Joe has witnessed things that cannot be erased. A former FBI agent and Marine, his abusive childhood has left him damaged beyond repair. So he hides away, earning a living rescuing girls who have been kidnapped into the sex trade. Now he's been hired to save the daughter of a New York senator, held captive at a Manhattan brothel. But he's stumbled into a dangerous web of conspiracy - and he's about to pay the price.

A NAME FROM THE PAST When Mary DeAngelo walks into Happy Doll's office, she brings with her the scent of sandalwood perfume, a whole lot of cash, and the name of his old flame: Ines Candle. LURES HAPPY INTO A TRAP Ines is living rough up in Washington State, and Mary wants her found. Happy hits the streets to track her down, but soon he realizes he has been used. Now somebody is hunting them. CAN HE FIGHT HIS WAY OUT? Soon two people are dead, and Happy is in big trouble. But he's been here before and he knows that the only way to be safe is to get even...

A brilliant contemporary reimagining of the greatest comic relationship of all time, which goes far beyond pastiche to places even Wodehouse couldn't. Alan Blair, the hero of Wake Up, Sir!, is a young, loony writer with numerous problems of the mental, emotional, sexual, spiritual, and physical variety. He's very good at problems. But luckily for Alan, he has a personal valet named Jeeves, who does his best to sort things out for his troubled master. And Alan does find trouble wherever he goes. He embarks on a perilous and bizarre road journey, his destination being an artists colony in Saratoga Springs. There Alan encounters a gorgeous femme fatale who is in possession of the most spectacular nose in the history of noses. Such a nose can only lead to a wild disaster for someone like Alan, and Jeeves tries to help him, but... Well, read the book and find out! 'Too funny for the canon of high literature, the book is too brilliant to be mere diversionary humour' New York Press Jonathan Ames's latest comic novel is so brilliant and charming that any description of it is bound to be impossibly dull by comparison Seattle Weekly 'A Wodehouse novel for the recovery era' The New York Times Book Review 'What do you get when you cross Carry On, Jeeves with Portnoy's Complaint? . . . Jonathan Ames's very funny new novel, Wake Up, Sir!' Newsday 'The X-rated Woody Allen'Guardian 'Ames is a remarkable comic writer. He excels at punching out hilarious monologues on subjects ranging from nose fetishes to the planks of Buddhism' Time Out New York Cause for celebration... As Jeeves himself might prompt Ames, 'Carry on, sir!'' Washington Post Pungent and hilarious, if completely off the deep end' Kirkus Reviews Jonathan Ames is the author of the novels Wake Up, Sir!, The Extra Man, and I Pass Like Night; a graphic novel, The Alcoholic, and the essay collections I Love You More Than You Know, My Less Than Secret Life, and What's Not to Love? He is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a former columnist for New York Press. Ames performs frequently as a storyteller and has been a recurring guest on David Letterman. He has fought in two amateur boxing matches as "The Herring Wonder," and he has peformed in a number of shows. Ames had the lead role in the IFC film The Girl Under the Waves, was a porn-extra in the porn film C-Men, and played himself in a pilot episode for the Showtime network. At the time, he said, "It's the role I've been waiting for!" He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Wildly original novelist, essayist, and performance artist Jonathan Aames delivers his best collection yet--a hilarious, risque, and loveable selection of articles, essays, and fiction, including several previously unpublished pieces.With an HBO pilot based on this collection's centerpiece ("Bored to Death"), his two hilarious novels, The Extra Man and Wake Up, Sir , in development as films (with screenplays by Mr. Ames), a critically acclaimed graphic novel, The Alcoholic, under his belt, and an ongoing series of literary and not-so-literary stunts, Jonathan Ames has proven himself to be a writer of diverse and stunning talents.
In The Double Life Is Twice as Good, fans will be treated to a deft and charming compilation of Ames's journalism, personal essays, and short fiction. Featuring illuminating profiles of Marilyn Manson and Lenny Kravitz, his adventures at a goth festival in the Midwest, a story written for Esquire on a napkin, as well as a comic strip collaboration with graphic artist Nick Bertozzi, Ames's unique style and personality-driven humor shines throughout this wickedly funny collection. Also included is the aforementioned short story, "Bored to Death," a Raymond Chandler-esque tale about a struggling writer-turned-detective who becomes quickly embroiled in the search for a missing college co-ed. Described by The Portland Oregonian as "an edgier David Sedaris," it's no wonder that this comic mastermind's already fervent and dedicated fanbase is continually growing.

Jonathan Ames has drawn comparisons across the literary spectrum, from David Sedaris to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Woody Allen to P.G. Wodehouse, and his books, as well as his abilities as a performer, have made him a favorite on the Late Show with David Letterman. Whether he's chasing deranged cockroaches around his apartment, kissing a beautiful actress on the set of an avant-garde film, finding himself stuck perilously on top of a fence in Memphis in the middle of the night, or provoking fights with huge German men, Jonathan Ames has an uncanny knack for getting himself into outlandish situations. In his latest collection, "I Love You More Than You Know," Ames proves once again his immense talent for turning his own adventures, neuroses, joys, heartaches, and insights into profound and hilarious tales. Alive with love and tenderness for his son, his parents, his great-aunt -- and even strangers in bars late at night -- in "I Love You More Than You Know" Ames looks beneath the surface of our world to find the beauty in the perverse, the sweetness in loneliness, and the humor in pain.

