Hurricanes come and go, and leave us in their wake. And we are broken, in body, in spirit...souls are snatched and ripped in two and then placed somewhere back inside and expected to gravitate back to normalcy. As if there were such a thing now... The vignettes collected here retell nightmares, fears, regrets, uncertainties, death tales not proud, and the little bits of sky that drop on all of us from time to time. This is my retelling, my story, and only my experience. Life is full of beautiful.things, blended in with hurricanes... *** Copyright 2004 by Synesthetic Studios
“Beautifully written . . . A celebration of girls and athletics.” The national bestselling sports classic from a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist (USA Today). Expanded and updated with a new epilogue, Madeleine Blais’ book tells the story of a season in the life of the Amherst Lady Hurricanes, a girls’ high school basketball team from the Western Massachusetts college town. The Hurricanes were a talented team with a near-perfect record, but for five straight years, when it came to the crunch of the playoffs, they somehow lacked the desire to go all the way. Now, led by senior guards Jen Pariseau, a three-point specialist, and Jamila Wideman, an All-American phenom, this was the year to prove themselves. It was a season to test their passion for the sport and their loyalty to each other, and a chance to discover who they really were. As an off-season of summer jobs and basketball camps turns to fall, as students arrive and the games begin, Blais charts the ups and downs of the team and paints a portrait of the wider Amherst community, which comes to revel in the athletic exploits of their girls. Finally, a women’s team was getting the attention they deserve. And the Hurricanes were richly deserving; these teenage girls are fierce and funny, smart and ambitious, and they are the heart of this gripping book. “Extraordinary.” —The Baltimore Sun “A picture of a changing period in American sports history, when a town rallied around its female athletes in a way that had previously been reserved for males.” —Publishers Weekly
*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *AN XXL BEST RAPPER-PENNED BIOGRAPHY* “A gripping journey.”—People The highly anticipated memoir from hip-hop icon Rick Ross chronicles his coming of age amid Miami’s crack epidemic, his star-studded controversies and his unstoppable rise to fame. Rick Ross is an indomitable presence in the music industry, but few people know his full story. Now, for the first time, Ross offers a vivid, dramatic and unexpectedly candid account of his early childhood, his tumultuous adolescence and his dramatic ascendancy in the world of hip-hop. Born William Leonard Roberts II, Ross grew up “across the bridge,” in a Miami at odds with the glitzy beaches, nightclubs and yachts of South Beach. In the aftermath of the 1980 race riots and the Mariel boatlift, Ross came of age at the height of the city’s crack epidemic, when home invasions and execution-style killings were commonplace. Still, in the midst of the chaos and danger that surrounded him, Ross flourished, first as a standout high school football player and then as a dope boy in Carol City’s notorious Matchbox housing projects. All the while he honed his musical talent, overcoming setback after setback until a song called “Hustlin’” changed his life forever. From the making of “Hustlin’” to his first major label deal with Def Jam, to the controversy surrounding his past as a correctional officer and the numerous health scares, arrests and feuds he had to transcend along the way, Hurricanes is a revealing portrait of one of the biggest stars in the rap game, and an intimate look at the birth of an artist.
In New Orleans' Ninth Ward, twelve-year-old Lanesha, who can see spirits, and her adopted grandmother have no choice but to stay and weather the storm as Hurricane Katrina bears down upon them.
Jack O'Connor was a police officer at the University of Massachusetts for twenty-one years. After retiring from the police department, he moved to New Orleans and was employed as director of security for a New Orleans hotel chain. He was in the hotel where he was based in downtown New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck and devastated the city. O'Connor uses a blend of poetry and prose to describe what he saw, heard, and felt during the great disaster. He not only tells of the damage and horror, but he also shows the goodness of man that this tragedy brought out. He also describes how an event that brought so much pain and suffering to thousands also brought about some very major positive changes in his life. Home They say home is where the heart is. I dont doubt that this is all very true. Do you know what this really means? My home is really in New Orleans. While Katrina ravaged New Orleans And I watched in fascinated wonder, I only saw its power and wild fury As it played out in a very small scene. Over the following days and weeks, When I saw the devastation twas done, Bitter tears flowed down my cheeks As I saw the very soul torn from my home
"From horse thieves to hurricanes, from shattered Southern myths to fractured family ties, from Nashville to Myrtle Beach to Miami, Low Country is a lyrical, devastating, fiercely original memoir" of one family's changing fortunes in the Low Country of South Carolina (Justin Taylor, author of Riding with the Ghost). J. Nicole Jones is the only daughter of a prominent South Carolina family, a family that grew rich building the hotels and seafood restaurants that draw tourists to Myrtle Beach. But at home, she is surrounded by violence and capriciousness: a grandfather who beats his wife, a barman father who dreams of being a country music star. At one time, Jones's parents can barely afford groceries; at another, her volatile grandfather presents her with a fur coat. After a girlhood of extreme wealth and deep debt, of ghosts and folklore, of cruel men and unwanted spectacle, Jones finds herself face to face with an explosive possibility concerning her long-abused grandmother that she can neither speak nor shake. And through the lens of her own family's catastrophes and triumphs, Jones pays homage to the landscapes and legends of her childhood home, a region haunted by its history: Eliza Pinckney cultivates indigo, Blackbeard ransacks the coast, and the Gray Man paces the beach, warning of Hurricane Hazel.
Beyond Katrina is poet Natasha Trethewey’s very personal profile of her natal Mississippi Gulf Coast and of the people there whose lives were forever changed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Trethewey’s attempt to understand and document the damage to Gulfport started as a series of lectures at the University of Virginia that were subsequently published as essays in the Virginia Quarterly Review. For Beyond Katrina, Trethewey expanded this work into a narrative that incorporates personal letters, poems, and photographs, offering a moving meditation on the love she holds for her childhood home. In this new edition, Trethewey looks back on the ten years that have passed since Katrina in a new epilogue, outlining progress that has been made and the challenges that still exist.
Emily McCarthy is living in fear of a dark and dangerous past. A gifted mathematician, she is little more than a hollow, broken shell, trying desperately to make ends meet long enough to finish her degree. Through an unlikely friendship with the aging, cantankerous owner of an old boxing gym, Em is thrown into the path of the most dangerous man that she has ever met. Cormac "the Hurricane" O'Connell is cut, tattooed and dangerous. He is a lethal weapon with no safety and everyone is waiting for the misfire. He's never been knocked out before, but when he meets Em he falls, HARD. Unlike any other girl he's ever met, she doesn't want anything from him. Just being around her makes him want to be a better person. They are polar opposites who were never meant to find each other, but some things are just worth the fight.
