Book picks similar to
The Shoe-Horn Sonata by John Misto


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Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean


Ed Graczyk - 1982
    Now middle-aged women, they were teenagers when Dean filmed Giant two decades ago in nearby Marfa. One of them, an extra in the film, has a child whom she says was conceived with Dean during the shoot. The ladies' congenial reminiscences mingle with flash backs to their youth; then the arrival of a stunning but familiar stranger se

The Gardener's Son: a screenplay


Cormac McCarthy - 1996
    Though already a widely acclaimed novelist, the author of such modern classics as "The Orchard Keeper" and "Child of God," McCarthy had never before written a screenplay. Using nothing more than a few photographs in the footnotes to a 1928 biography of a famous pre-Civil War industrialist as inspiration, the author and Pearce together roamed the mill towns of the South researching their subject. One year later McCarthy finished "The Gardener's Son," a taut, riveting drama of impotence, rage, and ultimately violence spanning two generations of mill owners and workers, fathers and sons, during the rise and fall of one of America's most bizarre utopian industrial experiments. Produced as a two-hour film and broadcast on PBS in 1976, "The Gardener's Son" recieved two Emmy Award nominations and was shown at the Berlin and Edinburgh Film Festivals. This is the first appearance of the film script in book form.Set in Graniteville, South Carolina, "The Gardener's Son" is the tale of two families: the Greggs, a wealthy family that owns and operates the local cotton mill, and the McEvoys, a family of mill workers beset by misfortune. The action opens as Robert McEvoy, a young mill worker, is having his leg amputated -- the limb mangled in an accident rumored to have been caused by James Gregg, son of the mill's founder. McEvoy, crippled and isolated, grows into a man with a "troubled heart"; consumed by bitterness and anger, he deserts both his job and his family. Returning two years later at the news of his mother's terminal illness, Robert McEvoy arrives only to confront the grave diggers preparing her final resting place. His father, the mill's gardener, is now working on the factory line, the gardens forgotten. These proceedings stoke the slow burning rage McEvoy carries within him, a fury that ultimately consumes both the McEvoys and the Greggs.

Complete Works of Oscar Wilde


Oscar Wilde - 1908
    It contains his only novel, The Portrait of Dorian Gray as well as his plays, stories, poems, essays and letters. Illustrated with many photographs, the book includes introductions to each section by Wilde's grandon, Merlin Holoand, Owen Dudley Edwards, Declan Kibertd and Terence Brown. A comprehensive bibliography of works by and about Oscar Wilde together with a chronological table of his life and work are also included.

Beckett: Waiting for Godot (Landmarks of World Literature (New))


Lawrence Graver - 1989
    This volume presents a comprehensive critical study of Samuel Beckett's first and most renowned dramatic work. Lawrence Graver discusses the play's background and provides a detailed analysis of its originality and distinction as a landmark of modern theatrical art. He also reviews some of the differences between Beckett's original French version and his English translation.

Poverty Is No Crime


Aleksandr Ostrovsky - 1854
    In the earlier play Ostrovsky had adopted a satiric tone that proved him a worthy disciple of Gogol, the great founder of Russian realism. Not one lovable character appears in that gloomy picture of merchant life in Moscow; even the old mother repels us by her stupidity more than she attracts us by her kindliness. No ray of light penetrates the "realm of darkness" -- to borrow a famous phrase from a Russian critic -- conjured up before us by the young dramatist. In Poverty Is No Crime we see the other side of the medal. Ostrovsky had now been affected by the Slavophile school of writers and thinkers, who found in the traditions of Russian society treasures of kindliness and love that they contrasted with the superficial glitter of Western civilization. Life in Russia is varied as elsewhere, and Ostrovsky could change his tone without doing violence to realistic truth. The tradesmen had not wholly lost the patriarchal charm of their peasant fathers. A poor apprentice is the hero of Poverty Is No Crime, and a wealthy manufacturer the villain of the piece. Good-heartedness is the touchstone by which Ostrovsky tries character, and this may be hidden beneath even a drunken and degraded exterior. The scapegrace, Lyubim Tortsov, has a sound Russian soul, and at the end of the play rouses his hard, grasping brother, who has been infatuated by a passion for aping foreign fashions, to his native Russian worth. Alexander Ostrovsky (1823-1886) was an early Russian Realist whose work led to the founding of the Moscow Arts Theatre and to the career of Stanislavsky. He has been acknowledged to be the greatest of the Russian dramatists.

In the Blood


Suzan-Lori Parks - 2000
    Her eldest child is teaching her how to read and write, but the letter "A" is, so far, the only letter she knows. Her five kids are named Jabber, Bully, Trouble, Beauty and Baby, and the characters are played by adult actors who double as five other people in Hester's life: her ex-boyfriend, her social worker, her doctor, her best friend and her minister. While Hester's kids fill her life with joy —lovingly comical moments amid the harsh world of poverty — the adults with whom she comes into contact only hold her back. Nothing can stop the play's tragic end.

