Throughout the late-seventies and eighties, Van Halen were the archetypal American rock group. Whats more they were also the highest paid band in the history of show business, taking a cool $1 million for a night's work at a festival in 1983 and making the Guinness Book of Records. This autobiography tells their story.

James Evans has become the foremost interpreter of the state's iconic Big Bend region, which has been his life's passion and photographic subject since 1988. Approaching the rugged land and its people as an artist, documentarian, and historian, Evans has produced a body of work that rejects clichés in favor of honest, deeply observed photographs that show a profound understanding of light, the people of the desert, and the desert itself. Crazy from the Heat presents Evans's most fully realized portrait of the Big Bend. Going well beyond his highly regarded black-and-white work in Big Bend Pictures, this book displays magnificent landscapes in full color, including panoramas that fold out to reveal the immensity of the desert. It contains dramatic time-lapse night photography and sensuous nudes that exhibit the striking similarities between the contours of the human form and of the land. Several portraits of Big Bend residents that reflect Evans's long acquaintance with and affection for people who are at home in this remote place complete the collection.

Life is like high school. For Grey Talbot teaching high school history was a choice. When a gorgeous blond punk of a kid walks into his class with attitude to spare, Grey fears his choice might just be his undoing. High school kids kept getting younger and Paul Gaines stayed the same. Moving from one city narcotics unit to the next, his youthful looks and slender body made him a perfect undercover cop for the job. Meeting the professor wasn't part of the deal. The man was smart sexy and off limits even if he was younger than Paul. For Grey getting involved with one of his students, even if that student wore a badge meant playing with fire. Fire that could burn them both.

Sanity is overrated in this “captivating, funny, exciting” fantasy adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of the Scarred Earth Saga (Smexy Books). Some things never go away, like vile enemies, bad ale, and annoying kin. But I thought I was finished with the one dragon I’d have done anything for: Éibhear the Blue, a big, gorgeous, blue-haired beast who thinks the world belongs to him. The world and, apparently, me. So if Éibhear wants to play the caring hero and travel into the most forsaken of Gods forsaken lands to protect the one woman who doesn’t need it—namely me—I’ll let him. Because while I’m trying to fulfill a ridiculous quest for a pushy god, I’m going to draw this overconfident warlord much too close, rekindle his fires, and enjoy every minute of his delicious defeat . . . Praise for the Dragon Kin Series “Aiken’s patented mix of bloodthirsty action, crazy scenarios and hilarious dialogue have made this series a truly unique pleasure.”—RT Book Reviews (4½ Stars) “A chest thumping, mead-hall rocking, enemy slaying brawl of a good book.”—All Things Urban Fantasy “Laugh-out-loud funny—I loved it!”—Thea Harrison, New York Times bestselling author "A hot, hot series." --Library Journal

The #1 Bestseller! Michael Arroyo has a pitching arm that throws serious heat along with aspirations of leading his team all the way to the Little League World Series. But his firepower is nothing compared to the heat Michael faces in his day-to-day life. Newly orphaned after his father led the family’s escape from Cuba, Michael’s only family is his seventeen-yearold brother Carlos. If Social Services hears of their situation, they will be separated in the foster-care system—or worse, sent back to Cuba. Together, the boys carry on alone, dodging bills and anyone who asks too many questions. But then someone wonders how a twelve-year-old boy could possibly throw with as much power as Michael Arroyo throws. With no way to prove his age, no birth certificate, and no parent to fight for his cause, Michael’s secret world is blown wide open, and he discovers that family can come from the most unexpected sources. Perfect for any Little Leaguer with dreams of making it big--as well as for fans of Mike Lupica's other New York Times bestsellers Travel Team, The Big Field, The Underdogs, Million-Dollar Throw, and The Game Changers series, this cheer-worthy baseball story shows that when the game knocks you down, champions stand tall.

