The morning after Seth walks into the Pacific Ocean and is crushed on the rocks by the brutal waves, he wakes up. It is impossible, his shoulder was broken, his skull pulverized on the sharp reef near his Oregon home. He has been transported to the small English town where he grew up (and left when he was only 8 for a better life in America). Everything is exactly the same as he left it...exactly. Nothing has moved, no one has trespassed, no one has cleaned. The house is filled with dust, the lawn has grown unruly and the cabinets are full of moldy food.
Rudy's life changes drastically when the family moves to a remote island for his ailing little brother's health. A fairly popular guy at school (especially with the ladies) Rudy is one of the few people below 30 living on the island. Everyone on the island is there for one reason...the magic fish that appear to have the ability to heal any illness. When the doctors and medicine fail his little brother, Rudy's family risks everything to come to the island.
Victor Vale and Eli Cardale are brilliant calculating risk-takers and the smartest pre-med students at their prestigious university; they also happen to be best friends. For a class project, Eli decides to research the so-called E.O.'s--extraordinary people who seem to demonstrate abnormal abilities not unlike superpowers. What's more, during his research, Eli realizes that he might be able to synthesize an E.O., and he wants to try it on himself. What happens next leave both him and Victor changed forever.
Hilton Als' essays about gender identity, race awareness, African-American gay men and masculinity will give readers severe whiplash. He does indeed discuss several white girls, Flannery O'Connor for one, but then he also explores the white-girlness of Truman Capote, Michael Jackson and Eminem. The chapter on Richard Pryor is my absolute favorite and is followed by a confusing and bizarre fictional rumination about Richard Pryor's sister. Don't try to find a rhyme or reason to White Girls, just enjoy.
A Chilean poet gives a young woman a writing desk full of drawers and cabinets and secret compartments and then disappears under Pinochet’s dictatorship. Later, another woman requests that the desk be returned, and so begins a grand and sorrowful story of the writers who share the desk as it moves from one recipient to another.
Kids really do say the darnedest things, but so do parents! From the eye of the storm, comedian Jim Gaffigan reports on the trials of raising five young children and celebrates the absurdities, embarrassments, and joys. He begins by reflecting on his early perceptions of being abducted by aliens (aka, babies) and then recounts his own recent adventures in sleep deprivation, family vacations, juggling schedules, and the power of ice cream. Gaffigan pokes at his own fathering foibles and sings the praises of his wife’s mothering and family management, even if there is some c
Ryan Dean West, Winger to his friends, is determined to take control of his junior year. In the Venn diagram of life, most people overlap, or at least most junior guys at Winger's school, it is that little crescent outside that makes us stand out. For Ryan Dean, it is that he is a 14 year old junior, two years younger than his other classmates. That means he doesn't need to shave, hasn't hit his growth spurt, and has no skill with the ladies.
Perhaps the best essay in Wild Comfort is the piece that launches the collection, The Solace of Snakes. It’s possible that it’s my favorite essay because of her cunning implementation of snake tins (sheets of metal) to give snakes a proper home in a cleared field. Kathleen Dean Moore further explains her recordings each day as she carefully lifts the snake tins and examines the life beneath: “A large vole. . .
In The Husband's Secret the lives of three Australian women are intertwined in ways they would never have thought possible. For years, the tragedy of a teenage daughter’s death has haunted one of the women and unknowingly affected another. The third woman, faced with a marital earthquake, takes her young son to her hometown of Sydney.
The smell of baking cookies brings back memories of mother's kitchen...Biting into a fresh tomato recalls the garden behind your childhood home...Watching the yellow powder and milk combine to create delicious macaroni and cheese reminds you of your first apartment. For author Lucy Knisley, as for many of us, food is a trip down memory lane. With a caterer mother and foodie father, her life has been defined and marked by some of the best (and worst food).
