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If Walls Could Talk: The High Price of a Picture-Perfect Family
by Sandee Jo CrockerOne woman's incredible true story as a survivor of partner abuse—and the shocking murder that ended it all.How could I have let this happen? This was the torturous question circling through Sandee Jo Schankweiler&’s mind as flashing red and blue lights cast eerie images against the backdrop of trees surrounding her home in rural Tennessee. In disbelief, she watched as a police officer placed his hand on the top of her seventeen-year-old son&’s head to guide him into the back seat of a patrol car. For years, Sandee Jo had lived on &“Someday Isle.&” Someday, she would escape her abusive husband, Tommy. Someday, her children would be safe. Someday, she would live free from fear. But now, her worst fears had come true. Her husband, Tommy, lay dead from a gunshot wound to the head. He would terrorize his family no longer, but their safety had come at an unimaginable price. Sandee Jo watched as the police cruiser drove away into the night, her gentle first-born son&’s face expressionless through the window. How could this have happened? In this riveting memoir, Sandee Jo Crocker shares her story to empower those enduring partner abuse to break free, and to equip those who love them to advocate on their behalf, as she shares dark secrets which previously could only have been revealed . . . If walls could talk.
If We Are Brave: Essays from Black Americana
by Theodore JohnsonThe popular Washington Post contributing opinion columnist challenges readers to have uncomfortable conversations about race, drawing on the first-person perspectives of the author and Americans from diverse viewpoints and walks of life.“The United States claims to be a nation founded on an idea,” writes Theodore R. Johnson, “but Americans—even though we nod our heads to that assertion—do not agree on what that idea is, what it should do, or who it is for.” The reality is that America is facing an existential quandary. Its citizens do not share a common vision for a democratic system in action, and even worse, do not share a common vision for what the country should be. We use the same words, but do not speak the same language.If We Are Brave is a keen-eyed and sobering examination of this rift and how race exposes and challenges traditional conceptions of national identity, national mythology, and American democracy. It is both a cultural exploration and a consideration of the American experiment through the eyes and experiences of Americans of different generations that cuts across race, ethnicity, gender, region, religion, and class. Johnson reveals the subtle ways that racialized conceptions of the American identity and the imperfect culture of democracy have hindered our ability to connect with one another, carefully piecing together first-person accounts ranging from a Rust Belt diner to the back of a police car to a jail cell.A beautiful but harsh indictment of a nation that aspires to be a more perfect union yet has consistently and painfully fallen short, If We Were Brave is a portrait of a nation at the precipice. It is an eye-opening, essential resource in a pivotal election year which will define America’s future, and a much-needed beacon of truth that sheds a bright light on who we are.
If We Break: A Memoir of Marriage, Addiction, and Healing
by Kathleen BuhleKathleen Buhle shares her story of resilience and self-discovery after her marriage to Hunter Biden unraveled in the wake of substance abuse and infidelity in this intimate, astonishing memoir.&“Kathleen Buhle&’s brave and honest story transcends politics, division, hearsay, and judgment.&”—Connie BrittonThis is not a story about good versus evil. Or who was right. Or who was better. For decades, Kathleen Buhle chose to play the role of the good wife, beginning when, as a naïve young woman from a working-class family on the South Side of Chicago, she met the dashing son of a senator at the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Oregon. Within months of falling in love, Kathleen found herself pregnant and engaged, living a life beyond anything she&’d ever known. Determined to build her family on a foundation of love, Kathleen was convinced her and Hunter&’s commitment to each other could overcome any obstacle. But when Hunter&’s drinking evolved into dependency, she was forced to learn how rapidly and irrevocably a marriage can fall apart under the merciless power of addiction. When the lies became insurmountable, Kathleen was forced to reckon with the compromises she had made to try to save her marriage. She wondered if she could survive on her own. The result is a memoir that is page-turning and heart-breaking. Here Kathleen asks why she kept so much hidden—from her daughters and herself—for so many years, why she became dependent on one man, and why she was more faithful to a vow of secrecy than to her own truth. This inspiring chronicle of radical honesty and self-actualization speaks to women who have lost part of their identity and want to reclaim it.
