Bøker av Laura Harrison McBride

There are years of our lives-for all of us or some-in which it would seem nothing is poetical. One might easily take the years after 2019 as such years. A flu treated as ebola; a population treated as criminals or wannabe criminals. Homes wrecked. Marriages, too. Education reported as at least two years behind. And dreadful financial insecurity worldwide. How does one write poetry about these things? One writes about the issues of our mortality, trying to figure it out, trying to help others figure it out, in a gentle, image-driven way. In short, through poems like these.

Shelf Barker, not the world's greatest detective...just the world's detective who gets himself into the greatest number of unusual spots...with hilarious results.Needless to say, Halloween is a special time of year for Shelf and is wife and his ex-wife and his two loyal pets.Also needless to say, Shelf finds himself in a predicament very close to the witching hour, a predicament including a Jack-O'-Lantern that contains a deadly surprise, and a pack of disembodied souls that won't leave HIS house until he grants THEIR wishes.Odd? Topsy-turvy? Sure. But everything in Shelf's world is a bit off-kilter.Join Shelf, his wife, Polly, and his ex-wife, Chloe, as he chisels his way out of a riotous adventure that takes him from Norwich, UK, to the Bronx, NYC, and back again and stands to make him a wealthy man as well. Not bad for a few days' work, right?

Cow-Tipping and the Deep Blue Sea is a (mostly) light-hearted look at life as we know it everywhere except the internet. It is a book of poetry that depends on real life, not life viewed through cyberspace nor friendships formed one pixel at a time. It is funny and pithy in equal measure. It travels around the Atlantic rim from New York to Florida to Ireland to Cornwall. Indeed, in many ways it unifies the experience of people living in the mainly Anglo cultures of those places, but with a seasoning of more exotic cultures that flavour the experience of most people these days. This easy to read book of gentle poetry conquers the angst of life today by picking it up, turning it around and around, until it sees the beauty even in the more difficult parts of the gem. It celebrates life, and sometimes death. It tackles the cogent issues of the age gently, allowing a response from the reader, giving guideposts to what one might do with the human condition one finds one's self in...or not. Open and invitational, this book portrays the secrets of the heart in the light of modern times. It is a must-read for those grappling with both rapid change and deadly boredom, hope and hopelessness, sadness and joy.

The Luminous Shadow of the Muse explores what's left behind when humans confront their lives...the feelings, hungers, pains, and joys, but beneath it all, the changes begun by everything a person does, and the activities altered by everything a human thinks.This volume is at times gentle, at times cogent and at times just plain unsentimental as it explores the big and small facets of modern life. It moves through space and time, from the 1950s to now, from the gentle breezes of the Cornish coast to the fug of midtown Manhattan. It assesses marriage, families and the single life. Dogs and horses. Food and drink. It will make you laugh, remember your past, and assess the difficult situations of your life. While the poems are based on one woman's experience on two continents, the emotions are universal. It is a spiritual journey, from birth to the late years of life. It examines, it suggests, it informs, it delights in the way it uses the majestically malleable English language to cast a beam of light on human life in the noughties.

In the 1970s, long before YouTube and when TV recording was in its infancy, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Santa Claus dropped his pants on his way from the sleigh to Macy's front door to kick off the Christmas season. But at least Santa didn't drop dead. Shelf Barker, the world's most unlikely British P.I., is called in by his wife's cousin, a mob boss in Brooklyn, NY, to find out who killed the Carroll Gardens Community Center's Santa Claus. Naturally, Shelf brings his wife, Polly--an Italian-American relocated to the UK--and his ex-wife, The Cobra, a British lady of both brains and beauty, who is now Polly's best friend.To find out why Santa went to the North Pole in the Sky at the annual Knights of St. Nicholas Christmas Party, Shelf and Co. find themselves in half a dozen weird situations, and meet a cast of characters you can only find where the old world and the new world meet. They get punched and kicked by a junior Mafia wannabe, and survive an interview with an Italian witch, all while doing their best to cope with an excess of luscious Italian food. Just in time for a merry Christmas, they solve Santa's untimely death in a way that magically makes everything all right.

