Download or read book Twang A Novel written by John Schlimm and published by MintRight Inc. This book was released on 2011-06 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In TWANG: a novel, former Country Music publicist John Schlimm peels back the industry-crafted cliche of Nashville and its beloved superstars. He takes readers backstage of the sold-out concerts, inside the homes and heads of Nashville's elite, and introduces them to a side of show business that has yet to be revealed. Readers are whisked away on a wild ride to a provocative and quirky place with fictional characters, who seem strikingly familiar, and who will leave the readers shocked, titillated, laughing, and realizing that the real world of Country Music is far more compelling and scandal-ridden than they could ever have imagined.
Download or read book Twang written by Julie L. Cannon and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-three-year-old Jennifer Clodfelter believes she is destined to be a country music star. When her passion, determination and homemade demo tape were rejected by every music label in Nashville, she refused to give up. In just three years, a combination of guts and raw talent have propelled her on a journey of fame beyond her best dream. Now Jennifer has all she ever wanted, only to discover that there is a dark side to the glitz and number one hits. She will have to decide whether to sing her pain to a loving audience or find the courage to face the music in the private studio of her heart.
Download or read book Yankee Twang written by Clifford R. Murphy and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2014-10-15 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Merging scholarly insight with a professional guitarist's sense of the musical life, Yankee Twang delves into the rich tradition of country & western music that is played and loved in the mill towns and cities of the American northeast. Scholar and musician Clifford R. Murphy draws on a wealth of ethnographic material, interviews, and encounters with recorded and live music to reveal the central role of country and western in the social lives and musical activity of working-class New Englanders. As Murphy shows, an extraordinary multiculturalism sets New England country and western music apart from other regional and national forms. Once segregated at work and worship, members of different ethnic groups used the country and western popularized on the radio and by barnstorming artists to come together at social events, united by a love of the music. Musicians, meanwhile, drew from the wide variety of ethnic musical traditions to create the New England style. But the music also gave--and gives--voice to working-class feeling. Murphy explores how the Yankee love of country and western emphasizes the western, reflecting the longing of many blue collar workers for the mythical cowboy's life of rugged but fulfilling individualism. Indeed, many New Englanders use country and western to comment on economic disenfranchisement and express their resentment of a mass media, government, and Nashville music establishment that they believe neither reflects their experiences nor considers them equal participants in American life.
Download or read book That Half barbaric Twang written by Karen Linn and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long a symbol of American culture, the banjo actually originated in Africa before European-Americans adopted it. Karen Linn shows how the banjo--despite design innovations and several modernizing agendas--has failed to escape its image as a "half-barbaric" instrument symbolic of antimodernism and sentimentalism. Caught in the morass of American racial attitudes and often used to express ambivalence toward modern industrial society, the banjo stood in opposition to the "official" values of rationalism, modernism, and belief in the beneficence of material progress. Linn uses popular literature, visual arts, advertisements, film, performance practices, instrument construction and decoration, and song lyrics to illustrate how notions about the banjo have changed. Linn also traces the instrument from its African origins through the 1980s, alternating between themes of urban modernization and rural nostalgia. She examines the banjo fad of bourgeois Northerners during the late nineteenth century; the African-American banjo tradition and the commercially popular cultural image of the southern black banjo player; the banjo's use in ragtime and early jazz; and the image of the white Southerner and mountaineer as banjo player.
Download or read book Hillbilly Elegy written by J. D. Vance and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER IS NOW A MAJOR-MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD AND STARRING AMY ADAMS, GLENN CLOSE, AND GABRIEL BASSO "You will not read a more important book about America this year."—The Economist "A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal "Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York Times Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.
Download or read book In Honor written by Jessi Kirby and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A devastating loss leads to an unexpected road trip in what Sarah Ockler calls a “beautiful, engaging journey with heart, humor, and just a pinch of Texas sass.” Three days after learning of her brother Finn’s death, Honor receives his last letter from Iraq. Devastated, she interprets his note as a final request and spontaneously sets off to California to fulfill it. At the last minute, she’s joined by Rusty, Finn’s former best friend. Rusty is the last person Honor wants to be with—he’s cocky and obnoxious, just like Honor remembers, and she hasn’t forgiven him for turning his back on Finn when he enlisted. But as they cover the dusty miles together in Finn’s beloved 1967 Chevy Impala, long-held resentments begin to fade, and Honor and Rusty struggle to come to terms with the loss they share. As their memories of Finn merge to create a new portrait, Honor’s eyes are opened to a side of her brother she never knew—a side that shows her the true meaning of love and sacrifice.
