Made in brooklyn

Authors Andy Beach Paula Bernstein Alexandra Chasin Erin Courtney Anthony Dardis Adam Davies Jill Dearman Adam Fawer Marian Fontana Andy Greenwald Alex Halberstadt Ann Marie Healy Anna Lappe Bryan Mealer Aimee Molloy Aaron Naparstek Amanda Petrusich Margo Rabb Ann Rittenberg Alexandra Schwartz Jacob Slichter Alison Smith Amy Sohn Susan Gregory Thomas Jonah Winter Alice Wu Adam Zucker

buy at amazon Real World Video Compression (Real World) Andy Beach April 2008; Peachpit Press Video is the Internet these days and as the growing trend toward viewing video on mobile devices increases too, the attention is turning toward creating a good user experience for downloading and viewing that video. One of the keys to this is delivering video in the correct format with the proper compression for that delivery. Real World Video Compression is one of the first books on this topic to demystify the various approaches to compression. It begins by describing the basic concepts of video compression, explains why you might choose a particular compression tool over another, and covers important workflow practices. After the groundwork is laid, readers will learn how to compress their video according to the specific requirements of their projects and will learn some best practices by following the author's own tips and recipes. Experts in the field lend their own solutions in several sidebars throughout the book, making this a valuable learning tool for anyone learning to encode video, whether they are bloggers, DVD authors, video editors, or students. buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited Paula Bernstein October 2, 2007; By Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein Elyse Schein had always known she was adopted, but it wasn’t until her mid-thirties while living in Paris that she searched for her biological mother. When Elyse contacted her adoption agency, she was not prepared for the shocking, life-changing news she received: She had an identical twin sister. Elyse was then hit with another bombshell: she and her sister had been separated as infants, and for a time, had been part of a secret study on separated twins. Paula Bernstein, a married writer and mother living in New York, also knew she was adopted, but had no inclination to find her birth mother. When she answered a call from the adoption agency one spring afternoon, Paula’s life suddenly divided into two starkly different periods: the time before and the time after she learned the truth. As they reunite and take their tentative first steps from strangers to sisters, Paula and Elyse are also left with haunting questions surrounding their origins and their separation. They learn that the study was conducted by a pair of influential psychiatrists associated with a prestigious adoption agency. As they investigate their birth mother’s past, Paula and Elyse move closer toward solving the puzzle of their lives. In alternating voices, Paula and Elyse write with emotional honesty about the immediate intimacy they share as twins and the wide chasm that divides them as two complete strangers. Interweaving eye-opening studies and statistics on twin science into their narrative, they offer an intelligent and heartfelt glimpse into human nature. Identical Strangers is the amazing story of two women coming to terms with the strange and unbelievable hand fate has dealt them, an account that broadens the definition of family and provides insight into our own DNA and the singularly exceptional imprint it leaves on our lives. Imagine a slightly different version of you walks across the room, looks you in the eye and says “hello” in your voice. You discover that she has the same birthday, the same allergies, the same tics, and the same way of laughing. Looking at this person, you are able to gaze into your own eyes and see yourself from the outside. This identical individual has the exact same DNA as you and is essentially your clone. We don’t have to imagine. –from Identical Strangers buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Kissed By Alexandra Chasin October 2007; University of Alabama Press buy at amazon Funny, Strange, Provocative: Seven Plays from Clubbed Thumb Erin Courtney March 2007; ISBN:0970904622 Edited by Maria Striar, Erin Setrick Clubbed Thumb, the Obie Award-winning downtown theatre company, has made it their mission since 1996 to produce funny, strange, and provocative new plays. This anthology contains seven thought-provoking, edgy, and entertaining works that have been developed and produced by Clubbed Thumb. Playwrights include Adam Bock, Sheila Callaghan, Erin Courtney, Lisa D'Amour, Rinne Groff, Anne Marie Healy, and Carson Kreitzer. "This anthology represents the jazziest, most edgy writers in contemporary American drama today. And Clubbed Thumb has more nerve, more guts, more class per square inch than any not-for-profit small theatre in New York. Reading these writers makes me want to go back to my own computer and try harder, dare more, and storm the barricades for funding for this rising generation." --Paula Vogel, Pulitzer-winning author of How I Learned to Drive "American playwriting is undergoing something of a renaissance, and Clubbed Thumb is one of the companies at its center." --Jason Grote, New York Press buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble New Downtown Now: An Anthology Of New Theater From Downtown New York Erin Courtney July 2006; ISBN: 0816647313 Edited by Young Jean Lee and Mac Wellman At a time when most serious drama being written and produced for the American stage aspires only to mainstream acceptance and high-toned mediocrity, an innovative new generation of playwrights based in New York City