- Table View
- List View
Renewing America's Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent's Most Endangered Foods
by Gary Paul Nabhan"Renewing America's Food Traditions" is a beautifully illustrated dramatic call to recognize, celebrate, and conserve the great diversity of foods that gives North America its distinctive culinary identity that reflects our multicultural heritage. It offers us rich natural and cultural histories as well as recipes and folk traditions associated with the rarest food plants and animals in North America. In doing so, it reminds us that what we choose to eat can either conserve or deplete the cornucopia of our continent. While offering a eulogy to a once-common game food that has gone extinct--the passenger pigeon--the book doesn't dwell on tragic losses. Instead, it highlights the success stories of food recovery, habitat restoration, and market revitalization that chefs, farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and foresters have recently achieved. Through such "food parables," editor Gary Paul Nabhan and his colleagues build a persuasive argument for eater-based conservation. In addition, this book offers the first-ever list of foods at risk in America (more than a thousand), shows how all of us can personally support and participate in such recoveries, and lists food festivals held across the continent to honor and enjoy some of the country's most iconic foods, from crab cakes to maple syrup and fileacute; gumbo. Organized by "food nations" named for the ecological and cultural keystone foods of each region--Salmon Nation, Bison Nation, Chile Pepper Nation, among others--this book offers an altogether fresh perspective on the culinary traditions of North America.
The Carbon-Free Home
by stephen Rebekah HrenYou've read the stories and watched the documentaries. So you're convinced--burning fossil fuels leads to global climate change; supplies of fossil fuels are diminishing in quantity and increasing in price. You've fretted and worried, but still go through your day consuming some quantity of non-renewable fossil fuels to accomplish nearly every task (and you may not even realize it). You want to do something besides worry but you are unsure where to begin. Read this book--then grab your handsaw, tape measure, and drill, and get started! A life powered by the sun is waiting for you. Meant as a guide for renovating existing homes, this book gives you the hands-on knowledge necessary to kick the fossil fuel habit, with projects small and large listed by skill, time, cost, and energy saved. For every aspect of your life currently powered by fossil fuels, we offer alternatives you can accomplish yourself to get started using renewable and sustainable sources of power. Inspired by their own determination to wean themselves completely from fossil fuels, Rebekah and Stephen Hren provide a map for others interested in the path to producing all their own energy and living a fossil fuel-free life. It shows first how to reduce energy consumption as much as possible, then how to retrofit an existing home in order to obtain all heating and cooling, all cooking and refrigeration, and all hot water and electricity from renewable sources. The Hrens also provide advice on renewable methods of transportation and home gardening, as poor choices about food and mobility often negate hard-won gains in the home. Like many today, the Hrens felt they had a moral obligation to mitigate humankind's contribution to the ravages of pollution, including global warming as a result of fossil fuel addiction. In this book, the Hrens offer practical approaches that fit into anyone's budget, and can be done over time as a way to wean oneself from fossil fuel dependency.
Boomburbs
by Robert E. Lang Jennifer B. LefurgyA glance at a list of America's fastest growing "cities" reveals quite a surprise: most are really overgrown suburbs. Places such as Anaheim, California, Coral Springs, Florida, Naperville, Illinois, North Las Vegas, Nevada, and Plano, Texas, have swelled to big-city size with few people really noticing--including many of their ten million residents. These "boomburbs" are large, rapidly growing, incorporated communities of more than 100,000 residents that are not the biggest city in their region. Here, Robert E. Lang and Jennifer B. LeFurgy explain who lives in them, what they look like, how they are governed, and why their rise calls into question the definition of urban.Located in over twenty-five major metro areas throughout the United States, numerous boomburbs have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled in size between census reports. Some are now more populated than traditional big cities. The population of the biggest boomburb--Mesa, Arizona--recently surpassed that of Minneapolis and Miami.Typically large and sprawling, boomburbs are "accidental cities," but not because they lack planning. Many are made up of master-planned communities that have grown into one another. Few anticipated becoming big cities and unintentionally arrived at their status. Although boomburbs possess elements found in cities such as housing, retailing, offices, and entertainment, they lack large downtowns. But they can contain high-profile industries and entertainment venues: the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Arizona Cardinals are among over a dozen major-league sports teams who play in the boomburbs.Urban in fact but not in feel, these drive-by cities of highways, office parks, and shopping malls are much more horizontally built and less pedestrian friendly than most older suburbs. And, contrary to common perceptions of suburbia, they are not rich and elitist. Poverty is often seen in boomburb communities of small single-family homes, neighborhoods that once represented the American dream. Boomburbs are a quintessential American landscape, embodying much of the nation's complexity, expansiveness, and ambiguity. This fascinating look at the often contradictory world of boomburbs examines why America's suburbs are thriving and how they are shaping the lives of millions of residents.
