The son of an Alabama sharecropper, and now a sixth-term United States Congressman, John Lewis has led an extraordinary life, one that found him at the epicenter of the civil rights movement in the late '50s and '60s. As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis was present at all the major battlefields of the movement. Arrested more than forty times and severely beaten on several occasions, he was one of the youngest yet most courageous leaders. Written with charm, warmth, and honesty, Walking with the Wind offers rare insight into the movement and the personalities of all the civil rights leaders-what was happening behind the scenes, the infighting, struggles, and triumphs. Lewis takes us from the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he led more than five hundred marchers on what became known as "Bloody Sunday." While there have been exceptional books on the movement, there has never been a front-line account by a man like John Lewis. A true American hero, his story is "destined to become a classic in civil rights literature." (Los Angeles Times)

    'Santaland Diaries' contains six of David Sedaris' most profound Christmas stories, from Dinah, the Christmas Whore to Season's Greetings to our Friends and Family.

    From the unforgettable moment when a wild chimpanzee gently grasps her hand to the terror of a hostage-taking and the sorrow of her husband's death. Here, thoughtfully exploring the challenges of both science and the soul, she offers an inspiring, optimistic message as profound as the knowledge she brought back from the forests, and that gives us all...reason for hope.

    I didn't know that if a girl broke your heart, another girl, virtuous at least in spirit, could mend it on the same night. And I didn't know that the enthalpy decrease in a converging passage could be transformed into jet kinetic energy if a divergent passage was added. The other boys discovered their own truths when we built our rockets, but those were mine."So begins Homer "Sonny" Hickam Jr.'s extraordinary memoir of life in Coalwood, West Virginia - a hard-scrabble little mining company town where the only things that mattered were coal mining and high school football and where the future was regarded with more fear than hope. Looking back after a distinguished NASA career, Hickam shares the story of his youth, taking readers into the life of the little mining town of Coalwood and the boys who would come to embody its dreams. In 1957 a young man watched the Soviet satellite Sputnik shoot across the Appalachian sky and soon found his future in the stars. 'Sonny' and a handful of his friends, Roy Lee Cook, Sherman O'Dell and Quentin Wilson were inspired to start designing and launching the home-made rockets that would change their lives forever.Step by step, with the help (and occasional hindrance) of a collection of unforgettable characters, the boys learn not only how to turn scrap into sophisticated rockets that fly miles into the sky, but how to sustain their dreams as they dared to imagine a life beyond its borders in a town that the postwar boom was passing by.A powerful story of growing up and of getting out, of a mother's love and a father's fears, Homer Hickam's memoir Rocket Boys proves, like Angela's Ashes and Russell Baker's Growing Up before it, that the right storyteller and the right story can touch readers' hearts and enchant their souls.A uniquely endearing book with universal themes of class, family, coming of age, and the thrill of discovery, Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys is evocative, vivid storytelling at its most magical.In 1999, Rocket Boys was made into a Hollywood movie named October Sky starring Chris Cooper, Jake Gyllenhaal and Laura Dern. October Sky is an anagram of Rocket Boys. It is also used in a period radio broadcast describing Sputnik 1 as it crossed the 'October sky'. Homer Hickam stated that "Universal Studios marketing people got involved and they just had to change the title because, according to their research, women over thirty would never see a movie titled Rocket Boys" so Universal Pictures changed the title to be more inviting to a wider audience. The book was later re-released with the name October Sky in order to capitalize on interest in the movie.

    She traveled alone across the dangerous Somali desert to Mogadishu — the first leg of a remarkable journey that would take her to London, where she worked as a house servant; then to nearly every corner of the globe as an internationally renowned fashion model; and ultimately to New York City, where she became a human rights ambassador for the U.N. Desert Flower is her extraordinary story.

    The NKVD officer carefully designed it. He measured my size with a stick, made lines on the forest floor, and told me to dig. He wanted to make sure I'd fit well inside."In 1941 Janusz Bardach's death sentence was commuted to ten years' hard labor and he was sent to Kolyma—the harshest, coldest, and most deadly prison in Joseph Stalin's labor camp system—the Siberia of Siberias. The only English-language memoir since the fall of communism to chronicle the atrocities committed during the Stalinist regime, Bardach's gripping testimony explores the darkest corners of the human condition at the same time that it documents the tyranny of Stalin's reign, equal only to that of Hitler. With breathtaking immediacy, a riveting eye for detail, and a humanity that permeates the events and landscapes he describes, Bardach recounts the extraordinary story of this nearly inconceivable world.The story begins with the Nazi occupation when Bardach, a young Polish Jew inspired by Soviet Communism, crosses the border of Poland to join the ranks of the Red Army. His ideals are quickly shattered when he is arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to death. How Bardach survives an endless barrage of brutality—from a near-fatal beating to the harsh conditions and slow starvation of the gulag existence—is a testament to human endurance under the most oppressive circumstances. Besides being of great historical significance, Bardach's narrative is a celebration of life and a vital affirmation of what it means to be human.

    A moving account of the cruel reality of life inside a home for unmarried mothers in 1950s Catholic Ireland written by a young woman who took up a position of midwife in the home run by the Sacred Heart nuns.

    Ursula Nordstrom, director of Harper's Department of Books for Boys and Girls from 1940 to 1973, was arguably the single most creative force for innovation in children's book publishing in the United States during the twentieth century. Considered an editor of maverick temperament and taste, her unorthodox vision helped create such classics as Goodnight Moon, Charlotte's Web, Where the Wild Things Are, Harold and the Purple Crayon, and The Giving Tree.Leonard S. Marcus has culled an exceptional collection of letters from the HarperCollins archives. The letters included here are representative of the brilliant correspondence that was instrumental in the creation of some of the most beloved books in the world today. Full of wit and humor, they are immensely entertaining, thought-provoking, and moving in their revelation of the devotion and high-voltage intellect of an incomparably gifted editor, mentor, and publishing visionary.

    Four months later, unexpected events would trap Simon alone on his boat, frozen in ice 100 miles from the nearest settlement, with the long polar night stretching into darkness for months to come. With his world circumscribed by screaming blizzards and marauding polar bears and his only companion a kittten named Halifax, Simon withstands months of crushing loneliness, sudden blindness, and private demons. Trapped in a boat buried beneath the drifting snow, he struggles through the perpertual darkness toward a spiritual awakening and an understanding of the forces that conspired to bring him there. He emerges five months later a transformed man. Simon's powerful, triumphant story combines the suspense of "Into Thin Air" with a crystalline, lyrical prose to explore the hypnotic draw of one of the earth's deepest and most dangerous wildernesses.

    theaters, Jackie Chan has wowed audiences with death-defying stunts. But who really is this lightning-fast Charlie Chaplin of martial arts moviemaking? Now, in I Am Jackie Chan, he tells the fascinating, harrowing, ultimately triumphant story of his life: How the rebellious son of refugees in tumultuous 1950s Hong Kong became the disciplined disciple of a Chinese Opera Master. How the dying art of Chinese opera led Jackie to the movie business. And how he broke into Hollywood big time by breaking almost every bone in his body.

    This story begins when Daniel Baldinger divorces the wife he loves because she cannot bear children. Believing that "a man must have sons to say Kaddish for him when he dies," he marries a much younger woman, and by 1913, Daniel and his second wife Lieba have eleven children, including six sons. In this richly textured portrait, Armstrong follows the Baldinger children's lives over decades, through the terrifying years of the Holocaust, to the present. Based on oral histories and the diaries of more than a dozen men and women, Mosaic is an extraordinary story of a family and one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.

    I grieved for him for a very long time. And then, as time passed, the icy wall of grief surrounding my heart began to thaw and I began to heal. I remarried, had more children, and continued to record and release more music. I continued to live my life. And while I can never discount the time I spent with Big, I've never felt the need to live in the past. But sometimes, I still find myself thinking about Big being rushed the hospital, and I break down in tears. It's not just because we hung up on each other during what would be our last telephone conversation. And it's not because I am raising our son, a young man who has never known his father. It's partly all of those things. But mainly it's because he wasn't ready to go. His debut album was called Ready to Die. But in the end, he wasn't. Big never got a chance to tell his story. It's been left to others to tell it for him. In making the decision to tell my own story, it means that I've become one of those who can give insight to who Big really was. But I can only speak on what he meant to me. Yet I also want people to understand that although he was a large part of my life, my story doesn't actually begin or end with Big's death. My journey has been complicated on many levels. And since I am always linked to Big, there are a lot of misconceptions about who I really am. I hope that in reading my words, there is inspiration to be found. Perhaps you can duplicate my success or achieve where I have failed. Maybe you can skip over the mistakes I've made. Use my life as an example - of what to do and in some cases, what not to do. It's not easy putting your life out there for the masses. But I've decided I'll tell my own story. For Big. For my children. And for myself.

