Le ali sulla pelle di Franco Filiberto (Autore)

 

 

È da poco spuntata l’alba quando, in un parco pubblico ancora semi deserto, viene trovato il corpo esanime di un uomo: morte per cause naturali, sentenzia il medico legale arrivato sul posto, nessuna evidenza di reato per la polizia che fa trasportare il cadavere all’obitorio. Ordinaria amministrazione. Ma allora perché il commissario Pandolfi viene chiamato d’urgenza all’istituto di medicina legale? Cosa è cambiato in così poche ore? Chi è quell’uomo, da dove viene e perché il suo corpo è pieno di vecchie cicatrici? Molte domande alle quali il commissario dovrà dare una risposta. La ricerca della verità porterà Pandolfi in un mondo sfuggente, pieno d'insidie e di sospetti, ma l’enigma deve essere svelato, un enigma che affonda le sue radici in un luogo e in un tempo molto lontani. 

L'autore: Franco Filiberto è nato nel luglio del 1948. Per circa dieci anni è stato ufficiale presso la Brigata Paracadutisti Folgore a Pisa e Livorno. Attualmente vive e lavora a Pisa dove svolge l’attività di pubblicitario. Suoi racconti sono presenti in varie raccolte e antologie. Nel 2016 ha pubblicato “Di nuvole, brugole e altri misteri”, premiato al “Festival Internazionale Giallo Garda” nella categoria ebook. Nel 2017 ha pubblicato con Arpeggio Libero Editrice il thriller “La mossa del gambero” e, con la Oakmond Publishing, tre racconti gialli. Sono del 2019 “Via Roma 18. AAA Assassino cercasi” e “Zic. Il misterioso caso del graffitaro scomparso”. Il suo thriller “Le ali sulla pelle”, già premiato al “Festival Internazionale Giallo Garda” e al “Holmes Awards”, è alla sua seconda edizione.

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

 

 

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
 
“A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
 
“Wow. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book. What an inventive and startling writer…I’m so glad I read this. I really think this book is remarkable.” —David Sedaris 
 
From "a formidably gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review), a book that asks: Is there life after the internet?

As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?"

Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.

The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way: On Writers and Writing by Charles Bukowski and David Stephen Calonne

 

 

“Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way, or even to say a simple thing in a simpler way.”―Charles Bukowski

In The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way, Charles Bukowski considers the art of writing, and the art of living as a writer. Bringing together a variety of previously uncollected stories, columns, reviews, introductions, and interviews, this book finds him approaching the dynamics of his chosen profession with cynical aplomb, deflating pretensions and tearing down idols armed with only a typewriter and a bottle of beer. Beginning with the title piece―a serious manifesto disguised as off-handed remarks en route to the racetrack―The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way runs through numerous tales following the author’s adventures at poetry readings, parties, film sets, and bars, and also features an unprecedented gathering of Bukowski’s singular literary criticism. From classic authors like Hemingway to underground legends like d.a. levy to his own stable of obscure favorites, Bukowski uses each occasion to expound on the larger issues around literary production. The book closes with a handful of interviews in which he discusses his writing practices and his influences, making this a perfect guide to the man behind the myth and the disciplined artist behind the boozing brawler.

 

Correspondence 1949-1975 (New Heidegger Research) by Martin Heidegger (Author), Ernst Jünger (Author), Timothy Sean Quinn (Translator)

 

 

Beginning in 1949, the German novelist and essayist Ernst Jünger began a correspondence with the philosopher Martin Heidegger that lasted until Heidegger’s death in 1975. This volume contains the first English translation of their complete correspondence, as well as letters from Heidegger’s wife and son and others referred to in their correspondence. It also contains a translation of Jünger’s essay Across the Line (Über die Linie), his contribution to a Festschrift celebrating Heidegger’s sixtieth birthday.

Jünger’s and Heidegger’s correspondence is of enormous historical interest, revealing how both men came to understand their cultural roles in post-war Europe. It is valuable as well for showing the emergence of themes pervasive in Heidegger’s post-war thought: his cultural and political pessimism and his concern with the problem of global technology. The correspondence also reveals the evolution of a philosophical friendship between two writers central to twentieth century European thought, and the mutual influence that friendship worked on their writing.

