Book Description
Each of the seven stories in this extraordinary debut collection dramatizes a deep love staring at the face of death- an encounter that elicits either the best or the worst in these vividly drawn characters. In "We're in Trouble," a woman is asked to end her dying husband's suffering. In "Abandon," a troubled young man must risk jail to do right by the only woman he has ever loved. And "In the Event" shows a young musician's all-night vigil after his best friends' sudden deaths leave him the guardian of their three-year-old son.
Suspenseful and empathic, these dramatically constructed stories show love darkening and persevering as it is tried by the cold reality of death. From a wife waiting for news of her husband's latest death-defying climb, to a sheriff thrown into turmoil after his close friend enacts a horrifying murder-suicide, Coake makes us feel the truth of his characters' lives and transforms it into cathartic art.
Customer Reviews:
Yes they are... and you get to read about it.......2006-01-11
As other reviewers have stated,these unusual stories combine the themes of love and death in some very troubling and thought provoking ways. An amazing debut collection of short stories with nary a dud in the bunch. My favorite by far was "All through the house", but all these stories are much better than the standard fare gracing the best seller list. Christopher Coake has an illustrious career ahead of him.
Outstanding debut work!.......2005-07-24
The prevailing theme of these short stories is of love, in the face of death, and this core idea is viewed from a fascinating variety of angles: long-married love confronting terminal illness, sudden death of friends turning a young man into a reluctant father, love entwined in jealousy, depression and violence, love born of heroism. Each scenario presents real characters, people we all know, tightly drawn, speaking words we all recognize. You read these stories with a near sense of having heard of or known these people. I read this book straight through, gripped by each unique story, and look forward eagerly to future work from this author. Don't be dissuaded by the seemingly dark content; some of these stories are actually uplifting, or at least come to a satisfactory close.
A Stunning Collection.......2005-06-29
Chris Coake doesn't subscribe to the wacky narrative experiments that seem to be infesting the American literary landscape lately. There's no funky type-setting, no illustrations, no cameos by comic book heroes or post-modern tomfoolery. But at the same time, it's not fair to place his work in the strictly neo-realist tradition either: the dull epiphany punctuated by a stream of quotidian events. He's just too original for that trap. He's experimental and conventional at once. The title story is three unrelated stories in one that share similar themes. The final story, "All Through the House", plays with chronology to maximize its cumulative affect.
He's convincing, deliberate and never gimicky. His stories have a sort of devastating quietness about them--stories that are invested in character and craft--stories that are unsettling, that are bristling and building like a dormant volcano, adding pressure upon pressure toward the last sentence. The final affect is startling, pure and terrifyingly beautiful.
These stories are often dark but never cynical, haunting but humane. There's a morality behind the trauma, a design that seems to redeem its horrors (Coake never compensates for the trauma--but there is something that is always subtlely gained, extracted from it. In "Abandon", for instance, it's a sense of accountability, of true devotion). The title of the collection is evocative of its theme--but to say these stories confront the cataclysmic seems to undermine their subtlety. It's not the event that matters but the way that the characters respond to the cataclysm. In clumsier hands, these stories could be vulgar, almost melodramatic. But Coake is in such control of his craft that he pulls each one off masterfully.
In short, this is the strongest and most consistent story collection I've read in years. If you care about literary fiction: Read him. Go. Now. Get this book. Read it. And Enjoy.
Well written, but unrelentingly dark and depressing........2005-05-28
A dog chases a frisby off a cliff; a baby is ejected from an car in a freeway accident; a woman freezes to death in the upper peninsula of Michigan; a father murders his wife, children and in-laws, and generally each story shows us something dark, sadistically destructive, and generally disappointing about human nature.
This collection is very well written (although I could use some quotation marks around the dialogue to avoid unnecssary confusion). Some reviews look at this collection optimistically, with the view that we are shown how humankind endures and moves forward despite all the negative forces and situations that inevitably occur in life. Well, what choice do we have but to endure, and move forward (or kill ourselves)?
