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Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps
by Ted KooserFrom the book: Ted Kooser describes with exquisite detail and humor the place he calls home in the rolling hills of southeastern Nebraska known as the Bohemian Alps. Nothing is too big or too small for his attention. Memories of his grandmother's cooking are juxtaposed with reflections about the oldfashioned outhouse on his property. In the end, what makes life meaningful for Kooser are the ways in which his neighbors care for one another and how an afternoon walking with an old dog, or baking a pie, or decorating the house for Christmas can summon memories of his Iowa childhood. This writer is a seer in the truest sense of the word, discovering the extraordinary within the ordinary, the deep beneath the shallow, the abiding wisdom in the pithy Bohemian proverbs that are woven into his essays.
My Lesbian Husband
by Barrie Jean BorichBarrie Jean Borich's memoir of her 14-year marriage is a subtle exploration of gender and the intricacies of butch-femme desire. My Lesbian Husband describes Borich's attraction to her partner, Linnea, and the slow building of their life together in a decaying neighborhood in Minneapolis. Borich traces both the pleasures and the wrenching difficulties of trying to construct a long-term union in the absence not only of legal and social but of everything that our aunts and uncles and parents take for granted: "names for their union in every language, the weddings of a square-chested prince and a big-busted, cinch-waisted princess at the end of every Disney movie, every Shakespeare comedy, not to Mary and Joseph, Hera and Zeus, and those little bride and groom figurines they have saved from their wedding cakes." This is as sharply observed and well-written a memoir as Jan Clausen's and Oranges, but a valentine rather than a valediction.
American Speeches: Political Oratory from Abraham Lincoln to Bill Clinton
by Ted WidmerFrom the book: Public speeches have profoundly shaped American history and culture, transforming not only our politics but also our language and our sense of national identity. This volume collects the unabridged texts of 83 eloquent and dramatic speeches delivered by 45 American public figures between 1865 and 1997, beginning with Abraham Lincoln's last speech on Reconstruction and ending with Bill Clinton's heartfelt tribute to the Little Rock Nine. During this period American political oratory continued to evolve, as a more conversational style, influenced by the intimacy of radio and television, emerged alongside traditional forms of rhetoric. Included are speeches on Reconstruction by Thaddeus Stevens and African-American congressman Robert Brown Elliott, Frederick Douglass's brilliant oration on Abraham Lincoln, and Oliver Wendell Holmes's "touched with fire" Memorial Day Address. Speeches by Robert Ingersoll and William Jennings Bryan capture the fervor of 19th-century political conventions, while Theodore Roosevelt and Carl Schurz offer opposing views on imperialism. Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell denounce the cruelty of lynching and the injustice of Jim Crow; Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Carrie Chapman Catt advocate the enfranchisement of women; and Woodrow Wilson and Henry Cabot Lodge present conflicting visions of the League of Nations. Also included are wartime speeches by George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower; an address on the atomic bomb by J. Robert Oppenheimer; Richard Nixon's "Checkers Speech"; Malcolm X's "The Ballot or the Bullet"; Barry Goldwater's speech to the 1964 Republican convention; Mario Savio urging Berkeley students to stop "the machine"; Barbara Jordan defending the Constitution during Watergate; and an extensive selection of speeches by Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. Ted Widmer, editor, is t
Behold This Heart: The Story of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
by H. HeagneyThe very popular and not always understood devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was revealed to a cloistered Visitation nun in France during the very trobled seventeenthcentury. Although the book is writtenas novel, French and English history is accurate. The book moves quickly along and the story should hold the interest of anyone committed to his devotion.
Upstairs At The White House: my life with the first ladies
by J. B. WestJ B West was Assistant usher in the white house from FDR's last term through 1969. he tells what the people who lived there were like in all phases of their time in the white house.
Kateri Tekakwitha: Mystic of the Wilderness
by Margaret R. BunsonThe first Native American beatified by the Catholic Church with the hope of sainthood.
The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew-- Three Women Search for Understanding
by Priscilla Warner Suzanne Oliver Ranya IdlibyThis book chronicles the spiritual journeys of three women as they engage in an interfaith dialogue stemming from the events of September 11th
In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954-1978
by Isaac AsimovAsimov wrote a two volume autobiography, of which this is volume II.
Loving Will Shakespeare
by Carolyn MeyerIn Stratford-upon-Avon in the sixteenth century, Anne Hathaway suffers her stepmother's cruelty and yearns for love and escape, finally finding it in the arms of a boy she has grown up with, William Shakespeare.
Absaraka, Home of the Crows: Being the Experience of an Officer's Wife on the Plains
by Margaret Irvin Carrington"With acknowledgments to Lieutenant-General Sherman, whose suggestions at Fort Kearney, in the spring of 1866, were adopted, in preserving a daily record of the events of a peculiarly eventful journey, and whose vigorous policy is as promising of the final settlement of Indian troubles and the quick completion of the Union Pacific Railroad as his "March to the Sea' was signal in crushing the last hope of armed rebellion, this narrative is respectfully dedicated. MARGRET IRVIN CARRINGTON.
