Search results for ""rare bird books""

Paralyzed from the neck down, Gordon Zahler rose from his deathbed to a fast-talking, Hollywood entrepreneur/idea man who traveled the world, lived hard, married, fantasized about water-skiing and chased his dreams to create one of the largest independent postproduction shops in Hollywood. While this is Jacobs' story about his coming to grips with his deformed uncle, himself and his mother, the silent victim to Gordon's recklessness, Strange As It Seems is also a tip of the hat to the man who turned his back on the notion of I can't.

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A New York story, a dark comedy, Balls: A Novel tells of the 30-year-old Henry Schiller, a songwriter and lounge-player, in love with a woman far younger and more musically gifted than himself, one with her eye on other men and the rise of her own career, whose crisis deepens when he discovers he has testicular cancer.

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Dick Cheney Shot Me in the Face...and Other Tales of Men in Pain is an enthralling and award-winning story collection. Unpredictable, humorous, sometimes dark, and surprisingly heartfelt, these stories explore the secret life of men as they pass into adulthood, middle age, and old age, confronting lust, pain, guilt, bewilderment, and mortality. In eighteen stories we meet: a distraught husband who experiences heartbreak and salvation after his wife dies in a car accident caused by a texting teenager; a successful man who returns to his hometown and finds his first love stacking jars at a local Costco; a sheriff in a Western town who confronts a pedophile and his own past abuse; an Iraq war veteran turned bodyguard who encounters the biggest threat of his life in a Las Vegas Nightclub; a successful attorney who abandons his legal career to play the iPad guitar, and Henry who is shot in the face by...Dick Cheney.

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Simpsonistas: Vol. 4 begins at the onset of creation. Conversations and references dot the pages of authors acclaimed and emerging—with many of the stories weaving together sensation and interpretation. We are told that “There is creative power in a pause,” and following the “plague year” of Simpsonistas Vol. 3, Vol. 4 is a rebirth. In it, Lorne M. Buchman quotes Joseph Di Prisco, Alex Ullman reflects on a fellowship at McKinley High School, and students have their poems juxtaposed with those of their teachers. The volume discusses the craft of creative writing through an analysis of entry points, and then does what the best books always proclaim to do—show, not tell.Other celebrated authors found in these pages include: Danielle Evans, Joyce Carol Oates, Lauren Groff, Daniel Mason, Anthony Marra, Lise Gaston, and Lorne M. Buchman. In addition, several New Literary Project luminaries shine within the book, such as Jessica Laser, Noah Warren, Ian S. Maloney, and Diane Del Signore. The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

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In Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, John Corabi recounts his life from the mean streets of Philadelphia to the Sunset Strip. Take a look behind the scenes at Corabi’s time fronting Mötley Crüe, Union, and The Dead Daisies, as well as his time playing rhythm guitar with Ratt and even his stint as a long-haul trucker. Whether it’s detailing his parents difficult divorce, his family’s dark history of abuse, his run-in with a serial killer, or simply the best way to arrive at a wedding—which maybe is by helicopter and maybe it isn’t—he pulls no punches and outlines the good and bad of it all in this raucous autobiography.

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Simpsonistas: Tales from the Simpson Literary Project, Vol. 2 highlights brilliant work by associates of the Simpson Project: Joyce Carol Oates, Anthony Marra, Laila Lalami, Sigrid Nunez, and many others, including Simpson Fellows as well as young writers appearing for the first time in print.Simpsonistas is the anthology of the New Literary Project, which is committed to the proposition that storytelling is the foundation of a literate society: newliteraryproject.org.The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

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Rachel Hears A Song is a tale about the fragile nature of our planet and human interaction. There is no Planet B, this is our one and only Earth. It’s not just our home, but home to all the animals and plants that work together to keep the important balance of our beautiful planet. It is a story that shows that someone has to be brave enough to question things that may seem beneficial on the surface, but could have irreversible consequences. Rachel Carson was that person.Rachel noticed something peculiar. Where were all the birds? A question that she needed to find the answer to. With no birds to sing the wonderful sounds of Spring, the forest would be silent. Follow Rachel on a wondrous tale of how a determined girl, a serious question, and the curiosity to find an answer can change the world.Rachel meets an old crow that points her to the likely reason for the fact that there are fewer birds. They embark on a mission to explain to farmers that the materials they are spraying on the fields may be affecting more than they know. She challenges them with a single question, “We know how it helps us, but how does it hurt?” A question that started the environmental movement.

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A book for kids about Ada Lovelace and her contributions to science and technology!Ada wants to fly, but there is a serious problem. Planes have not been invented yet. So what does a curious child do? Ada decides she needs to try to invent a way to fly. She studies birds and bugs to find out how they do it, and then wrote it all down in a book of her own.Fly along with Ada on a journey of the imagination where dreams and curiosity can take you to the furthest reaches of the world all while never leaving your own yard. This story is based on real events in Ada Lovelace’s life. An adventure that helped make her one of the most inspiring symbols for girls in science.

