The Cigar Factory

The Cigar Factory

Author: Michele Moore

Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press

Published: 2016-02-09

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 1611175917

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Two women kept apart by segregation at a Southern cigar factory forge a powerful alliance in the labor rights movement in this historical novel. With evocative dialect and remarkable prose, The Cigar Factory tells the story of two entwined families—the white McGonegals and the African American Ravenels—in the storied port city of Charleston, South Carolina, during the World Wars. Moore’s novel follows the parallel lives of family matriarchs working on segregated floors of the massive Charleston cigar factory, where white and black workers remain divided and misinformed about the duties and treatment received by each other. Cassie McGonegal and her niece Brigid work upstairs in the factory rolling cigars by hand. Meliah Amey Ravenel works in the basement, where she stems the tobacco. While both suffer in the harsh working conditions of the factory and endure the sexual harassment of the foremen, segregation keeps them from recognizing their common plight until the Tobacco Workers Strike of 1945. Through the experience of a brutal picket line, the two women discover how much they stand to gain by joining forces, creating a powerful moment in labor history that gives rise to the Civil Rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.” Moore’s historical research includes interviews with family members who worked at the cigar factory, adding nuance and authenticity to her empowering story of struggle, loss, and redemption. Foreword by New York Times best-selling author Pat Conroy Winner of the 2016 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize


Big Machine

Big Machine

Author: Victor LaValle

Publisher: One World

Published: 2009-08-11

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0385530412

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Ricky Rice is a middling hustler with a lingering junk habit, a bum knee, and a haunted mind. A survivor of a suicide cult, he scrapes by as a porter at a bus depot in Utica, New York, until one day a mysterious letter arrives, summoning him to enlist in a band of paranormal investigators comprised of former addicts and petty criminals, all of whom had at some point in their wasted lives heard what may have been the voice of God. Infused with the wonder of a disquieting dream and laced with Victor LaValle’s fiendish comic sensibility, Big Machine is a mind-rattling mystery about doubt, faith, and the monsters we carry within us.


Damn the Valley

Damn the Valley

Author: William Yeske

Publisher: Casemate

Published: 2023-10-31

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1636243665

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"A riveting, unsparing, gritty, first-hand account of life in a great airborne unit that engaged in some of the toughest fighting in Afghanistan."—General David Petraeus, former Commander of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, former Commander of NATO/US Forces in Afghanistan and former Director of the CIA. “DAMN THE VALLEY” was a phrase regularly uttered by the men that spent any amount of time in the Arghandab River Valley during the deployment of 2 Fury to Afghanistan in 2009–2010. The valley has claimed bodies from the troops of Alexander the Great, the British Empire, and more recently, the Russian Army. Operating in the valley was like nothing the men could have envisaged, they called it the “meat grinder.” It was a deployment that the media didn’t talk about, and the government doesn’t acknowledge. Three of the company were KIA, more than a dozen suffered life-changing injuries, and half the company had Purple Hearts—not many modern-day deployments have a 52% casualty rate. At one point, the entire prosthetics ward at Walter Reed was full of the men who patrolled that deadly area of the world. Since their return, many of the survivors have struggled to move on with their lives, and the unit has been declared at "extraordinary risk" by the Department of Veteran Affairs. No one who entered that region was left unscathed. This book shares the perspective of the men that were on the ground for that deployment during the fighting season of 2010.


Swinging the Machine

Swinging the Machine

Author: Joel Dinerstein

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13:

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An innovative study of the influence of black popular culture on modern American life; In any age and any given society, cultural practices reflect the material circumstances of people's everyday lives. According to Joel Dinerstein, it was no different in America between the two World Wars - an era sometimes known as the machine age - when innovative forms of music and dance helped a newly urbanized population cope with the increased mechanization of modern life. Grand spectacles such as the Ziegfield Follies and the movies of Busby Berkeley captured the American ethos of mass production, with chorus girls as the cogs of these fast, flowing pleasure vehicles. Yet it was African American culture, Dinerstein argues, that ultimately provided the means of aesthetic adaptation to the accelerated tempo of modernity. Drawing on a legacy of engagement with and resistance to technological change, with deep roots in West African dance and music, black artists developed new cultural forms that sought to humanize machines. In The Ballad of John Henry, the epic toast Shine, and countless blues songs, African Americans first addressed the challenge of industrialization. Jazz musicians drew


