From humorous fishing excursions and frightening bear encounters to snow blinding blizzards and quirky characters, they come face to face with the unpredictable Mother Nature and learn the value of friendship, survival, and solitude in a picturesque but harsh life by the sea. Packed with adventures, challenges, and true Alaskan lifestyle.

    A snake-handling preacher by the name of Glendel Buford Summerford has just tried to murder his wife, Darlene, by snakebite. At gunpoint, he forces her to stick her arm in a box of rattlesnakes. She is bitten twice and nearly dies. The trial, which becomes a sensation throughout southern Appalachia, echoes familiar themes from a troubled secular world - marital infidelity, spouse abuse, and alcoholism - but it also raises questions about faith, forgiveness, redemption, and, of course, snakes. Glenn Summerford is convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison. When Dennis Covington covered the trial of Glenn Summerford for The New York Times, a world far beyond the trial opened up to him. Salvation on Sand Mountain begins with a crime and a trial and then becomes an extraordinary exploration of a place, a people, and an author's descent into himself. The place is southern Appalachia - a country deep and unsettled, where the past and its culture collide with the economic and social realities of the present, leaving a residue of rootlessness, anxiety, and lawlessness. All-night video stores and tanning salons stand next to collapsed chicken farms and fundamentalist churches. The people are poor southern whites. Peculiar and insular, they are hill people of Scotch-Irish descent: religious mystics who cast out demons, speak in tongues, drink strychnine, run blowtorches up their arms, and drape themselves with rattlesnakes. There is Charles McGlocklin, the End-Time Evangelist; Cecil Esslinder, the red headed guitar player with the perpetual grin; Aunt Daisy, the prophetess; Brother Carl Porter; Elvis Presley Saylor;Gracie McAllister; Dewey Chafin; and the legendary Punkin Brown, all of whose faith illuminates these pages. And then there is Dennis Covington, himself Scotch-Irish, whose own family came down off of Sand Mountain two generations ago to work in the steel mills of Birmingham, and

    Kathy Peiss follows working women into saloons, dance halls, Coney Island amusement parks, social clubs, and nickelodeons to explore the culture of these young women between 1880 and 1920 as expressed in leisure activities. By examining the rituals and styles they adopted and placing that culture in the larger context of urban working-class life, she offers us a complex picture of the dynamics shaping a working woman's experience and consciousness at the turn-of-the-century. Not only does her analysis lead us to new insights into working-class culture, changing social relations between single men and women, and urban courtship, but it also gives us a fuller understanding of the cultural transformations that gave rise to the commercialization of leisure. The early twentieth century witnessed the emergence of "heterosocial companionship" as a dominant ideology of gender, affirming mixed-sex patterns of social interaction, in contrast to the nineteenth century's segregated spheres. Cheap Amusements argues that a crucial part of the "reorientation of American culture" originated from below, specifically in the subculture of working women to be found in urban dance halls and amusement resorts.

    In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the landscape of television began an unprecedented transformation. While the networks continued to chase the lowest common denominator, a wave of new shows, first on premium cable channels like HBO and then basic cable networks like FX and AMC, dramatically stretched television’s narrative inventiveness, emotional resonance, and artistic ambition. No longer necessarily concerned with creating always-likable characters, plots that wrapped up neatly every episode, or subjects that were deemed safe and appropriate, shows such as The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Deadwood, The Shield, and more tackled issues of life and death, love and sexuality, addiction, race, violence, and existential boredom. Just as the Big Novel had in the 1960s and the subversive films of New Hollywood had in 1970s, television shows became the place to go to see stories of the triumph and betrayals of the American Dream at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This revolution happened at the hands of a new breed of auteur: the all-powerful writer-show runner. These were men nearly as complicated, idiosyncratic, and “difficult” as the conflicted protagonists that defined the genre. Given the chance to make art in a maligned medium, they fell upon the opportunity with unchecked ambition. Combining deep reportage with cultural analysis and historical context, Brett Martin recounts the rise and inner workings of a genre that represents not only a new golden age for TV but also a cultural watershed. Difficult Men features extensive interviews with all the major players, including David Chase (The Sopranos), David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire), Matthew Weiner and Jon Hamm (Mad Men), David Milch (NYPD Blue, Deadwood), and Alan Ball (Six Feet Under), in addition to dozens of other writers, directors, studio executives, actors, production assistants, makeup artists, script supervisors, and so on. Martin takes us behind the scenes of our favorite shows, delivering never-before-heard story after story and revealing how cable TV has distinguished itself dramatically from the networks, emerging from the shadow of film to become a truly significant and influential part of our culture.

