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If Lin Can: How Jeremy Lin Inspired Asian Americans to Shoot for the Stars
by Richard HoThis biography of basketball superstar Jeremy Lin is an anthem of Asian American pride that speaks to any child who feels underestimated or misunderstood. If Lin can, you can!Have you ever been told that you CAN&’T? Growing up in the Bay Area, Jeremy Lin heard that over and over again. People made fun of his size and his race and wouldn&’t give him a chance. But Jeremy persevered until he became the first Taiwanese American to play in the NBA. And when his big moment came, he seized it!Jeremy&’s meteoric rise, dubbed "Linsanity," inspired the world and a whole generation of young Asian Americans. As author Richard Ho puts it, &“Jeremy&’s struggles were our struggles, so his triumphs were our triumphs. He made us believe that if he could succeed, so could we.&”
If Loving You Is Wrong: The Shocking True Story of Mary Kay Letourneau
by Gregg OlsenThe true story of the elementary schoolteacher and mother of four who just couldn't keep her hands off a 13-year-old boy. Worse yet, Mary Kay Letourneau had become obsessed with the slight, Samoan teenager while he was still a student in her sixth-grade class--and he fathered two babies with her. Yet in the hands of true crime writer Gregg Olsen, If Loving You Is Wrong becomes a poignant profile of an emotionally stunted young woman tightly wound up in a web of lies too fragile to sustain the weight of her own compulsions.
If My Heart Could Talk: A Story of Family, Faith, and Miracles
by Dodie OsteenDodie Osteen, mother of Joel Osteen, gives readers a personal account of her extraordinary life and shares what she has learned about love, faith, and family.As the wife of forty-four years to the late Pastor John Osteen, founder of Lakewood Church, Dodie Osteen stood as a wife, mother, and first lady of the church, even when life felt anything but steady. Today, she continues to stand by her son, Pastor Joel Osteen, and the rest of their family as they lead Lakewood. In this revealing memoir, Dodie shares that her path, though glorious, has not always been easy. She shows an intimate look at such life-altering experiences as contracting polio as a child, raising 5 children, battling cancer, and losing her husband, all with the beautiful heart and sense of humor she displays to thousands at Lakewood and nationwide at Night of Hope events. While recounting her journey, Dodie offers readers meaningful life lessons applicable to their own lives.
If Nights Could Talk: A Family Memoir
by Marsha RecknagelIf Nights Could Talk is a rich gothic story of a Southern family, a tale of wealth and emotional need that spans generations. Marsha Recknagel's memoir begins with the surprise appearance of her 16-year-old nephew, Jamie, who arrives on her doorstep and into her ordered, childless life. Fleeing a chaotic home run by Marsha's unstable younger brother and his wife, Jamie is an ominous creature-and the center of an ongoing family tug-of-war. For Marsha, to open the door is to risk opening herself up to the pain of the past. Reluctantly she takes him in. Thus begins the painful, terrifying, and extraordinary process of unraveling the damage inflicted by her family on one of its own.
If Nights Could Talk: A Family Memoir
by Marsha RecknagelIf Nights Could Talk is a rich gothic story of a Southern family, a tale of wealth and emotional need that spans generations. Marsha Recknagel's memoir begins with the surprise appearance of her 16-year-old nephew, Jamie, who arrives on her doorstep and into her ordered, childless life. Fleeing a chaotic home run by Marsha's unstable younger brother and his wife, Jamie is an ominous creature-and the center of an ongoing family tug-of-war. For Marsha, to open the door is to risk opening herself up to the pain of the past. Reluctantly she takes him in. Thus begins the painful, terrifying, and extraordinary process of unraveling the damage inflicted by her family on one of its own.
