Download or read book Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine written by Thom Jones and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2009-11-29 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author's world encompasses dilapidated fight arenas, state mental hospitals & chaotic emergency rooms. The inhabitants are his brilliantly etched characters, who battle desperately against fate in a game of life they cannot win but dare not lose. As we approach the end of the century & the millennium, no one writes better or more vividly than Jones does about the personal, private apocalypses we all face in our darkest moments. In one story, a Vietnam vet, a Recon Marine, swims alone across the English Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar, & the Bosporus to maintain "the edge" that kept him alive in wartime - & that is all he now has left. In another, a brilliant doctor verges on a breakdown. In the title story, a young amateur fighter stoically endures repetitive beatings because he knows the world of boxing shields & protects him from the even crueler world outside of the ring. A number of these stories have appeared in different forms in the New Yorker, Playboy, & Esquire.
Download or read book Look at Me written by Jonathan Reiss and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling biography of SoundCloud sensation and rising star XXXTENTACION -- from his candid songwriting and connection with fans to his tragic death. At the age of twenty, rapper Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy-aka XXXTENTACION-was gunned down during an attempted robbery on the streets of Deerfield Beach, Florida, mere months after signing a $10 million record deal with Empire Music. A rising star in the world of SoundCloud rap, XXXTENTACION achieved stellar levels of success without the benefit of a major label or radio airtime, and flourished via his passionate and unfettered connection to his fans. In Look at Me!, journalist Jonathan Reiss charts the tumultuous life and unguarded songwriting of the SoundCloud sensation. Unlike most rap on the platform, XXXTENTACION's music didn't dwell on money, partying, and getting high. He wrote about depression, suicide, and other mental health issues, topics that led to an outpouring of posthumous appreciation from his devoted fanbase. It was XXXTENTACION's vulnerability that helped him stand apart from artists obsessed with being successful and "cool." Yet these insecurities also stemmed from-and contributed to-his fair share of troubles, including repeated run-ins with the law during his teen years, a disturbing proclivity toward violence, and a prison sentence that overlapped with the release of his first single. Through the memories of the people who knew him best, Look at Me! maps out the true story of an unlikely cultural icon and elucidates what it was about him that touched the post-millennial generation so deeply.
Download or read book I Swear I ll Make It Up to You written by Mishka Shubaly and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An odyssey of family, heartbreak, violence, punk rock, brokenness, broke-ness, sex, love, loss, drinking, drinking, drinking, and an unlikely savior: distance running. A misfit kid at the best of times, Mishka Shubaly had his world shattered when, in a twenty-four-hour span in 1992, he survived a mass shooting on his school's campus, then learned that his parents were getting divorced. His father, a prominent rocket scientist, abandoned the family and their home was lost to foreclosure. Shubaly swore to avenge the wrongs against his mother, but instead plunged into a magnificently toxic love affair with alcohol. Almost two decades later, Shubaly's life changed again when a fateful five-mile run after a bar fight inspired him to clean up his life. And when he finally reconnected with his estranged father, he discovered the story of his childhood was radically different from what he thought he knew. In this fiercely honest, emotional, and self-laceratingly witty book, Shubaly relives his mistakes, misfortunes, and infrequent good decisions: the disastrous events that fractured his life; his incendiary romances; his hot-and-cold career as a rock musician; meeting his newborn nephew while out of his gourd on cough syrup. I Swear I'll Make It Up to You is an apology for choices Shubaly never thought he'd live long enough to regret, a journey so far down the low road that it took him years of running to claw his way back.
Download or read book Sand Talk written by Tyson Yunkaporta and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A paradigm-shifting book in the vein of Sapiens that brings a crucial Indigenous perspective to historical and cultural issues of history, education, money, power, and sustainability—and offers a new template for living. As an indigenous person, Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from a unique perspective, one tied to the natural and spiritual world. In considering how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation, he raises important questions. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? In this thoughtful, culturally rich, mind-expanding book, he provides answers. Yunkaporta’s writing process begins with images. Honoring indigenous traditions, he makes carvings of what he wants to say, channeling his thoughts through symbols and diagrams rather than words. He yarns with people, looking for ways to connect images and stories with place and relationship to create a coherent world view, and he uses sand talk, the Aboriginal custom of drawing images on the ground to convey knowledge. In Sand Talk, he provides a new model for our everyday lives. Rich in ideas and inspiration, it explains how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everyone and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things. Most of all it’s about a very special way of thinking, of learning to see from a native perspective, one that is spiritually and physically tied to the earth around us, and how it can save our world. Sand Talk include 22 black-and-white illustrations that add depth to the text.
