Other books that might interest you

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  The Flats

  Michael Stephanic

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  The Flats is a delightful, humorous romp through the lives of a coal miner’s patchwork family in the early 1950s. Tucked away in a secluded area of Pennsylvania’s majestic Allegheny Mountains, Michael Stephanic learns to navigate the many obstacles of a dysfunctional family. Together with his stepfather John, his mother Julia and his sister Turtle, life is nothing less than one amazing adventure after another. Even when dark clouds gather and dangerous, physical and emotional storms roll in, life is still an exciting world of discovery when seen through the eyes of a six-year-old. But something sinister threatens to tear Michael’s young world apart, and even the strongest love can’t overcome overwhelming odds.

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  Billie Holiday and Etta James:...

  Editors Charles River

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  If Billie Holiday wanted to become a jazz singer, she chose the best of all eras in which to attempt it. A wave of great jazz and jazz/pop crossover artists swept over the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s, generating a golden age for the genre. This wondrous jazz era was well represented by both black and white master artists, men, women, vocalists, and instrumentalists, and Billie Holiday has stood the test of time as well as any, despite struggling with an environment that easily could have doomed such aspirations. Holiday “rewrote the rules” of jazz singing by using her voice not to imitate other singers, but by taking on the style of movement and sound common to jazz instruments. On top of that, she took the moderately employed practice of singing off the beat and brought it to the rhythmic forefront of virtually everything she sang. 
  Etta James, the legendary jazz, gospel, rhythm & blues, and soul singer, was perfectly positioned to reign as the supreme artist in the emerging soul genre of the ‘40s and ‘50s in America. No one ever doubted her talent, the highly distinctive and versatile nature of her voice, or her drive to succeed, and yet, she has been “woefully overlooked” in the history of indigenous rock and blues music in the United States. She is famous and recognized for several iconic hits with which she is eternally associated, such as “I’d Rather Go Blind” and “At Last,” but her place in the pantheon of great soul artists is unsteady and not always instantly recognizable by those outside of a knowledgeable group of devotees. For the rest of soul music’s listeners, mention of her name will result in a hasty inclusion into the inner circle of leading artists, as though James had been momentarily forgotten. Once the object of focus, however, she is revered as one of the titans of the genre, and those who had allowed her to slip from their minds are immediately reawakened to her powerful vocal and interpretive gifts.

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  Kissing Asphalt - The Courageous...

  Delicia Niami

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  Resilience isn’t inherited. It’s a hard-fought skill forged by our ability to pick up the broken pieces of our past and remake them into something new. 
  Meet four-year-old Delicia, a poor but carefree child who is about to have her world shattered. Along with her seven-year-old brother Nile, she is kidnapped from her Los Angeles home by her estranged father and taken to Iraq, a foreign world she has never known. This is just the beginning of a string of traumas, hardships, and assaults Delicia will endure throughout her tumultuous childhood. 
  Now an adult living back in California, Delicia Niami bravely recounts how she survived the unimaginable in her debut memoir. Kissing Asphalt, the first in her memoir trilogy, ResilientAF, grapples with the power of resilience, acceptance, and self-love. She revisits her terrifying past with vulnerability, compassion, and the honesty of a true survivor. Hold hands with Delicia as she faces her childhood scars and learns how to confront her fears, accept her true value and identity, and embrace her unique gifts. It’s a multi-decade roller coaster ride that is the beginning of her liberation, propelling her to live an inspired life and embrace her full human potential—a human potential she knows lives inside everyone, no matter what life has thrown at us. 
  For anyone who has struggled with childhood trauma, Delicia’s unflinching journey through darkness and back to light will resonate. She has decided to share her story publicly in hopes that it will serve as a guide to the many who have suffered in silence and continue to struggle against the daunting weight imposed by childhood trauma. 

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  Grim Paradise - The Cold Case...

  Rod Sadler

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  The true crime story of a 1960 murder that rocked a tranquil Michigan vacation spot and the search for justice that followed. 
   
  When widow Frances Lacey was murdered in July 1960 on Mackinac Island, only a few meager clues were found by police, and the case soon turned cold. But more than sixty years later, will those same clues finally solve the mystery?  
   
  On July 24, 1960, the quaint charm and serenity of Mackinac, nestled between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas, was shattered by Lacey’s brutal death. Despite a massive manhunt and thousands of pages of police reports, her killer was never caught.  
   
  Now, in Grim Paradise, true crime author Rod Sadler (Killing Women) delves into the secrets of one of Michigan's most perplexing murder cases. Offering an in-depth and suspenseful account of the long-standing mystery, he poses the question: Could advancements in DNA technology lead to the identity of the Mackinac Island murderer as it did in the case of the Golden State Killer?

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  Top 10 Short Stories The -...

  Victor Hugo, Guy de Maupassant, ...

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  The City of Lights may be one of the glories of the world but for those whose three score and ten have passed it is the final resting place for some of the very finest of literary talents. 
   
   
  1 - The Top 10 Short Stories - Buried in Paris - An Introduction 
  2 - Claude Gueux by Victor Hugo 
  3 - The Maison Tellier by Guy de Maupassant 
  4 - Plato's Dream by Voltaire 
  5 - The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac 
  6 - The Spectral Hand by Jean Lorrain 
  7 - The Secret of the Scaffold by Auguste Villiers de I'Ísle-Adam 
  8 - The Siege of Berlin by Alphonse Daudet 
  9 - Rooms by Gertrude Stein 
  10 - The Opium Gates by Marcel Schwob 
  11 - Lord Arthur Savile's Crime - Part 1 by Oscar Wilde 
  12 - Lord Arthur Savile's Crime - Part 2 by Oscar Wilde

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  The JFK Conspiracy - The Secret...

  Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch

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  "It's easy to understand why Brad Meltzer and many other authors love to have Scott Brick perform their work. His delivery is impassioned, impossible to ignore...impossible to turn off." —AudioFileFrom the New York Times bestselling authors of The Nazi Conspiracy and The Lincoln Conspiracy comes a true, little-known story about the first assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy, right before his inauguration.Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, is often ranked among Americans’   most well-liked presidents. Yet what most Americans don’t know is that JFK’s historic presidency almost ended before it began—at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite.On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy’s election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car—a parked Buick—on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida. Pavlick knew the president-elect’s schedule. He knew when Kennedy would leave his house. He knew where Kennedy was going. From there, Pavlick had a simple plan—one that could’ve changed the course of history.Written in the gripping style that is the hallmark of Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch’s bestselling series, this is a slice of history vividly brought to life. Meltzer and Mensch are at the top of their game with this brilliant exploration of what could’ve been for one of the most compelling leaders of the 20th century.  A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

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