Maggie Riley, a High School Science teacher in intercity Philadelphia, is sick and tired of trying to impart knowledge to reluctant learners. Divorced with two grown sons living in distant cities she decides to take a sabbatical from her job and go on a road trip west. Destination Yellowstone National Park a place she has wanted to visit since childhood. Fate however will intervene and she will find herself in a remote small town in Wyoming. A place where the town and people are a far contrast from the big city she is accustomed to. She will experience culture shock and cognitive dissonance over the difference between big city and small town living, and question her values and way of life. She finds romance with the towns animal doctor, Dr. Sam, and will come to accept and love the compelling beauty with the place and it's people.
Philly Girl 2 will have you re-evaluating the bonds of friendship and love. It will make you think twice about chasing street money, as loyalty is put to the test with drugs, murder, sex, and mayhem in the mix. This quick thriller will have your jaw dropping. Born and raised in the slums of West Philadelphia, Rita is no stranger to the street life. In fact, she indulges in the fast life, getting money from selling drugs just as hard as the men she competes with. It’s no surprise that her financial growth brings on the drama of having to protect her money from the many wolves bred in the city of Philly. But Rita has no idea what she’s getting herself into when she falls for a man she met only 24 hours ago. Rita doesn’t know the true meaning of loyalty before she meets Dave, a man who, when it comes down to it, would choose loyalty first and make love work second. That’s a decision he will have to make when it turns out the woman he’s falling in love with is also the woman he is supposed to kill.
Philadelphia sports—anchored by the Eagles, Flyers, Phillies, and 76ers—have a long, and sometimes tortured, history. Philly fans have booed more than their share and have earned a reputation as some of the most hostile in the country. They’ve been known, so the tales go, to jeer Santa Claus and cheer at the injury of an opposing player. Strangely though, much of America’s perception of Philadelphia sports has been shaped by a fictional figure: Rocky. The series of Hollywood films named after their title character has told and retold the Cinderella story of an underdog boxer rising up against long odds. One could plausibly make the argument that Rocky is Philadelphia’s most famous athlete. Beyond the major sports franchises and Rocky, lesser-known athletic competition in Philadelphia offers much to the interested observer. The city’s boxing culture, influence on Negro Leagues baseball, role in establishing interscholastic sport, and leadership in the rise of cricket all deserve and receive close investigation in this new collection. Philly Sports combines primary research and personal experiences—playing in the Palestra, scouting out the tombstones of the city’s best athletes, enjoying the fervor of a Philadelphia night with a local team in pursuit of a championship title. The essence of Philadelphia sport, and to a certain extent the city itself, is distilled here.
In this true story set in the 1970s, you'll look through the eyes of then 14-year-old Kevin Purcell, who's now a professional advertising writer, as he watches his perfect childhood neighborhood turn into a racial battleground, where two young kids are stabbed to death, including one of Kevin's friends. Read as the author describes what it was like as young kids, black and white, from working-class families suddenly find themselves on the front lines of racial upheaval.
Does your workplace have too few black people in top jobs? It’s racist. Does the advanced math and science high school in your city have too many Asians? It’s racist. Does your local museum employ too many white women? It’s racist, too. After the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, prestigious American institutions, from the medical profession to the fine arts, pleaded guilty to “systemic racism.” How else explain why blacks are overrepresented in prisons and underrepresented in C-suites and faculty lounges, their leaders asked? The official answer for those disparities is “disparate impact,” a once obscure legal theory that is now transforming our world. Any traditional standard of behavior or achievement that impedes exact racial proportionality in any enterprise is now presumed racist. Medical school admissions tests, expectations of scientific accomplishment in the award of research grants, the enforcement of the criminal law—all are under assault, because they have a “disparate impact” on underrepresented minorities. When Race Trumps Merit provides an alternative explanation for those racial disparities. It is large academic skills gaps that cause the lack of proportional representation in our most meritocratic organizations and large differences in criminal offending that account for the racially disproportionate prison population. The need for such a corrective argument could not be more urgent. Federal science agencies now treat researchers’ skin color as a scientific qualification. Museums and orchestras choose which art and music to promote based on race. Police officers avoid making arrests and prosecutors decline to bring charges to avoid disparate impact on minority criminals. When Race Trumps Merit breaks powerful taboos. But it is driven by a sense of alarm, supported by detailed case studies of how disparate-impact thinking is jeopardizing scientific progress, destroying public order, and poisoning the appreciation of art and culture. As long as alleged racism remains the only allowable explanation for racial differences, we will continue tearing down excellence and putting lives, as well as civilizational achievement, at risk.
