Some Rockin Fiction and Other Subjects
Explore a thrilling collection of rockin' fiction books and other captivating subjects. Dive into stories filled with music, adventure, and drama—perfect for book lovers seeking electrifying reads!
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Hallelujah! The Welcome Table
by Maya Angelou
Throughout Maya Angelou’s life, from her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, to her world travels as a bestselling writer, good food has played a central role. Preparing and enjoying homemade meals provides a sense of purpose and calm, accomplishment and connection. Now in Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, Angelou shares memories pithy and poignant—and the recipes that helped to make them both indelible and irreplaceable. Angelou tells us about the time she was expelled from school for being afraid to speak—and her mother baked a delicious maple cake to brighten her spirits. She gives us her recipe for short ribs along with a story about a job she had as a cook at a Creole restaurant (never mind that she didn’t know how to cook and had no idea what Creole food might entail). There was the time in London when she attended a wretched dinner party full of wretched people; but all wasn’t lost—she did experience her initial taste of a savory onion tart. She recounts her very first night in her new home in Sonoma, California, when she invited M. F. K. Fisher over for cassoulet, and the evening Deca Mitford roasted a chicken when she was beyond tipsy—and created Chicken Drunkard Style. And then there was the hearty brunch Angelou made for a homesick Southerner, a meal that earned her both a job offer and a prophetic compliment: “If you can write half as good as you can cook, you are going to be famous.” Maya Angelou is renowned in her wide and generous circle of friends as a marvelous chef. Her kitchen is a social center. From fried meat pies, chicken livers, and beef Wellington to caramel cake, bread pudding, and chocolate éclairs, the one hundred-plus recipes included here are all tried and true, and come from Angelou’s heart and her home. Hallelujah! The Welcome Table is a stunning collaboration between the two things Angelou loves best: writing and cooking.
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A Stew or a Story
Like the savory, simple dishes she favored, M. F. K. Fisher's writing was often "short, stylish, concentrated in flavor, and varied in form," writes Joan Reardon in her introduction to this eclectic, lively collection. Magazine writing launched and helped to sustain Fisher's long, illustrious career and in these fifty–seven pieces we experience again the inimitable voice of the woman widely known to have elevated food writing to a literary art. A Stew or a Story covers five decades of Fisher's writing for such notable and diverse publications as Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Ladies Home Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vogue. But collected here also are articles nearly impossible to find from lesser–known, more ephemeral magazines. Essays on people, places, and of course food, mix here with delightful fiction to become a delectable feast.
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Passed Down Through 4 Generations
by Victoria Taylor Murray
For more than a century the Taylor family of male chefs were recognized as top ranking chefs in the food and beverage industry. Four of them, in the early years of their food service careers, received local recognition from a group made up of twenty-five food critiques and restaurant owners from connecting states. After sampling the savory dishes created especially for them, the Taylor family of male chefs were quickly dubbed afour of the best chefs in the greater Cincinnati and Kentucky areas.a
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John Barleycorn
by Jack London
A perfect biography of Jack London as a drunk; it is most likely the first novel and thoughtful analysis on alcoholism in American literture. The novel is packed with London's notorious advevtures including his well known drinking binges through the character known as to John Barleycorn - a term even now given to alcohol just like the 'demon rim'. It is an incredible insight into London and alcoholism. Another must read for fans of Jack London. A Collector's Edition.
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The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry
by Kathleen Flinn
Recounts the author's decision to change careers and attend the famed Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, describing how she survived the program's intense teaching methods and competitive fellow students, in an account complemented by two dozen recipes.
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The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner
by Wallace Stegner
Wallace Stegner, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1972, was a great writer. As an author, historian, teacher, and environmentalist, he influenced countless prominent individuals during his long life. Showcasing some of those relationships, these letters (written between 1933 and 1993) cover a broad range of topics, including literature, history, conservation, and Stanford. Here are letters to colleagues, like Ansel Adams, friends and family, as well as many students who went on to become well–respected authors, among them Wendell Berry, John Daniel, Barry Lopez, William Kittredge, and Robert Stone. In 1946 he founded the prestigious Stegner Fellowship Program. In 1961, his memos to then Secretary of the Interior Steward Udall set the tone and agenda for what would become the modern environmental movement. Here, in their entirety, are the letters that track it all. For a man who had no interest in writing an autobiography, they offer an inside look at his "unedited thoughts and opinions, and to a factual narrative untransformed by the literary imagination, to life lived before being lived," writes his son Page Stegner in his introduction. Here is history as told through correspondence with people who helped shape literature, politics, and environmentalism in the twentieth century.
