Cowgirl Hippie Chick delicately chronicles snippets in time from Julia's life from birth to high school. Glimpses of innocent days of youth are contrasted with the challenging adolescent years of the 60's. When very young, Julia's father enjoyed hearing her recite this short and somewhat self prophesying poem, "There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good but when she was bad she was horrid." With humor and sensitivity, this lighthearted memoir takes you on a nostalgic journey of a cowgirl hippie chick's two sided life. Enjoy the ride!
From the moment Joni Mitchell's career began — with coffee-house bookings, serendipitous encounters with established stars, and a recording contract that gave her full creative control over her music — the woman from the Canadian wheat fields has eluded industry cliches. When her peers were focused on feminism, Mitchell was plumbing the depths of her own human condition. When arena rock was king, she turned to jazz. When all others hailed Bob Dylan as a musical messiah, Mitchell saw a fraud burdened with halitosis. Unafraid to "write in her own blood," regardless of the cost, Mitchell has been vilified as a diva and embraced as a genius, but rarely has she been recognized as an artist and a thinker. This new portrait of the reclusive icon examines how significant life events — failed relationships, the surrender of her infant daughter, debilitating sickness — have influenced her creative expression. Author Katherine Monk captures the rich legacy of her multifaceted subject in this offbeat account, weaving in personal reflections and astute cultural observations, and revealing the Mitchell who remains misunderstood.
A delicious new memoir from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry A family history peppered with recipes, Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good offers a humorous and flavorful tale spanning three generations as Kathleen Flinn returns to the mix of food and memoir readers loved in her New York Times bestseller, The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry. Brimming with tasty anecdotes about Uncle Clarence’s divine cornflake-crusted fried chicken, Grandpa Charles’s spicy San Antonio chili, and Grandma Inez’s birthday-only cinnamon rolls, Flinn—think Ruth Reichl topped with a dollop of Julia Child—shows how meals can be memories, and how cooking can be communication. Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good will inspire readers (and book clubs) to reminisce about their own childhoods—and spend time in their kitchens making new memories of their own.
Once, the Blood Orphans had it all: a million-dollar recording contract from Warner Brothers, killer hooks, and cheekbones that could cut glass. Four pretty boys from Los Angeles, they were supposed to be the next big thing, future kings of rock and roll. But something happened on the way to glory, and now, two years later, along with their coke-fueled, mohawked female manager, they have washed up in Amsterdam for the final show of their doomed and dismal European tour. The singer has become a born-again Buddhist who preaches from the stage, the bass player's raging eczema has turned his hands into a pulpy mess, the drummer is a sex-fiend tormented by the misdeeds of his porn-king father, and the guitar player -- the only talented one -- is thoroughly cowed by the constant abuse of his bandmates. As they stumble through their final day together, the Blood Orphans find themselves on a comic tour of frustration, danger, excitement, and just possibly, redemption.
“A passionate, elegiac tale about the excesses of sex, drugs, and rock and roll over a tortured musician’s lifetime” by the O. Henry Award–winning author (Publishers Weekly). Keyboard man Jack Voss spends his evenings in the relative sanctuary of the clubs, playing jazz standards on the piano and occasionally singing some of the songs that made him famous. But when his life of comparative comfort and solitude is rocked by a devastating personal loss, Voss is led back to The Enchanted Pond, the 1974 rock opera that catapulted his band, Vossimilitude, into the stratosphere. The story of an ill-fated love triangle based on the tense relations between Voss, his childhood girlfriend, and Vossimilitude’s dangerous and charismatic bassist, Voss’s masterpiece set him on a path to this day of reckoning. To endure, he must confront the tragic consequences of his self-absorption on the only firm ground left him: the piano. With the sure, unsentimental narrative command of writers like Richard Russo and Jonathan Franzen, John Van Kirk has brought to life in Song for Chance not just a fallen rock god, but—with the help of liner notes, bonus tracks, and the complete Voss discography—the whole sex, drugs, and rock and roll era with an immediacy so recognizable that it feels like yesterday. “Van Kirk raises compelling if age-old questions about the tension between art and life, and about our responsibilities to those we love.” —The New York Times “A generously rendered account of a soul’s journey through an unexpected life . . . The cadenced rhythms of Song for Chance will stay with you long after you’ve finished the book.” —Richard Currey, author of Lost Highway