    In 1845 two brothers, Edward and John Little, are forced to abandon their home in the Florida swamplands after being goaded by a treacherous parent into committing a horrific, shameful act that will haunt their dreams for the rest of their days. So begins the Littles' strange odyssey across an almost surreal bloodland; twin journeys marked by death and degradation that will ultimately lead them both to a violently disputed Texas and place them on opposing sides in a fierce territorial struggle between Mexico and the United States. Here a family bond tempered in hot blood will be tested in the all-consuming fires of war and conscience.

    Bob Hightower, the girl's father and a small-town cop, embarks on a desperate mission to find her but his only hope lies with Case Hardin, an ex-cult member and ex-junkie living in a halfway house in Hollywood. Their quest - his for his child, hers to exorcise her demons - becomes a primal hunt-and-chase through a savage sub-culture of drugs and ritualistic violence. But it is Bob who holds the final card to throw into the macabre 'game', the twentieth enigma of the tarot, the angel who signals Judgement...

    Bell ruling made government sterilization of "undesirable" citizens the law of the land. New York Times bestselling author Adam Cohen tells the story in Imbeciles of one of the darkest moments in the American legal tradition: the Supreme Court's decision to champion eugenic sterilization for the greater good of the country. In 1927, when the nation was caught up in eugenic fervor, the justices allowed Virginia to sterilize Carrie Buck, a perfectly normal young woman, for being an "imbecile." It is a story with many villains, from the superintendent of the Dickensian Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded who chose Carrie for sterilization to the former Missouri agriculture professor and Nazi sympathizer who was the nation's leading advocate for eugenic sterilization. But the most troubling actors of all were the eight Supreme Court justices who were in the majority--including William Howard Taft, the former president; Louis Brandeis, the legendary progressive; and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., America's most esteemed justice, who wrote the decision urging the nation to embark on a program of mass eugenic sterilization

    . .Thirty-three-year-old Kendra Richards just can't escape her reckless mother's endless requests for money that will never be repaid. Again and again, Kendra rescues Ginny despite the advice of her own father--a man who left Ginny and her cheating ways long ago. Kendra knows her mother is troubled--what she doesn't understand is why she can't tell her no--until she happens to meet psychologist Sam Hughes. . .Smart and sexy, Sam offers Kendra the answers--and the love and romance--she's been looking for. She's finally happy--until Ginny turns up for another handout. But this time the situation is desperate, and the stakes are higher than ever. Now, Kendra must finally decide if she's willing to lose everything for a woman who has nothing to give. . .Praise for the Novels of Gwynne Forster"Wise and wonderful as it points out, once again, the importance of honesty and appreciating what you have while you have it."--Publishers Weekly on A Different Kind of Blues"Touching, thought-provoking, and will make you think twice about ever keeping secrets from the one you love." --Kimberla Lawson Roby, New York Times bestselling author on If You Walked in My Shoes

    Chock-full of creepy information from the netherworlds of movies, TV, literature, video games, comic books, and graphic novels, The Book of Lists: Horror offers a blood-feast of forbidden knowledge that horror fans are hungry to devour, including: Stephen King's Ten Favorite Horror Novels or Short Stories—learn what scares the master! Top Six Grossing Horror Movies of All Time in the United States— which big shocks translated into big bucks? Top Ten Horror-Themed Rock 'n' Roll Songs—maybe it is devil's music' after all! And much, much more! Drawing on its authors' extensive knowledge and contributions from the (living) legends and greatest names in the horror and dark fantasy genres, The Book of Lists: Horror is a scream—an irresistible compendium of all things mysterious, terrifying, and gory . . . and so entertaining, it's scary!

