Book picks similar to
12 Rounds in Lo's Gym: Boxing and Manhood in Appalachia by Todd D. Snyder


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masculinity-men-misogyny
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Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)


Lauren Graham - 2016
    In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, “Did you, um, make it?” She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (“Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!”), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (“It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout”). In “What It Was Like, Part One,” Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay “What It Was Like, Part Two” reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her. Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (“If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high”), and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (“My bungee cords now earn points!”). Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and—of course—talking as fast as you can.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing


Marie Kondō - 2011
    Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo's clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house "spark joy" (and which don't), this international best seller featuring Tokyo's newest lifestyle phenomenon will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home - and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

New Girls at Malory Towers


Pamela Cox - 2014
    Felicity is the new head of the third form at Malory Towers, and what a lot she has to deal with! There are new girls to get to know, mysteries to uncover, and even a concert to put on – not to mention plenty of midnight feasts. Whatever each new term brings, Felicity and her friends know one thing is for sure. There will always be mischief and adventure! This bumper volume includes the next three Malory Towers stories: New Term at Malory Towers Summer Term at Malory Towers Winter Term at Malory Towers

Love and Money


Dennis Kelly - 2007
    A series of scenes that gradually tell the story of how the financial collapse affects a British couple and how fiscal worry, stress, and fear can strain mankind's greatest emotion.

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music


Dave Grohl - 2021
    The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I've recorded and can't wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child. This certainly doesn't mean that I'm quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it's like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.

Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good: Larry David and the Making of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm


Josh Levine - 2010
    In his early stand-up days, if he walked on stage and didn’t like the crowd, he would walk off. Together with Jerry Seinfeld, he pitched NBC on a sitcom where nothing happens. A whole show could be about waiting in line at a Chinese restaurant. And somehow Seinfeld became the most successful comedy show of all time. After nine years of writing and producing Seinfeld, and after making a huge amount of money, Larry David began to create a new show for HBO. Without much separation between himself and the character he plays, Curb follows the daily routines of Larry David. Being politically correct is far from Larry’s mind, and the audience cringes as he berates, torments, and blusters his way into the hearts of TV watchers. Follow the early exploits of Larry’s stand-up career, his days writing for Seinfeld, and learn how Curb was conceived and developed. Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good – titled after Larry’s key catchphrase – also explores Larry’s on- and off-screen relationships with famous pals like Richard Lewis, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, and the cast of Seinfeld, and contains an in-depth episode guide to Curb Your Enthusiasm.

A Summer Homecoming


Leah Atwood - 2017
    With no explanation to comfort her, she lost her best friend and fiancé. She’d moved on with life, or so she’d thought until Zach came home. Zach returned to Hope Springs after a long absence, determined to make it his home again. He’s not the same man that left—the demons of his past are settled. He came back wiser and full of faith, but would that make a difference to Melanie? A Summer Homecoming is a standalone, inspirational romance novella from USA Today Bestselling Author Leah Atwood.

Delta's Baby Surprise


Violet Paige - 2018
    Just enough time for this soldier to take a break. I arrive when my family is in a land war. The only way to end it, is get married with an heir on the way. This homecoming sucks. The last thing I expect is for a gorgeous curvy doc to show up at my door. She says she wants to help veterans any way she can. I have an idea, one that will solve all our problems. She can have my baby. Gretchen says she can’t get pregnant—it would take a miracle. Well, I have a miracle c*ck that will do the trick. Time is running out for us both. She’s ready to give me everything I want and more. But I’ve always been a loner and giving Gretchen my heart, might be the hardest battle I’ve ever fought. **Delta's Baby Surprise guarantees a HEA, a protective alpha Delta Force soldier and no cheating. There is an EXCLUSIVE book included, not available anywhere else.**

LA Superhero: A Superhero Harem Adventure


Noah Layton - 2018
    Get a harem. Make money. Save the world. In this world, everybody has an ability; elementals, agility, super strength, telekinesis. Everybody except for Archie Jones – until he finds out that he’s the Reveneer, a fated superhero and the only person on Earth destined to possess abilities from all five power sets. Following in the footsteps of Reveneers that have come before him, Archie has a few things on his mind; getting rich, building a harem and eventually saving the world. Right after he makes sure that he doesn’t get killed by the murderous cult that will stop at nothing in hunting him down. Warning: This book contains superpowers, violence, swearing and sexual scenes with a harem of beautiful women. If that doesn’t sound like your type of thing, steer clear.

Free Sampler of The Sea Sisters (Chapters 1-6)


Lucy Clarke - 2013
    . .Katie’s carefully structured world is shattered by the news that her headstrong younger sister, Mia, has been found dead in Bali – and the police claim it was suicide.With only the entries of Mia’s travel journal as her guide, Katie retraces the last few months of her sister’s life, and – page by page, country by country – begins to uncover the mystery surrounding her death.What she discovers changes everything. But will her search for the truth push their sisterly bond – and Katie – to breaking point?The Sea Sisters is a compelling story of the enduring connection between sisters.

