The Last Great Road Bum

Author : Héctor Tobar
Publisher : MCD
ISBN 13 : 0374720401
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Last Great Road Bum written by Héctor Tobar and published by MCD. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the Los Angeles Times Top 10 California Books of 2020. One of Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Fiction Books from 2020. Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence and the Joyce Carol Oates prize. One of Exile in Bookville’s Favorite Books of 2020. In The Last Great Road Bum, Héctor Tobar turns the peripatetic true story of a naive son of Urbana, Illinois, who died fighting with guerrillas in El Salvador into the great American novel for our times. Joe Sanderson died in pursuit of a life worth writing about. He was, in his words, a “road bum,” an adventurer and a storyteller, belonging to no place, people, or set of ideas. He was born into a childhood of middle-class contentment in Urbana, Illinois and died fighting with guerillas in Central America. With these facts, acclaimed novelist and journalist Héctor Tobar set out to write what would become The Last Great Road Bum. A decade ago, Tobar came into possession of the personal writings of the late Joe Sanderson, which chart Sanderson’s freewheeling course across the known world, from Illinois to Jamaica, to Vietnam, to Nigeria, to El Salvador—a life determinedly an adventure, ending in unlikely, anonymous heroism. The Last Great Road Bum is the great American novel Joe Sanderson never could have written, but did truly live—a fascinating, timely hybrid of fiction and nonfiction that only a master of both like Héctor Tobar could pull off.

Author : Héctor Tobar
Publisher : Picador
ISBN 13 : 1250055865
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Tattooed Soldier written by Héctor Tobar and published by Picador. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Antonio Bernal is a Guatemalan refugee in Los Angeles haunted by memories of his wife and child, who were murdered at the hands of a man marked with yellow ink. In a park near Antonio's apartment, Guillermo Longoria extends his arm and reveals a sinister tattoo—yellow pelt, black spots, red mouth. It is the sign of the death squad, the Jaguar Battalion of the Guatemalan army. This chance encounter between Antonio and his family's killer ignites a psychological showdown between these two men. Each will discover that the war in Central America has migrated with them as they are engulfed by the quemazones—"the great burning" of the Los Angeles riots. A tragic tale of loss and destiny in the underbelly of an American city, The Tattooed Soldier is Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Héctor Tobar's mesmerizing exploration of violence and the marks it leaves upon us.

Author : Héctor Tobar
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1594481768
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Translation Nation written by Héctor Tobar and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-04-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the smash hit Deep Down Dark, a definitive tour of the Spanish-speaking United States—a parallel nation, 35 million strong, that is changing the very notion of what it means to be an American in unprecedented and unexpected ways. Tobar begins on familiar terrain, in his native Los Angeles, with his family's story, along with that of two brothers of Mexican origin with very different interpretations of Americanismo, or American identity as seen through a Latin American lens—one headed for U.S. citizenship and the other for the wrong side of the law and the south side of the border. But this is just a jumping-off point. Soon we are in Dalton, Georgia, the most Spanish-speaking town in the Deep South, and in Rupert, Idaho, where the most popular radio DJ is known as "El Chupacabras." By the end of the book, we have traveled from the geographical extremes into the heartland, exploring the familiar complexities of Cuban Miami and the brand-new ones of a busy Omaha INS station. Sophisticated, provocative, and deeply human, Translation Nation uncovers the ways that Hispanic Americans are forging new identities, redefining the experience of the American immigrant, and reinventing the American community. It is a book that rises, brilliantly, to meet one of the most profound shifts in American identity.

