My Friend Leonard

Author: James Frey
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101217375
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
Perhaps the most unconventional and literally breathtaking father-son story you'll ever read, My Friend Leonard pulls you immediately and deeply into a relationship as unusual as it is inspiring. The father figure is Leonard, the high-living, recovering coke addict "West Coast Director of a large Italian-American finance firm" (read: mobster) who helped to keep James Frey clean in A Million Little Pieces. The son is, of course, James, damaged perhaps beyond repair by years of crack and alcohol addiction-and by more than a few cruel tricks of fate. James embarks on his post-rehab existence in Chicago emotionally devastated, broke, and afraid to get close to other people. But then Leonard comes back into his life, and everything changes. Leonard offers his "son" lucrative—if illegal and slightly dangerous—employment. He teaches James to enjoy life, sober, for the first time. He instructs him in the art of "living boldly," pushes him to pursue his passion for writing, and provides a watchful and supportive veil of protection under which James can get his life together. Both Leonard's and James's careers flourish…but then Leonard vanishes. When the reasons behind his mysterious absence are revealed, the book opens up in unexpected emotional ways. My Friend Leonard showcases a brilliant and energetic young writer rising to important new challenges—displaying surprising warmth, humor, and maturity—without losing his intensity. This book proves that one of the most provocative literary voices of his generation is also one of the most emphatically human.

Leonard (My Life as a Cat)

Author: Carlie Sorosiak
Publisher: Walker Books US
ISBN: 1536207705
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
He’s not a stray house cat, he’s an immortal being. And now he must choose whether to return to his planet or remain with his new human friend in a humorous, heart-tugging story from the author of I, Cosmo. The cat that Olive rescues from a flood has a secret: he’s not really a cat at all, but an alien who crashed to Earth on a beam of light. The cat, whom Olive names Leonard, was prepared to visit the planet as a human—but something went wrong. Now Leonard may never know what it’s like to hold an umbrella, go bowling, or host a dinner party. (And his human jokes still need some work: Knock, knock. Who’s there? Just Leonard. It is me.) While Olive worries about whether she will have to move after her mom and her new boyfriend get back from their summer vacation, Leonard tries to figure out how to get from South Carolina to Yellowstone National Park, because if he’s not there at the end of the month, he’ll miss his ride home. But as Olive teaches Leonard about the beautiful and confusing world of humans, he starts to realize how much he cares about this particular one. A sweet and dryly funny story about what it means to be human—and what it means to be home.

Lincoln's Forgotten Friend, Leonard Swett

Author: Robert S. Eckley
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 080933206X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
In 1849, while traveling as an attorney on the Eighth Judicial Circuit in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln befriended Leonard Swett (1825–89), a fellow attorney sixteen years his junior. Despite this age difference, the two men built an enduring friendship that continued until Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. Until now, no historian has explored Swett’s life or his remarkable relationship with the sixteenth president. In this welcome volume, Robert S. Eckley provides the first biography of Swett, crafting an intimate portrait of his experiences as a loyal member of Lincoln’s inner circle. Eckley chronicles Swett’s early life and the part he played in Lincoln’s political campaigns, including his role as an essential member of the team behind Lincoln’s two nominations and elections for the presidency. Swett counseled Lincoln during the formation of his cabinet and served as an unofficial advisor and sounding board during Lincoln’s time in office. Throughout his life, Swett wrote a great deal on Lincoln, and planned to write a biography about him, but Swett’s death preempted the project. His eloquent and interesting writings about Lincoln are described and reproduced in this volume, some for the first time. With Lincoln’s Forgotten Friend, Eckley removes Swett from the shadows of history and sheds new light on Lincoln’s personal relationships and their valuable contributions to his career. Superior Achievement from the Illinois State Historical Society, 2013

Pain My Best Friend

Author: Leonard Lucas Jr.
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1532023324
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 104

Book Description
God said that he wouldnt put more on you than you could bear, so why is it unbearable? God said that his grace is sufficient for you, but where is the grace? And he said he would offer you mercy, but where is the mercy? So you find yourself depleted of grace, without mercy, and suffering from the unbearable. You are, as the apostle Paul said, Troubled on every side, perplexed, persecuted, and cast down. You are ready to give up. Pain My Best Friend tells you not to give up! Author Chief Apostle Leonard Lucas Jr. addresses the pain you may be experiencing, and he encourages you to suffer through itGod has the ultimate plan for your life. Chief Apostle Lucas explains how the suffering we all must endure is for the cause of Christ and that no matter how bleak or how intense our pain, we must remain steadfast and remember that God is in control. Enduring pain is difficult, and it is easy to allow the roots of bitterness to take a deep hold. Even though experiences or circumstances may seem unbearable, we must continue to die so that we may live. Suffer through on this journeyand you will never be alone.

Katerina

Author: James Frey
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
ISBN: 1982101458
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning comes Katerina, James Frey’s highly anticipated new novel set in 1992 Paris and contemporary Los Angeles. A kiss, a touch. A smile and a beating heart. Love and sex and dreams, art and drugs and the madness of youth. Betrayal and heartbreak, regret and pain, the melancholy of age. Katerina, the explosive new novel by America’s most controversial writer, is a sweeping love story alternating between 1992 Paris and Los Angeles in 2018. At its center are a young writer and a young model on the verge of fame, both reckless, impulsive, addicted, and deeply in love. Twenty-five years later, the writer is rich, famous, and numb, and he wants to drive his car into a tree, when he receives an anonymous message that draws him back to the life, and possibly the love, he abandoned years prior. Written in the same percussive, propulsive, dazzling, breathtaking style as A Million Little Pieces, Katerina echoes and complements that most controversial of memoirs, and plays with the same issues of fiction and reality that created, nearly destroyed, and then recreated James Frey in the American imagination.

