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Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard
by Liz MurrayIn the vein of The Glass Castle, Breaking Night is the stunning memoir of a young woman who at age fifteen was living on the streets, and who eventually made it into Harvard. Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls' home. At age fifteen, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. She learned to scrape by, foraging for food and riding subways all night to have a warm place to sleep. When Liz's mother died of AIDS, she decided to take control of her own destiny and go back to high school, often completing her assignments in the hallways and subway stations where she slept. Liz squeezed four years of high school into two, while homeless; won a New York Times scholarship; and made it into the Ivy League. Breaking Night is an unforgettable and beautifully written story of one young woman's indomitable spirit to survive and prevail, against all odds.
Quemar la noche: Mi viaje desde la indigencia hasta la Universidad de Harvard
by Liz MurrayUna memoir acerca del perdón, la supervivencia...El viaje de una chica desde la indigencia hasta la Universidad de Harvard. Quemar la noche es una memoir bestseller en The New York Times y The London Sunday Times. El día en que Liz Murray nació su padre se encontraba en la cárcel y su madre intentaba desengancharse de las drogas. Cuando su padre salió de prisión Liz y su hermana se acostumbraron a ver a sus padres consumir en casa. A duras penas iba al colegio y en clase sus compañeros se reían de ella por llevar la ropa y el pelo sucios. Esa situación provocó que hiciera novillos a diario y que al final acabase en un reformatorio. Después de varios problemas su madre la echó de casa. Liz sobrevivió comiendo basura y durmiendo en el metro. Un día conoció a Carlos, que la protegió durante un tiempo. Cuando su madre murió decidió retomar las riendas de su vida y volvió a estudiar. Se graduó y fue aceptada en Harvard. Quemar la noche es la reconstrucción de un viaje a los infiernos, el periplo de una joven por el escenario de hambre, drogas y mendicidad que le tocó vivir y al que podría haberse visto abocada sin remedio. Su fuerza y su determinación por cambiar el curso de un destino en apariencia escrito hicieron que Liz Murray lograse sobreponerse a la calle y a la desesperación, y seguir adelante porque tenía algo valioso por lo que luchar: su vida. Una historia real conmovedora que nos enseña a confiar en nuestro instinto y en el poder del ser humano de cambiar frente a la adversidad y conseguir sus objetivos. Reseñas:«Haciendo uso de una prosa aterciopelada y grácil Murray nos ofrece la fiereza y la crueldad de una familia olvidada por la sociedad y de una infancia devastada. Y nos deja con los recuerdos de una niña que lo arriesgó todo con tal de no renunciar a la dignidad de su alma».Andrew Bridge, autor de Hope's Boy «Liz Murray nos muestra que el ser humano posee una capacidad infinita para sobreponerse ante cualquier circunstancia, para sobrepasar sus límites. Quemar la noche es un memoir bella en su escritura que atraviesa el corazón y que cambiará tu perspectiva sobre el mundo. Una obra inspiracional de lectura obligada».Robert Redford «No es sólo que la historia de Liz Murray es increíble y desgarradora en ocasiones. No es sólo que su gracia natural impregna cada una de las páginas. Es que por encima de todo escribe su historia y por eso sus palabras están llenas de verdad. La historia de compasión y amor al otro que ella misma experimentó. Ésta es la verdadera razón del libro de Murray».Kerry Cohen, autor de Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity
Money, a Memoir: Women, Emotions, and Cash
by Liz PerleA “remarkable” and revealing account of one woman’s finances—and how women’s thoughts and feelings about money can wreak havoc on their lives (Publishers Weekly, starred review).Long ago, and not entirely consciously, Liz Perle made a quiet contract with cash: she would do what it took to get it—work hard, marry right—but she didn’t want to have to think about it too much. The subject of money had, since childhood, been quietly sidestepped, a shadowy factor whose private influence was impolite to discuss. This denial eventually exacted its price, however, when a divorce left Perle with no home, no job, and a four-year-old with a box of toys. She realized she could no longer afford to leave her murky and fraught relationship with money unexamined.What Perle discovered as she reassembled her life was that almost every woman she knew also subscribed to this strange code of discretion—even though it laced through their relationships with their parents, lovers, husbands, children, friends, coworkers, and communities. Women who were all too willing to tell each other about their deepest secrets or sexual assets still kept mum when it came to their financial ones.In Money, A Memoir, Perle attempts to break this silence, adding her own story to the anecdotes and insights of psychologists, researchers, and more than 200 “ordinary” women. It turned out that when money was the topic, most women needed permission to talk. The result is an insightful, unflinching look at the subtle yet commanding influence of money on our every relationship.