The New Ecological Home
by Daniel D. ChirasToday, a new generation of architects and builders is emerging, intent on creating homes that meet human needs for shelter while causing only a fraction of the environmental impact of conventional housing. "The New Ecological Home" provides an overview of green building techniques, materials, products, and technologies that are either currently available or will be in the near future. Author Daniel Chiras provides a wealth of up-to-date, practical information for home buyers, owner-builders, and anyone interested in building for a sustainable future. Included are chapters on: - The Healthy House - Green Building Materials - Wood-Wise Construction - Energy Efficiency - Earth-Sheltered Architecture - Passive Solar Heating and Passive Cooling - Green Power: Electricity from the Sun and Wind - Water and Waste: Sustainable Approaches - Environmental Landscaping
Finding the Sweet Spot: The Natural Entrepreneur's Guide to Responsible, Sustainable, Joyful Work
by Dave Pollard""Now what am I going to do?" is a question many people ask-and leave unanswered-at critical potential turning points in their careers. Perhaps you're a new graduate, but instead of lining up for a boring entry-level job at a big corporation, you wish you could start your own sustainable and responsible business. Or maybe you've been stuck in a job you hate for a few years, but you still dream of doing the thing you love and that you're actually good at. Or maybe you're a boomer and you're ready for a second career, a personal venture that will represent a total change from what you've spent most of your work life doing. Whatever your situation, this is the book to help you get started. Finding the Sweet Spot explains how sustainable, responsible, and joyful natural enterprises differ from most jobs, and it provides the framework for building your own natural enterprise. You'll learn how to find partners who will help make your venture successful, how to do world-class market research, how to innovate, how to build resilience into your enterprise, and how to avoid the land mines that sink so many small businesses. Most importantly, you'll learn how to find the "sweet spot" where your gifts, your passions, and your purpose intersect. And make no mistake: our world needs your talent. The current economic system and the educational system that feeds into it have let us down and are destroying our planet. We need a blossoming of natural enterprises-connected, collaborating, and supporting ventures-to form a dynamic new natural economy. Is such a thing possible? Inventor, entrepreneur, and humanist Buckminster Fuller said: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. " Finding the Sweet Spot presents a new model. Use it to find the work you were meant to do, thereby helping to create the world we're meant to live-and make a living-in. "
Holy Roller
by Diane WilsonIn this rollicking memoir, Diane Wilson, a Texas Gulf Coast shrimper and the author of the highly acclaimed "An Unreasonable Woman" takes readers back to her childhood in rural Texas and into her family of Holy Rollers. By night at tent revivals, Wilson gets religion from Brother Dynamite, an ex-con who finds Jesus in a baloney sandwich and handles masses of squirming poisonous snakes under the protection of the Holy Ghost. By day, Wilson scratches secret messages to Jesus into the paint on her windowsill and lies down in the middle of the road to see how long she can sleep in between passing trucks. "Holy Roller" is a fast-paced, hilarious, sometimes shocking experience readers wonat soon forget. It is the prequel to Wilson's first book, telling the story of the Texas childhood of a fierce little girl who will grow up to become "An Unreasonable Woman," take on Big Industry, and win. One of the best Southern writers of her generation, Wilson's voice twangs with a style and accent all its own, as true and individual as her boundless originality and wild youth.
