He can be elegant as a slow blues." The Nick Tosches Reader is the author's own selection of his best work over the past thirty years, including fiction, poetry, interviews, rock writing, investigative journalism, and criticism. First published in major magazines, obscure underground periodicals, and his own best-selling books, many of these selections deal with rock 'n' roll and cultural icons—but there are also pieces on everything from William Faulkner to organized crime to heavyweight boxing, including the Vanity Fair feature that gave rise to Tosches's major new book on Sonny Liston, published by Little, Brown. Here is "a unique and darkly impressionistic cultural history" of the last three decades as only Nick Tosches could write it.

    Published posthumously in 1971, they add a startling counterpoint to Ariel, the volume that made her reputation. Readers will recognise some of her most celebrated poems – ‘Childless Woman’, ‘Mirror’, ‘Insomniac’ – while discovering those still overlooked, including her radio play Three Women. These two extraordinary volumes find their place alongside The Colossus and Ariel in the oeuvre of a singular talent.

    Madcap but sincere, pulsating with strong social and philosophical undercurrents, his irreverent classics have introduced countless readers to hitchhiking cowgirls, born-again monkeys, a philosophizing can of beans, exiled royalty, and problematic redheads.In Tibetan Peach Pie, Robbins turns that unparalleled literary sensibility inward, weaving together stories of his unconventional life–from his Appalachian childhood to his globe-trotting adventures–told in his unique voice, which combines the sweet and sly, the spiritual and earthy. The grandchild of Baptist preachers, Robbins would become, over the course of half a century, a poet interruptus, a soldier, a meteorologist, a radio DJ, an art-critic-turned-psychedelic-journeyman, a world-famous novelist, and a counterculture hero, leading a life as unlikely, magical, and bizarre as those of his quixotic characters.Robbins offers intimate snapshots of Appalachia during the Great Depression, the West Coast during the sixties' psychedelic revolution, international roving before Homeland Security monitored our travels, and New York publishing when it still relied on trees.Written with the big-hearted comedy and mesmerizing linguistic invention for which Robbins is known, Tibetan Peach Pie is an invitation into the private world of a literary legend.

    The author discusses, regret, anxiousness, racial issues, craving for love, and much more. Tavon gets deeply personal and introspective, in hopes of helping those who are in need of self-healing too. "Entrapped inside your Heart-shaped box For lonely years You’ve left me here To survive off hope and tears I know your return is unlikely Unlike me, You have a gift Of hurting others with a smile Luring your victims Into the traps of your eyes I enjoy this place Although it’s often cold It has pockets of warmth In your Heart-Shaped Box I’ll forever be stored Waiting for you Love me more Than August loves to storm."

    It’s a miracle that he’s friends with Pico della Mirandola, the Count of Concordia. It’s a miracle that when Girolamo visits the deathbed of Lorenzo “the Magnificent,” the dying Medici is wreathed in celestial light, a surprise to everyone, Lorenzo included. It’s a miracle that when Charles VIII of France invades northern Italy, Girolamo meets him in the field, and convinces him to not only spare Florence but also protect it. It’s a miracle than whenever Girolamo preaches, crowds swoon. It’s a miracle that, despite the Pope’s determination to bring young Girolamo to heel, he’s still on the loose… and, now, running Florence in all but name.That’s only the beginning. Because Girolamo Savanarola is not who—or what—he thinks he is. He will discover the truth about himself at the most startling possible time. And this will be only the beginning of his many lives.

    Get minky in the momodrome with Lara Glenum's second book, MAXIMUM GAGA. In scenic Catatonia, the Normopath snoozles, the Cherubim applaud, King Minus lies face-down, the Visual Mercenaries burst in, Icky and his school-boy minions race past, and the Queen Naked Mole Rat climbs inside the miraculating machine. Reworking the tabloid maximalism of Jacobean drama, this book investigates the politics of aesthetics and prosthetics, gender and power. With original cover art by Swedish artist Mia Makila. Lara Glenum's first book, THE HOUNDS OF NO, is also available from SPD.

