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The Book of Mormon Girl
by Joanna BrooksFrom her days of feeling like "a root beer among the Cokes"--Coca-Cola being a forbidden fruit for Mormon girls like her--Joanna Brooks always understood that being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints set her apart from others. But, in her eyes, that made her special; the devout LDS home she grew up in was filled with love, spirituality, and an emphasis on service. With Marie Osmond as her celebrity role model and plenty of Sunday School teachers to fill in the rest of the details, Joanna felt warmly embraced by the community that was such an integral part of her family. But as she grew older, Joanna began to wrestle with some tenets of her religion, including the Church's stance on women's rights and homosexuality. In 1993, when the Church excommunicated a group of feminists for speaking out about an LDS controversy, Joanna found herself searching for a way to live by the leadings of her heart and the faith she loved. The Book of Mormon Girl is a story about leaving behind the innocence of childhood belief and embracing the complications and heartbreaks that come to every adult life of faith. Joanna's journey through her faith explores a side of the religion that is rarely put on display: its humanity, its tenderness, its humor, its internal struggles. In Joanna's hands, the everyday experience of being a Mormon--without polygamy, without fundamentalism--unfolds in fascinating detail. With its revelations about a faith so often misunderstood and characterized by secrecy, The Book of Mormon Girl is a welcome advocate and necessary guide.
The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith
by Joanna BrooksFrom her days of feeling like "a root beer among the Cokes"--Coca-Cola being a forbidden fruit for Mormon girls like her--Joanna Brooks always understood that being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints set her apart from others. But, in her eyes, that made her special; the devout LDS home she grew up in was filled with love, spirituality, and an emphasis on service. With Marie Osmond as her celebrity role model and plenty of Sunday School teachers to fill in the rest of the details, Joanna felt warmly embraced by the community that was such an integral part of her family. But as she grew older, Joanna began to wrestle with some tenets of her religion, including the Church's stance on women's rights and homosexuality. In 1993, when the Church excommunicated a group of feminists for speaking out about an LDS controversy, Joanna found herself searching for a way to live by the leadings of her heart and the faith she loved. The Book of Mormon Girl is a story about leaving behind the innocence of childhood belief and embracing the complications and heartbreaks that come to every adult life of faith. Joanna's journey through her faith explores a side of the religion that is rarely put on display: its humanity, its tenderness, its humor, its internal struggles. In Joanna's hands, the everyday experience of being a Mormon--without polygamy, without fundamentalism--unfolds in fascinating detail. With its revelations about a faith so often misunderstood and characterized by secrecy, The Book of Mormon Girl is a welcome advocate and necessary guide.
The Book of Mothers: How Literature Can Help Us Reinvent Modern Motherhood
by Carrie Mullins"Timely and evergreen, engaging and infuriating, personal and universal—a necessary reintroduction to some of fiction's most familiar mothers." —Cecile Richards, bestselling author of Make Trouble and former president of Planned ParenthoodThis treasure trove for book lovers explores fifteen classic novels with memorable maternal figures, and examines how our cultural notions of motherhood have been shaped by literature.Sweet, supportive, dependable, selfless. Long before she had children of her own, journalist Carrie Mullins knew how mothers should behave. But how? Where did these expectations come from—and, more importantly, are they serving the mothers whose lives they shape? Carrie's suspicion, later crystallized while raising two small children, was that our culture’s idealization of motherhood was not only painfully limiting but harmful, leaving women to cope with impossible standards––standards rarely created by mothers themselves.To discover how we might talk about motherhood in a more realistic, nuanced, and inclusive way, Carrie turned to literature with memorable maternal figures for answers. Moving through the literary canon––from Pride and Prejudice and Little Women to The Great Gatsby, Beloved, Heartburn, and The Joy Luck Club—Carrie traces the origins of our modern mothering experience. By interrogating the influences of politics, economics, feminism, pop culture, and family life in each text, she identifies the factors that have shaped our prevailing views of motherhood, and puts these classics into conversation with the most urgent issues of the day. Who were these literary mothers, beyond their domestic responsibilities and familial demands? And what lessons do they have for us today—if we choose to listen?
