Book picks similar to
Secondhand Scotch: How One Family Survived in Spite of Themselves by Cathy Curran
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When the Meadowlark Sings: The Story of a Montana Family
Nedra Sterry - 2003
Prize-winning novelist Cai Emmons praises Sterry by saying she really knows how to tell a story. Sterry grew up in a succession of isolated one-room schools in northern and central Montana, where her mother, a teacher, eked out a living. A must read for anyone who loves Montana and its rich history.
I Should Be Dead: My Life Surviving Politics, TV, and Addiction
Bob Beckel - 2015
On January 20, 2001--George W. Bush's first Inauguration Day--he hit rock bottom, waking up in the psych ward. Written with captivating honesty, Beckel chronicles how his addictions nearly killed him until he found help in an unexpected ally, conservative Cal Thomas, who helped him find faith, get sober, and get his life back on track.
Lost Boy Found
Kirsten Alexander - 2019
Originally published in Australia as Half Moon Lake.In 1913, on a summer's day at Half Moon Lake, Louisiana, four-year-old Sonny Davenport walks into the woods and never returns. The boy's mysterious disappearance from the family's lake house makes front-page news in their home town of Opelousas. John Henry and Mary Davenport are wealthy and influential, and will do anything to find their son. For two years, the Davenports search across the South, offer increasingly large rewards and struggle not to give in to despair. Then, at the moment when all hope seems lost, the boy is found in the company of a tramp. But is he truly Sonny Davenport? The circumstances of his discovery raise more questions than answers. And when Grace Mill, an unwed farm worker, travels from Alabama to lay claim to the child, newspapers, townsfolk, even the Davenports' own friends, take sides. As the tramp's kidnapping trial begins, and two desperate mothers fight for ownership of the boy, the people of Opelousas discover that truth is more complicated than they'd ever dreamed.
An American Holocaust: The Story of Lataine's Ring
Kerry L. Barger - 2011
Considered the worst public school disaster in U.S. history, controversial theories surrounding this tragedy are still debated to this day. The event sparked changes that soon reverberated around the world and continue to affect each of us in our homes, schools, businesses and places of worship. "An American Holocaust" is a story that begins with the giving of a child's Christmas gift in 1936. The explosion took place at the London School in New London, Texas. This story relays more than simple facts. It is a personal account of unprepared loss and shattered dreams, followed by unfathomable grief. It describes the feelings of those who died in their innocence and of those who witnessed horror and lived through the aftermath. An unresolved silence persisted for forty years among the entire community of scarred survivors. For those who spoke out, their stories have been told and re-told for over three quarters of a century, but most people have never heard them. Although the innocent still suffer from the ignorance and indifference of a few, especially those we should be able to trust with the lives and safety of our children, this is also a story of hope. Countless lives have been saved by bold actions that were taken in the wake of this unanticipated sacrifice of so many children who were literally consumed by fire on the day a generation died in Texas. The following is an editorial review by John E. Roper, The US Review of Books: "I remember being thrown up in the air like a toy... I keep turning and spinning. Then darkness." The attack on the World Trade Center in New York claimed almost 3,000 lives and changed America forever. A little-remembered explosion of a school in the 1930s resulted in just over 300 deaths, yet it, too, had a tremendous impact on society. Barger revives the story of one of the nation's most poignant tragedies in his highly-moving tale. The school in New London was considered one of the most modern facilities in the state for the time period, and the residents of the small East Texas town were extremely proud of it. Like in many of the small towns near the oil fields, school officials had decided to tap into the natural gas lines to cut heating costs at the facility. What they never realized was just how dangerous that practice could be. On March 18, 1937, a spark in the wood shop ignited the cloud of invisible and odorless gas that had slowly permeated the school. The resulting explosion killed children and teachers alike, littering the area with body parts and completely devastating a community. The catastrophe led Texas to mandate the inclusion of an additive to natural gas that would enable people to smell it. The nation and then much of the world soon followed suit. Barger's book follows the lives of several families affected by the tragedy, including his own. By giving the reader glimpses into the hopes and dreams of individuals like his cousin, Lataine, he builds a literary memorial to those who lost so much to make others safe in the future... it stands as a much-needed reminder of an event that should never be forgotten. (The U.S. Review) (Notice to literary agents, publishers and producers: all applicable rights are open for bid. Contact information is available at the end of the book or via the author's website at https://sites.google.com/site/KerryLB... )
Palace of the Drowned
Christine ManganChristine Mangan - 2021
Years have passed since the initial success of Frankie's debut novel and she has spent her career trying to live up to the expectations. Now, after a particularly scathing review of her most recent work, alongside a very public breakdown, she needs to recharge and get re-inspired.Then Gilly appears. A precocious young admirer eager to make friends, Gilly seems determined to insinuate herself into Frankie's solitary life. But there's something about the young woman that gives Frankie pause. How much of what Gilly tells her is the truth? As a series of lies and revelations emerge, the lives of these two women will be tragically altered as the catastrophic 1966 flooding of Venice ravages the city.Suspenseful and transporting, Christine Mangan's Palace of the Drowned brings the mystery of Venice to life while delivering a twisted tale of ambition and human nature.