Download or read book Wyoming written by JP Gritton and published by Tin House Books. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Kirkus Best Fiction of 2019 Pick! A cross between Daniel Woodrell and Annie Proulx, Wyoming is about the stubborn grip of inertia and whether or not it is possible to live without accepting oneself. It’s 1988 and Shelley Cooper is in trouble. He’s broke, he’s been fired from his construction job, and his ex-wife has left him for their next door neighbor and a new life in Kansas City. The only opportunity on his horizon is fifty pounds of his brother’s high-grade marijuana, which needs to be driven from Colorado to Houston and exchanged for a lockbox full of cash. The delivery goes off without a hitch, but getting home with the money proves to be a different challenge altogether. Fueled by a grab bag of resentments and self punishment, Shelley becomes a case study in the question of whether it’s possible to live without accepting yourself, and the dope money is the key to a lock he might never find. JP Gritton’s portrait of a hapless aspirant at odds with himself and everyone around him is both tender and ruthless, and Wyoming considers the possibility of redemption in a world that grants forgiveness grudgingly, if at all.
Download or read book Turn and Burn written by Lorelei James and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rough and tumble woman meets her match in a wild cowboy in this Blacktop Cowboys® novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Wrapped and Strapped. Tanna Barker is a world champion barrel racer. But her personal life has been less successful. Her recently widowed father has remarried, and sold the Texas ranch she called home. Now a rodeo injury has left the restless spitfire holed up in Muddy Gap, unsure what her next move should be. Veterinarian August Fletcher has always put his job first. He’s never found a woman who could handle his on-the-road lifestyle. But when sassy, sexy Tanna blows into town, he finally finds the woman of his fantasies. There’s something between them, but Tanna has been burned by love ’em and leave ’em road dogs before. It’ll take some sweet persuasion to convince her that Fletch is committed to their sizzling relationship for the long haul.
Download or read book An Absolutely Remarkable Thing written by Hank Green and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Sparkling with mystery, humor and the uncanny, this is a fun read. But beneath its effervescent tone, more complex themes are at play.” —San Francisco Chronicle In his wildly entertaining debut novel, Hank Green—cocreator of Crash Course, Vlogbrothers, and SciShow—spins a sweeping, cinematic tale about a young woman who becomes an overnight celebrity before realizing she's part of something bigger, and stranger, than anyone could have possibly imagined. The Carls just appeared. Roaming through New York City at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship—like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor—April and her best friend, Andy, make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day, April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world—from Beijing to Buenos Aires—and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight. Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of fame has on her relationships, her safety, and her own identity. And all eyes are on April to figure out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us. Compulsively entertaining and powerfully relevant, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing grapples with big themes, including how the social internet is changing fame, rhetoric, and radicalization; how our culture deals with fear and uncertainty; and how vilification and adoration spring for the same dehumanization that follows a life in the public eye. The beginning of an exciting fiction career, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a bold and insightful novel of now.
Download or read book Rivers written by Michael Farris Smith and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx, “a wonderfully cinematic story” (The Washington Post) set in the post-Katrina South after violent storms have decimated the region. It had been raining for weeks. Maybe months. He had forgotten the last day that it hadn’t rained, when the storms gave way to the pale blue of the Gulf sky, when the birds flew and the clouds were white and sunshine glistened across the drenched land. The Gulf Coast has been brought to its knees. Years of catastrophic hurricanes have so punished and depleted the region that the government has drawn a new boundary ninety miles north of the coastline. Life below the Line offers no services, no electricity, and no resources, and those who stay behind live by their own rules—including Cohen, whose wife and unborn child were killed during an evacuation attempt. He buried them on family land and never left. But after he is ambushed and his home is ransacked, Cohen is forced to flee. On the road north, he is captured by Aggie, a fanatical, snake-handling preacher who has a colony of captives and dangerous visions of repopulating the barren region. Now Cohen is faced with a decision: continue to the Line alone, or try to shepherd the madman’s prisoners across the unforgiving land with the biggest hurricane yet bearing down—and Cohen harboring a secret that poses the greatest threat of all. Eerily prophetic in its depiction of a Southern landscape ravaged by extreme weather, Rivers is a masterful tale of survival and redemption in a world where the next devastating storm is never far behind.“This is the kind of book that lifts you up with its mesmerizing language then pulls you under like a riptide” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
Download or read book Fools Rush in written by Janice A. Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bella, an Italian from New Jersey whose family moved to Texas, must battle her feelings for a deejay and learn how to run the family's wedding planning business after she books a country and western theme wedding.