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Notes from the Air
by John Ashbery
Winner of the 2008 Griffin International Poetry Prize His long-awaited volume, a new selection of his later poems, spans ten major collections by one of America's most visionary and influential poets. Chosen by the author himself, the poems in Notes from the Air represent John Ashbery's best work from the past two decades, from the critically acclaimed April Galleons and Flow Chart to the 2005 National Book Award finalist Where Shall I Wander. While Ashbery has long been considered a powerful force in twentieth-century culture, Notes from the Air demonstrates clearly how important and relevant his writing continues to be, well into the twenty-first century. Many of the books from which these poems are drawn are regularly taught in university classrooms across the country, and critics and scholars vigorously debate his newest works as well as his classics. He has already published four major books since the turn of the new millennium, and, although 2007 marks his eightieth birthday, this legendary literary figure continues to write fresh, new, and vibrant poetry that remains as stimulating, provocative, and controversial as ever. Notes from the Air reveals, for the first time in one volume, the remarkable evolution of Ashbery's poetry from the mid-1980s into the new century, and offers an irresistible sampling of some of the finest work by this "national treasure."
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Leading by Example
by Bill Richardson
Global climate change? We can stop it. Addiction to oil?We can replace it. Technological innovation? We can create it. But we can't wait twenty, thirty, or fifty years. Bill Richardson launched his campaign for the presidency to remind the American people--and their representatives in Washington--that we know how to get things done. We need to end our dependence on oil, and we need to do it yesterday. This isn't something that's going to happen only in Washington, or Detroit, or even Hollywood or Tokyo. It's going to take all of us, a united United States. We have the opportunity, perhaps for only a few years, to make dramatic but beneficial changes in the way we run America. As Leading by Example makes clear, if we succeed, with strong presidential leadership and the support of the American people, we will restore America's role in the world--a source of moral leadership, a source of astonishing technology, and a source of optimism to be admired.
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Daughters of Men
by Rachel Vassel
From actress Sanaa Lathan to Georgia State Supreme Court chief justice Leah Ward Sears, many African-American women attribute much of their success to having a positive father figure In Daughters of Men, author Rachel Vassel has compiled dozens of stunning photographs and compelling personal essays about African-American women and their fathers. Whether it's a father who mentors his daughter's artistic eye by taking her to cultural events or one who unwaveringly supports a risky career move, the fathers in this book each had his own unique and successful style of parenting. The first book to showcase the importance of the black father's impact on the accomplishments of his daughter, Daughters of Men provides an intimate look at black fatherhood and the many ways fathers have a lasting impact on their daughters' lives.
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Cracking the Code
by Thom Hartmann
Millions of working Americans talk, act, and vote as if their economic interests match those of the megawealthy, the multinational corporations, and the politicians who do their bidding. How did this happen? Bestselling author Thom Hartmann says it's because the apologists of the Right have become masters of the subtle and largely subconscious aspects of political communication. It's not an escalation in Iraq, it's a surge; it's not the inheritance tax, it's the death tax; it's not drilling for oil, it's exploring for energy. Conservatives didn't intuit the path to persuasive messaging--they learned these techniques. There is no reason why progressives can't learn them too. In Cracking the Code, Hartmann shows you how. Drawing on his background as a psychotherapist and advertising executive as well as a nationally syndicated Air America radio host, he breaks down the science and technology of effective communication so you can apply it to your own efforts to counter right-wing disinformation. As Hartmann explains, political persuasion is as much about biology as ideology, about knowing how the brain processes information and how that influences the way people perceive messages, make decisions, and form a worldview. Throughout the book, he shows you precisely how to master this technology--how to crack the communications code--providing examples dating from the time of the Founding Fathers to the present day.
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Murder in Chinatown
by Victoria E. Thompson
On her way into Chinatown to deliver a baby, midwife-turned-sleuth Sarah Brandt encounters a group of Irish women, without family at Ellis Island, who had married Chinese men in the same predicament, and finds herself joining Detective Sergeant Malloy on a search for the new mother's half-Irish, half-Chinese niece.