If We Could Hear The Grass Grow
by Eleanor CraigFrom the book: "Each day I saw more clearly what I wanted. To have a day camp for troubled children. And spend one last summer with my children in this house. A final chance to reweave more smoothly the family ties that bound us." It was a summer that will touch your heart. Now, in the same honest, thoughtful style that made her previous book, P.S. Your Not Listening, so successful, Eleanor Craig, gifted family therapist, teacher, and author, tells the wonderfully moving true story of her experiences running a day camp for emotionally disturbed children at her Connecticut home. If We Could Hear the Grass Grow is a funny, sad, fascinating account of what it's really like to cope and communicate with severely antisocial children on a day-to-day basis, deal with their violence, help ease their pain, and free their astonishing often hidden-capacity for love and sharing. Eleanor Craig shows us how these seemingly unreachable children can be reached and, most important, can achieve remarkable growth when handled by a committed, sensitive teacher. Among her "special kids" are: Rodney, the "Big Man," older than his years, tough, uncontrollably aggressive, and as much in need of love as of discipline. Maria, sweet, undemanding, and troubled, one of a large Hispanic family where the father has a history of manic depression and of being physically abusive. She spends much of her time in fervent prayer. Frankie, overweight and immature, who acts out his mother's agoraphobia by refusing to leave her side, day or night. Adam, abandoned by his young, mentally ill mother, and unable to communicate except in comic book babble.
If Wine Could Talk
by Kara Joseph Kara JosephA sommelier recounts her unconventional education in the world of wine in this informative memoir and guide. Unlike most soon-to-be college graduates, Kara Joseph was fascinated by wine. It had nothing to do with the penny wine nights at the local pub. There was something about wine that she couldn&’t explain. It called to her. It brought people together. That beguiling sense of mystery led her to become a sommelier, taking on Napa Valley and New York City, and finding the answers in wine she desperately yearned to discover. Kara&’s journey into the world of wine brought adventures, struggles, and an insatiable desire to understand why wine was more than just a drink. IfWine Could Talk interweaves Kara&’s personal story with answers to all your wine questions. Follow Kara&’s challenging but rewarding path as she shares the soul of the vine. Pour yourself a glass and begin your own journey of discovering the wonders and subtle delights of wine.
If Wishes Were Horses: A Memoir of Equine Obsession
by Susanna ForrestSusanna Forrest grew up in the 1980s near Norwich, and like many a girl, she yearned for a pony. She was never to get one, but this didn't stop her becoming obsessed with all things equine. If Wishes Were Horses is the story of that all-consuming interest, and of the author's nerve-wracked attempts later in life to ride once again. However, as Susanna Forrest's journey unfolds, it leads her to horse-obsessed princesses, recovering crack addicts, courtesans, warriors, pink-obsessed schoolgirls, national heroines, and runaways across the ages. From girl-riders of the Bronze Age, to lavishly adorned equestrian Victorians and 21st-century children on horseback in Brixton, she explores the development of this Pony Cult from its earliest times to the present day. In doing so, she takes to the saddle once more and rediscovers her own riding legs in this frank, eclectic, and captivating memoir of an ever-changing equine world.
If You Ask Me (and Of Course You Won’t)
by Betty WhiteBetty White delivers a hilarious, slyly profound take on love, life, celebrity, and everything in between.
If You Ask Me: (And of Course You Won't)
by Betty WhiteThe New York Times bestseller from the beloved actress who's made us laugh on shows from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Saturday Night Live! In this candid take on everything from the unglamorous reality behind red-carpet affairs to her beauty regimen ("I have no idea what color my hair is, and I never intend to find out"), Betty White shares her observations about life, celebrity, and love (for humans and animals). Filled with photos, If You Ask Me is funny, sweet, and straight to the point-just like Betty.
