Death Wishing


Laura Ellen Scott - 2011
    Bob Dylan sings about a journey ‘all the way from New Orleans to Jerusalem…’ as way of apotheizing, scrutinizing, and recognizing the world we live in. Laura Scott is on the way.”—Alan Cheuse“A story as hot, sticky, and dangerous as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, seen through an imagination as kaleidoscopic as Kelly Link's.”—Steve Himmer, The Bee-Loud Glade“Something hazy is happening in Fat City. Laura Ellen Scott dials up loads of laughs amid the local color and NOLA cuisine in this madcap romp of a novel where last wishes come true, Elvis is back under newly orange clouds, coffee cups are bottomless, and street punks wear capes.”—Richard Peabody, editor Gargoyle MagazineWhat if your most fervent wish could come true, and all you had to do was…die first. Recovering from a bitter divorce, middle-aged Victor Swaim wants nothing more than to live a carefree, drunken existence in New Orleans, making capes and corsets, and lusting for Pebbles, the girl who lives across the street.But, after a series of deathbed wishes come true—including the curing of cancer, the elimination of cats, the return of Elvis (1967 vintage), the clouds turning orange, mothers growing third eyes and cups of coffee becoming bottomless—the hysteria that grows around “Death Wishing” forces Victor into action. Along with his entrepreneurial son Val and his libertine friend Martine, Victor must battle the apocalyptics who have seduced Pebbles away from her true vocation of singing the blues (very badly) while at the same time confronting his mortal identity: just what would he wish for the world without him in it?

How to Stay Bitter Through the Happiest Times of Your Life


Anita Liberty - 2006
    But I wrote a lot of good poems.”So maintains Anita Liberty, the caustically funny New York City performance artist who was going along happily healing her hurt by hating and humiliating her detestable ex-boyfriend on stage and in print until the unthinkable happened: she had a good date. And one good date deserves another. And another. And another. And, all of the sudden, Anita Liberty finds herself in a predicament. Getting dumped launched Anita’s career–Will falling in love finish it? Who’s more important: her devoted audience or her newly devoted boyfriend? And on top of everything, Hollywood won’t stop calling and Anita can’t figure out if It wants a serious commitment or just a little bit of no-strings-attached fun. From digging mercilessly into the minutiae of her new relationship to dramatically torching every professional bridge she crosses in L.A., Anita refuses to let a big load of bliss get dumped right in the middle of her career path.“He said that my work was amazing and hilarious and smart and that he can’t wait to see me perform.So I had sex with him.”“My boyfriend asked me to change my look.To something other than contemptuous.”{BARGAIN} Whatever Hollywood ends up paying me for the rights to the story of my life.“It’s easier to go back to fantasizing about perfection . . .than to accept that perfection is just a fantasy.”“Boyfriend thinks I’d rather be right than happy.Boyfriend’s right.But I’m not telling him that.”Through blog entries, film scenes, poems, and to-do lists, Anita Liberty documents the perils and pitfalls of dating, sex, relationships, artistic success, and the kind of true love that sucks the creative life out of you to the point where you just end up staring at a blank computer screen and thinking gooey thoughts about your new boyfriend even though you should be writing.

A Thousand Clowns


Herb Gardner - 1962
    Tired of writing cheap comedy gags for "Chipper the Chipmunk," a children's television star, Murray finds himself unemployed with plenty of free time with which to pursue his...pursuits. Lectured by his conventional brother Arnold and hounded by "the system," Murray is paid a visit by bickering, uptight social workers, Sandra and Albert, and finds himself solving their problems as well as most of his own."Would be a standout comedy in any season. Filled with laughter and warmth and sweetness and inspired daffiness. One of the quintessential New York comedies."-New York Daily News "An extraordinarily funny play with some brilliantly offbeat lines."-The New York Post

All This Intimacy


Rajiv Joseph - 2010
    In an unprecedented (for him) run of promiscuity, Ty has managed to impregnate three women in the span of one week: His ex-girlfriend, his 40-something married next-door neighbor, and his 18 year-old student. In this edgy comedy by playwright Rajiv Joseph, Ty's problems illuminate every triumph and failure of his life, and as the women

