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This Fine Place So Far from Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class
by Carolyn Leste Law C. L. Barney DewsThese autobiographical and analytical essays by a diverse group of professors and graduate students from working-class families reveal an academic world in which "blue-collar work is invisible." Describing conflict and frustration, the contributors expose a divisive middle-class bias in the university setting. Many talk openly about how little they understood about the hierarchy and processes of higher education, while others explore how their experiences now affect their relationships with their own students. They all have in common the anguish of choosing to hide their working-class background, to keep the language of home out of the classroom and the ideas of school away from home. These startlingly personal stories highlight the fissure between a working-class upbringing and the more privileged values of the institution. Author note: C. L. Barney Dews is visiting Assistant Professor of American Literature in the English and Foreign Languages Department, University of West Florida. Carolyn Leste Law is a Doctoral Candidate in English at the University of Minnesota.
This Fish Is Fowl: Essays of Being (American Lives)
by Xi XuIn This Fish Is Fowl Xu Xi offers the transnational and feminist perspective of a contemporary “glocalized” American life. Xu’s quirky, darkly comic, and obsessively personal essays emerge from her diverse professional career as a writer, business executive, entrepreneur, and educator. From her origins in Hong Kong as an Indonesian of Chinese descent to her U.S. citizenship and multiple countries of residence, she writes her way around the globe. Caring for her mother with Alzheimer’s in Hong Kong becomes the rhythmic accompaniment to an enforced, long-term, long-distance relationship with her partner and home in New York. In between Xu reflects on all her selves, which are defined by those myriad monikers of existence. As an author who began life as a novelist and fiction writer, she also considers the nature of genre, which snakes its way through these essays. In her linguistic trip across the comic tragedy that is globalism, she wonders about the mystery of humanity and the future of our world at this complicated and precarious moment in human existence.This Fish Is Fowl is a twenty-first-century blend of the essayist traditions of both West and East. Xu’s acerbic, deft prose shows her to be a descendant of both Michel de Montaigne and Lu Xun, with influences from stepparent Jonathan Swift.
This Fragile Life: A Mother's Story of a Bipolar Son
by Charlotte Pierce-Baker"Illuminating and brilliant, with poetry and prose, mother and son lay bare the ravages of bipolar disorder and the journey toward growth and understanding. A touching, lyrical memoir." --Jewell Parker Rhodes, award-winning author, Voodoo Dreams and Douglass' Women Told in a mother's own words, this is a moving story of a loving African American family that faces the daily crisis of an unpredictable mental disorder. Charlotte Pierce-Baker and her husband did everything right when raising their son Mark: providing emotional support, the best education possible, and the freedom to choose his own path. At age 25, Mark was pursuing a postgraduate degree in film, living with his fiancée, and seemingly in control of his life, so Pierce-Baker never imagined her high-achieving son would wind up handcuffed, barely clothed, dirty, mad, and in jail. Mark's bipolar disorder manifested late and included hospitalizations, calls in the night, pleas for money, jail, lawyers, prescriptions, doctors, alcohol and drug relapses, and continuous disputes about how to live--and not live. This autobiography weaves a fascinating story of mental illness, race, family, the drive of African Americans to succeed, and a mother's love for her son. Charlotte Pierce-Baker is a professor of women's studies, gender studies, and English at Vanderbilt University and the author of Surviving the Silence. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
This Generation
by Han HanFor those who follow Chinese affairs, Han Han is as controversial as they come--an irreverent singer, sports celebrity, and satirist whose brilliant blogs and books have made him a huge celebrity with more than half a billion readers. Now, with this collection of his essays, Americans can appreciate the range of this rising literary star and get a fascinating trip through Chinese culture. This Generation gathers his essays and blogs dating from 2006 to the present, telling the story of modern China through Han Han's unique perspective. Writing on topics as diverse as racing, relationships, the Beijing Olympics, and how to be a patriot, he offers a brief, funny, and illuminating trip through a complex nation that most Westerners view as marching in lockstep. As much a millennial time capsule as an entertaining and invaluable way for English readers to understand our rising Eastern partner and rival, This Generation introduces a dazzling talent to American shores.er and rival, This Generation introduces a dazzling talent to American shores.
