In 2014, a group of bold women decided to make history and embark on an unforgettable adventure down America's most famous road—a journey of exploration and sisterhood where they could fulfill every woman's fantasy of leaving-it-all-behind. Their rules were simple: no men, no pets, no kids, and… be nice. Their motto: "We have more fun than anyone!"

Sisters Get Their Kicks on Route 66, by Karen West and Susan Ford-West, chronicles the epic 2,448 mile adventure that may have set a world record. Share the wild ride of over 300 adventurous "Sisters" from the national outdoor women's group, Sisters on the Fly, as they tow their vintage trailers and tell their stories while crossing America's Mother Road from Chicago to Santa Monica. Along the way, experience Route 66's iconic tourist sites, rodeos, dances, karaoke, shopping, museums, flea markets, catered dinners, national parks, parades, dirt roads, and wrong turns.

Through over 500 color photographs and the Sisters' stories of courage and empowerment, grief and moving on, sisterhood and camaraderie, this photo journal of their spirited journey across America's legendary Route 66 will hearten readers young and old to embark upon their own bucket-list adventures.

The tumultuous 1960s have passed and given way to the turbulent 1970s where chaos is the word for world politics, war, protest, and vast changes in social reforms, music, art, and virtually all aspects of global civilization. Santa Fe, New Mexico is no exception to these experiences. The family and friends comprising the Warrior Spirit Investigations firm and its alliances have found rich lives with new opportunities, children, and personal and professional growth and challenges. The group and their city have moved past the terror of the infamous “Vampire Killer” that stalked young women in Santa Fe and across the country over decades. But a new killer has emerged from the shadows and his presence is becoming clearer as innocent men and women vanish and fall prey to a misguided search for personal justice and a cleansing of old grievances. During this growing threat, a young woman has appeared on the scene and presents the Grayhawks with a surprising request—find her true identity. An amnesiac with no history past the last five years has come to them as a last resort to reclaim her past and determine her future. Using their talents and undaunted fortitude Memphis, Tucson, Sand, Swan, Percy, Nick, and their devoted and determined associates forge ahead to uncover the ruthless killer and the elusive past. But will their pursuits achieve the desired results or will the unknown pull them into a psychological quagmire that will change their futures?

Take the scenic route with this colorful collection of vintage art, photos, history, and trivia celebrating the historic highway. John Steinbeck famously christened Route 66 America’s “Mother Road” in The Grapes of Wrath, and that chapter about Tom Joad’s exodus is just one of the classic pieces collected in this wide-ranging anthology. You’ll find history, roadside attractions, pop culture, ghost stories—even recipes from famous greasy spoons. And it’s all illustrated with the largest collection of vintage art, postcards, travel decals, collectibles, and other Route 66 memorabilia ever amassed. This is truly a worthy tribute to the Main Street of America.

Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Rudy Vallee—these cultural icons whose fame spanned all the important mass media, also played a vital role in the origin and development of the crooning tradition. Crooning represented one of the most important musical styles of the twentieth century, intermingling with jazz and fronting the big band craze of the thirties and forties. Crooners spurred the rise of radio as home staple and the Golden Age of film musicals. When commercial television became a viable commodity, crooners anchored perhaps the first TV programming innovation, the variety show. It took the cataclysmic aesthetic and cultural changes ushered in by rock 'n' roll in the 1950s to finally bring crooners down from their pedestal. The Rise of the Crooners examines the historical trends and events that led to the emergence of the crooning style. Ian Whitcomb, a successful popular music vocalist himself for almost 40 years, provides a personal perspective on this phenomenon. The lives and careers of six pioneers of the style—Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo, Gene Austin, Rudy Vallee, Johnny Marvin, and Nick Lucas—are covered at length. With the exception of one entry devoted to Crosby—possibly the greatest entertainer of the past century—these biographies (appended by lengthy bibliographies and discographies) are more thorough and up-to-date than any treatment in print about these seminal artists.

From John Philip Sousa to Green Day, from Scott Joplin to Kanye West, from Stephen Foster to Coldplay, The Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volumes 1 and 2 covers the vast scope of its subject with virtually unprecedented breadth and depth. Approximately 1,000 key song recordings from 1889 to the present are explored in full, unveiling the stories behind the songs, the recordings, the performers, and the songwriters. Beginning the journey in the era of Victorian parlor balladry, brass bands, and ragtime with the advent of the record industry, readers witness the birth of the blues and the dawn of jazz in the 1910s and the emergence of country music on record and the shift from acoustic to electrical recording in the 1920s. The odyssey continues through the Swing Era of the 1930s; rhythm & blues, bluegrass, and bebop in the 1940s; the rock & roll revolution of the 1950s; modern soul, the British invasion, and the folk-rock movement of the 1960s; and finally into the modern era through the musical streams of disco, punk, grunge, hip-hop, and contemporary dance-pop. Sullivan, however, also takes critical detours by extending the coverage to genres neglected in pop music histories, from ethnic and world music, the gospel recording of both black and white artists, and lesser-known traditional folk tunes that reach back hundreds of years. This book is ideal for anyone who truly loves popular music in all of its glorious variety, and anyone wishing to learn more about the roots of virtually all the music we hear today. Popular music fans, as well as scholars of recording history and technology and students of the intersections between music and cultural history will all find this book to be informative and interesting.