 

The Metaphysics of German Idealism: A New Interpretation of Schelling's Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom and Matters 1st Edition by Martin Heidegger (Author), Ian Alexander Moore (Translator), Rodrigo Therezo (Translator)

 

 

This volume comprises the lecture course that Heidegger gave in 1941 on the metaphysics of German Idealism. The first part of the lecture course contains a preliminary consideration of the distinction between ground and existence. The elucidation of the conceptual history includes a striking confrontation with Kierkegaard’s and Jaspers’s concepts of existence, as well as an elucidation of the concept of existence in Being and Time, which Heidegger distinguishes from the former concepts. Heidegger’s self-interpretation is not an end in itself, however, but rather a way of pointing to Schelling’s distinction between ground and existence, whose root and inner necessity and whose various versions Heidegger discusses subsequently.

The second part of the lecture course is focused on Schelling’s ‘Freedom Essay’, which Heidegger regards as the pinnacle of the metaphysics of German Idealism.  Heidegger’s consideration of Schelling’s distinction between ground and existence finds its guiding thread in the introduction of the realms of Being – eternal or finite, each Being is a joining of the ground of existence and existence itself.  In a subsequent overview, Heidegger discusses the relation of the distinction between ground and existence to the essence of human freedom and to the essence of the human. On the basis of this discussion, it becomes possible to grasp the connection between freedom and evil in Schelling’s system.

This important work by Heidegger, published here in English for the first time, will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy and to anyone interested in Heidegger’s work.

 

UNnatural Selection: Moral Decay by Pastille Sheen

 

 

The year 2040. Earth is now a world where life-extending/saving drugs, procedures and technologies are severely restricted. Not because we don't have them or haven't discovered or invented them. But because the governments of the world enacted a law to severely restrict them! Human population growth has pushed the planet to its limits. As wars for resources continued to escalate. World leaders agree that to avert a global nuclear war and human extinction. The human population had to significantly decline by living as nature intended. Many disagreed, and secret organisations began to fight back, saving lives illegally.

Dragons in the Clouds by David Blair

 

 

Dragons in the Clouds is an epic adventure that takes place during a time period when Dragons were alive and freely roamed the land. The people during this time were getting eaten by a vicious species of Dragons. The ruling King finally orders the total annihilation of all living dragons. A powerful wizard, named Merlinius, who is a friend to the king, does not agree with the King's order, for Merlinius knows all Dragons are not what they seem. So he does what he must to protect a family of Dragons that he had befriended. And to protect his Dragon friends, Merlinius performs the spell of weightlessness and tells the Dragons to fly up and to hide in the cover of the Clouds. He then gives the Dragons strict instruction to live within the clouds and to only come down at night to eat. An apprentice to the wizard who has grandeur of his own has a plan for Dragons that he has hidden deep within a mountain cavern. Now enters a young boy, who had also befriended a dragon, though a very young one, suddenly find themselves caught between the Kings order and a battle that has begun between two species of Dragons. A battle that would determine control of the skies above the Kingdom of Albian. This Apprentice's plan has consequences that may bring the Kingdom and perhaps the very world we live in today to an devastating end.

Who Are We: Seeing Ourselves through the Eyes of One Another by Dr. Hussam Atef Elkhatib

 

 

Understanding who we are is a concern that entails seeing ourselves through the eyes one another. It is a philosophy that involves thoughtfulness of the full picture, an empathetic vision that incorporates the nature of our awareness. That perception leads to how we react and interact with our surroundings. There, we’d utilize not only our rationale but also how we reason a variety of basics. Those fundamentals are foundations that incorporate our backgrounds, beliefs, affiliations, the level of our knowledge, and whom we believe we are, to name a few. We could accomplish an appropriate vision via a correct observation that considers all the elements. It is a foresight that requires a thorough analysis, and that’s what this book is all about.

 

 

Stone Dead in Rio Vista: Small town murder mystery, with murder at the golf course in the over-55 community by Peter C. Bradbury

 

 

Small town murder mystery in sleepy Rio Vista, CA. There are no detectives and the police are more used to issuing traffic violations than investigating murder. The gossip around the golf club starts after the first murder. By the second, it's rife. With short chapters and no boring intricate details, this thriller by the very entertaining Peter C. Bradbury, will keep you reading from the first page.

