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Charles Bukowski turns to the bottle in this revelatory collection of poetry and prose that includes some of the writer’s best and most lasting work. A self-proclaimed “dirty old man”, Bukowski used alcohol as muse and as fuel, a conflicted relationship responsible for some of his darkest moments, as well as some of his most joyful and inspired. In On Drinking, Bukowski expert Abel Debritto has collected the writer’s most profound, funny, and memorable work on his ups and downs with the hard stuff.

For Jack Cho, a fortysomething gay man, being able to marry someone he loves is so unfamiliar it’s terrifying. Then a wedding invitation from a college friend brings about a collision with those fears--and his own secret history. Jack and his new boyfriend, Caleb, are attending the wedding of Jack’s estranged straight friend Scott. No sooner do the guests start to mingle than questions arise

When Brianna Pastor released her self-published poetry collection, Good Grief, she was blown away by the outpouring of support from people who reached out and said, 'Yes. Me too.' For anyone who has struggled with questions of identity or coped with serious emotional issues, including grief, trauma, anxiety and depression, this collection will help you find hope on the other side.

In her last days, Sylvia Plath struggled to break out from the control of the towering figure of her husband Ted Hughes. In the antique mythology of his retinue, she had become the gorgon threatening to bring down the House of Hughes. Drawing on recently available court records, archives, and interviews, and reevaluating the memoirs of the formidable Hughes contingent who treated Plath as a female hysteric, Carl Rollyson rehabilitates the image of a woman too often viewed solely within the confines of what Hughes and his collaborators wanted to be written.

Ambition and jealousy - all set to music. Devout court composer Antonio Salieri plots against his rival, the dissolute but supremely talented Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. How far will Salieri go to achieve the fame that Mozart disregards?

Mr Punch Presents: Sunset Boulevard, nominated for 11 Academy Awards, Billy Wilder’s brilliant 1950 film is about the flamboyant silent-movie star Norma Desmond played by Gloria Swanson and her pitiful attempt to stage a comeback to the silver screen through her friendship with a young, opportunistic screenwriter, played by William Holden. Re-created for the radio with the original stars in this special radio production.

Bones—Murphy Shepherd's teacher, mentor, priest, and friend—is gone. Devastated by the loss and unsure how to continue the rescue work they started, Murph has no choice but to jump back in when the worst happens. His longtime friend and current United States vice president, Aaron Ashley, has been a silent partner in the fight against trafficking. But in spite of having the best security available, his three daughters have been taken bound and blindfolded from their home by an extraction team that left no clues and no trace.

In this collection of all new poems, Whitney Hanson explores the progression of a life through the lens of music. We each begin with a simple note, but as life progresses, we're led to the next note, and the next - all of which combine to form the melody of a song and the cadence of a life. As life becomes more complicated and complex, we find that loss, grief, and heartache can muffle our music, making the world go silent. But as Whitney's poems show, all of these rests and pauses in the music are part of the magnificent composition of life.

When Meg shows up at her mother's door, she has no idea how to break the news to her. She's come home from France, pregnant. At just nineteen years old, this wasn't where she saw her life going. Now, trying to hide her growing belly and figure out her next decision, she moves in with her mother, sister and aunt on Seabreeze Island. But, how long can she keep her pregnancy a secret, and what happens if another surprising person shows up at the front door of Julie's house?

The Waste Land by T. S Eliot is narrated by Danielle Cohen and Denis Daly. Eliot's cross-cultural epic poem, first published in 1922, remains one of the most challenging poems in the English language. It is dedicated to Eliot's mentor, Ezra Pound. Like Pound, Eliot reveled in drawing allusions and quotations from a vast body of world literature.

For decades — in China and in San Francisco — Winnie Louie and Helen Kwong have kept each other's confidences, but those secrets are about to be revealed. Convinced that she is dying, Helen decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of hidden truths — not only hers, but those of Winnie and of Winnie's daughter, Pearl.

