Tamsin Oglesby is one of today's most respected and established young playwrights. She is currently under commission to the National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company and Hampstead Theatre, and has enjoyed well-received, sell-out runs at the Hampstead, Bush and National Theatres. Her latest play is a furious comedy about our embarrassment and fear of old age. It exposes a society in which compassion vies with pragmatism and, by asking unequivocal questions, it comes up with some extraordinary answers.
Randol Contreras came of age in the South Bronx during the 1980s, a time when the community was devastated by cuts in social services, a rise in arson and abandonment, and the rise of crack-cocaine. For this riveting book, he returns to the South Bronx with a sociological eye and provides an unprecedented insider’s look at the workings of a group of Dominican drug robbers. Known on the streets as “Stickup Kids,” these men raided and brutally tortured drug dealers storing large amounts of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and cash. As a participant observer, Randol Contreras offers both a personal and theoretical account for the rise of the Stickup Kids and their violence. He mainly focuses on the lives of neighborhood friends, who went from being crack dealers to drug robbers once their lucrative crack market opportunities disappeared. The result is a stunning, vivid, on-the-ground ethnographic description of a drug robbery’s violence, the drug market high life, the criminal life course, and the eventual pain and suffering experienced by the casualties of the Crack Era. Provocative and eye-opening, The Stickup Kids urges us to explore the ravages of the drug trade through weaving history, biography, social structure, and drug market forces. It offers a revelatory explanation for drug market violence by masterfully uncovering the hidden social forces that produce violent and self-destructive individuals. Part memoir, part penetrating analysis, this book is engaging, personal, deeply informed, and entirely absorbing.
An insurance salesman desperately tries to recapture his youth in this “charming” comic novel by the iconic British author (The New York Times). George Bowling is having a crisis. Not a loud, unsightly one, but a small, desperate one. His days are occupied by an unfulfilling insurance job; his nights spent worrying about his mortgage, marriage, expanding waistline, and what seems to be a certain prospect of World War II looming on the horizon. So when George unexpectedly hits it big on a lucky horse, he spends the windfall on the only thing he ever knew to make him happy: his childhood. George travels back to his boyhood home of Lower Binfield, swimming in vivid memories of worry-free bliss, sights, sounds, smells, and emotions of a pre-war world. But while the idyllic village in George’s head may not have seen battle, the reality may be more sobering than he is prepared to deal with. Penned with Orwell’s trademark insight and passion, Coming Up for Air is an elegiac look at memory and desire at a desperate moment in England’s history.
Tasha Bryan is way too young to take on raising her sixteen year old niece, but she’s doing it anyway. With no other family to support her, she’s working long hours and barely scraping by. She doesn’t have time for friends or relationships until she gets back on their feet. For now, all she wants is another job, and a part time gig at a gym fits perfectly with her schedule. Noah Hunter is a perfectionist. Owning and operating a local gym was his dream, and he loves his job but it’s time to bring on some help. There hasn’t been room in his life for a woman, but when he meets Tasha, suddenly his priorities change. She’s the happiest part of his day, and he wants nothing more than to win her over. Tasha has been down this road before—trusting a handsome man and then getting her heart broken. She’s not sure she wants to risk it again. There is too much at stake if she dates her boss. But flirting with him is starting to be the best part of her day. And once some lines are crossed, it’s impossible to go back. This sweet romance novel is the second in the Roca Springs series, a collection of heart-warming, page-turning full-length romances that all feature a strong love story and a happy ending.
“This is a rare thing: an original, intelligent novel that’s not just a perfect summer beach read, but one that deserves serious awards consideration as well. Put down your phone and pick it up. . . . A major accomplishment.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) From the co-creator of How I Met Your Mother, a hilarious and thought-provoking debut novel set in New York City, following an unforgettable cast of characters as they navigate life, love, loss, ambition, and spirituality—without ever looking up from their phones It’s the summer of 2015, and Alice Quick needs to get to work. She’s twenty-eight years old, grieving her mother, barely scraping by as a nanny, and freshly kicked out of her apartment. If she can just get her act together and sign up for the MCAT, she can start chasing her dream of becoming a doctor . . . but in the Age of Distraction, the distractions are so distracting. There’s her tech millionaire brother’s religious awakening. His picture-perfect wife’s emotional breakdown. Her chaotic new roommate’s thirst for adventure. And, of course, there’s the biggest distraction of all: love. From within the story of one summer in one woman’s life, a tapestry of characters is unearthed, tied to one another by threads both seen and unseen. Filled with all the warmth, humor, and heart that gained How I Met Your Mother its cult following, The Mutual Friend captures in sparkling detail the chaos of contemporary life—a life lived simultaneously in two different worlds, the physical one and the one behind our screens—and reveals how connected we all truly are.
