Book picks similar to
Jockomo: The Native Roots of Mardi Gras Indians by Shane Lief
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Fare Thee Well: The Final Chapter of the Grateful Dead's Long, Strange Trip
Joel Selvin - 2018
When Garcia passed away suddenly in August of 1995, the remaining band members experienced full crises of confidence and identity. So long defined by Garcia's vision for the group, the surviving "Core Four," as they came to be called, were reduced to conflicting agendas, strained relationships, and catastrophic business decisions that would leave the iconic band in utter disarray. Wrestling with how best to define their living legacy, the band made many attempts at restructuring, but it would take twenty years before relationships were mended enough for the Grateful Dead as fans remembered them to once again take the stage. Acclaimed music journalist and New York Times bestselling author Joel Selvin was there for much of the turmoil following Garcia's death, and he offers a behind-the-scenes account of the ebbs and flows that occurred during the ensuing two decades. Plenty of books have been written about the rise of the Grateful Dead, but this final chapter of the band's history has never before been explored in detail. Culminating in the landmark tour bearing the same name, Fare Thee Well charts the arduous journey from Garcia's passing all the way up to the uneasy agreement between the Core Four that led to the series of shows celebrating the band's fiftieth anniversary and finally allowing for a proper, and joyous, sendoff of the group revered by so many.
John Henry Days
Colson Whitehead - 2001
On another level it’s the story of a disaffected, middle-aged black journalist on a mission to set a record for junketeering who attends the annual John Henry Days festival. It is also a high-velocity thrill ride through the tunnel where American legend gives way to American pop culture, replete with p. r. flacks, stamp collectors, blues men , and turn-of-the-century song pluggers. John Henry Days is an acrobatic, intellectually dazzling, and laugh-out-loud funny book that will be read and talked about for years to come.
Christmas Playlist: Four Songs That Bring You to the Heart of Christmas
Alistair Begg - 2016
This is perfect for giving out at church events, or with a present. Music is everywhere at Christmaschart-toppers, carols, children's tunes]] Alistair Begg takes us to four songs that were sung by people at the very first Christmas (and his favorite carol). In this short, winsome book a teenage girl, a respected priest, a group of angels and an old man bring readers to the heart of Christmas, showing them the joy and peace that comes from meeting a baby who lay in the food trough and changed eternity.
A Date for Midnight
Heidi McLaughlin - 2020
Dover come together for a sexy new series that delivers romance for every season! It’s New Year’s Eve and Natalie has a rare night off from her shifts at the hospital. Determined to have fun with friends, she stops at a local store for provisions. There, amongst the craft beer and pork rinds, she comes face to face with her high school boyfriend, Brennan McLean. He’s a rockstar. She’s a nurse. To say life led them in different directions would be putting it mildly. Still, time hasn’t lessened the electric chemistry between them. By the end of the night more was dropping than just the ball. Convincing herself she could have fun without getting attached, Natalie treats herself to a weekend tangled in the sheets with him. But that lie she told herself pops faster than champagne bubbles. With media rumors swirling around Brennan, can the pair find a way to make their unlikely relationship work? Or will Natalie’s resolution not to get her heart broken meet a painful end?
Freedom from Speech
Greg Lukianoff - 2014
While the legal protections of the First Amendment remain strong, the culture is obsessed with punishing individuals for allegedly offensive utterances. And academia – already an institution in which free speech is in decline – has grown still more intolerant, with high-profile “disinvitation” efforts against well-known speakers and demands for professors to provide “trigger warnings” in class.In this Broadside, Greg Lukianoff argues that the threats to free speech go well beyond political correctness or liberal groupthink. As global populations increasingly expect not just physical comfort but also intellectual comfort, threats to freedom of speech are only going to become more intense. To fight back, we must understand this trend and see how students and average citizens alike are increasingly demanding freedom from speech.
