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Janet Reno: A Life
by Judith Hicks StiehmThe long-awaited biography of the first woman to serve as United States attorney general, written with exclusive access to the personal archives of Reno and her family and based on over 40 interviews with Reno’s friends and colleagues In this first full biography of former United States attorney general Janet Reno (1938–2016), Judith Hicks Stiehm describes the independent and unconventional life of a woman who grew up on a rural South Florida homestead and rose to occupy one of the top positions in the United States government, whose ethics and example served as inspiration for women in law and politics across the nation. In telling Janet Reno’s story, Stiehm incorporates personal details from her full and exclusive access to family papers and photos, as well as inside information from Reno’s own materials and interviews with over 40 of Reno’s personal and professional acquaintances. Stiehm begins by tracing Reno’s free-range childhood, her college years at Cornell and experience at Harvard Law School as one of 16 women in a class of over 500, the challenges she faced as a woman lawyer launching her career in 1960s Miami, and her 15 years as Miami-Dade state attorney. In 1993, Reno was appointed to serve in Washington as United States attorney general in the Clinton administration, the first woman to occupy the position in the history of the nation. Stiehm tells how Reno engaged with the East Coast elite as an outsider, seen by many as outspoken and eccentric—yet scrupulous, uncompromising, and immune to influence. Stiehm explores the reasons behind Reno’s decisions in cases she handled during her tenure, including the siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas; Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation; the Oklahoma City bombing; and the Elián González controversy. Janet Reno’s life was an illustration to many that it is possible to hold high office while consistently speaking and acting on principle. This biography examines the guiding forces that shaped Reno’s character, the trails blazed by Reno in her professional roles, and the lasting influence of Reno on American politics and society to this day.
Janet, My Mother, and Me: A Memoir of Growing Up With Janet Flanner and Natalia Danesi Murray
by Williamson MurrayJanet, My Mother, and Me is a charming, captivating memoir about a boy growing up in a household of two extraordinary women. William Murray was devoted to his mother, Natalia Danesi Murray, and to his mother's longtime lover, writer Janet Flanner. Even as a teenager, he accepted their unconventional relationship. His portrait of the two most important people in his life is unforgettable. Janet Flanner was already celebrated as the author of a new style of personal journalism for her "Letter from Paris" in The New Yorker when she met the Italian-born Natalia Murray on Fire Island, New York, in 1940. Their encounter, writes William Murray, was a "coup de foudre, a thunderbolt that instantly sent them rushing into each other's arms and forever altered their lives, as well as mine." Murray was already growing up in two cultures on different continents, in New York and Rome, when his mother's life changed so dramatically. He quickly accepted Flanner and the unusual household in which he found himself. (Natalia's mother, Mammina Ester, also lived with them in New York.) His memories of the women and of his own boyhood and adolescence are touching and often hilarious. Janet, My Mother, and Me offers a look at the world in which gay professional women moved in the decades before such relationships became more open and accepted. Murray's mother was a publishing executive and a broadcaster, and Murray, who originally hoped to become an opera singer and trained for that profession, eventually moved into the professions of both his mother and Flanner, becoming a novelist and then for many years an editor and writer at The New Yorker. This is an exuberant, warm, and often poignant memoir with a memorable cast of characters. Beguiling and unusual, it will remain vivid in readers' minds for years to come.