The Book of My Lives
by Aleksandar HemonA Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle AwardFor fans of Aleksandar Hemon's fiction, The Book of My Lives is simply indispensable; for the uninitiated, it is the perfect introduction to one of the great writers of our time. Aleksandar Hemon's lives begin in Sarajevo, a small, blissful city where a young boy's life is consumed with street soccer with the neighborhood kids, resentment of his younger sister, and trips abroad with his engineer-cum-beekeeper father. Here, a young man's life is about poking at the pretensions of the city's elders with American music, bad poetry, and slightly better journalism. And then, his life in Chicago: watching from afar as war breaks out in Sarajevo and the city comes under siege, no way to return home; his parents and sister fleeing Sarajevo with the family dog, leaving behind all else they had ever known; and Hemon himself starting a new life, his own family, in this new city.And yet this is not really a memoir. The Bookof My Lives, Hemon's first book of nonfiction, defies convention and expectation. It is a love song to two different cities; it is a heartbreaking paean to the bonds of family; it is a stirring exhortation to go out and play soccer—and not for the exercise. It is a book driven by passions but built on fierce intelligence, devastating experience, and sharp insight. And like the best narratives, it is a book that will leave you a different reader—a different person, with a new way of looking at the world—when you've finished.A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013
The Book of Mychal: The Surprising Life and Heroic Death of Father Mychal Judge
by Michael DalyThe inspiring story of New York Fire Department Chaplain Father Mychal Judge. <p> His death certificate bears the number one. As chaplain to the Fire Department of New York, Father Mychal Judge was officially the first to go. A loving priest with a gift for the gab-gregarious yet humble, a healer with the ability to wipe away a widow's tears and put a smile on a fireman's face. And on September 11th Father Mike rushed to the fires at the World Trade Center as quickly as those who fought them, losing his own life while tirelessly ministering to New York's bravest. <p><p>"'Father Mike'" recounts the colorful, astonishing and at times troubled life of a priest who saw the potential for good in everybody—in the homeless person he slipped a dollar to on the street; the alcoholic he sought to coax to an AA meeting; the early victims of AIDS he embraced and comforted; the troubled young men he visited in jail; and the thousands of firefighters he blessed as they rushed to their rigs answering the call. Here was a priest who rejoiced in the life around him and understood that even the most terrible times present us with wonders-that good always arises from the bad in the most unexpected ways. Or as Father Mike would say, "'My God is a God of surprises.'" <p><p>In this touching book, author Michael Daly retraces the footsteps of Father Mike as his vocation takes us inside the firehouse, inside his friary and his Church, and inside the chaos that often befalls New York. This is the tale of a larger than life priest who, in death, became a symbol of how much we truly lost that Tuesday in September. "'Father Mike'" is the inspirational story of a hero priest who blessed so many lives and will long be remembered by it.
