As touching as it is humorous, The Garden of Eden is a parable for our time with a powerful and ultimately redemptive ending that speaks to oft underappreciated virtues such as loyalty (sticking with those you love even when they screw up royally), tolerance, and forgiveness. It's also about the values that keep America together---the simple solutions ordinary people find to keep their small communities strong.Trooper Sam Neely is fresh out of the State Police academy and finds himself assigned to the dullest backwater town he's never heard of. Things heat up quickly in Eden, U.S.A., however, when Ed Harris, the banker, finds his wife in bed with his best friend, Hayden Elkins. Ed picks up a shotgun, escorts them both to the door, and tells friend Hayden, "Guess what? She's yours!""I've got a wife, Ed," says Hayden."Now you have two. . . ."Forced to take his paramour to live under his own roof (after all, they had only intended to share an afternoon of delight, not to leave their spouses), Hayden suddenly finds himself the butt of every joke in town. That's where things start to spin out of control.Before long, Elijah Murphy, the town drunk, and the snooping widow next door, to whom he'd exposed himself, are falling in love; sleazy Sheriff's Deputy Delmar Clay is about to get a butt-full of birdshot for the pictures he's been snapping of young couples getting hot and heavy in parked cars; and the Barrow Boys are out of jail and looking for trouble. Soon, Neely finds that managing the crises in the sticks is a full-time job, and it takes a whole community---from the compassionate local magistrate to the new female preacher---to keep things from exploding big-city style.
Growing up in the fifties, Carolyn Spiro was always in the shadow of her more intellectually dominant and social outgoing twin, Pamela. But as the twins approached adolescence, Pamela began to succumb to schizophrenia, hearing disembodied voices and eventually suffering many breakdowns and hospitalizations. Divided Minds is a dual memoir of identical twins, one of whom faces a life sentence of schizophrenia, and the other who becomes a psychiatrist, after entering the spotlight that had for so long been focused on her sister. Told in the alternating voices of the sisters, Divided Minds is a heartbreaking account of the far reaches of madness, as well as the depths of ambivalence and love between twins. It is a true and unusually frank story of identical twins with very different identities and wildly different experiences of the world around them.
Exhaustively researched and almost flirtatiously opinionated, When Blanche Met Brando is everything a fan needs to know about the ground-breaking New York and London stage productions of Williams' "Streetcar" as well as the classic Brando/Leigh film. Sam Staggs' interviews with all the living cast members of each production will enhance what's known about the play and movie, and help make this book satisfying as both a pop culture read and as a deeper piece of thinking about a well-known story. Readers will come away from this book delighted with the juicy behind-the-scenes stories about cast, director, playwright and the various productions and will also renew their curiosity about the connection between the role of Blanche and Viven Leigh's insatiable sexual appetite and later descent into breakdown. They may also--for the first time--question whether the character of Blanche was actually "mad" or whether her anxiousness was symptomatic of another disorder."A Streetcar Named Desire" is one of the most haunting and most-studied modern plays. Staggs' new book will fascinate fans and richen newcomers' understanding of its importance in American theater and movie history.
"The entire collection constitutes thought-provoking entertainment for a good cause, with all publisher and author profits earmarked for the Save the Children Tsunami Relief Fund."--BooklistIn the winter of 2005, after the horrifying natural disaster of the tsunami in Southeast Asia, Steve Savile and Alethea Kontis joined forces to raise money to help the distressed survivors and have created Elemental. They solicited SF and fantasy stories, all new and never published elsewhere, from many of the top writers in the genres today, and received immediate responses in the form of the excellent stories here in this book.Elemental has an introduction by Arthur C. Clarke and more than twenty stories by Jacqueline Carey, Martha Wells, Larry Niven, Sherrilyn Kenyon writing as Kinley MacGregor, and a Dune story by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson, and many others. They created in Elemental one of the most important genre anthologies of the year, but more than that: in giving real value for the purchase price, everyone who sells this book can be proud, and everyone who buys it will be richly rewarded for supporting the tsunami relief effort.
