A Study Guide for Joel Brouwer's "Last Request (Exactly What Happened)," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
An illusion only works if we believe that what we've just seen is exactly what happened. This collection of poems seek to unveil the magician's trick, and expose the deceptions that we live with daily.
Heads You Win is international #1 bestseller Jeffrey Archer’s most ambitious and creative work since Kane and Abel, with a final twist that will shock even his most ardent of fans. Leningrad, Russia, 1968: From an early age it is clear that Alexander Karpenko is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, Alexander and his mother will have to escape Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they have an irreversible choice: board a container ship bound for America or one bound for Great Britain. Alexander leaves the choice to a toss of a coin... In a single moment, a double twist decides Alexander’s future. During an epic tale, spanning two continents and thirty years, we follow Alexander through triumph and defeat as he sets out on parallel lives as Alex in New York and Sasha in London. As this unique story unfolds, both come to realize that to find their destiny they must face the past they left behind as Alexander in Russia.
“An engaging, beautifully synthesized page-turner” (Slate). The #1 New York Times bestseller and Time #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year: Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most personal memoir yet, about the 2016 presidential election. In this “candid and blackly funny” (The New York Times) memoir, Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history. She takes us inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules. “At her most emotionally raw” (People), Hillary describes what it was like to run against Donald Trump, the mistakes she made, how she has coped with a shocking and devastating loss, and how she found the strength to pick herself back up afterward. She tells readers what it took to get back on her feet—the rituals, relationships, and reading that got her through, and what the experience has taught her about life. In this “feminist manifesto” (The New York Times), she speaks to the challenges of being a strong woman in the public eye, the criticism over her voice, age, and appearance, and the double standard confronting women in politics. Offering a “bracing... guide to our political arena” (The Washington Post), What Happened lays out how the 2016 election was marked by an unprecedented assault on our democracy by a foreign adversary. By analyzing the evidence and connecting the dots, Hillary shows just how dangerous the forces are that shaped the outcome, and why Americans need to understand them to protect our values and our democracy in the future. The election of 2016 was unprecedented and historic. What Happened is the story of that campaign, now with a new epilogue showing how Hillary grappled with many of her worst fears coming true in the Trump Era, while finding new hope in a surge of civic activism, women running for office, and young people marching in the streets.
What if everything you thought you knew about how the world worked was challenged? (Again) In this sequel to WTF Just Happened?!: A sciencey skeptic explores grief, healing, and evidence of an afterlife, Elizabeth “Liz” Entin continues to look for scientific proof of an afterlife. Something she had always considered about as realistic as the Tooth Fairy when she first began this “shot in the dark” search after the loss of her dad. Picking up where the first book left off, this second book in the series shows Liz once again using her analytical mind to research psychic mediums and the scientists who study them. No longer new to this strange world, she starts conducting her own “WTF can happen?!” experiments with mediums, studying under a former secret psychic spy from the United States government’s Defense Intelligence Agency and training with experts in paranormal activity. She also tries to talk to dead people (including her dad), meet up with mediums in different dimensions, move objects with her mind, and apply CIA tactics to “spy” on faraway spots. She is still stunned when, during some of these attempts, the inexplicable continues to happen. Along her journey, she deepens previously unimaginable relationships with mentors who have studied this afterlife phenomena for almost 20 years—and keeps getting more and more evidence that everything she once thought about how the world (and the world beyond it) worked was way more extraordinary than she, a hard-core “sciencey-skeptic,” had ever imagined. And, in a subplot that seems to fall right in line with the weird trajectory of her life and tackled with the same humorous approach she takes to addressing life’s darker moments, Liz unexpectedly gets called as a secondary witness in the Harvey Weinstein case, which despite its serious tones, is filled with the most hilarious twists, including “visits” from Liz’s late chihuahua, Peanut. Through it all, Liz continues to honestly address the reality of living with grief, call out frauds among the medium community, embrace her full awkwardness as she meets researchers she always admired, and share her continued shock that overall very normal people seem to be doing the impossible. Liz will not only have you laughing but will also leave even the biggest skeptic wondering (and hoping)... could this really be true? Could we actually survive death?