has emerged, crafting works that challenge and undermine the conventional structure, language, and characterization of commercial theater while rejecting outdated notions of the avant-garde. New Downtown Now brings together ten new works that exemplify the playfulness, excitement, and possibilities of the theater. Characterized by fragmenting structure, hypnotic rhythms, kaleido-scopic imagery, unpredictable characters, and lyrical language, these plays resemble puzzles from which the writers are teasing revelations. Though disparate in subject matter and style, with characters ranging from a sushi chef to a soldier and settings from a taxicab to a live television broadcast, these highly original plays share a commitment to formal experimentation that places them beyond the psychological clichés of the majority and the cold condescension of postmodernism. The anthology includes Interim by Barbara Cassidy; Tragedy: a tragedy by Will Eno; Nine Come by Elana Greenfield; Shufu-Sachiko and Enoshima Island by Madelyn Kent; The Appeal by Young Jean Lee; The Vomit Talk of Ghosts by Kevin Oakes; Ajax (por nobody) by Alice Tuan; Apparition, an uneasy play of the underknown by Anne Washburn; Demon Baby by Erin Courtney. Mac Wellman is the author of numerous plays and the recipient of three Obie awards, most recently in 2003 for lifetime achievement. He is professor of playwriting at Brooklyn College. Young Jean Lee is a playwright and director, and member of the Obie award-winning company 13P. Jeffrey M. Jones is a playwright and curator of the Obie award-winning Little Theater at Tonic in New York. buy at amazon Mental Causation: The Mind-Body Problem Anthony Dardis August 2008; Columbia University Press Two thousand years ago, Lucretius said that everything is atoms in the void; it's physics all the way down. Contemporary physicalism agrees. But if that's so how can we& mdash;how can our thoughts, emotions, our values& mdash;make anything happen in the physical world? This conceptual knot, the mental causation problem, is the core of the mind-body problem, closely connected to the problems of free will, consciousness, and intentionality. Anthony Dardis shows how to unravel the knot. He traces its early appearance in the history of philosophical inquiry, specifically in the work of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and T. H. Huxley. He then develops a metaphysical framework for a theory of causation, laws of nature, and the causal relevance of properties. Using this framework, Dardis explains how macro, or higher level, properties can be causally relevant in the same way that microphysical properties are causally relevant: by their relationship with the laws of nature. Smelling an orange, choosing the orange rather than the cheesecake, reaching for the one on the left instead of the one on the right-mental properties such as these take their place alongside the physical "motor of the world" in making things happen. buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Frog King Adam Davies August 2002; Penguin Group (USA) "Harry Driscoll is living in New York City (if you call trying to survive on an editorial assistant's salary living). His family is wealthy (but Harry Driscoll is not). His education is ivy league (but what good is it doing him?). His publishing job is entry level (with no exit in sight)." "But Harry Driscoll has a dream (if you call an unfinished manuscript hidden in the closet a dream). Harry Driscoll has a girl (although intercourse is out of the question). Harry Driscoll even has feelings. (He asked this girl, one day in the park, to be in his life forever...and meant it.)" And the other girls? They're not the problem. (The problem is, Harry Driscoll cannot allow himself to say the word love.). buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Goodbye Lemon Adam Davies August 2006; Penguin Group (USA) A piercing and hilarious story about love, family, and redemption by the author of The Frog King. Jack Tennant is going home. Against his better judgment, he has succumbed to his mother's guilt-laden pleas that he see his estranged father. Jack's do-gooder girlfriend believes that this trip is a chance for Jack to achieve peace with his family, but there's a lot she doesn't know about the Tennants. So Jack finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having to make a decision he's avoided for years. Should he walk away and leave his crazy family to solve their problems without him? Or should he try to mend fences that have been broken for as long as he can remember? buy at barnes & noble Bang the Keys Jill Dearman August 2009; Penguin Group (USA) Synopsis Attention aspiring and working writers alike! Finish your work in four easy steps with this explosion of inspiration. How can aspiring writers whether aiming for a short story, novel, screenplay, or nonfiction work gain the confidence they need to follow through on their creative visions.... The answer can be found in this book by a writing coach and university writing professor whose "Bang the Keys" workshop stems from an innovative four-step system that offers practical advice for demonstrated results every time. Step 1: Begin with the strongest idea. Step 2: Arrange the work into a concrete shape. Step 3: Nurture the project with love, so that others can love it, too. Step 4: Go finish, and then let it go so it may live independently in the world. Also included are practical writing exercises that will give readers the tools and the inspiration to finish the writing projects they start ... or bust their fingers trying! Biography Jill Dearman writes regularly about the craft of writing for The Writer Magazine. Her prose has been published in