(Spring 2010) Local parents warned about priests and nuns who gang rape and prostitute kids, tweens & teens in directory of clergy perps & pervs in your neighborhood. i missed me after the terror, during the years of unbearable sorrow: trafficking the holy Spirit includes oral journalism of adults raped as kids and a parental directory of priests and nuns who gang rape and prostitute kids, tweens and teens. Book asks Angela Merkel, Michele Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Alessandra Mussolini and Oprah Winfrey to help remove state, federal, civil and criminal statutes of limitation for sexual assault of kids, tweens and teens. Author says, “To protect families we must remove civil, criminal, state & federal statutes of limitation for sexual assault of children by showing parents and legislators cliches of ‘child abuse’ mask violent serial sexual assault and child, tween and teen suicide. The book documents only a few U.S. priests and nuns rape children under 12, serially rape children under 11, gang rape children under 10, sodomize kids under 9, give kids AIDS, get 11 year olds pregnant, abort children and teenagers, ritually abuse kids, sexually assault kids, torture kids, prostitute and murder kids, and abandon their illegitimate children borne of kids they raped ... all at the same 1.5% percentile as perps & pervs in society: of one million Catholic priests worldwide, only 15,000 sexually assault kids and teens; of ten million nuns, only 150,000 are perps & pervs. An appendix, Where are the Children of Table 34?, exposes a study of the ‘scientifically established’ orgasm rates of infants, toddlers, preschool children, kids, tweens and teens cited in proponing today's standards of sex education in the classroom for kids too young to be exposed to sex education and helped set statutes of limitation for rape of women (there had been none) and the shift from rapists being guilty to women having to prove they didn't want to be raped. It likely influenced setting statutes of limitation for clergy crimes of sexual assault of kids, tweens and teens. It has come to light ‘scientists using stopwatches’ to document ‘scientific studies’ – now used to justify premature sexual education of elementary school-aged kids, were conducted by child rapists and child murderers. That is one reason statutes should be removed, or extended to the life of the child, or ‘windowed’, since the ‘objective studies’ were done by perps and pervs. Another reason is, the psychiatric record establishes kids, tweens and teens sexually abused often commit suicide or repress the events for 20-30 years in order to not go crazy. They consequently make bad choices and live sad lives that never would have been, if they had not been sexually molested, assaulted, raped, serially raped, gang raped, prostituted and/or ritually abused. ABOUT THE AUTHOR & THE PHOTOGRAPHER Allen first published at 9 yrs old. Old Rails’ Tales reviewed by NYT as one of best books of year. Books include: Storytellin’ Muni Drivers; and A Noah’s Ark of Recurring Celebration: San Francisco Annual Event History. Tanna Baumgardner, Digital Faerie Photography www.digifaephotography.com dredged vintage baby doll (on book’s cover) from river in North Carolina.
This volume seeks to instigate a discussion about dementia in theatre. The discussions in this book borrow from the literature on dementia’s representation in other artforms, while reflecting on theatre’s unique capacity to incorporate multiple artforms in a live context (hypermediacy). The author examines constructions of diegesis and the use of various performance tools, including physical theatre, puppetry, and postdramatic performance. She discusses stage representations of interior experiences of dementia; selfhood in dementia; the demarcation of those with dementia from those without; endings, erasure, and the pursuit of catharsis; placelessness and disruptions of traditional dramatic constructions of time; and ultimately, performances creatively led by people with dementia. The book traces patterns of narrativisation on the stage—including common dramaturgical forms, settings, and character relationships—as well as examples that transcend mainstream representation. This book is important reading for theatre and performance students, scholars, and practitioners, as well as cultural studies writers engaged in research about narratives of dementia.
MILLY KAUFMAN IS an ordinary American teenager living in Vermont—until she meets Pablo, a new student at her high school. His exotic accent, strange fashion sense, and intense interest in Milly force her to confront her identity as an adopted child from Pablo’s native country. As their relationship grows, Milly decides to undertake a courageous journey to her homeland and along the way discovers the story of her birth is intertwined with the story of a country recovering from a brutal history. Beautifully written by reknowned author Julia Alvarez, Finding Miracles examines the emotional complexity of familial relationships and the miracles of everyday life.
National Theatre Connections 2024 draws together ten new plays for young people to perform, from some of the UK's most exciting and popular playwrights. These are plays for a generation of theatre-makers who want to ask questions, challenge assertions and test the boundaries, and for those who love to invent and imagine a world of possibilities. The plays offer young performers an engaging and diverse range of material to perform, read or study. Touching on themes like trans-rights, the mental health crisis, colonial history, disability activism, and climate change, the collection provides topical, pressing subject matter for students to explore in their performance. This 2024 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2024 Festival (eight brand-new plays, and two returning favourites), as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.
