Publisher: Soma Publishing
Award-winning American short fiction writer Mark Antony Rossi has a lifetime of selected fiction ready for examination. With a highly specialized poetic style and the invention of "concrete" short fiction Rossi will bring the gritty urban experience to an intellectual plateau.
The day Lacey Sturm planned to kill herself was the day her grandmother forced her to go to church, a place Lacey thought was filled with hypocrites, fakers, and simpletons. The screaming match she had with her grandmother was the reason she went to church. What she found there was the reason she is alive today.With raw vulnerability, this hard-rock princess tells her own story of physical abuse, drug use, suicide attempts, and her ultimate salvation. She asks the hard questions so many young people are asking-Why am I here? Why am I empty? Why should I go on living?-showing us that beyond the temporary highs and the soul-crushing lows, there is a reason they exist and a purpose for their lives. She not only gives listeners a peek down the rocky path that led her to become a vocalist in a popular hardcore band, but she shows them that the same God is guiding their steps today.Show book
Hedge fund manager and former colleague Doug Kass describes Leon Cooperman as an “estimable humanitarian” who’s been “seasoned with a pinch of Horatio Alger and a heaping spoonful of justified self-confidence.” Indeed, this is certainly the flavor that comes through in Mr. Cooperman’s timely memoir, From the Bronx to Wall Street: My Fifty Years in Finance and Philanthropy. In this era of Warren Buffett’s “Giving Pledge,” Mr. Cooperman and his wife, Toby, have become two of the country’s most prominent supporters of hospitals, scholarships, colleges, libraries, and other vital programs and institutions. In these pages, Mr. Cooperman not only recounts fascinating details from his long career at Goldman Sachs and his hedge fund, Omega Advisors, but also speaks movingly, and with great insight, about the meaning of wealth and the moral responsibilities that come with it.Show book
This selection of essays by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) demonstrate the varied power of his genius. Compiled from his lecture tours, newspaper articles, essays and epigrams, these writings show that beneath his trademark wit and love of paradox, Oscar Wilde was an original and remarkably modern writer.Show book
The British folk/punk singer-songwriter shares an intimate rags-to-riches memoir of constant touring, artistic expression, and self-reinvention. In the fall of 2005, Frank Turner was virtually unheard of. His rock band, Millions Dead, was finishing up a grueling tour and had agreed that their show on September 23rd would be their last. The entry on the band’s schedule for September 24th read simply: “Get a job.” Cut to July 2012—the London Olympics, where Turner and his backing band, The Sleeping Souls, are playing the pre-show, after having headlined sold-out arena shows across the UK. The Road Beneath My Feet is the unvarnished story of how Turner went from drug-fueled house parties and the grimy club scene to international prominence and acclaim. Told through tour reminiscences, it is an intimate account of what it’s like to spend your life constantly on the road, sleeping on floors, invariably jetlagged, all for the love of playing live music.Show book
New York City, 1972: Bobby Comfort and Sammy "the Arab" Nalo were highly skilled jewel thieves who specialized in robbing luxury Manhattan hotels. (They once robbed Sophia Loren's suite, relieving the Italian actress of over $1 million in gems.) With the blessing of the Lucchese crime family, their next plot targeted the posh Pierre Hotel-host to kings and queens, presidents and aldermen, and the wealthiest of the wealthy.Attired in tuxedos and driven in a limousine, this band of thieves arrived at the Pierre and with perfect timing, they seized the security guards and, in systematically choreographed moves, they swiftly took the night staff-and several unfortunate guests who happened to be roaming around the lobby-as hostages.The deposit boxes inside the vault chamber are plundered and, after the intruders have held the Pierre under siege for almost two hours, the gentlemanly thieves depart in their limousine with a haul of $28 million. But then matters begin to deteriorate. Comfort, Nalo, and their partners begin to double and triple cross one another-two absconding to Europe with the bulk of the booty while three are murdered by their former associates.Show book
In 1878 the Victorian critic Matthew Arnold wrote: "Goethe is the greatest poet of modern times . . . because having a very considerable gift for poetry, he was at the same time, in the width, depth, and richness of his criticism of life, by far our greatest modern man."In this Very Short Introduction Ritchie Robertson covers the life and work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic and supreme literary writer in a vast variety of genres. Looking at Goethe's poetry, novels, and drama pieces, as well as his travel writing, autobiography, and essays on art and aesthetics, Robertson analyses some of the key themes in his works: love, nature, religion and tragedy. Dispelling the misconception of Goethe as a sedate Victorian sage, Robertson shows how much of his art was rooted in turbulent personal conflicts, and draws on recent research to present a complete portrait of the scientific work and political activity which accompanied Goethe's writings.Show book
