Urban Memoirs

When businessman Thomas Peterson is killed outside a football ground in the Highlands, there are several witnesses. Yet the hunt for the killer is proving as futile as the search for a motive. Possible connections to Russian money and an eerie retirement home are soon thrown into the mix. To further complicate things, DI Westphall's MI6 past is coming back to haunt him. Guilt stalks his dreams, but could there be a message in these nightmares? Westphall is in danger of losing his head just when he needs it the most. He must find answers, and fast, before the murderer strikes again.

Too dark for science and too evil for theology, but some secrets refuse to stay hidden. Postgraduate student Harry Chesterton uncovers a trail of dark science that leads to the old monastery above the Welsh town of Aberystwyth. With bodies beneath the cafe, residents oozing puss from puncture marks on their necks, and the disappearance of the University Chaplain, Chesterton's research into post-mortem consciousness is about to leap off the page.

Long accused of racism and “white flight”, the ethnic Americans driven from their homes and neighborhoods—the author included—finally get the chance to tell their side of the story.

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.

The remarkable lengths Ruderman and Laker go to for the story - chasing down witnesses on the city's grimmest streets, sifting through archive boxes and hours of surveillance tape for crucial clues, and coaxing reluctant victims to come forward - put their determination to balance motherhood with the career they love to the ultimate test.

One of reggae's most extraordinary stories, the life of Peter Tosh came to an end when he was brutally murdered in 1987. Now revered second only to Bob Marley among reggae audiences worldwide, Tosh was awarded the Order of Merit as Jamaica celebrated 50 years of independence.

The remarkable and inspiring story of how London was transformed after the Great Fire of 1666 into the most powerful city in the world, and the men who were responsible for that achievement. Opening in the 1640s, as the city was gripped in tumult leading up to the English Civil War, The Phoenix charts the lives and works of five extraordinary men who would grow up in the chaos of a world turned upside down: the architect, Sir Christopher Wren; gardener and virtuosi, John Evelyn; the scientist, Robert Hooke; the radical philosopher, John Locke; and the builder, Nicholas Barbon.

Dr. Sampson Davis looks at the health-care crisis in the inner city from a rare perspective: as a doctor who works on the front line of emergency medical care in the poor urban neighborhood where he grew up. He also offers practical advice for those living in such communities, where conditions like asthma, heart disease, strokes, obesity, and AIDS are disproportionately endemic. As someone who has struggled with many of the issues troubling his patients, Dr. Davis is able to write with empathy.

Baby-faced teen Giovanni Macedo is desperate to find belonging in one of LA's most predatory gangs, the Columbia Lil Cycos—so desperate that he agrees to kill an undocumented Mexican street vendor. The vendor, Francisco Clemente, had been refusing to give in to the gang's shakedown demands. But Giovanni botches the hit, accidentally killing a newborn instead. The overlords who rule the Lil Cycos from a Supermax prison 1,000 miles away must be placated and Giovanni is lured across the border where, in turn, the gang botches his killing.

Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace's Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city's sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies.

Survival Math is both a personal reckoning and a vital addition to the national conversation about race. Mitchell explores the Portland of his childhood, tracing the ways in which his family managed their lives in and around drugs, prostitution, gangs, and imprisonment as members of a tiny black population in one of the country’s whitest cities. He discusses sex work and serial killers, gangs and guns, near-death experiences, composite fathers, the concept of “hustle,” and the destructive power of drugs and addiction on family.

Burned-out after years of doing development work around the world, William Powers spent a season in a 12-foot-by-12-foot cabin off the grid in North Carolina, as recounted in his award-winning memoir Twelve by Twelve. Could he live a similarly minimalist life in the heart of New York City? To find out, Powers and his wife jettisoned 80 percent of their stuff, left their 2,000-square-foot Queens townhouse, and moved into a 350-square-foot "micro-apartment" in Greenwich Village.

On the morning of July 1, 1800, a surveyor and mapmaker named Cayetano Diaz opened the window of his study in Guatemala City to find a horrific sight: a pair of severed breasts. Offering a meticulously researched and evocative account of the quest to find the perpetrator and understand the motives behind such a brutal act, this volume pinpoints the sensational crime as a watershed moment in Guatemalan history that radically changed the nature of justice and the established social order.

From comedian to president to freedom fighter, this is the story of Volodymyr Zelensky, the man who stood up to Vladimir Putin and forever changed the world. The authors of Zelensky chronicle his rise, discuss the changing attitudes toward him by Ukrainians there and abroad, and include some of his most stirring speeches.

For Cody Alan, one of country music’s most famous on-air radio and TV personalities, listening to other people has always been a crucial part of his role. It was by fostering his ability to hear others that he discovered the person he most needed to listen to was himself. Listening ultimately led him on a journey of self-discovery where he found the courage to come out as gay, the openness to question spiritually, and the strength to explore a new definition of parenting and family.

In the fugue of deep meditation, Jaya Devi tumbles outdoors into a muggy south Florida dawn. Sliding on a pair of orange flip-flops, she cuts across a dirt path skirting the ashram lawn. She glances down as a fat black snake slithers up her bare leg, wrapping itself tight. Astonished, she pauses, exemplifying the yogi’s art of non-reaction, breathing and assessing. Here, we enter into the wild wisdom-experience of a modern yogi who uses each moment as fuel for personal transformation.

One moment, I was a normal (if somewhat germaphobic) math teacher getting ready for summer vacation. Then my sister died, leaving me with a sword...and her destiny as dragon hunter. It turns out there's a whole other world out there filled with demons, dragons, and spirits. Now my job is to protect mortals - and I haven't got a clue what I'm doing. Then there's tattooed hotness Ian Iskander. Part dragon hunter and part demon, Ian's got some seriously creepy business associates and keeps trying to steal my sword. So why do we keep getting lost in hungry, crazy-hot kisses?

Baseball in the 1920s is most known for Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees, but there was another great Yankee player in that era whose compelling story remains untold. Urban Shocker was a fiercely competitive and colorful pitcher, a spitballer. In the Yankees’ storied 1927 season, Shocker finished with a record of 18-6 even while his fastball and physical skills were deserting him. Hardly anyone knew Shocker was suffering from an incurable heart disease that left him able to sleep only while sitting up and that would take his life in less than a year.

This book is a memoir of my experience as an urban educator. The setting is in my Spanish classroom. The book is that it gives the listener a framework, common language, and a guide from whence to operate. This book is an instructional manual and handbook for collegiate student-teachers, rookie teachers, veteran teachers, and administrators alike. I

There is an old man sitting in a bed in angel ward, telling stories. He says he has to tell someone, because he is dying. He says he doesn't care if you believe that the tales are true or not, because he is not sure that half of them ever happened at all. Reg Weldon claims that he has seen things that would make your skin crawl. He claims a lot of things.