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Space Age Adventures: Over 100 Terrestrial Sites and Out of This World Stories
By Mike Bezemek. 2023
When people think about space travel, they usually look skyward. But much of spaceflight history happened down here on Earth.…
Space Age Adventures presents more than one hundred terrestrial sites across the United States related to space exploration, where enthusiasts can have their own space age adventures. Before astronauts walked on the Moon, they trained at locations you can visit today—from NASA space centers and telescope observatories to impact craters and atomic testing grounds. Inside vast museum hangars, a visitor can walk beneath towering Saturn V rockets left over from the Apollo program or peer inside American and Soviet capsules. Elsewhere visitors can visit historic rocket pads, retired space shuttles, landed SpaceX boosters, and even watch scheduled launches. Mike Bezemek brings the artifacts and spacecraft to life with interwoven stories that collectively span the entire Space Age. These stories offer a deeper understanding of the adventures behind the famous images. The combination of terrestrial sites and true stories makes this book the perfect guide for having unique adventures and discovering one of the most dramatic eras in human exploration.
Adapted from Emmanuel Acho's New York Times bestseller Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, comes an essential young readers edition…
aimed at opening a dialogue about systemic racism with our youngest generation. <P><P>Young people have the power to affect sweeping change, and the key to mending the racial divide in America lies in giving them the tools to ask honest questions and take in the difficult answers. <P><P>Approaching every awkward, taboo, and uncomfortable question with openness and patience, Emmanuel Acho connects his own experience with race and racism—from attending majority-white prep schools to his time in the NFL playing on majority-black football teams—to insightful lessons in black history and black culture. <P><P>Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy is just one way young readers can begin to short circuit racism within their own lives and communities. <P><P><b>A New York Times Best Seller</b>
Men of the 65th: The Borinqueneers of the Korean War
By Talia Aikens-Nuñez. 2023
Honor and Fidelity. That is the motto of the 65th Infantry Regiment, also known as the Borinqueneers, the only Puerto…
Rican unit in the United States Army. Since the regiment’s creation in 1899, the men of the 65th have proudly served the US through multiple wars, despite facing racial discrimination. Their courage, loyalty, and patriotism earned them hundreds of accolades, including the Congressional Gold Medal in 2014. But the honor and fidelity of the men of the 65th came into question in 1952, in the midst of the Korean War, when ninety-one Borinqueneers were arrested and tried for desertion and disobeying orders. How could this happen in one of the most distinguished and decorated units of the Army? In this telling of one of the forgotten stories of the Korean War, author Talia Aikens-Nuñez guides us through the history of the Borinqueneers and the challenges they faced leading up to what was the largest court martial in the entire war. Rediscover the bravery of the men of the 65th through Aikens-Nuñez’s thorough writing and the soldiers’ firsthand accounts of the Korean War.
Men of the 65th: The Borinqueneers of the Korean War
By Talia Aikens-Nuñez. 2023
Honor and Fidelity. That is the motto of the 65th Infantry Regiment, also known as the Borinqueneers, the only Puerto…
Rican unit in the United States Army. Since the regiment’s creation in 1899, the men of the 65th have proudly served the US through multiple wars, despite facing racial discrimination. Their courage, loyalty, and patriotism earned them hundreds of accolades, including the Congressional Gold Medal in 2014. But the honor and fidelity of the men of the 65th came into question in 1952, in the midst of the Korean War, when ninety-one Borinqueneers were arrested and tried for desertion and disobeying orders. How could this happen in one of the most distinguished and decorated units of the Army? In this telling of one of the forgotten stories of the Korean War, author Talia Aikens-Nuñez guides us through the history of the Borinqueneers and the challenges they faced leading up to what was the largest court martial in the entire war. Rediscover the bravery of the men of the 65th through Aikens-Nuñez’s thorough writing and the soldiers’ firsthand accounts of the Korean War.
