You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Without radio play and virtually unnoticed by the press, the Dead forged a vast underground following whose loyalty survives to the present day. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Carol Brightman returns to the band's roots—to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the acid tests and the heady days of Haight-Ashbury, the free concerts in Golden Gate Park and the formative shows of New York's Fillmore East—to uncover the secrets of the band's longevity. Drawing on exclusive interviews With band members, staff and crew, Deadheads, other musicians, journalists—and her own experience as a '60s activist—Brightman shows us how, amid the turbulent Free Speech Movement and antiwar rallies, the Grateful Dead's abandonment to music, drugs, and dance offered the faithful a shelter in the storm. Her riveting, in-depth portrait of Jerry Garcia, the "nonleader leader" who held to a vision of the Grateful Dead's destiny even as he recoiled from the juggernaut it became, shows us how it was that a Dead concert become something halfway between a revival meeting and a family reunion. An absorbing and exhilarating exploration, Sweet Chaos offers, at last, a complete understanding of the Dead phenomenon and its place in American culture.

    Anne Boleyn: ambitious upstart. Jane Seymour: virtuous mother. Anne of Cleves: Flanders Mare. Katherine Howard: adulterous whore. Katherine Parr: the one that got away. These are our lingering historical afterimages of the six women who married Henry VIII over the course of his thirty-six-year reign. At the age of 18, Henry succeeded to the English throne and married the Spanish princess who had briefly been the wife of his brother Arthur. Katherine of Aragon was both a virgin and a widow when the prince died at the age of fifteen, enabling Henry to marry her himself. Their marriage lasted sixteen contented years, until suddenly, Henry fell in love with Anne Boleyn and sundered England from Rome in order to keep her. But Henry VIII would not be satisfied even after he took Anne Boleyn for his wife. His vanity, his ego, and his desperate need for a male heir, led him to marry four more women during the last ten years of his life. In this book, you will read about the lives, loves, and secret passions of these women. Four of them died for Henry’s pleasure—but two escaped to tell their stories.

    This is the "subterranean" Kerouac whom Amburn, the editor of his last two novels, knew personally, having witnessed the legendary Beat writer's decline into alcoholic despair during the last few years of his life. Perhaps the greatest of Kerouac's conflicts centered around his sexual relationships with men. Amburn recounts what Kerouac himself told him about these experiences, which other biographers have never before reported, and sheds new light on their profound impact on the man who remained convinced until his death that he was not bisexual, and that homosexuality was in fact immoral.

    Not long after, she also became mute. Her tenacious struggle to overcome these handicaps-with the help of her inspired teacher, Anne Sullivan-is one of the great stories of human courage and dedication. In this classic autobiography, first published in 1903, Miss Keller recounts the first 22 years of her life, including the magical moment at the water pump when, recognizing the connection between the word "water" and the cold liquid flowing over her hand, she realized that objects had names. Subsequent experiences were equally noteworthy: her joy at eventually learning to speak, her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edward Everett Hale and other notables, her education at Radcliffe (from which she graduated cum laude), and-underlying all-her extraordinary relationship with Miss Sullivan, who showed a remarkable genius for communicating with her eager and quick-to-learn pupil.

    Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie's death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life. In Louisiana for Ruthie's funeral in the fall of 2011, Dreher began to wonder whether the ordinary life Ruthie led in their country town was in fact a path of hidden grandeur, even spiritual greatness, concealed within the modest life of a mother and teacher. In order to explore this revelation, Dreher and his wife decided to leave Philadelphia, move home to help with family responsibilities and have their three children grow up amidst the rituals that had defined his family for five generations-Mardi Gras, L.S.U. football games, and deer hunting. As David Brooks poignantly described Dreher's journey homeward in a recent New York Times column, Dreher and his wife Julie "decided to accept the limitations of small-town life in exchange for the privilege of being part of a community."

    In this funny, devastating, haunting memoir and with a raw and often painful honesty, she looks back at life with a painter mother, seven times married, whose outlaw spirit could tip over into psychosis, and a hard-drinking, fist-swinging father who liked nothing better than to spin tales with his cronies at the Liars' Club.

    More than 300 slaves worked the plantation's fields at the height of its prosperity; but nearly 125 years later, the only remembrance of their lives at Somerset, now a state historic site, was a lonely wooden sign marked "Site of Slave Quarters."Somerset Homecoming, first published in 1989, is the story of one woman's unflagging efforts to recover the history of her ancestors, slaves who had lived and worked at Somerset Place. Traveling down winding southern roads, through county courthouses and state archives, and onto the front porches of people willing to share tales handed down through generations, Dorothy Spruill Redford spent ten years tracing the lives of Somerset's slaves and their descendants. Her endeavors culminated in the joyous, nationally publicized homecoming she organized that brought together more than 2,000 descendants of the plantation's slaves and owners and marked the beginning of a campaign to turn Somerset Place into a remarkable resource for learning about the history of both African Americans and whites in the region.

