Sorrow Floats


Book Description

"Tim Sandlin's stuff is as tight and funny as anyone doing this comedy novel thing." -Christopher Moore Maurey has hit rock bottom, with a bottle of whiskey and an infamous reputation, she'll do anything to get out of town. Even drive two ex-drunks cross-country hauling a trailer full of illegal beer. Everyone in GroVont, Wyoming, knows everybody else's business, but Maurey Pierce Talbot is practically famous around town. Sunk low since her father died, whiskey - specifically Yukon Jack - is her best friend. When she makes the mistake of a lifetime, Maurey finds herself looking up from rock bottom. So when two bumbling ex-drunks need to get cross-country with a trailer full of illegal beer, Maurey takes the wheel. Sometimes you just need to get out of town. And sometimes you need to get lost in order to get found. The dark comedy and heartfelt revelations will appeal to fans of Jack Kerouac, Tom Robbins, Larry McMurtry, Joseph Heller, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, and Carl Hiaasen. Other books in Tim Sandlin's GroVant Trilogy: Skipped Parts, Book 1 Sorrow Floats, Book 2 Social Blunders, Book 3 Lydia, Book 4 What readers are saying about Sorrow Floats: "I've never cheered harder for a fictional character." "Maurey is an appealing character; her voice is strong and clear even if her path forward isn't." "Being a huge fan of ROAD TRIPS AND RAUNCHINESS, I absolutely loved this book." "Sandlin really allows you to feel her anger, pain, confusion and tenderness." "Funny, kind of wise and sentimental at the end." "It's required reading for women, alcoholics, tortured writers" "Maurey Pierce is a flawed, broken, beautiful character... it's a NOVEL ABOUT BEING ALIVE." "cathartic and deep" "Favorite. Book. Ever." What reviewers are saying about Sorrow Floats: "Able storytelling and an engaging cast of dysfunctional modern American pilgrims..." -Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW) "A rousing piece of Americana...rowdy, raunchy...A TOTAL DELIGHT." -Library Journal "Tim Sandlin's fiction packs a punch. The writer's fictional Wyoming town is a grungier version of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon." -Denver Post "A zany road trip across America" -Cosmopolitan"Sandlin understands that black comedy is only a tiny slip away from despair, and he handles this walk without a misstep." -Dallas Morning News What everyone is saying about Tim Sandlin: "Tim Sandlin's stuff is as tight and funny as anyone doing this comedy novel thing." -Christopher Moore "His prose, his characters, all amazing." "A story of grand faux pas and dazzling dysfunction...a wildly satirical look at the absurdities of modern life." -The New York Times Book Review




Be Still!


Book Description

Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness echoes the call of the Navajo sage and the psalmist who invited their hearers to stop--"If we keep going this way, we're going to get where we're going"--and be still--"Be still, and know. . . ." Like pictures in a photo album taken from a unique lens, these essays zoom in on singular moments of time where the world is making headlines, drawing attention to the sin of exceptionalism in its national, racial, religious, cultural, and species manifestations. Informed by Japanese Christian theologian Kosuke Koyama, Elie Wiesel, Wendell Berry, and others, the author invites the reader to slow down, be still, and depart from "collective madness" before the Navajo sage is right. Told in the voice familiar to listeners of All Things Considered and Minnesota Public Radio, these poetic essays sometimes feel as familiar as an old family photo album, but the pictures themselves are taken from a thought-provoking angle.




Elusive Butterfly


Book Description

Imagine trying to reach the unreachable, touch the untouchable. Such is the act of seeking truth. Join Jerry Caspell in his journey to find the light of truth and the love of knowledge. See how art reaches for understanding and finds more mystery. There is an internal facet of poetry that makes it perfectly adept at speaking the language of seeking. Jump on the flying carpet! There's plenty of room for more. Hang on tight, though, we will be on a very long and winding flight path! Welcome to the journey of one seeker, glean what you can and use it for your own path.




The Hotel New Hampshire


Book Description

“The first of my father’s illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels.” So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry. Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, they “dream on” in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author of A Son of the Circus and A Prayer for Owen Meany.




Howling Near Heaven


Book Description

For more than five decades, Twyla Tharp has been a phenomenon in American dance, a choreographer who not only broke the rules but refused to repeat her own successes. Tharp has made movies, television specials, and nearly one hundred riveting dance works. Her dance show Movin’ Out ran on Broadway for three years and won Tharp a Tony award for Best Choreography. Howling Near Heaven is the only in-depth study of Twyla Tharp’s unique, restless creativity. This second edition features a new forward that brings the account of Tharp’s work up to date and discusses how dance and dance-making in the United States have changed in recent years. This is the story of a choreographer who refused to be pigeonholed and the dancers who accompanied her as she sped across the frontiers of dance.




