Jim Norton

BEST HEARD ON AN EMPTY STOMACH Jim Norton is a pervert in the truest sense of the word. The physical equivalent of a tall slug, he pays top dollar for massages with happy endings, and is fascinated by shitty sitcoms and fat girls. He is also, at times, racially offensive and morally repugnant. He spares no one in his comedy -- least of all himself. Now, in this outrageous, blisteringly funny collection of essays, Norton tackles the topics that are...

The classic novel follows Stephen Dedalus from his days as a student at the Clongowes Wood School, to the deep religious conflict he experiences at a day school in Dublin, to his college years during which he challenges the conventions of his upbringing.

Three undocumented teenagers are just about to graduate high school in the Bronx. But unlike the everyday problems of New York adolescents, these three live with the threat of being discovered by the authorities and deported. When one of their teachers connects them with a lawyer to help them get their papers, the teens start to dig into their family histories to assist their immigration cases. Winner of the Audience Award for Narrative Spotlight...

Evangelical Christian do-gooder, Laura Marshall fills her home with down-and-out boarders. Laura's shy teenage son, Ben, lands a job tending to self-proclaimed "Dame" Evie Walton, an over-the-hill actress with the mouth of a drunken sailor and an insatiable lust for life. The battle for Ben's soul begins as Evie shanghais Ben away from his repressive roots and transforms him from a boy to a man.

Set in Poland during World War II. Innocent and naive 8-year-old Bruno is bored and restless in his new home. Ignoring his mother, he sets off on an adventure in the woods. He comes across a high fence which separates him from the people he can see through it. Soon he meets a young boy in striped pajamas, and a surprising friendship develops.

One man wants to publish, so another must perish, in this darkly witty philosophical novel. The Third Policeman follows a narrator who is obsessed with the work of a scientist and philosopher named de Selby (who believes that Earth is not round but sausage-shaped)-and has finally completed what he believes is the definitive text on the subject. But, broke and desperate for money to get his scholarly masterpiece published, he winds up committing robbery-and...

Michael Farr (Ciarán Hinds), a teacher raising his two kids alone since his wife died two years earlier, has been seeing and hearing strange things late at night. He isn't sure if he is having nightmares, or if he's experiencing a haunting. Working as a volunteer for an international literary festival, he is assigned to Lena Morelle (Iben Hjejle), an author of books about ghosts and the supernatural. Establishing a rapport with one another, Michael...

Greta is a young American woman who takes a job as a nanny in a remote English village, only to discover that the family's eight-year-old is a life-sized doll that the parents care for just like a real boy, as a way to cope with the death of their actual son twenty years prior. After violating a list of strict rules, a series of disturbing and inexplicable events bring Greta's worst nightmare to life, leading her to believe that the doll is actually...

Conor McPherson is one of the leading figures in Irish contemporary drama. His look at life in a village pub, The Weir, was premiered in Dublin and then ran for over a year in the West End and Broadway. Port Authority was his next play. Three Dublin men of differing ages simply telling their stories to the audience. It is a spare document, but the wit, insight and pathos so skilfully woven by this major dramatist makes it unforgettable. A major recording...

In 1921 Jimmy Gralton's sin was to build a dance hall on a rural crossroads in an Ireland on the brink of Civil War. The Pearse-Connolly Hall was a place where young people could come to learn, to argue, to dream; but above all to dance and have fun. As the hall grew in popularity its socialist and free-spirited reputation brought it to the attention of the church and politicians who forced Jimmy to flee and the hall to close.