In the 1940s and 1950s, strip artist Patti Waggin was billed as The Educated Torso, The Sex Oomph Girl, and the Fresh Faced Girl Next Door. Amazingly athletic, performing routines few others could manage, Patti was a Headliner. She was also one of the friendliest performers on the burlesque stage, loved by her peers and fans alike. In this unique book, readers come to know Patti Waggin through the letters of her fans. She was committed to recognizing and writing back to her ardent admirers because she understood their need for her during the difficult years of the Second World War. The letters and an engaging text reveal her marriage in the 1950s to baseball player Don Rudolph. Over 280 photos of Patti on stage and at home, along with paper ephemera associated with her career, accompany the heartfelt letters included in the text. For anyone interested in burlesque, this book provides a unique look at one of its stars.

A supportive survival guide for women who want a “REALationship”—not a rebound! With the wit and warmth of a girlfriend, divorced mother Kerri Zane shares her own story of bouncing back from the painful breakup of her marriage—and explains her philosophy about caring for yourself both inside and out before you make the leap into the next romantic liaison. Using solid statistics, tangible facts, proven healing mechanisms, and first person stories of wisdom, she provides a beacon to show how to become a more confident and loving whole woman, ready for the challenge of finding “the REAL One” and forming an authentic and renewable REALationship.

This funny, fast paced, adventurous and touching book is about the close and healing friendship between two different and beautiful women. Caring values are the backbone. The book reveals the many faceted life of a stripper - from a woman's point of view, as well as pleasantly leading the reader through Monique's triumph over childhood incest.

Card by card--all 572 of the '59 Topps set--this book contemplates the lives and times of mid-20th century baseball. That season was in the heart of a period of turmoil: milestones in integration, franchise shifts to the West Coast, a potential rival league, the major leagues' expansion, and labor issues that included paying young prospects not to play. The cards help tell the players' stories, too. The slugger who had a date with Marilyn Monroe (no, not Joe DiMaggio), and the minor leaguer better known than Marilyn. The nephew of a Black Sox player, and the target of a bribery attempt. The lefty catcher. The pitcher from Mayberry. The only player to pinch-hit for Ted Williams. Strikeout kings and wildmen. Religious stalwarts and hell raisers. The stripper's husband. The coolest socks in baseball. Ballplayers who were also basketball players--including the NBA's No. 1 pick one year. Satchel's Six Rules and Twig's Six Rules. Coot, Rip, Turk, Puddin' Head, Whammy, The Rope and Captain Midnight. Pick any card, and you'll find another engaging tale about baseball.

Between 1982 and 1989, Pelafina H. Lièvre sent her son, Johnny Truant, a series of letters from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a psychiatric facility in Ohio where she spent the final years of her life. Beautiful, heartfelt, and tragic, this correspondence reveals the powerful and deeply moving relationship between a brilliant though mentally ill mother and the precocious, gifted young son she never ceases to love. Originally contained within the monumental House of Leaves, this collection stands alone as a stunning portrait of mother and child. It is presented here along with a foreword by Walden D. Wyhrta and eleven previously unavailable letters.

Seventeen short stories with Western themes. The title story is on a dumb father and a bright son, Dutch Elm is the search for a boy lost in a cornfield, and in Hoot, a lonely farmer is so used to his loneliness that he leaves when his brother moves in. By the author of The Tall Uncut.