Here are 100 books that The Last Time As We Are fans have personally recommended if you like
The Last Time As We Are.
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I've been writing poetry since second grade, although oddly it took me until after college (where I was Class Poet) to start writing poetry that *gasp* didn't rhyme. (Did I mention I grew up on Ogden Nash and Shel Silverstein?) I started attending local poetry slams and then poetry festivals like WordXWord, and listening and performing there showed me what poetry could be. Poems can crystalize in a few lines a universal truth you've felt for years but been unable to express. I think that's amazing. (I also think it's better with a dash of humor mixed in, because I'm a humor columnist and I'm biased.)
I love this book. I am, of course, tremendously biased as someone who believes that humor is the best gateway to truth, and this collection of poems contains a lot of humor and no small amount of truth, and even some truth about humor in the form of “Clowns”, a tremendously moving piece about comedians which proves what I've always said, the only important thing to be serious about is comedy. For anyone who has ever done stand-up, that poem is seriously a must-read. But the whole book is a much-needed shot to the heart and funny bone.
In Spiking the Sucker Punch, Robbie Q. Telfer's first published collection, the author profiles the modern comedian from the inside out - starting with the innards and moving toward a damaged laughter. His work blends surrealism and narrative, bending grammar and expectations along the way. These pieces interrogate identity, place, and lead the reader to a much higher understanding of bears.
I've been writing poetry since second grade, although oddly it took me until after college (where I was Class Poet) to start writing poetry that *gasp* didn't rhyme. (Did I mention I grew up on Ogden Nash and Shel Silverstein?) I started attending local poetry slams and then poetry festivals like WordXWord, and listening and performing there showed me what poetry could be. Poems can crystalize in a few lines a universal truth you've felt for years but been unable to express. I think that's amazing. (I also think it's better with a dash of humor mixed in, because I'm a humor columnist and I'm biased.)
Nothing says humanity like vulnerability about the messy, imperfect creatures we are, and this book has that in spades. (Or I guess, more appropriately, hearts.) I could talk about how the book is darkly funny and reveals hidden depths of the soul, but I'll admit one thing I love about it is that it contains one of the most beautiful, inspiring poems I've ever heard, one I share frequently, with some devastating lines and a real sense of hope that it's okay to feel broken and still fight on, and the poem is titled, “I Can't Believe I Let You Touch My Balls”. It's like if that old piano player joke was real life.
A strong dose of Bukowski, Breaking Bad, and brilliance. Intense and gripping, with splashes of outlandish humor, it is a full frontal assault on the challenges of modern life for outsiders. As award-winning poet Mark Bibbins raves, "Thomas Fucaloro is here and he is showing you his big messy heart. (Actually, if you're looking for other body parts, you'll find most of them in this book.). Poet Corrina Bain (louderARTS project) applauds the work: "It Starts from the Belly and Blooms dives facefirst into the glory and wildness of life, combining fearless authenticity, humor, and a gut-punching ear for images.…
I've been writing poetry since second grade, although oddly it took me until after college (where I was Class Poet) to start writing poetry that *gasp* didn't rhyme. (Did I mention I grew up on Ogden Nash and Shel Silverstein?) I started attending local poetry slams and then poetry festivals like WordXWord, and listening and performing there showed me what poetry could be. Poems can crystalize in a few lines a universal truth you've felt for years but been unable to express. I think that's amazing. (I also think it's better with a dash of humor mixed in, because I'm a humor columnist and I'm biased.)
They say, “Don't judge a book by its cover,” but sometimes you can judge a book of poems a little bit by the titles if they're really good. That'd be a terrible quote, but it's still true, and some of the poem titles in this book of heartbreak are a whole journey in themselves, like “Not Doing Something Wrong Isn't the Same as Doing Something Right,” whose opening three words, “In my defense,” echo repeatedly throughout the poem and throughout my head. When it's heartbreak time, I'd suggest either listening to MC Abdominal's song “Broken” on repeat, or reading this book.
In The Year of No Mistakes, Aptowicz goes cross country and tackles themes like love, lust, heartache and ambition in poems set in cities across the United States. While the backbone of the book is the slow break-up of her decade-long relationship, the heart remains Aptowicz falling in love with Americana. Sharply observant and unflinchingly truthful, her poems may be funny or heartbreaking, spare or lush, bright or dark, but they are always honest and engaging working class poems. Written during the fellowship year of her National Endowment for the Arts grant, poems from this collection have already been published…
I've been writing poetry since second grade, although oddly it took me until after college (where I was Class Poet) to start writing poetry that *gasp* didn't rhyme. (Did I mention I grew up on Ogden Nash and Shel Silverstein?) I started attending local poetry slams and then poetry festivals like WordXWord, and listening and performing there showed me what poetry could be. Poems can crystalize in a few lines a universal truth you've felt for years but been unable to express. I think that's amazing. (I also think it's better with a dash of humor mixed in, because I'm a humor columnist and I'm biased.)
