Bøger af Michael Ventura

1914, Edendale, Los Angeles. Willie, a 16-year-old daredevil with a 4th-grade education, "presenting" (as present usage would put it) as a young woman, burns down her family farmhouse and seeks out Mack Sennett's Keystone lot, the first major "studio" in L.A. Finding her adept at feats of derring-do, Mr. Sennett employs her to do same in Keystone's one- and two-reel comedies alongside the likes of Mabel Normand, Roscoe Arbuckle, and Charles Chaplin. Willie has a fantastic time until something, as always, happens; at which occurrence, she shows what she's made of.

The Zoo Where You're Fed to God is a haunting tale of love and reconciliation written by an acclaimed essayist, screenwriter, and poet. James Abbey, a successful surgeon, is a man so tightly wound that he could have a nervous breakdown in the middle of a crowd, and nobody would notice. And that's exactly what happens one day, when he finds himself at the zoo and starts hearing voices. In The Zoo Where You're Fed to God, Michael Ventura takes us into the mind of a man whose ties to his family, his friends, and his world have suddenly unraveled, stranding him in a realm of eerie luminosity. Even though he understands that he is going mad, he finds something irresistible, even wonderful, about his new state of mind - and so he keeps coming back to the zoo, where he begins seeing into the very souls of the animals. A tiger signals to him . . . a giraffe walks into another dimension . . . chimpanzees demonstrate love . . . and a rare antelope called the gerenuk shows how delicacy and dignity can survive in a harsh world. It is only when James meets and befriends Lee, a cashier at a convenience store who sings in a rock band, that he starts to understand his eleven-year-old son, Eddie, who has been experiencing a breakdown of his own - which had left James and his ex-wife, Elizabeth, feeling helpless. But now, slowly connecting with a side of himself he didn't even know he had, James is able to begin reforging connections with his loved ones. A love story, a tale of desperation and the search for peace, and a powerful personal saga of the hidden powers of the imagination, The Zoo Where You're Fed to God provides an unforgettable look at the human truth that lies behind the mask of madness.

'How to unlock our ability to design solutions, spark innovation, and solve tough challenges with empathy at the centre' - Arianna Huffington

Michael Ventura's owned only one car his entire life: a green '69 Chevy Malibu. Its wheels have crisscrossed the American landscape over more miles than a round trip to the moon. His essays convey a tactile and intimate relationship with land and people - and of course the car. In this collection the essays switch lanes with Hancock's evocative black-and-white photographs.