eBook PDF Download Digital Library
Author: Lee Stringer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 1999-11
Total Pages: 260
ISBN-13: 0671036548
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The author, homeless from the early eighties to the mid-1990s, tells the story of his life on the streets of New York, and discusses the process by which he kicked his drug habit and became a writer.
Author: Sam Roberts
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2013-01-22
Total Pages: 271
ISBN-13: 1455525952
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A rich, illustrated - and entertaining -- history of the iconic Grand Central Terminal, from one of New York City's favorite writers, just in time to celebrate the train station's 100th fabulous anniversary. In the winter of 1913, Grand Central Station was officially opened and immediately became one of the most beautiful and recognizable Manhattan landmarks. In this celebration of the one hundred year old terminal, Sam Roberts of The New York Times looks back at Grand Central's conception, amazing history, and the far-reaching cultural effects of the station that continues to amaze tourists and shuttle busy commuters. Along the way, Roberts will explore how the Manhattan transit hub truly foreshadowed the evolution of suburban expansion in the country, and fostered the nation's westward expansion and growth via the railroad. Featuring quirky anecdotes and behind-the-scenes information, this book will allow readers to peek into the secret and unseen areas of Grand Central -- from the tunnels, to the command center, to the hidden passageways. With stories about everything from the famous movies that have used Grand Central as a location to the celestial ceiling in the main lobby (including its stunning mistake) to the homeless denizens who reside in the building's catacombs, this is a fascinating and, exciting look at a true American institution.
Author: Tina S.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-08-18
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 1250094569
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →When Tina S. meets April, a teenage runaway, she thinks she's found her best friend. She leaves behind her dysfunctional family to join April in the tunnels of Grand Central Station amidst the homeless and drug addicted. Soon she's bingeing on crack--just like April--and stealing, scamming and panhandling to support her habit and to survive on the streets. In her own words, she describes her descent into crack addiction, being raped in the tunnels, her several arrests and jail terms and her grief and guilt over the death of April, whom she'd come to love. Finally faced with the reality that she might not make it through one more day, Tina takes her first difficult steps towards a normal life. With the help of a homeless advocate and his wife, a gay uncle dying of AIDS, and the woman who was to become her co-author on this book, Tina turns her life around and makes her way back to the world of the living.
Author: Lee Stringer
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2011-01-04
Total Pages: 204
ISBN-13: 1583229779
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Like his brother before him, Stringer was surrendered to foster care, shortly after birth, by his unwed and underemployed mother—a common practice for unmarried women in mid-century America. Less common was that she returned six years later to reclaim her children. Rather than leading to a happy ending, though, this is where Stringer's story begins. The clash of being poor and black in an affluent, largely white New York suburb begins to foment pain and rage which erupts, more often than not, when he is at school. One violent episode results in his expulsion from the sixth grade and his subsequent three-year stint at Hawthorne, the "sleepaway school" of the title. What follows is an intensely personal, American journey: a universal story of childhood where childhood universals are absent. We experience how a child fashions his life out of the materials given to him, however threadbare. This is a "boy-meets-world" story, the chronicle of one child’s struggle simply to be.
Author: Patrick Gale
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2016-03-22
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 1455594067
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"Patrick Gale has written a book which manages to be both tender and epic, and carries the unmistakable tang of a true story. I loved it." -- Jojo Moyes A privileged elder son, and stammeringly shy, Harry Cane has followed convention at every step. Even the beginnings of an illicit, dangerous affair do little to shake the foundations of his muted existence - until the shock of discovery and the threat of arrest cost him everything. Forced to abandon his wife and child, Harry signs up for emigration to the newly colonised Canadian prairies. Remote and unforgiving, his allotted homestead in a place called Winter is a world away from the golden suburbs of turn-of-the-century Edwardian England. And yet it is here, isolated in a seemingly harsh landscape, under the threat of war, madness and an evil man of undeniable magnetism that the fight for survival will reveal in Harry an inner strength and capacity for love beyond anything he has ever known before. In this exquisite journey of self-discovery, loosely based on a real life family mystery, Patrick Gale has created an epic, intimate human drama, both brutal and breathtaking. This is a novel of secrets, sexuality and, ultimately, of great love.
