Punk's War


Book Description

Punk’s War reveals the inner workings of the Navy as only an insider can. An authentic and riveting thriller, it is a highly acclaimed novel of a fighter pilot’s experiences in the era just before 9/11. As the U.S. military currently enters another post-conflict period, the themes of leadership during crisis and accomplishing the mission make Punk’s War more relevant than ever.




Punk's Wing


Book Description

Ward Carroll's electrifying debut, Punk's War, blew away readers, critics, and Navy veterans with "an intriguing look at the modern military [that] honors the men and women who serve" (Library Journal). In his second novel, Carroll brings back Navy lieutenant Rick "Punk" Reichert--with a training squadron of new pilots--on a collision course with danger and destiny. When the F-14 Tomcat of the only female flier in Punk's training class rolls wildly during a hop, nearly causing a midair collision, Punk connects the dots to a similar accident that claimed the life of one of his fellow trainers and suspects a cover-up involving the use of faulty parts. But no sooner does he bring on the heat with his allegations that a far more important crisis calls Punk's squadron into active duty. This time, it is not a training drill . . . it's America's next war.




Punk's Fight


Book Description

In this third title of Carroll's series, Punk is shot down over Central Afghanistan and captured. After he escapes, Punk must navigate through the war-torn country to face a world of resistance fighters, warlords, CIA undercover ops, and corrupt officers on both sides of the fray. Original.




Sigh, Gone


Book Description

For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature. In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrates to America along with his family. By sheer chance they land in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small town where the Trans struggle to assimilate into their new life. In this coming-of-age memoir told through the themes of great books such as The Metamorphosis, The Scarlet Letter, The Iliad, and more, Tran navigates the push and pull of finding and accepting himself despite the challenges of immigration, feelings of isolation, and teenage rebellion, all while attempting to meet the rigid expectations set by his immigrant parents. Appealing to fans of coming-of-age memoirs such as Fresh Off the Boat, Running with Scissors, or tales of assimilation like Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Displaced and The Refugees, Sigh, Gone explores one man’s bewildering experiences of abuse, racism, and tragedy and reveals redemption and connection in books and punk rock. Against the hairspray-and-synthesizer backdrop of the ‘80s, he finds solace and kinship in the wisdom of classic literature, and in the subculture of punk rock, he finds affirmation and echoes of his disaffection. In his journey for self-discovery Tran ultimately finds refuge and inspiration in the art that shapes—and ultimately saves—him.




Revenge of the She-Punks


Book Description

As an industry insider and pioneering post-punk musician, Vivien Goldman’s perspective on music journalism is unusually well-rounded. In Revenge of the She-Punks, she probes four themes—identity, money, love, and protest—to explore what makes punk such a liberating art form for women. With her visceral style, Goldman blends interviews, history, and her personal experience as one of Britain’s first female music writers in a book that reads like a vivid documentary of a genre defined by dismantling boundaries. A discussion of the Patti Smith song “Free Money,” for example, opens with Goldman on a shopping spree with Smith. Tamar-Kali, whose name pays homage to a Hindu goddess, describes the influence of her Gullah ancestors on her music, while the late Poly Styrene's daughter reflects on why her Somali-Scots-Irish mother wrote the 1978 punk anthem “Identity,” with the refrain “Identity is the crisis you can't see.” Other strands feature artists from farther afield (including in Colombia and Indonesia) and genre-busting revolutionaries such as Grace Jones, who wasn't exclusively punk but clearly influenced the movement while absorbing its liberating audacity. From punk's Euro origins to its international reach, this is an exhilarating world tour.




Punks in Peoria


Book Description

Punk rock culture in a preeminently average town Synonymous with American mediocrity, Peoria was fertile ground for the boredom- and anger-fueled fury of punk rock. Jonathan Wright and Dawson Barrett explore the do-it-yourself scene built by Peoria punks, performers, and scenesters in the 1980s and 1990s. From fanzines to indie record shops to renting the VFW hall for an all-ages show, Peoria's punk culture reflected the movement elsewhere, but the city's conservatism and industrial decline offered a richer-than-usual target environment for rebellion. Eyewitness accounts take readers into hangouts and long-lost venues, while interviews with the people who were there trace the ever-changing scene and varied fortunes of local legends like Caustic Defiance, Dollface, and Planes Mistaken for Stars. What emerges is a sympathetic portrait of a youth culture in search of entertainment but just as hungry for community—the shared sense of otherness that, even for one night only, could unite outsiders and discontents under the banner of music. A raucous look at a small-city underground, Punks in Peoria takes readers off the beaten track to reveal the punk rock life as lived in Anytown, U.S.A.




Punks and Skins United


Book Description

Germany has one of the liveliest and well-developed punk scenes in the world. However, punk in this country is not just a style-based music community. This book provides an anthropological examination of how punk reflects the larger changes and contradictions in post-reunification Germany, such as social segmentation, east-west tensions and local politics. Punk in eastern Germany is a reaction to the marginalization of the working class. As a cultural, social and economic niche, punks create their own controversial “substitute society” to compensate for their low status in mainstream society.




Were Not Here to Entertain


Book Description




Rad Women Worldwide


Book Description

Educational and inspirational, this gift-worthy New York Times bestseller from the authors of Rad American Women A-Z, is a bold, illustrated collection of 40 biographical profiles showcasing extraordinary women from across the globe. Rad Women Worldwide tells fresh, engaging, and amazing tales of perseverance and radical success by pairing well-researched and riveting biographies with powerful and expressive cut-paper portraits. The book features an array of diverse figures from 430 BCE to 2016, spanning 31 countries around the world, from Hatshepsut (the great female king who ruled Egypt peacefully for two decades) and Malala Yousafzi (the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize) to Poly Styrene (legendary teenage punk and lead singer of X-Ray Spex) and Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft (polar explorers and the first women to cross Antarctica). An additional 250 names of international rad women are also included as a reference for readers to continue their own research. This progressive and visually arresting book is a compelling addition to women's history and belongs on the shelf of every school, library, and home. Together, these stories show the immense range of what women have done and can do. May we all have the courage to be rad! For teachers, this book is appropriate for grades 6-8 and could be used in either Social Studies or English classes, or as part of a text for a multidisciplinary unit. It can also be used as a Common Core text for grades 6-8 Social Studies/History - CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.1-10.




Bunnyman: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting


Book Description

This is the true story of one small boy, me, Will Sergeant, navigating the 60's and 70's, a woolly-back (hick) spawned one drunken night on the outskirts of a Nazi pocked and battered Liverpool, growing up with the spectre of WW2 still creeping about most adults padlocked minds. I trudge on into a piss wet 1970s, just as the pustules of teenage years approach popping point. It is a heady time of power cuts, strikes, flying pickets, bread shortages, skinhead gangs, IRA bomb scares, nuclear war fears, rock gigs, glam clothes, drowned motorbikes, explosives, dead-end jobs and the usual school lessons of chicken strangulation. With the help of music, I manage to navigate myself through the sinking sand of prog rock and into the safety of punk. My boots still muddy with a bad attitude, I head into the winter of discontent to become a post-punk trailblazer worshipped all over the world as a god. Well? An inventive and influential guitarist of some note at the very least.