So, we often think of what is human as being vulnerable and real. Which this book is. But to me, the pinnacle of humanity is humor, and the ability to use humor even in tough times is what makes humanity great. Which this book also is. It's got tough times but it's got a whole lot of humor mixed in, from the funny bits in the sad poems, to full-on non-stop barrages of humor in poems like "Jesus Christ Super Toaster" which had me in hysterics when I saw it performed.
And I'm realizing from making my whole list, that's what I want. I want hilarious poems when I'm in a good mood, and when I'm feeling sad and human, I still want to explore that in a funny way.
A hybrid text that deals most urgently in the articulation of growth and grief. After the loss of his mother, Omar Holmon re-learns how to live by immersing himself in popular culture, becoming well-versed in using the many modes of pop culture to spell out his emotions. This book is made up of both poems and essays, drenched in both sadness and unmistakable humor. Teeming with references that are touchable, no matter what you do or don’t know, this book feels warm and inviting.
I was seven when our headmaster told us about Stone-Age people using stone tools and living in caves. This seemed so unlikely that I checked with my Dad before believing it, but after that, I loved history. I adored the idea of time machines: a day trip to Ancient Rome! A selfie with a saber-tooth! Writing allowed me to time-travel to whenever I liked and to use what I learned about how people lit and warmed their homes, cooked their food, and worshipped their gods. It was inevitable that I would write a time travel book, and it’s a real pleasure to revisit some books that inspired me.
I read this as a teenager and learned that history and science-fiction could be knock-about, silly and hilarious.
A failing film studio gets hold of a time machine and uses it to make a typical Hollywood movie about the Viking colonization of America, complete with gorgeous romantic leads, cast for their looks. It’s shot on location in the 10th Century, with real Viking extras.
But real Vikings aren’t cooperative. They don’t wantto sail across the Atlantic.
The ingenious plot makes great use of Time. What if you return before you left and meet yourself? With a script needed in a rush, the writer is sent to the Pre-Cambrian, before life left the oceans, where there are no distractions. “The eyes,” he mutters. “The eyes in the sea.”
Why pay for costumes, scenery, props or actors when the most brilliant drama of all time is unfolding before your very eyes, in vivid color--in 1000 A.D.?
The head of ailing Climactic Studios has given producer Barney Hendrickson five days to get a major movie in the can--and Climactic out of it.
Impossible?
Not with Professor Hewett's miraculous time machine, the answer to a Hollywood producer's prayer.
Skipping back to AD 1,000 with a whole film crew and two glam stars, Barney sets out to prove that the Vikings discovered America five hundred years before Columbus--and to film the event…
I am a Professor of Early Medieval English History at the University of Cambridge. I also work on relations with the rest of Britain, and between Britain and its European neighbours, especially from an economic and social point of view. My interest in early medieval history arose from the jigsaw puzzle approach that it requires: even more so than for other periods, sources are few and often challenging, so need to be seen together and interpreted imaginatively.
‘Viking’ really refers more to an activity than an ethnicity, and has developed an unhelpful amount of baggage in modern times. This book, however, is about vikings red in tooth and claw who fought, raided, and conquered across Britain, but did so as conscious and coherent historical figures rather than an aggressive force of nature. Through delicate source-work that traverses several linguistic and cultural divides, Downham traces the activities of a powerful Scandinavian dynasty that played a formative role in the history of Britain and Ireland across the ninth and tenth centuries.
Vikings plagued the coasts of Ireland and Britain in the 790s. By the mid-ninth century vikings had established a number of settlements in Ireland and Britain and had become heavily involved with local politics. A particularly successful viking leader named Ivarr campaigned on both sides of the Irish Sea in the 860s. His descendants dominated the major seaports of Ireland and challenged the power of kings in Britain during the later ninth and tenth centuries. This book provides a political analysis of the deeds of Ivarr's family from their first appearance in Insular records down to the year 1014. Such…
Else Roesdahl has a life-long passion for Vikings. She is emerita professor of Medieval Archaeology at Aarhus University, Denmark, and has travelled all over the Viking world and taken part in many excavations. She has also organized major international Viking Exhibitions and published academic as well as popular books, for which she has been awarded several prizes.
There is no better way to get to know the Vikings than by their own sayings and other contemporary descriptions and stories. This book is a carefully chosen and lively selection of extracts of such sources, from their own rune-stone inscriptions, intriguing poetry and historic writings to English, German and Russian accounts – all set in their context and divided into topics such as ‘All sorts of conditions for men’, ‘Myth, Religion and Superstition’, ‘The Heroic life’ – and ‘The unheroic life’.
