Eleven-year-old Nissa's life has never been perfect. Living in the small town of Harper, Louisiana, with a mama like hers, circa 1933, has led to lots of mean rumors. But now Mama is gone, and all the townsfolk talk about is who she might have run off with. Nissa's memories of the Sundays her mama would come home smelling of sawdust lead her to suspect the rumors could be true. Did her mama go away with the Sawdust Man? And if so, does it mean she's never coming back? A. LaFaye's powerful first novel beautifully explicates the world of a child in distress and how she copes with something beyond her understanding.
In the forty-year history of Star Trek®, none of the television show's actors are more beloved than DeForest Kelley. His portrayal of Leonard "Bones" McCoy, the southern physician aboard the Starship Enterprise™, brought an unaffected humanity to the groundbreaking space frontier series. Jackson DeForest Kelley came of age in Depression-era Georgia. He was raised on the sawdust trail, a preacher's kid steeped in his father's literal faith and judgment. But De's natural artistic gifts called him to a different way, and a visit to California at seventeen showed a bright new world. Theater and radio defined his early career -- but it was a World War II training film he made while serving in the Army Air Corps that led to his first Paramount Studios contract. After years of struggle, his lean, weathered look became well known in notable westerns and television programs such as You Are There and Bonanza. But his work on several pilots for writer-producer Gene Roddenberry changed his destiny and the course of cultural history. This thoroughly researched actor's life is about hard work and luck, loyalty and love. It is a journey that takes us all...from sawdust to stardust.
"Billy Sunday (1862-1935) was the richest and most influential evangelistic preacher in the first half of the twentieth century. Bringing his brand of manly gospel to millions of Americans nationwide, Sunday connected with his fans through theatrics, conservative theology, and fervent patriotism. Published in the Ladies' Home Journal in 1932 and 1933 and now in book form for the first time, The Sawdust Trail is the only autobiography that this popular preacher ever wrote." "From his childhood in Iowa to his baseball career with National League teams in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia (he was the fastest runner in baseball of his time) to the challenges of preaching in New York City during his heyday, Sunday tells a story that gives us insight into the history of evangelism in America."--BOOK JACKET.
After two New York Times bestsellers, Nick Offerman—woodworker, actor, comedian, and co-host of NBC’s crafting competition series Making It—returns with the subject for which he’s known best—his incredible real-life woodshop. Nestled among the glitz and glitter of Tinseltown is a testament to American elbow grease and an honest-to-god hard day’s work: Offerman Woodshop. Captained by hirsute woodworker, actor, comedian, and writer Nick Offerman, the shop produces not only fine handcrafted furniture, but also fun stuff—kazoos, baseball bats, ukuleles, mustache combs, even cedar-strip canoes. Now Nick and his ragtag crew of champions want to share their experience of working at the Woodshop, tell you all about their passion for the discipline of woodworking, and teach you how to make a handful of their most popular projects along the way. This book takes readers behind the scenes of the woodshop, both inspiring and teaching them to make their own projects and besotting them with the infectious spirit behind the shop and its complement of dusty wood-elves. In these pages you will find a variety of projects for every skill level, with personal, easy-to-follow instructions by the OWS woodworkers themselves; and, what’s more, this tutelage is augmented by mouth-watering color photos (Nick calls it "wood porn"). You will also find writings by Nick, offering recipes for both comestibles and mirth, humorous essays, odes to his own woodworking heroes, insights into the ethos of woodworking in modern America, and other assorted tomfoolery. Whether you’ve been working in your own shop for years, or if holding this stack of compressed wood pulp is as close as you’ve ever come to milling lumber, or even if you just love Nick Offerman’s brand of bucolic yet worldly wisdom, you’ll find Good Clean Fun full of useful, illuminating, and entertaining information.
Chronicles the life of vaudeville actor Henry Wood, and details his early life and experiences while performing in traveling medicine and tent shows in the early twentieth century. Includes black-and-white photographs.
“In my fourteenth year the influenza infected my whole world. . . . Seems as though just as the Great War came to a close, the folks of Downeast Maine set to fighting a war of their own.” Born into an artistic and eccentric family, Lyza laments that her only talent is carving letters into wood. At least, that is, until the devastating loss of her mother to influenza during the pandemic of 1918. The illness has settled on their small coastal town in Maine, and the funeral marches pass Lyza’s house almost daily. When her unconventional father begins to prepare for the return of his dead wife, Lyza is the only one to protect him from being committed to a nearby work farm. Awash with grief and longing for her mother, Lyza journeys into the thin territory that divides the living from the dead. Relying on her courage and an undiscovered talent, Lyza must save her father and find her own path. From the celebrated author of Worth, this is a powerful story of love that persists beyond the grave.
A hard-edged crime thriller set at the start of the Texas oil boom in the 1930s When Pete Jones, the local constable, is shot dead, his widow, Sunset, finds herself in his job, investigating a series of brutal murders. Most of the townsfolk object to her wearing Pete's gun and badge, some because this is the 1930s and they think a woman's place is in the home, others because it was Sunset who blew off Pete's head in the first place. As much a modern western as a murder mystery, SUNSET & SAWDUST features a cast of outlandish characters -- gun-men, hobos, sheriffs, hookers, migrants and coloured families struggling to make living under the malevolent eyes of the Ku Klux Klan. Sunset's investigation leads her and her friends into a labyrinth of greed, corruption, and unspeakable malice. Nothing and no-one are quite what they seem in Texas.
San Francisco, 1856. Irish-born James 'Yankee' Sullivan is being held in jail by the Committee of Vigilance, which aims to rout the Australian criminals from the town. As Sullivan's mistress seeks his release and as his fellow prisoners are taken away to be hanged, the convict tells a story of triumph and tragedy: of his daring escape from penal servitude in Australia; how he became America's most celebrated boxer; and how he met the true love of his life.
This autobiography is the story of an authentic Georgia lumberman. Bill Griffin has captured the essence of culture in rural Georgia while painting an intimate picture of the sawmilling industry in his home state. Within the framework of his narrative, he has interwoven colorful stories about his personal life and family relationships, as well as the development of his business, Griffin Lumber Company, which he began in 1948. Bill has lived in Georgia his entire life and this story displays his pride in his family and region of origin from the very beginning. He introduces his grandfather and grandmother, his father, mother, and sisters, his own family, his grandchildrenof whom his son and four of the grandsons are presently running the family businessand now his great-grandchildren are coming along, which include his namesake William Henry Griffin V.