If Not For You: A Memoir (Georgina Lucas)
by Georgina Lucas'If I were to look closely at the jagged edges of my fragmented heart, I'm sure I'd see that some spaces now shine with gold. And that is what he left for me.'_______________________'An extraordinarily brave, honest and tender book' RACHEL CLARKE'Full of strength and hope' KATE MOSSE'The most beautiful thing I have ever read' TOM BRADBY'Extraordinary' ANITA RANI, WOMAN'S HOUROn the 17th November 2019, Grey Atticus Fox was born, nine weeks early, to Georgie and Mike in a Kent hospital.Heart wrenching, cathartic, life-affirming, this is her account of the 21 days they had together, and its aftermath - the search to make sense of unimaginable loss. It bears witness to both the confusion and the clarity that accompany great pain, and stands as a testament to empathy, care and humanity when life is at its hardest.'He was looked after by strangers who became family, and he saw more kindness, more love, in twenty-one days than some might see in a lifetime. For his brief moments in this world, he experienced all of the very best things it can offer.'Georgie's spare, intimate and at times surprisingly comic writing offers an extraordinary message of hope. If Not For You is about the redeeming power of love, even in our darkest hour.'I cannot stop thinking about it' LUCY FOLEY'An unflinching and beautiful book' SOPHIE KINSELLA'Georgie Lucas writes superbly' MIRIAM STOPPARD
If Not For You: A Memoir (Georgina Lucas)
by Georgina Lucas'If I were to look closely at the jagged edges of my fragmented heart, I'm sure I'd see that some spaces now shine with gold. And that is what he left for me.'_______________________'An extraordinarily brave, honest and tender book' RACHEL CLARKE'Full of strength and hope' KATE MOSSE'The most beautiful thing I have ever read' TOM BRADBY'Extraordinary' ANITA RANI, WOMAN'S HOUROn the 17th November 2019, Grey Atticus Fox was born, nine weeks early, to Georgie and Mike in a Kent hospital.Heart wrenching, cathartic, life-affirming, this is her account of the 21 days they had together, and its aftermath - the search to make sense of unimaginable loss. It bears witness to both the confusion and the clarity that accompany great pain, and stands as a testament to empathy, care and humanity when life is at its hardest.'He was looked after by strangers who became family, and he saw more kindness, more love, in twenty-one days than some might see in a lifetime. For his brief moments in this world, he experienced all of the very best things it can offer.'Georgie's spare, intimate and at times surprisingly comic writing offers an extraordinary message of hope. If Not For You is about the redeeming power of love, even in our darkest hour.'Hypnotic' MAIL ON SUNDAY''Profoundly moving' TIMES2'A testimony to empathy, care and humanity when life is at its hardest' STYLIST'I cannot stop thinking about it' LUCY FOLEY'An unflinching and beautiful book' SOPHIE KINSELLA'Georgie Lucas writes superbly' MIRIAM STOPPARD
If Not Now, When?
by Esther RantzenTV personality, founder of Childline, writer and broadcaster, Esther Rantzen has spent her life tirelessly campaigning on behalf of children and mental health sufferers. In this personal and anecdotal handbook, she turns her attention to the baby boomer and shows how, ultimately, reaching your fifties and beyond is just the beginning. Starting from her own experiences whether it be her childhood, the death of her husband, her battle with prejudice against women in the media, laughter and the love of friends, irritations with brainless ageism, the importance of travel, sex and good health all is of huge relevance and will give the fifty-something-plus-year-old a huge jolt of recognition, or a shocked gasp, or a laugh. Interspersed with practical advice and the occasional nostalgic rant, this is a fun celebration and an inspiration for the nations 17 million baby boomers.
If Not Now, When?
by Esther RantzenTV personality, founder of Childline, writer and broadcaster, Esther Rantzen has spent her life tirelessly campaigning on behalf of children and mental health sufferers. In this personal and anecdotal handbook, she turns her attention to the baby boomer and shows how, ultimately, reaching your fifties and beyond is just the beginning. Starting from her own experiences whether it be her childhood, the death of her husband, her battle with prejudice against women in the media, laughter and the love of friends, irritations with brainless ageism, the importance of travel, sex and good health all is of huge relevance and will give the fifty-something-plus-year-old a huge jolt of recognition, or a shocked gasp, or a laugh. Interspersed with practical advice and the occasional nostalgic rant, this is a fun celebration and an inspiration for the nations 17 million baby boomers.
