All Saints Hotel and Cocktail Lounge


Book Description

"The All Saints Hotel and Cocktail Lounge" follows a rag-tag group of millennial friends who, following collective traumas ranging from the Columbine Massacre to 9/11 to the COVID-19 pandemic, are simply trying to survive a world that doesn’t seem built for them. Who will survive the unprecedented events that unfold? No amount of cutting back on avocado toast and caramel lattes can save them from the dangers ahead! In this tale full of betrayal, romance, and kitchen grease, they attempt to make the world a better place and are confronted with the question, “Do we even have the power to make any meaningful change at all and if not, is there even hope?”




100 Things to Do in Wichita Before You Die


Book Description

Wichita, aka “Doo-Dah,” is a midsize city with attractions that easily rival the nation’s largest metropolises in entertainment value. Fun awaits for all who come to discover it! 100 Things to Do in Wichita Before You Die is a bucket-list book filled cover to cover with timeless destinations and lesser known places. Dig into the burgeoning arts scene with tips for the First Friday Gallery Crawl or the Tallgrass Film Festival. Find out the story behind the 44-foot-tall Keeper of the Plains statue in downtown. Root, root, root for the home team, the Wichita Wind Surge at Riverfront Stadium. Outdoor activities, delicious dining, shopping, concerts, and a thriving arts scene scratch the surface. As they say, “Wichita is what you make it,” and around every corner is an experience waiting for you. Wichita native and travel writer Vanessa Whiteside is your personal guide to her favorite places in her much beloved hometown. Crack the spine on this book and choose an adventure in the city!




That Time of Year


Book Description

With the warmth and humor we've come to know, the creator and host of A Prairie Home Companion shares his own remarkable story. In That Time of Year, Garrison Keillor looks back on his life and recounts how a Brethren boy with writerly ambitions grew up in a small town on the Mississippi in the 1950s and, seeing three good friends die young, turned to comedy and radio. Through a series of unreasonable lucky breaks, he founded A Prairie Home Companion and put himself in line for a good life, including mistakes, regrets, and a few medical adventures. PHC lasted forty-two years, 1,557 shows, and enjoyed the freedom to do as it pleased for three or four million listeners every Saturday at 5 p.m. Central. He got to sing with Emmylou Harris and Renée Fleming and once sang two songs to the U.S. Supreme Court. He played a private eye and a cowboy, gave the news from his hometown, Lake Wobegon, and met Somali cabdrivers who’d learned English from listening to the show. He wrote bestselling novels, won a Grammy and a National Humanities Medal, and made a movie with Robert Altman with an alarming amount of improvisation. He says, “I was unemployable and managed to invent work for myself that I loved all my life, and on top of that I married well. That’s the secret, work and love. And I chose the right ancestors, impoverished Scots and Yorkshire farmers, good workers. I’m heading for eighty, and I still get up to write before dawn every day.”




Chasing the Mouse


Book Description

We've all been there. Well, most of us. That childhood dream of the most magical place on earth. We've all dreamed of seeing the sparkling castle in real life and hugging our favorite characters. But what happens when that childhood dream really signifies something much more-an escape, a rising above the ashes? And then it's dashed against the rocks of uncertainty? Of poverty and hopelessness? In this engaging, reflective, emotional true story, Nathan Monk takes you through the real life journey of a hopeful father struggling to hold his family together in an intimidating world of poverty and homelessness. Villains and evil witches lie in wait, ready to prey on their victims, while supportive sidekicks and fairy godmothers save the day in this remarkable tale of a child who rose from living in parking lots to becoming a widely recognized advocate for the homeless. Written partially from his perspective as a child, Nathan ties these stories back to current issues of social justice and the need for reform in the way we address poverty in America. A perfect blend of fairytale and in-depth expose, you're invited on an intimate journey with Nathan and his family as his father attempts to follow through with his mythical promise of unifying his family, righting wrongs of the past, fighting against a clock as it quickly approaches midnight, and Chasing the Mouse. Overflowing with passion, this touching, needed story will inspire you to reach for your own dreams, knowing that no matter the obstacles, no matter the risk, dreams really can come true ... if you just believe.




My Omaha Obsession


Book Description

My Omaha Obsession takes the reader on an idiosyncratic tour through some of Omaha’s neighborhoods, buildings, architecture, and people, celebrating the city’s unusual history. Rather than covering the city’s best-known sites, Miss Cassette is irresistibly drawn to strange little buildings and glorious large homes that don’t exist anymore as well as to stories of Harkert’s Holsum Hamburgers and the Twenties Club. Piecing together the records of buildings and homes and everything interesting that came after, Miss Cassette shares her observations of the property and its significance to Omaha. She scrutinizes land deeds, insurance maps, tax records, and old newspaper articles to uncover a property’s singular story. Through conversations with fellow detectives and history enthusiasts, she guides readers along her path of hunches, personal interests, mishaps, and more. As a longtime resident of Omaha, Miss Cassette is informed by memories of her youth combined with an enduring curiosity about the city’s offbeat relics and remains. Part memoir and part research guide with a healthy dose of colorful wandering, My Omaha Obsession celebrates the historic built environment and searches for the people who shaped early Omaha.




