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Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart
by Candace FlemingFrom the acclaimed author of The Great and Only Barnum - as well as The Lincolns, Our Eleanor, and Ben Franklin's Almanac - comes the thrilling story of America's most celebrated flyer, Amelia Earhart. In alternating chapters, Fleming deftly moves readers back and forth between Amelia's life (from childhood up until her last flight) and the exhaustive search for her and her missing plane. With incredible photos, maps, and handwritten notes from Amelia herself-plus informative sidebars tackling everything from the history of flight to what Amelia liked to eat while flying (tomato soup) - this unique nonfiction title is tailor-made for middle graders.
Hidden Girl
by Lisa Wysocky Shyima HallAn inspiring and compelling memoir from a young woman who lost her childhood to slavery--and built a new life grounded in determination and justice.Shyima Hall was born in Egypt on September 29, 1989, the seventh child of desperately poor parents. When she was eight, her parents sold her into slavery. Shyima then moved two hours away to Egypt's capitol city of Cairo to live with a wealthy family and serve them eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. When she was ten, her captors moved to Orange County, California, and smuggled Shyima with them. Two years later, an anonymous call from a neighbor brought about the end of Shyima's servitude--but her journey to true freedom was far from over. A volunteer at her local police department since she was a teenager, Shyima is passionate about helping to rescue others who are in bondage. Now a US citizen, she regularly speaks out about human trafficking and intends to one day become an immigration officer. In Hidden Girl, Shyima candidly reveals how she overcame her harrowing circumstances and brings vital awareness to a timely and relevant topic.
Just Jesus
by Walter Wink Steven BerryUntil his death in 2012, Walter Wink was one of the most influential Christian intellectuals of our time. He was a pastor and theologian, a political activist and a writer. He first becme a practitioner of active nonviolence during the Civil Rights Movement in Selma Alabama, and continued to seek social justice for all under dictatorships in Chile and the apartheid in South Africa. Always through the lens of Jesus, Wink's life and work demonstrate just how important the need to understand "the Son of the Man" is in today's modern world. Wink shows us that inspiration and insight can come from any source: a Pentecostal Church in Oklahoma, dreams, Buddhist meditation centers, childhood traumas, an empty forest, illness, and the Gospels. Wink's work in social justice and his life as a theologian are inextricably entwined, finding evidence for nonviolent resistance in the Bible and seeing the need for Jesus in daily struggles. "An autobiography of my interest in Jesus, perhaps that is too ambitious," writes Wink. "What I have done here is far less grand. I have simply written down vignettes, or excerpts of my life's story that I find interesting. These autobiographical reflections are in no way exceptional. Everyone has a life story. My story may, at the very least, show why I theologically think the way that I do." Just Jesus is the jubilant autobiography of the man who sought justice in all walks of life, including his own.
Cut Me Loose
by Leah VincentIn the vein of Prozac Nation and Girl, Interrupted, an electrifying memoir about a young woman's promiscuous and self-destructive spiral after being cast out of her ultra-Orthodox Jewish family Leah Vincent was born into the Yeshivish community, a fundamentalist sect of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. As the daughter of an influential rabbi, Leah and her ten siblings were raised to worship two things: God and the men who ruled their world. But the tradition-bound future Leah envisioned for herself was cut short when, at sixteen, she was caught exchanging letters with a male friend, a violation of religious law that forbids contact between members of the opposite sex. Leah's parents were unforgiving. Afraid, in part, that her behavior would affect the marriage prospects of their other children, they put her on a plane and cut off ties. Cast out in New York City, without a father or husband tethering her to the Orthodox community, Leah was unprepared to navigate the freedoms of secular life. She spent the next few years using her sexuality as a way of attracting the male approval she had been conditioned to seek out as a child, while becoming increasingly unfaithful to the religious dogma of her past. Fast-paced, mesmerizing, and brutally honest, Cut Me Loose tells the story of one woman's harrowing struggle to define herself as an individual. Through Leah's eyes, we confront not only the oppressive world of religious fundamentalism, but also the broader issues that face even the most secular young women as they grapple with sexuality and identity.
Confessions of Joan The Tall
by Joan Cusack HandlerFreedom and awakening of an adolescent, Bronx bred, Irish Catholic girl.
