Download or read book The Death and Life of Main Street written by Miles Orvell and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a century, the term "Main Street" has conjured up nostalgic images of American small-town life. Representations exist all around us, from fiction and film to the architecture of shopping malls and Disneyland. All the while, the nation has become increasingly diverse, exposing tensions within this ideal. In The Death and Life of Main Street, Miles Orvell wrestles with the mythic allure of the small town in all its forms, illustrating how Americans continue to reinscribe these images on real places in order to forge consensus about inclusion and civic identity, especially in times of crisis. Orvell underscores the fact that Main Street was never what it seemed; it has always been much more complex than it appears, as he shows in his discussions of figures like Sinclair Lewis, Willa Cather, Frank Capra, Thornton Wilder, Margaret Bourke-White, and Walker Evans. He argues that translating the overly tidy cultural metaphor into real spaces--as has been done in recent decades, especially in the new urbanist planned communities of Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Andres Duany--actually diminishes the communitarian ideals at the center of this nostalgic construct. Orvell investigates the way these tensions play out in a variety of cultural realms and explores the rise of literary and artistic traditions that deliberately challenge the tropes and assumptions of small-town ideology and life.
Download or read book Methland written by Nick Reding and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winner of the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism Named a best book of the year by: the Los Angeles Times the San Francisco Chronicle the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch the Chicago Tribune the Seattle Times "A stunning look at a problem that has dire consequences for our country.”-New York Post The dramatic story of Methamphetamine as it comes to the American Heartland-a timely, moving, account of one community's attempt to confront the epidemic and see their way to a brighter future. Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland is the story of the drug as it infiltrates the community of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), a once-thriving farming and railroad community. Tracing the connections between the lives touched by meth and the global forces that have set the stage for the epidemic, Methland offers a vital and unique perspective on a pressing contemporary tragedy. Oelwein, Iowa is like thousand of other small towns across the county. It has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy and an out-migration of people. If this wasn't enough to deal with, an incredibly cheap, long-lasting, and highly addictive drug has come to town, touching virtually everyone's lives. Journalist Nick Reding reported this story over a period of four years, and he brings us into the heart of the town through an ensemble cast of intimately drawn characters, including: Clay Hallburg, the town doctor, who fights meth even as he struggles with his own alcoholism; Nathan Lein, the town prosecutor, whose case load is filled almost exclusively with meth-related crime, and Jeff Rohrick, who is still trying to kick a meth habit after four years. Methland is a portrait of a community under siege, of the lives the drug has devastated, and of the heroes who continue to fight the war. It will appeal to readers of David Sheff's bestselling Beautiful Boy, and serve as inspiration for those who believe in the power of everyday people to change their world for the better.
Download or read book Spoken in Darkness written by Ann E. Imbrie and published by Plume Books. This book was released on 1994 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This chilling and beautifully written true story tells of a woman who unravels the murder of a childhood friend and finds a tangle of lies. A disturbingly intense look at murder, and a feminist view of a neglectful legal and social system.
Download or read book Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town written by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock and published by Ember. This book was released on 2022-04-12 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lyrical and heartfelt collection by an award-winning writer that connects the lives of young people from small towns in Alaska and the American west. Each story is unique, yet universal. In this book, the impact of wildfire, a wayward priest, or a mysterious disappearance ricochet across communities, threading through stories. Here, ordinary actions such as ice skating or going to church reveal hidden truths. One choice threatens a lifelong friendship. Siblings save each other. Rescue and second chances are possible, and so is revenge. On the surface, it seems that nothing ever happens in these towns. But Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock shows that underneath that surface, teenagers' lives blaze with fury, with secrets, and with love so strong it burns a path to the future.
Download or read book Strong Towns written by Charles L. Marohn, Jr. and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.
Download or read book Death in a Small Town written by Betty L. Alt and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2020-08-10 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1930s, Sheriff Levi Taylor is called to Wallton’s creek where the body of a six-year old girl lies strangled. Citizens in the small town are horrified by the murder, and Taylor can find no suspects. Talking with the local doctor, Taylor discovers that over the past ten years there have been other dead children, all of the deaths attributed to accidents. Although the local banker offers a reward of $500 (a tremendous amount of money during the Depression years), no perpetrator is found. Then, another young child goes missing . . .