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An epic tale of survival, magic, and romance...Teenage Stella Grey has always felt an intense recurring sense of déjà vu...often plagued by strong dreams that feel more real than her waking moments. One ill-fated morning, her dream from the night before actually comes to life, as she awakens and finds her house ransacked and her mother unconscious near their broken-in front door. Her next moments are scary, shocking, and earth-shattering as she is kidnapped and delivered to a Gothic mansion, The Manor de Rèves. Over the next few days Stella grapples with where she is and why she was taken. She is trapped by a cast of chilling characters forcing Stella and the other captured, unwilling "recruits", the "Dreamers," to endlessly sleep while The Manor staff forcibly extract their dreams. Dreams that amazingly foretell the future. Along the way Stella befriends two other Dre

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My Last Resume: New and Collected Poems showcases an exquisite body of poetry spanning more than five decades. While Joseph Di Prisco, a true Renaissance man, has achieved success across genres, his lifetime of work showcased in the long-awaited My Last Resume is proof that, for Joe, it's always been poetry.

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Enlisted by megalomaniac publisher Myron Beam, Sibella—junior editor extraordinaire—recounts the trials and tribulations of the San Francisco-based literary darling Hard Rain Publishing all the way from its improbable rise through its seemingly inevitable freefall. The whip smart, wise-cracking, and surprisingly well-read Sibella navigates the mounting eccentricities of the house’s award-winning authors, slices up her oh-so-pretentious colleagues with her razor-sharp wit, and even manages to fish her publisher out of the pub long enough to keep the whole ship afloat, all the while battling her ex-boyfriend’s meteoric success and the feintless infinity of the blank page.But when her boss acquires the artless and arduous 900-page debut The Adventures of Calypso O’Kelly, their star author Figgy Fontana—possibly, maybe, kinda sorta—dies, and a team of con artists take aim at Myron Beam, it’s up to Sibella, her endlessly outmatched editor in chief, and a former female pornstar—no, really—to return Hard Rain and its hard-boozing, hapless publisher to their former glory.Part tell all, part mystery, and part coming-of-age novel, Sibella & Sibella is a biting look at the world of publishing from a reluctant witness who pulls no punches with anyone. Least of all herself.

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Former porn star, Christopher Zeischegg (aka Danny Wylde), gathers six years of writing into one definitive collection. A memoir of an adult film career from beginning to end and a life lived after, marked by post-porn dysphoria. Interspersed with select fiction, Zeischegg writes about youthful naivete, sex worker love, pro-porn activism, disenchantment, and violence. Body to Job is the ex-porn star's third book, and his most comprehensive to date—an explicit work of vulnerability, longing, terror, and life.

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CNN Anchor Alisyn Camerota’s memoir Combat Love is her story of growing up longing for stability and attachment as the foundation of her family crumbled. Set on the Jersey Shore in the free-range 1980s, Camerota finds the belonging she craves courtesy of a local punk rock band named Shrapnel and their diehard fans. Combat Love chronicles her near-misses and misadventures at clubs like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, coupled with the sex, drugs, and punk rock of 1980s New Jersey. By the time she leaves home at sixteen, it feels like home had left her long ago. Combat Love is also the story of two women, mother and daughter, trying to forge their own paths and independence, and find their own happiness, success and wholeness. Camerota’s story searches for the line between shelter and risk, nurture and neglect, parenting and personal freedom. What are we willing

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An in-depth look at the life of Oakland, California native, Barclay Simpson, Strong Ties focuses on the set of convictions and leadership qualities that allowed Simpson to build a successful business from nothing and to become one of the major philanthropists in the San Francisco Bay Area. A Navy pilot during World War II, he didn’t graduate from college until over 20 years after he dropped out of UC Berkeley in 1946 to help save his father’s Emeryville-based window screens business from bankruptcy. Largely self-taught, he went on in 1956 to found Simpson Manufacturing Co, Inc., which he grew from a small, artisan business that fabricated metal connectors into a world-wide, publicly-traded company, known throughout the construction industry as a manufacturer of over 4000 distinct, highly engineered products for tying one structural element to another in residential and commercial projects.In building the company, he developed a set of company principles—revolutionary for their times—that placed employees at the center of his business. Central to these principles was a compensation system that included broad-based, quarterly profit-sharing along with employee development and education programs that promoted hiring from within the ranks of the company, thereby allowing employees to build life-long careers in which many were able to go from hourly production line labor to management.As US companies increasingly grapple with the role of capitalism in giving back to their employees and the communities in which they are based, Barclay Simpson’s philosophy makes for a particularly unusual and relevant American business story. Equally pertinent in these volatile times is the story of how he successfully transferred his core business principles to his philanthropic work, providing major financial and in-kind support to such East Bay non-profit organizations as UC Berkeley, Girls Inc of Alameda County, the California College of the Arts, the Oakland Museum, the California Shakespeare Theater and many others, with a special focus on the arts and the education of low income kids.A story of Barclay Simpson’s leadership style as both a business man and a philanthropist, Strong Ties chronicles the astounding continuity between his views on making money, and giving it away.

