Boot Camp For The Tattoo Apprentice

Getting a tattoo apprenticeship is hard. Keeping one is even harder. Avoid the pitfalls and mistakes that most people make by finding out what to do and what not to do when you seek your dream career. This is the only book that teaches you how to get to the inside of the tattoo world, and stay there and thrive!

"Once associated with gang members, criminals, and sailors, tattoos are now mainstream. An estimated twenty percent of all adults have at east one, and women are increasingly getting tattoos and are now more likely than men to have one. But many of the tattoos that women get are gender-appropriate: they are cute, small, and can be easily hidden. A small dolphin on the ankle, a black line on the lower back, a flower on the hip, and a child's name on the shoulder blade are among the popular choices. But what about women who are heavily tattooed? Why would a woman get "sleeves"? And why do some collect larger-scale tattoos on publicly visible skin, of imagery not typically considered feminine or cute, like skulls, zombies, snakes, or dragons? Drawing on five years of ethnographic research and interviews with more than seventy heavily tattoed women, 'Covered in Ink' provides insight into the increasingly visible subculture of tattoed women. Author Beverly Yuen Thompson spent time in tattoo parlors and at tattoo conventions in order to further understand women's love of ink and their imagery choices as well as their struggle with gender norms, employment discrimination, and family rejection. Still, many of these women feel empowered by their tattoes and believe they are creating a space for self-expression that also presents a positive body image. 'Covered in Ink' investigates this complicated subculture and finds out the many meanings of the love of ink"--Page 4 of cover.

The incredible story of the Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist and the woman he loved. Lale Sokolov is well-dressed, a charmer, a ladies' man. He is also a Jew. On the first transport of men from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, Lale immediately stands out to his fellow prisoners. In the camp, he is looked up to, looked out for, and put to work in the privileged position of Tatowierer - the tattooist - to mark his fellow prisoners, forever. One of them is a young woman, Gita, who steals his heart at first glance. His life given new purpose, Lale does his best through the struggle and suffering to use his position for good. This story, full of beauty and hope, is based on years of interviews author Heather Morris conducted with real-life Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov. It is heart-wrenching, illuminating, and unforgettable. 'Morris climbs into the dark miasma of war and emerges with an extraordinary tale of the power of love' - Leah Kaminsky

From the author of the multi-million copy bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz comes a new novel based on a riveting true story of love and resilience. Her beauty saved her — and condemned her. Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. Forcibly separated from the other women prisoners, Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly taken, equals survival. When the war is over and the camp is liberated, freedom is not granted to Cilka: She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a Siberian prison camp. But did she really have a choice? And where do the lines of morality lie for Cilka, who was send to Auschwitz when she was still a child? In Siberia, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she meets a kind female doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing and begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions. Confronting death and terror daily, Cilka discovers a strength she never knew she had. And when she begins to tentatively form bonds and relationships in this harsh, new reality, Cilka finds that despite everything that has happened to her, there is room in her heart for love. From child to woman, from woman to healer, Cilka's journey illuminates the resilience of the human spirit—and the will we have to survive.

Traumatized as a child, Marty Wilkens struggles to come to grips with himself and to understand the dark forces driving his life. He may have been seen as living a normal childhood. But inwardly, Marty lived in a world of his own creation. It was a dark and dangerous world which influenced everything he thought and did and which ultimately framed his perception of himself—small, weak, not very bright, and always a failure. Fortified by one misadventure after another, that perception was firmly implanted in his mind. All that changed, however, when Marty joined the US Navy where, removed from his childhood environment, he was able to gauge himself against other boys his own age. And he found that he wasn’t what he thought he was. Instead, he was a strong, confident, popular, successful, and typical young sailor— that is, until his childhood trauma came back to haunt him, this time with a vengeance that all but destroyed his life. Returning home after his service, he found that nothing had changed and soon was again the boy he once was but now driven to succeed, if for no other reason than to prove to himself that he could do it. Faced with a choice of majors, he chose electronic engineering because it was thought to be the most difficult course of study. Later, sensing that something was wrong with him emotionally, and deeming it psychological, he embarked on a private journey, hoping to unearth the root cause of his problems. After reading several books on psychology, he attempted self-analysis. The effects were devastating. He became paranoid and began having thoughts of suicide. Ultimately, an unexpected event forced him to confront the truth, and his childhood trauma was finally brought into the light of day.