“Profiles dozens of everyday women, spotlighting the anxiety, embarrassment and guilt money causes them. Commentary from financial experts, sociologists and others helps demonstrate Perle’s thesis: women cannot afford to be ambivalent about money and must learn to separate feelings from finance.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Horror Stories: A Memoir
by Liz PhairThe two-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter behind the groundbreaking album Exile in Guyville traces her life and career in a genre-bending memoir in stories about the pivotal moments that haunt her.When Liz Phair shook things up with her musical debut, Exile in Guyville—making her as much a cultural figure as a feminist pioneer and rock star—her raw candor, uncompromising authenticity, and deft storytelling inspired a legion of critics, songwriters, musicians, and fans alike. Now, like a Gen X Patti Smith, Liz Phair reflects on the path she has taken in these piercing essays that reveal the indelible memories that have stayed with her. For Phair, horror is in the eye of the beholder—in the often unrecognized universal experiences of daily pain, guilt, and fear that make up our humanity. Illuminating despair with hope and consolation, tempering it all with her signature wit, Horror Stories is immersive, taking readers inside the most intimate junctures of Phair’s life, from facing her own bad behavior and the repercussions of betraying her fundamental values, to watching her beloved grandmother inevitably fade, to undergoing the beauty of childbirth while being hit up for an autograph by the anesthesiologist. Horror Stories is a literary accomplishment that reads like the confessions of a friend. It gathers up all of our isolated shames and draws them out into the light, uniting us in our shared imperfection, our uncertainty and our cowardice, smashing the stigma of not being in control. But most importantly, the uncompromising precision and candor of Horror Stories transforms these deeply personal experiences into tales about each and every one of us.Advance praise for Horror Stories“Liz Phair’s songwriting has always had the rare quality of being short-story-like. Damn good short stories, too. Horror Stories has that unique Liz Phair ability to make you look at something you’d rather not, but once you do you’re glad you did—like any form of honest art. This is why Liz Phair still is, and always will be, a threat.”—Ben Folds
In Pursuit of Garlic: An Intimate Look at the Divinely Odorous Bulb
by Liz PrimeauThe author of Front Yard Gardens celebrates the joy of garlic—from its culinary history to advice on growing and cooking with the indispensable ingredient. Liz Primeau&’s love affair with garlic began when her teenaged boyfriend took her to an Italian restaurant for spaghetti served with heavenly garlic-laced meatballs, a sublime escape from the bland English dinners she was used to at home. Here, Primeau celebrates that culinary love, discussing garlic's central place in her kitchen and garden, as well as its role in history, art, medicine, and science. Primeau shares the pleasing ritual of beginning each dinner she cooks by chopping garlic, the secret of removing garlic's tight jacket with a confident smack of a knife, as well as her favorite garlic-centered recipes. Primeau also discusses the many varieties of garlic and gives invaluable tips for growing your own. She visits garlic fairs, where she tries to track down France's elusive L'ail Rose, and she explores the issue of cheap Chinese garlic, which has invaded the North American market to the exclusion of local varieties."Packed with fascinating facts, practical advice on growing, curing and storage, recipes and personal stories.&” —Winnipeg Free Press
Look at You Now: How Keeping a Teenage Secret Changed My Life Forever