 

 

falsely accused of the unthinkable: The truth is closer than anyone can imagine by Glenis Kellet

 

 

Another fast-paced murder mystery, thriller - fiction novel, enveloped in a romance: A man on the run and a distraught woman are both escaping very different unjust circumstances. Fate brings the pair together - ironically the injustices they suffer conclude in the same dramatic final twist!

Adventures in Mother-Sitting Kindle Edition by Doreen Cox (Author)

 

 

For a daughter, at age 61, being called “mommy” by her own mother was a heart-wrenching experience. This happened to the author during the course of a three-year adventure as the full-time caregiver to her mother, much loved yet caught up in a downward spiral of physical, mental, and developmentally regressed disabilities.

Each day is an adventure because when dementia is present, the typical actions involved with daily care habits become unpredictable. The experience is also termed an adventure because of the surprising twists and turns of emotion that arose in the author, compelling her to recognize and face deep-seated fears and unwanted emotional reactions when her performance was not in accord with the spiritual vision that she had of herself. Moments of comic relief would save the author from the depths of despair during pill-taking and messy hygienic episodes, and her mother’s nighttime delusions. The mantra that kept the author going was an echo of her mother’s life-long response to any calamitous event: you can do what you have to do.

ADVENTURES IN MOTHER-SITTING is not just a chronicle about the dementia-induced antics of an independent, spirited mother as she approaches the time of her death. The book is also about a daughter’s journey through an emotional rollercoaster passage of grief that gets intermixed with surprising sweet instances of joyful connections with not only her childlike mother but, also, her innermost self. Throughout the book, the author portrays the ways in which the physical and mental needs of an old-age mother and the emotional, spiritual needs of a caregiver daughter lovingly serve each other and how the dementia serves them both.

The memoir depicts not only the role changes that occur in the relationship between a caregiver daughter and her beloved mother but, also, the more compassionate relationship that the daughter gains with herself as she learns to walk more honestly and gently with her fears, worries, and shortcomings.

 

On The Eighth Night Of Riots by Isagani Miles (Author)

 

 

They’re here…

A week after the police are abolished, and fires and looting decimate downtown, rioters invade the suburbs. Hundreds of them – ransacking homes, destroying property, and killing pets, as they march through the streets with raised fists and sickle-and-hammer flags waving over their heads. Worse, they bring something with them. Something massive, ugly, ancient, and evil.

And the rioters intend to round up residents, in order to sate its hunger.

On the Eighth Night Of Riots is an HP-Lovecraft-style cosmic horror story, born out of the numerous violent uprisings currently plaguing the US. It tackles themes of mob rule and a usurping of traditional values in favor of radical and ultimately dangerous ideas – pillars of a bizarre, new religion that persecutes all dissenting voices.

What happens should you reject their Woke Deity? What if they find you guilty of a crime you didn’t know you even committed, and they come for you?

When a Stranger Comes... by Karen S. Bell

 

 

2021 Winner Speak Up Talk Radio Firebird Book Award!
2020 Distinguished Favorite NYC Big Book Award!
2019 Florida Author Project Winner for adult fiction!
2018 Readers' Favorite Bronze Medal Winner!
Read Freely 50 Best Indie Books of 2019!

Satisfying one's greed can come at a devilishly high cost!

"RIVETING"--Kirkus Reviews

Author Alexa Wainwright is losing her mojo. Her latest works aren't selling like her internationally bestselling debut. She vows to do whatever it takes to get back to being number one. But is she really?

As she makes this vow, suddenly a lightning bolt cracks across the cloudless sky transporting the clueless Alexa to an alternate universe. Here, the characters in her books are given the breath of life and she meets media mogul, publisher, and possibly the devil himself, King Blakemore, who offers her a lucrative but ironclad book contract that will guarantee her comeback. Alexa slowly realizes it might be more than just a contract for a book deal. Desperate to get her life back, she devises schemes to untether herself from this hellish existence.

Buy this book if you're a reader who loves a page-turning, heart-stopping, psychological thriller with some magical realism thrown in.

