Download or read book The Crash Palace written by Andrew Wedderburn and published by Coach House Books. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SHORTLISTED FOR THE RELIT 2022 NOVEL AWARD A joy ride set on a crash course with the past. Audrey Cole has always loved to drive. Anytime, anywhere, any car: a questionable rustbucket, a family sedan, the SUV she was paid to drive around the oil fields. From the second she learned to drive, she’s always found a way to hit the road. Years ago, when she abandoned her oil field job, she found herself chauffeuring around the Lever Men, a B-list band relegated to playing empty dive bars in far-flung towns. That’s how she found herself at the Crash Palace, an isolated lodge outside the big city where people pay to party in the wilderness. And now, one night, while her young daughter is asleep at home, Audrey is struck by that old urge and finds herself testing the doors of parked cars in her neighbourhood. Before she knows it, she’s headed north in the dead of winter to the now abandoned Crash Palace in a stolen car, unable to stop herself from confronting her past The Crash Palace is a funny, moving, and surprising novel by the author of the Amazon First Novel Award–nominated The Milk Chicken Bomb. Audrey is unlike any character you’ve met before, and you'll love being along for the ride.

Download or read book The Milk Chicken Bomb written by Andrew Wedderburn and published by Coach House Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The kid sells lemonade. Not a lot of people buy lemonade, especially now that it's winter, but the kid makes good lemonade, even if his friend Mullen thinks it ought to be sweeter. They don't talk much with the other ten-year-olds - most of the others are Dead Kids anyway. Except for Jenny Tierney, but she's busy breaking kids' faces with her math book. Besides, the Russians from the meat-packing plant are a lot cooler, and they always win at curling. But in small-town Alberta, there are just too many roman-candle fights, bonspiels, retaliatory river diversions, black-market submarines, exploding boilers, meat-packing-plant suicides and recess-time lightning strikes for one lonely kid to get any attention. He might as well go to Kazakhstan. Then the adults in his life start disappearing down tunnels and into rendering vats. Being ten is hard enough without all that, especially when your best friend is ruining the lemonade. But the Milk Chicken Bomb should change everything. Frenetic, hilarious and gently heartrending, The Milk Chicken Bomb takes us inside the mind of a troubled ten-year-old who is just beginning to understand that the adults around him are as lonely and bewildered as he is in the face of the slapstick demands of the world.

Download or read book Cursed Objects written by Jason Christie and published by . This book was released on 2019-04-10 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now that we've sold ourselves to ourselves, shuffling letters and sounds around to hide the pain, how do we represent the uncanny valley in which we've set up shop? In lèse-majesté, Jason Christie recoils in horror at the thoroughness of his self, then begins to write toward a new understanding brokered between all the things that define him and who he thinks he should be and interrogates how we reduce people to words, especially online, turning them into objects.

Download or read book Zelda Rising written by George Hook and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2024-03-19 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zelda Rising tells the story of an empathetic young woman named Crystine who runs afoul of a perverse male stranger as she works to create a cozy refuge for booklovers in a Chicago space she calls Zelda Rising Books, in honor of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife. The novel Zelda Rising revolves around this world of books that mean much more than reading, for very lives end up depending on them. It offers up a range of colorful characters from Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood who are drawn into the center of Crystine's bookstore, for better or worse, and must face their own unfulfilled dreams and mortality after she is gaslighted and dies tragically. Mystery pervades Zelda Rising until violence becomes the only solution. Definitely an engrossing, succinct read.

Download or read book Untold Story written by Monica Ali and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-07-05 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She was the most famous woman in the world. She died tragically, too young, in a terrible accident. The world mourned. Monica Ali, the beloved author of Brick Lane, explores the extraordinary question: what if she hadn't died? Lydia lives in a nondescript town somewhere in the American Midwest. She's a nice, normal woman - if strikingly beautiful. She lives a nice, normal life: her friends are normal, her job is normal, her hobbies are normal. Her friends and boyfriend adore her. But her past is shrouded in mystery. Who is Lydia? Where does she come from? And why is her English accent so posh? Lydia is a woman with secrets. Extraordinary secrets. She might even be the most famous woman on the planet... a woman whose death the world mourned by millions. Who is she? *~*~* Praise for Untold Story*~*~* 'A beautiful, gripping accomplishment, a treat for the heart and the head, and will be a joy to readers who believe in the possibility that a book can transform your basic sense of life' Andrew O'Hagan 'A terrific, clever, multi-layered and subtle book (and let's not forget - hugely entertaining)' Joanne Harris 'Haunting and intensely readable, this is something between a thriller and a ghost story' Lady Antonia Fraser 'A startlingly intelligent, perceptive and entertaining piece of fiction. It's quite brilliant' Henry Sutton, Daily Mirror 'Thoughtful, compassionate... a suspenseful and gripping read' Suzi Feay, Financial Times 'Ali's third-person princess is a very convincing and sympathetic figure... extremely skilfully done' Tibor Fischer, Observer

