Book picks similar to
A Million in Prizes by Justin Marks


poetry
stopped-reading
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literary

Secrets of Retail


J.W. Martin - 2010
    This wasn't always the case, but years in the soul-shattering world of retail have made Wade a bitter, cynical young man. Impeded by a lack of direction and nearly infinite levels apathy, Wade idles through his days avoiding waves of annoying customers, his obtrusive boss and any kind of work in general. When a management opportunity makes itself available Wade finds himself facing an unprecedented weekend of opportunity and distraction, a gauntlet of women he can't begin to understand, and a potential mental breakdown that could destroy his personal and professional life at once.

The Book of Goodbyes


Jillian Weise - 2013
    They’re humorous, odd, and full of all the unreasonable truth of love. This book is the real thing.” —Publishers Weekly Weise’s collection “examines the daily life and consciousness of a speaker with a disability willing to confront all taboos associated with sex, intimacy, identity, gender, and love.” - Coldfront MagazineThe Los Angeles Times described Jillian Weise's debut poetry collection as "a fearless dissection of the taboo and the hidden." In this second collection she forwards her bold, sexy poetics by chronicling an affair with a man she names "Big Logos." These poems throw into question sex, the law, identity, sentiment, and power, shifting between lyric and narrative, hyper-realism and magical realism, fact and fiction.I've Been Waiting All NightI reckon you were asleep with your girlbefore the phone rang. Make something up.I've been waiting all night to tell youabout the couple in post-War France,the woman fresh in her graveand the man who didn't like his mistress dead,no sir, and so exhumed her, to the dismayof his wife, who had him arrestedfor the stink he made.She was reburied, returned to the dead.After jail, he dug her up to fuck again.Attached suction cups and crafteda wig from a broom. You can go now.I'm more in the mood than you're used to.Jillian Weise—an above-the-knee amputee with a computerized prosthetic—identifies as a cyborg and has discussed the identity in essays for the New York Times and Drunken Boat. Her books include The Amputee's Guide to Sex (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and The Colony (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press, 2010). She is an assistant professor at Clemson University, a contributing editor at the South Carolina Review, and co-director of the Annual Clemson Literary Festival.

No Higher Ground: (A Sam Czerny Novel - Book One)


Roman Godzich - 2017
    Then a Chinese mining facility discovers an unusual artifact on the far side of the moon. A device which could change the way humanity sees itself and its place in the galaxy. Sam finds himself on the project of his dreams only to get caught up in a sudden war between the US and China. A war that prevents the two governments from noticing an even more dangerous arrival. "Imaginative science fiction based in hard science and realistically envisioned future geopolitics, NO HIGHER GROUND is a thriller with a wildly inventive reality. Surprising alliances and betrayals are set against stakes which reveal the war games we humans play are a mere footnote in the battles fought across the universe. An exciting debut." - Nina Sadowsky, author of JUST FALL and THE BURIAL SOCIETY

The Secret Life of Lula Darling (Lula Darling Series Book 1)


Alex Dean - 2017
    A supernatural event. A life filled with great purpose.Lula Darling is a fourteen-year-old slave growing up on a plantation in Natchez, Mississippi in 1854. After the untimely deaths of her father, and then brother, her perilous life could not seem to get any worse. Under the watchful eye of the slave owner and his father, an inventor, Lula, along with her mother, Ella Mae, are losing any and all hope of ever being free from the bondages and terrors of slavery. But one day, while hiding in fear in the slave owner's attic Lula makes a startling discovery that transports her through time and space into the future and changes her life forever.What readers are saying about the Lula Darling Series:"Awesome Story""As an avid reader this story was truly captivating. I couldn't put the book down.""I chose a 5 star rating because the book was very interesting wasn't anything boring about the story line. I would recommend this book to my family and friends.""Great short story that I would recommend to young readers. A message that there's still compassion within people to help one another, no matter the obstacles they encounter.""I would recommend this book to anyone. The story line is compelling and it gives way to a great series. The thought of time travel and being transported from such a depraved period to modern times is mind boggling.""I Loveddd this book, I wish it was made into a movie"

Noble Norfleet


Reynolds Price - 2002
     A few days before Noble Norfleet's eighteenth birthday, his family suffers a violent catastrophe. The sole survivor, Noble throws himself into a reckless affair with his Spanish teacher, whose husband is fighting in Vietnam. When Noble graduates, he enlists as well and, while serving as an army medic, experiences a mysterious vision that seems tied to uncanny events in his recent past. Not until thirty years later -- after a life short on friends and troubled by a compulsion to worship women's bodies -- is Noble challenged to rethink the decades-old mystery of his family tragedy. Faced with an ominous choice, Noble finally comes to accept an enormous duty he's long tried to ignore. Soon, perhaps for the first time, his future seems hopeful.

