Locals might recognize the woman on the cover of the new book, "Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress." She's none other than Annie King, a fixture for 44 years, she'll tell you, at the Venus Diner that used to sit on Route 8 at the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Hampton. The Hampton resident, now 72, for the past two years has worked nearby at Reichhold's (formerly Rock's) Cafe in Richland. Being featured in the book, which several of her customers have bought, is "just fun," she says.

The book includes three more photos of her and a section of several paragraphs in which she describes how she's been waitressing since she was 13 and how, "I don't think I'd ever want to work in a fancy restaurant. That's not my kind of people."

The new "Counter Culture," published by ILR Press (an imprint of Cornell University Press; $19.95), is written by Candacy A. Taylor, who has produced multimedia projects "that challenge common stereotypes of women and class." Ms. Taylor (who lives in Alameda, Calif., and blogs at taylormadeculture.com) traveled 26,000 miles talking to career waitresses. She'll speak about it at 7 p.m. Oct. 22 at Joseph-Beth Booksellers at SouthSide Works.

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