herself. As a matchmaker at the elite HLS—Hook, Line, & Sinker Matchmaking Company—in the City of Angels, she has a knack for finding the other halves of even the most eccentric clients: Sugar daddy with a foot fetish? Gross, but no problem. A severe case of nudophobia? Match made before lunch. But even the most happily independent of women can find their best-laid plans screeching to a halt when they meet that guy. For Shayne, that guy comes in the form of boyishly handsome, suspender-lovin', dimple-poppin' Nate Ryan on a pantsless (we'll get to that later) Metro ride. Of course, relationships can never be easy. Before the destined lovers can ride off into the sunset, they must overcome a power-hungry and sexual-punning boss, a celebrity scandal and cover-up, and let's not forget Shayne's dreadful foot-in-mouth disease—with which there can never be a happily ever after.Show book
Lauren Weedman's hilarious essays are like a compendium of what not to do as a fully-realized, functional adult. Her self-deprecating, confessional, and terribly funny voice finds a special place in the hearts of those who can relate to her—which, for better or worse, includes all of us. From the uproarious account of her time at the Daily Show, where she developed an entirely one-sided infatuation with Jon Stewart, to the time she read her boyfriend's diary with disastrous results, Lauren's work is filled with the wit, honesty, and personality that make for great personal writing.Show book
These short comic parodies of five well-known tragedies by Henrik Ibsen originally appeared in Punch, the British humor magazine. From the prefatory note: "The author is conscious that his imitation is painfully lacking in the mysterious obscurity of the original, that the vein of allegorical symbolism is thinner throughout than it should be, and that the characters are not nearly so mad as persons invariably are in real life—but these are the faults inevitable to a prentice hand, and he trusts that due allowances may be made for them by the critical." LibriVox has produced full-cast versions of all five plays that F. Anstey parodies in this collection: Rosmersholm, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, The Wild Duck, and The Master Builder. - Summary by Elizabeth KlettShow book
