Dimestore

“A memoir that shines with a bright spirit, a generous heart and an entertaining knack for celebrating absurdity.”—The New York Times Book Review “This is Smith at her finest.”—Library Journal, starred review Set deep in the mountains of Virginia, the Grundy of Lee Smith’s youth was a place of coal miners, tent revivals, mountain music, drive-in theaters, and her daddy’s dimestore. When she was sent off to college to gain some “culture,” she understood that perhaps the richest culture she would ever know was the one she was leaving. Lee Smith’s fiction has always lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. But never before has she written her own story. Dimestore’s fifteen essays are crushingly honest, wise and perceptive, and superbly entertaining. Together, they create an inspiring story of the birth of a writer and a poignant look at a way of life that has all but vanished.

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF BITTEN—NOW A SYFY SERIES From one of today’s most original writers comes the mesmerizing tale of an exceptional young woman caught up in an otherworldly realm where some will stop at nothing to get what they want. Paige Winterbourne was always either too young or too rebellious to succeed her mother as leader of one of the world’s most powerful elite organizations—the American Coven of Witches. Now that she is twenty-three and her mother is dead, the Elders can no longer deny her. But even Paige’s wildest antics can’t hold a candle to those of her new charge—an orphan who is all too willing to use her budding powers for evil...and evil is all too willing to claim her. For this girl is being pursued by a dark faction of the supernatural underworld. They are a vicious group who will do anything to woo the young, malleable, and extremely powerful neophyte, including commit murder—and frame Paige for the crime. It’s an initiation into adulthood, womanhood, and the brutal side of magic that Paige will have to do everything within her power to make sure they both survive.

Now in Paperback In Dime-Store Alchemy, poet Charles Simic reflects on the life and work of Joseph Cornell, the maverick surrealist who is one of America’s great artists. Simic’s spare prose is as enchanting and luminous as the mysterious boxes of found objects for which Cornell is justly renowned.

Leader of the American Coven, guardian to the preteen daughter of a black witch... it’s not the lifestyle twenty-three year-old Paige Winterbourne imagined for herself, and it’s wreaking hell on her social life. But she’s up to the challenge. When half-demon Leah O’Donnell returns to fight for custody of Savannah, Paige is ready. She’s not as prepared for the team of supernaturals Leah brings with her, including a powerful sorcerer who claims to be Savannah’s father. Cut off from her friends, accused of witchcraft, Satanism, necromancy, murder... Paige quickly realizes that keeping Savannah could mean losing everything else. Has she finally found a battle she isn’t willing to fight? Book 3 in the Otherworld series.

A coming-of-age memoir evoking farm, mining, and small-town life in Alabama's Tuscaloosa County as the world transitions from the Great Depression to World War II In the 1930s, the rural South was in the throes of the Great Depression. Farm life was monotonous and hard, but a timid yet curious teenager thought it worth recording. Aileen Kilgore Henderson kept a chronicle of her family's daily struggles in Tuscaloosa County alongside events in the wider world she gleaned from shortwave radio and the occasional newspaper. She wrote about Howard Hughes's round-the-world flight, her dreams of sitting on the patio of Shepheard's Hotel to watch Lawrence of Arabia ride in from the desert, and her horror at the rise to power in Germany of a bizarre politician named Adolf Hitler. Henderson longed to join the vast world beyond the farm, but feared leaving the refuge of her family and beloved animals. Yet, with her father's encouragement, she did leave, becoming a clerk in the Kress dime store in downtown Tuscaloosa. Despite long workdays and a lengthy bus commute, she continued to record her observations and experiences in her diary, for every day at the dime store was interesting and exciting for an observant young woman who found herself considering new ideas and different points of view. Drawing on her diary entries from the 1930s and early 1940s, Henderson recollects a time of sweeping change for Tuscaloosa and the South. The World through the Dime Store Door is a personal and engaging account of a Southern town and its environs in transition told through the eyes of a poor young woman with only a high school education but gifted with a lively mind and an openness to life.

Conniving creatures and their exorbitant prices are coming out of the woodwork in South Toms River, New Jersey. Werewolf Natalya Stravinsky has stepped up to the plate as alpha female of the South Toms River Pack and defended her loved ones. While She Who Always Walks the Path is still a looming threat, another problem arises. Nat must fulfill her debt to some shifty demons who own a ceramics mart in town. A mysterious thief has appeared, stealing powerful weapons. Now, Nat must discover the culprit before the demons unleash their fury on the pack. Will Nat be able to uncover the thief and restore balance, or will the delicate facade keeping the human world from the supernatural one come crumbling down?

Dev Sinclair is the happy new owner of the old-fashioned shop in her small Missouri town. But if she doesn't focus on finding the killer of her ex's fiancée, this five-and-dime owner may find herself serving twenty-five to life...

This is the first all-color book devoted to collecting the toy soldiers and figures that were sold in the Five-and-Dime stores. Over 650 photographs, showing in excess of three thousand toy figures, are arranged in thematic style and cover military and non-military toys. Complete with price guide, terminology, index, and over 60 manufacturers products. Thematic/category chapters make it easy for experienced and new collectors to easily locate figures.