Download or read book Coal to Diamonds A Memoir written by Beth Ditto and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-10-09 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A raw and surprisingly beautiful coming-of-age memoir, Coal to Diamonds tells the story of Mary Beth Ditto, a girl from rural Arkansas who found her voice. Born and raised in Judsonia, Arkansas—a place where indoor plumbing was a luxury, squirrel was a meal, and sex ed was taught during senior year in high school (long after many girls had gotten pregnant and dropped out) Beth Ditto stood out. Beth was a fat, pro-choice, sexually confused choir nerd with a great voice, an eighties perm, and a Kool Aid dye job. Her single mother worked overtime, which meant Beth and her five siblings were often left to fend for themselves. Beth spent much of her childhood as a transient, shuttling between relatives, caring for a sickly, volatile aunt she nonetheless loved, looking after sisters, brothers, and cousins, and trying to steer clear of her mother’s bad boyfriends. Her punk education began in high school under the tutelage of a group of teens—her second family—who embraced their outsider status and introduced her to safety-pinned clothing, mail-order tapes, queer and fat-positive zines, and any shred of counterculture they could smuggle into Arkansas. With their help, Beth survived high school, a tragic family scandal, and a mental breakdown, and then she got the hell out of Judsonia. She decamped to Olympia, Washington, a late-1990s paradise for Riot Grrrls and punks, and began to cultivate her glamorous, queer, fat, femme image. On a whim—with longtime friends Nathan, a guitarist and musical savant in a polyester suit, and Kathy, a quiet intellectual turned drummer—she formed the band Gossip. She gave up trying to remake her singing voice into the ethereal wisp she thought it should be and instead embraced its full, soulful potential. Gossip gave her that chance, and the raw power of her voice won her and Gossip the attention they deserved. Marked with the frankness, humor, and defiance that have made her an international icon, Beth Ditto’s unapologetic, startlingly direct, and poetic memoir is a hypnotic and inspiring account of a woman coming into her own.
Download or read book Diamond Doris written by Doris Payne and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soon to be a Major Motion Picture In the ebullient spirit of Ocean’s 8, The Heist, and Thelma & Louise, a sensational and entertaining memoir of the world’s most notorious jewel thief—a woman who defied society’s prejudices and norms to carve her own path, stealing from elite jewelers to live her dreams. Growing up during the Depression in the segregated coal town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, Doris Payne was told her dreams were unattainable for poor black girls like her. Surrounded by people who sought to limit her potential, Doris vowed to turn the tables after the owner of a jewelry store threw her out when a white customer arrived. Neither racism nor poverty would hold her back; she would get what she wanted and help her mother escape an abusive relationship. Using her southern charm, quick wit, and fascination with magic as her tools, Payne began shoplifting small pieces of jewelry from local stores. Over the course of six decades, her talents grew with each heist. Becoming an expert world-class jewel thief, she daringly pulled off numerous diamond robberies and her boyfriend fenced the stolen gems to Hollywood celebrities. Doris’s criminal exploits went unsolved well into the 1970s—partly because the stores did not want to admit that they were duped by a black woman. Eventually realizing Doris was using him, her boyfriend turned her in. She was arrested after stealing a diamond ring in Monte Carlo that was valued at more than half a million dollars. But even prison couldn’t contain this larger-than-life personality who cleverly used nuns as well as various ruses to help her break out. With her arrest in 2013 in San Diego, Doris’s fame skyrocketed when media coverage of her astonishing escapades exploded. Today, at eighty-seven, Doris, as bold and vibrant as ever, lives in Atlanta, and is celebrated for her glamorous legacy. She sums up her adventurous career best: “It beat being a teacher or a maid.” A rip-roaringly fun and exciting story as captivating and audacious as Catch Me if You Can and Can You Ever Forgive Me?—Diamond Doris is the portrait of a captivating anti-hero who refused to be defined by the prejudices and mores of a hypocritical society.
Download or read book Ghetto Diamond written by Markanthony Claiborne and published by . This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite being born as a dusty coal in the eyes of society, Mark-Anthony "MAC" Claiborne's story corresponds with the mantra of Fall Down 7 Times, Stand Up 8 as he details how failure, mistakes, and heartache ultimately became the vital attributes of his formidable success. Born and raised within the often harsh, cold, and unforgiving climate of Chicago's South Side, Claiborne details how quitting and settling for less were simply never an option throughout his travels from the boulevard to the boardroom. From a failed businessman to a Fortune 15 telecommunications executive, Claiborne's coming of age story depicts the countless slippery slopes encountered along the way which helped to mold him as not only a visionary, but also a devoted father and inspiration to anyone stuck between a rock and a hard place. "Now what that take? Timing. Coal under pressure, what that make? Diamonds - J. Cole"
Download or read book Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn written by Brett Anderson and published by Little, Brown Book Group. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A compelling personal account of the dramas of a singular British band' Neil Tennant The trajectory of Suede - hailed in infancy as both 'The Best New Band in Britain' and 'effete southern wankers' - is recalled with moving candour by its frontman Brett Anderson, whose vivid memoir swings seamlessly between the tender, witty, turbulent, euphoric and bittersweet. Suede began by treading the familiar jobbing route of London's emerging new 1990s indie bands - gigs at ULU, the Camden Powerhaus and the Old Trout in Windsor - and the dispiriting experience of playing a set to an audience of one. But in these halcyon days, their potential was undeniable. Anderson's creative partnership with guitarist Bernard Butler exposed a unique and brilliant hybrid of lyric and sound; together they were a luminescent team - burning brightly and creating some of the era's most revered songs and albums. In Afternoons with the Blinds drawn, Anderson unflinchingly explores his relationship with addiction, heartfelt in the regret that early musical bonds were severed, and clear-eyed on his youthful persona. 'As a young man . . . I oscillated between morbid self-reflection and vainglorious narcissism' he writes. His honesty, sharply self-aware and articulate, makes this a compelling autobiography, and a brilliant insight into one of the most significant bands of the last quarter century.