New Orleans: The Underground Guide, 4th Edition
By Michael Patrick Welch, Brian Boyles, Zack Smith, Jonathan Traviesa. 2014
Red beans and rice, trad jazz, and second lines are the Big Easy's calling cards, but beyond where the carriage…
rides take you is a city brimming with genre-defying music, transnational cuisine, and pockets of wild, artistic locals that challenge preconceived notions of what it means to be New Orleans. With a respectful nod to the traditional and a full embrace of the obscure, New Orleans: The Underground Guide is a resource for discovering the city as it really is -- as much brass bands and boas as it is bounce and bicycle tours. From a speakeasy in the Bywater neighborhood to the delightfully sketchy vibe of St. Roch Tavern, lead author Michael Patrick Welch uncovers an unexpected tableau of musicians, venues, and novel ways to pass the bon temps. Contents include but are not limited to: where to get naked, how to make the most of Mardi Gras according to banjo player Geoff Douville, what to order from the delicious Slavic menu at Siberia, where to find the New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival, how to catch a performance by the New Movement comedy troupe, where to rent a kayak, and how to get in on the "bed and beverage" experience at the Royal Street Inn.
The Louisiana Field Guide: Understanding Life in the Pelican State
By Anthony Lewis, Karen Williams, Michael Pasquier, Alecia P. Long, Alex V. Cook, Barry Cowan, Wayne Parent, Kent Mathewson, Thomas Klingler, Ryan Orgera, J. Michael Desmond, David Harlan, Raynie Harlan, Joyce Jackson, Aaron Emmitte, Sylvie DuBois, Zachary Godshall. 2014
In Louisiana, every bite of food and each turn of phrase is an expression of cultural literacy. Correctly pronouncing "Tchoupitoulas"…
or "Atchafalaya," knowing the difference between the first Governor Long and the second one, being able to spot the artwork of Caroline Durieux, and honoring the distinction between a Creole and a Cajun roux serve not just as markers of familiarity; they represent acts of preservation. The Louisiana Field Guide: Understanding Life in the Pelican State expands on this everyday communion of history, delving into the cultural patchwork that makes the Gumbo State both thoroughly American and absolutely singular.An authoritative lineup of contributors reintroduces Louisiana through the lenses of environment, geography, history, politics, religion, culture, language, sports, literature, film, music, architecture, food, and art. Whether describing the archi-tectural details of the Ursuline Convent in the French Quarter or sharing the family history of Bourgeois' Meat Market just outside of Thibodaux, the essays in The Louisiana Field Guide present a fresh and expansive look at the enchanting and perplexing Pelican State.At once an accessible primer and a rich omnibus, this volume explores the well-known destinations and far-flung corners of Louisiana, from Cameron Parish to Congo Square, offering an enlightening companion guide for visitors and a trust-worthy reference for residents.
Two Civil Wars: The Curious Shared Journal of a Baton Rouge Schoolgirl and a Union Sailor on the USS Essex
By Katherine Bentley Jeffrey. 2016
Two Civil Wars is both an edition of an unusual Civil War--era double journal and a narrative about the two…
writers who composed its contents. The initial journal entries were written by thirteen-year-old Celeste Repp while a student at St. Mary's Academy, a prominent but short-lived girls school in midcentury Baton Rouge. Celeste's French compositions, dating from 1859 to 1861, offer brief but poignant meditations, describe seasonal celebrations, and mention by name both her headmistress, Matilda Victor, and French instructor and priest, Father Darius Hubert. Immediately following Celeste's prettily decorated pages a new title page intervenes, introducing "An Abstract Journal Kept by William L. Park, of the U. S. gunboat Essex during the American Rebellion. " Park's diary is a fulsome three-year account of military engagements along the Mississippi and its tributaries, the bombardment of southern towns, the looting of plantations, skirmishes with Confederate guerillas, the uneasy experiment with "contrabands" (freed slaves) serving aboard ship, and the mundane circumstances of shipboard life. Very few diaries from the inland navy have survived, and this is the first journal from the ironclad Essex to be published. Jeffrey has read it alongside several unpublished accounts by Park's crewmates as well as a later memoir composed by Park in his declining years. It provides rare insight into the culture of the ironclad fleet and equally rare firsthand commentary by an ordinary sailor on events such as the sinking of CSS Arkansas and the prolonged siege of Port Hudson. Jeffrey provides detailed annotation and context for the Repp and Park journals, filling out the biographies of both writers before and after the Civil War. In Celeste's case, Jeffrey uncovers surprising connections to such prominent Baton Rouge residents as the diarist Sarah Morgan, and explores the complexity of wartime allegiances in the South through the experiences of Matilda Victor and Darius Hubert. She also unravels the mystery of how a southern youngster's school scribbler found its way into the hands of a Union sailor. In so doing, she provides a richly detailed picture of occupied Baton Rouge and especially of events surrounding the Battle of Baton Rouge in August 1862. These two unusual personal journals, linked by curious happenstance in a single notebook, open up intriguing, provocative, and surprisingly complementary new vistas on antebellum Baton Rouge and the Civil War on the Mississippi.
