Click


Kristopher Young - 2006
    Click is urban grit of the highest order - a first person romp through the unreality of an unnamed metropolis in which the protagonist is stalked by his inner demons while half-heartedly trying to save the world. Fun and excitement for the whole dysfuntional family, Click is not to be missed. Plot Summary - Click's hero is experiencing glitches in the universe. He may have tapped into a strange ability which gives him control over the world around him. Or, there's the disturbing possiblity that he's a case study in paranoid schizophrenia. After all, -they- might be after him. He's falling apart -- and to make matters worse, his girlfriend may just be crazier than he is. Forced to face his fears and come to terms with his own flawed nature, he must discover what it means to truly evolve.

Squalor, New Mexico


Lisette Brodey - 2009
    From the moment Darla asks to know more about her mysterious aunt, she is offered nothing but half-truths, distortions, and evasions. As Darla grows into her teen years, her life is oddly yet profoundly affected by this woman she has never known. She can't help but notice that Rebecca seems to exist only in dark corners of conversations and that no one ever wants to talk about her - with Darla. Squalor, New Mexico is a coming-of-age story shrouded in family mystery. As the plot takes twists and turns, secrets are revealed not only to Darla but to the "secret keepers" as well. Darla learns that families are only as strong as the truths they hold and as weak as the secrets they keep.

The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti


Stephen Graham Jones - 2008
    If there's a line between the real and the digital, between meat and the game, between past and present, then hold this book close to your mouth and whisper it into the pages. Please. Maybe the kid in there'll hear you. His name is Nolan Dugatti. He's lost, see, running down hall after hall, something both ancient and not-yet born galloping up behind him on a hundred legs, each individual footfall a sound he knows, a way of shuffling that he's always known. His father? Except it can't be. Unless of course this is another novel from Stephen Graham Jones. Not quite horror, not quite science fiction, but like his five or six other books, a story trembling at some pupal stage between meat and the game, where words will sometimes stop their crawl across the page and crane their neck around at the sky, nod about what they see there--you--then unfold their wings, drift up into another world altogether.

Black Dogs: The Possibly True Story of Classic Rock's Greatest Robbery


Jason Buhrmester - 2009
    Before the final performance, $203,000 of the band’s money went missing from a safe deposit box at the Drake Hotel in what was called the single highest deposit box theft in the city’s history. The money was never recovered. Black Dogs might be the story behind the greatest rock ’n’ roll heist of all time. the last thing nineteen-year-old Patrick Sullivan needed was a new scam. Just months earlier, he had left a trail of broken friendships and new enemies in Baltimore for a fresh start in New York City after a botched robbery attempt landed one of his best friends in jail. But when he spies a briefcase full of cash backstage at a Led Zeppelin concert, Patrick makes plans for one last crazy mission–one that he hopes will redeem him in the eyes of everyone he left behind. To pull it off, Patrick will have to return to his hometown to round up his crew: Alex, the one who did time for Patrick’s last crime; Frenchy, the neurotic musician who still lives with Mom; and dim-witted but endearing Keith, the greasy-haired loner who excels at installing car stereos and then uninstalling them, all in the same day.When the unlikely team’s plan goes horribly wrong, the boys find themselves mixed up with Backwoods Billy, the psychotic leader of the Holy Ghosts Christian motorcycle gang. They need some help, and they find it in some unlikely places: by crossing paths and making deals with a pill-popping DA, a safe-cracking funk band called the New York Giants, and the Maryland chapter of the Misty Mountain Hoppers Led Zeppelin Fan Club. Sporting a rare 1958 Les Paul guitar and a complicated plan that could either go wonderfully right or horribly wrong, the guys, fueled by beer and egos, make a desperate attempt at robbing the world’s coolest rock band–to hilarious result.Black Dogs brings to life one of the infamously unsolved rock ’n’ roll mysteries and introduces us to a lovable bunch of knuckleheads who may have just pulled off the greatest heist in rock ’n’ roll history.

The Love Song of Jonny Valentine


Teddy Wayne - 2013
    The talented singer’s image, voice, and even hairdo have been relentlessly packaged—by his L.A. label and his hard-partying manager-mother, Jane—into bite-size pabulum. But within the marketing machine, somewhere, Jonny is still a vulnerable little boy, perplexed by his budding sexuality and his heartthrob status, dependent on Jane, and endlessly searching for his absent father in Internet fan sites, lonely emails, and the crowds of faceless fans.Poignant, brilliant, and viciously funny, told through the eyes of one of the most unforgettable child narrators, this literary masterpiece explores with devastating insight and empathy the underbelly of success in 21st-century America. The Love Song of Jonny Valentine is a tour de force by a standout voice of his generation.