    For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony: Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, Ex Libris establishes Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists.

    Arriving at Santiago Atitlan, a Tzutujil Mayan village on the breathtaking shores of Lake Atitlan, Prechtel met Nicolas Chiviliu Tacaxoy--perhaps the most famous shaman in Tzutujil history--who believed Prechtel was the new student he had asked the gods to provide. For the next thirteen years, Prechtel studied the ancient Tzutujil culture and became a village chief and a famous shaman in his own right.In Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, Prechtel brings to vivid life the sights, sounds, scents, and colors of Santiago Atitlan: its magical personalities, its beauty, its material poverty and spiritual richness, its eight-hundred-year-old rituals juxtaposed with quintessential small-town gossip. The story of his education is a tale filled with enchantment, danger, passion, and hope.

    His masterful works--including the best selling He, She, Inner Work, and Owning Your Own Shadow-are known and loved as much for their beautiful retellings of timeless myths and folktales as for their deep wisdom and profound insight.Balancing Heaven and Earth reveals, for the first time, Johnson's own fascinating and mystical life-from his near-death experience at the age of eleven to the lifelong soul journey that has informed his writing and taught him how to live a spiritual life in the endlessly challenging modern world. Full of compelling, humorous, and surprising stories of encounters with an assortment of "sages, saints, and sinners," it lays bare Johnson's own inner world and its dazzeling landscape of powerful dreams, mystical visions, and synchronistic events.Beginnning with a vivid retelling of the childhood accident that claimed the lower part of his right leg, Johnson describes the life-defining moment when he was transported by a mystical vision to a realm that exists just beyond ordinary consciousness-a realm he calls the "Golden World." With this experience, described as "both my curse and my blessing," Johnson is launched on a spiritual quest that leads him in search of Eastern wisdom, to encounters with such wise men as J. Krishnamurti and D.T. Suzuki, and finally to Carl Jung, who shows him his destiny revealed in a dream. Johnson's experiences lead him to a unique understanding and acceptance of the slender connecting threads at work in all our lives, guiding us and shaping who we are-"call it fate, destiny, or the hand of God."As much a personal guide as a memoir, Balancing Heaven and Earth teaches us to follow , as Johnson has, the subtle influences of dreams, visions, and even our deepest sufferings in order to live attuned to our spiritual selves. A pure delight for Johnson's many fans and a splendid example of his trademark blend of illustrative myth and psychological insight, this is a work of incomparable beauty and inspiration showcasing the wisdom of a lifetime.

    The excitement began the moment "The Fourth State of Matter," one of the fourteen extraordinary personal narratives in this book, appeared in the pages of The New Yorker. It increased when the author received a prestigious Whiting Foundation Award in November 1997, & it continued as the hardcover edition of The Boys of My Youth sold out its first printing even before publication. The author writes with perfect pitch as she takes us through one woman's life -- from childhood to marriage & beyond -- & memorably captures the collision of youthful longing & the hard intransigences of time & fate.

    At thirteen, Negi yearns for her own bed, privacy, and a life with her father, who remains in Puerto Rico. Translating for Mami at the welfare office in the morning, starring as Cleopatra at New York's prestigious Performing Arts High School in the afternoons, and dancing salsa all night, she yearns to find balance between being American and being Puerto Rican. When Negi defies her mother by going on a series of hilarious dates, she finds that independence brings its own set of challenges.At once a universally poignant coming-of-age tale and a brave and heartfelt immigrant's story, Almost a Woman is Santiago's triumphant journey into womanhood.  "A universal tale familiar to thousands of immigrants to this country, but made special by Santiago's simplicity and honesty." --The Miami Herald"A courageous memoir. . . . One witnesses. . .the blessings, contradictions and restraints of Puerto Rican culture." --The Washington Post Book World

    This edition includes eight pages of new material.Long respected as one of the finest and most original of today's underground comics artists, Gloeckner shows both technical artistry and tremendous range—from her sly, lurid, and brilliantly colored posters for rock groups to her textbook-quality medical illustrations; from her sharp naturalistic juxtapositions for The Atrocity Exhibition (J.G. Ballard) to the signature comics for which she is best known.Pages include both black and white and color comics, some that were published before in obscure comic books, and some of her classics in addition to new stories. In detailed, nuanced panels, these strips depict the isolation, horror, and disappointment—but also the revolutionary, transformative power—of young women trapped in circumstances ringed with drugs and sexual abuse. Gloeckner continues as a major literary and visual artist.

    Unlike Anne Frank, Flory survived to recount this extraordinary story of persecution and survival. Her book was translated into her native language, Dutch, and was released on May 5, 2000, liberation day in the Netherlands.

    He was consequently sentenced to life in Bang Kwang prison, known as the Bangkok Hilton. This is the story of his 12 years behind bars, the abuse of human rights and the squalid conditions he endured.

    . . . If you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were." Her deliciously crafted memoir, Tender at the Bone, is the story of a life determined, enhanced, and defined in equal measure by a passion for food, unforgettable people, and the love of tales well told. Beginning with Reichl's mother, the notorious food-poisoner known as the Queen of Mold, Reichl introduces us to the fascinating characters who shaped her world and her tastes, from the gourmand Monsieur du Croix, who served Reichl her first soufflé , to those at her politically correct table in Berkeley who championed the organic food revolution in the 1970s. Spiced with Reichl's infectious humor and sprinkled with her favorite recipes, Tender at the Bone is a witty and compelling chronicle of a culinary sensualist's coming-of-age.

    With a New Afterword for this Edition.When the first 'Superman' movie came out I was frequently asked 'What is a hero?'  I remember the glib response I repeated so many times.  My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences - a soldier who crawls out of a foxhole to drag an injured buddy to safety.  And I also meant individuals who are slightly larger than life: Houdini and Lindbergh, John Wayne, JFK, and Joe DiMaggio.  Now my definition is completely different.  I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles: a fifteen-year-old boy who landed on his head while wrestling with his brother, leaving him barely able to swallow or speak; Travis Roy, paralysed in the first thirty seconds of a hockey game in his freshman year at college.  These are real heroes, and so are the families and friends who have stood by them."The whole world held its breath when Christopher Reeve struggled for life on Memorial Day, 1995.  On the third jump of a riding competition, Reeve was thrown headfirst from his horse in an accident that broke his neck and left him unable to move or breathe.In the years since then, Reeve has not only survived, but has fought for himself, for his family, and for the hundreds of thousands of people with spinal cord injuries in the United States and around the world.  And he has written 'Still Me', the heartbreaking, funny, courageous, and hopeful story of his life.Chris describes his early success on Broadway opposite the legendary Katherine Hepburn, the adventure of filming 'Superman' on the streets of New York, and how the movie made him a star.  He continued to move regularly between film acting and theater work in New York, Los Angeles, and at the WIlliamstown Theatre Festival in the Berkshires.  Reunited with his 'Bostonians' director, James Ivory, in 1992, he traveled to England to work with Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins in 'The Remains of the Day'.The Man who cannot move has not stopped moving.  He has established a charitable foundation to raise awareness and money for research on spinal cord injuries.  His work as director of the HBO film 'In the Gloaming' earned him an Emmy nomination, one of five that the film received.  His speeches at the Democratic National Convention and the Academy Awards inspired people around the country and the world.  He has testified before Congress on behalf of health insurance legislation, lobbied for increased federal funding for spinal cord research, and developed a working relationship with President Clinton.With dignity and sensitivity, he describes the journey he has made -physically, emotionally, spiritually.  He explores his complex relationship with his parents, his efforts to remain a devoted husband and father, and his continuing and heroic battle to rebuild his life.This is the determined, passionate story of one man, a gifted actor and star, and how he and his family came to grips with the kind of devastating, unexplainable shock that fate can bring to any of us.  Chris and Dana Reeve have gathered the will and the spirit to create a new life, one responsive and engaged and focused on the future.