The Divine Curriculum: The Bab: Volume 5, Part 1 by Edward Price

 

 

Imagine an ancient, universal and Divinely-conceived educational program in which all of creation is a classroom. In the last several thousand years, God has sent many great Divine Educators to humanity, such as Krishna, Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb, and Bahá’u’lláh.Volume 5 of the Divine Curriculum series examines the life and teachings of the Báb. Less well known today, the story begins in Shíráz, a small city in southern Persia (Iran today), in May of 1844, when a young merchant declares to His first disciple that He has heard the Call of Almighty God in His soul.The Báb’s teachings anticipated modern concerns: Perceiving the reflection of God’s light in “all things”, appreciating the oneness, infinity and grace of God, the unity of the Divine Educators, searching independently for truth, purity of worship, bringing joy not grief to others, reducing violence, keeping the environment pure, advancing women, promoting education, elevating humanity and more. The Báb said God had also given Him the mission to prepare the way for an even greater Divine Educator yet to come.Calling Himself the Báb, meaning “the Gate”, His new Faith spread like wildfire. Fearful government and religious leaders persecuted the young Faith nearly to extinction. Arrested, exiled, imprisoned and tortured, the Báb Himself sacrificed His life for the Cause in 1850. 20,000 followers willingly laid down their lives. The Faith survived. It became a world religion, spreading to over 200 countries, and growing to more than five million members. Known known today as the Bahá’í Faith, it all begins with the heroic story of the Báb.

The Coma Lights by Joshua Scribner

 

 

An Oklahoma tornado drops from the sky to sweep up Sully Jacobson and his car. Weeks later, he awakes from a coma with a crippling fear of driving. Horrid visions resist Sully's attempts at facing his fear, and glowing people haunt his dreams. Meanwhile, loved ones are keeping secrets from him, and people are dying. Can Sully find a vital connection in all of this, or will the deaths continue?

A Grave Matter (A Spencer Manning Mystery Book 8) (English Edition) by Rick Polad

 

 

A cryptic phone call leads to corruption at the highest level

A cemetery is a peaceful place… usually. But a cryptic phone call leads P.I. Spencer Manning to a cemetery that appears to be anything but peaceful. Spencer investigates a growing number of people who have disappeared and a graveyard where the bodies may not match the names on the markers.

If Spencer can find a connection between these two mysteries, it could expose a scandal that reaches higher than anyone could imagine. Unfortunately, the only way to solve this puzzle is to set a trap with himself as bait.

Join spencer Manning as he tackles his eighth and most perplexing case yet. Then read the other riveting books in this series.

 

Bitches, she is Madonna by Ludovico De Bonis (I Quaderni del Bardo Edizioni di Stefano Donno)

“I dedicate this book to those who know how to wait, to those who do not stop believing in their dreams, to those who know how to earn things with sweat and will of mind, to those who keep smiling in hard times, to those who think that emotions and passions are the engine of the world.”

Ludovico De Bonis

The author Ludovico De Bonis, with his book, tried to combine his passion (Madonna) with his cultural background, as an expert in Communication and Media Analyst. What makes his work outstanding compared to other works about the artist, is that none of them has neither analyzed the phenomenon from the point of view of the audience, nor focused on the artist's fandom, on her complex identity (as a woman, as a mother and as an international icon) and on the discovery that the performer artist Madonna, according to various sociologists and experts in the sector, is the emblem of popular culture.

Translation - Giacomo Bleve

Cover - Debora Conte

Additional digital editing - Serena Garganese

 

Info link 

https://www.amazon.it/Bitches-she-Madonna-Ludovico-Bonis/dp/B08WZJK1YB/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_it_IT=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=ludovico+de+bonis&qid=1613901557&sr=8-1 

 

 

Le ali sulla pelle di Franco Filiberto

 

 