Download or read book You re with Stupid written by Bruce Adams and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1990s, Chicago was at the center of indie rock, propelling bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Liz Phair to the national stage. The musical ecosystem from which these bands emerged, though, was expansive and diverse. Grunge players comingled with the electronic, jazz, psychedelic, and ambient music communities, and an inventive, collaborative group of local labels—kranky, Drag City, and Thrill Jockey, among others—embraced the new, evolving sound of indie “rock.” Bruce Adams, co-founder of kranky records, was there to bear witness. In You’re with Stupid, Adams offers an insider’s look at the role Chicago’s underground music industry played in the transformation of indie rock. Chicago labels, as Adams explains, used the attention brought by national acts to launch bands that drew on influences outside the Nirvana-inspired sound then dominating pop. The bands themselves—Labradford, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Low—were not necessarily based in Chicago, but it was Chicago labels like kranky that had the ears and the infrastructure to do something with this new music. In this way, Chicago-shaped sounds reached the wider world, presaging the genre-blending music of the twenty-first century. From an author who helped create the scene and launched some of its best music, You’re with Stupid is a fascinating and entertaining read.

Download or read book Playing the Palace written by Paul Rudnick and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Buzzfeed's 39 Excellent LGBTQ Books To Read This Month And Always THEIR LOVE STORY CAPTIVATED THE WORLD…THE CROWN PRINCE AND THAT GUY FROM NEW YORK When a lonely American event planner starts dating the gay Prince of Wales, a royal uproar ensues: is it true love or the ultimate meme? Find out in this hilarious romantic comedy. After having his heart trampled on by his cheating ex, Carter Ogden is afraid love just isn’t in the cards for him. He still holds out hope in a tiny corner of his heart, but even in his wildest dreams he never thought he’d meet the Crown Prince of England, much less do a lot more with him. Yes, growing up he’d fantasized about the handsome, openly gay Prince Edgar, but who hadn’t? When they meet by chance at an event Carter’s boss is organizing, Carter’s sure he imagined all that sizzling chemistry. Or was it mutual? This unlikely but meant-to-be romance sets off media fireworks on both sides of the Atlantic. With everyone having an opinion on their relationship and the intense pressure of being constantly in the spotlight, Carter finds ferocious obstacles to his Happily Ever After, including the tenacious disapproval of the Queen of England. Carter and Price Edgar fight for a happy ending to equal their glorious international beginning. It’s a match made on Valentine’s Day and in tabloid heaven.

Download or read book The Book of Illusions written by Paul Auster and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A man's obsession with a silent-film star sends him on a journey into a shadow world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love Six months after losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a clip from a lost silent film by comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer's interest is piqued, and he soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to research a book on this mysterious figure, who vanished from sight in 1929 and has been presumed dead for sixty years. When the book is published the following year, a letter turns up in Zimmer's mailbox bearing a return address from a small town in New Mexico-supposedly written by Hector's wife. "Hector has read your book and would like to meet you. Are you interested in paying us a visit?" Is the letter a hoax, or is Hector Mann still alive? Torn between doubt and belief, Zimmer hesitates, until one night a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes the decision for him, changing his life forever. This stunning novel plunges the reader into a universe in which the comic and the tragic, the real and the imagined, the violent and the tender dissolve into one another. With The Book of Illusions, one of America's most powerful and original writers has written his richest, most emotionally charged work yet.

