- Table View
- List View
Searching for Sappho: The Lost Songs and World of the First Woman Poet
by Philip FreemanAn exploration of the fascinating poetry, life, and world of Sappho, including a complete translation of all her poems. For more than twenty-five centuries, all that the world knew of the poems of Sappho—the first woman writer in literary history—were a few brief quotations preserved by ancient male authors. Yet those meager remains showed such power and genius that they captured the imagination of readers through the ages. But within the last century, dozens of new pieces of her poetry have been found written on crumbling papyrus or carved on broken pottery buried in the sands of Egypt. As recently as 2014, yet another discovery of a missing poem created a media stir around the world. The poems of Sappho reveal a remarkable woman who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos during the vibrant age of the birth of western science, art, and philosophy. Sappho was the daughter of an aristocratic family, a wife, a devoted mother, a lover of women, and one of the greatest writers of her own or any age. Nonetheless, although most people have heard of Sappho, the story of her lost poems and the lives of the ancient women they celebrate has never been told for a general audience. Searching for Sappho is the exciting tale of the rediscovery of Sappho’s poetry and of the woman and world they reveal.
Searching for Schindler
by Thomas KeneallyIn 1980 Tom Keneally was in Beverley Hills returning from the Sorrento film festival where The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith had been showing. Looking for a new briefcase, Tom meets the Polish-Jewish Leopold Pfefferberg Page aka Poldek and his life for the next few years is taken over by this charismatic and driven man and the story he wants shared. "It's a story for you, I swear," he says to Tom. The story is of course that of â The all-drinking, all-screwing, all black-marketeering Nazi. But to me he was Jesus Christ, Oskar Schindler". And Poldek shared with Tom the story of SCHINDLER'S ARK which went on to win the Booker Prize and ultimately to become the Oscar award-winning film SCHINDLER'S LIST. Schindler, the ruined Catholic hedonist, had something ambiguous about him that appealled to the ex-seminarian Tom Keneally who still struggled with his own Catholicism and his humanist view of the world. Oskar showed that virtue, regardless of race, creed or religion, emerged where it would. Tom was a small child during WWII and these memories, along with the appeal of Schindler and Poldek's insistence, influenced him to write the book SCHINDLER'S ARK. Oskar and his Jews reduced the Holocaust - an almost untellable story in its scope and devastation - to an understandable human scale. SEARCHING FOR SCHINDLER is very much Tom's journey, he reflects on his early days as a writer with quite a bit of success - but no confidence - and how this book, the people he met, and the film it became, changed his life. From his Sydney home, he tracked down the main player's in Poldek and Schindler's story. Tom and Poldek travelled across the US, Germany, Israel, Austria and Poland interviewing survivors and discovering extraordinary stories. SCHINDLER'S ARK took a huge toll on Tom, and his family, he had never been so overwhelmed by the writing of a story. It forced him to think about Australians and their attitudes to the Holocaust, to think about the Israel / Palestine situation and about families. Not ready to give up the story of Schindler and his Jews after the enormous success of the book, Tom is there for the film adaptation and on set for the filming. Filled with stories of Steven Spielberg, Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes and many other well-known and strong characters SEARCHING FOR SCHINDLER gives Tom Keneally scope to show the wonderful, warm, thinking, compassionate and very funny man that he is.
Searching for Sofia: A Tale of Obsession, Murder and War
by John NadlerFrom journalist John Nadler comes a real-life Romeo and Juliet story set in war-torn Kosovo. Nadler has stumbled upon a bitter epic romance in the ashes of inter-ethnic strife in the former Yugoslavia. The cast: a pair of star-cross'd lovers, a young Kosovar man and a Serb woman; the girl's father, a local militiaman who is determined to crush the relationship; and a war correspondent in the role of Friar Lawrence, entrusted with the commission of reuniting the lovers. Gjorg escapes the slaughter of his village by feigning death and fleeing while Serb troops invade his town. His fiancée Sofia disappears -- whisked away to Serbia, Gjorg believes, by her father, who is later implicated in a massacre. Gjorg, languishing in nato-held Kosovo, despairs of ever seeing his Sofia again. Until Nadler agrees to help find her. Always just a step behind, Nadler follows Sofia's trail from her village through the flashpoints and tinderboxes of the Balkans: Mitrovica, the Presovo Valley, Macedonia, and, finally, Belgrade. He witnesses the sickening decay of Yugoslavia -- once a dynamic, cosmopolitan and prosperous nation -- manifested in the endemic suspicion, the burnt and shell-pocked buildings, the ravaged communities, and the broken lives. Searching for Sofia is a Balkan odyssey, a quest through dangerous terrain for an ever-elusive goal, a campaign for justice and, ultimately, an exploration, through the eyes of its victims, of the madness of internecine war. (From the Hardcover edition.)
