Search results for ""chicago review press""

This fun and witty exposé of horse racing in America goes behind the scenes at the track, providing a serious gambler's-eye view of the action. Ted McClelland spent a year at tracks and off-track betting facilities in Chicago and across the country, profiling the people who make a career of gambling on horses. This account follows his personal journey of what it means to be a player as he gambles with his book advance using various betting and handicapping strategies along the way. A colorful cast of characters is introduced, including the intensely disciplined Scott McMannis, "The Professor," a onetime college instructor who now teaches a course in handicapping, and Mary Schoenfeldt, a former nun and gifted handicapper who donates all of her winnings to charity. This moving account of wins, losses, and personal turmoil provides a sobering look at gamblers, gambling, and life at the track.

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From Elvis and a hound dog wearing matching tuxedos and the comic adventures of artificially produced bands to elaborate music videos and contrived reality-show contests, television—as this critical look brilliantly shows—has done a superb job of presenting the energy of rock in a fabulously entertaining but patently "fake" manner. The dichotomy of "fake" and "real" music as it is portrayed on television is presented in detail through many generations of rock music: the Monkees shared the charts with the Beatles, Tupac and Slayer fans voted for corny American Idols, and shows like Shindig! and Soul Train somehow captured the unhinged energy of rock far more effectively than most long-haired guitar-smashing acts. Also shown is how TV has often delighted in breaking the rules while still mostly playing by them: Bo Diddley defied Ed Sullivan and sang rock and roll after he had been told not to, the Chipmunks' subversive antics prepared kids for punk rock, and things got out of hand when Saturday Night Live invited punk kids to attend a taping of the band Fear. Every aspect of the idiosyncratic history of rock and TV and their peculiar relationship is covered, including cartoon rock, music programming for African American audiences, punk on television, Michael Jackson's life on TV, and the tortured history of MTV and its progeny.

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Drawing on the natural folk art tendencies of children, who love to collect buttons, bottle caps, shells, and Popsicle sticks to create beautiful, imperfect art, this activity guide teaches kids about the history of this organic art and offers inspiration for them to create their own masterpieces. The full breadth of American folk art is surveyed, including painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and textiles from the 17th century through today. Making bubblegum wrapper chains, rag dolls, bottle cap sculptures, decoupage boxes, and folk paintings are just a few of the activities designed to bring out the artist in every child. Along the way kids learn about the lives of Americans throughout history and their casual relationships to everyday art as they cut stencils, sew needlepoint samplers, draw calligraphy birds, and design quilts. Important folk artists such as the last surviving Shakers, the legendary Grandma Moses, and the Reverend Howard Finster are also explored in sidebars throughout the book.

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Heroism and horror abound in these true stories of 16 great explorers who journeyed to the Arctic and Antarctic regions, two exquisite and unique ice wildernesses. Recounted are the exciting North Pole adventures of Erik the Red in 982 and the elusive searches for the “Northwest Passage” and “Farthest North” of Henry Hudson, Fridtjof Nansen, Fredrick Cook, and Robert Peary. Coverage of the South Pole begins with Captain Cook in 1772; continues through the era of land grabbing and the race to reach the Pole with James Clark Ross, Roald Amundsen, Robert Scott, and Ernest Shackleton; and ends with an examination of the scientists at work there today. Astounding photographs and journal entries, sidebars on the Inuit and polar animals, and engaging activities bring the harrowing expeditions to life. Activities include making a Viking compass, building a model igloo, making a cross staff to measure latitude, creating a barometer, making pemmican, and writing a newspaper like William Parry’s “Winter Chronicle.” The North and South Poles become exciting routes to learning about science, geography, and history.

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A high-altitude alligator farm. A UFO watchtower. A monument to a headless chicken. While other travel guides tell you about tackling Pike’s Peak, skiing the back bowls, or rafting down the Arkansas River, this quirky regional resource offers unusual travel destinations and little-known historical tidbits. Imagine regaling coworkers with unique Rocky Mountain adventures, like spending an evening at a drive-in movie . . . in a queen-sized bed, or visiting a vapor cave clad only in a towel. How about seeing a two-headed dragon made of car parts, or watching cliff divers while eating Mexican food?

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Children can try their hand at re-creating ancient Israelite culture—along with the cultures of their neighbors, the Philistines and Phoenicians—in a way that will provide perspective on current events. The book covers a key period from the Israelites’ settlement in Canaan in 1200 B.C.E. to their return from exile in Babylonia in 538 B.C.E. This part of the Middle East—no larger than modern-day Michigan—was the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. More than 35 projects include stomping grapes into juice, building a model Phoenician trading ship, making a Philistine headdress, and writing on a broken clay pot. Israelites', Phoenicians', and Philistines' writing and languages, the way they built their homes, the food they ate, the clothes they wore, and the work they did, and of course, their many interesting stories, are all explored.