    From the "a-ha" moment in junior high school that inspired his very first guitar, Taylor has been living the American dream, crafting quality products with his own hands and building a successful, sustainable business. In Guitar Lessons, he shares the values that he lives by and that have provided the foundation for the company's success. Be inspired by a story of guts and gumption, an unwavering commitment to quality, and the hard lessons that made Taylor Guitars the company it is today.

     Known to millions as the trickster poster boy for folkrock utopia and the inspiration for Dennis Hopper's wild-eyed antihero in the film Easy Rider, David Crosby is every bit the quintessential American icon of the counterculture today that he was in the sixties and seventies. Legendary, controversial, beloved, he is never far from the headlines, as the upcoming (Summer 2006) 50-city reunion tour of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young will demonstrate once again. Since Then is both a self-skewering look at the twists and turns of an impossibly rich life, and Crosby's confident declaration that it's far too soon for him to don the robe and slippers of Generational Elder. As a two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he has an unparalleled legacy as a singer, songwriter, and musician-and few would object if he were to rest on his laurels. Yet despite Crosby's history of extravagant excess, he's never forgotten his great good fortune, and has never stopped using his enormous gifts in service of both his art and social causes to which he is committed. This memoir shows the contradictory aspects to a personality whose truth-to-power outspokenness, exuberance, and creativity have made him a great and inspirational artist, yet whose struggles with private demons have resulted in arrests, chronic health issues, and ruined friendships. It discusses frankly the people and events that have drastically altered his definition of "family": raising ten-year-old son Django, with lover/wife/partner, Jan; reuniting with his adult son, musician James Raymond, while Crosby waited in the hospital for a life-saving liver transplant; becoming sperm donor to Melissa Etheridge and Julie Cypher. Above all, it illuminates how, despite a staggering series of personal setbacks-including hepatitis C, liver failure, diabetes, heart attacks, and a crippling motorcycle accident-the music, and the people he loves, keep him young at heart.

    Born into a notorious London crime family, his uncle Micky was one of the key players in the legendary Brink's-Mat gold bullion caper. John bought his first gun at 16 and carved out a lucrative career in armed robbery. At one point he was one of Britain's most-wanted men. It took two spells in prison and the death of a friend on a botched heist to change his path. During his second stint in jail he discovered a miraculous natural talent while serving life in the Belmarsh high security unit - where fellow inmates included Abu Hamza, the hook-handed extremist cleric, and the 7/7 bombers. John broke three world rowing records while still an inmate and since his release has become one of the UK's leading Ironman competitors. He aims to turn pro in 2016 after competing in the European championships in Frankfurt. Redemption is the ultimate story of sporting salvation.

    

    Will Barrett is a 25-year-old wanderer from the South living in New York City, detached from his roots and with no plans for the future—until the purchase of a telescope sets off a romance and changes his life forever.Publisher: Spring Arbor/Ingram.

    When her offence was discovered it was reported to be the biggest white-collar crime committed by a female in Victoria, and she was sentenced to seven years in a maximum-security prison, alongside the state's most notorious criminals. Being incarcerated with drug dealers and murderers, however, was not nearly as daunting as having to tell her two young daughters why she was leaving them. The shame was almost unbearable. As Kerry adjusted to life behind bars, she began to see her fellow inmates as more than simply 'murderers' and 'drug dealers' - they became real people with names and broken dreams. And as they opened up to her, she realised that many of these women had violent home lives and were not getting parole simply because they couldn't fill out the paperwork. Horrified, Kerry set about using her skills to represent them. She also began to study. Today, Kerry has a PhD, advocates for women prisoners, and has been reunited with her daughters. In her inspiring memoir, filled with fascinating stories of life behind bars and shot through with wry humour, she reveals how one woman's darkest hour can become a turning point in her life. And how, just perhaps, it can even be the making of her.

    In it a daughter reflects on the complicated and volatile love she and her father shared. Shirley Jean Abbott grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in the 1940s and 50s and was the beloved daughter of Alfred Bemont Abbott, affectionately known as “Hat.” Hat wasn’t a bookmaker in the literary sense, even though he allowed Shirley’s mother to believe as much while they were dating. Rather, his craft was gambling, and his business was horse racing.Despite the corruption, which put food on the table and rabbit coats in the closet, Abbott remembers the kind and attentive father who spent nights reading to her. He alone is responsible for opening the door to a world of language and literature for her. And she ran with it. Against her father’s wishes, after graduation she headed for New York City. In the end, the girl he had nurtured into an independent and intelligent young woman had outgrown the small town where she grew up. The Bookmaker’s Daughter was originally published by Ticknor and Fields in 1992 and was a Book of the Month Club selection.