Voices from Louisiana: Profiles of Contemporary Writers
By Ann Brewster Dobie, Mary Ann Wilson. 2018
Voices from Louisiana provides thoughtful, timely profiles of some of the state’s most highly regarded and popular contemporary authors. Readers…
interested in Louisiana’s rich literary tradition will appreciate these evocative essays on writers whose works emanate from the cultures and landscapes of the Gulf South. Ann Brewster Dobie explores the works of eleven well-known authors and concludes with a look at several emerging talents. These writers work in a broad range of genres, from coming-of-age stories and historical narratives that recover the voices of silenced and oppressed peoples, to crime thrillers set in New Iberia and New Orleans, to poetic invocations of the natural world and narratives capturing the realities of working-class lives. Whether native to the state or transplants, these writers produce works that reflect the vibrant culture that defines the intricate literary landscape of the Pelican State. Dobie highlights the careers of Darrell Bourque, James Lee Burke, Ernest Gaines, Tim Gautreaux, Shirley Ann Grau, Greg Guirard, William Joyce, Julie Kane, Tom Piazza, Martha Serpas, and James Wilcox. Newcomers also profiled include Wiley Cash, Ashley Mace Havird, Anne L. Simon, Katy Simpson Smith, Ashley Weaver, Steve Weddle, and Ken Wheaton.
New Orleans on Parade: Tourism and the Transformation of the Crescent City (Making the Modern South)
By J. Mark Souther. 2006
New Orleans on Parade tells the story of the Big Easy in the twentieth century. In this urban biography, J.…
Mark Souther explores the Crescent City's architecture, music, food and alcohol, folklore and spiritualism, Mardi Gras festivities, and illicit sex commerce in revealing how New Orleans became a city that parades itself to visitors and residents alike.Stagnant between the Civil War and World War II -- a period of great expansion nationally -- New Orleans unintentionally preserved its distinctive physical appearance and culture. Though business, civic, and government leaders tried to pursue conventional modernization in the 1940s, competition from other Sunbelt cities as well as a national economic shift from production to consumption gradually led them to seize on tourism as the growth engine for future prosperity, giving rise to a veritable gumbo of sensory attractions. A trend in historic preservation and the influence of outsiders helped fan this newfound identity, and the city's residents learned to embrace rather than disdain their past.A growing reliance on the tourist trade fundamentally affected social relations in New Orleans. African Americans were cast as actors who shaped the culture that made tourism possible while at the same time they were exploited by the local power structure. As black leaders' influence increased, the white elite attempted to keep its traditions -- including racial inequality -- intact, and race and class issues often lay at the heart of controversies over progress. Once the most tolerant diverse city in the South and the nation, New Orleans came to lag behind the rest of the country in pursuing racial equity.Souther traces the ascendancy of tourism in New Orleans through the final decades of the twentieth century and beyond, examining the 1984 World's Fair, the collapse of Louisiana's oil industry in the eighties, and the devastating blow dealt by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Narrated in a lively style and resting on a bedrock of research, New Orleans on Parade is a landmark book that allows readers to fully understand the image-making of the Big Easy.