Download or read book Black Diamonds written by Catherine Bailey and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-03-06 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wentworth is in Yorkshire and was surrounded by 70 collieries employing tens of thousands of men. It is the finest and largest Georgian house in Britain andbelonged to the Fitzwilliam family. It is England's forgotten palace which belonged to Britain's richest aristocrats. Black Diamonds tells the story of its demise: family feuds, forbidden love, class war, and a tragic and violent death played their part. But coal, one of the most emotive issues in twentieth century British politics, lies at its heart. This is the extraordinary story of how the fabric of English society shifted beyond recognition in fifty turbulent years in the twentieth century.
Download or read book Figuring Shit Out written by Amy Biancolli and published by Behler Publications, LLC. This book was released on 2014-09-29 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Your life isn't over." My dad says this. "I mean, YOUR life isn't over. Beyond the kids. You'll go on living, doing things. This isn't it." I know, I assure him. I have the kids. They need me. They're my life now. "OK," he replies, then grunts—more of a brief hum. He only hums when he thinks I'm full of shit. Shockingly single. Amy Biancolli's life went off script more dramatically than most after her husband of twenty years jumped off the roof of a parking garage. Left with three children, a three-story house, and a pile of knotty psychological complications, Amy realizes the flooding dishwasher, dead car battery, rapidly growing lawn, basement sump pump, and broken doorknob aren't going to fix themselves. She also realizes that "figuring shit out" means accepting the horrors that came her way, rolling with them, slogging through them, helping others through theirs, and working her way through life with love and laughter. Amy Biancolli is an author and journalist whose column appears in the Albany Times Union. Before that, Amy served as film critic for the Houston Chronicle where her reviews, published around the country, won her the 2007 Comment and Criticism Award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association. Biancolli is the author of House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts, which earned her Albany Author of the Year. Amy lives in Albany, New York, with her three children.
Download or read book How to Grow Up written by Michelle Tea and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A gutsy, wise memoir-in-essays from a writer praised as ‘impossible to put down’”—People From PEN America Literary Award-winning author Michelle Tea comes a moving personal essay collection about the trials and triumphs of shedding your vices in order to find yourself. As an aspiring young writer in San Francisco, Michelle Tea lived in a scuzzy communal house: she drank; she smoked; she snorted anything she got her hands on; she toiled for the minimum wage; she dated men and women, and sometimes both at once. But between hangovers and dead-end jobs, she scrawled in notebooks and organized dive bar poetry readings, working to make her literary dreams a reality. In How to Grow Up, Tea shares her awkward stumble towards the life of a Bona Fide Grown-Up: healthy, responsible, self-aware, and stable. She writes about passion, about her fraught relationship with money, about adoring Barney’s while shopping at thrift stores, about breakups and the fertile ground between relationships, about roommates and rent, and about being superstitious (“why not, it imbues this harsh world of ours with a bit of magic”). At once heartwarming and darkly comic, How to Grow Up proves that the road less traveled may be a difficult one, but if you embrace life’s uncertainty and dust yourself off after every screw up, slowly but surely, you just might make it to adulthood. “Wild, wickedly funny, and refreshingly relevant.” —Elle “This compulsively readable collection is so damn good, you’ll tear through the whole thing (and possibly take notes along the way).” —Bustle
Download or read book Into the Sky with Diamonds written by Ronald P. Grelsamer and published by Author House. This book was released on 2010-09-03 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One small step for a man, one giant leap for music! The Beatles and the Race to the Moon were the DNA of the 1960s: Two adventurous threads continuously intertwined from 1960 to 1970. Into the Sky is a scholarly book masquerading as fast-moving historical fiction. From Flurry of Notes: "One of the best books I read last year was "Into the Sky with Diamonds" [RG] has written a book that everyone with a love for the Beatles, the Race to the Moon, or the '60s must read It's detailed but not boring, familiar but not stale. [RG] breathes new life and perspective to an entire decade in a joyful and enlightening way, and sheds new light and insight into a time that shook the world. I guarantee you'll wish both the book and the Beatles never stopped." From Amazon: I totally enjoyed reading this book. I highly recommend it for both people who were around to experience the events that occurred in the 60's and for the younger generation who will enjoy learning about an era of history that has had a huge impact. This is one of the most fascinating books I have read in over 20 years! It is an absolute "MUST READ" for anyone interested in musical legend of the Beatles and the origins, failed attempts, and success of our Moon Mission."