This collection gave me very little hope for mankind or belief in the resilience of human nature. I saw it instead as saying -- life is pretty brutal and mankind has great potential to be weak and self-serving.
I could have used a little more sunshine emerging from the relentless shadow that is this book.
A Smashing Debut.......2005-05-09
This amazing collection of short stories is one of the most accomplished debuts I've read in a long time. These dark, twisty tales map clean lines to the human heart and leave the reader shaken at every turn. It's hard to single out favorites from these amazing stories, but "In the Event" and "All Through the House" stand out for me. "In the Event" is a devastating and tiny exploration of what happens to one man when the very worst case scenario happens to him and his dark night working through it. And "All Through the House", which closes the collection, is a shattering look at a terrible murder, outside to in. From first to last this is top-notch serious-minded fiction, and Christopher Coake joins a short list that includes Ethan Canin and Dan Chaon as a writer who leaves you breathlessly awaiting his next work.
Book Description
What makes you go Grrr?
Is it the celebrity who is under the delusion that you actually care about how he or she wants you to vote, when all you really care about from the Hollywood set is how they will entertain you? Is it that Paris Hilton is dressing your daughters, Tom Cruise is having kids out of wedlock, and Terrell Owens is putting the "I" in team?
From celebrities who forget that they're not policymakers to the politicians who forget they're not celebrities, from the office moron spouting off the latest political rant to the idiots who screech endlessly into their cell phones, FOXNews.com Grrr! columnist Mike Straka is the voice of reason for millions of rabid readers who are sick and tired of the celebrity-obsessed world in which we live today. Straka’s hilarious yet brutally honest observations don't stop there. Whether you're at the mall, driving in your car, or sitting at home watching television, there's just so much to Grrr! about, and Mike Straka, aka "The Grrr! Guy," helps you vent with a book that exposes the injustices of the world and takes down some of our biggest offenders!
Customer Reviews:
What right do Canadians have in this debate?.......2007-05-20
I believe the "pilgrim," is from Nova Scotia, and the last time I checked, that was Canada. Since when do Canadians, always interested in bashing the US down an inch in the hopes they will grow magically by the same amount, have a right to debate US policy? If we were to debate Canadian policy, that would be "Interference." I say we recognize Quebec as a separate country, and thus express our "opinions," to the Canadians.
If the Pilgrim does not like the US, he is welcome to pay his 50% tax rate and never come to the US again. I don't think too many hearts will be broken.
Great book, no matter what any "pilgrims" say........2007-05-07
A great book for those who think for themselves, and are sick of others buying into the Hollywood lies that surround us every day. But, if you really do see nothing wrong with the lives these people lead, or if you really do believe everything they tell you, well, as the saying goes, "if you're not part of the solution..."
here we go again...............2007-03-29
One of the long standing strategies of the the religious rightious and the neo-cons is to attack the messenger such that we don't have to deal with his/her message. Here we go again! The so-called 'celebrities' have a message that our country has become a sham of democracy, a shadow of the country that we all grew up in and that 'patriotism' is being demanded over common sense, intelligence and human compassion. These are the basic and factual messages that are coming out of Hollywood. Instead of dealing with their validity, the neo-cons, once again, choose to attack the messengers. How much long will it take for the remaining 30% of the American public to wake up and smell the hypocricy? Charles Dickens warned that the two greatest evils in the world were poverty and ignorance and the greatest of these two was ignorance.
Easy Read!.......2007-03-09
This book is enjoyable! You can pick it up and have so many laugh out louds that at times you feel like you know Straka personally! Keep this one around!
???.......2007-03-05
If you don't like celebrities, ignore them. Don't write a book about them. Seems a bit self-defeating...