The Book of Nonexistent Words
by Stefano MassiniThe internationally acclaimed author harnesses his brilliant imagination and masterful storytelling ability to create a catalog of new words inspired by stories of real people in this wondrous book reminiscent of Italo Calvino's mesmerizing Invisible Cities.How many times have words not been enough?How many complex feelings don’t have a corresponding noun that properly describes them?How many times has language left us like an archer without arrows in the labyrinth of our emotions?Award-winning author Stefano Massini, a master of expression,, made a discovery that shot new life into his writing practice. To his surprise he found that the ancient rules of language were not quite as restrictive as he had long envisioned them to be. With so many emotions and states of mind missing modern descriptors and definitions, Massini stumbled across a simple but artistry-altering idea. Instead of compromising honest expression through perfunctory verbiage, he decided language was, if anything, a flowing palette of colors he could use to paint all things. Words are meant to be invented. To reconfirm his belief in the magic of words, Massini returned to the wondrous mechanism that has fed dictionaries from time immemorial. If he could not find the precise word he wanted, he created one. In this delightful compendium, he introduces his personal vocabulary; every chapter mentions a new word that comes from a story about a real person, from Louis XIV to an American gangster.The Book of Nonexistent Words is a beautifully illustrated collection of linguistic origin stories wrought from the mind of an internationally renowned storytelling icon. Massini effectively liberates our human capacity for using language creatively and shows how we can embrace storytelling to fine tune our way of being in the world. Massini encourages us to be imaginative; if the language in the dictionary cannot adequately match the reality of the here and now, we must create new words that ring true.Translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon
The Book of Possibilities: Words of Wisdom on the Road to Becoming
by Bee QuammieBee Quammie invites women and girls everywhere to embrace the power of possibility in this intimate and empowering collection.A successful Black woman in media, Bee Quammie often finds herself being cast as a role model for young women—and especially Black women and other women of colour. But Bee has never quite been comfortable with the idea of being a role model for the next generation. Who is she to suggest anyone live the way she has? Follow a certain path? Who says the path she followed is the &“right&” one—that there even is a &“right&” one?When Bee became a mother, the weight of responsibility became even heavier, and she spent hours agonizing over how she could be the guide her girls needed without getting in their way or imposing her agenda. That's when Bee decided she needed a new model for understanding the role she should play for her children—and anyone else who might be looking to her for inspiration.Instead of a role model, Bee prefers to think of herself as a possibility model—one example among many of how to live one&’s life. But even more important, Bee wants to show her daughters and other women how ripe with possibility their lives really are, how many opportunities and avenues there are to explore. There is so much richness to be found in life, even if you end up somewhere that feels unconventional or unplanned. In The Book of Possibilities, Bee shows us how small acts of bravery and paying careful attention to our inner voice can open up a world of opportunity and lead to a fulfilling life.
The Book of Revenge
by Dragan TodorovicA darkly comic recollection of a country that no longer exists, and a lyrical examination of the importance of taking a stand when it counts. Set against a backdrop of horrific world events, this is narrative non-fiction at its best.To a young boy growing up poor but happy in an industrial town in Serbia, politics means many national holidays that result in parades, piglets roasting on a spit, and getting to see both his hard-working parents at the same time. An observant child, Dragan Todorovic quickly learns the power of words. Even before he can read or write, he is mesmerized by the squiggles made by the grownups around him and diligently recreates them in the notebooks he carries with him always. He also learns that reciting naughty limericks usually yields some chocolate.This love of words eventually takes Dragan to Belgrade, as editor for a cultural magazine. He hopes to inspire and support the young and innovative artists of the time, but soon discovers that naughty articles do not yield the same results as limericks, and he finds himself constantly clashing with the system. His many questions get only one answer: he is drafted into the army. Dragan survives his tour of duty, but his return to Belgrade is unsettling. Everything is changing, rapidly. Friendships are collapsing, conversations are guarded, nothing is as it seems. Bit by bit, the country he knows and loves is being torn apart.Filled with great characters and poignant and often hilarious stories, The Book of Revenge is a superb duet of a citizen and his country, a universal exploration of just what it is that inoculates the human spirit from dangerous ideologies and toxic nationalism.
The Book of Roads: Travel Stories from Michigan to Marrakech
by Phil CousineauCousineau's wanderlust has driven him to visit nearly 100 countries as a backpacker, documentary filmmaker, travel writer, photographer, and art and literary tour leader. For him, travel gives us what his mentor Joseph Campbell called "the key to the realm of the muses." As author of the best-selling travel book The Art of Pilgrimage, Cousineau continues to crisscross the world as a travel writer, filmmaker, and host of Global Spirit. The Book of Roads: Travel Stories from Michigan to Marrakech is the culmination of a lifetime of travel experiences, from the steel factories of Detroit to headhunting villages in the Philippines, the war-torn villages in the Balkans to the river roads of Canada once traversed by his voyageur ancestors. His rhapsodic travel stories place him in the league of fellow travelers who are also masterful writers, such as Pico Iyer, Jack Kerouac, Jan Morris, and Beryl Markham.
