THE LUNCHEONETTE


Steven Sorrentino - 2007
    Venturing out of the closet and feeling free (at last!) from small-town America, Steven found his niche among the quirky and kindred spirits of the city's musical theater hopefuls." "But on Christmas Eve of 1980, just after Steven arrived in New Jersey to celebrate the holidays, his father contracted a sudden and rare neurological disorder that left him paralyzed. Stepping up to the plate and back into the closet, Steven returned to West Long Branch to help the family out and to take over Clint's Corner, his father's luncheonette. He soon found himself at the grill flipping porkroll (the unofficial state meat) and serving a counter full of eccentrics including Googie the Gizmo, Half Cup Harold, and Steven's old high-school jock crush, Brent Jamison. And always at his side was the most colorful of them all, Dolores, the crusty head waitress with coke-bottle glasses, a wayward wig, and a particular flair for butchering the English language. From this unusual post, Steven watched as his ailing father refused to accept defeat. Confined to a wheelchair, yet determined and optimistic, Clint Sorrentino ignored all the medical setbacks and even managed to further his own career in local politics. Yet for Steven, the more his father triumphed over the obstacles, the more his own life seemed to stall." Guilty, confused, and stuck behind the counter, Steven made a shocking and desperate decision - not knowing that he was about to stumble upon the secret of his father's resilience. Steven had returned home to save his father, but in the end, his father saved him.

Hollywood: A Photographic Journey Through Foreverland


Keegan Allen - 2018
    Keegan Allen is a Hollywood native, growing up in a world that millions visit and many more imagine. With an avid fan base that follows him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and a busy career that includes seven years on the hit series Pretty Little Liars as well as films directed by James Franco and Gia Coppola, Allen also is a lifelong photographer whose first book, life.love.beauty, was a national bestseller. Now Keegan turns his eye and camera to the place he knows best. Hollywood captures the beauty and glamour of the place itself--with unusual angles of the famous sign, the glint of sidewalk stars stamped into the entrance of the Grauman's TCL Chinese Theater in the rain, the Chateau Marmont at twilight, secret local hideaways, red carpets and more--but also the darker side of dreams unrealized in the faces, hands, eyes, and footsteps of those who live on the fringe of celebrity. His photos are enhanced by revealing, intimate captions, lyrics, and other writing, as well as hand-drawn illustrations, exciting parodies, and iconic emulations. A book that will engage and surprise Keegan's legions of fans and followers, Hollywood is an essential gift for anyone who has visited or imagined this storied place.

Acknowledgments: Stories of Friends, Enemies and Figuring Things Out


Becky Lucas - 2022
    The best stories are often about the lowest points in our lives - the soul-crushing jobs, the bad boyfriends, the terrible holidays, the betrayals and heartbreaks. These are the stories I tell people to make them like me, but, more importantly, they've helped me learn how to like myself.So this book is a collection of thankyous and acknowledgments:∗ Thank you to an ex-lover who marvelled at the fact he could get hard with me, even though I wasn't up to his usual standard.∗ Thank you to the coked-up real estate agent who, while lecturing me and my friend about the importance of travelling, fell down a flight of stairs.∗ Thank you to the woman who approached me after a gig and told me she hoped her daughter wouldn't end up like me.You've all taught me that you can't control who comes into your life or what happens to you, but you can decide just what it is you take from them.