Average customer rating:
- adequate monsters
- Great, but not comprehensive
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We're Not Monsters: Teens Speak Out about Teens in Trouble
Sabrina Solin Weill
Manufacturer: HarperTempest
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When Nothing Matters Anymore: A Survival Guide for Depressed Teens
ASIN: 0380807033
Release Date: 2002-01-08 |
Book Description
I think adults miss something very important about teenagers. They think teenagers are dangerous I little vortexes of evil. I. But my friends and I have so much more we'd rather do than waste time gathering guns and ammunition and stuff. My friends and I are not harmful. But inconsiderate treatment can stir to terrible action those who are." -- John, 15
"We are human beings, not machines. A person can only take so much before reaching a breaking point." -- Jill, 19
We've all seen the newspaper stories, watched the TV dramas unfold. They're everywhere, it seems: teenagers who shoot classmates in schools, who molest children, who commit suicide or cut themselves or give birth in secret and leave babies on doorsteps or in Dumpsters, Are these teenagers born bad -- or did something happen to make them act this way? Why do teens today feel so angry, so full of pain, so alone?
Listen to the voices of teenagers as they comment, candidly, on teens in trouble. The experts, those who study these difficult issues and discuss them in the media, draw their own conclusions. The teens here tell it like it is.
Customer Reviews:
adequate monsters.......2004-09-21
As a collection of stories, this one is adequate. The stories themselves are realistic but seem to be taken from a small unrepresentative portion of society as there are a lot of important teen issues that don't even garner a mention. What is included is well written, but as someone who has worked with teens in crisis for years, I was disappointed that there wasn't more to this book than there was.
Great, but not comprehensive.......2002-02-12
We're Not Monsters is a excellent, factual portrayal of many of the issues facing teens today. For each topic, there is a wide variety of resources, from basic information and statistics to stories and quotes from other teens. It also clearly explains what a concerned friend can do and gets into some of the social issues involved and potential areas for advocacy. One major gripe that kept me from giving 5 stars: a lot of common, important teen issues (eating disorders for example) aren't covered in here. I was happy with the chapters on teen suicide and self-injury (both topics are near and dear to my heart), and the section on killer teens was interesting, but I was disappointed that the chapter on teen abusers didn't include more information for victims of abuse, and the chapter on teen pregnancy left a lot of potential avenues unexplored. Overall, though, I would recommend this book to teens in trouble, their friends, concerned adults, and anyone curious about what's going on with troubled teens.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Girls' Life, published by Monarch Avalon, Inc. on February 1, 2004. The length of the article is 641 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Gettin' outta hot water: whether you're treading lightly or in way over your head, we show you how to burst that big ol' bubble known as trouble.(life)(Brief Article)
Author: Laura Sandler
Publication:
Girls' Life (Magazine/Journal)
Date: February 1, 2004
Publisher: Monarch Avalon, Inc.
Volume: 10
Issue: 4
Page: 29(1)
Article Type: Brief Article
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Weekly Standard, published by Thomson Gale on November 28, 2005. The length of the article is 865 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The Standard Reader; "The Death of Feminism" by Phyllis Chesler; "We're in Trouble: Stories" by Christopher Coake.(Book review)
Author: Sarah Longwell
Publication:
The Weekly Standard (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 28, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 11
Issue: 11
Page: NA
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Customer Reviews:
A fine article about an interesting book.......2006-07-18
As Sarah Longwell explains, it is true that many women no longer fight over such issues as letting men pay for dinner, being addressed as Mrs. rather than Ms., or even taking their husband's last name. But these are minor issues. The biggest issue facing feminists today is Islamofacism and Islamic gender apartheid. And those who support all this tyranny just because the tyrants oppose George Bush are obviously not feminists, no matter what they call themselves.
