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THE GIRL IN THE BACK: A Female Drummer’s Life with Bowie, Blondie and the ’70s Rock Scene

In Laura Davis-Chanin’s coming-of-age memoir, the Student Teachers drummer offers an intimate look at New York City’s punk rock hey day. THE GIRL IN THE BACK‘s authenticity has struck a chord with the media. Check out these well-earned reviews and features!

BILLBOARD MAGAZINE: Names The Girl in the Back one of the Top 10 Music Books of 2018!

THE MANHATTAN BOOK REVIEW: Review, August 2018

FLAVORWIRE: Excerpt, August 2018

UNCUT MAGAZINE: Interview, August 2018

PENNY BLACK MUSIC: Interview, August 2018

DRUMHEAD: Review, July/August 2018 issue

BLAH BLAH BLAH SCIENCE Podcast: Discussed new chapters each week throughout August 2018.

BOWERY ELECTRIC: New York City book launch on 7/20/18

WFMU/The Evan Funk Davies Show: Interview, 7/11/18

NAKEDLY EXAMINED PODCAST: Interview, 7/6/18

THE TRAP SET Podcast: Feature, 7/4/18

LUXURIA MUSIC/Kristian Hoffman Podcast: Live interview, 7/1/18

BARRY SINGER Blog: Feature, July 2018

PLEASE KILL ME: Feature story,  June 2018

UNDER THE RADAR: Review, June 2018

TOM TOM MAGAZINE: May 2018

 LIBRARY JOURNAL: Review, May 2018

LARGEHEARTED BOY: Special playlist feature, May 2018

THE VINYL DISTRICT: February 2018

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Kinky Friedman’s long-awaited authorized biography debuts today! EVERYTHING’S BIGGER IN TEXAS

He has performed with Bob Dylan, traveled with Led Zeppelin on their private plane, and partied with John Belushi, Robin Williams, Don Imus, Lowell George, Levon Helm, Eric Clapton, Iggy Pop, Mike Bloomfield, and Dennis Hopper. When his cocaine habit nearly killed him, he returned to Texas and wrote 30 books, including 18 detective novels, as well as memoirs with Willie Nelson and Billy Bob Thornton. More than 547,000 Texans voted for him when he ran for governor in 2006, and friends Willie Nelson, Jimmy Buffet, and Lyle Lovett helped with fundraisers.

Kinky Friedman is a true Renaissance man, and in EVERYTHING’S BIGGER IN TEXAS: The Life and Times of Kinky Friedman (Backbeat Books Hardcover, November 15, 2017, $29.99), biographer Mary Lou Sullivan provides an intimate look at Richard “Kinky” Friedman culled from hours of candid, in-depth interviews with the Kinkster, his friends, and his associates.

Kinky and his loyal biographer are on tour this week offering combo performances of Kinky’s music, wit and wisdom and book signings for Mary Lou’s new biography:

Wednesday, November 15 – AUSTIN – The Townsend

Thursday, November 16 – HOUSTON – McGonigel’s Mucky Duck

Friday, November 17 – DALLAS – Poor David’s Pub

Saturday, November 18 – LOS ANGELES – McCabe’s Guitar Shop

If you can’t make it to any of these shows, you can read all about Kinky in this month’s FOREWORD REVIEWS – that’s him on the cover of the November/December holiday issue! You can also catch him on ABC RADIO/Don Imus , DALLAS MORNING NEWS/Guide Live , THE ADAM CAROLLA PODCAST, THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, AUSTIN CHRONICLE, ARGONAUT MAGAZINE, Fox News RADIO, and ROLLING STONE!

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KATHARINE LEE BATES by Melinda Ponder Launches Today!

How I loved this splendid biography!  Melinda Ponder brings Katharine Lee Bates to life as never before. And what a fascinating, remarkable woman she was – so much more important in the history and literature of our country than I had realized.”

–Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize historian

 Katharine Lee Bates’s “America the Beautiful” resonates for many people as the most patriotic and beloved American anthem. Her words remind us of why we love our country: the beauty of our land, the historic sacrifices of our people, and our ideals of hope and brotherhood. That has never been more important than today.

Drawing on extensive research in Bates family diaries, letters, and memoirs, biographer Melinda M. Ponder brings Katharine vividly to life in her new biography that launches today, KATHARINE LEE BATES: From Sea to Shining Sea (Windy City Publishers Hardcover; August 12, 2017; $39.95).

