Northern Soul


Jimmy Nail - 2004
    Jimmy Nail has been a household name since Auf Wiedersehen, Pet hit our screens in the 1980s. since then, his career as an actor and a musician has put on him on the silver screen alongside Madonna and given him a No. 1 hit single. Success on this astonishing scale was beyond the wildest dreams of the working class lad whose harsh childhood and brutal schooling put him on a collision course with Strangeways. But a short spell in prison helped propel Nail onwards and upwards. With the support of his friends and family, it wasn't long before Jimmy's unique talents and single-minded determination brought him attention of a different kind - and changed his life for ever. In A Northern Soul, Jimmy Nail tells his own vivid story in this intriguing, inspiring and sometimes confounding account of how one man rose to fame and fortune by refusing to be anything but himself.

Natural Killer: A Memoir


Harriet Alida Lye - 2020
    There are no known survivors. There were no known survivors.Fifteen years after Harriet's diagnosis, she became pregnant, despite having been told that her chemotherapy treatment would likely make conception impossible. To be a mother is to make a death, as death is bound up in life. She knew her body had the ability to create death. She never trusted, was told to not even imagine, that it also had the power, that magical banality, to create life.Weaving in source material from the year she spent in hospital, written by both of her parents and her teenage self, this personal reflection is told through a seamless blend of narrative, snapshots, journal entries, and blog updates posted for friends and family.With probing lyricism and searing honesty, Natural Killer explores what it's like to live with a life-threatening illness and survive it; what it means for a body to turn against itself, to self-destruct from within; and what it takes to regain trust in a body that has committed the ultimate betrayal.

Travels in the Greater Yellowstone


Jack Turner - 2007
    In addition, he acknowledges Yellowstone's history as ground zero for the conflicts between preservation and development.

Life in the City of Dirty Water: A Memoir of Healing


Clayton Thomas-Muller - 2019
    As a child, he endured the intergenerational trauma that resulted from his family attending residential school. Growing up Cree in downtown Winnipeg, Canada, Clayton faced systemic racism and violence in school and on the streets, which led him to use his fists to defend himself and earn his livelihood. He escaped the hold that drugs and alcohol had on his life by reconnecting with his Cree heritage. For twenty years, he has been a campaigner with organizations including the Indigenous Environmental Network and 350.org, on the front lines of stopping the assault of industry on Indigenous peoples' lands. Using a nonlinear, oral storytelling style, Life in the City of Dirty Water offers the reflections of a man in midlife, telling his inner child, "I'm here now and I'm going to keep you safe."

Honey and Venom: Confessions of an Urban Beekeeper


Andrew Cote - 2020
     Andrew Coté takes readers through the world of Big Apple beekeeping, complete with its eccentric players, rivalries, and celebrations. But Coté's travels as an apiarist go far beyond city limits, from rural Uganda to warn-torn Iraq, from a remote Chinese hospital to Paris's Notre Dame, to the rocky regions of Kenya to remote Fijian islands--anywhere that honey bees can thrive and improve the lives of those who tend them. He shares all of these moments and more with his trademark humor and verve, resulting in a delightful and informative read about these most magical creatures.

The Fallen Stones: Chasing Blue Butterflies, Mayan Secrets, and Happily Ever After in Belize


Diana Marcum - 2022
    Before long Diana and her partner, Jack Moody—new to being a couple—have moved into a long-empty jungle house, cohabitating with bats, scorpions, toucans, iguanas, and the vulnerable but resilient butterflies. She comes to be obsessed with the array of iridescent creatures.Just ahead, although they don’t know it, are a hurricane and a global pandemic.This warm, funny tale of finding a way forward when the world seems to be falling apart is filled with the beauty of the natural world and a heartfelt cry to protect it—beginning with butterflies.

Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants


Jane Goodall - 2013
    In her wise and elegant new book, Jane Goodall blends her experience in nature with her enthusiasm for botany to give readers a deeper understanding of the world around us.Long before her work with chimpanzees, Goodall's passion for the natural world sprouted in the backyard of her childhood home in England, where she climbed her beech tree and made elderberry wine with her grandmother. The garden her family began then, she continues to enjoy today. SEEDS OF HOPE takes us from England to Goodall's home-away-from-home in Africa, deep inside the Gombe forest, where she and the chimpanzees are enchanted by the fig and plum trees they encounter. She introduces us to botanists around the world, as well as places where hope for plants can be found, such as The Millennium Seed Bank, where one billion seeds are preserved. She shows us the secret world of plants with all their mysteries and potential for healing our bodies as well as Planet Earth.Looking at the world as an adventurer, scientist, and devotee of sustainable foods and gardening-and setting forth simple goals we can all take to protect the plants around us-Jane Goodall delivers an enlightening story of the wonders we can find in our own backyards.

The Shadow Man: A Daughter's Search for Her Father


Mary Gordon - 1996
    20 photos.

Pain Killer: A Memoir of Big League Addiction


Brantt Myhres - 2021
    . . I saw [Brantt] in all phases of his life and his career. I consider him a friend and an ally. Pain Killer sends a strong message. --Darryl Sutter, former NHL player, coach, and GMFrom the only player to be banned for life from the NHL, a harrowing tale of addiction, and an astonishing path to recovery.Brantt Myhres wasn't around for the birth of his daughter. Myhres had played for seven different NHL teams, and had made millions. But he'd been suspended four times, all for drug use, and he had partied his way out of the league. By the time his daughter was born, he was penniless, sleeping on a friend's couch. He'd just been released from police custody. He had a choice between sticking around for the birth, or showing up for league-mandated rehab. He went to rehab. For the fifth time.This is his story, in his own words, of how he fought his way out of minor hockey into the big league, but never left behind the ghosts of a bleak and troubled childhood. He tells the story of discovering booze as a way of handling the anxiety of fighting, and of the thrill of cocaine. In the raw language of the locker room, he tells of how substance abuse poisoned the love he had in his life and sabotaged a great career. Full of stories of week-long benders, stripper-filled hot tubs, motorcycle crashes, and barroom brawls, Pain Killer is at its most powerful when Myhres acknowledges how he let himself down, and betrayed those who trusted him. Again and again, he fools the executives and doctors who gave him a second chance, then a third, then a fourth, and with each betrayal, he spirals further downward.But finally, on the eve of his daughter's birth, when all the money was gone, every bridge burnt, and every opportunity squandered, he was given a last chance. And this time, it worked.It worked so well, that not only has he been around for his daughter for the past eleven years, in 2015 he was signed by the LA Kings as a sober coach: a guy who'd been there, a guy who could recognize and help solve problems before they ruined lives and made headlines (as the Kings had seen happen three times that season). Not only did Myhres save himself, he saved others.Unpolished, unpretentious, and unflinching, Myhres tells it like it is, acknowledging every mistake, and painting a portrait of an angry, violent, dangerous man caught in the vice of something he couldn't control, and didn't understand. If Brantt Myhres can pull himself together, anyone can. And he does, convincingly, and inspiringly.

Elon Musk: Renaissance Man


Nathaniel Oliver - 2015
    In this book, you'll find Elon's incredible story alongside quotes with relevant context and insight into his philosophy on life. Elon Musk is a modern-day fusion of Henry Ford and Isaac Asimov. One of the most successful and renowned entrepreneurs in the world, he’s an unstoppable force in multiple industries. If Musk glances at your business, your product, or your engineers, watch out… he’s about to ruin your day. SpaceX "There is nothing inherently expensive about rockets. It's just that those who have built and operated them in the past have done so with horrendously poor efficiency." - Elon Musk "We are used to things improving every year; we are used to having a better cell phone next year than this year; a better lap top. We are even used to some basic things, like we expect more from your car in next year’s model than last year’s model. But this is not the case in space; reliability and cost - those are the fundamental parameters of transportation - have not improved... We got to the moon, but have never done anything better since. I'm disappointed that we have not made more progress since Apollo. I don't even see a plan that says we're going to do better than Apollo to exceed that goal." - Elon Musk "If we can be one of the companies that makes it possible for humans to become a multi-planetary species, that would be the Holy Grail. It sounds a bit crazy but it's going to happen, and only if people build the means to do so. We're making progress toward a greater philosophical goal while building a sound business." - Elon Musk Tesla Motors "The reason for me to do it is not because I saw a huge market opportunity. It was clear that we were not going to see electric cars from major car manufacturers. The industry was operating under two false premises. One, that you could not create a compelling electric car. And two, that no one would buy it. Now that we’ve become profitable, we expect that other manufacturers will get into the electric car market... [but] the response thus far has been slower than I’d like." - Elon Musk “I don’t like patents, personally. When I was first starting out developing technology, I got lots of patents, and thought this was a good thing, and then I sort of discovered that a patent was really like buying a lottery ticket to a lawsuit. I was like, I’d rather not buy those tickets. You look at sort of the battle between Apple & Samsung, who is really winning there? The lawyers are winning certainly, but neither of those two companies. And, in the case of Tesla, I thought, ‘Well, would Tesla ever sue some other car company if they were using our patents, to try to make them stop making electric cars?’ We would never do such a thing, so why pretend that we would.” - Elon Musk Note from the Author: If you enjoyed reading this book, please consider leaving a review!