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Social misfit Mari Caldwell desperately wants to get on with her life. If only she could get there faster―specifically to Yale―and leave behind all the things that make her anxious: driving a car, crossing bridges, her peers, her parents’ divorce. Mari only feels at ease behind the lens of her vintage Leica. Her camera keeps the world―and the people in it―at a safe distance.When Mari comes across an old scrapbook of her mother’s, she discovers her white collar parents were once blue denim hippies. She ends up fighting with her mother and storming out. She pedals her bicycle into a downpour, swerves to avoid an oncoming jeep, and flies smack into a tree. Mari climbs into an abandoned VW van bearing the ghost of a psychedelic paint job, and passes out.The next morning, Mari wakes up to the sound of music. A young couple wander through the glen like hippie gypsies, playing recorder and tambourine. Mari accepts their offer of a ride into San Francisco. But something is wrong; Mari can’t quite figure out what. The skyline, her father’s address, the music on the radio. Everything is slightly off. Except Jimmy, the driver of the van. There’s something about him that calms her inner chatter. Only after she says good-bye to the merry band and runs headlong into a war protest does Mari being to realize: it is June, 1967.In the epicenter of the Summer of Love, Mari makes friends with the would-be rock band, meets the grandfather she never knew, and falls in love. In spite of herself, Mari discovers that love changes everything. It even changes her.A fun and touching novel about the people who raise us, the times that define us, and the stumbling blocks on our way to being a grown-up, Shine Until Tomorrow tells the story of a girl obsessed with the future who must visit the past to learn to live in the present.

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The power to bend the race of men to your will...worth starting a war for.A captured soldier must escort a mysterious girl to a distant city to broker peace between two peoples poised on the brink of war. Left to die in a deep chasm, his commander stumbles on to a dark and powerful secret: how to harness the energy of men’s souls and bend them to his will. Is this the secret that Goblinkind has been hiding from the race of men? That all the shiny trinkets of the fabled Goblincrafters are powered by the trapped souls of humans? For Mage Imperator Rhael Lord Uhlmet, the lure of such power is irresistible, even if he must start a war to attain it.

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A piercing memoir of the real-life consequences born of living in a toxic household with a horrible secret...Life is beautiful for young Mia McDaniel, living with her two loving parents and her younger brother in their Long Island home. All of this is thrown into chaos, however, when she learns just before her fifth birthday that her older cousin, Anna, will be leaving Israel following the tragic death of her father and coming to live with Mia’s family. Little did either girl know that what would happen next in that idyllic suburban home would irrevocably mark all of those involved. McDaniel takes readers along with her as she reexamines her own life in an effort to understand her fragile past and shape a brighter future for herself and her children. A piercing memoir of the real-life consequences born of living in a toxic household with a horrible secret, My Father’s Burning in Hell examines the lies and terrors that can destroy a home and the resolute strength inside all of us to find our own happiness in the wreckage.

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Kat Janowicz digs deep to chronicle the transformation of the LA-Long Beach ports as a springboard for exploring the larger quest for an emission-free world.The landmark 2002 ruling in a lawsuit against the Port of Los Angeles and one of its terminal operators sent shock waves through global supply chains. To stay in business and continue to compete on the world stage, the LA and Long Beach ports had to start listening to the community and find common ground for reducing port-related air pollution. Ultimately, the ports underwent nothing short of an environmental reformation. Technical documents, legislative records, and news reports offer bits and pieces of this story, but the full account has never been told until now. Drawing on more than two decades of experience in the energy, transportation, and technology sectors, Kat Janowicz digs deep to chronicle the transformation of the LA-Long Beach ports as a springboard for exploring the larger quest for an emission-free world: the choices, the costs, and the challenges. Janowicz reviewed thousands of documents, watched hundreds of hours of video recordings, and spoke to more than 150 people to tell this story and decode its complexities. Those who shared their knowledge, insights, and personal stories include current and former port executives and staff, elected and appointed officials, private industry leaders, scientists, educators, and everyday people who live and work in Southern California. Captivating, informative, and entertaining, Chasing Zero is a primer for everyone from ordinary people to high-level decision-makers seeking to better understand the global trade, supply chain, technology, energy, and environmental issues and policies that affect us all. While painting a vivid portrait of the global challenges we face, the book sheds light on the exciting opportunities for current and future generations willing to tackle them.

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The story of the Jewish Brigade as it evolves into a daring band of Jews hunting down Nazi war criminalsThe List is an exceptional work of historical fiction that brings to life the untold story of the Holocaust and slaughter of not just Jews, but over 150,000 Serbs and Gypsies who were executed while Croatia was under fascist rule during World War II.Martin Brosky escapes from Auschwitz and joins up with the British Jewish Brigade toward the end of the war and meets Sylvia Harvitz, a veteran of Tito's Partisans and survivor of a Croatian concentration camp, Start Gradiska. Martin's cries for revenge parallel with Sylvia's need to avenge the deaths of her parents as they travel together carrying out reprisals in Europe, and later in South America. Along with Mordecai, an Iranian Jew who also joins the Jewish Brigade, Martin and Sylvia become Mossad intelligence officers for Israel carrying out their vengeful missions together.The List brings together the names and activities of nazis and Croatian war criminals, including Josef Mengele, who avoided prosecution for their war crimes and travelled to South America under the direction and help of the Vatican. Protected by dictators in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, these men became targets for Martin and his Mossad agents. Readers will discover that vengeance is not without pain.

