Other books that might interest you

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  Gastropolis - Food & New York City

  Annie Hauck-Lawson, Jonathan...

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  This irresistible sampling of NYC’s rich food heritage takes readers on a cultural and historical journey from Brooklyn to the Bronx and beyond.   Whether you're digging into a slice of cherry cheesecake, burning your tongue on a piece of Jamaican jerk chicken, or slurping the broth from a juicy soup dumpling, eating in New York City is a culinary adventure unlike any other in the world.Gastropolis explores the historical, cultural, and personal relationship between New Yorkers and the food they eat. Beginning with the origins of local favorites, such as Mt. Olympus bagels and Puerto Rican lasagna, the book looks back to early farming practices and the pre-European fare of the Leni Lenape. Essays trace the function of place and memory in Asian cuisine, the rise of Jewish food icons, the evolution of food enterprises in Harlem, the relationship between restaurant dining and identity, and the role of peddlers and markets in guiding the ingredients of our meals. Touching on everything from religion to nutrition; agriculture to economics; and politics to psychology, Gastropolis tells a multifaceted story of immigration, amalgamation, and the making of New York’s distinctively delicious flavor

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  Always Crashing in the Same Car...

  Matthew Specktor

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  Blending memoir and cultural criticism, Matthew Specktor explores family legacy, the lives of artists, and a city that embodies both dreams and disillusionment.In 2006, Matthew Specktor moved into a crumbling Los Angeles apartment opposite the one in which F. Scott Fitzgerald spent the last moments of his life. Fitz had been Specktor's first literary idol, someone whose own passage through Hollywood had, allegedly, broken him. Freshly divorced, professionally flailing, and reeling from his mother's cancer diagnosis, Specktor was feeling unmoored. But rather than giving in or "cracking up," he embarked on an obsessive journey to make sense of the mythologies of "success" and "failure" that haunt the artist's life and the American imagination.Part memoir, part cultural history, part portrait of place, Always Crashing in the Same Car explores Hollywood through a certain kind of collapse. It's a vibrant and intimate inspection of failure told through the lives of iconic, if under-sung, artists—Carole Eastman, Eleanor Perry, Warren Zevon, Tuesday Weld, and Hal Ashby, among others—and the author's own family history. Through this constellation of Hollywood figures, he unearths a fascinating alternate history of the city that raised him and explores the ways in which curtailed ambition, insufficiency, and loss shape all our lives.

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  Haunted Martinsburg

  Justin Stevens

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  Civil War spirits and Appalachian “haints”—both benevolent and bloodcurdling—add to the spooky appeal of historic Martinsburg, West Virginia.    The quaint streets and mountain vistas of historic Martinsburg conceal specters lurking in its deepest shadows. Situated in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, the city is home to a wide variety of ghostly characters, from the famous spirit “George” of the Apollo Theater to a lantern-toting spectral soldier at Boydville Manor. The Lady in Black haunts St. Joseph’s Catholic Cemetery, while the ghost of a lost girl tries faithfully to hitchhike her way to the former King’s Daughter’s Hospital. Many people believe that Confederate spy Belle Boyd continues to surveil the living who visit her former childhood home. Author and tour guide Justin Stevens spins dark tales of otherworldly Appalachian apparitions.   Includes photos! “For many in the Eastern Panhandle, the concept of embracing history and ghost stories is engrained in the culture . . . The historical relevance of Martinsburg has generated a plethora of stories to be told, some of which Stevens hopes to tell on his ghost tour and through his book.” —The Journal (West Virginia)  

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  Bambi Ate My Yen and Other Itchy...

  Sam Letchworth

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  Have you ever wondered where horse milk vodka comes from? Or how to fight off a mob of Malaysian monkeys? Is it bad luck to wash cow poop off of your shoe? Travel vicariously with Sam across the Orient to find the funny but true answers. 
  Sam savors every local culture he encounters much like Conan O’Brian and the late Anthony Bourdain—embracing the people, their food, and especially their curiosities. His humor and infatuation with humanity’s diversity fuel each story. 
  Teaching in Korea and Vietnam since 2015, Sam uses his time out of the classroom to explore the rest of Asia. His five-book series, Itchy Feet Travel Tales in Asia, covers his adventures (and misadventures) in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. 
  Narrated by the author, these stories of the sublime and the surreal will have you giggling and gawking as you follow Sam through the weird and wonderful world of the East.

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  French Illusions - From Tours to...

  Linda Kovic-Skow

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  I’m Free. Life is good…until it isn’t. Still determined to learn French and fulfill her dream of becoming an international flight attendant, Linda puts her disastrous stint as an au pair behind her. 
  She finds lodging, enrolls at the French institute, and spends eight glorious days with Adam before he leaves for the holidays. When he returns, his shocking announcement propels her in a different direction. 
  Purchase the second and final book in the French Illusions Series now and join Linda as she struggles with money, faces challenges at school, and learns some tough lessons about life and love.

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  A Beer in the Loire - One...

  Tommy Barnes

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  Frustrated by a dead-end job, fed up with renting in London and the loathsome daily commute and, to cap it all, failing to make it as a stand-up comedian, Tommy Barnes was at breaking point. But he didn’t break — instead, he made himself redundant and took off to France with girlfriend Rose to pursue his dream of brewing beer.

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