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The John S. Williams plantation in Georgia was operated largely with the labor of slaves—and this was in 1921, 56 years after the Civil War. Williams was not alone in using “peons,” but his reaction to a federal investigation was almost unbelievable: he decided to destroy the evidence. Enlisting the aid of his trusted black farm boss, Clyde Manning, he began methodically killing his slaves. As this true story unfolds, each detail seems more shocking, and surprises continue in the aftermath, with a sensational trial galvanizing the nation and marking a turning point in the treatment of black Americans.

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This activity book features 25 projects such as making a surface survey of a site, building a screen for sifting dirt and debris at a dig, tracking soil age by color, and counting tree rings to date a find, teaches kids the techniques that unearthed Neanderthal caves, Tutankhamun’s tomb, the city of Pompeii, and Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec empire. Kids will delight in fashioning a stone-age tool, playing a seriation game with old photographs of cars, “reading” objects excavated in their own backyards, and using patent numbers to date modern artifacts as they gain an overview of human history and the science that brings it back to life.

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Following Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery as they navigate the muddy Missouri River and begin a great adventure, this activity book is set against the background of the vast North American continent. It takes children from President Jefferson’s vision of an exploratory mission across a continent full of unique plants and animals through their dangerous and challenging journey into the unknown to the expedition’s triumphant return to the frontier town of St. Louis. Twenty-one activities bring to life the Native American tribes they encountered, the plants and animals they discovered, and the camping and navigating techniques they used. A glossary of terms and listings of Lewis and Clark sites, museums, and related websites round out this comprehensive activity book.

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Surprisingly, kids were some of the key instigators in the Civil Rights Movement, like Barbara Johns, who held a rally in her elementary school gym that eventually led to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court school desegregation decision, and six-year-old Ruby Bridges, who was the first black student to desegregate elementary schools in New Orleans. In The Civil Rights Movement for Kids, children will discover how students and religious leaders worked together to demand the protection of civil rights for black Americans. They will relive the fear and uncertainty of Freedom Summer and learn how northern white college students helped bring national attention to atrocities committed in the name of segregation, and they’ll be inspired by the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X. Activities include: reenacting a lunch counter sit-in; organizing a workshop on nonviolence; holding a freedom film festival followed by a discussion; and organizing a choral group to sing the songs that motivated the foot soldiers in this war for rights.

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Thousands of people live in the subway, railroad, and sewage tunnels that form the bowels of New York City and this book is about them, the so-called mole people. They live alone and in communities, in subway tunnels and below subway platforms and this fascinating study presents how and why people move underground, who they are, and what they have to say about their lives and the “topside” world they’ve left behind.

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More than 70 math games, puzzles, and projects from all over the world are included in this delightful book for kids.

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Insightful and fun, this collection of poetry captures the essence of the African American experience for young people.

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Students discover the basic principles necessary to build all types of structures used in everyday life including bridges, skyscrapers, and other architectural gems. Line art illustrations help to explain projects that demonstrate how these principles keep structures solid. Perfect for kids who wonder why, and love to figure things out! All projects are easily done with materials found around-the-house.

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Children will explore ancient Roman culture—along with the cultures of their neighbors, the Etruscans, Carthaginians, and Celts—to learn how these societies have influenced our modern world, from our language, buildings, and laws to our concepts of liberty and citizenship. In addition to this lively history, this resource contains more than 30 hands-on projects for young archaeologists to gain a better understanding of these remarkable Mediterranean cultures.

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Born into a blue-collar family in the Jim Crow South, Herman J. Russell built a shoeshine business when he was twelve years old—and used the profits to buy a vacant lot where he built a duplex while he was still a teen. Over the next fifty years, he continued to build businesses, amassing one of the nation’s most profitable minority-owned conglomerates.In Building Atlanta, Russell shares his inspiring life story and reveals how he overcame racism, poverty, and a debilitating speech impediment to become one of the most successful African American entrepreneurs, Atlanta civic leaders, and unsung heroes of the civil rights movement. Not just a typical rags-to-riches story, Russell achieved his success through focus, planning, and humility, and he shares his winning advice throughout. As a millionaire builder before the civil rights movement took hold and a friend of Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, and Andrew Young, he quietly helped finance the civil rights crusade, putting up bond for protestors and providing the funds that kept King’s dream alive. He provides a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at the role the business community, both black and white working together, played in Atlanta’s peaceful progression from the capital of the racially divided Old South to the financial center of the New South.

