Highlight: Well Met: Renaissance Faires & the American Counterculture by Rachel Lee Rubin
The Renaissance Faire - a 50-year-long party, communal ritual, political challenge and cultural wellspring - receives its first sustained historical attention with Well Met. Beginning with the chaotic communal moment of its founding and early development in the 1960s, through its incorporation as a major "family-friendly" leisure site in the 2000s, Well Met tells the story of the thinkers, artists, clowns, mimes, and other performers who make the faire.
Well Met approaches the faire from the perspective of labor, education, aesthetics, business, the opposition it faced, and the key figures involved. Drawing upon vibrant interview material and deep archival research, Rachel Lee Rubin reveals the way the faires established themselves as a pioneering and highly visible countercultural referendum on how we live now - our family and sexual arrangements, our relationship to consumer goods, and our corporate entertainments.
In order to understand the meaning of the faire to its devoted participants, both workers and visitors, Rubin has compiled a dazzling array of testimony, from extensive conversations with faire founder Phyllis Patterson to interviews regarding the contemporary scene with performers, crafters, booth workers, and "playtrons." Well Met pays equal attention what came out of the faire - the transforming gifts bestowed by the faire's innovations and experiments upon the broader American culture. The underground press of the 1960s and 1970s, experimentation with "ethnic" musical instruments and styles in popular music, the craft revival, and various forms of immersive theater are all connected back to their roots in the faire. Original, intrepid, and richly illustrated, Well Met puts the Renaissance Faire back at the historical center of the American counterculture.’
Fiction
"Something Wicked" by Lisa Jackson, "Deadly Stakes" by J.A. Jance, "Guilt" by Jonathan Kellerman, "A Week in Winter" by Maeve Binchy, and "Alex Cross, Run" by James Patterson
Juvenile: "Froggy's Worst Playmate" by Jonathan London, "Lost in the City" (American Girl), "Neferet's Curse" by P.C. Cast, and "Simpson's Comics Supernova" by Matt Groening.
New Adult Fiction
"Ancient Light" John Banville; "Hiss and Hers" M.C. Beaton; "The Aviator's Wife" Melanie Benjamin; "The Twelve Clues of Christmas" Rhys Bowen; "Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance" Lois McMaster Bujold; "Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker" Jennifer Chiaverini; "Scones & Bones" Laura Childs; "Suspect" Robert Crais; "Stray Souls" Kate Griffin; "Crooked Miles, Woven World: A Novella and Short Stories" Bruce Henrickson; "The Third Bullet" Stephen Hunter; "‘Twas the Night After Christmas, by Sabrina Jeffries; "Death’s Apprentice" K.W. Jeter; "A Memory of Light: The Final Volume of The Wheel of Time" Robert Jordan; "Killer Librarian" Mary Lou Kirwin; "Death of a Neighborhood Witch" Laura Levine; "The Fifth Assassin" Brad Meltzer; "Robert B. Parker's Fool Me Twice" Michael Brandman; "Private Berlin" James Patterson; "Resurrection Express" Stephen Romano; "Until the End of Time" Danielle Steel; "Beneath the Abbey Wall" A.D. Scott; "Tempting the Bride" Sherry Thomas; "Wilderness" Lance Weller; "Ashenden" Elizabeth Wilhide; "The Intercept" Dick Wolf; "Back to Blood" Tom Wolfe; "Those We Love Most" Lee Woodruff; "The Lawgiver" Herman Wouk.
New Adult Non-Fiction
"Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife" Eben Alexander; "Friendkeeping: A Field Guide to the People You Love, Hate, & Can’t Live Without" Julie Klam; "From Here to Enlightenment: An Introduction to Tsong-Kha-Pa’s Classic Text: The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment" the Dalai Lama; "Living With Guns: A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amendment" Craig R. Whitney; "Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, & Disease" Robert H. Lustig; "Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, & the Search for Identity" Andrew Solomon; "The Great Railroad Revolution: The History of Trains in America" Christian Wolmar; "Well Met: Renaissance Faires & the American Counterculture" Rachel Lee Rubin; "Langenscheidt's Russian-English English-Russian Dictionary"; "Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, & the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga" Benjamin Lorr; "Spillover: Animal Infections & the Next Human Pandemic" David Quammen; "The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the TLC Diet, by Diane Welland; "The Dash Diet Action Plan" Marla Heller; "Fuel Economy Guide, Model Year 2013" U.S. Dept. of Energy; "Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey" Margaret Powell; "Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child" Bob Spitz; "American Dietetic Assoc. Complete Food & Nutrition Guide" Roberta Larson Duyff; "The New Atkins for a New You Cookbook" Colette Heimowitz; "True Food: Seasonal, Sustainable, Simple, Pure, by Andrew Weil; "Jerusalem: A Cookbook" Yotam Ottolenghi; "Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America" Maricel E. Presilla; "Life Is a Gift: The Zen of Bennett" Tony Bennett; "The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot" Robert MacFarlane; "The Second World War “The Definitive History” Anthony Beevor; "Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies" Ben Macintyre; "The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor" Jake Tapper; "The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House" Edward Klein.
New Young Adult & Juvenile
"The One and Only Ivan" Katherine Applegate; "The Bear in the Book" Katie Banks; "The Secret Prophecy" Herbie Brennan; "The Great Unexpected" Sharon Creech; "Kate & Nate Are Running Late" Kate Egan; "The Vengekeep Prophecies" Brian Farrey; "The Boston Tea Party" Russell Freedman; "Geronimo Stilton: Mouse in Space" Geronimo Stilton; "Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Extra Credit" Tommy Greenwald; "Game-Changer" Margaret Peterson Haddix; "Cat Tale" Michael Hall; "Infinity Ring: The Trap Door" Lisa McMann; "There Was a Tree" Rachel Isadora; "This Moose Belongs to Me" Oliver Jeffers; "Flash Point" Nancy Kress; "Messenger" Lois Lowry; "Crash" Lisa McMann; "Kevin Keeps Up" Ann Whitehead Nagda; "Keeping Safe the Stars" Sheila O'Connor; "Dinosaur Countdown" Nicholas Oldland; "The Case of the Incapacitated Capitals" Robin Pulver; "Dragons Love Tacos" Adam Rubin; "Those Darn Squirrels" Adam Rubin; "Walls Within Walls" Maureen Sherry; "A Day With Paramedics" Jodie Shepherd; "Turkey Claus" Wendi Silvano; "The Christmas Quiet Book" Deborah Underwood; "Let’s Go for a Drive" Mo Willems; "Each Kindness" Jacqueline Woodson; "The Waiting Sky" Lara Zielin.
Tags: two harbors, books, library
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