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Alex As Well
by Alyssa BrugmanAlex is ready for things to change, in a big way. Everyone seems to think she's a boy, but for Alex the whole boy/girl thing isn't as simple as either/or, and when she decides girl is closer to the truth, no one knows how to react, least of all her parents.Undeterred, Alex begins to create a new identity for herself: ditching one school, enrolling in another, and throwing out most of her clothes. But the other Alex-the boy Alex-has a lot to say about that. Heartbreaking and droll in equal measures, Alex As Well is a brilliantly told story of exploring gender and sexuality, navigating friendships, and finding a place to belong.
The St. Louis Anthology (Belt City Anthologies)
by Ryan SchuesslerSt. Louis is a fragmented place. It’s physically dissected by rivers, highways, walls, and fences, but it’s also a place where one’s race, class, religion, and zip code may as well be cards in a rigged poker game, where the winners’ prize is the ability to ignore the fact that the losers have drastically shorter life expectancies. But it can also be a city of warmth, love, and beauty―especially in its contrasts. Edited by Ryan Schuessler (Sweeter Voices Still: An LGBTQ Anthology from Middle America), the collection features nearly 70 essays penned by St. Louis writers, journalists, clerics, poets, and activists including Aisha Sultan, Galen Gritts, Vivian Gibson, Maja Sadikovic, Nartana Premachandra, Sophia Benoit, Robert Langellier, Samuel Autman, Umar Lee, and more.
A Woman of Consequence: The Investigations of Miss Dido Kent (Dido Kent Investigations #3)
by Anna Dean"If Jane Austen had written Miss Marple, she would have been Dido Kent, the inquisitive spinster."--Kirkus (starred review)A Woman of Consequence, the third installment in Anna Dean's charming mystery series, opens with a visit to the ruins of an Abbey where Penelope Lambe, suffers a bad fall from the ancient stone steps. Before she slips into unconsciousness, Penelope manages to say, 'I saw her—It was her.' Soon people are certain that she saw the Grey Nun, a ghost reputed to walk the abbey's ruins. Miss Dido Kent, however, does not approve of ghosts. Disregarding everyone else's assumptions, and endeavoring to take her mind off the troubles of her family, Dido turns her energy toward solving the mystery. But events start to seem more sinister when a human skeleton is found at the abbey. Is Miss Lambe's accident connected to this discovery? Everyone is relying on Dido to find out. A captivating continuation of the Dido Kent series: rich in suspense, historical detail, and most of all, characters.
Dreadful Sorry: Essays on an American Nostalgia
by Jennifer NiessleinCandid essays on personal and cultural American nostalgia, focusing on the author's working-class, Rust Belt family history. What does it mean to be nostalgic for the American past? The feeling has been co-opted by the far
Desperate Measures: A Mystery (Gabriel Ash & Hazel Best #3)
by Jo BannisterWhen Gabriel Ash's wife and kids were kidnapped four years ago by Somali pirates, his life spiraled out of control. He left his job working for the British government and moved to a small town where he descended into near madness. But with the help of his dog, Patience, and his friendship with young police officer Hazel Best, his focus returned. So when he discovers that his wife is still alive, Ash is once again filled with hope and fear. Hope that he has another chance to find her and their two young sons; fear that, in trying, he may bring about their deaths.Hazel is deeply worried for Ash. But even she is unprepared for what Ash seems willing to do to secure the safety of his wife and children. In fact, nothing is as it seems and loyalty, friendship, and family bonds will be called into question. When Ash learns who was behind the events that wrecked his life and his sanity, even the resourceful Hazel might not be able to keep him from getting hurt. How much is Ash willing to sacrifice in order to bring his family home and bring justice to those responsible?Jo Bannister's police procedurals are widely praised for outstanding plotting and suspense, and their brilliant and compelling characterization. Desperate Measures, the third novel in the series following Deadly Virtues and Perfect Sins, is an engrossing novel from "one of the undersung treasures of the mystery genre." -The Chicago Tribune
The Villa of Death: A Mystery Featuring Daphne Du Maurier (Daphne du Maurier Mysteries #3)
by Joanna ChallisYoung Daphne du Maurier must defend a friend who has been accused of murder in the next installment in the beguiling mystery series that readers of Rebecca will love.It's the summer of 1927 and aspiring novelist Daphne du Maurier is headed to Cornwall for the wedding of her dear friend Ellen Hamilton to American millionaire Teddy Grimshaw. Having met during the chaos of the Great War, the lovers were cruelly separated for nearly a decade by circumstance and family interference. Now the wedding ceremony—held at Thornleigh Manor, a grand estate that has been in the Hamilton family for five centuries—marks a renewed hope for the future.But joy quickly turns to devastation when Teddy is found murdered right after the wedding. Wealth, jealousy, and buried secrets provide no shortage of suspects—or danger to everyone at Thornleigh, including Daphne herself. When Ellen is suspected of being the murderess, the independent-minded Daphne, along with the dashing Major Browning, is inspired to uncover the truth, and to write her next novel.