New Orleans on Parade: Tourism and the Transformation of the Crescent City (Making the Modern South)
By J. Mark Souther. 2006
New Orleans on Parade tells the story of the Big Easy in the twentieth century. In this urban biography, J.…
Mark Souther explores the Crescent City's architecture, music, food and alcohol, folklore and spiritualism, Mardi Gras festivities, and illicit sex commerce in revealing how New Orleans became a city that parades itself to visitors and residents alike.Stagnant between the Civil War and World War II -- a period of great expansion nationally -- New Orleans unintentionally preserved its distinctive physical appearance and culture. Though business, civic, and government leaders tried to pursue conventional modernization in the 1940s, competition from other Sunbelt cities as well as a national economic shift from production to consumption gradually led them to seize on tourism as the growth engine for future prosperity, giving rise to a veritable gumbo of sensory attractions. A trend in historic preservation and the influence of outsiders helped fan this newfound identity, and the city's residents learned to embrace rather than disdain their past.A growing reliance on the tourist trade fundamentally affected social relations in New Orleans. African Americans were cast as actors who shaped the culture that made tourism possible while at the same time they were exploited by the local power structure. As black leaders' influence increased, the white elite attempted to keep its traditions -- including racial inequality -- intact, and race and class issues often lay at the heart of controversies over progress. Once the most tolerant diverse city in the South and the nation, New Orleans came to lag behind the rest of the country in pursuing racial equity.Souther traces the ascendancy of tourism in New Orleans through the final decades of the twentieth century and beyond, examining the 1984 World's Fair, the collapse of Louisiana's oil industry in the eighties, and the devastating blow dealt by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Narrated in a lively style and resting on a bedrock of research, New Orleans on Parade is a landmark book that allows readers to fully understand the image-making of the Big Easy.
New Orleans: The Underground Guide, 4th Edition
By Michael Patrick Welch, Brian Boyles, Zack Smith, Jonathan Traviesa. 2014
New Orleans: The Underground Guide shows visitors how to experience the Big Easy like a local, looking past staples like…
beignets and Bourbon Street to reveal a city bursting with contemporary and experimental art, genre-busting DJs, international cuisines, and even kid-friendly activities.This fully updated edition offers an expansive collection of alternative recommendations for exploring the city of Mardi Gras, brass bands, and weekly festivals. Featuring over two hundred new entries on local bands, rappers, restaurants with live music, galleries, and more, this guidebook takes readers on a one-of-a-kind journey through New Orleans, giving advice on everything from what thrift stores and bookshops to visit to what bands to catch in concert and what parades to attend.Lead author Michael Patrick Welch provides a detailed guide of the less traditional, more adventurous side of New Orleans, from bars that hold readings of poetry and erotic literature to costume shops that sell handmade masks, party supplies, and all the parade throws you can carry. Drawing on the wisdom of New Orleans celebrities, journalists, artists, and musicians from throughout the Crescent City, the fourth edition of New Orleans: The Underground Guide is an authentic and reliable resource for where locals listen to music, art hop, shop, eat, drink, and let loose.
Hungry for Louisiana: An Omnivore's Journey
By Maggie Heyn Richardson. 2015
Food sets the tempo of life in the Bayou State, where people believed in eating locally and seasonally long before…
it was fashionable. In Hungry for Louisiana: An Omnivore's Journey award-winning journalist Maggie Heyn Richardson takes readers to local farms, meat markets, restaurants, festivals, culinary competitions, and roadside vendors to reveal the love, pride, and cultural importance of Louisiana's traditional and evolving cuisine. Focusing on eight of the state's most emblematic foods-crawfish, jambalaya, snoballs, Creole cream cheese, filé, blood boudin, tamales, and oysters-Richardson provides a fresh look at Louisiana's long culinary history. In addition to concluding each chapter with corresponding recipes, these vignettes not only celebrate local foodways but also acknowledge the complicated dynamic between maintaining local traditions and managing agricultural and social change. From exploring the perilous future of oyster farming along the threatened Gulf Coast to highlighting the rich history of the Spanish-Indian tamale in the quirky north Louisiana town of Zwolle, Richardson's charming and thoughtful narrative shows how deeply food informs the identity of Louisiana's residents.