    In this fascinating memoir, Lowry answers this question, through recollections of childhood friends and pictures and memories that explore her rich family history. She recounts the pivotal moments that inspired her writing, describing how they magically turned into fiction along the complicated passageway called life. Lowry fans, as well as anyone interested in understanding the process of writing fiction, will benefit from this poignant trip through the past and the present of a remarkable writer.

    Over the next few years, she endured starvation, brutality, and forced labor in three concentration camps. With courage and ingenuity, Susie's mother helped her to survive--by disguising her as an adult to fool the camp guards, finding food to add to their scarce rations, and giving her the will to endure. This harrowing memoir portrays the best and worst of humanity in heartbreaking scenes you will never forget.Winner of the Mildred L. Batchelder AwardAn ALA Notable BookAn NCSS-CBC Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies

    But they reinstituted slavery for the most vulnerable members of Haitian society—the children of the poor—by using them as unpaid servants to the wealthy. These children were—and still are—restavecs, a French term whose literal meaning of "staying with" disguises the unremitting labor, abuse, and denial of education that characterizes the children’s lives. In this memoir, Jean-Robert Cadet recounts the harrowing story of his youth as a restavec, as well as his inspiring climb to middle-class American life. He vividly describes what it was like to be an unwanted illegitimate child "staying with" a well-to-do family whose physical and emotional abuse was sanctioned by Haitian society. He also details his subsequent life in the United States, where, despite American racism, he put himself through college and found success in the Army, in business, and finally in teaching.

    Since losing one leg and the use of the other in a 1986 accident, Dubus has experienced despair, learned acceptance, and, finally, found joy in the sacramental magic of even the most quotidian tasks.Whether he is writing of the relationship with his father, the rape of his beloved sister, his Catholic faith, the suicide of a gay naval officer, his admiration for fellow writers like Hemingway and Mailer, or the simple act of making sandwiches for his daughters' lunchboxes, Dubus cuts straight to the heart of things. Here we have a master at the height of his powers, an artist whose work "is suffused with grace, bathed in a kind of spiritual glow" (The New York Times Book Review).

    For Fauziya Kassindja, an idyllic childhood in Togo, West Africa, sheltered from the tribal practices of polygamy and genital mutilation, ended with her beloved father's sudden death.  Forced into an arranged marriage at age seventeen, Fauziya was told to prepare for kakia, the ritual also known as female genital mutilation.  It is a ritual no woman can refuse.  But Fauziya dared to try.  This is her story--told in her own words--of fleeing Africa just hours before the ritual kakia was to take place, of seeking asylum in America only to be locked up in U.S.  prisons, and of meeting Layli Miller Bashir, a law student who became Fauziya's friend and advocate during her horrifying sixteen months behind bars.  Layli enlisted help from Karen Musalo, an expert in refugee law and acting director of the American University International Human Rights Clinic.  In addition to devoting her own considerable efforts to the case, Musalo assembled a team to fight with her on Fauziya's behalf.  Ultimately, in a landmark decision in immigration history, Fauziya Kassindja was granted asylum on June 13, 1996.  Do They Hear You When You Cry is her unforgettable chronicle of triumph.

    Find out what you truly believe. Get away from the familiar." This collection of essays stems directly from that philosophy. Here is far-flung travel (the beauty of remote Hokkaido Island, the over-explored Galápagos, enigmatic Bonaire); a naturalist's concerns (for endangered communities as well as their land) and pure adventure. Here, too, are seven exquisite memory pieces; beautiful, meditative recollections that will stand as classic examples of the personal essay.

    Words like "judgment," "faith," "dogma," "salvation," "sinner"—even "Christ"—formed what she called her "scary vocabulary," words that had become so codified or abstract that their meanings were all but impenetrable. She found she had to wrestle with them and make them her own before they could confer their blessings and their grace. Blending history, theology, storytelling, etymology, and memoir, Norris uses these words as a starting point for reflection, and offers a moving account of her own gradual conversion. She evokes a rich spirituality rooted firmly in the chaos of everyday life—and offers believers and doubters alike an illuminating perspective on how we can embrace ancient traditions and find faith in the contemporary world.

    Grace Lee Boggs, Chinese American, middle class, highly educated, discovers through her encounters with remarkable rebels, blue collars as well as philosophers, where the body is buried: who is doing what to whom in our society. It is an adventure that is truly liberating". Studs Terkel"Grace Lee Boggs has made a fundamental difference in keeping alive the traditions of the struggles for freedom and democracy". Cornel WestLiving for Change is a sweeping account of the life of an untraditional radical from the end of the thirties, through the cold war, the civil rights era, and the rise of Black Power, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panthers to the present efforts to rebuild our crumbling urban communities. This fascinating autobiography traces the story of a woman who transcended class and racial boundaries to pursue her passionate belief in a better society.Grace Lee Boggs was raised in New York City during a time when her father was not allowed to buy land for their home because he was Chinese. Educated at Barnard and Bryn Mawr, Boggs was in her twenties when radical politics beckoned, and she was inspired to become a revolutionary focusing on the black community.During her early years as an activist in New York, Boggs began a twenty-year friendship and collaboration with C. L. R. James, the brilliant and influential West Indian Marxist to whom she devotes a revelatory chapter of this book. In 1953, she moved to Detroit where, she writes, "radical history had been made and could be made again". It was also the home of James Boggs, an African American auto worker (and later author and revolutionarytheoretician) who would become one of the movement's freshest and most persuasive voices, as well as Grace's husband. Beginning with their work together on the newsletter Correspondence, Grace and James formed the core of a network that over the years would include Malcolm X, Lyman Paine, Ping Ferry, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Kwame Nkrumah, Stokely Carmichael, and inner-city youth.Rich in the personalities and anecdotes of twentieth-century progressive activism, Living for Change is an involving and inspiring look at a remarkable woman who continues to dedicate her life to social justice.

    For Ruth, a journalist, it seemed natural to write about her illness. She published only five columns for Observer Life magazine before she became too sick to continue, but her moving, funny, and very human account drew a huge response from readers all over England. Before I Say Goodbye juxtaposes these columns with correspondence from readers, e-mails to her friends, letters to her children, and reflections by her husband and her sister. The result is a courageous and moving book, entirely devoid of self-pity, that celebrates the triumph of a brave and wonderful woman's spirit. An international bestseller in England, Picardie's sobering yet ultimately life-affirming book is destined to become a classic.

    Wrapped within Danquah's engaging account of this universal affliction is rare and insightful testimony about what it means to be black, female, and battling depression in a society that often idealizes black women as strong, nurturing caregivers. A startlingly honest, elegantly rendered depiction of depression, Willow Weep for Me calls out to all women who suffer in silence with a life-affirming message of recovery. Meri Danquah rises from the pages, a true survivor, departing a world of darkness and reclaiming her life.

    The words shut up are the most terrible words I know. . . . The man who raped me spat these words out over and over during the hours of my attack--when I screamed, when I tried to talk him out of what he was doing, when I protested. It seemed to me that for seven years--until at last I spoke--these words had sunk into my soul and become prophecy. And it seems to me now that these words, the brutish message of tyrants, preserve the darkness that still covers this pervasive crime. The real shame, as I have learned, is to consent to them."After Silence is Nancy Venable Raine's eloquent,  profoundly moving response to her rapist's command to "shut up," a command that is so often echoed by society and internalized by rape victims. Beginning with her assault by a stranger in her home in 1985, Raine's riveting narrative of the ten-year aftermath of her rape brings to light the truth that survivors of traumatic experiences know--a trauma does not end when you find yourself alive.        Just as devastating as the rape itself was the silence that shrouded it, a silence born of her own feelings of shame as well as the incomprehension of others. Raine gives shape, form, and voice to the "unspeakable" and exposes the misconceptions and cruelties that surround this prevalent though hidden crime. With formidable power and in intimate detail, she probes the long-term psychological and physiological aftereffects of rape, its tangled sexual confusions, the treatment of rape by the media and the legal and medical professions, and contemporary cultural views of victimhood.        For anyone, female or male, who has suffered from or witnessed the shattering effects of rape, After Silence inspires and points the way to healing. This landmark book is a stunning literary achievement that is a testimony to the power of language to transform the worst sort of violation and suffering into meaning and into art.