Download or read book Dear Edward written by Ann Napolitano and published by Dial Press Trade Paperback. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • “Make sure you have tissues handy when you read [this] sure-footed tearjerker” (NPR) about a young boy who must learn to go on after surviving tragedy, from the author of the Oprah’s Book Club pick Hello Beautiful. Now streaming as an Apple TV+ series starring Connie Britton, written and executive produced by Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights and Parenthood) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Parade, LibraryReads What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live? One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them are a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured veteran returning from Afghanistan, a business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor. Edward’s story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a part of himself has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery—one that will lead him to the answers of some of life’s most profound questions: When you’ve lost everything, how do you find the strength to put one foot in front of the other? How do you learn to feel safe again? How do you find meaning in your life? Dear Edward is at once a transcendent coming-of-age story, a multidimensional portrait of an unforgettable cast of characters, and a breathtaking illustration of all the ways a broken heart learns to love again. Praise for Dear Edward “Dear Edward is that rare book that breaks your heart and stitches it back together during a reading experience that leaves you profoundly altered for the better.”—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Mad Honey “Will lead you toward something wonderous, something profound.”—Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Now Is Not the Time to Panic

Download or read book The Garments of Court and Palace written by Philip Bobbitt and published by Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times-bestselling author presents a provocative new interpretation of The Prince The Prince, a political treatise by the Florentine public servant and political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli, is widely regarded as the most important exploration of politics—and in particular the politics of power—ever written. In Garments of Court and Palace, Philip Bobbitt, a preeminent and original interpreter of modern statecraft, presents a vivid portrait of Machiavelli's Italy and demonstrates how The Prince articulates a new idea of government that emerged during the Renaissance. Bobbitt argues that when The Prince is read alongside the Discourses, modern readers can see clearly how Machiavelli prophesied the end of the feudal era and the birth of a recognizably modern polity. As this book shows, publication of The Prince in 1532 represents nothing less than a revolutionary moment in our understanding of the place of the law and war in the creation and maintenance of the modern state.

Download or read book Burnt Offerings Ant Farm and the Making of an Image written by Steve Seid and published by Inventory Press. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed account of Ant Farm's 1975 Media Burn performance, a legendary act of consumerist critique This book examines the complex set of cultural references and art-making strategies informing Ant Farm's seminal 1975 performance Media Burn in which a customized Cadillac, dubbed the Phantom Dream Car, was driven through a wall of burning television sets. Originally conceived as a conceptual architectural practice, Ant Farm evolved into a full-service art collaborative, culminating in such notable works as House of the Century (1971-73), Cadillac Ranch (1974) and The Eternal Frame (1975). In Media Burn the artists flourished in a rich tumult of ideas that engaged contemporary media theory, an oddly complicated aesthetic spectacle, textual appropriation and an all-encompassing branding effort. Written by Steve Seid (Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive), and drawing upon a rich visual documentation, this book delves into the little-known critical backstory to this influential performance (and video work) involving a massive effort to mount a subversive critique of media hegemony while continually re-imagining the crux of the performance itself.

Download or read book Turn It Up written by Greg Kot and published by Agate Digital. This book was released on 2013-12-17 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly 25 years, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune has been reviewing all parts of the popular music world: from indie up-and-comers and underground hip-hop artists to arena-filling rock-and-rollers and celebrity pop superstars. Turn It Up: A Guided Tour Through the Worlds of Pop, Rock, Rap and More is the first-ever collection of Kot's Tribune articles, covering the years of 2000–2013. Beyond informative and entertaining features, concert recaps, and album reviews, Turn It Up covers major issues associated with music and the music industry since the turn of the millennium. Kot delves deeply into issues that matter regarding the essential acts of the 21st century, the business of music as a whole, and the Chicago music scene in particular. With chapters grouped by genre—pop, rock, and rap—and a catch-all final chapter containing insights on digital music, record labels, and the evolving "music biz," Turn It Up is an easy-to-follow guide to where the music world has come from and where it is going. Kot's deep knowledge of the subject matter and unpretentious writing will make this a fascinating read for his longtime local fans, as well as music lovers far and wide.

Download or read book Modern Sci Fi Films FAQ written by Tom DeMichael and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MODERN SCI-FI FILMS FAQ: ALL THATS LEFT TO KNOW ABOUT TIME TRAVEL ALIEN ROBOT AND OUT-O

