National Book Award winner James McBride goes in search of the “real” James Brown after receiving a tip that promises to uncover the man behind the myth. His surprising journey illuminates not only our understanding of this immensely troubled, misunderstood, and complicated soul genius but the ways in which our cultural heritage has been shaped by Brown’s legacy.
Kill ’Em and Leave is more than a book about James Brown. Brown’s rough-and-tumble life, through McBride’s lens, is an unsettling metaphor for American life: the tension between North and South, black and white, rich and poor. McBride’s travels take him to forgotten corners of Brown’s never-before-revealed history: the country town where Brown’s family and thousands of others were displaced by America’s largest nuclear power bomb-making facility; a South Carolina field where a long-forgotten cousin recounts, in the dead of night, a fuller history of Brown’s sharecropping childhood, which until now has been a mystery. McBride seeks out the American expatriate in England who co-created the James Brown sound, visits the trusted right-hand manager who worked with Brown for forty-one years, and interviews Brown’s most influential nonmusical creation, his “adopted son,” the Reverend Al Sharpton. He describes the stirring visit of Michael Jackson to the Augusta, Georgia, funeral home where the King of Pop sat up all night with the body of his musical godfather, spends hours talking with Brown’s first wife, and lays bare the Dickensian legal contest over James Brown’s estate, a fight that has consumed careers; prevented any money from reaching the poor schoolchildren in Georgia and South Carolina, as instructed in his will; cost Brown’s estate millions in legal fees; and left James Brown’s body to lie for more than eight years in a gilded coffin in his daughter’s yard in South Carolina.
James McBride is one of the most distinctive and electric literary voices in America today, and part of the pleasure of his narrative is being in his presence, coming to understand Brown through McBride’s own insights as a black musician with Southern roots. Kill ’Em and Leave is a song unearthing and celebrating James Brown’s great legacy: the cultural landscape of America today.
Praise for *Kill ’Em and Leave*
“The definitive look at one of the greatest, most important entertainers, The Godfather, Da Number One Soul Brother, Mr. Please, Please Himself—JAMES BROWN.”—Spike Lee
“Please, please, please: Can anybody tell us who and what was James Brown? At last, the real deal: James McBride on James Brown is the matchup we’ve been waiting for, a musician who came up hard in Brooklyn with JB hooks lodged in his brain, a monster ear for the truth, and the chops to write it. This is no celeb bio but a compelling personal quest—so very timely, angry, hilarious, and as irresistible as any James Brown beat.”—Gerri Hirshey, author of *Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music*
“An unconventional and fascinating portrait of Soul Brother No. 1 and the significance of his rise and fall in American culture.” —Kirkus Reviews Views: 247
Epub v5 (retail)Edgar Award Finalist: A demon is intent on devouring the
world - and it's up to a small group of believers in San Francisco to stop it.
A desperate and terrified old man appears at the office of John Hyatt at the
San Francisco Department of Sanitation with a chilling complaint. His house,
Seymour Willis insists, is breathing. Hyatt suspects a rat infestation but the
truth is worse. Much worse. An ancient demon out of darkest Native American
folklore lives within the walls and floorboards of Willis's home - an
all-powerful malevolent being determined to break free and wreak havoc on the
City by the Bay.
Soon a tiny cadre of believers in the impossible - including Hyatt, Willis, and
a Native American shaman - hold the fate of all humanity in their hands. The
monster's hunger for blood and flesh is insatiable and it is determined to
escape its prison and become whole. And once it does, the entire world will be
its feeding ground.
A haunted house story like no other - a gory and terrifying tale of demonic
possession - this award-winning supernatural thriller by the acclaimed author
of The Manitou provides substantial chills on every page. A tale of unrelenting
terror reminiscent of the works of H. P. Lovecraft, Graham Masterton's Charnel
House will haunt your dreams long after you've turned the final page.
Views: 246
USA Today bestselling author Rosanne Bittner is beloved for her sizzling novels about the early settlers of the West. With Love's Bounty, she continues to delight readers with the passionate tale of a proud woman and the reckless bounty hunter who steals her heart.Life hasn't been easy on young Callie Hobbs. After her father's sudden death and her mother's murder, there isn't much left for her on the outskirts of Rawlins. Alone with a ranch to run, Callie could sell it all, cut her losses, and find a suitor in town.But Callie knows only one thing will bring her peace: Seeing her mother's killers hung. To find them, she turns to the most ruthless bounty hunter on this side of the country: Christian Mercy.Distant and brooding, Christian Mercy is far from the ideal travel companion. But as their journey unfolds, Callie finds herself falling for those blue eyes that flicker with something deeper than she could have ever anticipated.He wants... Views: 246
This is an alternate Cover Edition for ASIN: B00Z7C1BFE.
Can one girl help others find closure by slipping into the identities of their loved ones? Find out in this riveting sequel to The Remedy and companion to the New York Times bestselling The Treatment and The Program.
In a world before The Program…
Quinlan McKee has spent her life acting as other people. She was a closer—a person hired to play the role of the recently deceased in order to give their families closure. Through this process, Quinn learned to read people and situations, even losing a bit of herself to do so. But she couldn’t have guessed how her last case would bring down her entire world.
