Wreck Beach


Book Description

Ever wonder how Wreck Beach got its name? Or if it's always been a nude beach? What about the nudity? Is it against the law? Maybe you just want to know how to get to the best spots. Look no further: here's the book with everything you've always wanted to know about Wreck Beach, the best nude beach in the world. On any given day throughout the year, regardless of conditions, you're bound to find a spectrum of characters frolicking on the beach or in the water or alternately, huddling in that perfect sheltered spot. If sunshine and golden sands aren't enough to lure you down, maybe the amalgam of vendors will. Wreck Beach boasts an enviable array of munchies which may include Chinese BBQ pork buns, pizza, samosas with chutney, marijuana, and magic mushrooms. Entertainment includes Frisbee, skimboarding, impromptu jam sessions and the notorious male-only game of Beerball. Naturally pristine, yet indelibly ruled by the characters who sun, sell, and sign petitions there, Wreck Beach is a beachlover's paradise. The main beach at the bottom of Trail 6 is where the landscape is most beacher-friendly: sand as far as the eye can see, and ocean to boot. The enthusiastic work of the Wreck Beach Preservation Society has allowed it to continue to be so. The Society's committment to keeping it untarnished is reflected in its resistance to outside regulation, while at the same time emphasizing self-policing. The first comprehensive physical and political guide and a pioneer part of Wreck Beach history, Wreck Beach is your perfect guide to its splendour whether you're a local history buff, or just like swimming in the buff.




How to Wreck a Nice Beach


Book Description

The history of the vocoder: how popular music hijacked the Pentagon's speech scrambling weapon The vocoder, invented by Bell Labs in 1928, once guarded phones from eavesdroppers during World War II; by the Vietnam War, it was repurposed as a voice-altering tool for musicians, and is now the ubiquitous voice of popular music. In How to Wreck a Nice Beach—from a mis-hearing of the vocoder-rendered phrase “how to recognize speech”—music journalist Dave Tompkins traces the history of electronic voices from Nazi research labs to Stalin’s gulags, from the 1939 World’s Fair to Hiroshima, from artificial larynges to Auto-Tune. We see the vocoder brush up against FDR, JFK, Stanley Kubrick, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Kraftwerk, the Cylons, Henry Kissinger, and Winston Churchill, who boomed, when vocoderized on V-E Day, “We must go off!” And now vocoder technology is a cell phone standard, allowing a digital replica of your voice to sound human. From T-Mobile to T-Pain, How to Wreck a Nice Beach is a riveting saga of technology and culture, illuminating the work of some of music’s most provocative innovators.




The Wreck


Book Description

Are you ready for an underwater adventure? Witness the mystery unfold as you dive in!Nate Martin finds something unfathomable on the beach-something impossible-that creates a frenzied search for answers amongst people who hold life less dear than their more desirous pursuits.On the famous beaches of Hampstead, Michigan, what was once a small community of summer cottage holders has turned into a beachfront full of gaudy mansions owned by the mega-rich. Among the few remaining cottage folk are Nate and Brooke Martin, two teachers who have settled in for the summer to relax and rekindle their relationship. And on a remote peninsula resides Abner Hutch, retired Coast Guard Officer and Great Lakes master of the deep-a man with a mysterious past and a core wound that will not heal.Everything changes on the sunny day in June when Nate takes a walk on the beach.Put on some sunscreen, unfold a beach chair, and get ready to discover The Wreck.




Beach Read


Book Description

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION! "Original, sparkling bright, and layered with feeling."--Sally Thorne, author of The Hating Game A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They're polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block. Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.




Beautiful Wreck


Book Description

In a bleak future built on virtual reality, Ginn is a romantic who yearns for something real. She designs environments for people who play at being Vikings. But when her project goes awry, she's stranded in the actual 10th century, on a storybook farm in Viking Iceland. Heirik is the young leader of his family, honored by the men and women who live on his land. But he is feared and isolated because of a terrible curse. Ginn and Heirik are two people who never thought they would find a home in someone else's heart. When forces rise against them to keep them apart, Ginn is called on to decide-- will she give up the brutal and beautiful reality of the past? Or will she have the courage to traverse time and become more of a Viking than she ever imagined?




The Sea-wreck Stranger


Book Description

Riveting post-apocalyptic YA fantasy, this is an award-winning thriller you can't put down. Winner of the Honour Award at the 2008 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards, joint winner of the 2008 Sir Julius Vogel Awards and awarded the prestigious White Raven Award for outstanding children's literature. Ness is imaginative and independent. She questions and seeks meaning in a world that her elders would drain of all variety and joy. She lives on Dunnett Island, where people are in constant fear of all things that come from the sea, having lost many to the ocean’s toxins. They have been toughened by fear, loss and superstition and live a restricted, hard-working life. However, Ness, Ty and Sophie defy orders and explore in a concealed cove, where they discover a body washed ashore; a man who has been shipwrecked. Ness realises that his very existence heralds the possibility that there are other lands, other survivors, and also the possibility that the world’s seas are healing. She undertakes a foolhardy, courageous gamble when she decides to keep the stranger concealed and alive. All too soon, she risks everything, including her own life, to help him escape when her close-minded, ‘witchhunting’ community discovers her secret.




Listen to the Echoes


Book Description

A definitive collection of interviews with one of America's most famous writers, covering his life, faith, friends, politics, and visions of the future. Ray Bradbury, the poetic and visionary author of such classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, is one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. From Mikhail Gorbachev to Alfred Hitchcock to David Bowie, Bradbury’s sway on contemporary culture is towering. Acclaimed biographer and Bradbury scholar Sam Weller has spent more than a decade interviewing the author; the fascinating conversations that emerge cast a high-definition portrait of a creative genius and a futurist who longs for yesterday. Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews is the definitive collection of interviews with an American icon.




Verity


Book Description

Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Too Late and It Ends With Us. #1 New York Times Bestseller · USA Today Bestseller · Globe and Mail Bestseller · Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.




The Nix


Book Description

Winner of the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction A New York Times 2016 Notable Book Entertainment Weekly's #1 Book of the Year A Washington Post 2016 Notable Book A Slate Top Ten Book NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “The Nix is a mother-son psychodrama with ghosts and politics, but it’s also a tragicomedy about anger and sanctimony in America. . . . Nathan Hill is a maestro.” —John Irving From the suburban Midwest to New York City to the 1968 riots that rocked Chicago and beyond, The Nix explores—with sharp humor and a fierce tenderness—the resilience of love and home, even in times of radical change. It’s 2011, and Samuel Andresen-Anderson—college professor, stalled writer—has a Nix of his own: his mother, Faye. He hasn’t seen her in decades, not since she abandoned the family when he was a boy. Now she’s re-appeared, having committed an absurd crime that electrifies the nightly news, beguiles the internet, and inflames a politically divided country. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high-school sweetheart. Which version of his mother is true? Two facts are certain: she’s facing some serious charges, and she needs Samuel’s help. To save her, Samuel will have to embark on his own journey, uncovering long-buried secrets about the woman he thought he knew, secrets that stretch across generations and have their origin all the way back in Norway, home of the mysterious Nix. As he does so, Samuel will confront not only Faye’s losses but also his own lost love, and will relearn everything he thought he knew about his mother, and himself.




The Hike


Book Description

"Buckle up. It's Breaking Bad meets The Godfather...and the battle for Detroit is about to begin. Intense!" - Ryan Steck, The Real Book Spy