Searching for Solid Ground: A Memoir
by Reggie HarrisAn inspiring narrative of bridge-building, hope, and resilience from a beloved folk musician.Before renowned musician Reggie Harris was a sought-after performer, educator, cultural ambassador, and civil rights advocate, he was a low-income Black kid in Philadelphia with a love of music. He was transported by the vibrant sound that filled the air in his church, the voices calling out with passion, the rhythm and the release, and the powerful sense of community.Searching for Solid Ground is a captivating and deeply personal chronicle of Harris’s extraordinary life, from his early years, when his love of music was fueled by singing everywhere he could—at home, at church, and in the school choir—to performing across the world for over forty years as one half of the folk duo Kim and Reggie Harris, to his current work blending his musical gifts with a commitment to promote justice and peace and heal the racial divide.Harris shares his triumphs and his struggles, his hard-won wisdom and insights, including the challenges he faced launching a career in folk music as a Black musician, his transformative experience hearing James Baldwin speak and the beginnings of his own justice work, and a harrowing journey back to health through the gift of a liver transplant, among many other remarkable moments.
Searching for Stonewall Jackson: A Quest for Legacy in a Divided America
by Ben ClearyHistorian Ben Cleary takes readers beyond the legend of Stonewall Jackson and directly onto the Civil War battlefields on which he fought, and where a country once again finds itself at a crossroads. Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was the embodiment of Southern contradictions. He was a slave owner who fought and died, at least in part, to perpetuate slavery, yet he founded an African-American Sunday School and personally taught classes for almost a decade. For all his sternness and rigidity, Jackson was a deeply thoughtful and incredibly intelligent man. But his reputation and mythic status, then and now, was due to more than combat success. In a deeply religious age, he was revered for a piety that was far beyond the norm. How did one man meld his religion with the institution of slavery? How did he reconcile it with the business of killing, at which he so excelled?In SEARCHING FOR STONEWALL JACKSON, historian Ben Cleary examines not only Jackson's life, but his own, contemplating what it means to be a white Southerner in the 21st century. Now, as statues commemorating the Civil War are toppled and Confederate flags come down, Cleary walks the famous battlefields, following in the footsteps of his subject as he questions the legacy of Stonewall Jackson and the South's Lost Cause at a time when the contentions of politics, civil rights, and social justice are at a fever pitch.Combining nuanced, authoritative research with deeply personal stories of life in the modern American South, SEARCHING FOR STONEWALL JACKSON is a thrilling, vivid portrait of a soldier, a war, and a country still contending with its past.
Searching for W.P.M. Kennedy: The Biography of an Enigma
by Martin L. FriedlandBorn in Ireland in 1879, W.P.M. Kennedy was a distinguished Canadian academic and the leading Canadian constitutional law scholar for much of the twentieth century. Despite his trailblazing career and intriguing personal life, Kennedy’s story is largely a mystery. Weaving together a number of key events, Martin L. Friedland’s lively biography discusses Kennedy’s contributions as a legal and interdisciplinary scholar, his work at the University of Toronto where he founded the Faculty of Law, as well as his personal life, detailing stories about his family and important friends, such as Prime Minister Mackenzie King. Kennedy earned a reputation in some circles for being something of a scoundrel, and Friedland does not shy away from addressing Kennedy’s exaggerated involvement in drafting the Irish constitution, his relationships with female students, and his quest for recognition. Throughout the biography, Friedland interjects with his own personal narratives surrounding his interactions with the Kennedy family, and how he came to acquire the private letters noted in the book. The result is a readable, accessible biography of an important figure in the history of Canadian intellectual life.