È da poco spuntata l’alba quando, in un parco pubblico ancora semi deserto, viene trovato il corpo esanime di un uomo: morte per cause naturali, sentenzia il medico legale arrivato sul posto, nessuna evidenza di reato per la polizia che fa trasportare il cadavere all’obitorio. Ordinaria amministrazione. Ma allora perché il commissario Pandolfi viene chiamato d’urgenza all’istituto di medicina legale? Cosa è cambiato in così poche ore? Chi è quell’uomo, da dove viene e perché il suo corpo è pieno di vecchie cicatrici? Molte domande alle quali il commissario dovrà dare una risposta. La ricerca della verità porterà Pandolfi in un mondo sfuggente, pieno d'insidie e di sospetti, ma l’enigma deve essere svelato, un enigma che affonda le sue radici in un luogo e in un tempo molto lontani.
L'autore: Franco Filiberto è nato nel luglio del 1948. Per circa dieci anni è stato ufficiale presso la Brigata Paracadutisti Folgore a Pisa e Livorno. Attualmente vive e lavora a Pisa dove svolge l’attività di pubblicitario. Suoi racconti sono presenti in varie raccolte e antologie. Nel 2016 ha pubblicato “Di nuvole, brugole e altri misteri”, premiato al “Festival Internazionale Giallo Garda” nella categoria ebook. Nel 2017 ha pubblicato con Arpeggio Libero Editrice il thriller “La mossa del gambero” e, con la Oakmond Publishing, tre racconti gialli. Sono del 2019 “Via Roma 18. AAA Assassino cercasi” e “Zic. Il misterioso caso del graffitaro scomparso”. Il suo thriller “Le ali sulla pelle”, già premiato al “Festival Internazionale Giallo Garda” e al “Holmes Awards”, è alla sua seconda edizione.

Un autunno di tenerezza di Giampiero Momi

 

 

Clementine Phillis, a cinquantotto anni, sente più che mai l’età avanzare verso un inesorabile declino. Invecchiare per lei è una vera e propria fobia, alla quale tenta di opporsi con ogni mezzo, in una lotta titanica che però, lo sa, è destinata al fallimento. Eppure Clementine è una donna di successo: con volontà, fatica e intelligenza ha saputo raggiungere gli obiettivi più alti della sua carriera. Ma la gratificazione del lavoro non basta a colmare un vuoto dentro di lei, un vuoto che si è aperto con la morte del padre e si è approfondito trent’anni prima, con la perdita di suo figlio a soli quattro anni. Da allora, Clementine ha cercato inutilmente di riempire quella voragine con una lunga serie di relazioni, dal suo primo amore, al marito, agli amanti, fino all’approdo tra le braccia di Max, che finalmente sembra quello giusto. Grazie a lui, Clementine imparerà ad accettarsi e si aprirà a qualcosa che non avrebbe mai immaginato: una nuova maternità.

Le cose belle sono curve di Marco Braico (Piemme)

 

 

Il primo giorno di scuola per Alberto, professore di matematica e fisica al liceo, è indimenticabile, ogni anno. Quello che in giugno sembra impossibile, i comportamenti insopportabili degli alunni e dei colleghi, il programma ripetuto fino alla nausea, in settembre pare trasformarsi. Non più un ostacolo, ma un'opportunità. Ed è con questo atteggiamento che varca le porte della scuola in cui insegna da tempo, pronto alle battute dei ragazzi, alla ritualità dei giorni sempre uguali a se stessi e sempre diversi. Quest'anno, però, le cose non vanno come dovrebbero: è solo un piccolo particolare stonato, in grado però di trasformare quella bella giornata. Serena, collega bellissima e irraggiungibile, suo amore segreto da sempre, ma soprattutto grande amica, è diversa, non ricambia i suoi sorrisi, non risponde ai suoi messaggi. Serena nasconde un segreto, qualcosa che non ha nulla a che fare con lui e che la rende ogni giorno più triste e distratta. Dopo molta insistenza, Alberto riesce a farsi confessare il motivo di tanto turbamento. E la verità è sconcertante. Spetterà a lui starle accanto come mai avrebbe pensato, perché stare vicino a chi soffre è difficile. L'istinto è quello di scappare, come se il male dell'altro potesse in qualche modo intaccare la nostra vita, come una malattia. Alberto si accorgerà di quanto l'amicizia in certe stagioni della vita possa avere la stessa importanza dell'amore e di quanta forza una donna, una madre possa sprigionare dal suo piccolo cuore. Un romanzo sull'amore, l'amicizia, la paura della perdita, la scuola, dalla penna di un autore sempre attento a raccontare con leggerezza e profondità insieme la caduta e la rinascita di ogni esistenza, anche la più dolorosa.

