"From now on, call me Oklahoma!" Paige announces on the first day of fourth grade. She is determined that this year she will be different: someone who is gutsy—brave enough to overcome fear of thunderstorms, master terrifying flips on the highest monkey bars, conquer paralyzing stage fright, and stand up to her tormentor: class bully, Viveca Frye. It takes a lot of work for Paige to bring out her inner Oklahoma, but she's helped along the way by her best friend, her sympathetic teacher, her bratty cousin, and some hilarious but inspiring events at home and at school.
An account of life on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana from around 1910 to the 1990s, based on interviews with Crow woman Agnes Yellowtail Deernose, and interwoven with background details about the origins of the Crows and their culture.
“Do you think you could teach Rock Hudson to talk like you do?” The question came from famed Hollywood director George Stevens, and an affirmative answer propelled Bob Hinkle into a fifty-year career in Hollywood as a speech coach, actor, producer, director, and friend to the stars. Along the way, Hinkle helped Rock Hudson, Dennis Hopper, Carroll Baker, and Mercedes McCambridge talk like Texans for the 1956 epic film Giant. He also helped create the character Jett Rink with James Dean, who became a best friend, and he consoled Elizabeth Taylor personally when Dean was killed in a tragic car accident before the film was released. A few years later, Paul Newman asked Hinkle to do for him what he’d done for James Dean. The result was Newman’s powerful portrayal of a Texas no-good in the Academy Award–winning film Hud (1963). Hinkle could—and did—stop by the LBJ Ranch to exchange pleasantries with the president of the United States. He did likewise with Elvis Presley at Graceland. Good friends with Robert Wagner, Hinkle even taught Wagner’s wife Natalie Wood how to throw a rope. He appeared in numerous television series, including Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Dragnet, and Walker, Texas Ranger. On a handshake, he worked as country music legend Marty Robbins’s manager, and he helped Evel Knievel rise to fame. From his birth in Brownfield, Texas, to a family so poor “they could only afford a tumbleweed as a pet,” Hinkle went on to gain acclaim in Hollywood. Through it all, he remained the salty, down-to-earth former rodeo cowboy from West Texas who could talk his way into—or out of—most any situation. More than forty photographs, including rare behind-the-scenes glimpses of the stars Hinkle met and befriended along the way, complement this rousing, never-dull memoir.
For fans of My Ideal Bookshelf and Bibliophile, The Call Me Ishmael Phone Book is the perfect gift for book lovers everywhere: a quirky and entertaining interactive guide to reading, featuring voicemails, literary Easter eggs, checklists, and more, from the creators of the popular multimedia project. The Call Me Ishmael Phone Book is an interactive illustrated homage to the beautiful ways in which books bring meaning to our lives and how our lives bring meaning to books. Carefully crafted in the style of a retro telephone directory, this guide offers you a variety of unique ways to connect with readers, writers, bookshops, and life-changing stories. In it, you’ll discover... -Heartfelt, anonymous voicemail messages and transcripts from real-life readers sharing unforgettable stories about their most beloved books. You’ll hear how a mother and daughter formed a bond over their love for Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, or how a reader finally felt represented after reading Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, or how two friends performed Mary Oliver’s Thirst to a grove of trees, or how Anne Frank inspired a young writer to continue journaling. -Hidden references inside fictional literary adverts like Ahab’s Whale Tours and Miss Ophelia’s Psychic Readings, and real-life literary landmarks like Maya Angelou City Park and the Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum. -Lists of bookstores across the USA, state by state, plus interviews with the book lovers who run them. -Various invitations to become a part of this book by calling and leaving a bookish voicemail of your own. -And more! Quirky, nostalgic, and full of heart, The Call Me Ishmael Phone Book is a love letter to the stories that change us, connect us, and make us human.
A brilliant, kaleidoscopic narrative of Oklahoma City—a great American story of civics, basketball, and destiny, from award-winning journalist Sam Anderson NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Chicago Tribune • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • Deadspin Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed. Boom Town announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice. Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment. Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball frontman Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City's would-be Robert Moses; to civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.
