This vital and compelling collection of stories about work, compiled by novelist and short-story writer Richard Ford, explores tales of how we... Americans are employed; how we find work and leave it; how it excites, ennobles, occasionally debilitates, but often defines us. Contributing writers for Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar range from contemporary Pulitzer Prize winners Edward P. Jones and Jhumpa Lahiri to iconic short-story masters Tobias Wolff, Annie Proulx, and Joyce Carol Oates, as well as emerging writers such as Lewis Robinson. Encompassing a wide range of contemporary literary styles, ages, ethnic backgrounds, and geographical locations, Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar is a masterful, exhilarating, and timely fictional exploration of work and its relationship to the human spirit. All author proceeds from Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar: Stories of Work will go directly to fund the free youth writing, tutoring, and publishing programs offered by 826michigan.

"You will not turn on the tap in the same way after reading this book." --Robert Redford "Blue Covenant is the most important book that's ever been... written on the global water crisis." --Wenonah Hauter, executive director, Food & Water Watch Maude Barlow has for decades been a leading voice arguing that access to safe drinking water should be a basic human right. Called the "Al Gore of water," Barlow is the very best kind of advocate--deeply informed, articulate, and persuasive. Essential reading for anyone interested in the emerging international movement for water justice, Blue Covenant is one of the most important books of our time.

In the promised land of the Sunbelt, people come by the thousands to escape the crush of Eastern cities and end up duplicating the very world they have... fled. Can the land remain unchanged? In Blue Desert, Charles Bowden presents a view of the Southwest that seeks to measure how rapid growth has taken its toll on the land. Writing with a reporter's objectivity and a desert rat's passion, Bowden takes us into the streets as well as the desert to depict not a fragile environment but the unavoidable reality of abuse, exploitation, and human cruelty. Blue Desert shows us the Sunbelt's darker side as it has developed in recent times—where "the land always makes promises of aching beauty and the people always fail the land"—and defies us to ignore it. Blue Desert has no boundaries, no terrain, no topographical coordinates; it is a state of mind inescapable to one who sees change and knows that nothing can be done to stop it.

“A wake-up call . . . Moser’s argument is cogent.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution In Blue Dixie, Bob Moser, an award-winning political... reporter for The Nation, argues that the Democratic Party needs to jettison outmoded prejudices about the South if it wants to build a lasting national majority. With evangelical churches preaching a more expansive social gospel and a massive left-leaning demographic shift to African Americans, Latinos, and the young, the South is poised for a Democratic revival. Moser shows how a volatile mix of unprecedented economic prosperity and abject poverty are reshaping the Southern vote. By returning to a bold, unflinching message of economic fairness, the Democrats can win in the nation’s largest, most diverse region and redeem themselves as a true party of the people. Keenly observed and deeply grounded in contemporary Southern politics, and with a new afterword covering the ramifications of the 2008 election, Blue Dixie reveals the changing state of American politics.

Dr. Gunter Pauli is challenging the green movement he has been so much a part of to do better, to do more. He is the entrepreneur who launched Ecover;... those products are probably in many of your homes. He built the largest ecologically-sound factory in the world. His participation in the Club of Rome and the founding of Zero Emissions Research Institute (ZERI) has made an immense contribution to sustainability both in terms of research, public awareness and articulating a visionary direction. He has dedicated himself to teaching and the hands-on implementation of projects that have brought healthy environments, good nutrition, health care and jobs in sustainable commerce to a myriad of places in the world.

Michael Muhammad Knight embarks on a quest for an indigenous American Islam in a series of interstate odysseys. Traveling 20,000 miles by Greyhound in... sixty days, he squats in run-down mosques, pursues Muslim romance, is detained at the U.S.-Canadian border with a trunkload of Shia literature, crashes Islamic Society of North America conventions, stink-palms Cat Stevens, and limps across Chicago to find the grave of Noble Drew Ali, filling dozens of notebooks along the way. The result is this semi-autobiographical book, with multiple histories of Fard and the landscape of American Islam woven into Knight’s own story.In the course of his adventures, Knight sorts out his own relationship to Islam as he journeys from punk provocateur to a recognized voice in the community, and watches first-hand the collapse of a liberal Islamic dream. The book’s extensive cast of characters includes anarchist Sufi heretics, vegan kungfu punks, tattoo-sleeved converts in hard-core bands, spiritual drug dealers, Islamic feminists, slick media entrepreneurs, sages of the street, the grandsons of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, and a group called Muslims for Bush.

Thirteen-year-old Travis has a secret: he can't read. But a shrewd teacher and a sassy girl are about to change everything in this witty and deeply... moving novel.Travis is missing his old home in the country, and he's missing his old hound, Rosco. Now there's just the cramped place he shares with his well-meaning but alcoholic grandpa, a new school, and the dreaded routine of passing when he's called on to read out loud. But that's before Travis meets Mr. McQueen, who doesn't take "pass" for an answer--a rare teacher whose savvy persistence has Travis slowly unlocking a book on the natural world. And it's before Travis is noticed by Velveeta, a girl whose wry banter and colorful scarves belie some hard secrets of her own. With sympathy, humor, and disarming honesty, Pat Schmatz brings to life a cast of utterly believable characters--and captures the moments of trust and connection that make all the difference.