Sleeping Where I Fall: A Chronicle
by Peter CoyoteIn his energetic, funny, and intelligent memoir, Peter Coyote relives his fifteen-year ride through the heart of the counterculture -- a journey that took him from the quiet rooms of privilege as the son of an East Coast stockbroker to the riotous life of political street theater and the self-imposed poverty of the West Coast communal movement known as The Diggers. With this innovative collective of artist-anarchists who had assumed as their task nothing less than the re-creation of the nation's political and social soul, Coyote and his companions soon became power players. In prose both graphic and unsentimental, Coyote reveals the corrosive side of love that was once called "free"; the anxieties and occasional terrors of late-night, drug-fueled visits of biker gangs looking to party; and his own quest for the next high. His road through revolution brought him to adulthood and to his major role as a political strategist: from radical communard to the chairman of the California Arts Council, from a street theater apprentice to a motion-picture star.
Marty Feldman: The Biography of a Comedy Legend
by Robert RossMike Myers thinks he was "a genius", while John Cleese regards him as "a true cultural icon". He was an architect of British comedy, paving the way for Monty Python, and then became a major Hollywood star, forever remembered as Igor in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. A writer, director, performer and true pioneer of his art, he died aged only 48.His name was Marty Feldman, and here, at last, is the first ever biography. Acclaimed author Robert Ross has interviewed Marty's friends and family, including his sister Pamela, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, and also draws from extensive, previously unpublished and often hilarious interviews with Marty himself, taped in preparation for the autobiography he never wrote. No one before or since has had a career quite like Marty's. Beginning in the dying days of variety theatre, he went from the behind the scenes scriptwriting triumphs of Round the Horne andThe Frost Report to onscreen stardom in At Last the 1948 Show and his own hit series Marty. That led to transatlantic success, his work with Mel Brooks, and a five-picture deal to write and direct his own movies.From his youth as a tramp on the streets of London, to the height of his fame in America - where he encountered everyone from Orson Welles to Kermit the Frog, before his Hollywood dream became a nightmare - this is the fascinating story of a key figure in the history of comedy, told in full for the first time.
Living Stones of the Himalayas: Adventures of an American Couple in Nepal
by Thomas HaleSince 1970, the team of Thomas Hale and his wife, Cynthia, have struggled to serve God as medical doctors in the remote storybook kingdom of Nepal. In the process they have experienced both the hardships and the blessings of bringing Western medicine to people who distrust -- even fear -- ideas differing from their own. n the same process, by their selfless love and caring, they have gained the affection and trust of their Nepali patients and neighbors. In this true story, the faith and humility of doctors Tom and Cynthia Hale are matched by the beguiling personality and character of the Nepalese people, the majority of whom are subsistence farmers who share much in common with the poor of all developing countries. Living Stones of the Himalayas, like its predecessors Don't Let the Goats Eat the Loquat Trees and On the Far Side of Liglig Mountain, is a graphic portrait of the human condition and the growing pains of the unique and intriguing land of Nepal with its astonishing beauty that exists side by side with: - faith and superstition - sickness and death - ancient traditions and twentieth-century innovations - courage and joie de vivre Living Stones of the Himalayas is a fascinating account of everyday and sometimes incredible experiences mingled with humor, understanding, and love for humanity. Reading it will transport you to one of the most enchanting lands away -- first class.
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom
by Rae BainsThis book focuses on the childhood and young-adult years of Harriet Tubman and the obstacles she overcame to achieve greatness. Inspirational and informative reading for students with big dreams.
Mother Seton and the Sisters of Charity
by Alma Powers-WaterThis Vision Book tells the inspiring true story of the life of Elizabeth Bayley Seton from her childhood in a distinguished New York family to her becoming a sister and foundress of an order of nuns. Born in 1774, Elizabeth Bayley grew up in a well-to-do Protestant family and seemed destined for a tranquil life.
The Snoring Bird
by Bernd HeinrichAlthough Gerd Heinrich, a devoted naturalist, specialized in wasps, Bernd Heinrich tried to distance himself from his "old-fashioned" father, becoming a hybrid: a modern, experimental biologist with a naturalist's sensibilities. In this extraordinary memoir, the award-winning author shares the ways in which his relationship with his father, combined with his unique childhood, molded him into the scientist, and man, he is today. From Gerd's days as a soldier in Europe and the family's daring escape from the Red Army in 1945 to the rustic Maine farm they came to call home, Heinrich relates it all in his trademark style, making science accessible and awe-inspiring.
