Healing Brian Esseintes
Healing Brian Esseintes

Author: Brian Prousky

Publisher: Next Chapter

Published: 2022-11-03

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13:

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At the centre of this unusual novel of chapter-long sentences lies an unusual protagonist. The survivor of a near-catastrophic fall, he finds himself possessed by peculiar, residual behaviours, the most peculiar of which is a compulsion to expel every drop of pleasure from his life by filling it with repetitive tasks and activities. When an abnormally large, abnormally cruel red butterfly enters his apartment and torments him to the point of delusion and insomnia, he realizes the only way to free himself from its grip is to leave home for an extended period of time and do what is most abhorrent to him: be among people. Wandering the streets, mistaken for the perpetrator of a violent assault by a compassionate university student who takes him in and seeks to rehabilitate him, he remains entirely and infuriatingly resistant to change. Throughout, like a hurricane of events around a static eye, what an intoxicating ride - what a grand experiment – his story is.

Life in Motion
Life in Motion

Author: Amanda Apthorpe

Publisher: Next Chapter

Published: 2023-08-04

Total Pages: 976

ISBN-13:

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A collection of three novels by Amanda Apthorpe, Brian Prousky & Ronald Bagliere, now available in one volume! Whispers In The Wiring: After the death of his twin brother, Catholic priest Rupert Brown is burdened with grief. When neuroscientist Athena Nevis invites him to take part in her research on heightened religious experiences, Rupert begins to question his life. Soon, Athena’s and Rupert’s interest begins to extend beyond their professional relationship, bringing them both face to face with their values and spirituality. Auden Triller (Is A Killer): Simon and Auden Triller are twins whose only similarity is the surname they share. Auden’s life is as sparse as Simon’s is full. Auden realizes that the solitude he’s chosen for himself is less peaceful than insanity-making. When he finally loses his grip on reality, his actions precipitate a tragedy that threatens to sever his fraternal bond, just when he needs Simon the most. Starting Over: After a devastating loss, Janet Porter’s life in Oregon's Willamette Valley has begun to settle down. When her son Nate returns home from Iraq on a medical discharge, he just wants to be left alone. Desperate for help, Janet confides in Andy McNamara - a war veteran who volunteers at the local V.A. clinic. Soon, it becomes clear that Nate's wounds go far deeper than his torn-up leg. As a tornado touches down in Willamette Valley, they're all thrown into a new world - a world of starting over.

God Might Forgive Gershwin Burr
God Might Forgive Gershwin Burr

Author: Brian Prousky

Publisher: Next Chapter

Published: 2022-12-06

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13:

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Following the violent death of his father, Gershwin Burr descends into a seemingly inescapable depression until, not-so-accidentally, he discovers a remedy for his condition: he steals a book and finds his mood has lightened. Before long, he’s stealing indiscriminately while refining his skills as a professional thief and amassing a small fortune. Despite mounting pressure from his wife to go straight and from his own tortured conscience, he can’t find the desire or motivation to change. Uncertain about how to proceed, the matter is taken out of his hands when his secret is betrayed by someone whose identity is a mystery to him. Arrested, charged, convicted and jailed, his search for repentance and for the identity of the person responsible for his demise, leave him in a state of perpetual unrest. That is, until the final day of his sentence, when the answers he’s been seeking are at last revealed to him. Beautifully written and evocative, this novel contrasts the reverberations of trauma with long-held, often misguided, notions of who is, and is not, worthy of redemption.

Body Of Winter
Body Of Winter

Author: Brian Prousky

Publisher: Next Chapter

Published: 2023-02-02

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13:

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In these exquisitely rendered poems, people fall in and out of love, in and out of religious belief and in and out of accepting the distance between their imagined lives and the lives they live. They look back as much as forward and pick mercilessly at the open wounds of failed relationships. They inhabit geographies that are both their emancipators and captors. And they find joy, or succumb to sorrow, amid life’s inescapable ephemerality and fragility. Breathtaking in its range of styles, Body of Winter, at its heart, is a vivid reflection of the best and worst of us all.

Auden Triller (Is A Killer)
Auden Triller (Is A Killer)

Author: Brian Prousky

Publisher: Next Chapter

Published: 2022-12-27

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13:

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Simon and Auden Triller are twins whose only similarity is the surname they share. From an early age, Simon’s life is filled with academic and athletic accomplishments, friends and adults who admire him. As he grows older, his determination to succeed and passion for life are matched only by his unshakable devotion toward his brother, who is unappreciative to the point of contempt. Auden’s life, on the other hand, is as sparse as Simon’s is full. Wanting nothing more than to live on his own unambitious terms, in a world free of comparisons to his twin, he can’t seem to manage the smallest demands without having them turn into desperate predicaments requiring his brother’s help. Satirical, self-eviscerating and world-weary, Auden’s voice guides the reader back and forth in time and place. Gradually and painfully, Auden realizes the solitude he’s chosen for himself is less peaceful than insanity-making. When, finally, he loses his grip on reality, his actions precipitate a tragedy that threatens to permanently sever his fraternal bond, just when he needs Simon most.

