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The House by the Lake: One House, Five Families, and a Hundred Years of German History
By Thomas Harding. 1945
A Finalist for the Costa Biography AwardLonglisted for the Orwell PrizeNamed a Best Book of the Year byThe Times (London)…
• New Statesman (London) • Daily Express (London) • Commonweal magazine In the summer of 1993, Thomas Harding traveled to Germany with his grandmother to visit a small house by a lake on the outskirts of Berlin. It had been her “soul place,” she said—a holiday home for her and her family, but also a refuge—until the 1930s, when the Nazis’ rise to power forced them to leave.The trip was his grandmother’s chance to remember her childhood sanctuary as it was. But the house had changed, and when Harding returned once again nearly twenty years later, it was about to be demolished. It now belonged to the government, and as Harding began to inquire about whether the house could be saved, he unearthed secrets that had lain hidden for decades. Slowly he began to piece together the lives of the five families who had lived there: a wealthy landowner, a prosperous Jewish family, a renowned composer, a widow and her children, a Stasi informant. All had made the house their home, and all but one had been forced out.The house had weathered storms, fires and abandonment, witnessed violence, betrayals and murders, and had withstood the trauma of a world war and the dividing of a nation. Breathtaking in scope and intimate in its detail, The House by the Lake is a groundbreaking and revelatory new history of Germany, told over a tumultuous century through the story of a small wooden house.Lost Companions: Reflections on the Death of Pets
By Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. 2020
A heartfelt exploration of human grief after the loss of a pet by the New York Times bestselling author of…
Dogs Never Lie About Love.Over 84 million Americans—almost 3/4 of the US population—own a pet, and our society is still learning how to recognize and dignify that relationship with proper mourning rituals. We have only recently allowed the conversation of how to grieve for our non-human family members to come front and center.Lost Companions fills a specific, important demand, a massive need in the market for an accessible, meaningful book on pet loss. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson takes a very personal, heartfelt approach to this difficult subject, allowing readers to explore their own responses and reactions, suggesting ways through and out of grief, as well as meaningful ways to memorialize our best friends. Lost Companions is full of moving, thought-provoking and poignant stories about dogs, cats, horses, birds, wombats and other animals that beautifully illustrate the strong bond humans form with them.The Night Parade: A Speculative Memoir
By Jami Nakamura Lin. 2023
A Most Anticipated Book by Poets & Writers • The Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • Los Angeles Times…
• The Millions • Library Journal • Book Riot • Debutiful • and many more! In the groundbreaking tradition of In the Dream House and The Collected Schizophrenias, a gorgeously illustrated speculative memoir that draws upon the Japanese myth of the Hyakki Yagyo—the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons—to shift the cultural narrative around mental illness, grief, and remembrance. “Jami Nakamura Lin has reinvented the genre of memoir. . . . Serpentine, polyphonic, and stunningly textured, The Night Parade positively pulses with life." — Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, award-winning author of The Fact of a Body Are these the only two stories? The one, where you defeat your monster, and the other, where you succumb to it?Jami Nakamura Lin spent much of her life feeling monstrous for reasons outside of her control. As a young woman with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, much of her adolescence was marked by periods of extreme rage and an array of psychiatric treatments, and her relationships suffered as a result, especially as her father’s cancer grasped hold of their family.As she grew older and learned to better manage her episodes, Lin became frustrated with the familiar pattern she found in mental illness and grief narratives, and their focus on recovery. She sought comfort in the stories she’d loved as a child—tales of ghostly creatures known to terrify in the night. Through the lens of the yokai and other figures from Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan legend, she set out to interrogate the very notion of recovery and the myriad ways fear of difference shapes who we are as a people.Featuring stunning illustrations by her sister, Cori Nakamura Lin, and divided into the four acts of a traditional Japanese narrative structure, The Night Parade is a genre-bending and deeply emotional memoir that mirrors the sensation of being caught between realms. Braiding her experience of mental illness, the death of her father, the grieving process, and other haunted topics with storytelling tradition, Jami Nakamura Lin shines a light into dark corners, driven by a question: How do we learn to live with the things that haunt us?The Worst Loss: How Families Heal from the Death of a Child
By Barbara D. Rosof. 1994