Poustinia: Christian Spirituality of the East for Western Man
by Catherine de Hueck DohertyFrom the book: In writing about the poustinia, she is not writing so much about a technique of prayer as of a journey into God, her own and, if we want, ours. It is a journey filled with marvels and even terrors to be sure, but a journey open to all who want to take it. "Poustinia" sounds exotic, remote, yet Catherine shows that it is simply that secret room the Lord has told us of, where the Father will reward us with himself, in secret, if we only go there in faith. She tells us something of the treasures we will find there in God's Word-defenselessness, poverty, liberation. She shares with us her own knowledge of what it means to fight for the world at the center of that darkness that threatens to overwhelm the earth. She teaches us about beautiful gifts -tears, tongues of love, and especially the Jesus Prayerthat God will give us to heal the world's sickness. She reminds us of the hardest saying of all, that to live with Christ in his kingdom we must become as poor as he is. She reminds us too that his Mother stands with us in this place of poverty and weakness, to console us and to strengthen us with her "yes." But most of all Catherine holds up to us a vision of "cosmic tenderness." In the desert God makes our hearts like the heart of his Son, gentle, lowly, compassionate. There we learn tenderness to all his creatures, to all our sisters and brothers, and, most important of all, to ourselves. It is when we know ourselves as the joy of God, images of the Lord Jesus, that our brothers and sisters become our joy. To my mind, this is the very core of Catherine's word to us.
There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
by Paula PoundstonePaula Poundstone takes a humorous look at history and other things
Almost Like A Song
by Ronnie Milsap Tom CarterRonnie Milsap, a legend in country music, shares the story of his life including the obstacles and opportunities created by his blindness. He describes his childhood in the rural south and gives an insider's view of life at a school for the blind. He chronicles his entry into country music and shares stories about his travels.
The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day
by Dorothy DayThis is the story of Day's life and her conversion to Catholicism.
Da Vinci (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)
by Mike VeneziaA simple biography of Leonardo de Vinci for younger readers
Words that Make New Jersey History: A Primary Source Reader (expanded edition)
by Howard L. GreenThis is a collection of readings related to New Jersey history, from the colonial era to the present. The pieces reflect New Jersey's diversity and the lives of ordinary people as well as political leaders. Examples range from an advertisement for a runaway servant, epitaphs on gravestones, political cartoons, soldiers' journals, and letters written during World War II.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison A Biography
by Martin E. MartyFor fascination, influence, inspiration, and controversy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison is unmatched by any other book of Christian reflection written in the twentieth century. A Lutheran pastor and theologian, Bonhoeffer spent two years in Nazi prisons before being executed at age thirty-nine, just a month before the German surrender, for his role in the plot to kill Hitler. The posthumous Letters and Papers from Prison has had a tremendous impact on both Christian and secular thought since it was first published in 1951, and has helped establish Bonhoeffer's reputation as one of the most important Protestant thinkers of the twentieth century. In this, the first history of the book's remarkable global career, National Book Award-winning author Martin Marty tells how and why Letters and Papers from Prison has been read and used in such dramatically different ways, from the cold war to today. In his late letters, Bonhoeffer raised tantalizing questions about the role of Christianity and the church in an increasingly secular world. Marty tells the story of how, in the 1960s and the following decades, these provocative ideas stirred a wide range of thinkers and activists, including civil rights and antiapartheid campaigners, "death-of-God" theologians, and East German Marxists. In the process of tracing the eventful and contested history of Bonhoeffer's book, Marty provides a compelling new perspective on religious and secular life in the postwar era.
Anybody Can Do Anything
by Betty Macdonald"THE BEST THING about the depression was the way it reunited our family and gave my sister Mary a real opportunity to prove that anybody can do anything, especially Betty." After divorcing her first husband, Betty returns home with her two children. With humor, she tells of her many jobs, including the one where she picked up TB from a boss. (See "The Plague and I," also available from Bookshare.) She relates her daughter's escopades as they grow into teenagers, paints a picture of what it was like for some families to live through the depression.
Gallaudet: Friend of the Deaf
by Etta DegeringOn a May day in 1814, while watching his younger brothers and sisters at play, Thomas noticed a small girl taking no part. She was Alice Cogswell, and deafness shut her out of the circle. The lack of language created a barrier between her and her friends. Thomas invented a game that helped Alice for the first time in her life to understand that things have names. Thomas knew what he could do. He knew he had to bring education for the deaf to America!
Arignar Anna
by S. Shanmuga SundaramThis book is a monograph on Arignar Anna a.k.a. C.N. Annadurai. A vivid portrayal of his biography, poetry, short stories, novels, plays, cinema scripts, journals, articles and essays, letters, speeches and other creative works so much so that the reader will admire the multifaceted personality who rose to become a people’s leader using the weapons of tongue and pen.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Biography
by Andre Le Vot William ByronA carefully crafted biography with literary criticism.
In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
by Robert S. Mcnamara Brian VandemarkOne of the major decision-makers of the Vietnam War tells his story.