Other books that might interest you

• 

  My Life in Heavy Metal

  Steve Almond

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  From the New York Times–bestselling author and Dear Sugars columnist, an arousing story collection exploring modern love in the age of hook-up culture.   Steve Almond’s My Life in Heavy Metal presents twelve passion-fueled stories—including his Pushcart Prize-winning story “The Pass”—that take a clear-eyed view of relationships between young men and women who have come of age in an era without innocence. These are powerful and resonant stories of love and lust that bring to life a generation’s search for connection in a fragmented world.   In the title story, an El Paso newspaper clerk assigned to review the heavy metal bands playing local arenas is drawn in by the primal music, fueling a torrid affair with a Mexican-American woman that will change him forever. In “Geek Player, Love Slayer,” a thirty-three-year-old woman harbors a secret crush on the young computer repairman in her office-until her ardor is unleashed at an after-work party. In “Valentino,” two teenagers in their last summer before college experience a sexual awakening inspired by the romantic legend of a movie star from long ago.   A book The Guardian called “hip social satire,” My Life in Heavy Metal captures the moments when the fires of passion burn over and subside into embers of pain and longing.   “[A] gifted storyteller . . . [Almond] writes with a loose, anthropological humor.” —The New York Times Book Review   “Fourteen delightful debut stories.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

  Show book

• 

  No Cunning Plan - My Unexpected...

  Sir Tony Robinson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Sir Tony Robinson is a much-loved actor, presenter and author with a stellar career lasting over fifty years. Now, in his long-awaited autobiography, he reveals how the boy from South Woodford went from child stardom in the first stage production of Oliver!, a pint-sized pickpocket desperately bleaching his incipient moustache, to comedy icon Baldrick, the loyal servant and turnip aficionado in Blackadder.   
  It wasn't all plain sailing though.  Along the way he was bullied by Steve Marriott, failed to impress Liza Minnelli and was pushed into a stinking London dock by John Wayne. He also entertained us with Maid Marion and Her Merry Men (which he wrote and starred in) and coped manfully when locked naked outside a theatre in Lincoln during the live tour of comedy series Who Dares Wins.  He presented Time Team for twenty years, watching countless gardens ruthlessly dug up in the name of archaeology, and risked life and limb filming The Worst Jobs in History.   
  Packed full of incident and insight, No Cunning Plan is a funny, self-deprecating and always entertaining read.

  Show book

• 

  A Christmas Blizzard

  Garrison Keillor

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A short comic novel about a Hawaii-bound holiday traveler who ends up stranded in his North Dakota hometown during a blizzard.A wealthy and depressed man (thanks to the economy he’s not quite rich enough to expand his cache of paintings by Vincent Van Guy, the famed Dutch realist) bound for Christmas in the tropics is abruptly summoned home to North Dakota to visit an ailing aunt. He arrives just in time to be trapped there by a blizzard. The electricity goes out, and when it does, figures from his childhood appear, and historical figures too, for a festive candlelit holiday. In his reverie, our man reaches an epiphany worthy of the season—he hears the harkening angels sing, he is awed by the silence of the night (dead quiet: not even TV) and when he is finally rescued, leaves North Dakota resolved to simplify his life.

  Show book

• 

  Hotel Pastis - A Novel of Provence

  Peter Mayle

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A beguiling novel of romance, adventure, and tongue-in-cheek suspense set in the South of France, from the beloved, bestselling author of A Year in Provence.Simon Shaw, a rumpled, fortyish English advertising executive, has decided to leave it all behind, and heads of to France to transform an abandoned police station in the Lubéron into a small but world-class hotel. On his side, Simon has a loyal majordomo and a French business partner who is as practical as she is ravishing. But he hasn't counted on the malignant local journalist—or on the mauvaise types who have chosen the neighboring village as the site of their latest bank robbery. Slyly funny and overflowing with sensuous descriptions of the good life, Hotel Pastis is the literacy equivalent of a four-star restaurant.

  Show book

• 

  The Day the Sun Died - A Novel

  Yan Lianke

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  An unforgettable tale of a village that descends into a sleepwalking spell as the sun threatens to never rise again, by the author of Discovering Fiction. 
   
  Yan Lianke has secured his place as contemporary China’s most essential and daring novelist, “with his superlative gifts for storytelling and penetrating eye for truth” (New York Times Book Review). His newest novel, The Day the Sun Died—winner of the Dream of the Red Chamber Award, one of the most prestigious honors for Chinese-language novels—is a haunting story of a town caught in a waking nightmare. 
   
  In a little village nestled in the Balou mountains, fourteen-year-old Li Niannian and his parents run a funeral parlor. One evening, he notices a strange occurrence. Instead of preparing for bed, more and more neighbors appear in the streets and fields, carrying on with their daily business as if the sun hadn’t already set. Li Niannian watches, mystified. As hundreds of residents are found dreamwalking, they act out the desires they’ve suppressed during waking hours. Before long, the community devolves into chaos, and it’s up to Li Niannian and his parents to save the town before sunrise. 
   
  Set over the course of one increasingly bizarre night, The Day the Sun Died is a propulsive, darkly sinister tale from a world-class writer. 
   
  A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice 
   
  Named Best Book of the Year at Publishers Weekly 
   
  Named Best Fiction in Translation Selection by Kirkus Reviews 
   
  An Amazon Best Book of the Month 
   
  “[The Day the Sun Died is] the creepiest book I’ve read in years: a social comedy that bleeds like a zombie apocalypse . . .  Yan’s understated wit runs through these pages like a snake through fallen leaves . . .  Invokes that fluid dream state in which everything represents something else, something deeper . . .  A wake-up call about the path we’re on.” —Ron Charles, Washington Post 
   
  “Floats between surrealism, sci-fi, horror, and absurdism, while never letting go of its satirical eye. Yet the language and structure of the novel reads more like Samuel Beckett or James Joyce than it does The Handmaid’s Tale.” —Ploughshares

  Show book

• 

  The Art of Shallow Neighboring -...

  Thomas Murosky

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  When Jesus was asked to sum up the whole huge leather Bible into one simple phrase, he actually gave us two commandments. But modern evangelicals have short attention spans and only heard that we should love our neighbor. Christians everywhere have bought ineffective refrigerator magnets and bumper stickers, but in this book, we will give you better stickers and magnets because we finally found the perfect formula to honor God through block parties! 
  What would happen if every follower of Jesus twisted the Great Commandment into only loving our neighbors? Is it possible we can create world peace by ignoring that whole subjective 'loving God' part and throwing a block party instead? 
  The Art of Shallow Neighboring was penned in response to the sheer number of Christian books and organizations casting aside true Biblical study and discipleship for trendy business practices and scriptural mis-interpretations. While this book is intended to be a Christian comedy and parody, there is nothing funny about the way modern evangelicalism is treating the Bible. Hopefully this book will help people everywhere realize we need to stop looking for the shortcuts to God, and instead set down our digital devices, pull out that old dusty Bible, and begin true and deep study. I implore small groups to put aside video curricula and appoint a wise teacher of the Bible to teach, and for Churches to truly place the Bible above trendy business practices. Let us repent and return to God as they did in the time of Ezra, the priest.

  Show book