Janey and Me
by Virginia IronsideIs it every woman's fate to turn into her mother? This is renowned writer and journalist Virginia Ironside's poignant and blackly funny memoir of life with fashion professor and media icon Janey Ironside. Stylish, beautiful and self-loathing, Janey Ironside was to lead a cultural revolution. In 1956 she became Professor of Fashion at the Royal College of Art, then an extraordinary appointment for a young mother. Discovering and promoting designers like Ossie Clark and Bill Gibb, she changed the way people dressed around the world and herself became a fashion icon. Yet the qualities that made her great - wit, talent and drive - did not bring happiness to either her or her family. Having grown up in colonial India, Janey suffered a painful childhood separation from her parents. She married dashing artist Christopher Ironside, but eking out wartime rations ill-suited a woman whose idea of divine punishment was 'to spend eternity washing up.' Dress-making soon filled the void, while her daughter Virginia endured a string of au pairs, embarrassing outfits and acute loneliness. As Virginia fought to be her own person, plunging into the swing of the sixties as a rock journalist, she was caught between a father she adored and a mother bent on self-destruction. Now a renowned writer, she has drawn a startling portrait of a gifted woman in a time of extraordinary change. Blackly comic, beautifully written and deeply moving, JANEY AND ME reflects the universal struggle to emerge from our parents' shadow.
Janie Writes a Play: Jane Yolen's First Great Story
by Heidi E. StempleBased on a true story to the beginning of the storied career of children&’s book author Jane Yolen, written by her very own daughter.Janie Yolen loves to read, write, dance, and sing. So when her teacher announces Janie's elementary class will perform a play, Janie is thrilled. There's just one problem . . . the play is boring. With the support of her teacher and classmates, Janie rewrites the play, resulting in a hit class musical.An inspiring and funny look at how a writer became a writer, told by another prolific author--Heidi E. Y. Stemple, Jane's own daughter!
Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing
by Ann AngelIt's the story of an outrageous rebel who wanted to be loved, and of a wild woman who wrote long, loving letters to her mom. And finally, it's the story of one of the most iconic female musicians in American history, who died at twenty-seven.
Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing
by Ann AngelForty years after her death, Janis Joplin remains among the most compelling and influential figures in rock-and-roll history. Her story—told here with depth and sensitivity by author Ann Angel—is one of a girl who struggled against rules and limitations, yet worked diligently to improve as a singer. It’s the story of an outrageous rebel who wanted to be loved, and of a wild woman who wrote long, loving letters to her mom. And finally, it’s the story of one of the most iconic female musicians in American history, who died at twenty-seven. Janis Joplin includes more than sixty photographs, and an assortment of anecdotes from Janis’s friends and band mates. This thoroughly researched and well-illustrated biography is a must-have for all young artists, music lovers, and pop-culture enthusiasts.
Janis: Her Life and Music
by Holly George-WarrenIt’s been said Janis Joplin was second only to Bob Dylan as the ‘creator-recorder-embodiment of her generation’s mythology’. But how did a middle-class girl from Texas become a ’60s countercultural icon? Janis’ parents doted on her and promoted her early talent for art. But the arrival of a brother shattered the bond she had with her intellectual maverick of a father, an oil engineer. And her own maverick instincts alienated her from her socially conformist mother. That break with her parents, along with the rejection of her high school peers, who disapproved of her beatnik look and racially progressive views, and wrongly assumed she was sexually promiscuous, cemented her sense of herself as an outcast. She found her tribe with a group of offbeat young men a year ahead of her, who loved her intellectual curiosity, her passion for conversation, and her adventurous search for the blues. Although she never stopped craving the approval of her parents and hometown, she left Port Arthur at seventeen determined to prove she could be loved. She tried college twice, and dropped out both times. She ran off to California, but came back when her heavy drug use scared her into it. She almost signed up for a life as a domesticated, hang-the-curtains wife. But instead, during a second stint on the West Coast, she launched a career that would see her crowned the queen of rock and roll. What no one besides Holly George-Warren has captured in such intimate detail is the way Janis Joplin teetered between the powerful woman you hear in her songs and the little girl who just wanted to go home and feel emotionally safe there. The pain of that dichotomy fuelled her music – and ultimately killed her.