From backwoods bars and small-town dives to swampside dance halls and converted clapboard barns, Louisiana Saturday Night offers an anecdotal…
history and experiential guidebook to some of the Gumbo State's most unique blues, Cajun, and zydeco clubs. Music critic Alex V. Cook uncovers south Louisiana's wellspring of musical tradition, showing us that indigenous music exists not as an artifact to be salvaged by preservationists, but serves as a living, breathing, singing, laughing, and crying part of Louisiana culture. Louisiana Saturday Night takes the reader to both offbeat and traditional venues in and around Baton Rouge, Cajun country, and New Orleans, where we hear the distinctive voices of musicians, patrons, and owners -- like Teddy Johnson, born in the house that now serves as Teddy's Juke Joint. Along the way, Cook ruminates on the cultural importance of the people and places he encounters, and shows their critical role in keeping Louisiana's unique music alive. A map, a journal, a snapshot of what goes on in the little shacks off main roads, Louisiana Saturday Night provides an indispensable and entertaining companion for those in pursuit of Louisiana's quirky and varied nightlife.
Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas
By Rebecca Solnit, Rebecca Snedeker. 2013
Like the bestselling Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, this book is a brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, one…
that provides a vivid, complex look at the multi-faceted nature of New Orleans, a city replete with contradictions. More than twenty essays assemble a chorus of vibrant voices, including geographers, scholars of sugar and bananas, the city's remarkable musicians, prison activists, environmentalists, Arab and Native voices, and local experts, as well as the coauthors' compelling contributions. Featuring 22 full-color two-page-spread maps, Unfathomable City plumbs the depths of this major tourist destination, a pivotal scene of American history and culture, and, most recently, the site of monumental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill. The innovative maps' precision and specificity shift our notions of the Mississippi, the Caribbean, Mardi Gras, jazz, soils and trees, generational roots, and many other subjects, and expand our ideas of how any city is imagined and experienced. Together with the inspired texts, they show New Orleans as both an imperiled city--by erosion, crime, corruption, and sea level rise--and an ageless city that lives in music as a form of cultural resistance. Compact, lively, and completely original, Unfathomable City takes readers on a tour that will forever change the way they think about place.
Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas
By Rebecca Solnit, Rebecca Snedeker. 2013
Like the bestselling Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, this book is a brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, one…
that provides a vivid, complex look at the multi-faceted nature of New Orleans, a city replete with contradictions. More than twenty essays assemble a chorus of vibrant voices, including geographers, scholars of sugar and bananas, the city's remarkable musicians, prison activists, environmentalists, Arab and Native voices, and local experts, as well as the coauthors' compelling contributions. Featuring 22 full-color two-page-spread maps, Unfathomable City plumbs the depths of this major tourist destination, a pivotal scene of American history and culture, and, most recently, the site of monumental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill. The innovative maps' precision and specificity shift our notions of the Mississippi, the Caribbean, Mardi Gras, jazz, soils and trees, generational roots, and many other subjects, and expand our ideas of how any city is imagined and experienced. Together with the inspired texts, they show New Orleans as both an imperiled city--by erosion, crime, corruption, and sea level rise--and an ageless city that lives in music as a form of cultural resistance. Compact, lively, and completely original, Unfathomable City takes readers on a tour that will forever change the way they think about place.