Our Endless and Proper Work: Starting (and Sticking To) Your Writing Practice
by Ron HoganWriter and editorial consultant Ron Hogan helps readers develop an ongoing writing practice as an end in and of itself, not a means to publication. Many people pick up the guitar without eyeing a career as a professional musician, or start painting without caring if they get a gallery. But with writing the assumption seems to be that the goal must be to get published. Why? Why is it acceptable to attain technical proficiency at "Stairway to Heaven" or plein air watercolors as a hobby, while writing is expected to earn its keep? In Our Endless and Proper Work, the second in Belt’s series of books about writing and publishing—along with Belt founder Anne Trubek’s So You Want to Publish a Book? (2020)—Ron Hogan argues writing should be an end in itself for more people. The founder of the literary site Beatrice, and creator of the popular newsletter "Destroy Your Safe and Happy Lives", Hogan offers concrete steps to help writers develop ongoing creative practice in chapters such as “Reclaiming Your Time for Writing,” “Finding Your Groove,” and “Preparing Yourself for the Long Haul.” Sprinkled throughout are adorable illustrations by “Positive Doodles” creator Emm Roy. This concise, inspirational book encourages all people to take up writing not, as so many other handbooks and resources suggest, in order to make money or become famous, but because it can help you become a happier, more whole and engaged person.
The Whiskey Rebellion and the Rebirth of Rye: A Pittsburgh Story
by Mark Meyer Meredith Meyer Grelli"Goes down nice and smooth."-- The Pittsburgh Quarterly A short and accessible history of rye whiskey's founding, floundering, and current flourishing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This book takes the reader
In the Watershed: A Journey Down the Maumee River
by Ryan SchnurrFor several years, Ryan Schnurr watched media coverage of Lake Erie algae blooms with a growing sense of unease. An Indiana native, he wanted to learn more about role of the Maumee River in the lake's environmental woes: the Maumee is Lake Erie's largest tributary and the center of the largest watershed in the region, spanning more than 6,600 square miles of land. So in the summer of 2016, Schnurr walked and canoed the length of the river from its headwaters in Fort Wayne, Indiana to its mouth in Toledo, Ohio. In The Watershed: A Journey Down the Maumee River is the story of that voyage. As he walks the banks, Schnurr tells us the history of the river, from its formation by glaciers, function in Native American and American history, uses by industry, and role in current economic and environmental issues. Part cultural history, part nature writing, and part narrative, In the Watershed is a lyrical work of non-fiction in the vein of John McPhee and Ian Frazier with a timely and important warning at the core. "What is happening in Lake Erie," Schnurr tells us, "is a disaster by nearly any measure―ecologically, economically, socially, culturally."