Download or read book Love Zac written by Reid Forgrave and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The story of a young man from small-town Iowa who decided to take his own life rather than continue his losing battle against the traumatic brain injuries (CTE) he had sustained as a no-holds-barred high school football player, and at the same time a larger story about the hot-button issues that football raises about masculinity and violence, and about what values we want to instill in our kids"--
Download or read book The Life and Death of a Spanish Town written by Elliot Paul and published by Blue Rose Publishers. This book was released on 2022-11-24 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is set in and around the small town of Santa Eulària des Riu on Ibiza, where the author had lived since 1931. In the first part Elliot Paul describes the town and many of the characters who live and work there. He details their family lives, their hopes, their aspirations, and their politics. He provides details of the people at work and at play, and describes how he becomes part of the community of the town. Part two starts with Paul and his family returning to Ibiza, after some time away. The narrative is set in 1936 in the week leading up to the outbreak of hostilities on Ibiza during the Spanish Civil War and describes the events that eventually lead to Paul, his family and others fleeing the island. It tells the story of civil disobedience, collaboration and the violence that split a once-happy community, although the narrative finishes before the tragic turn of events reaches its conclusion. The postscript details events following his departure from Ibiza.
Download or read book Small Town Monsters written by Diana Rodriguez Wallach and published by Underlined. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Conjuring meets The Vow! This is the terrifying story of a girl, a dark angel, and the cult hellbent on taking over her small, coastal town. Vera Martinez wants nothing more than to escape Roaring Creek and her parents' reputation as demonologists. Not to mention she's the family outcast, lacking her parents' innate abilities, and is terrified of the occult things lurking in their basement. Maxwell Oliver is supposed to be enjoying the summer before his senior year, spending his days thinking about parties and friends. Instead he's taking care of his little sister while his mom slowly becomes someone he doesn't recognize. Soon he suspects that what he thought was grief over his father's death might be something more...sinister. When Maxwell and Vera join forces, they come face to face with deeply disturbing true stories of cults, death worship, and the very nature that drives people to evil. Underlined is a line of totally addictive romance, thriller, and horror titles coming to you fast and furious each month. Enjoy everything you want to read the way you want to read it.
Download or read book Small Town written by Lawrence Block and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of dozens of acclaimed novels including those in the Scudder and Keller series, Lawrence Block has long been recognized as one of the premier crime writers of our time. Now, the breathtaking skill, power, and versatility of this Grand Master are brilliantly displayed once again in a mesmerizing new thriller set on the streets of the city he knows and loves so well. That was the thing about New York -- if you loved it, if it worked for you, it ruined you for anyplace else in the world. In this dazzlingly constructed novel, Lawrence Block reveals the secret at the heart of the Big Apple. His glorious metropolis is really a small town, filled with men and women from all walks of life whose aspirations, fears, disappointments, and triumphs are interconnected by bonds as unbreakable as they are unseen. Pulsating with the lives of its denizens -- bartenders and hookers, power brokers and politicos, cops and secretaries, editors and dreamers -- the city inspires a passion that is universal yet unique in each of its eight million inhabitants, including: John Blair Creighton, a writer on the verge of a breakthrough; Francis Buckram, a charismatic ex–police commissioner -- and the inside choice for the next mayor -- on the verge of a breakdown; Susan Pomerance, a beautiful, sophisticated folk-art dealer plumbing the depths of her own fierce sexuality; Maury Winters, a defense attorney who prefers murder trials because there's one less witness; Jerry Pankow, an ex-addict who has turned being clean into a living, mopping up after New York's nightlife; And, in the shadows of a city reeling from tragedy, an unlikely killing machine who wages a one-man war against them all. Infused with the raw cadence, stark beauty, and relentless pace of New York City, Small Town is a tour de force Block fans old and new will celebrate.