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When Detective Charles Sleetch investigates the murder of a wealthy Wall Street banker and his stripper girlfriend, it doesn´t look like routine robbery homicide. The life and death of Katiana Angelska move him in a way that he has not felt in years.Dylan Cash invested in his ex’s art gallery when he was flush as a trader on Wall Street. Off the street and out of luck, Dylan and his best friend, Charles “Binky” Bannister, have been day-trading out of the back-office of the gallery. One day, a stranger named Jonathan Shelby shows up with an intriguing offer. Thatcher Reed, a down on its heel boutique firm, needs to track down an insider trader, before it derails the IPO of Paradyne, a Blackwater-type defense firm. What Dylan thought was a simple case of insider trading becomes a stunning tale of blackmail, deceit and murder that threatens to rock both Wall Street and the entire military industrial complex. Dylan and Sleetch eventually team up against powerful, evil men who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals.

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A novel about sexual love, straight and queer, about love between friends, between exes, between parents and children, between lovers old and new, Erik Tarloff’s Tell Me the Truth About Love tells the story of Toby Lindeman, a divorced man in San Francisco leading what appears to be an enviable bachelor’s life. Suave, attractive, somewhat detached from the emotional needs of those around him, he seems to sail blithely above life’s common difficulties as he goes about his duties as chief fundraiser for the San Francisco Opera.But then, to his own surprise, he falls passionately in love with the most inappropriate woman possible, the long-time mistress of the powerful man on whom his own future seems to depend. As Toby navigates the risks of this relationship, encountering heartbreak and professional catastrophe along the way, he also finds himself reconnecting on a much deeper level with all the people in his life. Suspenseful, sexy, and often laugh-out-loud funny, Tell Me the Truth About Love is a very contemporary look at the varieties of human connection.

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Truth and Beautiful Meaningful Lies is a collection of memorable quotes from one of the most quoted writers in American literature.One of the most celebrated writers in American literature, Jack Kerouac helped an entire generation of post-WWII Americans explore a purpose beyond the standard narrative values, spiritual ideologies, and economic materialism that was rampant throughout pre-war America. Alongside prominent beat writers like Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, Kerouac crafted a magnum opus that would later be connected to counterculture movements throughout the 1960s.His extensive collection of novels, short stories, poetry, journals, letters, and other writings are often littered with long-winded reflections, observations, proclamations, and other mad ramblings about life, love, loss, loneliness, and the search for a new American identity. Constantly pivoting from a recluse searching “...once and for all what is the meaning of all this existence and suffering and going to and fro in vain,” to a seasoned road-warrior exploring the country and sifting through the profound philosophies of Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and the meaning of Dharma, Kerouac’s spontaneous style of prose generates a kind of unpolished wisdom that leaves a lasting impression long after reading.The insights and quotes assembled in this book have been woven into a patchwork of reoccurring themes found throughout Kerouac’s writings, such as adventure, life, self-reflection, and spirituality are heavily featured, but more niche quotes around topics like cats, coffee, music, and sports can also be found. This collection pulls from prominent novels such as Big Sur, Desolation Angels, The Dharma Bums, On the Road: The Original Scroll, The Subterraneans, Tristessa, Vanity of Duluoz, and Visions of Cody, as well as some of his selected short stories, poems, letters, and journals.Whether you’re new to Kerouac, searching for inspiration in his words, or are a self-proclaimed “mad one” looking to make sense of it all, this quote book will undoubtedly serve as a go-to reference for the discerning Kerouac reader.

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Lives and lies are inextricably linked by a high-profile murder trial in The Fall Girl, the latest exhilarating legal thriller from bestselling author Marcia Clark. When Charlie Blair left Chicago behind—and her old life as Lauren Claybourne—for a gig in the Santa Cruz DA’s office, things were supposed to be easier. Or at least nothing that a couple of Xanax and a tumbler of vodka couldn’t handle. The plan had been working, until the murder of a local bail bondsman Shelly Hansen. Enter: hot-shot prosecutor Erika Lorman, she of the stellar record and unfailing touch with juries, a veritable legend in her own right. Fresh off the prosecution of celebrity chef Blake Steers, the newest resident of California’s penitentiary system and perhaps its most high profile, she’s thrust back into action alongside her new co-chair from the windy city and ready to do anything to put criminals behind bars. But as the fevered search for answers intensifies and the hunt for a killer continues, secrets from the past threaten to undo not just the case—but Erika and Charlie, too. Expertly plotted and relentlessly paced, The Fall Girl will keep readers guessing until the very end.

