Download or read book Shelter Blues written by Robert R. Desjarlais and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-09-16 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Desjarlais shows us not anonymous faces of the homeless but real people. While it is estimated that 25 percent or more of America's homeless are mentally ill, their lives are largely unknown to us. What must life be like for those who, in addition to living on the street, hear voices, suffer paranoid delusions, or have trouble thinking clearly or talking to others. Shelter Blues is an innovative portrait of people residing in Boston's Station Street Shelter. It examines the everyday lives of more than 40 homeless men and women, both white and African-American, ranging in age from early 20s to mid-60s. Based on a sixteen-month study, it draws readers into the personal worlds of these individuals and, by addressing the intimacies of homelessness, illness, and abjection, picks up where most scholarship and journalism stops. Robert Desjarlais works against the grain of media representations of homelessness by showing us not anonymous stereotypes but individuals. He draws on conversations as well as observations, talking with and listening to shelter residents to understand how they relate to their environment, to one another, and to those entrusted with their care. His book considers their lives in terms of a complex range of forces and helps us comprehend the linkages between culture, illness, personhood, and political agency on the margins of contemporary American society. Shelter Blues is unlike anything else ever written about homelessness. It challenges social scientists and mental health professionals to rethink their approaches to human subjectivity and helps us all to better understand one of the most pressing problems of our time.

Download or read book Dog Shelter Blues written by Mark Conkling and published by Sunstone Press. This book was released on 2012-07-25 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This hard-hitting story lights up the world of animal rescue with engaging characters and their pets, bringing hope out of personal tragedies. Danny Sandoval, a character from the author’s previous book, “Prairie Dog Blues,” joins up with his friends to take on Norma Jean Lawson and her Safe Sanctuary No-Kill Rescue Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Danny accuses Safe Sanctuary of negligent animal care, claiming they do more harm than good. Undaunted, Norma Jean puts up a fierce fight through her attorney, and sues Danny for libel and slander. Danny fights back, and both Danny and Norma Jean struggle with their own internal demons as they attempt to rescue dogs and cats, innocent creatures that sometimes bring a mysterious transforming power to broken lives. Their battle shows that bad motives often end in darkness, and that animals and a clean heart can reveal pathways to God’s healing. “Dog Shelter Blues” takes these beaten, everyday people on a breathtaking journey that ends with an astonishing triumph of good over evil. MARK CONKLING--teacher, homebuilder, realtor, finance manager, retired Methodist pastor--returns to writing with this second novel, the first being “Prairie Dog Blues,” also from Sunstone Press. Mark lives in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, works with his wife Patricia (Meadowlark Family Healthcare), walks his dog in the Bosque near the Rio Grande, frequents the recovery community (AA), writes fiction, and seeks daily peace of mind. His short fiction was published in the Minnetonka Review and Diverse Voices Quarterly. Years ago, as a university professor (PhD, philosophy and psychology), Mark published several academic articles in existential philosophy and psychology, including “Consciousness and the Unconscious in William James' “Principles of Psychology,” (Human Inquiries), “Sartre's Refutation of the Freudian Unconscious,” (Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry), and “Ryle's Mistake About Consciousness” (Philosophy Today).

Download or read book Sunbelt Blues written by Andrew Ross and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening investigation of America’s rural and suburban housing crisis, told through a searing portrait of precarious living in Disney World's backyard. Today, a minimum-wage earner can afford a one-bedroom apartment in only 145 out of 3,143 counties in America. One of the very worst places in the United States to look for affordable housing is Osceola County, Florida. Once the main approach to Disney World, where vacationers found lodging on their way to the Magic Kingdom, the fifteen-mile Route 192 corridor in Osceola has become a site of shocking contrasts. At one end, global investors snatch up foreclosed properties and park their capital in extravagant vacation homes for affluent visitors, eliminating the county’s affordable housing in the process. At the other, underpaid tourist industry workers, displaced families, and disabled and elderly people subsisting on government checks cram themselves into dilapidated, roach-infested motels, or move into tent camps in the woods. Through visceral, frontline reporting from the motels and encampments dotting central Florida, renowned social analyst Andrew Ross exposes the overlooked housing crisis sweeping America’s suburbs and rural areas, where residents suffer ongoing trauma, poverty, and nihilism. As millions of renters face down evictions and foreclosures in the midst of the COVID-19 recession, Andrew Ross reveals how ineffective government planning, property market speculation, and poverty wages have combined to create this catastrophe. Urgent and incisive, Sunbelt Blues offers original insight into what is quickly becoming a full-blown national emergency.

