Butler offers a blueprint for a creative life from the perspective of award-winning science-fiction writer and "MacArthur Genius" Octavia E. Butler. It is a collection of ideas about how to look, listen, breathe--how to be in the world. This book is about the creative process, but not on the page; its canvas is much larger. Author Lynell George not only engages the world that shaped Octavia E. Butler, she also explores the very specific processes through which Butler shaped herself--her unique process of self-making. It's about creating a life with what little you have--hand-me-down books, repurposed diaries, journals, stealing time to write in the middle of the night, making a small check stretch--bit by bit by bit. Highly visual and packed with photographs of Butler's ephemera, A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky draws the reader into Butler's world, creating a sense of unmatched intimacy with the deeply private writer.There's a great resurgence of interest in Butler's work. Readers have been turning to her writing to make sense of contemporary chaos, to find a plot point that might bring clarity or calm. Her books have become the centerpiece of book-group discussions, while universities and entire cities have chosen her titles to anchor "Big Read," "Freshman Read," and "One Book/One City" programs. The interest has gone beyond the printed page; Ava DuVernay is adapting Butler's novel Dawn for television. A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky brings Octavia's prescient wisdom and careful thinking out of the novel and into the world.A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky will be beloved by both scholars and fans of Butler, as well as aspiring writers and creatives who are looking for a model or a spark of inspiration. It offers a visual album of a creative life--a map that others can follow. Butler once wrote that science fiction was simply "a handful of earth, a handful of sky, and everything in between." This book offers a slice of the in between.Lynell George is a journalist and essayist. After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame is her first book of essays and photography, exploring the city where she grew up. As a staff writer for both the Los Angeles Times and L.A. Weekly, she focused on social issues, human behavior, visual arts, music, and literature. She taught journalism at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, in 2013 was named a USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow, and in 2017 received the Huntington Library's Alan Jutzi Fellowship for her studies of California writer Octavia E. Butler. A contributing arts-and-culture columnist for KCETArtbound, her commentary has also been featured in numerous news and feature outlets including Boom: A Journal of California, Smithsonian, KPCC The Frame, Los Angeles Review of Books, Vibe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Essence, Black Clock, and Ms. Her liner notes for Otis Redding Live at the Whisky a Go Go earned a 2017 GRAMMY award.

    They filled them with a deep longing to see the world and little else.It began in 1983, a time before the Internet, Instagram or Skyscanner. It was a journey of connections with people and situations that stretched the limits of their patience and perseverance. It was often hard and sometimes dangerous. But it was a journey of self-discovery, to places where simple choices led to profound transformation, where anything was possible if you just believed in yourself and the power in your hands and heart.Grab your copy today and follow the path of this young woman who set out to find herself in the world and find answers to the eternal questions who am I and why am I here?

    But in her memoir, she offers a different perspective. In My Own Moccasins is an unflinching account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds brought on by sexual violence. It is also the story of sisterhood, the power of ceremony, the love of family, and the possibility of redemption.With gripping moments of withdrawal, times of spiritual awareness, and historical insights going back to the signing of Treaty 8 by her great-great grandfather, Chief Bigfoot, her journey exposes the legacy of colonialism, while reclaiming her spirit.

    But after her mother, unsettled by growing political unrest, leaves for medical treatment in India, the civil war intensifies, changing young Enjeela’s life forever. Amid the rumble of invading Soviet tanks, Enjeela and her family are thrust into chaos and fear when it becomes clear that her mother will not be coming home.Thus begins an epic, reckless, and terrifying five-year journey of escape for Enjeela, her siblings, and their father to reconnect with her mother. In navigating the dangers ahead of them, and in looking back at the wilderness of her homeland, Enjeela discovers the spiritual and physical strength to find hope in the most desperate of circumstances.A heart-stopping memoir of a girl shaken by the brutalities of war and empowered by the will to survive, The Broken Circle brilliantly illustrates that family is not defined by the borders of a country but by the bonds of the heart.

    Are you gutsy enough to try it? Rouse your inner gypsy/rebel with this intimate introduction to van dwelling. It’s stocked with DIY tips and tricks for turning a vehicle into a home (on any budget) and emotional resources to gracefully sidestep the psychological pitfalls of such an unconventional lifestyle. With concrete advice and personal reflection from an experienced solo van dweller, this guide thoroughly covers the basics of everyday life in a van with a refreshing twist of self-empowerment and a whole lotta sass.Topics covered inside: -- vehicle selection-- DIY ideas for customizing your mobile abode-- ventilation-- parking tips-- showering and toilet needs-- safety for solos-- earning an income-- mental health as a van dweller...and much more!

    She introduces us to a wild assortment of characters: lovelorn Tongan transvestites, charismatic Tanzanian rap stars, precocious Cambodian street kids, out-of-work Dutch prostitutes. In the artful interplay of these eight lively, thoughtful stories, she reveals how all of these diverse lives--as well as our own--are being inextricably altered by the ever-shrinking world that we share. Because, she writes, "To forget the humanity in others is to risk forgetting one's own."

