Best of
Americana

2012

When I Left Home: My Story


Buddy Guy - 2012
    An enormous influence on these musicians as well as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, he is the living embodiment of Chicago blues. Guy's epic story stands at the absolute nexus of modern blues. He came to Chicago from rural Louisiana in the fifties—the very moment when urban blues were electrifying our culture. He was a regular session player at Chess Records. Willie Dixon was his mentor. He was a sideman in the bands of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. He and Junior Wells formed a band of their own. In the sixties, he became a recording star in his own right.When I Left Home tells Guy's picaresque story in his own unique voice, that of a storyteller who remembers everything, including blues masters in their prime and the exploding, evolving culture of music that happened all around him.

Conversations with David Foster Wallace


David Foster Wallace - 2012
    Whether through essay volumes (A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Consider the Lobster), short story collections (Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Oblivion), or his novels (Infinite Jest, The Broom of the System), the luminous qualities of Wallace's work recalibrated our measures of modern literary achievement. Conversations with David Foster Wallace gathers twenty-two interviews and profiles that trace the arc of Wallace's career, shedding light on his omnivorous talentJonathan Franzen has argued that, for Wallace, an interview provided a formal enclosure in which the writer -could safely draw on his enormous native store of kindness and wisdom and expertise.- Wallace's interviews create a wormhole in which an author's private theorizing about art spill into the public record. Wallace's best interviews are vital extra-literary documents, in which we catch him thinking aloud about his signature concerns--irony's magnetic hold on contemporary language, the pale last days of postmodernism, the delicate exchange that exists between reader and writer. At the same time, his acute focus moves across MFA programs, his negotiations with religious belief, the role of footnotes in his writing, and his multifaceted conception of his work's architecture. Conversations with David Foster Wallace includes a previously unpublished interview from 2005, and a version of Larry McCaffery's influential Review of Contemporary Fiction interview with Wallace that has been expanded with new material drawn from the original raw transcript.

American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation


Eric Rutkow - 2012
    This fascinating and groundbreaking work tells the remarkable story of the relationship between Americans and their trees across the entire span of our nation’s history. Like many of us, historians have long been guilty of taking trees for granted. Yet the history of trees in America is no less remarkable than the history of the United States itself—from the majestic white pines of New England, which were coveted by the British Crown for use as masts in navy warships, to the orange groves of California, which lured settlers west. In fact, without the country’s vast forests and the hundreds of tree species they contained, there would have been no ships, docks, railroads, stockyards, wagons, barrels, furniture, newspapers, rifles, or firewood. No shingled villages or whaling vessels in New England. No New York City, Miami, or Chicago. No Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, or Daniel Boone. No Allied planes in World War I, and no suburban sprawl in the middle of the twentieth century. America—if indeed it existed—would be a very different place without its millions of acres of trees. As Eric Rutkow’s brilliant, epic account shows, trees were essential to the early years of the republic and indivisible from the country’s rise as both an empire and a civilization. Among American Canopy’s many fascinating stories: the Liberty Trees, where colonists gathered to plot rebellion against the British; Henry David Thoreau’s famous retreat into the woods; the creation of New York City’s Central Park; the great fire of 1871 that killed a thousand people in the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin; the fevered attempts to save the American chestnut and the American elm from extinction; and the controversy over spotted owls and the old-growth forests they inhabited. Rutkow also explains how trees were of deep interest to such figures as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Teddy Roosevelt, and FDR, who oversaw the planting of more than three billion trees nationally in his time as president. As symbols of liberty, community, and civilization, trees are perhaps the loudest silent figures in our country’s history. America started as a nation of people frightened of the deep, seemingly infinite woods; we then grew to rely on our forests for progress and profit; by the end of the twentieth century we came to understand that the globe’s climate is dependent on the preservation of trees. Today, few people think about where timber comes from, but most of us share a sense that to destroy trees is to destroy part of ourselves and endanger the future. Never before has anyone treated our country’s trees and forests as the subject of a broad historical study, and the result is an accessible, informative, and thoroughly entertaining read. Audacious in its four-hundred-year scope, authoritative in its detail, and elegant in its execution, American Canopy is perfect for history buffs and nature lovers alike and announces Eric Rutkow as a major new author of popular history.

The Gettysburg Address: A Graphic Adaptation


Jonathan Hennessey - 2012
    The Gettysburg Address: A Graphic Adaptation is a full-color illustrated look at Abraham Lincoln’s most famous speech, the bloody battle of the Civil War that prompted it, and how they led to a defining point in the history of America. Most of us can recall “Four score and seven years ago,” but much of what we know about Abraham Lincoln’s oration has been forgotten after high school. Using Lincoln’s words as a keystone, and drawing from first-person accounts, The Gettysburg Address shows us the events through the eyes of those who lived through the events of the War, from soldiers to slaves. Writer Jonathan Hennessey and illustrator Aaron McConnell illuminate history with vibrant, detailed graphics and captions that deliver a fresh understanding of this vital speech.

Encounters with Star People: Untold Stories of American Indians


Ardy Sixkiller Clarke - 2012
    The 1st-person accounts, described as conscious experiences & recalled without hypnosis, reveal a worldview that unquestionably accepts the reality of Star People. The stories also reveal cultures that almost universally regard them as ancestors, which allows for interactions that take place without fear & helps explain the uniqueness of the experiences. The stories are told by people from all walks of life. Some had graduate degrees; others never attended school. Some were adept at technology; others had never used a cell phone, owned a computer or a tv. A few of the stories are about events that occurred before the 1947 Roswell incident, however, the majority of the events took place between 1990 & 2010. This book significantly contributes to the knowledge about UFOs from a group that until now have mostly remained silent. Readers will likely never look at the UFO phenomenon in the same way again. Dr Clarke, Professor Emeritus at Montana State University, has dedicated her life & career to working with indigenous populations. She's the author of several children's books & the bestselling 'Sisters in the Blood'. Retired from academia, she continues to work as a consultant to indigenous communities worldwide. See her www.sixkiller.com website.

A Man and His Ship: America's Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the S.S. United States


Steven Ujifusa - 2012
    United States, was a topic of national fascination. When completed in 1952, the ship was hailed as a technological masterpiece at a time when “made in America” meant the best.Gibbs was an American original, on par with John Roebling of the Brooklyn Bridge and Frank Lloyd Wright of Fallingwater. Forced to drop out of Harvard following his family’s sudden financial ruin, he overcame debilitating shyness and lack of formal training to become the visionary creator of some of the finest ships in history. He spent forty years dreaming of the ship that became the S.S. United States.William Francis Gibbs was driven, relentless, and committed to excellence. He loved his ship, the idea of it, and the realization of it, and he devoted himself to making it the epitome of luxury travel during the triumphant post–World War II era. Biographer Steven Ujifusa brilliantly describes the way Gibbs worked and how his vision transformed an industry. A Man and His Ship is a tale of ingenuity and enterprise, a truly remarkable journey on land and sea.