Sippewissett
by Tim TraverA biography of the famous New England salt marsh, interweaving science, history, and memoir. Tim Traver's "Sippewissett" is heir to a rich history of nature writing. Akin to classics like Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac" and Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," the book forms an eloquent bridge between ecology and memory, science and art. Traver alternates between remembrances of the Cape Cod salt marsh where he spent his boyhood summers and the history of Sippewissett, a place that has been studied by many of America's great biologists, from Louis Agassiz to Rachel Carson. There is poetry in his retelling of the past, a childhood of mud and tides and water; there is great love in the peace and satisfaction he finds later in life fishing and clamming and watching his own children discover the secrets of the marsh. Traver manages to weave these personal details into mesmerizing historical passages and meditations on the ecology of place that read like whodunits; one discovery leads to another, from the most beautiful dance of life to more somber considerations, such as the way the marsh can tell us so much about our environmental crises. "Sippewissett" is an intimate exploration of place by a man of science and strong family bonds. Here is one of ecology's most studied places through the eyes of someone determined to make sense of its beauty and complexity filled with poetry yet grounded in science, a place disappearing in the face of development and global climate change.
Not One Drop
by Riki OttThis DVD/book package should be read and viewed by everyone concerned with crimes against man and nature; about corporate lies and the value of community. Betrayed by oilmen's promises in the 1970s, the people of Prince William Sound, Alaska, awaken on March 14, 1989, to the nation's largest oil spill. Not One Dropis an extraordinary tale of ordinary lives ripped apart by disaster and of community healing through building relationships of trust. This story offers critical lessons for a society traumatized by political divides and facing the looming catastrophe of global climate change. Author Riki Ott, a rare combination of commercial salmon "fisherm'am" and PhD marine biologist, describes firsthand the impacts of oil companies' broken promises when the Exxon Valdez spills most of its cargo and despoils thousands of miles of shore. Ott illustrates in stirring fashion the oil industry's 20-year trail of pollution and deception that predated the tragic 1989 spill and delves deep into the disruption to the fishing community of Cordova over the following 19 years. In vivid detail, she describes the human trauma coupled inextricably with that of the sound's wildlife and its long road to recovery. Black Wave (DVD) -directed by Robert Cornellier, tells the story of the biggest environmental catastrophe in North American history. In a flash, dramatic images shoot across the planet. They show thousands of carcasses of seabirds and sea otters covered in oil. A thick black tide rises and covers the beaches of once-pristine Prince William Sound. For twenty years Riki Ott and the fishermen of the little town of Cordova, Alaska have waged the longest legal battle in U. S. history against the world's most powerful oil company - ExxonMobil. They tell us all about the environmental, social and economic consequences of the black wave that changed their lives forever. Not One DropandBlack Waveshow us how too many corporate owners and political leaders betray everyday citizens and how a community forges a new path from despair to hope.
Sign of Life
by Hilary WilliamsJust after noon on a spring day in 2006, aspiring singer songwriter Hilary Williams and her sister Holly – the granddaughters of country legend Hank Williams and daughters of country music star Hank Williams Jr. – were driving through Mississippi down a rural stretch of Route 61 on their way to their grandfather’s funeral. Suddenly, the front wheel of the truck became caught in one of the many deep ruts and gravel lining the road, causing the vehicle and its passengers to flip over several times, crushing steel and breaking fragile bones as it crashed. Holly was lucky. She only suffered a broken wrist and cuts and bruises. But when the Jaws of Life finally pried Hilary's shattered body free of the wreckage, she was in shock and barely breathing. She had suffered two broken legs, several broken ribs, a ruptured colon, and bruised lungs. Her back, collarbone, tailbone, pelvis, and right femur were fractured. Her hips were crushed. It had taken nearly 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, and she had already lost a large amount of blood. Then, as EMTs scrambled to stabilize her in the middle of a muddy Mississippi field, Hilary Williams died. But that was only the beginning. This is a story of struggle and pain. But more so, it is a story of second chances, of love and resolve and recovery. When she was pulled back into life, Hilary’s world changed. It was the beginning of a long, courageous, and inspiring journey during which she would undergo twenty-three surgeries and years of therapy. Along the way, with her family at her side, Hilary has learned the meaning of strength, not only the strength to survive, but the strength to live with the legend, the talent, the burden, and the privilege of her place in country music’s most famous family.