by Liz PryorFor readers of Orange Is the New Black and The Glass Castle, a riveting memoir about a lifelong secret and a girl finding strength in the most unlikely place In 1979, Liz Pryor is a seventeen-year-old girl from a good family in the wealthy Chicago suburbs. Halfway through her senior year of high school, she discovers that she is pregnant--a fact her parents are determined to keep a secret from her friends, siblings, and community forever. One snowy January day, after driving across three states, her mother drops her off at what Liz thinks is a Catholic home for unwed mothers--but which is, in truth, a locked government-run facility for delinquent and impoverished pregnant teenage girls.In the cement-block residence, Liz is alone and terrified, a fish out of water--a girl from a privileged, sheltered background living amid tough, street-savvy girls who come from the foster care system or juvenile detention. But over the next six months, isolated and in involuntary hiding from everyone she knows, Liz develops a surprising bond with the other girls and begins to question everything she once held true. Told with tenderness, humor, and an open heart, Look at You Now is a deeply moving story about the most vulnerable moments in our lives--and how a willingness to trust ourselves can permanently change who we are and how we see the world.Advance praise for Look at You Now "Engrossing . . . Readers will swiftly be drawn into the author's compassionate retelling of her teen pregnancy--her fear, shame, regret, joy, and even her forgiveness of her parents for sending her away. This coming-of-age memoir is authentic and unforgettable."--Publishers Weekly "Pryor's refusal to bury the truth of her experiences is the greatest strength of her book. Her honesty about a youthful error and desire to let that honesty define the rest of her life are both uplifting and inspiring. An unsentimental yet moving coming-of-age memoir."--Kirkus Reviews"I started reading this book thinking it was a compelling, honest, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant look at the world of teenage pregnancy, and knowing it would offer an inside look at the places where girls used to be hidden away until their babies came. I finished it damp-eyed and understanding that Look at You Now is much more than that. It is a story about how family dynamics work. It is about how wrenching it is to give away something born of your flesh, even if you know it's the right decision. It's about how much we can learn from people very much different from us. Most of all, it is a subtle, graceful story about how sometimes the worst things in our lives work best to shape our characters into something shining and true, something that will serve us for the rest of our lives. Liz Pryor says she will never forget the girls she shared that time of her life with. I will never forget this book. I really, really loved it."--Elizabeth Berg, author of The Dream Lover "Liz Pryor's story is shocking, moving, riveting, and, ultimately, inspiring. She writes like a natural, can balance humor and sorrow perfectly, and in Look at You Now, has written a pitch-perfect memoir."--Darin Strauss, author of Half a LifeFrom the Hardcover edition.
Never Simple: A Memoir
by Liz ScheierLiz Scheier’s darkly funny and touching memoir—with shades of Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle and Mira Bartók’s The Memory Palace—of growing up in ’90s Manhattan with a brilliant, mendacious single motherScheier’s mother Judith was a news junkie, a hilarious storyteller, a fast-talking charmer you couldn’t look away from, a single mother whose devotion crossed the line into obsession, and—when in the grips of the mental illness that plagued every day of her life—a violent and abusive liar whose hold on reality was shaky at best. On an uneventful afternoon when Scheier was eighteen, her mother sauntered into the room to tell her two important things: one, she had been married for most of Scheier’s life to a man she’d never heard of, and two, the man she’d told Scheier was her father was entirely fictional. She’d made him up. Those two big lies were the start, but not the end; it took dozens of smaller lies to support them, and by the time she was done she had built a farcical, half-true life for the two of them, from fake social security number to fabricated husband. One hot July day twenty years later, Scheier receives a voicemail from Adult Protective Services, reporting that Judith has stopped paying rent and is refusing all offers of assistance. That call is the start of a shocking journey that takes the Scheiers, mother and daughter, deep into the cascading effects of decades of lies and deception.Never Simple is the story of learning to survive—and, finally, trying to save—a complicated parent, as feared as she is loved, and as self-destructive as she is adoring.
