This is the book of the expanding man. What’s the end result of a crazy scheme to match some of music history’s most evocative and memorable songs with twelve of today’s most entertaining writers? You’re looking at it. With this collection there’s no need to chase the dragon, tour the Southland in a traveling minstrel show, or drink Scotch whiskey all night long. You’ve already bought the dream. Covering every game in the Grammy-winning catalog of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker—collectively celebrated as Steely Dan—these compulsively readable stories will stagger the mind of ramblers, wild gamblers, and—of course—the winners in the world. From the suburban streets of Annandale to the mystical spheres of Lhasa…from the shine of your Japan to the sparkle of your China…from Sunset Boulevard to Camarillo and from Scarsdale to Brooklyn … put these twelve masters of crime fiction behind the wheel, and come along for a ride you won’t soon forget. Like a Sunday in T.J., it’s cheap, but it’s not free. Edited by Brian Thornton with a Foreword by Jeffrey Weber and stories by David Corbett, Nick Feldman, Bill Fitzhugh, Linda Joffe Hull, R.T. Lawton, Cornelia Read, Stacy Robinson, Brian Thornton, dbschlosser, Sam Wiebe, Simon Wood, and James W. Ziskin.

Exploring professional passenger driving and the gig economy through feminist theories of labor Are taxi drivers in today’s era of the ride-hail app performing care work akin to domestic and household labor? So argue the authors of Spent behind the Wheel. Bringing together sociological and legal perspectives with feminist theoretical insights, Julietta Hua and Kasturi Ray examine the case study of contemporary professional passenger driving in the United States. On the one hand, they show, the rise of the gig economy has brought new attention to the industry of professional passenger driving. On the other hand, the vulnerabilities that professional drivers experience remain hidden. Drawing on interviews with drivers, labor organizers, and members of licensing commissions, as well as case law and other published resources, Hua and Ray argue that working for ride-hail companies like Uber and Lyft shares similarities with driving for taxi companies in the impact on driver lives. Lyft and Uber sell the idea of industry disruption, but in fact they entrench long-standing modes of extracting the reproductive labor of their drivers for the benefit of consumer lives. Reproductive labor—conventionally understood as feminized labor—is extracted, but masked, behind the masculinized, racialized bodies of drivers. Professional driving is thus best understood alongside domestic and other gendered service work as reproductive labors devalued and often demonetized to benefit the national economy. Spent behind the Wheel is a must for readers interested in critical studies of technological change and the gig economy, showing how drivers’ capacities are drained for the benefit of riders, corporations, and the maintenance of the racial state.

Every hair on Ty's body, the skin on his neck and arms, everything was clenched in a primeval fear stimulus response. In the thick of the woods not ten yards away stood a creature, manlike, apelike . . . some sort of hairy humanoid, like a gorilla standing upright on long legs. Motionless, it stared at Ty, and Ty froze dead in his tracks. Jesus Christ, this is Bigfoot. BIGFOOT IS ANGRY. When careless campers unleash a raging forest fire, they inadvertently set in motion a blood-drenched spree of revenge. Motivated by the immolation of his family, a nearly eleven-foot-tall, preternaturally strong superprimate begins stalking the mountains northeast of Seattle, hunting the "small two-legs" he blames and leaving an eerie trail of missing people . . . but little else. As people begin vanishing from nearby forests, former software magnate Ty Greenwood risks everything to find out why. Tormented by his encounter with a Bigfoot three years earlier, Ty's past now collides with what he suspects is happening. But this time he doesn't realize that the stakes are far higher. In his search for two missing lawyers, Snohomish County Sheriff's Detective Mac Schneider discovers a spectacularly large footprint. Is it another hoax or is there really something to fear in the woods? Despite mounting evidence, Mac fears ridicule and is reluctant to reveal that the myth might in fact be a terrifying reality. Complicating everything for him is Kris Walker, a gorgeous but ruthless television reporter bent on getting the story at any cost. Joining the quest is an old Native American actor with a troubling secret: Ben Campbell has a mystical connection to the beast. And while Ben's link with this fearsome and intelligent being haunts his dreams and could spell his doom, it may also prove to be the only key to stopping this ferocious, inhuman killing machine. Can they end his deadly rampage before he destroys everything they hold dear? Just when you thought it was safe to go into the woods . . . The Shadowkiller will give even the most hard-core skeptic a reason to think twice before going camping.