Searching for Words in Jane Austen
by June DurantThere are crosswords, codewords, wordsearch and even letter Sudoku, but here is something different with a Jane Austen theme: hidden words to be found in appropriate sentences. Subjects range from her life and her writing to her Georgian and Regency world. Those in the know will enjoy allusions and may even learn something new. The information is light reading designed to appeal to newcomers.
Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora
by Emily RaboteauFrom Jerusalem to Ghana to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, a woman reclaims her history in a &“beautifully written and thought-provoking&” memoir (Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King and Zeitoun). A biracial woman from a country still divided along racial lines, Emily Raboteau never felt at home in America. As the daughter of an African American religious historian, she understood the Promised Land as the spiritual realm black people yearned for. But while visiting Israel, the Jewish Zion, she was surprised to discover black Jews. More surprising was the story of how they got there. Inspired by their exodus, her question for them is the same one she keeps asking herself: have you found the home you&’re looking for? In this American Book Award–winning inquiry into contemporary and historical ethnic displacement, Raboteau embarked on a ten-year journey around the globe and back in time to explore the complex and contradictory perspectives of black Zionists. She talked to Rastafarians and African Hebrew Israelites, Evangelicals and Ethiopian Jews—all in search of territory that is hard to define and harder to inhabit. Uniting memoir with cultural investigation, Raboteau overturns our ideas of place, patriotism, dispossession, citizenship, and country in &“an exceptionally beautiful . . . book about a search for the kind of home for which there is no straight route, the kind of home in which the journey itself is as revelatory as the destination&” (Edwidge Danticat, author of The Farming of Bones).
Searching for the Philosophers' Stone: Encounters with Mystics, Scientists, and Healers
by Ralph MetznerA deeply personal account of the scientific, shamanic, and metaphysical encounters that led to the development of Metzner’s psychological methods • Recounts the author’s meetings and friendships with Albert Hofmann, Alexander Shulgin, the McKenna brothers, Wilson Van Dusen, Myron Stolaroff, and Leo Zeff • Details his lucid dream encounters with G. I. Gurdjieff, profoundly healing sessions with Hawaiian healer Morrnah Simeona, experiences with plant teachers iboga and ayahuasca, and ecological and mystical lessons learned from animal teachers • Shares his involvement in the beginnings of the therapeutic use of MDMA and how it safely and effectively supports the healing of trauma, PTSD, and interpersonal relationships Just as the search for the philosopher’s stone is the core symbol of the alchemical tradition, Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., psychotherapist and one of the respected elders of the psychedelic research community, sees it as the central metaphor of his life-long quest to find methods of healing and insight through heightened states of consciousness. Through captivating stories Metzner shares his encounters from the 1960s through the 1990s with genius scientists, shamanic healers, mystics, plant spirits, and animal guides that led to the development of his “alchemical divination” psychological methods, a structured intuitive process of accessing inner sources of healing and insight. He details lessons learned with psychedelic research legends Albert Hofmann, Alexander Shulgin, Terence McKenna, and Dennis McKenna. He reveals his deeply healing encounters with the Kahuna bodywork healer Morrnah Simeona, the first to introduce the Hawaiian Ho’oponopono healing method to the West, and his experiences with West African trance dancing and the psychoactive plant-drug iboga. Metzner recounts in vivid detail his unwelcome encounter with malignant sorcery during an ayahuasca experience in Ecuador and the lessons it taught him about connections with spirits, both harmful and beneficial. He tells of his involvement in the beginnings of the therapeutic use of MDMA and shows how it is an effective and safe substance to support psychotherapy for healing trauma, PTSD, and interpersonal relationships. In sharing his remarkable encounters, Metzner shows how the most meaningful lessons in the alchemy of life come not only from the geniuses we meet but also from the spirits we encounter along the way.
Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead
by Phil Lesh"The bass player for the greatest improvisational band in American history tells the full, true story of his life, Jerry Garcia, and the Grateful Dead." "Phil Lesh first met Jerry Garcia in 1959 in the clubs of Palo Alto, California. At Garcia's suggestion, Lesh learned how to play the electric bass and joined him in a new group that blended R & B, country, and rock 'n' roll with an experimental fervor never before heard." "Now, in time for the Grateful Dead's fortieth anniversary, Phil Lesh offers the first behind-the-scenes history of the Dead - a story no one will ever know as he does. Lesh chronicles how the Dead's signature sound emerged, flowed, and swelled to reach millions of devoted fans, from their earliest gigs at Frenchy's Bikini-A-Go-Go for an audience of three, to the legendary Acid Tests, to packed stadiums around the world."--BOOK JACKET.
Searching the Stars: The Story of Caroline Herschel
by Marilyn B OgilvieCaroline Herschel is best known as the less significant sister of the astronomer William Herschel. Yet the romantic notion of her tirelessly working for her brother while he made his studies of the heavens, documenting his discoveries so he could achieve greatness in the scientific world, couldn't be further from the truth. When Caroline wasn't working as her brother's assistant, she was sweeping the stars with her own small telescope given to her by William. Not only did she unearth three important nebulae, but she discovered no fewer than eight comets in her own right. When William became Astronomer Royal to King George III in 1782, Caroline too received an annual salary, making her the first ever woman to work as a professional scientist. William was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1781 after discovering the planet Uranus. It wasn't until 1828, but the Society would eventually reward Caroline too, with its Gold Medal. This award would not be awarded to another woman until 1996. Searching the Stars reveals the hardships experienced by a woman pursuing a male profession. Yet how did this unattractive, diminutive woman gain the respect of her professional colleagues, her country and even her king? As Marilyn B. Ogilive investigates this extraordinary life, the determination, humility and passion of one unremarkable woman come to light.
Sears, Roebuck, U.S.A.: The Great American Catalog Store and How It Grew
by Gordon WeilSears Started from a watch company, and grew into the biggest store in the world at one time. This is how it happened.
Seascapes of a Soul: Wholeness and the Sense of Self
by Venetia SomersetThe search for self-knowledge and identity is a common theme in autobiographies these days. So also is the search for a spirituality other than that of the conventional religions. Both are found in Seascapes of a Soul: Wholeness and the Sense of Self. This book is an account of a unique spirit on an often solitary journey. With clear argumentation and transparent honesty, this author presents a story that reaches towards individuation, gained partly through discovering C.G. Jung’s ideas about the psyche. Several themes recur: the onset of old age, Jungian individuation, solitude and aloneness, mood swings, a rejection of orthodox religion, a love for the natural world, an interest in gnosticism, the inner sense of the Divine. Her relationship with her twin sister is also prominent. There is light and dark here: the ups and downs of living with a twin. In rejecting the Christianity she grew up with she followed an innate urge to a spirituality that ultimately arose from the strong sense of self she had had from an early age. If this has a name it would be ‘gnostic’ because it is a perception of inner divinity, the God within. This is a woman’s story with a difference. Although, unlike so many, she did not have to struggle through a life of disadvantage and deprivation, she did have to wrestle with a powerful self that sometimes wandered up blind alleys into ego. But she learned to accept mistakes and incorporate them into what Einstein called a ‘calm and modest life’. Images of the sea, symbols of the unconscious, run through the book. The ‘seascapes’ at the head of each chapter function in the story as a leitmotif for the modes and moods of the spirit.
Season In Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda
by Robert FowlerFor decades, Robert R. Fowler was a dominant force in Canadian foreign affairs. In one heart-stopping minute, all of that changed. On December 14, 2008, Fowler, acting as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy to Niger, was kidnapped by Al Qaeda, becoming the highest ranked UN official ever held captive. Along with his colleague Louis Guay, Fowler lived, slept and ate with his captors for nearly five months, gaining rare first-hand insight into the motivations of the world’s most feared terror group. Fowler’s capture, release and subsequent media appearances have helped shed new light on foreign policy and security issues as we enter the second decade of the “War on Terror.” A Season in Hell is Fowler’s compelling story of his captivity, told in his own words, but it is also a startlingly frank discussion about the state of a world redefined by clashing civilizations.