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Godlessness is a collection of short stories set in the Pagan Rhythms universe written by SpiritWorld's Stu Folsom.Inspired in equal parts by the western pulp of Louis L'Amour, the novels of Cormac McCarthy, and the twisted horror of Clive Barker, Godlessness is the fictional companion piece to Pagan Rhythms, the iconic debut album by Folsom's metallic hardcore brainchild, SpiritWorld.Dedicated to the memory of, and edited in part by, Power Trip's Riley Gale, who died unexpectedly in 2020 at the age of thirty-four from the toxic effects of fentanyl, Godlessness was initially released as a limited-edition paperback, along with the initial now-collectible self-released pressing of Pagan Rhythms, and now available for the first time worldwide in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook.

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An outstanding photography book documenting a movement that rocked the world. Syd Shelton: Rock Against Racism is a body of photographs that Syd Shelton produced for and about the British Rock Against Racism movement (RAR) of 1976–1981. For Shelton, this work was a socialist act, what he calls a “graphic argument,” on behalf of marginalized lives. His practice of photographic activism began in 1973 when he was driven to document the socio cultural and political dynamics expressed on the streets of Sydney by urban Australian Aboriginal communities, the working class, and the architectural landscapes of these groups. Shelton’s first solo show in 1975, “Working Class Heroes” at the Sydney Film-makers Cooperative, established his distinct activist eye.Shelton joined RAR in early 1977 on his return to England from Australia. He did so because he found his birthplace a more racist country than it had been when he left. This was marked by the increased political presence of the National Front, notably its gain of some 119,000 votes in the Greater London Council Elections of May 1977. Shelton, like millions of others, feared for the future of multi-cultural Britain. His contribution to RAR was to be on the London committee, to create graphic material with other RAR members such as the RAR publication “Temporary Hoarding,” posters’ badges and his photography—RAR did not have an official photographer. Shelton’s instinctive need to document RAR—its events, contributors, and supporters—has resulted in the largest collection of images on the movement. Alongside his documentation of RAR, Shelton took photographs of what he calls “the contextual images,” the lives and landscapes that were defined by others as “different,” and that often fueled racist acts of violence by simply being.What is presented here are Shelton’s authoritative visual statements as participant-photographer on the social tempo in Britain at this time and the activist potency of RAR. As collective activism, RAR’s success was dependent on individual contributions to fuel the movement’s activities across the country. This unique national, and eventually international, charge incorporated the visual dynamic of how Black and white RAR contributors and participants styled their bodies as another antagonistic tool against racism. These were acts of style activism—the making of an activist identity through the considered composition of clothes, accessories, hairstyles, makeup, and body language. Shelton’s images prompt us to remember that the individuals at RAR carnivals, gigs, and demonstrations were the event—they were RAR.There are many versions of what RAR was and its legacy. Syd Shelton: Rock Against Racism provides an auto/biographical telling of that historical moment. It reflects on how Shelton’s work as a photographer contributed towards social change at a critical moment of political and racial tension in Britain.

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Ryan Kent and Brett Lloyd played shows together in different unknown bands, each as the respective vocalist. They got along well, and wrote many words that were often shouted over microphones more than they were read. However, contrary to typical next steps musician pals take, they didn't end up collaborating musically. Instead, they co-opted the idea to release split books together—one half dedicated to Brett, the other half dedicated to Ryan—just like two underground bands joining forces to release split 7-inches...and, henceforth, Dead Books was born.Tomorrow Ruined Today is the first volume of a three-part Dead Books split release series by Brett Lloyd and Ryan Kent, featuring short- and long-form poetic works that are as personal as they are observational, with "depth and careful depictions of the emotions [that] lay on the tip of each word like a serial killer on the balance between fantasy and performing reality," as described by Jeff Forrest of The Universal Hitchhiker after Tomorrow Ruined Today was first published in 2019 as a limited edition paperback prior to Rare Bird's worldwide trade release.

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Sami Yaffa is a bass guitar legend, an icon of the rock world, and an uncompromising walker of his own way, who rose to prominence as the bassist of the mythical Hanoi Rocks. A man of lights and shadows, and the embodiment of street credibility, Yaffa has recorded with Bruce Springsteen and Slash, played with the New York Dolls and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, crawled across Helsinki pubs and restaurants with Anthony Bourdain, and performed at Carnegie Hall. This is his story.

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Simpsonistas: Tales from the Simpson Literary Project, Vol. 3 highlights brilliant work by associates of the Simpson Project: Joyce Carol Oates, Anthony Marra, Laila Lalami, Sigrid Nunez, and many others, including Simpson Fellows as well as young writers appearing for the first time in print.Simpsonistas is the anthology of the New Literary Project, which is committed to the proposition that storytelling is the foundation of a literate society: newliteraryproject.org.The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