Written in a style that is both precise and sumptuous, weirdly archaic and powerfully novel, Zama takes place in the last decade of the 18th century and describes the solitary, suspended existence of Don Diego de Zama, a highly placed servant of the Spanish crown who has been posted to Asunción, the capital of remote Paraguay. There, eaten up by pride, lust, petty grudges, and paranoid fantasies, he does as little as he possibly can while plotting his eventual transfer to Buenos Aires.

Kit Harington (Games of Thrones) and Johnny Flynn (Beast) smolder and burn as sparring brothers in Sam Shepard’s darkly comic 1980 drama. The live theatre production of True West was performed at the Vaudeville Theatre in London, United Kingdom, in 2019. It was produced by Joseph Smith and John Brant for Smith & Brant Theatricals and James Bierman for Empire Street Productions.

"Amazing Peace" is a beautiful and deeply moving poem from Maya Angelou. Here she inspires us to embrace the peace and promise of Christmas, so that hope and love can once again light up our holidays and the world. "Angels and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers, look heavenward," she writes, "and speak the word aloud. Peace." "Amazing Peace" is Maya Angelou's radiant affirmation of the goodness of life and is a touching celebration of the "Glad Season" that will resonate with people of all faiths.

As a boy, Dick Falkner ran away from abject poverty and an abusive alcoholic father. Sixteen years later, he finds himself hungry of body and empty of spirit in a Midwestern town. Although he finds no help in this so-called Christian town, he is eventually taken in by George Udell, a local publisher and kindhearted man. Through hard work and Christian morals, this man, who becomes known as "that printer of Udell’s", rises above his past to a new, inspiring life with God.

In an age where online ratings are all-powerful, Five-Star Stranger follows the adventures of a top-rated man on the Rental Stranger app—a place where users can hire a pretend fiancé, a wingman, or an extra mourner for a funeral. Referred to only as Stranger, the narrator navigates New York City under the guise of characters he plays, always maintaining a professional distance from his clients. But, when a nosy patron threatens to upend his long-term role as father to a young girl, Stranger begins to reckon with his attachment to his pretend daughter, her mother, and his own fraught past.

Barbara Kingsolver ontving de Pulitzer Prize en de Women's Prize for Fiction 2023 voor Demon Copperhead, een beeldend en episch verhaal over een jongen die opgroeit te midden van armoede en drugsverslaving. Damon Fields, het zoontje van een alleenstaande tienermoeder, woont in een trailer in de bergen van de zuidelijke Appalachen. Hij heeft hetzelfde koperkleurige haar als zijn overleden vader, aan wie hij ook de bijnaam 'Demon Copperhead' te danken heeft. Afgezien van goede looks, bijtende humor en overlevingsdrift zit hem weinig mee in het leven. Zijn moeder worstelt met haar verslaving aan pijnstillers.

Mrs Gereth, a wealthy widow, is dreading the day that her son, Owen, gets married. She hopes that he will marry a woman who will appreciate their home and all of its treasures as she does. So she enlists the help of Fleda Vetch to try to corrupt the impending marriage of her son and Mona Brigstock - a philistine who is determined to marry Owen in order to inherit Mrs Gereth’s valuable possessions and home by any means. Meanwhile, Fleda hides her real feelings towards Owen. Even when he ends up feeling the same way, Fleda cannot bring herself to marry him as this would force him to break his engagement to Mona, and thus betray all of her own ideals.

Actor Ryan Kwok is back in Toronto after the promotional tour for his latest film, a rom-com that is getting less-than-stellar reviews. After years of constant work and the sudden death of his mother, Ryan is taking some much-needed time off. But as he tries to be supportive to his family, he struggles with his loss and doesn't know how to talk to his dad — who now trolls him on Twitter instead of meeting him for dim sum.

It's 1949 and two young Cuban musicians make their way from Havana to the grand stage of New York City. It is the era of mambo, and the Castillo brothers, workers by day, become stars of the dance halls by night, where their orchestra plays the lush, sensuous, pulsing music that earns them the title of the Mambo Kings. This is their moment of youth, exuberance, love, and freedom―a golden time that decades later is remembered with nostalgia and deep affection.