TRAVEL · HORSE RACING
Bill Barich
[From wikipedia:]Early life and education
Most acclaimed
Traveling Light
What happens when you’re broke and you need to get to a new job, an ailing parent, a powwow, or a funeral on the other side of the country? After decades of globalization, what kind of America will you glimpse out the window on your way? For five years, Kath Weston rode the bus to find out.Traveling Light is not another book about people stuck in poverty. Rather, it’s a book about how people move through poverty and their insights into the sweeping economic changes that affect us all.Weston’s route takes her through Northeastern cities buried under layoffs, an immigration raid in the Southwest, an antiwar rally in the capitol, and the path traced by Hurricane Katrina. Like any road story, this one has characters that linger in the imagination: the trucker who has to give up his rig to have an operation; the teenager who can turn any Hollywood movie into a rap song; the homeless veteran who dreams of running his own shrimp boat; the sketch artist who breathes life into African American history; the single mother scrambling for loose change.
Long Way Home
Twelve-year-old George is sent to his seventh foster home, down on the Dyers' farm this time. He's dreading it. He bitterly used to the routine: getting stared at, feeling different, all the questions. This family seem to be different - a wayward cow introduces him to the children, Tom and the non-stop talker Storme, and George enjoys his first day on the farm. By night, he's still determined to run back to the Children's Home, but in a sudden storm he's needed to help save the cow he met that morning. Tom guesses George's plans and asks him to stay. In the next few weeks the children work on the farm together, and George is taught to swim in a nearby river. But one day George and Storme get caught in the mist while walking on the moors. When they find them, Mrs Dyer has to carry Storme home and in doing so hurts her back badly enough to have to go into hospital. The family cannot run the farm on their own, and despite the Tom and Storme's best efforts, George has to go back to the Home. George is devastated, and determines to run again, this time back to his foster family, not away from them. Arriving after a difficult journey, he's delighted to find Mrs Dyer is home and recovering, and the Dyers want to take him into their family for good.
A pint of plain
A tribute to the traditional Irish pub as a symbol of a disappearing Irish culture describes the author's challenging search for a classic pub that does not rely on modern forms of entertainment, traces the evolution of the Irish Pub Company chain in foreign countries, and explores the role of Irish music and drunk-driving laws on affecting pub success.