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Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation
by Santos John PhillipFinalist for the National Book Award! In this beautifully wrought memoir, award-winning writer John Philip Santos weaves together dream fragments, family remembrances, and Chicano mythology, reaching back into time and place to blend the story of one Mexican family with the soul of an entire people. The story unfolds through a pageant of unforgettable family figures: from Madrina--touched with epilepsy and prophecy ever since, as a girl, she saw a dying soul leave its body--to Teofilo, who was kidnapped as an infant and raised by the Kikapu Indians of Northern Mexico. At the heart of the book is Santos' search for the meaning of his grandfather's suicide in San Antonio, Texas, in 1939. Part treasury of the elders, part elegy, part personal odyssey, this is an immigration tale and a haunting family story that offers a rich, magical view of Mexican-American culture. .
Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning
by Elliot AckermanFrom a decorated Marine war veteran and National Book Award Finalist, an astonishing reckoning with the nature of combat and the human cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. <P><P>"War hath determined us ..." - John Milton, Paradise Lost <P><P>Toward the beginning of Places and Names, Elliot Ackerman sits in a refugee camp in southern Turkey, across the table from a man named Abu Hassar, who fought for Al Qaeda in Iraq, and whose connections to the Islamic State are murky. At first, Ackerman pretends to have been a journalist during the Iraq War, but after establishes a rapport with Abu Hassar, he takes a risk by revealing to him that in fact he was a Marine special operation officer. <P><P>Ackerman then draws the shape of the Euphrates River on a large piece of paper, and his one-time adversary quickly joins him in the game of filling in the map with the names and dates of where they saw fighting during the war. They had shadowed each other for some time, it turned out, a realization that brought them to a strange kind of intimacy. <P><P>The rest of Elliot Ackerman's extraordinary memoir is in a way an answer to the question of why he came to that refugee camp and what he hoped to find there. By moving back and forth between his recent experiences on the ground as a journalist in Syria and its environs and his deeper past in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, he creates a work of astonishing atmospheric pressurization. <P><P>Ackerman shares extraordinarily vivid and powerful stories of his own experiences in battle, culminating in the events of the Second Battle of Fallujah, the most intense urban combat for the Marines since Hue in Vietnam, where Ackerman's actions leading a rifle platoon saw him awarded the Silver Star. He weaves these stories into the latticework of a masterful larger reckoning, with contemporary geopolitics through his vantage as a journalist in Istanbul and with the human extremes of both bravery and horror. <P><P> At once an intensely personal book about the terrible lure of combat and a brilliant meditation on the larger meaning of the past two decades of strife for America, the region and the world, Places and Names bids fair to take its place among our greatest books about modern war.
Places in the World a Person Could Walk: Family, Stories, Home, and Place in the Texas Hill Country
by David SyringSpring-fed creeks. Old stone houses. Cedar brakes and bleached limestone. The Hill Country holds powerful sway over the imagination of Texans. So many of us dream of having our own little place in the limestone hills. The Hill Country feels just like home, even if you've never lived there. <p><p> This beautifully written book explores what the Hill Country has meant as a homeplace to the author, his family, and longtime residents of the area, as well as to newcomers. David Syring listens to the stories that his aunts, uncles, and cousins tell about life in the Hill Country and grapples with their meaning for his own search for a place to belong. He also collects short stories focused around Honey Creek Church to consider how places become containers for memory. And he draws upon several years of living in Fredericksburg to talk about the problems and opportunities created by heritage tourism and the development of the town as a "home" for German Americans. These interconnected stories illuminate what it means to belong to a place and why the Texas Hill Country has become the spiritual, if not actual, home of many people.
Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said
by Timothy BrennanOne of The New York Times's books to watch for in MarchThe first comprehensive biography of the most influential, controversial, and celebrated Palestinian intellectual of the twentieth centuryAs someone who studied under Edward Said and remained a friend until his death in 2003, Timothy Brennan had unprecedented access to his thesis adviser’s ideas and legacy. In this authoritative work, Said, the pioneer of postcolonial studies, a tireless champion for his native Palestine, and an erudite literary critic, emerges as a self-doubting, tender, eloquent advocate of literature’s dramatic effects on politics and civic life.Charting the intertwined routes of Said’s intellectual development, Places of Mind reveals him as a study in opposites: a cajoler and strategist, a New York intellectual with a foot in Beirut, an orchestra impresario in Weimar and Ramallah, a raconteur on national television, a Palestinian negotiator at the State Department, and an actor in films in which he played himself. Brennan traces the Arab influences on Said’s thinking along with his tutelage under Lebanese statesmen, off-beat modernist auteurs, and New York literati, as Said grew into a scholar whose influential writings changed the face of university life forever. With both intimidating brilliance and charm, Said melded these resources into a groundbreaking and influential countertradition of radical humanism, set against the backdrop of techno-scientific dominance and religious war. With unparalleled clarity, Said gave the humanities a new authority in the age of Reaganism, one that continues today.Drawing on the testimonies of family, friends, students, and antagonists alike, and aided by FBI files, unpublished writings, and Said's drafts of novels and personal letters, Places of Mind synthesizes Said’s intellectual breadth and influence into an unprecedented, intimate, and compelling portrait of one of the great minds of the twentieth century.
Plague Years: A Doctor’s Journey through the AIDS Crisis
by Ross A. Slotten, MDIn 1992, Dr. Ross A. Slotten signed more death certificates in Chicago—and, by inference, the state of Illinois—than anyone else. As a family physician, he was trained to care for patients from birth to death, but when he completed his residency in 1984, he had no idea that many of his future patients would be cut down in the prime of their lives. Among those patients were friends, colleagues, and lovers, shunned by most of the medical community because they were gay and HIV positive. Slotten wasn’t an infectious disease specialist, but because of his unique position as both a gay man and a young physician, he became an unlikely pioneer, swept up in one of the worst epidemics in modern history. Plague Years is an unprecedented first-person account of that epidemic, spanning not just the city of Chicago but four continents as well. Slotten provides an intimate yet comprehensive view of the disease’s spread alongside heartfelt portraits of his patients and his own conflicted feelings as a medical professional, drawn from more than thirty years of personal notebooks. In telling the story of someone who was as much a potential patient as a doctor, Plague Years sheds light on the darkest hours in the history of the LGBT community in ways that no previous medical memoir has.
Plague and Cholera
by Patrick DevilleParis, May 1940. Nazi troops storm the city and at Le Bourget airport, on the last flight out, sits Dr Alexandre Yersin, his gaze politely turned away from his fellow passengers with their jewels sewn into their luggage. He is too old for the combat ahead, and besides he has already saved millions of lives. When he was the brilliant young protégé of Louis Pasteur, he focused his exceptional mind on a great medical conundrum: in 1894, on a Hong Kong hospital forecourt, he identified and vaccinated against bubonic plague, later named in his honour Yersinia pestis.Swiss by birth and trained in Germany and France, Yersin is the son of empiricism and endeavour; but he has a romantic hunger for adventure, fuelled by tales of Livingstone and Conrad, and sets sail for Asia. A true traveller of the century, he wishes to comprehend the universe. Medicine, agriculture, the engine of the new automobile, all must be opened up, examined and improved. Ceaselessly curious and courageous, Yersin stands, a lone genius,against a backdrop of world wars, pandemics, colonialism, progress and decadence. He is brought to vivid, thrilling life in Patrick Deville's captivating novel, which was a bestseller and shortlisted for every major literary award in France.
