Max Does It Again

Max likes the idea of having a pet frog named Bean in his room. He doesn't realize how much havoc the frog Bean can create, until the creature escapes multiple times. Bean not only stirs up home problems, but he causes a few school problems, too. Will Max find a way to smooth over the school problems? Will he change his parents' minds about the usefulness of such a pet? Not only does Max have problems with Bean, but with his friends, also. His friends wonder why he doesn't appear at all the football and soccer games. With a great deal of persistence and hard work, Max sets out to do something special with Bean that may solve his problems. Read to find out if Max's ideas pay off.

Michael Mann's films receive a detailed analysis as existential dramas, including Heat, Collateral , The Last of the Mohicans and Public Enemies. The book demonstrates that Mann's films perform critical engagement with existentialism, illustrating the problems and opportunities of living according to this philosophy.

Elizabeth Wurtzel published her memoir of depression, Prozac Nation, to astonishing literary acclaim. A cultural phenomenon by age twenty-six, she had fame, money, respect—everything she had always wanted except that one, true thing: happiness. For all of her professional success, Wurtzel felt like a failure. She had lost friends and lovers, every magazine job she'd held, and way too much weight. She couldn't write, and her second book was past due. But when her doctor prescribed Ritalin to help her focus-and boost the effects of her antidepressants—Wurtzel was spared. The Ritalin worked. And worked. The pills became her sugar...the sweetness in the days that have none. Soon she began grinding up the Ritalin and snorting it. Then came the cocaine, then more Ritalin, then more cocaine. Then I need more. I always need more. For all of my life I have needed more... More, Now, Again is the brutally honest, often painful account of Wurtzel's descent into drug addiction. It is also a survival story: How Wurtzel managed to break free of her relationship with Ritalin and learned to love life, and herself, is at the heart of this ultimately uplifting memoir that no reader will soon forget.

Finalist, 2015 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Drama Discharged from the Marines under suspicious circumstances, Isaac comes home from the wars, only to find the life he remembers upended. Isaac’s father, who once ruled the family with an iron fist, has had a debilitating stroke; his younger sister, Maxine, is now his brother, Max; and their mother, Paige, is committed to revolution at any cost. Determined to be free of any responsibility toward her formerly abusive husband—or the home he created—Paige fervently believes she can lead the way to a "new world order." Hir, Taylor Mac’s subversive comedy, leaves many of our so-called normative and progressive ideas about gender, families, the middle class—and cleaning—in hilarious and ultimately tragic disarray.

Imaginary friend Budo narrates this heartwarming story of love, loyalty, and the power of the imagination—the perfect read for anyone who has ever had a friend . . . real or otherwise Budo is lucky as imaginary friends go. He's been alive for more than five years, which is positively ancient in the world of imaginary friends. But Budo feels his age, and thinks constantly of the day when eight-year-old Max Delaney will stop believing in him. When that happens, Budo will disappear. Max is different from other children. Some people say that he has Asperger's Syndrome, but most just say he's "on the spectrum." None of this matters to Budo, who loves Max and is charged with protecting him from the class bully, from awkward situations in the cafeteria, and even in the bathroom stalls. But he can't protect Max from Mrs. Patterson, the woman who works with Max in the Learning Center and who believes that she alone is qualified to care for this young boy. When Mrs. Patterson does the unthinkable and kidnaps Max, it is up to Budo and a team of imaginary friends to save him—and Budo must ultimately decide which is more important: Max's happiness or Budo's very existence. Narrated by Budo, a character with a unique ability to have a foot in many worlds—imaginary, real, child, and adult— Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend touches on the truths of life, love, and friendship as it races to a heartwarming . . . and heartbreaking conclusion.

This is the story of a journey to Southern California, home of the American Dream, in search of fame and fortune. An Australian couple of mixed German-Chinese origin with their six-year old son Maximilian leave their settled life in Sydney to move to California. The boy's Mandarin name is Xiaolong, meaning Little Dragon, and the dream of his mother is that he will one day become the number one golf player in the world. She has contacted Tiger Woods' first professional coach who is supposed to take the boy under his wings, and she is determined to make her dream come true. The book follows Maximilian's exposure to playing junior gold, the highlights and pitfalls along with the emotional ups and downs of children involved in competitive sport, and their parents' sometimes conflicting and contradictory expectations, culminating in an account of Maximilian competing at the Junior World Championship in San Diego. But 'The Dragon Mother's Dream' is more than a book about golf. Part travelogue and part parenting memoir, it is a journal about living in one of the most privileged places in California. It documents the everyday realities and idiosyncracies of the contemporary American way of life, recorded with great precision and attention to detail by an Australian writer of European roots and - sometimes satirical, often ironic - sensibilities. At the end of the book, the mother's dream takes an unexpected twist.

At the height of the financial crisis in 2009, Sarah Moss and her husband moved with their two small children to Iceland. From their makeshift home among the half-finished skyscrapers of Reykjavik, Moss travels to hillsides of boiling mud and volcanic craters, and the remote farms and fishing villages of the far north. She watches the northern lights and the comings and goings of migratory birds, and as the weeks and months go by, she and her family find new ways to live.