Renee is young and beautiful Chicagoan with a successful career and a gorgeous man. She seems to have life figured out and mastered. Her obsession with her career finally pushes her lover of six years away, causing Renee to slowly unravel. It becomes apparent that she is not the picture-perfect woman everyone thinks she is. In fact, she has a very dark and scandalous past. Through flashbacks, visions, and a supernatural encounter with the deceased grandmother that she was raised by, Renee is forced to relive the pain of being abandoned by her mother as a toddler and the shame of the gutter lifestyle of stripping and hustling that she narrowly escaped. Will Renee be able to salvage her relationship with the love of her life while simultaneously fighting the demons of her past? Windy City Woes is extremely entertaining and stimulating in many ways. It subtly grips the reader, taking you on an emotional roller coaster ride with lots of surprises. It ultimately forces you to think about facing your own skeletons and repressed memories - Mary V.

“Part manifesto, part how-to-guide . . . required reading for anyone who’s searching for new ways to be fearless.” —Carrie Brownstein When most Americans hear the words “roller derby” today, they think of the kitschy sport once popular on weekend television during the seventies and eighties. Originally an endurance competition where skaters traveled the equivalent of a trip between Los Angeles and New York, roller derby gradually evolved into a violent contact sport often involving fake fighting, and a kitschy weekend-television staple during the seventies and eighties. But in recent decades it’s come back strong, with more than 17,000 skaters in more than four hundred leagues around the world, and countless die-hard fans. Down and Derby will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the sport. Written by veteran skaters as both a history and a how-to, it’s a brassy celebration of every aspect of the sport, from its origins in the late 1800s, to the rules of a modern bout, to the science of picking an alias, to the many ways you can get involved off skates. Informative, entertaining, and executed with the same tough, sassy, DIY attitude—leavened with plenty of humor—that the sport is known for, Down and Derby is a great read for both skaters and spectators.

The partisan and ideological polarization associated with federal government plagues states and localities too, bringing with it significant implications for public policy and intergovernmental relations. The trusted and proven Governing States and Localities guides students through these issues and continues its focus on the role economic and budget pressures play. With their engaging journalistic writing and crisp storytelling, Kevin B. Smith and Alan Greenblatt employ a comparative approach to explain how and why states and localities are both similar and different in institutional structure, culture, history, economy, geography, and demographics. A great blend of high-quality academic analysis and the latest scholarship, the Sixth Edition is thoroughly updated to account for such major developments as state vs. federal conflicts over immigration reform, gun control, and voter rights; health and education reforms aimed at improving the effectiveness of state and local government service delivery; and the lingering effects of the Great Recession.

The world as seen from a bike 'Understated, comic and melancholic... It’ll inspire you to get back on your bike.' Martin Love, The Guardian ‘One of the most entertaining sports books I have ever read’ Joe Short, The Daily Express In this award-winning collection of cycling tales, Wilfried de Jong uncovers the true soul of cycling – why we do it, why we watch it, why we hate it, why we love it – stripped bare. With his distinctly comic and melancholic charm Wilfried ponders life, love and death on his trusted bike, chasing the essence of our existence against the backdrop of major cycling events or while roaming alone in nature. Whether he is describing being ejected from Paris-Roubaix, a terminal incident with a bird while out riding, or explaining why he is standing stark naked on Belgian cobbles with a tyre in his hand, Wilfried unlocks a sport that involves so much pain, punishment, and a high probability of failure, but that will always liberate and inspire us.

Allan Wilson Cates grew up in the poverty-stricken hills of North Arkansas in the 1940s and 1950s. At age sixteen, he joined the U.S. Army, and after serving two years, he hitchhiked north in search of work. It was 1956, and for the first time in his life, he didnt have to answer to anyone. For the next 40 years, he built airports, dams, and hydroelectric and nuclear power plants from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the Bering Sea. While he started as a nonskilled laborer, hed end up overseeing teams of engineers and retired from the apex of management with the University of Texas System, in Austin, Texas. In this memoir, he looks back at his magnificent career as well as the adventures he enjoyed visiting more than seventy countries. Join a man who worked his way to the topand had a great time doing itand see places youve only dreamed of visitingwith Vagabond Years.

Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page is one of the most nationally recognized and highly regarded syndicated columnists in the country, and his newest book, Culture Worrier: Selected Columns 1984–2014, commemorates the 30th anniversary of his column's first appearance in the Chicago Tribune. It is the first such collection of his columns, and a long overdue archive of his best work, covering topics such as politics, social issues, pop culture, race, family, new media, prominent figures, as well as his own personal life. Page has been a broadcast mainstay for decades, delivering his sensible and balanced perspective on The MacLaughlin Group, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NPR's Weekend Edition, MSNBC's Chris Matthews Show, and many other popular shows. His column, which is featured in over 150 newspapers, provides keen and clever insight on the day's most pressing political and social issues. While Page is known for his liberal-leaning views, readers have always appreciated his unbiased approach in directing criticism across the political spectrum, to any individual person or general issue deserving of examination. Culture Worrier: Selected Columns 1984–2014 is sure to be one of the most entertaining and fascinating column collections in recent years, bringing Page's unique perspective within the African-American and political communities, and wealth of fascinating experiential knowledge, to the foreground of our ongoing national dialogue. As a veteran media member who has lived through the transition from print's heyday to modern mobile publishing, from the Vietnam War through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and from the Civil Rights movement to the election of Barack Obama, Page is one of the most revered and uniquely qualified commentators of our time. This book will certainly be a bookshelf staple for the informed who favor balanced criticism of major current affairs and political events.

St. Louis was a city under siege during Prohibition. Seven different criminal gangs violently vied for control of the town's illegal enterprises. Although their names (the Green Ones, the Pillow Gang, the Russo Gang, Egan's Rats, the Hogan Gang, the Cuckoo Gang and the Shelton Gang) are familiar to many, their exploits have remained largely undocumented until now. Learn how an awkward gunshot wound gave the Pillow Gang its name, and read why Willie Russo's bizarre midnight interview with a reporter from the St. Louis Star involved an automatic pistol and a floating hunk of cheese. From daring bank robberies to cold-blooded betrayals, The Gangs of St. Louis chronicles a fierce yet juicy slice of the Gateway City's history that rivaled anything seen in New York or Chicago.

‘It takes courage to be an empathetic leader. And I think if anything the world needs empathetic leadership now, perhaps more than ever.’ Jacinda Ardern Jacinda Ardern was swept to office in 2017 on a wave of popular enthusiasm dubbed ‘Jacindamania’. In less than three months, she rose from deputy leader of the opposition to New Zealand’s highest office. Her victory seemed heroic. Few in politics would have believed it possible; fewer still would have guessed at her resolve and compassionate leadership, which, in the wake of the horrific Christchurch mosque shootings of March 2019, brought her international acclaim. Since then, her decisive handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has seen her worldwide standing rise to the point where she is now celebrated as a model leader. In 2020 she won an historic, landslide victory and yet, characteristically, chose to govern in coalition with the Green Party. Jacinda Ardern: Leading with Empathy carefully explores the influences – personal, social, political and emotional – that have shaped Ardern. Peace activist and journalist Supriya Vani and writer Carl A. Harte build their narrative through Vani’s exclusive interviews with Ardern, as well as the prime minister’s public statements and speeches and the words of those who know her. We visit the places, meet the people and understand the events that propelled the daughter of a small-town Mormon policeman to become a committed social democrat, a passionate Labour Party politician and a modern leader admired for her empathy and courage.

Beginning with 1937, the April issue of each vol. is the Fleet reference annual.