"After living in San Francisco for fifteen years, journalist Gordon Young found himself yearning for his Rust Belt hometown: Flint, Michigan, the birthplace of General Motors and the “star” of the Michael Moore documentary Roger & Me. Hoping to rediscover and help a place that had once boasted one of the world’s highest per capita income levels but had become one of the country's most impoverished and dangerous cities, he returned to Flint with the intention of buying a house. What he found was a place of stark contrasts and dramatic stories, where an exotic dancer could afford a lavish mansion, speculators scooped up cheap houses by the dozen on eBay, and arson was often the quickest route to neighborhood beautification. He also uncovered the misguided policies, flawed leadership, and unforgiving economic trends that lead to disasters like the Flint water crisis. Updated with a new preface, Young skillfully blends personal memoir, historical inquiry, and interviews with Flint residents, constructing a vibrant tale of a once-thriving city still fighting - despite overwhelming odds - to rise from the ashes. Hard-hitting, insightful, and often painfully funny, Teardown reminds us that cities are ultimately defined by the people who live there."--Back cover.

A Buckeye Boyhood is a collection of anecdotes which span the twentieth century beginning with Mae and Acy's early 1900's migration from the subsistence of tenant farming to the relative good times of working for wages in the city. The author credits their courage as his model for always taking action to find a better life. A series of transparently autobiographical vignettes trace our Buckeye boy's path from his dusty childhood playground to a first job on the assembly line and then to the practice of law. He takes us to Ohio farms and job shops, a 1950 pool hall, the 1956 U. S. Open golf tournament, the 1959 Pennsylvania state bar exam and a 1980 Pennsylvania county court room. A great variety of unforgettable characters come to life including a Mom of steely resolve, an irrepressible Dad, a golf hustler, a heavy weight champion, a law school dean and more than one lost love. A Pacifist the author describes his moment of true epiphany in 1950 on the threshold of a Marine recruiting office, followed decades later by his public opposition to the horrific waste and futility of the wars in Viet Nam and now, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Rob Paulsen is one of Hollywood’s busiest, most talented, and most passionate performers. If you don’t know him by name, you will know him by the many characters he has brought to life: Pinky from Pinky and the Brain, Yakko from Animaniacs, the tough but loveable Raphael from the original animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and many more. So you can imagine how terrifying it must have been when Rob was diagnosed with throat cancer, putting his entire livelihood in jeopardy and threatening to rob the world of all his loveable characters that filled our youths and adulthoods with humor and delight. Voice Lessons tells the heartwarming and life-affirming story of Rob’s experience with an aggressive cancer treatment and recovery regimen, which luckily led to a full recovery. Rob quickly returned to doing what he loves most, but with a much deeper appreciation of what he came so close to losing. His new lease on life inspired him to rededicate himself to his fans, particularly the new friends he made along the way: hundreds of sick children and their families. Rob said it best himself: “I can not only continue to make a living, but make a difference, and I can’t wait to use that on the biggest scale that I can.”