To Remain Vigilant: The Epic of Hotspur Book 1 (The Epic of Hotspur)
by Liz Schevtchuk ArmstrongEngland, circa 1400: Lauded by bards and envied by champions, Sir Harry Percy strides the earth with brash, graceful energy-and at the sound of his bootsteps, kings tremble. Nicknamed Hotspur for his audacity and unceasing vigilance (as if his spurs never cool), he advocates justice and opposes royal corruption as boldly as he wages war. His courage and integrity win the hearts of a nation and love of a spirited woman. But his actions give rise to troubling questions: Is a king above the law, or subject to it, like everyone? Does a knight owe fealty to a ruler, or to the realm itself? And should he be faithful to the Crown if it means he must be unfaithful to his conscience? The answers could shape destiny. Unnerved, successive kings denounce Harry's idealism as treason and determine to stop him. Thus the lines are drawn...
Our Betty
by Liz SmithLiz Smith, once called the nation's favourite fictional grandmother, is a familiar face to all TV and cinema viewers. She is most often recognised for her role of Nana in The Royle Family and has appeared in numerous productions over the years. OUR BETTY is Liz's life story - from her cosseted yet lonely childhood with her beloved grandparents (her mother died giving birth to Liz's stillborn sibling), through the war with the WRENS, marriage and children, divorce and poverty, long years working in dead-end jobs such as in a plastic bag factory, until her heavenly escape of evening acting classes provided the chance for a career. While working at Hamley's one Christmas ('I was one of those tiresome people who stop you and beg you to try samples of this and that'), she received a phone call from a young director who wanted to make an improvised film. His name was Mike Leigh and the film Bleak Moments. From that point, when Liz was 50, her career took off and she has worked with some of the most famous names in the entertainment business. OUR BETTY is, like its author, original, amusing and fascinating on the struggles, hopes and successes endemic of a life in front of the camera.
What Jackie Taught Us (Revised and Expanded
by Liz Smith Tina Santi FlahertyShe was a woman of confidence and passion who drew on a remarkable wealth of self-knowledge and a sense of purpose to cope with extraordinary public demands and overwhelming private needs. What Jackie Taught Us offers insights from the life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis about how to live with poise, grace, and zest, including wisdom about image and style, courage and vision, men, marriage, and motherhood. This Commemorative Edition features contributions from notable individuals amplifying the ways in which Jackie's life has influenced them--and society at large--over the past several decades, including: Liz Smith, columnist and author of Natural Blonde: "The most attractive, exasperating, intelligent, frustrating historical icon ever. She was the First Lady to end all First Ladies for never giving herself away." Edna O'Brien, author of Country Girl: A Memoir: "She went through life veiled, and left it with her stardust intact." A.E. Hotchner, author of Papa Hemingway: "From the moment Jackie fell in love with Kennedy, her first love, it was a love that never wavered. She knew from the start that she was in a very green pasture--greener than any that may be beyond." Kent Barwick, President Emeritus, Municipal Art Society of New York: "Jackie will always be remembered for saving Grand Central. But the enduring even greater gift to the country was [Jackie's] willingness to stand up for what she believed even if it meant confronting those in power." Malachy McCourt, author of Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland: "She used the charismatic power of her charm not only on the men in her life, but to gain new respect worldwide for these United States." Marguerite Kelly, syndicated columnist and coauthor of The Mother's Almanac: "She was 'the Presence' that young mothers needed during such a turbulent time...we did our best to make our children look and act like Caroline and John-John." Allen Packwood, director of the Churchill Archives at the University of Cambridge: "If Churchill was a lion, then Jacqueline Kennedy was a lioness...she too became a symbol