    In the style of Studs Terkel (Working, Hard Times, The Good War) and Dave Isay (Listening Is an Act of Love), Londoners offers up  the stories, the gripes, the memories, and the dreams of those in the great and vibrant British metropolis who “love it, hate it, live it, left it, and long for it,” from a West End rickshaw driver to a Soldier of the Guard at Buckingham Palace to a recovering heroin addict seeing Big Ben for the very first time. Published just in time for the 2012 London Olympic Games, Londoners is a glorious literary celebration of one of the world’s truly great cities.

    No Jobs. No friends. Just buckets of our own ignorance. Follow along in horror and hilarity as the family acclimates to the new small town way of life and the author bounces from jobs working in a school cafeteria to selling women’s clothing in a call center to opening a barbecue restaurant. Written in a smart, self-deprecating, salty style, Small Town Ho is all at once poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, full of the struggle of an ordinary family consisting of three boys, one big black lab, one assassin of a cat, and two very tired parents.

    In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State — and she would do it alone.Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

    This book documents his boldest, funniest, and most revealing journeys—from getting stranded without water in the Libyan desert, to crashing the set of a Leonardo DiCaprio movie in Thailand, to learning the secrets of Tantric sex in a dubious Indian ashram.Marco Polo Didn’t Go There is more than just an entertaining journey into fascinating corners of the world. The book is a unique window into travel writing, with each chapter containing a “commentary track”—endnotes that reveal the ragged edges behind the experience and creation of each tale. Offbeat and insightful, this book is an engrossing read for students of travel writing as well as armchair wanderers.

    This is the fascinating true adventure story of a woman who packed her five children onto a twenty-five-foot boat and explored the coastal waters of British Columbia summer after summer in the 1920's and 1930's.

    suburb. Instead, he humorously falls from one country to the next, striking out repeatedly with the local women, getting robbed, having dreams that became reality, self-diagnosing himself with a host of diseases, and suffering repeated bouts of stomach illness that made marathon bus rides superhuman feats of bodily strength. Along the journey he chronicles the friendships, the women, and the struggles, including one fateful night in Paraguay that he thought would lead to his end.(This book is intended for men, and will be almost universally disliked by women because of its sexist themes and occasional toilet humor.)

    Wurlitzer—novelist, screenwriter, and Buddhist practitioner—travels with his wife, photographer Lynn Davis, on a photo assignment to the sacred sites of Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia. Heavy Westernization, sex clubs, aging hippies and expatriates, and political dissidents provide a vivid contrast to the peace that Wurlitzer and Davis seek, still reeling from the death of their son in a car accident. As Davis with her camera searches for a thread of meaning among the artifacts and relics of a more enlightened age, Wurlitzer grasps at the wisdom of the Buddhist teachings in an effort to assuage his grief. His journal chronicles the survival of age-old truths in a world gone mad.

    Crammed into a dorm room with seven Chinese men, Pomfret contended with all manner of cultural differences, from too-short beds and roommates intent on glimpsing a white man naked, to the need for cloak-and-dagger efforts to conceal his relationships with Chinese women. Amidst all that, he immersed himself in the remarkable lives of his classmates.Beginning with Pomfret's first day in China, Chinese Lessons takes us down the often torturous paths that brought together the Nanjing University History Class of 1982: Old Wu's father was killed during the Cultural Revolution for the crime of being an intellectual; Book Idiot Zhou labored in the fields for years rather than agree to a Party-arranged marriage; and Little Guan was forced to publicly denounce and humiliate her father. As Pomfret follows his classmates from childhood to adulthood, he examines the effect of China's transition from near-feudal communism to first-world capitalism. The result is an illuminating report from present-day China, and a moving portrait of its extraordinary people.

    Despite a successful career as a writer, and an exciting life in New York City, Glynnis was constantly reminded she had neither of the things the world expected of a woman her age: a partner or a baby. She knew she was supposed to feel bad about this. After all, single women and those without children are often seen as objects of pity, relegated to the sidelines, or indulgent spoiled creatures who think only of themselves.Glynnis refused to be cast into either of those roles and yet the question remained: What now? There was no good blueprint for how to be a woman alone in the world. She concluded it was time to create one.Over the course of her fortieth year, which this memoir chronicles, Glynnis embarks on a revealing journey of self-discovery that continually contradicts everything she’d been led to expect. Through the trials of family illness and turmoil, and the thrills of far-flung travel and adventures with men, young and old (and sometimes wearing cowboy hats), she is forced to wrestle with her biggest hopes and fears about love, death, sex, friendship, and loneliness. In doing so, she discovers that holding the power to determine her own fate requires a resilience and courage that no one talks about, and is more rewarding than anyone imagines.Intimate and timely, No One Tells You This is a fearless reckoning with modern womanhood and an exhilarating adventure that will resonate with anyone determined to live by their own rules.