An American Summer

2020 J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE WINNER From the bestselling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods. The numbers are staggering: over the past twenty years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community? Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing about individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity--and the breaking point--of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and twenty years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends. Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get into your bones. This one summer will stay with you.

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The summer camps have provided many American children's first experience of community beyond their immediate family and neighbourhoods. This title chronicles the history of the American summer camp, from its invention in the late nineteenth century through its rise in the first four decades of the twentieth century

Faced with the sale of the century-old family summer house on Cape Cod where he had spent forty-two summers, George Howe Colt recounts returning for one last stay with his wife and children in this stunning memoir that was a National Book Award Finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. This poignant tribute to the eleven-bedroom jumble of gables, bays, and dormers that watched over weddings, divorces, deaths, anniversaries, birthdays, breakdowns, and love affairs for five generations interweaves Colt’s final visit with memories of a lifetime of summers. Run-down yet romantic, The Big House stands not only as a cherished reminder of summer’s ephemeral pleasures but also as a powerful symbol of a vanishing way of life.

A charming book. Little text; hundreds of renderings and photos. Cloth edition ($25) not seen. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This is the moving and powerful account of two remarkable boys struggling to survive in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes, a public housing complex disfigured by crime and neglect.

The screenwriters behind the cult classic comedy present the definitive behind-the-scenes companion volume. With its unbelievable ensemble cast, Wet Hot American Summer hilariously skewered 1980s teen comedies while becoming a beloved classic in its own right. Now screenwriters David Wain and Michael Showalter have created a behind-the-scenes annotated version of the original screenplay that launched a thousand Halloween costumes. They provide commentary on how and why they made the artistic decisions they did while writing and filming the movie, as well as the Netflix series that came after. The book also features reproduced ephemera from filming—photos, original (and scathing) reviews, AIM chat conversations, marked up script pages, and so much more. Written and curated by Wain and Showalter, this is the must-have guide to all things Wet Hot.