As Far As You Know

Life is difficult for fifteen-year-old Serena Coleman since her parents left her alone to raise her younger sister. Her best friend Liam tries to help her out, but his violent temper gets in the way of them having any chance at a romantic relationship. Liam becomes more violent as he watches Serena fall in love with sixteen-year-old Ash Parker. Serena and Ash find themselves fighting for everyone they love, including each other. Along the way, Ash and Serena discover a dark secret that Liam has kept hidden for years.

Finalist, Trillium Book Award From one of the defining poets of his generation, a new collection that plumbs the depth of beauty, history, responsibility, and love. As Far As You Know, acclaimed poet A. F. Moritz’s twentieth collection of poems, begins with two sections entitled “Terrorism” and “Poetry.” The book unfolds in six movements, yet it revolves around and agonizes over the struggle between these two catalyzing concepts, in all the forms they might take, eventually arguing they are the unavoidable conditions and quandaries of human life. Written and organized chronologically around before and after the poet’s serious illness and heart surgery in 2014, these gorgeously unguarded poems plumb and deepen the reader’s understanding of Moritz’s primary and ongoing obsessions: beauty, impermanence, history, social conscience and responsibility, and, always and most urgently, love. For all its necessary engagement with worry, sorrow, and fragility, As Far As You Know sings a final insistent chorus to what it loves: “You will live.”

No matter your age or where you live, you'll find yourself rolling on the floor in hysterics at this hilariously funny look at life in the South, life in the military, and life of a southerner living in Germany. Go to the Bubba Fest in South Carolina, learn about the wurst of all wieners, and do the Doggy Dance of Joy. Find out if you have vacaphobia, how to tell if you're nekkid, and lessons on marriage from your dog and helicopters. You'll be "busier than a mosquito in a nudist colony" reading short stories such as "Armadillo and Red Wine," "Eat Crackers and Whistle Your National Anthem," "My dog is From the Planet Uranus," and "Hoodoo, Doorknobs, and Automobiles." The author, Jan Hornung, is an awarding winning humor columnist and author of "If A Frog Had Wings ... Helicopter Tales."

As Far as I Know is a wonderful new book of poems by Roger McGough, the nation's favourite poet Take comfort from this You have a book in your hand not a loaded gun or a parking fine or an invitation card to the wedding of the one you should have married Roger McGough's new book of poems shows him writing as fluently and inventively as ever. There may be a stronger strain of melancholy than before (the death of a regular in the local pub; the news that a daughter might be moving abroad), as well as a distinct sense of menace, small but insistent, which inhabits many of the poems. But there is plenty of McGough's characteristic wit and wordplay too, including a scintillating series of haiku inspired by a London tube strike and a striking reworking of his famous 1960s poem 'Let Me Die a Youngman's Death', this time entitled 'Not For Me a Youngman's Death'. Who but McGough would characterize the butcher's window as 'the friendly face of the abattoir', or imagine the almost limitless ways in which we might go to bed? A new book of poems by Roger McGough is always an event. Published just ahead of his 75th birthday, As Far As I Know is truly cause for celebration. 'The patron saint of poetry' Carol Ann Duffy Roger McGough was born in Liverpool. During the 1960s he was a member of the group Scaffold which had an international hit with 'Lily the Pink'. He has won two BAFTAs and a Royal Television Award for his broadcasting work, and presents the popular Radio 4 programme Poetry Please. He has published many books of poems for adults and children, and both his Collected Poems (2003) and Selected Poems (2006) are bestselling poetry titles on the Penguin list. He was made a Freeman of the City of Liverpool in 2001, and received a CBE in 2004 for his services to literature.

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