The Doper Next Door: My Strange and Scandalous Year on Performance-Enhancing Drugs


Andrew Tilin - 2011
    Soon wielding syringes, this forty-something husband and father of two children becomes the doper next door.During his yearlong odyssey, Tilin is transformed. He becomes stronger, hornier, and aggressive. He wades into a subculture of doping physicians, real estate agents, and aging women who believe that Tilin’s type of legal “hormone replacement therapy” is the key to staying young—and he often agrees. He also lives with the price paid for renewed vitality, worrying about his health, marriage, and cheating ways as an amateur bike racer. And all along the way, he tells us what doping is really like—empowering and scary.

Valvano: They Gave Me a Lifetime Contract, and Then They Declared Me Dead


Jim Valvano - 1991
    2 cassettes.

The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century


Dickson D. Despommier - 2010
    Dickson Despommier's visionary book provides a blueprint for securing the world's food supply and at the same time solving one of the gravest environmental crises facing us today."--StingImagine a world where every town has their own local food source, grown in the safest way possible, where no drop of water or particle of light is wasted, and where a simple elevator ride can transport you to nature's grocery store - imagine the world of the vertical farm.When Columbia professor Dickson Despommier set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big - he thought up. Despommier's stroke of genius, the vertical farm, has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Despommier explains how the vertical farm will have an incredible impact on changing the face of this planet for future generations.Despommier takes readers on an incredible journey inside the vertical farm, buildings filled with fruits and vegetables that will provide local food sources for entire cities.Vertical farms will allow us to:- Grow food 24 hours a day, 365 days a year- Protect crops from unpredictable and harmful weather- Re-use water collected from the indoor environment- Provide jobs for residents- Eliminate use of pesticides, fertilizers, or herbicides- Drastically reduce dependence on fossil fuels- Prevent crop loss due to shipping or storage- Stop agricultural runoffVertical farms can be built in abandoned buildings and on deserted lots, transforming our cities into urban landscapes which will provide fresh food grown and harvested just around the corner. Possibly the most important aspect of vertical farms is that they can built by nations with little or no arable land, transforming nations which are currently unable to farm into top food producers. In the tradition of the bestselling The World Without Us, The Vertical Farm is a completely original landmark work destined to become an instant classic

Saving Our Skins: Building a Vineyard Dream in France


Caro Feely - 2014
    gorgeous glitter with a high price tag. On a winter’s day it is beautiful, but on a spring day after bud burst it spells devastation. For Sean and Caro Feely, a couple whose love affair with wine and France has taken them through financial and physical struggle to create their organic vineyard, it could spell the end. Until they receive an unexpected call that could save their skins… This book is about life, love and taking risks, while transforming a piece of land into a flourishing vineyard and making a new life in France.

Blithe Tomato


Mike Madison - 2006
    Biography. Across America, people are escaping fluorescent-lit grocery store aisles to rediscover the fresh, seasonal offerings of the farmers' market. A new and thriving culture has sprung up as thousands gather each weekend to pinch, poke, smell, and probe the produce-and at times each other. Who knew that buying peaches and eggplants could be such fun? Mike Madison, who raises organic flowers, melons, olives, and apricots, has been setting up at these markets for over twenty years. With keen observations and sly wit, Madison presents a series of essays and vignettes that introduce us to the characters who make our food, the economy that produces it, and the spirit that has placed farmers' markets among the fastest growing movements in the country.