evil. Heavy Metal guitarist, Dimebag Darrell Abbott, was attacked and murdered on stage, December 8th, 2004 at the Alrosa Villa Nightclub. Erin Halk, Jeff Thompson and Nathan Bray each lost their lives trying to help Dimebag and others from the attack of an armed madman. While Dimebag is certainly a part of the story contained within the book, the focus is squarely on the background of Halk, Bray & Thompson, in addition to the killer, his motives and the actual incident at the venue. "A Vulgar Display Of Power: Courage And Carnage At The Alrosa Villa" is a deep, moving story which does an amazing job of honoring the memories Jeff, Nate, Erin, and Darrell. Of the victims who lost their lives, Nathan Bray is the only person who is survived by a wife and child. MJS Music Publications is contributing proceeds from every copy sold to a college fund set up for his son, Anthony. Music History/True Crime/Biography 352 pages, 240+ pictures.

    . . enlightening . . . A disturbing and illuminating tale.”—KIRKUS REVIEWSThe 1960s have come to a close—it’s 1972, and America is changing. So is Deidi’s world; she’s seven, and her family is moving. As she packs her room and unearths precious objects from her past, her thoughts begin to stray to the years before—to her first memories in 1968, and all that followed.From these reveries unfolds a story of terrible abuse and incredible survival. We see Deidi grow from a three-year-old whose understanding of the world is just beginning to form to a child whose courage, compassion, and sense of wonder persist despite every obstacle. Through her vivid recollections, the stark landscape of rural America, the political and social turmoil of the era, and the brutal power dynamics of adults come into sharp focus. Deidi’s story reveals the darkness roiling beneath the surface of American life and the way children are forced to confront it themselves, weaponless and alone. For Deidi, whose family continues to fall into deeper and darker cycles of sexual abuse and violence, survival is a matter of clinging desperately to the light in the world around her—no matter how dim it grows.By turns heartbreaking and stunningly beautiful, Little Girl Leaving is a reminder of the incredible power and fragility of a child’s spirit, and a call to action to protect it at all costs.  “Insightful, poignant, and riveting. I believe that everyone living with or around children should read this book.”—Judith Landau, MD, former president, International Family Therapy Association; senior Fulbright scholar; consultant to the UN and World Health Organization"Little Girl Leaving, Lisa Blume's debut novel, is sadly tragic but deeply moving and evocative."—Gabrielle Glaser, New York Times bestselling author, Her Best-Kept Secret; winner of the Award for Excellence in Journalism, American Psychoanalytic Association“An enthralling read, a brilliant read. You will never forget it.”—Mary Dispenza, educator, activist, and national distinguished principal; author, Split: A Child, a Priest, and the Catholic Church“A sensory barrage. A convincing and disturbing narrative. Most wonderful is how variously the child’s goodness of spirit tries to maintain itself. This is a page-turner.”—Sharon Solwitz, author, creative writing professor, Purdue University; winner, Carl Sandburg Prize, Doheny Award, The Center for Fiction“A must-read. A compelling story of a wise girl who tries to do good, no matter how painful and frightening life becomes, with the beauty of her essence always somehow enduring.”—Rocío Chang-Angulo, PsyD, co-director, Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice; steering committee, National Child Traumatic Stress Network"Awake and alive to the unending beauty of the world juxtaposed with its secret horrors—an extraordinarily powerful punch to the heart.”—Katherine Ketcham, author, The Only Life I Could Save, A Memoir and Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption, with William Cope Moyers“As innovative as it is disturbing. The narrative captures elements of child abuse which, all too often, are lost or not understood by justice systems. A skillful portrayal.”—Raymond McMenamin, Shrieval Convener, Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland; former spokesperson, Law Society of Scotland’s vulnerable witness legislation“How does one turn the unfathomable into the believable without sounding vengefulor outrageous—in a voice, even, of great tenderness? This novel has done just that.”—Sally Anderson, editor-in-chief, Strategic News Service, FiReBooks, and FiReFilms

