Böcker av Gene Twaronite

The Family That Wasn't is an absurd fable for all ages (from middle grade to adult). Thirteen-year-old John Boggle (whose real name is John Bazukas-O'Reilly-Geronimo-Giovanni-Li Choy-Echeverria) finds his real family so impossibly crazy that he cannot stand living with them another moment. He invents a new and perfect family so convincing that he suddenly finds himself living inside this imaginary world. But John finds that he too has changed. He stares at his image in the mirror and begins to wonder if it is all a horrible mistake. Only trouble is, now he can't remember who he really is. He only knows that he must leave this false family at once. His sole clue is the name, John Boggle. To find his true family, he embarks on a cross country quest. Along the way, he encounters other characters who have also lost touch with their families. Together they must find a way to reconstruct the connections to bring back the family that once was.

The Absurd Naturalist is a collection of 43 humorous essays and sketches published over a span of more than 30 years, and assembled here for the first time. Included are pieces dealing with tofu hunters, the art of toad throwing, same-species marriage, getting rid of nature, lizard watching, reasons why you shouldn't garden, how to sell belly buttons, the right to bear arms, and the origin of toaster ovens, to name only a few. A unique cross-genre book, it will appeal to readers of natural history, the environment, and gardening as well as those general readers seeking an entertaining blend of science, satire, and absurdity.

My Vacation in Hell is a young adult dark fantasy. Set in the mid-1960s, it is a first person narrative by a 15-year-old writer named John Boggle. A troubled nerdy misfit and a frequent flyer of his imagination, John is inspired by a book report reading of Dante Alighieri's the Inferno. In the eternity of the five minutes before summer vacation, he embarks on a pilgrimage based upon his own free-wheeling interpretation of the work.Following Dante's lead, John populates his hell with all the people who have wronged him over the years, inventing deliciously cruel punishments for each of them in his teenage version of cosmic retribution. Aided by his best friend Virgil, a trusty guide in this shared imagination, John also struggles to come to terms with the world's many evils. And as he descends further into this realm, he constructs his own hierarchy of evildoers, assigning them to the levels he believes they deserve.But it is the evil perpetrated upon John, a victim of sexual abuse, which poses the most difficult challenge. The deeper he goes, the more he encounters obstacles, some of whom in the guise of colorful demon characters try their best to keep him there. But the worst obstacle of all is his own self-image, forged out of guilt and shame. He will not leave this hell of his own making, Virgil tells him, until he learns how to deal with the evil inflicted upon him and finds the true center of his being.Fortunately, he has other help besides the ever wise Virgil, who it turns out has a few problems of his own to deal with. John needs more than reason to get him through this, and divinely beautiful aid arrives in the form of Beth, an idealized version of his secret love. Rescuing the pair from the evil that threatens to consume them, she will guide John in the last stage of his spiritual odyssey. She shows him that there are even some good places in Hell, just as there is always some good, however slight, that comes from our worst experiences. Though disturbing at times due to its mature theme, My Vacation in Hell delivers a message of hope with a large dose of humor.

A collection of 28 quirky essays that explore the author's ongoing adventures in growing up and living an absurd life, asking the BIG questions: What is the nature of time, and can you get overtime? Why do I exist, and what's so great about existing? What is truth, and how do I get some?