Especially, if you are different. The (un)Lucky Sperm is a funny memoir — a collection of honest, harrowing and absurd accounts.Until he was seventeen, Brett Preiss lived in the dusty outback of Australia, where he was one of four siblings in a dysfunctional family. He learned how to survive under the most bizarre and extraordinary circumstances.In this book, he shares the trials and tribulations of his youth through anecdotes that will leave you in tears of joy or sorrow. Travel back to the ’60s and ’70s and watch Brett transform from a sperm to adolescence. Follow him having his first piano lesson, first sewing machine, first kiss and first ejaculation. The story is moving and disturbing, brutal yet hilarious. Cheer him along in his struggles and triumphs until he leaves the desert and heads off to college.If you like stories full of sarcasm and observational humor, then you are going to love this book.

    Venturing out of the closet and feeling free (at last!) from small-town America, Steven found his niche among the quirky and kindred spirits of the city's musical theater hopefuls." "But on Christmas Eve of 1980, just after Steven arrived in New Jersey to celebrate the holidays, his father contracted a sudden and rare neurological disorder that left him paralyzed. Stepping up to the plate and back into the closet, Steven returned to West Long Branch to help the family out and to take over Clint's Corner, his father's luncheonette. He soon found himself at the grill flipping porkroll (the unofficial state meat) and serving a counter full of eccentrics including Googie the Gizmo, Half Cup Harold, and Steven's old high-school jock crush, Brent Jamison. And always at his side was the most colorful of them all, Dolores, the crusty head waitress with coke-bottle glasses, a wayward wig, and a particular flair for butchering the English language. From this unusual post, Steven watched as his ailing father refused to accept defeat. Confined to a wheelchair, yet determined and optimistic, Clint Sorrentino ignored all the medical setbacks and even managed to further his own career in local politics. Yet for Steven, the more his father triumphed over the obstacles, the more his own life seemed to stall." Guilty, confused, and stuck behind the counter, Steven made a shocking and desperate decision - not knowing that he was about to stumble upon the secret of his father's resilience. Steven had returned home to save his father, but in the end, his father saved him.

    When Max Andrews, the much-loved and handsome (lonely and gay) host of "Slumber Sunday Sundown" accidentally exposes himself in front of twenty million kids and their parents during a "Toys for Tots" segment, Sellevision faces its first big scandal. As Max fails to find a job in television, another host, the popular and perky Peggy Jean Smythe is receiving sinister emails about her appearance from a stalker. Popping pills and drinking heavily, she fails to notice that her husband is spending a lot of time with the very young babysitter who lives next door. Then there's Leigh, whose affair with Sellevision boss Howard Toast is going nowhere, until she exposes him on air; and Bebe, Sellevision's star host, who finds Mr. Right through the Internet--if she can just stop her shopping addiction from taking over.

    We all know one! They like to groan and grumble, offering their own commentary on the shortcomings of modern life. Whether it is queues at the supermarket, the state of the health system, the price of a pint these days, the hairstyles of teenagers, or the number of Maltesers you actually get in a bag, there is always something that will get their goat. 'The Grumpy Old Git's Guide to Life' is a hilarious celebration of all these grumps, how to identify one, what exactly they find so irritating and why we find their rants quite so amusing.

     OB staff members write in with their strangest encounters, medics recall embarrassing moments, and nurses vent about frustrating incidents. We learn about even more odd things patients have gotten stuck in their orifices, and we share the laughter and confusion with the healthcare professionals who treated these patients. So, take this book to your nurses lounge to flip through while you're on break (WHAT BREAK?!), read it while you're staging, catch up on all the drama on your day off, or relive all the craziness while you're enjoying your retirement. You WILL laugh as you read firsthand accounts from healthcare professionals who share their experiences as a reminder that you are NOT alone, and you're not losing your mind!

     He gives often moving, and frequently comic, portraits of his great teachers in England -- such men as Lord David Cecil, Nevill Coghill, and W. H. Auden, who was the most distinguished English-language poet of those years. In London the poet and editor Stephen Spender becomes his first publisher and a generous friend who introduces him to rewarding figures like the essayist Cyril Connolly and George Orwell's encouraging widow, Sonia. He spends rich months traveling in Britain and on the Continent; and above all he undergoes the first loves of his life -- one with an Oxford colleague whom he describes as a "romantic friend" and another with an older man. Back in the States, in his first class at Duke he meets a startlingly gifted student in the sixteen-year-old Anne Tyler; and he soon combines the difficult pleasures of teaching English composition and literature with his own hard delight in learning to write a first novel. At the end of three lonely years, he completes the novel -- A Long and Happy Life -- and returns to England for a fourth year before his novel appears in Britain and America and meets with a success that sets the pace for an ongoing life of fiction, poetry, plays, essays, and translations (Ardent Spirits is his thirty-eighth volume). The droll memories recorded here amount to the unsurpassed -- and, again, often comical -- story of a writer's beginnings; and the young man who emerges has proven his right to stand by his fellows of whatever sex and goal. Ardent Spirits is a book that penetrates deeply into the life of a writer, a teacher, and a steadfast lover.

