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Slash: The Autobiography
by Anthony Bozza SlashFrom one of the greatest rock guitarists of our era comes a memoir that redefines sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll He was born in England but reared in L.A., surrounded by the leading artists of the day amidst the vibrant hotbed of music and culture that was the early seventies. Slash spent his adolescence on the streets of Hollywood, discovering drugs, drinking, rock music, and girls, all while achieving notable status as a BMX rider. But everything changed in his world the day he first held the beat-up one-string guitar his grandmother had discarded in a closet. The instrument became his voice and it triggered a lifelong passion that made everything else irrelevant. As soon as he could string chords and a solo together, Slash wanted to be in a band and sought out friends with similar interests. His closest friend, Steven Adler, proved to be a conspirator for the long haul. As hairmetal bands exploded onto the L.A. scene and topped the charts, Slash sought his niche and a band that suited his raw and gritty sensibility. He found salvation in the form of four young men of equal mind: Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin, Steven Adler, and Duff McKagan. Together they became Guns N' Roses, one of the greatest rock 'n' roll bands of all time. Dirty, volatile, and as authentic as the streets that weaned them, they fought their way to the top with groundbreaking albums such as the iconic Appetite for Destruction and Use Your Illusion I and II. Here, for the first time ever, Slash tells the tale that has yet to be told from the inside: how the band came together, how they wrote the music that defined an era, how they survived insane, never-ending tours, how they survived themselves, and, ultimately, how it all fell apart. This is a window onto the world of the notoriously private guitarist and a seat on the roller-coaster ride that was one of history's greatest rock 'n' roll machines, always on the edge of self-destruction, even at the pinnacle of its success. This is a candid recollection and reflection of Slash's friendships past and present, from easygoing Izzy to ever-steady Duff to wild-child Steven and complicated Axl. It is also an intensely personal account of struggle and triumph: as Guns N' Roses journeyed to the top, Slash battled his demons, escaping the overwhelming reality with women, heroin, coke, crack, vodka, and whatever else came along. He survived it all: lawsuits, rehab, riots, notoriety, debauchery, and destruction, and ultimately found his creative evolution. From Slash's Snakepit to his current band, the massively successful Velvet Revolver, Slash found an even keel by sticking to his guns. Slash is everything the man, the myth, the legend, inspires: it's funny, honest, inspiring, jaw-dropping . . . and, in a word, excessive.
The Slate Diaries
by Judith Shulevitz Jodi Kantor Cyrus KroneEach week the editors of Slate, one of the on-line literary magazines, ask a different person to keep a diary. The Slate Diaries is a selection of some of the best of those diaries. Contributors include distinguished writers.
Slave Hunter: One Man's Global Quest to Free Victims of Human Trafficking
by Aaron Cohen Christine BuckleyFrom living the rock star life to wading through the world's war zones, refugee camps, and brothels, Aaron Cohen left behind his closest friends, his dying father, and his partnership with a legendary musician to take on treacherous rescue missions in search of modern-day slaves.
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation
by David W. BlightSlave narratives, some of the most powerful records of our past, are extremely rare, with only fifty-five post-Civil War narratives surviving. A mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group with the publication of A Slave No More, a major new addition to the canon of American history. Handed down through family and friends, these narratives tell gripping stories of escape: Through a combination of intelligence, daring, and sheer luck, the men reached the protection of the occupying Union troops. David W. Blight magnifies the drama and significance by prefacing the narratives with each man's life history. Using a wealth of genealogical information, Blight has reconstructed their childhoods as sons of white slaveholders, their service as cooks and camp hands during the Civil War, and their climb to black working-class stability in the north, where they reunited their families. In the stories of Turnage and Washington, we find history at its most intimate, portals that offer a rich new answer to the question of how four million people moved from slavery to freedom. In A Slave No More, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.
Slaves in the Family
by Edward BallWriter Edward Ball opens Slaves in the Family with an anecdote: "My father had a little joke that made light of our legacy as a family that had once owned slaves. "There are five things we don't talk about in the Ball family," he would say. "Religion, sex, death, money and the Negroes." " Ball himself seemed happy enough to avoid these touchy issues until an invitation to a family reunion in South Carolina piqued his interest in his family's extensive plantation and slave-holding past. He realized that he had a very clear idea of who his white ancestors were--their names, who their children and children's children were, even portraits and photographs--but he had only a murky vision of the black people who supported their livelihood and were such an intimate part of their daily lives; he knew neither their names nor what happened to them and their descendents after they were freed following the Civil War. So he embarked on a journey to uncover the history of the Balls and the black families with whom their lives were inextricably intertwined, as well as the less tangible resonance of slavery in both sets of families. From plantation records, interviews with descendents of both the Balls and their slaves, and travels to Africa and the American South, Ball has constructed a story of the riches and squalor, violence and insurrection--the pride and shame--that make up the history and legacy of slavery in America.
Slaying the Dragon: How to Turn Your Small Steps to Great Feats
by Michael JohnsonThis is a book about Olympic racer Michael Johnson, and his achievements, secrets to success, techniques, personal and professional life. This is a book about how to identify what you really want and how to get there; to set goals based on realism and confidence; to work with discipline and resolve; to learn from the requisite failures and the too-early successes; and to achieve a clarity of focus.