The Book of Rosy / El libro de Rosy (Spanish edition): La historia de una madre separada de sus hijos en la frontera
by Julie Schwietert Collazo Rosayra Pablo Cruz«[El libro de Rosy] ofrece esperanzas ante probabilidades desconcertantes». — Uno de los libros más anticipados del verano 2020 según la revista Elle«Una autobiografía inolvidable [...] que narra la lucha a la que se enfrentan muchas familias que son separadas en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México». —Libro DESTACADO por Publishers Weekly«La inquietante y elocuente historia de una guatemalteca en búsqueda de una vida mejor». —Libro DESTACADO por KirkusUna historia conmovedora sobre dos madres marcadas por la crisis migratoria: una guatemalteca que ha sido separada de sus hijos y la estadounidense que la ayuda a reunirse con su familia.Cuando Rosayra Pablo Cruz tomó la desgarradora decisión de buscar asilo en Estados Unidos con sus dos hijos, sabía que la travesía sería difícil, peligrosa y probablemente mortal. Pero la violencia rampante en Guatemala era insostenible; Rosy sabía que su familia sólo sobreviviría si migraba al norte.Tras un peligroso viaje que los deja deshidratados, hambrientos y exhaustos, Rosy y sus hijos logran llegar a Arizona. Pero casi inmediatamente son separados a la fuerza por los oficiales gubernamentales del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional bajo la política «tolerancia cero». Rosy y Julie Schwietert Collazo, la fundadora de Immigrant Families Together (Familias Inmigrantes Juntas), la organización comunitaria creada para reunir a madres con sus hijos, cuentan su historia y desvelan las crueles condiciones de los centros de detención, la insoportable ansiedad que padeció Rosy al ser separada de sus hijos y cómo la Fe y el amor la ayudaron a sobrellevar sus momentos más oscuros. Un retrato insólito y cautivante de las consecuencias que las políticas inhumanas infligen sobre los inmigrantes que cruzan la frontera estadounidense y de los lazos inquebrantables de la familia, la Fe y la comunidad.«Un libro que evidencia la compasión de los desconocidos y revela que, en estos tiempos tan desconcertantes, las historias aún tienen el poder de potenciar nuestra empatía y comprensión. Esta historia te cambiará para siempre». —J. Courtney Sullivan, autora de Saints for All Occasions«El libro de Rosy es una crónica valiente sobre uno de los momentos más vergonzosos de la historia de los Estados Unidos». —Christopher Soto, autor de Sad Girl Poems
The Book of Rosy: A Mother's Story of Separation at the Border
by Julie Schwietert Collazo Rosayra Pablo Cruz“Offers hope in the face of desperate odds” – ELLE Magazine, ELLE’s Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020“[D]isturbing and unforgettable memoir…This wrenching story brings to vivid life the plight of the many families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.” – Publisher’s Weekly, STARRED REVIEW“[The] haunting and eloquent…narrative of a Guatemalan woman's desperate search for a better life." -Kirkus, STARRED ReviewPEOPLE Magazine Best Books of Summer 2020TIME Magazine Best Books of Summer 2020PARADE Best Books of Summer 2020 Compelling and urgently important, The Book of Rosy is the unforgettable story of one brave mother and her fight to save her family. When Rosayra “Rosy” Pablo Cruz made the agonizing decision to seek asylum in the United States with two of her children, she knew the journey would be arduous, dangerous, and quite possibly deadly. But she had no choice: violence—from gangs, from crime, from spiraling chaos—was making daily life hell. Rosy knew her family’s one chance at survival was to flee Guatemala and go north.After a brutal journey that left them dehydrated, exhausted, and nearly starved, Rosy and her two little boys arrived at the Arizona border. Almost immediately they were seized and forcibly separated by government officials under the Department of Homeland Security’s new “zero tolerance” policy. To her horror Rosy discovered that her flight to safety had only just begun.In The Book of Rosy, with an unprecedented level of sharp detail and soulful intimacy, Rosy tells her story, aided by Julie Schwietert Collazo, founder of Immigrant Families Together, the grassroots organization that reunites mothers and children. She reveals the cruelty of the detention facilities, the excruciating pain of feeling her children ripped from her arms, the abiding faith that staved off despair—and the enduring friendship with Julie, which helped her navigate the darkness and the bottomless Orwellian bureaucracy.A gripping account of the human cost of inhumane policies, The Book of Rosy is also a paean to the unbreakable will of people united by true love, a sense of justice, and hope for a better future.