Plague of Corruption: Restoring Faith in the Promise of Science (Children’s Health Defense)
by Judy Mikovits Kent Heckenlively<P><P> Dr. Judy Mikovits is a modern-day Rosalind Franklin, a brilliant researcher shaking up the old boys’ club of science with her groundbreaking discoveries. And like many women who have trespassed into the world of men, she uncovered decades-old secrets that many would prefer to stay buried. From her doctoral thesis, which changed the treatment of HIV-AIDS, saving the lives of millions, including basketball great Magic Johnson, to her spectacular discovery of a new family of human retroviruses, and her latest research which points to a new golden age of health, <P><P>Dr. Mikovits has always been on the leading edge of science. With the brilliant wit one might expect if Erin Brockovich had a doctorate in molecular biology, Dr. Mikovits has seen the best and worst of science. When she was part of the research community that turned HIV-AIDS from a fatal disease into a manageable one, she saw science at its best. <P><P>But when her investigations questioned whether the use of animal tissue in medical research were unleashing devastating plagues of chronic diseases, such as autism and chronic fatigue syndrome, she saw science at its worst. If her suspicions are correct, we are looking at a complete realignment of scientific practices, including how we study and treat human disease. <P><P>Recounting her nearly four decades in science, including her collaboration of more than thirty-five years with Dr. Frank Ruscetti, one of the founders of the field of human retrovirology, this is a behind the scenes look at the issues and egos which will determine the future health of humanity. <p><p><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright
by Paul HendricksonFrom the award-winning and nationally best-selling author of Hemingway's Boat and Sons of Mississippi--an illuminating, pathbreaking biography that will change the way we understand the life, mind, and work of the premier American architect.Frank Lloyd Wright has long been known as a rank egotist who held in contempt almost everything aside from his own genius. Harder to detect, but no less real, is a Wright who fully understood, and suffered from, the choices he made. This is the Wright whom Paul Hendrickson reveals in this masterful biography: the Wright who was haunted by his father, about whom he told the greatest lie of his life. And this, we see, is the Wright of many other neglected aspects of his story: his close, and perhaps romantic, relationship with friend and early mentor Cecil Corwin; the eerie, unmistakable role of fires in his life; the connection between the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 and the murder of his mistress, her two children, and four others at his beloved Wisconsin home by a black servant gone mad. In showing us Wright's facades along with their cracks, Hendrickson helps us form a fresh, deep, and more human understanding of the man. With prodigious research, unique vision, and his ability to make sense of a life in ways at once unexpected, poetic, and undeniably brilliant, he has given us the defining book on Wright.
Plain Secrets: An Outsider among the Amish
by Joe MackallJoe Mackall has lived surrounded by the Swartzentruber Amish community of Ashland County, Ohio, for over sixteen years. They are the most traditional and insular of all the Amish sects: the Swartzentrubers live without gas, electricity, or indoor plumbing; without lights on their buggies or cushioned chairs in their homes; and without rumspringa, the recently popularized "running-around time" that some Amish sects allow their sixteen-year-olds. Over the years, Mackall has developed a steady relationship with the Shetler family (Samuel and Mary, their nine children, and their extended family). Plain Secrets tells the Shetlers' story over these years, using their lives to paint a portrait of Swartzentruber Amish life and mores. During this time, Samuel's nephew Jonas finally rejects the strictures of the Amish way of life for good, after two failed attempts to leave, and his bright young daughter reaches the end of school for Amish children: the eighth grade. But Plain Secrets is also the story of the unusual friendship between Samuel and Joe. Samuel is quietly bemused-and, one suspects, secretly delighted-at Joe's ignorance of crops and planting, carpentry and cattle. He knows Joe is planning to write a book about the family, and yet he allows him a glimpse of the tensions inside this intensely private community. These and other stories from the life of the family reveal the larger questions posed by the Amish way of life. If the continued existence of the Amish in the midst of modern society asks us to consider the appeal of traditional, highly restrictive, and gendered religious communities, it also asks how we romanticize or condemn these communities-and why. Mackall's attempt to parse these questions-to write as honestly as possible about what he has seen of Amish life-tests his relationship with Samuel and reveals the limits of a friendship between "English" and Amish.
Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman
by Merle Miller"Based on interviews conducted in the early 1960s for an ill-fated television project, Plain Speaking was not published until more than a decade later, in the year after Harry Truman's death--a year in which the headlines were dominated by the tawdry dishonesties of the Watergate scandal. The memory of Truman, [Merle] Miller comments at the outset, "has never been sharper, never brighter than it is now, a time when menacing, shadowy men are everywhere among us." Certainly the thirty-second president's legacy is honored in the chapters that follow Miller's opening remark, for the book is largely composed in Truman's own words and the words of his friends." From the Forward
Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman
by Merle Miller&“Never has a President of the United States, or any head of state for that matter, been so totally revealed, so completely documented&” (Robert A. Arthur). Plain Speaking is the bestselling book based on conversations between Merle Miller and the thirty-third President of the United States, Harry S. Truman. From these interviews, as well as others who knew him over the years, Miller transcribes Truman&’s feisty takes on everything from his personal life, military service, and political career to the challenges he faced in taking the office during the final days of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. Using a series of taped discussions from 1962 that never aired on television, Plain Speaking takes an opportunity to deliver exactly how Mr. Truman felt about the presidency, and his thoughts in his later years on his accomplishments and the legacy he left behind. &“The values of Plain Speaking, on the whole, are those of the highest form of political communication: the bull session. As with all good bull sessions, what is said here ranges widely in quality and seriousness, as one should expect when dealing with a complex man.&” —The New York Times &“Plain Speaking has a nostalgic, downhome quality of good friends gossiping over the back fence, or saying their piece of a twilight eve rocking on the porch—and if those fellas back in Washington have their secret machines running, well, they won&’t like what they overhear. Not one little bit.&” —Kirkus Reviews
Plain: A Memoir of Mennonite Girlhood (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog)
by Mary Alice HostetterPlain tells the story of Mary Alice Hostetter’s journey to define an authentic self amid a rigid religious upbringing in a Mennonite farm family. Although endowed with a personality “prone toward questioning and challenging,” the young Mary Alice at first wants nothing more than to be a good girl, to do her share, and—alongside her eleven siblings—to work her family’s Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, farm. She feels fortunate to have been born into a religion where, as the familiar hymn states, she is “safe in the arms of Jesus.” As an adolescent, that keen desire for belonging becomes focused on her worldly peers, even though she knows that Mennonites consider themselves a people apart. Eventually she leaves behind the fields and fences of her youth, thinking she will finally be able to grow beyond the prohibitions of her church. Discovering and accepting her sexuality, she once again finds herself apart, on the outside of family, community, and societal norms. This quietly powerful memoir of longing and acceptance casts a humanizing eye on a little-understood American religious tradition and a woman’s striving to grow within and beyond it.
Plains Warrior: Chief Quanah Parker and the Comanches
by Albert MarrinTraces the life of the American Indian chief who led the Comanches in the battle and remained their leader on the reservation where he guided the people in accepting their new life.
Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits
by James D. ZirinA comprehensive analysis of Donald Trump's legal history reveals his temperament, methods, character, and morality. Unlike all previous presidents who held distinguished positions in government or the military prior to entering office, Donald Trump's political worldview was molded in the courtroom. He sees law not as a system of rules to be obeyed and ethical ideals to be respected, but as a weapon to be used against his adversaries or a hurdle to be sidestepped when it gets in his way. He has weaponized the justice system throughout his career, and he has continued to use these backhanded tactics as Plaintiff in Chief.In this book, distinguished New York attorney James D. Zirin presents Trump's lengthy litigation history as an indication of his character and morality, and his findings are chilling: if you partner with Donald Trump, you will probably wind up litigating with him. If you enroll in his university or buy one of his apartments, chances are you will want your money back. If you are a woman and you get too close to him, you may need to watch your back. If you try to sue him, he's likely to defame you. If you make a deal with him, you had better get it in writing. If you are a lawyer, an architect, or even his dentist, you'd better get paid up front. If you venture an opinion that publicly criticizes him, you may be sued for libel.A window into the president's dark legal history, Plaintiff in Chief is as informative as it is disturbing.