Download or read book The Twelve Book Two of The Passage Trilogy written by Justin Cronin and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The end of the world was only the beginning. In his internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Passage, Justin Cronin constructed an unforgettable world transformed by a government experiment gone horribly wrong. Now the scope widens and the intensity deepens as the epic story surges forward . . . In the present day, as the man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, is so shattered by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her. Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver,” has been forced to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far. April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a landscape of death and ruin. These three will learn that they have not been fully abandoned—and that in connection lies hope, even on the darkest of nights. One hundred years in the future, Amy and the others fight on for humankind’s salvation . . . unaware that the rules have changed. The enemy has evolved, and a dark new order has arisen with a vision of the future infinitely more horrifying than man’s extinction. If the Twelve are to fall, one of those united to vanquish them will have to pay the ultimate price. A heart-stopping thriller rendered with masterful literary skill, The Twelve is a grand and gripping tale of sacrifice and survival. Look for the entire Passage trilogy: THE PASSAGE | THE TWELVE | THE CITY OF MIRRORS Praise for The Twelve “[A] literary superthriller.”—The New York Times Book Review “An undeniable and compelling epic . . . a complex narrative of flight and forgiveness, of great suffering and staggering loss, of terrible betrayals and incredible hope.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “The Twelve is even better than The Passage.”—The Plain Dealer “A compulsive read.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Gripping . . . Cronin [introduces] eerie new elements to his masterful mythology. . . . Enthralling, emotional and entertaining.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune “Fine storytelling.”—Associated Press “Cronin is one of those rare authors who works on two different levels, blending elegantly crafted literary fiction with cliff-hanging thrills.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Download or read book Dora A Headcase written by Lidia Yuknavitch and published by Hawthorne Books. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dora: A Headcase is a contemporary coming-of-age story based on Freud’s famous case study—retold and revamped through Dora's point of view, with shotgun blasts of dark humor and sexual play. Ida needs a shrink . . . or so her philandering father thinks, and he sends her to a Seattle psychiatrist. Immediately wise to the head games of her new shrink, whom she nicknames Siggy, Ida begins a coming-of-age journey. At the beginning of her therapy, Ida, whose alter ego is Dora, and her small posse of pals engage in "art attacks." Ida’s in love with her friend Obsidian, but when she gets close to intimacy, she faints or loses her voice. Ida and her friends hatch a plan to secretly film Siggy and make an experimental art film. But something goes wrong at a crucial moment—at a nearby hospital Ida finds her father suffering a heart attack. While Ida loses her voice, a rough cut of her experimental film has gone viral, and unethical media agents are hunting her down. A chase ensues in which everyone wants what Ida has.
Download or read book Arkansas written by John Brandon and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kyle and Swin spend their nights crisscrossing the South with illicit goods, making shifty deals in dingy trailers, and taking vague orders from a boss they've never met. Soon their lazy peace is shattered with a shot: night blends into day filled with dead bodies, crooked superiors, and suspicious associates. It's on-the-job training, with no time for slow learning, bad judgment, or foul luck.
Download or read book Body Double written by Tess Gerritsen and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2004-08-17 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles—the inspiration for the hit TNT series—continue their bestselling crime-solving streak. “Crime writing at its unputdownable, nerve-tingling best.”—Harlan Coben Boston medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles is shocked to discover that the murdered woman looks exactly like her. For Maura, an only child, a DNA test confirms the startling fact: the mysterious doppelgänger is in fact her twin sister. Now an already bizarre homicide investigation becomes a disturbing excursion into a past full of dark secrets and twisted truths. It is a journey that leads Maura to the mother she never knew—an icy and cunning woman who gave Maura life . . . and who just might have a plan to take it away. This ebook edition contains a special preview of Tess Gerritsen’s I Know a Secret. Praise for Tess Gerritsen and Body Double “One of the most versatile voices in thriller fiction today.”—The Providence Journal “Masterful . . . Gerritsen rises to her best yet.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “The story zips along.”—Entertainment Weekly “Chilling suspense . . . leaves the reader breathless.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Download or read book Rebel Thunder written by Bill McCay and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2003 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book in a new series based on the award-winning, bestselling collectible-miniature fantasy game--a spellbinding tale of intrigue, mystery, and betrayal among warlords, mages, and revolutionaries. Original.
Download or read book The Chronology of Water written by Lidia Yuknavitch and published by Hawthorne Books. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is not your mother’s memoir. In The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch, a lifelong swimmer and Olympic hopeful escapes her raging father and alcoholic and suicidal mother when she accepts a swimming scholarship which drug and alcohol addiction eventually cause her to lose. What follows is promiscuous sex with both men and women, some of them famous, and some of it S&M, and Lidia discovers the power of her sexuality to help her forget her pain. The forgetting doesn’t last, though, and it is her hard-earned career as a writer and a teacher, and the love of her husband and son, that ultimately create the life she needs to survive.