The death of a child is like no other loss. Barbara D. Rosof's The Worst Loss will help families who…
have experienced this to know what they are facing, understand what they are feeling, and appreciate their own needs and timetables.The Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram
By Nicholas Faith. 2006
For decades, the Bronfman family ruled Seagram's and the liquor industry. This is the story of their meteoric rise and…
spectacular fall.The story of the Bronfman family is a fascinating and improbable saga. It is dominated by "Mr. Sam," the single greatest figure in the history of the liquor business, the man who made drinking whiskey respectable in the United States and who in the 1950s and 1960s built Seagram into the first worldwide empire in wine and spirits.After Sam's death in 1971, his oldest son, Edgar, maintained the business, though he was distracted by his matrimonial problems. Nevertheless, in the 1980s he masterminded a major coup when he translated a small investment in oil made by his father into a 25 percent stake in the mighty DuPont company. But in the 1990s, Edgar allowed his second son, Edgar Jr., to indulge his ambition to become a media tycoon. The stake in DuPont was sold, and the money reinvested in Universal, the film and theme-park empire. Edgar Jr. then paid more than $10 billion to buy Polygram Records and thus fulfill his fancy to be king of the world's music business. But at the same time, he remained in charge of the liquor business, which started to stagnate—indeed, to fall apart. Then came the final disaster when the increasingly divided family sold out to Jean-Marie Messier, overreaching empire builder of Vivendi, the French conglomerate. But the story of this amazing family over the past century is about more than booze and business. The Bronfmans is a spectacular account that details the larger-than-life personalities and bitter rivalries that have made the family so famous and, sometimes, so infamous.The Way We Die Now: The View from Medicine's Front Line
By Seamus O'Mahony. 2016
We have lost the ability to deal with death. Most of our friends and beloved relations will die in a…
busy hospital in the care of strangers, doctors, and nurses they have known at best for a couple of weeks. They may not even know they are dying, victims of the kindly lie that there is still hope. They are unlikely to see even their family doctor in their final hours, robbed of their dignity and fed through a tube after a long series of excessive and hopeless medical interventions.This is the starting point of Seamus O’Mahony’s The Way We Die Now, a thoughtful, moving and unforgettable book on the western way of death. Dying has never been more public, with celebrities writing detailed memoirs of their illness, but in private we have done our best to banish all thought of dying and made a good death increasingly difficult to achieve.Wear Your Dreams: My Life in Tattoos
By Ed Hardy, Joel Selvin. 2013
The memoir of iconic tattoo artist Ed Hardy from his beginnings in 1960s California, to leading the tattoo renaissance and…
building his name into a hugely lucrative international brand"Ed Hardy" is emblazoned on everything from t-shirts and hats to perfumes and energy drinks. From LA to Japan, his colorful cross-and-bones designs and ribbon-banners have become internationally ubiquitous. But long before the fashion world discovered his iconic designs, the man behind the eponymous brand spearheaded nothing less than a cultural revolution.In Wear Your Dreams, Ed Hardy recounts his genesis as a tattoo artist and leader in the movement to recognize tattooing as a valid and rich art form, through to the ultimate transformation of his career into a multi-billion dollar branding empire. From giving colored pencil tattoos to neighborhood kids at age ten to working with legendary artists like Sailor Jerry to learning at the feet of the masters in Japan, the book explains how this Godfather of Tattoos fomented the explosion of tattoo art and how his influence can be witnessed on everyone, from countless celebs to ink-adorned rockers to butterfly-branded, stroller-pushing moms. With over fifty different product categories, the Ed Hardy brand generates over $700 million in retail sales annually. Vividly packaged with original Ed Hardy artwork and ideal for ink devotees and Ed Hardy aficionados alike, Wear Your Dreams is a never-before-seen look at the tattoo artist who rocked the art world and has left a permanent mark on fashion history.Death, Society, and Human Experience
By Robert Kastenbaum, Christopher M. Moreman. 2024
The 13th edition of Death, Society, and Human Experience provides a panoramic overview of the ways that we are touched…