Early reviews are extremely positive:

Finally, a full portrait of the wise and witty woman who wrote the words that best express our love for America. Melinda Ponder’s rich narrative is a timely reminder that intellect, integrity and a rigorous respect for truth are the real pillars of patriotism.” –Lynn Sherr, former ABC News correspondent and author of America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind America’s Favorite Song

“We all know ‘America the Beautiful,’ but only now do we learn the fascinating story of the woman who wrote it–along with so much more. This book is a stirring tribute to a brilliant and deeply patriotic American whose message we need to hear today.” —Stephen Kinzer, historian and author of The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire

“…[A] carefully researched and thoroughly entrancing life tale of a brilliant and accomplished woman whose many achievements have too long been eclipsed by the enduring success of America the Beautiful. … Ponder wisely sets this triumph in the context of a full and richly lived life.” –Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast 

“Melinda Ponder’s … beautifully written biography presents Katharine Lee Bates as, in her time, a ‘New Woman.’ Readers will find that this life story of a beloved poet, patriot, and social reformer has much to say about our own time.” –The Falmouth Enterprise 

“Katharine Lee Bates: From Sea to Shining Sea unfolds at long last the impressive life story and strikingly variegated career of the author of America’s unofficial national anthem. A limit-bumping thinker ahead of her time, sometimes even at odds with it, Katharine Lee Bates also had a remarkable gift for reaching the broader American public.” — Lawrence Buell, Harvard University, author of New England Literary Culture and The Dream of the Great American Novel

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Jerome Charyn’s New Novel About Jerzy Kosinksi is Getting a lot of Attention

Critically acclaimed author, Jerome Charyn is getting a lot of attention for his new novel, JERZY that is just out from Bellevue Literary Press.

In JERZY, Jerome Charyn lends his unmistakable style to this most American story of personal disintegration, told through the voices of multiple narrators—a homicidal actor, a dominatrix, and Joseph Stalin’s daughter—who each provide insights into the shifting facets of Kosinski’s personality. The story unfolds like a Russian nesting doll, eventually revealing the lost child beneath layers of trauma, while touching on the nature of authenticity, the atrocities of WWII, the allure of sadomasochism, and the fickleness of celebrity.

Ruth Franklin wrote this great review and fascinating article for The New Yorker in which she describes the book as “a moving attempt to trace the connections between Kosinski’s wartime struggles and postwar fictions.

Benjamin Markovits in his review for The New York Times Book Review writes that JERZY is “a novel with a light touch that’s still capable of lifting heavy subjects. Charyn knows what he wants to do and knows how to do it.”

And JERZY was included in Jane Ciabattari’s 5 Books Making News This Week column for LitHub for the week of April 4th.

If you are looking for an intriguing and engaging book to read this Spring, add JERZY by Jerome Charyn to your list. This reader’s guide will also help make it an excellent choice for your next book club selection.

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EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET receives rave reviews from Irish and mainstream press

EXILE_BRIDGE_STREET_Eamon_LoingsighWe’ve been fans of Eamon Loingsigh’s writing for some time now. We had the privilege to work on his debut novel, LIGHT OF THE DIDDICOY, and now we’re excited to be helping to spread the word regarding his new work, EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET.

 

Reviews are starting to come in, and the Irish press, indy press — ALL the press — are loving this new novel. Check out  what they have to say:

 

“In his beautiful, passionate prose, Loingsigh — an Irishman himself — continually reminds us of the motherland and the suffering of Irish emigrants. . . . EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET is a gangster story that reads more like “Robin Hood” than The Godfather because of these men’s inner strength and the love they have for each other. . . .
It’s also an intimate look at criminals whose lives have been hardened by oppression and weathered by storms, while inside their rough shells they hide soft hearts.”
—Washington Independent Review of Books

 

“When accomplished Irish American writers address the lives and experiences of the early 20th century Irish in New York they are recording, but also in a deeper sense also reclaiming a lost heritage. This is painstaking work that’s worth celebrating in its own right, but then to give us a vivid portrait of these flinty people in all their complexity and courage is a thing to cheer about. EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET, author Eamon Loingsigh’s new novel, is a follow up to Light of the Diddicoy, and it’s a high wire act of creativity and reclamation that deserves the widest possible audience.”
 —Irish Central“

 

Loingsigh has an urgent story to tell. And he tells it well. This is a street-level history of how the other half has always lived, the kind of story rarely worried over in classrooms or political campaigns. Loingsigh’s great strength is his unsentimental take on the immigrant experience which—despite the rancor of today’s debate—often acquires a sepia tone when it is discussed in the past tense. EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET should be required reading for those who rail about how today’s immigrants “refuse to assimilate.”
–Brooklyn Rail

 

[EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET], a follow-up to his previous gripping novel The Light of the Diddicoy, is set on the rough-and-tumble streets in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, where Irish and Italian immigrants fight fiercely for control of the docks and all the jobs and money that comes with that control…On the surface, Loingsigh’s book mines Brooklyn’s gory and glorious Irish past.  But it is also the quintessential read for 21st century Brooklyn. Not only is it all too plausible that Liam McGarrity’s grandchildren are cops of firefighters living in Marine Park.  But consider all of those immigrants coming into Brooklyn these days. Love? Death? Money? Struggles in the homeland? Surely they can relate to a thing or two Liam had to endure as he was becoming an American in Brooklyn. 
—Irish Voice

 

More reviews to come soon!

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