Rem World

Where anything is real, and everything is about to disappear... Arthur's mom tried hard, but sometimes she had no idea what her son was thinking, or why the only thing that made him happy was food, more food. Endless supplies of food, glorious food. "Did you have a nice birthday, dear?" she asked. "Was the cake big enough?" But Arthur didn't answer because he wasn't listening. He was thinking about his new miracle weight-loss device. If only it would work! If only he really could go to sleep fat and wake up thin! On the way out of the kitchen, Arthur snagged eleven Oreo cookies and slipped them into his over­sized pockets. Just for luck. Then he headed down the cellar stairs into the deep, dark basement. And his life, and the world, and the universe would never be the same again. Award-winning novelist Rodman Philbrick challenges the boundaries of time and place in this exciting fantasy. "Harry Potter fans will recognize the misfit hero in a strange, new world." - Booklist Philbrick’s children's book Freak the Mighty was the basis of a Golden Globe-nominated Sharon Stone movie titled simply The Mighty.

Arthur Woodbury is tired of being called fat. When he orders a weight-loss device from a comic book, he suddenly finds himself trapped in REM World, the endangered realm of dreams. He has to save REM World, or the future will cease to exist!

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In the summer of 1978, the B-52's conquered the New York underground. A year later, the band's self-titled debut album burst onto the Billboard charts, capturing the imagination of fans and music critics worldwide. The fact that the group had formed in the sleepy southern college town of Athens, Georgia, only increased the fascination. Soon, more Athens bands followed the B-52's into the vanguard of the new American music that would come to be known as "alternative," including R.E.M., who catapulted over the course of the 1980s to the top of the musical mainstream. As acts like the B-52's, R.E.M., and Pylon drew the eyes of New York tastemakers southward, they discovered in Athens an unexpected mecca of music, experimental art, DIY spirit, and progressive politics--a creative underground as vibrant as any to be found in the country's major cities. In Athens in the eighties, if you were young and willing to live without much money, anything seemed possible. Cool Town reveals the passion, vitality, and enduring significance of a bohemian scene that became a model for others to follow. Grace Elizabeth Hale experienced the Athens scene as a student, small-business owner, and band member. Blending personal recollection with a historian's eye, she reconstructs the networks of bands, artists, and friends that drew on the things at hand to make a new art of the possible, transforming American culture along the way. In a story full of music and brimming with hope, Hale shows how an unlikely cast of characters in an unlikely place made a surprising and beautiful new world.