White Gardenia


Belinda Alexandra - 2002
    Both mother and daughter must make sacrifices, but is the price too high? Most importantly of all, will they ever find each other again?Rich in incident and historical detail, this is a compelling and beautifully written tale about yearning and forgiveness.White Gardenia announces the arrival of a powerful new talent.

Father of the Bride: A Comedy in Three Acts


Caroline Francke - 1948
    Banks learns that one of the young men he has seen occasionally about the house is about to become his son-in-law. Daughter Kay announces the engagement out of nowhere. Mrs. Banks and her sons are happy, but Mr. Banks is in a dither. The groom-to-be, Buckley Dunstan, appears on the scene and Mr. Banks realizes that the engagement is serious. Buckley and Kay don't want a "big" wedding just a simple affair with a few friends! We soon learn, however, that the "few" friends idea is out. Then trouble really begins. The guest list grows larger each day, a caterer is called in, florists, furniture movers and dressmakers take over, and the Banks household is soon caught in turmoil.

The Collected Plays, Vol. 4


Neil Simon - 1998
    For more than thirty years, Simon's wry and astute observations on life, love, and the human condition have been making audiences laugh uproariously even as his beautifully realized characters touch their hearts. These five plays, including the Pulitzer- and Tony-award-winning Lost in Yonkers, show Simon at the pinnacle of his extraordinary career. Rumors Lost in Yonkers Jake's Women Laughter on the 23rd Floor London Suite Including the author's introduction: "How to Stop Writing and Other Impossibilities"

The Mousetrap: A Play


Agatha Christie - 1952
    Who can it be? One by one the suspicious characters reveal their sordid pasts until at the last, nerve-shredding moment the identity and the motive are finally revealed.The Mousetrap is the longest-running play in the history of London's West End

The Producers


Mel Brooks - 2002
    This songbook contains easy piano arrangements of a dozen songs from Mel Brooks' Broadway blockbuster, the winner of a record 12 Tony Awards! Includes: Along Came Bialy * Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop * Goodbye! * Haben Sie Gehort Das Deutsche Band? * I Wanna Be a Producer * In Old Bavaria * Keep It Gay * Prisoners of Love * Springtime for Hitler * That Face * 'Til Him * When You Got It, Flaunt It.

Dust of the Land


J.H. Fletcher - 2014
    Bella Tucker has come a long way. Born illegitimate and banished to the London slums by her vindictive stepmother, at six Bella is rescued by her grandfather and brought up as a member of the aristocratic Richmond family. Her future seems assured when shefalls passionately in love with Charles Hardy, heir to the wealthy Hardy estate — until her grandfather’s death changes everything…Heartbroken and headstrong, Bella flees to Australia, where she is offered a job by the charismatic Garth Tucker, owner - of Miranda Downs, a vast cattle station in the stunning and remote Pilbara region. After several near disasters, she finds herself falling in love with Garth amidst the dust, heat and the endless expanse of bush.Together, Bella and Garth become major players in the new mining industry, allowing Bella to build her dream home, the sprawling homestead, ‘Desire’. But after Garth’s unfortunate death, Bella is forced to deal with circumstances that bring the family close to ruin… and the business Bella and Garth have built to the brink of collapse.Can Bella untangle the lies and save the business and her family home? And will she ever lay eyes again on the man she never ceased to love, Charles Hardy?

Candy


Luke Davies - 1997
    She's breathing gently, long slow breaths. I imagine her soul going in and out: wanting to leave, wanting to come back, wanting to leave, wanting to come back. The day will soon harden into what we need to do. But for now we have each other. . . ."He met Candy amid a lush Sydney summer. Gorgeous, sexy, free-spirited Candy. They fell in love fast, lots of laughter and lust, the days melting warmly into each other. He never planned to give her a habit. But she wanted a taste. And wasn't love, after all, about sharing lives? Candy had a bit of money and in the beginning, everything was beautiful. Heady, heroin-hazed days, the world open and inviting. But when the money ran out, the craving remained, and the days ceased their luxurious stretch.But there was still love. Only now, it was a threesome. Heroin had its own demands, its own timetable, and thoughts of nabbing the next fix hurled them into each day. Then, when desperation sets in, Candy will stop at nothing to secure a blast, as she and her lover become hostage to the nightmarish world of addiction. Painful, sexy, tender, and charged with dark humor, Candy provocatively charts the daily rituals of two lovers maintaining a long-term junk habit. Told in stunningly vivid prose and set against the backdrop of suburban and urban Australia, Candy is both an electrifying and frightening glimpse of contemporary life and love.

Woman and Scarecrow


Marina Carr - 2006
    What was life? What was love? What else could have been? Full of mordant, bitter humour, this is a passionate threnody from one of Ireland's leading playwrights.Woman and Scarecrow premieres at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in June 2006.

The Complete Plays


Joe Orton - 1967
    This volume contains every play written by Joe Orton, who emerged in the 1960s as the most talented comic playwright in recent English history and was considered the direct successor to Wilde, Shaw, and Coward.