Hippie Boy: A Girl's Story
Ingrid Ricks - 2011
For years she yearned to escape the suffocating religion and poverty at home by joining her dad on the road as tool-selling vagabond. When her parents divorce and her mother marries Earl--a cruel authoritarian who exploits his Church-ordained priesthood powers to oppress her family--she finally gets her wish. At age thirteen, Ingrid begins spending her summers hustling tools throughout the Midwest with her dad and his slimy, revolving sales crew. He becomes her lifeline and escape from Earl. But when her dad is arrested, she learns the lesson that will change her life: she can't look to others to save her; she has to save herself.
Rust & Stardust
T. Greenwood - 2018
When 11 year-old Sally Horner steals a notebook from the local Woolworth's, she has no way of knowing that 52 year-old Frank LaSalle, fresh out of prison, is watching her, preparing to make his move. Accosting her outside the store, Frank convinces Sally that he’s an FBI agent who can have her arrested in a minute—unless she does as he says. This chilling novel traces the next two harrowing years as Frank mentally and physically assaults Sally while the two of them travel westward from Camden to San Jose, forever altering not only her life, but the lives of her family, friends, and those she meets along the way.
The Truth About Statins: Risks and Alternatives to Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs
Barbara H. Roberts - 2012
Now, the Director of the Women’s Cardiac Center in Providence, Rhode Island uses case studies and anecdotes to discuss the uses, misuses, dangers, and benefits of statins, enabling you to make informed decisions on how and when to use them. Including information on when statins help and when they don’t, common side effects, gender differences and drug use, as well as tips and recipes that promote heart health, The Truth About Statins is a timely and invaluable tool for improving cardiovascular health and helping you meet your lipid-lowering goals.
For the Love of Music: The Art of Listening
John Mauceri - 2019
Briefly, we learn the way a musical tradition born in Ancient Greece, embraced by the Roman Empire, and subsequently nurtured by influences from across the globe, gave shape to the classical music that came to be embraced by cultures from Japan to Bolivia. Then Mauceri examines the music itself, helping us understand what it is we hear when we listen to classical music: how, by a kind of sonic metaphor, it expresses the deepest recesses of human feeling and emotion; how each piece bears the traces of its history; how the concert experience--a unique one each and every time--allows us to discover music anew. Unpretentious, graceful, instructive, this is a book for the aficionado, the novice, and anyone looking to have the love of music fired within them.
A Certain Age
Beatriz Williams - 2016
Theresa Marshall of Fifth Avenue and Southampton, Long Island, has done the unthinkable: she's fallen in love with her young paramour, Captain Octavian Rofrano, a handsome aviator and hero of the Great War. An intense and deeply honorable man, Octavian is devoted to the beautiful socialite of a certain age and wants to marry her. While times are changing and she does adore the Boy, divorce for a woman of Theresa's wealth and social standing is out of the question, and there is no need; she has an understanding with Sylvo, her generous and well-respected philanderer husband.But their relationship subtly shifts when her bachelor brother, Ox, decides to tie the knot with the sweet younger daughter of a newly wealthy inventor. Engaging a longstanding family tradition, Theresa enlists the Boy to act as her brother's cavalier, presenting the family's diamond rose ring to Ox's intended, Miss Sophie Fortescue—and to check into the background of the little-known Fortescue family. When Octavian meets Sophie, he falls under the spell of the pretty ingénue, even as he uncovers a shocking family secret. As the love triangle of Theresa, Octavian, and Sophie progresses, it transforms into a saga of divided loyalties, dangerous revelations, and surprising twists that will lead to a shocking transgression ... and eventually force Theresa to make a bittersweet choice.Full of the glamour, wit and delicious twists that are the hallmarks of Beatriz Williams' fiction and alternating between Sophie's spirited voice and Theresa's vibrant timbre, A Certain Age is a beguiling reinterpretation of Richard Strauss's comic opera Der Rosenkavalier, set against the sweeping decadence of Gatsby's New York.
