Going Down

National Bestseller “A funny, sad, nasty little gem of a novel.”—Jay McInerney In bestselling author Jennifer Belle’s debut novel, Going Down, Belle introduces readers to Bennington Bloom, a coed working her way through college. As a call girl. With a sharp eye for satire and a keen comic sense, Belle chronicles nineteen-year-old Bennington’s high-pressure adventures. Stuck with an ulcer, a father who loves his dog like a daughter, a shrink who is hard of hearing, and New York University tuition to worry about, she's working overtime to keep it all together and doing what she can to survive. Spending the night in an abandoned hotel pool, punching pushy old women on the subway, Bennington is at an all-time low, and things are only going down from there. A witty take on making it in the city, Going Down showcases Jennifer Belle’s unerring gift for capturing the absurdities of day-to-day life. Funny and intelligent with an endearingly skewed take on life, Belle is the real thing.

Set at one young boy's annual family reunion, this Caldecott Honor-winning picture book is a rich and moving celebration of Black history, culture, and the power of family traditions. "On reunion morning, we rise before the sun. Daddy hums as he packs our car with suitcases and a cooler full of snacks. He says there's nothing like going down home" Down home is Granny's house. Down home is where Lil Alan and his parents and sister will gather with great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Down home is where Lil Alan will hear stories of the ancestors and visit the land that has meant so much to all of them. And down home is where all of the children will find their special way to pay tribute to their family history. All the kids have to decide what they'll share, but what will Lil Alan do? Kelly Starling Lyons' eloquent text explores the power of history and family traditions, and stunning illustrations by Coretta Scott King Honor- and Caldecott Honor-winner Daniel Minter reveal the motion and connections in a large, multi-generational family.

In Dan Zanes' House Party!, the Grammy Award-winning children's artist presents a huge collection of folk songs along with inspiration to start your own family band. Too often, new parents eager to share their love of music with their young children feel their options are limited to cuddly singing dinosaurs and well-meaning humans whose understanding of children’s music starts with “Kumbaya” and ends with “Puff the Magic Dragon.” For many sane adults, these choices are more abrasive than the most aggro noise-rock of their college years. Dan Zanes has spent the past 20 years creating a truly compelling body of children's music that music-loving parents can also get behind. A former 1980s indie rocker, Zanes' 13 children's albums have gained wide praise for their authentic arrangements and preservation of America's folk traditions. In Dan Zanes' House Party!, the Grammy Award–winning Zanes has curated a rich selection of folk songs that comprise an essential musical cross-section of the American experience and its multicultural, immigrant underpinnings. The selections include the standard songs we all know and love, along with folk classics. Each song is accompanied by a brief narrative on its historical context, followed by lyrics, notation, and chords. Among the songs you'll learn to play: "Erie Canal," "Pay Me My Money Down," "Titanic," "Waltzing Matilda," "The Farmer Is the One," "Wabash Cannonball," "Sloop John B.," "Old Joe Clark," "Skip to My Lou," "King Kong Kitchie," and "We Shall Not Be Moved." Dan Zanes' House Party! also includes informational sidebars throughout to give families the basics needed to pick up instruments and learn to more fully enjoy music as a family band. And in the back of the book, you'll find chord charts for guitar, ukele, and mandolin. More than just a collection of songs, Dan Zanes’ House Party! is part music book, part history lesson, and a work that all families can enjoy—together.

Chris Selden is drifting after college graduation until he finds himself developing a career in fashion and media. During the day, he becomes a commodity, a body that is traded and sold, merchandised and marketed, while at night, he is a journalist for the Star-Ledger. Soon he is living two lives, both of which are based on their own set of fabrications. But Selden discovers that he is also drifting downward, falling into a state in which he barely recognizes himself, becoming further enveloped in a culture where even reality is a copy of a copy.

From an award-winning author whose ancestors lived the adventures in this novel comes a spectacular new epic about the American West.Part history, part romance, and part action-adventure novel,Sun Going Downfollows the fortunes of Ebenezer Paint and his descendants -- rough and tough individuals who are caught up in Civil War river battles, epic cattle drives through drought and blizzards, the horrors of Wounded Knee, the desperation of the dust bowl, and the prosperity of the roaring 1920s. The page-turning plot is peopled by a vibrant, unforgettable cast of characters: a grizzled Mississippi steamboat merchant, two horse-thieving brothers, five Annie Oakley-like sisters who can outride any cowboy, a half-Sioux bride who demands her new family claim her heritage, and a courageous daughter who defies her father and braves the West alone. Throughout their lives, the Paint family must battle both internal and external elements, and learn to live with spirit and wit.Letters and diaries from the author's own family archives form the basis for all the events and characters inSun Going Down, infusing the novel with richly detailed authenticity and deep emotional power. It is intimate in its portraits of the unforgettable characters who settled our country, sweeping in its geographical reach from Vicksburg up through Montana and the Dakotas, and epic as it spans four generations from the Civil War to the Great Depression.Masterfully written,Sun Going Downholds the reader fast through tears, laughter, terror, and joy until the very last heart-gripping page is turned.