"A work of stunning density and penetrating analysis . . . Lost Battalions deploys a narrative symmetry of gratifying complexity."-David Levering Lewis, The NationDuring the bloodiest days of World War I, no soldiers served more valiantly than the African American troops of the 369th Infantry-the fabled Harlem Hellfighters-and the legendary 77th "lost battalion" composed of New York City immigrants. Though these men had lived up to their side of the bargain as loyal American soldiers, the country to which they returned solidified laws and patterns of social behavior that had stigmatized them as second-class citizens.Richard Slotkin takes the pulse of a nation struggling with social inequality during a decisive historical moment, juxtaposing social commentary with battle scenes that display the bravery and solidarity of these men. Enduring grueling maneuvers, and the loss of so many of their brethren, the soldiers in the lost battalions were forever bound by their wartime experience. Both a riveting combat narrative and a brilliant social history, Lost Battalions delivers a richly detailed account of the fierce fight for equality in the shadow of a foreign war.
"A persuasive and utterly frightening picture of the current state of America's war on terror."-Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesWe are losing. Five years after the September 11 attacks, America finds its strategic position deteriorating in the global war on terror. In The Next Attack, former White House counterterrorism experts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon show how the terrorist threat has evolved since 9/11 and how America has undermined its own goals, not only in the ill-considered invasion and occupation of Iraq but also through our failure to understand the jihadists' ideology. Our actions have confirmed Osama bin Laden's message in the eyes of disaffected Muslims in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere, and in doing so, we are clearing the way for the next attack. Benjamin and Simon argue that America needs a far-reaching and creative new strategy in combating Islamic radicalism, one that recognizes the costs of over-militarizing the battle against terror while setting realistic priorities for homeland security. And in a new afterword, they show how the ideological conflict is deepening and spreading across an increasingly radicalized Muslim world. We ignore this warning at our peril.
"Johnson details exciting anecdotes of scams, hoaxes, and instances of conjuring . . . His stories unfold like magic." -David Blaine, Entertainment WeeklyIn the 1920s, during an era when Americans were crazy for magic, Dai Vernon earned a reputation as a genius of the magical arts. When hard times descended after the crash of '29, the lights of New York faded, audiences dwindled, and Vernon headed west. Little did he realize that his life was about to change.In Wichita, Kansas, while swapping secrets with a Mexican gambler, Vernon was told a story he didn't quite believe, the tale of a legendary cardsharp who could pull off the impossible-dealing perfectly from the center of the deck. Vernon set out to find the reclusive cardsharp, discovering a fascinating and dangerous kingdom of games and tricksters along the way. Did he finally get his man or did the greatest cardsharp who ever lived just vanish into thin air? A story with the nostalgic quality of an old-fashioned fable, The Magician and the Cardsharp is a unique and endlessly entertaining piece of history.
An inspiring guide featuring the wit, wisdom, and stories of Zona Rosa, the writing-and-sisterhood workshop that has empowered thousands of womenFor more than twenty years, Rosemary Daniell-Southern belle, successful writer, and tireless champion of female empowerment-has led Zona Rosa, a writing workshop for women founded on the premise that writing can be not only a creative challenge but a tool for healing. Here, she shares the secrets of Zona Rosa: practical advice and home-grown "Exorcises" that help you face and think through writing issues, and life in general.You'll learn how to avoid the "13 (Possible) Boo Boos" that plague everyone's writing. You'll bring yourself to "Write About the Thing I Most Don't Want to Write About" and learn how facing the difficult past can lead to breakthroughs. You'll discover "The Emotional Tai Chi of Getting Your Work Out There," with suggestions for painlessly sending your work into the world. Along the way, you'll meet some of the many women who have improved their writing-and lives-through the camaraderie, constructive advice, and fun of Zona Rosa. And you'll be inspired by Rosemary Daniell herself, who has weathered personal tragedy, Bad Love, and her own writing issues to come out singing. Secrets of the Zona Rosa is essential reading for any woman who writes-and who has lived a life full of stories.
