An intimate look at the writing life, the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop, the fickle publishing world, and an extraordinary friendship with Frank Conroy. A chance encounter between two writers, one young, one older, develops into a wonderful friendship neither expected. Frank Conroy, author of the classic memoir Stop-Time, meets Tom Grimes, an aspiring writer and an applicant to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, which Conroy directs. First as teacher and student--and gradually as friends—their lives become entwined, and through both successes and disappointments, their bond deepens. Exquisitely written, Mentor is an honest and heartbreaking exploration of the writing life and the role of a very important teacher.
Counters the claim that media violence leads to widespread social aggression. Dispelling this myth through a multiple-method analysis, this work argues that there are, indeed, media effects that derive from media violence, pornography, and other kinds of visual, cyberspace, and print based messages.
Mike Williams tempts fate when he appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age twenty-one. He becomes a major league batting champion and a national icon as he travels from innocence to disillusionment. Through the prism of baseball, Season’s End examines the rich, dark themes of young love, fathers and sons, rags-to-riches wealth, and the cult of celebrity in the media age.
A funny, moving and wistful story of a rural Ireland long since passed.1940's rural Ireland. Every week, young Tom is sent on an errand to the nearby town on foot. An imaginative boy, he convinces himself hes a cowboy and his journey is a foray into the Wild West. On his adventures, he meets a host of weird and wonderful characters, from Ned Wall, the farmer with half a face, to dear Miss Daisy, with her pony and elegant trap - a perfect lady. But times are changing fast, and the old ways are dying out.
Whether you’re a born-and-raised Floridian, a recent transplant, or just passing through, Florida Curiosities will have you laughing out loud as David Grimes and Tom Becnel take you on a rollicking tour of the strangest sides of the Sunshine State. Discover the state’s smallest police station; its highest point (at a measly 345 feet); and its warmest (and smelliest) mineral spring. Meet a worm-fiddlin’ woman; a chainsaw-wieldin’ man; and some real-life underwater dancing mermaids—sure to make a splash with the little ones! Join the fun at a flip-your-own-pancake restaurant; the Chumuckla Redneck Parade’s lack-of-beauty pageant; or the get-nekked-if-you-dare Butt Hutt.
– Je t’ai dit, fume pas à côté de moi. Je suis un athlète en parfaite condition physique.– T’es un clown de cirque.Ivan rit, puis se pencha au ras de Pete.– Non, il lui fit à mi-voix. Je suis le corps qui peut soit te faire gagner plein de fric, soit te faire perdre plein de fric.Sur quoi Ivan ôta son T-shirt et se mit à trotter devant nous, vêtu de son seul short effrangé.– T’as des poignées d’amour, je lui ai fait.Ivan m’enfonça un doigt dans la poitrine.– Non, il me dit, toujours à mi-voix, ses mots sonnant comme une incantation. I got soul...and I’m superbad.Puis il s’écarta d’un bond, dansant et percutant du poing des fantômes.
A little Elmore Leonard, a little Charles Portis, and very much its own uniquely American self. . .Tom Cooper has written one hell of a novel." –Stephen King When the BP oil spill devastates the Louisiana Gulf Coast, the citizens of the bayou town of Jeanette scramble to replace their lost livelihoods. Among them is one-armed, pill-popping shrimper Gus Lindquist, who has nothing left but the dying glimmer of a boyhood dream: finding the lost treasure of pirate Jean Lafitte. With his metal detector and Pez dispenser full of Oxycontin, Lindquist steers his rickety shrimp boat into the savage Louisiana swamps. Along his journey, Gus meets a motley crew of characters: Wes Trench, a young Cajun man estranged from his father since his mother died in Katrina; Reginald and Victor Toup, sociopathic twin brothers and drug lords; Cosgrove and Hanson, petty criminals searching for a secret that could make them rich, or kill them; and Brady Grimes, a BP middleman out to make his career by swindling the townsfolk of Jeanette, among them his own mother. Funny, dark, and compelling, The Marauders throws these characters on a rollicking collision course that all of them might not survive.
A manhunt for a black cop killer touches off a riot which becomes a multimedia event with everyone getting in on the act. The hero is a black detective in a near-future America of ever-greater economic disparity, where the rich live in citadels and the streets are policed from the air by helicopter gunships. By the author of A Stone of the Heart.