    As cities begin thinking of themselves as engaged in a relationship with their citizens, and citizens begin to consider their emotional connections with their places, we open up new possibilities in community, social and economic development by including the most powerful of motivators-the human heart-in our toolkit of city-making. The book explores what makes cities lovable, what motivates ordinary citizens to do extraordinary things for their places and how some cities, such as New Orleans, Detroit, and Cleveland are using that energy to fill in the gaps that "official" city makers have left as resources have disappeared. Meet those amazing people who are truly "in love" with their cities and learn how they are key to the future development of our communities. Praise for the book: What Kageyama has done is to introduce the vital piece into the urban discussion-- the matter of love; the piece without which all city building must fail, for "love" the corner stone of civic citizenship. It takes some bravura and acumen to champion the subject of love in the urban forum that wants to quantify, when only love qualifies and justifies the discussion of cities. Mr. Kageyama goes one step further. He provides precious indicators. Many city thinkers will follow suit, but for the time being, this is the essential book.Pier Giorgio Di Cicco Poet Laureate Emeritus, Toronto, Ontario Author of Municipal Mind: Manifestos for The Creative CityFor the Love of Cities succeeds in putting an exclamation point on the exceptional value of deepening the relationship that city dwellers feel for their neighborhoods by adding amenities such as parks, outdoor cafes, art galleries, trees, flowers and even sidewalks to create a meaningful sense of place. It also explores the often hidden added value of creative entrepreneurs in creating a sense of place that attracts, nurtures and retains citizens.The book is a love note from Author Peter Kageyama to cities everywhere that will prompt you to more closely examine your own relationship with where you live, work and play.Diane Egner Publisher and Managing Editor, 83 Degrees Media Former Book Editor, The Tampa TribuneFor the Love of Cities is a must read for city changemakers. Jeff Slobotski Silicon Prairie News & Founder, Big OmahaPeter has captured something very important... love. When we love a city, we are committed to it, we engage with it, we care for it, we give our best to it. A city that is loved also gives back. It makes those who live there feel enriched. And so you have a virtuous cycle.Charles Landry Author of The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators and The Art of City Making

    Integrating social history with economic and architectural analysis, and taking into account such factors as the availability of cheap land, inexpensive building methods, and rapid transportation, Kenneth Jackson chronicles the phenomenal growth of the American suburb from the middle of the 19th century to the present day. He treats communities in every section of the U.S. and compares American residential patterns with those of Japan and Europe. In conclusion, Jackson offers a controversial prediction: that the future of residential deconcentration will be very different from its past in both the U.S. and Europe.

    They are the heart of a community's social vitality and the grassroots of a democracy. Author Ray Oldenburg portrays, probes, and promotes th4ese great good places--coffee houses, cafes, bookstores, hair salons, bars, bistros, and many others both past and present--and offers a vision for their revitalization.Eloquent and visionary, this is a compelling argument for these settings of informal public life as essential for the health both of our communities and ourselves. And its message is being heard: Today, entrepreneurs from Seattle to Florida are heeding the call of The Great Good Place--opening coffee houses, bookstores, community centers, bars, and other establishments and proudly acknowledging their indebtedness to this book.

    But the city's worst crisis yet (and that's saying something) has managed to do the unthinkable: turn the end of days into a laboratory for the future. Urban planners, land speculators, neo-pastoral agriculturalists, and utopian environmentalists—all have been drawn to Detroit's baroquely decaying, nothing-left-to-lose frontier. With an eye for both the darkly absurd and the radically new, Detroit-area native and Rolling Stone writer Mark Binelli has chronicled this convergence. Throughout the city's "museum of neglect"—its swaths of abandoned buildings, its miles of urban prairie—he tracks the signs of blight repurposed, from the school for pregnant teenagers to the killer ex-con turned street patroller, from the organic farming on empty lots to GM's wager on the Volt electric car and the mayor's realignment plan (the most ambitious on record) to move residents of half-empty neighborhoods into a viable, new urban center.Sharp and impassioned, Detroit City Is the Place to Be is alive with the sense of possibility that comes when a city hits rock bottom. Beyond the usual portrait of crime, poverty, and ruin, we glimpse a future Detroit that is smaller, less segregated, greener, economically diverse, and better functioning—what might just be the first post-industrial city of our new century.