The Book of Saints: A Day-By-Day Illustrated Encyclopedia
by Weldon OwenA lavishly illustrated reference guide to over five-hundred Christian saints, organized by the calendar year and featuring about six-hundred works of art.Organized by feast day throughout the calendar year, The Book of Saints is both a definitive reference work and a spectacular art book. Featuring fascinating stories of more than five-hundred saints from around the world, the book includes approximately six-hundred works of historic and contemporary art. This extraordinary reference book is a stunning keepsake and essential resource that makes a perfect christening, confirmation, or birthday gift, and is a great addition to any family library. The Book of Saints is an illustrated treasury of compelling information for the devout and the culturally inquisitive alike.
The Book of Saints: The Lives of the Saints According to the Liturgical Calendar
by Victor HoaglandThis book is about saints remembered in the calendar of the Catholic Church. Apostles, martyrs, bishops and missionaries, holy men and women who loved God and his people in a remarkable way. Some died for their faith in Christ; others served the poor, upheld the cause of justice, pursued truth and prayed to God with exceptional results. Like leaven in the earth's mass, they changed the world in which they lived.
The Book of Salt: A Novel
by Monique TruongA novel of Paris in the 1930s from the eyes of the Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, by the author of The Sweetest Fruits.Viewing his famous mesdames and their entourage from the kitchen of their rue de Fleurus home, Binh observes their domestic entanglements while seeking his own place in the world. In a mesmerizing tale of yearning and betrayal, Monique Truong explores Paris from the salons of its artists to the dark nightlife of its outsiders and exiles. She takes us back to Binh's youthful servitude in Saigon under colonial rule, to his life as a galley hand at sea, to his brief, fateful encounters in Paris with Paul Robeson and the young Ho Chi Minh.Winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award A Best Book of the Year: New York Times, Village Voice, Seattle Times, Miami Herald, San Jose Mercury News, and others&“An irresistible, scrupulously engineered confection that weaves together history, art, and human nature…a veritable feast.&”—Los Angeles Times &“A debut novel of pungent sensuousness and intricate, inspired imagination…a marvelous tale.&”—Elle&“Addictive…Deliciously written…Both eloquent and original.&”—Entertainment Weekly&“A mesmerizing narrative voice, an insider's view of a fabled literary household and the slow revelation of heartbreaking secrets contribute to the visceral impact of this first novel.&”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
The Book of Sarahs
by Catherine E. MckinleySuffused with longing, this rueful, passionate memoir about an adopted woman's search for her birth parents explores themes of race and family. Catherine McKinley was one of only a few thousand African American and bi-racial children adopted by white couples in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Raised in a small, white New England town, she had a persistent longing for the more diverse community that would better understand and encompass her. In an era shaped by the rhetoric of Black Power and Black Pride, McKinley's coming of age entailed her own detailed investigation into her birth history, a search complicated by the terms of a closed adoption that denied her all knowledge of the circumstances of her birth. THE BOOK OF SARAHS traces McKinley's own time of revelations: after a five-year period marked by dead ends and disappointments, she finds her birth mother and a half-sister named Sarah, the name that was originally given to her. When she locates her birth father and meets several of his eleven other children she begins to see the whole mosaic of her parentage-African American, WASP, Jewish, Native American-and then is confronted with a final revelation that threatens to destabilize all she has uncovered. At the center of the narrative is McKinley's angry passion for her two mothers and her quest for self-acceptance in a world in which she seems to herself to be always outside the bounds of social legitimacy. In telling of her struggles both to fit into and to defy social conventions, McKinley challenges us to rethink our own preconceptions about race, identity, kinship, loyalty, and love. Catherine McKinley is the author of The Book of Sarahs and Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, where she has taught Creative Nonfiction, and a former Fulbright Scholar in Ghana, West Africa. She lives in New York City. "McKinley writes beautifully in this debut memoir, never resorting to sentimentality or easy emotions within this tangled web of emotional and family secrets."