"But who could describe my fright when, on the next morning, I awoke and found myself feeling as if completely changed into a woman. -- Case 129, Autobiography, from "Psychopathia Sexualis, a Medico-Forensic Study by Richard Von Krafft-Ebing
At the time the passage above was written, people who felt trapped in the wrong gender automatically became case-studies. Today they become the men and women they always felt they were. Transsexuals test our notions of what it is to be male or female and, more provocatively, what it means to be one self as opposed to another. "Their stories," says Jonathan Ames, "hold the appeal of an adventurer's tale."
In Sexual Metamorphosis, Ames presents the personal narratives of seventeen gender pioneers. Here is Christine Jorgensen, the first celebrity transsexual, greeting thousands of well-wishers from the stage of Madison Square Garden. Here is Caroline Cossey, former model and Bond (as in James) girl, being outed in the tabloid press. Here is novelist and English professor Jennifer Finney Boylan discussing her impending transformation with her heartbroken spouse and supportive yet confused colleagues. The result is a fascinating and compulsively readable book, filled with anguish, introspection and courage.

Perhaps all of Jonathan Ames’ problems–and the genesis of this hilarious book–can be traced back to the late onset of his puberty. After all it can’t be easy to be sixteen with a hairless “undistinguishable from that of a five year old’s.”

This wonderfully entertaining memoir is a touching and humorous look at life in New York City. But this is life for an author who can proclaim “my first sexual experience was rather old-fashioned: it was with a prostitute”–an author who can talk about his desire to be a model for the Hair Club for Men and about meeting his son for the first time.

Often insightful, sometimes tender, always witty and self-deprecating, What’s Not to Love? is an engaging memoir from one of our most funny, most daring writers.

When Alexander Vine finishes his work day, he leaves his post as a doorman at Manhattan's exclusive Four Seasons restaurant -- and enters a nighttime landscape of chance and danger, excitement and reinvention in the city's erotic underworld. Walking a tightrope between sexual desire and self-extinction, Alexander Vine charts his destructive course -- and his struggle for redemption -- with startling, unadorned clarity.

'Not since Harold and Maude has there been such a loveable odd couple' Jeffrey Eugenides

Meet Louis Ives: well-groomed, romantic, and as captivating as an F. Scott Fitzgerald hero. Only this hero has a penchant for ladies' clothes, and he's just lost his teaching job after an unfortunate incident involving a colleague's brassiere.

Meet Henry Harrison: former actor, brilliant but failed playwright, and a well-seasoned escort for New York City's women of means. What can this ageless Don Quixote of the Upper East Side have to offer a young gentleman such as Louis? what, indeed...

The Extra Man is a story of friendship and frustration, of cocktails and cross-dressing, a hilarious tale for our times from America's most versatile wit.

WAKE UP, SIR! is an homage to the novels and stories of P.G. Wodehouse. It is the story of a young alcoholic man, Alan Blair, and his valet, Jeeves. Now this Jeeves is not the same Jeeves as featured in Wodehouse - the fact that he possesses the same name is simply a mad coincidence. But, there is something curious about young Alan's valet - is he really there? Is he a mirage, a fantasy, an alcoholic hallucination, an invisible friend? Or does he really exist (as much as anyone can exist in fiction)? Regardless, Jeeves is there in one way or another as Ames brilliantly mimics the structure of many Wodehouse adventures. Instead of visiting a country estate, Alan and Jeeves go to an artist colony where Alan hopes to finish his novel, quit his drinking and possibly fall in love - three reasonable things for anyone to want ...whether attended to by a valet or not.

My Less Than Secret Life is the companion volume to Jonathan Ames's first memoirish endeavor, "the mildly perverted and wildly amusing" (Vanity Fair) What's Not to Love? This collection of the cult author's fiction and essays includes Ames's public diary, the bi-weekly columns he penned for the New York Press. The entries of this diary are a record of his mad adventures: his ill-fated debut as an amateur boxer fighting as 'The Herring Wonder', a faltering liaison with a Cuban prostitute, his public outing of George Plimpton as a Jew, his discussion with Eve Ensler about his dear friend The Mangina, a renegade mission as a Jew into the heart of Waspy Maine, and other such harrowing escapades. Whether trying to round up a partner for an orgy, politely assisting in an animal sacrifice, or scamming tickets to the WWF's Royal Rumble for his son, Jonathan Ames proves himself a ballsier Everyman whose transgressions and compassionate meditations will satisfy the voyeur and encourage the halfhearted. But be warned. As Jonathan says, "I don't like to be a bad influence. It's bad enough that I have influence over myself." "...Ames has always been one of my favorite contemporary writers ...for his . ..fearless commitment to the most demanding psychosexual comedies."--Rick Moody

Meet Happy Doll Hank to his friends. He's a LA private detective living a quiet life along with his beloved half-Chihuahua half-Terrier, George. He's getting by just fine When he's not walking George or sipping tequila, Hap works nights at the Thai Miracle Spa, protecting the women who work there from clients who won't take "no" for an answer. Until he kills a man Usually Doll avoids trouble by following his two basic rules: bark loudly and act first. But after a deadly fight with a customer, even he finds himself wildly out of his depth... A Man Named Doll is both a hilarious introduction to an unforgettable character, and a high-speed joyride through the sensuous and violent streets of LA.

For her series "No Sleep," Hee Jin Kang photographs mattresses abandoned on the streets of New York City, mostly in Brooklyn. Kang's work reveals the unexpected beauty and strangeness of these found urban still lifes. The discarded beds are pathetic, monolithic, and architectural. They lay naked against walls and on curbs, sometimes seedy and sometimes luminous.

Hee Jin Kang, based in Brooklyn, New York, has exhibited her work internationally, including at the Hayward Gallery, London; the Musee de l'Elysee, Lausanne; and Culturgest, Lisbon. "No Sleep," with an introduction by Jonathan Ames, is her first monograph.