Download or read book Night Train written by Thom Jones and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A posthumous and definitive collection of new and selected stories by "virtuoso of the short story" (Esquire) and National Book Award finalist Thom Jones. This scorching collection from award-winning author Thom Jones features his best new short fiction alongside a selection of outstanding stories from three previous books. Jones's stories are full of high-octane, prose-drunk entertainment. His characters are grifters and drifters, rogues and ne'er-do-wells, would-be do-gooders whose human frailties usually get the better of them. Some are lovable, others are not, but each has an indelible and irresistible voice. They include Vietnam soldiers, amateur boxers, devoted doctors, strung-out advertising writers, pill poppers and veterans of the psych ward, and an unforgettable adolescent DJ radio host, among others. The stories here are excursions into a unique world that veers between abject desperation and fleeting transcendence. Perhaps no other writer in recent memory could encapsulate in such short spaces the profound and the devastating, the poignant and the hallucinatory, with such an exquisite balance of darkness and light. Jones's fiction reveals again and again the resilience and grace of characters who refuse to succumb. In stories that can at once delight us with their wicked humor and sting us with their affecting pathos, Night Train perfectly captures the essence of this iconic American master, showcasing in a single collection the breadth of power of his inimitable fiction.
Download or read book The Janitor Or Dostoevsky in America written by Mark Beyer and published by Siren & Muse Publishing. This book was released on 2020-08-15 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever heard the story of the Hero turned Goat? At sixteen, Ernest Waine is trapped in a world of hate. He cycles between knowing his friends and seeing enemies watching from the shadows. What has made me this way? he asks. An answer eludes him by day; at night he reads fantastic books in which he can only hope to learn some right path along the potholed roads leading to the end of the twentieth century.The day Ernest opens Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky’s voice shouts at him over the noise made constant by his daytime life. What he hears from the Russian master-storyteller makes the case for his next move. Murder, on a notorious scale. Twenty-five years later, Ernest is asked to recall the day in his life when he had planned to kill his classmates. This time he does not hear Dostoevsky speaking, but his own voice coming from behind the horror of what he had done, and what he hadn’t. The Janitor: Or, Dostoevsky in America carries with it the passions of the frightened, the angry: those children compelled to react in the name of self-defined safety, and lone survival. Sometimes, the sum of all actions does not define a life. “Let me tell you the one about the Goat turned Hero...” Read and excerpt, and then BUY THE BOOK :-)
Download or read book He s Mine written by Leanne LeeAping and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shae Vega is not the popular girl, or the dork of the school. She isn't a nerd or a queen B. She's just a feisty seventeen year old girl, who is completely in love. Her life however, is far from simple. Xander Wilde, the guy who stole her heart and who's equally infatuated with her.There relationship isn't perfect, for mainly one reason.He has a girlfriend.His girlfriend is a shy girl, who goes by the name of Chelsea Winter. Because of Chelsea's situation, Xander refuses to break up with her. But for Shae and Xander to be happy, Chelsea needs to be out of the picture.Which leads to a plan, devised by Shae and her boyfriend on how to get Chelsea to make the first move and dump Xander first.However, Shae got a bit too caught up in the plan and that wasn't such a good idea.
Download or read book I Want My MTV written by Rob Tannenbaum and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remember When All You Wanted Was Your MTV? The perfect gift for the music fan or child of the eighties in your life. Named One of the Best Books of 2011 by NPR – Spin - USA Today – CNBC - Pitchfork - The Onion - The Atlantic - The Huffington Post – VEVO - The Boston Globe - The San Francisco Chronicle Remember the first time you saw Michael Jackson dance with zombies in "Thriller"? Diamond Dave karate kick with Van Halen in "Jump"? Tawny Kitaen turning cartwheels on a Jaguar to Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again"? The Beastie Boys spray beer in "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)"? Axl Rose step off the bus in "Welcome to the Jungle"? It was a pretty radical idea-a channel for teenagers, showing nothing but music videos. It was such a radical idea that almost no one thought it would actually succeed, much less become a force in the worlds of music, television, film, fashion, sports, and even politics. But it did work. MTV became more than anyone had ever imagined. I Want My MTV tells the story of the first decade of MTV, the golden era when MTV's programming was all videos, all the time, and kids watched religiously to see their favorite bands, learn about new music, and have something to talk about at parties. From its start in 1981 with a small cache of videos by mostly unknown British new wave acts to the launch of the reality-television craze with The Real World in 1992, MTV grew into a tastemaker, a career maker, and a mammoth business. Featuring interviews with nearly four hundred artists, directors, VJs, and television and music executives, I Want My MTV is a testament to the channel that changed popular culture forever.