North Atlantic Review, The Portland Review, and New York Stories, and her feature articles have been published in the NewYork Daily News, Time Out New York, and Publishers Weekly. buy at barnes & noble Improbable Adam Fawer January 2006; HarperTorch From a brilliant new talent comes a riveting novel of chance, fate, and numbers, and one man's strange journey past the boundaries of the possible. David Caine inhabits a world of obsession, rich rewards, and rapid, destructive downfalls. A compulsive gambler and brilliant mathematician prone to crippling epileptic seizures, he possesses the uncanny ability to calculate odds of any hand in the blink of an eye. But one night at an underground poker club, Caine makes a costly mi scalculation, sending his life spinning out of control. Desperate, he agrees to test an experimental drug with unnerving side effects: inexplicable visions of the past, present, and future. Unsure whether he's perceiving an alternate reality or suffering a psychotic breakdown, Caine embarks on a journey that stretches beyond the possible into the world of the improbable. Gradually, he discovers the extent of his astonishing new ability -- but powerful, shadowy forces know Caine's secret. Now Caine must fight for his survival -- and his sanity . . . buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble A Widow's Walk Marian Fontana Sept. 2006 Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group; ISBN: 0743298241 From the Publisher On September 11, I dropped my son off at his second full day of kindergarten. The sky was so blue it looked as if it had been ironed. I crossed the street, ordered coffee, and sat to wait for my husband to meet me. It was our eighth wedding anniversary and Dave and I were about to begin a new chapter in our seventeen years together. Sipping coffee, I watched as a line of thick black smoke crept across the sky from Manhattan, oblivious to the fact that my life was about to change forever. On September 11, 2001, Marian Fontana lost her husband, Dave, a firefighter from the elite Squad 1 in Brooklyn, in the World Trade Center attack. A Widow's Walk begins that fateful morning, when Marian, a playwright and comedienne, became a widow, a single mother, and an unlikely activist. Two weeks after 9/11, the city attempted to close Squad 1, which had suffered the loss of twelve men. Known for her feisty spirit and passionate loyalty, Marian, who was still reeling from her profound loss, began to mobilize the neighborhood to keep the firehouse open. From this unlikely platform the 9/11 Widows and Victims' Families Association grew. Over the next twelve months, Marian struggled with the tragedy's endless ripple effects, from the minute and deeply personal — she wonders who will play Star Wars with her son, Aidan, and carry him on his shoulders — to the political. She works to get families and widows necessary information about the recovery effort and attends private meetings with Governor Pataki, Mayor Giuliani, Senator Clinton, and Mayor Bloomberg. Through it all, Marian's irrepressible humor is her best armor and evidence of her buoyant strength. Written with greatheart and humanity, A Widow's Walk is a timely opportunity for remembrance and a timeless testament to love's loss and the resilience of the human spirit. buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Money Changes Everything Marian Fontana January 2007 Double Day Publishing; ISBN: 038551669X Twenty-Two Writers Tackle the Last Taboo with Tales of Sudden Windfalls, Staggering Debts, and Other Surprising Turns of Fortune Edited by Jenny Offill and Elissa Schappell From the Publisher We talk openly about our romantic disasters and family dramas, our problems at work and our battles with addiction. But when it comes to what is or is not in our wallets, we remain determinedly mum. Until now, that is. MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING is the first anthology of its kind-an unflinching and on-the-record collection of essays filled with entertaining, enlightening insights into why we spend, save, and steal. In these wide-ranging personal essays, Daniel Handler, Walter Kirn, Jill McCorkle, Meera Nair, Henry Alford, Susan Choi, and other acclaimed authors write with startling candor about how money has strengthened or undermined their closest relationships. Isabel Rose talks about the trials and tribulations of dating as an heiress. Tony Serra explains what led him to take a forty-year vow of poverty. 9/11 widow Marian Fontana illuminates the heartbreak and moral complexities of victim compensation. Jonathan Dee reveals the debt that nearly did him in. And in paired essays, Fred Leebron and his wife, Kathryn Rhett, discuss the way fights over money have shaken their marriage to the core again and again. The pieces in MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING range from the comic to the harrowing, yet they all reveal the complex, emotionally charged role money plays in our lives by shattering the wall of silence that has long surrounded this topic. buy at amazon Nothing Feels Good Andy Greenwald November 2003; St. Martin's Griffin Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo tells the story of a cultural moment that's happening right now-the nexus point where teen culture, music, and the web converge to create something new.While shallow celebrities dominate the headlines, pundits bemoan the death of the music industry, and the government decries teenagers for their morals (or lack thereof) earnest, heartfelt bands like Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World, and Thursday are quietly selling hundreds of thousands of albums through dedication, relentless touring and respect for