Harriet Tubman: A Woman of Courage (TIME For Kids® Biographies)
by Renée Skelton Editors of TIME FOR KIDSAs a teenage slave, Harriet Tubman stood up to an overseer who was trying to harm another slave. From that time forward, Tubman fought against unfairness and for what she believed was right. She helped hundreds of African Americans escape on the Underground Railroad. TIME For Kids® Biographies help make a connection between the lives of past heroes and the events of today. Harriet Tubman's courage and ideals have inspired generations of Americans to fight for equal rights and to stand up for their convictions.
Who Was Paul Revere?
by Roberta EdwardsIn 1775, Paul Revere of Boston made his now-famous horseback ride warning colonists of an impending attack by the British. This event went largely unnoticed in history until Longfellow celebrated it in a poem in 1861. So who was Paul Revere? In addition to being an American patriot, he was a skilled silversmith and made false teeth from hippo tusks! This biography brings to life Paul Revere's thrilling ride as well as the personal side of the man and the exciting times in which he lived.
The Long Voyage
by Malcolm CowleyCritic, poet, editor, chronicler of the "lost generation," and elder statesman of the Republic of Letters, Malcolm Cowley (1898-1989) was an eloquent witness to much of twentieth-century American literary and political life. These letters, the vast majority previously unpublished, provide an indelible self-portrait of Cowley and his time, and make possible a full appreciation of his long and varied career. Perhaps no other writer aided the careers of so many poets and novelists. Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Kerouac, Tillie Olsen, and John Cheever are among the many authors Cowley knew and whose work he supported. A poet himself, Cowley enjoyed the company of writers and knew how to encourage, entertain, and when necessary scold them. At the center of his epistolary life were his friendships with Kenneth Burke, Allen Tate, Conrad Aiken, and Edmund Wilson. By turns serious and thoughtful, humorous and gossipy, Cowley's letters to these and other correspondents display his keen literary judgment and ability to navigate the world of publishing. The letters also illuminate Cowley's reluctance to speak out against Stalin and the Moscow Trials when he was on staff at The New Republic--and the consequences of his agonized evasions. His radical past would continue to haunt him into the Cold War era, as he became caught up in the notorious "Lowell Affair" and was summoned to testify in the Alger Hiss trials. Hans Bak supplies helpful notes and a preface that assesses Cowley's career, and Robert Cowley contributes a moving foreword about his father.
Your Life Without Limits (10-pk): Living Above Your Circumstances
by Nick Vujicic"As a teenager Nick Vujicic wondered how he ever could have a "normal life." Born without arms and legs, Nick questioned how he would finish school, find a job, enjoy relationships, and not be a burden to others. He even contemplated suicide before realizing that his challenges did not need to limit his life." In this book, the author encourages people to move forward despite the problems and limitations they have in order to reach their full potentials and live the lives that God meant them to live. He urges people to reach out to others for support when things get difficult for them. As he inspires others to live their lives, he wants his readers to encourage others to do the same. "Look for Nick Vujicic's inspiring story in his full-length books Life Without Limits and Unstoppable."
The Goat Lady
by Jane Bregoli"From the day we moved into our new home, we were fascinated by a nearby farmhouse. Most of the homes in our neighborhood were new, freshly painted, with neatly mowed lawns, but the old farmhouse on the corner of Lucy Little Road was different from the others. That house's paint was peeling, its doors hung crookedly from their hinges, and the yard was full of white goats. We liked to watch the frisky baby goats. They pranced up the porch steps, hopped onto rusty barrels, and even jumped onto their mothers' backs! ..."
