Originally published in 1911. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies. All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume.

My Story: Tom L. Johnson (Black Squirrel Books)

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

The Kent State University Press/Black Squirrel Books

Beggars Of Life

Tully’s breakthrough novel about life on the road   Jim Tully left his hometown of St. Marys, Ohio, in 1901, spending most of his teenage years in the company of hoboes. Drifting across the country as a “road kid,” he spent those years scrambling into boxcars, sleeping in hobo jungles, avoiding railroad cops, begging meals from back doors, and haunting public libraries. Tully crafted these memories into a dark and astonishing chronicle of the American underclass―especially in his second book, Beggars of Life, an autobiographical novel published in 1924. Tully saw it all, from a church baptism in the Mississippi River to election day in Chicago. And in Beggars of Life, he captures an America largely hidden from view. This novelistic memoir impressed readers and reviewers with its remarkable vitality and honesty. Tully’s devotion to Mark Twain and Jack London taught him the importance of giving the reader a sense of place, and this he does brilliantly, again and again, throughout Beggars of Life. From the opening conversation on a railroad trestle, Beggars of Life rattles along like the Fast Flyer Virginia that Tully boards midway through the book. This is the book that defined Tully’s hard-boiled style and set the pattern for the twelve books that followed over the next two decades. Startling in its originality and intensity, Beggars of Life is a breakneck journey made while clinging to the lowest rungs of the social ladder.

Beggars of Life

Literature & Fiction

Tully, Jim

Genre Fiction

A facsimile reprint of this classic tale of the seamier side of circus life “Jim Tully was one of the fine American novelists to emerge in the 1920s and ’30s. He gained this position with intelligence, sensitivity, and hard work. . . . No matter how crazily violent or fantastic his stories are, readers accept them as nonfiction. Tully makes the improbable seem true.”―from the foreword by Harvey Pekar Jim Tully was an American writer who enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success in the 1920s and ’30s. A former circus laborer, hobo, and professional boxer, his rags-to-riches career may qualify him as the greatest long shot in American literature. Following the death of his mother, Tully was sent from his home in St. Marys, Ohio, to an orphanage in Cincinnati. After his time at the orphanage, the young Tully spent six years as a vagabond, riding the rails and working for a small circus. He left the road and settled in Kent, Ohio, in 1907, working odd jobs while focusing on his new interest―writing. After getting a few pieces published in local papers, Tully returned to the road in 1912, eventually settling for good in Hollywood. He worked for Charlie Chaplin and later became one of the first reporters to cover Hollywood. His honest depictions of film stars and directors earned him the reputation as the most feared man in Hollywood. In addition to the celebrity pieces, Tully wrote numerous books, including Circus Parade (1927). Based on his time as a circus laborer, Circus Parade presents the sordid side of small-time circus life. Tully’s use of fast-paced vignettes and unforgettable characters made this book one of his most successful, both commercially and critically. Among the cast is Cameron, the shifty circus owner; Lila, the lonely four-hundred-pound strong woman; and Blackie, an amoral drug addict. This is by no means a romantic story about a boy joining the circus. Tully knows too well its seamier side. Instead, he paints a picture of life at the edges―earthy, wolfish, and brutal. Fans of Jack London, Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, Charles Bukowski, and hard-boiled writers of the 1930s will find a kindred spirit in Jim Tully.

Circus Parade (Black Squirrel Books)