The Kings of Cool


Don Winslow - 2012
    Among the most celebrated thrillers in recent memory—and now a major motion picture directed by Academy Award–winning filmmaker Oliver Stone—Savages was picked as a best book of the year by Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly, Janet Maslin in The New York Times, and Sarah Weinman in the Los Angeles Times. Now, in this high-octane prequel, Winslow reaches back in time to tell the story of how Ben, Chon, and O became the people they are. Spanning from 1960s Southern California to the recent past, The Kings of Cool is a breathtakingly original saga of family in all its forms—fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, friends and lovers. As the trio at the center of the book does battle with a cabal of drug dealers and crooked cops, they come to learn that their future is inextricably linked with their parents’ history. A series of breakneck twists and turns puts the two generations on a collision course, culminating in a stunning showdown that will force Ben, Chon, and O to choose between their real families and their loyalty to one another. Fast-paced, provocative, and wickedly funny, The Kings of Cool is a spellbinding love story for our times from a master novelist at the height of his powers. It is filled with Winslow’s trademark talents—complex characters, sharp dialogue, blistering social commentary—that have earned him an obsessive following. The result is a book that will echo in your mind and heart long after you’ve turned the last page.

Mars Attacks


The Topps Company - 2012
    Edgy, subversive, and darkly comedic, this over-the-top series depicting a Martian invasion of Earth has a loyal following and continues to win new generations of fans. For the first time, this book brings together high-quality reproductions of the entire original series, as well as the hard-to-find sequel from 1994, rare and never-before-seen sketches, concept art, and test market materials. Also included are an introduction by series co-creator Len Brown and an afterword by Zina Saunders, daughter of the original artist, providing an insider’s behind-the-scenes view of the bizarre and compelling world of Mars Attacks.Includes four Mars Attacks trading cards.

The Beast of Boggy Creek The True Story of the Fouke Monster


Lyle Blackburn - 2012
    Described as a large, hairy man-like creature, it’s said to haunt the vast Sulphur River Bottoms as it travels the secluded waterway known as Boggy Creek.Over the years, the creature has been seen by numerous witnesses including respected citizens, experienced hunters, famous musicians, and even a police officer. The encounters were often so shocking, they served as inspiration for the classic horror film, The Legend of Boggy Creek, by Charles B. Pierce.Tales of the creature have long existed in scattered pieces across news clippings, memoirs, police reports, and movies, but it is only now that the complete history of the Fouke Monster has been assembled in one place. This book collects all the facts, theories, and amazing sighting reports, and weaves them into a fascinating tale about this undeniable southern mystery, one that lives on, as frightening encounters with the Beast of Boggy Creek are still being reported today!

Zane


Kimberly Lewis - 2012
    Running for her life with an abusive ex-boyfriend hot on her trail, she’ll do anything to ensure he doesn't find her—even trade in her stilettos for boots and put up with a sexy, hot-tempered cowboy determined to be a certified pain in her rear.Zane McKade is convinced all women are nothing but trouble, especially Kellan. Her sweet smile may have the rest of the town fooled, but he's not buying it. Still, something about this beautiful stranger entices him—and the more they butt heads, the more an undeniable attraction flares between them. But can they set aside their differences to give in to the slow-burning desire neither can deny? Or will the secrets of Kellan's past never give them a chance?

The Story of America: Essays on Origins


Jill Lepore - 2012
    Over the centuries, Americans have read and written their way into a political culture of ink and type.Part civics primer, part cultural history, "The Story of America" excavates the origins of everything from the paper ballot and the Constitution to the I.O.U. and the dictionary. Along the way it presents fresh readings of Benjamin Franklin's "Way to Wealth", Thomas Paine's "Common Sense", "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, and "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well as histories of lesser-known genres, including biographies of presidents, novels of immigrants, and accounts of the Depression.From past to present, Lepore argues, Americans have wrestled with the idea of democracy by telling stories. In this thoughtful and provocative book, Lepore offers at once a history of origin stories and a meditation on storytelling itself.Here he lyes --A pilgrim passed I --The way to wealth --The age of Paine --We the parchment --I.O.U. --A Nue Merrykin Dikshunary --His Highness --Man of the people --Pickwick in America --The humbug --President Tom's cabin --Pride of the prairie --Longfellow's ride --Rock, paper, scissors --Objection --Chan the man --The uprooted --Rap sheet --To wit

The Civil War in Color: A Photographic Reenactment of the War Between the States


John C. Guntzelman - 2012
    Guntzelman The Civil War comes alive as never before in this extraordinary collection of colorized photographs from the era. Not only does it feature portraits of famous leaders and ordinary soldiers but also vignettes of American life during the conflict: scenes from urban and plantation life; destroyed cities; contested battlefields. The 200+ photographs, from the Library of Congress's archives, include both well-known and rarely seen images.  Also inside--a fine art ready-to-frame photographic print of a stunning colorized Civil War photograph.

LIFE Titanic: 100 Years Later


LIFE - 2012
    The unthinkable occurred, and the Titanic went to the bottom. What happened on that cold and inky night has haunted and entranced us ever since. Goodness knows, there have been other disasters-far too many disasters. But as the initial reception to Titanic, the most popular movie ever, just now being re-released in 3-D, proves: There has never been a disaster that so captivates the human imagination as that of the sinking of the Titanic. Now, on the 100th anniversary of "the night to remember," LIFE revisits this awesome human drama. Heroism is involved, and hubris. Romance and recrimination. A thousand stories spiraling outward-and all of them told in this commemorative LIFE book, in words and pictures.This oversized, deluxe book is visually splendid and exciting on every page. It includes archival photography, past reporting in LIFE and the modern-day explorations of Robert Ballard and others that inspired the James Cameron film. The book will include a special section on the new 3-D treatment of the classic movie, just now being released. We return to first-person accounts, and the words of the survivors are brought to life-with many small stories from steerage told as well as the large, well-known drama from above decks. The book will also include interstitial chapters to lend context, such as a history of famous shipwrecks, and where the Titanic fits in the grand picture.At the end of the story, the fact we entered with is inescapable: The Titanic tragedy is the one we care about, and need to revisit.

The President's Stuck in the Bathtub: Poems About the Presidents


Susan Katz - 2012
    It’s true! In The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub, the lives of the presidents are served up as fact-filled and fanciful poems that will make you laugh, cringe, and gasp with amazement at the colorful cast of men and women who have lived in the White House. With footnotes relating the facts behind the inspiration for each poem, and a section called “Presidential Notes and Quotes” in the back, this is one hilarious history lesson that kids will elect to read over and over again!

