"It's 1990 and seventeen-year-old Marley West is blazing into the river valley town of Mercury, Pennsylvania. A perpetual loner, she seeks a place at someone's table and a family of her own. The first thing she sees when she arrives in town is three men standing on a rooftop. Their silhouettes blot out the sun. The Joseph brothers become Marley's whole world before she can blink. Soon, she is young wife to one, The One Who Got Away to another, and...

"A fascinating tour of cities that have been lost to history--from the Neolithic period to the late Roman Empire--that offers a fresh perspective on the roots of urban life. The ruins of ancient Athens, Luxor, and Rome are familiar cornerstones of world history, visited by travelers from across the globe. But what about the cities that have dropped off the map? That have been submerged under water, or swallowed up by the sands of time? Where are they,...

"A lively, unique, and accessible cultural history of modern cities--from suburbs, downtown districts, and exurban sprawl, to shopping malls and "sustainable" developments--that allows us to view them through the planning, design, architects, and movements that inspired, created, and shaped them. Dream Cities explores our cities in a new way--as expressions of ideas, often conflicting, about how we should live, work, play, make, buy, and believe....

Five Cities that Ruled the World examines how and why a handful of cities--Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and New York--emerged in their respective times of influence to dominate the world stage, directing wealth and power, influencing faith and belief, commanding fear and allegiance, provoking wars and conquests, and shaping the world we live in today. --from publisher description.

Written by one of this country's foremost urban historians, Downtown is the first history of what was once viewed as the heart of the American city. It tells the fascinating story of how downtown-and the way Americans thought about downtown-changed over time. By showing how businessmen and property owners worked to promote the well-being of downtown, even at the expense of other parts of the city, it also gives a riveting account of spatial politics...

"A collection of seek and find challenges in which finding BigFoot accompanies facts about world cities"--

Gentrification is transforming cities, small and large, across the country. Though it's easy to bemoan the diminished social diversity and transformation of commercial strips that often signify a gentrifying neighborhood, determining who actually benefits and who suffers from this nebulous process can be much harder. The full story of gentrification is rooted in large-scale social and economic forces as well as in extremely local specifics--in short,...

When fledgling singer Roxy Raines vanishes from the tiny resort of Sandown, the island's locals refuse to talk about it to any outsiders, dismissing Roxy as a teenage runaway. Thirty years later, seventeen-year-old Mona Perry is convinced there's something more sinister at play. Armed with a suitcase and a microphone - to record her findings for her podcast's listeners - the troubled teen is on a deadline: one hot summer is all she has to get to the...

A collection of over forty pairs of animals, body parts, food, clothing, and geographical features breaks down what makes each item different from its companion.