The only person Quinn trusts is Deacon, her best friend and the love of her life. Except Deacon’s been keeping secrets of his one, so Quinn must set out alone to find Arthur Pritchard, the doctor who’s been trying to control her life. The journey brings Quinn to Arthur’s daughter, Virginia, who tells Quinn the truth about Pritchard’s motives. The former closer will start to see that she is the first step in fighting an epidemic.
But Quinlan doesn’t want to be a cure. And with all the lies surrounding her, she realizes she has no one left to rely on but herself—even if she doesn’t know who that is anymore. Views: 246
Lily Proctor has come a long way from the weak, sickly girl she used to be. She has gained power as a witch and a leader, found her way home, chosen to face battle again, and (after losing her first love and being betrayed by her new love) she has learned more about loss and grief than she ever wanted to know.
Thrust once again into a society different from anything they have ever seen, Lily and her coven are determined to find answers―to find a new path to victory, a way to defeat the monstrous Woven without resorting to nuclear weapons or becoming a tyrannical mass murderer like her alternate self, Lillian. But sometimes winning requires sacrifices . . . and when the only clear path to victory lies at Lillian's side, what price will Lily be willing to pay?
Internationally bestselling author Josephine Angelini takes us on another emotionally wrenching thrill ride in the stunning conclusion to her Worldwalker Trilogy. Views: 246
Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984:
the year a heatwave scorched the small town of Breathed, Ohio.
The year he became friends with the devil.
When local prosecutor Autopsy Bliss publishes an invitation to the devil to come to the country town of Breathed, Ohio, nobody quite expected that he would turn up. They especially didn't expect him to turn up a tattered and bruised thirteen-year-old boy.
Fielding, the son of Autopsy, finds the boy outside the courthouse and brings him home, and he is welcomed into the Bliss family. The Blisses believe the boy, who calls himself Sal, is a runaway from a nearby farm town. Then, as a series of strange incidents implicate Sal — and riled by the feverish heatwave baking the town from the inside out — there are some around town who start to believe that maybe Sal is exactly who he claims to be.
But whether he's a traumatised child or the devil incarnate, Sal is certainly one strange fruit: he talks in riddles, his uncanny knowledge and understanding reaches far outside the realm of a normal child — and ultimately his eerily affecting stories of Heaven, Hell, and earth will mesmerise and enflame the entire town.
Devastatingly beautiful, The Summer That Melted Everything is a captivating story about community, redemption, and the dark places where evil really lies. Views: 246
Whenever you hear the sky rumble, that usually means a storm. In Virgil Flowers’ case, make that two. The exceptional new thriller from the writer whose books are “pure reading pleasure” (Booklist)
The first storm comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Two large, and very rare, Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are worried sick that they’ve been stolen for their body parts. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes those parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get what they need. Some of them are a great deal more extreme than others -- as Virgil is about to find out.
Then there’s the homefront. Virgil’s relationship wi th his girlfriend Frankie has been getting kind of serious, but when Frankie’s sister Sparkle moves in for the summer, the situation gets a lot more complicated. For one thing, her research into migrant workers is about to bring her up against some very violent people who emphatically do not want to be researched. For another…she thinks Virgil’s kind of cute.
“You mess around with Sparkle,” Frankie told Virgil, “you could get yourself stabbed.”
“She carries a knife?”
“No, but I do.” *
Forget a storm – this one’s a tornado. Views: 245
Scottish maiden Isobeille Aislinn McKenna isn't like the other lasses. She is curious about the world around her and wants more than a life of servitude and obeisance. When her abusive father arranges her marriage in order to pay his debts, she prays for divine intervention.Her prayers are answered, and Isobeille suddenly finds herself six hundred years in the future – directly in the path of a bus in the heart of one of the busiest cities on the East Coast.Reluctant do-gooder Nick Peterson is there to tackle her out of its path, but he's not happy about it. He's already on the outs with his girlfriend and running very late for a date that he's hoping will get things back on track. Both his conscience and his protective instincts kick in in a big way when he realizes Isobeille has nowhere else to go. Nick fights the sudden and instant attraction he has for the sweet and docile... Views: 245
Tang Sect, the most famous martial arts sect of all. By stealing its most secret teachings to fulfill his dreams, Tang San committed an unforgivable crime. With his ambition attained, he hands his legacy to the sect and throws himself from the fearsome “Hell’s Peak.”
But he could have never imagined that this would reincarnate him in another world, one without magic, martial arts, and grudges. A land where only the mystical souls of battle lay.
The continent of Douluo.
How will Tang San survive in this unknown environment? With a new road to follow, a new legend begins… Views: 245
Sherlock Holmes meets The X-Files in this acclaimed paranormal mystery series!It's August 1888, just three weeks before Jack the Ripper will terrorize Whitechapel, and another murderer is stalking the streets of New York. His handiwork bears the hallmarks of a demonic possession—but amateur sleuth Harrison Fearing Pell is certain her quarry is a man of flesh and blood. And she hopes to make her reputation by solving the bizarre case before the man the press has dubbed Mr. Hyde strikes again.From the squalor of the Five Points to the high-class gambling dens of the Tenderloin and the glittering mansions of Fifth Avenue, Harry follows the trail of a remorseless killer, uncovering a few embarrassing secrets of New York's richest High Society families along the way. Are the murders a case of black magic—or simple blackmail? And will the trail lead closer to home than she ever imagined?Praise for The Daemoniac"While the clever... Views: 245