If Not Us, Who?: William Rusher, National Review, and the Conservative Movement
by David B. FriskIf Not Us, Who? is both the story of an architect of the modern conservative movement and a colorful journey through a half century of high-level politics. Best known as the longtime publisher of National Review, William Rusher (1923–2011) was more than just a crucial figure in the history of the Right&’s leading magazine. He was a political intellectual, tactician, and strategist who helped shape the historic rise of conservatism. To write If Not Us, Who?, David B. Frisk pored over Rusher&’s voluminous papers at the Library of Congress and interviewed dozens of insiders, including National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., in addition to Rusher himself. The result is a gripping biography that shines new light on Rusher&’s significance as an observer and an activiast while bringing to life more than a generation&’s worth of political hopes, fears, and controversies. Frisk vividly captures the joys and struggles at National Review, including Rusher&’s complex relationship with the legendary Buckley. Here we see the powerful blend of wit, erudition, dedication, shrewdness, and earnestness that made Rusher an influential figure at NR and an indispensable link between conservatism&’s leading theorists and its political practitioners. &“If not us, who? If not now, when?&”—a maxim often attributed to Ronald Reagan—could have been Rusher&’s motto. In everything he did—publishing National Review, recruiting and advising political candidates, organizing cadres of young conservatives, taking on liberal advocates in a popular television debate program, writing a syndicated column—his objective was to build a movement. His tireless efforts proved essential to conservatism&’s ascendancy, from the pivotal Goldwater campaign through the Reagan era. Largely unexamined until now, Rusher&’s career opens a new window onto the history of the conservative movement. This comprehensive biography reintroduces readers to a remarkable man of thought and action.
If Nuns Ruled the World: Ten Sisters on a Mission
by Jo Piazza&“Fascinating profiles&” of remarkable nuns, from an eighty-three-year-old Ironman champion to a crusader against human trafficking (Daily News [New York]). &“In an age of villainy, war and inequality, it makes sense that we need superheroes,&” writes Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times. &“And after trying Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, we may have found the best superheroes yet: Nuns.&” In If Nuns Ruled the World, veteran reporter Jo Piazza overthrows the popular perception of nuns as killjoy schoolmarms, instead revealing them as the most vigorous catalysts of change in an otherwise repressive society. Meet Sister Simone Campbell, who traversed the United States challenging a Congressional budget that threatened to severely undermine the well-being of poor Americans; Sister Megan Rice, who is willing to spend the rest of her life in prison if it helps eliminate nuclear weapons; and the inimitable Sister Jeannine Gramick, who is fighting for acceptance of gays and lesbians in the Catholic Church. During a time when American nuns are often under attack from the very institution to which they devote their lives—and the values of the institution itself are hotly debated—these sisters offer thought-provoking and inspiring stories. As the Daily Beast put it, &“Anybody looking to argue there is a place for Catholicism in the modern world should just stand on a street corner handing out Piazza&’s book.&”
If Only I Had Told
by Esther W.‘The satanic sex ring takes place around a quarry, near your friend’s house. As well as your family there are four others, so far that we know of, involved.’When her dad was arrested and imprisoned for violently abusing his 15 children, Esther thought her life could begin at last. She couldn't have been more wrong. Another man was ready to take advantage of this vulnerable girl. Social services stepped in again, but this time they made things much, much worse . . .If Only I Had Told is Esther’s personal and very brave memoir that tells the truth about Orkney’s 1991 satanic sex scandal. It is a shocking account of how two evil men and a flawed system let down not just a young girl but a whole community.
