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Mixology


Adrian Matejka - 2009
    Whether the focus of the individual poems is musical, digital, or historical, the otherness implicit in being of more than one racial background guides Matejka's work to the inevitable conclusion that all things-no matter how disparate-are parts of the whole.

Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI and a Devil's Deal


Lehr & O'Neill - 2012
    update of first edition

Samidha (Literature in translation)


Sadhana Amte - 2008
    Autobiographical reminiscences of Sādhanā Āmaṭe, social worker from Maharashtra and her association with her husband, Bābā Āmaṭe.

Instant Winner


Carrie Fountain - 2014
    Fountain’s voice is at once deep and loose, enacting the dawning of spiritual insight, but without leaving the daily world, matching the feeling of the “pure holiness in motherhood” with the “thuds the giant dumpsters make behind the strip mall when they’re tossed back to the pavement by the trash truck.” In these wise, accessible, deeply emotional poems, she captures a contemporary longing for spiritual meaning that’s wary of prepackaged wisdom—a longing answered most fully by attending to the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

Hooligan: A Mormon Boyhood


Douglas Thayer - 2007
    Douglas Thayer was such a boy. In this poignant, often humorous memoir, he depicts his Utah Valley boyhood during the Great Depression and World War II.Known in some circles as a Mormon Hemingway, Thayer has created a richly detailed work that shares cultural DNA with Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and William Golding's Lord of the Flies. His narrative at once prosaic and poetic, Thayer captures nostalgia for a simpler time, along with boyhood's universal yearnings, pleasures, and mysteries.

Frend


Jonathan R. Miller - 2014
    Both thought-provoking and action-packed, Frend is a story of transformation, the unceasing drive to belong, and the struggle to liberate oneself from oppression, both internal and external.

Good Is Not Enough: And Other Unwritten Rules for Minority Professionals


Keith R. Wyche - 2008
    But despite their education and hard work, too many African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans still find unique obstacles on the path to senior management. And there are too few minority mentors available to help them understand and overcome these challenges. Keith R. Wyche, a division president at a Fortune 500 company, is the perfect mentor for ambitious minority businesspeople at all levels. His book is filled with thought-provoking insights and practical advice based on his own experiences and those of the many people he has counseled. He discusses the importance of:Understanding corporate culture--and the impact it has on your career Being visible--because you can't get ahead if nobody knows who you are Staying current--why minorities must be continuous learners Good Is Not Enough also includes anecdotes from prominent CEOs such as Ken Chenault of American Express, Richard Parsons of Time Warner, and Alwyn Lewis of Kmart.

blu


Virginia Grise - 2011
    blu, steeped in poetic realism and contemporary politics, challenges us to try to imagine a time before war.Selected as the winner of the 2010 Yale Drama competition from more than 950 submissions, Virginia Grise's play blu takes place in the present but looks back on the not too distant past through a series of prayers, rituals, and dreams. Contest judge David Hare commented, "Virginia Grise is a blazingly talented writer, and her play blu stays with you a long time after you've read it." Noting that 2010 was a banner year for women playwrights, he added, "Women's writing for the theatre is stronger and more eloquent than it has ever been."

A Barn in New England: Making a Home on Three Acres


Joseph Monninger - 2001
    "An utterly charming story, told with grace and insight" (Booklist starred review), A Barn in New England perfectly captures the beauty of the New England countryside, the tests of renovating a home, and the pleasures large and small of making a new place your own.

Waywaya: Eleven Filipino Short Stories


F. Sionil José - 1980
    Sionil José's prodigious production in the last decade, are a moving commentary on the Filipinos. "Waywaya" recreates pre-Hispanic Philippine society and should also be read as allegory. In Sionil José's own language, Ilokano, "Waywaya" means freedom. The last story in the collection, "Progress", has been anthologized abroad and regarded as contemporary social document as well.