Author : Héctor Tobar
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374708932
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Barbarian Nurseries written by Héctor Tobar and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-09-27 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book for 2011 A Boston Globe Best Fiction Book of 2011 The great panoramic social novel that Los Angeles deserves—a twenty-first century, West Coast Bonfire of the Vanities by the only writer qualified to capture the city in all its glory and complexity With The Barbarian Nurseries, Héctor Tobar gives our most misunderstood metropolis its great contemporary novel, taking us beyond the glimmer of Hollywood and deeper than camera-ready crime stories to reveal Southern California life as it really is, across its vast, sunshiny sprawl of classes, languages, dreams, and ambitions. Araceli is the live-in maid in the Torres-Thompson household—one of three Mexican employees in a Spanish-style house with lovely views of the Pacific. She has been responsible strictly for the cooking and cleaning, but the recession has hit, and suddenly Araceli is the last Mexican standing—unless you count Scott Torres, though you'd never suspect he was half Mexican but for his last name and an old family photo with central L.A. in the background. The financial pressure is causing the kind of fights that even Araceli knows the children shouldn't hear, and then one morning, after a particularly dramatic fight, Araceli wakes to an empty house—except for the two Torres-Thompson boys, little aliens she's never had to interact with before. Their parents are unreachable, and the only family member she knows of is Señor Torres, the subject of that old family photo. So she does the only thing she can think of and heads to the bus stop to seek out their grandfather. It will be an adventure, she tells the boys. If she only knew . . . With a precise eye for the telling detail and an unerring way with character, soaring brilliantly and seamlessly among a panorama of viewpoints, Tobar calls on all of his experience—as a novelist, a father, a journalist, a son of Guatemalan immigrants, and a native Angeleno—to deliver a novel as broad, as essential, as alive as the city itself.

Author : Marilynne Robinson
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374719659
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Jack (Oprah's Book Club) written by Marilynne Robinson and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller Named a Best Book of 2020 by the Australian Book Review, AV Club, Books-a-Million, Electric Literature, Esquire, the Financial Times, Good Housekeeping (UK), The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Literary Hub, the New Statesman, the New York Public Library, NPR, the Star Tribune, and TIME Marilynne Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, returns to the world of Gilead with Jack, the latest novel in one of the great works of contemporary American fiction Marilynne Robinson’s mythical world of Gilead, Iowa—the setting of her novels Gilead, Home, and Lila, and now Jack—and its beloved characters have illuminated and interrogated the complexities of American history, the power of our emotions, and the wonders of a sacred world. Jack is Robinson’s fourth novel in this now-classic series. In it, Robinson tells the story of John Ames Boughton, the prodigal son of Gilead’s Presbyterian minister, and his romance with Della Miles, a high school teacher who is also the child of a preacher. Their deeply felt, tormented, star-crossed interracial romance resonates with all the paradoxes of American life, then and now. Robinson’s Gilead novels, which have won one Pulitzer Prize and two National Book Critics Circle Awards, are a vital contribution to contemporary American literature and a revelation of our national character and humanity.

Author : Jason Boog
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476749817
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Born Reading written by Jason Boog and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A program for parents and professionals on how to raise kids who love to read, featuring interviews with childhood development experts, advice from librarians, tips from authors and children’s book publishers, and reading recommendations for kids from birth up to age five. Every parent wants to give his or her child a competitive advantage. In Born Reading, publishing insider (and new dad) Jason Boog explains how that can be as simple as opening a book. Studies have shown that interactive reading—a method that creates dialogue as you read together—can raise a child’s IQ by more than six points. In fact, interactive reading can have just as much of a determining factor on a child’s IQ as vitamins and a healthy diet. But there’s no book that takes the cutting-edge research on interactive reading and shows parents, teachers, and librarians how to apply it to their day-to-day lives with kids, until now. Born Reading provides step-by-step instructions on interactive reading and advice for developing your child’s interest in books from the time they are born. Boog has done the research, talked with the leading experts in child development, and worked with them to compile the “Born Reading Essential Books” lists, offering specific titles tailored to the interests and passions of kids from birth to age five. But reading can take many forms—print books as well as ebooks and apps—and Born Reading also includes tips on how to use technology the right way to help (not hinder) your child’s intellectual development. Parents will find advice on which educational apps best supplement their child’s development, when to start introducing digital reading to their child, and how to use tech to help create the readers of tomorrow. Born Reading will show anyone who loves kids how to make sure the children they care about are building a powerful foundation in literacy from the beginning of life.

