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  No One to Meet - Imitation and...

  Raphael Falco

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  The literary establishment tends to regard Bob Dylan as an intriguing, if baffling, outsider. That changed overnight when Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, challenging us to think of him as an integral part of our national and international literary heritage. No One to Meet places Dylan the artist within a long tradition of literary production and offers an innovative way of understanding his unique, and often controversial, methods of composition.In lucid prose, Raphael Falco demonstrates the similarity between what Renaissance writers called imitatio and the way Dylan borrows, digests, and transforms traditional songs. Although Dylan's lyrical postures might suggest a post-Romantic, "avant-garde" consciousness, No One to Meet shows that Dylan's creative process borrows from and expands the methods used by classical and Renaissance authors.Drawing on numerous examples, including Dylan's previously unseen manuscript excerpts and archival materials, Falco illuminates how the ancient process of poetic imitation, handed down from Greco-Roman antiquity, allows us to make sense of Dylan's musical and lyrical technique. By placing Dylan firmly in the context of an age-old poetic practice, No One to Meet deepens our appreciation of Dylan's songs and allows us to celebrate him as what he truly is: a great writer.

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  Night Terrors Vol 2 - Short...

  Jude Reid, Michael D. Nye, Matt...

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  Nightmares can’t really hurt you… can they? 
  An evil from beyond the stars haunts a young boy and his father at Roswell Airbase. The survivors of a sunken warship take refuge on a deserted island, and discover they are not alone. And terror checks in at an old motel, when a vacationing family finds themselves trapped in an ancient curse… 
  Scare Street journeys into the night to bring you a new volume of skin-crawling terror. This macabre collection contains thirteen chilling tales of supernatural horror. And each story will sweep you away to a world of dark dreams and fantastical nightmares… 
  Some believe that if you see yourself die in your dreams, then your heart will stop. But that’s just an old wives’ tale, isn’t it? After all, the icy chill of death lurks within every story in this ghastly tome. And your heart hasn’t stopped yet. 
  In fact, with each turn of the page, you can hear it beating faster and faster… 
  This bone-chilling supernatural collection contains: 
  1. Live Bait by Jude Reid 
  2. The Hungry Worm by Michael D. Nye 
  3. The Magician Needs a Volunteer by Matt Brandenburg 
  4. Lab Incident, 1947 by Martin Zeigler 
  5. A House Divided by M. B. Vujacic 
  6. Sundown and Shadows by Michelle Tang 
  7. The Old Coach Inn by Kris Ashton 
  8. Ashes to Ashes by Robert Douglas 
  9. Folie-a-Deux by Gina Easton 
  10. Do Something Funny by Clark Boyd 
  11. Fertile Soil by Brian Sperl 
  12. Night Dive by Drew Starling 
  13. Home Sick by Ron Ripley

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  Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch -...

  Hollis Gillespie

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  Drawing on her peripatetic childhood as the daughter of a travelling salesman, and her adult residence in one of Atlanta's seedier crack neighbourhoods, columnist and NPR commentator Hollis Gillespie has assembled a comic, poignant memoir about her life, starring her unusual family and her crazy friends.NPR commentator Hollis Gillespie's outrageously funny–and equally heartbreaking–collection of autobiographical tales chronicles her journey through self–reckoning and the worst neighbourhoods in Atlanta in search of a home she can call her own. The daughter of a missile scientist and an alcoholic travelling trailer salesman, Gillespie was nine before she realized not everybody's mother made bombs, and thirty before she realized it was possible to live in one place longer than a six–month lease allows. Supporting her are the social outcasts she calls her best friends: Daniel, a talented and eccentric artist; Grant, who makes his living peddling folk art by a denounced nun who paints plywood signs with twisted evangelical sayings; and Lary, who often, out of compassion, offers to shoot her like a lame horse.Hollis's friends help her battle the mess of obstacles that stand in her way–including her warped childhood, in which her parents moved her and her siblings around the country like carnival barkers, chasing missile–building contracts and other whimsies, such as her father's dream to patent and sell door–to–door the world's most wondrous key–chain. A past like this will make you doubt you'll ever have a future, much less roots. Miraculously, though, Gillespie manages to plant exactly that: roots, as wrested and dubious as they are.As Gillespie says, "Life is too damn short to remain trapped in your own Alcatraz." Follow her on this wickedly funny journey as she manages to escape again and again.

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  The Commandant of Auschwitz -...

