Book picks similar to
Locked In by Victoria Arlen


audible-book
before-goodreads
women-empowerment

When You Hear Hoofbeats Think of a Zebra


Shems Friedlander - 1987
    Here he presents ancient Sufi teaching stories rooted in the Islamic tradition. With common sense and insightful wit, he addresses questions and problems of contemporary life and awakens our attention to the often overlooked moments that give importance and meaning to our lives. Through the re-telling of classical stories and his own commentary, a pattern unfolds that helps to distinguish knowledge from information, reality from imagination, and makes what seems to lie beyond our perception - understanding and brief - accessible. Our spiritual potential as human beings is realised in "When You Hear Hoofbeats Think of a Zebra".

She Effin' Hates Me: A Love Story


Scarlett Savage - 2014
    Her mother, Suzanne, is convinced that Molly’s news is history repeating herself — and that she’s about to become a thirty-six-year-old grandmother. Suzanne’s mother, Ava, develops a case of impending great-grandmother fever—that is, when she’s not spying on the new next-door neighbor, Buddy McKinley, who turns out to be a blast from her past.Decades earlier, Buddy was the business partner of Ava’s late husband, as well as his best friend during the Vietnam War. Ava feels she has good reasons for hating Buddy—she blames him for the fall of their business, an Irish pub that was a staple of the community. The loss not only destroyed her husband but also pushed her headfirst into the vodka bottle.Suzanne eventually finds out that Buddy and Ava’s past goes back much further than either has admitted. She begins to wonder whether Ava truly hates Buddy, or whether her feelings are much more complicated, as are her own when Molly announces that she’s not pregnant, but gay.Based on the award-winning play, She Effin' Hates Me is about three women relearning to love one another for who they are … and more importantly, for who they’re not.

Junk English


Ken Smith - 2001
    With hundreds of new examples pulled from everyday life, Junk English 2 shows how our language has become so pliable and flabby that the more we read and hear, the less we know.

The Worthy Project


Meadow DeVor
    (Yes! Self-worth is something you can learn and practice, and The Worthy Project tells you how.)Is your home too cluttered?Are you dissatisfied with the state of your bank account?Do you feel like your friends and family suck more of your energy than they give?Are your clothes outdated or the wrong size?The Worthy Project will guide you through the steps in your own life to diagnose feelings of unworthiness and offer practical advice for how to let go of the self-doubt that is holding you back in order to unleash your true potential.“Meadow’s combination of high humor and laser insight changed my life.” (Dr. Martha Beck, New York Times best-selling author, speaker, life coach)

Afterglow: A Last Conversation With Pauline Kael


Francis Davis - 1990
    This is a biography of the ascerbic and witty film critic Pauline Kael.

Be Unapologetically You: A Self Love Guide for Women of Color


Adeline Bird - 2016
    And when you do that, you find your shiny crown of self-worth and you put it on, bravely, proudly and fiercely. Why?Because self-love has to be fierce. It has to be courageous and it has to be a deliberate act of defiance against anything and everything that makes you think you are unlovable. When you stand up for yourself, you allow others to do the same for themselves. Loving yourself is what you are here to do and it’s your most important work. No one else can do it for you but until you learn to love what and who you are, you cannot share your unique gifts with the world. Scroll Up to Download FREE now with Kindle Unlimited or click the orange buy button to start reading TODAY

When They Come Calling


Sarah Fleming Mountford - 2016
    A late night accident leaves Anna at the mercy of the strange man who saved her life, but Anna soon learns that meeting Jed was no coincidence. As Anna is drawn into Jed's dangerous world and a feud three thousand years in the making, she must come to terms with her own secrets and decide what she will do, when they come calling.

Rebound: The Odyssey Of Michael Jordan


Bob Greene - 1995
    Celebrated for his playing, for his lifestyle and for what he gets paid, every move he makes is news. This biography and commentary on Jordan's journey through life has been written with his co-operation. It covers the last turbulent five years for Jordan, from the day his father was murdered through his decision to retire and on to his dramatic return to basketball, which electrified not only his team but the entire game.

Selected Short Stories of John O'Hara


John O'Hara - 1956
    “The stories in this volume,” writes Louis Begley in his new Introduction, “show the wide range of [O’Hara’s] interests and an ability to treat with a virtuoso’s ease characters and situations from any place on America’s geographic and social spectrum.”Stories included:The decision -- Everything satisfactory -- The moccasins -- Doctor and Mrs. Parsons -- Pardner -- A phase of life -- Walter T. Carriman -- Now we know -- Too young -- Summer's day -- The king of the desert -- Bread alone -- Graven image -- The next-to-last dance of the season -- Where's the game? -- Mrs. Whitman -- Price's always open -- The cold house -- Are we leaving tomorrow? -- No mistakes -- The ideal man -- Do you like it here? -- The doctors son -- Hotel kid -- The public career of Mr. Seymour Harrisburg -- In the morning sun -- War aims -- Secret meeting -- Other women's households -- Over the river and through the wood -- I could have had a yacht -- A respectable place.

