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Book Reviews: Paperback Non-Fiction
Based on his decade spent fronting positive punk rockers the Clash, Joe Strummer was deemed a hero by his legion fans. Behind this cursed label he hid throughout most of his life, while his storied band's biographers were more than happy to reinforce it or rip it to shreds. British journalist Chris Salewicz ("Reggae Explosion: The Story of Jamaican Music") is the first writer to bother reaching for the man inside the snarling, politicking mass. Dozens of interviews with relatives, lovers, and other intimates not to mention Strummer himself add up to the most sensitive, comprehensive portrait to date titled Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer. Readers will experience the crushing pressure Strummer put on himself in the Clash, as well as depression's grip as he struggled to define himself after inadvertently dissolving the band.
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Little Heathens is Mildred Kalish's story of growing up on her grandparents Iowa farm during the depths of the Great Depression. With her father banished from the household for mysterious transgressions, five-year-old Mildred and her family could easily have been overwhelmed by the challenge of simply trying to survive. This, however, is not a tale of suffering. Kalish counts herself among the lucky of that era. She had caring grandparents who possessed--and valiantly tried to impose--all the pioneer virtues of their forebears, teachers who inspired and befriended her, and a barnyard full of animals ready to be tamed and loved. She and her siblings and their cousins from the farm across the way played as hard as they worked, running barefoot through the fields, as free and wild as they dared. Filled with recipes and how-tos for everything from catching and skinning a rabbit to preparing homemade skin and hair beautifiers, apple cream pie, and the world's best head cheese (start by scrubbing the head of the pig until it is pink and clean), Little Heathens portrays a world of hardship and hard work tempered by simple rewards. There was the unsurpassed flavor of tender new dandelion greens harvested as soon as the snow melted; the taste of crystal clear marble-sized balls of honey robbed from a bumblebee nest; the sweet smell from the body of a lambsleeping on sun-warmed grass; and the magical quality of oat shocking under the light of a full harvest moon.
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America's health care system is unraveling, with millions of hard-working people unable to pay for prescription drugs and regular checkups, let alone hospital visits. Jonathan Cohn traveled across the United States--the only country in the developed world that does not guarantee its citizens access to medical care--to investigate why this crisis is happening and to see firsthand its impact on ordinary Americans. Passionate, powerful, illuminating, and often devastating, Sick chronicles the decline of America's health care system, and lays bare the consequences any one of us could suffer if we don't replace it.
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One of Germany's most illustrious poets, Heinrich Heine is also celebrated for his idiosyncratic and vibrant prose. Heine's lyrical, humorous, and revealing vision in these four accounts of his voyages in Italy and Germany raises Travel Pictures into the transcendent realm of great journey literature. Over one hundred poems pepper the text.
Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German Romantic poets. Many of his poems were set to music by Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms.
Peter Wortsman is an author and translator. His translations from the German include work by Robert Musil, Peter Altenberg, and Adelbert von Chamisso.
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The Battle in Seattle by Janet Thomas is about: November 30, 1999 -- the day the World Trade Organization was battled head-on in Seattle. People from around the world converged that day to show solidarity for working people and to voice their concerns about child labor, the environment, and global economic justice. That was the real picture of the day. But it was seen, felt, heard by the 40,000 to 50,000 in Seattle. The unseen included rice farmers from Japan; teachers from Canada; religious leaders; steelworkers; longshoremen; experts in economics, the environment, and education; students; and the workers. These peaceful protesters paid tribute to a vision of fairness for all who contribute to our global well-being.
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