Adventure story set in the fantasy world of Ramion

The bush league scouts thought Barnaby could develop into a professional enforcer. His father liked the idea of his son punching his way to big bucks in the NHL and sent him to apprentice in a faraway city. There Barnaby's coach wanted him to do nothing but fight. His landlady wanted him in bed-and so did the hockey groupies who waited for him in the parking lot. Barnaby was caught in a web of sex and violence, and knew that he was a goon. He hated his job. In a fury one night he pounded an opponent into oblivion and was devastated by remorse.

John DiLeo is the author of five other books about classic movies: And You Thought You Knew Classic Movies, 100 Great Film Performances You Should Remember—But Probably Don’t, Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery, Tennessee Williams and Company: His Essential Screen Actors, and Screen Savers II: My Grab Bag of Classic Movies. His website is johndileo.com and his Twitter handle is @JOHNDiLEO.

The most comprehensive, beautiful book ever to be published on dance in America. "We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance." Groundbreaking choreographer Martha Graham deeply understood the power and complexity of dance--particularly as it evolved in her home country. American Dance, by critic and journalist Margaret Fuhrer, traces that richly complex evolution. From Native American dance rituals to dance in the digital age, American Dance explores centuries of innovation, individual genius and collaborative exploration. Some of its stories - such as Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling or Alvin Ailey founding the trailblazing company that bears his name - will be familiar to anyone who loves dance. The complex origins of tap, for instance, or the Puritan outrage against "profane and promiscuous dancing" during the early years of the United States, are as full of mystery and humor as Graham describes. These various developments have never before been presented in a single book, making American Dance the most comprehensive work on the subject to date. Breakdancing, musical-theater dance, disco, ballet, jazz, ballroom, modern, hula, the Charleston, the Texas two-step, swing--these are just some of the forms celebrated in this riveting volume Hundreds of photographs accompany the text, making American Dance as visually captivating as the works it depicts.

These are the tales of Michael Parkinson, YouTuber extraordinaire. Michael has posted hundreds of videos to YouTube and has thousands of hits on them every day. In this book he tells the stories of how the videos came to be: behind the scenes when promoting Billy Fury dance shows with 300 amateur performers, and a show with professional dancers in London; Michael’s biography of Billy Fury and an explanation of his graveside tribute to Britain’s first rock ’n’ roll star. Some highlights from Michael’s YouTube adventures: A pretty Italian pianist and how she influenced his YouTube Channel X Factor finalist Saara Aalto singing for him in Leicester Square Walking the Thames Path, he did not video the copulating couple but did capture the giggly girls and the horses Thursford Christmas Spectacular – bandleaders and penguins Blackpool Tower ballroom and Scarborough Spa precede Brighton and boobette Joanna Forest with an emotional farewell appearance from Judith Durham and the Seekers at Nottingham Disneyland Paris, the Royal Academy of Music, a biography of Eric Coates, a story of Notts and England cricket. Read Michael’s hints on where to attend free or inexpensive London concerts; find out how he captured Scottish Football fans invading Trafalgar Square, and fell in love with the Chamber Choir from Drake University, Iowa USA. It can get personal: exam nerves, childhood memories and his National Service. And emotional: The Gardener and Alzheimers Lady and the Tuneless Choir.

Armed with an eighth-grade education, an inexhaustible imagination, and an innate talent for dancing, Hermes Pan (1909-1990) was a boy from Tennessee who became the most prolific, popular, and memorable choreographer of the glory days of the Hollywood musical. While he may be most well-known for the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals which he choreographed at RKO film studios, he also created dances at Twentieth Century-Fox, M-G-M, Paramount, and later for television, winning both the Oscar and the Emmy for best choreography. In Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire, Pan emerges as a man in full, an artist inseparable from his works. He was a choreographer deeply interested in his dancers' personalities, and his dances became his way of embracing and understanding the outside world. Though his time in a Trappist monastery proved to him that he was more suited to choreography than to life as a monk, Pan remained a deeply devout Roman Catholic throughout his creative life, a person firmly convinced of the powers of prayer. While he was rarely to be seen without several beautiful women at his side, it was no secret that Pan was homosexual and even had a life partner. As Pan worked at the nexus of the cinema industry's creative circles during the golden age of the film musical, this book traces not only Pan's personal life but also the history of the Hollywood musical itself. It is a study of Pan, who emerges here as a benevolent perfectionist, and equally of the stars, composers, and directors with whom he worked, from Astaire and Rogers to Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Bob Fosse, George Gershwin, Samuel Goldwyn, and countless other luminaries of American popular entertainment. Author John Franceschina bases his telling of Pan's life on extensive first-hand research into Pan's unpublished correspondence and his own interviews. Pan enjoyed one of the most illustrious careers of any Hollywood dance director, and because his work also spanned across Broadway and television, this book will appeal to readers interested in musical theater history, dance history, and film.

The Rat Man, a serial killer, is on the loose in Flint, Michigan, and nobody can stop him. Except you, Meredith Malady, a high-school girl with a dysfunctional family and a score to settle. Running away from home is the first step, but where will you stay? How will you survive? And what will you do when you meet the Rat Man face to face? Connor Coyne's debut novel, described by Heartland Prize-winning author Jeffery Renard Allen as "an emotional and aesthetic tour de force," is told in gripping second-person as an unknown narrator speaks to Meredith as she struggles to tie together the threads of her own history and to bring a killer to justice.