Season of Death: A Memoir
by Mark Raphael BakerMark Raphael Baker was no stranger to death. Over seven years he had become a mourner three times over: for his first wife, for his brother and for his father. When diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he began to reflect on their deaths, his probable death and on Death as, in the words of Ecclesiastes, a 'season' that produced a large and bitter harvest for the Baker family. Powerful and conflicting emotions assailed him, but their destructive power was always defeated by his love of his family and of life, which never deserted him even when his spirit was most weary. Over the short course of his illness, he came to realise that to love both truly, he must die as the most authentic version of himself he can achieve. It enabled him to die with humbling grace and dignity. In A Season of Death, readers of The Fiftieth Gate and Thirty Days will rediscover the many forms of Mark's humour, his candour and his depth of thought and feeling, albeit in a different key, as it must be when those virtues reveal themselves in expressions of vulnerability that fend off self-pity. There is profound sorrow in this memoir but there is matching joy and much love, interwoven by a fine writer and thinker into a story that will deepen one's understanding of life.
Season of Infamy: A Diary of War and Occupation, 1939-1945
by Charles Rist&“A valuable account of what one significant and perceptive Frenchman experienced during the protracted disgrace of France as a vassal state of Nazi Germany.&” —Publishers Weekly In 1939, the 65-year-old French political economist Charles Rist was serving as advisor to the French government and consultant to the international banking and business world. As France anxiously awaited a German invasion, Rist traveled to America to negotiate embargo policy. Days after his return to Paris, the German offensive began and with it the infamous season of occupation. Retreating to his villa in Versailles, Rist turned his energies to the welfare of those closest to him, while in his diary he began to observe the unfolding of the war. Here the deeply learned Rist investigates the causes of the disaster and reflects on his country&’s fate, placing the behavior of the &“people&” and the &“elite&” in historical perspective. Though well-connected, Rist and his family and friends were not exempt from the perils and tragedies of war, as the diary makes clear. Season of Infamy presents a distinctive, closely-observed view of life in France under the occupation.
Season of Life: A Football Star, a Boy, a Journey to Manhood
by Jeffrey MarxJoe Ehrmann, a former NFL football star and volunteer coach for the Gilman high school football team, teaches his players the keys to successful defense: penetrate, pursue, punish, love. Love? A former captain of the Baltimore Colts and now an ordained minister, Ehrmann is serious about the game of football but even more serious about the purpose of life. Season of Life is his inspirational story as told by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jeffrey Marx, who was a ballboy for the Colts when he first met Ehrmann. Ehrmann now devotes his life to teaching young men a whole new meaning of masculinity. He teaches the boys at Gilman the precepts of his Building Men for Others program: Being a man means emphasizing relationships and having a cause bigger than yourself. It means accepting responsibility and leading courageously. It means that empathy, integrity, and living a life of service to others are more important than points on a scoreboard. Decades after he first met Ehrmann, Jeffrey Marx renewed their friendship and watched his childhood hero putting his principles into action. While chronicling a season with the Gilman Greyhounds, Marx witnessed the most extraordinary sports program he'd ever seen, where players say "I love you" to each other and coaches profess their love for their players. Off the field Marx sat with Ehrmann and absorbed life lessons that led him to reexamine his own unresolved relationship with his father. Season of Life is a book about what it means to be a man of substance and impact. It is a moving story that will resonate with athletes, coaches, parents -- anyone struggling to make the right choices in life.
Season of Terror: The Espinosas in Central Colorado, March-October 1863
by Charles F. PriceSeason of Terror is the first book-length treatment of the little-known true story of the Espinosas--serial murderers with a mission to kill every Anglo in Civil War-era Colorado Territory--and the men that brought them down.For eight months during the spring and fall of 1863, brothers Felipe Nerio and José Vivián Espinosa and their young nephew, José Vincente, New Mexico-born Hispanos, killed and mutilated an estimated thirty-two victims before their rampage came to a bloody end. Their motives were obscure, although they were members of the Penitentes, a lay Catholic brotherhood devoted to self-torture in emulation of the sufferings of Christ, and some suppose they believed themselves inspired by the Virgin Mary to commit their slaughters. Until now, the story of their rampage has been recounted as lurid melodrama or ignored by academic historians. Featuring a fascinating array of frontier characters, Season of Terror exposes this neglected truth about Colorado's past and examines the ethnic, religious, political, military, and moral complexity of the controversy that began as a regional incident but eventually demanded the attention of President Lincoln.