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Our love of gorillas has long been reflected in literature and filmsTarzan, King Kong, The Jungle Book, Gorillas in the Mistand their popularity continues to grow. Gorillas are among the most recognizable of the large charismatic mammals, but climate change and poaching has brought them to the brink of extinction. Greg Cummings was the executive director of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund for seventeen years. He shares his fascinating experiences as a wildlife Robin Hoodraising money from the rich and famous and redistributing it to endangered gorillas and their habitats. He met and enlisted the help of celebrities such as Sigourney Weaver, Arthur C. Clark, Douglas Adams, and Leonardo DiCaprio. This thirty-year worldwide journey moves from boardrooms in Manhattan and London to mountain treks in Rwanda and the Congo. Gorilla Tactics is sure to enchant readers with Greg's unique experiences, while sharing insight into the work it takes to save a species from extinction.

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Nothing moves us like music.Music Mavens transports readers around the world (and beyond)to a jazz performance in Genoa, an instrument lab in London, a Tokyo taiko dojo, a New York City beatbox battle, and even a film scoring session aboard the starship Enterprise, to name a few. Along the way, it spotlights artists whose work spans musical genres and industry roles, including composing and songwriting, performing and conducting, audio engineering, producing, and rock photography. In Music Mavens, 15 extraordinary women reveal how they turned their passions into platforms and how they use their power to uplift others.Their musical resumes will inspire, but the way each artist lives her life is the real story.

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The 1830 murder of wealthy slaver Joseph White shook all of Salem, Massachusetts. Soon the crime drew national attention when it was discovered that two of the conspirators came from Salem's influential Crowninshield family: a clan of millionaire shipowners, cabinet secretaries, and congressmen. A prosecution team led by famed Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster made the case even more newsworthy. Meanwhile, young Salem native Nathaniel Hawthornewho knew several of the accusedobserved and wrote. Here, using source materials not available previously, Edward J. Renehan Jr. provides a riveting narrative of the cold-blooded murder, intense investigations, scandal-strewn trials, and grim executions that dominated headlines nearly two-hundred years ago.

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In January 1978, I slept in my bed at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University as Ted Bundy stalked nearby. He grabbed an oak log from a stack of firewood, slipped through an unlocked door, and headed up the back steps where he found my door unlocked. I remember the attack vividly. Bundy bashed me once in the head with the log and then attacked my roommate. He heard me moaning and came to finish me off. He never let his victims live. But he stopped suddenly when a bright light filled the room. He fled the sorority house and the light disappeared. Bundy wasn’t my first brush with death, and he wasn’t my last. I’ve long been a survivor. I was born into a Cuban American family in 1957 in Florida. I had a happy childhood until I received my first death sentence at the age of thirteen. Physicians weren’t sure why I was always so exhausted and running a low-grade fever. The prognosis was grim after my left kidney started to fail. Then, a physician from Cuba saved my life with a surprise diagnosis—lupus—and treatment plan, chemotherapy. I endured chemotherapy again in my early thirties when I was diagnosed with stage-two breast cancer. This is my story of surviving three death sentences and finding love and happiness along the way. I was saved by a bright light, and I hope my story is one for people who are experiencing their own dark times. I am a victim, but I am also a survivor and I want to speak up for all the women and girls who Bundy murdered. He has become a legend, and our voices have been muted or ignored. It’s time we were heard.

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Prine on Prine definitively presents the iconic American songwriter’s songwriter across the many eras of his celebrated life, career, and songs in his own words. John Prine hated giving interviews, but he said much when he talked. Embarrassed by fame, delighted by the smallest things, the first songwriter to read at the Library of Congress, and winner of the Pen Award for Literary Excellence, Prine saw the world unlike anyone else. The songs from 1971’s John Prine remain spot-on takes of the human condition today, and his writing only got richer, funnier, and more incisive. The interviews in Prine on Prine trace his career evolution, his singular mind, his enduring awareness of social issues, and his acute love of life, from Studs Terkel’s radio interviews from the early ’70s to Mike Leonard’s Today Show packages from the ’80s, Cameron Crowe's early encounter to Ronni Lundy's Shuck Beans, Stack Cake cookbook, and Hot Rod magazine to No Depression’s cover story, through today. Editor Holly Gleason enjoyed a longstanding relationship with Prine and his longtime co-manager, and she often traveled with him on tours in the late 1980s and represented him in the 2000s.