The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans


Mickey Edwards - 2012
    While this is a widely held view, it is a problem that—so far—has proved intractable. After every election, voters discover yet again that political "leaders" are simply quarreling in a never-ending battle between the two warring tribes, the Republicans and Democrats. In this critically important book, a distinguished statesman and thinker identifies exactly how our political and governing systems reward intransigence, discourage compromise, and undermine our democracy. He then describes exactly what must be done to banish the negative effects of partisan warfare from our political system.As a former congressman, Mickey Edwards witnessed firsthand how important legislative battles can devolve into struggles not over principle but over party advantage. He offers graphic examples of how this problem has intensified and reveals how political battles have become nothing more than conflicts between party machines. Edwards's solutions—specific, practical, fair, and original—show the way to break the stranglehold of the political party system. The Parties Versus the People offers hope for a fundamental renewal of American democracy.

I Hike


Lawton Grinter - 2012
    It just sort of happened over the course of a decade." And so goes Lawton Grinter's compelling collection of short stories that have been over ten years and 10,000 trail miles in the making. I Hike brings the reader trailside with blissful moments on the highest mountain ridges to the mental lows of mosquito hell and into some peculiar situations that even seasoned hikers may find unbelievable. Between jobs and in search of something more, Lawton Grinter spent the better part of a decade hiking America's longest trails. In doing so he came face to face with things that go bump in the night, the kindness of strangers, a close encounter with hypothermia and the absurd rights of passage common to the eccentric people that call themselves long-distance hikers.Anyone who's ever stepped off the pavement will appreciate these humorous and sometimes agonizing accounts of trail life. I Hike will make you laugh, cry, cringe and leave you wanting to read more!

Interventions


Richard Russo - 2012
    This handsome and inventive format—four individually bound volumes gathered in a slipcase—combines the previously unpublished novella “Intervention” with three shorter works, two of which have not been published in book form. The four tales in Interventions crackle with Russo’s perceptive wit and unwavering compassion for the human condition. In the title novella, self-obsessed realtor Ray must confront his own mortality and doesn’t seem especially interested in winning the battle. A surprising revelation about his father and uncle, however, and his realization of an unlikely friendship lead him to believe he just might like to stick around. “Horseman” explores the complexities of a young professor’s marriage and academic life, and “The Whore’s Child” negotiates the not-always-clear line between fact and fiction. The final piece, “High and Dry,” is Russo’s paean to the heyday of his hometown, Gloversville, New York. Each of the four volumes is paired with a small, full-color print of a painting by Kate Russo. Printed in the United States on the finest sustainably harvested papers, the set is as much a joy to hold in the hand as it is to read.Excerpt taken from amazon.com

Marmee and Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother


Eve LaPlante - 2012
    Award-winning biographer Eve LaPlante mines the Alcotts' intimate diaries and other private papers, some recently discovered in a family attic and others thought to have been destroyed, to revive this remarkable daughter and mother. Abigail May Alcott, long dismissed as a quiet, self-effacing background figure, comes to life as a gifted writer and thinker. A politically active feminist firebrand, she fought for universal civil rights, an end to slavery, and women's suffrage. This gorgeously written story of two extraordinary women is guaranteed to transform our view and deepen our understanding of one of America's most beloved authors.

Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany


Charles Portis - 2012
    Topics cover civil rights, road trips in Baja, and Elvis' s visits to his aging mother. Also tributes by authors such as Donna Tartt and Ron Rosenbaum.

Collected Stories: Winesburg, Ohio / The Triumph of the Egg / Horses and Men / Death in the Woods / Uncollected Stories


Sherwood Anderson - 2012
    Breaking away from a two-decade career as advertising copywriter and small businessman, he reinvented himself as a modernist storyteller whose influence was foundational for modern American writing. Without Anderson’s example, the work of Hemingway, Faulkner, Wolfe, Steinbeck, McCullers, Mailer, and Kerouac is almost unthinkable. In mapping the America he knew widely and intimately—an America of small towns, big-city boarding houses, racetracks, isolated farms—he opened up new regions of America’s inner life in stories that remain astonishing for their stylistic freedom, their emotional candor and sexual frankness, and the exactness of their observation.Anderson wrote in many genres, but it was in the short story that he found his ideal form. This volume collects for the first time all the books of stories he published in his lifetime—Winesburg, Ohio (1919), The Triumph of the Egg (1921), Horses and Men (1923), and Death in the Woods (1933)—along with a generous selection of stories left uncollected or unpublished at his death. Taken together they offer powerful evidence of Anderson’s extraordinary capacity to illuminate what is hidden under the surface of seemingly ordinary lives and to give expression to private delusions and desires.When Winesburg, Ohio appeared, Hart Crane wrote: “America should read this book on her knees. It constitutes an important chapter in the Bible of her consciousness.” Weaving memories of his small-town youth into a series of interrelated stories, Anderson realized a stunning collective portrait, a haunting, expressionist set of variations on themes of isolation, frustration, and encroaching obsession. It remains a central masterwork of American literature.Anderson’s later collections are no less imbued with his intuitive sense of the shapes of lives as felt from the inside. In such stories as “I Want to Know Why,” “Out of Nowhere into Nothing,” “The Man Who Became a Woman,” “An Ohio Pagan,” and “Brother Death,” he offers breathtaking insights, catching his characters unawares with deep empathy for their fragility and strangeness.

Blue Highways Revisited


Edgar I. Ailor III - 2012
    Three decades later, Edgar Ailor III and his son, Edgar IV, retraced and photographed Heat-Moon’s route, culminating in Blue Highways Revisited, released for publication on the thirtieth anniversary of Blue Highways. A foreword by Heat-Moon notes, "The photographs, often with amazing accuracy, capture my verbal images and the spirit of the book. Taking the journey again through these pictures, I have been intrigued and even somewhat reassured that America is changing not quite so fast as we often believe. The photographs, happily, reveal a recognizable continuity – but for how much longer who can say – and I'm glad the Ailors have recorded so many places and people from Blue Highways while they are yet with us." Through illustrative photography and text, Ailor and his son capture once more the local color and beauty of the back roads, cafes, taverns, and people of Heat-Moon’s original trek. Almost every photograph in Blue Highways Revisited is referenced to a page in the original work. With side-by-side photographic comparisons of eleven of Heat-Moon’s characters, this new volume reflects upon and develops the memoir of Heat-Moon’s cross-country study of American culture and spirit. Photographs of Heat-Moon’s logbook entries, original manuscript pages, Olympia typewriter, Ford van, and other artifacts also give readers insight into Heat-Moon’s approach to his trip. Discussions with Heat-Moon about these archival images provide the reader insight into the travels and the writing of Blue Highways that only the perspective of the author could provide. Blue Highways Revisited reaffirms that the "blue highway" serves as a romantic symbol of the free and restless American spirit, as the Ailors lose themselves to the open road as Heat-Moon did thirty years previously. This book reminds readers of the insatiable attraction of the “blue highway”—“But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk—times neither day or night—the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and it's that time when the pull of the blue highway is strongest, when the open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself” (Introduction to Blue Highways).