    At the age of 36, Caroline Knapp, author of the acclaimed bestseller Drinking: A Love Story, found herself confronted with a monumental task: redefining her world.She had faced the loss of both her parents, given up a twenty-year relationship with alcohol, and, as she writes, "I was wandering around in a haze of uncertainty, blinking up at the biggest questions: Who am I without parents and without alcohol? How to form attachments, and where to find comfort, in the face of such daunting vulnerability?" An answer materialized in the most unlikely form: that of a dog. Eighteen months to the day after she quit drinking, Knapp stumbled upon an eight-week-old puppy at a local animal shelter, took her home, and named her Lucille. Now two years old, Lucille has become a central force in Knapp's life: "In her," she writes, "I have found solace, joy, a bridge to the world."Caroline Knapp has been celebrated as much for her fresh insight into emotional and psychological issues as she has been for her gifts as a writer. In Pack of Two, she brings the same perception and talent to bear on the rich, complicated terrain of human-animal relationships. In addition to mining her own experience with Lucille, Knapp speaks to a wide variety of dog people--from animal behaviorists and psychologists to other owners whose dogs have deeply affected their lives--about this emotionally complex, sometimes daunting, often profoundly healing alliance. Throughout, she explores the shift in canine roles from working partners to intimate companions and looks, too, at how this new kinship, this wordless bond, becomes a template for what we most desire ourselves.

    Things Seen and Unseen starts with Nora Gallagher entering the labyrinth of her life ... and ultimately it leads to the center of her being."--The Boston GlobeIt started with an occasional Sunday, a "tourist's" visit to a local church. Eventually Nora Gallagher entered into a yearlong journey to discover her faith and a relationship with God, using the Christian calendar as her compass.Whether writing about her brother's battle against cancer, talking to homeless men about the World Series, or questioning the afterlife ("One world at a time"), Gallagher draws us into a world of journeys and mysteries, yet grounded in a gritty reality. She braids together the symbols of the Christian calendar, the events of a year in one church, and her own spiritual journey, each strand combed out with harrowing intimacy. Thought provoking and profoundly perceptive, Things Seen and Unseen is a remarkable demonstration that "the road to the sacred is paved with the ordinary.""Like Kathleen Norris in Amazing Grace, Gallagher is renewing the language of ultimate concerns."--San Francisco Chronicle"The deep serenity that suffuses Gallagher's work, the lyrical cadences in which she writes, do not blunt the sharp edges of what she discovered in her quest for meaning."--Los Angeles Times

    He chronicles in this book his appointment to the local school inspectorate and then stories of various visits made, with a background cast of brilliant characters such as the chief school inspector, the dazzling secretary who is always getting things wrong, the local aristrocrat who is head of the school governors, potty schoolteachers who should have gone out to grass years ago, and divine children with superb Yorkshire humour.

    Capt. Max Hardberger and his crew fought a non-stop battle against crooked charterers, treacherous agents, and the sea itself. They came face-to-face with bandits in Jamaica, violent stowaways in the Dominican Republic, and warring gangs in post-Duvalier Haiti. It was a world of desperation and danger, where only the captain's will and the loyalty of his crew stood between the ship and disaster.

    Simpson civil trial, he was one of the few people in America who had paid little attention to the Simpson criminal trial. His first inclination was to turn down the case. But as friends and clients urged him to accept, as he got to know not only the Goldmans but the facts of the case and the human tragedy lurking behind it, Petrocelli realized this was something he had to tackle head on.Never having tried a murder case, putting his firm's considerable reputation at risk, confronting a media swarm for which he was totally unprepared, and facing an overwhelming financial disadvantage, Petrocelli nonetheless went on a personal and increasingly passionate mission to bring about justice. Triumph of Justice is a chronicle of that mission.  Petrocelli's insights, observations, and inside information not only show us how he convinced a jury to find O.J. Simpson liable for $33.5 million in the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman--proving to the American people that their legal system does indeed work--he also makes the story a compelling and exciting legal read.Among the revelations detailed in these pages:Petrocelli's ten-day, no-holds-barred deposition of O.J. SimpsonWhat Petrocelli learned from the incendiary depositions and interviews of Kato Kaelin, Faye Resnick, Marcus Allen, A.C. Cowlings, and othersThe surprising realizations that emerged from a mock jury trial, which Petrocelli lostHis dramatic face-to-face courtroom confrontation with O.J. Simpson on the witness standWhat happened that night in BrentwoodPetrocelli also offers insight into the larger issues--of race, wealth, celebrity, and police competence--surrounding the case. He places the trial in its proper context and, in so doing, examines legal questions and issues about our justice system that affect and reflect upon every one of us.Triumph of Justice proves, conclusively, that O.J. Simpson told lie after lie and that he did indeed kill his ex-wife and an innocent man. It is the story you haven't heard about the trial you didn't see and is the closest, most in-depth look at an important murder case since Helter Skelter.

    S. Naipaul is an intimate record of a literary mentorship that traces the growth of both writers' careers and explores the unique effect each had on the other. Built around exotic landscapes, anecdotes that are revealing, humorous, and melancholy, and three decades of mutual history, this is a personal account of how one develops as a writer and how a friendship waxes and wanes between two men who have set themselves on the perilous journey of a writing life.

    This exciting new series assembles key documents and criticism concerning these works that have so recently become central components of the American literature curriculum. Each casebook will reprint documents relating to the work's historical context and reception, present the best in critical essays, and when possible, feature an interview of the author. The series will provide, for the first time, an accessible forum in which readers can come to a fuller understanding of these contemporary masterpieces and the unique aspects of American ethnic, racial, or cultural experience that they so ably portray.Perhaps more than any other single text, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings helped to establish the mainstream status of the renaissance in black women's writing. This casebook presents a variety of critical approaches to this classic autobiography, along with an exclusive interview with Angelou conducted specially for this volume and a unique drawing of her childhood surroundings in Stamps, Arkansas, drawn by Angelou herself.

    Proctor has always done the time-honoured work of generations of upcoast men—hand-logging, fishing, clam digging, repairing boats, beachcombing.But Billy eventually began to notice that the thriving runs of Pacific salmon, oolichans, and herring that he remembers from his early years were vanishing—some to near extinction—and he understood that it was time to take action.Heart of the Raincoast is the fascinating story of Billy Proctor’s life, and the wealth of knowledge and understanding that can only be gained from living in such close proximity to nature. The writing is funny, touching and honest—and offers an engaging insider’s view not only of the salmon, whales, eagles and independent people who populate Canada’s wild and lovely coastal rainforest, but on what we need to do to keep it as nature intended.

    There's really no one else quite like her. She's been a pop star, a TV star, a movie star, and a wife and mother, yet as "The New York Times" has written, she's still "a funny, gutsy woman" who is also "genuine" and "down to earth." And now, in "The First Time, " Cher tells about the important first-time events in her life.

    

    Ordained at twelve, he would eventually become the first Buddhist chaplain at an American university, the founder of a retreat center and monastery, and a bestselling author. Here, Bhante G. lays bare the often-surprising ups and downs of his seventy-five years, from his boyhood in Sri Lanka to his decades of sharing the insights of the Buddha, telling his story with the "plain-English" approach for which he is so renowned.

    Here, in a fresh and vibrant voice, Meyers recounts the wake of his father's death when he was sixteen and reflects on families, farms, and rural life in the Midwest.Meyers tells the story of his life on the farm, from the joys of playing in the hayloft as a boy to the steady pattern of chores. He describes the power of winter prairie winds, the excitement of building a fort in the woods, and the self-respect that comes from canning 120 quarts of tomatoes grown on your own land.Meyers's father is the central figure that these memories revolve around. After his father's death, Meyers fills his shoes out of necessity, practicality, and respect. In doing so, he discovers that his father was a great teacher and that he is no longer a boy but a man. Perhaps the most moving passages in The Witness of Combines are filled with the simultaneous sadness and pride of growing up in response to death. Meyers recalls planting and harvesting the last crop, selling the family farm, and other stirring moments in a testament to his father, the family bond, and the value of hard work.

    A riotously funny, fiercely energetic romp, this no-holds-barred autobiography takes readers through the highs and lows of an extraordinary career, chronicling nearly four decades of dynamic music history.