Download or read book Til the Coal Train Hauled It Away written by Timothy Crumrin and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 1910 West Terre Haute, Indiana was the fastest growing town in the United States. Its population increased by an astonishing 376 percent from the previous decade. Its growth was spurred by the rich natural resources, coal, clay and gravel, that surrounded it. In essence, West Terre Haute's success was built on holes in the ground. When those resources were depleted, a downward spiral began. This book is an intimate look at the people, events, triumphs and tragedies of the town written by a native son. But it is not just the story of this Indiana town. It is representative of all the areas that relied upon a single industry or resource, from the New England mill towns to the steel towns of the Rust Belt, This book looks at the lives of people who took on life as it came."--page [4] of cover.
Download or read book The Diamond Cutter s Daughter written by Elaine Terranova and published by . This book was released on 2021-05-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Told in short lyric pieces the memoir tells of what it was like to grow up in a working class Orthodox Jewish family in the wake of the Depression, WWII, and post-war boom.
Download or read book Breathe written by Imani Perry and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2020 Chautauqua Prize Finalist 2020 NAACP Image Award Nominee - Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction) Best-of Lists: Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 (Kirkus Reviews) · 25 Can't-Miss Books of 2019 (The Undefeated) Explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our children in a persistently unjust world. Emotionally raw and deeply reflective, Imani Perry issues an unflinching challenge to society to see Black children as deserving of humanity. She admits fear and frustration for her African American sons in a society that is increasingly racist and at times seems irredeemable. However, as a mother, feminist, writer, and intellectual, Perry offers an unfettered expression of love—finding beauty and possibility in life—and she exhorts her children and their peers to find the courage to chart their own paths and find steady footing and inspiration in Black tradition. Perry draws upon the ideas of figures such as James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois, Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Ida B. Wells. She shares vulnerabilities and insight from her own life and from encounters in places as varied as the West Side of Chicago; Birmingham, Alabama; and New England prep schools. With original art for the cover by Ekua Holmes, Breathe offers a broader meditation on race, gender, and the meaning of a life well lived and is also an unforgettable lesson in Black resistance and resilience.
Download or read book Geosmin written by Catherine Young and published by . This book was released on 2022-02 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry about the land, nature, etc.
Download or read book Robert C Byrd written by Robert C. Byrd and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 872 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-01-02 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A triumphant tale of a young woman and her difficult childhood, The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience, redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and wonderfully vibrant. Jeannette Walls was the second of four children raised by anti-institutional parents in a household of extremes.
Download or read book Forever Liesl written by Charmian Carr and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2001-04-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The magic of The Sound of Music lives on in the minds and hearts of everyone it has touched. Now, Charmian Carr, who in 1965 captivated moviegoers as Liesl "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" von Trapp, tells what it was like to be a part of the film that has become a cultural phenomenon. It's all here: from how she got the role (and why she almost didn't) to romances on the set and wild nights in Salzburg; from the near-disaster during the gazebo dance to her relationships--then and now--with her six celluloid siblings. Charmian offers stories from fans and friends and a treasury of photographs. And she reveals why she left acting, what she learned when she met the real von Trapp children; and how The Sound of Music has helped her get through stormy times in her own life. Forever Liesl celebrates the spirit of the movie and what it stands for: family love, romance, inspiration, nostalgia, and the joy and power of music.
Download or read book Days of Awe written by Atalia Omer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many Jewish people in the mid-twentieth century, Zionism was an unquestionable tenet of what it meant to be Jewish. Seventy years later, a growing number of American Jews are instead expressing solidarity with Palestinians, questioning old allegiances to Israel. How did that transformation come about? What does it mean for the future of Judaism? In Days of Awe, Atalia Omer examines this shift through interviews with a new generation of Jewish activists, rigorous data analysis, and fieldwork within a progressive synagogue community. She highlights people politically inspired by social justice campaigns including the Black Lives Matter movement and protests against anti-immigration policies. These activists, she shows, discover that their ethical outrage at US policies extends to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. For these American Jews, the Jewish history of dispossession and diaspora compels a search for solidarity with liberation movements. This shift produces innovations within Jewish tradition, including multi-racial and intersectional conceptions of Jewishness and movements to reclaim prophetic Judaism. Charting the rise of such religious innovation, Omer points toward the possible futures of post-Zionist Judaism.
Download or read book Stuff Matters written by Mark Miodownik and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening adventure deep inside the everyday materials that surround us, from concrete and steel to denim and chocolate, packed with surprising stories and fascinating science.
