Stephen Digges is the kind of angry adolescent a lot of parents would have given up on. He is out of control by the time he is 13 -- running with gangs, stealing cars, fooling around with drugs and guns, and in general making his family’s life hell. Confronted with his growing recklessness and defiance, his mother, the poet Deborah Digges, decides to try to accept Stephen on his own terms--a course that stuns her family and leads to the breakup of her second marriage. Digges “shadows” him on his late-night forays so that she can understand his world, welcomes his gang into their apartment, and tries to see life through his eyes. When she discovers that children who are devoted to animals have an easier time forming attachments to other people, she fills their home with a menagerie of ailing or abandoned pets. She also turns to an unconventional therapist who offers unusual — but helpful — treatment. The Stardust Lounge isn’t your usual story of rebellious adolescence. The power of Digges’s memoir comes from her stubborn unwillingness to give up on Stephen. Even when things are roughest, Digges manages to see the intelligent, sensitive child behind the hostile behavior. However difficult the path she chooses, her story is ultimately a heartening one, and it’s impossible not to root for this family as it rebuilds itself.

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In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.

From 1940 to 1989, nearly every hotel on the Las Vegas Strip employed a full-time band or orchestra. After the late 1980s, when control of the casinos changed hands from independent owners to corporations, almost all of these musicians found themselves unemployed. Played Out on the Strip traces this major shift in the music industry through extensive interviews with former musicians. In 1989, these soon-to-be unemployed musicians went on strike. Janis McKay charts the factors behind this strike, which was precipitated by several corporate hotel owners moving to replace live musicians with synthesizers and taped music, a strategic decision made in order to save money. The results of this transitional period in Las Vegas history were both long-lasting and far-reaching for the entertainment industry. With its numerous oral history interviews and personal perspectives from the era, this book will appeal to readers interested in Las Vegas history, music history, and labor issues.

Chicago Haunted Handbook is the newest book in the Haunted Handbook line within the popular America's Haunted Road Trip series. The Haunted Handbooks are city-specific travel guides to nearly one hundred places within a major city. Chicago Haunted Handbook is written with the ghost enthusiast in mind. All 100 chapters contain information on the history as well as the haunting surrounding each location, as well as detailed directions on how to locate each site. Many of the chapters also contain insider information that only a local would know, making it easier for ghost hunters to investigate. Ghost hunters Jeff Morris and Vincent Sheilds explore all the best haunted locales Chicago has to offer, including Resurrection Cemetery, Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, Murder Castle, St. Valentine's Day Massacre Site, and even Wrigley Field. Each two page entry includes directions from downtown, an historical overview of the haunted place, the story of ghostly doings in that place, and advice on visiting the place yourself--if you dare.

This account returns the focus to the victim, her life, and her family.--Midwest Book ReviewMike Varnado�s ability to tell a great story is topped only by his work as a first-class detective.--Chris Buchanan, documentary film producer for PBS and associate producer of Angel on Death Row Victims of Dead Man Walking is the true story of the rape and murder of Faith Hathaway by Robert Lee Willie and Joe Vaccaro. Detective Mike Varnado provides a vivid eyewitness account of the investigation into her murder.Varnado was only twenty-five when he discovered Faith Hathaway�s body. Finding her killers and bringing them to justice has been one of the most important endeavors of his life.But for Varnado, Faith�s family, and the citizens of their quiet Louisiana community, the nightmare did not end with the capture and conviction of the murderers. While on Angola�s death row, Robert Lee Willie was counseled by Sr.Helen Prejean, who wrote about him in her best-selling book, Dead Man Walking .He also served as the primary model for the character played by Sean Penn in the Academy Award-winning film version of Dead Man Walking . As Willie and his story achieved worldwide notoriety, Faith Hathaway, her short life, and herbrutal death were almost forgotten by everyone but those closest to her. Victims of Dead Man Walking reminds readers of an aspect of the death-penalty debate that is too often forgotten--the innocent victim of crime, the victim'sfamily, and the police officers, lawyers, judges, and ordinary citizens called upon to perform difficult but necessary roles in the pursuit of justice. About the Authors Mike Varnado has been a detective in Washington Parish, Louisiana, for more than twenty years. At the time of Faith Hathaway�s murder, he was chief investigator for the district attorney�s office. He has twice been honoredwith Louisiana�s Victims and Citizens Against Crime Outstanding Law Enforcement Award. He lives in Franklinton, Louisiana.D. P. Smith is a lawyer and freelance writer based in Nashville, Tennessee.

How do you go from dreaming about becoming a nun to devouring three young men in one weekend? How do you go from living behind the Iron Curtain, in a country hermetically sealed from the world, to making love on four continents? Maneater is a coming-of-age story of one woman who decides to live life on her own terms. Her journey will take you through dilemmas, struggles, and heartache, but it will also walk you through exotic places, such as the Phra Nang cave in Thailand, filled with carved dildos, and the golden palaces, floating markets, and the red-light district of Bangkok. You will take in the view from the shadow of the Christ the Savior statue in Rio de Janeiro. You will feel the heat of New Orleans and walk into a quaint wedding chapel in Lake Tahoe. Her stories will take you back in time to an island at the tip of the Great Lakes, where time stood still, and it will take you on a road trip across Transylvania, right up to Dracula's Castle. You will walk down the street with Romanian revolutionaries and with the leather-clad men at the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. You will dance at the Carnival in Rio, and you will join in on the water fight at the Songkran festival in Bangkok. You'll also meet the men she encountered along the way: the blond street musician from Vienna; the dimpled bellman from San Francisco; the blue-eyed surfer from Texas; the handsome, tuxedoed bouncer, off spring of Afghani warriors; the green-eyed salsa dancer from San Salvador; and many, many more. And you will fall in love with Moon, her young prince, whose sexual coming-of-age begins where her journey ends.