Fathermucker

Fathermucker
Author: Greg Olear
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2011-10-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062059726

“All kinds of funny—raucously, wickedly, sweetly, saucily, surprisingly, profanely funny…a wonderful novel.” —Jess Walter, author of The Financial Lives of the Poets “Deft and funny, true and real. If you read one book this year, read this one.” —Molly Jong-Fast, author of The Social Climber’s Handbook Senior editor at the online literary magazine The Nervous Breakdown and author of Totally Killer, author Greg Olear brings us a not-so-typical day in the life of stay-at-home dad Josh Lansky, juggling myriad fatherly responsibilities while dealing with the maddening realization that his away-on-business wife just might be having an affair. Fathermucker is a sweet, heartrending, often hilarious look at family life from the dad’s perspective that Nick Hornby fans will most certainly respond to. As Jessica Anne Blau, author of Drinking Closer to Home and The Summer of Naked Swim Parties so insightfully points out, “Only a writer with the verve, daring, and great talent of Greg Olear could pull off a novel that deals with sippy cups, masturbation, autism spectrum disorder, affairs, and play-dates all at once.”

Fathermucker

Fathermucker
Author: Greg Olear
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2011-10-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062059718

A day in the life of a dad on the brink: Josh Lansky—second-rate screenwriter, fledgling freelancer, and stay-at-home dad of two preschoolers—has held everything together while his wife is away on business . . . until this morning’s playdate, when he finds out through the mommy grapevine that she might be having an affair. What Josh needs is a break. He’s not going to get one.

Totally Killer

Totally Killer
Author: Greg Olear
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2009-09-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0061959987

“Smart, unexpected, and wonderfully savage in its humor. Totally Killer nails, without mercy, the mood and minutiae of a weary America at the end of the 20th century.” —Brad Listi, author of Attention. Deficit. Disorder. Debut novelist Greg Olear gets nostalgic for a recently bygone era with Totally Killer—a quirky, darkly funny, and fiendishly clever noirish tale of intrigue and suspense. The ’90s are back in this brilliant collision of conspiracy theory and pop culture that ingeniously blends assassination, politics, paranoia, Dick Cheney, CIA duplicity, and Duran Duran. The raves are already rolling in for this wonderfully twisted tale of an innocent and beautiful young Midwestern girl who finds a “totally killer” job through a most unusual employment agency in New York City. Jerry Stahl, bestselling author of Permanent Midnight, says, “The title doesn’t lie—Totally Killer truly is.”

The Truth About Lies

The Truth About Lies
Author: Aja Raden
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1250272033

Why do you believe what you believe? You’ve been lied to. Probably a lot. We’re always stunned when we realize we’ve been deceived. We can’t believe we were fooled: What was I thinking? How could I have believed that? We always wonder why we believed the lie. But have you ever wondered why you believe the truth? People tell you the truth all the time, and you believe them; and if, at some later point, you’re confronted with evidence that the story you believed was indeed true, you never wonder why you believed it in the first place. In this incisive and insightful taxonomy of lies and liars, New York Times bestselling author Aja Raden makes the surprising claim that maybe you should. Buttressed by history, psychology, and science, The Truth About Lies is both an eye-opening primer on con-artistry—from pyramid schemes to shell games, forgery to hoaxes—and also a telescopic view of society through the mechanics of belief: why we lie, why we believe, and how, if at all, the acts differ. Through wild tales of cons and marks, Raden examines not only how lies actually work, but also why they work, from the evolutionary function of deception to what it reveals about our own. In her previous book, Stoned, Raden asked, “What makes a thing valuable?” In The Truth About Lies, she asks “What makes a thing real?” With cutting wit and a deft touch, Raden untangles the relationship of truth to lie, belief to faith, and deception to propaganda. The Truth About Lies will change everything you thought you knew about what you know, and whether you ever really know it.

Devangelical

Devangelical
Author: Erika Rae
Publisher: Emergency Press
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2013-10-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 098856940X

Devangelical is an irresistibly funny and irreverent memoir about Erika Rae's experience growing up in? and out of? the Evangelical church in the American Bible Belt. As an adolescent who is expected to be hot for God, and not boys, Erika dreads that the Rapture will come before she gets to have sex. All the while she survives exorcisms, radical taboos, satanic back-masking on records, muscle men for Jesus, and cool, mulleted youth group leaders. Eventually Erika emerges as a young, married adult in spiritual limbo. Devangelical is a political and personal exploration of h.