In November 1944, the U.S. Navy fleet lay at anchor deep in the Pacific Ocean, when the oiler USS Mississinewa exploded. Japan’s secret weapon, the Kaiten—a manned suicide submarine—had succeeded in its first mission. The Kaiten was so secret that even Japanese naval commanders didn’t know of its existence. And the Americans kept it secret as well. Embarrassed by the attack, the U.S. Navy refused to salvage the sunken Mighty Miss. Not until 2001, when a diving team located the wreck, would survivors learn what really happened. In Kaiten, Michael Mair and Joy Waldron tell the full story, from newly revealed secrets of the Kaiten development and training schools to gripping firsthand accounts of U.S. Navy survivors in the wake of the attack, as well as the harrowing recovery efforts that came later. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS

James Daniel Nelson first hit the streets as a teenager in 1992. He joined a clutch of runaways and misfits who camped out together in a squat under a Portland bridge. Within a few months the group—they called themselves a "family"—was arrested for a string of violent murders. While Nelson sat in prison, the society he had helped form grew into a national phenomenon. Street families spread to every city from New York to San Francisco, and to many small towns in between, bringing violence with them. In 2003, almost eleven years after his original murder, Nelson, now called "Thantos", got out of prison, returned to Portland, created a new street family, and killed once more. Twelve family members were arrested along with him. Rene Denfeld spent over a decade following the evolution of street family culture. She discovered that, contrary to popular belief, the majority of these teenagers hail from loving middle-class homes. Yet they have left those homes to form insular communities with cultish hierarchies, codes of behavior, languages, quasireligions, and harsh rules. She reveals the extremes to which desperate teenagers will go in their search for a sense of community, and builds a persuasive and troubling case that street families have grown among us into a dark reversal of the American ideal.

On October 15, 1942, Japanese carrier planes attacked and sank the destroyer USS MEREDITH off Guadalcanal Island. When the attack became imminent, the crew of the accompanying tug VIREO was taken aboard MEREDITH. Of the 329 men, only 96 survived. For four days they struggled, combating dehydration, injuries, burns, shark attacks, and strafing by enemy planes. Robert Robinson miraculously survived the sinking of MEREDITH. He served with Medical Officer Barry Friedman, on another destroyer, USS RUSSELL. Lt. Cmdr Robinson died in 2004 after serving in three wars. Dr. Friedman retired after a career as an orthopaedic surgeon and lives in San Diego. "Although both a thrilling sea adventure and a fascinating historical insight into a little known aspect of the sea battle for Guadalcanal, Dr. Friedman's work is more than just a book, it is a heritage, something of great value that must be passed on to future generations. "The Short Life of a Valiant Ship grants insight into the world of the `Tin Can' sailors of the US Navy's destroyer fleet, a group of very average young men from all across America who were lifted out of their peacetime existences to be plunged, half-trained, out-numbered and ill-equipped, into the most cataclysmic naval campaign in history, and of how they arose triumphant at a terrible price. "'The Greatest Generation' is a phrase that has been much bandied about in recent years, but it's not a cliché, it's a simple truth." -James H. Cobb Author of the Amanda Garrett Naval Thrillers; Choosers of the Slain, Sea Strike, Sea Fighter, & Target Lock "I enjoyed reading The Short Life of a Valiant Ship very much. The miracle of this nation is that, for over 200 years, generations of' Americans have fought and died for the freedoms we all enjoy. It is important to revisit the time when the issue of the war in the Pacific was firmly in doubt and the odds faced by ships like USS MEREDITH were daunting. The manner in which the officers and men of MEREDITH responded to their challenges is inspirational.... A gripping story that is well told!" -Rear Admiral Peter H. Daly, Assistant Chief Naval Operations for Information, Plans and Strategy