The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State


Nadia Murad - 2017
    A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon.On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia's brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade.Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten. Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety.Today, Nadia's story - as a witness to the Islamic State's brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi - has forced the world to pay attention to an ongoing genocide. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war.

El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Infamous Drug Lord


Noah Hurowitz - 2021
    Over the course of three decades, El Chapo was responsible for smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, meth, and fentanyl around the world, becoming in the process the most celebrated and reviled drug lord since Pablo Escobar. El Chapo waged ruthless wars against his rivals and former allies, plunging vast areas of Mexico into unprecedented levels of violence, even as many in his home state of Sinaloa continued to view him as a hero. This unputdownable book, written by a great new talent, brings El Chapo’s exploits into a focus that previous profiles have failed to capture. Hurowitz digs in deep beyond the legends and delves into El Chapo’s life and legacy—not just the hunt for him, revealing some of the most dramatic and often horrifying moments of his notorious career, including the infamous prison escapes, brutal murders, multi-million-dollar government payoffs, and the paranoia and narcissism that led to his downfall. From the evolution of organized crime in Mexico to the militarization of the drug war to the devastation wrought on both sides of the border by the introduction of synthetic opioids like fentanyl, this book is a gripping and comprehensive work of investigative, on-the-ground reporting.

Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages


Ammon Shea - 2008
    aIam reading the OED so you donat have to. If you are interested in vocabulary that is both spectacularly useful and beautifully useless, read on...a So reports Ammon Shea, the tireless, word-obsessed, and more than slightly masochistic author of Reading the OED, The word loveras Mount Everest, the OED has enthralled logophiles since its initial publication 80 years ago. Weighing in at 137 pounds, it is the dictionary to end all dictionaries. In 26 chapters filled with sharp wit, sheer delight, and a documentarianas keen eye, Shea shares his year inside the OED, delivering a hair-pulling, eye-crossing account of reading every word, and revealing the most obscure, hilarious, and wonderful gems he discovers along the way.

Miracle Country


Kendra Atleework - 2020
      Kendra’s family raised their children to thrive in this harsh landscape, forever at the mercy of wildfires, blizzards, and gale-force winds.  Most of all, the Atleework children were raised on unconditional love and delight in the natural world. But it came at a price. When Kendra was six, her mother was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease, and she died when Kendra was sixteen. Her family fell apart, even as her father tried to keep them together. Kendra took flight from her bereft family, escaping to the enemy city of Los Angeles, and then Minneapolis, land of all trees, no deserts, no droughts, full lakes, water everywhere you look.    But after years of avoiding the pain of her hometown, she realized that she had to go back, that the desert was the only place she could live. Like Wild, Miracle Country is a story of flight and return, bounty and emptiness, and the true meaning of home.  But it also speaks to the ravages of climate change and its permanent destruction of the way of life in one particular town.

Ripped Tide


Lance CarneyLance Carney - 2015
    The only things on his mind are fresh sea air, fresh seafood, Fat Tire Amber Ale, and the avoidance of any type of healthcare institution. But fate and jellyfish draw him back, and reluctantly he agrees to go undercover to combat narcotic drug diversion at nearby Boiling Grove Community Hospital. With minimal assistance from Willie, his socially imbalanced sidekick, Daniel must navigate through dangerous situations and wild characters, including a brawny redneck with a Bob Marley tattoo; a foreign physician with bat-like qualities; and a lackluster Human Resources Director with a penchant for Mai Tais and Ebenezer Scrooge.Ripped Tide: A Daniel O’Dwyer Oak Island Adventure is a humorous take on a very serious issue.

Knockout


Mia Kang - 2020
    Her first book, Knockout, is the story of how she eschewed normative body standards and learned to use martial arts to redefine her sense of self-worth. In a charming, fierce, and intimate voice, Kang invites readers into her world. She once lived and died by her weight, but she is now defined by her confidence in being a woman who lives outside the mold of what we’re taught is “feminine.” After dealing with bullying, addiction, body dysmorphia, anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts, Mia acknowledges that she is lucky to still be alive to tell readers what she’s learned: to not let anyone else dictate who you are supposed to be.

My Horses, My Teachers


Alois Podhajsky - 1967
    Timeless, inspiring, and full of valuable advice. A book every rider should read.

Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir


Rebecca Solnit - 2020
    She tells of being poor, hopeful, and adrift in the city that became her great teacher; of the small apartment that, when she was nineteen, became the home in which she transformed herself; of how punk rock gave form and voice to her own fury and explosive energy.Solnit recounts how she came to recognize the epidemic of violence against women around her, the street harassment that unsettled her, the trauma that changed her, and the authority figures who routinely disdained and disbelieved girls and women, including her. Looking back, she sees all these as consequences of the voicelessness that was and still is the ordinary condition of women, and how she contended with that while becoming a writer and a public voice for women’s rights.She explores the forces that liberated her as a person and as a writer—books themselves, the gay men around her who offered other visions of what gender, family, and joy could be, and her eventual arrival in the spacious landscapes and overlooked conflicts of the American West. These influences taught her how to write in the way she has ever since, and gave her a voice that has resonated with and empowered many others.

