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Like its companion book, this second volume of Arkansas Backstories will amaze even the most serious students of the state with surprising insights. How many people are aware that a world-class yodeler from Zinc ran against John F. Kennedy in 1960 for the top spot on the national Democratic ticket, or that an African-American born in Little Rock campaigned for the Presidency nearly 70 years before Congressman Shirley Chisholm made her historic run? Or that bands of blood-thirsty pirates once lurked in the bayous and backwaters of eastern Arkansas, preying on unsuspecting Mississippi River travelers? Likewise, how many readers will recognize the fact that an English botanist who spent months investigating Arkansas's flora in the early nineteenth century has been described as the worst explorer in history? That Fort Smith hosted the world's first international UFO conference? Or that the Nielsen rating system has a direct connection to the state as does Tony Bennett's signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"? Such tidbits are among the unexpected elements that make the Natural State so tantalizing. Written in an informal, conversational style and nicely illustrated, Arkansas Backstories Volume Two will be a wonderful addition to the libraries of Arkansans, expats, and anyone else interested in one of America's most fascinating states.
Take a journey through Arkansas' forgotten past and find the colorful characters, unusual stories and strange occurrences left out of conventional history books. Authors Edward and Karen Underwood weave fact and fun in this offbeat, gripping and little-known history of the Natural State. Discover the Tantrabobus monster rumored to lurk in the hills of the Ozarks, meet the imposters who faked the state's first history museum and learn the story behind Arkansas' lost amusement park, Dogpatch, USA. Truth really is stranger than fiction in Arkansas, and this one-of-a-kind state has the stories to prove it
On December 6, 1969, the Texas Longhorns and Arkansas Razorbacks met in what many consider the Game of the Century. In the centennial season of college football, both teams were undefeated; both featured devastating and innovative offenses; both boasted cerebral, stingy defenses; and both were coached by superior tacticians and stirring motivators, Texas's Darrell Royal and Arkansas's Frank Broyles. On that day in Fayetteville, the poll-leading Horns and second-ranked Hogs battled for the Southwest Conference title -- and President Nixon was coming to present his own national championship plaque to the winners. Even if it had been just a game, it would still have been memorable today. The bitter rivals played a game for the ages before a frenzied, hog-callin' crowd that included not only an enthralled President Nixon -- a noted football fan -- but also Texas congressman George Bush. And the game turned, improbably, on an outrageously daring fourth-down pass. But it wasn't just a game, because nothing was so simple in December 1969. In Horns, Hogs, & Nixon Coming, Terry Frei deftly weaves the social, political, and athletic trends together for an unforgettable look at one of the landmark college sporting events of all time. The week leading up to the showdown saw black student groups at Arkansas, still marginalized and targets of virulent abuse, protesting and seeking to end the use of the song "Dixie" to celebrate Razorback touchdowns; students were determined to rush the field during the game if the band struck up the tune. As the United States remained mired in the Vietnam War, sign-wielding demonstrators (including war veterans) took up their positions outside the stadium -- in full view of the president. That same week, Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton penned a letter to the head of the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas, thanking the colonel for shielding him from induction into the military earlier in the year. Finally, this game was the last major sporting event that featured two exclusively white teams. Slowly, inevitably, integration would come to the end zones and hash marks of the South, and though no one knew it at the time, the Texas vs. Arkansas clash truly was Dixie's Last Stand. Drawing from comprehensive research and interviews with coaches, players, protesters, professors, and politicians, Frei stitches together an intimate, electric narrative about two great teams -- including one player who, it would become clear only later, was displaying monumental courage just to make it onto the field -- facing off in the waning days of the era they defined. Gripping, nimble, and clear-eyed, Horns, Hogs, & Nixon Coming is the final word on the last of how it was.