Janis: Her Life and Music
by Holly George-WarrenLonglisted for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence This blazingly intimate biography of Janis Joplin establishes the Queen of Rock & Roll as the rule-breaking musical trailblazer and complicated, gender-bending rebel she was.Janis Joplin’s first transgressive act was to be a white girl who gained an early sense of the power of the blues, music you could only find on obscure records and in roadhouses along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. But even before that, she stood out in her conservative oil town. She was a tomboy who was also intellectually curious and artistic. By the time she reached high school, she had drawn the scorn of her peers for her embrace of the Beats and her racially progressive views. Her parents doted on her in many ways, but were ultimately put off by her repeated acts of defiance. Janis Joplin has passed into legend as a brash, impassioned soul doomed by the pain that produced one of the most extraordinary voices in rock history. But in these pages, Holly George-Warren provides a revelatory and deeply satisfying portrait of a woman who wasn’t all about suffering. Janis was a perfectionist: a passionate, erudite musician who was born with talent but also worked exceptionally hard to develop it. She was a woman who pushed the boundaries of gender and sexuality long before it was socially acceptable. She was a sensitive seeker who wanted to marry and settle down—but couldn’t, or wouldn’t. She was a Texan who yearned to flee Texas but could never quite get away—even after becoming a countercultural icon in San Francisco. Written by one of the most highly regarded chroniclers of American music history, and based on unprecedented access to Janis Joplin’s family, friends, band mates, archives, and long-lost interviews, Janis is a complex, rewarding portrait of a remarkable artist finally getting her due.
Janis: Her Life and Music
by Holly George-WarrenIt&’s been said Janis Joplin was second only to Bob Dylan as the &‘creator-recorder-embodiment of her generation&’s mythology&’. But how did a middle-class girl from Texas become a &’60s countercultural icon? Janis&’ parents doted on her and promoted her early talent for art. But the arrival of a brother shattered the bond she had with her intellectual maverick of a father, an oil engineer. And her own maverick instincts alienated her from her socially conformist mother. That break with her parents, along with the rejection of her high school peers, who disapproved of her beatnik look and racially progressive views, and wrongly assumed she was sexually promiscuous, cemented her sense of herself as an outcast. She found her tribe with a group of offbeat young men a year ahead of her, who loved her intellectual curiosity, her passion for conversation, and her adventurous search for the blues. Although she never stopped craving the approval of her parents and hometown, she left Port Arthur at seventeen determined to prove she could be loved. She tried college twice, and dropped out both times. She ran off to California, but came back when her heavy drug use scared her into it. She almost signed up for a life as a domesticated, hang-the-curtains wife. But instead, during a second stint on the West Coast, she launched a career that would see her crowned the queen of rock and roll. What no one besides Holly George-Warren has captured in such intimate detail is the way Janis Joplin teetered between the powerful woman you hear in her songs and the little girl who just wanted to go home and feel emotionally safe there. The pain of that dichotomy fuelled her music – and ultimately killed her.
Jantsen's Gift: A True Story of Grief, Rescue, and Grace
by Pam Cope Aimee MolloyNine years ago, Pam Cope owned a cozy hair salon in the tiny town of Neosho, Missouri, and her life revolved around her son's baseball games, her daughter's dance lessons, and family trips to places like Disney World. She had never been out of the country, nor had she any desire to travel far from home.Then, on June 16th, 1999, her life changed forever with the death of her 15-year-old son from an undiagnosed heart ailment. Needing to get as far away as possible from everything that reminded her of her loss, she accepted a friend's invitation to travel to Vietnam, and, from the moment she stepped off the plane, everything she had been feeling since her son's death began to shift. By the time she returned home, she had a new mission: to use her pain to change the world, one small step at a time, one child at a time. Today, she is the mother of two children adopted from Vietnam. More than that, she and her husband have created a foundation called "Touch A Life," dedicated to helping desperate children in countries as far-flung as Vietnam, Cambodia and Ghana.Pam Cope's story is on one level a moving, personal account of loss and recovery, but on a deeper level, it offers inspiration to anyone who has ever suffered great personal tragedy or those of us who dream about making a difference in the world.
