Changing Cadence: Meditations on Life, Family and Country from a Leather Bicycle Seat


Michael Dillon - 2014
    It’s a story common to many, but Dillon's response was far from expected. Instead of searching for new employment, he bought a bicycle, loaded it with camping gear and pedaled alone across the United States. Changing Cadence recounts the story of Dillon's travels through the farming and fishing communities of the South; the ranch lands and Bible Belt of Texas; the lonely deserts of New Mexico and Arizona; and finally up the coast of California. Along the way, he crosses paths with others who share his need for wanderlust: the brokenhearted woman from London exploring the West alone on a motorcycle; the pair of college students walking across the country in support of the Tea Party; the woman hiking the circumference of the country on a prosthetic leg (along with her three-legged dog); and fellow cyclists like Don, a middle-aged, yarn-spinning, former Marine with a grey ponytail and a penchant for McDonald’s Egg McMuffins. Over the course of more than 3,500 miles, Dillon rediscovers himself, his family and his country, and learns that it’s never too late for a little adventure.

One Hundred Steps: The Story of Captain Sir Tom Moore


Adam Larkum - 2020
    Fully illustrated for younger readers, and following the key moments from Captain Tom's incredible life, the book shows what is possible when we come together and never, ever give up.

Flora


Gail Godwin - 2013
    She lost her mother some years before, and her beloved grandmother has just passed away. And now her father has left town to work on a top-secret military project at Oak Ridge during the final months of World War II. Helen is wise beyond her years, but a ten-year-old cannot be left on her own to fend for herself. Her father arranges a summer guardian, Flora, her late mother's twenty-two-year-old first cousin who cries at the drop of a hat. A fiercely imaginative child, Helen is desperate to keep her house intact, with all its ghosts and stories. Flora is the good-hearted, modest cousin who wants to do her best for Helen. Their relationship and its fallout, played out against a backdrop of a lost America, will haunt Helen for the rest of her life.

The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain


Eugene Yelchin - 2021
    In the tiny apartment he shares with his Baryshnikov-obsessed mother, poetry-loving father, continually outraged grandmother, and safely talented brother, all Yevgeny has is his little pencil, the underside of a massive table, and the doodles that could change everything. With equal amounts charm and solemnity, award-winning author and artist Eugene Yelchin recounts in hilarious detail his childhood in Cold War Russia as a young boy desperate to understand his place in his family.

Now Beacon, Now Sea: A Son's Memoir


Christopher Sorrentino - 2021
    Victoria's life took her to the heart of New York's vibrant mid-century downtown artistic scene, to the sedate campus of Stanford, and finally back to Brooklyn--a journey witnessed by a son who watched, helpless, as she grew more and more isolated, distancing herself from everyone and everything she'd ever loved.In examining the mystery of his mother's life, from her dysfunctional marriage to his heedless father, the writer Gilbert Sorrentino, to her ultimate withdrawal from the world, Christopher excavates his own memories and family folklore in an effort to discover her dreams, understand her disappointments, and peel back the ways in which she seemed forever trapped between two identities: the Puerto Rican girl identified on her birth certificate as Black, and the white woman she had seemingly decided to become. Meanwhile Christopher experiences his own transformation, emerging from under his father's shadow and his mother's thumb to establish his identity as a writer and individual--one who would soon make his own missteps and mistakes.Unfolding against the captivating backdrop of a vanished New York, a city of cheap bohemian enclaves and a thriving avant-garde--a dangerous, decaying, but liberated and potentially liberating place--Now Beacon, Now Sea is a matchless portrait of the beautiful, painful messiness of life, and the transformative power of even conflicted grief.

Still Life in Milford: Poems


Thomas Lynch - 1998
    "[Thomas Lynch's] poems . . . are as stark and graceful as geese lifting off backwater. The poems trace from the rural midwest to London and County Clare, a quiet elegy of loss and testament. But then Lynch is by trade a mortician, and by craft a bard."—Amazon.com "[Lynch] evinces a steady wisdom drawn from years of passionate attention to daily experience."—Seattle Weekly

In a Perfect World


Trish Doller - 2017
    Caroline is now expected to spend her summer and her senior year in a foreign country, away from her friends, her home, and everything she’s ever known.With this move, Caroline predicts she’ll spend her time navigating crowded streets, eating unfamiliar food, and having terrible bouts of homesickness. But when she finds instead is a culture that surprises her, a city that astounds her, and a charming, unpredictable boy who challenges everything she thought she knew about life, love, and privilege.