Phyllis Chesler has brought up this issue in her book, "The Death of Feminism." And Longwell has done us all a service by echoing her claim that Western feminists must not turn their backs on the plight of women in Islamic nations. As Longwell explains, Chesler says that the vision of freedom for women must become part of American foreign policy, and "we must work with our government and with our international allies on this, because it is one of the most important feminist priorities of the twenty-first century." I agree. And once again, let's remind ourselves that those who side with the world's worst oppressors of women are by definition something very different than feminists.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from San Diego Business Journal, published by Thomson Gale on May 28, 2007. The length of the article is 583 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: We're looking for trouble when politicians jump into heated debate over climate change.(Editorial)
Author: Thomas York
Publication:
San Diego Business Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 28, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 28
Issue: 22
Page: 39(1)
Article Type: Editorial
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Winnipeg Free Press, published by Thomson Gale on March 5, 2007. The length of the article is 970 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: When the U.S. is in trouble, we're all in trouble.(Focus)
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication:
Winnipeg Free Press (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 5, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Page: a11
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Product Description
Includes Blackboard Bear; We're in Big Trouble, Blackboard Bear; I Sure Am Glad to See You, Blackboard Bear; and My Mean Old Mother Will Be Sorry, Blackboard Bear
Customer Reviews:
Exciting and funny!.......2006-08-17
It's very unusual to find BDSM stories that can be at the same time exciting and amusing... Temporary Slave is the first story I read that fulfilled both qualities. Reese Gabriel writes with a special emotional intensity, Marshall and Meridian are an amazing couple, he is the perfect alpha male that I would love to meet, dominating, charismatic, careful, kind and she is incredibly imaginative, funny, sensual, strong and vulnerable. The BDSM is well-delineated in a soft way the heats your feelings without scaring you, the plot is simple, I would have prefer more depth but I loved this book!
Good sex weak plot.......2005-10-18
Quite a bit better than average for the genre.
Meridian Hunter is looking for a Dom online; bu accident she finds Marshall Wilder (AKA Master Nightshade) the new CEO and her boss. For no good reason he is determined to disuade her from onlin hunting and the D/S life stile. Things get ineeresting when he takes her to a remote cabin for taining and all ends happly. The plot is pretty weak but there is one and over all its a good read.
Average customer rating:
- Didn't want it to end!
- To live outside the law you must be honest
- Dark humor,could use more thought provoking stories.
- The writing is by temps, who tell the whole truth about temp
- See how low temp employees can go in this book.
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Best of Temp Slave!
Manufacturer: Garrett County Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1891053426 |
Book Description
Best of Temp Slave! is a screaming artillery of work-related stories harvested from the internationally famous temp worker zine, Temp Slave! This book is a mighty megaphone for the thousands who slave in offices where self-worth and job security are forever defined by the word temporary.
Customer Reviews:
Didn't want it to end!.......2002-02-04
My only complaint with this book is that its too short! I wish it were longer! I loved the stories, they were so entertaining!
To live outside the law you must be honest.......2001-03-02
While this book is an excellent recount of the truth of life as lived for most of us (including an essay on what it is like for a real working person to live and work in France, which is no piqnique by any means), literature has a dual duty.
One is to tell the truth about mere suffering and of course Temp Slave does so.
The other is to reinforce the lesson with a committment to truth and Temp Slave does not do so.
That is, it is disingenuous to want to hold the wicked capitalists to schoolbook notions of honesty and plain dealing when within the same essay you recommend an interesting variety of ways of soldiering, goofing off, and stealing time.
Leon Trotsky tried and failed to answer the question of ethics in "Their Morals and Ours." One can read Lev Davidovich as wanting to live justly but ultimately painting himself in a dead end because of a misreading of Marx, and the result was tragic, involving as it did a hammer in the head in Mexico.
The only answer is an absolute committment, from the subordinate side of the job equation, to honesty and fair dealing, leavened with an absolute committment to solidarity with one's fellow workers, extending up into middle management, and, to the extent that CEOs are human, to Jack Welch of General Electric. The lesson of our century is that peaceful change succeeds whereas violent revolution and sabotage does not, instead producing the opposite of the desired effect (as well as good old Fascism.)
The hatred we've seen for people like Mihail Gorbachev seems focused on their verbosity (Gorbachev gets on Russian TV, only to be cut off.) But verbosity itself may only be the process of peaceful change speaking the truth in Taoist fashion, a dripdrop of water wearing away the rock.
