And The City Swallowed Them
Mara Hvistendahl - 2014
Twelve days later, she was stabbed in a Shanghai stairwell. The actions of both police investigators and O'Brien's Chinese modeling agent soon aroused suspicion as her family sought answers from China's opaque legal system. Ultimately, their quest would put them face to face with her accused killer.At once a page-turning murder mystery and a work of deep investigation, And The City Swallowed Them is a true crime nonfiction story based on dozens of interviews with investigators, models, and both the victim's and the convicted murderer's families. The short book moves from Shanghai's back alleys to the seedy underbelly of high fashion, where young models travel alone to strange cities, often with falsified work papers, and sleep ten to an apartment between cover shoots. Set against the backdrop of Shanghai's explosive urbanization, the work also explores the world of China's liudong renkou, or floating population, where the hopes of newcomers from poor villages often turn to dust—leading some to horribly desperate acts.The debut digital title from the writers cooperative Deca, And The City Swallowed Them overturns assumptions about both China’s feared justice system, where the conviction rate for criminals is 99.9 percent, and the glamorous world of international modeling. More than a murder tale, And The City Swallowed Them lays bare the powerful forces that send two families on a collision course from distant sides of the Pacific.
The Love that Remains
Susan Francis - 2020
He is a gentle giant of a man, who promises Susan the world.Two years later they throw in their jobs, marry and sell everything they own, embarking on an incredible adventure, to start a new life in the romantic city of Granada, where they learn Spanish and enjoy too much tapas. In love, and enthralled by the splendour of a European springtime, the pair treasure every moment together.Until a shocking series of events alters everything.Susan Francis' memoir is riveting and remarkably honest and Susan Duncan said it was fearless and raw and an amazing read.
500 Random Facts about Harry Potter: The Ultimate Quiz Book of Fun Facts and Secret Trivia
Lena Shaw - 2018
Yes, it’s almost unbelievable to understand how all of it had happened and why the world fell in love with the boy wizard. From the fantastic books written by the British author J.K. Rowling to the blockbuster movies that were welcomed by hundreds of fans outside the cinemas worldwide, Harry Potter’s legacy lives on and is still felt in the pop culture. That’s why we’ll look at the ultimate list of 500 (yeah, you read that right) Potter-related facts! Enjoy and prepare to read tons of exciting facts! You and your kids will love this book... Grab it now while it's still available at this discounted price. NOTE: This is a book intended for any Harry Potter fan of any age. This book is NOT affiliated in any way with any other official or unofficial Harry Potter book.
The Long and Whining Road
Simeon Courtie - 2012
She imagined posh flights and swanky hotels. Then I said the three words every girl longs to hear: Volkswagen camper van.’This frank and funny true story of a 'family gap year' like no other shows how the passing comment of a bored 9-year-old can snowball into an absurd expedition into strange lands, financial peril and some distinctly unsavoury living arrangements. With Strawberry Fields New York in their sights, the Beatnik Beatles inadvertently gatecrash an Italian wedding, suffer brutal torture at the hands of a Turkish masseur, appear in a Bollywood film and trust their entire journey across Australia to the whim of an army of online-blog followers - and all to a Lennon & McCartney soundtrack, played badly on instruments bought on eBay.Got a taste for adventurous travel? Ever felt the peril of performing in public? Tried to entertain children on a very, very long car journey? Great! Do you want to join a band?‘It’s a dirty story of a dirty man.’Paul McCartney‘Please stop calling us.’The Times Literary Supplement‘We do not condone absenteeism on this scale.’Oxfordshire Education Authority(From Amazon.co.uk)
Major: A Black Athlete, a White Era, and the Fight to Be the World's Fastest Human Being
Todd Balf - 2008
Scientists studied them, newspapers glorified them, and millions of dollars in purse money was awarded to them. Major Taylor aimed to be the fastest of them all. A prominent black man at a time when such a thing was deemed scandalous, his mounting victories, high moral virtue, and bulletlike riding style made him a target for ridicule from the press and sabotage by the white riders who shared the track with him.Taylor’s most formidable and ruthless opponent—a man nicknamed the “Human Engine”—was Floyd McFarland. One man was white, one black; one from a storied Virginia family, the other descended from Kentucky slaves; one celebrated as a hero, one trying to secure his spot in a sport he dominated. The only thing they had in common was the desire to be named the fastest man alive. Their rivalry riveted first America, and then the world. Finally, in 1904, both men headed to Australia for a much-anticipated title match to decide, beyond dispute, who would claim the coveted title.Major is the gripping story of a superstar nobody saw coming—a classic underdog, aided by an unlikely crew: a disgraced fight promoter, a broken ex-racer, and a poor upstate girl from New York who wanted to be a queen. It is also the account of a fierce rivalry that would become an archetypal tale of white versus black in the 20th century. Most of all, it is the tale of our nation’s first black sports celebrity—a man who transcended the handicaps of race at the turn of the century to reach the stratosphere of fame.From the Hardcover edition.