of human and moral courage." Dr. Andrew Roberts, FRSL, author of Napoleon and Wellington and The Battle of Waterloo: "...she possessed a self-confidence that permitted her to achieve things that others - even those with apparently equal abilities - might have eschewed even the effort to try." Hank O'Neal, photographer and author of XCIA's Street Art Project: The First Four Decades: "The portrait ( I took of her) shows a strong and confident woman.... Nothing is forced; this was just the way she was on a day in December 1979, projecting an elegant image into a very old-fashioned camera." Ashton Hawkins, Former Executive Vice President & Counsel to the Trustees, Metropolitan Museum of Art: "When Jackie died of cancer on May 19th, 1994 all of America came together to mourn her death. Seven years later the Metropolitan Museum and its director, Philippe de Montebello, were proud to celebrate her life with a memorial exhibition: 'Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years'". Declan Kiely, Robert H. Taylor Curator and Department Head, Literary and Historical Manuscripts, The Morgan Library & Museum: "Without Jackie's unwavering focus the Kennedy Library may never have been completed. She spearheaded the fund-raising... and worked indefatigably as the building project weathered planning controversies, site-switching, and successive reprogramming." Lynne Olson, author of Citizens of London and Those Angry Days: "The power of words was extremely important to her, as it was to me; so was the joy of learning something new. All her life, she possessed an endlessly inquiring mind." Jennifer J. Raab, President of Hunter College, City University of New York: ".As a young woman growing up when the place of women in American society was undergoing sweeping changes, I and others could look to her as a model of strength and independence -- someone who proved it was possible to be famous, glamorous and serious at the same time." C.D. Greene, fashion d...
The Days Are Gods (American Lives)
by Liz Stephens“I called the bishop of the local ward, and he put the date of your move into the church bulletin, and these gentlemen came to help,” Brady, the real estate agent, says. Welcome to Wellsville, Utah. Good-bye, L.A. Liz Stephens has come from Los Angeles to Utah for graduate school, and her brief stint working on a Taco Bell commercial is not much in the way of preparation for taking on the real West. In The Days Are Gods Stephens chronicles a move that is far more than a shift in geographical coordinates. With husband and dogs in tow, she searches for an authentic connection to this new community, all the while knowing that as an outsider she will never really belong. And yet precisely as an outsider, Stephens has a unique perspective on belonging, one that colors her accounts of attending her first small-town rodeo, living in the thick of a thriving Latter Day Saints religious community, raising goats in her laundry room, and observing the town’s racialized Founder’s Day battle reenactments. In her frank and particular way, Stephens shows how the culture of memory, as our inheritance, offers a balance to our brief attention spans and our brief lives.
The Night Lake: A Young Priest Maps the Topography of Grief
by Liz TichenorCalled "such a sad, tough story, but finally so life-affirming, filled with spirit and love" by Anne Lamott, this is a raw and intensely affecting memoir by a young priest about loss of a child, its grief and its aftermath, and the hard-won joy that can follow.Liz Tichenor has taken her newborn son, five weeks old, to the doctor, from a cabin on the shores of Lake Tahoe. She is sent home to her husband and two-year-old daughter with the baby, who is pronounced "fine" by an urgent care physician. Six hours later, the baby dies in their bed. Less than a year and a half before, Tichenor's mother jumped from a building and killed herself after a long struggle with alcoholism. As a very young Episcopal priest, Tichenor has to "preach the Good News," to find faith where there is no hope, but she realizes these terrible parts of her own life will join her in the pulpit. The Night Lake is the story of finding a way forward through tragedies that seem like they might be beyond surviving and of carving out space for the slow labor of learning to live again, in grief.