If You Can't Be Free, Be A Mystery
by Farah J. Griffin Farah GriffinSinger, composer, actress, lover, wife, writer, pleasure seeker, drug addict, icon, commodity, myth and mystery: Billie Holiday is still one of the most famous jazz vocalists of all time. But Holiday's image -- the gifted torch singer with insatiable appetites for food, sex, alcohol and drugs -- is not the full story. Farah Jasmine Griffin's enchanting investigation of Holiday, her world and how she is remembered, at last fully liberates Lady Day from the tragic songstress myth. Griffin argues that the stereotype of a black woman who can always take center stage to command an audience because of her incredible ability to feel, but not to think, continues to hide the real Holiday from public view. Instead of a mindless "natural" with incredible talent but no discipline, Griffin's Holiday is a jazz virtuoso whose passion and technique made every song she sang forever hers. Instead of being helpless against the racism, sexism and poverty that dominated her life, Holiday is an artist, willing to pay a tremendous price to change the sound of jazz forever. And far from being a victim of overwhelming obstacles, Lady Day is an independent spirit whose greatest legacy is that all hurdles can be overcome, whatever the odds. Holiday's voice has permeated American music from Frank Sinatra to Macy Gray. But, until now, Holiday's influence has never been reconciled with her image. Farah Jasmine Griffin unravels the threads that make up the Holiday mystique and weaves together a new, true Lady Day that jazz fans will both love and respect.
If You Can't Take a Joke
by Andrew DarrochThe gates of RAF Swinderby were the entrance to an alien world in the eyes of a young man with no previous military experience, and arrival there came as a shock to the senses; a shock which the instructors did their level best to maximise, by giving every instruction and making every observation in an ear-splitting shriek that could melt earwax. From dawn until dusk there was no respite as a host of alien concepts were hammered into us from a variety of different sources, nor from dusk until midnight when we would be cleaning every nook and cranny of our barrack block until everything gleamed, although it never seemed to be shiny enough for the corporal or the sergeant. Gradually though, the unfamiliar became familiar as those alien concepts sank in and stopped being alien, as we learned and toughened up, becoming the best we thought we could be, and then exceeded that and started to become as good as the instructors thought we could be; until we really learned how to take a joke.
If You Can't Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury
by Geraldine DeRuiterNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the James Beard Award–winning blogger behind The Everywhereist come hilarious, searing essays on how food and cooking stoke the flames of her feminism.&“With charm and humor, Geraldine DeRuiter welcomes us into her personal history and thus reconnects us with ourselves.&”—Mikki Kendall, New York Times bestselling author of Hood FeminismWhen celebrity chef Mario Batali sent out an apology letter for the sexual harassment allegations made against him, he had the gall to include a recipe—for cinnamon rolls, of all things. Geraldine DeRuiter decided to make the recipe, and she happened to make food journalism history along with it. Her subsequent essay, with its scathing commentary about the pervasiveness of misogyny in the food world, would be read millions of times, lauded by industry luminaries from Martha Stewart to New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, and would land DeRuiter in the middle of a media firestorm. She found herself on the receiving end of dozens of threats when all she wanted to do was make something to eat (and, okay fine, maybe take down the patriarchy).In If You Can&’t Take the Heat, DeRuiter shares stories about her shockingly true, painfully funny (and sometimes just painful) adventures in gastronomy. We&’ll learn how she finally got a grip on her debilitating anxiety by emergency meal–planning for the apocalypse. (&“You are probably deeply worried that in times of desperation I would eat your pets. And yes, I absolutely would.&”) Or how she learned to embrace her hanger. (&“Because women can be a lot of things, but we can&’t be angry. Or president, apparently.&”) And how she inadvertently caused another international incident with a negative restaurant review. (She made it on to the homepage of The New York Times&’s website! And she got more death threats!)Deliciously insightful and bitingly clever, If You Can&’t Take the Heat is a fresh look at food and feminism from one of the culinary world&’s sharpest voices.