Measuring Up


Lily LaMotte - 2020
    Can Cici find a winning recipe to reunite with A-má, a way to fit in with her new friends, and somehow find herself too?

In the Shadow of the Banyan


Vaddey Ratner - 2012
    Soon the family's world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labor, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood - the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival. Displaying the author's extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is testament to the transcendent power of narrative and a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience.

We Were Gonna Have a Baby, But We Had an Angel Instead


Pat Schwiebert - 2003
    A new book from the author of "When Hello Means Goodbye." Created especially for children who are suffering the loss of their families pregnancy.

Towers Falling


Jewell Parker Rhodes - 2016
    She sets off on a journey of discovery, with new friends Ben and Sabeen by her side. But just as she gets closer to answering big questions about who she is, what America means, and how communities can grow (and heal), she uncovers new questions, too. Like, why does Pop get so angry when she brings up anything about the towers?Award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes tells a powerful story about young people who weren't alive to witness this defining moment in history, but begin to realize how much it colors their every day.

Mother Land


Leah Franqui - 2020
    Blessed with a curious mind and an independent spirit, Rachel is determined to learn her way around the hot, noisy, seemingly infinite metropolis she now calls home. But the ex-pat American’s sense of adventure is sorely tested when her mother-in-law, Swati, suddenly arrives from Kolkata—a thousand miles away—alone, with an even more shocking announcement: she’s left her husband of more than forty years and moving in with them. Nothing the newlyweds say can budge the steadfast Swati, and as the days pass, it becomes clear she is here to stay—an uneasy situation that becomes more difficult when Dhruv is called away on business. Suddenly these two strong-willed women from such very different backgrounds, who see life so differently, are alone together in a home that each is determined to run in her own way—a situation that ultimately brings into question the very things in their lives that had seemed perfect and permanent . . . with results neither of them expect.Heartfelt, charming, deeply insightful and wise, Mother Land introduces us to two very different women from very different cultures . . . who maybe aren’t so different after all.

The Summer Guest


Justin Cronin - 2004
    He comes bearing two things: his wish for a day of fishing in a place that has brought him solace for thirty years, and an astonishing bequest that will forever change the lives of those around him.From the battlefields of Italy to the turbulence of the Vietnam era, to the private battles of love and family, The Summer Guest reveals the full history of this final pilgrimage and its meaning for four people: Jordan Patterson, the haunted young man who will guide Harry on his last voyage out; the camp’s owner Joe Crosby, a Vietnam draft evader who has spent a lifetime “trying to learn what it means to be brave”; Joe’s wife, Lucy, the woman Harry has loved for three decades; and Joe and Lucy’s daughter Kate—the spirited young woman who holds the key to the last unopened door to the past.As their stories unfold, secrets are revealed, courage is tested, and the bonds of love are strengthened. And always center stage is the place itself—a magical, forgotten corner of New England where the longings of the human heart are mirrored in the wild beauty of the landscape.

Balarama: A Royal Elephant


Ted Lewin - 2009
    Ted and Betsy Lewin_s illustrated travelogue of their trip to southern India, where they meet Balarama, the lead Royal Elephant who will make his debut in the traditional parade that concludes the celebration of Dasara in the city of Mysore.

Stern Men


Elizabeth Gilbert - 2000
    Now, Penguin is publishing a new edition of Gilbert's wise and charming novel for the millions of readers who devoured Eat, Pray, Love and remain hungry for more. Off the coast of Maine, Ruth Thomas is born into a feud fought for generations by two groups of local lobstermen over fishing rights for the waters that lie between their respective islands. At eighteen, she has returned from boarding school-smart as a whip, feisty, and irredeemably unromantic—determined to throw over her education and join the "stern men"working the lobster boats. Gilbert utterly captures the American spirit through an unforgettable heroine who is destined for greatness—and love—despite herself.