La figurante di Pauline Klein (Carbonio editrice)

 

 

In un romanzo tanto audace quanto divertente, Pauline Klein racconta la storia di una giovane donna, Camille, che "piuttosto che abbaiare chi era, avrebbe sussurrato il suo essere": vuole avere il diritto di entrare attraverso porte proibite, entrare in luoghi stranieri, avere il diritto di dormire con lo sconosciuto di fronte a lei, non ascoltare il rumore del mondo, ma solo il suo. Epigona del recalcitrante scrivano di Melville (come dimenticare il suo celebre "I would prefer not to"), Camille oppone una resistenza tanto risoluta quanto passiva alla società e ai suoi diktat, ai ruoli che a trent'anni s'impongono: dovrà accettarli e "giocare alla vita"? Oppure no?

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Chiron Academic Press - The Original Authoritative Edition) by Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

 

THE TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS is the only book-length philosophical work published by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his lifetime. The project had a broad aim - to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science - and is recognized as a significant philosophical work of the twentieth century. Wittgenstein wrote the notes for the Tractatus while he was a soldier during World War I and completed it when a prisoner of war at Como and later Cassino in August 1918. It was first published in German in 1921 as 'Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung'. The Tractatus was influential chiefly amongst the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, such as Rudolf Carnap and Friedrich Waismann. Bertrand Russell's article "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism" is presented as a working out of ideas that he had learned from Wittgenstein. (more on: www.wisehouse-classisc.com)

Philosophical Investigations 4th Edition by Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

 

Incorporating significant editorial changes from earlier editions, the fourth edition of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is the definitive en face German-English version of the most important work of 20th-century philosophy

• The extensively revised English translation incorporates many hundreds of changes to Anscombe’s original translation
• Footnoted remarks in the earlier editions have now been relocated in the text
• What was previously referred to as ‘Part 2’ is now republished as Philosophy of Psychology – A Fragment, and all the remarks in it are numbered for ease of reference
• New detailed editorial endnotes explain decisions of translators and identify references and allusions in Wittgenstein's original text
• Now features new essays on the history of the Philosophical Investigations, and the problems of translating Wittgenstein’s text

 

Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

 

 

A compilation of Charles Bukowski's underground articles from his column "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" appears here in book form. Bukowski's reasoning for self-describing himself as a 'dirty old man' rings true in this book.

"People come to my door—too many of them really—and knock to tell me Notes of a Dirty Old Man turns them on. A bum off the road brings in a gypsy and his wife and we talk . . . . drink half the night. A long distance operator from Newburgh, N.Y. sends me money. She wants me to give up drinking beer and to eat well. I hear from a madman who calls himself 'King Arthur' and lives on Vine Street in Hollywood and wants to help me write my column. A doctor comes to my door: 'I read your column and think I can help you. I used to be a psychiatrist.' I send him away . . ."

"Bukowski writes like a latter-day Celine, a wise fool talking straight from the gut about the futility and beauty of life . . ." —Publishers Weekly

"These disjointed stories gives us a glimpse into the brilliant and highly disturbed mind of a man who will drink anything, hump anything and say anything without the slightest tinge of embarassment, shame or remorse. It's actually pretty hard not to like the guy after reading a few of these semi-ranting short stories." —Greg Davidson, curiculummag.com

Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany on August 16, 1920, the only child of an American soldier and a German mother. Bukowski published his first story when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. His first book of poetry was published in 1959; he went on to publish more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including Pulp (Black Sparrow, 1994), Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970 (1993), and The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992). Other Bukowski books published by City Lights Publishers include More Notes of a Dirty Old Man, The Most Beautiful Woman in Town, Tales of Ordinary Madness, Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook, and Absence of the Hero. He died of leukemia in San Pedro on March 9, 1994.

 

Shuggie Bain: A Novel by Douglas Stuart

 

 

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.

Shuggie’s mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie’s guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good—her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamorous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion’s share of each week’s benefits—all the family has to live on—on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs. Agnes’s older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is “no right,” a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her—even her beloved Shuggie.

