The Penny Poet of Portsmouth is a memoir of the author’s friendship with Robert Dunn, a brilliant poet who spent most of his life off the grid in downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The book is as well an elegy for a time and place—the New England seaport city of the early 1990s that has been lost to development and gentrification, capturing the life Robert was able to make in a place rougher around the edges than it is today. It is a meditation on what writing asks of those who practice it and on the nature of solitude in a culture filled with noise and clutter.
A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, this memoir of one woman's later in life career change is “a smart, funny and compelling case for going after your heart's desires, no matter your age” (Essence). Following her retirement from Princeton University, celebrated historian Dr. Nell Irvin Painter surprised everyone in her life by returning to school––in her sixties––to earn a BFA and MFA in painting. In Old in Art School, she travels from her beloved Newark to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design; finds meaning in the artists she loves, even as she comes to understand how they may be undervalued; and struggles with the unstable balance between the pursuit of art and the inevitable, sometimes painful demands of a life fully lived. How are women and artists seen and judged by their age, looks, and race? What does it mean when someone says, “You will never be an artist”? Who defines what an artist is and all that goes with such an identity, and how are these ideas tied to our shared conceptions of beauty, value, and difference? Bringing to bear incisive insights from two careers, Painter weaves a frank, funny, and often surprising tale of her move from academia to art in this "glorious achievement––bighearted and critical, insightful and entertaining. This book is a cup of courage for everyone who wants to change their lives" (Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage).
From its beginnings as an English settlement to its evolution into a postwar tourist destination ..., Portsmouth has seen its fair share of famous residents and local legends. ... While mindful of the past, Legendary Locals of Portsmouth focuses heavily on the city's contemporaries.
Celia Laighton Thaxter (1835-1894) was born in Portsmouth, NH. When she was four, her father became the lighthouse keeper on White Island in the Isles of Shoals. After resigning his post eight years later, he built a resort hotel on Appledore Island in Maine. The first of its kind on the New England coast, the hotel became a gathering place for writers and artists during the latter half of the 19th century. In her last year of life, Celia published this work, in which she lovingly describes her Appledore garden and its flowers. The flowers she grew in her cutting garden filled her own rooms and those of the hotel, and this work became famous for its descriptions of the old-fashioned flowers she grew there. Her island garden, a plot that measured 15 feet square, has been re-created and is open to visitors.
The First World War was a catastrophe that engulfed not just the continent, but the rest of the world as well. It cost millions of lives, and changed the course of the century. 'Lest We Forget' provides an accessible overview of that titanic struggle, which was the foundation for the modern world and modern Britain, covering both life in the trenches and also life on the Home Front. It draws out the key events and themes that occurred throughout the conflict. The book provides both narrative and argument and will appeal to military historians and also students and soldiers interested in the Great War. It is split into 28 easy to read sections, including the following: The Road to War The Race to the Sea Life in the Trenches War Literature and Poetry The Battle of the Somme The War at Sea The Home Front Women and the War War in the Air Gallipoli The War around the World The Russian Revolution Armistice Stephen Liddell is a writer and historian and when not writing runs Ye Olde England Tours. He writes regularly for various publications as well as his own website www.stephenliddell.co.uk. His other works include 'Planes, Trains and Sinking Boats', 'How to Get Rich Using Airbnb', as well as the historical fiction trilogy 'The Promise', 'The Messenger' and 'Forever and Until'.
Bad Boy Reforms for Love A rock god crashes from his pedestal when the innocent young girl he victimized turns the tables. Just as the prodigal son rose up and came home, the rock god of Hippieville finds himself at the end of a long, hard road. He seeks a spiritual advisor to confess to and give him guidance. In 1968, Ben Z. ruled the town. Likable, rich, and non-involved, at first he wouldnt admit he did anything wrong. He committed a crime and now he has to atone for it. When a friend asked, "Was it the kind you commit with a car, a gun?" he said, "No, with your body." He was so wasted that he blundered into sex with the wrong girl, and raped her. Instead of his willing groupie, she turned out to be an innocent high school girl who had too much to drink at her first big party. Leda woke up pregnant. Scandal rocks the small New Hampshire town, and she bears "The Scarlet Letter." But Ben isn't spineless like Dimmesdale in Hawthorne's classic. He stands up for Leda in front of the whole town. Leda acts as though she looks up to him, but she plots with her cousin Evie, the singer in the band, to force him to sign a confession. Ben fights to maintain a facade of honor as his world crashes down. The cops, his father, and the jealous town boyshe has to face them all. Leda runs away to the city and vanishes among the Flower Children. Ben follows, searching for a chance to redeem himself. Disinherited, he works as a lowly dishwasher in a cafeteria near the encampment the Mayor of Boston calls Hippieville. Boston boils over with anti-war protests. In a disastrous riot, the police chase the hippies off the Common. When Ben meets Leda again, she distrusts him, but in desperation, she moves in with him. They live for months as platonic roommates, their dialog an escalating war of insults in the cramped apartment on Beacon Hill. Cover art used by permission Linda B. Levine Quotes on HIPPIEVILLE: "It's about people and how they fit into their generation and how their times affect their lives. It is timeless, because the search for independence and a sense of family is a timeless theme, but one that seemed particularly poignant in the '60's when the young were coming up and overthrowing the old. It was exciting to be running wild and searching for a better family than the one from which we all came." --Sam Southworth, Portsmouth NH "The external turbulence of the times is woven seamlessly into the inner turbulence and demons of the main characters. HIPPIEVILLE never pulled any punches. It never got soft. It was raw, fast and real." --Karen Clayton, Toronto ON