The Beautiful Music All Around Us presents the extraordinarily rich backstories of thirteen performances captured on Library of Congress field recordings between 1934 and 1942 in locations reaching from Southern Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta and the Great Plains. Including the children's play song "Shortenin' Bread," the fiddle tune "Bonaparte's Retreat," the blues "Another Man Done Gone," and the spiritual "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down," these performances were recorded in kitchens and churches, on porches and in prisons, in hotel rooms and school auditoriums. Documented during the golden age of the Library of Congress recordings, they capture not only the words and tunes of traditional songs but also the sounds of life in which the performances were embedded: children laugh, neighbors comment, trucks pass by. Musician and researcher Stephen Wade sought out the performers on these recordings, their families, fellow musicians, and others who remembered them. He reconstructs the sights and sounds of the recording sessions themselves and how the music worked in all their lives. Some of these performers developed musical reputations beyond these field recordings, but for many, these tracks represent their only appearances on record: prisoners at the Arkansas State Penitentiary jumping on "the Library's recording machine" in a rendering of "Rock Island Line"; Ora Dell Graham being called away from the schoolyard to sing the jump-rope rhyme "Pullin' the Skiff"; Luther Strong shaking off a hungover night in jail and borrowing a fiddle to rip into "Glory in the Meetinghouse." Alongside loving and expert profiles of these performers and their locales and communities, Wade also untangles the histories of these iconic songs and tunes, tracing them through slave songs and spirituals, British and homegrown ballads, fiddle contests, gospel quartets, and labor laments. By exploring how these singers and instrumentalists exerted their own creativity on inherited forms, "amplifying tradition's gifts," Wade shows how a single artist can make a difference within a democracy. Reflecting decades of research and detective work, the profiles and abundant photos in The Beautiful Music All Around Us bring to life largely unheralded individuals--domestics, farm laborers, state prisoners, schoolchildren, cowboys, housewives and mothers, loggers and miners--whose music has become part of the wider American musical soundscape. The hardcover edition also includes an accompanying CD that presents these thirteen performances, songs and sounds of America in the 1930s and '40s.
Between two demanding careers and a wedding to plan, Randy Lassiter and Leslie Carlisle have a lot going on. But when Dr. J.J. Newell, who's agreed to be best man at their marriage, inexplicably disappears, the dynamic changes. The search for their missing friend soon extends extends past Little Rock, taking them to Hot Springs, Memphis, Helena, and Tunica. What they eventually discover is something far, far beyond what they could have imagined. "Just like in his first book, Joe David Rice has come up with a bone-chilling thriller, with prominent central Arkansas landmarks as a backdrop. If this were a Netflix series (and it should be), you'd be binge-watching it right now." Craig O'Neill Arkansas Media Personality "Joe David Rice's A Nasty Way to Die is a gripping mystery novel that keeps you guessing and on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. Set in Arkansas, the entwined association of the characters amplifies the intriguing plot." James L. "Skip" Rutherford III Dean, University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service (2006-2021) "If you're a fan of C.J. Box . . . you'll appreciate the Randy Lassiter and Leslie Carlisle mystery series by Joe David Rice. Whereas Rice's first novel is staged in the rugged Buffalo National River wilderness, A Nasty Way to Die weaves the vanishing of Randy's best friend, J.J., into the ad business and urban landscape of Little Rock. One you start, you'll not put it down . . . plus the piquant Randy-Leslie relationship alone is worth the read." Jim Dailey Former Mayor of Little Rock
In this funny, vulnerable, and genuine memoir, award-winning content creator and actress Avani Gregg takes you behind the scenes of her incredible life, sharing how a girl from small-town Indiana went on to become TikToker of the Year. With more than fifty million followers on social media; invitations to glamorous events around the world; awards, magazine covers, and even her own makeup line—Avani Gregg never imagined this wild ride for herself. After all, she was just from a small town, spending her time hanging with friends and family and combing thrift-store racks for finds. It only took one video—her famous “Clown Girl Check”—and she suddenly found herself vibing as one of the original Hype House creators. “People think I exploded overnight,” the eighteen-year-old TikTok sensation says. “But they don’t know the half of it. They don’t know what came before or after. They don’t know my Backstory.” In this eye-opening memoir, Avani shares the ups and down of her remarkable life, including the devastating back injury that forced her to retire from gymnastics and abandon her dreams of Olympic gold. In the aftermath, struggling to make sense of it all, she found her calling: creating jaw-droppingly dramatic makeup looks on social media that leave her “Bebs” begging for more. Diving deep into topics like mental health, relationships, bullying, and more, Avani shares her private sketchbook and most intimate thoughts: “There’s a lot we all think and feel but are afraid to say out loud. Well, I’m saying it…and it’s gonna get deep.” This is the unfiltered, revealing, and deeply inspiring Backstory of someone with big dreams and how she worked to achieve them. And Avani is not holding back.