Plan B: Autismo y otra manera de estar en el mundo
by Carina MorilloEn Plan B, Carina Morillo no solo nos ofrece un testimonio sincero del viaje personal luego de que su hijo fuera diagnosticado con autismo, sino también una guía práctica y esperanzadora para quienes quieran desarrollar la resiliencia y así enfrentar los desafíos que la vida nos presenta. En 2002, Carina Morillo vivía en Luxemburgo junto a su familia. Al cumplir su hijo menor, Iván, los dos años y medio fue diagnosticado con autismo, y entonces decidieron volver a la Argentina. Ese regreso se convirtió para ella en un camino de transformación. Fue darse cuenta de que su currículum de logros no le servía para nada frente a las dificultades que su hijo tenía que enfrentar, y que su única certeza era que quería la felicidad de Iván. Que su familia fuese feliz. Ser feliz ella misma. Por nada del mundo se iba a apartar de ese objetivo. Descarnado e inspirador, Plan B trata sobre el poder del amor y el coraje frente a los obstáculos y las oportunidades que pueden surgir cuando nos despejamos de nuestros prejuicios y aprendemos a aprovechar nuestro verdadero potencial. Una invitación a mirar la realidad como un lugar de eternas posibilidades.
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
by Anne LamottWith the trademark wisdom, humor, and honesty that made Anne Lamott's book on faith, Traveling Mercies, a runaway bestseller, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith is a spiritual antidote to anxiety and despair in increasingly fraught times. The world is a more dangerous place than it was when Lamott's Traveling Mercies was published five years ago. Terrorism and war have become the new normal; environmental devastation looms even closer. And there are personal demands on Lamott's faith as well: turning fifty; her mother's Alzheimer's; her son's adolescence; and the passing of friends and time. Fortunately for those of us who are anxious and scared about the state of the world, whose parents are also aging and dying, whose children are growing harder to recognize as they become teenagers, Plan B offers hope in the midst of despair. It shares with us Lamott's ability to comfort, and to make us laugh despite the grim realities. Anne Lamott is one of our most beloved writers, and Plan B is a book more necessary now than ever. It will prove to be further evidence that, as The Christian Science Monitor has written, "Everybody loves Anne Lamott. "
Plan It!
by Sharon LucasThe Perfect Planning Guide for Book clubs! The African American author is often overworked, overlooked and underrated. That coupled with the closing of many bookstores, which had long been the gathering place for these authors, and the emergence of E-readers, has changed the way in which our writers and readers meet and converse. Though book clubs have long been a cornerstone of the African American community, at no other time in our history has it been more important for readers to support African American authors and to help fill the void left by the closing of our brick and mortar stores. A well organized book club can be invaluable in spreading the news about great books and talented authors and what better way to achieve that than bringing these two groups together in a well-planned and executed literary event. Plan It! The Complete Resource Guide for Authors, Book Clubs, & Literary Event Planners provides anyone who wants to start a book club with an all-in-one guide to planning book club and literary events. This required companion includes forms, checklists, and tips to start and manage book club meetings, author visits, and planning full-scale literary events. Not just for book clubs, though, this handy guide also provides authors and event planners with the information they need to make any event a resounding success.
