Download or read book The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard written by Erin McGraw and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2009-08 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moving to Los Angeles in 1901 to start her life anew, Nell Plat marries and begins a career as a costumer to the stars, but when a visitor from her past comes calling, everything she has worked so hard to achieve for her future is jeopardized.
Download or read book The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard written by Erin McGraw and published by HMH. This book was released on 2009-08-04 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Kansas seamstress reinvents herself in Los Angeles, but the past comes back to haunt her, in this “superb, surprising” historical novel (The Seattle Times). At age seventeen, Nell Plat is an unhappily married woman, quick with her needle and wit, but ill-suited to wifely duties like cooking, mothering, and tending to her boorish husband. Unable to shake her dreams of glamour and excitement, she abandons her family and quiet life in Kansas for the hustle, bustle, and glittering lights of Los Angeles. Among the wannabes and celebrities of the silver screen, Nell reinvents herself as Madame Annelle, seamstress to the stars. But just as she begins stitching her way to success, her past shows up on her doorstep, threatening to unravel her carefully crafted ruse. “Meticulously researched” (The A.V. Club) and “vibrant with historical accuracy” (SFGate)—based on the true story of the author’s grandmother—The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard is a fascinating look at old Hollywood glamour, gender roles, and the ever-evolving American dream.
Download or read book Better Food for a Better World written by Erin McGraw and published by Slant Books. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ideals and reality collide when six college friends band together to start an ice cream store, promising "Better Food for a Better World," but finding a worse world than they had expected. It seems like a great idea: six friends from college pool their money and energy to start an ice cream store. Natural High Ice Cream: Better Food for a Better World. It's high-minded, with a wink, like the marital self-help group they all belong to. The store finds a ready clientele in its northern California college town filled with amiable ex-hippies who are happy to contribute to a better world, even if all they have to contribute is the price of an ice cream cone. But the store, like the marriage group, turns out to be work, not fun, and rifts start to appear between the friends. Nancy, who had seemed so easygoing and sweetly sexy when they started, turns stern. Cecilia, who had wanted to be a musician, is openly bored. And flighty, excitable Vivy is crawling out of her skin. She yearns for the old days, before Natural High, when she and her husband Sam traveled around the country with countercultural musicians and dancers. She'd give anything to have those days back again. And so quietly, without telling the partners, she starts to rev up the old company, contacting her old acts--the fat contortionist, the muscle-bound juggler. She's going to save them all, and Natural High, too. But saving turns out to be harder than it looks, and Vivy isn't the only one with secrets.
Download or read book The Banshees written by Sally Barr Ebest and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although much has been written about American feminism and its influence on culture and society, very little has been recorded about the key role played by Irish American women writers in exposing women’s issues, protecting their rights, and anticipating, if not effecting, change. Like the mythical Irish banshee who delivered fore-warnings of imminent death, Irish American women, through their writing, have repeatedly warned of the death of women’s rights. These messages carried the greatest potency at liminal times when feminism was under attack due to the politics of civil society, the government, or the church. The Banshees traces the feminist contributions of a wide range of Irish American women writers, from Mother Jones, Kate Chopin, and Margaret Mitchell to contemporary authors such as Gillian Flynn, Jennifer Egan, and Doris Kearns Goodwin. To illustrate the growth and significance of their writing, the book is organized chronologically by decade. Each chapter details the progress and setbacks of Irish American women during that period by revealing key themes in their novels and memoirs contextualized within a discussion of contemporary feminism, Catholicism, Irish American history, American politics, and society. The Banshees examines these writers’ roles in protecting women’s sovereignty, rights, and reputations. Thanks to their efforts, feminism is revealed as a fundamental element of Irish American literary history.
Download or read book Women s Fiction written by Rebecca Vnuk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a fresh perspective on women's fiction for a broad reading audience—fans as well as librarians—this book defines and maps the genre, and describes hundreds of relevant titles. Women's Fiction: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests celebrates the books in this broad genre—titles that explore the lives of female protagonists, with a focus on their relationships with family, friends, and lovers. After a brief introductory history and a chapter that defines the characteristics of women's fiction, the author showcases annotations and suggestions of approximately 300 titles by more than 100 authors. She explains how women's fiction differs from romance fiction, enabling readers to appreciate this rich body of literature that encompasses titles as diverse as Meg Cabot's lighthearted chick lit to the more serious novels of Elizabeth Berg and Maeve Binchy. The book identifies some of the most popular and enduring women's fiction authors and titles, and provides invaluable reading lists and readalike suggestions that will be appreciated by both librarians and general readers.