If Only They Could Talk
by James HerriotWhen the newly qualified vet, James Herriot, arrives in the small Yorkshire village of Darrowby, he has no idea of the new friends he will meet or adventures that lie ahead. From the author whose books inspired the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small, this first volume of unforgettable memoirs chronicles James Herriot's first years as a country vet, with the signature storytelling magic that has made him a favourite the world over. Here is a book for all those who find laughter and joy in animals, and who know and understand the magic of wild places and beautiful countryside
If Only You People Could Follow Directions: A Memoir
by Jessica Hendry NelsonIf Only You People Could Follow Directions is a spellbinding debut by Jessica Hendry Nelson. In linked autobiographical essays, Nelson has reimagined the memoir with her thoroughly original voice, fearless writing, and hypnotic storytelling. At its center, the book is the story of three people: Nelson's mother Susan, her brother Eric, and Jessica herself. These three characters are deeply bound to one another, not just by the usual ties of blood and family, but also by a mother's drive to keep her children safe in the midst of chaos. The book begins with Nelson's childhood in the suburbs of Philadelphia and chronicles her father's addiction and death, her brother's battle with drugs and mental illness, her own efforts to find and maintain stability, and her mother's exquisite power, grief, and self-destruction in the face of such a complicated family dynamic. Each chapter in the book contends with a different relationship-friends, lovers, and strangers are all play-but at its heart the book is about family, the ties that bind and enrich and betray us, and how one young woman sought to survive and rise above her surroundings.
If Picasso Painted a Snowman
by Amy Newbold Greg NewboldMaryland Blue Crab Honor Book 2018 A big, brightly colored, playful introduction to various important painters and art movements. If someone asked you to paint a snowman, you would probably start with three white circles stacked one upon another. Then you would add black dots for eyes, an orange triangle for a nose, and a black dotted smile. But if Picasso painted a snowman… From that simple premise flows this delightful, whimsical, educational picture book that shows how the artist’s imagination can summon magic from a prosaic subject. Greg Newbold’s chameleon-like artistry shows us Roy Lichtenstein’s snow hero saving the day, Georgia O’Keefe’s snowman blooming in the desert, Claude Monet’s snowmen among haystacks, Grant Wood’s American Gothic snowman, Jackson Pollock’s snowman in ten thousand splats, Salvador Dali’s snowmen dripping like melty cheese, and snowmen as they might have been rendered by J. M. W. Turner, Gustav Klimt, Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Georges Seurat, Pablita Velarde, Piet Mondrian, Sonia Delaunay, Jacob Lawrence, and Vincent van Gogh. Our guide for this tour is a lively hamster who—also chameleon-like—sports a Dali mustache on one spread, a Van Gogh ear bandage on the next. “What would your snowman look like?” the book asks, and then offers a page with a picture frame for a child to fill in. Backmatter thumbnail biographies of the artists complete this highly original tour of the creative imagination that will delight adults as well as children. Fountas & Pinnell Level O
If The Creek Don't Rise: A Memoir
by Rita WilliamsWhen Rita Williams was four, her mother died in a Denver boarding house. This death delivered Rita into the care of her aunt Daisy, the last surviving African American widow of a Union soldier and a maverick who had spirited her sharecropping family out of the lynching South and reinvented them as ranch hands and hunting guides out West. But one by one they slipped away, to death or to an easier existence elsewhere, leaving Rita as Daisy's last hope to right the racial wrongs of the past and to make good on a lifetime of thwarted ambition. If the Creek Don't Rise tells how Rita found her way out from under this crippling legacy and, instead of becoming "a perfect credit to her race," discovered how to become herself. Set amid the harsh splendor of the Colorado Rockies, this is a gorgeous, ruthless, and unique account of the lies families live-and the moments of truth and beauty that save us.