This Generation: Dispatches From China's Most Popular Literary Star (and Race Car Driver)
by Han HanSelected from blog posts from 2006-present, This Generation tells the story of modern China from Han Han's unique perspective. Writing on topics as diverse as racing, prostitution, and how to be a patriot, Han Han has written a diary that is not only invaluable for the English-speaking world to understand our rising Eastern partner and rival, but which will long be remembered as a millennial time capsule. The core of this anthology is drawn from the collection Qingchun (Youth), published in Taipei in 2010, but it also contains a sprinkling of both older and more recent pieces. Presented in chronological order, the sequence opens with a handful of early posts; it excerpts Han Han's work more fully beginning in 2008, the year when he really hit his stride and his blog commanded a larger and larger audience in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. The anthology closes with Han Han's controversial cluster of essays posted in the final days of 2011.
This Girl Ran: Tales of a Party Girl Turned Triathlete
by Helen CroydonWhen Helen’s friends all started settling down and having kids, she was determined to fill her weekends with something other than cocktails. So she threw herself into the world of endurance sport. From glamorous party girl to marathon runner, ocean swimmer and even, perhaps, a Team GB triathlete, this is Helen’s inspiring and hilarious story.
This Girl Ran: Tales of a Party Girl Turned Triathlete
by Helen CroydonWhen Helen’s friends all started settling down and having kids, she was determined to fill her weekends with something other than cocktails. So she threw herself into the world of endurance sport. From glamorous party girl to marathon runner, ocean swimmer and even, perhaps, a Team GB triathlete, this is Helen’s inspiring and hilarious story.
This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History
by Esther Rutter&“A book about wool and sheep, the making of Scotland, England and farming, textile manufacture, folklore and, crucially, the essential craft of knitting.&” —Janice Galloway, author of Jellyfish Over the course of a year, Esther Rutter—who grew up on a sheep farm in Suffolk, and learned to spin, weave and knit as a child—travels the length of the British Isles, to tell the story of wool&’s long history here. She unearths fascinating histories of communities whose lives were shaped by wool, from the mill workers of the Border countries, to the English market towns built on profits of the wool trade, and the Highland communities cleared for sheep farming; and finds tradition and innovation intermingling in today&’s knitwear industries. Along the way, she explores wool&’s rich culture by knitting and crafting culturally significant garments from our history—among them gloves, a scarf, a baby blanket, socks and a fisherman&’s jumper—reminding us of the value of craft and our intimate relationship with wool.This Golden Fleece is at once a meditation on the craft and history of knitting, and a fascinating exploration of wool&’s influence on our landscape, history and culture. &“Wondrous.&” —BBC Countryfile &“A yarn well told.&” —The Irish Times &“A compelling literary journey through the social history of wool in the British Isles.&” —Karen Lloyd, author of The Gathering Tide &“[Rutter&’s] stops on her journey around Britain also knit together the past and the present, the social, historical and the personal, in an altogether engaging way.&” —Books from Scotland
This Great Escape
by Andrew SteinmetzSHORTLISTED FOR THE $60,000 HILARY WESTON WRITERS TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION"What the hell kind of great escape is this? No one escapes!"-L.B. Mayer, on the 1963 filmHe had fifty-seven seconds of screen time in the most lavish POW film Hollywood ever produced. He was blond. A Gestapo agent. Sauntering down the aisles of a speeding train, he speaks in terse German to Richard Attenborough, Gordon Jackson, David McCallum. The film is The Great Escape (by John Sturges, starring Steve McQueen); the actor, though uncredited, is Michael Paryla. He was part Jewish. Shortly after filming he died.In This Great Escape, Andrew Steinmetz tenderly reconstructs the life of a man seen by millions yet recognized by no one, whose history-from childhood flight from Nazism to suspicious death twenty years later-intersects bitterly, ironically, and often movingly with the plot of Sturges's great war film. Splicing together documentary materials with correspondence, diary entries, and Steinmetz's own travel journal, This Great Escape does more than reconstruct the making of a cinema classic: it is a poignant and moving testament to the complexity of human experience, a portrait of a family for whom acting was a matter of survival, and proof that our most anonymous, uncredited, and undocumented moments can brush against the zeitgeist of world history.