From the author of All About Evie, “a literary wonder of family, crime, and romance . . . Fans of Gone Girl The Girl on the Train will love this book” (BookTrib). When Natalie Shelton thinks back to how things were before the car accident, she remembers a great marriage. She and her husband, Zack, seem as strong and dependable together as the houses he builds. They live in Portland, Oregon, and Natalie is co-owner of a successful accounting firm. They’re happy, she’s almost sure of it. Yet as Natalie lies trapped in a coma, unable to communicate though aware of everything around her, she realizes that her husband is hiding something. Zack has always been reticent about his past, which she attributed to an unhappy childhood. Now the strange calls he’s receiving, the apologies when he thinks she can’t hear him, and her fragmented memories from the morning of the accident suggest a deeper secret. When she finally awakens, Natalie is determined to find out the truth. Sorting through clues as her brain heals, she realizes she has a rare opportunity—to reexamine the life she’s made and the man she’s made it with. But as answers come to light, she faces surprising, heartrending decisions, as well as a danger that could upend her world once again, as Zack’s past finally catches up with them . . . “Fast, suspenseful . . . an action-filled, unexpected resolution.”—Library Journal “Lamb open
“This is one of those special novels—a piece of working magic, warm, funny, and sane.”—Thomas Pynchon The whooping crane rustlers are girls. Young girls. Cowgirls, as a matter of fact, all “bursting with dimples and hormones”—and the FBI has never seen anything quite like them. Yet their rebellion at the Rubber Rose Ranch is almost overshadowed by the arrival of the legendary Sissy Hankshaw, a white-trash goddess literally born to hitchhike, and the freest female of them all. Freedom, its prizes and its prices, is a major theme of Tom Robbins’s classic tale of eccentric adventure. As his robust characters attempt to turn the tables on fate, the reader is drawn along on a tragicomic joyride across the badlands of sexuality, wild rivers of language, and the frontiers of the mind.
Never before has so much popular culture been produced about what it means to be a girl in today's society. From the first appearance of Nancy Drew in 1930, to Seventeen magazine in 1944 to the emergence of Bratz dolls in 2001, girl culture has been increasingly linked to popular culture and an escalating of commodities directed towards girls of all ages. Editors Claudia A. Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh investigate the increasingly complex relationships, struggles, obsessions, and idols of American tween and teen girls who are growing up faster today than ever before. From pre-school to high school and beyond, Girl Culture tackles numerous hot-button issues, including the recent barrage of advertising geared toward very young girls emphasizing sexuality and extreme thinness. Nothing is off-limits: body image, peer pressure, cliques, gangs, and plastic surgery are among the over 250 in-depth entries highlighted. Comprehensive in its coverage of the twenty and twenty-first century trendsetters, fashion, literature, film, in-group rituals and hot-button issues that shape—and are shaped by—girl culture, this two-volume resource offers a wealth of information to help students, educators, and interested readers better understand the ongoing interplay between girls and mainstream culture.
Eight Outstanding Writers In the summer of 2002, this small collection of writers got together and began a dedicated writing group. Meeting nearly every week, they shared meals together, wrote, read their work and listened. For four years they supported each other's efforts and something magical happened. They started taking their work out into the world in the form of public readings, pieces in local publications, and even the production of a successful play, titled Lakeside Stories, performed for more than 400 people. The book you hold in your hand is a sampling of creative work by eight outstanding authors. Their stories dramatize the humor and pathos of life. Their poems reflect on the meaning of everyday life. And their essays open our eyes to the world around us. This book is the fruition of years of hard work and dedication, giving you a collection of writings that will engage, entertain, and maybe even enlighten you. "These REEDS have been woven/ into a soul boat/ stout enough to weather/ the roughest seas." -J. Jennings, singer songwriter "Reads is a portal into the depth of the human experience engaging, delightfully diverse and refreshing." -Carol Emery Normandi, co-author of Over It and It's Not About Food "This anthology certainly broadened my view of Lake County life and letters. I found it surprising, amusing, entertaining, edifying and titillating." -Dan Barth, author of Coyote Haiku
