(Applause Books). Martin Sherman's worldwide hit play Bent took London by storm in 1979 when it was first performed by the Royal Court Theatre, with Ian McKellen as Max (a character written with the actor in mind). The play itself caused an uproar. "It educated the world," Sherman explains. "People knew about how the Third Reich treated Jews and, to some extent, gypsies and political prisoners. But very little had come out about their treatment of homosexuals." Gays were arrested and interned at work camps prior to the genocide of Jews, gypsies, and handicapped, and continued to be imprisoned even after the fall of the Third Reich and liberation of the camps. The play Bent highlights the reason why - a largely ignored German law, Paragraph 175, making homosexuality a criminal offense, which Hitler reactivated and strengthened during his rise to power.

A CATCH ME IF YOU CAN TALE FOR TODAY. Bent is the story of John J. Boseak's phenomenal life of crime. Inked from head to toe, with an addiction to strippers and fast Cadillacs, Boseak was not your typical computer geek. He was, however, one of the most cunning scammers, counterfeiters, identity thieves and escape artists alive-and a major thorn in the side of the U.S. Secret Service as they fought a war on cybercrime. With a savant-like ability to circumvent banking security and stay one step ahead of law enforcement, Boseak made millions of dollars in the international cyber underworld, with the help of the Chinese and the Russians. Then, leaving nothing but a John Doe warrant and a cleaned-out bank account in his wake, he vanished. Boseak's stranger-than-fiction tale of ingenious scams and impossible escapes, of brazen run-ins with the law and secret desires to straighten out and settle down, makes Bent a true crime con game that will keep you guessing.

Following the success of the wonderfully wacky and playful Bent Objects, this charming gift book from the offbeat mind of Terry Border features 60 new wire-based creations that seek to express the many wonders and reasons for love. Everyday objects like raisins, cupcakes, pears, and puzzle pieces take center stage as they're bent into clever visual vignettes that provide a new perspective on that ever-elusive emotion. Each photograph is accompanied by a sweet caption that is sure to evoke that warm, fuzzy feeling inside, but with the author's signature ironic twist. In the tradition of bestselling humorous photography books featuring artful creations with food such as Hello Cupcake! and Cake Wrecks, this book will surprise and delight with every spread. And with its affordable price point and gifty trim size, Bent Object of My Affection is the perfect present for loved ones on Valentine's Day, for anniversaries, or “just because.”

“Kraus gets under your skin with brutal, elegant efficiency. Necessarily horrifying, devastatingly timely.”—Kiersten White, New York Times-bestselling author of The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein and Slayer From New York Times-bestselling author Daniel Kraus comes a breakneck, genre-defying YA thriller perfect for fans of Kiersten White, Neal Shusterman, and M. T. Anderson. Liv Fleming’s father went missing more than two years ago, not long after he claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Liv has long accepted that he’s dead, though that doesn’t mean she has given up their traditions. Every Sunday, she and her lifelong friend Doug Monk trudge through the woods to check the traps Lee left behind, traps he set to catch the aliens he so desperately believed were after him. But Liv is done with childhood fantasies. Done pretending she believes her father’s absurd theories. Done going through the motions for Doug’s sake. However, on the very day she chooses to destroy the traps, she discovers in one of them a creature so inhuman it can only be one thing. In that moment, she’s faced with a painful realization: her dad was telling the truth. And no one believed him. Now, she and Doug have a choice to make. They can turn the alien over to the authorities...or they can take matters into their own hands. On the heels of the worldwide success of The Shape of Water, Daniel Kraus returns with a horrifying and heartbreaking thriller about the lengths people go to find justice and the painful reality of grief. “Bent Heavens is the darkest, angriest alien horror story that I've ever encountered. Hell. Yes.”—Stephanie Perkins, New York Times-bestselling author of There's Someone Inside Your House

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel "Don't be fooled by the novel's apparent simplicity: What emerges from the surface is a tale of extraordinary emotional power, one of longstanding pain set against the pulsating drumbeat of social change." -Sarah Weinman, NPR.org For twenty years, Celia Scott has watched her husband, Arthur, hide from the secrets surrounding his sister Eve's death. But when the 1967 Detroit riots frighten him even more than his Kansas past, he convinces Celia to pack up their family and return to the road he grew up on, Bent Road, and the same small town where Eve mysteriously died. And then a local girl disappears, catapulting the family headlong into a dead man's curve. . . . On Bent Road, a battered red truck cruises ominously along the prairie; a lonely little girl dresses in her dead aunt's clothes; a boy hefts his father's rifle in search of a target; and a mother realizes she no longer knows how to protect her children. It is a place where people learn: Sometimes killing is the kindest way. Bent Road has been optioned for film in 2012 by Cross Creek Pictures with Mark Mallouk to adapt and Benderspink to produce.

Australian Women’s Weekly Great Read Shortlisted Indie Book Awards for Debut Fiction Shortlisted MUD Literary Prize​ Shortlisted ABIA Award for General Fiction Shortlisted ABIA Matt Richell Award New Writer of the Year ‘Hannah Bent’s outstanding debut is a wise, wondrous celebration of life.’ – The Australian ‘Hannah Bent has created a literary heroine of such pure beauty she takes your breath away.’ – Australian Women’s Weekly ‘Read it if you like: Your sister, anything by Trent Dalton, having a good cry, and My Sister’s Keeper.’ – Mamamia Marlowe and Harper share a bond deeper than most sisters, shaped by the loss of their mother in childhood. For Harper, living with what she calls the Up syndrome and gifted with an endless capacity for wonder, Marlowe and she are connected by an invisible thread, like the hum that connects all things. For Marlowe, they are bound by her fierce determination to keep Harper, born with a congenital heart disorder, alive. Now twenty-five, Marlowe is living abroad when she receives the devastating call that Harper’s heart is failing and she is being denied a transplant by the medical establishment. Marlowe rushes to her childhood home in Hong Kong to be by Harper’s side and soon has to answer the question – what lengths would you go to save your sister? When Things are Alive They Hum poses profound questions about the nature of love and existence, the ways grief changes us, and how we confront the hand fate has dealt us. Intensely moving, exquisitely written and literally humming with wonder, it is a novel that celebrates life in all its guises, and what comes after. PRAISE FOR WHEN THINGS ARE ALIVE THEY HUM ‘When literature is alive it hums, and rattles and warms and hurts and heals. Hannah Bent and her wondrous Harper and Marlowe have changed the way I’ve been going about my days. What a gift.’ – Trent Dalton, author of Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies ‘A simply beautiful novel.’ – Good Reading ‘...what stayed with me was the achingly beautiful portrayal of the love between the two sisters. If I had a sister, that is how I would like to feel.’ – Nicole Abadee, Sydney Morning Herald ‘heartbreakingly beautiful’ – Family Circle