The Girl Behind the Painted Smile: My battle with the bottle
Catherine Lockwood - 2013
Deeply scarred by a childhood of maternal neglect, she attempts to find solace in self-harm and delinquent behaviour. Before long, she is addicted to alcohol. Hidden behind a painted smile, Cathy begins a promising career as an actress and model, rubbing shoulders with royalty and the rich and famous. But Cathy is her own worst enemy and her continued dependence on alcohol hurtles her down a path of self-destruction. She endures a string of abusive, often horrific relationships, anorexia, poverty and almost loses her children. In this harrowing true story, Cathy never loses her sense of humour and is determined to win the battle with the
Quench The Lamp
Alice Taylor - 1990
Her tales of childhood in rural Ireland hark back to a timeless past, to a world now lost, but ever and fondly remembered. The colorful characters and joyous moments she offers have made her stories an Irish phenomenon, and have made Alice herself the most beloved author in all of the Emerald Isle.
The Girl Who Sees Angels
Jeffrey McClain Jones - 2020
Even her mother doubted her as a child. Psychiatrists doubted her too. Psychics tried to recruit her to enrich and empower themselves. Now she’s thirty-two, living on her own, and sharing her secret only with her mother and a few friends.A threatening specter begins to visit her at night, and more than her sleep is at stake. She follows a friend’s recommendation to visit Detta Washington, a church lady who believes that Sophie does see angels and demons. Even if Sophie is skeptical about the labels Detta uses for what she sees, she comes to respect Detta and finds ways to use her gift to help others.When she helps free Detta from an incurable disease and releases two of her friends from creepy creatures shadowing them, Sophie starts to embrace her identity. But she still needs help with the ghoul that hovers above her bed at night. And that’s not the last enemy who threatens her in the dark.Anthony, Detta’s handsome son, helps Sophie understand his mother’s religious language, and he becomes convinced that Sophie is for real. After years of doubt and frequent commitments to mental hospitals, Sophie’s mother comes to trust her daughter’s visions as well.Recovering from a life of being condemned as a crazy person, Sophie finds new confidence. She is gifted. She is the girl who sees angels.
Bracing for Impact: True Tales of Air Disasters and the People Who Survived Them
Robin Suerig Holleran - 2015
Bracing for Impact’s compilers and contributors know. They have both lived out that fear and survived, albeit badly hurt, in their own plane crashes.In this collection of true-life survivor tales, people from all walks of life—a freelance writer, a crew member of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band, a naval flight surgeon, a teenager, and a newlywed on her honeymoon, among others—recount their traumatic narrow escapes as engines stalled, fuel ran out, hazardous weather conditions descended, and landings did not go according to plan. In the face of death, as life flashed before their eyes—or not, as some wryly note—these survivors encountered the terrific split of before and after the crash. Their lives, though preserved, would change forever.Perhaps more significant than the crash itself is how each story plays out in the aftermath of the ordeal. In heart-wrenching, unrelenting honesty, these stories explore the wide spectrum of impacts on survivors—ranging from debilitating fear, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse, to a renewed sense of urgency, where survivors swear to live each day to the fullest and rededicate their lives to helping others.Including the 1977 story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash that killed lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and vocalist Cassie Gaines, Bracing for Impact is as much a horrific account of air disasters as it is a celebration and recognition of the people who survived them.Fans of the 2016 Clint Eastwood film Sully starring Tom Hanks will enjoy this edge-of-your-seat read!Features 45 black and white photographs of survivors and wreckages.