Gaining Daylight: Life on Two Islands


Sara Loewen - 2013
    But for Sara Loewen it becomes her way of life each summer as her family settles into their remote cabin on Uyak Bay for the height of salmon season. With this connection to thousands of years of fishing and gathering at its core, Gaining Daylight explores what it means to balance lives on two islands, living within both an ancient way of life and the modern world. Her personal essays integrate natural and island history with her experiences of fishing and family life, as well as the challenges of living at the northern edge of the Pacific.Loewen’s writing is richly descriptive; readers can almost feel heat from wood stoves, smell smoking salmon, and spot the ways the ocean blues change with the season. With honesty and humor, Loewen easily draws readers into her world, sharing the rewards of subsistence living and the peace brought by miles of crisp solitude.

All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir


Erin Lee Carr - 2019
    A willingness to let the world show you things that you play back as you grow as an artist. Talent is cheap. Me: ok i will ponder these things. I am a carr.Dad: that should matter quite a bit, actually not the name but the guts of what that name means.A celebrated journalist, bestselling author, and recovering addict, David Carr was in the prime of his career when he collapsed in the newsroom of The New York Times in 2015. Shattered by his death, his daughter Erin Lee Carr, an up-and-coming documentary filmmaker at age twenty-seven, began combing through the entirety of their shared correspondence--1,936 items in total.What started as an exercise in grief quickly grew into an active investigation: Did her father's writings contain the answers to the questions of how to move forward in life and work without your biggest champion by your side? How could she fill the space left behind by a man who had come to embody journalistic integrity, rigor, and hard reporting, whose mentorship meant everything not just to her, but to the many who served alongside him?In All That You Leave Behind, David Carr's legacy is a lens through which Erin comes to understand her own workplace missteps, existential crises, relationship fails, and toxic relationship with alcohol. Featuring photographs and emails from the author's personal collection, this coming-of-age memoir unpacks the complex relationship between a daughter and her father, their mutual addictions and challenges with sobriety, and the powerful sense of work and family that comes to define them.

Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir


Kat Chow - 2021
    Born two years after her parents' only son died just hours after his birth, Kat Chow became unusually fixated with death. She worried constantly about her parents dying -- especially her mother. One morning, when Kat was nine, her mother, a vivacious and mischievous woman, casually made a morbid joke: When she eventually dies, she said laughing, she'd like to be stuffed and displayed in Kat's future apartment in order to always watch over her.Four years later when her mother dies unexpectedly from cancer, Kat, her two older sisters, and their father are plunged into a debilitating, lonely grief. With a distinct voice that is wry and heartfelt, Kat weaves together what is part ghost story and part excavation of her family's history of loss spanning three generations and their immigration from China and Hong Kong to America and Cuba. This redemptive coming-of-age story uncovers the uncanny parallels in Kat's lineage, including the strength of sisterhood and the complicated duty of looking after parents, even after death.Seeing Ghosts asks what it means to claim and tell your family's story: Is writing an exorcism or is it its own form of preservation? What do we owe to our families in our grief, and how does it shape us? In order to answer these questions and to understand her family's ghosts, Kat unearths their sorrow and challenges the power structures of race, class, and gender. The result is an extraordinary new contribution to the literature of grief and the American family, and a provocative and transformative meditation on who we become under the specter of loss.

Leave No Man Behind: The Untold Story of the Rangers’ Unrelenting Search for Marcus Luttrell, the Navy SEAL Lone Survivor in Afghanistan


Tony Brooks - 2021
    . . but just one lone survivorOn June 28th, 2005, a four-man Navy SEAL reconnaissance team under Operation Red Wings was ambushed in northeastern Afghanistan--as depicted in the book and film Lone Survivor. A quick reaction force was dispatched to assist them. Turbine 33, carrying eight Navy SEALs and eight members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment was struck by a rocket propelled grenade, bringing the dual rotor chinook careening toward the rugged peak of Sawtalo Sar.The result was the deadliest single incident in Afghanistan Special Operations at the time.Commanders, unwilling to let this disaster get any worse, quickly called on the largest element of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the 75th Ranger Regiment. The rescue mission: Operation Red Wings II.Tony Brooks, then a newly minted Army Ranger, tells a first-hand account of the daring recovery of Turbine 33, and the subsequent search for the remaining compromised Navy SEAL reconnaissance team--one of whom was Marcus Luttrell, the lone survivor. The Rangers would need to overcome lack of intel, treacherous terrain, violent weather, and an enemy that was born and raised to fight.Like his fellow Rangers, Tony Brooks lived--and many died--by the axiom, "Leave No Man Behind." His account is the first to tell the story other books and films have left out, one of courage, skill, and perseverance in overcoming overwhelming odds to accomplish a mission to bring every American soldier home.