    A deep-rooted fixture in the community, he guided his schools through disastrous fires and the strained process of integration in President Lyndon B. Johnson's home state. But several years ago, Lester began to show signs of Alzheimer's disease, and the author had to watch the painful transformation of his proud father into a dependent and ultimately foreign person.Into That Good Night is a son's gift. Seemingly powerless to do anything but witness the slow loss of his father's past, Ron Rozelle re-creates and reclaims his own past, the dusty streets, tired old houses, and wallpapered rooms of his childhood. Rozelle tells us of his early, confused discovery of racial inequality, his induction into the military during the Vietnam War, his decision to become a teacher himself, and the deaths of his parents. Poignant and impressionistic, Into That Good Night is a heartbreakingly lyrical memoir whose fine cadences and shimmering images will echo for a long time to come.

    The moment Lenny Klein entered her life, everything changed: she dropped out of college, began drinking, and neglected her friends and family. But then came a phone call-an accident on a snowy road had left her parents critically injured. Forced to reconsider her life, Shapiro learned to re-enter the world she had left. Telling of a life nearly ruined by the gift of beauty, and then saved through tragedy, Shapiro's memoir is a beautiful account of how a life gone terribly wrong can be rescued through tragedy.

    Driven to explore th origins of the kaddish, from the ancient legend of a wayeard ghost to a 17th-century Ukranian pogrom, he offers as well a mourner's response to the questions of fate, freedom, and faith stirred up in death's wake. Lyric, learned, and deeply moving, Kaddish is suffused with love: a son's embracing of the traditon bequethed to him by his father, a scholar's savoring of its beauty, and a writer's revealing it, proudly unadorned, to the reader.

    Now they look back on a half- century of their personal and political struggles to maintain a healthy marriage and to create the record of distinguished accomplishment that earned each a Presidential Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts.With Ossie and Ruby overflows with consummate storytelling skill developed by decades in the spotlight. From their early years as struggling actors in Harlem's black theater to Broadway and Hollywood stardom, they regale the reader with colorful, entertaining tales of the places they've been and the people they've met. But their charming humor is leavened with a more serious side, as they share their experiences of keeping a family together in a world where scandal and divorce is the rule, and of being artists and political activists in an era of intense racial ferment. Born into the struggle, their characters were shaped by the dynamic collisions of life, politics, and art; and from those experiences, they achieved some sense of their worth as married people, friends, and lovers.Warm, positive, and compelling, this is a book that will surprise and challenge readers everywhere -- black and white, male and female, young and old. Lifting the veil of public image, media hype, and mystique, Ossie and Ruby speak of the real-life dilemmas and rewards of their lifelong search for purpose and value.

    It is about choosing one’s own road, about the power of human will and the love of mankind. Thea speaks from the heart; she is real and inspiring, strong and wise – an unforgettable role model who has been called “Sister Theresa of the Middle East." This is not only an exciting and revealing personal account, but also a kaleidoscope of astonishing historical episodes from World War II, giving the reader a sense of having lived through those important events. Its narrative registers a strong protest against war and also instills in us the hope that it can one day be banished from our lives forever. This fascinating biography shows Muslim-Jewish harmony that gives hope for the future. Whoever knew that Muslim Egyptians helped Egyptian Jews save Jewish refugees from the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust during World War II? In this book, we discover how Thea Woolf initiated and led this heroic mission. The close collaboration depicted between Alexandrian Jews and Egyptians, and their vital cooperation in saving Jews from the Nazi Holocaust, is an important example of what the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians could be today. The amity with which Muslims and Jews lived in the recent past proffers the hope that it is possible to aspire to such a reality in the future.The Woman in White: An Extraordinary Life, also describes the wonderful Jewish Hospital in Alexandria, that saved the lives of many soldiers of the Allied army under Montgomery, fighting Rommel at El Alamein. This is an extraordinary book that should be read by all!

    She fought the stereotype. Then she fought the greatest force of all-- fire.When the San Francisco Fire Department broke their all-male rule to hire women, Caroline Paul never thought she'd be chosen. She had already enrolled in film school. And Caroline, a strikingly beautiful Stanford graduate, didn't fit anyone's idea of a fireman. Except her own.Even though she loved testing her limits on white water rivers or Alpine mountains, plunging into a flame-engulfed building would be different than anything she had ever done. Now, in hard-edged prose as crackling as a four-alarm fire, she tells her amazing story. From her fight to match her colleagues physically and mentally, to her silent determination to face her fears, she tells of infernos, heroism, and heartbreaking tragedy. And with a will forged by fire, she reveals one woman's realization of a dream burning in her soul.

    Like Operating Instructions and The Liars' Club, A Slant of Sun is a contemporary classic.Nearly one in five children grow up facing a developmental or behavioral challenge, and like them, Beth Kephart's son, Jeremy, showed early signs of being different: language eluded him, he preferred playing alone to an afternoon on the jungle gym. Doctors diagnosed Jeremy with a mild form of autism called Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. A Slant of Sun is a passionate memoir about how Kephart, guided by the twin tools of intuition and imagination, helped lead her son toward wholeness. Pulsing with the questions, "Is normal possible? Definable?" A Slant of Sun speaks to everyone not just parents of the redemptive power of love.

    Dubner wrote a cover story for The New York Times Magazine called Choosing My Religion. It became one of the most widely discussed articles in the magazine's history. Turbulent Souls, the book that grew out of that article, is an intimate memoir of a man in search of a Jewish heritage he never knew he had. It is also a loving portrait of his parents.Stephen Dubner's family was as Catholic as they come. His devout parents attended mass at every opportunity and named their eight children after saints. Stephen, the youngest child, became an altar boy, studied the catechism, and learned the traditional rituals of the Church -- never suspecting that the religion he embraced was not his by blood.Turbulent Souls is Dubner's personal account of his family; tumultuous journey from Judaism to Catholicism -- and in his own case, back to Judaism -- and the effects, some tragic, some comic, of those spiritual transformations. His parents were Jews, born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents, but -- independent of each other and, indeed, before they met -- each converted to Christianity, only to be shunned by their families. After their marriage, they closed the door on Judaism so firmly that their children had no inkling that their background was far different from what it seemed: They didn't know, for instance, that their mother had a first cousin named Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed for treason in one of the most controversial cases of the cold war era.Stephen Dubner's is a story about discovery: of relatives he never knew existed, of family history he'd never learned, and of a faith he'd never thought of as his own and, in fact, knew nothing about. It's a fascinating, thoughtful, and thought-provoking exploration of a subject of intense interest to spiritually minded men and women everywhere.

    Kennedy, Jr. She regarded the move as temporary and was secretly planning to return to Europe very quickly. Twenty-five years later, when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died, Marta was still with her. When she first arrived, Marta was an unusual combination of extreme sophistication and unexpected naivete not surprising, since she spent the first half of her young life in San Valentino-- population 400-- in the north of Italy and the second half in the palazzos and chateaux of various world capitals as nanny and then as companion to the daughter of a wealthy French diplomat. She had always addressed the mother of her French charge as "Madame", in the formal European way. In the new household, she called the newly married Mrs. Onassis "Madam" in the mistaken belief that that was the English version of the term. Eventually Mrs. Onassis explained its meaning in English and the slightly risque connotation, but begged Marta not to stop using it because it was "so cute".After the children left for boarding school, Marta stayed on with the family. Her role, naturally, changed and evolved from governess to housekeeper and, finally, to friend, until she became an indispensable part of the household. She ran everything, but she shone especially as a gifted cook. Whether it was birthday parties for Caroline and John over the Thanksgiving weekend in New Jersey, a barbecue on the porch of the beach house on Martha's Vineyard, or a fast but elegant dinner on Fifth Avenue before the ballet, Marta was always there, cooking for Madam.And now Marta has gathered nearly 100 of the family's favorite recipes and garnished them with her reminiscences in "Cooking for Madam". She offers the special green sauce she served with poached salmon and, in passing, tells the story of Chester, the pigeon she trained to come to the kitchen window in New York. Everyone can enjoy Marta's famous scrambled eggs and, as the eggs are being stirred in a double boiler, can read about how they were traditionally served at Christmas breakfast to Mrs. Onassis and her family.The food covers the culinary spectrum from the Christmas dinner entree, Loin of Veal Stuffed with a Morel Mousse (the recipe originally called for sweetbreads, but Madam didn't care for them, so Marta created an acceptable substitute) to the Chocolate Roll Caroline always requested on her birthday. Here is Uncle Teddy's favorite lobster salad (made with fresh corn, but no celery), the mashed potatoes Jack Schlossberg was so proud of that he had Marta come and make them for his nursery school class, and the Shepherd's Pie Diana Vreeland pronounced the best she had ever eaten.There have been millions of words written about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, but never before by a member of her household. Marta, as she herself says, "confines herself to the kitchen and the dining room." But within those cozy boundaries Marta offers a loving tribute to the woman she knew as well as anyone-- the committed mother, the doting Grand Jackie, and the wry commentator on family life.

