Book picks similar to
Far from Algiers by Djelloul Marbrook


poetry
4-stars
contemporary
less-than-1-000-reviews

The Human Line


Ellen Bass - 2007
    It’s the way I embody my love for the world.” The Human Line, Bass’ seventh book of poems, startles with its precise detail, intimate images, and wild metaphors. Bass brings attention to life’s endearing absurdities, and many of the poems flash with a keen sense of humor. She also faces many of the crucial moral dilemmas of our time—genetic engineering, environmental issues, continuous war, heterosexism—and grounds her vision in the small, private workings of the heart.  . . . When I get home,my son has a headache, and though he’salmost grown, asks me to sing him a song.We lie together on the lumpy couchand I warble out the old show tunes, Night and Day . . . They Can’t Take That Away from Me . . . A cheapsilver chain shimmers across his throatrising and falling with his pulse. There never wasanything else. Only these excruciatinglyinsignificant creatures we love. Ellen Bass is co-author of the million-selling book Courage to Heal. She lives and teaches in Santa Cruz, California.

All I Want is that Hood Love


Mercedes G. - 2015
    Twenty-four year old NaTaysia is convinced the only man that is capable of loving her is her handsome, sophisticated husband JaMel Taylor. JaMel is the only man she has known emotionally, physically and mentally. That is, until she runs into the notorious De’Carlos Banks, known to the streets as Mega. His cockiness, craziness, and thug demeanor is just too much for her to resist. NaTaysia finds herself head over heels for Mega when he opens her eyes to a life only one can imagine. JaMel is a businessman who has a few secrets of his own. He loves NaTaysia more than he loves himself but finds himself in a world of trouble when his manly instincts takes over and he can no longer fight temptation. Mega is a known Boss in every city he touches down in. Owning the drug game for over a decade, he has the world in his possession. The only thing missing is someone to share it with. After being captivated by NaTaysia, he is determined for them to be together by any means.

Savages Next Door


Myra Brightholme - 2018
    And it seems like two bad guys live next door to me… Moving into a shady neighborhood was scary to me. I expected the problems, but I didn’t expect the two scary guys living across from me, or the animal need I quickly developed for them. With a crazy ex, a psychopath tracking my sister to kidnap her and her child, and money problems, I don’t have time to think about myself. And yet… I can’t help but become more and more attracted to them. Both of them want me, and I’m stuck in the middle. I can’t choose either of them… should I take both? This is a full-length novel with an HEA. Over 60,000 words of pleasure! 18+ Only. Enjoy!

A Conceptual Circus


Kenneth Jarrett Singleton - 2017
    Carry your sword, my prophetess. Obstinate contumacy training. Find the objective that is more draining. More strenuous tasks will make you grow. Pain upon you I bestow. I’ll take it all and nothing less. I claim it back; I repossess. Tip the scale; Turn it over. Mark the unused; What’s leftover. The main part no longer exists; Despite the reduction, it persists. Continued movement; A quest for traction. An opposite and negative reaction. Hex induced metamorphosis; Reoccur once again for us. Physically and internally changing. The process of rearranging. The alteration was so fitting. Now they’re pausing; They’re intermitting. In reaffirming the causation; Keep kempt, and maintain your original explanation. Wear our serpent, prophetess; Prior to you was profitless. The soil was sown with no reaping. Tear our hearts out for your keeping. Beyond the boundaries of what is permitted. Reward me for the sins I’ve committed. My acts were bold; Caress my flesh. I give it all and nothing less. The facsimile will shudder. Express what it is I utter. Amidst psychos and others. Among psychos and others. Live with vigor; Efficiently transfigure. Disfigure; Change his figure. Make it so; Mark the torso. Undergo; Nock the torso. Let it grow; Open the torso. Let him know; Carve the torso.

Devil in a Coma


Mark Lanegan - 2021
    Admitted to Kerry Hospital and initially given little hope of survival, Lanegan's illness has him slipping in and out of a coma, unable to walk or function for several months and fearing for his life.As his situation becomes more intolerable over the course of that bleakest of springs he is assaulted by nightmares, visions and regrets about a life lived on the edge of chaos and disorder. He is prompted to consider his predicament and how, in his sixth decade, his lifelong battle with mortality has led to this final banal encounter with a disease that has undone millions, when he has apparently been cheating death for his whole existence.Written in vignettes of prose and poetry, Devil In A Coma is a terrifying account of illness and the remorse that comes with it by an artist and writer with singular vision.