by death and dying, both as individuals and as members of society. A landmark text in the field, the authors draw on contributions from the social and behavioral sciences as well as the humanities, including perspectives offered through history, philosophy, religion, literature, and the arts, to provide thorough coverage and understanding of topics associated with the end of life and death and dying. By approaching the subject from multiple angles, the authors explain the various ways that individual, cultural, and societal attitudes influence both how and when we die and how we live and deal with the knowledge of death and loss.Originally written by Robert Kastenbaum, a renowned scholar who developed one of the world’s first death education courses, Christopher M. Moreman, who has worked in the field of death studies for two decades, has updated this edition. In addition to infusing his close areas of focus, both in afterlife beliefs and experiences and how these might affect how people live their lives, he’s weaved in new coverage of current affairs, including: The impact of COVID-19 on experiences of death, bereavement, mourning, and more Expanded legalization of physician-assisted dying in the United States and several countries Changes in bereavement rituals and traditions stemming from technology use and social media With additional content and classroom extensions available online, Death, Society, and Human Experience remains a thoughtful, exploratory, and impressively comprehensive overview for undergraduate and graduate courses in death, dying, and bereavement.The Probability of Everything
By Sarah Everett. 2023
“One of the best books I have read this year (maybe ever).” —Colby Sharp, Nerdy Book ClubNPR Books We Love…
2023 | Publishers Weekly Best of 2023 | Winner of the Governor General's Literary Awards for Young People's LiteratureA heart-wrenching middle grade debut about Kemi, an aspiring scientist who loves statistics and facts, as she navigates grief and loss at a moment when life as she knows it changes forever.Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It's how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds of being born were 1 in 5.5 trillion and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out.But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84.7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.But over the course of the four days, even facts don’t feel true to Kemi anymore. The new town she moved to that was supposed to be “better for her family” isn’t very welcoming. And Amplus-68 is taking over her life, but others are still going to school and eating at their favorite diner like nothing has changed. Is Kemi the only one who feels like the world is ending?With the days numbered, Kemi decides to put together a time capsule that will capture her family’s truth: how creative her mother is, how inquisitive her little sister can be, and how much Kemi's whole world revolves around her father. But no time capsule can change the truth behind all of it, that Kemi must face the most inevitable and hardest part of life: saying goodbye."My heart hurt as I raced through the last chapters of this unique book that shines a light on family, friends, grief, and love." —Lisa Yee, author of Maizy Chen's Last ChancePour Laïka: La chienne qui a rencontré les étoiles
By Kai Cheng Thom. 2022
Connaissez-vous la chienne Laïka, la première de tous les êtres vivants à avoir voyagé dans l’espace? Ce livre vous raconte…
son histoire et les raisons qui l’ont poussée à quitter sa meute pour aller à la rencontre des étoiles. Quelque part entre le conte et la leçon d’histoire, Pour Laïka est un hommage aux liens qui unissent toutes les créatures de la Terre - et de l’Univers.Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two
By Jim Koch. 2016
NATIONAL BESTSELLER and named a 2016 Best Book of the Year by Inc., Business Insider, and ForbesFounder of The Boston…
Beer Company, brewer of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, and a key catalyst of the American craft beer revolution, Jim Koch offers his unique perspective when it comes to business, beer, and turning your passion into a successful company or career.“Boston Beer’s Jim Koch offers readers a six-pack of wisdom.” – The Boston GlobePull up a chair and crack open a Sam Adams. It’s time to leave behind business as you know it.Quench Your Own Thirst covers everything from finding your own Yoda to Koch’s theory on how a piece of string can teach you the most important lesson you’ll ever learn about business. Koch also has surprising advice on sales, marketing, hiring, and company culture. His anecdotes, quirky musings, and bits of wisdom go far beyond brewing. A fun, engaging guide for building a career or launching a successful business, Quench Your Own Thirst is the key to the ultimate dream: being successful while doing what you love. So, are you quenching you own thirst – or someone else’s? "Like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and the other greats, Jim Koch's entrepreneurial journey is motivated by a deep commitment to making superb products and building a unique culture that reinforces innovation and risk-taking. This book tells a compelling story about how he did it. The lessons will be invaluable for anyone starting a business or building a career." —Bill Hambrecht, co-founder or Hambrecht & Quist and chairman of WRHambrecht + CoWishful Thinking: How I Lost My Faith and Why I Want to Find It
By Donna Freitas. 2024
Donna Freitas wants to believe. Raised Catholic, she sang songs about Jesus as a child and lived in a house…