The Vikings are not known for their literate legacy. Little of what they once inscribed in runes on wood, bone, and stone has survived. However these runic inscriptions are a valuable primary source of information on the Viking Age. They alow us to see the Vikings from their own point of view, unlike the records of prejudiced observers who saw the Vikings only as savage invaders. Chronicles of the Vikings attempts to show the Vikings through their own writings: runic inscriptions left behind, poems of their official skalds, literary works that entertained them, the few prose historical accounts that derive…
Ever since childhood I’ve been fascinated by the history of England, and fifteen years ago I made the decision to write a series of novels set before the Norman Conquest. Since then I’ve immersed myself in the history of that period and made numerous visits to the locations where I set my novels. I’ve been frustrated though by the enormous gaps in the historical records of that time, in particular the lack of information about the women. Because of that I am drawn to the work of authors who, like me, are attempting to resurrect and retell the lost stories of those remarkable women.
Recent genetic research on the human remains of a 10th-century Viking grave excavated in 1878 in Birka, Sweden, rocked the world of Viking studies when it determined that the warrior buried with numerous weapons and two horses was not male, but female. I loved how this author imagines what that woman’s life might have been like. She also suggests that the woman buried in the Birka grave was merely one of many female Viking warriors, offering data drawn from archaeological finds, from historical accounts, from language studies, and from the sagas to support the theory that ‘shield maids’ really did exist. I had been dubious about the possibility of female Vikings, but the arguments presented in this book are too compelling. Reading it changed my mind. Now I’m a believer.
In the tradition of Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra, Brown lays to rest the hoary myth that Viking society was ruled by men and celebrates the dramatic lives of female Viking warriors
“Once again, Brown brings Viking history to vivid, unexpected life―and in the process, turns what we thought we knew about Norse culture on its head. Superb.” ―Scott Weidensaul, author of New York Times bestselling A World on the Wing
"Magnificent. It captured me from the very first page." ―Pat Shipman, author of The Invaders
In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior…
Mike Vasich has a lifelong obsession with stories about gods, superheroes, and giant monsters, and he has been inflicting them on 7th and 8th graders for the better part of 20 years. He wrote his first book, Loki, so he could cram them all into one book and make them beat up on each other. He enjoys (fictional) mayhem, sowing disrespect for revered institutions, and taking naps.
A World Fantasy Award winner and the first novel by this genre-crossing author who is probably most famous for his sci-fi epic, Hyperion, Song of Kali is a dark fantasy/horror novel about a cult that worships the Hindu goddess/demon, Kali, who is known as a goddess of death, among other things. Kali doesn’t really make much of an entrance, but Simmons weaves an intriguing tale tinged with the supernatural, centered around a mystical poet who may or may not be dead. Simmons loves integrating poetry and poets into his stories, and the suspense around this particular poet and his connection to the cult of Kali is palpable. It’s not mythology per se, but boy is it dark. It’s also pretty short, and easily could be consumed in a single reading.
Calcutta, a monstrous city of immense slums, disease and misery, is clasped in the foetid embrace of an ancient cult. At its decaying core is the Goddess Kali: the dark mother of pain, four-armed and eternal, her song the sound of death and destruction. Robert Luczak has been hired by a New York magazine to find a noted Indian poet who has reappeared, under strange circumstances, years after he was thought dead. But nothing is simple in Calcutta, and before long Luczak's routine assignment turns into a nightmare ... it is rumoured that the poet has been brought back to…
I’ve always loved history, especially European history, and fell in love with the Vikings and their mythology after reading the first book of the Last Kingdom Series by Bernard Cornwell. One of the reasons I wanted to write Viking fiction is because I was keen to learn more about these amazing people who had such a large influence on European history, but had been stigmatized by the Christian religion. I really wanted to learn about who they were as a people and how they saw their world through their religion and their interactions with Christian nations around them.
This was my go-to book while I was writing my latest series and probably one of my favourite books for learning about the Vikings.
Vikings at War is exactly what the title says it is, and I found that it was a great source for learning about the strategies Vikings used in battle, from the general shield wall organization to the different formations they used. It also talks about the different weapons, armour, and training methods used by the Vikings which had made them a formidable fighting force during the Viking Age.
But what I love about this book even more is that it also explains the history and the complex relationships between the Vikings and the nations they were raiding.
Vikings at War is a sumptuous depiction of how the Vikings waged war: their weapons technology, offensive and defensive warfare, military traditions and tactics, their fortifications, ships and command structure. It also portrays the Viking raids and conquest campaigns that brought the Vikings to virtually every corner of Europe and even to America. Between the 9th and 11the century, Viking ships landed on almost every shore in the Western world. Viking ravages united the Spanish kingdoms and stopped Charlemagne and the Franks' advance in Europe. Wherever Viking ships roamed, enormous suffering followed in their wake, but the encounter between cultures…