Goodbye Without Leaving
Laurie Colwin - 1990
The exciting years she spends as a Shakette are a mixed blessing, however, because when she ultimately submits to a conventional life of marriage and children, she finds herself stuck in bittersweet recollections of life on the road. As she grudgingly searches for a path toward happiness that doesn't involve a Day-Glo neon minidress, readers will be enchanted by Geraldine’s attempts to grow up, even though she’s already an adult.Employing her usual dry wit and candor, Goodbye Without Leaving is a classic novel from Laurie Colwin.This edition features cover art by Olivia McGiff.
Haunted Falls
Ken Farmer - 2013
Marshal Bass Reeves in their first book, entitled "The Nations". The story continues in "Haunted Falls", the story of Bass Reeves as he joins other U.S. Marshals in pursuit of the infamous Dalton gang. It is full of adventure, romance, some history, excitement and a unique paranormal twist. You will not want to miss this sequel.
The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast
Douglas Brinkley - 2006
Yet those wind-torn hours represented only the first stage of the relentless triple tragedy that Katrina brought to the entire Gulf Coast, from Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama.First came the hurricane, one of the three strongest ever to make landfall in the United States -- 150-mile-per-hour winds, with gusts measuring more than 180 miles per hour ripping buildings to pieces.Second, the storm-surge flooding, which submerged a half million homes, creating the largest domestic refugee crisis since the Civil War. Eighty percent of New Orleans was under water, as debris and sewage coursed through the streets, and whole towns in south-eastern Louisiana ceased to exist.And third, the human tragedy of government mis-management, which proved as cruel as the natural disaster itself. Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, implemented an evacuation plan that favored the rich and healthy. Kathleen Blanco, governor of Louisiana, dithered in the most important aspect of her job: providing leadership in a time of fear and confusion. Michael C. Brown, the FEMA director, seemed more concerned with his sartorial splendor than the specter of death and horror that was taking New Orleans into its grip.In The Great Deluge, bestselling author Douglas Brinkley, a New Orleans resident and professor of history at Tulane University, rips the story of Katrina apart and relates what the Category 3 hurricane was like from every point of view. The book finds the true heroes -- such as Coast Guard officer Jimmy Duckworth and hurricane jock Tony Zumbado.Throughout the book, Brinkley lets the Katrina survivors tell their own stories, masterly allowing them to record the nightmare that was Katrina. The Great Deluge investigates the failure of government at every level and breaks important new stories. Packed with interviews and original research, it traces the character flaws, inexperience, and ulterior motives that allowed the Katrina disaster to devastate the Gulf Coast.
Unreal City: Las Vegas, Black Mesa, and the Fate of the West
Judith Nies - 2014
It began when a 4,000-square-mile area of Arizona desert called Black Mesa was divided between the Hopi and Navajo tribes. To the outside world, it was a land struggle between two fractious Indian tribes; to political insiders and energy corporations, it was a divide-and-conquer play for the 21 billion tons of coal beneath Black Mesa. Today, that coal powers cheap electricity for Los Angeles, a new water aqueduct into Phoenix, and the neon dazzle of Las Vegas.Journalist and historian Judith Nies has been tracking this story for nearly four decades. She follows the money and tells us the true story of wealth and water, mendacity, and corruption at the highest levels of business and government. Amid the backdrop of the breathtaking desert landscape, Unreal City shows five cultures colliding—Hopi, Navajo, global energy corporations, Mormons, and US government agencies—resulting in a battle over resources and the future of the West.Las Vegas may attract 39 million visitors a year, but the tourists mesmerized by the dancing water fountains at the Bellagio don’t ask where the water comes from. They don’t see a city with the nation’s highest rates of foreclosure, unemployment, and suicide. They don’t see the astonishing drop in the water level of Lake Mead—where Sin City gets 90 percent of its water supply.Nies shows how the struggle over Black Mesa lands is an example of a global phenomenon in which giant transnational corporations have the power to separate indigenous people from their energy-rich lands with the help of host governments. Unreal City explores how and why resources have been taken from native lands, what it means in an era of climate change, and why, in this city divorced from nature, the only thing more powerful than money is water.