Breathing Room


Patricia Elam - 2001
    But now they're at a crossroads where understanding may not be enough -- a place where they must risk it all to rediscover what they cherish most. Photographer Norma Simmons-Greer has a loving husband, a lively young son, and an upper-middle-class lifestyle. Probation officer Moxie Dilliard is as dedicated to her ideals as she is to her talented teenage daughter, Zadi. Best friends after meeting in college, Norma and Moxie are each other's reality check and reassurance. But suddenly the bond between them begins to unravel in unexpected ways. Anguished over the loss of her second child and her husband's recent withdrawal, Norma takes refuge in a complex love affair that puts her at odds with Moxie -- and with herself. Haunted by her beloved mother's inspiring yet disturbing emotional legacy, Moxie struggles to understand her friend, while her own refusal to compromise threatens to shatter her relationship with Zadi. And a devastating crisis will challenge both women to face the hardest of truths. With insight, humor, and heartbreaking immediacy, Patricia Elam presents a beautifully written portrait of two unforgettable women, and the teenager they both cherish, as they negotiate the ever-shifting terrain of friendship and identity. A wise, tender novel of what love can and cannot survive, Breathing Room is also an exploration of how the past can at once inspire and limit us, and of the pain -- and promise -- that accompany us on the journey we all share.

Seven Million: A Cop, a Priest, a Soldier for the IRA, and the Still-Unsolved Rochester Brink's Heist


Gary Craig - 2017
    Suspicion quickly fell on a retired Rochester cop working security for Brinks at the time--as well it might. Officer Tom O'Connor had been previously suspected of everything from robbery to murder to complicity with the IRA. One ex-IRA soldier in particular was indebted to O'Connor for smuggling him and his girlfriend into the United States, and when he was caught in New York City with $2 million in cash from the Brink's heist, prosecutors were certain they finally had enough to nail O'Connor. But they were wrong. In Seven Million, the reporter Gary Craig meticulously unwinds the long skein of leads, half-truths, false starts, and dead ends, taking us from the grim solitary pens of Northern Ireland's Long Kesh prison to the illegal poker rooms of Manhattan to the cold lakeshore on the Canadian border where the body parts began washing up. The story is populated by a colorful cast of characters, including cops and FBI agents, prison snitches, a radical priest of the Melkite order who ran a home for troubled teenagers on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and the IRA rebel who'd spent long years jailed in one of Northern Ireland's most brutal prisons and who was living underground in New York posing as a comics dealer. Finally, Craig investigates the strange, sad fate of Ronnie Gibbons, a down-and-out boxer and muscle-for-hire in illegal New York City card rooms, who was in on the early planning of the heist, and who disappeared one day in 1995 after an ill-advised trip to Rochester to see some men about getting what he felt he was owed. Instead, he got was what was coming to him. Seven Million is a meticulous re-creation of a complicated heist executed by a variegated and unsavory crew, and of its many repercussions. Some of the suspects are now dead, some went to jail; none of them are talking about the robbery or what really happened to Ronnie Gibbons. And the money? Only a fraction was recovered, meaning that most of the $7 million is still out there somewhere.

Three Impossible Wishes


Anmol Malik - 2020
    Her jugaad and privilege puts her directly in the path of a hardworking scholarship student– Vladimir Petrov, the vodka to her hot chocolate. Their tumultuous friendship is affected by global events, the landscape around them ever changing. And slowly, the Russian winter begins to melt for the Indian summer.Funny and endearing, Three Impossible Wishes is a heart-warming book about finding love and learning to love yourself.

The Boston Irish: A Political History


Thomas H. O'Connor - 1995
    This book offers a history of Boston's Irish community.

Where a Nickel Costs a Dime


Willie Perdomo - 1996
    They throw us off rooftops and say we slipped. They shoot my father and say he was crazy. They put a bullet in my head and say they found me that way."Blending images of street life, drugs, and AIDS against hope and determination, Willie Perdomo is a cutting-edge bard who speaks to the soul of his generation.