Author: Lee Stringer
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2011-01-04
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 160980225X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A New York Times Notable Book Whether Lee Stringer is describing "God's corner" as he calls 42nd Street, or his friend Suzy, a hooker and "past due tourist" whose infant child he sometimes babysits, whether he is recounting his experiences at Street News, where he began hawking the newspaper for a living wage, then wrote articles, and served for a time as muckraking senior editor, whether it is his adventures in New York's infamous Tombs jail, or performing community service, or sleeping in the tunnels below Grand Central Station by night and collecting cans by day, this is a book rich with small acts of kindness, humor and even heroism alongside the expected violence and desperation of life on the street. There is always room, Stringer writes, "amid the costume" jewel glitter...for one more diamond in the rough." Two events rise over Grand Central Winter like sentinels: Stringer's discovery of crack cocaine and his catching the writing bug. Between these two very different yet oddly similar activities, Lee's life unwound itself, during the 1980s, and took the shape of an odyssey, an epic struggle to find meaning and happiness in arid times. He eventually beat the first addiction with help from a treatment program. The second addiction, writing, has hold of him still. Among the many accomplishments of this book is that Stringer is able to convey something of the vitality and complexity of a down—and—out life. The reader walks away from it humming its melody, one that is more wise than despairing, less about the shame we feel when confronted with a picture of those less fortunate, and more about the joy we feel when we experience our shared humanity.
Author: Tiffany Baker
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2014-01-14
Total Pages: 295
ISBN-13: 1455512745
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In the tiny town of Titan Falls, New Hampshire, the paper mill dictates a quiet, steady rhythm of life. But one day a tragic bus accident sets two families on a course toward destruction, irrevocably altering the lives of everyone in their wake. June McAllister is the wife of the local mill owner and undisputed first lady in town. But the Snow family, a group of itinerant ne'er-do-wells who live on a decrepit and cursed property, have brought her--and the town--nothing but grief. June will do anything to cover up a dark secret she discovers after the crash, one that threatens to upend her picture-perfect life, even if it means driving the Snow family out of town. But she has never gone up against a force as fierce as the young Mercy Snow. Mercy is determined to protect her rebellious brother, whom the town blames for the accident, despite his innocence. And she has a secret of her own. When an old skeleton is discovered not far from the crash, it beckons Mercy to solve a mystery buried deep within the town's past.
Author: Karen White
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2014-07-01
Total Pages: 370
ISBN-13: 0698141512
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Ten bestselling authors inspired by New York City's iconic Grand Central Terminal have created their own stories, set on the same day, just after the end of World War II, in a time of hope, uncertainty, change, and renewal…. A war bride awaits the arrival of her GI husband at the platform…A Holocaust survivor works at the Oyster Bar, where a customer reminds him of his late mother…A Hollywood hopeful anticipates her first screen test and a chance at stardom in the Kissing Room… On any particular day, thousands upon thousands of people pass through Grand Central, through the whispering gallery, beneath the ceiling of stars, and past the information booth and its beckoning four-faced clock, to whatever destination is calling them. It is a place where people come to say hello and good-bye. And each person has a story to tell. Featuring stories from Melanie Benjamin, Jenna Blum, Amanda Hodgkinson, Pam Jenoff, Sarah Jio, Sarah McCoy, Kristina McMorris, Alyson Richman, Erika Robuck, and Karen White With an Introduction by #1 New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah
Author: David Sedaris
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2009-05-04
Total Pages: 125
ISBN-13: 0316073636
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favoritesas the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"); what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm ("Let It Snow"); the puzzling Christmas traditions of other nations ("Six to Eight Black Men"); what Halloween at the medical examiner's looks like ("The Monster Mash"); and a barnyard secret Santa scheme gone awry ("Cow and Turkey"). No matter what your favorite holiday, you won't want to miss celebrating it with the author who has been called "one of the funniest writers alive" (Economist).