    Her signature voice made songs such as, "I Only Want to Be With You," "Son of A Preacher Man," and "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," international hits. In Dancing With Demons, two of her closest friends, Valentine and Wickham, capture, with vivid memories and personal anecdotes, a Dusty most people never glimpsed in this no-holds-barred yet touching portrait of one of the world's true grand dames of popular music.

    His humor and short fiction appear in various publications throughout the Southeast.

    

    Despite the group’s warm welcome, Kina (Nayfack) prepares for her life-altering operation all alone. But a caring nurse (Ivory Aquino), a wise couple (Kate Bornstein and Annie Golden), and a karaoke-loving bellhop (Telly Leung) may be exactly who she needs to ignite her truest sense of self. WTF Associate Artistic Director Laura Savia directs this spirited comedy about a woman who tests the bonds of an unlikely sisterhood.The playwright wishes to thank The Drama League's Beatrice Terry Residency, Daryl Roth, Natasha Sinha, Beehive Dramaturgy Studio, Playwrights Horizons, Rachel Jett, Daryl Roth, and the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Theatre Institute.Note: This play contains mature themes and language.

    Sometimes it's a lesson about parenting. Other times, it's about the relationship between husbands and wives (or husbands and husbands, as the case may be). Or maybe it's about getting along with your adult parents, or your spouse's parents. What audiences, critics, and Emmy voters have all loved is how the writers and actors of Modern Family present all these dilemmas in a new, fresh, and incredibly funny way. There are plenty of books out there that tell you how to deal with your mother, but this one will give the reader advice about what to do when she shows up at a family reunion with your old boyfriend as her date.The book will be organized subject ? parents, children, spouses, brothers and sisters, holidays, pets, and many other topics still to be determined. There will be black and white illustrations throughout, and each chapter will have an introduction written by a Modern Family character.

    Prefacing these stories are contributions from 5 local commentators who share their personal reflections on the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities in Singapore. They are: Mrs Juliana Toh, Executive Director of Counselling and Care Centre; Reverend Yap Kim Hao, former Methodist Bishop of Singapore; transgender activist Ms Leona Lo; and former Nominated Members of Parliament Ms Braema Mathi and Mr Siew Kum Hong. The book also contains a glossary of the common terms used to describe the diversity within the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities, and a listing of relevant community and professional resources in Singapore. The editor’s proceeds from sales of the ebook will be donated to Oogachaga, a counselling and support service.

    Could you keep your cool while talking to all levels of stupid? Would you be able to wear a headset all day without wanting to throw it out of the window? All calls are recorded, analysed and timed to the second. Average handling time (AHT) is discussed as if it's the very meaning of life and managers are always coming up with new ways to shave milliseconds from each call. Is it acceptable to only have a total eight minutes a day for visits to the toilet or coffee machine? Imagine not being allowed to hang up on someone who is screaming abuse down the line at you. Welcome to the Call Centre! Izabelle worked in call centres for many years; from insurance to home shopping, from selling advertising to discussing loans. Finally in the early hours one morning, she decided enough was in fact far too much and left her final call centre job the same day, never to return. On her way out of the door for the final time she vowed she would write a book about life in a call centre. Here is that book. Read about call centres in general, memorable customers and staff. How do staff stay sane? What is Big Red? Are cranberries the true meaning of Christmas? Why would you have leather trousers round your ankles in a lift? How not to impress your boss. Izabelle shares these and many other true tales from her years of incarceration in UK call centres.

    Danny Black doesn’t exist. Danny Black is, in reality, anthropology professor Luke Littlefield. After moving to West Hollywood to teach, Luke realizes that no one takes pretty boys seriously. As Luke says, no one has ever asked him how many college degrees he has when he’s standing shirtless at a photo shoot. Luke puts on thick glasses and baggy clothing to appear more professional. Life seems routine and safe, that is until he meets British film star Ian Stoddard. Luke admits that he has no idea who Ian is, and Ian finds that fact appealing.When a decades old murder is uncovered at the college, Luke and his anthropology students take the opportunity to construct a case study. Can Luke maintain his two separate identities and solve a decades old murder, or will it all blow up in his face?

    Packed full of zingers and hilarious illustrations, if this doesn't put a smile on your face, nothing will. What's not to like:The other day someone left a piece of plasticine in my dressing room. I didn't know what to make of it. I'm against hunting. I'm actually a hunt saboteur. I go out the night before and shoot the fox. I saw this bloke chatting up a cheetah. He was trying to pull a fast one. Black holes. I don't know what people see in them. So I fancied a game of darts with my mate. He said, 'Nearest the bull goes first.' He went 'Baah' and I went 'Moo'. He said 'You're closest.' Velcro. What a rip-off. Black Beauty. He's a dark horse. I've got a sponge front door. Hey, don't knock it.