In October 2013 Felix Dennis was told he had terminal cancer. He was in the midst of a 30-day poetry reading tour, and characteristically he chose to continue, performing to sell-out audiences with his legendary verve and enthusiasm. He also began compiling this, his tenth, book of verse. Divided into two parts: the first, 'Premonitions', is a selection of poems written over the years when, in Dennis's words, 'the heart knew what the mind dared not perceive'. Having always lived on the edge, he intuited an early death. The second part, 'A Verse Diary', consists of poems slected by Dennis from the many he wrote between the date of his terminal diagnosis and his death. Poems which, he felt, were possibly the best he had ever written. Topped and tailed with the Author's Notes, this book takes readers on a physical, emotional and psychological journey. Sadly, Felix Dennis did not live to see its publication.
During the summer of 1974, fourteen-year-old Chuck Moretti works in his father's funeral home in a small eastern Kentucky mining town. He finds himself in situations that few adults could handle, encountering life-and-death events, exhilarating emergencies, and profound tragedies in the family business. But Chuck also yearns for resolution of his own adolescent issues and longs for his mother who died six years ago. Confused by his father's seeming lack of emotion as he carries out his funeral director's duties, Chuck frequently seeks solace and advice from Bart, an effeminate waiter at the ill-reputed Blistered Cat, a honky-tonk cafi across the street from the funeral home. In between hair-raising ambulance rides and fulfilling the most morbid duties of a mortician's assistant, Chuck wants to remain a teenager. He strives to maintain his bond with his best friend, Andy, and to develop his first romantic relationship with Molly Sue, a local preacher's daughter. He longs for the thrills of teenage antics, yet finds them somehow unsatisfying. Throughout the summer, Chuck draws on a spiritual connection he has formed with his mother and looks to her for answers he can't get from anyone else. In the end, he learns to listen to-and trust-the answers that come from heaven.
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • The national bestseller that tells the truth about the Vietnam War from the black soldiers’ perspective. An oral history unlike any other, Bloods features twenty black men who tell the story of how members of their race were sent off to Vietnam in disproportionate numbers, and of the special test of patriotism they faced. Told in voices no reader will soon forget, Bloods is a must-read for anyone who wants to put the Vietnam experience in historical, cultural, and political perspective. Praise for Bloods “Superb . . . a portrait not just of warfare and warriors but of beleaguered patriotism and pride. The violence recalled in Bloods is chilling. . . . On most of its pages hope prevails. Some of these men have witnessed the very worst that people can inflict on one another. . . . Their experience finally transcends race; their dramatic monologues bear witness to humanity.”—Time “[Wallace] Terry’s oral history captures the very essence of war, at both its best and worst. . . . [He] has done a great service for all Americans with Bloods. Future historians will find his case studies extremely useful, and they will be hard pressed to ignore the role of blacks, as too often has been the case in past wars.”—The Washington Post Book World “Terry set out to write an oral history of American blacks who fought for their country in Vietnam, but he did better than that. He wrote a compelling portrait of Americans in combat, and used his words so that the reader—black or white—knows the soldiers as men and Americans, their race overshadowed by the larger humanity Terry conveys. . . . This is not light reading, but it is literature with the ring of truth that shows the reader worlds through the eyes of others. You can’t ask much more from a book than that.”—Associated Press “Bloods is a major contribution to the literature of this war. For the first time a book has detailed the inequities blacks faced at home and on the battlefield. Their war stories involve not only Vietnam, but Harlem, Watts, Washington D.C. and small-town America.”—Atlanta Journal-Constitution “I wish Bloods were longer, and I hope it makes the start of a comprehensive oral and analytic history of blacks in Vietnam. . . . They see their experiences as Americans, and as blacks who live in, but are sometimes at odds with, America. The results are sometimes stirring, sometimes appalling, but this three-tiered perspective heightens and shadows every tale.”—The Village Voice “Terry was in Vietnam from 1967 through 1969. . . . In this book he has backtracked, Studs Terkel–like, and found twenty black veterans of the Vietnam War and let them spill their guts. And they do; oh, how they do. The language is raw, naked, a brick through a window on a still night. At the height of tension a sweet story, a soft story, drops into view. The veterans talk about fighting two wars: Vietnam and racism. They talk about fighting alongside the Ku Klux Klan.”—The Boston Globe
The Granny File is a novel detailing the second case of a newly minted private investigator, Max Cantu. Max is hired by Grace Strang, the grandmother of a missing young woman, Cindy Glen, and charged with finding a resolution to her sudden and mysterious disappearance. Max, working with his wife Bryn, using cutting edge technology, as well as tried and true investigative techniques, pursues leads from San Diego to the sleepy town of Avila Beach, where the investigation takes a surprising turn, resulting in a resolution to the disappearance of Cindy Glen.
She’s disposable… and she knows it. A survivor of too many foster homes, B.J. Larson is content living in a youth center where your status is determined by how long your arrest record is. And hers is lengthy. Then she’s placed in her 13th foster home in the small town of Stewart Falls, Washington - with foster parents who will “love” her, not just the money the state pays for her care. B.J. knows kids like her never get “real homes,” much less “real families.” She's not stone stupid. She knows a scam when she sees one but if these new foster parents want to pay her for grades and trying new things, she'll get the A's... Ah heck, she'll even be a cheerleader!
Shirley Valentine, 42-year-old put-upon mother and housewife, leaves the drudgery of cooking dinner for her husband, packs her bags and heads for the sun. The note on the kitchen table reads "Gone to Greece back in two weeks." "It is a simple and brilliant idea...the profound and perennial point of the comedy is the problem we seem to have contemplating the idea of a woman alone - in a pub, on a beach, in a restaurant. This is what Shirley learns to combat as she unravels her own sexual and social identity. The play is not only funny, it is also moving." (Michael Coveney, Financial Times) One for the Road "starts...with the mid-life hero torn between the security of married life in a dormer bungalow on a northern housing estate and dreams of being a rucksacked super-tramp. Mr Russell writes with knowledgeable venom about a world where Beethoven Underpass leads to Wagner Walkway and where anyone who doesn't join Weight Watchers or the Ramblers Club is regarded as a social deviant." (Francis King, Sunday Telegraph)
Gangs are responsible for over 80 percent of the crime in the United States. The cost of gang violence is staggering. In many communities, no one feels safe walking down his or her own streetsand that, Dan Googen feels, is simply too high a cost to pay. Dan was a soldier, trained in combat overseas. When he returns home to see that his own neighborhood is held captive by a violent invasion force of its own, he springs into action. He goes undercover and begins to live the gangland life. What he doesnt count on is how his life will be affected by the friendships he forms with the members of the gangs. His new secret life is in bitter conflict with his ideals and goals. Can he do what needs to be doneor will these new friendships test his resolve? While living undercover, Dan befriends Tiny, one of the gang members. With Dans help, Tiny is able to accomplish the unthinkable: he breaks free from the gangs and enrolls in college. There, he becomes a breakout basketball star; his life is now on an unstoppably positive path. When Tinys dreams of playing pro ball finally come true, he makes good on his promise to help the kids he left behind in the hood. He comes home, a local hero determined to do anything he can to help. Tiny receives the answer to his prayers but not the one he expected.
Imagine being abused by your spouse, finding out he is a felon and then lying to him by saying you are pregnant with his child.These are obsticles Mahogany Lawson faces as she battles her health condition called Marfans Syndrome.