                         —from “The Return of Colored Only” Skin, Inc. is Thomas Sayers Ellis’s big, ambitious argument in sound and image for an America whose identity is in need of repair. In lyric sequences and with his own photographs, Ellis traverses the African American and American literary landscapes—along the way adding race fearlessness to past and present literary styles and themes, and perform-a-forming tributes for the Godfather of Soul, James Brown; the King of Pop, Michael Jackson; and the election of President Barack Obama. Part manifesto, part identity repair kit, part plea for poetic wholeness, this collection worries and self-defends, eulogizes and casts a vote, raises a fist and, often, an intimidating song. One sequence is written as a sonic/ visual diagram of pronouns and vowels; another quotes from editors’ rejections of his own poetry included in the book; another poem, “Race Change Operation,” begins: “When I awake I will be white, the color of law.” Skin, Inc. is the latest work by one of the most audacious and provocative poets now writing.

    Kennedy, Groucho Marx, Charles Dickens, Katharine Hepburn, Mick Jagger, Steve Martin, Clementine Churchill, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut and many more.

    Two of the three novellas here have never before been published in English, and all of them show an early preoccupation with the themes-illness and madness, isolation, tragic friendships-that would obsess Bernhard throughout his career. Amras, one of his earliest works, tells the story of two brothers, one epileptic, who have survived a family suicide pact and are now living in a ruined tower, struggling with madness, trying either to come fully back to life or finally to die. In Playing Watten, the narrator, a doctor who lost his practice due to morphine abuse, describes a visit paid him by a truck driver who wanted the doctor to return to his habit of playing a game of cards (watten) every Wednesday—a habit that the doctor had interrupted when one of the players killed himself. The last novella, Walking, records the conversations of the narrator and his friend Oehler while they walk, discussing anything that comes to mind but always circling back to their mutual friend Karrer, who has gone irrevocably mad. Perhaps the most overtly philosophical work in Bernhard’s highly philosophical oeuvre, Walking provides a penetrating meditation on the impossibility of truly thinking.Three Novellas offers a superb introduction to the fiction of perhaps the greatest unsung hero of twentieth-century literature. Rarely have the words suffocating, intense, and obsessive been meant so positively.

    Feel Free, his fourth collection, effortlessly spans the Atlantic, combining the acoustic expansiveness of Whitman or Ashbery with the lyricism of Laird's forebears Heaney, MacNeice and Yeats. With characteristic variety, invention and wit (here are elegies, monologues, formal poems and free verse) the poet explores the sundry patterns of freedom and constraint - the family, the impress of history, the body itself - and how we might transcend them.Feel Free is always daring, always renewing, and Laird's most remarkable work to date.

    Yet sometimes other things in our lives can be so overwhelming that we forget their healing power. In this inspiring book, bestselling author Maeve Haran describes how the little things in life can prove to be the most satisfying. Swapping jokes with a shopkeeper or getting a smile from another driver when you let them into the traffic makes you feel better about yourself than any self-help book. "Froth on the Cappuccino" celebrates hundreds of everyday delights all designed to remind us how joyous life is.

    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Yoshida Kenko (c. 1283-1352). Kenko's work is included in Penguin Classics in Essays in Idleness and Hojoki.

    At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenore’s great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho-babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.

     Giselle Bowman never thought she'd be descended from a Greek god...or a monster. Klutzes and small-town girls don't find out they're descended from the Greek gods. They don't get taken to Olympian Academy to learn to hone their godlike powers. But when Giselle accidentally summons a void that almost eats her friend, it's done. Except she doesn't get sorted into Olympian, but to Cursed Academy, where the descendants of dark gods and the monsters from Greek mythology learn to serve their betters. And that's just the start. Giselle 1.) has a new type of magic never seen before and 2.) gets to deal with an epic jerk, Ronin, from Olympian Academy next door. He's a descendant of Zeus, totally hot, and very out of her league. Giselle quickly learns her void-summoning powers aren't normal and that an unknown enemy--perhaps someone in Cursed Academy already--seeks to use her for a plan so vile, it threatens the gods and the modern world. With nowhere else to turn, Giselle must seek help from Ronin, who might have a clue on what she is. If only he'd stop making fun of her every time she trips over her shoelaces. Is Giselle ready to learn the terrifying truth about herself and her powers? Cursed Academy is a teen supernatural academy romance series based on the dark side of Greek mythology. The next book in the series, One and a Half, is now available for preorder. Keywords: teen academy romance, supernatural academy, teen academy, Greek mythology, paranormal academy, magic academy, magical academy, myths, young adult academy romance, series, book one, monster, contemporary fantasy, first year, year one, teen academy books, magic dark cursed deity powers elemental bully teen academy romance supernatural tracker siren song villain year one freshman magical mythical creatures mythological