If You Could See Me Now
by Michael MewshawWhen Michael Mewshaw receives a call from a stranger who says she has reason to believe he is her biological father, Mewshaw realizes he has been half dreading, half hoping for this to happen for over thirty years. Just like the young woman who wants to find the last piece to the puzzle of her life, he thinks it's possible that in the same process he will discover the answer to questions that have plagued him for decades. But first he has to make sure that she is who she claims to be.In this fascinating memoir, Mewhsaw confronts his own past, the chaos of his family, and complicated memories of the woman he once loved who went on to success as an ambassador, Under Secretary of State and a member of one of America's most influential families. His unusual role in the baby's birth, her adoption and, now, her search for her biological parents sets the stage for a revealing personal odyssey that offers a quest for identity and a journey of discovery, an obsession with recapturing the past and righting old wrongs, the constant potential for disappointment balanced against the possibility of redemption. As he finds his old flame and her old lover, rediscovering who he was and who he has become, he finds his life enriched in the process.
If You Could See Me Now
by Michael MewshawWhen Michael Mewshaw receives a call from a stranger who says she has reason to believe he is her biological father, Mewshaw realizes he has been half dreading, half hoping for this to happen for over thirty years. Just like the young woman who wants to find the last piece to the puzzle of her life, he thinks it's possible that in the same process he will discover the answer to questions that have plagued him for decades. But first he has to make sure that she is who she claims to be.In this fascinating memoir, Mewhsaw confronts his own past, the chaos of his family, and complicated memories of the woman he once loved who went on to success as an ambassador, Under Secretary of State and a member of one of America's most influential families. His unusual role in the baby's birth, her adoption and, now, her search for her biological parents sets the stage for a revealing personal odyssey that offers a quest for identity and a journey of discovery, an obsession with recapturing the past and righting old wrongs, the constant potential for disappointment balanced against the possibility of redemption. As he finds his old flame and her old lover, rediscovering who he was and who he has become, he finds his life enriched in the process.
If You Could See What I Hear: A Blind Man's Triumphant, Inspiring Life Story
by Tom Sullivan Derek L. GillThis memoir traces the life of Tom Sullivan from premature birth to age 26. Born blind from too much oxygen in his preemie incubator, he is alternately overprotected and set loose. His parents both encourage and hinder him. Mr Sullivan graduates from Perkins School for the Blind with many records, including most number of suspensions. He eventually graduates from Harvard, and pursues a life with music. He marries and has two children.
If You Don't Laugh You'll Cry: Life and love from either side of the TV screen
by Angie KentAngie Kent won hearts and friends when she partnered with best friend Yvie Jones to commentate from the couch as we watched them watching TV on Gogglebox. Then Angie proved a stalwart on the 2019 season of I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! And THEN she became the unforgettable 2019 Bachelorette. It's clear Australia can't get enough of Angie - and now she gives us some of her quirky, funny, warm-hearted wisdom on life, love and everything in between, in the form of a book.With no holds barred - just as you'd expect - Angie talks about her challenges with mental health and body image; her family and friends; what has and hasn't worked in her relationships, and what she has learned - the hard way - about life. There are plenty of laughs, and some tears, and always plenty of heart. Angie's is the voice of your imaginary best friend - the one who always has your back, and who knows just what to say because she's been there before.
If You Don't Like This, I Will Die: An Influencer Memoir
by Lee TilghmanA powerful and illuminating memoir that exposes the stark and rarely-seen reality of influencing as a career. Lee Tilghman—also known as @LeeFromAmerica—was one of the very first wellness influencers. To her nearly 400,000 followers, she shared daily updates and advice on everything from skincare and sleep hacks to smoothie bowls, travel tips, and workout routines. She embodied #SelfCare. Her sponsorships with such brands as Madewell and Subaru netted an income of over $300,000 a year. On the grid, her life seemed perfect. But behind her carefully curated posts, Tilghman was in crisis, suffocating from the unrelenting demand of keeping up her online facade. Her friendships frayed from an inability to enjoy any activity, even a simple dinner, without taking hundreds of photos. She found herself viewing everything she did as potential content for Instagram. The more she shared, the more her followers craved. Her romantic relationships suffered from the pressure to &“hard launch.&” Her job&’s focus on food led her to develop a severe fixation on healthy eating. At her lowest point, she looked around her apartment to realize every item she owned had been given to her by brands in exchange for posting. After a stay in a mental health facility to address her disordered eating and psychological decline, Tilghman quit influencing as her primary career and set out to discover who she really was. If You Don&’t Like This, I Will Die is a sharp, self-aware look at life inside the influencer economy and a relatable story for anyone who has struggled with the unreasonableness of online expectations. With over half of Gen Z aspiring to be influencers, nearly three out of five teen girls experiencing &“persistent sadness and hopelessness,&” and the US Surgeon General calling for a social media warning label, Tilghman&’s memoir couldn&’t be more timely and necessary.
