Powerhouse follows Fred through various memories of growing up in a coal camp and surviving near-death experiences while working miles below the earth’s surface. From flooded mines, collapsing tops, to getting lost in the labyrinth of tunnels, Powerhouse takes readers on an eye-opening journey of one coal miner’s life below ground.In an age where coal mining is viewed as a thing of the past, it is more important than ever to understand how and why this dangerous occupation supporte...

NOW WITH A FOREWORD BY RON RASH AND AN APPRECIATION BY DWIGHT GARNER"One of the finest books I know about blue-collar work in America, its rewards and frustrations . . . If you are among the tens of millions who have never read Brown, this is a perfect introduction." —Dwight Garner, The New York TimesOn January 6, 1990, after seventeen years on the job, Larry Brown quit the Oxford, Mississippi, fire department to try writing full-tim...

“A vividly detailed, heartbreaking tale about a dark, alien place, the people who loved working there and a town that has never been the same. He brings to life the hot, dirty, treasure-hunt environment where danger was a miner's heroin." —Seattle Times“Investigation at its best.” —Tucson CitizenOn May 2, 1972, 174 miners entered Sunshine Mine in Kellogg, Idaho, on their daily quest for silver. From his office window, safe...

1969 is a time of turmoil and murder for a New York PI in this " twisty, sometimes terrifying" novel from the author of the acclaimed Inspector Troy Novels ( Kirkus Reviews ).New York PI Turner Raines is a has-been—and the things he has been include a broken civil rights worker, a second-rate lawyer, and a tenth-rate yippie reporter. But in 1969, as the USA is about to land a man on the moon and the Vietnam War is ripping ...

Fruitcake Hill is a cleverly written history and personal memoir of an Irish family from the Chicago suburbs that has continuously occupied a single farmhouse property for over 137 years. The story focuses on the family's struggles to preserve the life they knew before urban sprawl became a reality. A humorous and informative read!

In The Chili Cone Chronicles, Michael Winslow shares his remarkable story of growing up and coming-of-age in a small midwestern town during the tempestuous, whirlwind time of the 1960s. Funny and poignant by turns, Winslow offers a memorable journey through the mayhem as he relies on the comfort of his family, oddball friends, and small-town charm to make everything right in his own little corner of the world. Against a backdrop of calamitous world and national events, Winslow rec...

“Garrison Keillor made it possible, after twenty years of black humor…to be both funny and nice, hip and winsome, scathing and loving, all in the flick of a single many-barbed quip——The Washington Post Book World“Keillor’s literary style is as flexible and assured as his vocal delivery. It can slip from mood to mood so subtly and quickly you’re never quite sure where you are…. [His] writing has the silvery slip of running water, so gracef...

Oras Boy is a true story of a boys struggles to survive growing up with the prejudices of a small New England mill town in the 1940s and 50s. Abandoned by his father and rejected by his mother was only the beginning of his struggles. Born in a highly conservative French Canadian Catholic community, he has to overcome inordinate bigotry to gain acceptance and approval from the very community in which his mother is ostracized and scorned for violating the tenets of her church.not once, but t...

This is the witty,irionic, and deliciusly outspoken coming-of-age memoir of Jack de Yonge from Fairbanks, AK - a once thriving mining town slowly dying in the the remote center of the vast territory.Then World War II breaks out, and the Japanese attack Alaska. The sleepy little river town springs back to life with the arrival of thoulsands of U.S. soldiers, Russian lend-lease pilots, and construction workers who keep the red-light district romping and the bars rocking around the cl...

In his first work of nonfiction since the acclaimed On Fire, Brown aims for nothing short of ruthlessly capturing the truth of the world in which he has always lived. In the prologue to the book, he tells what it's like to be constantly compared with William Faulkner, a writer with whom he shares inspiration from the Mississippi land. The essays that follow show that influence as undeniable. Here is the pond Larry reclaims and restocks on his place in Tula. Here is the Oxford bar ...

True tales of situations met and often endured while living a wandering life, the story describes the career of a Bell Canada employee through promising beginnings to humiliation, defeat and revival after his shock is mistakenly understood as his standing in the way of a plan to cover up a tragic act of negligence.Work takes him on the road from day one, and the nature of travel as a condition of employment is demonstrated by a close look at the people met at work and in the town o...

R. J. Schweiger is eighty-one years old. He has traveled many paths during his lifetime, but he always seemed to end up on horseback. Among other things, Mr. Bob has been a freelance writer. He has written articles for The American Field, The Western Horseman, and Gun Dog. His involvement in field trials and horse shows meant extensive travel, and it wasnt unusual for him to log thirty thousand miles a year on the road. His equipment was well worn, and every trip was an adventure. Mr. Bobs...