The Miracle


Book Description

Miracles are not always what they seem. No one knows this better than Patrick Thackery; his family built their empire has faith healers. After the sudden death of his father, Patrick and his wife must abandon their dreams to raise their three daughters in his family home, reluctantly pastoring the church his grandfather built. How does one lead a faith healing congregation without any faith? When a cancer diagnosis strikes his own family Patrick is forced to turn to the miraculous to heal his wife. But miracles can come with a price.When it seems that neither God nor Science can provide the answer he wants, Patrick abandons everything he knows for for a life of self destruction. He is finally forced to face what healing really means by confronting the demons in his own life. He wanders far away from the life and church he once knew. Will the knew friends he makes along the way bring him closer to God than his grandfather's pulpit ever could?In Nathan Monk's third book and first novel, he weaves a story of redemption and hope. With a rich deposit of characters that look deep into the conscience of the Church and what it means to truly love ourselves and our neighbor. This story takes the reader on an edge of your seat journey that leads you to the only possible conclusion when everything else fails: grace.




Alcoholics Anonymous


Book Description

A 75th anniversary e-book version of the most important and practical self-help book ever written, Alcoholics Anonymous. Here is a special deluxe edition of a book that has changed millions of lives and launched the modern recovery movement: Alcoholics Anonymous. This edition not only reproduces the original 1939 text of Alcoholics Anonymous, but as a special bonus features the complete 1941 Saturday Evening Post article “Alcoholics Anonymous” by journalist Jack Alexander, which, at the time, did as much as the book itself to introduce millions of seekers to AA’s program. Alcoholics Anonymous has touched and transformed myriad lives, and finally appears in a volume that honors its posterity and impact.




Down and Out in Paris and London


Book Description

There were eccentric characters in the hotel. The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people—people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work. Some of the lodgers in our hotel lived lives that were curious beyond words. There were the Rougiers, for instance, an old, ragged, dwarfish couple who plied an extraordinary trade. They used to sell postcards on the Boulevard St Michel. The curious thing was that the postcards were sold in sealed packets as pornographic ones, but were actually photographs of chateaux on the Loire; the buyers did not discover this till too late, and of course never complained. The Rougiers earned about a hundred francs a week, and by strict economy managed to be always half starved and half drunk. The filth of their room was such that one could smell it on the floor below. According to Madame F., neither of the Rougiers had taken off their clothes for four years.




Bevelations


Book Description

"Bevy knows what's what, and she is the kind of woman you want in your corner. If you don't believe me . . . buy the book." —Whoopi Goldberg "Funny, wise, well-experienced, empathetic, colorful—Bevy brings the spirit of humanity wherever she goes." —Pharrell Williams From the host of the fabulous and popular show Bevelations on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy channel, Bevy Smith’s irreverent and inspiring memoir about learning to live a big, authentic, and unapologetic life—and how you can, too Bevy Smith was living what seemed like a glamorous dream as a fashion advertising executive, blazing a lucrative career for herself in the whitewashed magazine world. She jetsetted to Europe for fashion shows, dined and danced at every hot spot, and enjoyed a mighty roster of lovers. So it came as quite a shock to Bevy when one day, after arriving at her luxury hotel in Milan, she collapsed on the Frette bedsheets and sobbed. Years of rolling with the in-crowd had taken its toll. Her satisfaction with work and life had hit rock bottom. But Bevy could not be defeated, and within minutes (okay, days) she grabbed a notepad and started realizing a truer path—one built on self-reflection and, ultimately, clarity. She figured out how to redirect her life toward meaningful creativity and freedom. In her signature lively and infectious voice (there’s no one like Bevy!), Bevelations candidly shares how she reclaimed her life’s course and shows how we too can manifest our most bodacious dreams. From repossessing her bold childhood nature to becoming her own brand to envisioning her life’s next great destination (which will feature natural hair, important charitable giving, and a midcentury house overlooking the Pacific Ocean), Bevy invites readers along on the route of her personal transformation to reveal how each of us can live our best lives with honesty, joy, and, when we’re in the mood, a killer pair of shoes.




The Nightcrawler King


Book Description

While growing up in rural Indiana during World War II, William Fagaly began his first venture—collecting and selling earthworms to locals—from which he was christened with a childhood moniker. The Nightcrawler King: Memoirs of an Art Museum Curator is a narrative of Fagaly’s life told in two parts: first, his childhood experiences and, second, his transformation into an adult art museum curator and administrator in Louisiana. With a career that coincided with the dramatic growth of museums in the United States, Fagaly adds a unique perspective to New Orleans history, which highlights Louisiana history and establishes how it resonates around the nation and world. Offering a rare and revealing inside look at how the art world works, Fagaly documents his fifty years of experience of work—unusually spent at a single institution, the New Orleans Museum of Art. During this past half century, he played an active role in the discovery and appreciation of new areas of art, particularly African, self-taught, and avant-garde contemporary. He organized numerous significant art exhibitions that traveled to museums across the country and authored the accompanying catalogs. Fagaly’s cherished memories and the wonderful people who have touched his life are showcased in this memoir—friends, family, university professors, museum colleagues, art historians, visual artists, musicians, art dealers, art collectors, patrons, and partners—even his cats.