Season of the Witch
by Peter BebergalThis epic cultural and historical odyssey unearths the full influence of occult traditions on rock and roll--from the Beatles to Black Sabbath--and shows how the marriage between mysticism and music changed our world. From the hoodoo-inspired sounds of Elvis Presley to the Eastern odysseys of George Harrison, from the dark dalliances of Led Zeppelin to the Masonic imagery of today's hip-hop scene, the occult has long breathed life into rock and hip-hop--and, indeed, esoteric and supernatural traditions are a key ingredient behind the emergence and development of rock and roll. With vivid storytelling and laser-sharp analysis, writer and critic Peter Bebergal illuminates this web of influences to produce the definitive work on how the occult shaped--and saved--popular music. As Bebergal explains, occult and mystical ideals gave rock and roll its heart and purpose, making rock into more than just backbeat music, but into a cultural revolution of political, spiritual, sexual, and social liberation.
Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love
by David TalbotThe critically acclaimed, San Francisco Chronicle bestseller—a gripping story of the strife and tragedy that led to San Francisco&’s ultimate rebirth and triumph.Salon founder David Talbot chronicles the cultural history of San Francisco and from the late 1960s to the early 1980s when figures such as Harvey Milk, Janis Joplin, Jim Jones, and Bill Walsh helped usher from backwater city to thriving metropolis.
Season to Taste: How I Lost My Sense of Smell and Found My Way
by Molly Birnbaum“A rich, engrossing, and deeply intelligent story….This is a book I won’t soon forget.”—Molly Wizenberg, bestselling author of A Homemade Life“Fresh, smart, and consistently surprising. If this beautifully written book were a smell, it would be a crisp green apple.”—Claire Dederer, bestselling author of PoserSeason to Taste is an aspiring chef’s moving account of finding her way—in the kitchen and beyond—after a tragic accident destroys her sense of smell. Molly Birnbaum’s remarkable story—written with the good cheer and great charm of popular food writers Laurie Colwin and Ruth Reichl—is destined to stand alongside Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia as a classic tale of a cooking life. Season to Taste is sad, funny, joyous, and inspiring.
Season to Taste: Rewriting Kitchen Space in Contemporary Women’s Food Memoirs (Ingrid G. Houck Series in Food and Foodways)
by Caroline J. SmithBetween 2000 and 2010, many contemporary US-American women writers were returning to the private space of the kitchen, writing about their experiences in that space and then publishing their memoirs for the larger public to consume. Season to Taste: Rewriting Kitchen Space in Contemporary Women’s Food Memoirs explores women’s food memoirs with recipes in order to consider the ways in which these women are rewriting this kitchen space and renegotiating their relationships with food.Caroline J. Smith begins the book with a historical overview of how the space of the kitchen, and the expectations of women associated with it, have shifted considerably since the 1960s. Better Homes and Gardens, as well as the discourse of the second-wave feminist movement, tended to depict the space as a place of imprisonment. The contemporary popular writers examined in Season to Taste, such as Ruth Reichl, Kim Sunée, Jocelyn Delk Adams, Julie Powell, and Molly Wizenberg, respond to this characterization by instead presenting the kitchen as a place of transformation. In their memoirs and recipes, these authors reinterpret their roles within the private sphere of the home as well as the public sphere of the world of publishing (whether print or digital publication). The authors examined here explode the divide of private/feminine and public/masculine in both content and form and complicate the genres of recipe writing, diary writing, and memoir. These women writers, through the act of preparing and consuming food, encourage readers to reconsider the changing gender politics of the kitchen.