National Parks: A Kid's Guide to America's Parks, Monuments, and Landmarks


Erin McHugh - 2012
    parks, monuments, and landmarks, from Acadia to Zion. From Yellowstone to the Statue of Liberty, from Gettysburg National Battlefield to Mount Rushmore, National Parks is the only kid-friendly, family-oriented book that covers all of the 60 U.S. national parks, plus other famous monuments and landmarks. With a lively text and hundreds of color illustrations and photographs throughout, this updated edition offers fascinating, memorable information on every aspect of the parks, such as the history, geography, natural wonders, native wildlife and birds, and unique features that make each park special. Organized alphabetically by state, National Parks takes readers on a whirlwind trip to 75 locations, including Denali National Park, Hot Springs National Park, Everglades National Park, Fort McHenry, White Mountain National Forest, Ellis Island, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Zion National Park, Block Island National Wildlife Refuge, Mt. Hood National Forest, and many more.

Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention


Paul Guinan - 2012
    G. Wells’s spaceships, there was Frank Reade, globe-trotting inventor and original steampunk hero. Frank Reade magazines were the world’s first science fiction periodicals, enthralling millions of readers with tales of fantastic inventions and adventures. Now many of the spectacular images from the vintage dime novel series are being reprinted for the first time in more than a century, along with excerpts from the action-packed stories. In Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention, this lost legacy of Americana is interwoven with a biography of the "real" Reade family—inventors and explorers who traveled the world with their helicopter airships, submarines, and robots, and who encountered figures like Geronimo and Houdini. This epic saga is brought to life in the multimedia style of the authors’ previous volume, the critically acclaimed Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel. Frank Reade is part–science fiction, part–alternate history, and entirely exciting!Praise for Frank Reade: “A retrofuturist visual feast.” —Wall Street Journal“A stunning multimedia confection of the highest order that creates a detailed and delightful world.” —Publishers Weekly“The book’s allure owes everything to its deadpan prose and hundreds of perfectly faked photos and graphics that replicate mass-media and commercial ephemera of the Victorian era—the result of immersive research.” —TheAtlantic.com “Portland-based Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett are a husband-and-wife team of multimedia artists who have produced a variety of work. . . . Their new book, Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention, is their best work yet.” —io9.com

The Eighteen-Day Running Mate: McGovern, Eagleton, and a Campaign in Crisis


Joshua M. Glasser - 2012
    But only eighteen days later—after a series of damaging public revelations and feverish behind-the-scenes maneuverings—McGovern rescinded his endorsement of his Democratic vice-presidential running mate, and Eagleton withdrew from the ticket. This fascinating book is the first to uncover the full story behind Eagleton's rise and precipitous fall as a national candidate.Within days of Eagleton's nomination, a pair of anonymous phone calls brought to light his history of hospitalizations for “nervous exhaustion and depression” and past treatment with electroshock therapy. The revelation rattled the campaign and placed McGovern's organization under intense public and media scrutiny. Joshua M. Glasser investigates a campaign in disarray and explores the perspectives of the campaign’s key players, how decisions were made and who made them, how cultural attitudes toward mental illness informed the crisis, and how Eagleton's and McGovern's personal ambitions shaped the course of events.Drawing on personal interviews with McGovern, campaign manager Gary Hart, political director Frank Mankiewicz, and dozens of other participants inside and outside the McGovern and Eagleton camps—as well as extensive unpublished campaign records—Glasser captures the political and human drama of Eagleton's brief candidacy. Glasser also offers sharp insights into the America of 1972—mired in war and anxious about the economy, a time with striking similarities to our own.

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: Vols. 3 & 4 Gift Box Set


Floyd Gottfredson - 2012
    A stunning box set, combining Volume 4 with the previous Volume 3, complete with slipcase, available at a bargain price.

Cleveland's West Side Market: 100 Years and Still Cooking


Laura Taxel - 2012
    In continuous use since it opened in 1912, the market is among the oldest municipally owned and operated retail food arcades and one of only a handful of such places left in the country. The book chronicles the history of this notable landmark and all it offers consumers and culinary aficionados. Written by two well-known Cleveland food writers, the book takes readers on a nostalgic tour of the market building, outdoor arcades, and into the lives of many vendors and market families who are the true foundation of this historic public space. The volume is rich with many rare, and until now unpublished, vintage and contemporary photographs, and images that provide a delightful armchair tour of this magnificent landmark, which is a must-see destination for food lovers.

Atomic Ranch Midcentury Interiors


Michelle Gringeri-Brown - 2012
    It features the exceptional interiors of eight houses, discusses successes and challenges, and shows how to live stylishly. Tips are shared on color, flooring, window coverings, furniture arrangements, and how off-the-shelf components can be turned into custom features. The homeowners' stories explain why these rooms work, and provide you with resources and ideas for everything from garage doors to the art on the wall.

The Baptism of Early Virginia: How Christianity Created Race


Rebecca Anne Goetz - 2012
    She finds the seventeenth century a critical time in the development and articulation of racial ideologies—ultimately in the idea of "hereditary heathenism," the notion that Africans and Indians were incapable of genuine Christian conversion. In Virginia in particular, English settlers initially believed that native people would quickly become Christian and would form a vibrant partnership with English people. After vicious Anglo-Indian violence dashed those hopes, English Virginians used Christian rituals like marriage and baptism to exclude first Indians and then Africans from the privileges enjoyed by English Christians—including freedom.Resistance to hereditary heathenism was not uncommon, however. Enslaved people and many Anglican ministers fought against planters’ racial ideologies, setting the stage for Christian abolitionism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Using court records, letters, and pamphlets, Goetz suggests new ways of approaching and understanding the deeply entwined relationship between Christianity and race in early America.

Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972


Robert Mickey - 2012
    It has re-sorted voters into parties, remapped presidential elections, and helped polarize Congress. Most important, it is the final step in America's democratization. Paths Out of Dixie illuminates this sea change by analyzing the democratization experiences of Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.Robert Mickey argues that Southern states, from the 1890s until the early 1970s, constituted pockets of authoritarian rule trapped within and sustained by a federal democracy. These enclaves--devoted to cheap agricultural labor and white supremacy--were established by conservative Democrats to protect their careers and clients. From the abolition of the whites-only Democratic primary in 1944 until the national party reforms of the early 1970s, enclaves were battered and destroyed by a series of democratization pressures from inside and outside their borders. Drawing on archival research, Mickey traces how Deep South rulers--dissimilar in their internal conflict and political institutions--varied in their responses to these challenges. Ultimately, enclaves differed in their degree of violence, incorporation of African Americans, and reconciliation of Democrats with the national party. These diverse paths generated political and economic legacies that continue to reverberate today.Focusing on enclave rulers, their governance challenges, and the monumental achievements of their adversaries, Paths Out of Dixie shows how the struggles of the recent past have reshaped the South and, in so doing, America's political development.

