Sunny is upset by the problems in her life--her mother's illness and her father's lack of attention to her--and decides to escape by running away.

From the author of The Baby-Sitters Club: Facing a family tragedy, Sunny builds a wall around her heart—so she doesn’t fall apart. Sunny’s mom isn’t getting better. In fact, her health (along with her mind) is deteriorating quickly. When Sunny turns to her best friend, Dawn, for support, it seems like all she gets is guilt. It doesn’t help that Dawn seems to connect better with Sunny’s mom than Sunny does, or that her dad is still so absorbed with work that he is never home. But at least there is one adult whom she can talk to—Dawn’s pregnant stepmom, Carol. And Sunny has a stream of guys knocking at her door to keep her occupied. But none of that can replace her mom—and if she lets herself think about it, she may not be able to keep going. This ebook features an illustrated personal history of Ann M. Martin, including rare images from the author’s collection. Sunny: Diary Two is the 6th book in the California Diaries, which also includes Ducky: Diary One and Dawn: Diary Two.

YA. Written in diary format. The thoughts of a confused teenager. 11 yrs+

From the author of The Baby-Sitters Club: Former BFFs Dawn and Sunny have to get over the past now that they need each other more than ever. Dawn and Sunny used to be best friends. But now it seems like nothing can get them to talk to each other and resolve their issues. Dawn misses her former friend—even if she can’t admit it. When Ducky scores tickets to see their favorite band, Jax, he wants to take both Dawn and Sunny. But even a fun night out can’t bring them together. In fact, they are angrier and further apart than ever before. The one thing they still share is their sadness over Sunny’s mom’s illness. No one else understands what they’re going through. But can they get through their anger long enough to rekindle their friendship? This ebook features an illustrated personal history of Ann M. Martin, including rare images from the author’s collection. Dawn: Diary Three is the 11th book in the California Diaries, which also includes Ducky: Diary Two and Sunny: Diary Three.

Imagine that Alice had walked into a bar instead of falling down the rabbit hole. In the tradition of J. R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar and the classic reportage of Joseph Mitchell, here is an indelible portrait of what is quite possibly the greatest bar in the world—and the mercurial, magnificent man behind it. The first time he saw Sunny’s Bar, in 1995, Tim Sultan was lost, thirsty for a drink, and intrigued by the single bar sign among the forlorn warehouses lining the Brooklyn waterfront. Inside, he found a dimly lit room crammed with maritime artifacts, a dozen well-seasoned drinkers, and, strangely, a projector playing a classic Martha Graham dance performance. Sultan knew he had stumbled upon someplace special. What he didn’t know was that he had just found his new home. Soon enough, Sultan has quit his office job to bartend full-time for Sunny Balzano, the bar’s owner. A wild-haired Tony Bennett lookalike with a fondness for quoting Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett, Sunny is truly one of a kind. Born next to the saloon that has been in his family for one hundred years, Sunny has over the years partied with Andy Warhol, spent time in India at the feet of a guru, and painted abstract expressionist originals. But his masterpiece is the bar itself, a place where a sublime mix of artists, mobsters, honky-tonk musicians, neighborhood drunks, nuns, longshoremen, and assorted eccentrics rub elbows. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly transforming city, Sunny’s Nights is a loving and singular portrait of the dream experience we’re all searching for every time we walk into a bar, and an enchanting memoir of an unlikely and abiding friendship. Praise for Sunny’s Nights “Fantastic . . . [Sultan takes] material that might seem familiar and [mixes] a perfect, insightful cocktail: full-bodied, multitextured and delicious. . . . Simply beautiful.”—The New York Times Book Review “Sultan’s love of Red Hook shines through, and it’s hard not to be swept along on the ebb and flow of his emotions. . . . Sultan’s book is, among other things, a meditation on the fragility of the moment and the passage of time. . . . Wistful, funny and biting, Sunny’s Nights rewards you with its evocation of a certain place in time and, as Sultan calls him, ‘the most original man I have ever met.’”—Newsday “An affectionate portrait of the idiosyncratic Sunny’s Bar.”—USA Today “Sultan finds Sunny . . . a real character, a poet, a cinephile, a philosopher, bluegrass maestro and (Rheingold) beer server.”—New York Post (“Required Reading”) “Captivating . . . a classic story about a local bar.”—The Buffalo News “An enchanting memoir, a profound meditation on place and a beautiful story of an unlikely and abiding friendship.”—Brooklyn Daily Eagle “[A] polished, affecting look at remarkable barkeep Sunny Balzano . . . In elegant prose, Sultan deploys laconic humor, an instinct for telling details, a taste for eccentricity, and above all, clear-eyed compassion for our all-too-human failings.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Beautifully wrought . . . an indelible portrait of an unusual man and a nearly forgotten part of NYC.”—Booklist “More than an elegy for a bar and a neighborhood—it’s also a vivid and loving portrait of the larger-than-life eccentric who gave the bar its name and its spirit.”—Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers

A rich mosaic of diary entries and letters from Marilyn Monroe, Cesar Chavez, Susan Sontag, Albert Einstein, and many more, this is the story of Los Angeles as told by locals, transplants, and some just passing through. “Los Angeles is refracted in all its irreducible, unexplainable glory.”—Los Angeles Times The City of Angels has played a distinct role in the hearts, minds, and imaginations of millions of people, who see it as the ultimate symbol of the American Dream. David Kipen, a cultural historian and avid scholar of Los Angeles, has scoured libraries, archives, and private estates to assemble a kaleidoscopic view of a truly unique city. From the Spanish missionary expeditions in the early 1500s to the Golden Age of Hollywood to the strange new world of social media, this collection is a slice of life in L.A. through the years. The pieces are arranged by date—January 1st to December 31st—featuring selections from different decades and centuries. What emerges is a vivid tapestry of insights, personal discoveries, and wry observations that together distill the essence of the city. As sprawling and magical as the city itself, Dear Los Angeles is a fascinating, must-have collection for everyone in, from, or touched by Southern California. With excerpts from the writing of Ray Bradbury • Edgar Rice Burroughs • Octavia E. Butler • Italo Calvino • Winston Churchill • Noël Coward • Simone De Beauvoir • James Dean • T. S. Eliot • William Faulkner • Lawrence Ferlinghetti • Richard Feynman • F. Scott Fitzgerald • Allen Ginsberg • Dashiell Hammett • Charlton Heston • Zora Neale Hurston • Christopher Isherwood • John Lennon • H. L. Mencken • Anaïs Nin • Sylvia Plath • Ronald Reagan • Joan Rivers • James Thurber • Dalton Trumbo • Evelyn Waugh • Tennessee Williams • P. G. Wodehouse • and many more Advance praise for Dear Los Angeles “This book’s a brilliant constellation, spread out over a few centuries and five thousand square miles. Each tiny entry pins the reality of the great unreal city of Angels to a moment in human time—moments enthralled, appalled, jubilant, suffering, gossiping or bragging—and it turns out, there’s no better way to paint a picture of the place.”—Jonathan Lethem “[A] scintillating collection of letters and diary entries . . . an engrossing trove of colorful, witty insights.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Teenager Maggie Blume struggles with not being perfect in this spin-off from the Newbery Award–winning author’s Baby-sitters Club series. Straight-A student Maggie might seem perfect, but in reality, her life is anything but. There’s not much she can do about the demands her dad puts on her, her mother’s alcoholism, or her insecurity about following her passion for music—but she can control what she eats. As Maggie’s friends begin to worry that she has an eating disorder, she’ll have to face the fact that she might have a problem being perfect won’t solve . . . The next chapter following Ann M. Martin’s bestselling Baby-sitters Club series, the California Diaries are the first-person journals of Dawn, Sunny, Maggie, Amalia, and Ducky—five teenagers dealing with the ups and downs of growing up. This collection includes the complete set of Maggie’s three California Diaries.