Download or read book Joy written by Erin McGraw and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “McGraw is wise and occasionally laugh–out–loud funny, with a seventh sense for the perfect turn of phrase . . . This quintessential collection of stories serves as an homage to the form while showcasing McGraw’s stunning talent and deep empathy for the idiosyncrasies, small joys, and despairs of human nature." —Publishers Weekly (starred and boxed review) In Joy, narrators step out of themselves to explain their lives to us, sometimes defensively, sometimes regretfully, other times deceitfully. Voices include those of the impulsive first–time murderer, the depressed pet sitter, the assistant of Patsy Cline, the anxiety–riddled new mother, the aged rock–and–roller, the girlfriend of your husband—human beings often (incredibly) unaware of the turning points staring them in the face. "How can stories this brief be so satisfying? . . . [McGraw] deals with the profound, the dire, the mundane, and the ridiculous, paying particular attention to relationships between parents and children, siblings, spouses, criminals, and their victims. While some stories are meant purely to amuse, many are intense and beautiful . . . Fifty–three gems that demonstrate all the things a short story can do. Wow." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Download or read book The Confessions of X written by Suzanne M. Wolfe and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Christianity Today 2017 Book Award! Before he became a father of the Christian Church, Augustine of Hippo loved a woman whose name has been lost to history. This is her story. She met Augustine in Carthage when she was seventeen. She was the poor daughter of a mosaic-layer; he was a promising student and heir to a fortune. His brilliance and passion intoxicated her, but his social class would be forever beyond her reach. She became his concubine, and by the time he was forced to leave her, she was thirty years old and the mother of his son. And his Confessions show us that he never forgot her. She was the only woman he ever loved. In a society in which classes rarely mingle on equal terms, and an unwed mother can lose her son to the burgeoning career of her ambitious lover, this anonymous woman was a first-hand witness to Augustine’s anguished spiritual journey from secretive religious cultist to the celebrated Bishop of Hippo. Giving voice to one of history’s most mysterious women, The Confessions of X tells the story of Augustine of Hippo’s nameless lover, their relationship before his famous conversion, and her life after his rise to fame. A tale of womanhood, faith, and class at the end of antiquity, The Confessions of X is more than historical fiction . . . it is a timeless story of love and loss in the shadow of a theological giant.
Download or read book One Word written by Molly McQuade and published by Sarabande Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One Word asks the question writers and readers love to answer: what word means the most to you, and why?
Download or read book Vestments written by John Reimringer and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2010 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Let me begin today, illumined by Thy light, to destroy this part of the natural man which lives in me in its entirety, the obstacle that constantly keeps me from Thy Love. Taught this prayer as a boy by his grandfather, James Dressler recites it each time he's tempted by earthly desires. Originally drawn to the priesthood by the mystery, purity, and sensual fabric of the Church, as well as by its promise of a safe harbor from his tempestuous home, James finds himself -- just a few years after his ordination -- attracted again to his first love, Betty Garc a. Torn between these opposing desires, and haunted by his familial heritage, James finds himself at a crossroads. Exploring age-old and yet urgently contemporary issues in the Catholic Church, and infused throughout by a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, and infused throughout by a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, this is an utterly honest and subtly lyrical novel.
Download or read book Lies of the Saints written by Erin McGraw and published by Chronicle Books (CA). This book was released on 1996 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic Chronicle book remains available as a print-on-demand title. You can purchase it from an online bookseller or by order from your local bookstore.
Download or read book Stories Wanting Only to be Heard written by Stephen Corey and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded at the University of Georgia in 1947 and published there ever since, The Georgia Review has become one of America's most highly regarded journals of arts and letters. Never stuffy and never shallow, The Georgia Review seeks a broad audience of intellectually open and curious readers--and strives to give those readers rich content that invites and sustains repeated attention and consideration. Pulitzer Prize winners and never-before-published writers are equals during the journal's manuscript evaluation process, whose goal is to identify and print stories, poems, and essays that promise to be of lasting merit. The year 2012 marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of The Georgia Review, and Stories Wanting Only to Be Heard will acknowledge that milestone by presenting a selection of the remarkable short fiction published across the decades. The collection includes the work of well-known writers, many of whom were not yet so well known when first selected for publication by The Georgia Review, and also highlights compelling work from writers whose names may not be as familiar but whose stories are equally compelling and memorable. The stories collected here--each one vivid, distinctive, and worthwhile to read--stand as testament to the significance of The Georgia Review's decades of work to identify and promote writing of exceptional quality. Publication of this book was made possible, in part, by the President's Venture Fund through generous gifts of the University of Georgia Partners.
Download or read book The Good Life written by Erin McGraw and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2004 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wry, poignant, and utterly believable, this collection of stories brims with rare insights and fresh descriptions, and features characters battling demons of envy, fear, and disillusionment while somehow maintaining an abiding optimism.