Trading Secrets


Rachael Eckles - 2020
    She sets out alone on a whirlwind journey to entrap him, determined to put an end to Omar’s destruction.Soon Celeste is thrust in the middle of the largest financial scandal in decades. This time, however, powerful government officials are in bed with some of the world’s most dangerous men.When she discovers that those she thought she knew best are involved in a secret society warring with Omar and his coconspirators, she must decide how far she will go to avenge Theodore’s death and whether she is willing to risk her own life to save everyone she loves.

American Legends: The Life of Dean Martin


Charles River Editors - 2013
    *Includes some of Martin's most colorful quotes. *Includes a Bibliography for further reading. "If people want to think I get drunk and stay out all night, let 'em. That's how I got here, you know." - Dean Martin A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. Like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin is an American legend for his longevity and success across a garden variety of different platforms. Martin began as a nightclub singer, performed in a comedy act, starred in films, recorded hit albums, and capped his career by serving as a television host. In fact, there may be no star who was better able to transcend the different avenues of entertainment. Martin's success was made all the more amazing by the fact that he never had to change his personality or persona to find success in his different endeavors. From the beginning, Martin's public persona remained largely unchanged. He grew more famous and wealthy, but he always remained the smooth-talking Italian with the easy charm and the cool veneer. As Jerry Lewis noted in his memoirs about Martin, "Dean had this uncanny way of making everything bad look like it wasn't all that bad." If anything, Martin suggested that no matter the circumstances, people can always face their situation with leisurely charm. Martin's versatility is unprecedented even today, an era in which stars routinely alternate between film and musical careers. Martin was able to simultaneously work across different media at the same time; even after rising to fame as a singer, he continued to perform with Jerry Lewis and star in films. But after his film career took off, he continued to perform the crooning style of music that had made him famous and had long since been outdated. While other actors were forced to drastically alter their persona to keep up with the times, Martin's ability to fuse suave glamour with an everyday ordinariness ensured he didn't need to transform anything. Martin's life and career are often compared to his close friend and contemporary Frank Sinatra, and for good reason. Both came from proud Italian families, both were cohorts in the famed Rat Pack in the 1960s, and they each maintained success even late in their careers. However, Sinatra's career was filled with far more ups and downs than Martin, and his public image experienced highs and lows along with it. It's also somewhat ironic that it was Martin who Anglicized his name but remained a bigger Italian icon than Sinatra. They each began their careers as Italian crooners, but Martin maintained his style while Sinatra adopted a brasher, more "All-American" singing method. Martin never strayed far from his humble background, even as he became one of America's biggest stars. American Legends: The Life of Dean Martin profiles the life and career of one of America's most famous performers. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Dean Martin like you never have before, in no time at all.

Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America


María Hinojosa - 2020
    Years ago, when In the Heights was just starting off-Broadway, Maria got the word out to our community to support this new musical about our neighborhoods. She has been a champion of our triumphs, a critic of our detractors, and a driving force to right the wrongs our society faces. When Maria speaks, I’m ready to listen and learn.” —Lin-Manuel Miranda Emmy Award–winning journalist and anchor of NPR’s Latino USA, Maria Hinojosa, tells the story of immigration in America through her family’s experiences and decades of reporting, painting an unflinching portrait of a country in crisis.Maria Hinojosa is an award-winning journalist who has collaborated with the most respected networks and is known for bringing humanity to her reporting. In this beautifully-rendered memoir, she relates the history of US immigration policy that has brought us to where we are today, as she shares her deeply personal story. For thirty years, Maria Hinojosa has reported on stories and communities in America that often go ignored by the mainstream media. Bestselling author Julia Alvarez has called her “one of the most important, respected, and beloved cultural leaders in the Latinx community.” In Once I Was You, Maria shares her intimate experience growing up Mexican American on the south side of Chicago and documenting the existential wasteland of immigration detention camps for news outlets that often challenged her work. In these pages, she offers a personal and eye-opening account of how the rhetoric around immigration has not only long informed American attitudes toward outsiders, but also enabled willful negligence and profiteering at the expense of our country’s most vulnerable populations—charging us with the broken system we have today. This honest and heartrending memoir paints a vivid portrait of how we got here and what it means to be a survivor, a feminist, a citizen, and a journalist who owns her voice while striving for the truth. Once I Was You is an urgent call to fellow Americans to open their eyes to the immigration crisis and understand that it affects us all. Also available in Spanish as Una vez fui tú.

Honed: Finding Your Edge as a Man Over 40


Mike Simpson - 2021
    Special Forces. He was forty-eight years old.How did he keep up? By combining three decades of Special Forces training, the ancient wisdom of martial arts, and his own specialized knowledge as a doctor of emergency medicine assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command.Now, in Honed: Finding Your Edge as a Man Over 40, Mike makes his unique formula available to the general public, teaching you how to reach peak physical condition in your forties, fifties, and beyond so you can compete with men half your age.Learn how to maintain and build muscle through longevity optimization. Train step by step for long-term performance through these proven, science-backed programs of exercise, nutrition, recovery, and natural supplementation.If you think you’re past your prime, think again. In Honed, Mike Simpson proves that it’s not too late to find your edge and live the lifestyle of a warrior-athlete.

On Pills and Needles


Rick Van Warner - 2018
    In the years of pain and heartache that followed as he tried to save his son from opioid addiction, Van Warner discovered what the American public is just now becoming aware of: opioids prescribed for even minor pain relief are so addictive that even a few days of use can create dependency. On Pills and Needles is a memoir that also serves as a wake-up call and crash course in opioid addiction. Through his harrowing personal story, Van Warner exposes the common causes of opioid addiction, effective and ineffective ways it has been treated, and how families can walk alongside loved ones who are dealing with the daily realities of addiction.

Mothers of Sparta: A Memoir in Pieces


Dawn Davies - 2018
    Dawn Davies is in the third category. A six-foot-tall divorcee, she isn’t chatty, couldn’t care less about anyone’s potty training progress, doesn’t care to share her own children’s milestones with people who don’t love them. But even if she has never fit in with other moms, she has raised three children with her own particular brand of fierce, unflagging love. In stories that cut to the quick, we see Davies grow from a young girl who moves to a new town every couple of years; to a misfit teenager who finds solace in a local music scene; to an adrift twenty-something who summons inner strength as she holds the hand of a dying stranger; to a woman dealing with difficult pregnancies and post-partum depression. And in her powerful titular story, we see Davies struggling with the weight of knowing that her son is deeply troubled.Mothers of Sparta is not a blow-by-blow of Davies’ life but rather an examination of the exquisite and often painful moments of a life, the moments we look back on and say, That one, that one mattered. Straddling the fence between humor and, well…not humor, Davies has written a book about what it’s like to be a woman trying to carve a place for herself in the world, no matter how unyielding the rock can be.

