This is the landscape of At Last There Is Nothing Left To Say, Matthew Good's debut book of stories. Taking the form of an artist's journal, Good's tales grind through dark, often violent places animated by voices warped by hallucination and flesh chafed by reality. From the ramblings of an opium-riddled adventurer to treatises on life from a mind rattled by the world; from the tragic end of a teen queen to a day in the life of a rock star; from the execution of the Self by the Other to the pull between rules and freedom, this is a landscape located halfway between imagination and reality, a world that rocks between imagination and reality, a world that rocks between sleep and wakefulness, sanity and insanity, sobriety and inebriation.
Relates, in non-linear chronology, events of the twenty-four hours following sixteen-year-old Audrey's mandatory evacuation from the path of a wildfire, as she recalls her tempestuous relationship with troubled volunteer firefighter Brook.
"I would like to write a beautiful prayer," writes the young Flannery O'Connor in this deeply spiritual journal, recently discovered among her papers in Georgia. "There is a whole sensible world around me that I should be able to turn to Your praise." Written between 1946 and 1947 while O'Connor was a student far from home at the University of Iowa, A Prayer Journal is a rare portal into the interior life of the great writer. Not only does it map O'Connor's singular relationship with the divine, but it shows how entwined her literary desire was with her yearning for God. "I must write down that I am to be an artist. Not in the sense of aesthetic frippery but in the sense of aesthetic craftsmanship; otherwise I will feel my loneliness continually . . . I do not want to be lonely all my life but people only make us lonelier by reminding us of God. Dear God please help me to be an artist, please let it lead to You." O'Connor could not be more plain about her literary ambition: "Please help me dear God to be a good writer and to get something else accepted," she writes. Yet she struggles with any trace of self-regard: "Don't let me ever think, dear God, that I was anything but the instrument for Your story." As W. A. Sessions, who knew O'Connor, writes in his introduction, it was no coincidence that she began writing the stories that would become her first novel, Wise Blood, during the years when she wrote these singularly imaginative Christian meditations. Including a facsimile of the entire journal in O'Connor's own hand, A Prayer Journal is the record of a brilliant young woman's coming-of-age, a cry from the heart for love, grace, and art.
Nothing Left to Burn is a remarkable memoir that looks into the life of a family that has spent years harboring secrets, both dark and volatile. It eloquently tells the story of a son’s relationship with his father, the fire chief and a local hero, and his grandfather, a serial arsonist. When Jay Varner, fresh out of college, returns home to work for the local newspaper, he knows that he will have to deal with the memories of a childhood haunted by a grandfather who was both menacing and comical and by a father who died too young and who never managed to be the father Jay so desperately needed him to be. In digging into the past, he uncovers layers of secrets, lies, and half-truths. It is only when he finally has the truth in hand that he comes to an understanding of the forces that drove his father, and of the fires that for all his efforts his father could never extinguish.
Before You Die, Live the Life You Were Born To Live. When you come to the end of your days, you will not measure your life based on success and failures. All of those will eventually blur together into a single memory called “life.” What will give you solace is a life with nothing left undone. One that’s been lived with relentless ambition, a heart on fire, and with no regrets. On the other hand, what will haunt you until your final breath is who you could have been but never became and what you could have done but never did. The Last Arrow is your roadmap to a life that defies odds and alters destinies. Discover the attributes of those who break the gravitational pull of mediocrity as cultural pioneer and thought leader Erwin McManus examines the characteristics of individuals who risked everything for a life they could only imagine. Imagine living the life you were convinced was only a dream. We all begin this life with a quiver full of arrows. Now the choice is yours. Will you cling to your arrows or risk them all, opting to live until you have nothing left to give? Time is short. Pick up The Last Arrow and begin the greatest quest of your life.
Part memoir, part monologue, with a dash of startling honesty, There’s Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say features biographies of legendary historical figures from which Paula Poundstone can’t help digressing to tell her own story. Mining gold from the lives of Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, Joan of Arc, and Beethoven, among others, the eccentric and utterly inimitable mind of Paula Poundstone dissects, observes, and comments on the successes and failures of her own life with surprising candor and spot-on comedic timing in this unique laugh-out-loud book. If you like Paula Poundstone’s ironic and blindingly intelligent humor, you’ll love this wryly observant, funny, and touching book. Paula Poundstone on . . . The sources of her self-esteem: “A couple of years ago I was reunited with a guy I knew in the fifth grade. He said, “All the other fifth-grade guys liked the pretty girls, but I liked you.” It’s hard to know if a guy is sincere when he lays it on that thick. The battle between fatigue and informed citizenship: I play a videotape of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer every night, but sometimes I only get as far as the theme song (da da-da-da da-ah) before I fall asleep. Sometimes as soon as Margaret Warner says whether or not Jim Lehrer is on vacation I drift right off. Somehow just knowing he’s well comforts me. The occult: I need to know exactly what day I’m gonna die so that I don’t bother putting away leftovers the night before. TV’s misplaced priorities: Someday in the midst of the State of the Union address they’ll break in with, “We interrupt this program to bring you a little clip from Bewitched.” Travel: In London I went to the queen’s house. I went as a tourist—she didn’t invite me so she could pick my brain: “What do you think of my face on the pound? Too serious?” Air-conditioning in Florida: If it were as cold outside in the winter as they make it inside in the summer, they’d put the heat on. It makes no sense. The scandal: The judge said I was the best probationer he ever had. Talk about proud. With a foreword by Mary Tyler Moore
Someone's hellbent on taking revenge on Abi and her husband, Henry. But they have absolutely no idea who - or why... Nothing Left To Lose is an electrifying psychological thriller from the No.1 bestselling author, AJ Wills.
With Ashton at her side, Anna begins to feel more like her old self again. Together, they're rebuilding her life and attempting to heal old wounds. The more time they spend together, the closer they become, but unfortunately this only serves to complicate matters further. The undercover pretence of being boyfriend and girlfriend slowly ceases to be a game as both find themselves increasingly blurring the lines between the act and the reality.With her father now President-Elect, Anna and Ashton are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain some semblance of privacy. With the world's press obsessing over the future First Daughter, Ashton's job of protecting her has just become a whole lot harder.All the while the trial grows ever closer, looming over them both, taunting them, reminding them that it isn't over yet. After all, Carter Thomas will stop at nothing to be reunited with his 'Princess'.
From the YALSA and RITA Award-nominated author of Some Boys, a smoldering new contemporary YA about love, loss and finding a place to belong. Dear Dad, I promised Matt I'd do this—become a Junior Cadet. That I wouldn't let you break me down. I know you hate me. Blame me for everything you lost. But that day I lost my brother and my dad. You could never be proud of me, could you? I was too "different." So, just in case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm saying goodbye. Maybe someday, you'll miss me. Reece Reece's words make her ache. Amanda understands wanting to belong. As a foster kid, the firehouse where she volunteers is the only place that feels like home. She wants to help Reece, but his dad is her boss. And she won't risk her place as a Junior Cadet—it's all that she has. But when a string of arsons suddenly point to Amanda, her whole world is about to go up in flames. And the only way to save themselves is to risk getting burned. Praise for Some Boys: "A gut-wrenching story."—Library Media Connection "A bold and necessary look at an important, and very real, topic. Everyone should read this book."—Jennifer Brown, author of Thousand Words and Hate List