The Amado Women


Desiree Zamorano - 2014
    Matriarchs like Mercy Amado—despite her drunken, philandering (now ex-) husband—could raise three daughters and become a teacher. Now she watches helplessly as her daughters drift apart as adults. The Latino bonds of familia don't seem to hold. Celeste, the oldest daughter who won't speak to the youngest, is fiercely intelligent and proud. She has fled the uncertainty of her growing up in Los Angeles, California, to seek financial independence in San Jose. Her sisters did the same thing but very differently. Sylvia married a rich but abusive Anglo, and, to hide away, she immersed herself in the suburbia of her two young daughters. And Nataly, the baby, went very hip into the free-spirited Latino art world, working on her textile creations during the day and waiting on tables in an upscale restaurant by night. Everything they know comes crashing down in a random tragic moment and Mercy must somehow make what was broken whole again.Désirée Zamorano says that she was taken aback by the negative reaction toSonia Sotomayor's self-description as a "wise Latina." And she is appalled by stereotypical rendering of Latinas in mainstream literature, saying that true-to-life middle-class Latinas are invisible in the fabric of American culture. Zamorano is a playwright, Pushcart Prize nominee for fiction, and the director of the Community Literacy Center at Occidental College. She also collaborates with InsideOut Writers, a program that works with formerly incarcerated youth. She lives in Pasadena, California.

Through the Fire (The Cameron Trilogy)


Serenity King - 2012
    Little do they know that Brandon feels as if his life is falling apart. In addition to having to rebuild his office after a major fire, he’s dealing with the loss of a child and the possibility of losing the one woman he’s ever loved. The thought of losing his wife is the straw that is threatening to push him over the edge. The oldest daughter of one of the most prominent African-American families in Atlanta, Dominique Shaw is fiercely independent and doesn’t have a desire to be a part of her family’s security and finance businesses. Wanting to forge her own path, she traveled to New York and pursued her dream of becoming an attorney. Through doggishness, she made her dream come true and as a result is well known in legal circles. What isn’t well known is the fact that along the way, she fell in love, got pregnant, and married Brandon Cameron. Due to circumstances beyond her control, Dominique comes face-to-face with her past. Will she be able to finally live that life she’s longed for with the man she loves? Or will the rollercoaster that’s become her life force her to sacrifice the chance for happiness once again?

Dark Star: The Roy Orbison Story


Ellis Amburn - 1990
    Rock stars from Elvis to Bruce Springsteen have been profoundly affected by his work. This insightful book examines the power of Orbison's music--from his pioneer days to his fantastic comeback--and the events that lead to his untimely death.

The Home Reader


Celina Myers - 2019
    After years of living in the shadows of the paranormal industry she has collected some of her most gripping stories to share with those who love the supernatural as much as she. One thing that didn't work in their favour was the supernatural. The circumstances before my birth and the reoccurrence of the bizarre and sometimes unexplainable things over the course of my life have lead me to believe in the existence of something more. -The Beginning I soon realized this was not a sleeping child. His lips were shades of blue, the colour gone from his tiny face. His eyes open ever so slightly. I was afraid to turn. Afraid to look at the crib. - The Huntsville Estate. I couldn't breathe. I ran, I ran as fast as I could but only reaching the side of my house when I collapsed and started to vomit in the bush. The rest was a blur, but I spent countless hours of the next few weeks at the police department going over and over everything I knew about him - Dreams

Brand New Me


Charlotte Crosby - 2017
    Her jam-packed TV schedule has included appearances on some of the nation's favourite shows such as Celebrity Juice and This Morning, she is the presenter of MTV's new hit show Just Tattoo of Us and is now the face of her very own make-up range, Flique.Here in BRAND NEW ME Charlotte talks us through an incredibly busy year, making us laugh as ever with her funny moments (like when her mum woke up on Christmas morning to find her passed out naked by her new swimming pool) but also opening up about the difficult months surrounding her shock departure from Geordie Shore, betrayal and her heartbreaking ectopic pregnancy. After working through her loss by bravely speaking out, she is now an ambassador of the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, helping raise awareness of the symptoms so other women can get early treatment and help if they find themselves going through a similar experience.So welcome to BRAND NEW ME, the next chapter in Charlotte's life: businesswoman, TV presenter, charity spokesperson, stronger than ever, inspiring us with her work ethic, smashing it with her style and still making us wet our pants laughing.