Cass Adams is crazy, and everyone in Deacon, Kansas, knows it. But when her good-for-nothing husband, Roland, goes missing, no one suspects that Cass buried him in their unfinished koi pond. Too bad he doesn’t stay there for long. Cass gets arrested on the banks of the Spring River for dumping his corpse after heavy rain partially unearths it. The police chief wants a quick verdict—he’s running for sheriff and has no time for crazy talk. But like Roland’s corpse, secrets start to surface, and they bring more to light than anybody expected. Everyone in Cass’s life thinks they know her—her psychic grandmother, her promiscuous ex-best friend, her worm-farming brother-in-law, and maybe even her local ghost. But after years of separate silences, no one knows the whole truth. Except Roland. And he’s not talking.
When LSU head football coach Paul Dietzel saw Billy Cannon field an Ole Miss punt on LSU's own eleven yard line on a stifling Halloween night in 1959, his shouts of "No, no, no!" turned to "Go, go, go!" as Cannon eluded tackler after tackler, sending fans in Tiger Stadium into a frenzy and earning himself that year's Heisman Trophy. Dietzel is probably best known for leading LSU to its first national championship the year before Cannon's legendary run, but his career in athletics also carried him to numerous posts across the country and put him in the company of some of the best coaching minds of all time. In Call Me Coach, Dietzel affectionately recalls his rich and varied life in college football. In 1948, Dietzel decided to forgo medical school at Columbia University to become the plebe football coach at West Point. As an assistant over the next few years, he worked with Bear Bryant at the University of Kentucky, Colonel Red Blaik and Vince Lombardi at West Point, and Sid Gillman at the University of Cincinnati. Taking the job of head coach at LSU in 1955, he reversed the Tigers' losing skid and -- using the wing-T formation and a revolutionary three-team substitution system incorporating the White Team, the Go Team, and the renowned Chinese Bandits -- crafted 1958's unbeaten championship season. The thirty-three-year-old Dietzel was voted National Coach of the Year by the widest margin ever. Back at West Point from 1961 to 1965, Dietzel rallied the Cadets to finally "beat Navy" and, as South Carolina's football coach and athletics director from 1966 to 1974, he took the Gamecocks to their first bowl game in twenty-five years and mandated the recruitment of black athletes in all sports programs. After twenty years as a head coach, with 109 wins and 95 losses at three schools and a postseason record of 11 victories and 3 defeats, Dietzel retired from coaching in 1974, later serving as athletics director at Indiana and LSU. Through Dietzel's eyes, readers glimpse college football during a simpler time but also see that many facets of the game -- including recruitment challenges, job insecurity, press relations, and fickle fans -- remain constant. Highlights among the book's many unforgettable anecdotes are a 1962 interview with Howard Cosell, discussion about West Point's football team with General Douglas MacArthur, and a rare disagreement with Bear Bryant during a staff meeting. Dietzel's recollections of his early and later years help complete the story of the man. In a warm raconteur's voice, he describes his impoverished childhood in Ohio, his own participation in high school and college sports, and his stint flying B-29 missions over Japan during World War II. His postretirement endeavors have included providing color commentary for TV, selling fudge, teaching skiing, and watercolor painting. Always at the top of Dietzel's priorities have been friends, family, and faith. Gratitude rings as a constant refrain in Call Me Coach, and sports enthusiasts everywhere will be grateful that Dietzel has shared these recollections of his remarkable life.
Biography of chief Dan George, well-known advocate of native Indian rights, but perhaps best remembered for his starring role in the movie "Little Big Man." 1981.
A hot power couple ignites in passionate rivalry in this “surefire winner” that spent three months on the New York Times bestseller list (Publishers Weekly). When San Francisco ad executive Flame Bennett first meets powerful land developer Chance Stuart, the spark between them is intense and undeniable. Through their whirlwind courtship and marriage, Chance romances Flame lavishly—all while withholding a fatal secret. For years, Chance has coveted a sprawling estate in Oklahoma known as Morgan’s Walk—an estate Flame just so happens to have inherited. When Chance’s secret intentions are revealed, the betrayal sends Flame into a red-hot fury. The lovers quickly turn to a bitter rivalry, reigniting a deadly feud that has existed between their families since the Oklahoma land rush. Rivals throbs with Dailey’s legendary mix of mystery, revenge, jet-set action, and sizzling sex—not to mention her tried-and-true formula for down-home color and sweet romance. “[Dailey] brings passion and fun to the tale she spins. . . . Mysterious threats, heated affairs and the heady scent of revenge are liberally sprinkled throughout the novel with Dailey's assured hand.” —Publishers Weekly “Again, Dailey proves herself to be a master.” —Library Journal