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of This Is Where It Ends comes another heartbreaking, emotional and timely page-turner that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The Hope Juvenile Treatment Center is ironically named. No one has hope for the delinquent teenagers who have been exiled there; the world barely acknowledges that they exist. Then the guards at Hope start acting strange. And one day...they don't show up. But when the teens band together to make a break from the facility, they encounter soldiers outside the gates. There's a rapidly spreading infectious disease outside, and no one can leave their houses or travel without a permit. Which means that they're stuck at Hope. And this time, no one is watching out for them at all. As supplies quickly dwindle and a deadly plague tears through their ranks, the group has to decide whom among them they can trust and figure out how they can survive in a world that has never wanted them in the first place. Also by Marieke Nijkamp: This Is Where It Ends Even If We Break Before I Let Go Praise for Marieke Nijkamp: "Immersive and captivating. Thrilling in every sense of the word."—Karen M. McManus, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One of Us is Lying on Even If We Break "With exceptional handling of everything from mental illness to guilt and a riveting, magic realist narrative, this well wrought, haunting novel will stick with readers long after the final page."—Booklist on Before I Let Go *STARRED REVIEW* "A compelling, brutal story of an unfortunately all-too familiar situation: a school shooting. Nijkamp portrays the events thoughtfully, recounting fifty-four intense minutes of bravery, love, and loss."—BookRiot on This Is Where It Ends
“Elkhorn Tavern has the beauty of Shane and the elegiac dignity of Red River without the false glamour or sentimentality of those classic Western films... Mr. Jones is at home among the ridges and hardwoods of a frontier valley... He holds us still and compels us to notice what we live in.”—The New York Times Book Review From Douglas C. Jones, an author the Los Angeles Times called "a superb storyteller and authentic chronicler of the American West," comes a classic Civil War novel, long out of print but considered one of the great titles of the genre. With her husband gone east to fight for the Confederate Army, Ora Hasford is left alone to tend to her Arkansas farm and protect her two teenage children, Calpurnia and Roman. But only a short distance away, in the shadow of Pea Ridge, a storm is gathering. In a clash to decide control over the western front, two opposing armies prepare for a brutal, inevitable battle. Beset by soldiers, bushwhackers, and jayhawkers, the Hasfords' home stands unprotected in what will soon be one of the worst battlegrounds in the West.
The long-awaited autobiography of Keith Richards, guitarist, songwriter, singer, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. With The Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the songs that roused the world, and he lived the original rock and roll life. Now, at last, the man himself tells his story of life in the crossfire hurricane. Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records, learning guitar and forming a band with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones. The Rolling Stones's first fame and the notorious drug busts that led to his enduring image as an outlaw folk hero. Creating immortal riffs like the ones in "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Honky Tonk Women." His relationship with Anita Pallenberg and the death of Brian Jones. Tax exile in France, wildfire tours of the U.S., isolation and addiction. Falling in love with Patti Hansen. Estrangement from Jagger and subsequent reconciliation. Marriage, family, solo albums and Xpensive Winos, and the road that goes on forever. With his trademark disarming honesty, Keith Richard brings us the story of a life we have all longed to know more of, unfettered, fearless, and true.
Visit Mikejordanbooks.com. Crockett's Coin is the first novel in author Mike Jordan's epic series of romance, war and social justice in 1800s America. The five-book Lost Heroes Series debuts in the hill country of middle Tennessee, and includes events during and after the War of 1812 in Tennessee, Falls Church, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Three teenage friends confront the harshness of war, deceit and slavery as they battle their feelings for one another. Henderson Bohannan is charmed by the spirit of the beautiful blonde Winnie Harp and intrigued by the intelligence and conviction of Kate Gate. However, each girl is kept out of his reach by promises made to others years before. Will Henderson convince Kate to break her vow of celibacy? Or will he rescue Winnie from the arranged marriage with the obnoxious Chase Ferguson. Follow the lives of these three teenagers and their families as they confront power-hungry neighbors, crooked authorities and the injustices of slavery. And witness how love, wisdom, conviction -- along with a mysterious silver coin -- affect the lives of the people of The Hills of Tennessee in the American South. More information at Mikejordanbooks.com