John Green writes novels for young adults, but you don't have to be young to enjoy them. I'm forty-three, and he's one of my favorite contemporary authors.
In the Palm of Your Hand isn’t just a handy poetry guide for poets, it also contains a hefty chunk of poems from both known and lesser-known poets. Steve Kowit masterfully demonstrates that a combination of both writing and reading is essential for a strong and extensive writing path.
The book is organized quite well with simple but thorough explanations of various aspects and forms of poetry followed by thoughtful exercises. Poems are peppered throughout the book, offering direction, insight and inspiration.
In the days before Hurricane Katrina is to hit Bois Savage, Mississippi, families are preparing their homes for the event as they’ve always done. Young Esch and her brothers have been left to their own devices since their mother’s death as their father is usually too drunk to care for them. One brother struggles to win a coveted scholarship to basketball camp, one dotes on his Pit Bull who has just birthed a liter of valuable puppies, Esch reaches a startling and unwelcome epiphany, and the youngest just gets in everyone’s way.
Poor Doug Parker. At 29, he’s living a life he never anticipated. And it's great. Surprisingly great. Great, until his wife Haley goes off and dies, leaving him alone to deal with his 16-year-old stepson, Haley's beefed-up ex-husband, and a crushing sadness that prevents him from really living.
One part jazz, one part hip-hop, one part space jam, one part funk of the earth, Cinematic Orchestra’s Every Day is (at the very serious and dangerous risk of hyperbole and cliché) truly an album that defies convention and classification. For musicians, there are moments sublime and surreal harkening back to the funk/jazz cocktails of Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter featuring the superb vocals of Fontella Bass (particularly on the opening track, “All That You Give”).
British television is fashionable nowadays. Downton Abbey, Sherlock, and Doctor Who exemplify the latest trend in Trans-Atlantic entertainment. But before BBC America went gangbusters, there were several British comedies from the late 90s and early 00s that have since either created American spin-offs (The Office) or spawned solid film careers for British actors and writers. The latter is true for Simon Pegg, one of the creators and actors of the show Spaced.
Most of us have a general sense of what hoarding is, from popular TV shows such as Hoarders and other news programs. We've seen the pictures and heard the horror stories of the type of conditions that people live in when they live with hoarders. But as a child, author Kimberly Rae Miller had never heard the term, so she never knew what was wrong with her dad. She knew it wasn't normal, but she and her mom spent many years thinking they must be the only family living this way.
Life was good for Bad Kitty when it was just her at home with her human parents. Then one day they adopt a stupid, disgusting dog. Bad Kitty eventually learns to tolerate the dog. Then, Bad Kitty’s human parents bring home another horrible, retched creature. Bad Kitty assumes it’s another dog, but the neighborhood cats think it’s another cat. They decide to enter this new creature into The Kitty Olympics to see how she competes. Bad Kitty finally learns that this creature is not a cat or a dog: it’s a human baby.
A man decides to craft a book of definitions for his disabled son and struggles to find the right words. For his inspiration, he reads the poems of William Blake – an unlikely choice for the down-to-earth job of defining things but ultimately one that offers an amazing treasure for readers – reading Blake through the lens of an author who makes his poetry accessible without sacrificing its otherworldliness.
