Book picks similar to
Looking for Hickories: The Forgotten Wildness of the Rural Midwest by Tom Springer
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Call Me Red
Hannah Jackson - 2021
It was there where she first saw a lamb being born, giving her the drive to defy her urban roots and become a professional shepherd. She never looked back.In this uplifting and inspirational memoir, Hannah shares how she broke the stereotypes of her 'townie' beginnings, took risks and faced up to the challenges of being a young woman in a male-dominated industry, and followed her heart to become the Red Shepherdess. But behind the beautiful landscape, talented sheepdogs and eye-catching red hair was a steep learning curve. The physically and mentally demanding conditions she faced as she chased her dreams to build her own Cumbrian farm taught Hannah the values the holds true, including community, leadership, patience and resilience.In Call Me Red, Hannah gives a unique insight into farming life and reveals a mindset and determination that proves no matter your background, with hard graft (and a loyal sheepdog) you can make your dreams a reality.
Saving Arcadia: A Story of Conservation and Community in the Great Lakes
Heather Shumaker - 2017
The story spans more than forty years, following the fate of a magnificent sand dune on Lake Michigan and the people who care about it. Author and narrator Heather Shumaker shares the remarkable untold stories behind protecting land and creating new nature preserves. Written in a compelling narrative style, the book is intended in part as a case study for landscape-level conservation and documents the challenges of integrating economic livelihoods into conservation and what it really means to "preserve" land over time.This is the story of a small band of determined townspeople and how far they went to save beloved land and endangered species from the grip of a powerful corporation. Saving Arcadia is a narrative with roots as deep as the trees the community is trying to save, something set in motion before the author was even born. And yet, Shumaker gives a human face to the changing nature of land conservation in the twenty-first century. Throughout this chronicle we meet people like Elaine, a nineteen-year-old farm wife; Dori, a lakeside innkeeper; and Glen, the director of the local land trust. Together with hundreds of others they cross cultural barriers and learn to help one another in an effort to win back the six-thousand-acre landscape taken over by Consumers Power that is now facing grave devastation. The result is a triumph of community that includes working farms, local businesses, summer visitors, year-round residents, and a network of land stewards.A work of creative nonfiction, Saving Arcadia is the adventurous tale of everyday people fighting to reclaim the land that has been in their family for generations. It explores ideas about nature and community, and anyone from scholars of ecology and conservation biology to readers of naturalist writing can gain from Arcadia's story.
Monkeys Are Made of Chocolate: Exotic and Unseen Costa Rica
Jack Ewing - 2003
Author and naturalist Jack Ewing shares a wealth of observations and experiences, gathered from more than four decades of living in southwestern Costa Rica, home to some of the most prolific and diverse ecosystems on Earth.More than just a simple collection of essays, Monkeys are Made of Chocolate is a testament to the wonder of life in all its countless guises, as seen through the eyes of a man with a gift for subtle discernment and a natural flair for storytelling.
Jail Blazers: How the Portland Trail Blazers Became the Bad Boys of Basketball
Kerry Eggers - 2018
For almost a decade, they won 60 percent of their games while making it to the Western Conference Finals twice. However, what happened off-court was just as unforgettable as what they did on the court. When someone asked Blazers general manager Bob Whitsitt about his team’s chemistry, he replied that he’d “never studied chemistry in college.” And with that, the “Jail Blazers” were born. Built in a similar fashion to a fantasy team, the team had skills, but their issues ended up being their undoing. In fact, many consider it the darkest period in franchise history. While fans across the country were watching the skills of Damon Stoudamire, Rasheed Wallace, and Zach Randolph, those in Portland couldn’t have been more disappointed in the players’ off-court actions. This, many have mentioned, included a very racial element—which carried over to the players as well. As forward Rasheed Wallace said, “We’re not really going to worry about what the hell [the fans] think about us. They really don’t matter to us. They can boo us every day, but they’re still going to ask for our autographs if they see us on the street. That’s why they’re fans and we’re NBA players.” While people think of the Detroit Pistons of the eighties as the elite “Bad Boys,” the “Jail Blazers” were actually bad. Author Kerry Eggers, who covered the Trail Blazers during this controversial era, goes back to share the stories from the players, coaches, management, and those in Portland when the players were in the headlines as much for their play as for their legal issues.