where nuns and priests were regular guests, yet she found herself questioning the faith of her family, examining the reasons none of it added up, and distancing herself from the God of Christianity. Despite her questions—or perhaps because of them—she made a career out of trying to understand God, pursuing a PhD in religion. But even as she taught college students about mystics, theologians, and others who wrestled with God, she was never able to embrace a faith of her own. In this searingly honest and deeply personal book, Freitas retraces her roundabout path up and out of the wilderness toward hope, and her dogged—and ongoing—search for faith. She talks about her experience with the Catholic abuse scandal, about being embraced as a speaker at evangelical colleges, about how the death of her mother and the loss of her marriage made her question everything she thought she knew about love, how she cannot reconcile the ways the concept of God makes absolutely no sense, and how she cannot stop trying to believe, despite it all. Real, raw, and beautifully written, Wishful Thinking is a powerful story about the author&’s search for belief in God and about finding God in the most unexpected places.Rabbit Heart: A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Story
By Kristine S. Ervin. 2024
A Washington Post &“Most Anticipated&” Book of the Year • A New York Times &“Must Read&”For readers of My Dark…
Places and The Fact of a Body, a beautiful, brutal memoir documenting one woman&’s search for identity alongside her family's decades-long quest to identify the two men who abducted—and murdered—her mother"Melding true crime with memoir, Ervin reminds us of what happens when we conflate people with the transgressions committed against them—the collateral damage we inflict when we turn human beings into moral allegory . . . A powerful treatise on love and loss, on mothers and daughters, but it is also a warning to all of us who consume true crime." —The New York Times Book ReviewKristine S. Ervin was just eight years old when her mother, Kathy Sue Engle, was abducted from an Oklahoma mall parking lot and violently murdered in an oil field. First, there was grief. Then the desire to know: what happened to her, what she felt in her last terrible moments, and all she was before these acts of violence defined her life.In her mother&’s absence, Ervin tries to reconstruct a woman she can never fully grasp—from her own memory, from letters she uncovers, and from the stories of other family members. As more information about her mother's death comes to light, Ervin&’s drive to know her mother only intensifies, winding into her own fraught adolescence. She reckons with contradictions of what a woman is allowed to be—a self beyond the roles of wife, mother, daughter, victim—what a &“true&” victim is supposed to look like, and, finally, how complicated and elusive justice can be.Told fearlessly and poetically, Rabbit Heart weaves together themes of power, gender, and justice into a manifesto of grief and reclamation: our stories do not need to be simple to be true, and there is power in the telling.In this laugh-out-loud and heartfelt memoir, writer, speaker, and podcaster Molly Stillman shares her unforgettable story of losing her mother,…
squandering an unexpected quarter-of-a-million-dollar inheritance in less than two years, attempting to launch a career in comedy but ending up on a farm instead, and finding faith, hope, and joy in the middle of it all. Molly Stillman has lived the type of life that when shared, people stop in their tracks and ask, "Wait, what happened?" Molly's mother, Lynda Van Devanter Buckley served as an Army nurse during the Vietnam War and wrote the bestselling memoir, Home Before Morning. When Molly was seventeen, Lynda passed away after an eight-year battle with an autoimmune disorder due to her exposure to Agent Orange. Four years later, Molly turned twenty-one and unexpectedly inherited a quarter of a million dollars from her mother's estranged family's estate. Through "retail therapy" and a long series of grossly irresponsible financial decisions, Molly found herself broke with over $36,000 in credit card debt less than two years later. Shame, guilt, and embarrassment set in.With aspirations of a career in comedy, Molly used humor to mask the pain and brokenness she felt, believing that if she looked joyful and put together on the outside, it would eventually be true on the inside. Instead, she spent the next few years depressed, lonely, and feeling alienated from those closest to her. But an unlikely call with a compassionate credit counselor, meeting the spreadsheet-loving man who eventually became her husband, and a surprising visit to a church started her on a path that changed everything.If I Don't Laugh, I'll Cry will bring readers into the tension of feeling both joy and grief and show them that every broken, messed up story has a purpose, and it's possible to gain everything if they're willing to surrender it all to Jesus.Till Death Do Us Part: American Ethnic Cemeteries as Borders Uncrossed
By Allan Amanik and Kami Fletcher. 2020
Contributions by Allan Amanik, Kelly B. Arehart, Sue Fawn Chung, Kami Fletcher, Rosina Hassoun, James S. Pula, Jeffrey E. Smith,…