Jackie's Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family


Kathy McKeon - 2017
    The next thirteen years of her life were spent in Jackie's service, during which Kathy not only played a crucial role in raising young Caroline and John Jr., but also had a front-row seat to some of the twentieth century’s most significant events. Because Kathy was always at Jackie’s side, Rose Kennedy deemed her “Jackie’s girl.” And although Kathy called Jackie “Madam,” she considered her employer more like a big sister who, in many ways, mentored her on how to be a lady. Kathy was there during Jackie and Aristotle Onassis’s courtship and marriage and Robert Kennedy’s assassination, dutifully supporting Jackie and the children during these tumultuous times in history. A rare and engrossing look at the private life of one of the most famous women of the twentieth century, Jackie’s Girl is also a moving personal story of a young woman finding her identity and footing in a new country, along with the help of the most elegant woman in America.

Geisha


Liza Dalby - 1983
    Her new preface considers the geisha today as a vestige of tradition as Japan heads into the 21st century.

Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life


Jenna Bush Hager - 2017
    As small children, they watched their grandfather become president; just twelve years later they stood by their father's side when he took the same oath. They spent their college years being trailed by the Secret Service and chased by the paparazzi, with every teenage mistake making national headlines. But the tabloids didn't tell the whole story of these two young women forging their own identities under extraordinary circumstances. In this book they take readers on a revealing, thoughtful, and deeply personal tour behind the scenes of their lives, with never-before-told stories about their family, their adventures, their loves and losses, and the special sisterly bond that fulfills them.

A Thousand Miles to Freedom: My Escape from North Korea


Eunsun Kim - 2012
    As a child Eunsun loved her country…despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the country-wide famine escalated.By the time she was eleven years old, Eunsun's father and grandparents had died of starvation, and Eunsun too was in danger of starving. Finally, her mother decided to escape North Korea with Eunsun and her sister, not knowing that they were embarking on a journey that would take them nine long years to complete. Before finally reaching South Korea and freedom, Eunsun and her family would live homeless, fall into the hands of Chinese human traffickers, survive a North Korean labor camp, and cross the deserts of Mongolia on foot.Now, in A Thousand Miles to Freedom, Eunsun is sharing her remarkable story to give voice to the tens of millions of North Koreans still suffering in silence. Told with grace and courage, her memoir is a riveting exposé of North Korea's totalitarian regime and, ultimately, a testament to the strength and resilience of the human spirit.

War Stories: An Enlisted Marine In Vietnam


Stephen G. MacDonald - 2011
    It tells what it was like to enlist in the Marine Corps and serve as a field radio operator with an infantry battalion. We operated near the southern edge of the DMZ in Vietnam in 1967, a time and place of intense fighting. Most of us believe that the world is less than ideal, and that there are people and countries from whom we need to defend ourselves. The Marine Corps is an important part of that defense, but war does have its costs. When we ask so much of our Marines, we owe it to them to try to understand their sacrifice. This book can help.

Brigham's Destroying Angel: Being the Life, Confession, and Startling Disclosures of the Notorious Bill Hickman, the Danite Chief of Utah


William Adams Hickman - 1904
     Hickman’s memoir chronicles his life as a significant member of the church and his position as Brigham Young’s underling. Hickman does not shy away from sharing the plethora of crimes he committed but he controversially claims that they were ordered by Young. J. H. Beadle, the editor of this account, examines the history of the Mormon church and the reasons behind the church’s lack of action over Hickman’s brutal crimes. He also questions how Hickman remained in positions of power despite knowledge of his murderous ways being publicly known. Hickman’s account sheds light on these issues as well as providing a unique insight into the mind of an infamous murderer and is an important addition to the history of the nineteenth century Mormon church. William Adams "Wild Bill" Hickman was an American frontiersman. He also served as a representative to the Utah Territorial Legislature. Hickman was baptized into Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1839 by John D. Lee. He later served as a personal bodyguard for Joseph Smith, Jr. and Brigham Young. Hickman was reputedly a member of the Danites. He died in Wyoming in 1883.

20 Years in the Secret Service: My Life with Five Presidents


Rufus W. Youngblood - 1973
    Secret Service Agent Rufus W. Youngblood was in charge of the Vice Presidential Detail on that tragic day in Dallas, Texas, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Immediately upon hearing shots being fired, he pushed Lyndon B. Johnson to the floor of their limousine, shielding the vice president’s body with his own. But this action was only the most publicized incident of a twenty-year career in the Secret Service. This memoir, originally published by Simon & Schuster in 1973, is a candid account of Youngblood’s tenure with this crucial government agency during which he was assigned to protect Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Going behind the scenes of some of America’s most pivotal events, he describes the complexities, the risks, and the constant tensions of protecting the American president—including some of the humorous moments and traits of the chief executives themselves. This new edition now includes numerous photographs to enhance readers’ appreciation of this personal, firsthand account of a critical period in American history.