Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South


Margaret Renkl - 2021
    Now more than sixty of those pieces have been brought together in this sparkling new collection."People have often asked me how it feels to be the 'voice of the South, '" writes Renkl in her introduction. "But I'm not the voice of the South, and no one else is, either." There are many Souths--red and blue, rural and urban, mountain and coast, Black and white and brown--and no one writer could possibly represent all of them. In Graceland, At Last, Renkl writes instead from her own experience about the complexities of her homeland, demonstrating along the way how much more there is to this tangled region than many people understand.In a patchwork quilt of personal and reported essays, Renkl also highlights some other voices of the South, people who are fighting for a better future for the region. A group of teenagers who organized a youth march for Black Lives Matter. An urban shepherd whose sheep remove invasive vegetation. Church parishioners sheltering the homeless. Throughout, readers will find the generosity of spirit and deep attention to the world, human and nonhuman, that keep readers returning to her columns each Monday morning.From a writer who "makes one of all the world's beings" (NPR), Graceland, At Last is a book full of gifts for Southerners and non-Southerners alike.

The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon


Marcy McCreary - 2021
    The glamorous and gregarious matriarch, Rachel. The cunning and successful businessman, Stan. Four beautiful children. A perfect family deserving of respect and loyalty. Or so it seemed.Fast forward forty years. The Roths have lost their clout. When skeletal remains are found on the side of the road, the disappearance of Trudy Solomon, a coffee shop waitress at the Cuttman in 1978, is reopened. Each member of the Roth family holds a clue to the case, but getting them to admit what they know will force Detective Susan Ford to face a family she’d hoped never to see again.

Witch, Please: Empowerment and Enlightenment for the Modern Mystic


Victoria Maxwell - 2020
    Learn to take control of your life and reconnect with your purpose, using modern magic based on ancient spirituality.Witch, Please is a modern mystic’s practical guide to life, love, and creating a fulfilling existence—from turning your home into a sacred sanctuary and manifesting magical relationships, to loving your career, and money magic. Full of inspiration, practical advice and rituals, this book will guide you through the process of tapping into your intuition, intention, and self-empowerment to discover and harness the magic within you.

A Mirror Above the Abyss


Oleg Lurye - 2021
    The intelligent action filled with facts and evidence appears to You. It proves that global events did not happen at all like it is generally understood.So, Kennedy wasn't killed by Oswald, who had been framed in advance, but by a woman - a professional sniper who worked on an unusual order. The man who planned and carried out the September 11 attacks in New York was just one kilometer from crumbling skyscrapers. The assassination attempt on Pope John Paul was being prepared to hide billion bank scams, and the pontiff knew about it. These and other significant events of the last 60 years turn out to be interconnected, leaving the trail to a criminal syndicate ... from one person, and from him to the highest establishment and intelligence services of the United States and other countries.In these times already, the "disappeared" archives belonging to those who died because of paying too much attention to the tragic events of September 11 end up with the American journalist of Russian origin Max Malin. Exciting events and mysterious coincidences, which many choose to forget about forever, lead the hero to dark shadows from the past. As a result of a complex and risky investigation, Malin discovers the perpetrators and mandators in the most remembered political assassination of the 20th century, the September 11 terrorist attack in New York, the assassination attempt on John Paul II, and the murder of a world-known banker. The novel is set in our time, and in parallel, it takes place in the days of the above horrific events - in 1963, 1981, 1999, and 2001. The book's ending is entirely unpredictable and shocking.The characters and protagonists of the novel are real and recognizable persons - from great politicians, billionaires, ministers of the Vatican to leaders of national and world crime syndicates. Most are acting under their real names. Of course, there are fantasy characters, but they are the connecting links in the chain of events. Some of the names are encrypted and easy to guess.

Featherhood: A Memoir of Two Fathers and a Magpie


Charlie Gilmour - 2020
    Magpies, he soon discovers, are as clever and mischievous as monkeys. They are also notorious thieves, and this one quickly steals his heart. By the time the creature develops shiny black feathers that inspire the name Benzene, Charlie and the bird have forged an unbreakable bond. While caring for Benzene, Charlie learns his biological father, an eccentric British poet named Heathcote Williams who vanished when Charlie was six months old, is ill. As he grapples with Heathcote’s abandonment, Charlie comes across one of his poems, in which Heathcote describes how an impish young jackdaw fell from its nest and captured his affection. Over time, Benzene helps Charlie unravel his fears about repeating the past—and embrace the role of father himself. A bird falls, a father dies, a child is born. Featherhood is the unforgettable story of a love affair between a man and a bird. It is also a beautiful and affecting memoir about childhood and parenthood, captivity and freedom, grief and love.