January First: A Child's Descent into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her
by Michael SchofieldMichael Schofield's daughter January is at the mercy of her imaginary friends, except they aren't the imaginary friends that most young children have; they are hallucinations. And January is caught in the conflict between our world and their world, a place she calls Calalini. Some of these hallucinations, like "24 Hours," are friendly and some, like "400 the Cat" and "Wednesday the Rat," bite and scratch her until she does what they want. They often tell her to scream at strangers, jump out of buildings, and attack her baby brother. At six years old, January Schofield, "Janni," to her family, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, one of the worst mental illnesses known to man. What's more, schizophrenia is 20 to 30 times more severe in children than in adults and in January's case, doctors say, she is hallucinating 95 percent of the time that she is awake. Potent psychiatric drugs that would level most adults barely faze her. January First captures Michael and his family's remarkable story in a narrative that forges new territory within books about mental illness. In the beginning, readers see Janni's incredible early potential: her brilliance, and savant-like ability to learn extremely abstract concepts. Next, they witnesses early warning signs that something is not right, Michael's attempts to rationalize what's happening, and his descent alongside his daughter into the abyss of schizophrenia. Their battle has included a two-year search for answers, countless medications and hospitalizations, allegations of abuse, despair that almost broke their family apart and, finally, victories against the illness and a new faith that they can create a life for Janni filled with moments of happiness. A compelling, unsparing and passionate account, January First vividly details Schofield's commitment to bring his daughter back from the edge of insanity. It is a father's soul-baring memoir of the daily struggles and challenges he and his wife face as they do everything they can to help Janni while trying to keep their family together. From the Hardcover edition.
Japan Took the J.A.P. Out of Me
by CookSix days after an InStyle-worthy wedding in Los Angeles, Lisa Fineberg Cook left behind her little red Jetta, her manicurist of ten years, and her very best friend for the land of the rising sun. When her husband accepted a job teaching English in Nagoya, Japan, she imagined exotic weekend getaways, fine sushi dinners, and sake sojourns with glamorous expatriate friends. Instead, she's the only Jewish girl on public transportation, and everyone is staring. Lisa longs for regular mani/pedis, valet parking, and gimlets with her girlfriends, but for the next year, she learns to cook, clean, commute, and shop like the Japanese, all the while adjusting to another foreign concept -- marriage. Loneliness and frustration give way to new and unexpected friendships, the evolution of old ones, and a fresh understanding of what it means to feel different -- until finally a world she never thought she'd fit into begins to feel home-like, if not exactly like home.
Japanese Drama and Culture in the 1960s: The Return of the Gods (Routledge Revivals)
by D.G. GoodmanThis title was first published in 1988: In this book the author has translated five postwar experimental Japanese plays and recreated the artistic, social and spiritual milieu in which they were created. He describes the turning point in Japanese thinking about the nature and limitations of a Western-oriented modern culture, and the creation of "underground" theatres which in which evolved a new mythology of history. Professor Goodman sees these developments as an interplay between personal and political (ie revolutionary) salvation.
Japanese Eyes American Heart: Personal Reflections of Hawaii's World War II Nisei Soldiers
by Hawaii Nikkei History Editorial Board Tendai Education Foundation StaffJapan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, set Hawaii on a new course of history that would affect every living soul in these Islands. How Hawaii's people, particularly those of Japanese ancestry, responded to the act of aggression by Japan changed Hawaii's social, economic, and political history forever. Much has been written about how Americans of Japanese ancestry (AJA) in the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Military Intelligence Service, and the 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion answered their country's call through military service--and the high price they paid in human lives in freedom's cause. The history has been recorded, the battles documented, the medals tallied, the social and political legacy articulated and applauded. Not as thoroughly recorded, however, are the thoughts and innermost feelings of the nisei soldiers who put their lives on the line for their country, and what those experiences meant to them. Those stories have always been the most difficult to pry from the hearts and souls of the AJA men who served our country in World War II. It was that void in the story of Hawaii's nisei soldiers that Bishop Ryokan Ara of the Tendai Educational Foundation asked members of the Hawaii Nikkei History Editorial Board to fill. Japanese Eyes... American Heart is the result of that effort. It is a rare and powerful collection of personal thoughts written by the soldiers themselves, reflections of the men's thoughts as recorded in diaries and letters sent home to family members and friends, and other expressions about an episode that marked a turning point in the lives of many.
