NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Driving, wild and hilarious” (The Washington Post), here is the incredible “memoir” of the legendary actor, gambler, raconteur, and Saturday Night Live veteran. When Norm Macdonald, one of the greatest stand-up comics of all time, was approached to write a celebrity memoir, he flatly refused, calling the genre “one step below instruction manuals.” Norm then promptly took a two-year hiatus from stand-up comedy to live on a farm in northern Canada. When he emerged he had under his arm a manuscript, a genre-smashing book about comedy, tragedy, love, loss, war, and redemption. When asked if this was the celebrity memoir, Norm replied, “Call it anything you damn like.”
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is an exuberant comedy and feminist revisioning of Shakespeare’s Othello and Romeo and Juliet. It takes us from a dusty office in Canada’s Queen’s University, into the fraught and furious worlds of two of Shakespeare’s best-known tragedies, and turns them upside-down. Constance Ledbelly is the beleaguered “spinster” academic, and unlikely heroine who embarks on a quest for Shakespearean origins and, ultimately, her own identity. When she deciphers an ancient and neglected manuscript, Constance is propelled through a very modern rabbit hole and lands smack in the middle of the tragic turning points of each play in turn. Her attempts to save first Desdemona, then Juliet, from their harrowing fates, result in a wild unpredictable ride through comedy and near-tragedy, as mild-mannered Constance learns to love, sword-fight, dance Renaissance-style, and master a series of disguises… Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) a gender-bendy, big-hearted and crazily intelligent romp, where irony and anger sing in perfect harmony with innocence and poignancy.
Includes the plays De Sade Show, Persons Unknown and Salto Moltale A second series of plays, originally written for and performed by the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre. As witty as they are alarming, these three plays cover a considerable range of settings and offer unusual and rewarding opportunities to the actors. De Sade Show presents a gruesome picture of the notorious philosopher and his intimate friends, Salto Mortale take the audience by tortuous route to the circus, while Persons Unknown examines the whys and wherefores of one of the 19th century's most celebrated and puzzling unsolved crimes. All in all, a disturbing and funny trio, and another instance of a remarkable individual voice in the theatre.
What am I? I lived a long, long time ago. I had round eyes… lots of sharp teeth… This new concept book from Caldecott Honor illustrator Suse MacDonald is sure to entertain children. As readers turn the brightly colored, die cut pages, shapes on each page come together to reveal a creature from long ago. Page by page, MacDonald’s bright, cut-paper, collage-style artwork transforms circles into eyes and triangles into scales until a familiar creature is revealed, with the aid of a large fold-out page, on the final spread. This 9 X 9 jacketed hardcover has die-cut cardstock pages.
This special 2-book bundle contains a number of perspectives on a man who was arguably Canada’s most famous political leader, a figure of legendary proportions in the history of Canada’s birth and development. Ged Martin’s biography tells Macdonald’s story. Shocked by Canada’s 1837 rebellions, Macdonald sought to build alliances and avoid future conflicts. Thanks to financial worries and an alcohol problem, he almost quit politics in 1864. The challenge of building Confederation harnessed his skills, and in 1867 he became the country’s first prime minister. He drove the Dominion’s westward expansion, rapidly incorporating the Prairies and British Columbia before a railway contract scandal unseated him in 1873. He conquered his drinking problem and rebuilt the Conservative Party to regain power in 1878. The centrepiece of his protectionist National Policy was the transcontinental railway, but a western uprising in 1885 was followed by the controversial execution of rebel leader Louis Riel. Although dominant nationally, this popular hero had many flaws. Macdonald at 200 presents fifteen fresh interpretations of Canada’s founding prime minister, published for the occasion of the bicentennial of his birth in 1815. Crisply written by recognized scholars and specialists, the collection throws new light on Macdonald’s formative role in shaping government, promoting women’s rights, managing the nascent economy, supervising westward expansion, overseeing relations with Native peoples, and dealing with Fenian terrorism. A special section deals with how Macdonald has (or has not) been remembered by historians as well as the general public. The book concludes with an afterword by prominent Macdonald biographer Richard Gwyn. Macdonald emerges as a man of full dimensions — an historical figure that is surprisingly relevant to our own times. Includes John A. Macdonald Macdonald at 200
"Parents looking for a book about separation or divorce will find few offerings as positive, matter-of-fact, or child-centered as this one. . . . Simple, yet profoundly satisfying." – Booklist (starred review) At Mommy’s house, Alex has a soft chair. At Daddy’s house, Alex has a rocking chair. In each home, Alex also has a special bedroom and lots of friends to play with. But whether Alex is with Mommy or with Daddy, one thing always stays the same - Alex is loved. The gently reassuring text focuses on what is gained rather than what is lost when parents divorce, while the sensitive illustrations, depicting two unique homes in all their small details, firmly establish Alex’s place in both of them. Two Homes will help children - and parents - embrace even the most difficult of changes with an open and optimistic heart.
In the #1 New York Times–bestselling author’s first book, the troublemaking team of Bruno and Boots wages war—and school will never be the same. The basis for the movie now streaming on TubiTV Bruno and Boots are always in trouble. So the Headmaster, aka “The Fish” decides it would be best to separate them. Bruno must now room with ghoulish Elmer Dimsdale, plus his plants, goldfish, and ants. And Boots is stuck with nerdy, preppy, paranoid George Wexford-Smyth III. Of course, this means war. Because Bruno and Boots are determined to get their old room back, no matter what it takes. Praise for the Bruno & Boots series “Korman has a unique talent for creating genuinely funny, roll-on-the-floor, laugh-out-loud books. All of his many books are bestsellers, a testament to his popularity with kids.” —Quill & Quire “A hilarious series.” —Booklist “Korman’s vibrant dialogue and breakneck action are the highlights of this merry romp . . . Laughs are as plentiful as [Bruno and Boots’s] misadventures.” —Publishers Weekly
“All Souls is the written equivalent of an Irish wake, where revelers dance and sing the dead person’s praises. In that same style, the book leavens tragedy with dashes of humor but preserves the heartbreaking details.”—The New York Times Book Review A 25th anniversary edition of the National Bestselling memoir, with a new afterword from Michael Patrick MacDonald, takes us deep into the South Boston housing projects during one of the city's most tumultuous times in history and tells the story of his family struggling the overcome the poverty, crime, addiction, and incarceration that overtook the neighborhood. A breakaway bestseller since its first printing, All Souls takes us deep into Michael Patrick MacDonald’s Southie, the proudly insular neighborhood with the highest concentration of white poverty in America. Rocked by Whitey Bulger’s crime schemes and busing riots, MacDonald’s Southie is populated by sharply hewn characters. We meet Ma, Michael’s mini-skirted, accordian-playing, single mother who endures the deaths of four of her eleven children. And there are Michael’s older siblings Davey, sweet artist-dreamer; Kevin, child genius of scam; and Frankie, Golden Gloves boxer and neighborhood hero whose lives are high-wire acts played out in a world of poverty and pride. Nearly suffocated by his grief and his community’s code of silence, MacDonald tells his family story here with gritty but moving honesty. All Souls is heartbreaking testimony to lives lost too early, and the story of how a place so filled with pain could still be “the best place in the world.”
Audio Drama 2 is the second collection of plays by Neville Teller, intended both for lovers of radio drama and for podcast producers who specialise in audio drama.