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The story of heartbreak to triumph in the wake of a tragedy. Their first date in college was a U2 concert and after that Lauren and Jack Grandcolas were inseparable. He was mesmerized by her sweetness, fierce intelligence and eyes that were as blue and alive as the ocean. They married and settled in San Francisco, each pursuing their dreams in the business world. After a decade of trying, Lauren finally got pregnant at the age of thirty-eight. On September 6, 2001, she flew to New Jersey—her beloved Little Grandma had died and following the funeral Lauren shared the joyous news of her pregnancy to lift her family’s spirits. Flying home to Jack on September 11th, she arrived at Newark airport early and walked on to a flight for which she hadn’t been ticketed: United 93. During that terrifying flight, Lauren left a calm and reassuring voice mail for Jack which remains a testament to her courage and selfless love, even in the face of her own mortality.Like a River to the Sea is a story of love overcoming loss. In this moving memoir, Jack Grandcolas brings to life his college sweetheart while taking the reader through his long journey to make peace with the loss of Lauren and their unborn child. Jack is honest about the depth of his despair and his battles with depression, PTSI, and heavy drinking. As he digs himself out of the deepest hole imaginable, Jack learns universal truths that will help anyone confronted with tragedy.Like a River to the Sea is also a deeply personal look at an event of historical importance. Jack takes us inside the White House to meet with President Bush and to the precipice of a still-smoldering hole in the earth outside of Shanksville, Penn. The book goes aboard United 93 in its final minutes, when this brave collection of Americans fought to retake control of the plane, ultimately preventing the hijackers from completing their mission and becoming the first heroes in the war against terror.As with Jack’s life, Like a River to the Sea is defined by the boundless depths of human love. Eighteen years after losing his wife and their unborn baby, Jack finally remarried, and his new bride so honors the love between him and Lauren that her wedding ring includes stones that Lauren once wore on her finger. This is the magic of Like A River To The Sea, which begins with heartbreak but becomes a story about the triumph of the human spirit.

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If you’re looking for the events that inspired the lyrics to all my songs? Those stories are in this book. If you’re looking for what I did when I was younger? That’s in here. What changed me, made me stop hating and hurting? It’s all here. This is my story and I’m sticking to it. That’s the one thing I have, the truth.Volume one of Black Heart Fades Blue, a three-part memoir by the founder and frontman for one of punk rock’s most notorious acts, Poison Idea.In 1980, Jerry A. formed Poison Idea, a Portland-based punk band that gave voice to disaffected and disenfranchised youth for over 30 years. As happened to so many punk bands, Jerry A. and Poison Idea also went all in on drugs and drinking as they toured the country, spiraling out of control and blowing both the band and their lives apart.Black Heart Fades Blue is not an apology or a nostalgic catalog of events, but a true reckoning with one's past and present. A memoir of a time and a place and a movement, as well as a deep conversation about the memories and moments we leave behind, Black Heart Fades Blue is a deep exploration of an unconventional life.

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Some with horns...and some with fangs! A hundred eyes...and giant brains! From the depths of the cosmic sea...All My Friends Are Creeps is a collection of twenty-one poems filled with slimy suspense, deathly daydreams and frightful fun for all ages!

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A Los Angeles Times bestsellerA CrimeReads 2019 most anticipated/best bookSet against two distinct epochs in the history of Pasadena, California, Arroyo tells the parallel stories of a young inventor and his clairvoyant dog in 1913 and 1993. In both lives, they are drawn to the landmark Colorado Street Bridge, or "Suicide Bridge," as the locals call it, which suffered a lethal collapse during construction but still opened to fanfare in the early twentieth century automobile age. When the refurbished structure commemorates its 80th birthday, one of the planet's best known small towns is virtually unrecognizable from its romanticized, and somewhat invented, past.Wrought with warmth and wit, Jacobs' debut novel digs into Pasadena's most mysterious structure and the city itself. In their exploits around what was then America's highest, longest roadway, Nick Chance and his impish mutt interact with some of the big personalities from the Progressive Age, including Teddy Roosevelt, Upton Sinclair, Charles Fletcher Lummis, and Lilly and Adolphus Busch, whose gardens were once tabbed the "eighth wonder of the world." They cavort and often sow chaos at Cawston Ostrich Farm, the Mount Lowe Railway, the Hotel Green and even the Doo Dah Parade. But it's the secrets and turmoil around the concrete arches over the Arroyo Seco, and what it means for Nick's destiny, that propels this story of fable versus fact.While unearthing the truth about the Colorado Street Bridge, in all its eye-catching grandeur and unavoidable darkness, the characters of Arroyo paint a vivid picture of how the home of the Rose Bowl got its dramatic start.

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Jimmy is a semi-successful artist and playboy approaching middle age, when he decides it's time to step up and try love maybe before it's too late. He meets Rose, she's different in all the right ways. The head on her shoulders and her family values juxtaposed with Jimmy's childhood trauma and lack of family values makes for a potent match. But unexpectedly, with in the first year of the romance, she gets pregnant things get all too real, too quickly. The complexities of making a new relationship work, while raising a small child, ultimately tear them apart.Donnie, Jimmy's closest friend, is going through a divorce that almost takes him down. After a long indecisive battle, he somehow makes it through, gets in shape, and with the help of modern technology makes a solid run at reliving his twenties. He pulls Jimmy along with him, forcing him into a date with a young, sharp and fierce gal named Binky, who basically ends up taking Jimmy to school. A night of sex, drugs, and a near-death experience lands Jimmy right back at square one, only now with a deep and painful longing for the family he started and subsequently walked away from.This Isn't 40 explores the changing times for men and women, the effects of childhood cautionary tales, and the choices we make for the next generation.

