Showing results for "Forest" in Literature & Fiction

This freewheeling black comedy features a bizarre cast of characters, including a Japanese man with a ball floating six inches in front of his head, an American CEO with three arms, and a Brazilian peasant who discovers the art of healing by tickling one’s earlobe with a feather. By the end of this hilarious tale, they each have risen to the heights of wealth and fame, before arriving at disasters—both personal and ecological— that destroy the rain forest and all birds of Brazil.

It's no secret - to survive in a superficial town like Forest River, New York, where perfection is a requirement - a mom must follow the rules. For the past five years, Donna has worked hard to exceed social expectations. She held the prestigious role of PTA treasurer, and her best friend, Jackie, is the most powerful woman at the elementary school.

PTA President Jackie Martin is the envy of the mothers. She has a loyal and handsome husband, she hosts elaborate parties, and her eldest daughter, Hayley, is the most popular child in the fifth grade. Her life appears flawless, but is life ever what it seems to be? After receiving a painful blow, when Hayley was in kindergarten, Jackie clawed her way into PTA power. She lived her life by the adage "Proper planning prevents poor performance". Her attention to detail (okay, fine - her control-freak nature) served her well until she experiences the ultimate betrayal.

Executive, wife, and mother of an outgoing first-grader, Sydney Clayton crushes her day-to-day obligations at work but flounders in the cutthroat world of parental politics. She manages to avoid the local drama until she’s faced with an ultimatum: join the Forest River PTA or risk her daughter becoming a social outcast. Sydney reluctantly becomes treasurer and takes the recently vacated position of the president’s sidekick. If that isn’t complicated enough, Sydney and her husband receive an unexpected offer for their house they don’t think they can refuse.

The Alehouse at the End of the World is an epic comedy set in the 16th century, where bawdy Shakespearean love triangles play out with shapeshifting avian demigods and a fertility goddess, drunken revelry, bio-dynamic gardening, and a narcissistic, bullying crow, who may have colluded with a foreign power.

Fifteen linked stories chart a true course through the lives of families, farmers, loggers, former classmates, and the occasional stripper. In the richly imagined town of Renata, Oregon, a man watches his neighbor's big-screen TV through binoculars, an errant son paints himself silver, mysterious electrical humming emanates from an enormous barn. In A Simplified Map of the Real World, intimate boundaries are loosened by history - and high above the strife and the hope and the often hilarious, geese seek the perfect tailwind. Stevan Allred's stunning debut deftly navigates the stubborn geography of the human heart.

The Morgan and Herrington series revolves around a cynical, sarcastic female bounty hunter named Alex Morgan and Hope Harrington, a downtrodden, mousy secretary, who meet when Alex mistakes Hope for the "jumper" she's in hot pursuit of and slaps the cuffs on. After this zany encounter, the two collude, with the result being one of the most tongue-in-cheek and hilarious mysteries written.

First published in The Saturday Evening Post, "The Ransom of Red Chief" is a humorous short story written in 1910 by O. Henry. A pair of con men kidnap and attempt to ransom a prominent Alabama citizen’s son. Immediately they find themselves at the mercy of a particularly spoiled and clever boy who begins driving them mad. The ironic ending remains the story’s most enduring feature.