Sleepyhead / Scaredy Cat (Tom Thorne, #1, #2)


Mark Billingham - 2001
    The first two brilliant Tom Thorne novels

Acts of Union and Disunion


Linda Colley - 2014
    In a year that sees a Scottish referendum on independence, Linda Colley analyses some of the forces that have unified Britain in the past.She examines the mythology of Britishness, and how far - and why - it has faded. She discusses the Acts of Union with Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and their limitations, while scrutinizing England's own fractures. And she demonstrates how the UK has been shaped by movement: of British people to other countries and continents, and of people, ideas and influences arriving from elsewhere.As acts of union and disunion again become increasingly relevant to our daily lives and politics, Colley considers how - if at all - the pieces might be put together anew, and what this might mean.Based on a 15-part BBC Radio 4 series.

On Highway 61: Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom


Dennis McNally - 2014
    The book is going to search for the deeper roots of American cultural and musical evolution for the past 150 years by studying what the Western European culture learned from African American culture in a historical progression that reaches from the minstrel era to Bob Dylan. The book begins with America’s first great social critic, Henry David Thoreau, and his fundamental source of social philosophy:---his profound commitment to freedom, to abolitionism and to African-American culture. Continuing with Mark Twain, through whom we can observe the rise of minstrelsy, which he embraced, and his subversive satirical masterpiece Huckleberry Finn. While familiar, the book places them into a newly articulated historical reference that shines new light and reveals a progression that is much greater than the sum of its individual parts. As the first post-Civil War generation of black Americans came of age, they introduced into the national culture a trio of musical forms—ragtime, blues, and jazz— that would, with their derivations, dominate popular music to this day. Ragtime introduced syncopation and become the cutting edge of the modern 20th century with popular dances. The blues would combine with syncopation and improvisation and create jazz. Maturing at the hands of Louis Armstrong, it would soon attract a cluster of young white musicians who came to be known as the Austin High Gang, who fell in love with black music and were inspired to play it themselves. In the process, they developed a liberating respect for the diversity of their city and country, which they did not see as exotic, but rather as art. It was not long before these young white rebels were the masters of American pop music – big band Swing.As Bop succeeded Swing, and Rhythm and Blues followed, each had white followers like the Beat writers and the first young rock and rollers. Even popular white genres like the country music of Jimmy Rodgers and the Carter Family reflected significant black influence. In fact, the theoretical separation of American music by race is not accurate. This biracial fusion achieved an apotheosis in the early work of Bob Dylan, born and raised at the northern end of the same Mississippi River and Highway 61 that had been the birthplace of much of the black music he would study. As the book reveals, the connection that began with Thoreau and continued for over 100 years was a cultural evolution where, at first individuals, and then larger portions of society, absorbed the culture of those at the absolute bottom of the power structure, the slaves and their descendants, and realized that they themselves were not free.

Rings of Fire: Book IV of The Dressage Chronicles


Karen McGoldrick - 2017
    The rubber snake might as well be a real snake—the nightmare reality—when they elicit the same response. Blind fear will make both horse and rider try to outrun lions, even when those lions are made of paper. Blind fear can send you straight over a cliff, and even if you manage to pull up before the edge, that is no way to live life. It is only through training, training, and more training, and then testing that training, that you learn to turn and face fear, find courage, and welcome the ride, wild though it promises to be. These are the rings of fire, the trials that lie ahead for all of us, whether they be taking command of a spooky horse or navigating more human problems. Once trained, with worthy companions marching with you, shoulder-to-shoulder, you are ready for the ride. Welcome to The Dressage Chronicles IV: Rings of Fire.

Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction


Gabrielle Moss - 2018
    The pink covers, the flimsy paper, the zillion volumes in the series that kept you reading for your entire adolescence. Spurred by the commercial success of Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters Club, these were not the serious-issue YA novels of the 1970s, nor were they the blockbuster books of the Harry Potter and Twilight ilk. They were cheap, short, and utterly beloved.PAPERBACK CRUSH dives in deep to this golden age with affection, history, and a little bit of snark. Readers will discover (and fondly remember) girl-centric series on everything from correspondence (Pen Pals and Dear Diary) to sports (The Pink Parrots, Cheerleaders, and The Gymnasts) to a newspaper at an all-girls Orthodox Jewish middle school (The B.Y. Times) to a literal teen angel (Teen Angels: Heaven Can Wait, where an enterprising guardian angel named Cisco has to earn her wings “by helping the world’s sexist rock star.”) Some were blatant ripoffs of the successful series (looking at you, Sleepover Friends and The Girls of Canby Hall), some were sick-lit tearjerkers à la Love Story (Abby, My Love) and some were just plain perplexing (Uncle Vampire??) But all of them represent that time gone by of girl-power and endless sessions of sustained silent reading.In six hilarious chapters (Friendship, Love, School, Family, Jobs, Terror, and Tragedy), Bustle Features Editor Gabrielle Moss takes the reader on a nostalgic tour of teen book covers of yore, digging deep into the history of the genre as well as the stories behind the best-known series.