Download or read book The Jumper written by Tim Parrish and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jumper is an old-fashioned, modern novel both dark and funny. Its central character, Jimmy Strawhorn, grows up on a ranch in West Texas thinking he’s an orphan but is summoned to Baton Rouge, where he discovers his past is stranger than he can imagine. Jimmy tries to navigate his urge to jump from high places, his fear of falling in love, and a complex family history full of deceit and racial ambiguity. At the same time, two other eccentric main characters, named Sandra and J. T., deal with dangerous pasts and presents of their own as Jimmy’s arrival alters their lives. Winner of the 2012 George Garrett Prize for Fiction
Download or read book How to Shake the Other Man written by Derek Palacio and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiction. Seven years after leaving his father's home, Javier is growing increasingly restless as he works the streets of New York. But when he is taken in by Marcel, a boisterous, charismatic Cuban with a legion of street coffee vendors, their relationship evolves rapidly into something vital and sustaining. Determined to keep Javi around, Marcel implores his younger brother, a former boxer turned trainer, to turn Javier into a fighter. Oscar eventually gives in, and pushes the flighty young man towards his debut. But days before the match, Marcel is murdered. Bound together by tragedy and circumstance, Javier and Oscar must decide what they owe and want from each other in Marcel's absence. Raw and unrelenting, HOW TO SHAKE THE OTHER MAN is a bruising portrait of brotherhood and the void of love lost.
Download or read book The Seamstress written by Frances de Pontes Peebles and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emília and Luzia dos Santos, orphaned when they are children, grow up under the protection of their aunt in the hillside village of Taquaritinga, Brazil. Raised as seamstresses, the sisters learn how to cut, how to mend and how to conceal. Emília treasures pretty, girlish things and longs to escape from the confines of the little town. Captivated by the romances she reads in magazines, she dreams of finding love in the bustle and glamour of the city. Luzia, scarred by a childhood accident that has left her with a deformed arm, knows that for her, real life can not be romantically embroidered, and so she finds solace in her sewing and in the secret prayers to the saints she believes once saved her life. But when Luzia is abducted by a gang of rebel bandits, the sisters' lives diverge in ways they never imagined. Whilst Luzia learns to survive in the unforgiving Brazilian outland, discovering love in the most unexpected of places, Emília meets the son of a wealthy doctor who seems to offer her everything she has always desired. But for the innocent dreamer, the excitement of her escape to the city is soon overshadowed by disillusion and loneliness. As she learns how to navigate the treacherous waters of Brazilian high society, the bandits' campaign against the land-owning 'Colonels' intensifies, and when a price is placed upon Luzia's head Emília realises she must risk everything in order to save her sister.
Download or read book Vestments written by John Reimringer and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A priest struggling with temptation moves back into his working-class childhood home in this “suspenseful, illuminating, and highly readable saga” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Let me begin today, illumined by Thy light, to destroy this part of the natural man which lives in me in its entirety, the obstacle that constantly keeps me from Thy Love . . . Taught this prayer as a boy by his grandfather, James Dressler recites it each time he’s tempted by earthly desires. Originally drawn to the priesthood by the mystery, purity, and sensual fabric of the Church, as well as by its promise of a safe harbor from his tempestuous home, James nevertheless finds himself—just a few years after his ordination—living at home: saying Mass for his mother at the dining room table; avoiding his pugilistic father; playing basketball; preparing to officiate at his brother’s wedding, and becoming attracted again to his first love, Betty García. Torn between these opposing desires, and haunted by his familial heritage, James finds himself at a crossroads. Exploring age-old yet urgently contemporary issues in the Catholic Church, and infused throughout with a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, Minnesota, this is an utterly honest novel filled with “thoughtful themes and lyrical prose” (Booklist). “Deeply rooted in history, burning with family furies, and told by a narrator-priest you find yourself rooting for (and wondering about), this is a captivating novel, scene by scene.” —Patricia Hampl, author of The Florist’s Daughter
Download or read book Gloria Swanson written by Stephen Michael Shearer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-08-27 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gloria Swanson defined what it meant to be a movie star, but her unforgettable role in Sunset Boulevard overshadowed the true story of her life. Now Stephen Michael Shearer sets the record straight in the first in-depth biography of the film legend. Swanson was Hollywood's first successful glamour queen. Her stardom as an actress in the mid-1920s earned her millions of fans and millions of dollars. Realizing her box office value early in her career, she took control of her life. Soon she was not only producing her own films, she was choosing her scripts, selecting her leading men, casting her projects, creating her own fashions, guiding her publicity, and living an extravagant and sometimes extraordinary celebrity lifestyle. She also collected a long line of lovers (including Joseph P. Kennedy) and married men of her choosing (including a French marquis, thus becoming America's first member of "nobility"). As a devoted and loving mother, she managed a quiet success of raising three children. Perhaps most important, as a keen businesswoman she also was able to extend her career more than sixty years. Her astounding comeback as Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard catapulted her back into the limelight. But it also created her long-misunderstood persona, one that this meticulous biography shows was only part of this independent and unparalleled woman.