The Broke-Ass Bride's Wedding Guide


Dana LaRue - 2013
    She includes:   ·         The top 14 money-saving rules for choosing your location, dress, menu, and music—and most important of all, enjoying the day ·         Engagement party and rehearsal dinner ideas that won’t break the bank ·         4 tips for finding your dream theme ·         Sample budget breakdowns ($1,000; $5,000; $10,000; $15,000; and beyond) showing where couples saved and splurged ·         Her very own road-tested advice for becoming a negotiation ninja ·         7 ways to keep your booze budget under control ·         DIY décor projects and recipes you can make without risking a bridezilla meltdown ·         Online planning shortcuts, tools to find savings, and helpful websites for organization and style inspiration

Cotton Grass Lodge


DeNise Woodbury - 2014
    With his business savvy, he figures he can turn it around quickly, make a profit, and get out, wallet intact. But the old owner won't leave, the hired man is a drunk, and the staff is an abandoned single mother. Cargo pilot Hanna Reed thinks the city slicker will leave quickly and good riddance. She traded the Air Force and a bad marriage for a quiet life, good friends, and the pleasure of the open sky. Duncan is a distraction she doesn't need, but he is so sexy she decides to enjoy him while he's still around. As the season unfolds, Duncan and Hannah find themselves growing closer emotionally as well as physically. The magic of Cotton Grass Lake may heal broken hearts, but is it enough to keep them from breaking again? This is a new release of a previously published edition.

Son of a Midnight Land: A Memoir in Stories


Atz Kilcher - 2018
    He also learned how to lie in order to please his often volatile father and put himself in harm's way to protect his mother and younger, weaker members of the family. Much later in life, as Atz began to reflect on his upbringing, seek to understand his father, and heal his emotional scars, he discovered that the work of pioneering the frontier of the soul is an infinitely more difficult task than any of the back-breaking chores he performed on his family's homestead. Learning to use new tools--honesty, vulnerability, forgiveness, acceptance--and building upon the good helped him heal and learn to embrace the value of resilience. This revised perspective has enabled him to tell an enhanced and more positive version of the legacy his father created and has him doing the most rewarding work of his life: mapping his own inner wilderness while drawing closer to his adult children, the next stewards of the land he helped his father carve out of the Alaskan frontier.

Lambert's Pride


Lynn A. Coleman - 2004
    Too bad she gets knocked off that track by one dashing, young forest ranger named Kavan Donovan.It seems the entire town of White Birch is pulling for Elizabeth and Kavan, but her goals don't include falling in love. She fights her attraction to Kavan, even as friends and family urge her to forget her dream of graduate school.Though problems at work prove distracting, Kavan is nevertheless captivated by Elizabeth.Is the Lord telling Elizabeth to let go of prideful ambitions? Might His direction lead to marriage instead of graduate school? Can Kavan convince Elizabeth that love is the finest ambition of all?

The King of Torts / The Last Juror


John Grisham - 2007
    When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week. As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession’s newest king of torts...The Last JurorIn 1970, one of Mississippi’s more colorful weekly newspapers went bankrupt. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courthouse, and the trial came to a startling end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they convicted him. Nevertheless, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison. But in Mississippi in 1970, "life" didn’t necessarily mean "life," and nine years later Padgitt was paroled. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began.

Janette Oke's Reflections on the Christmas Story


Janette Oke - 1994
    A powerful proof of God's overwhelming love.

Secret Life of a Dyslexic Child


Robert Frank - 2002
    (International Dyslexia Association- New York branch) Dr. Robert Frank, whose own dyslexia didnít stop him from becoming an educator, psychologist, and award-winning author, takes the reader inside the emotions and frustrations of the dyslexic child to help parents coach their child to:- Improve academic achievement- Get support from friends and family- Establish solid work and study habits- Focus on abilities and strengths- Set and meet personal goalsAbove all, Dr. Frank tells parents the simple steps they can take to help their child build self-esteem and confidence and create a life of success.