Nil Nil


Don Paterson - 1995
    The book presented a new and urgent poetry of dream-life, mystery and music, sexual obsession and the consolations of drink - all delivered with great formal skill and imaginative daring.'One of the finest first books of poems I've read for ages.' Paul Muldoon'If you are wondering whether great poems are still being written, you ought to read Don Paterson's.' Charles Simic'One of the most ferociously talented of all British poets.' Catherine Lockerbie

Creator


Jeremy Leven - 1980
    And that's only part of the story. Dr. Harry Wolper, an aging Noble Prize-winning biologist, is attempting to create life-specifically, to re-create his adored late wife by implanting her clone in a loving but reluctant 19-year-old nymphomaniac, and do it before his conventional son can have him committed to an asylum. Creator is a love story, a comedy, a zany account of science running amok, and a moving and tragic account of our biological and imaginative limitations and the struggle we wage against them. Creator was turned into a feature film starring Peter O'Toole and Mariel Hemingway.

The Far Mosque


Kazim Ali - 2005
    Ali travels by water and by night, seeking the Far Mosque and its overarching paradox: that when God and Self are one, an ascent into Heaven is a voyage within.

The Man in the Iron Mask


Elizabeth Gray - 2002
    Should D'Artagnan keep his promise and protect the headstrong and selfish King Louis or should he do what was right for France and put Philippe on the throne? But will Philippe really be a better King than Louis? Alexander Dumas' thrilling tale of one man's struggle with the conscience take us into 17th century France and examines the lives of people in power and those at their mercy

The Salt Ecstasies


James L. White - 1981
    White's The Salt Ecstasies—originally published in 1982, shortly after White's untimely death—has earned a reputation for its artful and explicit expression of love and desire. In this new edition, with an introduction by Mark Doty and previously unpublished works by White, his invaluable poetry is again available—clear, passionate, and hard-earned.The Salt Ecstasies is a new book in the Graywolf Poetry Re/View Series, edited by Doty, dedicated to bringing essential books of contemporary American poetry back into print.

Like a Beggar


Ellen Bass - 2014
    Those who turn to poetry to become confidants for another's stories and secrets will not be disappointed.”—Publishers Weekly“In her fifth book of poetry, Bass addresses everything from Saturn’s rings and Newton’s law of gravitation to wasps and Pablo Neruda. Her words are nostalgic, vivid, and visceral. Bass arrives at the truth of human carnality rooted in the extraordinary need and promise of the individual. Bass shows us that we are as radiant as we are ephemeral, that in transience glistens resilient history and the remarkable fluidity of connection. By the collection’s end—following her musings on suicide and generosity, desire and repetition—it becomes lucidly clear that Bass is not only a poet but also a philosopher and a storyteller.”—BooklistEllen Bass brings a deft touch as she continues her ongoing interrogations of crucial moral issues of our times, while simultaneously delighting in endearing human absurdities. From the start of Like a Beggar, Bass asks her readers to relax, even though "bad things are going to happen," because the "bad" gets mined for all manner of goodness.From "Another Story":After dinner, we're drinking scotch at the kitchen table.Janet and I just watched a NOVA specialand we're explaining to her motherthe age and size of the universe—the hundred billion stars in the hundred billion galaxies.Dotty lives at Dominican Oaks, making her way down the long hall.How about the sun? she asks, a little farmshit in the endlessness.I gather up a cantaloupe, a lime, a cherry,and start revolving this salad around the chicken carcass.This is the best scotch I ever tasted, Dotty says,even though we gave her the Maker's Markwhile we're drinking Glendronach...Ellen Bass's poetry includes  Like A Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), The Human Line  (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), which was named a Notable Book by the San Francisco Chronicle, and Mules of Love (BOA, 2002), which won the Lambda Literary Award.  She co-edited (with Florence Howe) the groundbreaking No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (Doubleday, 1973). Her work has frequently been published in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The New Republic, The Sun  and many other journals. She is co-author of several non-fiction books, including The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins, 1988, 2008) which has sold over a million copies and been translated into twelve languages. She is part of the core faculty of the MFA writing program at Pacific University.

River Hymns


Tyree Daye - 2017
    River Hymns is the lyrical journey of a young black man’s spiritual reckoning with his family history.

Bonfire Opera: Poems


Danusha Laméris - 2020
    Here in Bonfire Opera, grief and Eros grapple in the same domain. A bullet-hole through the heart, a house full of ripe persimmons, a ghost in a garden. Coyotes cry out on the hill, and lovers find themselves kissing, “bee-stung, drunk” in the middle of road. Here, the dust is holy, as is the dark, unknown. These are poems that praise the impossible, wild world, finding beauty in its wake.  Excerpt from “Bonfire Opera”   In those days, there was a woman in our circle who was known, not only for her beauty, but also for taking off all her clothes and singing opera. And sure enough, as the night wore on and the stars emerged to stare at their reflections on the sea, and everyone had drunk a little wine, she began to disrobe, loose her great bosom and the tender belly, pale in the moonlight, the Viking hips, and to let her torn raiment fall to the sand as we looked up from the flames.

Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children


Dave Newman - 2012
    The novel tries to capture the humanity and heartbreak of one man's struggle to navigate the vicissitudes of life as a working writer in America.

Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall


Ken Sparling - 1996
    A wonderful debut, this funny yet sad novel recounts a young man's attempt--as father, husband, and son--to put together the pieces of an ordinary, and at the same time, very puzzling life.