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In The White Album, Joan Didion famously wrote that “a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively…loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image.” Cruising in her Daytona yellow Corvette Stingray, taking it all in behind dark glasses, Joan Didion claimed California for all time. Slouching Towards Los Angeles is a multi-faceted portrait of the literary icon who, in turn, belongs to us.This collection of original essays covers the turf that made Didion a sensation—Hollywood and Patty Hearst; Malibu, Manson and the Mojave; the Summer of Love and the Central Park Five—while bringing together some of the finest voices of today’s Los Angeles and beyond. Slouching Towards Los Angeles is a love letter and thank you note; personal memoir and social commentary; cultural history and literary critique. Fans of Didion, lovers of California, and fellow writers alike will all find something to dig into, in this rich exploration of the inner and outer landscapes Joan Didion traveled, shaping our own journeys in the process.Featuring essays byAnn FriedmanJori FinkelMargaret WapplerJessica HundleyChristine LennonCatherine WagleySu WuJoshua Wolf ShenkLauren SandlerMichelle ChiharaSarah TomlinsonLinda ImmediatoTracy McMillanDan CraneSteph ChaCaroline RyderJoe DonnellyMonica Corcoran HarelAlysia AbbottStacie StukinHeather John FogartyMarc WeingartenScott BenzelEzrha Jean Black

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Featuring a conversation with Nick Zimmer of the Yeah Yeah YeahsIn her twenties, Malia James moved to London on a whim, eventually spending most of her post-adolescent life living on the road—first as a photographer, then as the bassist of acclaimed bands like Dum Dum Girls and Marnie Stern. Girl in a Girl Band captures some of James’s most stirring and intimate compositions taken from the road in a collection sure to inspire and fascinate on every page.

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Recent Yale grad, Alice, wants to be close to her boyfriend in Paris, with enough space to sow a few oats. Rome fits, so off she goes. Her other goals? To make art and find a muse. Instead, she finds herself a muse to various men—including a TV-host dwarf, lonely banker, alcoholic playboy, aging prince, and the disillusioned Oscar-winning film director, Frank Colucci.The middle-aged Frank is in Rome to film the last of his famed movie series, but longs to get back to making art films. Alice, still wandering Rome, lost and confused, tumbles into Frank’s life, and he hires her as his philosophy tutor.Although at opposite poles of life with little in common—the bright but broke Alice is just getting started and has few prospects, and the married-with-kids Oscar-winner Frank bored and disillusioned—the two form a bond.Will this be an older, powerful man using his position to seduce a confused young woman, or something else entirely? And will Alice ever find her way?

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#1 Amazon Bestseller“Very realistic as to the things I do as a plastic surgeon.”—Dr. Stephen Greenberg, New York plastic surgeonDr. Harry Previn, the renowned Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, is secretly called in to operate on the disfigured face of the ravishingly beautiful teen pop star Fay Wray following an assault. Surrounded by image makers who value beauty over all else, he soon fears Fay is in mortal danger. Will he risk everything to save her beauty, her life, or himself?Plastic is a novel of psychological suspense about a heinous crime that leads to a desperate Hollywood cover up. Welcome to “The Capital of Good Looks,” an ephemeral world of celebrity and beauty crashing at the intersection of Hollywood and rock and roll.

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Flint Dille wrote your childhood. From his work on 80s cartoon classics like Transformers, G.I. Joe, the Garbage Pail Kids, and Inhumanoids to the interactive novels he wrote with Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons & Dragons, Flint had a hand in many pockets of 80s popular culture.He's worked with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Frank Miller, Jack Kirby, and a raft of others as a writer, story editor, show runner, and/or producer of iconic entertainment in almost every medium.The Gamesmaster is Dille's memoir looking through his own unique story, his blend of pop culture, social history, and reportage about the groundbreaking 1980s, and the parts he and his colleagues, collaborators, employers, and friends played in making it a genuine Golden Age.

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In 2008, Tosh Berman--author and publisher of TamTam Books--got on a plane with a single motive: Sparks Spectacular. It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London...a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic, which Tosh certainly is. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing each city's history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one shows and beyond, Sparks-Tastic defines a place and time in music history that's too defining to be ignored.

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How can so many people pledge allegiance to punk, something with no fixed identity? Depending on who and where you are, punk can be an outlet, excuse, lifestyle, escapism, conversation, community, ideology, sales category, social movement, punishable offense, badge of authenticity, reason to drink beer forever, or an aesthetic of belligerent incompetence. And if someone has a strong belief about what punk is, odds are they have even stronger feelings about what punk is not. Sam McPheeters championed many different versions. Over the course of two decades, he fronted Born Against, released dozens of records and fanzines, and toured seventeen times across the northern hemisphere. In this collection of essays, profiles, criticism, and personal history, he examines the diverse realms he intersected, New York hardcore, Riot Grrrl, Gilman street, the hidden enclaves of Olympia, and New England, and downtown Los Angeles, and the forces of mental illness and creative inspiration that drove him, and others, in the first place.