The History of the Standard Oil Company (Belt Revivals)
by Ida TarbellPart of Belt's Revivals Series, a classic of muckraking journalism with a new introduction by Elizabeth Catte, author of What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia and Pure America . Cleveland oil tycoon Jo
The Cleveland Anthology (Belt City Anthologies)
by Richey Piiparinen Anne TrubekAn inside-out snapshot of Cleveland written by those who actually live and work there. An intimate reminder "that strength of character abounds in the Cleveland community."-- Freshwater Cleveland The past few y
Right Here, Right Now: The Buffalo Anthology (Belt City Anthologies)
by Jody K. BiehlBuffalo is a magical place to be and this anthology walks the reader through the decades. The newness of the city is electrifying and sits atop a glorious history of power, disappointment, artistic flair, racial injustice and spicy chicken wings—and Buffalo has the Niagara Falls in its backyard. Told through the eyes of more than 65 artists, writers, and residents, the essays will give readers a feel of the city, its good and bad sides, and why many people love calling Buffalo their home. The contributors include: Lauren Belfer, Wolf Blitzer, Marv Levy, John Lombardo, Mary Ramsey, Robby Takac, and many more.
Gin and Panic: A Mystery (Discreet Retrieval Agency Mysteries #3)
by Maia Chance“Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets—and has a high old time doing it! So will you.”—Ann B. Ross, New York Times bestselling author of the Miss Julia seriesFormer socialite Lola Woodby is now struggling to make ends meet as a not-so-discreet private eye in Prohibtion-era New York City, along with her stern Swedish sidekick, Berta. When they’re offered a piece-of-cake job—retrieving a rhinoceros trophy from the Connecticut mansion of big game hunter Rudy Montgomery—it seems like a no-brainer. After all, their client, Lord Sudley, promises them a handsome paycheck, and the gin and tonics will be plentiful and free. But no sooner do they arrive at Montgomery Hall than Rudy is shot dead. When the police arrive to examine the scene, they conclude that Rudy had actually committed suicide. But Lord Sudley can’t believe his friend would have done that, and there’s a houseful of suspicious characters standing by. So Lord Sudley ups the ante for Lola and Berta, and suddenly, their easy retrieval job has turned into a murder investigation. Armed with handbags stuffed with emergency chocolate, gin flasks, and a Colt .25, Lola and Berta are swiftly embroiled in a madcap puzzle of stolen diamonds, family secrets, a clutch of gangsters, and plenty of suspects who know their way around a safari rifle.Gin and Panic is the next jaunty, compelling Discreet Retrieval Agency mystery from beloved crime writer Maia Chance.
Friday Night Chicas: Sexy Stories from La Noche
by Mary Castillo Caridad Piñeiro Berta Platas Sofia QuinteroWhether they're flirting en espanol, gossiping over mojitos, or dancing with their latest papi chulos, the characters in Friday Night Chicas prove that there is nothing quite like a night out with your chicas. Set in New York City, Miami's South Beach, downtown Chicago, and L.A., these four flirty novellas explore dating, marriage, friendship, and sex, through the eyes of four different Latina women. Mary Castillo's Friday Night in L.A.: Isela isn't looking for a one-night stand; she's desperate for one last shot at saving her career. Her ticket is Hollywood's director du jour Tyler Banks, but one major mistake could cost her everything.Caridad Pineiro's Friday Night in South Beach: It's Tori's thirtieth birthday and all she wants is a nice quiet night with her family and friends. However, Tori's friends have other plans and during an overnight casino cruise, Tori finds herself taking the gamble of her life!Berta Platas's Friday Night in Chicago: The once-shy Cali has decided to attend her high school reunion. She slips into her slinkiest Donna Karan and puts on her highest Manolos. After all, she's out to seek revenge, Latina-style. . . Sofia Quintero's Friday Night in New York City: Gladys's friends throw her a bachelorette party at one of NYC's raunchiest male strip joints. They expected a party, but they didn't expect the not-so-blushing bride to disappear with one of the strippers!
