Алан Цвайбель0.0 Book DescriptionShulman, a chubby, middle-aged stationery-store owner from New Jersey, has always claimed that he’s been gaining and losing the same thirty-five pounds since junior high–and that if you added all of that discarded weight
Билл Шефт0.0 In Bill Scheft's hilarious second novel, a finalist for the 2006 Thurber Prize for American Humor, five former members of a rock band, fast approaching age fifty, try to overcome their petty feuds and failed (and failing) marriages to recapture the fading yet distinct tone of their music and friendships.
In 1967, while students at Chase Academy, the prep-school garage band known as the Truants recorded a vanity album, Out of Site. Thirty years later, they discover that a record collector has paid $10,000 for a rare copy of the disk, and an avid fan-turned-promoter convinces them to reunite and cash in. But miles from the horizon of youth, weighted down by shortsighted choices and mortgaged ambitions, they find that's not so simple.
Richie, a divorce lawyer, must stop seducing clients with karaoke. John, a dermatologist, needs to escape the would-be patients who corner him at parties, sleeves rolled up—or worse. Tim must introduce his wife to his drum set, hidden in the attic the way most guys hide porn. Brian has to desert the thesis he's been "completing" for twenty-five years. And somebody, somehow, has to track down Jerry, a hopeless gambler/Equal addict last seen flying to the Caymans with $1 million taped to his body. Along the way they encounter a delusional sister, an anatomically blessed baker, Les Paul, and former J. Geils Band lead singer Peter Wolf.
With his trademark relentless humor, light and dark, and his compassion for the second acts of the baby boomer experience, Bill Scheft follows up his critically acclaimed debut novel, The Ringer, with another hysterical, touching look at chaotic lives in search of harmony.
Кинки Фридман0.0 "Texas Hold 'Em is more than just a card game. It deals…with that fine, forgotten art of playing a poor hand well…Texas Hold 'Em is a state of mind, a spiritual survival technique, a way of holding on to things that might just be important in this ever-changing world." --from the introduction to Texas Hold 'Em
The irrepressible, future Governor of Texas is back with a crusade to stop the wussification of the Lone Star State. He never thought he'd see the day when he'd miss gun racks in the back windows of pickup trucks, but he almost does. He misses the days when cowboy shirts never had buttons and coffee with a friend was still a dime. Many of the stubborn, dusty, weather-beaten little towns, roads, trucks, jeeps, people and animals are gone now. Like it or not, the peaceful, scenic bucolic Hill Country of his childhood is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.
His is at his outrageous best as he gives Americans a look at the state made famous by the Alamo, the armadillo, Willie Nelson, and, well, Kinky Friedman. Texas Hold 'Em is composed of provocative essays, including autobiographical pieces that are at times bittersweet and at other hilarious, profiles of such stellar Texans as his friend, Willie Nelson, as you've never seen him before, George W. Bush, and Racehorse Haynes, and a treasure trove of lists, quizzes , including:
If the Ten Commandments Were Written by a Texan
Tex My ride
Texas Firsts
What Kind of Texas Driver Are you?
As an added diversion, the book is decorated with cartoons by the brilliant John Callahan, particularly appealing to those whose lives are spiraling downward into tailspins of despair.
Texas Hold 'Em is the way in which the Kinkster plays the game of life. To him, Texas Hold' Em means holding on to what is dear to him, to the things that made him who he is, always remembering that the most important things in life aren't things. An old cowboy philosophy of life sums it up -- "hang on tight, spur hard, and let 'er buck."