Nathanael West was only thirty-seven when he died in 1940, but his depictions of the sometimes comic, sometimes horrifying aspects of the American scene rival those of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. A Cool Million, written in 1934, is a satiric Horatio Alger story set in the midst of the Depression. The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931) was described by one critic as "a fantasy about some rather scatological adventures of the hero in the innards of the Trojan horse."
Sixteen-year-old Walker has discovered something potentially scandalous-two of his female classmates are having an affair. It is a secret he has no problem keeping to himself . . . until it comes to protecting his own reputation."It is difficult to close Desire Lines without the overpowering feeling that evil's caretaker can very well be an average young man who lacks the courage to do what he knows is right. This is a morality play as painful and rage-inducing as a personal betrayal. Take it personally. You cannot read this without getting as emotionally involved as if you were a player in the story." -Chris Lynch
2005 National Book Award Finalist for FictionA Los Angeles Times Book Review Favorite Book of the YearA Publishers Weekly Top Ten Novel of the YearIt is 1974 and a tiny band of self-styled urban guerrillas, calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), abducts a newspaper heiress, who then takes the guerrilla name"Tania" and shocks the world by choosing to remain with her former captors. Soon most of the SLA are dead, killed in a suicidal confrontation with police in Los Angeles, forcing Tania and her two remaining comrades--the pompous and abusive General Teko and his duplicitous lieutenant, Yolanda--into hiding, where they will remain for the next sixteen months. These are the months of Tania's sentimental education.
The Southerland family left the old world to start anew in America, but little did they know that a blood-feud, older than history itself, would follow them through the generations to come.Kate Southerland, the first born of the latest generation of Southerlands, has been murdered, but she is not dead. Her little brother, Johnny, has also vanished, a severed, bloody finger the only clue.But the Southerlands have no clue what they've fallen into. Their enemy is no mortal madman, but the undying mistress of evil enchantment, Morgan Le Fay, and the Southerlands are not her true target. She seeks to do battle with their protector, their defender, the only man who is capable of saving this mortal family from a war they've never realized was waged.
Return to NewfordFamiliar to Charles de Lint's ever-growing audience as the setting of the novels Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, The Onion Girl, and many others, Newford is the quintessential North American city, tough and streetwise on the surface and rich with hidden magic for those who can see.In the World Fantasy Award-winning Moonlight and Vines, de Lint returns to this extraordinary city for another volume of stories set there, featuring the intertwined lives of many characters from the novels. Here is enchantment under a streetlamp: the landscape of our lives as only Charles de Lint can show it.
Megan Ismore's bungalow isn't big enough to house her problems---or her relatives.Married just ten months, Megan's life with Matt would be grand if it weren't for a fast-growing secret she can't bear to share. As if that weren't enough, she's dealing with Matt's belching Uncle Tony, who is residing on an air mattress in the basement, and her sister Andrea, a roving hippie, who is nesting on their couch. Plus dueling mothers-in-law hell-bent on double-booking the newlyweds, an incontinent terrier, and a randy best friend. As midterm exams are about to begin, Megan's unweaned infant niece (a.k.a. The Pink Tyrant) is left in her care, and there's no time to spare for reexamining her life. Between the demands of her family and a gigantic decision only she and Matt can make, Megan finds herself in a state of marital chaos that she never imagined but must somehow manage.
Award-winning historian Dale L. Walker uncovers the truth about some of the American West's most famous and infamous figures. He delves deep into some of the most enduring myths and legends of the Old West to unveil the real stories beneath them, including:*Who was the first American to make a transcontinental journey across the Western United States to the Pacific Ocean? Lewis and Clark or a Yazoo Indian who preceded them by more than sixty years*What was the true relationship between Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane? And who was the woman who claimed to have proof she was their daughter?Asking these and many more questions, The Calamity Papers sheds some necessary light on our nation's history by taking a closer look at some of its heroes.
