He’s also L.A.’s most successful gas station franchise owner. But no one can quite seem to figure out what makes him tick. Not the LAPD, who have long since granted him full immunity. Not his boss, who scrutinizes him with covert psychologists. Not the corporate spies who infiltrate his stations. And certainly not the encroaching FBI, who know only that Trang is involved in something big and dangerous and that time is running out.

    For most, the home was not a display object but a place to keep the few things they had managed to hold on to from the surpluses produced by their labor. Their material life was made of the things they didn't have to eat, wear, or burn right this minute. A concertina maybe? A family Bible? A hunting rifle?" This life in "the old neighborhood," so lyrically captured by Ray Suarez, was once lived by a huge number of Americans. One in seven of us can directly connect our lineage through just one city, Brooklyn. In 1950, except for Los Angeles, the top ten American cities were all in the Northeast or Midwest, and all had populations over 800,000. Since then, especially since the mid-60s, a way of life has simply vanished. Ray Suarez, veteran interviewer and host of NPR's "Talk of the Nation®," is a child of Brooklyn who has long been fascinated with the stories behind the largest of our once-great cities. He has talked to longtime residents, recent arrivals, and recent departures; community organizers, priests, cops, and politicians; and scholars who have studied neighborhoods, demographic trends, and social networks. The result is a rich tapestry of voices and history. The Old Neighborhood captures a crucial chapter in the experience of postwar America. It is a book not just for first- and second-generation Americans, but for anyone who remembers the prewar cities or wonders how we could have gotten to where we are. It is a book about "old neighborhoods" that were once cherished, and are now lost.

    Packed with nearly 70 exclusive interviews with some of his closest friends, colleagues, and fellow musicians—among them Tony Iommi, Joe Elliott, Richie Sambora, Bruce Dickinson, Raul Rodgers, Cliff Richard, and Spike Edney—this is the definitive life of the guitar virtuoso. It charts his life from his childhood through his years studying astrophysics and his initial success with Queen. May’s camaraderie and conflicts within Queen are addressed as are his most difficult years, which include the disintegration of his first marriage, the death of his father, and the profound professional and emotional effects of Freddie Mercury's illness and death. Hard-hitting and completely up to date, this is an engaging look at a life lived in the spotlight.

    Written with a commanding sureness of tone and linguistic precision, The White Album is a central text of American reportage and a classic of American autobiography.

    Hewitt has even been the inspiration for some of Weller's songs - and he has extraordinary in-depth knowledge of the inspiration behind the rest.Once, when Hewitt interviewed Weller for a music magazine, he complained - 'I don't know why people ask me all these questions. All the answers are in my songs.' Largely unnoticed, Weller has used thirty-years of lyrics to explore his personal history and beliefs. Taking as his starting point these lyrics, alongside a lifetime's friendship, Paolo Hewitt shows us the real Paul Weller, the man inside the music.

    In these, "the sort of stories you might tell in front of a fire", Calvin Trillin brings together twelve funny, troubling, moving and always revealing narratives--extended pieces that have appeared in The New Yorker over the past seven years.

    Along the way we see behind the public face of a whole range of relationships, from the straightforwardly romantic to the messily divided, and from the famous (and infamous) to the relatively unknown. All are engaging, full of contemporary detail, and come imbued with the energy and the spirit of the music world over the last half century.

     This truly unique interactive quiz book game is the perfect addition to your reading enjoyment of this dystopian classic. "I don't have a clue how you turned my book reading device into a game, but I loved it. You're a genius in my book". Kathryn Cooper (KatherineCooperWrites.com) You may think you know all about the factions (Abnegation, Dauntless, Erudite, Amity & Candor) including symbols, values & mottos? You may think you know the characteristics & what happens with of all of the characters? BUT, how much do you really know? For example, On what floor of Candor HQ is the Interrogation room? 1) 3rd 2) 6th 3) 12th 4) 18th How many conditions are set out by Amity when agreeing to become a faction safe house? 1) 1 2) 2 3) 3 4) 4 There are 10 sections to this quiz. Each section automatic counts your score as you go. If you guess wrong, then you have the option of cheating by going back (you'll be supplied with a clue) or you can continue ahead. I know you'll like the quiz so much that I'm even offering another one absolutely free which you can access just by looking in the 'Look Inside' feature of Amazon. This amazing quiz book is really a must if you are a true fan of this spectacular post-apocalyptic novel - Insurgent.