The authors in Temp Slave seem anti-intellectual and so exhausted by their jobs and pleasures that they would not sit still for a Gorbachev: but I cannot see how they then have any alternative to today's computerized and prison-like work place.
Human affairs do not follow the rules of machines and soldiering, goofing off and stealing time does not make it hard for the bosses. They have ways of predicting such antics and compensating for them, and one of the most popular ways is cracking down on us fools who try not to goof off.
Human affairs follow the laws of the dialectic, or perhaps chaos theory. Thus bloody-mindedness is not a revolutionary act taking place in a vacuum but dialogic...it sends a message to the bosses, all right, and the message gets an instant response in the form of INCREASED amounts of workplace surveillance and increased crackdowns on The Rest of Us.
It's all very well to feel oh-so-superior to your lifer coworkers when you are a temp of arcane sexual persuasion with an advanced degree in Irish economic history. For it is true that society and the workplace damages people.
But check out your own damage first. While the women narrators of Temp Slave try to maintain a connection with the earth by taking breaks in a nearby park, the male writers seem to maintain a connection with Budweiser in their off-hours.
That's all very well: it is not for me to deny a workingman his pleasures. But it means that we cannot make absolute statements about what pathetic losers fulltime employees are when in many cases they are making the best of a bad situation.
To live outside the law, you must be honest, and I look for a literature of work that is honest all the way down. I do not find it in Temp Slave. Instead, I found it in Ellen Ullman's SLAVES TO THE MACHINE, about what it is like to be a REAL computer programmer, only a cut or so higher on the food chain than the temp.
I know you always say that you agree: so where are you tonight, Sweet Marie?
Dark humor,could use more thought provoking stories........1999-09-15
Thought this book used too many negative incidents, no lessons learned. If you want an original, entertaining, positive and negative look at temping from America's first authored temp (even testified for temps in Congress) read Temporarily Yours by Wendy Perkins. You will love it!
The writing is by temps, who tell the whole truth about temp.......1998-11-28
Best of Temp Slave by Jeff Kelly Garrett County Press; ISBN: 1891053426
This entertaining little book includes over 30 hilarious essays, along with numerous cartoons and comics about temping. The writing is by temps, who tell the whole truth about temping. They also offer great advice for temps on how to get even with the bosses.
Definitely not a rose-colored-glasses view of temping or work in non-union, corporate dominated America. This book covers the daily grind of insecurity, humiliation, and insult that temps endure. Instead of dream world advice, Temp Slave contains advice based upon real world experience, where neither the temp agencies or their clients give a flying damn about the temp, except for the mega-bucks we generate for them.
It is very refreshing to read a book by temps and for temps that show how many temps feel the abused. Best of Temp Slave lets temps see how they are not alone or aberrant in their feelings of abuse and insult. This book is an excellent contribution to the task of re-creating the worker solidarity that is necessary to overturn abusive working conditions in corporate dominated America.
See how low temp employees can go in this book........1998-10-22
In an era of downsizing, rightsizing and mergers, American employees have taken a beating. Never has that been more evident than in this supposidly humorous portrayal of temps (temporary employees) in the workplace today. Brief stories, comic strips and essays relay the plight of temps in their own words. Jeff Kelly admirably tries to give temps a voice through his zine and in this book. But what's here are endlessly wining, devious and downright hostile tales of employees, which I found horrifying. You'll read about major supply rip-offs (as if it's okay to steal because you're a temp and not treated like you want); nasty attitudes; plots to disrupt work and harm others; misplaced mail plots, and on and on. You'll also have the displeasure of reading dark comics that are riddled with anger and hate. I've been a temp, and I do think there are plenty of problems with temp agencies and how companies treat temps. But most of the temps featured in this book obviously don't want to do anything constructive about the situation. They just want to squeeze all they can from their assignments and irritate as many people as possible. Okay, one or two of the stories are funny. And alas, at least Kelly has provided a forum for temps, and in doing that, one could argue he's being constructive and his book is serving a purpose. But I found it a real downer.
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