Book picks similar to
Her Father's Daughter by Beezy Marsh


non-fiction
fiction
central
historical-fiction

6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain


Eric LeMarque - 2017
     Known by his National Guard rescuers as “the Miracle Man,” Eric recounts his rise to success and fame as a hockey player and Olympian, his long and painful fall due to crystal meth addiction, and his unbelievable ordeal in the wilderness. In the end, a man whose life had been based on athleticism would lose both his legs to frostbite and had to learn to walk—and snowboard—again with prosthetics. He realized that he couldn’t come to terms with his drug addiction or learn to walk again by himself. He had to depend on God for his strength. Now an inspirational speaker committed to raising awareness for the dangers of drugs and crystal meth, Eric, in 6 Below, confronts the ultimate test of survival: what it takes to find your way out of darkness, and—after so many lies—to tell the truth and, by the grace and guidance of God, begin to live again.

No Time for Fear: How a shark attack survivor beat the odds


Paul de Gelder - 2011
    Paul chased adventure wherever he could find it, from his wild ride as a hoodlum teen and his drug-and-alcohol fuelled stint working in a strip club to hauling his way up to the elite echelons of the defence forces.But trouble hunted him down in the form of a brutal shark in February 2009. Paul lost two limbs, and his career as a daredevil navy clearance diver was flung into jeopardy. Drawing on everything his eventful life had taught him, Paul left nothing to chance in his recovery. He fought through excruciating pain, smashing challenge after challenge, and amazing the medical staff with his will to succeed. His inspiring story takes ‘never say die’ to a whole new level.

O's Guide to Life: The Best of O, The Oprah Magazine (Wisdom, Wit, Advice, Interviews and Inspiration)


O, The Oprah Magazine - 2007
    It s about loving who you really are - and embracing the challenge to discover your best life ever. Best of all, Oprah will donate 100% of Harpo s profits from the sale of this book to Oprah s Angel Network. Every month O, The Oprah Magazine seeks out answers - not just from the most respected experts in America, but also from ordinary women who ve accomplished extraordinary things. Whether they re world-class experts or everyday people, they all have one thing in common: They ve tapped into tips, techniques, and strategies for getting the best out of life. Now, you can too. In O's Guide to Life, you ll find expert advice for:-Sculpting your best body with Oprah s step-by-step illustrations -Getting the sex life you want by turning up the heat with must-have tips from Dr. Phil-Discovering the power of financial stability with Suze Orman s 6 easy steps Plus so much more!Start living your best life today!

Let Me Finish


Roger Angell - 2006
    Now, in Let Me Finish, a deeply personal, fresh form of autobiography, he takes an unsentimental look at his early days as a boy growing up in Prohibition-era New York with a remarkable father; a mother, Katharine White, who was a founding editor of the New Yorker; and a famous stepfather, the writer E. B. White. Intimate, funny, and moving portraits form the book’s centerpiece as Angell remembers his surprising relatives, his early attraction to baseball in the time of Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio, and his vivid colleagues during a long career as a New Yorker writer and editor. Infused with pleasure and sadness, Angell’s disarming memoir also evokes an attachment to life’s better moments.

Crash Dive: A Collection of Submarine Stories


Larry Bond - 2010
    and Soviet submarines during the Cold War, Crash Dive will take you inside the silent but deadly world of the military submarine.

My Father's Son: Memories of War and Peace


Farley Mowat - 1993
    Here is Mowat's memoirs of his service in World War II, his letters to and from his father, and his bizarre tale of steering German war materials back home to Canada. Photographs.

Hungry for Home


Cole Moreton - 2000
    Cole Moreton tells the story of the Blaskets through the eyes of the Kearney family, who lived there for generations until 1947 when they paid a terrible price for their isolation-a young man's life. Moreton discovers a few survivors still alive within sight of the Great Blasket, but most had left Ireland for America, settling in Massachusetts. Hungry for Home is a beautifully written and gripping account of a quest for a vanished people, and the Kearneys' incredible journey into the twentieth century is "a moving, atmospheric testament to the mythic lure of home". Entertainment Weekly.

An Exclusive Love


Johanna Adorján - 2009
    Johanna Adorján's grandparents were unconventionally elegant and endlessly exotic; they survived the Holocaust, fled Budapest during the uprising of 1956, and lived a glamorous and mysterious life in Denmark—their pasts never discussed, even within the family. An Exclusive Love is Adorján's poignant and loving reconstruction of what may have happened on the day of their deaths, when Adorján was just twenty. Investigating the rich and surprising story of their lives, Adorján reveals the compromises they made and risks they took, and what it meant for her own family. This memoir tells of a couple's extravagant devotion to each other, and their granddaughter's later discovery of complex personalities, long-buried family secrets, and why they ultimately decided, together, to take their own lives. W. G. Sebald's translator Anthea Bell renders Adorján's brilliantly constructed, powerfully concise memoir with stunning clarity. Beautifully written, tender but never sentimental, An Exclusive Love is a vivid portrait of a true twentieth-century couple. .