Download or read book Shelter Dog Blues written by Susan Meddaugh and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 2010-01-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martha has lost her collar and ended up at the local animal shelter. When Martha is picked up, she feels sad for her new friends. Martha and her friends cook up a spectacular plan to find families for all of the pound pooches!

Download or read book Reckoning with Homelessness written by Kim Hopper and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kim Hopper has dedicated his career to trying to address the problem of homelessness in the United States. In this powerful book, he draws upon his dual strengths as anthropologist and advocate to provide a deeper understanding of the roots of homelessness.

Download or read book Windy City Blues written by Sara Paretsky and published by Dell. This book was released on 1996-11-02 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: V.I. Warshawski, “undoubtedly one of the best-written characters in mystery fiction” (The Baltimore Sun), returns in a collection of stories that bring new meaning to “ties that bind.” Decked out in her silk shirts and no-nonsense Attitude, V.I. is out to make a living—by the skin of her teeth. In “Grace Notes,” V.I. has barely finished her morning coffee when she sees an ad in the paper asking for information about her own mother, long dead. The paper leads V.I. to her newfound Italian cousin Vico, who’s looking for music composed by their great-grandmother. What’s the score? Clearly it’s something to kill for. . . . “The Pietro Andromache” finds V.I.’s friend Dr. Lotty Herschel with motive and means to dispatch her professional rival and steal his priceless statue. Lotty didn’t do it—but does she know who did? V.I. soon cuts to the art of the case—and it’s not a pretty picture at all! Summoned by an old high school friend to a race “At the Old Swimming Hole,” V.I. ends up swimming with the sharks—the FBI and a ruthless gambling kingpin—in a pool of blood. . . . And it’s only “Skin Deep” when a relaxing facial transformation transforms a client into a stiff. V.I.’s pal Sal needs help. Her beautician sister Evangeline is prime suspect—and V.I. has only eighteen hours to crack the case before it’s headline news. . . . “Three-Dot Po” proves there’s nothing like a dog. Especially a dog on the trail of her mistress’s killer, with V.I. in tow. . . . In “Strung Out,” love means nothing and V.I.’s quick to learn the score as her old friend’s tennis-champion daughter is under suspicion for strangling her father with a racket string. And there’s more, nine stories in all, in this masterful collection of short fiction starring V.I. Warshawski, “the most engaging woman in detective fiction since Dorothy Sayers’s Harriet Vane” (Newsweek).

Download or read book Freak the Mighty written by Rodman Philbrick and published by Usborne Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2015-04-01 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Max is used to being called Stupid. And he is used to everyone being scared of him. On account of his size and looking like his dad. Kevin is used to being called Dwarf. And he is used to everyone laughing at him. On account of his size and being some cripple kid. But greatness comes in all sizes, and together Max and Kevin become Freak The Mighty and walk high above the world. An inspiring, heartbreaking, multi-award winning international bestseller.