Memories of an Irish-American growing up log-shack poor in small-town Ohio “Shanty Irish is a window, cracked and soiled, into a time and a place and a people before the moving pictures became an American obsession, people who had to create their own dreams, invent their own stories, and find escape from hopeless lives in hard liquor or the cold comfort of a promised Hereafter.”―from the foreword by John Sayles Jim Tully was an American writer who enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success in the 1920s and ’30s. A former circus laborer, hobo, and professional boxer, his rags-to-riches career may qualify him as the greatest long shot in American literature. Following the death of his mother, Tully was sent from his home in St. Marys, Ohio, to an orphanage in Cincinnati. After his time at the orphanage, the young Tully spent six years as a vagabond, riding the rails and working for a small circus. He left the road and settled in Kent, Ohio, in 1907, working odd jobs while focusing on his new interest―writing. After getting a few pieces published in local papers, Tully returned to the road in 1912, eventually settling for good in Hollywood. He worked for Charlie Chaplin and later became one of the first reporters to cover Hollywood. His honest depictions of film stars and directors earned him the reputation as the most feared man in Hollywood. In addition to the celebrity pieces, Tully wrote numerous books, including Shanty Irish (1928). A hard-edged mixture of hilarious and heartbreaking memories, Tully’s autobiographical Shanty Irish digs deep into the soil of his native Ohio to show what life was like in the late nineteenth century for a poor Irish-American family. Within the covers of this acclaimed work, we meet the author’s father, also named Jim Tully, “a gorilla built” ditchdigger whose stooped shoulders carry “the inherited burdens of a thousand dead Irish peasants.” We meet his mother, Biddy, a “woman of imagination” who “had all the moods of April.” We meet his uncle, ruthless John Lawler, who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to fifteen years in the Ohio penitentiary for stealing horses. And we meet his grandfather, Old Hughie Tully, “born with the gift of words”―“capable of turning death into an Irish wake and pouring liquor down the throat of the corpse.” Old Hughie, “never without a tale to tell,” emerges as the most vividly drawn character in a book packed with unforgettable characters. Tully’s most deeply personal book, Shanty Irish had a profound impact on readers and other leading American writers of the 1920s. “Shanty Irish is a chunk of real life,” wrote Upton Sinclair. “It made me feel human and humble, which is good for anybody.” H. L. Mencken said, “In Shanty Irish, it seems to me, he has gone far beyond any of his work of the past. The book is not only brilliantly realistic; it also has fine poetic quality.” Indeed, a book soaked in mud and whiskey, Shanty Irish is at turns brutal, sentimental, ironic, lyrical, humorous, and tragic.

Shanty Irish (Black Squirrel Books)

United States

A picture of life in the boxing ring  “Few novelists captured the contradictions of his country so simply or so honestly in the metaphor of the pure, fatalistic, and merciless community of bruising.”―from the Foreword When The Bruiser was first published in 1936, almost every reviewer praised Jim Tully’s gritty boxing novel for its authenticity―a hard-earned attribute. Twenty-eight years before the appearance of The Bruiser, Tully began a career in the ring, fighting regularly on the Ohio circuit. He knew what it felt like to step inside the ropes, hoping to beat another man senseless for the amusement of the crowd. Having won acclaim in the 1920s for such hard-boiled autobiographical novels as Beggars of Life and Circus Parade, Tully thus became both fighter and writer. “It’s a pip of a story because it is written by a man who knows what he is writing about,” said sportswriter and Guys and Dolls author Damon Runyon. “He has some descriptions of ring fighting in it that literally smell of whizzing leather. He has put bone and sinew into it, and atmosphere and feeling.” The Bruiser is the story of Shane Rory, a drifter who turns to boxing and works his way up the heavyweight ranks. Like Tully, Shane starts out as a road kid who takes up prizefighting. While The Bruiser is not an autobiographical work, it does draw heavily on Tully’s experiences of the road and ring. Rory is part Tully, but the boxers populating these briskly paced chapters are drawn from the many ring legends the writer counted among his friends: Jack Dempsey, Joe Gans, Stanley Ketchel, Gene Tunney, Frank Moran, and Johnny Kilbane, to name a few. The book is dedicated to Dempsey, the Roaring Twenties heavyweight champion, who said, “If I still had the punch in the ring that Jim Tully packs in The Bruiser, I’d still be the heavyweight champion of the world today.” More than just a riveting picture of life in the ring, The Bruiser is a portrait of an America that Jim Tully knew from the bottom up.