Sleepaway School: Stories From A Boy's Life -- A Memoir
by Lee StringerLike his brother before him, Stringer was surrendered to foster care, shortly after birth, by his unwed and underemployed mother--a common practice for unmarried women in mid-century America. Less common was that she returned six years later to reclaim her children. Rather than leading to a happy ending, though, this is where Stringer's story begins. The clash of being poor and black in an affluent, largely white New York suburb begins to foment pain and rage which erupts, more often than not, when he is at school. One violent episode results in his expulsion from the sixth grade and his subsequent three-year stint at Hawthorne, the "sleepaway school" of the title.What follows is an intensely personal, American journey: a universal story of childhood where childhood universals are absent. We experience how a child fashions his life out of the materials given to him, however threadbare. This is a "boy-meets-world" story, the chronicle of one child's struggle simply to be.
Sleepers
by Lorenzo CarcaterraThe author recounts his harrowing months in the Wilkinson Home for Boys in this controversial bestseller that was also made into a movie.
Sleeping Where I Fall: A Chronicle
by Peter CoyoteIn his energetic, funny, and intelligent memoir, Peter Coyote relives his fifteen-year ride through the heart of the counterculture -- a journey that took him from the quiet rooms of privilege as the son of an East Coast stockbroker to the riotous life of political street theater and the self-imposed poverty of the West Coast communal movement known as The Diggers. With this innovative collective of artist-anarchists who had assumed as their task nothing less than the re-creation of the nation's political and social soul, Coyote and his companions soon became power players. In prose both graphic and unsentimental, Coyote reveals the corrosive side of love that was once called "free"; the anxieties and occasional terrors of late-night, drug-fueled visits of biker gangs looking to party; and his own quest for the next high. His road through revolution brought him to adulthood and to his major role as a political strategist: from radical communard to the chairman of the California Arts Council, from a street theater apprentice to a motion-picture star.
Sleepless Days: One Woman's Journey Through Postpartum Depression
by Susan Kushner ResnickA second time mother's journey through PPD. Explains what it is, how it happens and her recovery.
Sliding Into Home
by Jon Warech Kendra WilkinsonThe breakout star of the E hit shows The Girls Next Door and Kendra. Playboy cover model Kendra Wilkinson opens up about life, love, and living with Hugh Hefner in this entertaining and candid new memoir.
The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After
by Melanie GideonHave you ever sat across the breakfast table from your husband and wondered, "How did I get here?" Do the things that once made you complete-including your husband-now feel like a burden? Is the life you are leading an unrecognizable version of the one you imagined for yourself not so very long ago? Welcome to the world of Melanie Gideon. THE SLIPPERY YEAR chronicles a year in which Gideon confronts both the fantasies of her receding youth and the realities of midlife with a husband and a child and a dog (one of whom runs away). Marriage changes passion, Gideon confides; suddenly you're in bed with a relative (in Gideon's case, a relative with a penchant for buying residential vehicles online.) She reflects on the exigencies of family life-the need for a household catastrophe plan, the fainting spell occasioned by the departure of her nine year old son for camp. With wit, tenderness, and unsparing honesty, Gideon captures that moment in our lives when the magic starts to ebb, and when the things you have loved forever begin to fall away for the first time. It is the story of a woman's quest, in the face of all the big questions ("What's this loose skin around my knees? I don't look as old as she does, do I?") to reignite passion, beauty and mystery, and discover if 'happily ever after' is a possibility after all.
Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation
by Leora TanenbaumGirls may be called "sluts" for any number of reasons, including being outsiders, early developers, victims of rape, targets of others' revenge. Often the labels have nothing to do with sex -- the girls simply do not fit in. An important account of the lives of these young women, Slut! weaves together powerful oral histories of girls and women who finally overcame their sexual labels with a cogent analysis of the underlying problem of sexual stereotyping. Author Leora Tanenbaum herself was labeled a slut in high school. The confessional article she wrote for Seventeen about the experience caused a sensation and led her to write this book.
A Small Bit of Bread and Butter: Letters from the Dakota Territory, 1832-1869
by Maida L. RiggsThe letters of Mary Ann Longley Riggs, pioneer and missionary, tell of her life with her husband and eight children as they worked with the Dakota Sioux in what is now Minnesota and South Dakota. Mary Ann's letters are a rich collection of observations and a detailed description of what she saw and experienced. The letters, sent to her family in Massachusetts, were collected and carefully and lovingly edited over fourteen years by Maida Leonard Riggs, Mary Ann's great-granddaughter.