The Chinese in America: A Narrative History
Iris Chang - 2003
She chronicles the many accomplishments in America of Chinese immigrants and their descendents: building the infrastructure of their adopted country, fighting racist and exclusionary laws, walking the racial tightrope between black and white, contributing to major scientific and technological advances, expanding the literary canon, and influencing the way we think about racial and ethnic groups. Interweaving political, social, economic, and cultural history, as well as the stories of individuals, Chang offers a bracing view not only of what it means to be Chinese American, but also of what it is to be American.
Seams Unlikely: The Inspiring True Life Story of Nancy Zieman
Nancy Zieman - 2014
Many of them have Googled phrases like "stroke Nancy Zieman" in an effort to discover the reasons behind the partial paralysis of Nancy's beautiful face. Viewers purchased products Nancy used through Nancy's Notions, followed patterns she created for McCall's, and enjoyed meeting distinguished guests via the show. While today's Christian women read of Lydia and the Proverbs 31 woman and wonder how we can ever practice our faith so well in today's harried existence, Nancy Zieman was quietly living out her faith in Wisconsin. Her large Lutheran family ordered their lives around the farm, the seasons, and the church. As Nancy wrestled with the difficulties borne by the Bell's palsy, she also learned to rely heavily on God and believe that He had a purpose for her, a life lived to honor Him. Little did she realize that God would take a woman with half a paralyzed face and bless her with the longest running sewing show on North American television. For the first time, Nancy shares openly about the Bell's palsy that not only affected her appearance, but also her esteem and physical abilities. Readers learn about the growth of Nancy professionally: from addressing catalogs at the kitchen table to growing a multi-million dollar notions business - and personally: marrying Rich, then growing a family through birth and adoption. Through it all, the picture emerges of a hard-working woman of staunch faith who overcame various and varied obstacles to become what she is today: successful, humble, skilled, gracious, grateful and loved by millions of viewers. For any woman who has wondered how God could possibly build a purposeful life from one so unlikely, Nancy Zieman serves as a beautiful example of a life lived one step at a time, as He allows."