- Publishers Weekly"In recounting her long and arduous journey in search of her birth parents, McKinley (Afrekete: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Writing) draws us into a page-turning treasure hunt. Along the way she skillfully describes her upbringing as a black (or so she believed) child adopted by a white family during the 1960s, her tenacious efforts to winnow information out of the bureaucratic agency that handled her adoption and her often startlingly candid reactions to each new revelation about her background. Ultimately, she discovered that her parentage includes African American, WASP, Jewish, and Native American forbears. The multiple Sarahs of the title are just another confounding bit of information in this painful, funny, and very human memoir about race and family. In the end, the treasure McKinley seems to have discovered is her own independent self. Recommended for all libraries."- Library Journal"In elegant, original prose that springs from a mind and heart at turns spirited and pensive, Catherine McKinley tells her dramatic story with defiant candor, precocious wisdom, and courageous sensitivity."- Sarah Saffian, Author of Ithaka: A Daughter's Memoir of Bing Found
The Book of Science and Antiquities
by Thomas KeneallyIn a novel of breathtaking reach and inspired imagination, the Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler's Ark tells the stories of two men who have much in common. What separates them is 42,000 years.Shade lives with his second wife amid their clan on the shores of a bountiful lake. A peaceable man, he knows that when danger threatens, the Hero ancestors will call on him to kill, or sacrifice himself, to save his people.Over 40,000 years later, Shade's remains are unearthed near the now dry Lake Learned in New South Wales. The sensational discovery fascinates Shelby Apple, a documentary film maker who tracks the controversies it provokes about who the continent's first inhabitants were and where Shade's bones belong.Shelby goes on to follow his own heroes to the battlefields of Eritrea and the Rift Valley where Homo sapiens sprang from. When he, too, faces mortality and looks back on his passions, ideals and sorely tested marriage, Learned Man stands as an enduring spirit, a fellow player in the long, ever-evolving story of humankind.
The Book of Science and Antiquities: A Novel
by Thomas KeneallyThomas Keneally, the bestselling author of The Daughters of Mars and Schindler&’s List, returns with an exquisite exploration of community and country, love and morality, taking place in both prehistoric and modern Australia.An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Shelby Apple is obsessed with reimagining the full story of the Learned Man—a prehistoric man whose remains are believed to be the link between Africa and ancient Australia. From Vietnam to northern Africa and the Australian Outback, Shelby searches for understanding of this enigmatic man from the ancient past, unaware that the two men share a great deal in common. Some 40,000 years in the past, the Learned Man has made his home alongside other members of his tribe. Complex and deeply introspective, he reveres tradition, loyalty, and respect for his ancestors. Willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good, the Learned Man cannot conceive that a man millennia later could relate to him in heart and feeling. In this &“meditation on last things, but still electric with life, passion and appetite&” (The Australian), Thomas Keneally weaves an extraordinary dual narrative that effortlessly transports you around the world and across time, offering &“a hymn to idealism and to human development&” (Sydney Morning Herald).