The Dean: The Best Seat in the House, from FDR to Obama
John David Dingell - 2018
House of Representatives for fifty-nine consecutive years, from December 13, 1955 to January 3, 2015—the longest tenure of anyone in Congressional history. The son of a Congressman, Dingell worked in his father’s office from childhood and became a house page in 1938, when he was just eleven years old. Retiring from Congress at eighty-nine, he has witnessed some of the most significant events that have shaped our nation and the world.In The Dean, Dingell looks back at his life at the center of American government and considers the currents that have reshaped our Congress and America itself, from his childhood memories of wartime Washington during the FDR administration, through the Reagan Revolution, to the election of the first black president, Barack Obama.Rife with a wisdom that literally only Dingell can possess, The Dean is the inspiring story of some of the greatest congressional achievements, of which Dingell was an integral part, and of the tough fights that made them possible. Dingell offers a persuasive defense for government, explaining how it once worked honorably and well—in defeating Hitler, sending us to the moon, ending segregation, and providing for the common good of all our citizens. He argues that to secure our future and continue our progress, we must work together once again—lessons desperately needed today.
Why We Left An Anthology of American Women Expats
Janet Blaser - 2019
“Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats” is a fun, inspiring and humorous read you'll enjoy from cover to cover, full of useful and encouraging words of wisdom from 27 women who made the move and couldn’t be happier. In inspiring words straight from the heart, the contributors share their plans and preparations, hardships and challenges, joys and satisfactions as their new lives in Mexico unfold.
Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool
Clara Parkes - 2019
An account of the year Clara Parkes spent transforming a 676-pound bale of fleece into saleable yarn, and the people and vanishing industry she discovered along the way.
Anne Rice Reader
Katherine Ramsland - 1997
It includes a history of vampire literature, a professional dominatrix's examination of Rice's erotica, and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film version of Interview with the Vampire. From the adventures of the Vampire Lestat to those of the Mayfair Witches, from the evocative historical epic Cry to Heaven to the uninhibited erotica of Exit to Eden and the Sleeping Beauty trilogy, The Anne Rice Reader presents a captivating range of perspectives on the imagination of a writer who has enthralled her generation.
101 Ways to Go Zero Waste
Kathryn Kellogg - 2019
Enter Kathryn Kellogg, who can fit all her trash from the past two years into a 16-ounce mason jar. How? She starts by saying “no” to straws and grocery bags, and “yes” to a reusable water bottle and compostable dish scrubbers.In 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste, Kellogg shares these tips and more, along with DIY recipes for beauty and home; advice for responsible consumption and making better choices for home goods, fashion, and the office; and even secrets for how to go waste free at the airport. “It’s not about perfection,” she says. “It’s about making better choices.”This is a practical, friendly blueprint of realistic lifestyle changes for anyone who wants to reduce their waste.
Confessions Subprime Lender
Richard Bitner - 2008
In Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider's Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance, he reveals the truth about how the subprime lending business spiraled out of control, pushed home prices to unsustainable levels, and turned unqualified applicants into qualified borrowers through creative financing. Learn about the ways the mortgage industry can be fixed with his twenty suggestions for critical change.
Family Secrets: The scandalous history of an extraordinary family
Derek Malcolm - 2017
The secret, though, that surrounded my parents’ unhappy life together, was divulged to me by accident . . .’ Hidden under some papers in his father’s bureau, the sixteen-year-old Derek Malcolm finds a book by the famous criminologist Edgar Lustgarten called The Judges and the Damned. Browsing through the Contents pages Derek reads, ‘Mr Justice McCardie tries Lieutenant Malcolm – page 33.’ But there is no page 33. The whole chapter has been ripped out of the book. Slowly but surely, the shocking truth emerges: that Derek’s father, shot his wife’s lover and was acquitted at a famous trial at the Old Bailey. The trial was unique in British legal history as the first case of a crime passionel, where a guilty man is set free, on the grounds of self-defence. Husband and wife lived together unhappily ever after, raising Derek in their wake. Then, in a dramatic twist, following his father’s death, Derek receives an open postcard from his Aunt Phyllis, informing him that his real father is the Italian Ambassador to London . . . By turns laconic and affectionate, Derek Malcolm has written a richly evocative memoir of a family sinking into hopeless disrepair. Derek Malcolm was chief film critic of the Guardian for thirty years and still writes for the paper. Educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, he became first a steeplechase rider and then an actor after leaving university. He worked as a journalist in the sixties, first in Cheltenham and then with the Guardian where he was a features sub-editor and writer, racing correspondent and finally film critic. He directed the London Film Festival for a spell in the 80s and is now President of both the International Film Critics Association and the British Federation of Film Societies. He lives with his wife Sarah Gristwood in London and Kent and has published two books – one on Robert Mitchum and another on his favourite 100 films. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television and a veteran of film festival juries all over the world.
