Book picks similar to
man eater: a poetry collection by silas denver melvin
poetry
queer
tears
romance
The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales
Kirsty Logan - 2014
These stories feature clockwork hearts, lascivious queens, paper men, island circuses, and a flooded world.• On the island of Skye, an antlered girl and a tiger-tailed boy resolve never to be friends – but can they resist their unique connection?• In an alternative 19th-century Paris, a love triangle emerges between a man, a woman, and a coin-operated boy.• A teenager deals with his sister’s death by escaping from their tiny Scottish island – but will she let him leave?• In 1920s New Orleans, a young girl comes of age in her mother’s brothel.Some of these stories are radical retellings of classic tales, some are modern-day fables, but all explore substitutions for love.
Reckless Paper Birds
John McCullough - 2019
The author of the critically acclaimed collections The Frost Fairs and Spacecraft, Brighton-based John McCullough pulls no punches in this latest - and his most powerful -collection. These are poems of skill, joy and quiet musicality that reflect the conflict and complexity of being.
I Am Not Myself These Days
Josh Kilmer-Purcell - 2006
His story begins here—before the homemade goat milk soaps and hand-gathered honeys, before his memoir of the city mouse’s move to the country, The Bucolic Plague—in I Am Not Myself These Days, with “plenty of dishy anecdotes and moments of tragi-camp delight” (WashingtonPost).
The Charm Offensive
Alison Cochrun - 2021
So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star. Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off. As Dev fights to get Charlie to connect with the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told.In this witty and heartwarming romantic comedy—reminiscent of Red, White & Royal Blue and One to Watch—an awkward tech wunderkind on a reality dating show goes off-script when sparks fly with his producer.
The Nichan Smile
C.J. Merwild - 2021
But that was before. For the sky is now tainted, and the people deprived of their creators overnight have been orphans for nearly two centuries. Since that fateful day, the Corruption has reigned over the world. It defiled the clouds, covered the lands with a veil of darkness. The first conflicts arose in the east of the Coroman continent, some under the impulse of beliefs calling for blood and flames. As hatred continues to spread, the vanished Gods no longer answering any prayers, some fight for a peaceful life.In the midst of this madness, two children meet each other. One of them is human.The other is nichan.The boys are two opposite minds and fates, yet connected irrevocably. The days, then the passing years bring them together. But life reminds them of their differences and works to crush the remnants of their innocence. Between joys and sorrows, friendship and savagery, a smile is sometimes enough to change everything…Trigger Warning: this novel contains graphic violence, violence against children and animals, explicit sexual content (including sexual violence and underage sex), and explicit language. Reader discretion is advised.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
John Cameron Mitchell - 1998
In 2001, the mesmerizing film adaptation was released to equally glowing reviews. Brilliantly innovative and oddly endearing, Hedwig and the Angry Inch—inspired by Plato’s Symposium—is the story of “internationally ignored song stylist” Hedwig Schmidt, the victim of a gruesomely botched sex-change operation, as dazzlingly recounted by Hedwig (née Hansel) herself in the form of a lounge act, backed by the rock band The Angry Inch.
The Atlas Six
Olivie Blake - 2020
Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity. And those who earn a place among their number will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams. Each decade, the world’s six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation – and here are the chosen few...- Libby Rhodes and Nicolás Ferrer de Varona: inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds.- Reina Mori: a naturalist who can speak the language of life itself.- Parisa Kamali: a mind reader whose powers of seduction are unmatched.- Tristan Caine: the son of a crime kingpin who can see the secrets of the universe.- Callum Nova: an insanely rich pretty boy who could bring about the end of the world. He need only ask.When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they must spend one year together to qualify for initiation. During this time, they will be permitted access to the Society’s archives and judged on their contributions to arcane areas of knowledge. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. If they can prove themselves to be the best, they will survive. Most of them.
The Cranberry Hush
Ben Monopoli - 2011
He lives alone, works in a comic book shop, and has a crush on his coworker he can't seem to act on. Like an old comic book, his life's colors have started to fade. Everything brightens when Vince's long-lost friend Griff appears on his doorstep in the middle of a blizzard. They were roommates in college, so close back then that Griff's girlfriend called them "lifebuddies" -- but Vince's love for Griff had ended the friendship, he thought, forever. They haven't spoken in years. Why has Griff shown up again? And, more importantly, can Vince handle his return?Vince and Griff are two twentysomethings struggling to find their places in the world and in each other's lives. This is a story of friendship and love, both unrequited and requited, and of learning how to fly through the post-college void, which just might hold more than a cranberry hush.
Down & Dirty #7-10
Jeanne St. James - 2019
Get Down & Dirty with the last 4 books in the series…
Dawg:
She has a secret. But little does she know, so does he. With a past he’s not proud of and a secret only recently discovered, Dawg’s life is about to change when a kindergarten teacher walks into Heaven’s Angels Gentlemen’s Club. With no experience, her dancing sucks but he can’t deny the woman’s determination and, against his better judgement, hires her anyway. While her girl-next-door looks may be good for business, he’s not ready for someone like Emma to walk into his life. Emma’s desperate. She not only needs a lot of cash, but needs it quickly. Recently unemployed and with nowhere else to turn, she takes a drastic step by auditioning at Dawg’s club. When he finds out her secret, he’s willing to go above and beyond to help. However, Emma has no idea how a bearded, tattooed biker and strip club manager can help when law enforcement can’t.