Cape Fear Rising
Philip Gerard - 1994
Many of the city's lawyers, businessmen, and other professionals were black, as were all the tradesmen and stevedores. The black community outnumbered the white community by more than two to one. But the white civic leaders, many descended from the antebellum aristocracy, did not consider this progress. They looked around and saw working class white citizens out of jobs. They heard black citizens addressing white neighbors "in the familiar." They hated the fact that local government was run by Republican "Fusionists" sympathetic to the black majority. Rumors began to fly. The newspaper office turned into an arsenal. Secret societies espousing white supremacy were formed. Isolated incidents occurred: a shot was fired through a streetcar bearing white passengers, a black cemetery was desecrated. This incendiary atmosphere was inflamed further by public speeches from an ex-Confederate colonel and a firebrand black preacher. One morning in November, the almost inevitable gunfire began. By the time order was restored, many of the city's most visible black leaders had been literally put on trains and told to leave town, hundreds of black citizens were forced to hide out in the city's cemetery or the nearby swamps to avoid massacre, and dozens of victims lay dead. Based on actual events, Cape Fear Rising tells a story of one city's racial nightmare--a nightmare that was repeated throughout the South at the turn of the century. Although told as fiction, the core of this novel strikes at the heart of racial strife in America.Philip Gerard is the author of five novels and eight books of nonfiction, including Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey Through the Heart of North Carolina and The Patron Saint of Dreams, winner of the 2012 North American Gold Medal in Essay/Creative Nonfiction from The Independent Publisher."[A] complex and convincing . . . story [that] smartly limns the tangled combination of economic, social and visceral elements that led Wilmington to violence . . . " --Publishers Weekly
I Will Not Fear: My Story of a Lifetime of Building Faith Under Fire
Melba Pattillo Beals - 2018
But her story of overcoming didn't start--or end--there. While her white schoolmates were planning their senior prom, Melba was facing the business end of a double-barreled shotgun, being threatened with lynching by rope-carrying tormentors, and learning how to outrun white supremacists who were ready to kill her rather than sit beside her in a classroom. Only her faith in God sustained her during her darkest days and helped her become a civil rights warrior, an NBC television news reporter, a magazine writer, a professor, a wife, and a mother.In I Will Not Fear, Beals takes readers on an unforgettable journey through terror, oppression, and persecution, highlighting the kind of faith needed to survive in a world full of heartbreak and anger. She shows how the deep faith we develop during our most difficult moments is the kind of faith that can change our families, our communities, and even the world. Encouraging and inspiring, Beals's story offers readers hope that faith is the solution to the pervasive hopelessness of our current culture.
Final Witness: My journey from the holocaust to Ireland
Zoltan Zinn-Collis - 2006
In Bergen-Belsen concentration camp he survived the inhuman brutality of the SS guards, the ravages of near starvation, disease, and squalor. All but one of his family died there, his mother losing her life on the very day the British finally marched into the camp. Discovered by a Red Cross nurse who described him as ‘an enchanting scrap of humanity’, Zoltan was brought to Ireland and adopted by one of the liberators, Dr Bob Collis, who raised him as his own son on Ireland’s east coast. Now aged 65, Zoltan is ready to speak. His story is one of deepest pain and greatest joy. Zoltan tells how he lost one family and found another; of how, escaping from the ruins of a broken Europe, he was able to build himself a life – a life he may never have had.
Women's Work: A Reckoning with Work and Home
Megan K. Stack - 2019
Stack, a stunning memoir of raising her children abroad with the help of Chinese and Indian women who are also working mothersWhen Megan Stack was living in Beijing, she left her prestigious job as a foreign correspondent to have her first child and work from home writing a book. She quickly realized that caring for a baby and keeping up with the housework while her husband went to the office each day was consuming the time she needed to write. This dilemma was resolved in the manner of many upper-class families and large corporations: she availed herself of cheap Chinese labor. The housekeeper Stack hired was a migrant from the countryside, a mother who had left her daughter in a precarious situation to earn desperately needed cash in the capital. As Stack's family grew and her husband's job took them to Delhi, a series of Chinese and Indian women cooked, cleaned, and babysat in her home. Stack grew increasingly aware of the brutal realities of their lives: domestic abuse, alcoholism, unplanned pregnancies. Hiring poor women had given her the ability to work while raising her children, but what ethical compromise had she made?Determined to confront the truth, Stack traveled to her employees' homes, met their parents and children, and turned a journalistic eye on the tradeoffs they'd been forced to make as working mothers seeking upward mobility--and on the cost to the children who were left behind.Women's Work is an unforgettable story of four women as well as an electrifying meditation on the evasions of marriage, motherhood, feminism, and privilege.
野火集
Lung Ying-tai - 1985
Re-publication of the essays by the author whose criticism of Taiwan¡'s political culture became the seed of an essay wild fire for motivating the people of Taiwan.