Download or read book The Adventure Zone Murder on the Rockport Limited written by Clint McElroy and published by First Second. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This format is designed to be read on color devices and cannot be read on black-and-white e-readers. In the second Adventure Zone graphic novel (adapted from the McElroy family's wildly popular D&D podcast), we rejoin hero-adjacent sort-of-comrades-in-arms Taako, Magnus, and Merle on a wild careen through a D&D railroad murder mystery. This installment has a little of everything: a genius child detective, an axe-wielding professional wrestler, a surly wizard, cursed magical artifacts, and a pair of meat monsters. You know, the usual things you find on a train. Hot on the heels of The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins, the smash hit graphic novel that launched the series, The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited! picks up the saga where volume 1 left off. Both books are based on "The Adventure Zone," a tabletop RPG comedy podcast with downloads numbering in the tens of millions and an army of passionately devoted fans. With art and co-adaptation from Carey Pietsch, the McElroys are once again turning their raucous freewheeling D&D campaign into some damn fine comics.
Download or read book Puck written by and published by . This book was released on 1890 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book THE SECRET SERVICE Spy Thrillers Boxed Set written by James Fenimore Cooper and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2023-11-18 with total page 13278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE SECRET SERVICE - Spy Thrillers Boxed Set is a carefully curated collection that traverses the suspenseful and shadowy corridors of espionage literature. Stitching together a rich tapestry of narratives, this anthology celebrates the genre's inception and evolution, featuring a range of literary styles from the thrilling to the cerebral. Each work, chosen for its unique contribution to the spy narrative, offers a glimpse into the intriguing interplay of morality, loyalty, and betrayal. Among these selections, readers will encounter notable tales that have shaped and defined the espionage genre, making this collection an indispensable archive of literary history. The authors represented in this compilationJames Fenimore Cooper, John Buchan, and Arthur Conan Doyle, among othersare titans of literature whose collective works have left an indelible mark on the spy genre and beyond. Hailing from diverse backgrounds, they bring to the fore a plethora of experiences and perspectives, enriched by their involvement in historical and cultural movements of their times. Together, their stories encapsulate the zeitgeist of their eras, contributing to a multifaceted discussion on the nature of secret service work and its implications for national identity and individual morality. This anthology is a must-read for enthusiasts of spy literature and scholars alike, offering a panoramic view of the genres development and its cultural impact. Readers are invited to delve into the complexity of espionage through the lens of these master storytellers, each narrative a thread in the larger tapestry of intrigue and intelligence. THE SECRET SERVICE - Spy Thrillers Boxed Set serves not only as a compendium of thrilling espionage tales but as a medium for exploring the nuanced dynamics of secrecy, patriotism, and ethics. It beckons the reader to journey through the annals of spy literature, uncovering the secrets that lie within each page.
Download or read book Zahedan written by James Brandon and published by James Brandon. This book was released on 2005 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark Jacques, a freelance journalist who also works as a counter-terrorism officer for MI6, is investigating the activities of a remarkably beautiful, extremely intelligent, and immensely rich Lebanese businesswoman - the mysterious Maha Kermani. His quest for the truth takes him to the Iranian city of Zahedan. But the truth is elusive, and nothing is at it appears in this journey of discovery where love and death conspire to confuse - and even destroy - Mark. Is Maha a mere pawn caught up in a deadly game of chess, or is she implicated in the running of her husband's suspected Islamist terrorist organisation?
Download or read book First Folio written by Scott Evans and published by Author House. This book was released on 2010-12-02 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When an old friend and colleague passes away, an LSU English professor named Jack Claire travels to Swansea, Wales, to attend the funeral and is bequeathed a cache of handwritten manuscripts, the plays of William Shakespeare, along with a rare, leather-bound copy of the First Folio --the first collection of Shakespeare's plays. A problem arises, however, when he recognizes that the handwriting is NOT William Shakespeare's. He returns to Baton Rouge with and attempts to authenticate the documents, inadvertently alerting a ruthless collector who covets these priceless literary artifacts. The collector hires a relentless mercenary to steal the Shakespeare papers. Benedict resorts to violence when his surreptitious searches fail. In California, Joseph Lawrence Conrad, a handsome young college instructor, receives mysterious handwritten original plays of Shakespeare. Not an Elizabethan scholar, Joe Conrad seeks the help of a colleague named Jonathan Smitty Smythe, a literary Sherlock Holmes to Joe's Watson. At once, Smitty recognizes the potential of the manuscripts and enlists the aid of Silvia Williamson, a brilliant and beautiful African-American scholar from Berkeley. As these three amateur sleuths labor to authenticate the manuscripts and determine the true author of Shakespeare's plays, they learn someone is after the priceless papers --and he's leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Eventually, everyone connected to the Shakespeare papers is in danger, including Joe's wife and children. Plots intersect as the scholars discover evidence (based on thorough research) pointing to the most probable author(s) of Shakespeare's works, while the ruthless collector grows closer to the prize. Along the way, Joe and the others are assisted by police detective Ryan Dunn, who saved Joe and his family years earlier, FBI Agent Terry Lott, who helps uncover the identity of the mercenary, and Bill Morgan, an attorney who assists in protecting the Shakespeare papers and the family. This fast-paced journey of discovery takes these appealing characters from Louisiana to California, to Washington, DC, Oxford, England, Swansea, Wales, and back to London where they discover a surprising link to today's Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family, which ultimately leads Joe and Smitty to Stratford-upon-Avon, where they come face to face with a surprising and lethal truth.