If Then: How Simulmatics Corporation Invented The Future
by Jill LeporeLonglisted • Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year A revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first century, from the author of the acclaimed international bestseller These Truths. The Simulmatics Corporation, launched during the Cold War, mined data, targeted voters, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge—decades before Facebook, Google, and Cambridge Analytica. Jill Lepore, best-selling author of These Truths, came across the company’s papers in MIT’s archives and set out to tell this forgotten history, the long-lost backstory to the methods, and the arrogance, of Silicon Valley. Founded in 1959 by some of the nation’s leading social scientists—“the best and the brightest, fatally brilliant, Icaruses with wings of feathers and wax, flying to the sun”—Simulmatics proposed to predict and manipulate the future by way of the computer simulation of human behavior. In summers, with their wives and children in tow, the company’s scientists met on the beach in Long Island under a geodesic, honeycombed dome, where they built a “People Machine” that aimed to model everything from buying a dishwasher to counterinsurgency to casting a vote. Deploying their “People Machine” from New York, Washington, Cambridge, and even Saigon, Simulmatics’ clients included the John F. Kennedy presidential campaign, the New York Times, the Department of Defense, and dozens of major manufacturers: Simulmatics had a hand in everything from political races to the Vietnam War to the Johnson administration’s ill-fated attempt to predict race riots. The company’s collapse was almost as rapid as its ascent, a collapse that involved failed marriages, a suspicious death, and bankruptcy. Exposed for false claims, and even accused of war crimes, it closed its doors in 1970 and all but vanished. Until Lepore came across the records of its remains. The scientists of Simulmatics believed they had invented “the A-bomb of the social sciences.” They did not predict that it would take decades to detonate, like a long-buried grenade. But, in the early years of the twenty-first century, that bomb did detonate, creating a world in which corporations collect data and model behavior and target messages about the most ordinary of decisions, leaving people all over the world, long before the global pandemic, crushed by feelings of helplessness. This history has a past; If Then is its cautionary tale.
If There Are Any Heavens: A Memoir
by Nicholas MontemaranoWritten with visceral urgency in the earliest days of grief, If There Are Any Heavens resists categorization: it is a memoir, a poem, a mournful but loving song. On January 6, 2021, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in America, while the U.S. Capitol is under attack, Nicholas Montemarano drives six hundred miles to see his mother, who is hospitalized with COVID pneumonia and in a critical state. For ten days he lives in a hotel minutes from the hospital, alternating between hope and helplessness. This is the story of those ten days. It is the story of the pandemic told through the intimate prism of one family’s loss. Written with visceral urgency in the earliest days of grief, If There Are Any Heavens resists categorization: it is a memoir, a poem, a mournful but loving song. Its form asks readers to slow down and breathe between each broken line. At other moments, a chorus of voices—anti-maskers, COVID-deniers, and doctors—causes the reader to become breathless. It is an almost real-time account of the anxiety, uncertainty, and sorrow brought on by this pandemic. It is also, finally, a devastating homage to a family’s love in a time of great loss. Now, and many years from now, when people want to understand the personal cost of the COVID-19 pandemic, they will turn to this intimate and spare elegy from a son to his mother.
If They Come for Us: Poems
by Fatimah AsgharPoet and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated web series Brown Girls captures her experience as a Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America, while exploring identity, violence, and healing. <p><p> An aunt teaches me how to tellan edible flowerfrom a poisonous one. Just in case, I hear her say, just in case. <p><p> Orphaned as a child, Fatimah Asghar grapples with coming of age and navigating questions of sexuality and race without the guidance of a mother or father. These poems at once bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while also exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it manifests itself in our relationships. In experimental forms and language both lyrical and raw, Asghar seamlessly braids together marginalized people’s histories with her own understanding of identity, place, and belonging.
If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and TImes of Sam Peckinpah
by David Weddle"What Citizen Kane was to movie lovers in 1941, The Wild Bunch was to cineastes in 1969,” critic Michael Sragow wrote in the New Yorker. "Its adrenaline rush of revelations seemed to explode the parameters of the screen.”If They Move . . . Kill 'Em! is the first major biography of David Samuel Peckinpah. Written by the film critic and historian David Weddle, this fascinating account does critical justice to an important body of cinema as it spins the tale of Peckinpah’s dramatic, overcharged life and the turbulent times through which he moved.Sam Peckinpah was born into a clan of lumberjacks, cattle ranchers, and frontier lawyers. After a hitch with the Marines, he made his way to Hollywood, where he worked on a string of low-budget features. In 1955 he began writing scripts for Gunsmoke; in less than a year he was one of the hottest writers in television, with two classic series, The Rifleman and The Westerner, to his credit. From there he went on to direct a phenomenal series of features, including Ride the High Country, Straw Dogs, The Getaway, Pat Garrett and the Billy the Kid, and The Wild Bunch.Peckinpah was both a hopeless romantic and a grim nihilist, a filmmaker who defined his era as much as he was shaped by it. Rising to prominence in the social and political upheaval of the late sixties and early seventies, Peckinpah and his generation of directors-Stanley Kubrick, Arthur Penn, Robert Altman-broke with convention and turned the traditional genres of Western, science fiction, war, and detective movies inside out. No other era in Hollywood has matched it for sheer energy, audacity, and originality, no one cut a wider path through that time than Sam Peckinpah.