Download or read book Dewey written by Vicki Myron and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2008-09-24 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experience the uplifting, "unforgettable" New York Times bestseller about an abandoned kitten named Dewey, whose life in a library won over a farming town and the world -- with over 2 million copies sold! (Booklist) Dewey's story starts in the worst possible way. On the coldest night of the year in Spencer, Iowa, at only a few weeks old--a critical age for kittens--he was stuffed into the return book slot of the Spencer Public Library. He was found the next morning by library director Vicki Myron, a single mother who had survived the loss of her family farm, a breast cancer scare, and an alcoholic husband. Dewey won her heart, and the hearts of the staff, by pulling himself up and hobbling on frostbitten feet to nudge each of them in a gesture of thanks and love. For the next nineteen years, he never stopped charming the people of Spencer with his enthusiasm, warmth, humility (for a cat), and, above all, his sixth sense about who needed him most. As his fame grew from town to town, then state to state and finally, amazingly, worldwide, Dewey became more than just a friend; he became a source of pride for an extraordinary Heartland farming community slowly working its way back from the greatest crisis in its long history.
Download or read book Wisconsin Death Trip written by Michael Lesy and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consists chiefly of excerpts from the Badger State banner, Black River Falls, Wis., for the years 1885-1900 and of photos. taken by Charles Van Schaick from 1890 to 1910.
Download or read book A Death in Texas written by Dina Temple-Raston and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-01-02 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1998, a trio of young white men chained a black man to the bumper of a truck and dragged him down a country road. From the initial investigation and through the trials and their aftermath, "A Death in Texas" follows the turns of events through the eyes of Sheriff Billy Rowles and other townspeople trying to come to grips with the killing. 16 page photo insert.
Download or read book The Hospital written by Brian Alexander and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An intimate, heart wrenching portrait of one small hospital that reveals the magnitude of America's health care crises. By following the struggle for survival of one small-town hospital, and the patients who walk, or are carried, through its doors, The Hospital takes readers into the world of the American medical industry in a way no book has done before."--Publisher's description.
Download or read book Shtetl written by Eva Hoffman and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2007-10-09 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Shtetl (Yiddish for "small town"), critically-acclaimed author Eva Hoffman brings the lost world of Eastern European Jews back to vivid life, depicting its complex institutions and vibrant culture, its beliefs, social distinctions, and customs. Through the small town of Brafsk, she looks at the fascinating experiments in multicultural coexistence -- still relevant to us today -- attempted in the eight centuries of Polish-Jewish history, and describes the forces which influenced Christian villagers' decisions to conceal or betray their Jewish neighbors in the dark period of the Holocaust.
Download or read book A Small Town written by Thomas Perry and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2019-12-17 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A small-town cop seeks vengeance on twelve escaped inmates in this novel of “jaw-dropping twists . . . crisp in execution and thrilling until the very end” (The Wall Street Journal). When twelve inmates pull off an audacious prison break, it liberates more than a thousand convicts into the nearby small town. The newly freed prisoners rape, murder, and destroy the quiet community—burning down homes and businesses. An immense search ensues, but the twelve who plotted it all get away. After two years, the local and federal police agencies have yet to find them. Then, the mayor calls in Leah Hawkins, a local cop who lost a loved one that terrible night. She’s placed on sabbatical to travel across the country learning advanced police procedures. But the sabbatical is merely a ruse. Her real job is to track down the infamous twelve—and kill them. Leah’s mission takes her from Florida to New York and from the beaches of California to an anti-government settlement deep in the Ozarks. But when the surviving fugitives realize what she’s up to, a race to kill or be killed ensues in this nonstop tale of vengeance from the Edgar Award–winning author of The Butcher’s Boy. “Leah proves to be both a brilliant detective and a cunning predator.” —Associated Press “Perry is an expert storyteller . . . A Small Town unfolds like a 1950s film noir.” —Wall Street Journal
Download or read book Death in a Small Town written by Gay Toltl Kinman and published by Hilliard & Harris Pub. This book was released on 2006-10-01 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jo Peters, a former LA County District Attorney, once thought that big city life and glamor were her future. But after a brush with death and a truckload of murder and mayhem in LA, Jo decides that home, Mirasol, CA, doesn't look so bad after all. She is content to be the new city attorney for her home town. No more grisly murder scenes, just boring administrative law. A small town pace, re-connecting with old friends. Life is good. When the body of one of those old friends is found, Jo finds herself drawn to the investigation. The police think Loren Balfour committed suicide. Jo thinks he was planning for the future-not suicidal behavior in Jo's experience. Jo's dogged investigation of Loren's death leads her through a labyrinth of small town politics, grudges, more skeletons than she could have imagined, and a killer who is none too pleased about her efforts.