    In the first section, "Customs," Alvarez relates how she and her family fled the Dominican Republic and its oppressive dictator, Rafael Trujillo, settling in New York City in the 1960s. Here Julia begins a love affair with the English language under the tutelage of the aptly named Sister Maria Generosa. Part Two--"Declarations"--celebrates Alvarez's enduring passion for the writing life. From the valentine to mythic storyteller Scheherazade that is "First Muse," to a description of Alvarez's itinerant life as a struggling poet, teacher, and writer in "Have Typewriter, Will Travel," to the sage and witty advice of "Ten of My Writing Commandments," Alvarez generously shares her influences and inspirations with aspiring writers everywhere.

    He discovers a world of sea-level adventure, and in the process takes a good look at Scottish identity from a unique and fascinating perspective. Sometimes harrowing, frequently philosophical, often hilarious, this book will appeal to all lovers of the coast and its endlessly varied characters, wildlife and lore. Adventure is there aplenty as he battles with whirlpools, heavy seas and hypothermia, streaks naked in front of Lady Diana, and survives a close encounter with a killer whale. The narrative is brim-full of history and folklore, disasters at sea, haunted bothies and the exploits of Celtic Saints, Viking raiders and mermaids. It is inhabited by larger-than-life characters like Tex Geddes the shark hunter, Dr Stan the cave-dweller, and a whole camp of homosexual gold panners. It is also a perceptive commentary on submarines, supertankers, and other issues threatening the Scottish coastline and its unique and fragile wildlife. 'As good a maritime sage as has ever come out of the Scottish seas.’ The Scotsman‘I don’t know whether the adventure itself or the story of it deserves the greater admiration; the combination strikes me as a triumph – which I hope will have many successors.’ BBC RADIO 4 – A Book at Bedtime‘One of the classic pieces of canoe writing. This is without doubt the best sea canoeing travel book I have ever read.’ CANOEIST Magazine‘Beautifully illustrated, by a perceptive conservationist … is both topical and entertaining.’ Canoe Focus

    Performed for a live audience and broadcast nationally over the CBS Radio network, the show became known as the "Cradle of the Stars." In this affectionate memoir, Hoss Logan recalls the Hayride's heyday with behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the dozens of musicians he knew and nurtured, including Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley, Jim Reeves, Kitty Wells, Slim Whitman, Hank Williams, Faron Young, and many more. As producer, emcee, and friend to the Hayride performers, Logan gives us a personal look into musical history - from Hank Williams's ups and downs to the teenage Elvis's first performance on national radio to the ways the Hayride's many emerging stars expanded our idea about what country music could be.

    No. 10. Transcribed by Robert R. McCausland and Cynthia MacAlman McCausland. Introduction by Pulitzer Prize winner Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. 992 pp. 38,000 entry Every Name Index, plus added indexes of places and subjects and a medical glossary. 1998 (1992) Martha Ballard made almost ten thousand daily entries during her three decades as a midwife. She reported on all 814 deliveries she attended in the Kennebec River Valley towns of Hallowell, Augusta, and vicinity; on numerous marriages and deaths; on the multitude of daily joys and cares, gossip and crops, meetings with strangers and acquaintances; and the activities of her large extended family. This is one of the few 18th century diaries by an American woman, and one of the most interesting diaries ever. If you are interested in colonial Maine, in colonial women, in diaries in general, or in women's rights and activities in particular, this book is for you! The story of Martha Ballard has been chronicled on television through the PBS stations. If you have seen this movie, you will surely want to read the diary.

    

    Original. UP.

    Four years later she had become a top television actress and movie star. She earned a Grammy, started a record label, and became the president of her own company. Today she is rap music's most enduring female force.But how did Dana Owens, a young girl from Newark, New Jersey, become Queen Latifah and make it to the top of the charts? The most powerful voice in rap has always been quiet about her life.Until now.At once autobiographical and inspirational, Ladies First is the story of a young woman, making tough decisions and terrible mistakes -- about sex and drugs and about who was real and who wasn't -- before she was old enough to drive. It is about the reign of depression that descended on her after her brother's tragic death and how she found a sustaining love in God when it seemed the world was trying to break her. Ladies First is about being confident and sensual in a big, strong body and about blocking out the junk to let in the good. It is about how anyone -- whether from the poorest means or the richest -- can hold her head high in a world full of attitude.In a queen's universe, each experience is a lesson. Keeping it real and making no excuses, Queen Latifah shares her truth about what's important in life. Full of wisdom and revelations, Ladies First will instill in you the same self-esteem, respect, and courage that brought Queen Latifah peace and her independent edge. Allow her to guide you to discover who you are -- inside and out-as you discover who she is.Ladies First is one woman's journey to find the riches that were in her life all along, and it is a message of majesty for everyone.With Ladies First, the queen who lives within all of us will rise.

    Their closest companions are loyal sled dogs and Icelandic horses, which eat fish and can withstand northern extremes. Whether taking a 1,900-mile excursion around Alaska by dog sled, defending their huskies from a charging grizzly, or dealing with a panicked horse in an airborne plane, the Collins sisters offer a new perspective on life in the northland. Theirs is an unusual lifestyle even by Alaska standards.

    Along with 31 other confused young men, he found himself in Regina, Saskatchewan, as a lowly member of Troop 18. Bald, intimidated, and soon to be bruised, Bob began a six-month ordeal that he candidly recalls in this engaging book. Corporal Teather's story brings you close to six recruits from across the country—Prairie Dog, André, Lumchuck, Francois, weird Harold Burl and Teather himself, a scrawny kid from Hamilton who often learned the hard way that "if it hurts you just tape an aspirin to it."Their experiences capture the essence of Canada and provide revealing aspects of the traditional RCMP training process. Near the end of his active career, Bob came to realize that it was Basic Training that put the Canadian in his RCMP and that bonds its members into a force capable of policing this complex country.

    As such, she has served as a model and inspiration for women from all the Buddhist traditions who have sought to revive the practice of women's monasticism in modern times. Though her renown as a teacher is widespread, few know the truly amazing details of her life before her monastic ordination at the age of fifty-eight. And what a life it was. Born Ilse Kussel in Berlin, Germany, she grew up in a prosperous Jewish family that was broken up by Nazi terror in 1938. The story of her escape alone to Scotland, and her journey to rejoin her family in China, would be enough for a thrilling adventure novel in itself—but it is only the beginning of the story. Her later adventures included—but were not limited to—surviving the Japanese invasion of China; living the life of a suburban housewife in Los Angeles, California; journeying up the Amazon; studying in a Bolivian university; building a power plant in Pakistan; and establishing the first organic farm in Australia. Her Buddhist practice was a result of a pursuit of the spiritual life that began in her forties when she encountered spiritual teachers in India. She eventually founded a monastery in Sri Lanka, from where, through her books and her teaching travels, she became one of the most widely respected of contemporary teachers, particularly skilled in interpreting the Buddhist teachings for her fellow Westerners.

    Offering fresh insights into his life, times and work, this unique book sets new criteria in evaluating Gibran.

    Bray describes with remarkable frankness growing up poor in Chicago in the 1960s, and her childhood shaped by welfare, the Roman Catholic Church, and the civil rights movement.Bray writes poignantly of her lasting dread of the cold and the dark that characterized her years of poverty; of her mother's extraordinary strength and resourcefulness; and of the system that miraculously enabled her mother to scrape together enough to keep the children fed and clothed. Bray's parents, held together by their ambitions for their children and painfully divided by their poverty, punctuate young Rosemary's nights with their violent fights and define her days with their struggles.This powerful, ultimately inspiring book is a moving testimony of the history Bray overcame, and the racial obstacles she continues to see in her children's way.