A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Édouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.

 

The End of Me (New York Review Books Classics) by Alfred Hayes

 

 

A moving tale about middle age, divorce, modern love, and returning home by one of the great American storytellers.

Asher’s career as a Hollywood screenwriter has come to a humiliating end; so has his latest marriage. Returning to New York, where he grew up, he takes a room at a hotel and wonders what, well into middle age as he is, he should do next. It’s not a question of money; it’s a question of purpose, maybe of pride. In the company of the arch young poet Michael, Asher revisits the streets and tenements of the Lower East Side where he spent his childhood, though little remains of the past. Michael introduces Asher to Aurora, perhaps his girlfriend, who, to Asher’s surprise, seems bent on pursuing him, too. Soon the older man and his edgy young companions are caught up in a slow, strange, almost ritualized dance of deceit and desire.

The End of Me, a successor to Hayes’s In Love and My Face for the World to See, can be seen as the final panel of a triptych in which Alfred Hayes anatomizes, with a cool precision and laconic lyricism that are all his own, the failure of modern love. The last scene is the starkest of all.

Night Side of Dark by Caleb Pirtle III

 

American operative Ambrose Lincoln has no idea where he is or has been or where he's going. He believes he has been to the night side of dark, a place of the first death, from which no one can return. So why does he find himself on the bomb-ruined landscape of Poland, or has he been exiled to the second death? Lincoln only realizes, if the man in the shadows has not lied to him, he must find an ancient religious painting that has been missing for centuries. The German Gestapo will pay a fortune to buy it, or take a man's life to get it. The painting, if legend holds true, is the German hierarchy's final and only chance to escape the onslaught of the war that is crumbling around their feet.

 

 

A Mentor and Her Muse by Susan Sage

 

 

Under the guise of mentor and muse, a frustrated writer and her ambitious teenage protégé take an illicit summer road trip fraught with racial and sexual tension. This is a compelling psychological novel about social norms, artistic ambition, and obsession. Maggie Barnett works in the media center of a school in Flint, Michigan where she meets Taezha Riverton, an aspiring teenage writer. After discovering that Maggie is also a writer, Taezha turns to her as both mentor and friend. Alone and childless, it's not enough for Maggie to take Tae to restaurants and poetry slams. Although Tae’s mother has nothing against Maggie, she is less than thrilled when Maggie proposes to take her daughter on a summer road trip. Permission is never explicitly granted, but shortly after school is out for the summer, Maggie and Tae head for the Southeast.

Wild Willful Heart by W. Boone Hedgepeth

 

 

Take a wild megalomaniacal trip into the American spiritual and Cultural Revolution of the 1960s-1990s, as a young southern man gives fresh perspective to the propaganda, bad marriages, a collection of strange gurus and some bizarre mystical places. For many years, author W. Boone Hedgepeth was a magnet for unusual occurrences of an ethereal nature which vigorously affected the world around him. Suffering a life threatening illness and after a near death experience, Boone goes on an adrenalized journey from the American south and across the country seeking answers. Here, force of will and prayer are the proven best weapons against very unusual circumstances. Literally seeking the face of God, the author plunges into the magical medicine of his native ancestors, the new age metaphysical movement, Christian fundamentalism, and other wild and life-changing experiences before coming out of the fires to the other side.

Blue Gold by Lindsay Townsend

 

 

 

Ruling Upper Egypt from Thebes, Pharaoh Sekenenre has many enemies. Aweserre, whose grandfather seized the crown of Lower Egypt. Kamose and Ahhotpe, his son and daughter, who plot to rule in his place. And, most dangerous, the storm-god Set.
It is a time of famine. To prosper a man must be civilized and ruthless. Ramose, priest and Vizier, is all of these. Kasa, a farmer, must learn to be like him to survive. Neith, wife of Ramose, is driven, first to drink, then to courage. Hathor, who killed her son, finds love, desertion, then a second chance at love. Tiyi, the gentle masseuse, is desired by many, but desires only one.
Watched by the gods of Egypt, the conflict reaches its climax in war. The pyramids, a thousand years old when the story begins, play a crucial part. Behind all is the God Set, with his question: 'What am I?'