A sharp, comedic send-up of punk and hardcore culture, from the creators of the popular and critically-lauded satire site The Hard Times.net.

A look at the life of migrant workers through a child's eyes Emma Turner loves books and dreams of one day having the store-bought kind, but the Turners are migrant workers and money is tight. That means "no extras," so Emma must be content to make her own stories and books. Emma has a plan, though - she's going to save all the money she earns picking apples and put it in Mama's hard-times jar. Then there will surely be enough for extras. But when Mama tells Emma that this year she has to go to school instead of to work, it spoils everything. Now she will never own a store-bought book! But school turns out to have a wonderful surprise in store for Emma. Based on Ethel Footman Smothers's childhood, the story is brought to life with lush acrylic paintings, giving us a touching portrait of a book-hungry child.

In a tour de force of historical reportage, Timothy Egan’s National Book Award–winning story rescues an iconic chapter of American history from the shadows. The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, he does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect” (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet” (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful reminder about the dangers of trifling with nature. This e-book includes a sample chapter of THE IMMORTAL IRISHMAN.

Here is E. L. Doctorow’s debut novel, a searing allegory of frontier life that sets the stage for his subsequent classics. Hard Times is the name of a town in the barren hills of the Dakota Territory. To this town there comes one day one of the reckless sociopaths who wander the West to kill and rape and pillage. By the time he is through and has ridden off, Hard Times is a smoking ruin. The de facto mayor, Blue, takes in two survivors of the carnage–a boy, Jimmy, and a prostitute, Molly, who has suffered unspeakably–and makes them his provisional family. Blue begins to rebuild Hard Times, welcoming new settlers, while Molly waits with vengeance in her heart for the return of the outlaw. Praise for Welcome to Hard Times “A forceful, credible story of cowardice and evil.”—The Washington Post “We are caught up with these people as real human beings.”—Chicago Sun-Times “Dramatic and exciting.”—The New York Times “Terse and powerful.”—Newsweek “A taut, bloodthirsty read.”—The Times Literary Supplement “A superb piece of fiction.”—The New Republic

Widely hailed as one of the finest humorist of the twentieth century, James Thurber looks back at his own life growing up in Columbus, Ohio, with the same humor and sharp wit that defined his famous sketches and writings. In My Life and Hard times, first published in 1933, he recounts the delightful chaos and frustrations of family, boyhood, youth odd dogs, recalcitrant machinery, and the foibles of human nature.

Urban Styles chronicles the under the radar phenomenon of Punk Hardcore music blending with Graffiti in the metropolis known as New York City. This tale is told through the eyes of band members that were adept at wielding spray cans and writers that represented New York Hardcore on the streets as well as related iconography that reinforced the connection between these two subcultures. The conventional notion of what a graffiti writer is supposed to look and be into, is challenged, as stated on this quote from the book's jacket: "When you hear the term Graffiti Artist most people think of B-Boys in Kangol hats parachute pants and break dancing. No one thinks shaved heads, Doc Martens and CBGB mosh pits! But there was and is a strong connection between the NYC graffiti scene and the NY Hardcore scene..." Lou Koller from Sick Of It All A vital component of this synthesis was, the native to NYC, inclusion of Hardcore fans within traditional Graffiti crews, sometimes at odd with one another, but always united in spreading the aesthetic of this music onto a wider visual medium. Inside the book you'll find interviews with key crew members as well as the first writers who played in bands; the ones that followed them and the modern day practitioners that are still upholding this tradition. There is also a plethora of iconic images within, culled from record/demo tape covers, flyers, t-shirts and paintings that celebrate the union of these two street cultures, most of them never seen or done specifically for the book. Underground movements, art, music, sociology, urban cultures; all of these disparate yet related topics are a piece of the puzzle. They collectively shine a spotlight on subcultures that have gone on to have a far reaching influence onto the world-at-large and it all can be traced back to this concrete jungle known as the big apple.