    From different counties in Ireland, Maggie Qualter and Richard Terrett both sail to America as young adults in 1870 after surviving Ireland’s Great Hunger as children. Maggie works as a maid for a wealthy family. Richard finds work in a tannery. After the death of the young wife he loves passionately, Richard marries Maggie with the help of a deceptive go-between who brews trouble in their marriage that never goes away. They raise three children in the midst of Irish American culture, the Catholic Church, and Richard’s battles for the workingman in the Knights of Labor. Their daughter Mary dreams of being a nun, while Josie seeks the freedom of big-city life in Boston. Neither reckons on the future she will face, Mary as a wife and mother of nine children and Josie as a single working woman. Tom escapes factory life by joining the Navy, manages to see the world in the midst of two wars, and comes home to marry his sweetheart and start a new life. Their stories are both remarkable and familiar to everyone whose ancestors made their way to and in America.The events in the Terretts’ lives are as they emerge from the public record. But their inner lives, their thoughts, their relationships, their words are imagined as a route to understanding these five complicated and fascinating people

    a national treasure!”Now, finally, Vern is ready to unleash his magnum opus: an in-depth study of the world's only aikido instructor turned movie star/director/writer/blues guitarist/energy drink inventor — the ass-kicking auteur Steven Seagal. From Above the Law to his Mountain Dew commercials, his entire career is covered in Vern’s inimitable style.As Vern himself puts it, Seagalogy is “a book that will shake the very foundations of film criticism, break their wrists and then throw them through a window."

    From a mother and son who migrated from Appalachia to a Native American boilerman, from a streetwise ex–gang leader to a liberal police officer, from the poorest African Americans to the richest socialites, these unique and often intimate first-person accounts form a multifaceted collage that defies any simple stereotype of America.As Terkel himself put it: “I was on the prowl for a cross–section of urban thought, using no one method or technique. . . I guess I was seeking some balance in the wildlife of the city as Rachel Carson sought it in nature. Revealing aspects of people’s lives that are normally invisible to most of us, Division Street is a fascinating survey of a city, and a society, at a pivotal moment of the twentieth century.

    of photos.

    Morton's extensively researched fiction carries the reader through three eras in the history of Abraska, or what is now southern Montana and northern Wyoming. From the days when Native American tribes dominated the landscape to the hardships of fledgling pioneer life to times of fast-paced modern development, Where the Rivers Run North introduces a shifting cast of characters as intriguing as they are diverse. One thread runs throughout--the figure of the horse, whether running wild on the plains or competing on the racetrack.

    Good addition to other books on this subject. I enjoyed it very much.' UK Reviewer.Stefan Maczka’s father, (also Stefan), was a cavalry officer who fought victoriously in possibly the last and greatest cavalry battle of the preceding one hundred years, the ‘Miracle of the Vistula’. It was the final victory in the Russian/Polish War of 1920. He was one of nine thousand former soldiers rewarded with a plot of land in the reclaimed borderlands. Stalin never forgot that humiliating defeat.Stefan B. was born in 1922 just over two years later.Life was hard in those early years; the military settlers had to defend their borders against invasion by armed bands from Russia, crossing into Poland from the east.By 1937, the rewards of hard work were paying off, and life was beginning to get easier... Then came the war, and Stalin’s revenge on the military settlers he so bitterly despised for their victory over Soviet forces twenty years earlier. Rounded up, they were uprooted from their homes, put on cattle trucks, and forcibly deported to the frozen and inhospitable wastes of Siberia.Goodbye Poland is one man’s account of his journey into adversity at the age of just seventeen. Written exactly as he spoke, his accent comes through loud and clear, in this inspirational true story of stoicism, and survival against the odds.

    Originating as a less-aggressive sister movement to punk, New Wave encompassed a wide range of styles, from Brit pub-rock to electronica, synth-pop, and even ska. The Encyclopedia of New Wave comprehensively captures this eclectic music, all of which enthralled the newly emergent MTV generation. With its tendency toward romantic minimalism, dark dance beats, and gender-bending antics, New Wave changed the course of popular musical history, as well as fashion and art.