Diary of a Witchcraft Shop
by Liz Williams Trevor JonesExperience a colorful year in the life of a novelist and her partner as they run a Glastonbury witchcraft supply shop in this charming memoir. While some might know Glastonbury for its five-day music festival, the Somerset market town is also known as a center of pilgrimage and miracles. For over a thousand years, visitors have come to Glastonbury for Christ, the goddess, the god, angels, and fairies, as well as solutions and answers. It is also where novelist Liz Williams met Trevor Jones, the owner of a witchcraft shop. Their relationship began to flourish, and in 2005, Liz took the plunge and moved from Brighton to Glastonbury to live and work with Trevor. Her life would never be the same . . . In Diary of a Witchcraft Shop, Liz and Trevor share anecdotes from the course of one year in their lives. Experience the eccentric day-to-day life of a small business in a tourist town, with staff troubles and quirky customers. Get a glimpse of the pagan world, its rituals, and its holidays. Travel with Liz and Trevor to the Houses of Parliament, Ireland, Brittany, and elsewhere. There are also plenty of surprises, too, like Shetland ponies and the TARDIS. Full of humor as well as insightful observations from life&’s light-hearted—and sometimes dark—moments, Diary of a Witchcraft Shop shows that sometimes life is stranger than fiction.
Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, 1977–1981
by Liz WorthThis compendium of interviews with key players in the Toronto punk scene is &“easily one of the best rock biographies you&’ll read this year.&” (Montreal Mirror) Treat Me Like Dirt captures the personalities that drove the original Toronto punk scene. This is the first book to document the histories of the Diodes, Viletones, and Teenage Head, along with other bands such as the B-Girls, Curse, Demics, Dishes, Forgotten Rebels, Johnny & the G-Rays, the Mods, the Poles, Simply Saucer, the Ugly and more. Also included are interviews from fans that brought the punk scene to life in Toronto. This book is a punk rock road map, full of chaos, betrayal, pain, disappointments, failure, success, and the pure rock &’n&’ roll energy that frames this layered history of punk in Toronto and beyond. Treat Me Like Dirt is a story assembled from individual personal stories that go beyond the usual &“we played here, this famous person saw us there&” and into sex, drugs, murder, conspiracy, booze, criminals, biker gangs, violence, art (yes, art) and includes one of the last interviews with the late Frankie Venom, the singer of Teenage Head. Including a wealth of previously unpublished photographs, Treat Me Like Dirt is the uncensored oral history of the 1977 Toronto punk explosion. Exclusive to this edition is a selected discography of all key Toronto punk releases referenced in the book, contributed by Frank Manley, author of Smash The State, the acclaimed and pioneering discography of Canadian punk, and subsequent vinyl compilations, that activated the current international interest in Canadian punk from the &‘70s and early &‘80s.
Mandelbrot the Magnificent: A Novella
by Liz Ziemska"Liz Ziemska has fashioned a beautiful story about one famous survivor and the magic and mathematics he&’s brought to the world." —Karen Joy FowlerMandelbrot the Magnificent is a stunning, magical pseudo-biography of Benoit Mandelbrot as he flees into deep mathematics to escape the rise of Hitler Born in Warsaw and growing up in France during the rise of Hitler, Benoit Mandelbrot found escape from the cruelties of the world around him through mathematics. Logic sometimes makes monsters, and Mandelbrot began hunting monsters at an early age. Drawn into the infinite promulgations of formulae, he sinks into secret dimensions and unknown wonders. His gifts do not make his life easier, however. As the Nazis give up the pretense of puppet government in Vichy France, the jealousy of Mandelbrot&’s classmates leads to denunciation and disaster. The young mathematician must save his family with the secret spaces he&’s discovered, or his genius will destroy them.
A Charmed Life: Growing Up in Macbeth's Castle
by Liza CampbellA Charmed Life is a contemporary fairytale that tells what is like to grow up as a maiden in a castle where ancient curses and grisly events from centuries ago live on between its stone walls. Liza Campbell offers a compelling look at what it is like to grow up with enormous privilege and yet watch the father she idealizes destroy himself, his family, and his heritage.