Author : Judith Nies
Publisher : Bold Type Books
ISBN 13 : 1568587481
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Unreal City written by Judith Nies and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic struggle over land, water, and power is erupting in the American West and the halls of Washington, DC. It began when a 4,000-square-mile area of Arizona desert called Black Mesa was divided between the Hopi and Navajo tribes. To the outside world, it was a land struggle between two fractious Indian tribes; to political insiders and energy corporations, it was a divide-and-conquer play for the 21 billion tons of coal beneath Black Mesa. Today, that coal powers cheap electricity for Los Angeles, a new water aqueduct into Phoenix, and the neon dazzle of Las Vegas. Journalist and historian Judith Nies has been tracking this story for nearly four decades. She follows the money and tells us the true story of wealth and water, mendacity, and corruption at the highest levels of business and government. Amid the backdrop of the breathtaking desert landscape, Unreal City shows five cultures colliding—Hopi, Navajo, global energy corporations, Mormons, and US government agencies—resulting in a battle over resources and the future of the West. Las Vegas may attract 39 million visitors a year, but the tourists mesmerized by the dancing water fountains at the Bellagio don’t ask where the water comes from. They don’t see a city with the nation’s highest rates of foreclosure, unemployment, and suicide. They don’t see the astonishing drop in the water level of Lake Mead—where Sin City gets 90 percent of its water supply. Nies shows how the struggle over Black Mesa lands is an example of a global phenomenon in which giant transnational corporations have the power to separate indigenous people from their energy-rich lands with the help of host governments. Unreal City explores how and why resources have been taken from native lands, what it means in an era of climate change, and why, in this city divorced from nature, the only thing more powerful than money is water.

Author : Heather Hansman
Publisher : Harlequin
ISBN 13 : 1488069050
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Powder Days written by Heather Hansman and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *A Boston Globe Bestseller!* *An Outside Magazine Book Club Pick!* *Winner of the International Ski Association's Ullr Book Award!* "A sparkling account."—Wall Street Journal An electrifying adventure into the rich history of skiing and the modern heart of ski-bum culture, from one of America's most preeminent ski journalists The story of skiing is, in many ways, the story of America itself. Blossoming from the Tenth Mountain Division in World War II, the sport took hold across the country, driven by adventurers seeking the rush of freedom that only cold mountain air could provide. As skiing gained in popularity, mom-and-pop backcountry hills gave way to groomed trails and eventually the megaresorts of today. Along the way, the pioneers and diehards—the ski bums—remained the beating heart of the scene. Veteran ski journalist and former ski bum Heather Hansman takes readers on an exhilarating journey into the hidden history of American skiing, offering a glimpse into an underexplored subculture from the perspective of a true insider. Hopping from Vermont to Colorado, Montana to West Virginia, Hansman profiles the people who have built their lives around a cold-weather obsession. Along the way she reckons with skiing's problematic elements and investigates how the sport is evolving in the face of the existential threat of climate change.

Author : Thomas Pynchon
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101594659
Total Pages : 768 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Gravity's Rainbow written by Thomas Pynchon and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-06-13 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 1974 National Book Award “A screaming comes across the sky. . .” A few months after the Germans’ secret V-2 rocket bombs begin falling on London, British Intelligence discovers that a map of the city pinpointing the sexual conquests of one Lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop, U.S. Army, corresponds identically to a map showing the V-2 impact sites. The implications of this discovery will launch Slothrop on an amazing journey across war-torn Europe, fleeing an international cabal of military-industrial superpowers, in search of the mysterious Rocket 00000, through a wildly comic extravaganza that has been hailed in The New Republic as “the most profound and accomplished American novel since the end of World War II.”

Author : Steve Almond
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781638930686
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book All the Secrets of the World written by Steve Almond and published by . This book was released on 2023-03-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A breathtaking success . . . dazzling." --San Francisco Chronicle "[A] rollicking, wide-ranging, unpredictable novel--part crime story, part coming-of-age, part satire, part deadly serious." --Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer finalist for The Great Believers Who pays for the secrets we keep? For the lies we tell ourselves? Lorena Saenz has just been paired with Jenny Stallworth for a school project by a teacher hoping to unite two girls from starkly different backgrounds. Jenny is pretty and popular, and Lorena is quickly drawn into the family's picture-perfect suburban lifestyle. Jenny's mother, Rosemary, is glamorous, but needy--she treats Lorena like a friend, if only to break up the monotony of lonely afternoons. Jenny's father, Marcus, spends his days teaching and his nights wandering the desert, absorbed in his research on the scorpions of Death Valley. Outwardly, they are the perfect family, poised for success in 1981 Sacramento at the dawn of a glorious American decade. Lorena finds her access intoxicating and alluring, a far cry from her life in the small apartment she shares with her single mother. But the veneer is shattered when Marcus disappears. The prime suspect: Lorena's troubled older brother, Tony. To uncover the truth, Lorena must embark on an unforgiving odyssey into the desert, into the secrets and lies of the Stallworth family, and the dark heart of America's criminal justice system. A shape-shifting social novel, All the Secrets of the World is a propulsive tour de force from a writer at the height of his powers.