From his small travel agency tucked away in an area of New York City known as Little Colombia, the "Godfather of Jackson Heights" does far more than make travel arrangements. Fernando Padrón is a social service fixer to many of the tens of thousands of Latino immigrants living in his neighborhood. Tax accountant, job hunter, fund-raiser, and missing persons detective are just some of his roles. Fernando also earned the title of Undertaker for the Mules after helping families repatriate the remains of the dozens who die every year smuggling drugs into New York when drug-filled capsules in their stomachs explode. The riveting experiences shared in this collection of connected stories are based on the author's life. In scenes at once fascinating, inspiring, and heartbreaking, Orlando Tobón reveals not only what it means to be an immigrant, but also what it means to be an American.

From his small travel agency tucked away in an area of New York City known as Little Colombia, the "Godfather of Jackson Heights" does far more than make travel arrangements. Fernando Padrón is a social service fixer to many of the tens of thousands of Latino immigrants living in his neighborhood. Tax accountant, job hunter, fund-raiser, and missing persons detective are just some of his roles. Fernando also earned the title of Undertaker for the Mules after helping families repatriate the remains of the dozens who die every year smuggling drugs into New York when drug-filled capsules in their stomachs explode. The riveting experiences shared in this collection of connected stories are based on the author's life. In scenes at once fascinating, inspiring, and heartbreaking, Orlando Tobón reveals not only what it means to be an immigrant, but also what it means to be an American.

No one likes C in one’s academic transcripts even for a single instance. So consecutive Cs can really be stumbling and shattering for one’s academic trajectory. However, contrast to campus test performances, in practical world settings and in fact in most cases persons with Cs excel over than persons with As in terms of real tasks and deliverances. So people with wisdom often raise caution against such segregation of letter grade to project future of immensely hidden potentials or overhyped expectations. Themed in that this thin book is intended to revive English readership in Bangladesh through some personal memoirs/satire. Bangladesh, a poor country plagued with natural disaster and a big population without much historical perception for British colonial heritages. Inefficient national politics and policies, over usage of local languages/dialects in cultural growth have resulted in blind alleys for degenerated academia, art, culture, and literature. Based on thirteen FaceBook postings during the Corona world pandemic, the memoirs/satire can serve as a person’s flashback of that society after living in a cosmopolitan cultural melting point and multi-cultural environment of New York City. It is expected that the book will appeal to local readers in subcontinents and also to second-generation English-speaking population of Bangladesh origins, in places like New York, London, Sydney, Toronto, Boston, Los Angels, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta and other places aside from interested mainstream readers.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees. When we weren’t sheltering in place, we were advised to wear masks, wash our hands, and practice social distancing. We watched in horror as medical personnel worked around the clock to care for the sick and dying. Businesses were shuttered, travel stopped, workers were furloughed, and markets dropped. And people continued to die. Amid all this uncertainty, writers and artists from around the world continued to create comics, commenting directly on how individuals, societies, governments, and markets reacted to the worldwide crisis. COVID Chronicles: A Comics Anthology collects more than sixty such short comics from a diverse set of creators, including indie powerhouses, mainstream artists, Ignatz and Eisner Award winners, and media cartoonists. In narrative styles ranging from realistic to fantastic, they tell stories about adjusting to working from home, homeschooling their kids, missing birthdays and weddings, and being afraid just to leave the house. They probe the failures of government leaders and the social safety net. They dig into the racial bias and systemic inequities that this pandemic helped bring to light. We see what it’s like to get the virus and live to tell about it, or to stand by helplessly as a loved one passes. At times heartbreaking and at others hopeful and humorous, these comics express the anger, anxiety, fear, and bewilderment we feel in the era of COVID-19. Above all, they highlight the power of art and community to help us make sense of a world in crisis, reminding us that we are truly all in this together. The comics in this collection have been generously donated by their creators. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this volume are being donated by the publisher to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc) in support of comics shops, bookstores, and their employees who have been adversely affected by the pandemic.

The neighborhoods of Douglaston and Little Neck are located on the northeastern frontier of Queens County. The gateway to the north shore of Long Island, both towns are linked not only geographically but through an illustrious history that dates back to the time of the Algonquin, who called the area Matinecock or Place of the Hill Country. In 1906, the Rickert-Finlay Realty Company helped develop Douglaston and Little Neck, featuring an architectural tapestry of Colonial and Tudor Revivals, English cottages, and Arts and Crafts-style homes. Douglaston quickly became a destination for artists and yachting enthusiasts while Little Neck quickly saw its conversion from farmland and quaint yet rustic country stores to a newly developed area of communities and hamlets that exemplified the American dream. Today an historic district, Douglaston includes homes designed by Josephine Wright Chapman, one of the nation's earliest women architects, as well as the childhood home of pro tennis legend John McEnroe.

Winner • National Book Critics Circle Award (Biography) Winner • Edgar Award (Critical/Biographical) Winner • Bram Stoker Award (Nonfiction) A New York Times Notable Book A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Pick of the Year Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Entertainment Weekly, NPR, TIME, Boston Globe, NYLON, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist In this “thoughtful and persuasive” biography, award-winning biographer Ruth Franklin establishes Shirley Jackson as a “serious and accomplished literary artist” (Charles McGrath, New York Times Book Review). Instantly heralded for its “masterful” and “thrilling” portrayal (Boston Globe), Shirley Jackson reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the literary genius behind such classics as “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House. In this “remarkable act of reclamation” (Neil Gaiman), Ruth Franklin envisions Jackson as “belonging to the great tradition of Hawthorne, Poe and James” (New York Times Book Review) and demonstrates how her unique contribution to the canon “so uncannily channeled women’s nightmares and contradictions that it is ‘nothing less than the secret history of American women of her era’ ” (Washington Post). Franklin investigates the “interplay between the life, the work, and the times with real skill and insight, making this fine book a real contribution not only to biography, but to mid-20th-century women’s history” (Chicago Tribune). “Wisely rescu[ing] Shirley Jackson from any semblance of obscurity” (Lena Dunham), Franklin’s invigorating portrait stands as the definitive biography of a generational avatar and an American literary genius.