This Has Happened: An Italian Family in Auschwitz
by Ann Goldstein Piera Sonnino<P>Five years after her return home from Auschwitz, Piera Sonnino found the courage to tell the story of the extermination of her parents, three brothers, and two sisters by the Nazis. <P>Discovered in Italy and never before published in English, this account brings to life the methodical and relentless erosion of the freedoms and human dignity of the Italian Jews, from Mussolini's racial laws of 1938 to the institutionalized horror of Auschwitz.
This Has Happened: An Italian Family in Auschwitz
by Piera SonninoFive years after her return home from Auschwitz, Piera Sonnino found the courage to tell the story of the extermination of her parents, three brothers, and two sisters by the Nazis. Discovered in 2005 in Italy and first published in English in 2006, this poignant and extraordinarily well-written account is strikingly accurate in bringing to life the methodical and relentless erosion of the freedoms and human dignity of the Italian Jews, from Mussolini's racial laws of 1938 to the institutionalized horror of Auschwitz. Through Sonnino's words, memory has the power to disarm these unspeakable evils, in This Has Happened.
This Heart Holds Many: My Life as the Nonbinary Millennial Child of a Polyamorous Family
by Elisabeth Sheff Koe CreationMany of us were asked by our mother to do the dishes as children. Perhaps some of us would need to be asked more than once. Koe Creation was the type who'd get asked three times, by three different mothers. Crowded parent-teacher conferences, queer youth summer camp, and parental adoptions over potluck dinner were typical of Koe's otherwise divergent upbringing raised in a queer, polyamorous family. Taught from young age to embrace sex-positivity and LGBT acceptance, Koe had, no doubt, an experience of "family values" that differs wildly from that of many who were raised in conservative North America. Still: all families know conflict, and all hearts know struggle, no matter how loved. While in the spotlight as a "poster child" for the alternative Seattle community, Koe yearned for a realization of theirself beyond the "shadow of their tribe." This drive for a singular identity to navigate a world of collective relationships led Koe to leave the alt-Seattle scene behind them—first for the vivacious beaches of Hawai'i, and later, the couches of San Francisco—to find the self that no one person or family could make for them. This Heart Holds Many is a testament of transformative, communal love, as told by an educator and life-long learner who has dedicated their life to helping others grasp their extraordinary love.
This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation and the Stories That Make Us
by Cole Arthur Riley'This is the kind of book that make you different when you're done.' - Ashley C. Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Somebody's Daughter'From the womb, we must repeat with regularity that to love ourselves is to survive. I believe that is what my father wanted for me and knew I would so desperately need: a tool for survival, the truth of my dignity named like a mercy new each morning.'So writes Cole Arthur Riley in an unforgettable book of stories and reflections on discovering the sacred in her skin. In these deeply transporting pages, Cole reflects on the stories of her grandmother and father and encounters of enfleshed, embodied spirituality. As she writes memorably of her own lived experiences of childhood and selfhood, Cole boldly explores some of the most urgent questions of life and faith: How can spirituality not silence the body, but instead allow it to come alive? How do we honour, lament, and heal from the stories we inherit?How can we find peace in a world overtaken with dislocation, noise, and unrest? At once a compelling spiritual meditation and a tender coming-of-age narrative, This Here Flesh invites us to ponder the site of the soul by examining our capacity to rest, wonder, joy, rage, and repair - and finding that our humanity is not an enemy to faith but evidence of it.'Exquisite' - Ayo Tomenti, co-founder of Black Lives Matter
This Hill, This Valley: A Memoir
by Hal BorlandA memoir of a year immersed in nature on a New England farm, by the national bestselling author of The Dog Who Came to Stay. After a nearly fatal bout of appendicitis, Hal Borland decided to leave the city behind and move with his wife to a farmhouse in rural Connecticut. Their new home on one hundred acres inspired Borland to return to nature. In this masterpiece of American nature writing, he describes such wonders as the peace of a sky full of stars, the breathless beauty of blossoming plants, the way rain swishes as it hits a river, and the invigorating renewal brought by the changing seasons. The delights of nature as Borland observes them seem boundless, and his sense of awe is contagious.