The Civil War and American Art


Eleanor Jones Harvey - 2012
    Its grim reality, captured through the new medium of photography, was laid bare. American artists could not approach the conflict with the conventions of European history painting, which glamorized the hero on the battlefield. Instead, many artists found ways to weave the war into works of art that considered the human narrative—the daily experiences of soldiers, slaves, and families left behind. Artists and writers wrestled with the ambiguity and anxiety of the Civil War and used landscape imagery to give voice to their misgivings as well as their hopes for themselves and the nation.This important book looks at the range of artwork created before, during, and following the war, in the years between 1852 and 1877. Author Eleanor Jones Harvey surveys paintings made by some of America's finest artists, including Frederic Church, Sanford Gifford, Winslow Homer, and Eastman Johnson, and photographs taken by George Barnard, Alexander Gardner, and Timothy H. O'Sullivan.  Harvey examines American landscape and genre painting and the new medium of photography to understand both how artists made sense of the war and how they portrayed what was a deeply painful, complex period in American history. Enriched by firsthand accounts of the war by soldiers, former slaves, abolitionists, and statesmen, Harvey's research demonstrates how these artists used painting and photography to reshape American culture. Alongside the artworks, period voices (notably those of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman) amplify the anxiety and dilemmas of wartime America.

American Phoenix: The Remarkable Story of William Skinner, A Man Who Turned Disaster Into Destiny


Sarah S. Kilborne - 2012
    Because of his unparalleled knowledge of dyeing and an uncanny business sense, he acquired work in a fledgling silk mill in Massachusetts, quickly rising to prominence in the new luxury industry in the United States. Thereafter he opened his own factory and soon turned his silk into one of the bestselling brands in the country. Skinner was lauded as a pioneer in the textile industry. His business grew to sustain a bustling community filled with men, women, and children, living and working in the mill village of “Skinnerville,” producing America’s most glamorous, fashionable thread. Then, in 1874, millions of tons of water burst through a dam several miles north of Skinnerville. An inland tidal wave tore through the valley, destroying everything in its path, including Skinner’s village. Within fifteen minutes, his entire life’s work had been swept away, and he found himself one of the central figures in the worst industrial disaster the nation had yet known. In this gripping narrative history, Skinner’s great, great granddaughter, Sarah Skinner Kilborne, tells an inspiring, unforgettable American story—of a town devastated by unimaginable disaster; an industry that had no reason to succeed except for the perseverance of a few intrepid entrepreneurs; and a man who had nothing—and everything—to lose as he struggled to rebuild his life a second time, with just one asset to his name: the knowledge in his head.

Allapattah


Patrick D. Smith - 2012
    “Allapattah” means alligator or crocodile, a creature which becomes Toby Tiger’s obsession, and he must wrestle it to set himself free.

Greenhorn


Anna Olswanger - 2012
    In Greenhorn, a young Holocaust survivor named Daniel arrives at a Brooklyn yeshiva in the 1940s with only a small box that he won't let out of his sight. His obsessive attachment to the mysterious box excites the curiosity and unkind attention of the other boys. Free downloads of a Discussion Guide and Classroom Guide for Greenhorn are available from the publisher's website: www.newsouthbooks.com/greenhorn.

Uncommon Places: A Collection of Exquisites


W.H. Pugmire - 2012
    H. Pugmire has delighted and astonished his many devotees with vignettes of perfumed prose-poetry that rival the work of Baudelaire and Clark Ashton Smith. In this new collection, which contains both new and reprinted pieces, Pugmire once again stakes his claim to be the most accomplished prose stylist in contemporary weird fiction. Here we find the shades of Lovecraft, Poe and Oscar Wilde—that dandified British author whose life and work hover over this collection like a sea-mist. We explore the shadows spawned in Sesqua Valley... Providence, Rhode Island... and Gershom, a city of artistic exiles. The title work is an impressive sequence of prose-poems, each segment inspired by an entry in Lovecraft's Commonplace Book, fusing delicate prose-poetry with the terror that only the landscape of the fantastic imagination can elicit.This new collection includes all of the original works which first appeared in The Tangled Muse, Wilum Pugmire's highly-limited (and now, out of print) Centipede Press omnibus, together with a number of newly-written and rather disturbing prose-poems that see their first publication here. The title work also appeared in The Tangled Muse, but the author has added 10,000 additional words to it for this edition—most of the new material being a segmented sequel to J. Vernon Shea's "The Haunter of the Graveyard."Uncommon Places features cover artwork and interior illustrations by the fantastic Swiss artist, Gwabryel, specially commissioned for this edition.

The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax: Words, Photographs, and Music


Alan Lomax - 2012
    Lomax’s camera was a constant companion, and his images of both legendary and anonymous folk musicians complement his famous field recordings.These photographs—largely unpublished—show musicians making music with family and friends at home, with fellow worshippers at church, and alongside workers and prisoners in the fields. Discussions of Lomax’s life and career by his disciple and lauded folklorist William Ferris, and a lyrical look at Lomax’s photographs by novelist and Grammy Award-winning music writer Tom Piazza, enrich this valuable collection.

The Myth of Democracy and the Rule of the Banks


Richard Becker - 2012
    These banks were called "too big to fail" in 2008, but today have amassed even greater wealth through bailouts and mergers. Their greedy and predatory practices have resulted in millions unemployed and millions in foreclosure, while they amass record profits and pay out huge bonuses.The case is made for seizing the banks. Not the money of individual depositors, but rather the accumulated super profits that have enabled them to become a critical lever of the modern economy and its political superstructure.In their place could be a People's Bank, publicly owned with a democratically elected leadership. This new entity could then wield its power not for the rule of a tiny clique of bankers and other capitalists, but for the rule of the majority.