Talk!
by Ellen Ratner Kathie Scarrah"Ready, Set, Talk!" will help anyone-from the novice activist to the sophisticated public relations professional-develop a talk media message, prepare a campaign, and roll it out. The authors demystify the process of identifying and analyzing potential media targets and opportunities, and show readers how to develop media events for maximum attention and continuing exposure on talk media. Rich with real-life examples and anecdotes on how to-and how not to-execute a successful campaign, this revealing media manual pulls no punches. Ratner and Scarrah analyze the conservatives' success on talk media and explain how anyone can do the same, not just by creating their own show, but also by going head to head with others on highly successful existing shows. "Ready, Set, Talk!" is a roadmap to putting the internet, podcasting, and videocasting to work for ideas, causes, and candidates. It includes guidelines for print and television interviews; a step-by-step guide to selecting, booking, and preparing a spokesperson; a comprehensive idiot-proof promotional checklist; and advice on how to manage crises in the media.
The Maple Sugar Book
by Helen Scott NearingA half-century ago, the world was trying to heal the wounds of global war. People were rushing to make up for lost time, grasping for material wealth. This was the era of "total electric living," a phrase beamed into living rooms by General Electric spokesman Ronald Reagan. Environmental awareness was barely a gleam in the eye of even Rachel Carson. And yet, Helen and Scott Nearing were on a totally different path, having left the city for the country, eschewing materialistic society in a quest for the self-sufficiency they deemed "the Good Life. " Chelsea Green is pleased to honor their example by publishing a new edition of "The Maple Sugar Book", complete with a new section of never-before-published photos of the Nearings working on the sugaring operation, and an essay by Greg Joly relating the story behind the book and placing the Nearings' work in the context of their neighborhood and today's maple industry. Maple sugaring was an important source of cash for the Nearings, as it continues to be for many New England farmers today. This book is filled with a history of sugaring from Native American to modern times, with practical tips on how to sap trees, process sap, and market syrup. In an age of microchips and software that are obsolete before you can install them, maple sugaring is a process that's stood the test of time. Fifty years after its original publication in 1950, "The Maple Sugar Book" is as relevant as ever to the homestead or small-scale commercial practitioner.
The End of Money
by David WolmanTraveling the world to study the story of cash, Wired magazine contributing editor David Wolman explores the future of currency and what its imminent demise might mean for technology and people around the globe. The author talks to counterfeiters, coin collectors, bankers, and transaction technology gurus, examining the social, economic, and political ramifications of a world moving away from tangible currency. The work is engaging and well written and will appeal to general readers with an interest in the social consequences of technology. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
Always On
by Brian ChenEven Steve Jobs didn't know what he had on his hands when he announced the original iPhone as a combination of a mere "three revolutionary products"--an iPod, a cell phone, and a keyboard-less handheld computer. Once Apple introduced the App Store and opened it up to outside developers, however, the iPhone became capable of serving a rapidly growing number of functions--now more than 200,000 and counting. But the iPhone has implications far beyond the phone or gadget market. In fact, it's opening the way to what Brian Chen calls the "always-on" future, where we are all constantly connected to a global Internet via flexible, incredibly capable gadgets that allow us to do anything, anytime, from anywhere. This has far-reaching implications--both positive and negative--throughout all areas of our lives, opening the door for incredible personal and societal advances while potentially sacrificing both privacy and creative freedom in the process. Always Onis the first book to look at the surprising and expansive significance of Apple's incredibly powerful vertical business model, and the future it portends.
