JOHNNY CARUSO IS BORN into the urban turmoil of 1950s and '60s working-class Brooklyn. Wedged between the limited worldview of his parents-alcoholic and abusive Bellisario and browbeaten, unstable Maria-and his liberal-minded older brother and sister, young Johnny struggles to navigate his childhood and adolescence.Overwhelmed by his family's thorny dynamics and grappling with low self-esteem, Johnny finds himself in a downward spiral, cheating on exams and shoplifting with friends. He is fortunate to have a few caring adults in his life, and eventually, with their help and his innate curiosity and resilience, Johnny is afforded an opportunity that promises to alter the course of his life.JOHNNY BOY explores external chaos and the inner turmoil of a young protagonist who possesses intelligence, perseverance, and an unwavering sense of humanity. Told with honesty and passion, JOHNNY BOY is immersive and timeless, an authentic flesh-and-bones coming-of-age story infused with a cinematic megadose of twenty-first century realism.

Johnny is different. He is never exactly on time, he can't seem to stick to a routine and he often speaks in cryptic idioms. Johnny is neurotypical, but that's ok. A picture book with a difference, Why Johnny Doesn't Flap turns the tables on common depictions of neurological difference by drolly revealing how people who are not on the autistic spectrum are perceived by those who are. The autistic narrator's bafflement at his neurotypical friend's quirks shows that 'normal' is simply a matter of perspective.

This nostalgic, humorous memoir is of a Mississippi country boy who was a little rapscallion growing up in a much simpler time. It is one in which a field of sage was a bed for dreaming; a spunky little dog was a best, best friend; and three very close buddies were rascals. Imagining and exploring, they lived their lives with their worst fear being a stern word from a disciplinary parent. The self-sufficient young fellows story draws us back to the less complicated days a time ago, the fifties and sixties.

A British history and opinion of punk rock music.

Since John Johnny Johnsons early childhood, he was plagued by an inner force that was determined to be rebellious. Although he was loved and nurtured by his parents and loved by his siblings and other family members, he could not bring himself to be obedient, not even to his own conscience. His teen years began the era of alcohol indulgence and petty larceny. He decided that a life without rules was what he wanted, so he ran away from home. Soon his life became more complicated. He was arrested and sent to a reform school for boys. A life of crime resulted in several arrests and convictions. His family was still there for him. After being paroled from his last incarceration, his siblings helped him to start a business, which included counseling for teens and anyone else that was seeking help to better their lives. In the process of shaping his life as well as others, he met his wife, JaNae, and they started a family. What seemed like a doomed life had become a productive and prosperous one.

John Herndon “Johnny” Mercer (1909–76) remained in the forefront of American popular music from the 1930s through the 1960s, writing over a thousand songs, collaborating with all the great popular composers and jazz musicians of his day, working in Hollywood and on Broadway, and as cofounder of Capitol Records, helping to promote the careers of Nat “King” Cole, Margaret Whiting, Peggy Lee, and many other singers. Mercer’s songs—sung by Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, and scores of other performers—are canonical parts of the great American songbook. Four of his songs received Academy Awards: “Moon River,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe,” and “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening.” Mercer standards such as “Hooray for Hollywood” and “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” remain in the popular imagination. Exhaustively researched, Glenn T. Eskew’s biography improves upon earlier popular treatments of the Savannah, Georgia–born songwriter to produce a sophisticated, insightful, evenhanded examination of one of America’s most popular and successful chart-toppers. Johnny Mercer: Southern Songwriter for the World provides a compelling chronological narrative that places Mercer within a larger framework of diaspora entertainers who spread a southern multiracial culture across the nation and around the world. Eskew contends that Mercer and much of his music remained rooted in his native South, being deeply influenced by the folk music of coastal Georgia and the blues and jazz recordings made by black and white musicians. At Capitol Records, Mercer helped redirect American popular music by commodifying these formerly distinctive regional sounds into popular music. When rock ’n’ roll diminished opportunities at home, Mercer looked abroad, collaborating with international composers to create transnational songs. At heart, Eskew says, Mercer was a jazz musician rather than a Tin Pan Alley lyricist, and the interpenetration of jazz and popular song that he created expressed elements of his southern heritage that made his work distinctive and consistently kept his music before an approving audience.