If You Feel Too Much: Thoughts on Things Found and Lost and Hoped For
by Donald Miller Jamie TworkowskiThe New York Times BestsellerIn 2006 Jamie Tworkowski wrote a story called "To Write Love on Her Arms," about helping a friend through her struggle with drug addiction, depression, and self-injury. The piece was so hauntingly beautiful that it quickly went viral, giving birth to a non-profit organization of the same name. Now, To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) is an internationally recognized leader in suicide prevention and a source of hope, encouragement, and support for people worldwide. If You Feel Too Much is a celebration of hope, wonder, and what it means to be human. From personal stories of struggling on days most people celebrate to words of strength and encouragement in moments of loss, the essays in this book invite readers to believe that it's okay to admit to pain and okay to ask for help. If You Feel Too Much is an important book from one of this generation's most important voices.From the Hardcover edition.
If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers
by Hannah BrencherA heartwarming memoir of love and faith from Hannah Brencher—founder of The World Needs More Love Letters—who has dedicated her life to showing total strangers that they are not alone in the world.Fresh out of college, Hannah Brencher moved to New York ready to change the world. Instead, she found a city full of people who knew where they were going and what they were doing and didn’t have time for a girl still trying to figure it all out. Lonely and depressed, she noticed a woman who looked like she felt the same way on the subway. Hannah did something strange—she wrote the woman a letter. She folded it, scribbled “If you find this letter, it’s for you…” on the front and left it behind. When she realized that it made her feel better, she started writing and leaving love notes all over the city—in doctor’s offices, in coat pockets, in library books, in bathroom stalls. Feeling crushed within a culture that only felt like connecting on a screen, she poured her heart out to complete strangers. She found solace in the idea that her words might brighten someone’s day. Hannah’s project took on a life of its own when she made an offer on her blog: She would handwrite a note and mail it to anyone who wanted one. Overnight, her inbox exploded with requests from people all over the world. Nearly 400 handwritten letters later, she started the website, The World Needs More Love Letters, which quickly grew. There is something about receiving a handwritten note that is so powerful in today’s digital era. If You Find This Letter chronicles Hannah’s attempts to bring more love into the world—and shows how she rediscovered her faith through the movement she started.
If You Give a Pig the White House: A Parody for Adults
by Faye KanouseA coiffed and blustery pig has shoved his way into the White House! A cleverly worded and illustrated picture book, this is the adult parody of the beloved children’s cautionary tale, If You Give a Pig a Pancake. Watch in dismay as the presidential pig gets into trouble, binges on too much Fox News and fast food, and cavalierly threatens national security. If You Give a Pig the White House both lovingly caricatures the original children's book series and shows just what can happen when a greedy anti-hero tracks his hooves all over America.
If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You
by Meredith Bryan Kelly CutroneKelly Cutrone has long been mentoring women on how to make it in one of the most competitive industries in the world. She has kicked people out of fashion shows, forced some of reality television's shiny stars to fire their friends, and built her own company--one of the most powerful PR firms in the fashion business--from the ground up. Through it all, she has refused to be anything but herself. Kelly writes in her trademark, no-BS style, combining personal and professional stories to share her secrets for success without selling out. Let's face it: this is a different world than the one in which our mothers grew up, and Kelly has created a real girl's guide to making it in today's world. Offering a wake-up call to women everywhere, she challenges us to stop the dogged pursuit of the "perfect life" and discover who we are and what we really want. Then she shows us how to go out there and get it. Much of our culture teaches us to muzzle our inner voice and follow the crowd; Kelly enables us to stop pretending and start truly living. With chapters on how to find your tribe (those like-minded souls who make your heart sing), how sometimes a breakdown is really a breakthrough, and how there is no such thing as perfection, Kelly also shares practical advice, such as how to create a personal brand and how sometimes you have to fake it to make it.