"The best thing to happen to Bing Crosby since Bob Hope," (WSJ) Gary Giddins presents the second volume of his masterful multi-part biography. Bing Crosby dominated American popular culture in a way that few artists ever have. From the dizzy era of Prohibition through the dark days of the Second World War, he was a desperate nation's most beloved entertainer. But he was more than just a charismatic crooner: Bing Crosby redefined the very foundations of modern music, from the way it was recorded to the way it was orchestrated and performed. In this much-anticipated follow-up to the universally acclaimed first volume, NBCC Winner and preeminent cultural critic Gary Giddins now focuses on Crosby's most memorable period, the war years and the origin story of White Christmas. Set against the backdrop of a Europe on the brink of collapse, this groundbreaking work traces Crosby's skyrocketing career as he fully inhabits a new era of American entertainment and culture. While he would go on to reshape both popular music and cinema more comprehensively than any other artist, Crosby's legacy would be forever intertwined with his impact on the home front, a unifying voice for a nation at war. Over a decade in the making and drawing on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to numerous archives, Giddins brings Bing Crosby, his work, and his world to vivid life -- firmly reclaiming Crosby's central role in American cultural history.

Two young children are left as orphans, their parents gunned down on a street in Seville, Spain. What happens to such children? What becomes of them? Ricardo Serrano becomes a computer and materials scientist in Silicon Valley, his twin sister Almudena a linguistics expert but she continues to be tortured by the nightmare of their parent's assassination. They are confronted with the prospect of their parent's killers attaining political power and respectability . . . and are presented with the opportunity to prevent it. To do this Ricardo must risk revealing a scientific discovery he has made, a discovery he has kept secret, a discovery that powerful interests in Washington, Moscow and Tokyo are desperate to possess. Ricardo returns home to Spain and becomes caught up in national political intrigue and a global power struggle. The action focuses in Spain, the fall-out is global.

Fourth Edition —Fully revised and updated with 30 new maps throughout. Right down America's Main Street it rolled, pausing at each town along the way, then moving on, carrying travelers in search of adventure, romance, or that rare chance for a new beginning. Route 66 knew many names: the Mother Road, Will Rogers Highway, the Neon Road. And it lived up to each. Travelers met the land, found new friends—and often themselves. Now, more than a quarter-century since being officially abandoned, the old road still keeps its promise. Today, all along the highway's 2,448-mile length from Chicago to L.A., signs carrying its magic double sixes once again give direction to the journey. Yes, they assure you, this is still Route 66. . . . More than twenty years after the original publication of Route 66, this completely updated and expanded guide will make the trip along the Mother Road easier and even more exciting. Responding to requests from readers and travelers, Tom Snyder offers up-to-date routings, elegant and easy-to-read new maps, and revised information on roadside attractions. Filled with love, high jinks, and mystery, the stories Snyder narrates truly capture the flavor of the Main Street of America. Cattle rustlers, gangsters, hitchhikers, and ghosts all make appearances in these nostalgic glimpses of history-in-the-making along America's most famous highway.

The criteria for designation as an American Historic Hotel is to be at least fifty-years-old. The first ten hotels are Historic and the next seventeen are notable for unique features. Arizona is a unique state with characteristics not found elsewhere in America or the world. There are beautiful natural wonders such as the Grand Canyon, early Western history is recreated at dude ranches, and there are even historic “treatment” facilities such as the Castle Hot Springs Resort. Historic hotels capture earlier times. This comprehensive guide describes rooms, rates, and amenities. It includes details of movie locations, famous guests, and notable recipes. This history of Arizona includes hotels famous for the “Five C’s of Arizona:” Cattle, Citrus, Climate, Copper, Cotton, and even an extra C for Convalescence since doctors prescribed a visit to Arizona as treatment for many ailments. Guests armed with this knowledge can better enjoy their visit to all parts of Arizona.

Flowing matter is all around us, from daily-life vital processes (breathing, blood circulation), to industrial, environmental, biological, and medical sciences. Complex states of flowing matter are equally present in fundamental physical processes, far remote from our direct senses, such as quantum-relativistic matter under ultra-high temperature conditions (quark-gluon plasmas). Capturing the complexities of such states of matter stands as one of the most prominent challenges of modern science, with multiple ramifications to physics, biology, mathematics, and computer science. As a result, mathematical and computational techniques capable of providing a quantitative account of the way that such complex states of flowing matter behave in space and time are becoming increasingly important. This book provides a unique description of a major technique, the Lattice Boltzmann method to accomplish this task. The Lattice Boltzmann method has gained a prominent role as an efficient computational tool for the numerical simulation of a wide variety of complex states of flowing matter across a broad range of scales; from fully-developed turbulence, to multiphase micro-flows, all the way down to nano-biofluidics and lately, even quantum-relativistic sub-nuclear fluids. After providing a self-contained introduction to the kinetic theory of fluids and a thorough account of its transcription to the lattice framework, this text provides a survey of the major developments which have led to the impressive growth of the Lattice Boltzmann across most walks of fluid dynamics and its interfaces with allied disciplines. Included are recent developments of Lattice Boltzmann methods for non-ideal fluids, micro- and nanofluidic flows with suspended bodies of assorted nature and extensions to strong non-equilibrium flows beyond the realm of continuum fluid mechanics. In the final part, it presents the extension of the Lattice Boltzmann method to quantum and relativistic matter, in an attempt to match the major surge of interest spurred by recent developments in the area of strongly interacting holographic fluids, such as electron flows in graphene.