Never Drank the Kool-Aid

Never Drank the Kool-Aid PDF Author: Touré
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429901098
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
His name is Touré--just Touré--and like many of the musicians, athletes, and celebrities he's profiled, he has affected the way that we think about culture in America. He has profiled Eminem, 50 Cent, and Alicia Keys for the cover of Rolling Stone. He's played high-stakes poker with Jay-Z and basketball with Prince and Wynton Marsalis. In Touré's world, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. sits beside Condoleezza Rice who sits beside hip-hop pioneer Tupac Shakur, and all of them are fascinating company. Never Drank the Kool-Aid is the chronicle of Touré's unparalleled journey through the American funhouse called pop culture. Its rooms are filled with creative, arrogant, kind, ordinary, and extraordinary people, most of whom happen to be famous. It is Touré's gift to be able to see through the artifice of their world and understand the genuine motivations behind their achievements--to see who they truly are as people. This is a searingly funny, surprisingly unguarded, and deeply insightful look at a world few of us comprehend.

Never Drank the Kool-Aid

Never Drank the Kool-Aid PDF Author: Touré
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429901098
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415

Get Book Here

Book Description
His name is Touré--just Touré--and like many of the musicians, athletes, and celebrities he's profiled, he has affected the way that we think about culture in America. He has profiled Eminem, 50 Cent, and Alicia Keys for the cover of Rolling Stone. He's played high-stakes poker with Jay-Z and basketball with Prince and Wynton Marsalis. In Touré's world, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. sits beside Condoleezza Rice who sits beside hip-hop pioneer Tupac Shakur, and all of them are fascinating company. Never Drank the Kool-Aid is the chronicle of Touré's unparalleled journey through the American funhouse called pop culture. Its rooms are filled with creative, arrogant, kind, ordinary, and extraordinary people, most of whom happen to be famous. It is Touré's gift to be able to see through the artifice of their world and understand the genuine motivations behind their achievements--to see who they truly are as people. This is a searingly funny, surprisingly unguarded, and deeply insightful look at a world few of us comprehend.

A Thousand Lives

A Thousand Lives PDF Author: Julia Scheeres
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 145162896X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a church in Indianapolis called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. As Jones’s behavior became erratic and his message more ominous, his followers leaned on each other to recapture the sense of equality that had drawn them to his church. But even as the congregation thrived, Jones made it increasingly difficult for members to leave. By the time Jones moved his congregation to a remote jungle in Guyana and the US government began to investigate allegations of abuse and false imprisonment in Jonestown, it was too late. A Thousand Lives is the story of Jonestown as it has never been told. New York Times bestselling author Julia Scheeres drew from tens of thousands of recently declassified FBI documents and audiotapes, as well as rare videos and interviews, to piece together an unprecedented and compelling history of the doomed camp, focusing on the people who lived there. The people who built Jonestown wanted to forge a better life for themselves and their children. In South America, however, they found themselves trapped in Jonestown and cut off from the outside world as their leader goaded them toward committing “revolutionary suicide” and deprived them of food, sleep, and hope. Vividly written and impossible to forget, A Thousand Lives is a story of blind loyalty and daring escapes, of corrupted ideals and senseless, haunting loss.

Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple

Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple PDF Author: Rebecca Moore
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1440864802
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
This in-depth investigation of Peoples Temple and its tragic end at Jonestown corrects sensationalized misunderstandings of the group and places its individual members within the broader context of religion in America. Most people understand Peoples Temple through its violent disbanding following events in Jonestown, Guyana, where more than 900 Americans committed murder and suicide in a jungle commune. Media coverage of the event sensationalized the group and obscured the background of those who died. The view that emerged thirty years ago continues to dominate understanding of Jonestown today, despite the dozens of books, articles, and documentaries that have appeared. This book provides a fresh perspective on Peoples Temple, locating the group within the context of religion in America and offering a contemporary history that corrects the inaccuracies often associated with the group and its demise. Although Peoples Temple had some of the characteristics many associate with cults, it also shared many characteristics of black religion in America. Moreover, it is crucial to understand how the organization fits into the social and political movements of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: race, class, colonialism, gender, and other issues dominated the times and so dominated the consciousness of the members of Peoples Temple. Here, Rebecca Moore, who lost three family members in the events in Guyana, offers a framework for U.S. social, cultural, and political history that helps readers to better understand Peoples Temple and its members.