Plan of Attack (Bush at War, Part II)
by Bob WoodwardPlan of Attack is the definitive account of how and why President George W. Bush, his war council, and allies launched a preemptive attack to topple Saddam Hussein and occupy Iraq. Bob Woodward's latest landmark account of Washington decision making provides an original, authoritative narrative of behind-the-scenes maneuvering over two years, examining the causes and consequences of the most controversial war since Vietnam. Based on interviews with 75 key participants and more than three and a half hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush, Plan of Attack is part presidential history charting the decisions made during 16 critical months; part military history revealing precise details and the evolution of the Top Secret war planning under the restricted codeword Polo Step; and part a harrowing spy story as the CIA dispatches a covert paramilitary team into northern Iraq six months before the start of the war. This team recruited 87 Iraqi spies designated with the cryptonym DB/ROCKSTARS, one of whom turned over the personnel files of all 6,000 men in Saddam Hussein's personal security organization. What emerges are astonishingly intimate portraits: President Bush in war cabinet meetings in the White House Situation Room and the Oval Office, and in private conversation; Dick Cheney, the focused and driven vice president; Colin Powell, the conflicted and cautious secretary of state; Donald Rumsfeld, the controlling war technocrat; George Tenet, the activist CIA director; Tommy Franks, the profane and demanding general; Condoleezza Rice, the ever-present referee and national security adviser; Karl Rove, the hands-on political strategist; other key members of the White House staff and congressional leadership; and foreign leaders ranging from British Prime Minister Blair to Russian President Putin. Plan of Attack provides new details on the intelligence assessments of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and the planning for the war's aftermath.
Plandemic: Fear Is the Virus. Truth Is the Cure.
by Mikki WillisThe incredible true story of the most banned documentary in history. Researching the controversy arising after the release of the viral phenomenon known as Plandemic, the most seen and censored documentary in history, an investigative journalist sets out to disprove and debunk claims made throughout the film. Instead, the journalist opens a Pandora&’s box to witness firsthand an underworld of corruption, lies, and the darkest of unsolved mysteries. The result? A fascinating behind-the-scenes account about the making of Plandemic and Plandemic: Indoctornation; an exposé of the truth behind the origins of COVID-19; an alarming examination of individuals, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates, and organizations like the CDC, NIH, WHO, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others, driving the global vaccination agenda; and a look at the tech giant and mainstream media forces doing their utmost to silence and suppress the veracity of these findings. Investigative filmmaker Mikki Willis focuses his unflinching lens on two key subjects: virologist Dr. Judy Mikovits, who speaks frankly about the machinations for control and profit corrupting individuals and institutions tasked with overseeing public health; and Dr. David E. Martin, whose research and shocking data corroborate allegations of conflicts of interest. The US media and fact checkers condemned the two documentaries as &“dangerous conspiracy theory.&” Today, the two-part bombshell is being hailed globally for warning the world of the crimes against humanity that are just now being uncovered. From the death of his brother and mother due to bad medicine, to his awakening at Ground Zero on 9/11, Mikki Willis describes in detail the incredible life experiences that led him to risk his career and safety to create the Plandemic series.
Plane Tales From The Sky
by Wing Adjutant"Air Combat over the trenches by those who foughtThe first-hand accounts of the experiences of men in time of war always make fascinating reading. Their stories are, of course, always as varied as the individuals concerned and the eras to which they belonged, whether they were soldiers, sailors or airmen, the branch of their service, their nationalities, the conflict in which they were participants and in which theatre they fought. This is what makes military history so fascinating. Sometimes many men report a common experience that abided for decades. Occasionally we hear, across time, the voices of a few notable men who fought their own war in their own special way and once their time had past history would never know their like again. That is especially true of the pilots of the First World war. The machinery of flight was a new technology. The aircraft were raw, basic, flimsy and unproven machines and both they and the brave men who piloted them were fighting their first conflict while learning and evolving their skills and equipment, quite literally, as they fought and died. The dogfight days of the early biplanes, triplanes and early mono winged fighters would be short, but their images together with those of the iconic airships which they ultimately destroyed will remain indelibly imprinted on the history of conflict and the development of man's mastery of the air. Heroes to a man, these trailblazers were almost always young, carefree, well-educated and modest young men full of the joy of living and commitment to their aircraft and to flying."-Leonaur Print VersionAuthor -- Wing Adjutant (Pseud.)Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in London, New York, Cassell and company, ltd., 1918.Original Page Count - 182 pages
Planes Flying over a Monster: Essays
by Daniel Saldaña ParísFrom one of Mexico&’s most exciting young writers, a cosmopolitan and candid essay collection exploring life in cities across the world and reflecting on the transformative importance of literature in understanding ourselvesIn ten intimate essays, Daniel Saldaña París explores the cities he has lived in, each one home to a new iteration of himself. In Mexico City he&’s a young poet eager to prove himself. In Montreal—an opioid addict desperate for relief. In Madrid—a lonely student seeking pleasure in grotesque extremes. These now diverging, now coalescing selves raise questions: Where can we find authenticity? How do we construct the stories that define us? What if our formative memories are closer to fiction than truth? Saldaña París turns to literature and film, poetry and philosophy for answers. The result is a hybrid of memoir and criticism, "a sensory work, full of soundscapes, filth, planes, closed spaces, open vastness" (El País).
