Books about Raucous from Amazon.com

Like many great adventures, the 100-mile diet began with a memorable feast. Stranded in their off-the-grid summer cottage in the Canadian wilderness with unexpected guests, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon turned to the land around them. They caught a trout, picked mushrooms, and mulled apples from an abandoned orchard with rose hips in wine. The meal was truly satisfying; every ingredient had a story, a direct line they could trace from the soil to their forks. The experience raised a question: Was it possible to eat this way in their everyday lives?

Back in the city, they began to research the origins of the items that stocked the shelves of their local supermarket. They were shocked to discover that a typical ingredient in a North American meal travels roughly the distance between Boulder, Colorado, and New York City before it reaches the plate. Like so many people, Smith and MacKinnon were trying to live more lightly on the planet; meanwhile, their “SUV diet” was producing greenhouse gases and smog at an unparalleled rate. So they decided on an experiment: For one year they would eat only food produced within 100 miles of their Vancouver home.

It wouldn’t be easy. Stepping outside the industrial food system, Smith and MacKinnon found themselves relying on World War II–era cookbooks and maverick farmers who refused to play by the rules of a global economy. What began as a struggle slowly transformed into one of the deepest pleasures of their lives. For the first time they felt connected to the people and the places that sustain them.

For Smith and MacKinnon, the 100-mile diet became a journey whose destination was, simply, home. From the satisfaction of pulling their own crop of garlic out of the earth to pitched battles over canning tomatoes, Plenty is about eating locally and thinking globally.

The authors’ food-focused experiment questions globalization, monoculture, the oil economy, environmental collapse, and the tattering threads of community. Thought-provoking and inspiring, Plenty offers more than a way of eating. In the end, it’s a new way of looking at the world..
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What is in a rumor? Carlyn Beccia invites us to look more closely at all rumors and consider how the truth can become twisted over time in this one-of-a-kind combination of nonfiction picture book, graphic novel, and tabloid magazine..
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Rockers Behaving Badly

From Ozzy Osbourne to Chuck Berry, Courtney Love to Keith Moon, Rock Star Babylon has gathered together the most outrageous antics and diva-esque misbehavior in the annals of rock. Here in a single volume are the most wickedly entertaining stories of over-the-top parties, crazy divorces, hidden cameras, trashed hotel rooms, misapplied epileptic interventions, and innocent headless bats. Running the gamut from the rude to the ridiculous, these reports of rock-and-rollers at their worst come straight from the mouths of those who were there—or those who were there but left early and heard about it afterward. Fun, shocking, and compulsively readable, Rock Star Babylon is a guilty pleasure for fans everywhere..
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We're here to tell you, ya better make way.
We're queer rockers in your face today.
We can't relate to Judy Garland
It's a new generation of music calling
We're the butt-fuckers of rock n' roll.
-Anthem by Pansy Division

Music as a form of social activism dates back for centuries, but rarely has there been a movement as daring, exciting and provocative as homocore, the queer-oriented rock scene, which through its cult following in clubs around the country presents a brazen face to the queer sociopolitical movement.

Journalist David Ciminelli has been immersed in the queer rock scene since the early 1990s as a fan, writer, musician and band manager. His book drops you front and center as Brian Grillo, frontman for Extra Fancy, leaps from the stage at the Viper Room and chases a homophobic heckler up Sunset Boulevard. It takes you backstage as Pansy Division recalls being pelted by coins when they opened for Green Day during their career-making Dookie tour. Ciminelli's exploration charts the trendy homocore scene from the 1990s to today. Through interviews with scene leaders such as Pansy Division, Bob Mould (Hsker D), Jinx Titanic (Super 8 Cum Shot), I AmLoved, Clint Yeager (Sur) and the Skinjobs, Ciminelli tells the story of using music to promote tolerance and ponders whether pro-gay music is a powerful enough tool of activism to gain mainstream acceptance.

David Ciminelli grew up in Buffalo, New York. After moving to Los Angeles, he served as editor in chief of In Los Angeles magazine and editor of Unzipped, a gig he still has. When we asked him to tell us something cool about himself, he said, "I like pia coladas and getting caught in the rain." We don't talk to him anymore.

Ken Knox is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Instinct, Unzipped, Fab! and Frontiers. He is currently adapting his column "My La-La Life" into a screenplay.

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A Hunnert Years of French Lickin' is a humorous history of French Lick, Indiana, a town long famous for its resort hotel and its vice..
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This superb volume describes the events and ramifications of a revolt within the political science discipline that began in 2000 with a disgruntled e-mail message signed by one “Mr. Perestroika.” The message went to seventeen recipients who quickly forwarded it to others, and soon the Perestroika revolt became a major movement calling for change in the American political science community.

What is the Perestroika movement? Why did it occur? What has it accomplished? What remains to be done? Most important, what does it tell us about the nature of political science, about methodological pluralism and diversity, about the process of publishing scholarly work, and about graduate education in the field? The contributors to the book—thoughtful political scientists who offer a variety of perspectives—set the Perestroika movement in historical and comparative contexts. They address many topics related to heart of the debate—a desire for tolerance of methodological diversity—and assess the changes that have come in the wake of Perestroika. For political scientists and their graduate students, and for those interested in the history or sociology of social sciences, this volume is essential reading.