A Small Furry Prayer: Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life
by Steven KotlerSteven Kotler was forty years old and facing an existential crisis--which made him not too different from just about every other middle-aged guy in Los Angeles. Then he met Joy, a woman devoted to the cause of canine rescue. "Love me, love my dogs," was her rule, and not having any better ideas, Steven took it to heart. Together with their pack of eight dogs--then fifteen dogs, then twenty-five dogs, then, well, they lost count--Steven and Joy bought a tiny farm in a tiny town in rural New Mexico and started the Rancho de Chihuahua, a sanctuary for dogs with special needs. While dog rescue is one of the largest underground movements in America, it is also one of the least understood. This insider look at the cult and culture of dog rescue begins with Kotler's personal experience working with an ever-peculiar pack of dogs and becomes a much deeper investigation into exactly what it means to devote one's life to the furry and the four-legged. Along the way, Kotler combs through every aspect of canine-human relations, from human's long history with dogs through brand new research into the neuroscience of canine companionship, in the end discovering why living in a world of dogs may be the best way to uncover the truth about what it really means to be human.
Small Sacrifices: A True Story Of Passion And Murder
by Ann RuleA true story about Diane Downs who shot her 3 children in cold blood.
Small Steps
by Peg KehretIn a riveting story of courage and hope, Peg Kehret tells of months spent in a hospital when she was twelve, first struggling to survive a severe case of polio, then slowly learning to walk again. Her powerful account is also full of the humor that she and four spunky roommates found in daily hospital life.
Small-town Boy, Small-town Girl: Growing Up in South Dakota, 1920-1950
by Eric B. Fowler Sheila Delaney Molly Patrick Rozum(front flap) Dissimilar in size and separated by more than two hundred miles, the two towns have more in common than might appear at first glance. Elsewhere in the country, they would be considered small towns, but in South Dakota, they are urban population centers. In the first half of the twentieth century, when many more South Dakotans lived on farms and ranches than do today, towns such as Milbank and Mitchell formed hubs for commerce, social activities, and culture. Eric Fowler and Sheila Delaney looked at their communities from different viewpoints, but their childhood and young adult memories of South Dakota share common themes of life away from the farm. Fowler dealt with the hardships of a low-income, single-parent family in Milbank. Delaney experienced the wealth and occasional grandeur of Mitchell's social elite. Both found respite and youthful joy in mid-century South Dakota urban life. Despite the differences in Fowler and Delaney's circumstances, these two contrasting memoirs bring forth commonalities in the authors' early experiences of small-town life, even while they followed differing paths to adulthood.
Smart Money: The Story of Bill Gates
by Aaron BoydBill Gates and Microsoft, the company he founded in 1975, have become a driving force in the technological revolution and the world economy. Already the wealthiest man in the world, Gates is determined to control the direction of software and technological change well into the 21st century.
Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
by Koren ZailckasThe summer Koren turns 14, she is initiated into the world of drinking with a stiff sip of Southern Comfort. Eye-opening, wise, and gripping.
Smells like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire
by Matt TaibbiMatt Taibbi is notorious as a journalistic agitator, a stone thrower, a "natural provocateur" (Salon. com). His scathing, vibrant prose shines an unflinching spotlight on the corruption, dishonesty, and sheer laziness of our leaders. Smells Like Dead Elephants brings together Taibbi's most incisive, intense, and hilarious work from his "Road Work" column in Rolling Stone. Written over the last two years, a period in our history with no shortage of outrages to compel Taibbi's pen, these pieces paint a shocking portrait of our government at work--or, as Taibbi points out in "The Worst Congress Ever," rarely working. "In the Sixties and Seventies, Congress met an average of 162 days a year. The 109th Congress set the all-time record for fewest days worked by a U.S. Congress: 93. Figuring for half-days, in fact, the 109th Congress probably worked almost two months less than the notorious 'Do-Nothing' Congress of 1948". Taibbi has plenty to say about George W. Bush, Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, and all the rest, but he doesn't just hit inside the Beltway. He gets involved in the action, infiltrating Senator Conrad Burns's birthday party under disguise as a lobbyist for a fictional oil firm that wants to drill in the Grand Canyon. He floats into apocalyptic post-Katrina New Orleans in a dinghy with Sean Penn. He goes to Iraq as an embedded reporter, where he witnesses the mind-boggling dysfunction of our occupation and spends three nights in Abu Ghraib prison. And he reports from two of the most bizarre and telling trials in recent memory: California v. Michael Jackson and the evolution-vs.-intelligent-design trial in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A brilliant collection from one of the most entertaining political writers of today, Smells Like Dead Elephants is a stylish record of the offenses of the Bush years.
Smith Wigglesworth: Apostle of Faith
by Stanley Howard FrodshamSMITH WIGGLESWORTH constantly acknowledged how much he owed under God to a wonderful wife, but he was also equally grateful for a remarkable daughter. We first visited his home in 1909 when Alice Wigglesworth was spending her first term in Africa. The constant theme of his conversation from morning until night was "our Alice." After the home-going of Mrs. Wigglesworth in 1913, Alice Wigglesworth--who was later married to James Salter--in large manner took the place of her mother, traveling constantly with her father in his many journeys to different countries. Especially was this so during the last years of his life. Mrs. Salter herself had an inspiring ministry like her mother's, and Mr. Wigglesworth encouraged her constantly to stir up the saints with her fiery message before he himself gave forth the Word.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory
by Caitlin DoughtyMost people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty--a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre--took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life's work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures. Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn't know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).
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