From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore: A magnificent coming-of-age story steeped in nostalgia, “a masterly novel” (The New York Times Book Review) blending the music, the mood, and the ethos that were the sixties with a young man’s hopeless and heroic first love. Now with a new introduction by the author. Toru, a serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. As Naoko retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. Stunning and elegiac, Norwegian Wood first propelled Haruki Murakami into the forefront of the literary scene.
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year • A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • Winner of the Alex Award and the Massachusetts Book Award • Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Grantland Booklist, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot, School Library Journal, Bustle, and Time Our New York The acclaimed debut novel by the author of Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts “A taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense.” —O, the Oprah Magazine “Explosive . . . Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family.” —Entertainment Weekly “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Soon to be a major motion picture "Jon Swift + Witches of Eastwick + Kelly 'Get In Trouble' Link + Mean Girls + Creative Writing Degree Hell! No punches pulled, no hilarities dodged, no meme unmangled! O Bunny you are sooo genius!" —Margaret Atwood, via Twitter "A wild, audacious and ultimately unforgettable novel." —Michael Schaub, Los Angeles Times "Awad is a stone-cold genius." —Ann Bauer, The Washington Post The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel from the acclaimed author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl and Rouge "We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?" Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one. But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision. The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination. Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Vogue, Electric Literature, and The New York Public Library
This film producer’s honest, hilarious behind-the-scenes memoir “details the planning, handholding and power games involved in making movies” (Publishers Weekly). Art Linson has had a hand in producing some of the most unforgettable films of the past half-century—Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Untouchables, Fight Club—and has worked with some of America’s finest actors and directors. In what the Los Angeles Times calls “a breezy anatomy of ritual humiliation,” his memoir gives us a brutally honest, funny, and comprehensive tour through the horrors of Hollywood. “Art Linson puts a film freak exactly where he or she wants to be: in the Fox screening room during the studio brass’s horrified first look at Fight Club...Linson gives readers a glimpse into a bizarre world where ‘It’s good’ is the absolute worst thing you can say about a movie.” —Entertainment Weekly “A hoot.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer Includes a new interview of Art Linson by Peter Biskind and the screenplay of the film version
NICK PERITO has accompanied, arranged, composed and conducted for many of the world’s most famous singers and entertainers. His career in television has earned him twelve Emmy nominations. This book offers an affectionate glimpse of his upbringing as the son of Italian immigrants and recounts his successful career in the colorful and unpredictable world of show business. “I NEVER THOUGHT I could get up in front of an audience and just sing my favorite songs – and even make it into a one-woman show. It was Nick’s idea and he was relentless in insisting that I do it. God will get him for that!” – Bea Arthur “I ADORE THE work of Nick Perito because it is an extension of the warmth, humor and charm of the man. He has made a tremendous contribution to the preservation of great music and continues to create fresh and essential sounds for our time. Bravo, Nick!” – Michael Feinstein “SOMETIMES WHEN I’m listening to a Perry Como recording and I hear Nick Perito playing so beautifully behind him, it brings me to a sweeter time in my life. All those great songs and arrangements. Recently I had the good fortune to have Nick as my conductor and what a treat. I almost stopped the show just to watch him play. What a life he has led! Sometimes it’s just the quiet guy behind the piano who has the best stories to tell. Nick is one of them. You’ll love his book.” – Regis Philbin “NICK PERITO NOT only just happened to be there,’ he was a vibrant and active participant in the glory days of American popular music. For those interested in the music and personalities of this marvelous era, I cannot recommend this book more highly.” – Patrick Williams “NICK IS A great arranger, a wonderful musician, a dear friend...and he can write, too.” – Linda Hope