The Lie: When DNA Reveals the Family Secret


Heather Dawn Gray - 2019
    Jahana continues to struggle with her grief a year after her mother's death. She wishes she knew her maternal relatives, but her mother refused to talk about them. To help her move on, Jahana's husband buys her a DNA kit. When the results come in, she discovers more than she bargained for. Her DNA reveals a family secret she would like to ignore, but can't. The Lie is too big.

Home.Girl.Hood.


Ebony Stewart - 2018
    Hood and educated AF. You've met her. Wearing all her feelings and responding with a side-eye or a tongue-pop. You've seen her. At the grocery store. In restaurants. On the subway. At the bus stop. In a car you pulled up next to blaring whatever matches her mood. Hair in some natural or protective style for the Gods. Ebony Stewart. An around the way girl. One part human, all parts womxn. You know these poems because they be familiar. They be your grandmama, mama, auntie, and sis stories. Welcome to Home. Girl. Hood.

Every Man's Bible Nlt


Stephen Arterburn - 2004
    The Every Man's Bible has thousands of notes on topics just for men--work, sex, competition, integrity, and more. This Bible also includes trusted advice from the pros: Stephen Arterburn, Tony Evans, David Jeremiah, Tony Dungy, Chuck Smith, Jr., Dallas Willard, Michael Youssef, Gordon MacDonald, Bill McCartney, J. I. Packer, Joe Stowell, Chuck Swindoll, Henry Blackaby, Stuart Briscoe, Stephen Broyles, Don Everts, John Fischer, Leighton Ford, Ken Gire, Bill Hybels, Greg Laurie, James MacDonald, Josh McDowell, James Robison, and Gary Rosberg. All of the features and notes were written specifically for men.The New Living Translation is an authoritative Bible translation rendered faithfully into today's English from the ancient texts by 90 leading Bible scholars. The NLT's scholarship and clarity breathe life into even the most difficult-to-understand Bible passages--but even more powerful are stories of how people's lives are changing as the words speak directly to their hearts.

Linea Nigra


Jazmina Barrera
    Drawing from a wide range of inspirations and traditions, from Louise Bourgeois to Ursula K. Le Guin to the influential indigenous Nahua model Luz Jiménez, Barrera’s treatise is as philosophical as it is candid. It is a book that clarifies motherhood, but also celebrates the mysteries of the body—like the linea nigra, the black line, itself.Writing over the course of her first pregnancy, birthing, breastfeeding, and young motherhood, Barrera embraces her subject fully. She intersperses notes from her reading life, making lucid connections between maternity and earthquakes, lunar eclipses, plants, and animals. She sends out an impassioned call for a great proliferation of pregnancy books: for more writing by the expectant; for a canon and a counter-canon of motherhood prose—each of them a shrine and generous guide to all of these radical acts.

The Butterfly Bruises


S. Palmer SmithS. Palmer Smith - 2021
    It is a meditation on miscommunication, childhood, Northeastern vs. Southern American culture, family, nature vs. technology, and the imagination of the introvert."From sonnets to somnambulance, from algae to oxytocin, from manatees to Manhattan, Stirling Smith rides the riptides of memory’s fictions and frictions in this prolific debut. Butterfly Bruises is a gem mine of poems and stories that write through grief and growing up, personal and planetary survival, with words rugged and glistening like seashell shards..." -Poetry Critic and Scholar, Professor Robert Dewhurst, PhD.

The Last President of Europe: Emmanuel Macron's Race to Revive France and Save the World


William Drozdiak - 2020
    Almost immediately he realized his task was not only to modernize his country but to save the EU and a crumbling international order. From the decline of NATO, to Russian interference, to the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protestors, Macron's term unfolded against a backdrop of social conflict, clashing ambitions, and resurgent big-power rivalries.In The Last President of Europe, William Drozdiak tells with exclusive inside access the story of Macron's presidency and the political challenges the French leader continues to face. Macron has ridden a wild rollercoaster of success and failure: he has a unique relationship with Donald Trump, a close-up view of the decline of Angela Merkel, and is both the greatest beneficiary from, and victim of, the chaos of Brexit across the Channel. He is fighting his own populist insurrection in France at the same time as he is trying to defend a system of values that once represented the West but is now under assault from all sides. Together these challenges make Macron the most consequential French leader of modern times, and perhaps the last true champion of the European ideal.