New York Green: Discovering the City's Most Treasured Parks and Gardens
By Ngoc Minh Ngo. 2023
This beautifully photographed guidebook celebrates New York City&’s most exceptional—and often overlooked—parks and gardens, all open to the public! New…
York City is filled to the brim with beautiful, unique green spaces—if you know where to look. From the Church of St. Luke in the Fields in the West Village to the Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm in the Navy Yard, the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in Queens to New York&’s Chinese Scholar&’s Garden in Staten Island, celebrated photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo takes readers on a tour of the most exceptional gardens and parks across the five boroughs in this lushly illustrated guidebook. Through Ngoc&’s beautifully photographed and well-researched profiles, readers will not only discover parks and gardens they never knew existed, but they will also learn the fascinating history of green spaces in New York and about the innovative new projects being undertaken to ensure we all can enjoy them for years to come. Head up to the nearly century-old Met Cloisters to discover a garden filled with plants depicted in the museum&’s medieval art collection, and an herb garden planted exclusively with species known in the Middle Ages. Then travel to Brooklyn to visit the Gil Hodges Community Garden, a tiny oasis along the Gowanus Canal and a critical piece of the city&’s green infrastructure: storm water is absorbed, filtered, and diverted to the garden, relieving pressure on the sewer system and thereby protecting the local waterways from contamination. The book features wildlife preserves and community vegetable patches, sprawling old-growth forests and vest-pocket parks of less than five thousand square feet. Each one tells a story, and offers a wonderful refuge from the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle.
New York Green: Discovering the City's Most Treasured Parks and Gardens
By Ngoc Minh Ngo. 2023
This beautifully photographed guidebook celebrates New York City&’s most exceptional—and often overlooked—parks and gardens, all open to the public! New…
York City is filled to the brim with beautiful, unique green spaces—if you know where to look. From the Church of St. Luke in the Fields in the West Village to the Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm in the Navy Yard, the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in Queens to New York&’s Chinese Scholar&’s Garden in Staten Island, celebrated photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo takes readers on a tour of the most exceptional gardens and parks across the five boroughs in this lushly illustrated guidebook. Through Ngoc&’s beautifully photographed and well-researched profiles, readers will not only discover parks and gardens they never knew existed, but they will also learn the fascinating history of green spaces in New York and about the innovative new projects being undertaken to ensure we all can enjoy them for years to come. Head up to the nearly century-old Met Cloisters to discover a garden filled with plants depicted in the museum&’s medieval art collection, and an herb garden planted exclusively with species known in the Middle Ages. Then travel to Brooklyn to visit the Gil Hodges Community Garden, a tiny oasis along the Gowanus Canal and a critical piece of the city&’s green infrastructure: storm water is absorbed, filtered, and diverted to the garden, relieving pressure on the sewer system and thereby protecting the local waterways from contamination. The book features wildlife preserves and community vegetable patches, sprawling old-growth forests and vest-pocket parks of less than five thousand square feet. Each one tells a story, and offers a wonderful refuge from the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle.
The Lobster Lady
By Alexandra S.D. Hinrichs. 2023
This intriguing picture-book biography tells the true story of Virginia Oliver—the Lobster Lady—who at 102 years old is the oldest…
person lobstering in Maine.Still hauling lobsters at over 100 years old, Virginia Oliver is admired in the state of Maine and beyond. She has been lobstering on and off for over 93 years and is fondly known as the Lobster Lady among locals. Virginia is a native of Rockland, Maine. The Lobster Lady chronicles a day in Virginia's life while illuminating all that she remembers from growing up and starting a family on the mainland in Maine and on her family&’s island, called the Neck. Readers get a sense of Virginia&’s life and an idea of all that goes into lobster harvesting.Lyrically told and beautifully illustrated, The Lobster Lady is a tribute to the incredible life of a Maine icon and female pioneer.
The Lobster Lady
By Alexandra S.D. Hinrichs. 2023
This intriguing picture-book biography tells the true story of Virginia Oliver—the Lobster Lady—who at 102 years old is the oldest…
person lobstering in Maine.Still hauling lobsters at over 100 years old, Virginia Oliver is admired in the state of Maine and beyond. She has been lobstering on and off for over 93 years and is fondly known as the Lobster Lady among locals. Virginia is a native of Rockland, Maine. The Lobster Lady chronicles a day in Virginia's life while illuminating all that she remembers from growing up and starting a family on the mainland in Maine and on her family&’s island, called the Neck. Readers get a sense of Virginia&’s life and an idea of all that goes into lobster harvesting.Lyrically told and beautifully illustrated, The Lobster Lady is a tribute to the incredible life of a Maine icon and female pioneer.
An American Map: American Map (Made In Michigan Writers Ser.)
By Anne-Marie Oomen. 2010