May We Borrow Your Husband?

May We Borrow Your Husband?
Author: Graham Greene
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504054024

A collection of twelve disarmingly witty tales about the complexities of love and intimacy from “a storyteller of genius” (Evelyn Waugh). “The sense of the author at play dominates” Graham Greene’s entertaining anthology as the masterful British author looks at love, lies, vanity, mortality, romantic obsessions, and seduction from a dozen sharply observed perspectives (The New York Times). A bored faculty wife looking for a fling discovers something more illuminating than sex; a jaded writer who eavesdrops on a pair of hopeful lovers feels compelled to relieve them of their foolish ideals and ambitions; a widow and a divorcée commiserate in mourning for their lost men, only to rejoice in their freedom after two bottles of blanc de blancs; a young man devises a test of true love—to find a woman who won’t laugh at the absurd circumstances of his father’s death; and in the title story, an oblivious young bride honeymooning in Antibes encourages a friendship between a gay couple and her adventurous and handsome new husband.

Truth in Comedy

Truth in Comedy
Author: Charna Halpern
Publisher: Meriwether Publishing
Total Pages: 164
Release: 1994
Genre: Improvisation (Acting)
ISBN: 9781566080033

The 'Harold', an innovative improvisational tool, helped many actors on the road to TV and film stardom, including George Wendt (Norm on Cheers). Now it is described fully in this new book for would-be actors and comics. The 'Harold' is a form of competitive improv involving 6 or 7 players. They take a theme suggestion from the audience and 'free associate' on the theme into a series of rapid-fire one-liners that build into totally unpredictable skits with hilarious results. The 'Harold' is a fun way to 'loosen up' and learn to think quickly, build continuity, develop characterisations and sharpen humour.

Sophie's World

Sophie's World
Author: Jostein Gaarder
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 599
Release: 2007-03-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466804270

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

The Living Room

The Living Room
Author: Graham Greene
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2018-08-07
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 150405427X

The illicit affair of a devout woman in London ignites a shattering family crisis in the author’s “ruthlessly honest” first play (The Guardian). In a dour Holland Park house with rooms and secrets long shuttered live three unyielding forces for morality: rigidly religious sisters Helen and Teresa, and their brother, a Roman Catholic priest. Into the lives of this insular trio comes their young grandniece, Rose Pemberton, following the death of her mother. To the mortification of her aunts, Rose has also brought her lover, Michael Dennis, who is twenty-five years Rose’s senior, married, and a psychology lecturer dictated by reason, not faith. In a home that reeks of sanctimony, Rose and Michael are as welcome as sin. But it’s the arrival of Michael’s distraught wife—armed with righteous emotional blackmail and worse—that ignites an unexpected fury and makes real the family’s greatest fears. Premiering in London in 1953 and moving to Broadway one year later, Graham Greene’s debut as a dramatist was hailed by Kenneth Tynan as “the best first play of its generation.”

The Fortunate Ones

The Fortunate Ones
Author: R. S. Grey
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2017-10-25
Genre: Man-woman relationships
ISBN: 9781977834102

At Twin Oaks Country Club, there are the fortunate ones, and then there are the rest of us: the waiters, the caddies, the valets, and in my case, the cabana girls. Most days, I'm poolside in a pleated skirt, dishing out margaritas to tycoons and titans. It's not exactly my dream job, but it does come with one perk... James Ashwood. He's my silver lining in a custom black suit. Besides being a legacy member at the club, he's a tech mogul and Austin's most eligible bachelor. Oh, and those dimples? Yeah, they make my stomach dip too. On good days, I catch his sleek Porsche winding down the tree-lined drive. On better days, I steal a glimpse of his handsome profile as we pass in the hall. And on the absolute best day, I find him alone at the bar, looking for company. "Come have a seat." Those four little words set me down a path I never could have imagined. Private planes, penthouse suites, and temptations around every corner make it impossible to keep my distance. His world feels decadent and wild-but overindulgence comes with a cost. Every kiss comes with strings. Every erotic encounter is a promise I'm not ready to keep. When I pump the brakes, he hits the gas. James doesn't want to go slow-he wants a commitment. And the thing about the fortunate ones? They're used to getting what they want.

The Works of Graham Greene

The Works of Graham Greene
Author: Mike Hill
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1441161945

A comprehensive reference guide to the published writings of Graham Greene, this book surveys not only Greene's literary work - including his fiction, poetry and drama - but also his other published writings. Accessibly organised over five central sections, the book provides the most up-to-date listing available of Greene's journalism, his published letters and major interviews. The Writings of Graham Greene also includes a bibliography of major secondary writings on Greene and a substantial and fully cross-referenced index to aid scholars and researchers working in the field of 20th Century literature.

The Icarus Girl

The Icarus Girl
Author: Helen Oyeyemi
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307428737

The audacious first novel from the award-winning and bestselling author of Boy, Snow, Bird and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours • “Oyeyemi brilliantly conjures up the raw emotions and playground banter of childhood. . . . A masterly first novel.”–The New York Times Book Review "Remarkable. . . . As original as it is unsettling, The Icarus Girl runs straight at the heart of what it means to belong."– O, The Oprah Magazine Jessamy “Jess” Harrison, age eight, is the child of an English father and a Nigerian mother. Possessed of an extraordinary imagination, she has a hard time fitting in at school. It is only when she visits Nigeria for the first time that she makes a friend who understands her: a ragged little girl named TillyTilly. But soon TillyTilly’s visits become more disturbing, until Jess realizes she doesn’t actually know who her friend is at all. Drawing on Nigerian mythology, Helen Oyeyemi presents a striking variation on the classic literary theme of doubles — both real and spiritual — in this lyrical and bold debut.

Talking to Strangers

Talking to Strangers
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2019-09-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0316535621

Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers and why they often go wrong—now with a new afterword by the author. A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Press How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isn’t true? Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.

Only a Joke Can Save Us

Only a Joke Can Save Us
Author: Todd McGowan
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2017-09-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0810135825

Only a Joke Can Save Us presents an innovative and comprehensive theory of comedy. Using a wealth of examples from high and popular culture and with careful attention to the treatment of humor in philosophy, Todd McGowan locates the universal source of comedy in the interplay of the opposing concepts lack and excess. After reviewing the treatment of comedy in the work of philosophers as varied as Aristotle, G. W. F. Hegel, Sigmund Freud, Henri Bergson, and Alenka Zupancic, McGowan, working in a psychoanalytic framework, demonstrates that comedy results from the deployment of lack and excess, whether in contrast, juxtaposition, or interplay. Illustrating the power and flexibility of this framework with analyses of films ranging from Buster Keaton and Marx Brothers classics to Dr. Strangelove and Groundhog Day, McGowan shows how humor can reveal gaps in being and gaps in social order. Scholarly yet lively and readable, Only a Joke Can Save Us is a groundbreaking examination of the enigmatic yet endlessly fascinating experience of humor and comedy.