If This Is A Man/The Truce
by Primo Levi"With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contemptible. What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable, but also, in THE PERIODIC TABLE and THE WRENCH, his delight in what made the world exquisite to him. He was himself a magically endearing man, the most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known" - PHILIP ROTH
If This Is A Man/The Truce: And, The Truce
by Primo LeviWith the moral stamina and intellectual pose of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, duitful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contempible. What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable, but also, in THE PERIODIC TABLE and THE WRENCH, his delight in what made the world exquisite to him. He was himself a "magically endearing man, the most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known" - PHILIP ROTH
If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays (American Lives)
by Jill ChristmanIf This Were Fiction is a love story—for Jill Christman&’s long-ago fiancé, who died young in a car accident; for her children; for her husband, Mark; and ultimately, for herself. In this collection, Christman takes on the wide range of situations and landscapes she encountered on her journey from wild child through wounded teen to mother, teacher, writer, and wife. In these pages there are fatal accidents and miraculous births; a grief pilgrimage that takes Christman to jungles, volcanoes, and caves in Central America; and meditations on everything from sexual trauma and the more benign accidents of childhood to gun violence, indoor cycling, unlikely romance, and even a ghost or two. Playing like a lively mixtape in both subject and style, If This Were Fiction focuses an open-hearted, frequently funny, clear-eyed feminist lens on Christman&’s first fifty years and sends out a message of love, power, and hope.
If Trouble Don’t Kill Me: A Family’s Story of Brotherhood, War, and Bluegrass
by Ralph Berrier Jr.Making moonshine, working blue-collar jobs, picking fights in bars, chasing women, and living hardscrabble lives ... Clayton and Saford Hall were born in the backwoods of Virginia in 1919, in a place known as The Hollow. Incredibly, they became legends in their day, rising from mountain-bred poverty to pickin' and yodelin' all over the airwaves of the South in the 1930s and 1940s, opening shows for the Carter Family, Roy Rogers, the Sons of the Pioneers, and even playing the most coveted stage of all: the Grand Ole Opry. They accomplished a lifetime's worth of achievements in less than five years-and left behind only a few records to document their existence. Fortunately, Ralph Berrier, Jr. , the grandson of Clayton Hall and a reporter for the Roanoke Times, brings us their full story for the first time in IF TROUBLE DON'T KILL ME. He documents how the twins' music spread like wildfire when they moved from The Hollow to Roanoke at age twenty, and how their popularity was inflamed by their onstage zaniness, their roguish offstage shenanigans, and, above all, their ability to play old-time country music. But just as they arrived on the brink of major fame, World War II dashed their dreams. Berrier follows the Hall twins as they travel overseas, leaving behind their beloved music, and are thrust into the cauldron of a war that reshaped their lives and destinies. Through the brothers' experiences, the story of World War II unfolds-Saford fought from the shores of North Africa to Sicily and Europe and finally into Germany; Clayton fought the Japanese in the brutal Pacific theater until the savage, final battle on Okinawa. They returned home after the war to find that the world had changed, music had changed . . . and they had, too. IF TROUBLE DON'T KILL ME paints a loving portrait of a vanishing yet exalted southern culture, shows us the devastating consequences of war, and allows us to experience the mountain voices that not only influenced the history of music but that also shaped the landscape of America.