A Good Enough Mother


Bev Thomas - 2019
    . .Ruth Hartland is a psychotherapist with years of experience. But professional skill is no guard against private grief. The mother of grown twins, she is haunted by the fact that her beautiful, difficult, fragile son Tom, a boy who never "fit in," disappeared a year and a half earlier. She cannot give up hope of finding him, but feels she is living a kind of half-life, waiting for him to return. Enter a new patient, Dan--unstable and traumatized--who looks exactly like her missing son. She is determined to help him, but soon, her own complicated feelings, about how she has failed her own boy, cloud her professional judgement. And before long, the unthinkable becomes a shattering reality....An utterly compelling drama with a timebomb at its core, A Good Enough Mother is a brilliant, beautiful story of mothering, and how to let go of the ones we love when we must.

The Bird in the Tree


Elizabeth Goudge - 1940
    and The Pangs of LoveLove had come to David for the first time, glorious, overwhelming, passionate. It was far greater and far more lovely than he had ever dreamed possible. And it was returned in full measure, with equal passion. But he could not take her without pain--pain for himself, for her, for his beloved family.Lucilla has spent a lifetime making the Hampshire estate of Damerosehay a tranquil haven for the Eliot family. When her favourite grandson, David, falls in love with an unsuitable woman Lucilla feels is unsuitable, she sees her most cherished ambitions put at risk. But can she persuade David and Nadine to put duty before love?At last, in the magical peace of the countryside, watched over by a benevolent old house that had nourished so much love, they knew the path their hearts must take....

Mary and O'Neil


Justin Cronin - 2001
    When they met at the Philadelphia high school where they’d come to teach, each had suffered a profound loss that had not healed. How likely was it that they could learn to trust, much less love, again?Justin Cronin’s poignant debut traces the lives of Mary Olson and O’Neil Burke, two vulnerable young teachers who rediscover in each other a world alive with promise and hope. From the formative experiences of their early adulthood to marriage, parenthood, and beyond, this novel in stories illuminates the moments of grace that enable Mary and O’Neil to make peace with the deep emotional legacies that haunt them: the sudden, mysterious death of O’Neil’s parents, Mary’s long-ago decision to end a pregnancy, O’Neil’s sister’s battle with illness and a troubled marriage. Alive with magical nuance and unexpected encounters, Mary and O’Neil celebrates the uncommon in common lives, and the redemptive power of love.

The Long, Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora


Michael Nesmith - 1998
    Beginning in Mississippi, he soon finds himself traveling through the New Mexico desert, encountering strange and mystical inhabitants who all have conflicting yarns to spin about the ephemeral Neftoon. Is she an Indian High Priestess? Is she part martian, part Delta blues singer? Was she born in Mississippi -- or on Mars?As the story continues, Neftoon's spirit grows stronger, gradually encompassing everything. People, animals, objects -- all are affected by her legend, and all are imbued with a greater meaning beyond their mere existences. Therein lies the beauty of the Neftoon myth. By encircling all, it excludes none. Ultimately, this is a look at a unity so complete, a peace so profound, that we cannot bear to look away.

The Answer to Everything


Elyse Friedman - 2014
    Turned out on the street by his fully employed, entirely fed up girlfriend, he goes on the hunt for cheap shared accommodation and stumbles upon the ideal set-up—a bedroom in the home of Amy, an attractive psychology student who has been abandoned by her condo-buying roommate. Not only does Amy have a surprisingly affordable penthouse apartment with rooftop patio and a fridge full of high-quality comestibles, but she also has a mysterious across-the-hall neighbour, Eldrich, who appears to be home all day, smoking weed and receiving an odd assortment of visitors. Before long, John is availing himself of Eldrich's pot, food and wine. He notices that these staples are provided gratis to Eldrich by friends and acquaintances who rely on him for spiritual guidance. That's when John, atheist and misanthrope, decides to start a New Age cult with Eldrich as guru. And so, as half art project, half money-making scheme, the Answer Institute is born. With Amy as a partner in the enterprise, the cult flourishes and grows exponentially, attracting a wide range of broken, strange and spiritually hungry individuals, including an obscenely wealthy Singaporean expat, a psilocybin-dealing hippie, a conservative mom mourning the death of her only child, and the star of a popular sci-fi TV show. Eldrich begins to embrace his role as Leader with a little too much zeal and introduces his followers to increasingly peculiar rituals. Amy becomes progressively more enamoured of the funds pouring into the coffers, and John lets sexual jealousy get the better of him. The more successful the Institute gets, the more it spirals out of control, culminating in a bizarre ayahuasca ceremony that ends in a way nobody could have expected. With humour and pathos, The Answer to Everything examines the gap between reason and faith, and the human need for connection, love and transcendence.

