Book picks similar to
Sisters by Carol Saline


non-fiction
photography
women
inspirational

Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina


Misty Copeland - 2014
    What does she look like?" As the only African American soloist dancing with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre, Misty Copeland has made history. But when she first placed her hands on the barre at an after-school community center, no one expected the undersized, anxious thirteen-year-old to become a ground-breaking ballerina. When she discovered ballet, Misty was living in a shabby motel room, struggling with her five siblings for a place to sleep on the floor. A true prodigy, she was dancing en pointe within three months of taking her first dance class and performing professionally in just over a year: a feat unheard of for any classical dancer. But when Misty became caught between the control and comfort she found in the world of ballet and the harsh realities of her own life (culminating in a highly publicized custody battle), she had to choose to embrace both her identity and her dreams, and find the courage to be one of a kind. With an insider's unique point of view, Misty opens a window into the life of a professional ballerina who lives life center stage: from behind the scenes at her first auditions to her triumphant roles in some of the most iconic ballets. But in this beautifully written memoir, she also delves deeper to reveal the desire and drive that made her dreams reality. Life in Motion is a story of passion and grace for anyone who has dared to dream of a different life.

Everywhere I Look


Helen Garner - 2016
    It takes us from backstage at the ballet to the trial of a woman for the murder of her newborn baby. It moves effortlessly from the significance of moving house to the pleasure of re-reading Pride and Prejudice.Everywhere I Look includes Garner's famous and controversial essay on the insults of age, her deeply moving tribute to her mother and extracts from her diaries, which have been part of her working life for as long as she has been a writer. Everywhere I Look glows with insight. It is filled with the wisdom of life.

Let Her Fly: A Father's Journey


Ziauddin Yousafzai - 2018
    Taught as a young boy in Pakistan to believe that he was inherently better than his sisters, Ziauddin rebelled against inequality at a young age. And when he had a daughter himself he vowed that Malala would have an education, something usually only given to boys, and he founded a school that Malala could attend.Then in 2012, Malala was shot for standing up to the Taliban by continuing to go to her father's school, and Ziauddin almost lost the very person for whom his fight for equality began.Let Her Fly is Ziauddin’s journey from a stammering boy growing up in a tiny village high in the mountains of Pakistan, through to being an activist for equality and the father of the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and now one of the most influential and inspiring young women on the planet.Told through portraits of each of Ziauddin’s closest relationships – as a son to a traditional father; as a father to Malala and her brothers, educated and growing up in the West; as a husband to a wife finally learning to read and write; as a brother to five sisters still living in the patriarchy – Let Her Fly looks at what it means to love, to have courage and fight for what is inherently right.

U2 by U2


U2 - 2005
    The drum kit just about fit into the room, the lead guitarist was playing a homemade guitar, the bassist could barely play at all and nobody wanted to sing. Over thirty years later, Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr are still together, bound by intense loyalty, passionate idealism and a relentless belief in the power of rock and roll to change the world.In a epic journey that has taken them from the clubs of Dublin to the stadiums of the world, U2 have sold over 130 million albums, been number one all over the world, revolutionized live performance, spearheaded political campaigns and made music that defines the age we live in.From the anarchic days of their Seventies punk origins through their Eighties ascent to superstardom with the epic rock of 'The Joshua Tree', the dark post-modern ironies of 'Achtung Baby' in the Nineties and their 21st-Century resurgence as rock's biggest and boldest band, this is a tale of faith, love, drama, family, birth, death, survival, conflict, crises, creativity . . . and a lot of laughter.Told with wit, insight and astonishing candour by the band themselves and manager Paul McGuinness, with pictures from their own archives, 'U2 by U2' allows unprecedented access into the inner life of the greatest rock band of our times.

Portraits


Steve McCurry - 1999
    In 1985, he photographed an Afghan girl for the National Geographic. The intensity of the subject's eyes and her compelling gaze made this one of the most widely and consistently celebrated portraits in the history of contemporary photography.This accompanies the other remarkable faces he has encountered whilst travelling throughout the world, collected together in an engaging and strangely moving series of unique street portraits: unposed, unstylized images of people that reveal the true universality of the depths of human emotion.Critically acclaimed and recognized internationally for his classic reportage, over the last twenty years he has worked on numerous assignments, travelling extensively throughout the Middle and Far East.McCurry has won first prize in the World Press Awards, and was named Magazine Photographer of the Year in 1984. He is most famous for his evocative color photography, which has captured stories of human experience that, in the finest documentary tradition, transcend boundaries of language and culture.

Other-Wordly: Words Both Strange and Lovely from Around the World


Yee-Lum Mak - 2016
    Learn terms for the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees, for dancing awkwardly but with relish, and for the look shared by two people who each wish the other would speak first. Other-Wordly is an irresistible gift for lovers of words and those lost for words alike.

Mrs. Miniver


Jan Struther - 1939
    Mrs. Miniver's adventures have charmed millions. This edition, published on the fiftieth anniversary of the book's orginal publication in the U.S., features a new introduction by Greer Garson, who won the Academy Award as best actress for her role as Mrs. Miniver.

The Internet is a Playground


David Thorne - 2010
    The complete collection of articles and emails from 27bslash6 such as Overdue Account, Party in Apartment 3 and Strata Agreement plus articles too litigious to be on the website.