This Horrible Uncertainty: A German Woman Writes War, 1939-1948 (Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association #32)
by Erika QuinnThrough the diaries and personal papers of a German woman, Vera Conrad, this book documents her wartime experiences and deepens our understanding of the complex experiences of trauma and grief that National Socialist supporters experienced. Building on scholarship about mourning and widowhood that largely focuses on state policies and public discourses, This Horrible Uncertainty provides an interpretive framework of people’s perceptions of events and their capacity to respond to them. Using a history of emotions approach, Erika Quinn establishes that keeping the diary allowed Conrad to develop different selves in response to her responsibilities, fear, and grief after her husband was declared missing in 1943.
This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind
by Ivan DoigNational Book Award Finalist: A &“beautifully written, deeply felt&” memoir about growing up in the American West (Los Angeles Times). Ivan Doig grew up in the rugged wilderness of western Montana among the sheepherders and denizens of small-town saloons and valley ranches. What he deciphers from his past with piercing clarity is not only a raw sense of land and how it shapes us, but also of the ties to our mothers and fathers, to those who love us, and our inextricable connection to those who shaped our values in our search for intimacy, independence, love, and family. A powerfully told story, This House of Sky is uniquely American—yet also universal in its ability to awaken a longing for an explicable past. &“Engrossing and moving.&”—Time
This I Believe
by Carlos FuentesIn a series of inspired meditations and polemics, Fuentes explores and celebrates subjects as disparate as 'Balzac' and 'Beauty'; 'Reading' and 'Revolution'; 'Sex' and 'Shakespeare'. The essays are woven together with the familiar Fuentes themes of politics, time and language; and through them runs the vein of his personal journey, his views on love, sex, women, friendship and family. In 'Children' Fuentes tells of the births of his daughters and gives a wrenching account of his son's short life; 'Silvia' is a paean to his wife. This I Believeis both intimate and universally resonant, and it leads us through a mind - via Kafka, Buñuel, Wittgenstein, Cervantes, Faulkner, Velazquez, and more - that is both witty and profoundly searching. Finally, in 'Zurich', an encounter with Thomas Mann teaches him (as Fuentes teaches us) that 'in literature, you only know what you can imagine'.
This I Believe II: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women
by Dan Gediman Jay AllisonFeaturing 80 Americans--from the famous to the unknown--this series of insightful observations completes the thought that the book's title introduces. Each piece compels readers to rethink not only how they arrive at their own personal beliefs but also how they share them with others.