21 Months a Captive: Rachel Plummer and the Fort Parker Massacre (Annotated)
Rachel Plummer - 2016
Some residents were brutally murdered, others taken prisoner.Among those captured was eleven year old Cynthia Parker, who would remain with the Comanche for 24 years and give birth to famed Chief Quanah.Another captive was 17-year-old Rachel Plummer, mother of one, pregnant with her second child. She would soon have her first-born ripped from her arms, never to be seen again, and later watched as her second-born was killed before her eyes.After twenty-one months of captivity that destroyed her health, she was purchased and returned to her family. In this extraordinary account, her father tells of that horrible day when the fort was attacked, and his desperate efforts to find and retrieve the captives. Rachel details her terrible enslavement and how she eventually fought back.For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers, tablets, and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.
NPR Driveway Moments Moms: Radio Stories That Won't Let You Go
National Public Radio - 2009
Stories so compelling you'll stay in your car to hear them through--even if you're sitting in your own driveway. "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! "host Peter Sagal captures your attention with colorful tales for and about moms. Heard in "All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, News & Notes," and other NPR programs, these stories and more are for moms, moms-to-be, and anyone who has ever known or had a mother.
Losing Earth: A Recent History
Nathaniel Rich - 2018
Over the next decade, a handful of scientists, politicians, and strategists, led by two unlikely heroes, risked their careers in a desperate, escalating campaign to convince the world to act before it was too late. Losing Earth is their story, and ours.The New York Times Magazine devoted an entire issue to Nathaniel Rich's groundbreaking chronicle of that decade, which became an instant journalistic phenomenon--the subject of news coverage, editorials, and conversations all over the world. In its emphasis on the lives of the people who grappled with the great existential threat of our age, it made vivid the moral dimensions of our shared plight.Now expanded into book form, Losing Earth tells the human story of climate change in even richer, more intimate terms. It reveals, in previously unreported detail, the birth of climate denialism and the genesis of the fossil fuel industry's coordinated effort to thwart climate policy through misinformation propaganda and political influence. The book carries the story into the present day, wrestling with the long shadow of our past failures and asking crucial questions about how we make sense of our past, our future, and ourselves.Like John Hersey's Hiroshima and Jonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth, Losing Earth is the rarest of achievements: a riveting work of dramatic history that articulates a moral framework for understanding how we got here, and how we must go forward.
SARGE!: Cases of a Chicago Police Detective Sergeant in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s
John DiMaggio - 2018
DiMaggio, one of the most decorated officers on the force during a career that spanned the years 1957 to 1991. Among his awards are two Superintendent’s Awards of Valor, Mayor Richard J. Daley’s Praiseworthy Acknowledgment Plaque for Exceptional Act of Bravery Involving Risk of Life, a Presidential Citation of Appreciation, the Illinois Police Association Award of Valor, and many more.Upon his retirement in 1991, DiMaggio wrote a fascinating account of his work as a cop. The manuscript languished among his personal effects until after his death in 2008, after which his family decided to resurrect it, spruce it up, and submit it for publication. It turns out that he was an excellent word craftsman and storyteller; in fact, he was no stranger to writing—for many years he wrote the “Ask Sarge” column for the Mystery Writers of America Midwest Chapter newsletter.Told in a conversational, “regular guy” voice in episodic fashion, “SARGE!” reveals to the reader what it was really like to be a cop. The manuscript in many ways takes the form of a prose treatment of a weekly television police drama. A large selection of PHOTOS is included.DiMaggio takes the reader back to the decades such as the turbulent 1960s, when the police department was making a painful transition from “old school” to modernization. The author describes firsthand the legendary riots that occurred in Chicago after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He illustrates the integration of minorities into the department and how that played out. He also goes into famous cases of corruption and the politics of navigating such a large department. One of the “set pieces” of the book is the story of how DiMaggio, as part of the “Three Musketeers”—a trio that included two detectives who were close friends—investigated a series terrifying slasher attacks on women that occurred in the city in the mid-70s. The case became one of the police department’s most memorable. Among the other cases detailed in the book include how DiMaggio found himself entering the home of a crazed young man holding hostages with a shotgun; the investigation of the discovery of a headless corpse; the take-down of the Chicago “Mad Bomber”; how an anonymous audio tape provided clues to the identities of armed robbers; and the manhunt for a cop killer. A portion of all proceeds will be donated to The Chicago Police Memorial Foundation and The Chicago Police Foundation.