Written by a Sydney native, English, The Aussie Way: A Fun Guide to Australia’s Colourful Phrases, Words, and Expressions offers an amusing way for English or non-English speakers around the world to learn the colloquial phrases for which Australia is famous. This user-friendly reference provides words/phrases and meanings/synonyms by using an example sentence. Says the author, “For seven years I housed international students who were attending English language schools in Sydney, and I realised that although they had a good grasp of formal grammar, they struggled to understand not only colloquial English, but many of the commonly used phrasal verbs, which could not be found in a standard English/Spanish, French, etc., dictionary. It was then that I decided to start writing some of them down for future reference and it grew from there.”

John Perry Barlow’s wild ride with the Grateful Dead was just part of a Zelig-like life that took him from a childhood as ranching royalty in Wyoming to membership in the Internet Hall of Fame as a digital free speech advocate. Mother American Night is the wild, funny, heartbreaking, and often unbelievable (yet completely true) story of an American icon. Born into a powerful Wyoming political family, John Perry Barlow wrote the lyrics for thirty Grateful Dead songs while also running his family’s cattle ranch. He hung out in Andy Warhol’s Factory, went on a date with the Dalai Lama’s sister, and accidentally shot Bob Weir in the face on the eve of his own wedding. As a favor to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Barlow mentored a young JFK Jr. and the two then became lifelong friends. Despite being a freely self-confessed acidhead, he served as Dick Cheney’s campaign manager during Cheney’s first run for Congress. And after befriending a legendary early group of computer hackers known as the Legion of Doom, Barlow became a renowned internet guru who then cofounded the groundbreaking Electronic Frontier Foundation. His résumé only hints of the richness of a life lived on the edge. Blessed with an incredible sense of humor and a unique voice, Barlow was a born storyteller in the tradition of Mark Twain and Will Rogers. Through intimate portraits of friends and acquaintances from Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia to Timothy Leary and Steve Jobs, Mother American Night traces the generational passage by which the counterculture became the culture, and it shows why learning to accept love may be the hardest thing we ever ask of ourselves.

Read the final book in the romantic, fast-paced adventure series Between Heaven and Hell Jayla’s hands dripped with blood, and her heart was shredded. The only road to redemption was the one she didn’t want to take. Asa was surrounded by a wall that kept the family he loved distant. To get close, he’d have to face the thought that he may let them down. When the female on a suicidal mission meets the hell beast unable to love, time stood still. Before it would resume, their destiny would try to pull them apart. Could you love someone so much that you were willing to die for them? They were about to be tested. If they passed, then the real tests would begin. Sometimes the fate of the world rested on the least likely heroic shoulders. For readers 18 and older

Erin Merritt has returned to her scenic hometown of Heart Lake to plan her wedding, but when she repeatedly runs into her childhood crush, she wonders if she's engaged to the wrong man. To make matters worse, all the stress is making her eat, and now she can't fit into her wedding dress. Erin enlists the help of her cooking club--Angela, Megan and Kizzy--and the Teeny Bikini Diet Club is born. The women make a pact to get slim enough to wear their bikinis to the lake by summertime, a pact that changes their lives forever. With a little help from her friends, Angela faces her fear that her marriage is crumbling. Megan confronts the self-esteem issues that have always held her back. Kizzy deals with her husband's efforts to sabotage her diet and keep her overweight. And Erin learns some important truths about love. Pull up your favorite beach chair and savor this funny, inspiring story about being true to yourself and following your heart, and the women who enrich our lives.