I Kissed the Fish

I Kissed the Fish PDF Author: Ruth Bradford
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1503590372
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
There are no such things as paved roads or nice, clean sidewalks in rural villages in Alaska. Most people who visit Alaska see Anchorage, Fairbanks, or maybe even isolated Juneau, the capital city. Those cities are neat, concrete bound, proper lower-forty-eight-type cities. But they arent the real Alaska. The villages with mud and mosquitoes in the summer, snow and ice in the winter, fishing and hunting out the front door practicallythose villages make up the real deal, the last frontier, Alaska. The people living in the villagesresourceful Native Americans, proud Eskimos, Aleuts, and Gussaks (which is what people of the land call Anglos and all others from the lower forty-eight)meet the challenges of the far north. That is Alaska! The people work together to deal with the cold, winter darkness, summers long days, and most importantly, the intensified human emotions involving survival. Larry and I lived and taught in Aniak, Alaska, that this story is based on. We fished, skied, snow-mobiled, threw a cup of coffee in the air when it was fifty degrees below zero, experienced the Kuskokwim River going through the pangs of break-up, and every few years: a flood, in which we got water in our basement. Life in rural Alaska is, at times, challenging. But the people make every moment rewarding.

Sleuthing the Bible

Sleuthing the Bible PDF Author: John Kaltner
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 146745673X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Why is there crime-scene tape on my Bible? Elementary, my dear reader. There is an element of detective work to biblical scholarship that entails sniffing out and interpreting clues that often escape the notice of readers. John Kaltner and Steven L. McKenzie introduce the art of sleuthing the Bible, providing the necessary training to hunt for clues and piece them together to understand the larger picture. Sleuthing the Bible helps answer questions that occur during thoughtful examination of the Bible and provides exercises enabling readers to work through biblical passages on their own. Kaltner and McKenzie analyze two kinds of clues: (1) Smoking Guns— those that are obvious upon any close reading of biblical texts, and (2) Dusting for Prints—those that are more subtle or hidden from nonspecialists because of their unfamiliarity with the languages, culture, and larger content of the Bible. Written in a jargon-free and accessible style, Sleuthing the Bible is an ideal resource for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the biblical text.

Read the Beatles

Read the Beatles PDF Author: June Skinner Sawyers
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440649251
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
A must-have volume for all Beatles fans-a career-spanning selection of writings about the Fab Four There are, of course, many books on the Beatles, but this is the only one available that is a comprehensive, career-spanning collection of journalism about the legendary band, before and after the breakup. Consisting of more than fifty articles, essays, interviews, record and movie reviews, poems, and book excerpts-many of them rare and hard to find-Read the Beatles is an unprecedented compilation that follows the arc of the Fab Four's iconic and idiosyncratic career, from their early days in Liverpool through their tragic and triumphant histories after the group's split. The book also includes original essays from noted musicians and journalists about the Beatles' lasting influence and why they still matter today.