Charlotte Charke's father, Colley Cibber, was one of the eighteenth-century's great actor/playwrights--and it was thought that the comedically gifted young Charlotte would follow in his footsteps at the legendary Drury Lane. However, Charlotte's habit of wearing men's clothes off stage as well as on, proved an obstacle to her career.Kathryn Shevelow re-creates Charlotte's downfall from the heights of London's theatrical world to its lascivious lows (the domain of fire-eaters, puppeteers, wastrels, gender-bending cross-dressers, wenches, and scandalous sorts of every variety) and her comeback as the author of one of the first autobiographies ever written by a woman. Beyond the appealingly unorthodox Charlotte, Shevelow masterfully recalls for us a historical era of extraordinary stylishness, artifice, character, interest, and intrigue.
His name is Touré--just Touré--and like many of the musicians, athletes, and celebrities he's profiled, he has affected the way that we think about culture in America. He has profiled Eminem, 50 Cent, and Alicia Keys for the cover of Rolling Stone. He's played high-stakes poker with Jay-Z and basketball with Prince and Wynton Marsalis. In Touré's world, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. sits beside Condoleezza Rice who sits beside hip-hop pioneer Tupac Shakur, and all of them are fascinating company.Never Drank the Kool-Aid is the chronicle of Touré's unparalleled journey through the American funhouse called pop culture. Its rooms are filled with creative, arrogant, kind, ordinary, and extraordinary people, most of whom happen to be famous. It is Touré's gift to be able to see through the artifice of their world and understand the genuine motivations behind their achievements--to see who they truly are as people. This is a searingly funny, surprisingly unguarded, and deeply insightful look at a world few of us comprehend.
Published for the first time in the United States, The Little Green Handbook is a unique reference work that illustrates the most important global developments facing us today, explains them, and suggests area for positive change. It relates physical trends to social and political repercussions, drawing together evidence from many interrelated fields to explain the science behind the news stories, sound bytes, and cocktail-party banter. Just how serious are our environmental problems? Are we doing enough to deal with them? How many people can the planet sustain? What are the long-term effects of continued environmental damage? How fast is the process of global warming? What are the implications of our continued dependence on fossil fuels?The Little Green Handbook has the answers. This user-friendly sourcebook is filled with up-to-date facts and figures, making complex but vitally important ideas simple. It is our duty to ensure a sustainable future for our children; The Little Green Handbook gives us the information we need to make this possible.
"My father is black and my mother is white and my brother is a vegetable." When Emma Boudreaux's older brother winds up in a coma after a freak accident, she loses her compass: only Bernie was able to navigate--if not always diplomatically--the terrain of their biracial identity. And although her father and brother are bound by a haunting past that Emma slowly uncovers, she sees that she might just escape.In exhilarating prose, The Professor's Daughter traces the borderlands of race and family, contested territory that gives rise to rage, confusion, madness, and invisibility. This astonishingly original voice surges with energy and purpose.
Imagine a pied piper singing in falsetto, wearing sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco and on to a liberation where nothing was straight-laced or old-fashioned. And everyone, finally, was welcome--to come as themselves. This is not a fairy tale. This was real, mighty real, and disco-sensation Sylvester was the piper.Yale-trained sociologist Joshua Gamson uses Sylvester's life to lead us through the story of the 1970s, when a generation took off its shame. Celebrity, sociology, and music history mingle in this endlessly entertaining story of a singer who embodied the freedom, spirit, and flamboyance of a golden moment in American culture.
It is 1930, and ground has just been broken for the Empire State Building. One of the thousands of men who will come to work high above the city is Michael Briody, an Irish immigrant torn between his desire to make a new life in America and his pledge to gather money and arms for the Irish republican cause. When he meets Grace Masterson, an alluring artist who is depicting the great skyscraper's rise from her houseboat on the East River, Briody's life suddenly turns exhilarating--and dangerous--for Grace is also a paramour of Johnny Farrell, Mayor Jimmy Walker's liaison with Tammany Hall and the underworld.