The Bruiser

Tom Batiuk was a junior high school art teacher in Elyria, Ohio, when he created a comic panel aimed at teens for the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram. That panel was the precursor to what became Batiuk’s award-winning comic strip Funky Winkerbean. Since its debut on March 27, 1972, Funky Winkerbean has chronicled the lives of a group of students from the fictitious Westview High School. This volume, which presents the strip’s first three years, introduces the strip’s title character, Funky, and his friends Crazy Harry Klinghorn, Bull Bushka, Livinia Swenson, Les Moore, Holly Budd, and Roland Mathews. Principal Burch, counselor Fred Fairgood, and band director Harry L. Dinkle also make their first appearances. Funky fans will relive Les’s misadventures in gym class and his unintentional attendance at the homecoming dance as he remains stuck on a climbing rope high above the gymnasium floor. They will remember Crazy Harry’s ability to play pizzas like records and his air guitar virtuosity, and majorette Holly who never removed her uniform. They will recall the school’s winless football team, and Harry Dinkle’s attempts to win the Battle of the Bands despite the contest always coinciding with a natural disaster. Volume 1 contains a charming autobiographical introduction by Tom Batiuk that shares his early attempts at cartooning, discusses his teaching career, and explains the genesis of Funky. Subsequent volumes will each contain three years of Funky comic strips and will be published annually. Batiuk has been recognized for his humorous and entertaining portrayals of the students and staff at Westview and acclaimed for his sensitive treatment of social and educational issues.

The Complete Funky Winkerbean, Volume 1, 1972-1974

Arts & Photography

Batiuk, Tom

History & Criticism

A rare behind-the-scenes look at how Cleveland’s top toques entertain at home Have you ever wondered what your favorite local chefs cook at home? What they prepare for their own family and friends? What they whip up when truly pressed for time? The secret’s finally out as In the Kitchen with Cleveland’s Favorite Chefs takes you into the private kitchens of 35 local culinary greats to discover what’s really cooking. Author and food enthusiast Maria Isabella posed the same challenge to each featured chef: If you were suddenly to get a call at home from good friends who wanted to stop by, what would you prepare for them in one hour or less? The answers are as varied as the chefs themselves, who represent an exciting array of gastronomic talent―from celebrity chefs, restaurant chef/owners, and institutional chefs, to caterers, cooking instructors, and researchers. Each chef shares detailed recipes for delicious signature meals that can be prepared quickly and easily at home―119 dishes in all, including a wide range of meat, fish, and vegetarian choices to tempt every palate. Helpful wine pairings are offered as well. Accompanying each recipe are gorgeous full-color photographs featuring both the chefs and their culinary showpieces. Isabella’s profiles of each chef offer fascinating insights into everything from personal life stories to tips for successful last-minute entertaining. In the Kitchen with Cleveland’s Favorite Chefs also allows readers to mix and match the recipes to create their own customized menus. For a delicious appetizer, one might start with Jonathon Sawyer’s “Devils on Horseback” or Eric Williams’s “Guacamole Tradicional.” For an impressive meal, try Michael Symon’s “Roasted Rack of Pork” with “Five-Spice Pumpkin Purée” and “Cilantro Salad” or Dante Boccuzzi’s “Mustard-Crusted Lamb Cutlets with Garbanzo Beans &amp; Frisée.” For decadent dessert options, consider Jonathan Bennett’s “Gingered Apple Tarte Tatin,” Zachary Bruell’s “Greek Yogurt with Berries &amp; Honey,” or Karen Small’s “Fig Scones.” Filled with informative tips and clear step-by-step instructions using local ingredients and familiar techniques, In the Kitchen with Cleveland’s Favorite Chefs gives busy home cooks and foodies alike the tools and confidence they need to entertain just like the pros.

In the Kitchen with Cleveland's Favorite Chefs: 35 Fabulous Meals in About an Hour

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Isabella, Maria

Regional & International

In Finding Utopia, Randy McNutt sets off again to explore Ohio’s forgotten nooks and byways. He begins where his last journey ended―on roads less traveled―finding more ghost towns, battlefields-turned-cornfields, and old memories that beckon him like spectral hitchhikers. On the way, he meets another cast of quirky and determined people who struggle to keep their towns on the map. Aided by his aging Jeep and a longing to escape, McNutt discovers a pioneer inn that harbors the ghost of a headless coach- man (and a surprising personal connection); a Victorian town that looks like an empty movie set; the gruesome battlefield on which the U.S. Army suffered its worst defeat ever by Native Americans; and a gunpowder manufacturing town that was blown to atoms on a sizzling summer day in 1890. Often encountering a past that is livelier than the present, he walks through another town where magnetic water once “cured” many ailments, stays the night in a stagecoach inn known for a ghostly cat and its owner who still roam the halls, finds a town built on cranberry bogs, and uncovers what’s left of a World War I training camp sitting atop ancient Indian mounds. In tiny Utopia, for which this book is named, he descends into an underground stone chamber to hear tales of the spirits that haunt it. McNutt’s first two books―seamlessly combining the genres of travel narrative, history, and memoir―won praise for effectively merging past and present, and giving readers a strong sense of place. As with those, Finding Utopia will appeal to anyone interested in heritage tourism, folklore, Americana, Ohio history and lore, back roads, ghosts of many kinds, and small-town life.