Banned for Life

Banned for Life
Author: D. R. Haney
Publisher: And-Or Press
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2009
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781427624994

For almost two decades, rumors have swirled around Jim Cassady, the quasi-legendary punk-rock frontman who disappeared without a trace after his girlfriend s apparent suicide. Though largely written off as dead, some claim to have had brushes with Cassady, now said to be homeless and bumming change on the streets of his native Los Angeles. Intrigued, Jason Maddox, a would-be filmmaker and Cassady fan, decides to investigate. But the man he eventually finds and befriends is damaged in ways he could never have imagined, and Jason s own life begins to unravel as he tries to save the hapless Jim Cassady from himself. A mystery wrapped in a rollercoaster account of the American pop-culture underbelly, "Banned for Life" has been cited as a "cult-favorite" by the "New York Journal of Books," with a reputation that continues to expand. ..".["Banned for Life"] follows Jason Maddox's serio-comic adventures in the underground punk scene, stretching beyond mosh-pit mayhem and barroom brawls to explore death and obsession and purpose. The author zigzags confidently between a resonant coming-of-age tale in North Carolina, "la vie boheme" in hardscrabble New York, and a tempestuous L.A. love affair...even readers ambivalent to punk will be drawn in by the peculiarly irresistible voice of Jason..." "The Nervous Breakdown" ..".this book reaches across the punk divide...[it] captures nostalgia nicely, without whining about the good old days." "Razorcake" "Haney's characters are super realistic. They're nuanced and interesting and you actually care about what's going to happen to them...the writing was so spot on that I often thought this book was less made up and more a fictionalized version of the author's life." "Maximum RocknRoll" "Every once in a while, I read a book that I think everyone else should read. A book that lovers of all genres can enjoy. A book that I wish I could buy for every single non-reader out there to prove to them what they are missing. ["Banned for Life"] is one of those books...once I started, I knew I was not going to want it to end. It called to me every time I put it down. It begged. It screamed. I savored every moment of it, and I dreaded reading that final sentence." "The Next Best Book Blog" ..".[a] powerful and affecting novel that hits all the right notes." "Largehearted Boy" ..".an engaging page turner...anyone who has an interest in the American punk scene of the 1980s will find plenty in this book to latch onto." "Big Wheel" "Banned For Life" is about punk rock? Sure, just like "Moby-Dick" is about whales...like Melville, D. R. Haney has created a world so rich in detail, so authentic, so damned cool, you want to take up a harpoon or, in this case, a guitar and join the fray. "Banned for Life" is literary fiction at its best..." Greg Olear, author of "Totally Killer" and "Fathermucker" .."..pitch-perfect, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartrendingly sad...a eulogy to dead friends and those who died trying to transform personal pain into something extraordinary...[this] is one of those rare books that tells the story of a generation." Chris Kraus, author of "I Love Dick," "Aliens & Anorexia," "Torpor" "

Practical Jean

Practical Jean
Author: Trevor Cole
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2010-09-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0771023278

This eagerly awaited new novel from Trevor Cole combines the humour and sharp observations of contemporary life that he is known for with an irresistibly twisted premise, for fans of the quirkily macabre Six Feet Under and Dexter, and readers of Paul Quarrington, Miriam Toews, Jonathan Franzen, and, of course, Trevor Cole. In his first two, GG-shortlisted novels, Trevor Cole proved himself a master of drawing us into the shadowy side of human nature with sharp observation and warm wit. In Practical Jean, he goes a step further: this is a darkly humourous and revelatory tale of an ordinary, small-town woman with the usual challenges of middle age — a do-nothing husband, a family that refuses to understand her — who realizes her fondest wish is to protect her dearest friends from the indignities of aging and illness. And that's when she decides to kill them . . .

Stupid Children

Stupid Children
Author: Lenore Zion
Publisher: Emergency Press
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2013-10-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0988569442

Jane lived happily in Miami Beach with her father until his failed suicide attempt and relocation to a mental hospital forced her into the foster care system. By chance, Jane is assigned to foster parents in central Florida who are deeply involved in the Second Day Believers & mdasha cult focused on the?cleansing" of mental impurities in their children, and the sanctity of the internal organs of farm animals. Jane is quickly initiated into the Second Day Believers, but her father's lingering voice prevents her from becoming entirely indoctrinated. Despite Jane's resistance, she is revere.

Mo' Urban Dictionary

Mo' Urban Dictionary
Author: Aaron Peckham
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2009-01-01
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0740788922

I have seen the future of slang dictionaries, and its name is urbandictionary.com." --Times (London) * Move over Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and American Heritage; your version of truthiness has hit the marble ceiling. Compiled from the wildly popular Web site urbandictionary.com, Mo' Urban Dictionary: Ridonkulous Street Slang Defined includes more than 2,000 of the latest contemporary slang entries. * Since the site's founding in 1999, more than 2.5 million definitions have been submitted. Thousands of new words and definitions are added each day. * Each alphabetized entry includes a word, a definition, and a sample sentence. Applejacked: Having your Apple iPod stolen. "Dude, on the train last night I totally got Applejacked!" bacon bit: A rent-a-cop; not good/important enough to be referred to as a "pig" or "bacon." "I thought we'd be in trouble when the 5-0 started rollin' up, but then I realized it was just the bacon bits--mall security." cruiser spoon: To park two police cruisers with the drivers' sides adjacent so that the officers can converse through the open windows. "Better slow down, the po-po are cruiser spooning in the parking lot ahead."