Download or read book Sensory Biographies written by Prof. Robert R. Desjarlais and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-03-03 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Desjarlais's graceful ethnography explores the life histories of two Yolmo elders, focusing on how particular sensory orientations and modalities have contributed to the making and the telling of their lives. These two are a woman in her late eighties known as Kisang Omu and a Buddhist priest in his mid-eighties known as Ghang Lama, members of an ethnically Tibetan Buddhist people whose ancestors have lived for three centuries or so along the upper ridges of the Yolmo Valley in north central Nepal. It was clear through their many conversations that both individuals perceived themselves as nearing death, and both were quite willing to share their thoughts about death and dying. The difference between the two was remarkable, however, in that Ghang Lama's life had been dominated by motifs of vision, whereas Kisang Omu's accounts of her life largely involved a "theatre of voices." Desjarlais offers a fresh and readable inquiry into how people's ways of sensing the world contribute to how they live and how they recollect their lives.

Download or read book Toby written by Hazel Mitchell and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A heartwarming story about the growing bond between a child and a new pet—inspired by the author’s experience with a rescue dog of the same name. When a young boy and his father move from one house to another, they decide to adopt a dog from the local rescue shelter. But their chosen dog, Toby, is having a tough time adjusting to his new life outside the shelter—howling all night, hiding fearfully from his new humans, forgetting where to go to the bathroom, and chasing a ball through the flower bed. The boy has promised to train his new companion, and he’s trying his best, but Dad is starting to get exasperated. Will Toby ever feel comfortable with his new family and settle into his forever home, or will Dad decide he’s not the right dog for them after all?

Download or read book Fat White Vampire Blues written by Andrew Fox and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He’s undead, overweight, and can’t get a date Vampire, nosferatu, creature of the night—whatever you call him—Jules Duchon has lived (so to speak) in New Orleans far longer than there have been drunk coeds on Bourbon Street. Weighing in at a whopping four hundred and fifty pounds, swelled up on the sweet, rich blood of people who consume the fattiest diet in the world, Jules is thankful he can’t see his reflection in a mirror. When he turns into a bat, he can’t get his big ol’ butt off the ground. What’s worse, after more than a century of being undead, he’s watched his neighborhood truly go to hell—and now, a new vampire is looking to drive him out altogether. See, Jules had always been an equal opportunity kind of vampire. And while he would admit that the blood of a black woman is sweeter than the blood of a white man, Jules never drank more than his fair share of either. Enter Malice X . Young, cocky, and black, Malice warns Jules that his days of feasting on sisters and brothers are over. He tells Jules he’d better confine himself to white victims—or else face the consequences. And then, just to prove he isn’t kidding, Malice burns Jules’s house to the ground. With the help of Maureen, the morbidly obese, stripper-vampire who made him, and Doodlebug, an undead cross-dresser who (literally) flies in from the coast—Jules must find a way to contend with the hurdles that life throws at him . . . without getting a stake through the heart. It’s enough to give a man the blues.

Download or read book Martha Speaks Good Luck Martha Reader written by Susan Meddaugh and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012-02-06 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martha worries that her recent bouts of bad luck might be contagious! Uh-oh. Martha walked under a ladder—and then she broke a mirror—so now she thinks she’s jinxed! Helen tries to explain that all the accidents are just coincidence. But when a nearby toddler stumbles and a waiter takes a clumsy spill, Martha worries that her bad luck might be rubbing off on everybody else. Will Martha be spreading bad luck for seven whole years? Includes a "Test Your Knowledge" activity on common superstitions.

Download or read book Dirty Bird Blues written by Clarence Major and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A quietly influential force in African American literature and art, Clarence Major makes his Penguin Classics debut with the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of Dirty Bird Blues The PRH Audio book of Dirty Bird Blues by Clarence Major won a 2022 EARPHONE AWARD. Narrated by Dion Graham. A Penguin Classic Set in post-World War II Chicago and Omaha, the novel features Manfred Banks, a young, harmonica-blowing blues singer who is always writing music in his head. Torn between his friendships with fellow musicians and nightclub life and his responsibilities to his wife and child, along with the pressures of dealing with a racist America that assaults him at every turn, Manfred seeks easy answers in "Dirty Bird" (Old Crow whiskey) and in moving on. He moves to Omaha with hopes of better opportunities as a blue-collar worker, but the blues in his soul and the dreams in his mind keep bringing him back to face himself. After a nightmarish descent into his own depths, Manfred emerges with fresh awareness and possibility. Through Manfred, we witness and experience the process by which modern American English has been vitalized and strengthened by the poetry and the poignancy of the African-American experience. As Manfred struggles with the oppressive constraints of society and his private turmoil, his rich inner voice resonates with the blues.