Rose Galbraith
Grace Livingston Hill - 1940
Then, suddenly, Rose's mother had died. To honor her memory, Rose went through with the trip, though doing so meant going to live with the wealthy relatives who had shunned her mother for marrying outside of Scotland's elite.But the glamour of her relative's castle and its priceless possessions can not hide the heartlessness of the inhabitants . . . or calm Rose's fear of the unscrupulous aristocrat who is scheming to marry her. Rose's only hope and comfort come from the letters she receives from handsome Gordon McCarroll, a friend she became reacquainted with as she began her journey. But can even Gordon save her from the people who seem determined to take control of her life. . . ?
Petty: The Biography
Warren Zanes - 2015
Rock and roll made it otherwise. From meeting Elvis, to seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, to producing Del Shannon, backing Bob Dylan, putting together a band with George Harrison, Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne, making records with Johnny Cash, and sending well more than a dozen of his own celebrated recordings high onto the charts, Tom Petty's story has all the drama of a rock and roll epic. Now in his mid-sixties, still making records and still touring, Petty, known for his reclusive style, has shared with Warren Zanes his insights and arguments, his regrets and lasting ambitions, and the details of his life on and off the stage.This is a book for those who know and love the songs, from "American Girl" and "Refugee" to "Free Fallin'" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance," and for those who want to see the classic rock and roll era embodied in one man's remarkable story. Dark and mysterious, Petty manages to come back, again and again, showing us what the music can do and where it can take us.
Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World
Jack Weatherford - 1988
He traces the crucial contributions made by the Indians to our federal system of government, our democratic institutions, modern medicine, agriculture, architecture, and ecology, and in this astonishing, ground-breaking book takes a giant step toward recovering a true American history.
Cry Dance
Kirk Mitchell - 1999
With him he carries the ghosts of a partner killed in action, three failed marriages, and a long affair with the bottle. And now he's about to face the most dangerous case of his career--one that begins with a body that doesn't stay buried. Brutally murdered and bizarrely mutilated, a woman's corpse is discovered on Havasupai Nation land. Parker is paired with FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed in a hastily assembled task force of two. The two share a mixed Native American ancestry...and little else. As they are pulled deeper into a complex case, Parker suspects they are being led--like Custer into Little Bighorn--into a killer's trap, with Anna the bait and Parker himself the quarry. At the heart of it are the dead, with history the most lethal weapon of all....
Ride the Wind
Lucia St. Clair Robson - 1982
This is the story of how she grew up with them, mastered their ways, married one of their leaders, and became, in every way, a Comanche woman. It is also the story of a proud and innocent people whose lives pulsed with the very heartbeat of the land. It is the story of a way of life that is gone forever....
Elvis
Albert Goldman - 1981
In this book, Goldman drew on more than four years' research into Elvis Presley's life. But for many fans and some critics, his research was undermined by his intense personal dislike of Presley. For instance, Goldman dismissed Presley as a plagiarist who never did anything of note after his first records at Sun Records, insisting that he was inferior as an artist to Little Richard and other early rock'n'roll singers. He also portrayed Presley as nearly insane, using stories that some might see as innocuous (such as Presley taking his friends halfway across the country to buy them peanut-butter sandwiches) to "prove" that the singer had lost his grip on reality. On the other hand, the book includes several newly discovered facts. For instance, in the course of his research, Goldman discovered that Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was not a Southerner but a native of Holland. Parker had successfully covered this up to the degree that Presley himself allegedly never learned of it. (The book is harshest on Parker out of all the figures in Presley's life with whom it deals.) Furthermore, the book critically deals with the singer's weight problems, his diet, his choice of performing costumes, and his sexual appetites and peculiarities. The author even suggests that Presley's promiscuity masked latent homosexuality. Discussing Presley's personal life, Goldman concludes: "Elvis was a pervert, a voyeur." Some critics found comments like these overly biased and judgmental.