Other books that might interest you

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  Lost in Yonkers

  Neil Simon

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  Set in Yonkers, New York in 1942, two boys, aged 13 and 16, must spend one year with their austere and demanding grandmother. While the war rages in Europe, Jay and Arty learn the ropes from Uncle Louie and assorted relatives, all peculiar characters.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Barbara Bain, Gia Carides, Dan Castellaneta, Ben Diskin, Arye Gross, Roxanne Hart and Kenneth Schmidt.

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  The Nose - Gogol uses the absurd...

  Nikolai Gogol

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  Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born on 1st April 1809 to a father, descended from Ukrainian Cossacks and a mother with a military background in the Ukrainian town of Sorochyntsi, then part of the Russian Empire and rich in Cossack traditions and folklore.   
   
  His father wrote poetry and plays which the young Gogol helped stage at his uncle’s home theatre.  This helped ignite in him a love of literature and blossomed when he attended, what is now, the Nizhyn Gogol State University at the age of 12.  Here he participated in school theatre productions and refined his mastery of his native Ukrainian and also the Russian of his Imperial masters. 
   
  In 1828 he went to St Petersburg and unsuccessfully tried to begin a career as an actor after finding that with no money and no connections the civil service was barred to him. 
   
  Embezzling money from his mother he embarked on a trip to Germany. When the money ran out, he returned to St Petersburg but the experiences were used in a series of stories he contributed to periodicals.  These tales were steeped in his childhood memories of the Ukrainian landscape and peasantry enlivened with the supernatural of its folklore woven with realistic events of the day.  He wrote in Russian in a whimsical, colloquial style with a smattering of Ukrainian words and phrases that provided an authenticity.  Eight stories were published as ‘Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka’.  Seemingly all at once fame and fortune arrived. Gogol was hailed by his contemporaries, including Pushkin, as a pre-eminent writer of Russian literature.   
   
  His success continued with his brilliant plays ‘The Inspector General’ and the comedy ‘The Marriage for the Theatre’, both being highly acclaimed.   
   
  In 1834 he became Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg but with little academic or teacher training, failed to adequately fulfil many of his duties and soon resigned this post.  With no obligations and using his earnings from his writing, which now included the impressionistic and immortal ‘Dead Souls’, Gogol travelled around Europe, spending the most time in Rome where he studied art, read Italian literature and developed a passion for opera.  
   
  In the 1840s Gogol became preoccupied with a need to purify his soul and embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In tandem he fell under the influence of a strict and austere spiritual ascetic who persuaded him to observe strict fasts that, allied with his depression and deteriorating health, contributed to his death on 21st April 1852 at the age of only 43. 
   
  In the Nose Gogol reaches out with the absurd premise that a Nose can have, and enjoy, a life of its own regardless of the complications and consequences to its former owner.

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  Damon Runyon Theater - Social...

  Damon Runyon

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  The Damon Runyon Theatre Hour.  Damon Runyon is acknowledged as one of the great writers to come out of twentieth century America.  Runyon's short stories are almost always told in the first person by a narrator who is never named, and whose role is unclear; he knows many gangsters and has no job that can be gleaned from his musings, nor does he admit to any criminal involvement; He’s a bystander, an observer, an average street-corner Joe.  Runyon described himself as "being known to one and all as a guy who is just around".  That line seems to say a lot about Runyon and his life.  It was like you were with him on some street corner hustle or some shady dive and he was filling you in on all the angles, all the gossip, all of life. He was who so many people wanted to be with……or so many people wanted to be.  Of course, the cliché about newspapermen and writers is that they are heavy drinkers, chain-smokers, gamblers and obsessively chase women with a sideline in the gathering of stories and facts and actually getting something written just before the deadline hits. That seems like Damon Runyon and his life summed up in one sentence.  His stories became legendary ways of looking that bit differently at America, of soaking up the atmosphere of a glamorous and rip-roaring age and distilling it into black and white type or, in our case, The Damon Runyon Theatre Hour.

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  King Arthur

  Joseph Comyns Carr

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  An amazing version of the classic legend of King Arthur, Guinevere & Sir Lancelot.

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  A Rhyme A Dozen ― The Night - 12...

  John Keats, Charlotte][AUTHOR...

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  ‘A dime a dozen’ as known in America, is perhaps equal to the English ‘cheap as chips’ but whatever the lingua franca of your choice in this series we hereby submit ‘A Rhyme a Dozen’ as 12 poems on many given subjects that are a well-rounded gathering, maybe even an essential guide, from the knowing pens of classic poets and their beautifully spoken verse to the comfort of your ears. 
  1 - A Rhyme A Dozen - 12 Poems, 12 Poets, 1 Topic - The Night - An Introduction 
  2 - To Night by Lope de Vega 
  3 - Mother Night by James Weldon Johnson 
  4 - Night by John Ruskin 
  5 - A Night in June by James Edwin Campbell 
  6 - Summer Night by Alfred Lord Tennyson 
  7 - In Drear Nighted December by John Keats 
  8 - A Winter Night by Sara Teasdale 
  9 - Night Piece by James Joyce 
  10 - Moorland Night by Charlotte Mew 
  11 - The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson 
  12 - Ships That Pass in the Night by Paul Laurence Dunbar 
  13 - Wild Nights, Wild Nights by Emily Dickinson

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  The Book of Tiny Prayer - Daily...

  Micah Bucey

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   From a progressive faith leader, a collection of short devotions bearing witness to the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the world went into lockdown in March 2020, spiritual leader Micah Bucey found himself in desperate need of prayer. While social distancing created disconnect, Bucey began a daily practice of writing a “Tiny Prayer” each morning and posting it on social media. Soon, a solitary practice became a communal one, with others engaging and sharing the prayers that touched them most, creating connection across a digital divide. Over the course of a year filled with fear and faith, protest and possibility, Bucey composed prayers for frontline workers and activists, those lost to illness, as well as wins for democracy. Collecting all 366 poems in one volume, The Book of Tiny Prayer recalls a very particular year, but its spirit is universal, inviting us all to get quiet, name the pain and the joy around us, and recommit to the change required for collective liberation, during difficult times and far beyond. “These tiny prayers from Micah Bucey’s big heart add up to something far larger than first meets the eye. In the midst of fear, grief, and continuing injustices, these are sincere expressions of the desire to dream God’s dream, with the power to center us, comfort us, ground us, and galvanize us.” ---The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister, Middle Collegiate Church and author, Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World, Named one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2021 by Spirituality & Practice

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