    Pouring into developing-world “instant cities” like Dubai and Shenzhen, these urban newcomers confront a modern world cobbled together from fragments of a West they have never seen. Do these fantastical boomtowns, where blueprints spring to life overnight on virgin land, represent the dawning of a brave new world? Or is their vaunted newness a mirage?In a captivating blend of history and reportage, Daniel Brook travels to a series of major metropolitan hubs that were once themselves instant cities— St. Petersburg, Shanghai, and Mumbai—to watch their “dress rehearsals for the twenty-first century.” Understanding today’s emerging global order, he argues, requires comprehending the West’s profound and conflicted influence on developing-world cities over the centuries.In 1703, Tsar Peter the Great personally oversaw the construction of a new Russian capital, a “window on the West” carefully modeled on Amsterdam, that he believed would wrench Russia into the modern world. In the nineteenth century, Shanghai became the fastest-growing city on earth as it mushroomed into an English-speaking, Western-looking metropolis that just happened to be in the Far East. Meanwhile, Bombay, the cosmopolitan hub of the British Raj, morphed into a tropical London at the hands of its pith-helmeted imperialists.Juxtaposing the stories of the architects and authoritarians, the artists and revolutionaries who seized the reins to transform each of these precociously modern places into avatars of the global future, Brook demonstrates that the drive for modernization was initially conflated with wholesale Westernization. He shows, too, the ambiguous legacy of that emulation—the birth (and rebirth) of Chinese capitalism in Shanghai, the origins of Bollywood in Bombay’s American-style movie palaces, the combustible mix of revolutionary culture and politics that rocked the Russian capital—and how it may be transcended today.A fascinating, vivid look from the past out toward the horizon, A History of Future Cities is both a crucial reminder of globalization’s long march and an inspiring look into the possibilities of our Asian Century.

    As Lisa explored the streets of Florence, she felt invigorated and fulfillled wandering through the famed architecture and spectacular galleries; a deep sense of peace enveloped her as she discovered the rolling hills of the Tuscan countryside, where Condie sought out wineries and olive groves, and monasteries and churches for answers and inspiration. The imposing Duomo that dominated the Florence skyline and the city’s awe-inspiring bridges and meandering rivers beckoned her to leave her Utah home. The sights of Florence not only healed her, they became her muse.

    The story of how it came to be is a remarkable one: two young citizens with no prior experience in planning and development collaborated with their neighbors, elected officials, artists, local business owners, and leaders of burgeoning movements in horticulture and landscape architecture to create a park celebrated worldwide as a model for creatively designed, socially vibrant, ecologically sound public space.Joshua David and Robert Hammond met in 1999 at a community board meeting to consider the fate of the High Line. Built in the 1930s, it carried freight trains to the West Side when the area was defined by factories and warehouses. But when trains were replaced by truck transport, the High Line became obsolete. By century's end it was a rusty, forbidding ruin. Plants grew between the tracks, giving it a wild and striking beauty.David and Hammond loved the ruin and saw in it an opportunity to create a new way to experience their city. Over ten years, they did so. In this candid and inspiring book— lavishly illustrated—they tell how they relied on skill, luck, and good timing: a crucial court ruling, an inspiring design contest, the enthusiasm of Mayor Bloomberg, the concern for urban planning issues following 9/11. Now the High Line—a half-mile expanse of plants, paths, staircases, and framed vistas—runs through a transformed West Side and reminds us that extraordinary things are possible when creative people work together for the common good.