Good Prose
by Richard Todd Tracy KidderGood Prose is an inspiring book about writing--about the creation of good prose--and the record of a warm and productive literary friendship. The story begins in 1973, in the offices of The Atlantic Monthly, in Boston, where a young freelance writer named Tracy Kidder came looking for an assignment. Richard Todd was the editor who encouraged him. From that article grew a lifelong association. Before long, Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine, the first book the two worked on together, had won the Pulitzer Prize. It was a heady moment, but for Kidder and Todd it was only the beginning of an education in the art of nonfiction. Good Prose explores three major nonfiction forms: narratives, essays, and memoirs. Kidder and Todd draw candidly, sometimes comically, on their own experience--their mistakes as well as accomplishments--to demonstrate the pragmatic ways in which creative problems get solved. They also turn to the works of a wide range of writers, novelists as well as nonfiction writers, for models and instruction. They talk about narrative strategies (and about how to find a story, sometimes in surprising places), about the ethical challenges of nonfiction, and about the realities of making a living as a writer. They offer some tart and emphatic opinions on the current state of language. And they take a clear stand against playing loose with the facts. Their advice is always grounded in the practical world of writing and publishing. Good Prose--like Strunk and White's The Elements of Style--is a succinct, authoritative, and entertaining arbiter of standards in contemporary writing, offering guidance for the professional writer and the beginner alike. This wise and useful book is the perfect companion for anyone who loves to read good books and longs to write one.Praise for Good Prose "Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction takes us into the back room behind the shop, where strong, effective, even beautiful sentences are crafted. Tracy Kidder and his longtime editor, Richard Todd, offer lots of useful advice, and, still more, they offer insight into the painstaking collaboration, thoughtfulness, and hard work that create the masterful illusion of effortless clarity."--Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern"Good Prose offers consummate guidance from one of our finest writers and his longtime editor. Explaining that 'the techniques of fiction never belonged exclusively to fiction,' Kidder and Todd make a persuasive case that 'no techniques of storytelling are prohibited to the nonfiction writer, only the attempt to pass off invention as facts.' Writers of all stripes, from fledgling journalists to essayists of the highest rank, stand to benefit from this engrossing manual."--Jon Krakauer, author of Into the Wild "What a pleasure to read a book about good prose written in such good prose! It will make many of its readers better writers (though none as good as Tracy Kidder, who sets an impossible standard), and it will make all of them wish they could hire Richard Todd to work his editorial magic on their words."--Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Lillian Hellman
by Dorothy GallagherGlamorous, talented, audacious--Lillian Hellman knew everyone, did everything, had been everywhere. By the age of twenty-nine she had written The Children’s Hour, the first of four hit Broadway plays, and soon she was considered a member of America’s first rank of dramatists, a position she maintained for more than twenty-five years. Apart from her literary accomplishments--eight original plays and three volumes of memoirs--Hellman lived a rich life filled with notable friendships, controversial political activity, travel, and love affairs, most importantly with Dashiell Hammett. But by the time she died, the truth about her life and works had been called into question. Scandals attached to her name, having to do with sex, with money, and with her own veracity. Dorothy Gallagher confronts the conundrum that was Lillian Hellman--a woman with a capacity to inspire outrage as often as admiration. Exploring Hellman’s leftist politics, her Jewish and Southern background, and her famous testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Gallagher also undertakes a new reading of Hellman’s carefully crafted memoirs and plays, in which she is both revealed and hidden. Gallagher sorts through the facts and the myths, arriving at a sharply drawn portrait of a woman who lived large to the end of her remarkable life and never backed down from a fight.
The Danube
by Nick Thorpehopkeepers, beekeepers, waitresses, smugglers and border policemen, legal and illegal immigrants, and many more. For readers who anticipate their own journeys on the Danube, as well as those who only dream of seeing the great river, this book will be a unique and treasured guide.
My Bondage and My Freedom
by David W. Blight Frederick DouglassBorn into slavery in 1818, Frederick Douglass escaped to freedom and became a passionate advocate for abolition and social change and the foremost spokesperson for the nation’s enslaved African American population in the years preceding the Civil War. My Bondage and My Freedom is Douglass’s masterful recounting of his remarkable life and a fiery condemnation of a political and social system that would reduce people to property and keep an entire race in chains. This classic is revisited with a new introduction and annotations by celebrated Douglass scholar David W. Blight. Blight situates the book within the politics of the 1850s and illuminates how My Bondage represents Douglass as a mature, confident, powerful writer who crafted some of the most unforgettable metaphors of slavery and freedom—indeed of basic human universal aspirations for freedom—anywhere in the English language.