Finding Utopia: Another Journey Into Lost Ohio

History

McNutt, Randy

Americas

“You ain’t no damn game warden, are ya?” the poacher snarled. I looked him straight in the eye and lied. “Game warden . . . ? I ain’t no game warden!” The poacher paused, mulling over my answer, and added quietly, “Then why you askin’ so many questions?” Thus begins the story of R. T. Stewart’s career as an undercover wildlife law enforcement officer with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife. For nearly two decades, Stewart infiltrated poaching rings throughout Ohio, the Midwest, and beyond. Poachers Were My Prey chronicles his many exciting undercover adventures, detailing the techniques he used in putting poachers behind bars. It also reveals, for the first time, the secrets employed by undercover wildlife officers in catching the bad guys. Poaching―the illegal taking of wild game―goes on every day in the United States and throughout the world. Millions of dollars change hands annually from the illegal sale or trade of antlers, hides, horns, meat, feathers, fur, teeth, claws, gall bladders, and other wild-animal parts. As a result, wildlife populations suffer― including endangered and threatened species―and legitimate, law-abiding sport hunters get a bad reputation. R. T. Stewart dedi- cated his professional career to stopping such slaughter by actu- ally living with poachers for months or even years. “In essence, being an undercover officer involves living a lie,” quips Stewart. “You’re always pretending to be someone you’re not.” Undercover law enforcement is dangerous work and, as a re- sult, extremely stressful. Stewart recalls one particular case during which he realized he was too deeply undercover and came close to forgetting his real identity. Many undercover officers have crossed the line to become the very person they initially swore to stop. In Poachers Were My Prey, readers look over R. T. Stewart’s shoulder as he deals with the temptations offered to an undercover officer, including money, sex, and drugs, and watch as he gets the job done and brings the poachers to justice. Poachers Were My Prey will be enjoyed by readers interested in law enforcement, wildlife, preservation, hunting, fishing, and the outdoors.

Poachers Were My Prey: Eighteen Years as an Undercover Wildlife Officer

Stewart, R.T.

Professionals & Academics

A satiric look at the jeer-ful side of our national pastime There are countless volumes celebrating the best teams in professional baseball. Unfortunately, winning represents only one side of the game. For every champion’s record-setting season, there has been an equally memorable story of defeat. These teams and their shameful contributions to America’s national pastime have been a neglected topic in the annals of baseball history. Until now. In You Stink!, two fanatical historians (or historian fans), Michael Aubrecht and Eric Wittenberg, give credit where it is far overdue with a statistically backed, satirical look at the worst teams and individuals ever to set foot on a diamond. You Stink! includes franchise origins, detailed stats, player profiles, photos, and more, as well as a collection of long-format essays in a “Hall of Shame” that recognizes some of the worst moments ever witnessed on a ball field. The first half of the book is based entirely on statistical data; in the second half the authors give their personal opinions. With an insightful foreword by Dave Raymond, the original “Phillie Phanatic,” You Stink! showcases disappointments on the diamond dating as far back as 1889. Readers are treated to stories of the worst teams, players, owners, calls, fans, plays, and more. A timeline of Major League terribleness and an assortment of quotations about losing complement this unique survey of shame. Ultimately, You Stink! celebrates a sport that gives us more than just wins and losses and drives to the heart of what all of us love about baseball. Fans bond with their teams, and everyone can relate to suffering through slumps. Watching our heroes stumble through ineptitude, boneheaded plays, and heartbreaking losses makes the celebration all the sweeter when victory finally comes. Visit the You Stink! blog for more pathetic terribleness.

You Stink!: Major League Baseball's Terrible Teams and Pathetic Players

Sports & Outdoors

Aubrecht, Michael

Wittenburg, Eric J.

Baseball

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