This Is What a Librarian Looks Like: A Celebration of Libraries, Communities, and Access to Information


Kyle Cassidy - 2017
    Since then, Cassidy has made it his mission to remind us of how essential librarians and libraries are to our communities. His subjects are men and women of all ages, backgrounds, and personal style-from pink hair and leather jackets to button-downs and blazers. In short, not necessarily what one thinks a librarian looks like. The nearly 220 librarians photographed also share their personal thoughts on what it means to be a librarian. This is What A Librarian Looks Like also includes original essay by some of our most beloved writers, journalists, and commentators including Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, Nancy Pearl, Cory Doctorow, Paula Poundstone, Amanda Palmer, Peter Sagal, Jeff VanderMeer, John Scalzi, Sara Farizan, Amy Dickinson, and others. Cassidy also profiles a handful of especially influential librarians and libraries.

Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London


Lauren Elkin - 2015
    Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities.That is an imaginary definition.'If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse?In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flâneuses who have lived and walked in those cities.From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flâneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time.

Learning to See


Elise Hooper - 2019
    Now, in this riveting new novel by the author of The Other Alcott, we see the world through her eyes…In 1918, a fearless twenty-two-year old arrives in bohemian San Francisco from the Northeast, determined to make her own way as an independent woman. Renaming herself Dorothea Lange she is soon the celebrated owner of the city’s most prestigious and stylish portrait studio and wife of the talented but volatile painter, Maynard Dixon. By the early 1930s, as America’s economy collapses, her marriage founders and Dorothea must find ways to support her two young sons single-handedly. Determined to expose the horrific conditions of the nation’s poor, she takes to the road with her camera, creating images that inspire, reform, and define the era. And when the United States enters World War II, Dorothea chooses to confront another injustice—the incarceration of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans. Learning to See is a gripping account of the ambitious woman behind the camera who risked everything for art, activism, and love. But her choices came at a steep price…

A Room of Her Own: Women's Personal Spaces


Chris Casson Madden - 1997
    Presents the personal spaces of thirty-eight distinctive women, including Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, and Ali MacGraw.

The Private World of Tasha Tudor


Tasha Tudor - 1992
    Now seventy-seven years old, she lives on a farm in southern Vermont, where she has recreated an early Victorian world. To capture this intimate portrait of Tasha Tudor, photographer Richard Brown followed her throughout a year on her farm. By interweaving Tudor's own words and more than 100 color photographs, Brown has evoked the essence of Tudor's uniquely appealing personality and way of life. The inspiration for Tudor's art is evident in her delightful surroundings. Foremost is the magnificent garden she designed and rightfully calls "Paradise on earth." A lively menagerie is always underfoot, indoors and out, including her trademark corgies, the Nubian goats she milks twice a day, the one-eyed cat Minou, the chickens, fantail doves, and the cockatiels, canaries, exotic finches, and parrots that inhabit a virtual village of antique cages. We watch Tudor at work in a corner of her winter kitchen, her "chipmunk's nest," on the delicate watercolors and drawings that illustrate the books and calendars that have charmed three generations. Examples of her work are scattered throughout the book, including many drawings from her sketchbook and vignettes never previously published. Her enchanting three-story dollhouse is featured in detail as are her handmade dolls and marionettes as well as the candlelit tree that is the centerpiece of Tasha Tudor's old-fashioned New England Christmas. Born in 1914 into Boston society (she sat on Oliver Wendell Holmes's knee as a child; Mark Twain and Albert Einstein were also her parents' friends), Tudor felt from an early age that she had lived before, in the 1830s. She says, "Everything comes so easily to me from that period, of that time: threading a loom, growing flax, spinning, milking a cow." Dressed in antique clothing, spinning and weaving her own linen, cooking on a woodstove with nineteenth-century utensils, Tudor inhabits a world that in all these evocative photographs speaks to all who long for a simpler existence in harmony with the seasonal rhythms of nature.

Where Valor Rests: Arlington National Cemetery


Rick Atkinson - 2007
    A national monument in the truest sense, Arlington's solemn beauty embraces a brave legacy-a heritage remembered and renewed every day as the military buries its own.Bittersweet, breath-taking, sometimes heart-wrenching, always deeply respectful, this commemorative book guides readers gently over tree-lined slopes to share the ceremonies observed throughout the year, from the traditional wreath-laying on Memorial Day, which enshrines centuries of courage with a formality at once austere and profoundly emotional, to the moving graveside services that honor individual men and women who served our country. Captured in stunning color by a select group of gifted photographers, 220 unforgettable images create a portrait as poignant as it is proud.Archival photographs also trace the history of the cemetery from the early National Historic Monument, "Arlington House," to the eternal flame at the Kennedy grave to sections for the lost astronauts and victims of the 9/11 Pentagon attack. With an Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Atkinson, this lovely volume is both a fitting tribute and a stirring reminder of the values we Americans hold dear.

Frida Kahlo: An Illustrated Biography


Zena Alkayat - 2016
    This beautifully illustrated biography is full of colorful details that illuminate the woman behind the artwork, including excerpts from Kahlo's personal letters and diaries on her childhood dreams of becoming a doctor, the accident that changed the course of her life, and her love affairs with famous artists. Featuring handwritten text alongside lovely illustrations in a charming case with foil stamping and debossed details, Library of Luminaries: Frida Kahlo provides a captivating window into the vibrant life, work, and creative vision of the beloved Mexican artist.