Days that Changed the World


Carrie Gibson - 2018
    Extraordinary stories. Listen to history's unsung heroes who changed the world, in this powerful documentary series. Get closer to events you may only have heard about from school books with these first person accounts of key moments in recent world history.In each episode we explore pertinent dates from 1936 to 2010 and find out what happened through the eyes of those who were there. Crossing the globe and drawing on events in London, Mexico City and Afghanistan to name but a few we hear stories including takes from an athlete, journalist, chess player and soldier.

Three Days of Rain


Richard Greenberg
    He takes up temporary residence in the unused space where thirty-five years earlier, his father Ned, and Ned's late partner Theo, both architects, lived and designed the great house that would make them famous. Sleepless and emotionally jangled, Walker scours the old empty space for clues, evidences or keys to the tortured family history. Discovering his father's journal hidden under the bed, he finds it as unforthcoming as his nearly silent father had been. Walker is joined by his sister, Nan, and their friend from childhood, Pip, Theo's son, to hear the reading of Ned's will. It is there that Walker forces the confrontation that the others need. After an evening of harrowing and sometimes comically inadvertent revelations, Walker disappears once more. This time he returns later that evening with a surprising, but to him, definitive solution to the family puzzle. We travel back to 1960, when Ned's journal begins. We meet the parents at the same age their children are in Act One: Ned, who seems very different from the cold monster the children conjured; the charismatic and putative genius, Theo; and Lena, Walker and Nan's mother, the delightful, troubled "Southern woman who admits to thirty." In the guise of a love story, we are offered all the information needed to devise an alternative reading of the sad, unexpectedly romantic family story."

Hannah Massey


Catherine Cookson - 1972
    Her kingdom may be only a working class household in County Durham, but within its walls her iron will governs a predominantly male family and her word is unchallengeable law. The apple of Hannah’s eye is her pretty younger daughter, Rosie,who has just returned home after a spell in London. Her return is shrouded in mystery and evasions, and when the truth does come out, Hannah’s world is torn apart.THE FIFTEEN STREETS: Life in the Fifteen Streets was tough — a continual struggle for survival. Some families gave up and descended into a dismal state of grinding poverty. Others, like the O’Briens — and especially John O’Brien — fought grimly for a world they were only rarely allowed to glimpse. When John O’Brien fell in love with Mary Llewellyn,he knew there was a gulf between them that nothing could bridge — it was the gulf of the Fifteen Streets.

Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War


Douglas Brinkley - 2004
    Written by acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley, this is the first full-scale, intimate account of Kerry's naval career. In writing this riveting narrative, Brinkley has drawn on extensive interviews with virtually everyone who knew Kerry well in Vietnam, including all the men still living who served under him. Kerry also entrusted to Brinkley his letters home from Vietnam and his voluminous "War Notes" -- journals, notebooks, and personal reminiscences written during and shortly after the war. This material was provided without restriction, to be used at Brinkley's discretion, and has never before been published.John Kerry enlisted in the Navy in February 1966, months before he graduated from Yale. In December 1967 Ensign Kerry was assigned to the frigate U.S.S. Gridley; after five months of service in the Pacific, with a brief stop in Vietnam, he returned to the United States and underwent training to command a Swift boat, a small craft deployed in Vietnam's rivers. In June 1968 Kerry was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade), and by the end of that year he was back in Vietnam, where he commanded, over time, two Swift boats. Throughout Tour of Duty Brinkley deftly deals with such explosive issues as U.S. atrocities in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia. In a series of unforgettable combat-action sequences, he recounts how Kerry won the Purple Heart three times for wounds suffered in action and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Navy’s Silver Star for gallantry in action.When Kerry returned from Southeast Asia, he joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), becoming a prominent antiwar spokesperson. He challenged the Nixon administration on Capitol Hill with the antiwar movementcheering him on. As Kerry's public popularity soared in April-May 1971, the FBI considered him a subversive. Brinkley -- using new information acquired from the recently released Nixon tapes -- reveals how White House aides Charles Colson and H. R. Haldeman tried to discredit Kerry. Refusing to be intimidated, Kerry started running for public office, eventually becoming a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. But he never forgot his fallen comrades. Working with his friend Senator John McCain, he returned to Vietnam numerous times looking for MIAs and POWs. By the time Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, Kerry was the leading proponent of "normalization" of relations with Vietnam. When President Clinton officially recognized Vietnam in 1995, Kerry's three-decade-long tour of duty had at long last ended.

Hanged at Auschwitz: An Extraordinary Memoir of Survival


Sim Kessel - 1972
    Kessel, a member of the French Resistance, was arrested by the SS at age 23. He was tortured, sent to work in mines, and dumped into a series of work and death camps. While he was being hung, the rope miraculously broke, so he was sentenced to be shot. Instead, he fooled his captors by assuming the identity of another prisoner and lived to tell the tale.

Anywhere with You


Heatherly Bell - 2015
     Celebrity stylist Kailey Robbins wants a second chance with ex-military pilot Joe Hannigan, but can she convince him that this time she’ll settle down into small town life? A Starlight Hill novella, this is officially book 4 in reading order.