Download or read book Developing Minds An American Ghost Story written by Jonathan LaPoma and published by Almendro Arts. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: -Winner of 2015 Stargazer Literary Prizes (Visionary and Metaphysical Fiction category) -Bronze medal winner of 2016 FAPA President's Awards (Adult eBook category) -Recommended by Kirkus Reviews Developing Minds: An American Ghost Story follows a group of recent college graduates who struggle with feelings of alienation and their addictions as they try to survive a year of teaching at two dysfunctional Miami public schools. A poetic and insightful coming-of-age novel, Developing Minds is centered on 24-year-old Luke Entelechy, an aspiring writer who sees his creative output suffer when he begins teaching at one of Miami's most challenging middle schools. As the year progresses, however, Luke begins to relate to the neglect and abuse his students suffer, and is faced with a "haunting" decision: continue to let his dark past destroy him, or rise above the struggle to realize his potential as an artist and a "real" human being. Equal parts disturbing and humorous, Developing Minds offers a brutally honest look at the American public school system and the extreme measures many teachers take to cope with working in it. *Developing Minds: An American Ghost Story is the fourth book in a loosely-linked series, with Hammond, The Summer of Crud, and Understanding the Alacrán as books one-three, and The Soul City Salvation as book five. Each novel can be read independently of the others.
Download or read book A Gambler s Anatomy written by Jonathan Lethem and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude returns with a devilishly entertaining novel about an international backgammon hustler who thinks he's psychic. Too bad about the tumor in his face. Alexander Bruno travels the world playing high stakes backgammon and hunting for amateur “whales” who think they can challenge him. Lately he’s had a run of bad luck, not helped by the blot that has emerged in his field of vision, which forces him to look at the board sideways. As the blot grows larger, his game gets worse, until, at an opulent mansion in Berlin, he passes out in the middle of a match and receives an alarming diagnosis. Out of money and out of friends, he turns to the only person who can help (and the last person he wants to see): a high-rolling former childhood acquaintance who agrees to pay for Bruno’s experimental surgery in Berkeley. But Berkeley is the place where Bruno discovered his psychic gift and where he vowed never to return. There, forced to confront patchouli flashbacks and his uncertain future, he must ask himself: Is he playing the game, or is the game playing him?
Download or read book Texas Trouble written by Gerry Bartlett and published by Lyrical Press. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She was starting a new life in Texas—until old trouble turned up . . . Scarlett Hall followed a job and a friend to Texas, but that cost her more than she’d bargained for. Now, wounded but determined to get past one of the worst days of her life, she decides she has to pull herself together. First step: cover up the physical scars left from her ordeal. That’s easy. But the emotional scars are proving harder to handle . . . Then she meets Ethan Calhoun. This bad boy seems ready to make his own changes and might be just what she needs to start a new chapter in her life. When he offers her a job as manager of his new bar, she decides to go for it. A change of pace and a hot guy who makes her forget her troubles while she’s in his arms are a great cure. But it soon becomes clear that danger will be in Scarlett’s life no matter how many changes she makes. As Scarlett comes face to face with her worst nightmare, it seems happiness was just an illusion. Maybe Texas is just too much trouble . .
Download or read book SPIN written by and published by . This book was released on 1994-12 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the concert stage to the dressing room, from the recording studio to the digital realm, SPIN surveys the modern musical landscape and the culture around it with authoritative reporting, provocative interviews, and a discerning critical ear. With dynamic photography, bold graphic design, and informed irreverence, the pages of SPIN pulsate with the energy of today's most innovative sounds. Whether covering what's new or what's next, SPIN is your monthly VIP pass to all that rocks.