Exciting fiction full of "doubles" - double dealing and double crossing. Focuses on identical twin sisters, one honest the other deceptive, and prominent judge who drowns mysteriously. Drug trafficking in Twin Cities, Bahamas and Canada involved along with Mideast opium. Cop and reporter uncle are heroes of international drug bust and help arrest "slippery" woman doctor, who is an Olympic swimmer, along with CEOs of large corporations.

He's a Rocker. He's a Biker. He's the wedding planner. Number-crunching Velma Johnson's perfectly planned life is right on course. That's a lie. Sure, she's got the lucrative job. She's got the posh apartment. But her sister nabbed Velma's Mr. Right. There has to be a man out there for Velma. Hopefully, one who's hunky, wears pressed suits, and has a diversified financial portfolio. He'll be exactly like, well... her sister's new fiancé. Badass biker Brek Montgomery blazes a trail across the country, managing Dimefront, one of the biggest rock bands of his generation. With the band on hiatus, Brek rolls into Denver to pay a quick visit to his family and friends. But when Brek's sister suddenly gets put on bed rest, she convinces Brek to take over her wedding planning business for the duration of her pregnancy. Staying in Denver and dealing with bridezillas was not what Brek had in mind when he passed through town, but there is one particular maid-of-honor who might make his stay worthwhile. Velma finds herself strangely attracted to the man planning her sister's wedding. Problem is, he ticks none of the boxes on her well-crafted list. Brek is rough around the edges, he cusses, and doesn't even have a 401(k). But trying something crazy might get her out of the rut of her dating life--so long as she lays down boundaries up front and sticks to her plan... Going Down on One Knee is book one of the Mile High Matched series. If you love a hunky, tattooed wedding planner this book is for you. Buy now for a fun, opposites attract romance!

The definitive history of the epic struggle for economic justice that became Martin Luther King Jr.'s last crusade. Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic "plantation mentality" embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation workers were chewed up like garbage in the back of a faulty truck, igniting a public employee strike that brought to a boil long-simmering issues of racial injustice. With novelistic drama and rich scholarly detail, Michael Honey brings to life the magnetic characters who clashed on the Memphis battlefield: stalwart black workers; fiery black ministers; volatile, young, black-power advocates; idealistic organizers and tough-talking unionists; the first black members of the Memphis city council; the white upper crust who sought to prevent change or conflagration; and, finally, the magisterial Martin Luther King Jr., undertaking a Poor People's Campaign at the crossroads of his life, vilified as a subversive, hounded by the FBI, and seeing in the working poor of Memphis his hopes for a better America.

Celebrating twenty years in print, this essential illustrated guidebook for adolescent boys--part manual, part older brother--is now available as a refreshed edition, with new and updated content. With 150,000 copies sold, this appealingly illustrated guidebook to puberty--now updated with brand new content relevant to today's kids--is the perfect companion for boys and parents preparing for this important milestone. Written in consultation with preteen boys, this guide offers a supportive, practical approach, providing clear and sensitive answers to common issues--from what physical changes you might experience, to what puberty is like for girls, to how to handle the sexual feelings you may be starting to experience. This revised edition features new sections on: - body image - sexual harassment and consent - using social media safely Complete with funny and informative interior illustrations, What's Going on Down There? will give boys the facts they need to feel confident about this new phase of their lives.

Unlike David Markson's most recent works, including Vanishing Point and Wittgenstein's Mistress, which David Foster Wallace described as "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country," his early novel, Going Down, is a more traditional effort, a masterfully plotted narrative set in Mexico in the 1960s. Three Americans, a man and two women, are living together in obvious intimacy. Their habits, strange to the Mexicans, are strangest of all to themselves. When Fern Winters' attention is caught by movement behind a window in a run–down Greenwich Village apartment building, she can't suspect that her encounter with the apartment's occupant will eventually lead her to be come upon in an abandoned chapel, in a tiny mountain village—clutching the bloody machete with which one of the three has been murdered. Going Down is a rarity among novels—brilliantly and poetically written, faultlessly constructed, centered on fully realized people, and yet completely uninhibited in its depiction of startling eroticism.