The Official Damn Small Linux Book

The Official Damn Small Linux Book

Author: Robert Shingledecker

Publisher: Pearson Education

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 447

ISBN-13: 0132338696

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Make the Most of Today's Smallest, Fastest Desktop Linux Distribution-Damn Small Linux! Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a super-efficient platform for everything from custom desktops to professional servers. Now, DSL's creator and lead developer have written the first definitive, practical guide to this remarkable system. The Official Damn Small Linux Book brings together everything you need to put DSL to work in just minutes. Simply learn a few essentials, boot the live CD-ROM, and master the rest...one step at a time, hands-on. If you're new to Linux, you can quickly discover how to use DSL to take your data on the road, safely running your programs and personal environment on nearly any computer. Easily adapt DSL to run on anything from an alternative device (Internet appliance, hand-held, diskless PC, or mini-ITX system) to an older PC that might otherwise be headed for landfill. Use this book and CD-ROM package to Run DSL at blazing speed, from CD, USB pen drive, or directly from RAM Run DSL from your hard drive or in a virtual environment within Windows Add applications and create shareable extensions Customize and remaster DSL to create your own distribution Build a complete music and multimedia server Use Skype VoIP phone service in DSL Quickly set up an XAMPP Web server, complete with MySQL, PHP, and Perl, to host your personal Web pages CD-ROM Includes Several versions of Damn Small Linux that let you run DSL directly from the CD, a Windows desktop, a pen drive, or your PC's RAM. Software packages (MyDSL extensions) including everything you need to create an Edna music server, Skype� VoIP calling client, multimedia picture frame, and tiny XAMPP Web server. Tools for rebuilding and remastering Damn Small Linux. Your Practical, Hands-On Guides to Getting Real Results with Free Software Every book in this series encourages and challenges you to advance in the free software world. Boot the accompanying live DVD or CD and watch the Linux system, applications, and content described in the book come to life. When you finish, you'll know how to use, customize, and rebuild that open source software. Start as a novice, by trying out examples...and finish as a professional! System Requirements Processor: 486DX (recommended Pentium I) or higher Memory: 32MB RAM or more (can run entirely in memory in 128MB RAM) Disk space: No hard disk space required to run from CD-ROM or USB thumb drive; 50MB minimum for frugal hard disk installs; 200-300MB recommended minimum for traditional hard disk installs Graphics: SVGA-capable card with monitor capable of 800x600 resolution


The Winter of Frankie Machine

The Winter of Frankie Machine

Author: Don Winslow

Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

Published: 2006-09-26

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0307266079

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FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE CARTEL. Frankie Machianno, a hard-working entrepreneur, passionate lover, part-time surf bum, and full-time dad, is a pillar of his waterfront community—and a retired hit man. Once better known as Frankie Machine, he was a brutally efficient killer. Now someone from his past wants him dead, and after a botched attempt on his life, Frankie sets out to find his potential killers. However, the list of suspects is longer than the California coastline. With the mob on his heels and the cops on his tail, Frankie hatches a plan to protect his family, save his life, and escape the mob forever. Then things get really complicated.


Machine Head: Inside The Machine

Machine Head: Inside The Machine

Author: Joel McIver

Publisher: Omnibus Press

Published: 2012-10-15

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0857127985

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Over 17 years and eight albums, heavy metal band Machine Head have sold millions of units, earned a Grammy nomination and won personal awards from Metal Hammer and other magazines. The story is a classic rise, fall and rise again scenario -- they exploded onto the metal scene in 1994, enjoyed a successful string of albums and then lost their way in the nu-metal era. Now they are in the middle of one of metal's most acclaimed comebacks. Joel McIver has interviewed all the band-members several times and has a unique insight into their rollercoaster story, which includes alcohol addiction, inter-band brawls and therapy, sackings, near-splits and two decades of the heaviest music known to man, delivered all over the world.


Close to the Machine

Close to the Machine

Author: Ellen Ullman

Publisher: Picador

Published: 2012-02-28

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1250024587

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With a New Introduction by Jaron Lanier A Salon Best Book of the Year In 1997, the computer was still a relatively new tool---a sleek and unforgiving machine that was beyond the grasp of most users. With intimate and unflinching detail, software engineer Ellen Ullman examines the strange ecstasy of being at the forefront of the predominantly male technological revolution, and the difficulty of translating the inherent messiness of human life into artful and efficient code. Close to the Machine is an elegant and revelatory mediation on the dawn of the digital era.


Gabe Johnson Takes Over

Gabe Johnson Takes Over

Author: Geoff Herbach

Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.

Published: 2015-04-07

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 1492629820

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From Geoff Herbach, the award-winning author of the hit young adult novels Stupid Fast and Nothing Special, comes the ultimate underdog story, which will resonate with anyone who has suffered from teasing and bullying at the hands of the high school social hierarchy—and decided to do something about it. (Previously titled Fat Boy vs The Cheerleaders.) Gabe is having a tough week. Normally the funny kid at the lunch table, he's on edge from trying to kick his soda addiction. So when news breaks that his beloved marching band camp has been cancelled due to lack of funding, he's furious. What makes him even madder? The school's vending machine money-which had previously been collected by the band-is now sponsoring the new cheer squad. The war is ON. And Gabe is leading the charge. No one will be safe from the Geekers' odd brand of wrath: not the principal, the band teacher, the local newspaper, and certainly not the cheerleaders and their jock boyfriends. Get ready: Life at Minnekota Lake Area High School is about to change. Gabe Johnson is taking over. "A funny, uplifting, and rousing book that'll make readers think. In other words, it's a real gem." —K. M. Walton, author of Cracked and Empty