The Orphaned Anything's: Memoir of a Lesser Known


Stephen Christian - 2008
    In his mind what started as a joke is slowly becoming his �glorious and underrated mantra�. Ayden Kosacov is alive, and that is about all you can say. In the throws of a mundane and jejune life Ayden is slowly coming to the realization that if all his world is a stage than he wouldn�t care if he did or did not miss the final scenes. Through an almost �accidental� suicide attempt and the recovery that soon follows, Ayden learns that there is more to living than just being alive. Finding his way through diverse experiences and people he comes to terms with God, his family, and finally himself. The Orphaned Anything�s style of writing is in the likes of Dennis Johnson (Jesus� Son) and Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius) and yet designed to give life lessons, encouragement, and hope like books by Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist) and Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz).

The Impossibly


Laird Hunt - 2001
    When the nameless narrator botches an assignment for the clandestine organization that employs him, everyone in his life—including his new girlfriend—is revealed to be either true-blue, double operative, or both.With the literary coyness of Paul Auster and the dark absurdity of Kafka, Hunt's debut is a daring, memory-driven narrative that is as fittingly spare as a bare ceiling light—and just as pendulous. On the surface, the narrator is a simple man, fixing his washer and dryer, strolling through city parks, falling in love at an office supply store. But in The Impossibly, the mundane gives way to outrageous misconduct, and with each unexpected visitor or cryptic note, the tension reaches tantalizing heights. As the narrator frugally doles out clues about his dangerous work in an unnamed European city, the reader inevitably becomes confidante and fellow gumshoe. The narrator's final assignment—to identify his own assassin—dismantles the reader's own analysis of the evidence.

Other People's Children


R.J. Hoffmann - 2021
    HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO SAVE YOUR FAMILY?As soon as Gail and Jon Durbin bring home their adopted baby Maya, she becomes the glue that mends their fractured marriage. But the Durbin’s social worker, Paige, can’t find the teenage birth mother to sign the consent forms. By law, Carli has seventy-two hours to change her mind. Without her signature, the adoption will unravel. Carli is desperate to pursue her dreams, so giving her baby a life with the Durbins seems like the right choice – until her own mother throws down an ultimatum. Soon Carli realizes how few choices she has. As the hours tick by, Paige knows that the Durbins’ marriage won’t survive the loss of Maya, but everyone’s life is shattered when they—and baby Maya—disappear without a trace. Filled with heartrending turns, Other People’s Children is a riveting page-turner you’ll find impossible to put down.

Ten O'Clock Horses


Laurie Graham - 2000
    The first avocado pears are appearing at the greengrocer's, people are thinking about carpeting their lavatories and boxing in their banisters, and Ronnie Glover, housepainter, husband and father, is feeling the first vague stirrings of discontent with his life. Then, out of the blue, the fabulous, sophisticated (and married) Jacqueline bursts into his life and teaches him to tango. She seems to offer everything he ever dreamt of. But is it all too good to he true?

Simon the Fiddler


Paulette Jiles - 2020
    Till now, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty but following a barroom brawl in Victoria, Texas, Simon finds himself conscripted into the Confederate Army. Luckily his talent with a fiddle gets him a comparatively easy position in a regimental band.Weeks later, on the eve of the Confederate surrender, Simon and his bandmates are called to play for officers and their families from both sides of the conflict. There the fiddler can’t help but notice Doris Mary Dillon, an indentured girl from Ireland, who is governess to a Union colonel’s daughter.After the surrender, Simon and Doris go their separate ways. But Simon cannot forget the fair Irish maiden, and vows that someday he will find her again.