    The book sees the key to Acid House as fun, and presents a year-by-year celebration of the decade in anecdotal style.

    Naked Before God: The Return of a Broken Disciple chronicles Williams' quest to find the answer. His poetic prose, the sharpness of his wit, and the profound nature of his struggle will leave you alternating between tears of sorrow, periods of laughter, and moments of breathtaking insight.

    A deluxe hardcover collection of over 1,500 rare and unpublished photos, memorabilia and memories from the early days of the most successful theatrical rock band of all time...KISS.

    As close to an autobiography as anything we are likely to have from this quintessentially American writer, Just As I Thought gives us a chance to see Paley not only as a writer and "troublemaker" but also as a daughter, sister, mother, and grandmother. Through her descriptions of her childhood in the Bronx and her experiences as an antiwar activist to her lectures on writing and her recollections of other writers, these pieces are always alive with Paley's inimitable voice, humor, and wisdom.

    This is her story, from gypsy stock to showbiz royalty. It is a story of the 1960s, of her life with Jimi Hendrix and the truth behind his tragic death.

    Shawn's New Yorker, Mr. Mehta gives us the closest, most careful, and most refined description that has yet been written of Shawn's editorship of the magazine. He portrays in detail the peculiar, nurturing atmosphere at the New Yorker. And he recounts the series of tremors that shook the magazine in the last years of Shawn's editorship and ended in his dismissal by the magazine's new owners. This memoir is at once a tribute to William Shawn, a close look at the relationship between writer and editor, and a joyful homage to the inextricably linked arts of editing, writing, and reading.

    Dr. Vedder, who earned the Silver Star for his courageous actions while accompanying his litter-bearers to and from the front lines under fire, delivers a unique account from the vantage points of surgeon, leader, and semi-objective observer."--USNI Proceedings

    He can open doors that we never knew existed. That's what this new book, The Best of Zvi, is all about -- it's a collection of fascinating stories that vividly portray God's ability to reach people in the most unexpected ways.In 1948, Zvi arrived in Israel, an 18-year-old survivor of the Holocaust. Little did he know that his search for a new beginning to life in Israel would take a dramatic turn, introducing him to the Messiah as his personal Savior. Since then, Zvi has had countless spiritual encounters with his fellow Jewish people, as well as with his Arab neighbors and many others whom the Lord has brought across his path. His stories have become a longtime favorite among readers of Israel My Glory magazine.The Best of Zvi will leave you greatly inspired and encouraged as you see God's infinite love, wisdom, and power in action!

    With Roots in Heaven, is the story of that journey, a fascinating and moving account of a courageous woman with strong convictions and a passion to know and feel God. It is also a book that goes beyond one person's story of wandering and redemption to explore the dangers of modern religion and the joys and conflicts of intermarriage and raising interfaith children. An unforgettable story of love, sacrifice, and transformation -- of grace sought and found -- With Roots in Heaven offers hope, wisdom, and encouragement to anyone seeking deeper spiritual meaning in today's world.

    This collection of stunning autobiographical essays chronicles a lifetime of wrestling with demons and muses, chronic depression, a suicide attempt, a passionate love of jazz and blues, and unflinching honesty.

    Lawrence and Dorothy Brett. A powerful reflection and a respectful reminiscence by one of the Southwest's best loved writers.

    It includes material from the Jazzland Research Guild, an organization Barker founded in the 1940s to research the backgrounds of his colleagues. The text has been edited by Alyn Shipton from Barker's copious drafts and notes, together with transcripts of their conversations together. In it, Bolden is recalled by jazz artists Jelly Roll Morton and Bunk Johnson, with whom Danny Barker worked. The book aims to brings to life turn-of-the-century New Orleans in detail.

    Their extraordinary life stories are interwoven with the childhood and later memories of the narrator, Anna, daughter and niece of the two sisters, Hela and Janka. Through the recollections and dreams of these three voices we learn of worlds and people forever lost, of shattered hopes, of the fragility of survival, and of the power of the human spirit.

    He performed at Carnegie Hall as a member of the legendary Weavers and pioneered the use of synthesizers in pop music and film. He worked with musicians such as Mick Jagger, Frank Zappa, and George Harrison, and he contributed to the soundtrack of "Apocalypse Now" and more than 100 other films. As a recorder of natural sound, however, he has been intimately associated with even more remarkable characters: humpback whales, polar bears, silverback gorillas, and the rich sound environments in which they perform. In its portrayal of Krause's transition from pop music to the music of the wild, "Into a Wild Sanctuary" opens the door to a new and enlarged way of perceiving the natural world.

    So begins Leslie Brody's look back at her odyssey from an awkward adolescence on Long Island to paramilitary training in Chicago, communal living in Ann Arbor, a violent run-in with police in San Francisco, and finally on a quixotic journey via Amsterdam and London to meet with North Vietnamese leaders in Paris to end the war.Whether answering phones for a gay prostitution ring, trying to scam American Express, or discovering sexism to be alive and well in the communes and underground newspapers that are supposed to ring in the revolution, Brody never loses her sense of humor or idealistic fervor.Promotional plans include: -- Advertising in women's publications-- Author Tour-- Galleys available-- Co-op available

    Eddie is Tom's opposite, a friendly, athletic kid who always looks on the good side. Tom worries sometimes: does confiding in Eddie mean he's nuts? The truth is even crazier than that. Eddie and his planet are just as real as Tom and his Earth, but fifty-some years in the past. And the twins are caught up in an alien master plan that might just mean Earth—both Earths—will be destroyed. Switching places and identities, "slipping" between planets and across decades, a desperate escape, and the unraveling of deeper secrets leave Tom and Eddie aware of the danger they're facing and the tools they can use to overcome it.

    Neither Debbie Cuevas nor her boyfriend, Mark Brewster, gave much thought to the white pickup truck that had pulled up beside them on the riverfront. Until . . . a revolver thrust through the driver’s window . . . a hand jerked Debbie’s head back and a voice said, "Don’t do anything stupid" . . . and a quiet Friday evening abruptly became a nightmare. For the first time, here is the untold other half of Dead Man Walking, the movie that depicted killer Robert Willie’s death-row relationship with spiritual advisor Helen Prejean. Now the woman whose testimony helped send Willie to the electric chair tells her side of the story--the side America hasn’t heard. In gripping detail, Debbie Morris--formerly Debbie Cuevas--recounts her hours of terror . . . and her years of walking an agonizing road back to wholeness. More than a riveting narrative, here is an incredible tale of courage, faith, and forgiveness. In a world where all of us struggle sooner or later with unforgiveness, Debbie Morris is a living testimony to the grace we long for: grace that shines more brightly than we dare believe, bright enough to triumph over the darkest evil.

    Oprah fell in love with the book when it was first published in 1988, and instantly became determined to deliver this powerful story to film herself. But making the movie was something even more profound than she might have imagined, and JOURNEY TO THE BELOVED is her own emotional account of that experience.With Oprah's heartfelt words and the evocative images of Ken Regan, JOURNEY TO THE BELOVED is an elegant book that will interest fans of Oprah, of Toni Morrison, and of fine filmmaking. Accompanying Oprah's personal journals and thoughts about the Beloved experience is a foreword by Jonathan Demme and a chorus of voices, from Danny Glover, Than die Newton, Kimberly Elise, and Beah Richards. The result is a tribute to a courageous work of art, expressed as only Oprah can express it.

    He remembers the place- Sydney's Collaroy Beach in the 1950s- and he remembers how it felt. The sensations of those early rides on an inflatable rubber surfmat, "kicking and paddling into it, rushing straight down the face of wave," drove the course of Nat's life from then on. Today, with numerous world titles spanning three decades, he is generally regarded as the greatest surfer of the modern era, and one of Australia's finest ever athletes.But surfers are not like other athletes, and this book shows us why. It began as a series of short stories, drawn from Nat's dinner party tales; in the writing process it became something else entirely. What has emerged is not just yet another story of a sportsman's relentless training, ups and downs, and eventual triumph over adversity. It's a sociological journey. As Nat crashes around the world from adventure to adventure, winning, losing and everything in between, he experiences the big Western cultural shifts of the past forty years from ground level. Australia before Vietnam and during the draft; hippie 1970 Byron Bay; the good life in California with obscure surfing legend Mickey Dora; Kuta before the tourism boom; environmentalism; dope; international fame and its consequences; it's all here. As Nat says: "It's been a wonderful time to be alive and if I had it over I wouldn't change a thing- and it ain't over yet."