  Volker Koop

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  The renowned WWII historian’s definitive biography of the notorious German SS officer convicted of war crimes for his role in the Holocaust.   Described as one of the greatest mass-murderers in history, Rudolf Höss was the longest-serving commandant of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. He was one of the chief architects behind Hitler’s Final Solution. In The Commandant of Auschwitz, Volker Koop details Höss’s military career, his conversion to Nazi ideology, and his ruthless commitment to the Nazi cause.   At the age of fourteen, Höss joined the 21st Regiment of Dragoons and rose through the ranks to become the youngest non-commissioned officer in the German Army. After joining the Nazi party in 1922, he was convicted of participating in at least one political assassination, for which he spent six years in prison.   In 1934, Höss became a Block Leader at Dachau concentration camp. By 1940, he would be given command of his own camp near the town of Auschwitz. Charged with carrying out the Final Solution of the Jewish question, Höss set about his task with relish. By his own estimation, he was responsible for the deaths of at least 3,000,000 individuals.   Justice caught up with Höss after the German surrender. He was arrested on March 11th, 1946, after a year of posing as a gardener under a false name. He was found guilty of war crimes and hanged on April 16th, 1947.

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  The Good Rat - A True Story

  Jimmy Breslin

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  A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist reveals a history of the American mob with “perfect diabolical detail. . . . A master at transforming crookery into opera” (New York Times Book Review). 
   
  In his inimitable New York voice, New York Times bestselling author Jimmy Breslin gives us a look through the keyhole at the people and places that define the Mafia—characters like John Gotti, Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso (named for his weapon of choice), and Jimmy “the Clam” Eppolito—interwoven with the remarkable true-crime saga of the good rat himself, Burt Kaplan of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, the star witness in the trial of two NYPD detectives indicted for carrying out eight gangland executions. Through these unforgettable real-life and long-forgotten Mafia stories, Jimmy Breslin captures the moments in which the mob was made and broken. 
   
  “The ineffable Breslin, the mob’s Homer, may not have done much to ensure Kaplan’s longevity, but he has surely granted him immortality.” —Boston Globe 
   
  “Bad cops, good crook, great story.” —USA Today 
   
  “Breslin is a writer of the heart. It’s hard to name another author who demonstrates a better understanding of the passions of urban misrule.” —Playboy 
   
  “Completely sure of what he’s doing, the author knows how to hook a reader.” —New York Observer 
   
  “Brilliant . . . a colorfully nuanced depiction of Burt Kaplan.” —New York Daily News 
   
  “Jimmy Breslin at his best.” —New York Times 
   
   “The Good Rat tells us about the corkscrew workings of the criminal mind where Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment left off.” —Nicholas Pileggi, New York Times bestselling author of Wiseguy 
   
  “Smart and stinging . . . a winner.” —Kirkus Reviews 
   
  “[Breslin’s] writing, like the Mafia itself, breezily transitions from humorous to horrifying.” —Publishers Weekly

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  Fury of Past Time - A Life of...

  Daryl Leeworthy

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  'Leeworthy set out to write a biography which fully reflects the complexity of Thomas' life, especially foregrounding 'the political character of Gwyn's character and creative output' but he does so much more, expanding the reader's knowledge by giving us not just the life but also the times... This punchy portrait of a real Welsh literary heavyweight hits home with the brutal realism of Thomas' jabbing prose and mordant wit.' – Jon Gower, Nation.Cymru
  'Fury of Past Time is a model of its kind. An immense amount of research has gone into this biography, which will be the standard work on Gwyn Thomas for many years to come. It deserves to be read by those who already admire the fiction and will be an invaluable introduction for anyone coming to his writing for the first time.' – John Barnie (A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Books Council of Wales)
  'Leeworthy knows his subject intimately, sympathises with him entirely, and locates him globally in such a way as to leave the reader with no doubt as to his importance as a writer... Fury of Past Time is destined to be the definitive work on 'the Rhondda Runyon' for many years to come.' – Bethan Jenkins, Wales Arts Review
  Gwyn Thomas was born, the last of twelve children, into a Rhondda mining family in 1913. After a childhood marked by the strikes of the 1920s, he went off to study Spanish at Oxford University and in Madrid, where he met the poet Federico García Lorca and witnessed the turmoil which would lead to the Spanish Civil War. On his return, amidst the economic mire of the 1930s and his own burgeoning teaching career in Barry in the 1940s, he picked up his pen and began to write. For more than forty years, until his death in 1981, as novelist, screenwriter, master of the short story, and prizewinning playwright, Gwyn Thomas delivered compelling and comedic portraits of his world of South Wales. His creative genius earned enduring fame on both sides of the Atlantic and on both sides of the European Cold War divide. As a provocative and insightful broadcaster, he embraced the possibilities of radio and television, whilst leaving his hosts and guests alike in fits of knowing laughter.
  This landmark biography, enriched with unrivalled access to private papers and international archives, tells the remarkable story of one of modern Wales's greatest literary voices.

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