Seasons at Lakeside Dairy: Family Stories from a Black-Owned Dairy, Louisiana to California and Beyond (Atlantic Migrations and the African Diaspora)
by Lizzetta LeFalle-CollinsOpened in 1907 in Shreveport, Louisiana, by Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins’s grandfather, Black dairy farmer Angus Bates, Lakeside Dairy was a rarity in the post-Reconstruction South. The dairy thrived despite the time's challenging, racially oppressive, and hostile social and political climate. While Lakeside Dairy closed in 1943, Angus’s life and work legacy echoed through the Bates family for generations. LeFalle-Collins structures her narrative around familial creative storytelling heard as a child, supported by family ephemera about the dairy and the family’s social and community engagement. These documents directed her historical research as Seasons at Lakeside Dairy tracks life on the farm through the year, showing how the family worked, lived, and cooked and how they made a sustainable living in a climate of pervasive racism. Survival in the farming community was mainly due to the influence of George Washington Carver, who disseminated innovative recommendations for farmers, and Booker T. Washington, who advocated for Black entrepreneurs to remain and rebuild the South to make it their own. Angus Bates passed in 1935, and his spouse Carrie D. Bates, who had always been the dairy's partner and financial manager, rebranded the dairy in her name with her sons until closing. Realizing Shreveport held few opportunities for her children, she encouraged them to move west, a migratory route followed by many Black Louisianans. Family members’ voices are interwoven into each chapter with direct quotations, creative storytelling, historical contexts, ephemera, and healthier recipes based on family favorites. Seasons at Lakeside Dairy offers unique insight into their persistence, sustainability, self-sufficiency, and joy. Migration tales also open a window into the complex history of race and identity, continuing as they became homeowners in the West.
Seasons in Basilicata
by David YeadonAward-winning travel writer and illustrator, David Yeadon embarks with his wife, Anne on an exploration of the "lost word" of Basilicata, in the arch of Italy's boot. What is intended as a brief sojourn turns into an intriguing residency in the ancient hill village of Aliano, where Carlo Levi, author of the world-renowned memoir Christ Stopped at Eboli, was imprisoned by Mussolini for anti-Fascist activities. As the Yeadons become immersed in Aliano's rich tapestry of people, traditions, and festivals, reveling in the rituals and rhythms of the grape and olive harvests, the culinary delights, and other peculiarities of place, they discover that much of the pagan strangeness that Carlo Levi and other notable authors revealed still lurks beneath the beguiling surface of Basilicata.
Seasons of Her Life: A Biography of Madeleine Korbel Albright
by Ann Blackman Brooke ZimmerWhen Madeleine Korbel Albright was sworn in as secretary of state in January 1997, she made headlines around the world. She was the first woman to rise to the top tier of American government and had a reputation for defining foreign policy in blunt one-liners that voters could understand. When her Jewish heritage was disclosed, people were intrigued by her personal story and wondered how it was possible -- if it were possible -- that she truly could have been ignorant of her past. VeteranTimemagazine correspondent Ann Blackman has written the first comprehensive biography of Madeleine Albright. The book reveals a life of enormous texture -- a lonely, peripatetic childhood in war-ravaged Europe; two harrowing escapes from her homeland, once from the Nazis, then from the Communists; her arrival in America; Madeleine's unhappiness as a teenager in Denver, always the outsider, the little refugee; her marriage into an old American newspaper family with great wealth. When, after twenty-three years, the marriage failed, Albright was devastated. But in many ways, divorce liberated her to pursue a lifelong interest in government and international affairs. From Senator Edmund S. Muskie's office to President Carter's White House to a professorship at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Albright gained experience and contacts. As a foreign affairs advisor to Democratic vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and, later, presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, Albright positioned herself to return to government as President Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations and eventually to claim her ultimate prize -- the office of secretary of state. With both insight and compassion, Blackman shows how the changing cultural mores of the last four decades affected Albright and other women of her generation: the self-doubt she experienced when, as a young mother in an era when real mothers didn't work, she decided to take a job on Capitol Hill; the problems she faced as a female professor who was not always taken seriously in the white man's world of foreign policy; the psychological transformation from spending most of her professional life as a staffer who wrote talking points for others to becoming a woman of consequence in her own right; the ups and downs of an ambitious, driven woman who still carries her share of insecurities, now concealed by a veneer of power and celebrity. In writing this landmark book, Blackman drew on archival material in the United States, Britain, and the Czech Republic, as well as interviews with almost two hundred friends and colleagues of Albright and her family, including President Clinton, Czech Republic President Václav Havel, and U. N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, She also spent many hours with Albright herself who, feet up in her Georgetown living room, offered startlingly frank and poignant comments on her life, past and present. The book is enhanced with twenty-five photos, many from the Secretary's personal collection.