If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You
by Meredith Bryan Kelly Cutrone“Full of anecdotes, personal and professional life as well as motivational tips,” the New York Times–bestselling memoir from the candid tv personality (People.com).Media maven Kelly Cutrone spills her secrets for success without selling out. She combines personal and professional stories from her high-profile gigs as Whitney Port and Lauren Conrad’s boss on The Hills, star of Bravo's Kell on Earth, judge on America’s Next Top Model, and CEO/founder of the fashion PR firm People’s Revolution to offer young professional women no-nonsense, brutally honest career advice—and other things their mothers never told them.“[Cutrone’s] hellish take on the fashion world is her ticket to stardom. . . . reads as a gritty guide for young women entering the fashion world.” —USA Today“Choice career and style advice from New York’s most outspoken PR woman.” —WSJ.com“What everyone loves about Kelly Cutrone . . . is that she isn’t afraid to tell it how it is.” —Elle Magazine“Cutrone gives blunt, how-to advice on how to be a “power bitch” . . . It’s an old-fashioned guide to succeeding in both life and work . . . with a dash of self-styled spirituality and, of course, all dressed up in Balenciaga.” —New York Post “Part memoir, part self-improvement sermon . . . it recounts Cutrone’s own fitful journey.” —New York Magazine “The book outlines [Cutrone’s] tumultuous rise from homelessness to the fashion elite and serves as a guide for navigating an alternative career path.” —The Harvard Crimson“A raw, no bullshit, . . . autobiographical joy ride that preaches spiritual self-empowerment over self-sabotage.” —Out Magazine“A message of girl power . . . entertaining for all.” —Los Angeles Times
If You Knew Then What I Know Now
by Ryan Van MeterThe middle American coming-of-age has found new life in Ryan Van Meter's coming-out, made as strange as it is familiar by acknowledging the role played by gender and sexuality. In fourteen linked essays, If You Knew Then What I Know Now reinvents the memoir with all-encompassing empathy-for bully and bullied alike. A father pitches baseballs at his hapless son and a grandmother watches with silent forbearance as the same slim, quiet boy sets the table dressed in a blue satin dress. Another essay explores origins of the word "faggot" and its etymological connection to "flaming queen." This deft collection maps the unremarkable landscapes of childhood with compassion and precision, allowing awkwardness its own beauty. This is essay as an argument for the intimate-not the sensational-and an embrace of all the skinned knees in our stumble toward adulthood.Ryan Van Meter grew up in Missouri and studied English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. After graduating, he lived in Chicago for ten years and worked in advertising. He holds an MA in creative writing from DePaul University and an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. His essays have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, Arts & Letters, and Fourth Genre, among others, and selected for anthologies including Best American Essays 2009. In the summer of 2009, he was awarded a residency at the MacDowell Colony. He currently lives in California where he is an assistant professor of creative nonfiction at the University of San Francisco.