    In this deft and revealing book, Stacy Mitchell illustrates how mega-retailers are fueling many of our most pressing problems, from the shrinking middle class to rising pollution and diminished civic engagement—and she shows how a growing number of communities and independent businesses are effectively fighting back. Mitchell traces the dramatic growth of mega-retailers—from big boxes like Wal-Mart, The Home Depot, Costco, and Staples to chains like Starbucks, Olive Garden, and Old Navy—and the precipitous decline of independent businesses. Drawing on examples from virtually every state in the country, she unearths the extraordinary impact of these companies and the big-box mentality on everything from soaring gasoline consumption to rising poverty rates, failing family farms, and declining voting levels. Along the way, Mitchell exposes the shocking role government policy has played in the expansion of mega-retailers and builds a compelling case that communities composed of many small, locally owned businesses are healthier and more prosperous than those dominated by a few large chains.More than a critique, Big-Box Swindle provides an invigorating account of how some communities have successfully countered the spread of big boxes and rebuilt their local economies. Since 2000, groups of ordinary citizens have halted more than two hundred big-box development projects, and scores of towns and cities have adopted laws that favor small-scale, local business development and limit the proliferation of chains. From cutting-edge land-use policies to innovative cooperative small-business initiatives, Mitchell offers communities concrete strategies that can stave off mega-retailers and create a more prosperous and sustainable future.

    Richard Sennett shows how Paris, Barcelona and New York City assumed their modern forms; rethinks the reputations of Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford and others; and takes us on a tour of emblematic contemporary locations, from the backstreets of Medellín, Colombia, to the Google headquarters in Manhattan. Through it all, he shows how the 'closed city' - segregated, regimented, and controlled - has spread from the global North to the exploding urban agglomerations of the global South. As an alternative, he argues for the 'open city,' where citizens actively hash out their differences and planners experiment with urban forms that make it easier for residents to cope. Rich with arguments that speak directly to our moment - a time when more humans live in urban spaces than ever before - Building and Dwelling draws on Sennett's deep learning and intimate engagement with city life to form a bold and original vision for the future of cities.

    So if we are to address the problems of environmental deterioration and peak oil adequately, the city has to be a major focus of attention.Ecocities is about re-building cities and towns based on ecological principles for the long term sustainability, cultural vitality and health of the Earth’s biosphere. Unique in the literature is the book’s insight that the form of the city really matters – and that it is within our ability to change it, and crucial that we do. Further, that the ecocity within its bioregion is comprehensible and do-able, and can produce a healthy and potentially happy future.Ecocities describes the place of the city in evolution, nature and history. It pays special attention to the key question of accessibility and transportation, and outlines design principles for the ecocity. The reader is encouraged to plunge in to its economics and politics: the kinds of businesses, planning and leadership required. The book then outlines the tools by which a gradual transition to the ecocity could be accomplished. Throughout, this new edition is generously illustrated with the author’s own inspired visions of what such rebuilt cities might actually look like.Richard Register is one of the world's great theorists and authors in ecological city design and planning. The founder of Urban Ecology and Ecocity Builders, he convened the first International Ecocity Conference in 1990, lectures around the world, and has authored two previous books, as well as an earlier edition of Ecocities.

    According to Leigh Gallagher, this phenomenon isn’t merely about the housing bust; it reflects fundamental changes in our society. For example:The nuclear family is declining: Since the Baby Boom, birthrates and marriage rates have shrunk, reducing the demand for big homes in suburbia.The era of “bigger is better” is over: As we become more concerned about the environment we opt for smaller homes and avoid the gas-guzzling nature of suburban sprawl.Our cities are having a renaissance: New research shows that urbanized living actually makes for happier, healthier lifestyles. Blending economic data, analysis, and on-the-ground reporting, Gallagher paints a surprising and fascinating portrait of how the American Dream isn’t over; it’s simply changing.

    By moving our jobs out to the suburbs where we live and shop, we have created Edge Cities. Garreau has spent three years visiting Edge Cities and presents a groundbreaking book about who we are, how we got that way, where we are headed and what we value.

    It means more than the arrival of trendy shops, much-maligned hipsters, and expensive lattes. The very future of American cities as vibrant, equitable spaces hangs in the balance.Peter Moskowitz's How to Kill a City takes readers from the kitchen tables of hurting families who can no longer afford their homes to the corporate boardrooms and political backrooms where destructive housing policies are devised. Along the way, Moskowitz uncovers the massive, systemic forces behind gentrification in New Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco, and New York. The deceptively simple question of who can and cannot afford to pay the rent goes to the heart of America's crises of race and inequality. In the fight for economic opportunity and racial justice, nothing could be more important than housing.A vigorous, hard-hitting expose, How to Kill a City reveals who holds power in our cities-and how we can get it back