The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment
by Geoffrey KabaserviceHow liberalism and one of the most dramatic eras in American history were shaped by an influential university president and his powerful circle of friendsYale's Kingman Brewster was the first and only university president to appear on the covers of Time and Newsweek, and the last of the great campus leaders to become an esteemed national figure. He was also the center of the liberal establishment—a circle of influential men who fought to keep the United States true to ideals and extend the full range of American opportunities to all citizens of every class and color. Using Brewster as his focal point, Geoffrey Kabaservice shows how he and his lifelong friends—Kennedy adviser McGeorge Bundy, Attorney General and statesman Elliot Richardson, New York mayor John Lindsay, Bishop Paul Moore, and Cyrus Vance, pillar of Washington and Wall Street—helped usher this country through the turbulence of the 1960s, creating a legacy that still survives. In a narrative that is as engaging and lively as it is meticulously researched, The Guardians judiciously and convincingly reclaims the importance of Brewster and his generation, illuminating their vital place in American history as the bridge between the old establishment and modern liberalism.
It's Like Candy: An Urban Novel
by Erick S. GrayBeautiful River joins a stick-up crew, but she doesn't know that Big Red and Twinkie have a secret that even she's not in on. When she falls in love with Eric, one of her victims, all she wants is to find her baby sister, and settle down with her new love. But River soon becomes a prisoner of her dangerous world. And escaping it may cost her more than her life.By the time she turns sixteen, Starr is working for a pimp and turning tricks daily. But when an assault by one of her "dates" lands her in the hospital, Starr meets a woman who wants to help her change her life. Starr's heart is too hardened to believe in second chances, but soon she begins to long for more than selling her body just so she can survive. However the game does not give up its players so easily. Enter Eric's cousin, Yung Slim, fresh out of jail after seven years. He's looking to reclaim the streets and take care of some old grudges. When Yung Slim goes to battle, Eric—torn between his love for River, his ties to his cousin, and the lure of the streets—gets in too deep. When the war breaks out on the battlefield of the streets, who will be left standing?
Hide and Seek (Jess Tennant Mysteries #3)
by Jane CaseyIt's Christmastime in Port Sentinel, the tiny English town where Jess Tennant has been living for more than a year now. Jess wasn't sure how she felt about moving to Port Sentinel when her mom dragged her there right in the middle of high school, but even Jess has to admit the town has completely outdone itself for the holidays. There's a Christmas market complete with a mini ice-rink and fairy lights, and the bare trees stand stark against the sky. But for Gilly Poynter, one of Jess's classmates, the Christmas season is anything but magical. She's disappeared, leaving behind only her diary and a lot of questions. Has she run away from her unhappy home, or has something more sinister happened? And will Jess be able to find her before it's too late?Hide and Seek is another cleverly crafted, charming mystery from acclaimed author Jane Casey.
The Raven's Bride: A Novel
by Lenore HartWhen eight-year-old Virginia "Sissy" Clemm meets her handsome cousin, Eddy, she sees the perfect husband she's conjured up in childhood games. Thirteen years her elder, he's soft-spoken, brooding, and handsome. Eddy fails his way through West Point and the army yet each time he returns to Baltimore, their friendship grows. As Sissy trains for a musical career, her childhood crush turns to love. When she's thirteen, Eddy proposes. But as their happy life darkens, Sissy endures Poe's abrupt disappearances, self-destructive moods, and alcoholic binges. When she falls ill, his greatest fear– that he'll lose the woman he loves– drives him both madness, and to his greatest literary achievement. Part ghost story, part love story, this provocative novel explores the mysterious, shocking relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and young Sissy Clemm, his cousin, muse and great love. Lenore Hart, author of Becky, imagines the beating heart of the woman who inspired American literature's most demonized literary figure– and who ultimately destroyed him.