The House at Sugar Beach


Helene Cooper - 2008
    Helene grew up at Sugar Beach, a twenty-two-room mansion by the sea. Her childhood was filled with servants, flashy cars, a villa in Spain, and a farmhouse up-country. It was also an African childhood, filled with knock foot games and hot pepper soup, heartmen and neegee. When Helene was eight, the Coopers took in a foster child—a common custom among the Liberian elite. Eunice, a Bassa girl, suddenly became known as “Mrs. Cooper’s daughter.”For years the Cooper daughters—Helene, her sister Marlene, and Eunice—blissfully enjoyed the trappings of wealth and advantage. But Liberia was like an unwatched pot of water left boiling on the stove. And on April 12, 1980, a group of soldiers staged a coup d'état, assassinating President William Tolbert and executing his cabinet. The Coopers and the entire Congo class were now the hunted, being imprisoned, shot, tortured, and raped. After a brutal daylight attack by a ragtag crew of soldiers, Helene, Marlene, and their mother fled Sugar Beach, and then Liberia, for America. They left Eunice behind.A world away, Helene tried to assimilate as an American teenager. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill she found her passion in journalism, eventually becoming a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. She reported from every part of the globe—except Africa—as Liberia descended into war-torn, third-world hell.In 2003, a near-death experience in Iraq convinced Helene that Liberia—and Eunice—could wait no longer. At once a deeply personal memoir and an examination of a violent and stratified country, The House at Sugar Beach tells of tragedy, forgiveness, and transcendence with unflinching honesty and a survivor's gentle humor. And at its heart, it is a story of Helene Cooper’s long voyage home.

Harvest of Yesterdays


Gladys Taber - 1976
    Taber shares memories of her childhood in the Southwest and Mexico as well as her married life and early pursuit of a writing career.

Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill


Sonia Purnell - 2015
    Sonia Purnell finally gives Clementine her due with a deeply researched account that tells her life story, revealing how she was instrumental in softening FDR’s initial dislike of her husband and paving the way for Britain’s close relationship with America. It also provides a surprising account of her relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt and their differing approaches to the war effort.Born into impecunious aristocracy, the young Clementine was the target of cruel snobbery. Many wondered why Winston married her, but their marriage proved to be an exceptional partnership. Beautiful and intelligent, but driven by her own insecurities, she made his career her mission. Any real consideration of Winston Churchill is incomplete without an understanding of their relationship, and Clementine is both the first real biography of this remarkable woman and a fascinating look inside their private world.

Turning Point


Marion Kummerow - 2018
     Destined for deportation to a labor camp, she has nowhere to hide. When a bomb hits her building, she emerges from the rubble unscathed. But there's only one way to stay alive. She needs to switch identities with a dead Nazi girl. Will Margarete betray everything she ever believed in to survive? Attention: this short story has previously been part of the anthology Pearl Harbor and more. If you own the anthology, do not buy this book.

Where the Wind Leads: A Refugee Family's Miraculous Story of Loss, Rescue, and Redemption


Vinh Chung - 2014
    His family was wealthy, controlling a rice-milling empire worth millions; but within months of the communist takeover, the Chungs lost everything and were reduced to abject poverty.Knowing that their children would have no future under the new government, the Chungs decided to flee the country. In 1979, they joined the legendary "boat people" and sailed into the South China Sea, despite knowing that an estimated two hundred thousand of their countrymen had already perished at the hands of brutal pirates and violent seas.Where the Wind Leads follows Vinh Chung and his family on their desperate journey from pre-war Vietnam, through pirate attacks on a lawless sea, to a miraculous rescue and a new home in the unlikely town of Fort Smith, Arkansas. There Vinh struggled against poverty, discrimination, and a bewildering language barrier--yet still managed to graduate from Harvard Medical School.Where the Wind Leads is Vinh's tribute to the courage and sacrifice of his parents, a testimony to his family's faith, and a reminder to people everywhere that the American dream, while still possible, carries with it a greater responsibility.

Cambodia


Brian Fawcett - 1986
     Through thirteen wildly imaginative short stories and a passional essay on colonialism and Southeast Asia, Cambodia: A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow startles, amuses, and infuriates its readers with juxtaposed images and penetrating insights into the media jungle. Like subtitles read in a foreign film, the pace of Brian Fawcett’s intoxicating prose accelerates quickly and unfolds right before the readers eyes until it is moving more swiftly than the imagines on the evening moves. Passion stirs in the pages of Fawcett’s book, urging readers to resist the annihilation of memory and imagination in our society.

Flying Low


B.K. Bryans - 2012
    Navy fighter/attack pilot from 1956 to 1980. (What it was like to fly jets off aircraft carriers in the days before smart bombs, GPS, and automated carrier landing systems.) After two years at the University of Arizona, the author entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in Pensacola, Florida, and became a carrier-qualified jet pilot at age twenty. As a naval aviator, he flew 3,669 hours in thirteen different types of aircraft, made 652 carrier landings (163 of them at night), and flew 183 combat missions during the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and thirteen Air Medals. He went on to command Attack Squadron 35 aboard USS Nimitz.This is the story.