Thirteen Girls


Mikita Brottman - 2012
    Each fictionalized narrative is based on a real victim of a serial killer, and each is told from a different perspective – a mother, a shrink, a cop, a sister – to reveal the stark afterlife of human carnage. Leveraging the emotional power of personal testimony, Mikita Brottman presents an unblinking psychological portrait of murder, a dark descent that illuminates our cultural obsession with violence and the need for “closure” that persists in the hearts and minds of those who live in its wake.Mikita Brottman takes terrifying risks but never puts a foot wrong. These stories begin with delicate precision and build stunning pace and power. This is fiction that is truer and more penetrating than the savage facts at its core.—Katherine Dunn, Author of Geek LoveA baker’s dozen of harrowing, often heartbreaking, stories—each based on a notorious real-life murder case and told in a different, utterly compelling voice—Thirteen Girls manages the improbable feat of conjuring up the full horror and emotional devastation of serial homicide by focusing exclusively on the aftermath of the crimes and those left to deal with the consequences: family members, police officers, witnesses, survivors. Known for her brilliant, provocative cultural criticism, Mikita Brottman has produced a stunning work of crime fiction–a genuine tour de force.”—Harold Schechter, Author of The Serial Killer Files

All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s


Robert O. Self - 2012
    In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan declared the GOP the party of "family values" and promised to keep government out of Americans' lives. Again and again, historians have sought to explain the nation's profound political realignment from the 1960s to the 2000s, five decades that witnessed the fracturing of liberalism and the rise of the conservative right. The award-winning historian Robert O. Self is the first to argue that the separate threads of that realignment from civil rights to women's rights, from the antiwar movement to Nixon's "silent majority," from the abortion wars to gay marriage, from the welfare state to neoliberal economic policies all ran through the politicized American family.Based on an astonishing range of sources, "All in the Family" rethinks an entire era. Self opens his narrative with the Great Society and its assumption of a white, patriotic, heterosexual man at the head of each family. Soon enough, civil rights activists, feminists, and gay rights activists, animated by broader visions of citizenship, began to fight for equal rights, protections, and opportunities. Led by Pauli Murray, Gloria Steinem, Harvey Milk, and Shirley Chisholm, among many others, they achieved lasting successes, including "Roe v. Wade," antidiscrimination protections in the workplace, and a more inclusive idea of the American family.Yet the establishment of new rights and the visibility of alternative families provoked, beginning in the 1970s, a furious conservative backlash. Politicians and activists on the right, most notably George Wallace, Phyllis Schlafly, Anita Bryant, and Jerry Falwell, built a political movement based on the perceived moral threat to the traditional family. Self writes that "family values" conservatives in fact "paved the way" for fiscal conservatives, who shared a belief in liberalism's invasiveness but lacked a populist message. Reagan's presidency united the two constituencies, which remain, even in these tumultuous times, the base of the Republican Party. "All in the Family," an erudite, passionate, and persuasive explanation of our current political situation and how we arrived in it, will allow us to think anew about the last fifty years of American politics."

The Freak Chronicles


Jennifer Spiegel - 2012
    Two women contemplate "poverty porn" while trying to start a nonprofit in China. An heiress locks eyes with a whore on the streets of Cape Town. A college girl stalks Mickey Rourke. A professor from New Jersey gets scammed in Old Havana before Castro's demise. A mom obsesses about the fate of Sesame Street characters. A study abroad student goes home with a Russian street artist. Backpackers question their global idealism. Terrain, both ordinary and extraordinary, work on the imaginations and perceptions of people on the run, freaks in the making, eccentrics by choice.The short stories in this collection explore, both implicitly and explicitly, the notion of freakiness. They worry over eccentricity, alienation, normalcy, and intimacy. What is it that makes one a freak, makes one want to embrace quirkiness, have the fortitude to cultivate oddity? Is there a fine line between abnormality and the extraordinary? Jennifer Spiegel's stories delve into these questions and others.

A Civil War Scrapbook: I Was There Too!


History Colorado - 2012
    This ambitious book emphasizes the roles of the children, women, minorities, and even animals that were involved in the war. Enhanced with historical photographs, drawings, maps, games, and primary quotes from children, the book gives a new perspective on the Civil War.

Iconic: Decoding Images of the Revolutionary Black Woman


Lakesia D. Johnson - 2012
    Revolutionary black women have evoked strong reaction throughout American history. Magazines, political campaigns, music, television, and movies have relied upon deep-seated archetypes and habitually cast strong, countercultural black women as mammies and sexual objects. In Iconic Lakesia Johnson explores how this belittling imagery is imposed by American media, revealing an immense cultural fear of black women's power and potential.But the media does not have the last word. Johnson chronicles how strong black women--truly revolutionary black women--have nonetheless taken control of their own imaging despite consistent negative characterizations. Through their speech, demeanor, fashion, and social relationships, women from Sojourner Truth to Michelle Obama have counteracted these depictions. With ingenuity, fortitude, and focus on the greater good, these revolutionary women transformed the cultural images of themselves and, simultaneously, those of American black women as a whole.Seamlessly weaving together role models of past and present, from women in politics to artists and musicians, Johnson eloquently demonstrates how the revolutionary black woman in many public forums has been--and continues to be--a central figure in challenging long-standing social injustices.--Jacquelina Dyer "Africanus Journal"

The Hamptons: Food, Family, and History


Ricky Lauren - 2012
    Written by Ricky Lauren, who is an accomplished author, photographer, and artist, this lush and evocative book is packed with delicious recipes, beautiful photographs, and original watercolors that paint a picture of the Hamptons life.Includes approximately 100 healthy, fresh, seasonal recipesFeatures tips and advice on entertaining in true Hamptons style and simplicityOffers a glimpse into the life of a beloved family, with archival photos and personal snapshots of the Laurens

A Field Guide to the Southeast Coast Gulf of Mexico: Coastal Habitats, Seabirds, Marine Mammals, Fish, Other Wildlife


Noble S. Proctor - 2012
    Not just for beachgoers, the book is essential for birders, whale watchers, fishers, boaters, scuba divers and snorkelers, and shoreline visitors.Features of the guide:Entries on 619 coastal and ocean speciesMore than 1,100 color illustrations450 up-to-date range mapsOverviews of key ecological communities, including mangroves, salt marshes, beaches, sand dunes, and coral reefsSpecial attention to threatened and endangered speciesDiscussions of environmental issues, including such catastrophic events as Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon blowoutGlossaryExcellent organizational aids for locating information quickly

Do You Want To Play With My Balls?


Cifaldi Brothers - 2012
    Do You Want To Play With My Balls? is just that kind of book, full of innocence and irreverence, and sure to make every member of your family vomit with glee. At once shockingly direct, unabashedly sentimental, and totally asinine, Do You Want To Play With My Balls? is a visually stunning treat, embellished with brightly colored images by award winning (**) illustrator Santiago Elizalde. It's a book for all occasions: baby showers, birthday parties, bed time readings, brisses... No coffee table, nursery, or kindergarten is complete without a copy. Go ahead, read it to the kids! They'll love it, but won't have a clue as to why you're turning blue with laughter! ** 2nd Place Prize, Canton Youth Bowling LeagueABOUT THE BOOKIn May of 2015 a video was released of a young woman reading a copy of Do You Want To Play With My Balls?, a hilarious, children’s book parody for adults. In one day her Facebook video received over 1 million views, and over 50 million by months end. This prompted an Internet explosion that not only put Do You Want To Play With My Balls? on the map, but on the entire globe. Once this book is in your hands you will have no choice but to show it to all your friends and family, and, like the video gone viral, the laughter will grow and grow!