Ireland. An introduction to the matchless Irish experience of hospitality and good times, strength in adversity, spiritual intelligence when none might be expected, and a vibrant culture millions share, and millions more long for. Travel to Ireland in this book and come home with memories, or take it along and use it as a cultural compass to the Emerald Isle. Ireland Explained takes readers on a very personal trip around the Emerald Isle, with stops at interesting venues from Georgian homes to nouvelle cuisine restaurants--indeed, to one of the first ones in Ireland when it opened in the early 1980s. Visit castles, and tromp over open farmland. Look toward America from the west coast tracks; look toward Europe from cosmopolitan Dublin. You'll meet some people, too. Real characters. Real movers and shakers. And just about every other sort of person you can think of, from barkeeps to professors. Tuck this book in your suitcase and write your own annotations. Or read it in front of the fire at home, creating dreams or planning a trip of your own. However you do it, reading this book will provide you with a leisurely trip through one of the most beloved travel destinations on the planet, both exotic and familiar, homey and sublime. Beautiful, vexatious, vibrant, laugh-loving uplifting Ireland is what you'll find in the gentle prose of these pages, all of them written with love.

Lurch through East Anglia, UK, with the most lovable D.I. (Driving Instructor) in history ever to become a P.I. (Private Investigator), and plunk his bum on a stool in Brooklyn, NY, eating Junior's Cheesecake-real New York cheesecake. Go with him as he attends a Mafia funeral to rival a royal wedding. And then worry and scold like a Yiddishe mama as he risks life and limb to solve a murder best described as a dripper. Driving instruction? Oh, yes. He does some of that, and his driving students are, well, unusual. Some won't drive. Some won't stop. Some kill things along the way to driving competence. Like author Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy, the antiques-dealer-turned-sleuth, Shelf Barker is an encyclopedia of oddness, but a lot less snarky. But he is non-politically correct--or maybe a better way to say it is omni-ethnic--about it all. So how DOES a mild-mannered Brit go from giving driving lessons to the great British public of terrified driving students to solving a double murder? He has help. Like Janet Evanovich's almost helpless Stephanie Plum, Shelf works under the watchful eyes of two able helpers. One's an Italian beauty who can barely boil pasta, and the other is one of his ex-wives whom he fondly compares to a deadly snake. Not exactly Stephanie Plum's Ranger and Joe Morelli. More interesting. He labours under myriad delusions, Shelf does, not least of which is that as a former university professor (his slide from grace has been bumpy), he knows everything about everything. Including English. When he chides his wife about her mistakes in English, she assures him her university studies taught her proper English. "I always add 'proper AMERICAN English'," he replies, "and that always gets me a fine Italian phrase in return, a sneer and sometimes a familiar hand gesture." She probably learned the gesture from her Mafia forebears. Go figure. Poor Shelf has to grapple with US idioms, suffer through the vagaries of British jurisprudence, and keep his astonishment hidden through an Italian funeral where bodies surf along Brooklyn roads and demented mafiosi retirees give the game away. To top it off, a central African warlord who sounds like Eddie Murphy in Coming to America plays a central role. Still, Barker knows who he is, and isn't embarrassed to tell. "I might once have been a world-class anthropologist....I might have. But I wasn't. Just an ordinary bloke, educated beyond where it is wise to educate a member of the proletariat, trying to make a living." Barker is not a dab hand at handling a gun, but he can handle concepts just fine. And he has a fan-thing going for Lorena Bobbitt and her shorn husband, John. Remember them? Twenty years ago, Lorena trimmed her husband's private parts a bit too close. "A fiction writer couldn't come up with a better name for an egomaniacal American who fancied himself a matinee idol and who was shorn where it hurts-bobbed, you might say-than John Wayne Bobbitt," Shelf notes. Shelf has fun, he really does. See for yourself. He samples the best New York Cheesecake. He spends some quality time with the local constabulary. He falls in love. Again. And again? Maybe. Click LOOK INSIDE and immerse yourself for a minute in the very funny world of Shelf Barker as he graduates from D.I. to P.I. in one juicy murder.

There has never been a riding book like this, dedicated to answering the questions that vex parents of young riders, and adults new to the sport. It is intended to bring new 'horsepeople' into the world of English Riding as quickly and thoroughly as possible; it can be part of a comprehensive training program, preferably with the in-person assistance of an able trainer; those with some experience and their own horse might find its hints and exercises useful for enhancing their enjoyment of riding, and improving their riding skills.