Uncharted Seas


Emilie Loring - 1932
    Pat Newsome, lady of Seven Chimneys. On her arrival, she meets an old acquaintance who claims to be the long lost son of Mark Hoyt, the former owner of Seven Chimneys and Stone House. Then, on an afternoon walk, she stumbles upon Stone House and handsome, arrogant Nicholas Hoyt, nephew to Mark and heir to his fortune. Suddenly, Sandra is cast into a world of lies and deceit, plagued by questions: Who is the true heir? And, most of all, who will win her trust and her heart?

How Not to Be a Professional Racing Driver


Jason Plato - 2019
    But he's also a rule breaker who has had more than his fair share of near-death experiences, drunken escapades and more. And yet he's still racing. There is nothing sensible, predictable or considered about Jason, but this is how he became a racing legend.

Mondo Agnelli: Fiat, Chrysler, and the Power of a Dynasty


Jennifer Clark - 2011
    Fiat's against-all-odds swoop on Chrysler---masterminded by Sergio Marchionne, the Houdini-like manager who saved Fiat from its own near-collapse in 2005 - has made the automaker one of the most unlikely winners of the financial crisis. Mondo Agnelli is a new book that looks at the chain of unpredictable events triggered by the death of Gianni Agnelli in 2003. Gianni, the charismatic, silver-haired power broker and style icon, was the patriarch who had lead the company founded by his grandfather in 1899. But Gianni's own son had committed suicide. Without a mature heir, the dynasty and Fiat were rudderless. Backed by Gianni's closest advisors, his serious, shy, and determined grandson John plucked Marchionne from obscurity. Together, they saved the family company and, inadvertently, positioned Fiat as a global trailblazer when the global storm hit.A classic story of ingenuity and hard work, the book portrays a business dynasty that triumphed over adversity and family tragedy because of its own smarts, sweat, and ability to bend the rules A an engaging tale for those interested in the stories behind the economic crash, the book contains never-before reported material about how Fiat succeeded in making Chrysler profitable where both Daimler AG and Cerberus, its previous owners, had failed. A story for a wide audience, from car buffs, business readers, lovers of Italy, and anyone fascinated by the lifestyle of Europe's most glamorous industrial dynasty, this book tells the tale of how Fiat achieved the seemingly impossible -- turning around an American automotive icon everyone else had given up for dead.

The Maniac in the Bushes: More Tales of Cleveland Woe


John Stark Bellamy II - 1997
    . .- Martha Wise, Medina's not-so-merry widow, who poisoned a dozen relatives with arsenic--including her own husband, mother, brother, niece, and nephews--because she enjoyed attending funerals;- The legendary Torso Murders, which baffled Cleveland safety directory Eliot Ness, two Cuyahoga County coroners, and the entire Cleveland police force as they tried in vain to catch the perpetrator--whom newspapers dubbed the "Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run";- The unspeakably horrible Collinwood School Fire of 1908, in which 172 schoolchildren perished in panic because of obstructed fire exits;- Hammer-wielding Velma West, a big-city girl of Cleveland's Jazz Age driven to murder her small-town husband by the slow pace of life of Painesville--and her own obsession with another woman;- The Flats lumber fire of 1914, which leveled Cleveland's industrial Flats, melted bridges, and very nearly set the entire city ablaze;- The enduring mystery of ten-year-old Beverly Potts, whose puzzling disappearance from west-side Halloran Park in 1951 launched Cleveland's greatest manhunt;And many other local heroes and villains in these compelling tales of mayhem, melancholy, and mystery.

The Dawning of the Day


Elisabeth Ogilvie - 1954
    She was caught up in the smoldering conflicts of the island families. Though the fisherman of Bennett’s Island used modern power boats, they followed the sea as their forebears had- and lived by a tradition hard for an outsider to grasp. Philippa Marshall gallantly undertook this island venture to provide a livelihood for herself and her young son but she also hoped that here she might find friendship and affection to fill her empty heart.

Bodies and Souls


Nancy Thayer - 1983
    . . until they can no longer. Now available for the first time as an eBook!   From his position behind the pulpit, Reverend Peter Taylor has a unique view of his affluent congregants. By and large, they appear respectable and morally upstanding, but they have their share of troubles—and perhaps even more than their share of sins. Liza Howard is a notorious Jezebel who seduces young and old alike, and who now has her sights set on Judy Bennett’s son, despite his engagement. Meanwhile, Judy hides her own family secrets behind her relentless judgment of others. Widow Suzanna Blair’s newly found passion for her female professor has her questioning the life she’s always known. And Peter Taylor himself struggles with faith and lust despite an eighteen-year marriage. As their turbulent lives and their scandalous stories intersect, one thing is certain: small town secrets never remain hidden for long.  Includes a captivating preview of Nancy Thayer’s upcoming novel Nantucket Sisters! Praise for the novels of Nancy Thayer   “The queen of beach books.” —The Star-Ledger   “Thayer has a deep and masterly understanding of love and friendship, of where the two complement and where they collide.”—Elin Hilderbrand   “Thayer’s gift for reaching the emotional core of her characters [is] captivating.”—Houston Chronicle  “One of my favorite writers.”—Susan Wiggs   “Thayer portrays beautifully the small moments, inside stories and shared histories that build families.”—The Miami Herald   “Thayer’s sense of place is powerful, and her words are hung together the way my grandmother used to tat lace.”—Dorothea Benton Frank

Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN


Carter Alan - 2013
    It broadcast its final song, Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” in August 2009. In between, WBCN became the musical, cultural, and political voice of the young people of Boston and New England, sustaining a vibrant local music scene that launched such artists as the J. Geils Band, Aerosmith, James Taylor, Boston, the Cars, and the Dropkick Murphys, as well as paving the way for Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, U2, and many others. Along the way, WBCN both pioneered and defined progressive rock radio, the dominant format for a generation of listeners. Brilliantly told by Carter Alan—and featuring the voices of station insiders and the artists they loved—Radio Free Boston is the story of a city; of artistic freedom, of music and politics and identity; and of the cultural, technological, and financial forces that killed rock radio.