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“She’d told herself, and her husband Tom, that she was coming to rescue Vicky. And she was. She would. She’d been rescuing her sister her entire life. But she’d never done anything remotely this extreme. She knew the region had been evacuated, and yet somehow hadn’t pictured everyone literally gone. . .The stark, devastated landscape heightened all her senses, as if her fear made the colors deeper, the smells headier, the sounds crisper. She couldn’t give in to the terror; if she did, it might never end. She had no choice but to finish what she’d begun.”A devastating earthquake has just hit the San Francisco Bay Area, cutting off the outside world completely. When Lily decides to fly from Nebraska to California and make the treacherous journey into the Bay Area to find her sister, she knows she's headed for a disaster zone, but nothing prepares her for what she finds.Those who survived and didn’t evacuate are making shelters, running meals programs, rigging their own technologies—and redefining the very meaning of community. Lily bands together with a couple of feral kids, a steadfast activist, and a bonobo researcher, among others, to forge a new life.A piercing, unforgettable story of hope in the face of crisis, The Evolution of Love asks what does it take for people to come together, what dangers must they fend off in their bid for survival, and what lengths will they go to rebuild home.

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In 1961, the Di Priscos fled Brooklyn—and the FBI. The father was a gambler and bookmaker, and agents chased him into the Long Island woods because he was implicated in police corruption. At thirty-five he escaped to a strange place called California, where his wife and two of her four sons joined him. One member of the family graduated high school, and he would make books of a different sort. Joe didn’t seem called to a life of crime, but evidence is mixed. Once he was Brother Joseph in a Catholic novitiate, but later he was named prime suspect in a racketeering investigation. During Vietnam he seized his college administration building, and then played blackjack around the world, staked by big-money backers. He managed Italian restaurants with laughable ineptitude, but also did graduate study and taught for twenty years. Eventually Joe buries his unstable, manipulative, and beautiful mother and his brothers, including his heroin-addicted younger brother. Later, he cares for his father with Alzheimer’s. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Subway to California recounts Joe’s battles with personal demons, bargains struck with angels, and truces with family in this richly colorful tale that reads like great fiction.

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How do you find beauty and meaning in the most ordinary things when your life is being pulled away from you by the most extraordinary circumstances?On May 4, 2013, Cat Gwynn found a sizable lump in her right breast. Ten days later the acclaimed photographer was diagnosed with Triple Negative breast cancer—a disease long feared. Her mother had succumbed to breast cancer after a five-year battle. Now it was Cat’s turn to live with it. This meant sitting with mortality, difficult side effects, and every other uncertainty being thrown her way. As the treatment protocol intensified, her immune system became more compromised, requiring limited exposure to the world around her. Cat mapped it out: her day-to-day existence was now reduced to about a ten-mile radius.Surrendering to this confined reality, Cat decided to engage in a daily practice of seeking out images with her smartphone that would connect her to the immediacy of life. There was no filtering what she found, only a genuine curiosity to see things as they were and how she chose to frame them. Every thing, detail, and day mattered, all inspiration for mindful expression.Cat didn’t set out to make an art project about her experience with cancer, but over time realized it was a conceptual way to show her quest for well-being and willingness to uncover aspects of the world that are normally overlooked. By being present with deep truth, she was opening herself up to her own healing and reclaiming life in the most profound way.• • •Wellness is a state of being, no matter the circumstances you’re dealt. 10-Mile Radius is a wake up call. A gratitude practice in motion that moves through limitations and becomes a compass back to one’s self.

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A small town girl leaves her troubled family and starts stripping--which introduces her to a community that keeps her sober and saves her life--but a rollercoaster lifestyle ensues. She gets drugged, does enema shows, and unionizes the club. When she tries to quit and go to graduate school, her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Broke and broken, she returns to sex work, which leads to her arrest and a new resilience. Spent is a memoir about a woman's journey through the sex industry, but it's also a story of family, community, and our constant struggle against loneliness.

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Natalie has made a promise: a vow of celibacy, signed and witnessed by her best friend. After a string of sexual conquests, she is determined to figure out why the intense romantic connections she's spent her life chasing have left her emotionally high and dry. As Natalie sifts through her past and her present, she confronts her complicated feelings about her plus-sized figure, her bisexuality, and her thwarted career in fashion design. Piecing together toxic relationship patterns from her past, Natalie finds herself strutting down fashion runways and rekindling her passion for clothing design in the present. All the while, her best friend, Anastaze, struggles with her own secret--whether or not to reveal her true identity to the thousands of fans of her popular blog and her potential first sexual partner. Clever, sexy, and hilarious, Vow of Celibacy delves into the perilous terrain of love and relationships, the uncertainty of early adulthood, and the sustaining force of friendship. This is an irresistible novel about the stories we can't help but tell ourselves about others, and it captures in perfect pitch what it's like to be a young woman coming of age in America today.

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