The Book of Separation: A Memoir
by Tova MirvisThe memoir of a woman leaving behind her faith and her marriage to navigate the terrifying, liberating terrain of a world unknown to her.A New York Times Editors’ Choice A Best Book Pick by O, The Oprah Magazine; Jewish Week; Real Simple“An intimate tale of departure . . . [Mirvis] movingly conveys the heartache that accompanies the abandonment of one way of life in search of another.” —New York Times Book ReviewBorn and raised in a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish family, Tova Mirvis committed herself to observing the rules and rituals prescribed by this way of life. After all, to observe was to be accepted and to be accepted was to be loved. She married a man from within the fold and quickly began a family.But over the years, her doubts became noisier than her faith, and at age forty she could no longer breathe in what had become a suffocating existence. Even though it would mean the loss of her friends, her community, and possibly even her family, Mirvis decides to leave her marriage and her religious world and forge a new way of life. In order to do so, she must learn to silence her fears and the voices telling her who she is supposed to be.Brave and inspiring, The Book of Separation illuminates universal themes of faith, doubt, love, and change, and explores what it means to heed your inner compass at long last.“Capable of both wry humor and darkly apt turns of phrase, Mirvis is a gifted writer reflecting on her identity: first through the prism of organized religion, then through a self-charted life.” —Chicago Tribune“The author’s sensitive thematic treatment of belonging and individuality and her candor about the terror she experienced leaving the only community she had ever known makes for moving, inspiring reading. A thoughtful, courageous memoir of family, religion, and self-discovery.” —Kirkus Reviews
The Book of Sunnybank
by Albert Payson TerhuneThe author of Lad a Dog and other books and newspaper articles, introduces the reader to Sunnybank his home in New Jersey. Chapters cover how the home was created, who lives at Sunnybank from the dogs, cats, horses, and more unusual animals, to the people that have lived there from time to time. He also talks about the local village, and of the countryside outside of Sunnybank. The stories and memories are interspursed with humor and insight into man and dog.
The Book of Two Ways: A Novel
by Jodi PicoultOrder Jodi Picoult's stunning new novel about life, death, and missed opportunities. THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'A writer the world should be reading right now.' IndependentWho would you be, if you hadn't turned out to be the person you are now? Dawn is a death doula, and spends her life helping people make the final transition peacefully. But when the plane she's on plummets, she finds herself thinking not of the perfect life she has, but the life she was forced to abandon fifteen years ago - when she left behind a career in Egyptology, and a man she loved. Against the odds, she survives, and the airline offers her a ticket to wherever she needs to get to - but the answer to that question suddenly seems uncertain. As the path of her life forks in two very different directions, Dawn must confront questions she's never truly asked: what does a well-lived life look like? What do we leave behind when we go? And do we make our choices, or do our choices make us?Two possible futures. One impossible choice. ----------------------------------------------------------------'It is hard to exaggerate how well Picoult writes.' Financial Times 'A matchless talent for hitting emotional notes.' Irish Times'A wise, cerebral, propulsive adventure . . . eruditely spans the worlds of Egyptology, university physics and end-of-life care, while never losing sight of its high-stakes human story . . . a captivatingly immersive, multilayered, painstakingly researched and impressively realised exploration of deeply human geographies.' The Sunday Times'This complex, time-shifting romance combines moral hazard with Wuthering Heights echoes and degree-level Egyptology. And there aren't many books you can say that about.' Daily Mail
The Book of Two Ways: The stunning bestseller about life, death and missed opportunities
by Jodi PicoultDawn thinks she knows everything there is to know about dying. As a death doula she helps her clients fix what is left undone so they can peacefully make the final transition. But when her plane plummets from the sky and she thinks she is experiencing the last moments of her life, she is shocked to find that she isn't thinking of her husband or teenage daughter - but of a road she strayed from 15 years earlier, when she turned her back on her PhD studies. Against all odds, Dawn survives, and the airline gives her a free ticket to wherever she needs to get to. in alternating chapters, we see possible choices: Land - returning to her husband, a quantum physicist who studies the possibilities of parallel universes, she is faced with a test to her marriage and a daughter who is struggling with self-image issues. And Water: returning to her studies and the archaeological site she worked on 15 years earlier, where the man she abandoned is about to make the discovery of a lifetime. But time may not be as straightforward as we think. As Dawn explores her possible futures, she is finding out what a well-lived life means, what we leave behind of ourselves when we leave the earth, and who she might have been...(P) 2020 Penguin Random House Audio
