. . Burns is as good a writer about the South as you’re going to read for a long, long time.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution A classic bestseller, Cold Sassy Tree is the story of Will Tweedy, a fourteen-year-old boy coming of age at the turn of the century in rural Georgia. His grandfather, a recent widower, inspires a whirlwind of gossip in their small town when he marries a woman half his age. Brimming with characters who are wise, unimpeachably pious, and deliciously irreverent, it is a resplendent treasure. The unfinished sequel, Leaving Cold Sassy, follows Will Tweedy into adulthood, as he grapples with the influences of the modern world on his cherished southern hometown. Olive Ann Burns (1924–1990) was born on a farm in Banks County, Georgia. She received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and for ten years was on the Sunday magazine staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She turned to writing as a respite during treatment for cancer. Her first novel, Cold Sassy Tree, made her a best-selling author at age 60.

    I swore I'd never let my birthmother into my life, but then Mom died of ovarian cancer and my birthmother, Val, found me through my mom's obituary. Hard to argue with fate. Harder still to let go of childhood promises, even when you discover everything you dreamed of being in part of who you are.

    A mysterious illness suddenly plunges him and his family into a frightening nightmare of hospitals and doctors and extreme therapies far from his small-town home. Can his doctors diagnose his strange disease? How will he and his family adapt to a bizarre new world they have been thrust into? Heart-wrenching, searing, and powerful, There is a Reaper immerses the reader into Christopher's intense struggle against his pitiless foe as he matures and transforms in the white heat of his epic battle.

    Tibet in the last sixty years has been so much mystified and politicized that the world at large is confused about what really happened to the "Rooftop of the World" when Mao Tse-tung invaded its borders in 1950. There are dramatically conflicting accounts from Beijing and Dharamsala (home of the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile). Adding to the confusion is the romanticized spin that Western writers and filmmakers have adopted in an effort to appease the popular myth of Shangri-La.Buddha's Warriors is no fairy tale. Set in a narrative framework but relying heavily on the oral transcripts of the Tibetan men who actually fought the Chinese, Buddha's Warriors tells, for the first time, the inside story of these historic developments, while drawing a vivid picture of Tibetan life before, during, and after Mao's takeover. The firsthand accounts, gathered by the author over a period of seven years, bring faces and deeply personal emotions to the forefront of this ongoing tragedy. It is a saga of brave soldiers and cowardly traitors. It's about hope against desolation, courage against repression, atheism against Buddhism. Above all, it's about what happens to an ancient civilization when it is thrust overnight into the modern horrors of twentieth-century warfare.

    It’s a book of unforgettable moments: when Scott and Caroline get their first thumb-size pictures of their daughters, when the small girls are placed in their arms, and all the laughs and tumbles along the road as they become a real family.Woven into the tale of Scott, Caroline, and the two little girls who changed their lives are the stories of other adoptive families. Some are famous and some are not, but each family’s saga captures facets of the miracle of adoption. Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other is a love story that doesn’t gloss over the rough spots. There are anxieties and tears along with hugs and smiles and the unparalleled joy of this blessed and special way of making a family. Here is a book that families who have adopted—or are considering adoption—will want to read for inspiration. But everyone can enjoy this story because, as Scott Simon writes, adoption can also help us understand what really makes families, and how and why we fall in love.

    The book covers the young Khan's daring conquests up until his elevation as Ruler of the Steppes in 1206. There are also genealogical tables tracing the familial descent of Genghis Khan.

    These memoirs of the author's first twenty-four years are thoughtful, informative, and highly entertaining. They not only portray a young woman and her unique family in San Francisco's Chinatown, but they are rich in the details that light up a world within the world of America. The third-person singular style is rooted in Chinese literary form, reflecting cultural disregard for the individual, yet Jad Snow Wong's story also is typically American.We first meet Jade Snow Wong the child, narrowly confined by the family and factory life, bound to respect and obey her elders while shouldering responsibility for younger brothers and sisters - a solemn child well versed in the proper order of things, who knew that punishment was sure for any infraction of etiquette. Then the schoolgirl caught in confusion between the rigid teaching of her ancestors and the strange ways of her foreign classmates. After that the college student feeling her was toward personal identity in the face of parental indifference or outright opposition. And finally the artist whose early triumphs were doubled by the knowledge that she had at long last won recognition from her family.