Planet Claire, Suite for Cello and Sad-Eyed Lovers: A Memoir
by Jeff PorterThe second installment in Ann Hood’s Gracie Belle imprint challenges the traditional solemnity that characterizes nonfiction books of grief, loss, and sorrow.“Few readers will fail to be gripped by this tragically common story about death and what comes after for those left behind . . . A haunting and thought-provoking consideration of death and ‘how utterly it rips apart our lives.'” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred ReviewPlanet Claire is the story of the untimely death of the author’s wife and his candid account of the following year of madness and grief. As his life unravels, Porter analyzes his sadness with growing interest. He talks to Claire as if to evoke a presence, to mark a space for memory. He reports on his daily walks and shares observations of life’s sadness, while reminiscing about various moments in their life together. Like Orpheus, the author searches for a lost love, and what he finds is not the dog of doom but flashes of an intimate symmetry that brighten the darkest places of sorrow.The second title from Ann Hood’s Gracie Belle imprint, Planet Claire takes readers on a journey of sorrow that recalls memorable works by C.S. Lewis (A Grief Observed), Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking), and Julian Barnes (Levels of Life). Porter’s memoir, however, is also playful, quirky, and self-ironic in a way that challenges the genre’s traditional solemnity. Like the novel Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter, this is an unpredictably funny account of heartbreak, as if to say there’s something about the magnitude of loss that troubles even earnestness.
Planet Grief: Redefining Grief for the Real World
by Penny Power Dipti Tait Sharron DaviesWe all grieve. From the moment we are born into this cold, loud, bright world, we experience change and loss that can often threaten to overwhelm us, but – when managed well – can help mould us into our strongest, most powerful selves.Grief is not only about death: it is part of our everyday lives. We are all grieving something. We grieve when our life changes – when meaningful relationships end, when we move house, change schools or jobs, and when our sense of identity and reality are under threat. We also grieve on a larger level – for a lost way of life and for our planet, particularly in these times of climate crisis, pandemic, fast-moving technology, misinformation and societal division. Grief can even be found in joy and is one of the most universal shared emotions, connecting people across the world in an act of love.In this surprisingly uplifting book, acclaimed grief therapist Dipti Tait draws on her own professional and personal experiences, her clients’ stories and the neuroscience behind our emotions to redefine grief for our fast-paced lives and this sometimes alarming yet wonderful world we live in.
Planet Hunter: Geoff Marcy and the Search for Other Earths
by Vicki O. WittensteinHe has discovered more planets than anyone in history. In this inspiring true story, winner of the American Institute of Physics Award, Geoff Marcy's love of space helped him overcome struggles in his studies until finally he became an astronomer. <P><P> But he was not on track to make major discoveries. Eventually, he went back to the questions that thrilled him as a boy: Are we alone? Do Earth-like planets orbit the stars in the night sky? It would not be easy to find a planet outside our solar system. Others had tried and failed. But Marcy never gave up. Since 1995, he and his colleagues have discovered nearly half of the 380 known "extrasolar" planets. Stunning paintings transport the reader to the exotic worlds that he and others have found.
Planet Joe
by Joe ColeLife on the road as seen through the eyes of Black Flag/Rollins Band roadie and Rollins confidante, Joe Cole. Tour journal documenting the final Black Flag tour and first Rollins Band tour.