Download or read book Agave Blues written by Ruthie Marlenée and published by Touchpoint Press. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mix together a little family, drama, ghosts, and tequila, and you get a hell of a cocktail! Sometimes, la sangre atrae, "the blood calls you back," and when Maya gets the call to go back to her agave roots to claim the body of her long-missing father, her world changes forever. Set against the backdrop of her childhood in Mexico, Agave Blues is the story of ailing attorney Maya, in a broken relationship and butting heads with her teenage daughter, Lily. Maya swore never to return, but once she sets foot on mystical grounds, she uncovers her family's turbulent history and how tequila infuses deep secrets that have altered her life, both emotionally and physically. She realizes what's missing in her life―magic, mystery, art, unconditional love, and the stories of her past, including the myth her father used to share with her about her grandfather, Pancho Villa. The fields seem to heal her and her relationships, so she extends her stay and reconnects with her family. But when she encounters the handsome yet haunted Antonio, a childhood crush resurfaces, only to cause her more grief as she tries to master the art of tequila.

Download or read book Development Arrested written by Clyde Woods and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of a classic history of the Mississippi River Delta Development Arrested is a major reinterpretation of the 200-year-old conflict between African American workers and the planters of the Mississippi Delta. The book measures the impact of the plantation system on those who suffered its depredations firsthand, while tracing the decline and resurrection of plantation ideology in national public policy debate. Despite countless defeats under the planter regime, African Americans in the Delta continued to push forward their agenda for social and economic justice. Throughout this remarkably interdisciplinary book, ranging across fields as diverse as rural studies, musicology, development studies, and anthropology, Woods demonstrates the role of music—including jazz, rock and roll, soul, rap and, above all, the blues—in sustaining a radical vision of social change.

Download or read book Blue s Prophecy written by Emily Ross and published by . This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robo, a beloved Great Dane, is tricked out of the embrace of his human family and then is horribly altered by a scientist who rebuilds him with technology never seen before. It leaves Robo a genius, almost immortal and with powers beyond explanation. But the suffering Robo experiences changes him--driving him insane with the sole mission to destroy all humans, especially those who have tortured and hurt dogs. Meanwhile, Blue, a scrappy alley dog, is trapped in a shelter, when she captures the attention of another scientist desperate to stop Robo from his path of destruction. Her mission: save human civilization and the packs of dogs she's grown to love.

Download or read book The Sugarhouse Blues written by Mariah Stewart and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart comes more "catnip for women's fiction fans" (Booklist) in the second novel of the Hudson Sisters series. Allie, Des, and Cara, each having her own reasons for wanting a share of their father's estate, meet in the grand Victorian home in which he grew up, only to be greeted by another secret he purposely hid from them: his sister Bonnie. The women reluctantly band together to take on Fritz's challenge, working with a local contractor to begin the renovations financed by an account Fritz had set up for the task. While the restoration appears to go smoothly at first, it soon becomes apparent that the work will be more extensive than originally thought, and Des, elected to handle the money, needs to find ways to stretch out the remaining savings while searching for new sources of funding. As strangers linked only by their DNA try to become a family, the Hudson sisters also try to come to terms with the father they only thought they knew. In the process, each woman discovers her own capacity for understanding, forgiveness, love, and the true meaning of family.

Download or read book Bill Wyman s blues Odyssey written by Bill Wyman and published by DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley). This book was released on 2001 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the Blues genre and its celebrated musicians discusses how African-Americans expressed poverty, injustice, faith, and love in their music as they journeyed from southern plantations to northern cities.