"A sweetly charming love story that leaves the reader with a lasting sense of hope.” —Nicola Yoon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything and The Sun Is Also a Star "The perfect novel to snuggle up with.” —Emily Henry, New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read A heartwarming and thoughtful enemies-to-lovers rom-com about two teens—one trying to save his family's failing pinball arcade, the other working for her tech genius dad who wants to take it over—who get trapped together in a snowstorm. Adam Stillwater is in over his head. But the pinball arcade is the only piece of his dad that Adam has left, and he’s determined to protect it from Philadelphia’s newest tech mogul, who wants to turn it into another one of his cold, lifeless gaming cafés. Whitney Mitchell doesn’t know how she got here. Her parents split up. Her boyfriend dumped her. And now she’s spending her senior year running social media for her dad’s chain of super successful gaming cafés—which mostly consists of trading insults with that decrepit old pinball arcade across town. But when a huge snowstorm hits, Adam and Whitney find themselves trapped inside the arcade. Cut off from their families, their worlds, and their responsibilities, the tension between them seems to melt away, leaving something else in its place. But what happens when the storm ends?
Anne of Green Gables with a twist: in this follow-up to Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy and The Secret Garden on 81st Street, this full-color graphic novel moves Anne Shirley to modern-day West Philadelphia, where where she finds new friends, new rivals, and a new family. When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert decide to foster a teenage girl for the first time, their lives are changed forever. Their redheaded foster daughter, Anne Shirley, is in search of an exciting life and has decided that West Philly is where she's going to find it. Armed with a big personality and unstoppable creativity, Anne takes her new home by storm as she joins the robotics club, makes new friends in Diana and Gilbert, experiences first love, and turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. But as Anne starts to get comfortable, she discovers one thing she wasn't looking for: a family. This title will be simultaneously available in hardcover.
When young Christy Mahon flees from his family’s farm and tells the townspeople he killed his father, they respond in a way he did not expect. After an intense fight with his father, young Christy Mahon flees from his family’s farm to tell the townspeople what he had done. When Christy claims that he killed his own father, the townspeople are surprisingly more interested in the story rather than condemning his immoral actions. Reluctantly, Christy recounts the story of the disagreement that eventually led to Christy hitting his father in the head with a heavy farming tool. The townspeople are transfixed, and deem Christy to be a bold and impressive man. As continues with his story, Christy captures the attention of a beautiful barmaid named Pegeen. Though Pegeen is betrothed to another man, she begins flirting with Christy, who appreciates the attention. However, amid the town’s celebration of Christy’s bold act, a surprise visitor comes into town, and is not as enchanted by Christy’s actions as the others. Angry and hurt, the visitor challenges Christy’s actions, risking his newfound position of a celebrated figure, and forcing Christy to desperate measures. Separated into three acts, John Millington Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World, examines the human tendency to worship the sensationalized without regard to morals. When The Playboy of the Western World first premiered in the famed Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland in 1907, it elicited an extreme reaction from its audience. Scandalized and enraged by the portrayal of the townspeople, riots broke out. Critics also detested the work, feeling just as insulted as the other Irish people. Despite the outrage of its initial release, The Playboy of the Western World is now considered John Millington Synge’s masterpiece, and is celebrated for its lyrical beauty. The play has also since been adapted into a musical and film, serving as a testament to the play’s genius and compelling content. This edition of The Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge is now presented in an easy-to-read font and features a new, eye-catching cover design. With these accommodations, The Playboy of the Western World is restored to modern standards while preserving the original mastery and lyricism of John Millington Synge.
A young man stumbles into a rural public house in western Ireland claiming to be on the run after having killed his father. He immediately becomes a source of awe and an object of adoration, and even love. But what happens when the inhabitants of this tiny village find out all is not as the stranger claims? J. M. Synge first presented The Playboy of the Western World at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on the 26th of January, 1907. The performance immediately offended Irish nationalists by seemingly insulting the Irish people and language, and the general public, by being an offense against moral order. Before it was even finished, it was disrupted by a riot that soon spread out into the city. When it was performed in 1911 in the U.S., the play was again greeted with scorn and the company arrested for an immoral performance. But as Synge himself attempts to explain in the preface to his play, rather than attack Irish Gaelic, he wanted to show the relationship between the imagination of the Irish country people and their speech, which is “rich and living,” and that his use of such language reflects reality in a way missing from other modern drama. He later insisted that his plot was not to be taken as social realism, but died in 1909 before the play finally gained broader appeal in the wider world. Since then the significance of The Playboy of the Western World has been recognized and celebrated both for its characterizations and its rich use of dialect. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.