The Book of Wanderings: A Mother-Daughter Pilgrimage
by Kimberly MeyerTo a mother and daughter on an illuminating pilgrimage, this is what the desert said: Carry only what you need. Burn what can't be saved. Leave the remnants as an offering. When Kimberly Meyer gave birth to her first daughter, Ellie, during her senior year of college, the bohemian life of exploration she had once imagined for herself was lost in the responsibilities of single motherhood. For years, both mother and daughter were haunted by how Ellie came into being-Kimberly through a restless ache for the world beyond, Ellie through a fear of abandonment.Longing to bond with Ellie, now a college student, and longing, too, to rediscover herself, Kimberly sets off with her daughter on a quest for meaning across the globe. Leaving behind the rhythms of ordinary life in Houston, Texas, they dedicate a summer to retracing the footsteps of Felix Fabri, a medieval Dominican friar whose written account of his travels resonates with Kimberly. Their mother-daughter pilgrimage takes them to exotic destinations infused with mystery, spirituality, and rich history-from Venice to the Mediterranean through Greece and partitioned Cyprus, to Israel and across the Sinai Desert with Bedouin guides, to the Palestinian territories and to Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt.In spare and gorgeous prose, The Book of Wanderings tells the story of Kimberly and Ellie's journey, and of the intimate, lasting bond they forge along the way. A meditation on stripping away the distractions, on simplicity, on how to live, this is a vibrant memoir with the power to both transport readers to far-off lands and to bring them in closer connection with themselves. It will appeal to anyone who has contemplated the road not taken, who has experienced the gnawing feeling that there is something more, who has faced the void-of offspring leaving, of mortality looming, of searching for someplace that feels, finally, like home.
The Book of Woe
by Gary GreenbergAuthor and psychotherapist Gary Greenberg charts the DSM's controversial history in a riveting book that is sure to spark debate among expert and casual listeners alike.
The Book of Woe
by Gary GreenbergFor more than two years, author and psychotherapist Gary Greenberg has embedded himself in the war that broke out over the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders--the DSM--the American Psychiatric Association's compendium of mental illnesses and what Greenberg calls "the book of woe." Since its debut in 1952, the book has been frequently revised, and with each revision, the "official" view on which psychological problems constitute mental illness. Homosexuality, for instance, was a mental illness until 1973, and Asperger's gained recognition in 1994 only to see its status challenged nearly twenty years later. Each revision has created controversy, but the DSM-5, the newest iteration, has shaken psychiatry to its foundations. The APA has taken fire from patients, mental health practitioners, and former members for extending the reach of psychiatry into daily life by encouraging doctors to diagnose more illnesses and prescribe more therapies--often medications whose efficacy is unknown and whose side effects are severe. Critics--including Greenberg--argue that the APA should not have the naming rights to psychological pain or to the hundreds of millions of dollars the organization earns, especially when even the DSM's staunchest defenders acknowledge that the disorders listed in the book are not real illnesses. Greenberg's account of the history behind the DSM, which has grown from pamphlet-sized to encyclopedic since it was first published, and his behind-the-scenes reporting of the deeply flawed process by which the DSM-5 has been revised, is both riveting and disturbing. Anyone who has received a diagnosis of mental disorder, filed a claim with an insurer, or just wondered whether daily troubles qualify as true illness should know how the DSM turns suffering into a commodity, and the APA into its own biggest beneficiary. Invaluable and informative, The Book of Woe is bound to spark intense debate among expert and casual readers alike.
The Book of the Courtier: An Authoritative Text, Criticism
by Baldesar Castiglione Daniel Javitch Charles S. SingletonThe book features ten essays on "The Book of the Courtier", which represent the best interpretations from the United States, Italy, and England including the backgrounds-rich essays by Amedeo Quondam and James Hankins. A Selected Bibliography, a Chronology, and an Index are included.