Rob Beckett never seems to fit in. At work, in the middle-class world of television and comedy, he's the laddy, cockney geezer but to his mates down the pub in south-east London, he's the theatrical one, a media luvvy. Even his wife and kids are posher than him. In this hilarious exploration of class, Rob tries to understand the life he lived growing up as a working-class kid in comparison to the life he lives now. Will he ever favour a craft beer...

"Calvin Trillin can write just about anything-and has. He covered the Civil Rights movement in the South for Time, chronicled stories from small towns and cities for The New Yorker, and wrote comic poetry for The Nation. He has been called "perhaps the finest reporter in America" (The Miami Herald), "our funniest food writer" (The New Yorker), and "one of the most brilliant humorists of our time" (Charleston Post and Courier). But one of his favorite...

Ivan was a class act! Marcie had felt it from the very first moment they'd met. But they were worlds apart. She was a local high school student leading a humdrum life. He was a dashing aerialist traveling with his circus family. Soon he would move on to the next town. Was it only a fly-by-night romance? She had to know. Her heart was teetering on a high wire. Where was her safety net? Had he fallen for her, or would he remain forever out of reach?...

Rescued by a Rancher Texas Sweethearts series--Book Three As young girls, they vowed to be best friends forever-a promise they kept through happiness and heartbreak! Now these four Texas Sweethearts are all turning thirty. In spite of busy lives, full-time careers, and an assortment of beloved animals and meddling townsfolk, true love is destined to surprise each one of them in the magical little world of their own hometown. What Happens When A...

"From Philip K. Dick Award finalist Elwin Cotman, an irresistibly unnerving collection of stories that explore the anxieties of living while Black--a high-wire act of literary-fantastical hybrid fiction. A rural town finds itself under the authoritarian sway of a tree that punishes children. A pair of old friends navigate their fraught history as strange happenings escalate in a Mexican restaurant. A pair of narcissistic friends wreak havoc on an...

On a remote Scottish island, Max loses his hearing in a boating accident. Struggling to make sense of his new life, and resenting being put into the 'special' class at school, he notices changes taking place after a new wind farm is constructed off the island's coast. People have become irritable and unpredictable, and acts of violence threaten to tear the community apart. For the turbines are being used to test out a new soundwave weapon. Unaffected...

"The defining moment of Hubert Humphrey's life occurred on the evening of August 29, 1968, as he rose to accept the nomination as Democratic candidate for president at the International Amphitheater in Chicago. As Humphrey recited what he hoped would be healing verses from St. Francis--"where there is hate, let me sow love"--a contingent of National Guardsman began firing tear gas at thousands of demonstrators outside. "The whole world is watching,"...

"A page-turning work of narrative nonfiction chronicling the incredible story of one of America's most iconic, charismatic, and still polarizing figures, baseball immortal Pete Rose; and an exquisite cultural history of baseball and America in the second half of the twentieth century Pete Rose is a legend. A baseball god. He had compiled more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, a record he set decades ago, which still stands. At the same...

This encyclopedia covers LGBTQ topics in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East, as well as North America, and takes an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, using film, literature, human rights, politics, landmark legislation, activism, the arts, language, sports, and historical events as points of entry into the content.

"During the first half of the twentieth century, the efforts of archivists like Arturo Schomburg or Howard University librarian Dorothy Porter shaped the Black imagination and the direction of social and political movements. Every act of acquisition was an argument about the nature of the meaning of Black history. These decisions determined which stories would persist or disappear in the archival spaces of Black memory. In Scattered and Fugitive Things,...