Download or read book Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area written by Mike Katz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-05-14 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: San Francisco’s rich and unique cultural history since its time as a gold rush frontier town has long made it a bastion of forward thinking and freedom of expression. It makes perfect sense, then, that both it and the surrounding Bay Area should prove to be a crucible for some of the most enduring and influential music of the rock and roll era. From the heady days of Haight-Ashbury in the ’60s to today, San Francisco and the Bay Area have provided a distinctive soundtrack to the American experience that has often been confrontational, controversial, enlightening, and always entertaining. Perhaps best known for the '60s psychedelic scene which included the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, the Steve Miller Band, Sly & the Family Stone, and Janis Joplin, the Bay Area's rock and roll history twists and turns like Lombard Street itself. The first wave San Francisco punks wrought the Avengers and Dead Kennedys; punk later gripped the East Bay, giving us Green Day and Rancid. From the folk and blues eras through the chart-topping sounds of Journey and Huey Lewis & the News. The rock equivalent of Manifest Destiny carried wave upon wave of young musicians in search of fame, fortune and the great lost chord to Golden Gate City. San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area have collectively produced countless key figures in rock and roll, from musicians to journalists to entrepreneurs. The modern concept of the vast outdoor rock festival took root in and around San Francisco. The Bay Area is also where music history happened to artists from almost everywhere else: San Francisco is where the Beatles played their final concert and the Sex Pistols fell apart; where the Clash recorded much of their second album; where a drug-addled Keith Moon passed out during a concert by the Who only to be replaced behind the drum kit by an eager fan. Rock and roll is baked into the Bay Area’s culture and story to this day. A guide to the places that shaped the local scene and world-famous sound, the Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area will take you to where music makers lived, rocked, performed, recorded, met, broke up, and much, much more.

Download or read book Wilco written by Greg Kot and published by Crown Archetype. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intimate story of one of the great American bands of our time, creators of the controversial masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot When alt-country heroes-turned-rock-iconoclasts Wilco handed in their fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, to the band’s label, Reprise, a division of Warner Brothers, fans looked forward to the release of another challenging, genre-bending departure from their previous work. The band aimed to build on previous sales and critical acclaim with its boldest and most ambitious album yet, but was instead urged by skittish Reprise execs to make the record more “radio friendly.” When Wilco wouldn’t give, they found themselves without a label. Instead, they used the Internet to introduce the album to their fans, and eventually sold the record to Nonesuch, another division of Warner. Wilco was vindicated when the album debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard charts and posted the band’s strongest sales to date. Wilco: Learning How to Die traces the band’s story to its deepest origins in Southern Illinois, where Jeff Tweedy began growing into one of the best songwriters of his generation. As we witness how his music grew from its punk and alt-country origins, some of the key issues and questions in our culture are addressed: How is music of substance created while the gulf between art and commerce widens in the corporate consolidation era? How does the music industry make or break a hit? How do working musicians reconcile the rewards of artistic risk with the toll it exacts on their personal life? This book was written with the cooperation of Wilco band members past and present. It is also fully up to date, covering the latest changes in personnel and the imminent release of the band’s fifth album, A Ghost Is Born, sure to be one of the most talked-about albums of 2004.

Download or read book The Mineral Palace written by Heidi Julavits and published by Virago Press. This book was released on 2002-02-28 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bena Jonssen believes in omens, good and bad. She has come to see her destiny in the simple arithmetic of everyday life - every random arrangement of numbers (on road signs, calendars, number plates) holds the power either to condemn or console. But Bena's life has been anything but simple since she arrived in Pueblo, Colorado - a bleak, dusty town caught in the grip of the Great Depression. At home, she measures her ailing baby with a tattered hair ribbon - and watches as her marriage crumbles around her. From her office window, she sees a pregnant prostitute with an enigmatic cowboy - and begins to question her deepest beliefs about good and evil. And in the depths of a decaying monument to the local mining industry, she confronts a terrifying secret - and finds that the things she can't measure are the most frightening of all . . .

Download or read book Vessels A Love Story written by Daniel Raeburn and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-03-14 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unforgettable portrait of a marriage tested to its limits. When Dan, a writer with a passion for underground comics, and his wife Bekah, a potter dedicated to traditional Japanese ceramics, met through a mutual friend, they swiftly fell in love. “Of all the women I’ve ever met,” Dan told a friend, “she’s the first one who felt like family.” But at Christmas, as they prepared for the birth of their first child, tragedy struck. Based on Daniel Raeburn’s acclaimed New Yorker essay, Vessels: A Love Story is the story of how he and Bekah clashed and clung to each other through a series of unsuccessful pregnancies before finally, joyfully, becoming parents. In prose as handsomely unadorned as his wife’s pottery, Raeburn recounts a marriage cemented by the same events that nearly broke it. Vessels is an unflinching, enormously moving account of intimacy, endurance, and love.