My Friend Lenny

Author: Ouida Blatt Mintz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780615118796
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
Ouida Blatt Mintz tells of her life in music as it paralleled that of her teenaged friend, Leonard Bernstein. She studied with the same piano teacher & played with orchestra before he did. She made choices which sent her in a different direction from Bernstein but kept her friendship with him through the years, meeting him for the final time at his last concert just two months before he died ten years ago. She also tells stories about her remarkable family & other friends, such as Mike Wallace of CBS, with whom she played violin duets. Later, she wrote pop music in the 50s & hired a short Queens College student to sing over 15 of her demos, sometimes singing duets with him. It was Paul Simon. She talks about the highs & the tragedies of her life, losing her sister & her youngest son, both of whom were artists. But she found ways to turn tragedies into something positive. For example, she introduced the younger sister of the girl who died in the drowning accident with her son to one of her former piano students. They are now married with three children. After her husband died she found a friend through the personals, Ray Sandeford. Ray, a former TV editor, has typeset the entire book including the scanning of over 150 photographs. Both Ouida & Ray are octogenarians & have now been together for 10 years. About the book, Mike Wallace says, "I really enjoyed the nostalgia!" Alexander Bernstein, Lenny's son, says, "I was touched & amused by your memories of my father. Much of what you describe was news to me! I was delighted by the way you capture the energy not only of the man, but of the times as well." Morton Estrin, a contemporary & esteemed pianist said, "It is destined to become one of the most important contributions to future historians in their searches for detailed information about our musical life."

Leonard

Author: William Shatner
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 125008332X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Book Description
New York Times Bestseller Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner first crossed paths as actors on the set of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Little did they know that their next roles as Spock and Captain Kirk, in a new science fiction television series, would shape their lives in ways no one could have anticipated. In seventy-nine television episodes of Star Trek and six feature films, they grew to know each other more than most friends could ever imagine. Over the course of half a century, Shatner and Nimoy saw each other through personal and professional highs and lows. In this powerfully emotional book, Shatner tells the story of a man who was his friend for five decades, recounting anecdotes and untold stories of their lives on and off set, as well as gathering stories from others who knew Nimoy well, to present a full picture of a rich life. As much a biography of Nimoy as a story of their friendship, Leonard is a uniquely heartfelt book written by one legendary actor in celebration of another.

A Million Little Pieces

Author: James Frey
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 1400079012
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 596

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A gripping memoir about the nature of addiction and the meaning of recovery from a bold and talented literary voice. “Anyone who has ever felt broken and wished for a better life will find inspiration in Frey’s story.” —People “A great story.... You can't help but cheer his victory.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review By the time he entered a drug and alcohol treatment facility, James Frey had taken his addictions to near-deadly extremes. He had so thoroughly ravaged his body that the facility’s doctors were shocked he was still alive. The ensuing torments of detoxification and withdrawal, and the never-ending urge to use chemicals, are captured with a vitality and directness that recalls the seminal eye-opening power of William Burroughs’s Junky. But A Million Little Pieces refuses to fit any mold of drug literature. Inside the clinic, James is surrounded by patients as troubled as he is—including a judge, a mobster, a one-time world-champion boxer, and a fragile former prostitute to whom he is not allowed to speak—but their friendship and advice strikes James as stronger and truer than the clinic’s droning dogma of How to Recover. James refuses to consider himself a victim of anything but his own bad decisions, and insists on accepting sole accountability for the person he has been and the person he may become—which runs directly counter to his counselors' recipes for recovery. James has to fight to find his own way to confront the consequences of the life he has lived so far, and to determine what future, if any, he holds. It is this fight, told with the charismatic energy and power of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, that is at the heart of A Million Little Pieces: the fight between one young man’s will and the ever-tempting chemical trip to oblivion, the fight to survive on his own terms, for reasons close to his own heart. "

Bright Shiny Morning

Author: James Frey
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006179564X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 548

Book Description
#1 National Bestseller “A sprawling, ambitious novel about Los Angeles, written with all the broad-stroke energy that was so irresistible to readers in A Million Little Pieces. By turns satirical, tense, and surprisingly touching, it is a portrait of a city onto which so many millions have projected so many dreams. . . . Compelling, cinematic. . . . It achieves the very essence of Los Angeles’s fractured, unpredictable, loopy nature.” — Vanity Fair “A captivating urban kaleidoscope. . . . James Frey got another chance. Look what he did with it. He stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park. . . . He became a furiously good storyteller.” —Janet Maslin, New York Times One of the most celebrated and controversial authors in America delivers an extraordinary novel—a sweeping chronicle of contemporary Los Angeles that is bold, exhilarating, and utterly original. Dozens of characters pass through the reader's sight lines—some never to be seen again—but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA's lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives. A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock

Author: Matthew Quick
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1472208196
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Book Description
A powerful and important book for fans of Mark Haddon, THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and Jay Asher. How would you spend your birthday if you knew it would be your last? Eighteen-year-old Leonard Peacock knows exactly what he'll do. He'll say goodbye. Not to his mum - who he calls Linda because it annoys her - who's moved out and left him to fend for himself. Nor to his former best friend, whose torments have driven him to consider committing the unthinkable. But to his four friends: a Humphrey-Bogart-obsessed neighbour, a teenage violin virtuoso, a pastor's daughter and a teacher. Most of the time, Leonard believes he's weird and sad but these friends have made him think that maybe he's not. He wants to thank them, and say goodbye. In this riveting and heart-breaking book, acclaimed author Matthew Quick introduces Leonard Peacock, a hero as warm and endearing as he is troubled. And he shows how just a glimmer of hope can make the world of difference.