The Crash Palace

The Crash Palace
Author: Andrew Wedderburn
Publisher: Coach House Books
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2021-01-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1770566252
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE RELIT 2022 NOVEL AWARD A joy ride set on a crash course with the past. Audrey Cole has always loved to drive. Anytime, anywhere, any car: a questionable rustbucket, a family sedan, the SUV she was paid to drive around the oil fields. From the second she learned to drive, she’s always found a way to hit the road. Years ago, when she abandoned her oil field job, she found herself chauffeuring around the Lever Men, a B-list band relegated to playing empty dive bars in far-flung towns. That’s how she found herself at the Crash Palace, an isolated lodge outside the big city where people pay to party in the wilderness. And now, one night, while her young daughter is asleep at home, Audrey is struck by that old urge and finds herself testing the doors of parked cars in her neighbourhood. Before she knows it, she’s headed north in the dead of winter to the now abandoned Crash Palace in a stolen car, unable to stop herself from confronting her past The Crash Palace is a funny, moving, and surprising novel by the author of the Amazon First Novel Award–nominated The Milk Chicken Bomb. Audrey is unlike any character you’ve met before, and you'll love being along for the ride.

Zelda Rising

Zelda Rising
Author: George Hook
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2024-03-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1977273629
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Zelda Rising tells the story of an empathetic young woman named Crystine who runs afoul of a perverse male stranger as she works to create a cozy refuge for booklovers in a Chicago space she calls Zelda Rising Books, in honor of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife. The novel Zelda Rising revolves around this world of books that mean much more than reading, for very lives end up depending on them. It offers up a range of colorful characters from Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood who are drawn into the center of Crystine's bookstore, for better or worse, and must face their own unfulfilled dreams and mortality after she is gaslighted and dies tragically. Mystery pervades Zelda Rising until violence becomes the only solution. Definitely an engrossing, succinct read.

You're with Stupid

You're with Stupid
Author: Bruce Adams
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2022-11-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1477326170
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In the 1990s, Chicago was at the center of indie rock, propelling bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Liz Phair to the national stage. The musical ecosystem from which these bands emerged, though, was expansive and diverse. Grunge players comingled with the electronic, jazz, psychedelic, and ambient music communities, and an inventive, collaborative group of local labels—kranky, Drag City, and Thrill Jockey, among others—embraced the new, evolving sound of indie “rock.” Bruce Adams, co-founder of kranky records, was there to bear witness. In You’re with Stupid, Adams offers an insider’s look at the role Chicago’s underground music industry played in the transformation of indie rock. Chicago labels, as Adams explains, used the attention brought by national acts to launch bands that drew on influences outside the Nirvana-inspired sound then dominating pop. The bands themselves—Labradford, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Low—were not necessarily based in Chicago, but it was Chicago labels like kranky that had the ears and the infrastructure to do something with this new music. In this way, Chicago-shaped sounds reached the wider world, presaging the genre-blending music of the twenty-first century. From an author who helped create the scene and launched some of its best music, You’re with Stupid is a fascinating and entertaining read.

The Jazz Palace

The Jazz Palace
Author: Mary Morris
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2016-03-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101872861
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Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Boomtown Chicago, 1920s—a world of gangsters, musicians, and clubs. Young Benny Lehrman, born into a Jewish hat-making family, is expected to take over his father’s business, but his true passion is piano—especially jazz. After dark, he sneaks down to the South Side to hear the bands play. One night he is asked to sit in with a group. His playing is first-rate. The trumpeter, a black man named Napoleon, becomes Benny’s friend and musical collaborator. They are asked to play at a saloon Napoleon has christened The Jazz Palace. But Napoleon’s main gig is at a mob establishment, which doesn’t take kindly to their musicians freelancing . As Benny and Napoleon navigate the highs and the lows of the Jazz Age, a bond is forged between them that is as memorable as it is lasting. Morris brilliantly captures the dynamic atmosphere and dazzling music of an exceptional era.