their fans. This relationship - between young people and the empathetic music that sets them off down a road of self-discovery and self-definition - is emo, a much-maligned, mocked, and misunderstood term that has existed for nearly two decades, but has flourished only recently. In Nothing Feels Good, Andy Greenwald makes the case for emo as more than a genre - it's an essential rite of teenagehood. From the '80s to the '00s, from the basement to the stadium, from tour buses to chat rooms, and from the diary to the computer screen, Nothing Feels Good narrates the story of emo from the inside out and explores the way this movement is taking shape in real time and with real hearts on the line. Nothing Feels Good is the first book to explore this exciting moment in music history and Greenwald has been given unprecedented access to the bands and to their fans. He captures a place in time and a moment on the stage in a way only a true music fan can. Andy Greenwald is a senior contributing writer at Spin. His writing has also appeared in The Village Voice and The Washington Post, and he has made numerous appearancs on MTV, VH1, the BBC, and ABC Radio. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus Alex Halberstadt February 2007; Perseus Publishing The only biography of colorful and legendary songwriter Doc Pomus, who wrote such enduring songs as "Lonely Avenue," "Save the Last Dance for Me," and "Viva Las Vegas." One of the most original, influential, and commercially successful American songwriters, Jerome Felder, aka Doc Pomus (1925-1991), gave the world a dazzling legacy of musical hits during rock 'n' roll's first decade. A role model for generations of writers and performers, Doc was renowned for his mastery of virtually every popular style, from the gutbucket rhythm and blues of "Lonely Avenue" to the symphonic soul of "Save the Last Dance for Me" to the pure pop of "Viva Las Vegas." His songs-"This Magic Moment," "A Teenager in Love," "Hushabye," "Little Sister," "Turn Me Loose," and many others-have been recorded by everyone from Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, and B. B. King to Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, and Bruce Springsteen, with sales exceeding $100 million. Doc was ready-made for literature. His collaborator Mort Shuman once described him as an "entire rollicking soul neighborhood rolled into one man." Garrulous, profane, hilarious, and Rabelaisian, Doc was never inhibited about offering his opinions and his friendship. His confidants, collaborators, and discoveries included Duke Ellington, John Lennon, Dr. John, Jimmy Scott, Bette Midler, and Lou Reed. In the words of renowned producer Jerry Wexler, "If the music industry had a heart, it would be Doc Pomus." Despite, or more likely because of, his successes, few acquaintances knew that this writer of jukebox hits led one of the most dramatic and unlikely lives of his time. Spanning extravagant wealth and desperate poverty, suburban domesticity and the depths of New York's underworld, worldwide fame and near-total obscurity, enduring love and persistent loneliness, Doc's story remains one of the great untold American lives. Its chapters comprise a back-room history of rock 'n' roll, touching on more than a half-century of American popular music-from the blues Doc performed with Lester Young to his collaborations with the luminaries of New York's punk scene, shot through with vivid portraits of virtually every major player. Lonely Avenue is the first biography of this American original, so elegantly rendered that it reads like a novel, and fortified by full, exclusive access to Doc Pomus's family, friends, voluminous journals, and archives. buy at amazon Hot Blooded: new monologues from the members of youngblood Ann Marie Healy March 5, 2001; Playscripts.com Hot Blooded is a collection of 76 monologues, fresh out of the fire. This book contains material for men and women of all ages, with quirky and moving characters who endure messy breakups, remember dead pets, drive the big rigs, and more. And every piece is completely new -- so they won't have heard it before! buy at amazon Hope's Edge Anna Lappe and Frances Moore Lappe April 2003; Tarcher Hope's Edge follows the author of the classic Diet for a Small Planet and her daughter as they travel the world, discovering practical visionaries who are making a difference in world hunger, sometimes one village at a time. Thirty years ago, Frances Moore Lappé started a revolution in the way Americans think about food and hunger. Now Frances and her daughter, Anna, pick up where Diet for a Small Planet left off. Together they set out on an around-the-world journey to explore the greatest challenges we face in the new millennium. Traveling to Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, they discovered answers to one of the most urgent issues of our time: whether we can transcend the rampant consumerism and capitalism to find the paths that each of us can follow to heal our lives as well as the planet. Featuring nearly seventy recipes from celebrated vegetarian culinary pioneers-including Alice Waters, Mollie Katzen, Laurel Robertson, Nora Pouillon, and Anna Thomas-Hope's Edge highlights true trailblazers engaged in social, environmental, and economic transformations. buy at amazon Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen Anna Lappe and Bryant Terry April 2006; Tarcher In the past few years, organic food has moved out of the patchouli-scented aisles of hippie food co-ops and into three-quarters of conventional grocery stores. Concurrent with this growth has been increased consumer awareness of the social and health-related issues around organic eating, independent