Other books that might interest you

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  The Flag Burner

  Patrick Babin

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  This is a love story unlike any you have ever read. Join Mark Caan on his journey to save his soul. After a brush with death, he confesses to an unthinkable crime. A crime that could send him to jail for the rest of his life. His confession takes us back to his freshman year in college. There he meets and falls in love with Byron, a charismatic anti-war protester. Together they form a relationship that challenges the norms of what love means and to what ends it will take them. 
  The times are chaotic. It is 1968. The Vietnam war dominates the airwaves. The nightly news brings the war’s death and destruction into America’s living rooms with vivid details while the ominous threat of the draft haunts every young man’s psyche. The hippie culture is emerging and confronting the establishment head on. Anti-war protests are taking place on Main streets and college campuses across the country. Old perceptions about love, sex, drugs and war are all being challenged. After decades of struggle, and with the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King, the civil rights movement is reaching a combustible crescendo. 
  As this historic backdrop unfolds, Mark and Byron must navigate their undeniable sexual attraction. 
  As Mark’s poignant confession gradually unfolds, it reveals a love that is layered with strength, sensuality, regret and forgiveness. 
  Now, twenty years later, as Mark is confessing to his pastor, all the emotions of a life lived in grief and regret are exposed. His haunting and powerful story aches with longing. A longing for his youthful naivety and absolute commitment to a love that knows no limits. 
  You will laugh and cry as Mark’s words spill from his heart. And finally, as a witness, you will cheer at his boundless love, and what it can achieve, even in the face of absolute resistance.

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  Side Notes from the Archivist -...

  Anastacia-Renee

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  The award-winning, genre-crossing writer demonstrates her power as a funkadelic and formidable feminist voice in this rich and beautiful collection of verse and image—a multi-part retrospective that traverses time, space, and reality to illuminate the expansiveness of Black femme lives. 
  Voted one of the Best Books of 2023 by the New York Public Library. 
  Side Notes from the Archivist is a preservation of Black culture viewed through a feminist lens. The Archivist leads readers through poems that epitomize youthful renditions of a Black girl coming of age in Philadelphia’s pre-funk ’80s; episodic adventures of “the Black Girl” whose life is depicted through the white gaze; and selections of verse evincing affection for self and testimony to the magnificence within Black femme culture at-large. 
  Every poem in Side Notes elevates and honestly illustrates the buoyancy of Blackness and the calamity of Black lives on earth. In her uniquely embracing and experimental style, Anastacia-Reneé documents these truths as celebrations of diverse subjects, from Solid Gold to halal hotdogs; as homages and reflections on iconic images, from Marsha P. Johnson to Aunt Jemima; and as critiques of systemic oppression forcing some to countdown their last heartbeat. 
  From internet “Fame” to the toxicity of the white gaze, Side Notes from the Archivist cements Anastacia-Reneé role as a leading light in the womanist movement—an artist whose work is in conversation with advocates of Black culture and thought such as Audre Lorde, Amiri Baraka, and Nikki Giovanni.

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  small (NHB Modern Plays)

  Holly Robinson

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  A compassionate and probing exploration of youth and aging, nostalgia and regret, and the dangers of refusing to get old.
  All children grow up, but what if they could grow back down again? A new medical process is being attempted, and it's got an extraordinary aim: attempting to 'de-age' its volunteers back into young children.
  The scientists don't know if it'll work. The doctors aren't sure if it should. And the friends and families of those undergoing the risky procedure can't understand why anybody would willingly do this in the first place… Why would you want to be small again?
  Holly Robinson's play small was first performed at Soho Theatre, London, in a production by Oxford School of Drama.
  
  The Nick Hern Books Multiplay Drama series features large-cast plays specifically written to be performed by and appeal to older teenagers and young adults.

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  Heartbreak agony & pain - poetry...

  D. R. Nguyen

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  heartbreak agony & painis a collection of poetry and prose that takes the reader on an odyssey of heartache, grief, agony, and pain coping with the aftermath of a breakup.

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  Looking Good Mary

  Mary Robinson

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  "Looking Good, Mary" is something my parrot used to say to me and when I was feeling low it gave me a real lift. This book of poems started as a collection of memoirs that I wrote for my children. It is a mixture of things that happen in everyday life - funny and sometimes sad. I am still amused as I read these as every one of them is a true story from my life.

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  Octopus Mind

  Rachel Carney

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  Octopus Mind plays with an array of rich and original metaphors to explore the intricacies of neurodiversity, perception and the human mind. These poems articulate the desire to understand and be understood by oneself and others in a complex world. They observe the nuances of creativity, art, relationships, and self-expression through the lens of neurodiversity, reflecting on the poet's experience of being diagnosed with dyspraxia as an adult. They delve into the challenges of neurodiversity, but also reveal its gifts.
  Poems respond to visual artists like Gwen John, whose paintings break new ground for women representing their own visions of themselves. Other poems suggest that this can be a struggle however, as Pablo Picasso paints not a woman but his own despair in 'Blue Nude', while Elizabeth Siddal reflects on her own image, fetishized by the Pre-Raphaelite painters, and Henri Rousseau's painting becomes an outlet for self-deception and frustration. 
  Some of the most stunning poems in this collection perform a kind of magic or sleight of hand, as dyspraxia is explored through unique and remarkable metaphors, including a series of artefacts in a museum, a walk along the seashore, and a swaying tree. The 'Octopus Mind' evokes the possibilities of what it means to be human, through obsession, self-deception, realisation, and acceptance.
  The speaker in Octopus Mind is endearingly humble and we journey with them beyond self-criticism to reclaiming the self. In 'Growing', the narrator declares 'I will grow // into myself, climbing, steady, / grip by grip, leaf by leaf'. In 'Understood' the narrator describes the complex process of re-imagining one's place in the world, armed with new knowledge: 'Slowly, we adjust / our own soft ignorance / unroll our prejudice / in gentle waves.' 
  "A poet of multiple uncanny self-portraits, of the 'octopus mind', who explores the gaps between mind and body, and body and world, with deft, diverse diagnoses."Damian Walford Davies
  "Extraordinary poems of self-encounter, of divergence, of bruised bodies out of balance with themselves, laid bare – and of new-found identities, and joyous release." Richard Marggraf Turley 
  "Rachel Carney's debut collection delights in its curiosity and surrealism. This is a collection that 'swims out into deep ocean currents' to explore the workings of the mind and the impacts of this on the self." Katherine Stansfield

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