Jungleland: A Mysterious Lost City, a WWII Spy, and a True Story of Deadly Adventure


Christopher S. Stewart - 2013
    For centuries, it has lured explorers, including Spanish conquistador Herman Cortes. Some intrepid souls got lost within its dense canopy; some disappeared. Others never made it out alive. Then, in 1939, an American explorer and spy named Theodore Morde claimed that he had located this El Dorado-like city. Yet before he revealed its location, Morde died under strange circumstances, giving credence to those who believe that the spirits of the Ciudad Blanca killed him.Is this lost city real or only a tantalyzing myth? What secrets does the jungle hold? What continues to draw explorers into the unknown jungleland at such terrific risk? In this absorbing true-life thriller, journalist Christopher S. Stewart sets out to find answers—a white-knuckle adventure that combines Morde’s wild, enigmatic tale with Stewart’s own epic journey to find the truth about the White City.

My Money My Way: Taking Back Control of Your Financial Life


Kumiko Love - 2022
    Previous budgeting methods haven't worked because they weren't designed by you or for you. Love's original strategies will help you define your goals and achieve them on your own terms. You will learn foundational practices such as:- How to harness your emotions to make authentic money decisions, instead of letting your emotions control you - How to create a budget based on what you need to spend, not what you think you should be spending - How to create a motivating debt pay-off plan that fits your life, not a plan that's too strict to succeedLove knows this better than anyone because she's lived it. Only a few years ago, she struggled to pay her $77,000 dollar debts down while making $24,000 per year as a single mom. Every financial plan she tried failed, so she made one that prioritized her family and her sanity. Today, she's living debt-free in her dream home, which she paid for in cash, and spends stress-free time with her son every day.Love has motivated millions of women to get in control of their financial futures. Her revolutionary yet practical and accessible approach will unlock the secrets of financial fulfillment so you never have to sweat living your best life ever again.

The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation


Brenda Wineapple - 2019
    Congress was divided over how the Union should be reunited: when and how the secessionist South should regain full status, whether former Confederates should be punished, and when and whether black men should be given the vote. Devastated by war and resorting to violence, many white Southerners hoped to restore a pre-Civil War society, just without slavery, and the pugnacious Andrew Johnson, who was no Lincoln, seemed to share their goals. With the unchecked power of executive orders, Johnson ignored Congress, pardoned rebel leaders, promoted white supremacy, opposed civil rights, and called Reconstruction unnecessary. Congress had to stop the American president who acted like a king.With her extensive research and profound insights, Brenda Wineapple dramatically restores this pivotal period in American history, when the country, on the heels of a brutal war, was rocked by the first-ever impeachment of a sitting American president. And she brings to vivid life the extraordinary characters who brought that impeachment forward: the willful Johnson and his retinue of advocates--including complicated men like Secretary of State William Seward--as well as the equally complicated visionaries committed to justice and equality for all, like Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, Frederick Douglass, and Ulysses S. Grant. Theirs was a last-ditch, patriotic, and Constitutional effort to render the goals of the Civil War into reality and to make the Union free, fair, and whole.

The Book on Advanced Tax Strategies: Cracking the Code for Savvy Real Estate Investors


Amanda Han - 2020
    Are you tired of working hard all year, just to lose the largest chunk of that money to the IRS? Believe it or not, the U.S. tax system is filled with loopholes designed specifically to benefit real estate investors just like you. In this comprehensive follow-up to The Book on Tax Strategies, bestselling authors and CPAs Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland bring you more strategies to slash your taxes and turn your real estate investments into a tax-saving machine.Inside, you will learn:· How to take advantage of the tax reform benefits in all of your real estate deals· Tax-deferral and tax-free techniques to significantly increase your return on investments· How to use your rental properties to legally wipe out your taxable income· What you need to know to take advantage of the Opportunity Zone tax benefits· Tax-free methods to take cash out of a 1031 Exchange· How to supercharge your nest egg using self-directed investment strategies· Common retirement investing tax traps and how to avoid them Taxes saved means more money for you, your family, and more money to invest. Learning to save on your taxes could be the easiest money you ever make!