This study affords an entirely new view of the nature of modern popular entertainment. American vaudeville is here regarded as the carefully elaborated ritual serving the different and paradoxical myth of the new urban folk. It demonstrates that the compulsive myth-making faculty in man is not limited to primitive ethnic groups or to serious art, that vaudeville cannot be dismissed as meaningless and irrelevant simply because it fits neither the criteria of formal criticsm or the familiar patter...
When the great environmental writer Edward Abbey died in 1989, four of his friends buried him secretly in a hidden desert spot that no one would ever find. The final resting place of the Thoreau of the American West remains unknown and has become part of American folklore. In this book a young writer who went looking for Abbey's grave combines an account of his quest with a creative biography of Abbey. Sean Prentiss takes readers across the country as he gathers clues from his research, travel,...
Since the founding of the National Park Service in 1916, tens of thousands of NPS employees and volunteers have devoted themselves to preserving our public lands, which today number more than 400. Each person's NPS career is unique, seasoned with daily duties, grand adventures, and everything in between! Yet there is one common element: each person has plenty of material for terrific stories about living and working in America's most special places. These 100 true stories from current and past...
Earthy, With a Hint of Cucumber
by Judy Johnson and Gary A Burlingame
A SUNDAY TIMES NATURE BOOK OF THE YEAR A nature diary by award-winning novelist, nature writer and hit podcaster Melissa Harrison, following her journey from urban south London to the rural Suffolk countryside. 'A writer of great gifts.' Robert Macfarlane 'The journal of a writer to compare to Thomas Hardy. Melissa Harrison is among our most celebrated nature writers.' John Carey, The Times A Londoner for over twenty years, moving from flat to Tube to air-conditioned office, Melissa Harrison...
Spanning one year of the author's life, I Will Not Leave You Comfortless is the intimate memoir of a young boy coming to consciousness in small-town Missouri. 1984 is the year that greets ten-year-old Jeremy with first loves, first losses, and a break from the innocence of boyhood that will never be fully repaired. For Jeremy, the seeming security of family is at once and forever shaken by the life-altering events of that pivotal year. Through tenderhearted, steadfast prose - redolent of the glo...
British Butterflies and Moths (Collins Complete Guides)
by Paul Sterry, Andrew Cleave, and Rob Read
A comprehensive and fully illustrated guide, this book is the definitive photographic reference guide for anyone interested in butterflies and moths found in Britain and Ireland. Every species that occurs regularly in Britain and Ireland is included, along with a section dealing with the 'rarest of the rare' - extinct species or very rare immigrants. There follows the main section of the book, which covers our larger moths; every species that occurs regularly in Britain and Ireland is...