Skipped Parts


Book Description

"Skipped Parts is somewhere between The Catcher in the Rye and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues."-Los Angeles Times Book Review The novel that inspired the movie starring Mischa Barton and Drew Barrymore Banished to the hinterlands of Wyoming, rebellious Lydia Callahan and her thirteen-year-old son Sam have no choice but to cope. But while Lydia drinks and talks to the moose head on the wall, Sam finds a friend in local girl Maurey Pierce. Sam and Maurey set out to discover for themselves what happens in the "skipped parts" of the novels they read – between the first kiss and the next morning. With Lydia's support the two teens set out on their sexual exploration, and deal with its consequences. One of the wildest, raunchiest, most heartfelt coming-of-age novels of the past thirty years, Skipped Parts puts Tim Sandlin in the upper echelon of contemporary comic novelists. This contemporary novel is raunchy, funny, and full of heart, perfect for fans of Nick Hornby, Jack Kerouac, Tom Robbins, Larry McMurtry, Joseph Heller, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Carl Hiaasen. Other books in Tim Sandlin's GroVant Trilogy: Skipped Parts, Book 1 Sorrow Floats, Book 2 Social Blunders, Book 3 Lydia, Book 4 What readers are saying about Skipped Parts: "deals with coming of age in a humorous and often poignant way" "Plot twists that would make J.K. Rowling jealous, humor, beautifully drawn characters, a great sense for the detail of the West" "sometimes heartwarming, often heartbreaking" "poignant, FUNNY, SHOCKING, and even heartbreaking" "the deep humor comes from the extraordinary characters" "funny, sad, and full of heart" What reviewers are saying about Skipped Parts: "DAZZLING...moving...Sam's carapace is humor...He thinks like Holden Caulfield and has Joseph Heller's take on despair. His Walter Mitty–like fantasies are tiny comic gems... In the end you'll find yourself rooting for Sam." -New York Times Book Review "A lighthearted, amusing, and tender story of preteen wisdom, adult immaturity, and the fine line between...An offbeat, engaging novel." -Publisher's Weekly "This witty, often touching portrayal of a dirt-street-wise youth's coming-of-age sparkles with intelligence." -Booklist "Thoughtful, surprising, and delightful entertainment." -St. Louis Post-Dispatch What everyone is saying about Tim Sandlin: "Tim Sandlin's stuff is as tight and funny as anyone doing this comedy novel thing." -Christopher Moore "His prose, his characters, all amazing." "A story of grand faux pas and dazzling dysfunction...a wildly satirical look at the absurdities of modern life." -The New York Times Book Review




The Emily Kincaid Mysteries Boxed Set


Book Description

The first three books in the riveting Emily Kincaid Mystery Series by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli! “Every woman who’s ever struggled with saying no, fitting in, and balancing independence against loneliness will adore first-timer Emily.” —Kirkus Reviews Dead Dancing Women Following an ugly divorce and the death of her father, Emily Kincaid decides what she needs most is peace and quiet and time to think, so the part-time journalist and full-time struggling mystery writer relocates to a remote house in the woods of northern Michigan. When a severed head shows up in her garbage can, Emily knows she’s been singled out, and suddenly her peaceful solitude feels a lot like isolation and vulnerability. Knowing she’ll have to root out a killer to save her peaceful paradise, Emily teams up with the cantankerous Deputy Dolly and begins navigating between eccentric town gossips and reclusive neighbors who would rather be left alone. When the killer gets too close for comfort, Emily knows she’ll have to put aside her fears before the natural life she’s chosen comes to a grisly and very unnatural end. Dead Floating Lovers With a murderer behind bars, Emily Kincaid is finally settling into what she hopes will be a peaceful new home in the remote woods of northern Michigan and a burgeoning career as a mystery writer. Until foul-weather friend Deputy Dolly Wakowski shows up on her doorstep with frantic tales of a dead body and demands her help. The receding waters of a local lake have revealed a bullet-pierced skull and a keepsake, and both could belong to a man Dolly once loved—and lost. As Emily reluctantly agrees to help, another set of bones surface—this time of an Odawa Indian girl. It’s not long before Emily finds herself wading through Dolly’s painful past and digging into the town’s dark history. When the connection between the two victims points to an ugly truth that threatens to unravel Dolly’s world, Emily vows to sort through the clues and find a killer, even if it breaks Dolly’s heart—or costs them both their lives. “A mystery that keeps you guessing, together with the story of a woman slowly finding her voice” —Kirkus Reviews Dead Sleeping Shaman The End Timers, a cult-like group, have descended on part-time journalist and aspiring mystery author Emily Kincaid’s small Michigan town. With dire warnings that the end of the world is just two weeks away, the entire community has been disrupted by psychics, cult followers, believers and disbelievers alike. But when Emily’s latest job assignment leads her to an eerily motionless woman propped against a tree, she realizes that at least one person’s world has come to an end all too soon. Turning to her friend Deputy Dolly Wakowski for help, she’s stunned to learn that Dolly has turned in her badge and joined the cult, leaving Emily to fear for her friend’s sanity and forcing her to try to solve the case on her own. As the days tick away to the end of the world, Emily has to navigate her way through a crowd of true believers, a group of shamanic well-wishers, and a suspiciously secretive cult leader to rescue her friend and catch a killer. “Buzzelli’s well-crafted third Emily Kincaid . . . [features] sharp prose and spirited characterizations.” —Publishers Weekly “Readers will find the same strong sense of place and great characters that are hallmarks of Sarah Graves and Philip Craig.” —Library Journal