    . . and has never been convicted of racketeering, drug-trafficking or murder.Prize-winning journalists John Cummings and Ernest Volkman's shocking true account of the brutal and meteoric rise of John "Johhny Boy" Gotti from Brooklyn "bone-breaker" to lord of the Gambino Family -- a riveting exploration into the the bloody machinery of La Cosa Nostra operating on the dark side of the American dream.

    Transgender evangelist Jemima Wilkinson, in the early 1800s, changed her name to “Publick Universal Friend,” refused to use pronouns, fought for gender equality, and led her own congregation in upstate New York. In the mid-nineteenth century, internationally famous Shakespearean actor Charlotte Cushman led an openly lesbian life, including a well-publicized “female marriage.” And in the late 1920s, Augustus Granville Dill was fired by W. E. B. Du Bois from the NAACP’s magazine the Crisis after being arrested for a homosexual encounter. These are just a few moments of queer history that Michael Bronski highlights in this groundbreaking book.   Intellectually dynamic and endlessly provocative, A Queer History of the United States is more than a “who’s who” of queer history: it is a book that radically challenges how we understand American history. Drawing upon primary documents, literature, and cultural histories, noted scholar and activist Michael Bronski charts the breadth of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from 1492 to the 1990s, and has written a testament to how the LGBT experience has profoundly shaped our country, culture, and history.  A Queer History of the United States abounds with startling examples of unknown or often ignored aspects of American history—the ineffectiveness of sodomy laws in the colonies, the prevalence of cross-dressing women soldiers in the Civil War, the impact of new technologies on LGBT life in the nineteenth century, and how rock music and popular culture were, in large part, responsible for the devastating backlash against gay rights in the late 1970s. Most striking, Bronski documents how, over centuries, various incarnations of social purity movements have consistently attempted to regulate all sexuality, including fantasies, masturbation, and queer sex. Resisting these efforts, same-sex desire flourished and helped make America what it is today.   At heart, A Queer History of the United States is simply about American history. It is a book that will matter both to LGBT people and heterosexuals. This engrossing and revelatory history will make readers appreciate just how queer America really is.

    Two investigative journalists, John Hubner and Lindsey Gruson, masterfully document the staggering number of crimes tied to the Hare Krishnas and the work of the dedicated cop determined to see justice in this fascinating and terrifying true crime story.Description from Google Books

    Many realize that attaining the standard of living their parents managed has become impossible.Alissa Quart, executive editor of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, examines the lives of many middle-class Americans who can now barely afford to raise children. Through gripping firsthand storytelling, Quart shows how our country has failed its families. Her subjects—from professors to lawyers to caregivers to nurses—have been wrung out by a system that doesn’t support them, and enriches only a tiny elite.Interlacing her own experience with close-up reporting on families that are just getting by, Quart reveals parenthood itself to be financially overwhelming, except for the wealthiest. She offers real solutions to these problems, including outlining necessary policy shifts, as well as detailing the DIY tactics some families are already putting into motion, and argues for the cultural reevaluation of parenthood and caregiving.Written in the spirit of Barbara Ehrenreich and Jennifer Senior, Squeezed is an eye-opening page-turner. Powerfully argued, deeply reported, and ultimately hopeful, it casts a bright, clarifying light on families struggling to thrive in an economy that holds too few options. It will make readers think differently about their lives and those of their neighbors.

    Wolfe's brilliant first book -- a collection of essays that introduced us to the Sixties, to extravagant new styles of life that had nothing to do with the "elite" culture of the past.

    One of the city's most prominent couples -- he served as Circuit Court judge and she was runnng for mayor -- the Sherry's were mourned by a community. But for a stunned and grieving daughter, the nightmare was hust beginning.Racing to Biloxi for answers, Lynne found the police investigation in chaos. The only sure lead was that the Sherry's murder somehow was connected to the Dixie Mafia, a predatory band of criminals who ran Biloxi's beachfront hub of sex, drugs, and sleaze known as The Strip. Lynne, armed with a savvy private eye -- and a .357 Magnum -- set out to accomplish what the authorities could not or would not do: hunt down her parents' assassins and bring them to justice.Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Humes delivers a shocking and bizarre tale set against a teeming underworld of merciless killers, ruthless con men, and venal politicians. "Mississippi Mud" portrays how one woman's steely obsession for the truth shook a city to its foundation -- and nearly destroyed everything she loved.