Captain America and the Nationalist Superhero: Metaphors, Narratives, and Geopolitics


Jason Dittmer - 2012
    He argues that these iconic superheroes contribute to our contemporary understandings of national identity, the righteous use of power, and the role of the United States, Canada, and Britain in the world.Tracing the nationalist superhero genre from its World War II origins to contemporary manifestations throughout the world, Captain America and the Nationalist Superhero analyzes nearly one thousand comic books and audience responses to those books. Dittmer also interviews key comic book writers from Stan Lee and J. M. DeMatteis to Steve Englehart and Paul Cornell.At a time when popular culture is saturated with superheroes and their exploits, Captain America and the Nationalist Superhero highlights the unique relationship between popular culture and international relations.

Your Nation To Save


Shane F. Krauser - 2012
    A Line-by-line explanation of the US Constitution.

Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity


Marcia Alesan Dawkins - 2012
    Not just racial minorities. As Marcia Alesan Dawkins explains, passing has been occurring for millennia, since intercultural and interracial contact began. And with this profound new study, she explores its old limits and new possibilities: from women passing as men and able-bodied persons passing as disabled to black classics professors passing as Jewish and white supremacists passing as white.Already hailed as a pioneering work in the study of race and culture, Clearly Invisible offers powerful testimony to the fact that individual identities are never fully self-determined—and that race is far more a matter of sociology than of biology.

Rising Up: Hale Woodruff's Murals at Talladega College


Stephanie Mayer - 2012
    Installed in the institution's newly constructed library, the six murals portray noteworthy events in the rise of blacks in America from slavery to freedom. Today they stand out as provocative and relevant symbols of the centuries-long struggle for civil and human rights.Essays consider the development of the murals, their presence and significance at Talladega College, and Woodruff's impact on American mural painting in the years surrounding the Talladega project. An illustrated essay details all phases of the murals' conservation. Illustrated works span Woodruff's career and include oil studies; support materials such as prints, drawings, and photographs; and mural cycles he made in Mexico while studying with Diego Rivera.

"Play Me Something Quick and Devilish": Old-Time Fiddlers in Missouri


Howard W. Marshall - 2012
    Howard Wight Marshall considers the place of homemade music in people’s lives across social and ethnic communities from the late 1700s to the World War I years and into the early 1920s. This exceptionally important and complex period provided the foundations in history and settlement for the evolution of today’s old-time fiddling.Beginning with the French villages on the Mississippi River, Marshall leads us chronologically through the settlement of the state and how these communities established our cultural heritage. Other core populations include the “Old Stock Americans” (primarily Scotch-Irish from Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia), African Americans, German-speaking immigrants, people with American Indian ancestry (focusing on Cherokee families dating from the Trail of Tears in the 1830s), and Irish railroad workers in the post–Civil War period. These are the primary communities whose fiddle and dance traditions came together on the Missouri frontier to cultivate the bounty of old-time fiddling enjoyed today.Marshall also investigates themes in the continuing evolution of fiddle traditions. These themes include the use of the violin in Westward migration, in the Civil War years, and in the railroad boom that changed history. Of course, musical tastes shift over time, and the rise of music literacy in the late Victorian period, as evidenced by the brass band movement and immigrant music teachers in small towns, affected fiddling. The contributions of music publishing as well as the surprising importance of ragtime and early jazz also had profound effects. Much of the old-time fiddlers’ repertory arises not from the inherited reels, jigs, and hornpipes from the British Isles, nor from the waltzes, schottisches, and polkas from the Continent, but from the prolific pens of Tin Pan Alley. Marshall also examines regional styles in Missouri fiddling and comments on the future of this time-honored, and changing, tradition. Documentary in nature, this social history draws on various academic disciplines and oral histories recorded in Marshall’s forty-some years of research and field experience. Historians, music aficionados, and lay people interested in Missouri folk heritage—as well as fiddlers, of course—will find Play Me Something Quick and Devilish an entertaining and enlightening read. With 39 tunes, the enclosed Voyager Records companion CD includes a historic sampler of Missouri fiddlers and styles from 1955 to 2012. A media kit is available here: press.umsystem.edu/pages/PlayMeSometh...

Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology


Richey Piiparinen - 2012
    Rust Belt Chic tells stories about failure (mills closing), conflict (Pekar's constant grousing), growth (a thriving Iraqi immigrant community) and renewal (moving away only to, finally, return home). Put together, these stories create a new narrative about Cleveland that incorporates but deepens and widens the familiar tropes of manufacturing, stadiums and comebacks.

American Legends: The Life of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce


Charles River Editors - 2012
    These laws were good. They told us to treat all people as they treated us; that we should never be the first to break a bargain; that is was a disgrace to tell a lie; that we should speak only the truth; that it was a shame for one man to take another's wife or his property without paying for it.” – Chief JosephA lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.When he died in 1904, most Americans who knew his people’s story considered Chief Joseph, whose Nez Percé name is Himahtooyahlatkekt (“Thunder Rolling Down from the Mountains”), a military genius and an “Indian Napoleon.” This assessment of the Native American leader was based on a 1,500-mile odyssey during which he and his people left their reservation in the hopes of escaping to Canada, where the Nez Percé intended to join Sitting Bull and his Hunkpapa Sioux band. The real Chief Joseph was a gifted speaker and more diplomat than war leader. It’s not surprising that Chief Joseph was misunderstood and misrepresented by Americans because his people’s name was as well; Nez Percé literally means “pierced nose” in French, but it is unclear whether the tribe ever used nose piercing as a form of ornament.At the time of Joseph’s birth, the Nez Percé were rapidly becoming the most influential and wealthy tribe in the region, and their prospects seemed bright. Lewis and Clark had considered his ancestors sufficiently friendly and reliable that they left their horses with them as they loaded onto canoes and journeyed to the Pacific Coast. By the time of Joseph’s birth in 1840, the Nez Percé had maintained friendly relations with American settlers for several decades. But their attitudes would soon change as the United States government began to coerce them to cede their traditional homeland to newly arrived white settlers, and the Nez Percé began suffering a fate very similar to that of other Native American tribes to the east. Joseph had inherited tribal leadership from his father in 1871, and for six tumultuous years he attempted to peacefully resist settlers who desired the tribe’s fertile potential farmland in the Wallowa Valley of present-day northeastern Oregon. Thus it was Chief Joseph who fought the Nez Perce War against the U.S. Army in 1877, earning grudging respect from the people who sought to defeat them.American Legends: The Life of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce profiles the amazing life and leadership of the famous Native American Chief, examining the results of the war and analyzing his lasting legacy. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Chief Joseph like you never have before, in no time at all.