and Martina Will de Chaparro Till Death Do Us Part: American Ethnic Cemeteries as Borders Uncrossed explores the tendency among most Americans to separate their dead along communal lines rooted in race, faith, ethnicity, or social standing and asks what a deeper exploration of that phenomenon can tell us about American history more broadly. Comparative in scope, and regionally diverse, chapters look to immigrants, communities of color, the colonized, the enslaved, rich and poor, and religious minorities as they buried kith and kin in locales spanning the Northeast to the Spanish American Southwest. Whether African Americans, Muslim or Christian Arabs, Indians, mestizos, Chinese, Jews, Poles, Catholics, Protestants, or various whites of European descent, one thing that united these Americans was a drive to keep their dead apart. At times, they did so for internal preference. At others, it was a function of external prejudice. Invisible and institutional borders built around and into ethnic cemeteries also tell a powerful story of the ways in which Americans have negotiated race, culture, class, national origin, and religious difference in the United States during its formative centuries.Obituaries in American Culture
By Janice Hume. 2000
“Within the short period of a year, she was a bride, a beloved wife and companion, a mother, a corpse,”…
reported The National Intelligencer on the death of Elizabeth Buchanan in 1838. Such obituaries fascinate us. Few of us realize that, when examined historically, they can reveal not only information about the departed but also much about American culture and about who and what we value. They also offer hints about the way Americans view death. This book also will fascinate, for it surveys more than 8,000 newspaper obituaries from 1818 to 1930 to show what they reveal about our culture. It shows how, in memorializing individual citizens, obituaries make a public expression of our values. Far from being staid or morbid, these death notices offer a lively look at a changing America. Indeed, obits are little windows through which to view America's cultural history. In the nineteenth century, they spoke of a person's character, in the twentieth of a person's work and wealth. In the days when women were valued mainly in their relationships with men, their obituaries were about the men in their lives. Then, as now, important friendships make a difference, for sometimes a death has been deemed newsworthy only because of whom the deceased knew. In 1838 when a fifty-year-old Virginian named William P. Custis died “after a long and wasting illness,” readers of The Daily National Intelligencer learned about his generous hospitality, his sterling business principles, and his kindness as a neighbor and husband. Custis's obituary not only recorded the fact of his death but also celebrated his virtues. The newspaper obituary has a commemorative role. It distills the essence of a citizen's life, and it reflects what society values and wants to remember about the deceased. Throughout our history, these published accounts have revealed changing values. They provide a link between public remembrances of individuals and the collective memory of a great American past. In obits of yesteryear, men were brave, gallant, vigilant, bold, honest, and dutiful. Women were patient, resigned, obedient, affectionate, amiable, pious, gentle, virtuous, tender, and useful. Mining newspapers of New York City, New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago, and San Francisco, along with two early national papers, Niles' Weekly Register and The National Intelligencer, Janice Hume has produced a portrait of America, an entertaining history, and a revealing look at the things Americans have valued.Mississippi Entrepreneurs
By Polly Dement. 2014
The stories in Mississippi Entrepreneurs collectively draw attention to the tenacious and courageous journeys of Mississippi men and women who…
risk fortune and futures to create successful enterprises. Most tell “how they did it” uniquely and in their own words, bringing to life their entrepreneurial spirits. Family members and former colleagues pick up the storyline for legendary entrepreneurs who have passed on, recalling vividly the characteristics that set them apart from the competition. Usually a passion for creation inspired these go-getters—whether casting red-hot liquid steel into industrial products (Fred Wile, Meridian); constructing buildings (Roy Anderson III, Gulfport; Bill Yates Jr., Philadelphia; and William Yates III, Biloxi); making agricultural products grow (Janice and Allen Eubanks, Lucedale; and Mike Sanders, Cleveland); delivering and installing furniture (Johnnie Terry, Jackson); using technology to improve systems (John Palmer and Joel Bomgar, and Toni and Bill Cooley, Jackson; and Billy and Linda Howard, Laurel); expanding food operations (Dr. S. L. Sethi, Jackson; and Don Newcomb, Oxford); or sharing the sheer love of music (Hartley Peavey, Meridian), food (Robert St. John, Hattiesburg), art (Erin Hayne and Nuno Gonçalves Ferreira, Jackson), or books (John Evans, Jackson; and Richard Howorth, Oxford). Social and cultural entrepreneurs made their marks as well, including those focused on social justice (Martha Bergmark, Jackson); access to health care (Aaron Shirley, Jackson); and public education (Jack Reed, Tupelo). Few if any books have focused exclusively on this aspect of the state's history. Altogether the stories, accompanied by seventy black-and-white photographs, illustrate common traits, including plentiful vision, fierce drive, willingness to take risks and change for a better way, the ability to innovate, solve problems, and turn luck (both good and bad) to advantage. Most of these entrepreneurs generously share the rewards of their hard work and ingenuity with their communities.Jazz and Death: Medical Profiles of Jazz Greats