Biking to Work
by Rory McmullanA complete guide for making biking to work a safe reality for the beginning bike commuter. For those who live within biking distance to work, this book offers simple safety, bike-buying, gear-buying, and basic maintenance tips, as well as ways to best plan your route to and from the office. By biking to work, you can improve your physical and mental health, save money, avoid creating pollution, and contribute to friendlier cities. In the face of rush-hour traffic, biking is often faster than driving, too!
Composting
by Nicky ScottA full-color guide for both beginners and experienced composters, with an A-Z reference section. Composting is fun, easy and very satisfying! You can make compost even if you live in an apartment or don't have access to a garden. There are lots of good reasons to make compost: bull; A third to two-thirds of the average garbage can contents can be composted, so you can lighten your bin-and stop it smelling. bull; Less organic material is sent to landfill, so less noxious liquids and greenhouse gases-especially methane-are produced. bull; Composting saves you money-you won't need to buy any more peat-based compost! This book will give you all the information you need for successful composting.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
by Nicky ScottREDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE: AN EASY HOUSEHOLD GUIDE THE CHELSEA GREEN GUIDES-A NEW SERIES OF POCKET-SIZED BOOKS TO HELP SAVE THE EARTH! Do you know what to do with your old cell phone? Where you can responsibly dispose of old medicines? What happens to the stuff you recycle? This easy-to-use guide has answers to all your recycling questions. Its A-Z listing of everyday household items shows you how to recycle most of your unwanted things, do your bit for the planet, and maybe make a little money at the same time. With a comprehensive resources section and information on how to get more involved, this is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to stop the Earth from going to waste.
So Long as Men Can Breathe
by Clinton HeylinIn this lively, fascinating account of the publication of Shakespeare’sSonnets, noted biographer Clinton Heylin brings their convoluted history to light, beginning with the first complete appearance of theSonnetsin print in May, 1609. He introduces us to the "unholy alliance” involved in this precarious enterprise: Thomas Thorpe, the publisher, a self-described "well wishing adventurer;” George Eld, the printer, heavily embroiled in large-scale pirating; William Aspley, the prestigious bookseller, who mysteriously ended his association with Thorpe soon after. Leaving the calamitous world of Elizabethan publishing, Heylin goes on to chart the many editions of theSonnetsthrough the years and the editorial decisions that led to their present configuration. Passionate, astute, and brilliantly entertaining, the result is a concise and vivid history of perhaps the greatest poetry ever written.
The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese
by Jeffrey P. Roberts"The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese" is the first reference book of its kind and a must-have for every foodie's library. Jeffrey P. Roberts lavishes loving attention on the growing local food and farmstead movement in what is fast becoming a national trend. This fully illustrated atlas of contemporary artisan cheeses and cheese makers will not only be a mainstay in any cookery and cuisine library-guiding consumers, retailers, restaurateurs, and food professionals to the full breadth and unparalleled quality of American artisan foods-it will be the source of many a fabulous food adventure. Organized by region and state, "The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese" highlights more than 350 of the best small-scale cheese makers in the United States today. It provides the most complete overview of what's to be had nationwide-shippable, attainable, delectable. Each entry describes a cheesemaker; its cheese; whether from cow, sheep, or goat milk; availability; location; and even details on cheese-making processes. "The Atlas" captures America's local genius for artisan cheese: a capacity for adaptation, experimentation, and innovation, while following old-world artisanship. It is destined to become a classic resource and reference.