    First, she was an outsider to the world of racing; second, and more importantly, she was a woman in what was still very much a man's world. As she tells us in her frank and entertaining autobiography, simply titled Jenny Pitman, she overcame the first problem much easier than beating the second. Known throughout the equine world as the first woman of racing, Mrs Pitman--now Mrs Stait after marrying her long-time partner David Stait in early 1998--is still having to bang her head against the brick wall that is sex discrimination. She tells how, after entering a fitness regime at the beginning of 1998 and looking and feeling better than she had for years, a male colleague asked whether or not her sex life had improved as she appeared so fit and healthy! But racing has been Jenny Pitman's life and the book is a no-holds barred account of a truly remarkable career. After telling of her happy childhood as the middle child of seven spent on a Leicestershire farm run by her parents, she describes the happiness she felt at her teenage marriage to jockey Richard Pitman. That joy was to turn to tears 10 years later when her first husband, and father of Jenny's two boys Mark and Paul, twice walked out on her. However, the outwardly tough-as-teak Jenny gritted her teeth and got on with the job of training racehorses. Jenny has achieved success in the world's toughest races and she fully describes the joy and heartbreak of landing two (it should have been three but Esha Ness's success came in the 1993 void race) Grand Nationals. Then there were the other Grand Nationals, the Scottish, Welsh and finally to complete the set, Irish versions of the event. In 1984 she became the only woman to train a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner and followed that up when the same horse, Burrough Hill Lad, became the first trained by a woman to land the coveted Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup. That was a record which stood until Venetia Williams took 1998's running. It is a frank book which covers and fully explains her run-ins with officialdom, press and even jockeys. The lead-up to her spat with Jamie Osborne is fully explained, as are the reasons behind her famous letter to Aintree officials over the state of the ground at 1998's Grand National. All in all, an enjoyable and informative read in which Mrs Pitman, as usual, pulls no punches.

    "The Question of David" betrays stereotypes and misconceptions that are associated with the term disabled and narrates their triumphs as parents.

    Lavishly praised by critics, this is the story of a child asked to grow up too soon; of the complicated web of relationships in which we define ourselves -- loyal friends, quirky relations, and tempestuous lovers; of the lifelong labor of self-determination, and finally, of creating a personal paradise, piece by piece.

    Chris, best known for his reporting on wars around the world, takes us back to his childhood in his father's universe of Southern intellectuals and backwoods rednecks, of night-fighter pilots in the Pacific, poets in Paris, and martini-drinking ad men in Atlanta. And to the summer of 1971, when James Dickey's first novel, "Deliverance", was made into a movie.That tale of soft suburbanites forced to kill or be killed along the rushing white waters of a wild Georgia river was a huge success, and Jim Dickey, who played the sheriff in the movie, became an instant star. But it was also in that summer that the long, slow process of destruction-- of himself and of his family-- became clear. Poetry gave way to performance, and genius faded behind an alcoholic haze. Jim Dickey's world shrank to Columbia, South Carolina, where he taught at the university. His friends drifted, or were driven, away. So too his sons.For nearly twenty years after his mother drank herself to death in 1976, Christopher hardly saw his father. When they met, it was in passing and on neutral territory-- at a coffee shop at La Guardia Airport, at the university's faculty club. Always, Jim would be drunk. Chris had heard accounts of the horrors in his father's house: an alcoholic second wife, a little daughter forced to rely on her wits and will to survive. But Chris believed that there was nothing he could do about the decisions his father made.Then, in the summer of 1994, pushed by his own wife, Chris went back to South Carolina, back to his mother's grave. He steeled himself against all the madness he knew still lingered there, but hoped that by reuniting with his father he would find what was missing in himself. He discovered he had been right about the horrors of his father's life, but he also found a blood tie that could not be broken, a need for kinship that had to be satisfied. A few months later, as Jim Dickey lay in a hospital near death with liver disease, Chris and his brother, Kevin, and the thirteen-year-old sister they barely knew entered into a conspiracy to save him. And they succeeded.During the last two years of his life, Jim Dickey was physically shrunken and short of breath, but sober. He spoke, as he had not for years, with consistent, dazzling lucidity. He turned his depleting energy to his poetry and breathed new life into it. His wife, who had fought her own terrible battle with depression, slowly found her independence, while his daughter thrived in school. And Chris, whether on long drives with his father through the Carolina flatlands to the coast or sitting with him in the house in Columbia amidst the books, bows, guitars, and manuscripts, found in Jim Dickey's clear-eyed love the father he had missed for so long.Drawing on letters, notebooks, diaries, and Chris's explicit conversations with his father about what happened between them, "Summer of Deliverance" is a superbly crafted memoir of the corrosive effects of fame and an inspiring celebration of love between father and son.

    This definitive autobiography of the cartoonist ranges wide and weird, revealing him to be at once adorable, sentimental, and depraved. The accompanying cartoons--many never-before-published--touch on such subjects as penises, death, Madonna, disability, and feminism.

    While her family suffered injustice and austerity after their plantation was seized, her grandmother and Afro-Cuban nanny remained strong. They taught her the healing wisdom of curanderismo and the magical beliefs of Santeria. This memoir offers a heartfelt view of Cuba's history and culture.

    Her portrait of the chameleonlike artist is much more than an account of Bowles's life, however. It is also a meditation on biography that questions the biographer's role, the subject's credibility, and the very nature of "truth" in the telling of a life.Millicent Dillon first met Paul Bowles in Tangier in 1977, when she was writing a biography of his wife, the author Jane Bowles, who died in 1973. Dillon returned to Morocco in 1992 to work with Bowles on a book about his own life. In Bowles's book-lined apartment often crowded with visitors, Dillon observes the magnetism the aging artist exerts on anyone who comes into his circle. Bowles talks of his difficult childhood and of his grief over Jane's long illness, of exile, dreams, and madness. He is charming and evasive with Dillon, generous and devious. As the book unfolds, Dillon's own reflections and concerns surface alongside details of Bowles's daily life, his physical condition, his interactions with others. Her portrait of the artist is seen simultaneously with her construction of that portrait, and in a kind of literary legerdemain we are able to observe Dillon on the biographical canvas along with Bowles and his deceased wife.Author of the international bestseller The Sheltering Sky and numerous other works, as well as an acclaimed composer, Paul Bowles has had an immensely rich creative life. Millicent Dillon seems to have been destined to write this unconventional biography of the artist, and the result is wonderful, disturbing, and strangely compelling, like Paul Bowles himself.

    Board of Education in 1954 and the fight to implement it-and its implications for affirmative action and black poverty today.A black woman who moved in the corridors of power in the middle of this century, Constance Baker Motley has been a pioneer in both black civil rights and women's rights. As the key attorney assisting Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, she argued a dozen cases before the Supreme Court (winning all but one), and her representation of James Meredith in his bid to enroll in the University of Mississippi made her famous. Subsequently, as Manhattan borough president and a U.S. district court judge, she has fulfilled the highest aspirations of our legal and political system.This book, the most detailed account to date of the legal conflicts of the civil rights movement, is also an account of Motley's struggle, as a black woman, to succeed, a record of a life lived with great courage and responsibility.

    Fortunate to have survived, Jack was taken to a prisoner of war camp in Germany. In Destined to Survive: A Dieppe Veteran’s Story, Jack Poolton relates the story of his training, capture, and experiences in the POW camp. We follow Jack’s three escape attempts, and his subsequent punishment. And we share his elation when Jack and his fellow prisoners are liberated by American soldiers.Poolton and the other POWs never lost their desire to escape. Throughout the ordeal, Jack dreamed of one day celebrating the end of the war, and an allied victory. He eventually celebrated V-E Day in England.Written as a tribute to the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Dieppe Raid, Destined to Survive is an extraordinary contribution to Canadian military history. Poolton’s honest prose reveals the emotions of a man devoted to King and country, and determined to survive at all costs. The gripping account brings the reader to a new understanding about soldiers, prisoners, and war.