This I Believe: Life Lessons
by John Gregory Dan Gediman Mary Jo GedimanInspiring life wisdom from people of all ages—based on the This I Believe radio program The popular This I Believe series, which has aired on NPR and on Bob Edwards' shows on Sirius XM Satellite and public radio, explores the personal beliefs and guiding principles by which Americans live today. This book brings together treasured life lessons of people from all walks of life. Whether it's learning the power of saying hello or how courage comes with practice, their intimate reflections will inspire, move, and encourage you. Filled with the valuable insights distilled from a wide range of personal experiences, This I Believe: Life Lessons is a perfect gift—for others or for yourself. Includes extraordinary essays written by "ordinary" people who share the story of an important lesson they have learned about life Shares a wide range of beliefs and experiences from a diverse group of contributors, including a physician, a roller derby queen, a corporate executive, and a homeless person Based on the popular This I Believe radio series and thisibelieve.org website No matter what your age or circumstances, this book will give you valuable food for thought and important new insights on how others have learned from life's challenges.
This I Believe: Philadelphia
by This I Believe, Inc.An essay collection highlighting guiding principles, containing 30 works from the contemporary Philadelphia radio series, and 30 from the 1950s original.This I Believe is an international project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values that guide their daily lives. And it all started in Philadelphia more than seven decades ago with a local radio series that became an international sensation.This book features thirty essays from that original 1950s This I Believe radio series, including contributions from publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg, classicist and educator Edith Hamilton, anthropologist Margaret Mead, and Pulitzer Prize–winning author James Michener.Complementing those historical selections are thirty contemporary essays produced through a partnership among This I Believe, WHYY, and Leadership Philadelphia. These essayists include Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Frank Fitzpatrick, Grammy Award–winner Kenny Gamble, Philadelphia Mural Arts Program executive director Jane Golden, and Mayor Michael Nutter.Altogether, this collection is an insightful reflection of the guiding principles that drive the people of Philadelphia, who believe in brotherly love—and so much more.
This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women
by Viki Merrick John Gregory Dan Gediman Jay AllisonBased on the NPR series of the same name, This I Believe features eighty Americans--from the famous to the unknown--completing the thought that the book's title begins. Each piece compels readers to rethink not only how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs but also the extent to which they share them with others. Featuring many renowned contributors--including Isabel Allende, Colin Powell, Gloria Steinem, William F. Buckley Jr., Penn Jillette, Bill Gates, and John Updike--the collection also contains essays by a Brooklyn lawyer; a part-time hospital clerk in Rehoboth, Massachusetts; a woman who sells yellow pages advertising in Fort Worth, Texas; and a man who serves on Rhode Island's parole board.The result is a stirring and provocative trip inside the minds and hearts of a diverse group of people whose beliefs--and the incredibly varied ways in which they choose to express them--reveal the American spirit at its best.
This Indian Kid: A Native American Memoir (Scholastic Focus)
by Eddie ChuculateAward-winning author Eddie Chuculate recounts his experience growing up in rural Oklahoma, from boyhood to young manhood, in an evocative and vivid voice.Scholastic Focus is the premier home of thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and thoughtfully designed works of narrative nonfiction aimed at middle-grade and young adult readers. These books help readers learn about the world in which they live and develop their critical thinking skills so that they may become dynamic citizens who are able to analyze and understand our past, participate in essential discussions about our present, and work to grow and build our future."Granny was full-blooded Creek, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs insisted she was fifteen-sixteenths. She showed her card to me. I’d sit at the kitchen table and stare at her when she was eating, wondering how you can be a sixteenth of anything."Growing up impoverished and shuttled between different households, it seemed life was bound to take a certain path for Eddie Chuculate. Despite the challenges he faced, his upbringing was rich with love and bountiful lessons from his Creek and Cherokee heritage, deep-rooted traditions he embraced even as he learned to live within the culture of white, small-town America that dominated his migratory childhood.Award-winning author Eddie Chuculate brings his childhood to life with spare, unflinching prose. This book is at once a love letter to his Native American roots and an inspiring and essential message for young readers everywhere, who are coming of age in an era when conversations about acceptance and empathy, love and perspective are more necessary than ever before.
