Exit Pursued By A Bear

At cheerleading camp, Hermione is drugged and raped, but she is not sure whether it was one of her teammates or a boy on another team--and in the aftermath she has to deal with the rumors in her small Ontario town, the often awkward reaction of her classmates, the rejection of her boyfriend, the discovery that her best friend, Polly, is gay, and above all the need to remember what happened so that the guilty boy can be brought to justice.

After an unexpected and diabolical farewell breakfast conversation with his father, Spud Milton returns to boarding school for his 1993 Matric year, his last as a schoolboy. Armed with a prefect's tie and a raging libido, Spud soon discovers that being a large(ish) fish in a small pond has its fair share of challenges. He finds himself embroiled in fighting for his own room, directing a house play where both lead actors refuse to learn their lines, and assisting Vern Blackadder's dramatic return from the dead with nothing more than a drip cord and a pair of oven gloves. Amid mounting pressure in the classroom and on the cricket field, Spud prepares to face down the most feared and dreaded challenge of them all - finding a date for the Matric dance. In this hilarious final instalment of the Spud series John van de Ruit brings to a close his savagely funny blow by blow account of the agonies of growing up. The embarrassments, the thrills, the defeats, and the sheer absurdity of daily life are wittily recorded in Spud's unique voice as he prepares to make his own exit, pursued by a bear.

Nan has decided to teach her abusive husband Kyle a lesson. With the help of her friend Simon (acting as her emotional -- and actual -- cheerleader) and a stripper named Sweetheart, she tapes Kyle to a chair and forces him to watch as they reenacts scenes from their painful past. In the piece de resistance, they plan to cover the room in meat and honey so Kyle will be mauled by a bear. Through this night of emotional trials and ridiculous theatrics, Nan and Kyle are both freed from their past in this smart, dark revenge comedy.

Listen! For I sing of Owen Thorskard: valiant of heart, hopeless at algebra, last in a long line of legendary dragon slayers. Though he had few years and was not built for football, he stood between the town of Trondheim and creatures that threatened its survival.There have always been dragons. As far back as history is told, men and women have fought them, loyally defending their villages. Dragon slaying was a proud tradition.But dragons and humans have one thing in common: an insatiable appetite for fossil fuels. From the moment Henry Ford hired his first dragon slayer, no small town was safe. Dragon slayers flocked to cities, leaving more remote areas unprotected.Such was Trondheim's fate until Owen Thorskard arrived. At sixteen, with dragons advancing and his grades plummeting, Owen faced impossible odds--armed only with a sword, his legacy, and the classmate who agreed to be his bard.Listen! I am Siobhan McQuaid. I alone know the story of Owen, the story that changes everything. Listen!

In his sixth collection of poems, Joseph Mills offer us a collection of witty and thought-provoking poems inspired by Shakespeare's stage directions. "You don't have to be a Shakespeare nut to fall in love with this collection," says Poet's Market editor Robert Lee Brewer, "but these poems are sure to cast a spell that won't be easily broken by man or beast . . . a wonderful piece of literature that should be studied along with Shakespeare's plays in English classes around the world."

A fascinating historical novel about Hilde, an orphan who experiences Berlin on the cusp of World War II as she discovers her own voice and sexuality, ultimately finding a family when she gets a job at a gay cabaret, by award-winning author Kip Wilson. On her eighteenth birthday, Hilde leaves her orphanage in 1930s Berlin, and heads out into the world to discover her place in it. But finding a job is hard, at least until she stumbles into Café Lila, a vibrant cabaret full of expressive customers. Rosa, one of the club’s waitresses and performers, immediately takes Hilde under her wing. As the café denizens slowly embrace Hilde, and she embraces them in turn, she discovers her voice and her own blossoming feelings for Rosa. But Berlin is in turmoil. Between the elections, protests in the streets, worsening antisemitism and anti-homosexual sentiment, and the beginning seeds of unrest in Café Lila itself, Hilde will have to decide what’s best for her future . . . and what it means to love a place on the cusp of war.

IN 1592. Elizabethan England is a perilous place. rife with plague, civil unrest, highwaymen, violent animal sports, and Spanish plots against the Queen. Hamnet Shakespeare, young son of renowned playwright William buys an abandoned bear cub in the market. Hamnet names him Mummer, a travelling actor who mimes. Boy and Bear learn showmanship! Darkly, alongside early English theatre, there flourished hugely popular yet immensely cruel bear-baiting shows, presided over by Queen Elizabeth herself, and Master of the Queen's Bears, Phillip Henslowe, at Paris Gardens in London. Next door Henslowe builds The Rose Theatre where he partners Shakespeare staging his early plays. Hamnet and Mummer's adventure of survival in 16th Century England is recounted through Mummer the bear's own eyes and senses, with a gentle touch of Shakespeare's language woven into the story. Queen Elizabeth stages a great water pageant celebrating the anniversary of victory over the Spanish Armada.

A tiny American town's plans for radical self-government overlooked one hairy detail: no one told the bears. Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road. When they descended on Grafton, public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws became meek suggestions, scarcely heard in the town's thick wilderness. The anything-goes atmosphere soon caught the attention of Grafton's neighbors: the bears. Freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. They built a tent city in an effort to get off the grid. The bears smelled food and opportunity. A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear is the sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying tale of what happens when a government disappears into the woods. Complete with gunplay, adventure, and backstabbing politicians, this is the ultimate story of a quintessential American experiment -- to live free or die, perhaps from a bear.