Revere Beach Boulevard


Roland Merullo - 1998
    From the moment Vito arrived in the United States from Italy in 1936 he did his best to live as a good man--hard-working, deeply-religious, frugal and honest. Peter, on the other hand, now forty years old, his real-estate business in shambles, has bent the rules and battled a gambling addiction for most of his adult life. With his family's help, he always just succeeded in averting disaster, until now. Revere Beach Boulevard--a novel both literary and suspenseful--tells the story of a family that rallies around an errant son, even as a dark secret that has blighted all their lives comes to the surface. For Peter it means having the courage to stand up to Eddie Crevine, a Mafia thug to whom he is in debt and who now threatens his life. For Peter's sister, Joanna, it means admitting that she shares some of her brother's anger at their parents. For Vito and his wife, Lucy, it involves dealing with the aftereffects of a youthful indiscretion, a moment of unchecked passion that changed all of their lives in ways that can never be undone. Revere Beach Boulevard is a rich and heartfelt novel that looks deeply into the secret places in men and women's hearts, places only great fiction can reveal.

Summer Solstice: An Essay


Nina MacLaughlin - 2020
    Fat red tomatoes sliced thin and salted. Lemonade and long dreamy days. The treasures of the season are gone much too soon -- but they're captured here, in loving sensuous prose that's both personal and universal, for you to find any time of year.Experience the most evocative tribute to the meaning of the season, a season whose magical feeling stays with us even in winter. Where does that feeling come from? What is summer made of? The smell of cut grass behind the gasoline of a lawnmower. A crown you've made of flowers. Blackberry bush prickers. First hot dog off the grill. Stargazing and sleeping with the windows open. This essay brims with a searching honesty and insight about what this season has meant in our pasts and what it might mean in our lives ahead.Release yourself into the sky and feel, Nina MacLaughlin writes, for a moment: there's time.If summer is the season of your life, if the months between Memorial Day and Labor Day hold your favorite memories, you'll love Summer Solstice .

Matinicus


Darcy Scott - 2012
    Gil Hodges—who escapes to the island of Matinicus to avoid a crazed ex-lover and verify a rumored 22 species of wild orchid, only to find himself hounded by the ghost of a child some 200 years dead.If Gil’s hoping for some peace and quiet, he’s clearly come to the wrong place. Generations of infighting among loose-knit lobstering clans have left them openly hostile to outsiders. When a beautiful, bed-hopping stranger sails into the harbor, old resentments re-ignite and people begin to die—murders linked, through centuries of violence, to a diary whose secrets threaten to tear the island apart.Discover why Cruising World Magazine calls Gil "The best male protagnist to come along since Lee Child's Jack Racher!"

Fins: Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit


William Knoedelseder - 2018
    It began in the Michigan pine forest in the years after the Civil War, traveled across the Great Plains on the wooden wheels of a covered wagon, and eventually settled in a dirt road village named Hollywood, California, where young Harley took the skills he learned working in his father’s carriage shop and applied them to designing sleek, racy-looking automobile bodies for the fast crowd in the burgeoning silent movie business.As the 1920s roared with the sound of mass manufacturing, Harley returned to Michigan, where, at GM’s invitation, he introduced art into the rigid mechanics of auto-making. Over the next thirty years, he functioned as a kind of combination Steve Jobs and Tom Ford of his time, redefining the form and function of the country’s premier product. His impact was profound. When he retired as GM’s VP of Styling in 1958, Detroit reigned as the manufacturing capitol of the world and General Motors ranked as the most successful company in the history of business.Knoedelseder tells the story in ways both large and small, weaving the history of the company with the history of Detroit and the Earl family as Fins examines the effect of the automobile on America’s economy, culture, and national psyche.

Earnhardt Nation: The Full-Throttle Saga of NASCAR's First Family


Jay Busbee - 2016
    Weekends he could be found going pedal to the metal at the dirt tracks, taking on the competition in the early days of box car racing and becoming one of the best short-track drivers in the state. His son, Dale Earnhardt Sr., would become one of the greatest drivers of all time, and his grandson Dale Jr, would become NASCAR’s most popular driver of the 2000s. From a simple backyard garage, the Earnhardts reached the highest echelons of professional stock car racing and became the stuff of myth for fans.Earnhardt Nation is the story of this car racing dynasty and the business that would make them rich and famous—and nearly tear them apart. Covering all the white-knuckle races, including the final lap at the Daytona 500 that claimed the life of the Intimidator, Earnhardt Nation goes deep into the fast-paced world of NASCAR, its royal family’s obsession with speed, and their struggle with celebrity. Jay Busbee takes us deep inside the lives of these men and women who shaped NASCAR. He delves into their personal and professional lives, from failed marriages to rivalries large and small to complex and competitive father-son relationships that have reverberated through generations, and explores the legacy the Earnhardts struggle to uphold.