Waiting on Love


Leah Atwood - 2016
    For seven years, she has raised her daughter without a father, however, the dream never died. Scott Lamar never meant to abandon his daughter and pregnant girlfriend, but life happened, and college provided a means of escape. All that changed when he found faith in God, and now he wants to make up for his past mistakes. He concocts a plan that sounds crazy to most, but he pushes forward, determined to be a part of his daughter’s life. Waiting on Love is a bonus Christmas novella in the Modern Convenience series. It can be read as a standalone, but you can read the story of Tanya’s brother, Archer, in Calling Love.

The Hounds of No


Lara Glenum - 2005
    Lara Glenum was raised in the gothic South, studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Virgina, and now teaches at the University of Georgia. In this entirely unheimlich debut, she enters the stage of American poetry like a Fritz Lang glamor-girl-cum-anatomical-model. Glenum recovers the political intensity and daring of the Surrealist project. The extraordinary precision of these poems is so stunning, we can't help but feel blinded by their visions: sock-monkeys, dollhouses, and a circus made of meat vibrate between the playful and the brutal so deftly, each line is a perfect shard of some fantastic planet, gloriously and sadly like our own. As in Blake's apocalyptic images, the sky rolls itself up like a scroll--brilliant in its colors and infinite in its scope. Glorious!--D.A. Powell.

The Loving Touch


Stoni Alexander - 2018
    But when forced into the spotlight at a DC fundraiser and auctioned off to a gorgeous stranger from out of town, she makes a bold choice. No strings. No regrets. And very little sleep...Hospitality Magnate Jagger Loving--sexy, bad boy of Loving Resorts--offers everything from exotic to erotic at his luxurious, couples-only properties. Days before the launch of his first US-based hotel, a sudden setback throws his world into chaos and the grand opening promises to be a colossal flop. In walks his short-term fix...the strikingly beautiful Taylor Hathaway. But he knows her as Raven. And that's not all he remembers about her.​Thrust together, they can't deny their powerful attraction. While Jagger is forced to confront past sins to save his empire, Taylor must conquer a lifetime of insecurities to ensure he succeeds. Everything hinges on trust...and the obstacles each must overcome to prove their love is eternal.***Author's Note*** THE LOVING TOUCH, Book Three of The Touch Series, is a Novella.

Vantage


Taneum Bambrick - 2019
    Bambrick began writing poems in order to document the forms of violence she witnessed towards the people and the environment of the Columbia River. While working there she found that reservoirs foster a uniquely complex community--from fish biologists to the owners of luxury summer homes--and became interested in the issues and tensions between the people of that place. The idea of power, literal and metaphorical, was present in every action and encounter with bosses and the people using the river. The presence of a young woman on the crew irritated her older, male co-workers who'd logged, built houses, and had to suffer various forms of class discrimination their entire lives. She found throughout this experience that their issues, while not the same, were inherently connected to the suffering of the lands they worked. Introduction by Sharon Olds.

The Map That Contains Us


Marla Miniano - 2017
    From Ann Siang Road in Singapore to Matnog in Sorsogon, from Amsterdam to Tokyo to Hawaii, they explore love, loss, life, and loneliness in this collection, hoping to finally find their place in this world.

100 Selected Poems, Emily Dickinson


Emily Dickinson - 2019
    

Delight


Erin Osborne - 2020
    I've had more responsibility on my shoulders than anyone else I've ever known. I'm not a woman; I'm a mother without having a child, a provider, and independent because my life made me that way. Now, my life seems to be changing better than I ever let myself dream possible. Can I keep the one person in my life I want, or will he choose to walk away because life happens when you least expect it?Killian 'Bounce' GravesI'm the Enforcer for Kings Vengeance MC. I do my job and take it seriously. The club is my family and my life. I don't want an ol' lady and kids aren't even a blip on my radar. I didn't grow up with good role models and I won't bring a child up the way I was. being a member of the club and working at Legacies, our strip club, I get all the women I want and don't need any complications. Until one woman changes the way I want to spend my life. Can I keep her? Or will someone's past rear it's ugly head to ruin us before we get started?

Come Love with Me and Be My Life: The Collected Romantic Poetry of Peter McWilliams


Peter McWilliams - 1967
    It tells about love desired, love lost, love enjoyed, love lost and love -- a different kind of love -- found again.

Blush


CICI B - 2016
    B is known for her amazing ability to make readers feel like they are walking beside her with every page that they turn, and this book, the follow up to the notorious "Letters To My Ex," is another testament to that. Fresh out of an intense break-up, and with her three closest friends by her side, Cici brings you with her as she learns what it means to take back control of her life, and to be her own woman. Completely raw and unfiltered, as always, she doesn't hold back. This is a story for the modern day grown woman. It will make you smile, laugh out loud, hold your breath, bite your bottom lip, and most importantly... Blush.

Highly Unstable


Mayank - 2020