Landscaping Earth Ponds
by Tim MatsonThe guru of earth ponds explains how to site, design, shape, and plant these beloved fixtures of rural landscapes-and make them fit your property and your life. In the decades since he wrote his acclaimed "Earth Ponds," Tim Matson has designed scores of ponds, each unique to its site and its owners. In "Landscaping Earth Ponds," he shares what he has learned to make these captivating ponds truly fit into their landscapes and into the lives and lifestyles of their owners. Ponds have long been valued for their charm and utility: how else can you simultaneously enliven your landscape, create recreational opportunities, help the environment, and increase your property value? Earth ponds are increasingly recognized for the full range of gardening, landscaping, and ecological promise they hold. As pond-building methods have been perfected, more homeowners are restoring existing ponds or digging new ones. With dozens of color photographs, Matson shows you how to site a pond in right relation to your house, offering surprisingly simple ways to visually link the two. His proven methods and designs reflect the many moods water evokes. Screen your pond for privacy, create a sandy beach and natural diving platform, encourage wetland gardens, line the shores with moisture-loving perennials, or design your gardens and paths to create a sense of mystery and adventure.
Welcome to the Machine
by Derrick Jensen George DraffanYou could call them the Monkeywrench Gang of the nanotech age. Derrick Jensen and George Draffan are taking down the data mining industry, one converted mind at a time. In the face of RFID chips, consumer tracking strategies, and illegal government wiretapping, Jensen and Draffan are determined to show consumers how to fight back against government and industry to regain their rights, their privacy, and their humanity. In "Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control," Jensen and Draffan take a hart-hitting look at the way technology is used as a machine, to control us and our environment. Most people would be disturbed if you told them that everything from their store purchases to their public transit rides are recorded and filed for government or corporate access. But more often than not, the smooth, silent cleanliness of its operation allows the Machine of Western Civilization to go unnoticed. Jensen and Draffan are back to reveal both the terrifying extent of surveillance today and our chilling complacency at the loss of everything from consumer privacy to civil liberties. In this timely and important new collaboration, Jensen and Draffan take on all aspects of Control Culture: everything from the government's policy of total information awareness to a disturbing new technology where soldiers can be given medication to prevent them from feeling fear. They write about pharmaceutical packaging that reports consumer information, which is then used to send targeted drug advertisements directly to your TV.
Dance, Recover, Repeat
by Alasdair DuncanFrom an edgy new voice comes a frenetic novel about boredom, porn, and pills. Brandishing a unique, comic worldview, Alasdair Duncan assembles a surprising, devastating narrative using dialogue, emails, Internet chats, fantasies, notebook entries, blips from video games, and more. Calvin is sixteen and bored with suburban life. But in the city, things are altogether more exciting. It's there that Calvin meets Anthony -- and the two boys quickly become obsessed with each other. Then Calvin discovers pictures of Anthony on a pornographic website and is drawn into his new friend's seedy underworld. Just as he's discovering what's like when first love meets first sex, when friendship meets lust, and when love meets loss, his teen angst morphs into full-on self-destructivness...and puts him on the path to an absolutely shocking series of events. With total command of the world he creates for his characters -- in which the computer is just another pill you can pop, another way to run and hide, like drinking or drugging or having sex -- Alsdair Duncan makes an auspicious debut.
Guantánamo
by Michael Ratner Ellen RayIn the months following its initial release, Guantánamo: What the World Should Know has proved to be a disturbingly accurate account of the Bush administration's tangle with civil liberties and torture. Written by Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights President and co-consul on the case of Rasul v. Bush)and Ellen Ray (Institute for Media Analysis President), Guantanamo is the most authoritative documentation to date on President Bush's moves toward a network of detention centers--a system without accountability, which flouts U. S. and international law. With a resource section that includes the Gonzales memo to President Bush and excerpts from the Geneva Conventions, Guantanamo provides strong evidence of Ratner explains how Gonzales and the Bush Administration are acting to radically alter America's historic commitment to civil and human rights, and why all Americans should resist what is being done in our name. Gathered together for the first time, Guantánamo: What the World Should Know includes the governmental memoranda that led to the conditions at the Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and beyond. Ratner and Ray give the definitive account of what led to the current conditions at Guantánamo and the importance of continuing to fight against the violations of U. S. and international law undertaken by the United States since 9-11. This book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the rule of law, liberty, democracy--and the right to dissent. Guantánamo is part of the "Politics of the Living" series, a collection of hard-hitting works by major writers exposing the global governmental and corporate assault on life.