Slonim Woods 9: A Memoir


Daniel Barban Levin - 2021
    . . eloquent . . . a powerful portrayal of a young man's ability to emerge whole from an experience intended to break him."--Publishers WeeklyIn September 2010, at the beginning of the academic year at Sarah Lawrence College, a sophomore named Talia Ray asked her roommates if her father could stay with them for a while. No one objected. Her father, Larry Ray, was just released from prison, having spent three years behind bars after a conviction during a bitter custody dispute.Larry Ray arrived at the dorm, a communal house called Slonim Woods 9, and stayed for the whole year. Over the course of innumerable counseling sessions and "family meetings," the intense and forceful Ray convinced his daughter's friends that he alone could help them "achieve clarity." Eventually, Ray and the students moved into a small Manhattan apartment, beginning years of manipulation and abuse, as Ray tightened his control over his young charges through blackmail, extortion, and ritualized humiliation.Daniel Barban Levin was one of the original residents of Slonim Woods 9. Ray coached Daniel through a difficult break-up, slowly drawing him into his web. After two years of escalating psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, Daniel found the strength to escape from Ray's influence and take control of his own life.In April 2019, a New York magazine cover story, "The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence," exposed Ray's crimes to the world. In February 2020, he was finally indicted on charges of extortion, sex trafficking, forced labor, and money laundering.Beginning the moment Daniel set foot on Sarah Lawrence's idyllic campus and spanning the two years he spent in the grip of a megalomaniac, this brave, lyrical, and redemptive memoir reveals how a group of friends were led from campus to a cult without the world even noticing.

The Sky Below


Scott Parazynski - 2017
    From dramatic, high-risk spacewalks to author Scott Parazynski’s death-defying quest to summit Mount Everest—his body ravaged by a career in space—readers will experience the life of an elite athlete, physician, and explorer.This intimate, compelling account offers a rare portrait of space exploration from the inside. A global nomad raised in the shadow of NASA’s Apollo missions, Parazynski never lost sight of his childhood dream to one day don a spacesuit and float outside the airlock. With deep passion, unbridled creativity, resilience, humility, and self-deprecation, Parazynski chases his dream of the ultimate adventure experience, again and again and again. In an era that transitioned from moon shots to the Space Shuttle, space station, and Mars research, Parazynski flies with John Glenn, tests jet packs, trains in Russia to become a cosmonaut, and flies five missions to outer space (including seven spacewalks) in his seventeen-year NASA career.An unparalleled, visceral opportunity to understand what it’s like to train for—and deploy to—a home in zero gravity, The Sky Below also portrays an astronaut’s engagement with the challenges of his life on Earth, including raising a beautiful autistic daughter and finding true love.

Work in Progress: Unconventional Thoughts on Designing an Extraordinary Life


Steve Ford - 2019
    Leanne and Steve Ford share their secrets for how to turn dreams into reality.Leanne and Steve were middle-class kids growing up in Pittsburgh in the 80s and 90s. There was nothing particularly glamorous or unusual about their lives as kids. Leanne was a shy, stubborn child who lived a rich life in her own imagination. Steve was outdoorsy and offbeat and was bullied mercilessly at school for being different. Their parents, grounded in faith and always encouraging of both creativity and hard work, gave them the confidence and the encouragement they needed to pursue the often difficult creative life. Leanne’s slogan as a child was, “My name is Leanne. If I want to, I can.”Leanne studied clothing design and pulled gigs at fashion houses in New York and as a stylist to country music stars in Nashville before she found her true passion: interior design. Steve threw himself into kayaking and snowboarding and opening his own men’s clothing store in Pittsburgh. And then their individual passions converged when Leanne asked Steve to help renovate her bathroom. There was magic in their collaboration, and they began renovating for clients in Pittsburgh—creating unique, authentic spaces that manage to feel both chic and completely obtainable—before catching the eye of producers at HGTV.Leanne and Steve share the details of their journey, including the beliefs that have inspired them and the experiences that have challenged them along the way.

The Plainswalker


M.A. Rothman - 2021
    When the experiment leaves him stuck in a place he can’t escape, Peabo realizes just how unprepared he is for his new mission.-------STAG, the Special Technologies Analysis Group is a clandestine government operation headquartered fifty feet under Marine Base Quantico, and they’re looking for someone with the right stuff.Peabo Smith, an ex-Special Forces soldier volunteers to participate in a mission that gives him an opportunity to maybe get back into the action.THE PLAINSWALKER is a story about a former soldier asked to participate in a science experiment that rivals the audacity of the moon landing.When things don’t go quite like Peabo had planned, he realizes that the experiment may end up changing his life forever.

Spiritual Intercourse


Maximus Freeman - 2019
    Jump back into the passenger seat as you and Freeman navigate through a kaleidoscope of new trials, tribulations and joys of life. Buckle up!