farming, and food production. Combining a straight-to-the-point exposé about organic foods (organic doesn't mean fresh, natural, or independently produced) and the how-to's of creating an affordable, easy-touse organic kitchen, Grub brings organics home to urban dwellers. It gives the reader compelling arguments for buying organic food, revealing the pesticide industry's influence on government regulation and the extent of its pollution in our waterways and bodies. With an inviting recipe section, Grub also offers the millions of people who buy organics fresh ideas and easy ways to cook with them. Grub's recipes, twenty-four meals oriented around the seasons, appeal to eighteen- to forty-year-olds who are looking for fun and simple meals. In addition, the book features resource lists (including music playlists to cook by), unusual and illuminating graphics, and every variety of do-it yourself tip sheets, charts, and checklists. buy at barnes & noble The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind Bryan Mealer Oct 13, 2009; HarperCollins Publishers Synopsis: A windmill means more than just power, it means freedom." William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger, and a place where hope and opportunity were hard to find. But William had read about windmills in a book called Using Energy, and he dreamed of building one that would bring electricity and water to his village and change his life and the lives of those around him. His neighbors may have mocked him and called him misala-crazy-but William was determined to show them what a little grit and ingenuity could do. Enchanted by the workings of electricity as a boy, William had a goal to study science in Malawi's top boarding schools. But in 2002, his country was stricken with a famine that left his family's farm devastated and his parents destitute. Unable to pay the eighty¬dollar¬a¬year tuition for his education, William was forced to drop out and help his family forage for food as thousands across the country starved and died. Yet William refused to let go of his dreams. With nothing more than a fistful of cornmeal in his stomach, a small pile of once¬forgotten science textbooks, and an armory of curiosity and determination, he embarked on a daring plan to bring his family a set of luxuries that only two percent of Malawians could afford and what the West considers a necessity-electricity and running water. Using scrap metal, tractor parts, and bicycle halves, William forged a crude yet operable windmill, an unlikely contraption and small miracle that eventually powered four lights, complete with homemade switches and a circuit breaker made from nails and wire. Asecond machine turned a water pump that could battle the drought and famine that loomed with every season. Soon, news of William's magetsi a mphepo-his "electric wind"-spread beyond the borders of his home, and the boy who was once called crazy became an inspiration to those around the world. Here is the remarkable story about human inventiveness and its power to overcome crippling adversity. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind will inspire anyone who doubts the power of one individual's ability to change his community and better the lives of those around him. Biography: William Kamkwamba is a student at African Leadership Academy, a pan¬African high school in Johannesburg, South Africa. A 2007 TED Global Fellow, Kamkwamba has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal and his inventions displayed at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. He's often invited to tell his story, and in 2008, he delivered an address at the World Economic Forum on Africa. Bryan Mealer is the author of All Things Must Fight to Live: Stories of War and Deliverance in Congo, which chronicled his experience covering the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mealer is a former Associated Press staff correspondent and his work has appeared in several magazines, including Harper's and Esquire. buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire Aimee Molloy September 2005; PublicAffairs Co-authored with James Yee What do you believe in? James Yee believed in God and America and one of those got him thrown in jail. In 2001, Captain James "Yusuf" Yee was commissioned as one of the first Muslim chaplains in the United States Army. After the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001, he became a frequent government spokesman, helping to educate soldiers about Islam and build understanding throughout the military. Subsequently, Chaplain Yee was selected to serve as the Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay, where nearly 700 detainees captured in the war on terror were being held as "unlawful combatants." In September 2003, after serving at Guantanamo for ten months in a role that gave him unrestricted access to the detainees--and after receiving numerous awards for his service there--Chaplain Yee was secretly arrested on his way to meet his wife and daughter for a routine two-week leave. He was locked away in a navy prison, subject to much of the same treatment that had been imposed on the Guantanamo detainees. Wrongfully accused of spying, and aiding the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Yee spent 76 excruciating days in solitary confinement and was threatened with the death penalty. After the U.S. government determined it had made a grave mistake in its original allegations, it vindictively charged him with adultery and computer pornography. In the end all criminal charges were dropped and Chaplain Yee's record wiped clean. But his reputation was tarnished, and what has been a promising military career was left in ruins. Depicting