Dex:
A stranger with a diary containing a thirty-year-old secret. One that could rip a brotherhood apart... DAMC born and bred, Dex was never like the rest of his club brothers. Even though being a biker was his destiny, something was always missing. He could never figure out what it was or why until one day a woman walks into Shadow Valley Pawn. A sexy, badass woman who challenges him at every turn. When Brooke discovers the truth about her late mother, she comes to Shadow Valley. However, a simple trip to find answers twists into something she never expects. Not only that, but the successful businesswoman crosses paths with a biker who tests the control she loves so much. Unexpectedly, Brooke not only flips a switch inside Dex and shows him his true self, she learns it’s okay to give up some of the independence she clings to. But that’s not the only discoveries the two make. One secret shakes the club to their core by exposing a member who’s been destroying them from the inside out.
Linc:
For Linc, life was easy. But life’s about to change. The DAMC is Linc’s life. The club his family. His lifesaver when he’d been drowning. Being a part of the club makes life easy for him. He rolls out of bed, heads downstairs for grub, booze, women, whatever, before hitting the bar at night for work. But then there’s Jayde. A college graduate and an aspiring attorney. The first time he saw her hips swaying through church, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Since then, they’ve circled each other for years. But Jayde deserves better than him, so he’s kept her at arm’s length. Linc has nothing to offer her, while she’s poised to take on the world. Not only that, she’s dangerous. Her father’s a cop. Her brother, too. Even worse, her oldest brother is the club president. And that’s the most dangerous of all.
Crow:
When a woman from his past shows up asking for his help, Crow’s not sure he can be the hero she’s looking for. Crow, self-proclaimed bachelor biker, can’t believe his eyes when a woman from his past shows up at his tattoo shop.
Chosen
Lauren Chow - 2017
Clara Evans’ needs a fresh start. Exhausted from the taunts of her classmates and the neglect of her careless foster parents, she is counting down the days until graduation when she can move away and leave her miserable life behind. When swoon-worthy Jay Woods transfers to Ford High School, Clara’s eyes are opened to a universe she never knew existed. As the life she once knew shatters and ancient secrets are revealed, Clara must learn to control her newfound powers while defeating a raging darkness that will change the world forever. Could “The Freak” from Ford High be the key to saving the human race?
Less
Andrew Sean Greer - 2017
A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years now engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes--it would all be too awkward--and you can’t say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of half-baked literary invitations you’ve received from around the world. QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?ANSWER: You accept them all. If you are Arthur Less.Thus begins an around-the-world-in-eighty-days fantasia that will take Arthur Less to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India and Japan and put thousands of miles between him and the problems he refuses to face. What could possibly go wrong?Well: Arthur will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Sahara sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and arrive in Japan too late for the cherry blossoms. In between: science fiction fans, crazed academics, emergency rooms, starlets, doctors, exes and, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to see. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. The second phase of life, as he thinks of it, falling behind him like the second phase of a rocket. There will be his first love. And there will be his last.A love story, a satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, by an author The New York Times has hailed as “inspired, lyrical,” “elegiac,” “ingenious,” as well as “too sappy by half,” Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.
Memorial
Bryan Washington - 2020
Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years -- good years -- but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other. But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Without Mike's immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realizing he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it. Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they've ever known. And just maybe they'll all be okay in the end. Memorial is a funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you're supposed to be, and the limits of love.
Enigma Variations
André Aciman - 2017
Whether in southern Italy, where as a boy he has a crush on his parents’ cabinet maker, or on a snowbound campus in New England, where his enduring passion for a girl he’ll meet again and again over the years is punctuated by anonymous encounters with men; on a tennis court in Central Park, or a sidewalk in early spring New York, his attachments are ungraspable, transient and forever underwritten by raw desire—not for just one person’s body but, inevitably, for someone else’s as well. In mapping the most inscrutable corners of desire, Aciman proves to be an unsparing reader of the human psyche and a master stylist of contemporary literature. With language at once lyrical, bare-knuckled, and unabashedly candid, he casts a sensuous, shimmering light over each facet of desire to probe how we ache, want, and waver, and ultimately how we sometimes falter and let go of those who may want only to offer what we crave from them. Behind every step the hero takes, his hopes, denials, fears, and regrets are always ready to lay their traps. Yet the dream of love always casts its luminous halo. We may not always know what we want. We may remain enigmas to ourselves and others. But sooner or later we discover who we’ve always known we were.
The Complete Strangers in Paradise, Volume 3, Part 4
Terry Moore - 2002
Francine and Katchoo are high-school best friends who are reunited when Francine comes back to town after years away from her hometown. David is their new friend entangled in their complicated lives. From creepy ex-boyfriends and insensitive bosses to the reality of AIDS and underworld prostitution, you never know what will come up next - but you can always count on laughing and crying at the same time. This foil-stamped casebound hardcover with color dust jacket includes a special color cover art section, sketches, and more.