Pleasure Boat: 33 books

In these wonderfully wise writings, Mary Lou Sanelli once again relies on her literary voice and candid sense of humor to explore all the realities true to anyone who has thought of making writing a part of her or his life. In a conversational style that entirely reflects her nature, she relates the...

In 1980, a 50-year old animal-obsessed Lithuanian-born woman, and former member of the Hitler Youth, by the name of Rita Neumann-- later to become Rita Miljo-- spirited a battered young baboon by the name of Bobby from a national park in Angola. Therewith began a thirty-year odyssey that would bring...

Fiction. Women's Studies. "The expert translation of this almost Gothic story lifts the veil on the place where environment meets the psyche, on women's sensuality and wit. A gift of Portuguese women writing to the English reader." -Lisa Katz

From critic William Bridges: “I can hardly think when a book has spoken to me as well, or in as many ways, as Mike Daley’s Way Out There: Lyrical Essays. This was not completely apparent on first reading; too old to have experienced the ’60s, I read those chapters distantly, as another well-written...

A Passionate Engagement is both a love story and a story of political activism. In this remarkable memoir, Ken Harvey (award-winning author of If You Were With Me Everything Would Be All Right) reveals his own experience of coming out as a gay man, of meeting and falling in love with the man who would...

This book uses stories, myths and case studies to show something deep in the psyche that resembles a large, primordial animal, whose support of human agendas is not entirely reliable. This irrational part of ourselves finds expression in a multitude of contradictory ways. It is responsible for the miraculous healing of body and soul as well as perpetuating horrifying forms of violence.

Poet and painter Plimpton's fiction debut is a luscious non-narrativemap of shifting emotional and physical landscapes born out of the quotidian lives of people, trees, animals, beaches, and more. Plimpton usually makes her way through the book via the eyes of individuals somehow intertwined,...

These are stories which deal with the lives of gay men. However, their spark comes from the mixing of gay and straight worlds. Harvey's compassionate eye is clearly at work as he examines the pains and joys, the tensions and laughter encountered by human beings every day of their lives. This collection won the Violet Quill Award for Best New Gay Fiction of the Year.

Seaglass Picnic (with a splash of post traumatic stress) is Frances Driscoll's attempt to describe the lingering effects of the horrendous rape she experienced years earlier (and written about in her powerful collection, The Rape Poems). In Seaglass Picnic, she uses humor and understatement to...

This book is based on a true story of the invasion and subsequent occupation of the Island of Attu by the Japanese during WW2. This action was followed by the removal of the occupants of Attu to another island near Japan.

Tobias, a mystery writer, returns to the family farm to care for his father. There he is allured by his father’s young wife Sabina. Meanwhile, Hardy, the hired hand, scoffs at Tobias’ city ways, while encouraging Sabina’s mentally challenged son Adam to turn into an Elvis impersonator; and Ingelize,...

Deadly Negatives, starts innocently enough with a photographer discovering some black-and-white negatives hidden in a camera box. Wanting to find out about the photos leads him to people and places he didn't expect, not all of them friendly, and to long-unsolved crimes by prominent and and powerful people. Suddenly those negatives become extremely dangerous to possess.

An intelligent voice. An illuminating book. Sanelli is unsparing as she explores the subject of friendship in the lives of women. This is a book of self-discovery ... dauntless, smart, funny, beautifully written. Perfect for the book club or anyone willing to delve into the hodgepodge of emotions common to those who desire to befriend another.

The Pitcher's Kid is Jack Olsen's memoir of the first 18 years of his life, years that formed his voice, his ear, and his passionate concern for the underdog. It is a story of a young boy's desperate yearning for a father during a time of extreme poverty and confusion. The book has been compared to...