A Charmed Life: Growing Up in Macbeth's Castle
by Liza CampbellIn this “poignant” and “lovely” memoir, an earl’s daughter describes growing up in legendary Scottish castle with her dysfunctional family (Entertainment Weekly).We grew up with the same parents in the same castle, but in many ways we each had a moat around us. Sometimes when visitors came they would say, “You are such lucky children; it’s a fairytale life you live.” And I knew they were right, it was a fairytale upbringing. But fairy tales are dark and I had no way of telling either a stranger or a friend what was going on; the abnormal became ordinary.Liza Campbell was the last child to be born at the renowned Cawdor Castle, the family seat of the Campbells and one of the settings featured in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Liza’s father Hugh, the twenty-fifth Thane, inherited dashing good looks, brains, immense wealth, a revered title, three stately homes, and 100,000 acres of land. A Charmed Life is the story of Liza’s idyllic childhood with her four siblings in Wales in the 1960s, until Hugh inherited Cawdor Castle and moved his family up to the Scottish Highlands. It was at the historical ancestral home that the fairy tale began to resemble a nightmare.Overwhelmed by his responsibilities, Hugh tipped into madness fueled by drink, drugs, and extramarital affairs. Over the years, the castle was transformed into an arena of reckless extravagance and domestic violence, leading to the termination of a legacy that had been passed down through the family for six hundred years.“As a prose stylist, Liza is comparable to Nancy Astor: wry, deadpan, whimsical.” —The Sunday Telegraph (UK)“Superbly written.” —Harper’s Bazaar
East Wind Melts the Ice: A Memoir through the Seasons
by Liza DalbyWriting in luminous prose, Liza Dalby brings us this elegant and unique year's journal-- a brilliant mosaic that is at once a candid memoir, a gardener's diary, and an enlightening excursion through cultures east and west. In the essays, Dalby transports us from her Berkeley garden to the streets of Kyoto, to Imperial China, to the sea cliffs of Northern California, and to points beyond.
Into a New Country: Eight Remarkable Women of the West
by Liza KetchumThe history of the West has traditionally been presented in terms of the accomplishments of men. We now realize that women also played an essential role in the great changes that swept this country, as the West became the destinations of one of the greatest migrations in world history. Here are the stories of eight women from different backgrounds who exemplify the challenges and the opportunities women found as they participated in the westward expansion. Among them Susan Magoffin who journeyed down the Santa Fe trail; Lotta Crabtree who began her career as a child dancing in the camps of gold miners and wound up a nationally known celebrity; Bridget "Biddy" Mason who escaped slavery and eventually became one of the richest women in Los Angeles. Also featured are Susan LaFleche who championed the disregarded rights of Native Americans and Mary Tape, who fought discrimination against the Chinese that was so prevalent at the time. Into a New Country is a book rich in detail and adventure. It is sure to be used repeatedly by young people interested in women's contributions to our common history.
Villa America: A Novel
by Liza KlaussmannA dazzling novel set in the French Riviera based on the real-life inspirations for F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is The Night.When Sara Wiborg and Gerald Murphy met and married, they set forth to create a beautiful world together-one that they couldn't find within the confines of society life in New York City. They packed up their children and moved to the South of France, where they immediately fell in with a group of expats, including Hemingway, Picasso, and Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald. On the coast of Antibes they built Villa America, a fragrant paradise where they invented summer on the Riviera for a group of bohemian artists and writers who became deeply entwined in each other's affairs. There, in their oasis by the sea, the Murphys regaled their guests and their children with flamboyant beach parties, fiery debates over the newest ideas, and dinners beneath the stars. It was, for a while, a charmed life, but these were people who kept secrets, and who beneath the sparkling veneer were heartbreakingly human. When a tragic accident brings Owen, a young American aviator who fought in the Great War, to the south of France, he finds himself drawn into this flamboyant circle, and the Murphys find their world irrevocably, unexpectedly transformed.A handsome, private man, Owen intrigues and unsettles the Murphys, testing the strength of their union and encouraging a hidden side of Gerald to emerge. Suddenly a life in which everything has been considered and exquisitely planned becomes volatile, its safeties breached, the stakes incalculably high. Nothing will remain as it once was.Liza Klaussman expertly evokes the 1920s cultural scene of the so-called "Lost Generation." Ravishing and affecting, and written with infinite tenderness, VILLA AMERICA is at once the poignant story of a marriage and of a golden age that could not last.