His own chemistry was his worst enemy, and it took John Falk to some very strange places--from Garden City, Long Island, to sniper-infested Sarajevo during the Bosnian bloodbath. But through it all, in the face of chronic depression, Falk kept reaching out for the life he'd always wanted. Hello to All That is his story--crazed, comic, poignant, suspenseful, and hopeful.
There are many Marilyns: sex goddess and innocent child, crafty manipulator and dumb blonde, liberated woman and tragic loner. The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe reviews the unreliable and unverifiable--but highly significant--stories that have framed this Hollywood legend, all the while revealing the meanings behind the American myths that have made Marilyn what she is today.In incisive and passionate prose, cultural critic Sarah Churchwell uncovers the shame, belittlement, and anxiety that we bring to the story of a woman we supposedly adore and, in the process, rescues a Marilyn Monroe who is far more complicated and credible than the one we think we know.
Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. Three policemen have been killed over the course of a few days. Espinosa, chief of the 12th Precinct, doesn't have much to go on. When the body of a woman connected to one of the dead cops is found on the sidewalk below her apartment window, things get even more complicated, as a reputed "witness"--the wife of a high-ranking government official--becomes obsessed with the case, and with Espinosa. Nothing is quite as it first appears as Espinosa finds himself in his old haunts of Leme and Copacabana, and in the all-too-familiar terrain of corruption, greed, and fear.
The child of poor farmers, La Mennulara became a maid for a well-to-do local family when she was only a girl; by dint of hard work and intelligence, she became the indispensable administrator of the family's affairs. Still, she was a mere servant, and now (as this story begins) she is dead.As the details unfold about this mysterious woman, The Almond Picker assumes the witty suspense of a thriller, the emotional power of a love story, and the evocative atmosphere of a historical novel. Set in Sicily in the 1960s, a violent, complicated society in the midst of tumultuous change, The Almond Picker is the story of a woman who negotiated for her freedom as no one else dared.
The profoundly moving family history of one of America's greatest newspapermen.As his father lies dying, Joseph Lelyveld finds himself in the basement of the Cleveland synagogue where Arthur Lelyveld was the celebrated rabbi. Nicknamed "the memory boy" by his parents, the fifty-nine-year-old son begins to revisit the portion of his father's life recorded in letters, newspaper clippings, and mementos stored in a dusty camp trunk. In an excursion into an unsettled and shakily recalled period of his boyhood, Lelyveld uses these artifacts, and the journalistic reporting techniques of his career as an author and editor, to investigate memories that have haunted him in adult life..With equal measures of candor and tenderness, Lelyveld unravels the tangled story of his father and his mother, a Shakespeare scholar whose passion for independence led her to recoil from her roles as a clergyman's wife and, for a time, as a mother. This reacquired history of his sometimes troubled family becomes the framework for the author's story; in particular, his discovery in early adolescence of the way personal emotions cue political choices, when he is forced to choose sides between his father and his own closest adult friend, a colleague of his father's who is suddenly dismissed for concealing Communist ties.Lelyveld's effort to recapture his family history takes him on an unforeseen journey past disparate landmarks of the last century, including the Scottsboro trials, the Zionist movement, the Hollywood blacklist, McCarthyism, and Mississippi's "freedom summer" of 1964. His excursion becomes both a meditation on the selectivity and unreliability of memory and a testimony to the possibilities, even late in life, for understanding and healing. In Omaha Blues, as Lelyveld seeks out the truth of his life story, he evokes a remarkable moment in our national story with unforgettable poignancy.
In the fall of 1977, Howard Norman went to Churchill, Manitoba, to translate Inuit folktales, and there he met Helen Tanizaki, an extraordinary linguist translating the same tales into Japanese. In Fond Remembrance of Me recaptures their intimacy, and the remarkable influence that she, and the tales themselves, would have on the future novelist. Through a series of overlapping panels of reality and memory, Norman evokes with vivid immediacy their brief but life-shifting encounter, and the earthy, robust Inuit folklore that occasioned it.
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