If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now: Why We Traded the Commuting Life for a Little House on the Prairie
by Christopher IngrahamAn NPR Best Book of the Year: “With humor and insight, [the author] writes of relocating his family from Washington, DC, to rural Minnesota.” —Publishers WeeklyThis is the hilarious, charming, and candid story of writer Christopher Ingraham’s decision to uproot his life and move his family to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, population 1,400—the community he made famous as “the worst place to live in America.” Like many young couples, Chris and his wife, Briana, were having a hard time making ends meet as they raised their twin boys in the East Coast suburbs. One day, Chris—in his role as a “data guy” reporter at the Washington Post—stumbled on a study that would change his life. It was a ranking of America’s 3,000+ counties from ugliest to most scenic. He quickly scrolled to the bottom of the list and gleefully wrote the words “The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll please) . . . Red Lake County, Minn.” The story went viral, to put it mildly. Among the reactions were many from residents of Red Lake County. While they were unflappably polite—it’s not called “Minnesota Nice” for nothing—they challenged him to look beyond the spreadsheet and actually visit their community. Ingraham, with slight trepidation, accepted. Impressed by the locals’ warmth, humor, and hospitality (and ever more aware of their financial situation and his torturous commute), Chris and Briana eventually decided to relocate to the town he’d just dragged through the dirt on the Internet.If You Lived Here You’d Be Home by Now is the story of making a decision that turns all your preconceptions—good and bad—on their heads. In Red Lake County, Ingraham experiences the power of small-town gossip, struggles to find a decent cup of coffee, suffers through winters with temperatures dropping to forty below, and unearths some truths about rural life that the coastal media usually miss. It’s a wry and charming tale—with data!—of what happened to one family brave enough to move waaaay beyond its comfort zone.“Ingraham deals with a number of fundamental issues: health care, schools, social life, and, of course, the extreme cold of northern Minnesota . . . Throughout, Ingraham writes with the conviction of one who has found—as least for him—tranquility and truth.” —Kirkus Reviews
If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska
by Heather LendeTiny Haines, Alaska, is ninety miles north of Juneau, accessible mainly by water or air—and only when the weather is good. There's no traffic light and no mail delivery; people can vanish without a trace and funerals are a community affair. Heather Lende posts both the obituaries and the social column for her local newspaper. If anyone knows the going-on in this close-knit town—from births to weddings to funerals—she does. Whether contemplating the mysterious death of eccentric Speedy Joe, who wore nothing but a red union suit and a hat he never took off, not even for a haircut; researching the details of a one-legged lady gold miner's adventurous life; worrying about her son's first goat-hunting expedition; observing the awe-inspiring Chilkat Bald Eagle Festival; or ice skating in the shadow of glacier-studded mountains, Lende's warmhearted style brings us inside her small-town life. We meet her husband, Chip, who owns the local lumber yard; their five children; and a colorful assortment of quirky friends and neighbors, including aging hippies, salty fishermen, native Tlingit Indians, and volunteer undertakers—as well as the moose, eagles, sea lions, and bears with whom they share this wild and perilous land. Like Bailey White's tales of Southern life or Garrison Keillor's reports from the Midwest, NPR commentator Heather Lende's take on her offbeat Alaskan hometown celebrates life in a dangerous and breathtakingly beautiful place.
If You Love Me: A Mother's Journey Through Her Daughter's Opioid Addiction
by Maureen CavanaghMaureen Cavanagh’s gripping memoir If You Love Me is the story of a mother who suddenly finds herself on the frontlines of the opioid epidemic as her daughter battles—and ultimately reckons with—substance use disorder.Fast-paced and heartwarming, devastating and redemptive, Maureen’s incredible odyssey into the opioid crisis—first as a parent, then as an advocate—is ultimately a deeply moving mother-daughter story. When Maureen and her ex-husband Mike see their daughter Katie’s needle track marks for the first time, it is a complete shock. But, slowly, the drug use explains everything—Katie’s constant exhaustion, erratic moods, and all those spoons that have gone missing from the house. Once Mike and Maureen get Katie into detox, Maureen goes to sleep that night hoping that in 48 hours she’ll have her daughter back. It’s not that simple.Like the millions of parents and relatives all over the country—some of whom she has helped through her nonprofit organization—Maureen learns that recovery is neither straightforward nor brief. She fights to save Katie’s life, breaking down doors on the seedy side of town with Mike, kidnapping Katie outside a convenience store, and battling the taboo around substance use disorder in her picturesque New England town. Maureen is launched into the shadowy world of overcrowded, for-profit rehabilitation centers that often prey on worried parents. As Katie runs away from one program after another, never outrunning her pain, Maureen realizes that even while she becomes an expert on getting countless men and women into detox and treatment centers, she remains powerless to save her own daughter. Maureen's unforgettable story brings the opioid crisis out of the shadows and into the house next door.