Modern Brides & Modern Grooms
by Liza Monroy Mark O'ConnellHow to make any wedding liberating, brave, and sexy.This post-DOMA book is for any couple-same or opposite sex-seeking a personalized wedding that dignifies the relationship and the individual self. No "new normal" here-this guide emboldens you to harness your unique, brazen, queer truth; to be creative; and to plan your wedding your way.Every fiancé faces the question: How do I become something new without losing myself? Using his own story-from how he and his husband connected via MTV's The Real World to the real world of their marriage-author Mark O'Connell reflects on conflicts that arrive during wedding transitions, as well as various other transitions throughout your lives.As a psychotherapist, O'Connell offers ideas to bridge relational gaps with your partner, family, and friends. As a professional actor, he also offers insight into the ways your wedding is a theatrical production: how this can help you to conceptualize the event, consolidate your efforts, and increase creative collaboration as a couple. This will serve you not only on the day, but also for the rest of your time together.Whether we're straight, gay, or other, weddings inspire us to carve out more fun, freedom, recognition, life-space, love-space, and connubial space than we've ever had before.
Seeing As Your Shoes Are Soon to be on Fire: Essays
by Liza MonroyLiza Monroy's new book is collection of deeply personal essays that tackle the universal themes of romantic and familial love, fate and chance, all told in a humorous and intelligent manner that keeps the reader yearning for more. Created in the wake of Liza's popular essays- including her piece for the Modern Love column in the New York Times - Seeing As Your Shoes Are Soon To Be On Fire chronicles Liza's many misadventures in her quest for love. These misadventures span a variety of countries and a variety of men, all bound together under the watchful eye of her eccentric, single mother, a profiler for the U.S. State Department, who is soon using her professional aptitude to weed out the men in her daughter's path.Filled with quirky details and archetypal characters from our everyday lives, with stories that are both wildly hilarious and deeply heartfelt, Seeing As Your Shoes Are Soon To Be On Fire is both a vulnerably open testament to Liza's personal experiences and an intriguing work that confronts the odds of finding love and intimacy in the increasingly depersonalized world of technology.
The Marriage Act: The Risk I Took to Keep My Best Friend in America, and What It Taught Us About Love
by Liza MonroyAfter her traditional engagement to her high school sweetheart falls apart, Liza Monroy faced the prospect of another devastating loss: the deportation of her best friend Emir. Desperate to stay in America, Emir tried every legal recourse to obtain a green card knowing that his return to the Middle East-where gay men are often beaten and sometimes killed-was too dangerous. So Liza proposes to Emir in efforts to keep him safe and by her side. After a fast wedding in Las Vegas, the couple faces new adventures and obstacles in both L.A. and New York City as they dodge the INS. Their relationship is compounded further by the fact that Liza's mother works for the State Department preventing immigration fraud. Through it all, Liza and Emir must contend with professional ambition, adversity, and heartbreak and eventually learn the true lessons of companionship and devotion. This marriage that was not a marriage, in the end, really was.The Marriage Act is a timely and topical look at the changing face of marriage in America and speaks to the emergent generation forming bonds outside of tradition-and sometimes even outside the law.
Code Girls: The True Story of the American Women Who Secretly Broke Codes in World War II (Young Readers Edition)
by Liza MundyIn the tradition of Hidden Figures and The Girls of Atomic City, Code Girls is the amazing true story of the young American women who cracked German and Japanese military codes during World War II.More than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II, recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to the nation's capital to learn the top secret art of code breaking. Through their work, the "code girls" helped save countless lives and were vital in ending the war. But due to the top secret nature of their accomplishments, these women have never been able to talk about their story--until now. Through dazzling research and countless interviews with the surviving code girls, Liza Mundy brings their story to life with zeal, grace, and passion. Abridged and adapted for a middle grade audience, Code Girls brings this important story to young readers for the first time, showcasing this vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.