Search results for ""Chicago Review Press""

2014 National Outdoor Book Award Winner in History / Biography Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, sixty-seven-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. By September 1955 she stood atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin, sang “America, the Beautiful,” and proclaimed, “I said I’ll do it, and I’ve done it.”Driven by a painful marriage, Grandma Gatewood not only hiked the trail alone, she was the first person—man or woman—to walk it twice and three times. At age seventy-one, she hiked the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail. Gatewood became a hiking celebrity, and appeared on TV with Groucho Marx and Art Linkletter. The public attention she brought to the trail was unprecedented. Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction.Author Ben Montgomery interviewed surviving family members and hikers Gatewood met along the trail, unearthed historic newspaper and magazine articles, and was given full access to Gatewood’s own diaries, trail journals, and correspondence. Grandma Gatewood’s Walk shines a fresh light on one of America’s most celebrated hikers.

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What is the allure of the extreme? Who are the women who seek out and excel at sports outside the conventional, such as cave diving, wingsuit flying, or Formula 1 racing? This collection of female adventure dynamos is as fascinating as it is empowering. Thrill Seekers introduces readers to a diverse and fascinating selection of women whose determination, grit, and courage have propelled each of them into a life far from the sidelines. Each chapter introduces readers to modern role models and leaders, change-makers who opt into a life of risk—but one of astonishing rewards. Their stories inspire young people to approach life with the same bold resolve.

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Jane Austen is one of the most influential and best-loved novelists in English literature. Austen’s genius was her cast of characters—so timeless and real that readers today recognize them in their own families and neighborhoods. Her book’s universal themes—love and hate, hope and disappointment, pride and prejudice, sense and sensibility—still tug at heartstrings today in cultures spanning the globe. Austen wrote about daily life in England as she knew it, growing up a clergyman’s daughter among the upper class of landowners, providing readers with a window into the soul of a lively, imaginative, and industrious woman in an age when most women were often obscured. Jane Austen for Kids includes a time line, resources for further study, places to visit, and 21 enriching activities.

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In 2009, the United States was hit broadside by Somali pirates who attempted to capture the U.S. flag ship Maersk Alabama. Suddenly, the pirates were no longer a distant menace. They had thrust themselves onto the American stage. Are the Somali pirates a legion of desperate fishermen attacking cargo ships and ocean cruisers to reclaim their waters? Or is piracy connected to crime networks and the madness that grips Somalia? What threats do pirates pose to international security? To answer these questions, Peter Eichstaedt crisscrosses East Africa, meeting with pirates both in and out of prisons, talking with them about their lives, tactics, and motives. Ultimately, he comes face-to-face with a former fighter with Somalia’s brutal Islamic al-Shabaab militia. He discovers that piracy is a symptom of a much deeper problem: Somalia itself. Pirate State explores the links between the pirates, global financiers, and extremists who control southern Somalia and whose influence extends across the Gulf of Aden into Yemen and connects to extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Somali pirates are desperate and dangerous men who will do just about anything for money, and Pirate State argues that turning a blind eye to piracy and the problems of Somalia is inviting a disaster of horrific proportions.

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This entertaining history of Cuba and its music begins with the collision of Spain and Africa and continues through the era of Miguelito Valdés, Arsenio Rodríguez, Benny Moré, and Pérez Prado. It offers a behind-the-scenes examination of music from a Cuban point of view, unearthing surprising, provocative connections and making the case that Cuba was fundamental to the evolution of music in the New World. The ways in which the music of black slaves transformed 16th-century Europe, how the claves appeared, and how Cuban music influenced ragtime, jazz, and rhythm and blues are revealed. Music lovers will follow this journey from Andalucía, the Congo, the Calabar, Dahomey, and Yorubaland via Cuba to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Saint-Domingue, New Orleans, New York, and Miami. The music is placed in a historical context that considers the complexities of the slave trade; Cuba's relationship to the United States; its revolutionary political traditions; the music of Santería, Palo, Abakuá, and Vodú; and much more.

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Galileo, one of history's best-known scientists, is introduced in this illuminating activity book. Children will learn how Galileo's revolutionary discoveries and sometimes controversial theories changed his world and laid the groundwork for modern astronomy and physics. This book will inspire kids to be stargazers and future astronauts or scientists as they discover Galileo's life and work. Activities allow children to try some of his theories on their own, with experiments that include playing with gravity and motion, making a pendulum, observing the moon, and painting with light and shadow. Along with the scientific aspects of Galileo's life, his passion for music and art are discussed and exemplified by period engravings, maps, and prints. A time line, glossary, and listings of major science museums, planetariums, and web sites for further exploration complement this activity book.

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Unlock your ability to unfluster your parenting by identifying your anxiety style so you can turn frustration to flourishing Many moms live under the weight of seemingly constant fear. Moms worry about everything from their kids’ safety and emotional health to that weird little rash on their ankle. They are the referees, social planners, medics, financial consultants, cooks, travel agents, educational specialists, family therapists, and housekeepers. It’s utterly exhausting. Unfortunately, it’s not just exhausting, it leaves them flustered. Most of us don’t have access to the support or resources we need to manage being flustered in a healthier way. Women end up with symptoms ranging from “mom guilt” and “mommy brain” to depression, anxiety, panic attacks, substance abuse, and eating disorders. Moms are more flustered now than ever before. Even women who have no previous experience with anxiety or depression find themselves changed as a result of the physiological shifts, emotional isolation, hormonal imbalances, and unrealistic expectations that accompany motherhood.The Unflustered Mom offers a healthy alternative for dealing with mom-fears. Moms can identify their anxiety, better understand their triggers, their clues, their contributing factors, and their false beliefs. Then, they’ll learn practical tools that can help to dismantle the fears no longer serving them—turn their fluster into flourish.

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What does it mean to talk like an American? According to John Russell Bartlett’s 1848 Dictionary of Americanisms, it means indulging in outlandish slang—splendiferous, scrumptious, higgeldy piggedly—and free-and-easy word creation—demoralize, lengthy, gerrymander. American English is more than just vocabulary, though. It’s a picturesque way of talking that includes expressions like go the whole hog, and the wild boasts of frontiersman Davy Crockett, who claimed to be “half horse, half alligator, and a touch of the airthquake.” Splendiferous Speech explores the main sources of the American vernacular—the expanding western frontier, the bumptious world of politics, and the sensation-filled pages of popular nineteenth-century newspapers. It’s a process that started with the earliest English colonists (first word adoption—the Algonquian raccoon) and is still going strong today. Author Rosemarie Ostler takes readers along on the journey as Americans learn to declare linguistic independence and embrace their own brand of speech. For anyone who wonders how we got from the English of King James to the slang of the Internet, it’s an exhilarating ride.

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This collection of over fifty years of writing about the South and its music by Stanley Booth, one of the undisputedly great chroniclers of the subject, is a classic, essential read. Booth's close contacts with many of the musicians he writes about provide a gateway to truly understanding the music and culture of Memphis and other blues strongholds in the South. Subjects include Elvis Presley, Otis Redding, William Eggleston, Ma Rainey, Blind Willie McTell, Graceland, Beale Street and much more.

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