A little Elmore Leonard, a little Charles Portis, and very much its own uniquely American self. . .Tom Cooper has written one hell of a novel." –Stephen King When the BP oil spill devastates the Louisiana Gulf Coast, the citizens of the bayou town of Jeanette scramble to replace their lost livelihoods. Among them is one-armed, pill-popping shrimper Gus Lindquist, who has nothing left but the dying glimmer of a boyhood dream: finding the lost treasure of pirate Jean Lafitte. With his metal detector and Pez dispenser full of Oxycontin, Lindquist steers his rickety shrimp boat into the savage Louisiana swamps. Along his journey, Gus meets a motley crew of characters: Wes Trench, a young Cajun man estranged from his father since his mother died in Katrina; Reginald and Victor Toup, sociopathic twin brothers and drug lords; Cosgrove and Hanson, petty criminals searching for a secret that could make them rich, or kill them; and Brady Grimes, a BP middleman out to make his career by swindling the townsfolk of Jeanette, among them his own mother. Funny, dark, and compelling, The Marauders throws these characters on a rollicking collision course that all of them might not survive.
Step by step, journalist Brennan walks readers through 13 notorious cases, drawing details from the confidential files of Alaska police detectives who investigate murder, mayhem, crimes of passion and greed, and an amazing amount of criminal stupidity.
Every significant U.S. and international film released from January 1 to December 31, 2002, along with complete filmographies: cast, characters, credits, production company, month released, rating and running time. Also included are biographical entires: an unmatched reference of over 2,250 living stars, including real name, school, place and date of birth.
(Screen World). Every significant U.S. and international film released from January 1 to December 31, 2002, along with complete filmographies: cast, characters, credits, production company, month released, rating and running time. Also included are biographical entires: an unmatched reference of over 2,250 living stars, including real name, school, place and date of birth.
A guide to music provides recommendations on one thousand recordings that represent the best in such genres as classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues, country, folk, musicals, hip-hop, and opera, with listening notes, commentary, and anecdotes about performers.
The gripping story of six West Point graduates-including George Armstrong Custer-who fought each other in the Civil War. With Civil War storm clouds darkening the horizon, they were strangers from different states thrown together as West Point cadets: George Armstrong Custer, Stephen Dodson Ramseur, Henry Algernon DuPont, John Pelham, Thomas Lafayette Rosser, and Wesley Merritt. Educated and trained there to be not only officers and gentlemen but also courageous battlefield leaders, their shared experience at West Point forged bonds between them stronger than brotherhood. Right after their graduations, war erupted in 1861. They stayed blue or went gray, and even faced each other in battle. Acclaimed military historian Tom Carhart brings to life the human side of valiant victories and crushing defeats, and, most vividly, of these young men of individual valor and personal honor.
An “engrossing” history of the restaurant atop the World Trade Center “that ruled the New York City skyline from April 1976 until September 11, 2001” (Booklist, starred review). In the 1970s, New York City was plagued by crime, filth, and an ineffective government. The city was falling apart, and even the newly constructed World Trade Center threatened to be a fiasco. But in April 1976, a quarter-mile up on the 107th floor of the North Tower, a new restaurant called Windows on the World opened its doors—a glittering sign that New York wasn’t done just yet. In The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World, journalist Tom Roston tells the complete history of this incredible restaurant, from its stunning $14-million opening to 9/11 and its tragic end. There are stories of the people behind it, such as Joe Baum, the celebrated restaurateur, who was said to be the only man who could outspend an unlimited budget; the well-tipped waiters; and the cavalcade of famous guests as well as everyday people celebrating the key moments in their lives. Roston also charts the changes in American food, from baroque and theatrical to locally sourced and organic. Built on nearly 150 original interviews, The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World is the story of New York City’s restaurant culture and the quintessential American drive to succeed. “Roston also digs deeply into the history of New York restaurants, and how Windows on the World was shaped by the politics and social conditions of its era.” —The New York Times “The city’s premier celebration venue, deeply woven into its social, culinary and business fabrics, deserved a proper history. Roston delivers it with power, detail, humor and heartbreak to spare.” ?New York Post “A rich, complex account.” ?Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
This book shows how necessary ritual is to human freedom and to social processes of liberation. It aims to reflect upon the deep human longing for ritual and to interpret it in the light of our physical, social, political, sexual, moral, aesthetic, and religious existence. .
What are the repercussions of the choices we have madeor worse, what are the consequences of those events that are (at least partially) out of our control? Once we consider these consequences, what do we do next? In this six-story collection, a colorful group of characters face just those questions in adventures that journey to places as diverse the Great Plains and the Deep South. As each story explores how these challenges impact the individual, the collection reveals a greater continuity of the contemporary American experience, as seen through the eyes of soldiers, roofers, heroin addicts, and a thirteen-year-old kid out to save his own mother. What seems to set us apart may, in fact, connect us in ways no one realizes. From New York City to New Orleans, the various landscapes of present-day America blend with characters and situations presented with a unique brand of realism, bringing disparate worlds together.
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