By Frederick J. Spencer. 2002
When a jazz hero dies, rumors, speculation, gossip, and legend can muddle the real cause of death. In this book,…
Frederick J. Spencer, M.D., conducts an inquest on how jazz greats lived and died pursuing their art. Forensics, medical histories, death certificates, and biographies divulge the way many musical virtuosos really died. An essential reference source, Jazz and Death strives to correct misinformation and set the story straight. Reviewing the medical records of such jazz icons as Scott Joplin, James Reese Europe, Bennie Moten, Tommy Dorsey, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Wardell Gray, and Ronnie Scott, the book spans decades, styles, and causes of death. Divided into disease categories, it covers such illnesses as ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), which killed Charlie Mingus, and tuberculosis, which caused the deaths of Chick Webb, Charlie Christian, Bubber Miley, Jimmy Blanton, and Fats Navarro. It notes the significance of dental disease in affecting a musician's embouchure and livelihood, as happened with Joe “King” Oliver. A discussion of Art Tatum's visual impairment leads to discoveries in the pathology of what blinded Lennie Tristano. Heavy drinking, even during Prohibition, was the norm in the clubs of New Orleans and Kansas City and in the ballrooms of Chicago and New York. Too often, the musical scene demanded that those who play jazz be “jazzed.” After World War II, as heroin addiction became the hallmark of revolution, talented bebop artists suffered long absences from the bandstand. Many did jail time, and others succumbed to the ravages of “horse.” With Jazz and Death, the causes behind the great jazz funerals may no longer be misconstrued. Its clinical and morbidly entertaining approach creates an invaluable compendium for jazz fans and scholars alike.Gone to the Grave: Burial Customs of the Arkansas Ozarks, 1850-1950
By Abby Burnett. 2014
Before there was a death care industry where professional funeral directors offered embalming and other services, residents of the Arkansas…
Ozarks—and, for that matter, people throughout the South—buried their own dead. Every part of the complicated, labor-intensive process was handled within the deceased's community. This process included preparation of the body for burial, making a wooden coffin, digging the grave, and overseeing the burial ceremony, as well as observing a wide variety of customs and superstitions. These traditions, especially in rural communities, remained the norm up through the end of World War II, after which a variety of factors, primarily the loss of manpower and the rise of the funeral industry, brought about the end of most customs. Gone to the Grave, a meticulous autopsy of this now vanished way of life and death, documents mourning and practical rituals through interviews, diaries and reminiscences, obituaries, and a wide variety of other sources. Abby Burnett covers attempts to stave off death; passings that, for various reasons, could not be mourned according to tradition; factors contributing to high maternal and infant mortality; and the ways in which loss was expressed though obituaries and epitaphs. A concluding chapter examines early undertaking practices and the many angles funeral industry professionals worked to convince the public of the need for their services.Lucky Dogs: From Bourbon Street to Beijing and Beyond
By Jerry E. Strahan. 2016
When walking the French Quarter and watching a Lucky Dog salesman set up that colorful cart and call out to…
entice customers, don't you wonder how such a business works? As a knowing review in Rolling Stone stated, "People have always loved the cart and harbored a mysterious need to ride it. Revelers have been known to climb on top of the rolling wienies, screaming 'Yippee kaya!' as vendors stoically push them back to the barn at 4 a.m." Since 1947 the red and yellow carts have trumpeted good fortune and sustenance.Jerry E. Strahan recounts the wild adventures of the Bourbon Street wienie salesmen but also takes readers well beyond New Orleans. In fact, he takes them halfway around the world, where this unique pushcart business maneuvered its way through the bureaucratic red tape of a communist country to become a licensed corporation in the People's Republic of China.In China, two points quickly became apparent to Strahan. First, 99 percent of the Chinese population had no idea what a Lucky Dog cart represented. One elderly passerby declared it to be a missile. Second, the success or failure of any joint venture in the Asian nation is directly proportional to the political clout of that company's local partner.Lucky Dogs also recounts how the business and its vendors survived Hurricane Katrina. Miraculously, it reopened only six months after the storm in a city where more than 80 percent of the landmass had been flooded and where less than 40 percent of the population had returned. To reestablish itself in what many described as Third World conditions, the company had to transform its operation.This work mixes business history, autobiography, survival story, and an insider's look at the bizarre lives of some of Bourbon Street's most quirky characters--the dauntless Lucky Dog vendors. Both humorous and tragic, though it may read like fiction, it is, for better or worse, all fact.