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Original Essays | May 1, 2013

Josh Hanagarne: IMG Seven Books That Actually Changed My Life

5 comments By Josh Hanagarne

I'd predict that 99 percent of the small talk in the staff elevator at my library involves the following question and its answers: "Are you reading... Continue »
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    The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

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1 Beaverton Literature- A to Z

My Less Than Secret Life: A Diary, Fiction, Essays

by

My Less Than Secret Life: A Diary, Fiction, Essays Cover

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Do you often wonder what the hell you're doing with your life? Do you feel separate from most people, like you don't belong anywhere? Do you black out when you drink alcohol? Do you worry that no one will ever love you because you're a bit freakish? Do you suffer private humiliations on the toilet? Do you feel like you'll never be able to take care of yourself financially?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then this book just may be for you. So get out your money, sweetheart or kind sir, buy My Less Than Secret Life, and help the author who wrote the thing — after all, he got a perfect score on the above quiz and could really use your assisstance.

Here's another question: Do you like the work of Joseph Mitchell, Charles Bukowski, and Penthouse Forum? Again, if you answered yes, this collection of sex-drenched essays and fiction is probably right up your alley or down your pants or up your skirt, depending on your gender or what you're wearing. Well, that's our sales pitch! Hope it works!

Review:

"[A]n entertaining salmagundi....[Ames is] like the dirtiest, smartest kid on the playground — you might cringe, but you can't help being transfixed." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"Ames is Alexander Portnoy come to life: lascivious, overwrought, and funny." Kirkus Reviews

Review:

"Ames has always been one of my favorite contemporary writers...for his...fearless commitment to the most demanding psychosexual comedies." Rick Moody, author of The Black Veil

Review:

"Ames writes edgy, punchy, sexy, funny, and extremely eloquent prose...for readers who love offbeat observations and unique, resonant impressions." Booklist

Review:

"Hilarious...compulsively readable exploits...alternately pervy and poignant...imbues the smutty with sentimentality." Entertainment Weekly

Review:

"Simultaneously self-effacing and full of himself, Ames has hit on a combo that, surprisingly, works." Dodie Bellamy, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

Review:

"An amiable, if slightly twisted, shamble through life. It's infected me. I want to read everything he writes." Anna Keesy, The Oregonian

Synopsis:

My Less Than Secret Life is the companion volume to Jonathan Ames's first memoirish endeavor, "the mildly perverted and wildly amusing" (Vanity Fair) What's Not to Love? This collection of the cult author's fiction and essays includes Ames's public diary, the bi-weekly columns he penned for the New York Press. The entries of this diary are a record of his mad adventures: his ill-fated debut as an amateur boxer fighting as "The Herring Wonder," a faltering liaison with a Cuban prostitute, his public outing of George Plimpton as a Jew, his discussion with Eve Ensler about his dear friend The Mangina, a renegade mission as a Jew into the heart of Waspy Maine, and other such harrowing escapades.

Whether trying to round up a partner for an orgy, politely assisting in an animal sacrifice, or scamming tickets to the WWF's Royal Rumble for his son, Jonathan Ames proves himself a ballsier Everyman whose transgressions and compassionate meditations will satisfy the voyeur and encourage the halfhearted. But be warned. As Jonathan says, "I don't like to be a bad influence. It's bad enough that I have influence over myself."

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About the Author

Jonathan Ames is the author of the novels I Pass Like Night, The Extra Man, and Wake Up, Sir! and the essay collections What's Not to Love? and I Love You More Than You Know. He is the editor of Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a former columnist for New York Press.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781560253754
Author:
Ames, Jonathan
Publisher:
Da Capo Press
Location:
New York
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Essays
Subject:
American
Subject:
American - General
Subject:
Authors, American
Subject:
Biography-Literary
Copyright:
2002
Edition Number:
1st
Edition Description:
Trade Paper
Publication Date:
June 2002
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
256
Dimensions:
8.25 x 5.5 in 13.5 oz
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Related Subjects

Biography » Literary
Fiction and Poetry » Anthologies » Essays
Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z

My Less Than Secret Life: A Diary, Fiction, Essays Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$6.50 In Stock
Product details 256 pages Thunder's Mouth Press - English 9781560253754 Reviews:
"Review" by , "[A]n entertaining salmagundi....[Ames is] like the dirtiest, smartest kid on the playground — you might cringe, but you can't help being transfixed."
"Review" by , "Ames is Alexander Portnoy come to life: lascivious, overwrought, and funny."
"Review" by , "Ames has always been one of my favorite contemporary writers...for his...fearless commitment to the most demanding psychosexual comedies."
"Review" by , "Ames writes edgy, punchy, sexy, funny, and extremely eloquent prose...for readers who love offbeat observations and unique, resonant impressions."
"Review" by , "Hilarious...compulsively readable exploits...alternately pervy and poignant...imbues the smutty with sentimentality."
"Review" by , "Simultaneously self-effacing and full of himself, Ames has hit on a combo that, surprisingly, works."
"Review" by , "An amiable, if slightly twisted, shamble through life. It's infected me. I want to read everything he writes."
"Synopsis" by , My Less Than Secret Life is the companion volume to Jonathan Ames's first memoirish endeavor, "the mildly perverted and wildly amusing" (Vanity Fair) What's Not to Love? This collection of the cult author's fiction and essays includes Ames's public diary, the bi-weekly columns he penned for the New York Press. The entries of this diary are a record of his mad adventures: his ill-fated debut as an amateur boxer fighting as "The Herring Wonder," a faltering liaison with a Cuban prostitute, his public outing of George Plimpton as a Jew, his discussion with Eve Ensler about his dear friend The Mangina, a renegade mission as a Jew into the heart of Waspy Maine, and other such harrowing escapades.

Whether trying to round up a partner for an orgy, politely assisting in an animal sacrifice, or scamming tickets to the WWF's Royal Rumble for his son, Jonathan Ames proves himself a ballsier Everyman whose transgressions and compassionate meditations will satisfy the voyeur and encourage the halfhearted. But be warned. As Jonathan says, "I don't like to be a bad influence. It's bad enough that I have influence over myself."
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