Rock and Roll Cage Match

Rock and Roll Cage Match PDF Author: Sean Manning
Publisher: Crown Archetype
ISBN: 0307449653
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Music defines us. To return the favor, we’ll stick up with zealous passion for the performers and bands that we love . . . and heap aspersions and ridicule upon people who dare to place their allegiances above our own. In Rock and Roll Cage Match, today’ s leading cultural critics, humorists, music journalists, and musicians themselves take sides in thirty of the all-time juiciest “who’s better” musical disputes. Marc Spitz on the Smiths vs. the Cure: “If the Smiths are its James Dean, the Cure are the Marlon Brando of modern rock.” Mick Stingley on Van Halen vs. Van Hagar: “Eddie Van Halen single-handedly (sometimes quite literally) conjured rapturous sounds, and reinvented the idea of what could be done with a guitar with his sleight of hand. . . . As for the lyrics . . . Where Roth had been nuanced and clever, relying on double entendres and sexual innuendo, Sammy was ham-fisted and cloying and just downright embarrassing. Gideon Yago on Nirvana vs. Metallica: “Here is why Nirvana will always be a better band than Metallica. It’s not because they hit harder (they do). It’s not because they are tighter (they’re definitely not). . . . It’s because Metallica is fundamentally about respecting rules—of metal, of production, of technicality—and Nirvana is about breaking those rules down in the pursuit of innovation. Metallica was metal. Nirvana was something else.” Touré on Michael Jackson vs. Prince: “[Prince] was the wild son of Jimi, the younger brother of Rick James and Richard Pryor, the ultrasexual black Casanova who told you up front that he had a dirty mind . . . Michael held the opposite appeal. His music was often about escaping through dance or being hopeful about the world.” Russ Meneve on Bruce Springsteen vs. Bon Jovi: “I really, truly mean it when I say, Mr. Springsteen, no disrespect . . . you are a legend. But in the Battle a da Jerz, when that thick chemical-waste smoke clears and the overly sprayed mall hair parts, the Jov man is the last man rockin’.” Whitney Pastorek on Whitney Houston vs. Mariah Carey: “Frankly, dry recitations of figures are just too easily negated by simple things like, say, bringing up someone’s horrible taste in choosing movie roles. Watch, I’ll do it right now: Yes, Mariah has seventeen number one singles, and Whitney only eleven. But Whitney made The Bodyguard, which is basically a classic, and Mariah starred in Glitter, a colossal suckfest of crapitude that should disqualify her on the spot.”

A Grip of Time

A Grip of Time PDF Author: Lauren Kessler
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 1684350794
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
“The book provides insight into life inside a maximum-security prison while illuminating the benefits of the craft of writing. . . . compassionate.” —Publishers Weekly A Grip of Time (prison slang for a very long sentence behind bars) takes readers into a world most know little about—a maximum-security prison—and into the minds and hearts of the men who live there. These men, who are serving out life sentences for aggravated murder, join a fledgling Lifers’ Writing Group started by award-winning author Lauren Kessler. Over the course of three years, meeting twice a month, the men reveal more and more about themselves, their pasts, and the alternating drama and tedium of their incarcerated lives. As they struggle with the weight of their guilt and wonder if they should hope for a future outside prison walls, Kessler struggles with the fiercely competing ideas of rehabilitation and punishment, forgiveness and blame that are at the heart of the American penal system. Gripping, intense, and heartfelt, A Grip of Time: When Prison Is Your Life shows what a lifetime with no hope of release looks like up-close. “Takes us on a compelling, intensely personal journey into the rarely glimpsed end point of our justice system . . . What dignity, meaning, and success these lifers achieve despite the system’s design.” —Edward Humes, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime That Wasn’t “A keenly observed and deeply felt narrative . . . so original and so compelling . . . it wouldn’t let me go.” —Alex Kotlowitz, national bestselling author of An American Summer

Steph Curry: Life Lessons from a Legend

Steph Curry: Life Lessons from a Legend PDF Author: Sean Deveney
Publisher: Castle Point Books
ISBN: 1250288150
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
“Every time I rise up, I have confidence that I’m going to make it.“ From the smallest kid on every team to the game-changing, record-breaking NBA All-Star he is today, Steph Curry’s journey to stardom is a master class in excellence. Bolstered by what he calls his irrational confidence, the “baby-faced assassin” shattered expectations and accrued millions of fans as he led the Golden State Warriors to championship after championship, garnered multiple MVP awards, and emerged as the greatest 3-point shooter of all time. Steph Curry: Life Lessons from a Legend gives you courtside seats to the incredible highs and lows of his phenomenal career. - Inspiring quotes from Curry himself - A biographical look at Curry’s early years, his rise to fame, and his most spectacular achievements - Original full-color art that captures the spirit of a champion - Guiding truths and hard-earned lessons to help you crush your own goals

Supermodel You

Supermodel You PDF Author: Sarah DeAnna
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 140194020X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Reveals the healthy habits that supermodels adopt to help them feel beautiful, assured, and empowered, covering such topics as diet, dress, exercise, sleep, personal appearance, and travel.