Titus: Brothers And Sisters In Faith)
by Ken StenstrupHuman beings are embedded in a set of social relations. A social network is one way of conceiving that set of relations in terms of a number of persons connected to one another by varying degrees of relatedness. In the early Jesus group documents featuring Paul and coworkers, it takes little effort to envision the apostle's collection of friends and friends of friends that is the Pauline network. The persons who constituted that network are the focus of this set of books. For Christians of the Western tradition, these persons are significant ancestors in faith. While each of them is worth knowing by themselves, it is largely because of their standing within that web of social relations woven about and around Paul that they are of lasting interest. Through this series we hope to come to know those persons in ways befitting their first-century Mediterranean culture. Paul's network is a complex collection of people, many of whom receive only the slightest acknowledgment in the New Testament. While Titus receives more than a cursory mention, the writings that include him come from different generations of Jesus followers. In "Titus: Honoring the Gospel of God, " Ken Stenstrup makes the distinction between these generations of writings and, by employing social-scientific methods, uses Titus to shed light on Paul as a change agent and leader. As one of Paul's coworkers, Titus provided stability and guidance to early Jesus groups. He was welcomed by these groups and reported their hospitality to Paul. Stenstrup emphasizes the collectivistic culture of the first century and explains how this influenced the relationships between Paul, Titus, and the early Jesus groups. "Ken Stenstrup teaches a variety of introductory level Scripture courses at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. For several years he has been a member of the Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation task force of the Catholic Biblical Association. "
The Remembered Gate: Memoirs by Alabama Writers
by Jay Lamar Jeanie ThompsonA collection of essays from 19 nationally known writers from Alabama, reflecting on artistic self-discovery and regional awareness.
Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration
by Jonathan J. ArnoldThis book provides a new interpretation of the fall of the Roman Empire and the barbarian kingdom known conventionally as Ostrogothic Italy. Relying primarily on Italian textual and material evidence, and in particular the works of Cassiodorus and Ennodius, Jonathan J. Arnold argues that contemporary Italo-Romans viewed the Ostrogothic kingdom as the Western Roman Empire and its barbarian king, Theoderic (r. 489/93 526), as its emperor. Investigating conceptions of Romanness, Arnold explains how the Roman past, both immediate and distant, allowed Theoderic and his Goths to find acceptance in Italy as Romans, with roles essential to the Empire's perceived recovery. Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration demonstrates how Theoderic's careful attention to imperial traditions, good governance, and reconquest followed by the re-Romanization of lost imperial territories contributed to contemporary sentiments of imperial resurgence and a golden age. There was no need for Justinian to restore the Western Empire: Theoderic had already done so.
Eminent Economists II
by Michael Szenberg Lall B. RamrattanThe sequel to Eminent Economists, this book presents the ideas of some of the most outstanding economists of the past half century. The contributors, representing divergent points of the ideological compass, present their life philosophies and reflect on their conceptions of human nature, society, justice, and the source of creative impulse. These self-portraits reveal details of the economists' personal and professional lives that capture the significance of the total person. The essays represent streams of thought that lead to the vast ocean of economics, where gems of the discipline lie, and the volume will appeal to a wide array of readers, including professional economists, students, and laypersons who seek a window into the heart of this complex field. The contributors include Alan S. Blinder, Clair Brown, John Y. Campbell, Vincent P. Crawford, Paul Davidson, Angus Deaton, Harold Demsetz, Peter Diamond, Avinash Dixit, Barry Eichengreen, Jeffrey Frankel, Richard B. Freeman, Benjamin M. Friedman, John Hull, Michael D. Intriligator, Peter B. Kenen, Anne O. Krueger, Helen F. Ladd, Harry M. Markowitz, Frederic S. Mishkin, Elinor Ostrom, Anwar Shaikh, Jeremy J. Siegel, Vernon L. Smith, Robert M. Stern, Myra H. Strober, Hal R. Varian, Michelle J. White, and Marina V. N. Whitman.
Anton Chekhov's Short Stories
by Anton Chekhov Ralph E. MatlawA selection that gives the general picture of Chekhov's work that reflects his major concerns, techniques, and attitudes, and includes most of his best and most popular stories, selections from Chekhov's Letters and criticism.