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Exposure Behind Closed Doors
by Victoria Taylor Murray
EXPOSURE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS is centered around one earth-shattering week in the life of New Orleans Police Lieutenant, Grieco Storm. A police detective whose passions and convictions run as deep and sizzling as the sultry city he is bound by duty and honor to protect. The discovery of arsenic found in the blood-systems of two International Super Models, Johna Bauer and Ursula Rhee; initially ruled accidental prescription drug overdoses by the city's shady coroner, is what initiated a secret branch of the Justice Department to get involved. Not only was the State of Louisiana suddenly faced with the very real possibility of a serial killer being on the loose in their Historical City, but it was suddenly faced with a potential scandal of such magnitude that it could rock New Orleans back several decades, politically, on its ear!
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The Snake Stone
by Jason Goodwin
The captivating return of Yashim, the eunuch investigator from the intelligent, elliptical and beguilingly written" (The Times, London) bestseller The Janissary Tree When a French archaeologist arrives in 1830s Istanbul determined to track down a lost Byzantine treasure, the local Greek communities are uncertain how to react; the man seems dangerously well informed. Yashim Togalu, who so brilliantly solved the mysterious murders in The Janissary Tree, is once again enlisted to investigate. But when the archaeologist’s mutilated body is discovered outside the French embassy, it turns out there is only one suspect: Yashim himself. The New York Times celebrated The Janissary Tree as “the perfect escapist mystery,” and The Daily Telegraph called it “[A] tremendous first novel . . . Beautifully written, perfectly judged, humane, witty and captivating.” With The Snake Stone, Jason Goodwin delights us with another transporting romp through the back streets of nineteenth-century Istanbul. Yashim finds himself racing against time once again, to uncover the startling truth behind a shadowy society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, encountering along the way such vibrant characters as Lord Byron’s doctor and the sultan’s West Indies–born mother, the Valide. Armed only with a unique sixteenth-century book, the dashing eunuch leads us into a world where the stakes are high, betrayal is death—and the pleasure to the reader is immense.
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Bones to Pick
by Carolyn Haines
When a local girl is found dead in a cotton field and her lover stands accused of the crime, southern belle and fearless P.I. Sarah Booth Delaney is hired by the suspect's brother to expose the real killer. Reprint.
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The Witch Is Dead
by Shirley Damsgaard
Life is busier than ever for witch Ophelia Jensen. In addition to her day job at the library, she—with the help of her grandmother Abby—is preparing to officially adopt Tink, the young medium she's taken under her wing. So when Ophelia's elderly Aunt Dot, eager for adventure, wants to investigate the murder of a funeral director in the neighboring town, Ophelia tries to say no. But then Tink's dog pulls a skull out of the woods—a skull that may belong to a murder victim. Finding mysterious bones in the woods isn't the only strange thing that's happened to Tink lately. She's been having visions of ghastly ghosts imploring her for help. But before Ophelia can connect the apparitions with the murder, Tink is kidnapped! Ophelia and Abby will have to battle a creepy crematorium owner and an invasion from some modern-day body snatchers to find their protégé . . . or else they'll have to hold a séance just to speak to her again.
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Holidays Are Hell
by Kim Harrison
This holiday, spend quality time with family and loved ones—living and dead . . . There's no place like home for the horrordays—unless you'd prefer a romantic midnight walk through a ghost-infested graveyard . . . or a haunted house candlelight dinner with the sexy vampire of your dreams. The (black) magical season is here—and whether it's a solstice séance gone demonically wrong with the incomparable Kim Harrison, a grossly misshapen Christmas with the remarkable Lynsay Sands, a blood-chilling-and-spilling New Year's with the wonderful Marjorie M. Liu, or a super-powered Thanksgiving with the phenomenal Vicki Pettersson, one thing is for certain: in the able hands of these exceptional dark side explorers, the holidays are going to be deliciously hellish!
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On the Loose
by Tara Janzen
A secret operative with a reputation for remaining cool under pressure, ex-DEA agent C. Smith Rydell finds his abilities under fire when he is assigned to protect gorgeous blonde Honey York, a woman whom Rydell had caught smuggling cash into El Salvador and who has her own agenda for wanting to enlist his personal assistance. Original.
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Devil May Cry
by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Stripped of his godhood by Artemis, Sin seeks revenge by kidnapping a woman he believes to be the deceitful goddess, only to discover instead that he has abducted her servant, Katra, who persuades him to save Artemis from an enemy who threatens all human life.