The Milk Chicken Bomb

The Milk Chicken Bomb
Author: Andrew Wedderburn
Publisher: Coach House Books
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2007
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781552451809
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The kid sells lemonade. Not a lot of people buy lemonade, especially now that it's winter, but the kid makes good lemonade, even if his friend Mullen thinks it ought to be sweeter. They don't talk much with the other ten-year-olds - most of the others are Dead Kids anyway. Except for Jenny Tierney, but she's busy breaking kids' faces with her math book. Besides, the Russians from the meat-packing plant are a lot cooler, and they always win at curling. But in small-town Alberta, there are just too many roman-candle fights, bonspiels, retaliatory river diversions, black-market submarines, exploding boilers, meat-packing-plant suicides and recess-time lightning strikes for one lonely kid to get any attention. He might as well go to Kazakhstan. Then the adults in his life start disappearing down tunnels and into rendering vats. Being ten is hard enough without all that, especially when your best friend is ruining the lemonade. But the Milk Chicken Bomb should change everything. Frenetic, hilarious and gently heartrending, The Milk Chicken Bomb takes us inside the mind of a troubled ten-year-old who is just beginning to understand that the adults around him are as lonely and bewildered as he is in the face of the slapstick demands of the world.

Wilco

Wilco
Author: Greg Kot
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2008-12-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307493199
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The intimate story of one of the great American bands of our time, creators of the controversial masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot When alt-country heroes-turned-rock-iconoclasts Wilco handed in their fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, to the band’s label, Reprise, a division of Warner Brothers, fans looked forward to the release of another challenging, genre-bending departure from their previous work. The band aimed to build on previous sales and critical acclaim with its boldest and most ambitious album yet, but was instead urged by skittish Reprise execs to make the record more “radio friendly.” When Wilco wouldn’t give, they found themselves without a label. Instead, they used the Internet to introduce the album to their fans, and eventually sold the record to Nonesuch, another division of Warner. Wilco was vindicated when the album debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard charts and posted the band’s strongest sales to date. Wilco: Learning How to Die traces the band’s story to its deepest origins in Southern Illinois, where Jeff Tweedy began growing into one of the best songwriters of his generation. As we witness how his music grew from its punk and alt-country origins, some of the key issues and questions in our culture are addressed: How is music of substance created while the gulf between art and commerce widens in the corporate consolidation era? How does the music industry make or break a hit? How do working musicians reconcile the rewards of artistic risk with the toll it exacts on their personal life? This book was written with the cooperation of Wilco band members past and present. It is also fully up to date, covering the latest changes in personnel and the imminent release of the band’s fifth album, A Ghost Is Born, sure to be one of the most talked-about albums of 2004.

Modern Sci-Fi Films FAQ

Modern Sci-Fi Films FAQ
Author: Tom DeMichael
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2014-09-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1495009580
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Many science fiction movies from the last 40 years have blazed new vistas for viewers. They've reached further into the future, traveled longer into the past, soared deeper into the vastness of the cosmos, and probed more intently inside man's consciousness than any other period of film before. And audiences ate them up, taking four of the top ten spots in all-time ticket sales in America while earning more than $2 billion at the box office. Modern Sci-Fi Films FAQ takes a look at the genre's movies from the last 40 years, where the dreams of yesterday and today may become tomorrow's realities. This FAQ travels to a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... visits a theme park where DNA-created dinosaurs roam... watches as aliens come to Earth, hunting humans for sport... and much, much more. Filled with biographies, synopses, production stories, and images and illustrations – many seldom seen in print – the book focuses on films that give audiences two hours where they can forget about their troubles, sit back, crunch some popcorn, and visit worlds never before seen... worlds of robots, time travel, aliens, space exploration, and other far-out ideas.

Vessels: A Love Story

Vessels: A Love Story
Author: Daniel Raeburn
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 95
Release: 2016-03-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0393285391
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An unforgettable portrait of a marriage tested to its limits. When Dan, a writer with a passion for underground comics, and his wife Bekah, a potter dedicated to traditional Japanese ceramics, met through a mutual friend, they swiftly fell in love. “Of all the women I’ve ever met,” Dan told a friend, “she’s the first one who felt like family.” But at Christmas, as they prepared for the birth of their first child, tragedy struck. Based on Daniel Raeburn’s acclaimed New Yorker essay, Vessels: A Love Story is the story of how he and Bekah clashed and clung to each other through a series of unsuccessful pregnancies before finally, joyfully, becoming parents. In prose as handsomely unadorned as his wife’s pottery, Raeburn recounts a marriage cemented by the same events that nearly broke it. Vessels is an unflinching, enormously moving account of intimacy, endurance, and love.

Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area

Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area
Author: Mike Katz
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2021-05-14
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1493041746
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San Francisco’s rich and unique cultural history since its time as a gold rush frontier town has long made it a bastion of forward thinking and freedom of expression. It makes perfect sense, then, that both it and the surrounding Bay Area should prove to be a crucible for some of the most enduring and influential music of the rock and roll era. From the heady days of Haight-Ashbury in the ’60s to today, San Francisco and the Bay Area have provided a distinctive soundtrack to the American experience that has often been confrontational, controversial, enlightening, and always entertaining. Perhaps best known for the '60s psychedelic scene which included the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, the Steve Miller Band, Sly & the Family Stone, and Janis Joplin, the Bay Area's rock and roll history twists and turns like Lombard Street itself. The first wave San Francisco punks wrought the Avengers and Dead Kennedys; punk later gripped the East Bay, giving us Green Day and Rancid. From the folk and blues eras through the chart-topping sounds of Journey and Huey Lewis & the News. The rock equivalent of Manifest Destiny carried wave upon wave of young musicians in search of fame, fortune and the great lost chord to Golden Gate City. San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area have collectively produced countless key figures in rock and roll, from musicians to journalists to entrepreneurs. The modern concept of the vast outdoor rock festival took root in and around San Francisco. The Bay Area is also where music history happened to artists from almost everywhere else: San Francisco is where the Beatles played their final concert and the Sex Pistols fell apart; where the Clash recorded much of their second album; where a drug-addled Keith Moon passed out during a concert by the Who only to be replaced behind the drum kit by an eager fan. Rock and roll is baked into the Bay Area’s culture and story to this day. A guide to the places that shaped the local scene and world-famous sound, the Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area will take you to where music makers lived, rocked, performed, recorded, met, broke up, and much, much more.

Moon New Zealand

Moon New Zealand
Author: Jamie Christian Desplaces
Publisher: Moon Travel
Total Pages: 1047
Release: 2021-10-19
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1640494103
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From green forests to blackened basalt and snowy mountains to golden beaches, adventure awaits around every bend on these dramatic islands. Experience Middle Earth with Moon New Zealand. Inside you'll find: Strategic itineraries including a week on both the North and South Islands, designed for hikers, cyclists, adrenaline junkies, history and culture buffs, and Lord of the Rings fans The top spots for outdoor adventures, like surfing, mountain biking, and trekking the Great Walks, as well as tips on how to do a New Zealand road trip. Go bungy jumping, paragliding, or jet skiing in Queensland, soak in refreshing thermal pools, or embark on a multi-day trek to rugged coasts, glacial valleys, volcanoes, and fjords Can't-miss sights and unique experiences: Cruise the hypnotic black waters of the Milford Sound, spot wild dolphins, kiwis, and blue penguins, and explore the sprawling Waitomo Caves lit by twinkling glowworms. Sample local sauvignon blancs in Marlborough and craft beers in Wellington, or sip cider in the Shire. Learn about Polynesian culture and history, marvel at Maori carvings, and savor a traditional hangi How to experience New Zealand like an insider, support local and sustainable businesses, avoid crowds, and respectfully engage with the indigenous culture, with expert insightfrom Aukland local Jamie Christian Desplaces Full-color photos and detailed maps throughout, plus a full-color detachable map Reliable background information on the landscape, climate, wildlife, and history, as well as common customs and etiquette Helpful resources on COVID-19 and traveling to New Zealand Travel tips: When to go, how to get around, and where to stay, plus advice for seniors, families with children, visitors with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ travelers With Moon's expert advice and local insight, you can experience the best of New Zealand. About Moon Travel Guides: Moon was founded in 1973 to empower independent, active, and conscious travel. We prioritize local businesses, outdoor recreation, and traveling strategically and sustainably. Moon Travel Guides are written by local, expert authors with great stories to tell—and they can't wait to share their favorite places with you. For more inspiration, follow @moonguides on social media.