a journey of faith and service, Chaplain Yee's For God and Country is the story of a pioneering officer in the U.S. Army, who became a victim of the post-September 11 paranoia that gripped a starkly fearful nation. And it poses a fundamental question: If our country cannot be loyal to even the most patriotic Americans, can it remain loyal to itself? buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Honku: The Zen Antidote to Road Rage Aaron Naparstek June 2003; Random House Publishing Group How many times this week has your morning commute, or just plain driving to the grocery store, turned into a road-rage-inducing nightmare? A soccer mom steals your parking spot. A cell-phone guy cuts you off on the freeway. A student driver nearly rear-ends you at the mall. Take heart. Honku: The Zen Antidote to Road Rage is all you need to lower your blood pressure and make you forget that jerk in the yellow SUV. A collection of more than one hundred very funny haiku (or honku), this book shines its brights on the dark side of America’s car culture. Distilling the daily horrors of driving, parking, and ordering from the drive-through into a time-honored and respected verse form, Honku transforms annoying moments behind the wheel into the stuff of poetry and will leave you in a state of enlightenment and bliss. Well, at the very least it’ll make you laugh. A diverting read that may inspire you to pen your own haiku, Honku is the perfect fit for the glove compartment, to be pored over while you’re stalled in traffic on the interstate. buy at amazon buy this item It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music Amanda Petrusich August 19, 2008; Faber & Faber "Where lies the boundary between meaning and sentiment? Between memory and nostalgia? America and Americana? What is and what was? Does it move?" --Donovon Hohn, A Romance of Rust Part travelogue, part cultural criticism, part music appreciation, It Still Moves does for today’s avant folk scene what Greil Marcus did for Dylan and The Basement Tapes. Amanda Petrusich outlines the sounds of the new, weird America—honoring the rich tradition of gospel, bluegrass, country, folk, and rock that feeds it, while simultaneously exploring the American character as personified in all of these genres historically. Through interviews, road stories, geographical and sociological interpretations, and detailed music criticism, Petrusich traces the rise of Americana music from its gospel origins through its new and compelling incarnations (as evidenced in bands and artists from Elvis to Iron and Wine, the Carter Family to Animal Collective, Johnny Cash to Will Oldham) and explores how the genre is adapting to the twenty-first century. Ultimately the book is an examination of all things American: guitars, cars, kids, motion, passion, enterprise, and change, in a fervent attempt to reconcile the American past with the American present, using only dusty records and highway maps as guides. buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble more about this item Cures for Heartbreak Margo Rabb Delacorte Books for Young Readers (February 13, 2007); ISBN: 0385734026 From School Library Journal Starred Review. Grade 9 Up—Black humor, pitch-perfect detail, and compelling characters make this a terrific read, despite the pain that permeates every superbly written page. Ninth-grader Mia has just lost her mother to cancer, and now her father is hospitalized with heart trouble. The story follows her first through bleak days at the hospital, then as she copes with her grief for her mother, her father's new girlfriend, and her sometimes disastrous attempts to find love. Interwoven throughout the book are Mia's musings over her family's history and the continuing tragic impact of the Holocaust. The novel's vivid New York City setting is almost another character, with vibrant descriptions of subway rides, shopping trips, and local color. Mia's early experience with loss influences everything about her life, from her bond with her father and older sister to her troubles with school and relationships. As she struggles to make sense of her mother's death and her father's illness, she also sees humor in everyday situations, and her irreverent commentary brings the story to life. Mia's romance with Sasha, a young man whose leukemia is in remission, is especially moving. A touching afterword reveals just how closely the novel follows the author's actual experiences.—Miranda Doyle, San Francisco Public Library Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. buy at amazon Your First Novel: An Author Agent Share the Keys to Achieving Your Dream Ann Rittenberg and Laura Whitcomb September 2006; Writers Digest Books In Your First Novel, novelist Laura Whitcomb and seasoned literary agent Ann Rittenberg team up to provide you with the skills you need to write your dream novel and the savvy business know-how to get it published. In this all-in-one resource, you’ll discover essential novel-writing techniques, such as: * How to best structure your research so that you can save time later · How to card your story before you start writing · What to consider when developing your cast of characters · How to adapt classic story structures to fit your own ideas … and insider information on what it takes to get published, including: * What agents do at those three-hour power lunches—and how it affects you · What makes an agent instantly reject a manuscript · How to correctly translate submission guidelines · What happens if you get multiple offers—or no offers at all Plus, learn about the publishing process from the firsthand accounts of such noted authors as Dennis Lehane, Kathryn Harrison, Jim Fusilli, Kathleen George, and others! buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Leave Any Information at the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages Alexandra Schwartz April 2004; MIT Press An anthology of writings, interviews, and images by artist Ed Ruscha. Biography Ed Ruscha is an internationally acclaimed artist based in Los Angeles. Alexandra Schwartz is a doctoral candidate in art history at the University of Michigan. She lives in New York City. buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star Jacob Slichter June 2004; ISBN-10:0767914716 ISBN-13:978-0767914710 From Publishers Weekly Slichter's bittersweet recollections of Semisonic's rise from unassuming Minnesota trio to international rock stars navigates through the strange and uncomfortable worlds of the music business, fame and constant worry. Taken from his tour journals as the band's drummer, Slichter's insights alternate between funny and poignant as they peel back the curtain on a lifestyle that most people consider luxurious and carefree, but that is actually mentally and physically taxing. Slichter quickly learns that all the bills, from dinner to the cost of making a record, go to the artist while most of the profits go to the record label. He also finds out that the existence of profits depends on the suits at the record company picking the right song to release, a fickle radio station program director deciding to play it and MTV deeming the video cool enough to air. All this pressure to simultaneously create music and make business decisions takes such a toll on Slichter that he becomes more focused on album sales than on the fun of playing drums. Even when the band does hit it big with "Closing Time" and their 15 minutes of fame start ticking away, Slichter and his band mates Dan Wilson and John Munson never seem at home in the spotlight. But Slichter's uneasiness makes for interesting tales, like being starstruck at the Grammys or his lacking the ability to rein in his celebrity personality, which causes him to talk in sound bites. Thanks to Slichter's good-natured presentation, these stories and Slichter's work as a whole, despite their rock star origins, are surprisingly easy to relate to. buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Name All the Animals: A Memoir Alison Smith February 2005; Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group A luminous, true story, Name All the Animals is an unparalleled account of grief and secret love: the tale of a family clinging to the memory of a lost child, and a young woman struggling to define herself in the wake of his loss. As children, siblings Alison and Roy Smith were so close that their mother called them by one name: Alroy. But on a cool summer morning when Alison was fifteen, she woke to learn that Roy, eighteen, was dead. This is Smith's extraordinary account of the impact of that loss — on herself, on her parents, and on a deeply religious community. At home, Alison and her parents sleepwalk in shifts. Alison hoards food for her lost brother, hides in the back yard fort they built together, and waits for him to return. During the day, she breaks every rule at Our Lady of Mercy School for Girls, where the baffled but loving nuns offer prayer, Shakespeare, and a job running the switchboard. In the end, Alison finds her own way to survive: a startling and taboo first love that helps her discover a world beyond the death of her brother. Heartbreaking but hopeful, this is about the excitement and anguish of Alison's first love, about her parents' enduring romance, about a community's passion for its faith, and about a beautiful, well-loved boy who dies too young. buy at amazon My Old Man Amy Sohn Paperback July 18, 2005; Simon & Schuster Synopsis When twenty-six-year-old Rachel Block started rabbinical school, she didn't think she'd be dropping out after a semester and a half. But when a sick man dies under her counseling, she realizes she's not cut out for the rabbinate. To make ends meet, she takes a job as a bartender in her Brooklyn neighborhood--much to her parents' chagrin. It's the quintessential quarter-life crisis, compounded by the fact that she's still living just blocks from her childhood home. Then Rachel falls in love with Hank Powell, an iconoclastic screenwriter twice her age. Suddenly she's reassessing her values, her surroundings, and everything she's ever thought about the "right" kind of relationship. Meanwhile, her interactions with her father, with whom she's always been close, have become increasingly strange. Is he distraught that she's dropped out of school? Is he having his own, midlife, crisis? Something's up...and Rachel's increasingly convinced it might be her father's libido. With Rachel's own relationship getting wilder and weirder and her parents acting like teenagers, it seems that everyone in Cobble Hill is going crazy. A fresh spin on Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, My Old Man is a black comedy about a dysfunctional Brooklyn family coming apart at the seams. buy at barnes & noble more about this item Prospect Park West Amy Sohn September 2009; Simon & Schuster Adult Synopsis From the perennially hot author and columnist Amy Sohn comes a smart, sexy, satirical peek into the bedrooms and hearts of Prospect Park West. Biography Amy Sohn is the author of the novels Prospect Park West, My Old Man and Run Catch Kiss. She has also written for New York, The New York Times, The Nation, and Harper's Bazaar. She has written television pilots for such networks as HBO, Fox, and ABC. She lives in Brooklyn. Visit her at www.AmySohn.com. buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Buy Buy Baby Susan Gregory Thomas May 2007; ISBN: 0618463518 