The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America
by Susan FaludiFrom the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author of Backlash—an unflinching dissection of the mind of America after 9/11In this most original examination of America's post-9/11 culture, Susan Faludi shines a light on the country's psychological response to the attacks on that terrible day. Turning her acute observational powers on the media, popular culture, and political life, Faludi unearths a barely acknowledged but bedrock societal drama shot through with baffling contradictions. Why, she asks, did our culture respond to an assault against American global dominance with a frenzied summons to restore "traditional" manhood, marriage, and maternity? Why did we react as if the hijackers had targeted not a commercial and military edifice but the family home and nursery? Why did an attack fueled by hatred of Western emancipation lead us to a regressive fixation on Doris Day womanhood and John Wayne masculinity, with trembling "security moms," swaggering presidential gunslingers, and the "rescue" of a female soldier cast as a "helpless little girl"?The answer, Faludi finds, lies in a historical anomaly unique to the American experience: the nation that in recent memory has been least vulnerable to domestic attack was forged in traumatizing assaults by nonwhite "barbarians" on town and village. That humiliation lies concealed under a myth of cowboy bluster and feminine frailty, which is reanimated whenever threat and shame looms.Brilliant and important, The Terror Dream shows what 9/11 revealed about us—and offers the opportunity to look at ourselves anew.
Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species Divide
by Charles FosterA passionate naturalist explores what it’s really like to be an animal—by living like themHow can we ever be sure that we really know the other? To test the limits of our ability to inhabit lives that are not our own, Charles Foster set out to know the ultimate other: the non-humans, the beasts. And to do that, he tried to be like them, choosing a badger, an otter, a fox, a deer, and a swift. He lived alongside badgers for weeks, sleeping in a sett in a Welsh hillside and eating earthworms, learning to sense the landscape through his nose rather than his eyes. He caught fish in his teeth while swimming like an otter; rooted through London garbage cans as an urban fox; was hunted by bloodhounds as a red deer, nearly dying in the snow. And he followed the swifts on their migration route over the Strait of Gibraltar, discovering himself to be strangely connected to the birds. A lyrical, intimate, and completely radical look at the life of animals—human and other—Being a Beast mingles neuroscience and psychology, nature writing and memoir to cross the boundaries separating the species. It is an extraordinary journey full of thrills and surprises, humor and joy. And, ultimately, it is an inquiry into the human experience in our world, carried out by exploring the full range of the life around us.
A Common Fate: Endangered Salmon and the People of the Pacific Northwest
by Joseph ConeThough life on earth is the history of dynamic interactions between living things and their surroundings, certain powerful groups would have us believe that nature exists only for our convenience. One consequence of such thinking is the apparent fate of the Pacific salmon--a key resource and preeminent symbol of America's wildlife--which is today threatened with extinction. Drawing on abundant data from natural science, Pacific coast culture, and a long association with key individuals on all sides of the issue, Joseph Cone's A Common Fate employs a clear narrative voice to tell the human and natural history of an environmental crisis in its final chapter.As inevitable as the November rains, countless millions of wild salmon returned from the ocean to spawn in the streams of their birth. In the wake of an orgy of dam building and habitat destruction, the salmon's majestic abundance has been reduced to a fleeting shadow. Neglect is the word the author uses to describe more recent losses, "by exactly the ones--state and federal fish managers--who should have acted."To signal a new awareness that action is needed, scientists charged with restocking the Columbia River Basin are receiving significant support, while ordinary citizens are beginning to recognize the relationship between cheap power and the absences of chinook, coho, sockeye, and other species from the coasts of Oregon and Washington and from Idaho's Snake River. As desperate as the salmon's future appears, the book is not an elegy for a lost resource. Instead, it bears witness to hope. In addition to concrete plans for the wild salmon's renewal, the reader will hear a growing chorus of informed individuals of differing values and beliefs who recognize that our fate is inextricably bound to the salmon's; for many it is a new understanding.