A National Book Award–winning author’s “moving” novel about “the emotional costs of mental illness, especially on teens forced to parent their own parents” (Booklist, starred review). His mother has died. His father is going crazy. For fifteen-year-old Jason, the only relief as he tries to hold things together is the group of imaginary friends who offer guidance as he tries not to draw attention to his father’s deteriorating condition—or to himself. But between the traumas of his childhood and the squalor and stress he’s dealing with right now, Jason’s attempts to remain invisible may not be enough. To find a solution to this very real problem, he just might have to reach out to some very real people . . . In this compelling story by the author of Dancing on the Edge, Han Nolan “balances weighty subject matter with humor, offering an intelligent portrayal of a boy’s slow release of burdens too heavy to carry alone” (Publishers Weekly).

Looks at what matter is, and examines the different states that it can change into.

The “compelling” story behind the 1995 Chicago weather disaster that killed hundreds—and what it revealed about our broken society (Boston Globe). On July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index—how the temperature actually feels on the body—would hit 126. When the heat wave broke a week later, city streets had buckled; records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids had failed, leaving residents without electricity for up to two days. By July 20, over seven hundred people had perished—twenty times the number of those struck down by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Heat waves kill more Americans than all other natural disasters combined. Until now, no one could explain either the overwhelming number or the heartbreaking manner of the deaths resulting from the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Meteorologists and medical scientists have been unable to account for the scale of the trauma, and political officials have puzzled over the sources of the city’s vulnerability. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a “social autopsy,” examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been. He investigates why some neighborhoods experienced greater mortality than others, how city government responded, and how journalists, scientists, and public officials reported and explained these events. Through years of fieldwork, interviews, and research, he uncovers the surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown that contributed to this human catastrophe as hundreds died alone behind locked doors and sealed windows, out of contact with friends, family, community groups, and public agencies. As this incisive and gripping account demonstrates, the widening cracks in the social foundations of American cities made visible by the 1995 heat wave remain in play in America’s cities today—and we ignore them at our peril. Includes photos and a new preface on meeting the challenges of climate change in urban centers “Heat Wave is not so much a book about weather, as it is about the calamitous consequences of forgetting our fellow citizens. . . . A provocative, fascinating book, one that applies to much more than weather disasters.” —Chicago Sun-Times “It’s hard to put down Heat Wave without believing you’ve just read a tale of slow murder by public policy.” —Salon “A classic. I can’t recommend it enough.” —Chris Hayes

A vivid and energetic history of Van Halen's legendary early years After years of playing gigs everywhere from suburban backyards to dive bars, Van Halen — led by frontman extraordinaire David Lee Roth and guitar virtuoso Edward Van Halen — had the songs, the swagger, and the talent to turn the rock world on its ear. The quartet's classic 1978 debut, Van Halen, sold more than a million copies within months of release and rocketed the band to the stratosphere of rock success. On tour, Van Halen's high-energy show wowed audiences and prompted headlining acts like Black Sabbath to concede that they'd been blown off the stage. By the year's end, Van Halen had established themselves as superstars and reinvigorated heavy metal in the process. Based on more than 230 original interviews — including with former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and power players like Pete Angelus, Marshall Berle, Donn Landee, Ted Templeman, and Neil Zlozower — Van Halen Rising reveals the untold story of how these rock legends made the unlikely journey from Pasadena, California, to the worldwide stage.

From a prize-winning poet, a new collection that chronicles a weekend in the life of a group of friends coming of age in East Harlem at the dawn of the hip-hop era Willie Perdomo, a native of East Harlem, has won praise as a hip, playful, historically engaged poet whose restlessly lyrical language mixes "city life with a sense of the transcendent" (NPR.org). In his fourth collection, The Crazy Bunch, Perdomo returns to his beloved neighborhood to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic portrait of a "crew" coming of age in East Harlem at the beginning of the 1990s. In poems written in couplets, vignettes, sketches, riffs, and dialogue, Perdomo recreates a weekend where surviving members of the crew recall a series of tragic events: "That was the summer we all tried to fly. All but one of us succeeded."