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Read the story behind the award-winning film Judas and the Black Messiah On December 4, 1969, attorney Jeff Haas was in a police lockup in Chicago, interviewing Fred Hampton’s fiancÉe. Deborah Johnson described how the police pulled her from the room as Fred lay unconscious on their bed. She heard one officer say, “He’s still alive.” She then heard two shots. A second officer said, “He’s good and dead now.” She looked at Jeff and asked, “What can you do?” The Assassination of Fred Hampton remains Haas’s personal account of how he and People’s Law Office partner Flint Taylor pursued Hampton’s assassins, ultimately prevailing over unlimited government resources and FBI conspiracy. Fifty years later, Haas writes that there is still an urgent need for the revolutionary systemic changes Hampton was organizing to accomplish. Not only a story of justice delivered, this book spotlights Hampton as a dynamic community leader and an inspiration for those in the ongoing fight against injustice and police brutality.

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“Nobody knows Dolly like Dolly,” declares Dolly Parton. Dolly’s is a rags-to-riches tale like no other. A dirt-poor Smoky Mountain childhood paved the way for the buxom blonde butterfly’s metamorphosis from singer-songwriter to international music superstar. The undisputed “Queen of Country Music,” Dolly has sold more than 100 million records worldwide and has conquered just about every facet of the entertainment industry: music, film, television, publishing, theatre, and even theme parks. It’s been more than 50 years since Dolly Parton arrived in Nashville with just her guitar and a dream. Her story has been told many times and in many ways, but never like this. Dolly on Dolly is a collection of interviews spanning five decades of her career and featuring material gathered from celebrated publications including Rolling Stone, Cosmopolitan, Playboy, and Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine. Also included are interviews which have not been previously available in print. Dolly’s feisty and irresistible brand of humor, combined with her playful, pull-up-a-chair-and-stay-awhile delivery, makes for a fascinating and inviting experience in downhome philosophy and storytelling. Much like her patchwork “Coat of Many Colors,” this book harkens back to the legendary entertainer’s roots and traces her evolution, stitching it all together one piece at a time.

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The Awakening Land trilogy traces the transformation of a middle-American landscape from wilderness to farmland to the site of modern industrial civilization, all in the lifetime of one character. The trilogy earned author Conrad Richter immense acclaim, ranking him with the greatest of American mid-century novelists. It includes The Trees (1940), The Fields (1946), and The Town (1950) and follows the varied fortunes of Sayward Luckett and her family in southeastern Ohio. The Trees is the story of an American family in the wilderness—a family that 'followed the woods as some families follow the sea.' The time is the end of the eighteenth century, the wilderness is the land west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio River. But principally, The Trees is the story of a girl named Sayward, eldest daughter of Worth and Jary Luckett, raised in the forest far from the rest of humankind, yet growing to realize that the way of the hunter must cede to the way of the tiller of soil.

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The Awakening Land trilogy traces the transformation of a middle-American landscape from wilderness to farmland to the site of modern industrial civilization, all in the lifetime of one character. The trilogy earned author Conrad Richter immense acclaim, ranking him with the greatest of American mid-century novelists. It includes The Trees (1940), The Fields (1946), and The Town (1950) and follows the varied fortunes of Sayward Luckett and her family in southeastern Ohio.The Fields tells the story of Sayward as a wife and mother, working with her own brood on that hard frontier to create a durable home, and aspects of civilization in a region where life is still difficult and towns are just beginning to appear. It is a rich and human novel about personal conflicts and strife in the midst of a land that itself is striving. And it has an epic quality that perfectly reflects the sweeping conquest of the frontier.

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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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More than 30 million Americans rely on their voices for their jobs—from teachers, religious leaders, and entertainers to lawyers, executives, salespeople, and doctors. A controlled voice increases self-confidence and enhances charisma, approachability, and trustworthiness. Yet an astounding 30 percent of professionals develop preventable vocal problems that could ruin their careers. And most do not know that both the quality and tone of one’s voice can be changed.The Voice Book: Caring For, Protecting, and Improving Your Voice is a one-of-a-kind reference that will save and improve your voice, your job, and your personal life. With dozens of vocal exercises and a detailed guide to the anatomy and physiology of voice, the book covers the full range of vocal health, from protecting against hoarseness and laryngitis to expanding speaking range and enhancing voice tone and quality. Illustrations, photographs, FAQs, and downloadable audio tracks make this updated edition of The Voice Book a must-read for anyone who wants a dependable, strong, and engaging voice.Readers can locate the audio files for The Voice Book in the left bar on this page, just click "Audio Downloads" or you have the option to copy and paste this link: https://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/the-voice-book-pages-630.php

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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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