Japanese Farm Food
by Nancy Singleton HachisuThis award-winning cookbook offers a unique look at life on a Japanese farm through 165 recipes, personal stories and stunning photographs.American born and raised, Nancy Singleton Hachisu lives with her husband and sons on a rural Japanese farm, where they prepare these 165 bright, seasonal dishes. Covering everything from pickles and soups to noodles, rice, and dipping sauces, with a special emphasis on vegetables, Hachisu demystifies the rural Japanese kitchen, laying bare the essential ingredients, equipment, and techniques needed for Japanese home cooking.Combining stories and recipes, Japanese Farm Food is about food, family, and community. More than 350 vibrant images by Kenji Miura evoke the beautiful Japanese countryside and life on a traditional farm. With a focus on fresh and thoughtfully sourced ingredients, the recipes in Japanese Farm Food are perfect for fans of farmers’ markets, and for home cooks looking for accessible Japanese dishes.Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2012: USA Winner, Best Japanese Cuisine Book
Japanese Notebooks: A Journey to the Empire of Signs
by Igort&“An insightful book . . . It&’s a fascinating glimpse into the traditions of Manga, and a thoughtful meditation on Japanese culture.&” —Starburst Magazine Japan is a place of special fascination for the acclaimed international comics creator Igort, who has visited and lived there more than twenty times, and worked in the country&’s manga industry for more than a decade. In this masterful new book—part graphic memoir, part cultural meditation—Igort vividly recounts his personal experiences in Japan, creating comics amid the activities of everyday life, and finding inspiration everywhere: in nature, history, custom, art, and encounters with creators including animation visionary Hayao Miyazaki. With beautifully illustrated reflections on subjects from printmaking to Zen Buddhism, imperial history to the samurai code, Japanese film, literature, and manga, this is a richly rewarding book for anyone interested in Japan or comic arts practiced at the highest level. &“Igort&’s memoir is a rich, complicated meditation on art, cultural infatuation and the seen versus the remembered, all told in a collage of words, images, diagrams, photographs, history, ideas, feelings—and most surprisingly—of conflict.&” —Chris Ware, author of Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth &“Drawn with precise yet densely lavish style, it balances comic interludes, stranger-in-a-strange-land parables, and side essays on notable writers, filmmakers, and madmen. It&’s an almost overpoweringly lush book that manages to simultaneously romanticize a foreign culture and lampoon that romanticization.&” —The Boston Globe &“A captivating glimpse into the mind of an artist.&” —Booklist (starred review)
Japanese Portraits
by Donald RichieThe private collections of longtime Japan resident Donald Richie capture the personalities of certain Japanese people--some famous, some unknown--with insight and humor. Richie, who considers himself a foreigner despite living in Japan for over 53 years, is a keen observer of human nature. In Japanese Portraits, he provides an elegant and perceptive vision of Japan through precise, intimate portraits of ordinary and extraordinary Japanese people. Portraits include such notable Japanese as acclaimed filmmakers Akira Kurowasa and Yasujiro Ozu, famed novelist Yukio Mishima, and celebrated actor Toshiro Mifune.
Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa
by Karin MullerDuring a year spent in Japan on a personal quest to deepen her appreciation for such Eastern ideals as commitment and devotion, documentary filmmaker Karin Muller discovered just how maddeningly complicated it is being Japanese. In this book Muller invites the reader along for a uniquely American odyssey into the ancient heart of modern Japan. Broad in scope and deftly observed by an author with a rich visual sense of people and place, Japanland is as beguiling as this colorful country of contradictions.
Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles
by Anthony SwoffordThe author weaves his experiences in war with vivid accounts of boot camp, reflections on the mythos of the marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family.
Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles
by Anthony SwoffordAnthony Swofford's Jarhead is the first Gulf War memoir by a frontline infantry marine, and it is a searing, unforgettable narrative. When the marines -- or "jarheads," as they call themselves -- were sent in 1990 to Saudi Arabia to fight the Iraqis, Swofford was there, with a hundred-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper's rifle in his hands. It was one misery upon another. He lived in sand for six months, his girlfriend back home betrayed him for a scrawny hotel clerk, he was punished by boredom and fear, he considered suicide, he pulled a gun on one of his fellow marines, and he was shot at by both Iraqis and Americans. At the end of the war, Swofford hiked for miles through a landscape of incinerated Iraqi soldiers and later was nearly killed in a booby-trapped Iraqi bunker. Swofford weaves this experience of war with vivid accounts of boot camp (which included physical abuse by his drill instructor), reflections on the mythos of the marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family. As engagement with the Iraqis draws closer, he is forced to consider what it is to be an American, a soldier, a son of a soldier, and a man. Unlike the real-time print and television coverage of the Gulf War, which was highly scripted by the Pentagon, Swofford's account subverts the conventional wisdom that U.S. military interventions are now merely surgical insertions of superior forces that result in few American casualties. Jarhead insists we remember the Americans who are in fact wounded or killed, the fields of smoking enemy corpses left behind, and the continuing difficulty that American soldiers have reentering civilian life. A harrowing yet inspiring portrait of a tormented consciousness struggling for inner peace, Jarhead will elbow for room on that short shelf of American war classics that includes Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and be admired not only for the raw beauty of its prose but also for the depth of its pained heart.
Jarhead: A Solder's Story of Modern War
by Anthony SwoffordA harrowing yet inspiring portrait of a tormented consciousness struggling for reconciliation and peace, JARHEAD is authentic, revelatory and brilliantly crafted. Anthony Swofford's grandfather fought in WWII; his father fought in Vietnam; and he - a directionless, testosterone-battered teenager - became a scout/sniper in the marines and fought in the Gulf War. His account of that time is also part of a lineage - after Wilfred Owen, Norman Mailer, Michael Herr and Tim O'Brien, it brings the raw and searing tradition of soldiers' stories up to date.
Jascha Heifetz: Early Years in Russia (Russian Music Studies)
by Galina KopytovaNotoriously reticent about his early years, violinist Jascha Heifetz famously reduced the story of his childhood to "Born in Russia. First lessons at 3. Debut in Russia at 7. Debut in Carnegie Hall at 17. That's all there is to say." Tracing his little-known upbringing, Jascha Heifetz: Early Years in Russia uncovers the events and experiences that shaped one of the modern era's most unique talents and enigmatic personalities. Using previously unstudied archival materials and interviews with family and friends, this biography explores Heifetz's meteoric rise in the Russian music world—from his first violin lessons with his father, to his studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with the well-known pedagogue Leopold Auer, to his tours throughout Russia and Europe. Spotlighting Auer's close-knit circle of musicians, Galina Kopytova underscores the lives of artists in Russia's "Silver Age"—an explosion of artistic activity amid the rapid social and political changes of the early 20th century.