Facing Social Class: How Societal Rank Influences Interaction


Susan T. Fiske - 2012
    Yet the ways we talk and dress, our interactions with authority figures, the degree of trust we place in strangers, our religious beliefs, our achievements, our senses of morality and of ourselves—all are marked by social class, a powerful factor affecting every domain of life. In Facing Social Class, social psychologists Susan Fiske and Hazel Rose Markus, and a team of sociologists, anthropologists, linguists, and legal scholars, examine the many ways we communicate our class position to others and how social class shapes our daily, face-to-face interactions—from casual exchanges to interactions at school, work, and home.Facing Social Class exposes the contradiction between the American ideal of equal opportunity and the harsh reality of growing inequality, and it shows how this tension is reflected in cultural ideas and values, institutional practices, everyday social interactions, and psychological tendencies. Contributor Joan Williams examines cultural differences between middle- and working-class people and shows how the cultural gap between social class groups can influence everything from voting practices and political beliefs to work habits, home life, and social behaviors. In a similar vein, Annette Lareau and Jessica McCrory Calarco analyze the cultural advantages or disadvantages exhibited by different classes in institutional settings, such as those between parents and teachers. They find that middle-class parents are better able to advocate effectively for their children in school than are working-class parents, who are less likely to challenge a teacher's authority.Michael Kraus, Michelle Rheinschmidt, and Paul Piff explore the subtle ways we signal class status in social situations. Conversational style and how close one person stands to another, for example, can influence the balance of power in a business interaction. Diana Sanchez and Julie Garcia even demonstrate that markers of low socioeconomic status such as incarceration or unemployment can influence whether individuals are categorized as white or black—a finding that underscores how race and class may work in tandem to shape advantage or disadvantage in social interactions.The United States has one of the highest levels of income inequality and one of the lowest levels of social mobility among industrialized nations, yet many Americans continue to buy into the myth that theirs is a classless society. Facing Social Class faces the reality of how social class operates in our daily lives, why it is so pervasive, and what can be done to alleviate its effects.Contributors: Courtney Bearns, Jessica McCrory Colarco, Paul DiMaggio, Susan R. Fisk, Stephanie A. Fryberg, Julie A. Garcia, Crystal C. Hall, Michael W. Kraus, Adrie Kusserow, Annette Lareau, Peggy J. Miller, Miguel Moya, Paul K. Piff, Michelle L. Rheinschmidt, Cecilia L. Ridgeway, Ann Marie Russell, Diana T. Sanchez, Douglas E. Sperry, Nicole M. Stephens, Joan C. Williams.

New York Neon


Thomas E. Rinaldi - 2012
    Rinaldi captures the brilliant glow of surviving early- and mid-twentieth-century neon signs, those iconic elements of the cityscape now in danger of disappearing. This visual tour features two hundred signs, identified by location, with information on their manufacture, date of creation, and the businesses that commissioned them. In a generously illustrated introduction, drawing on documents including rare period trade publications, Rinaldi recounts the development of signage and the technological evolution of neon and examines its role in the streets of New York, in America’s cultural identity, and in our collective consciousness.New Yorkers and visitors to the city, neon-sign enthusiasts, and those interested in signs and historic advertising generally, as well as design professionals, serious historians, and casual students of the city, will want this colorful book, which comes at a critical moment when the disappearance of the original signs has inspired a growing interest in neon.

Anansi's Goatman Story


Unknown - 2012
    It walked with us all the goddamn way back to his house, and then he said it lagged to the back of the group and looked him dead in the eyes before walking into the woods.

Graceland Cemetery: A Tour of Chicago History


Mark Masek - 2012
    Proud, sprawling, tough, industrious, artistic, powerful, sinful and influential, Chicago was one of the nation’s largest and most important cities when it spectacularly burned to the ground in 1871, and then quickly rose up from the ashes to become even bigger and stronger.Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery perfectly reflects the city, its history and its residents, and contains the final resting places of some of the city’s -- and the world’s -- most notable names in business, architecture, politics and sports. Buried on its grounds are Chicago’s first white settler, four former Chicago mayors, two former Illinois governors, a former chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, two world heavyweight boxing champions, and a statue of a beautiful little girl that reportedly wanders around the cemetery during thunderstorms.This book provides a detailed history of the cemetery, as well as a walking tour to the final resting places of nearly three dozen people who made Chicago the city it is today, as well as detailed biographies.The Chicagoans buried here are the names that will forever be associated with the city, the men who designed and built Chicago, and then rebuilt it from the ashes. The men who created the businesses that will forever be associated with Chicago, and the men after whom many of the city streets are named -- Palmer, Field, Pullman, Kimball, Sullivan, Goodman, Wacker, Armour, McCormick, Medill, Lawson and so many others. For many of Chicago’s wealthiest and most powerful residents who now rest forever at Graceland, their graves are almost unbelievably ornate and lavish, massive and powerful displays of marble, granite and bronze. As they did with their homes, they hired the city’s top architects to design their tombs -- often spending more on their tombs than many of the city's residents did on their homes. Graceland is often referred to as the “Cemetery of Architects,” both because it contains the final resting places of a large number of well-known and influential members of that profession, and because so many of the impressive and notable tombs and mausoleums within its walls are architecturally significant. In some cases, the architect and his work are both here.Chicago’s early movers and shakers had an image and a reputation of success and achievement at the highest levels, and they wanted their memorials to reflect that, for eternity. What they were in life, so they would be in death -- forever.

The People's Courts : Pursuing Judicial Independence in America


Jed Handelsman Shugerman - 2012
    Declaring judicial independence -- Judicial elections as separation of powers -- The calm before the storm -- Panic and trigger -- The American revolutions of 1848 -- The boom of judicial review -- Reconstructing independence -- The progressives' failed solutions -- Earl Warren, crime, and the revival of appointment -- The Missouri plan -- Exporting judicial elections -- The puzzling rise of merit -- Merit's stumble and surge, 1960s-70s -- Judicial plutocracy from 1980 to the present.

The Apple Revolution: Steve Jobs, the Counterculture and How the Crazy Ones Took over the World


Luke Dormehl - 2012
    Meet the Crazy Ones who created Silicon Valley – the hippies who started the Homebrew Computer Club; the young ad executive who first sketched out Apple’s iconic logo; the engineers who met lying down in a cardboard geodesic dome at Stanford University. From Steve Wozniak, who built the first breakthrough Apple computers, to Jony Ive, the young Brit who imagined the iPod - the designers and programmers, the geeks, creatives and dreamers, they are all here.And at the centre of it all, a bearded and barefoot Steve Jobs, whose singular vision would will Apple Inc. into a future that it would come to own …