Knee Surgery: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide to Total Knee Recovery
by Daniel Fulham O'NeillIn this age of same-day surgery and do-it-yourself health, Knee Surgery presents an easy-to-do, well-illustrated program of movement for knee rehabilitation - with a special focus on the mind/body connection - and describes the physical and mental rehabilitation process in complete detail, providing all the guidance you need to decrease pain and increase fitness after knee surgery. Millions of people have knee surgery each year, and in the years to come millions more will head to the O.R. Chances are, you or someone you know has had or will undergo knee surgery. Busy doctors, therapists, and athletic trainers have limited time to spend on quality physical and mental rehabilitation education, yet this is the key to full recovery.Written by renowned knee surgeon and Sport Psychologist Daniel F. O'Neill, M.D., Ed.D., this comprehensive and accessible guide presents what you'll want and need the most after knee surgery: a scientifically-based recovery program you can understand that will get you back to work and sports as quickly as possible.
Little Boy Blue: A Novel
by Edward BunkerRaised within the confines of a system that has done nothing but provide him with pain, Alex Hamilton's frustration and anger are completely natural--and inherently dangerous.Since his parents split up, Alex has been constantly running from foster homes and institutions, yearning to be with his father, a broken man who cannot give his son the home he desperately needs. The only constant in Alex's life is no-good, criminally-minded peers, who are all too ready to plant illegal ideas in an intelligent mind. Bunker writes, "His unique potential would develop into unique destructiveness."
A Past in Hiding: Memory and Survival in Nazi Germany
by Mark RosemanA heart-stopping survivor story and brilliant historical investigation that offers unprecedented insight into daily life in the Third Reich and the Holocaust and the powers and pitfalls of memory.At the outbreak of World War II, Marianne Strauss, the sheltered daughter of well-to-do German Jews, was an ordinary girl, concerned with studies, friends, and romance. Almost overnight she was transformed into a woman of spirit and defiance, a fighter who, when the Gestapo came for her family, seized the moment and went underground. On the run for two years, Marianne traveled across Nazi Germany without papers, aided by a remarkable resistance organization, previously unknown and unsung. Drawing on an astonishing cache of documents as well as interviews on three continents, historian Mark Roseman reconstructs Marianne's odyssey and reveals aspects of life in the Third Reich long hidden from view. As Roseman excavates the past, he also puts forward a new and sympathetic interpretation of the troubling discrepancies between fact and recollection that so often cloud survivors' accounts.A detective story, a love story, a story of great courage and survival under the harshest conditions, A Past in Hiding is also a poignant investigation into the nature of memory, authenticity, and truth.
Reskilling America: Learning to Labor in the Twenty-First Century
by Katherine S. Newman Hella WinstonFrom Katherine Newman, award-winning author of No Shame in My Game, and sociologist Hella Winston, a sharp and irrefutable call to reenergize this nation's long-neglected system of vocational trainingAfter decades of off-shoring and downsizing that have left blue collar workers obsolete and stranded, the United States is now on the verge of an industrial renaissance. Companies like Apple, BMW, Bosch, and Volkswagen are all opening plants and committing millions of dollars to build products right here on American soil. The only problem: we don't have a skilled enough labor pool to fill these positions, which are in many cases technically demanding and require specialized skills. A decades-long series of idealistic educational policies with the expressed goal of getting every student to go to college has left a generation of potential workers out of the system. Touted as a progressive, egalitarian institution providing opportunity even to those with the greatest need, the American secondary school system has in fact deepened existing inequalities, leaving behind millions of youth, especially those who live in the de-industrialized Northeast and Midwest, without much of a future at all. We can do better, argue acclaimed sociologists Katherine Newman and Hella Winston. Taking a page from the successful experience of countries like Germany and Austria, where youth unemployment is a mere 7%, they call for a radical reevaluation of the idea of vocational training, long discredited as an instrument of tracking. The United States can prepare a new, high-performance labor force if we revamp our school system to value industry apprenticeship and rigorous technical education. By doing so, we will not only be able to meet the growing demand for skilled employees in dozens of sectors where employers decry the absence of well trained workers -- we will make the American Dream accessible to all.