Dead Dancing Women


Book Description

Fans of Louise Penny will love the Emily Kincaid mysteries by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli! “Every woman who’s ever struggled with saying no, fitting in, and balancing independence against loneliness will adore first-timer Emily.” —Kirkus Reviews Following an ugly divorce and the death of her father, Emily Kincaid decides what she needs most is peace and quiet and time to think, so the part-time journalist and full-time struggling mystery writer relocates to a remote house in the woods of northern Michigan. When a severed head shows up in her garbage can, Emily knows she’s been singled out, and suddenly her peaceful solitude feels a lot like isolation and vulnerability. Discovering that the victim was a member of the Women of the Moon, a group of older local ladies who sing and dance around a bonfire in the woods late at night, Emily’s at a loss to know why anyone would want to hurt one of them. The women claim it’s a harmless act in praise of Mother Earth, a way to feel young again, but certain townspeople don’t see it that way. As Emily digs deeper, more of the women are turning up dead. Knowing she’ll have to root out a killer to save her peaceful paradise, Emily teams up with the cantankerous Deputy Dolly and begins navigating between eccentric town gossips and reclusive neighbors who would rather be left alone. When the killer gets too close for comfort, Emily knows she’ll have to put aside her fears before the natural life she’s chosen comes to a grisly and very unnatural end. Rave reviews for the Emily Kincaid Mysteries: Dead Dogs and Englishmen A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2011! “Buzzelli will have you packing your bags for a move to northern Michigan.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Emily is a detective for our times: She can’t afford health care, but she can make flour out of cat tails and work three jobs at once.” —Christian Science Monitor Dead Sleeping Shaman “Buzzelli’s well-crafted third Emily Kincaid . . . [features] sharp prose and spirited characterizations.” —Publishers Weekly “The appeal of this third in the series comes both from Emily—a likable character forging a new life after her divorce—and the evocatively described, nicely detailed small-town setting.” —Booklist Praise for A Most Curious Murder: “Fans of [Lewis] Carroll will delight in Zoe’s flights of fancy, and the northern Michigan setting in all its splendor is a charmer . . . an entertaining series with a quirky premise and captivating characters.” —Library Journal “This quirky, clever cozy series launch . . . [is] hard to resist.” —Publishers Weekly “Quirky main characters, lyrical dialogue and a story sure to appeal to bookworms as well as cozy mystery fans are all elements that give this novel a distinctive voice. A clever mystery and intriguing supporting cast round out the mix.” —RT Book Reviews (four star review)




Sorrow Floats


Book Description

In a fictional Wyoming town that is "a grunge version of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon" ("The Denver Post"), Sandlin delivers "a zany road trip across America starring an engaging heroine and two AA devotees" ("Cosmopolitan").




Torn from the Nest


Book Description

Clorinda Matto de Turner was the first Peruvian novelist to command an international reputation and the first to dramatize the exploitation of indigenous Latin American people. She believed the task of the novel was to be the photograph that captures the vices and virtues of a people, censuring the former with the appropriate moral lesson and paying its homage of admiration to the latter. In this tragic tale, Clorinda Matto de Turner explores the relationship between the landed gentry and the indigenous peoples of the Andean mountain communities. While unfolding as a love story rife with secrets and dashed hopes, Torn from the Nest in fact reveals a deep and destructive class disparity, and criticizes the Catholic clergy for blatant corruption. When Lucia and Don Fernando Marin settle in the small hamlet of Killac, the young couple become advocates for the local Indians who are being exploited and oppressed by their priest and governor and by the gentry allied with these two. Considered meddling outsiders, the couple meet violent resistance from the village leaders, who orchestrate an assault on their house and pursue devious and unfair schemes to keep the Indians subjugated. As a romance blossoms between the a member of the gentry and the peasant girl that Lucia and Don Fernando have adopted, a dreadful secret prevents their marriage and brings to a climax the novel's exposure of degradation: they share the same father--a parish priest. Torn from the Nest was first published in Peru in 1889 amidst much enthusiasm and outrage. This fresh translation--the first since 1904--preserves one of Peru's most distinctive and compelling voices.