This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead
by David Gans Blair JacksonIn This Is All a Dream We Dreamed, two of the most well-respected chroniclers of the Dead, Blair Jackson and David Gans, reveal the band’s story through the words of its members, their creative collaborators and peers, and a number of diverse fans, stitching together a multitude of voices into a seamless oral tapestry. Capturing the ebullient spirit at the group’s core, Jackson and Gans weave together a musical saga that examines the music and subculture that developed into its own economy, touching fans from all walks of life, from penniless hippies to celebrities, and at least one U.S. vice president. This definitive book traces the Dead’s evolution from its humble beginnings as a folk/bluegrass band playing small venues in Palo Alto to the feral psychedelic warriors and stadium-filling Americana jam band that blazed all the way through to the 90s. Along the way, we hear from many who were touched by the Dead—from David Crosby and Miles Davis, to Ken Kesey, Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, and a host of Merry Pranksters, to legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, and others. Throughout their journey the Dead broke (and sometimes rewrote) just about every rule of the music business, defying conventional wisdom and charting their own often unusual course, in the process creating a business model unlike any seen before. Musically, too, they were pioneers, fusing inspired ideas and techniques with intuition and fearlessness to craft an utterly unique and instantly recognizable sound. Their music centered on collective improvisation, spiritual and social democracy, trust, generosity, and fun. They believed that you can make something real, spontaneous, and compelling happen with other musicians if you trust and encourage each other, and jam as if your life depended on it. And when it worked, there was nothing else like it.Whether you’re part of the new generation of Deadheads who are just discovering their music or a devoted fan who has traded Dead tapes for decades, you will want to listen in on the irresistible conversations and anecdotes shared in these pages. You’ll hear stories you haven’t heard before, possibly from voices that may be unfamiliar to you, and the tales that unfold will shed a whole new light on a long and inspiring musical odyssey.
This Is Assisted Dying: A Doctor's Story of Empowering Patients at the End of Life
by Stefanie GreenA transformative and compassionate memoir by a leading pioneer in medically assisted dying who began her career in the maternity ward and now helps patients who are suffering explore and then fulfill their end of life choices.Dr. Stefanie Green has been forging new paths in the field of medical assistance in dying since 2016. In her landmark memoir, Dr. Green reveals the reasons a patient might seek an assisted death, how the process works, what the event itself can look like, the reactions of those involved, and what it feels like to oversee proceedings and administer medications that hasten death. She describes the extraordinary people she meets and the unusual circumstances she encounters as she navigates the intricacy, intensity, and utter humanity of these powerful interactions. Deeply authentic and powerfully emotional, This Is Assisted Dying contextualizes the myriad personal, professional, and practical issues surrounding assisted dying by bringing readers into the room with Dr. Green, sharing the voices of her patients, her colleagues, and her own narrative. As our population confronts issues of wellness, integrity, agency and community, and how to live a connected, meaningful life, this progressive and compassionate book by a physician at the forefront of medically assisted dying offers comfort and potential relief. This Is Assisted Dying will change the way people think about their choices at the end of life, and show that assisted dying is less about death than about how we wish to live.
This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me
by Marisa MeltzerFrom contributor to The Cut, one of Vogue's "Most Anticipated Books of 2020," that has something to "bravely and honestly" (Busy Philipps) say about weight and weight loss and which also sheds a light on Jean Nidetch, the founder of Weight Watcher, an early and forgotten female founderMarisa Meltzer began her first diet at the age of five. Growing up an indoors-loving child in Northern California, she learned from an early age that weight was the one part of her life she could neither change nor even really understand.Fast forward nearly four decades. Marisa, also a contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Times, comes across an obituary for Jean Nidetch, the Queens, New York housewife who founded Weight Watchers in 1963. Weaving Jean's incredible story as weight loss maven and pathbreaking entrepreneur with Marisa's own journey through Weight Watchers, she chronicles the deep parallels, and enduring frustrations, in each woman's decades-long efforts to lose weight and keep it off. The result is funny, unexpected, and unforgettable: a testament to how transformation goes far beyond a number on the scale.