Hold My Heart


Barbara Delinsky - 1982
    But her life takes a shocking turn when she loses everything in a plane crash—and awakens from a coma seven weeks later. At first, she’s confused: What is she doing in a hospital in North Carolina? And who is the incredibly handsome stranger who’s been visiting her every day? His name is Jed Dawson, a man she met in an art gallery. He’s taken her under his wing—and into his heart—as a favor to the grandmother she never knew she had. As Gillian grows stronger each day, so do her feelings for Jed. And with every kiss, he restores her passion for life—with the power of love…

Ill Lit: Selected New Poems


Franz Wright - 1998
    His voice and sensibility are distinctive, and the places he goes are ones where not many writers are able or willing to venture. The dark world of his poems, which face many of the hardest truths we must learn to live with, is lit by humor, tenderness, compassion, and honesty. For this edition, the poet has selected from the best of his previous collections, in some cases making substantial revisions, and has added his newest poems. The resulting collection is exciting in its breadth, consistency, depth, and distinction.

You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake


Anna Moschovakis - 2011
    Plato would have loved them."—Ann LauterbachIn a world where we find "everything helping itself / to everything else," Anna Moschovakis incorporates Craigslist ads, technobabble, twentieth-century ethics texts, scientific research, autobiographical detail, and historical anecdote to present an engaging lyric analysis of the way we live now. "It's your life," she tells the reader, "and we have come to celebrate it."

Art to Choke Hearts


Henry Rollins - 1989
    Selected poetry and prose from 1986.

Los Zapaticos De Rosa


José Martí - 1990
    This captivating book, masterfully illustrated by Lulu Delacre, is dedicated with tenderness to the young readers for whom José Martí wrote this beautiful poem.

George Orwell's 1984: A Play


Robert Owens - 1963
    George Orwell's prophetic, nightmarish vision of "Negative Utopia" is timelier than ever-and its warnings more powerful in this three-act adaptation.

Boys' Night Out


Suza Kates - 2014
    Michael Black’s world has seen a lot of changes over the past year, and falling for a witch who chats with his animal patients has been the best one by far. He’s decided to make it official, so the men associated with the coven insist on helping him celebrate. Michael is popping the question to the woman he loves, the coven has only two trials to go before the prophecy is fulfilled, and the guys want to throw him a bachelor party. Sounds like a plan. And no demon is going to stand in his way.

100 Lyrics


गुलज़ार - 2009
    His sophisticated insights into psychological complexities, his ability to capture the essence of nature's sounds and spoken dialects in written words, and above all his inimitable-and often surprising-imagery have entertained his legions of fans over successive generations. It represents Gulzar's most memorable compositions of all time, and feature anecdotes about the composition of the lyrics as well as sketches by Gulzar.

Kavirajan Kathai


Vairamuthu - 1982
    The book is a compilation of the series of episodes published in tamil magazine 'Chaavi'

The Words of a Madman


Caitlin Kelly - 2019
    

Girly Man


Charles Bernstein - 2006
    Charles Bernstein here proves them alive and well in poems elegiac, defiant, and resilient to the point of approaching song. Heir to the democratic and poetic sensibilities of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, Bernstein has always crafted verse that responds to its historical moment, but no previous collection of his poems so specifically addresses the events of its time as Girly Man, whichfeatures works written on the evening of September 11, 2001, and in response to the war in Iraq. Here, Bernstein speaks out, combining self-deprecating humor with incisive philosophical and political thinking. Composed of works of very different forms and moods—etchings from moments of acute crisis, comic excursions, formal excavations, confrontations with the cultural illogics of contemporary political consciousness—the poems work as an ensemble, each part contributing something necessary to an unrealizable and unrepresentable whole. Indeed, representation—and related claims to truth and moral certainty—is an active concern throughout the book. The poems of Girly Man may be oblique, satiric, or elusive, but their sense is emphatic. Indeed, Bernstein’s poetry performsits ideas so that they can be experienced as well as understood. A passionate defense of contingency, resistance, and multiplicity, Girly Man is a provocative and aesthetically challenging collection of radical verse from one of America’s most controversial poets.