SUSAN GREGORY THOMAS is an investigative journalist and broadcaster. Formerly a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report and co-host of public television’s Digital Duo, she has also written for Time, the Washington Post, Glamour, and elsewhere. She has two children, five and three years old. It's no secret that toy and media corporations manipulate the insecurities of parents to move their products, but Buy, Buy Baby unveils the chilling fact that these corporations are using—and often funding—the latest research in child development in order to sell things directly to babies and toddlers. Thomas offers other, perhaps even more unnerving epiphanies: the lack of evidence that "educational" shows and toys provide any educational benefit at all for young children; and the growing evidence that some of these products actually impair early development, and could harm our kids socially and cognitively for life.Underlying these revelations is a dangerous economic and cultural shift: our kids are becoming consumers at alarmingly young ages and suffering all the ills that rampant materialism used to visit only on adults—from anxiety to hyper-competitiveness to depression. Thomas blends prodigious reportage with an empathetic voice. Her two daughters were toddlers while she wrote this book, and she never loses sight of the temporal and emotional challenges that parents face. She shows how we can help our kids live at their natural pace, not the frenetic clip that serves only the toddler-industrial complex. Buy, Buy Baby helps us fight the power marketers wield by exposing the false fears they spread. buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Maine:Poems Jonah Winter 2002; Slope Editions; paperback, 80 pages Hypocrite reader, mon somblobble, Jonah Winter will New York School you in the woodshed of his imagination! These poems remind me of Robert Bresson's Four Nights of a Dreamer, in which a tape recorder spews out the blurts and ravings of the heart at inappropriate moments. Maine is a hemorrhage of the goofy, the sinister, and the sublime. - James Cummins Jonah Winter's poems are relentless attacks on the status quo. They turn pop culture on its head in hot pursuit of untainted love. And they are funny, if whiplash can be funny. Winter is a serious, new poet, with talent galore, blazing a trail, along which unknown treasures are sure to be found buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Amnesia Jonah Winter March 2004; Oberlin College Press - ISBN:0932440967 Winner of the 2003 FIELD Poetry Prize. Readers who have followed Jonah Winter's work in the pages of FIELD and other magazines, and who know his delightful first collection, MAINE, will welcome this lively and inventive volume. Winter's admirers, who include poets like Charles Simic, Charles Wright, and David Lehman, emphasize his assimilation of the Surrealist tradition to an American landscape and a contemporary culture that become dreamlike, surprising, poignant, and hilarious in his capable hands. Objects and events we might never have thought capable of poetic treatment acquire grace, beauty, and even a certain immortality in this book. It becomes a stay against amnesia that constitutes an enterprise both comic and heroic. Jonah Winter is also the author of MAINE and numerous books for children. He and his wife Sally live in Pittsburgh. buy at barnes & noble Saving Face Alice Wu 2004; DVD An Asian-American woman and her mother both find their private lives are becoming a family matter in this romantic comedy-drama. Wilhelmina Pang (Michelle Krusiec) is a surgeon living in Manhattan whose mother (Joan Chen) is eager for her to settle down with a nice man and get married. What Ma doesn't know is that Wilhelmina happens to be a lesbian -- or rather, Ma prefers not to acknowledge it, since she once walked in on Wilhelmina and her girlfriend several years before. As it happens, Wilhelmina is looking for someone special in her life, and thinks she may have found her in Vivian (Lynn Chen), a beautiful dancer, but a fear of commitment and a desire to keep her medical career on track is making their relationship problematic. As Wilhelmina tries to get her love life in order, her mother's shifts into crisis mode. Ma, a 48-year-old widow, has just discovered she's pregnant, and her staunchly traditional father (Li Zhiyu) will not allow her back into the home they share until she's married someone respectable. Unwilling to name the father of her baby, Ma is forced to move in with Wilhelmina, and while enduring the emotional roller coaster of pregnancy she is being pressured by friends and relatives to marry Cho (Nathaniel Geng), a sweet but boring man she doesn't especially like. Saving Face was the first feature film from writer and director Alice Wu. Mark Deming buy at amazon buy at barnes & noble Localizing Caroline Drama: Politics and Economics of the Early Modern English Stage, 1625-1642 Adam Zucker October 2006; Palgrave Macmillan This collection of original essays redefines the plays and theatrical culture of the years 1625 through 1642 as something more than simply post-Shakespearean or pre-Revolutionary in character. Through local readings of the texts and institutions of the Caroline theater, leading scholars reveal the drama's intriguing mixture of political engagement, religious controversy, urbane cosmopolitanism, and commercial ingenuity. Spanning locations both real and imagined - from London to Dublin to Tunis; from the Salisbury Court theater to the fantastic landscapes of Inigo Jones - the collection as a whole urges us to recalibrate our histories of seventeenth-century drama to account for the unprecedented innovations of the Caroline period.