Town Politics

Fall is bursting out all over Vermont, and while the rest of the Congress enjoys its recess, Senator Bernie Sanders has returned to his beloved home state for a weekend of events in Eagle Creek, “America’s #1 Leaf Peeping Destination.” It’s up to intern and Eagle Creek native Crash Robertson to keep the senator on schedule—and out of trouble. Crash’s hopes for a quiet homecoming are dashed, however, when the lifeless body of a community banker with ties to “Big Maple” is found in Lake Champlain.

Cue the accordions: Battle Lake, Minnesota, is kicking off October Fest with polka, sausage, and cold suds. The big inaugural event? A debate between two congressional hopefuls. One, stultifyingly sincere. The other, a foot-in-mouth tippler. Reporter Mira James is roped into covering their fighting words…and then a murder, when a relentless pit bull of a blogger is found dead at a motor lodge filled to capacity with fellow pundits, campaign entourages, and tourists—all of whom have just become suspects.

In 1979, the self-titled debut album by the B-52s burst onto the Billboard charts, capturing the imagination of fans and music critics worldwide. The fact that the group had formed in the sleepy southern college town of Athens, Georgia, only increased the fascination. Soon, more Athens bands followed the B-52s into the vanguard of the new American music that would come to be known as "alternative", including R.E.M., who catapulted over the course of the 1980s to the top of the musical mainstream.

Destructive forces have been eroding the University of Cape Town, Africa’s leading university. This audiobook tells the sad, true tale of what has been transpiring. It is a saga of lunacy, criminality, pandering, and identity politics. The mad and the bad–the deranged, deluded, the depraved–have been granted endless latitude in bullying and abusing others.

A beloved folk singer presents an impassioned account of the fall and rise of the small American towns she cherishes. Dubbed by the New Yorker as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters", Dar Williams has made her career not in stadiums, but touring America's small towns. She has played their venues, composed in their coffee shops, and drunk in their bars. She has seen these communities struggle, but also seen them thrive in the face of postindustrial identity crises.

Eamonn McCann’s account of what it is like to grow up a Catholic in a Northern Irish ghetto - first published in 1974 - quickly became a classic account of the feelings generated by British rule. The author was at the center of events in Derry which first brought Northern Ireland to world attention. He witnessed the gradual transformation of the civil rights movement from a mild campaign for “British Democracy” to an all-out military assault on the British state. This book describes the people involved in the war and gives an account of the springs of the "Catholic" opposition.

Silent Witness begins in 1967, in a small Midwestern town. Seventeen-year-old Tony Lord, Lake City's star athlete, seems destined for great things. His driving ambition is precisely what attracts Alison Taylor, the daughter of the town's leading family, and it is what sets Tony apart from his two closest friends: Sam Robb and Sam's girl, Sue Cash. Suddenly, everything changes. Alison Taylor is brutally murdered, and Tony is the number one suspect. The town turns against him. His friendship with Sam is destroyed. And Tony leaves Lake City, vowing never to return.

Summer, 1851. Racial tensions in America were higher than ever. The year before, President Millard Fillmore had passed the Fugitive Slave Act to return runaway slaves to the South. In February, Congress had established the reservation system, forcing Native Americans to leave their homelands. White Americans were strengthening dominance over people of color across the continent. In Oregon City, one biracial man named Jacob Vanderpool found himself in the crosshairs of this racist discrimination.

Award-winning journalist Mike Hixenbaugh delivers the immersive and eye-opening story of Southlake, Texas, a district that seemed to offer everything parents would want for their children—small classes, dedicated teachers, financial resources, a track record of academic success, and school spirit in abundance.

The Girls is a profound exploration of trust, ambition, betrayal, and self-discovery. Award-winning journalist Abigail Pesta unveils this deeply reported narrative at a time when the nation is wrestling with the implications of the MeToo movement. How do the women who grew up with Nassar reconcile the monster in the news with the man they once trusted? In The Girls, we learn that their answers to that wrenching question are as rich, insightful, and varied as the human experience itself.

A look at how commercialization has transformed youth sports from fun into a heavily commercialized and profitable venture. Examining the youth sports economy from many sides - the major corporations, the small entrepreneurs, the coaches, the parents, and, of course, the kids - Hyman probes the reasons for rapid changes in what gets bought and sold in this lucrative marketplace. He reveals the effects on kids and profiles the individuals and communities bucking this destructive trend of commercialization.

Even before Jack the Ripper haunted its streets for prey, London's East End had earned a reputation for immorality, filth, and vice. John Bennett, a writer and tour guide who has walked and researched the area for more than 30 years, delves into four centuries of history to chronicle the crimes, their perpetrators, and the circumstances that made the East End an ideal breeding ground for illegal activity.

Raymond Unwin was a prominent architect and engineer from the late 19th and early 20th century. He helped popularize the Arts and Crafts movement and was one of the first English voices in the town planning movement. Town Planning in Practice was published in 1909 and still resonates with planners and urban designers today. It reflects on discussions that are still happening to this day including the design of buildings, plots of land, and neighborhood streets.

Set against the backdrop of an American town that without its consent had become a vast social experiment, Outcasts United follows a pivotal season in the life of the Fugees and their charismatic coach. Warren St. John documents the lives of a diverse group of young people as they miraculously coalesce into a band of brothers, while also drawing a fascinating portrait of a fading American town struggling to accommodate its new arrivals.

Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.

Dewey's Nine Lives offers nine funny, inspiring, and heartwarming stories about cats - all told from the perspective of "Dewey's Mom", librarian Vicki Myron. The amazing felines in this audiobook include Dewey, of course, whose further never-before-told adventures are shared, and several others Vicki found out about when their owners reached out to her.

Following the 2016 election, writer Heather Lende was one of thousands of women inspired to take a more active role in politics. Though her entire campaign for assembly member in Haines, Alaska, cost less than $1,000, she won! But tiny, breathtakingly beautiful Haines isn't the sleepy town that it appears to be: from a bitter debate about the expansion of the fishing boat harbor to the matter of how to stop bears from rifling through garbage on Main Street we witness the nitty-gritty of passing legislation and how the polarizing national politics of our era play out in one small town.

For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, businesspeople, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign. The America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems, but it is also crafting solutions.

When musicians in the New York folk scene of the 1960s grew tired of city life, they decided to "get it together in the country". They headed for Woodstock - not to the site of the infamous music festival of 1969 but to the Catskills, to Bearsville, to Woodstock proper. Counterculture revolutionaries like Janis Joplin, Richie Havens, and Paul Butterfield got "back to the land", turning the once sleepy hollow into a funky Shangri-La.

This is the first thorough historical account of Chief Seattle and his times - the story of a half century of tremendous flux, turmoil, and violence, during which a native American war leader became an advocate for peace and strove to create a successful hybrid racial community.