The Tough-Minded Optimist
by Norman Peale"If you want to live in this tough world and still have some real faith and optimism, this book is for you." -- Norman Vincent Peale The many ills of the modern world can be debilitating. With so much seemingly senseless violence, pain, and destruction, we need a lot of inner strength to overcome cynicism and despair -- and to remain hopeful about the future. With Dr. Peale's careful guidance, you can achieve happiness and security by learning how to: Conquer your fear Free yourself of guilty feelings Live well and prosper, personally and professionally Become physically healthy -- the natural way Stay enthusiastic even in poor circumstances Tackle problems hopefully and creatively Harness the power of prayer
Tiki
by Gil Reavill Tiki BarberTiki Barber, former running back for the New York Giants and current Today show correspondent, has seemingly led a charmed life. Whether on the field or in front of the camera, the Smiling Giant makes everything look easy. But it has taken a lot of motivation, hard work, and help from those around him to get where he is today. Here, he recounts his extraordinary life to date -- being raised in semirural Virginia alongside his twin brother, Ronde, by a strong single mother who made every sacrifice to make sure her boys had all the tools they needed to succeed in life; getting drafted in 1997 by the Giants, where he eventually became a standout running back after overcoming injuries and flaws in his game with the help of his coaches and teammates; his stellar 2005 season, when he finished the year with 2,390 yards from scrimmage (the second-highest total in NFL history); and the controversies that marred the Giants' 2006 season, including the surprise announcement of his retirement at the age of thirty-one. As much as Tiki takes you into the locker room, past the sidelines, and onto the field to give you the view from inside the huddle, this book is also an inspirational look at his arduous evolution from ordinary player to elite -- on the field and off -- and at the amazing people along the way who have helped him achieve his goals. Tiki takes on the role of both the interviewer and the interviewee in special "Tiki Interviews Tiki" sections, as he asks and answers the really tough questions. Tiki is a riveting, inspiring read for all who want to know what really goes on behind the scenes, and for anyone looking for the strength to step up and follow his or her dreams.
Summer of '68
by Tim WendelThe extraordinary story of the 1968 baseball season-when the game was played to perfection even as the country was being pulled apart at the seams From the beginning, ’68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr. ’s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But even as tensions boiled over and violence spilled into the streets, something remarkable was happening in major league ballparks across the country. Pitchers were dominating like never before, and with records falling and shut-outs mounting, many began hailing ’68 as “The Year of the Pitcher. ” InSummer of ’68, Tim Wendel takes us on a wild ride through a season that saw such legends as Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, Don Drysdale, and Luis Tiant set new standards for excellence on the mound, each chasing perfection against the backdrop of one of the most divisive and turbulent years in American history. For some players, baseball would become an insular retreat from the turmoil encircling them that season, but for a select few, including Gibson and the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals, the conflicts of ’68 would spur their performances to incredible heights and set the stage for their own run at history. Meanwhile in Detroit-which had burned just the summer before during one of the worst riots in American history-’68 instead found the city rallying together behind a colorful Tigers team led by McLain, Mickey Lolich, Willie Horton, and Al Kaline. The Tigers would finish atop the American League, setting themselves on a highly anticipated collision course with Gibson’s Cardinals. And with both teams’ seasons culminating in a thrilling World Series for the ages-one team playing to establish a dynasty, the other fighting to help pull a city from the ashes-what ultimately lay at stake was something even larger: baseball’s place in a rapidly changing America that would never be the same. In vivid, novelistic detail,Summer of ’68tells the story of this unforgettable season-the last before rule changes and expansion would alter baseball forever-when the country was captivated by the national pastime at the moment it needed the game most.