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These main characters are each on a journey to find their place in the world. Their stories are wild and beautiful.
Miranda is part of a family of circus freaks made to have deformities devised purposely to create a homegrown freak show, (accomplished by the parent members' experiments with radioactive material and drugs). She looks normal save a small tail she flaunts as a stripper. It's written as a family history by her mother who gave her up.
Little Back Story: The book's original cover art by Chip Kidd sports a five-legged dog, (he added an extra leg to the Knopf dog logo in honor of the characters).
Bottom line: You'll love the stripped bare raw humanity in this tale that defies the most freakish deformities of the physical body.
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“A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."
Thus describes the uncanny roguish hero Ignatius J. Reilly, a man in his 30s working at a pants factory and hot dog stand while living with his mother. He is highly educated despite his low skilled jobs, and the novel follows the format of Ignatius' favorite book, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy .
Little Back Story: Toole's manuscript was rejected by Simon and Schuster during his life, then his mother discovered a carbon copy of his manuscript after his suicide and pushed it for publication. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.
Bottom Line: Read this for a rollicking good time with a crazy cast of characters that will have you rooting for the idealist underemployed Ignatius to the last page.
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"I was like a packet of powdered Sea Monkeys and they were like water."
This is how Augusten describes his experience growing up in his mother's shrink's home, the psychiatrist's family acting as the "water." He has almost total freedom, allowed to drop out of school but actually craves adult guidance. He settles for attention in adolescence in the form of sex with the shrink's adopted son, a man over twice his age. His road to self-reliance is kicked off when he literally knocks down the ceiling of his house to put in a makeshift skylight.
Little Back Story: The names of people in the book had been changed, but the psychiatrist filed suit against Burroughs and his publisher, alleging defamation, demanded that it be marketed as a "book" rather than a "memoir." So it was printed with the description of book in the author's note, but it still stated memoir on the cover and in marketing.
Bottom line: Brace yourself for truth that's stranger than fiction and by the end wanting to hug and high five the man who wrote this memoir.
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Pip never knew his parents and is raised by his sister who is constantly berating him and whips him with a rod called "tickler." But he's kindly treated by his sister's husband and becomes needed in a strange sort of way by an old jilted-at-the-altar woman who has never taken off her wedding dress. Later on, he acquires a mysterious benefactor.
Little Back Story: Dickens wrote two different endings. His wealthy aristocratic pal, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, advised him against the original ending which was much more downbeat than the one in current editions.
Bottom line: If you've ever craved support while at the same time wanting to stand on your own, you'll like this classic which is a classic for good reason. Its themes are timeless.
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“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” ― Dr. Seuss
Random House
Whether you have a blog, have always wanted to start one, or are one of the greats, these tips will keep your content exciting, your design fresh, and your readers coming back hungry for more. Like J-Law at her favorite pizzeria.
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Before makeover.
After makeover.
Feng shui expert Anjie Cho teaches us how to make your apartment work for you.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
Feng shui looks at how energy (also called chi) moves through your home. If there is an area where the chi is moving too quickly or is stuck then that can represent either an area where you're stuck in your life or things that you need to improve on.
There are two ways to look at your apartment. You can think, This is just my apartment — or you can look at it as an ecosystem, an environment that affects you. If you choose to look at it the second way, then feng shui can help you achieve good energy and a space that will get you over your energy funk — and it's easier than you'd think. We asked feng shui expert Anjie Cho to show us how.
The photo series has been created to raise awareness for adopting rescue dogs and helping shelters care for the animals.
To celebrate, he decided he wanted to give his new pet, Rothko, and millions of other rescue dogs a voice by creating a new photo series entitled Poetic Dogs.
Bannino wrote on the project's IndieGoGo page: "#POETICDOGS is a photo-project where dogs are besides famous writers: Speaking through their expressions, sounds and movements, they're telling you everything saying nothing, just like an author would do with words in a fine poem."
The campaign is hoping to raise $6,000 (£3,943) so more dogs can be helped and a book of the images featuring their stories can be created.
Dan Bannino
Bannino admitted it was tricky getting some of the dogs to pose in the same manner as their lookalike authors.
Dan Bannino
"The difficulty, in addition to attracting their attention in the room, was to reproduce the same expression of the chosen writer," he said. "That's why I invested all this time in this project, trying to communicate with them and always make them having fun."
Dan Bannino
