This book contains a blend of unique surreal offbeat poetry mixed with a selection of more traditional verse. Loaded with humorous reads and a few tongue twisting patterns as well. Surreal to serene, most of these poems beg to be read out loud.

"We have traded tales, my buddies and I; of affairs, encounters, secrets, fears, self-promotion-of fantasies that we make real in the telling." In this, the first volume in Ethan Mordden's acclaimed trilogy on Manhattan gay life, he introduces a small group of friends-Dennis Savage, Little Kiwi, Carlos, and the narrator, Bud-and chronicles their exploration of the new world of gay life and the new people they are in the process of becoming. In a voice at once ironic, wistful, witty, and profound, Mordden investigates his suspicion that all of gay life is stories and that, somehow or other, all these stories are about love.

Magic has stepped out of the movies, morphed from the pages of fairy tales, and is more present in America today than you might expect. Soccer moms get voodoo head washings in their backyards, young American soldiers send chants toward pagan gods of war, and a seemingly normal family determines that they are in fact elves. National bestselling author and award-winning religion reporter Christine Wicker leaves no talisman unturned in her hunt to find what's authentic and what's not in America's burgeoning magical reality. From the voodoo temples of New Orleans to the witches' covens of Salem to a graveyard in north Florida, Wicker probes the secrets of an underground society and teaches lessons she never dreamed could be taught. What she learns repels her, challenges her, and changes her in ways she never could have imagined. And if you let it, it might change you, too.

The “Ghetto Sketches” was written in 1962, published in 1972. The ghettos in Chicago (North, South, Westside) provided the foundation for the novel. It is an impressionistic study of Washburne Avenue, a street on the Westside/ghetto in Chicago, filled with authentic people. As you read these pages, keep in mind, The “Sketches” happened in a time frame when there were few community programs to help people with drug issues, alcohol addiction, racism. We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go, as indicated in this “Ghetto Sketches, 2021”.

Pour Me Another Poem is the sixth book of poetry composed by RD McManes. Written in a similar style to his last two books We Ain't in Kansas No More and Don't Read Me Like Some Poem this book is a blend of surreal and more traditional verse. Geared to touch the heart and soul of a reader it contains 92 pages of poetry. The title poem is "Pour me another poem" a metaphoric creation which compares poetry to a good stiff shot of whiskey. "Cloudy dreams" and "Prairie Sea" are examples of traditional free verse and "Almost once, I did" can only be classified as surreal. The author fills the book Pour Me Another Poem with metaphor, which opens the door for interesting interpretation by the reader.

“Naqvi’s fast-paced plot, foul-mouthed erudition and pitch-perfect dialogue make for a stellar debut.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) They are renaissance men. They are bons vivants. They are three young Pakistani men in New York City at the turn of the millennium: AC, a gangsta-rap-spouting academic; Jimbo, a hulking Pushtun DJ from the streets of Jersey City; and Chuck, a wideeyed kid, fresh off the boat from the homeland, just trying to get by. Things start coming together for Chuck when he unexpectedly secures a Wall Street gig and begins rolling with socialites and scenesters flanked by his pals, who routinely bring down the house at hush-hush downtown haunts. In a city where origins matter less than the talent for self-invention, the three Metrostanis have the guts to claim the place as their own. But when they embark on a road trip to the hinterland weeks after 9/11 in search of the Shaman, a Gatsbyesque compatriot who seemingly disappears into thin air, things go horribly wrong. Suddenly, they find themselves in a changed, charged America. Rollicking, bittersweet, and sharply observed, Home Boy is at once an immigrant’s tale, a mystery, and a story of love and loss, as well as a unique meditation on Americana and notions of collective identity. It announces the debut of an original, electrifying voice in contemporary fiction.

Play From Your Fucking Heart offers absolutely no new wisdom whatsoever. In fact, it could be called an eco book, as its entire contents are recycled. Indeed, it is written with the stated belief that there is no new wisdom, that in fact the experience a reader has whenever they read something and go "Oh wow, that’s really deep," is one of already knowing, of a part of themselves that was already there waking up to an eternal collective truth.

PUT YOURSELF IN DOROTHY'S SHOES... Can "The Wizard of Oz" story be used as an allegory of the spiritual path with enough depth and universality to embody core spiritual truths common to all faiths? This book says "yes!" The author invents the concept of the "spiritual monomyth" and builds one on a story that is not offensive to any religion and therefore can serve all of them. The result is a journey of finding common ground and mutual understanding so desperately needed in the world today. And that journey is a journey you take within yourself.

Stevie Stevenson graduates from college and embraces the liberating California lifestyle in award-winning author April Sinclair’s follow-up to her “vivid and brilliant” (San Francisco Review of Books) debut novel Coffee Will Make You Black Growing up black in 1960s Chicago, Jean “Stevie” Stevenson came of age amid the tumult of the civil rights movement, learning to value not just her race and gender but her sexuality as well. Now, nearly a decade later, Stevie is a college graduate enjoying a week of vacation in San Francisco. After getting a taste of the bohemian life, she can’t bring herself to return home to her family and journalism career in Chicago. Instead, she’s determined to spread her wings and discover her true self, experimenting with free love, gay pride, and vegetarianism; forging a friendship with a gay disco queen; and taking a job at the feminist Personal Change Counseling Center. As she falls in and out of love, Stevie takes time to observe both the absurd and the liberating qualities of the West Coast hippie lifestyle—and is constantly reminded that the journey to self-discovery likely has no end point. Written with the same bright wit and endless charm that made Coffee Will Make You Black such a beloved book, Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice is a delightful continuation of Stevie’s story that was hailed by Salon as “ripely funny, unpretentious, and sincere.”