    A year later they had sold their business, rented out their house, and were setting out to circumnavigate the globe in a 40-year-old yacht. Their entire sailing experience consisted of six afternoons on the Ottawa River.Over the next four years, squeezed into quarters no bigger than the Stuemers’ old bedroom, the family of five would become seasoned mariners. They would battle deadly storms at sea and evade real-life pirates. Dodge waterspouts and lightning strikes and witness the bombing of the USS Cole. See the staggering beauty of Borneo’s rainforest, and its destruction from logging. Be arrested at gunpoint and entertained like visiting royalty. In all, they would visit 34 countries and cover 35,000 nautical miles.Almost everywhere they went, the family made lasting friendships. They learned to trust each other and embrace opportunity, and in Kenya they learned the true meaning of humanity. As Northern Magic pushed onward, many thousands followed the family’s progress in Diane’s dispatches to the Ottawa Citizen, and thousands more turned out to cheer when the amazing Stuemers came home.

    A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity.

    Although the martial arts were widely unknown in America, Bruce encountered a robust fight culture in the Bay Area, populated with talented and trailblazing practitioners such as Lau Bun, Chinatown’s aging kung fu patriarch; Wally Jay, the innovative Hawaiian jujitsu master; and James Lee, the Oakland street fighter. Regarded by some as a brash loudmouth and by others as a dynamic visionary, Bruce spent his first few years back in America advocating for a modern approach to the martial arts, and showing little regard for the damaged egos left in his wake.                The year of 1964 would be an eventful one for Bruce, in which he would broadcast his dissenting worldview before the first great international martial arts gathering, and then defend it by facing down Wong Jack Man—Chinatown’s young kung fu ace—in a legendary behind-closed-doors showdown. These events were a catalyst to the dawn of martial arts in America and a prelude to an icon.                Based on over one hundred original interviews, Striking Distance chronicles Bruce Lee’s formative days amid the heated martial arts proving ground that thrived on San Francisco Bay in the early 1960s.

    Clever, awkward, & laugh-out-loud funny.”The Huffington Post

    Over seven gruelling months, Canadian Jeff Fuchs took on the challenge of following traditional muleteers along this twelve-hundred-year-old route. Documenting his travels in rich and eloquent detail, with stunning photography, Fuchs brings to life a path that has been an escape route, trade highway, and an adventure destination, battling frostbite, snow blindness, and hunger along the way.

    Therese of Lisieux. She was an emotionally disturbed child who suffered and and caused anguish to her family. Her mother, the heroic Zelie Martin, suffered most of all. Marie Baudouin-Croix, well-known French poet, has examined Zelie's correspondence with her daughters, her sister, her brother, and her sister-in-law. We see the awkward child, the despair of many, who was the first to follow Therese's Little Way. It was only after three valiant but unsuccessful attempts that Leonie was finally accepted by the Visitation Order in Caen. She succeeded in conquering a 'tough' temperament, so that by the time of her death in 1941, at the age of seventy eight, she was regarded as a saint and her convent at Caen was inundated with letters testifying to her posthumous aid.

    Original.

    Covering the latest championships and trades, Boers was a Windy City constant until his retirement in 2017. In his highly-anticipated memoir, Boers delivers a trove of lively anecdotes and personal reflections from journey through sports media—from raucous banter with Mike Ditka during The Score's early days to the Cubs' World Series celebration in 2016. A must-read for any of the thousands who made Boers part of their daily routine, The Score of a Lifetime is a freewheeling, frank portrait of a man, a career, a station no one thought would survive, and a city that loves its sports.