Jasmine and Fire: A Bittersweet Year in Beirut
by Salma AbdelnourAs Beirut exploded with the bombs and violence of a ruthless civil war in the '80s, a nine-year-old Salma Abdelnour and her family fled Lebanon to start a new life in the States. Ever since then-- even as she built a thriving career as a food and travel writer in New York City--Salma has had a hunch that Beirut was still her home. She kept dreaming of moving back--and finally decided to do it.But could she resume her life in Beirut, so many years after her family moved away? Could she, or anyone for that matter, ever really go home again? Jasmine and Fire is Salma's poignant and humorous journey of try-ing to resettle in Beirut and fumbling through the new realities of life in one of the world's most complex, legendary, ever-vibrant, ever- troubled cities. What's more, in a year of roiling changes around the Middle East and the rise of the Arab Spring, Salma found herself in the midst of the turmoil, experiencing it all up close. As she comes to grips with all the changes in her life--a love left behind in New York and new relationships blossoming in Beirut--Salma takes comfort in some of Lebanon's enduring traditions, particularly its extraordinary food culture. Through the sights, sounds, and flavors of a city full of beauty, tragedy, despair, and hope, Salma slowly begins to reconnect with the place she's longed for her entire life.
Jasmine and Stars
by Fatemeh KeshavarzIn a direct, frank, and intimate exploration of Iranian literature and society, scholar, teacher, and poet Fatemeh Keshavarz challenges popular perceptions of Iran as a society bereft of vitality and joy. Her fresh perspective on present-day Iran provides a rare insight into this rich culture alive with artistic expression but virtually unknown to most Americans. Keshavarz introduces readers to two modern Iranian women writers whose strong and articulate voices belie the stereotypical perception of Iranian women as voiceless victims in a country of villains. She follows with a lively critique of the recent best-seller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, which epitomizes what Keshavarz calls the "New Orientalist narrative," a view marred by stereotype and prejudice more often tied to current geopolitical conflicts than to an understanding of Iran. Blending in firsthand glimpses of her own life--from childhood memories in 1960s Shiraz to her present life as a professor in America--Keshavarz paints a portrait of Iran depicting both cultural depth and intellectual complexity. With a scholar's expertise and a poet's hand, she helps amplify the powerful voices of contemporary Iranians and leads readers toward a deeper understanding of the country's past and present.In a direct, frank, and intimate exploration of Iranian literature and society, scholar, teacher, and poet Fatemeh Keshavarz challenges popular perceptions of Iran as a society bereft of vitality and joy. Her fresh perspective on present day Iran provides a rare insight into this rich culture alive with artistic expression but virtually unknown to most Americans. She warns against the rise of what she calls the "New Orientalist narrative," which thrives on stereotype and prejudice and is often tied to current geopolitical conflict rather than an understanding of Iran. Keshavarz offers a lively critique of the best-seller Reading Lolita in Tehran, which she says epitomizes this New Orientalist attitude. Blending in firsthand glimpses of her own life, Keshavarz paints a portrait of Iran depicting both cultural depth and intellectual complexity.-->
Jason Priestley: A Memoir
by Jason PriestleyJason Priestley, star of the iconic hit television series Beverly Hills, 90210 and one of the biggest teen idols of the 1990s, chronicles the highs and lows of his life and career in this charming and honest memoir.The hit Fox show Beverly Hills, 90210 became a cultural touchstone of the 1990s and propelled its young cast to mega-stardom, including Jason Priestley, who played honorable Midwestern transplant Brandon Walsh. Yet despite more than twenty years in and out of the limelight, Priestley has carefully maintained his privacy. In this compelling memoir, the actor, director, and race-car aficionado invites us into his private world for the first time.With humor, sincerity, and charm, Priestley offers little-known details about his life and stories of his nine years in America’s most famous zip code. He talks candidly about celebrity, marriage, fatherhood, and his passion for car racing. He does not shy away from the devastating lows—his brief jail sentence for drunk driving and the crash at the Kentucky Speedway that nearly took his life. Priestley shares his innermost thoughts about life as a ’90s icon, and goes beyond the Brandon Walsh squeaky-clean image, revealing the tumultuous events that have shaped him, and where he finds his greatest happiness today.