Threads of Life
Threads of Life

Author: Brian Prousky

Publisher: Next Chapter

Published: 2023-04-14

Total Pages: 1211

ISBN-13:

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A collection of three novels by Brian Prousky, now available in one volume! Auden Triller (Is A Killer): Simon and Auden Triller are twins with vastly different lives. Simon is accomplished, popular, and devoted to his unappreciative brother. Auden, on the other hand, wants nothing more than a simple life free from comparisons to his twin. As Auden's solitude leads to insanity, he loses his grip on reality, and his actions threaten to sever his bond with Simon just when he needs him most. God Might Forgive Gershwin Burr: After his father's death, Gershwin Burr turns to stealing books as a remedy for his depression, but his thievery spirals out of control. Despite his wife's pleas to stop, he can't bring himself to quit until he's betrayed and arrested. Imprisoned and tormented by guilt, Gershwin seeks redemption and the identity of his betrayer in this beautifully written novel about trauma and redemption. The Anna Geller Invention: A young poet named Harvey Painter is visited by a fan named Anna Geller, who gives him a single poem before disappearing. Thirty years later, an investigative reporter discovers that Anna has secretly given her poems to people around the world, turning her into a literary sensation. Harvey is swept up in the frenzy and becomes infamous when his poem is stolen. This novel is a tribute to poetry and a critique of celebrity culture.

Exhaustion
Exhaustion

Author: Anna K. Schaffner

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2016-06-21

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0231538855

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Today our fatigue feels chronic; our anxieties, amplified. Proliferating technologies command our attention. Many people complain of burnout, and economic instability and the threat of ecological catastrophe fill us with dread. We look to the past, imagining life to have once been simpler and slower, but extreme mental and physical stress is not a modern syndrome. Beginning in classical antiquity, this book demonstrates how exhaustion has always been with us and helps us evaluate more critically the narratives we tell ourselves about the phenomenon. Medical, cultural, literary, and biographical sources have cast exhaustion as a biochemical imbalance, a somatic ailment, a viral disease, and a spiritual failing. It has been linked to loss, the alignment of the planets, a perverse desire for death, and social and economic disruption. Pathologized, demonized, sexualized, and even weaponized, exhaustion unites the mind with the body and society in such a way that we attach larger questions of agency, willpower, and well-being to its symptoms. Mapping these political, ideological, and creative currents across centuries of human development, Exhaustion finds in our struggle to overcome weariness a more significant effort to master ourselves.

How to Be Idle
How to Be Idle

Author: Tom Hodgkinson

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2013-07-30

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 006231341X

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Yearning for a life of leisure? In 24 chapters representing each hour of a typical working day, this book will coax out the loafer in even the most diligent and schedule-obsessed worker. From the founding editor of the celebrated magazine about the freedom and fine art of doing nothing, The Idler, comes not simply a book, but an antidote to our work-obsessed culture. In How to Be Idle, Hodgkinson presents his learned yet whimsical argument for a new, universal standard of living: being happy doing nothing. He covers a whole spectrum of issues affecting the modern idler—sleep, work, pleasure, relationships—bemoaning the cultural skepticism of idleness while reflecting on the writing of such famous apologists for it as Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Johnson, and Nietzsche—all of whom have admitted to doing their very best work in bed. It’s a well-known fact that Europeans spend fewer hours at work a week than Americans. So it’s only befitting that one of them—the very clever, extremely engaging, and quite hilarious Tom Hodgkinson—should have the wittiest and most useful insights into the fun and nature of being idle. Following on the quirky, call-to-arms heels of the bestselling Eat, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss, How to Be Idle rallies us to an equally just and no less worthy cause: reclaiming our right to be idle.

Fashion Myths
Fashion Myths

Author: Roman Meinhold

Publisher: transcript Verlag

Published: 2014-04-30

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 3839424372

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Besides products and services multinational corporations also sell myths, values and immaterial goods. Such »meta-goods« (e.g. prestige, beauty, strength) are major selling points in the context of successful marketing and advertising. Fashion adverts draw on deeply rooted human values, ideals and desires such as values and symbols of social recognition, beautification and rejuvenation. Although the reference to such meta-goods is obvious to some consumers, their rootedness in philosophical theories of human nature is less apparent, even for the marketers and advertisers themselves. This book is of special interest for researchers and students in the fields of Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Marketing, Advertising, Fashion, Cultural Critique, Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology and Psychology, and for anyone interested in the ways in which fashion operates.

Ocean of Sound
Ocean of Sound

Author: David Toop

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

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"Ocean of Sound" begins in 1889 at the Paris Exposition when Debussy first heard Javanese music performed. A culture absorbed in perfume, light and ambient sound developed in response to the intangibility of 20th century communications. David Toop traces the evolution of this culture, through Erik Satie to the Velvet Undergound; Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix. David Toop, who lives in London, is a writer, musician and recording artist. His other books are "Rap Attack 3 "and "Exotica,"