Written by Pauli Murray the legendary civil rights activist and one of the founders of NOW, Proud Shoes chronicles the lives of Murray's maternal grandparents. From the birth of her grandmother, Cornelia Smith, daughter of a slave whose beauty incited the master's sons to near murder to the story of her grandfather Robert Fitzgerald, whose free black father married a white woman in 1840, Proud Shoes offers a revealing glimpse of our nation's history.

    Percy Munn is one of Warren's innocent idealists whose delusions become murderous as he attempts to define himself by action in the unfolding violence around him. Southern Classics Series.

    Alice has learned almost nothing about Olivia, when suddenly Olivia dies, leaving Alice to sift through her belongings. As she pieces together her mother's life, Alice learns how a woman can become so desperate that she leaves her child-- and so courageous that she finds her again. Not since her bestselling book The Friendship Cake has Hinton created characters who are so filled with heartache and fragile hope.

    This moving story presents the definitive account of the life and legacy of the most eloquent spokesperson and leader of the U.S. labor and socialist movements.With a new introduction by Mike Davis.

    The deceptive, crooked path that led him to today began a few months back. Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, nineteen-year old Fleming was a professional baseball pitcher with the Chicago White Sox. His successful first year in the minor leagues was waylaid when he received his draft notice. Through a series of misadventures, he ended up enlisting for four years in an elite unit called the A.S.A. or Army Security Agency; the army’s equivalent to the N.S.A. or the National Security Agency. Once in the army, Fleming learned that the recruiter had manipulated him with a host of untruths. Then, to his dismay, he learned that the army had lost his orders and he was placed in an infantry unit. Once in Vietnam, Platoon Sergeant, Levine questioned Fleming and dragged out of him the sad story of how he had enlisted for four years and ended up in an infantry unit. He became the butt of the platoon’s jokes and underwent vicious ribbing by the other platoon members. That day, the platoon was ordered back to their base camp: L.Z. English. Before leaving, they endured a mortar attack and then a ground probe. Fleming’s foxhole mate was critically wounded. Fleming did everything he could to save the man but his wounds were too severe and he died in Fleming’s arms. Repulsed by the ordeal, Fleming was left wondering if he could endure a whole year of this. Twelve-year old Van Phan Duc and his two friends twelve-year old Hoi Anh Vanh and Dan Tri Quang lived happily in their village until the day a N.V.A. invaded and forced them to join their struggle and fight the invading Americans. They were then assigned to a Viet Cong unit where they met Sergeant Chi, the man who would train them to be soldiers for the revolution and lead them into battle. Three American soldiers had been captured. Chi ordered the three boys to participate in brutally torturing the Americans. Dan embraced the torture and it turned him into a brutal fighting machine, much to Chi’s satisfaction. On the other hand, Hoi was repulsed by the events and a part of him died that day. He performed the torture but it wasn’t to Chi’s satisfaction. Van, a devout Buddhist, was also repulsed. He realized that life, as a soldier was three hundred and sixty degrees opposite of Buddha’s spiritual path. The 173rd’s area of operations was the Central Highlands. The 173rd’s home base was in and around the town of Bong Son, but they patrolled all over the province of Binh Dinh. For the next few months, Fleming and Van’s units met on numerous occasions. The first time they engaged each other in combat was in a simple ambush that lasted only two minutes. Both men were left repulsed by the carnage that could take place in only two minutes. Right after the ambush, Fleming’s company was deployed in a battalion-sized operation located in the Dak To mountain range. It was an area where numerous North Vietnamese soldiers infiltrated into South Vietnam from neighboring Cambodia and Laos. Fleming’s company was dropped into an area far from Dak To and the men were forced to march (hump) to their final destination. During the trek, they had to carve their way through impenetrable jungle and cross leach infested rivers to reach their destination, all the while suffering under Vietnam’s oppressive heat. Van’s Viet Cong unit was sent to the Dak To mountain range to do battle with Fleming and his company. Months passed with Van and Fleming’s units constantly meeting. Both men had similar personalities. Both men overcame their initial shock at war’s brutality and became highly competent soldiers who bravely fought the enemy. Both men were ultimately made into squad leaders. Both men continued to hate the war, yet were entrapped in the insanity that was war. They both recognized what war was—a brutally insane series of events where lives were lost and where dreams died.

    The selections are arranged not by date of compostion, but in biographical order, such that reading this volume greatly enriches one's understanding of Bishop's life--and thus her poetry as well. "Bishop's admirers will want to consult her Collected Prose for the light it sheds on her poetry," as David Lehman wrote in Newsweek. "They will discover, however, that it is more than just a handsome companion volume to [her] Complete Poems. . . . Bishop's clean, limpid prose makes her stories and memoirs a delight to read. . . . One regrets only that this volume cannot be added to in years to come."

    Now, in this jubilant new novel, Benjamin shines a dazzling spotlight on another fascinating female figure whose story has never fully been told: a woman who became a nineteenth century icon and inspiration - and whose most daunting limitation became her greatest strength. "Never would I allow my size to define me. Instead, I would define it." She was only two-foot eight-inches tall, but her legend reaches out to us more than a century later. As a child, Mercy Lavinia "Vinnie" Bump was encouraged to live a life hidden away from the public. Instead, she reached out to the immortal impresario P. T. Barnum, married the tiny superstar General Tom Thumb in the wedding of the century, and transformed into the world's most unexpected celebrity. Here, in Vinnie's singular and spirited voice, is her amazing adventure - from a showboat "freak" revue where she endured jeering mobs to her fateful meeting with the two men who would change her life: P. T. Barnum and Charles Stratton, AKA Tom Thumb. Their wedding would captivate the nation, preempt coverage of the Civil War, and usher them into the White House and the company of presidents and queens. But Vinnie's fame would also endanger the person she prized most: her similarly-sized sister, Minnie, a gentle soul unable to escape the glare of Vinnie's spotlight. A barnstorming novel of the Gilded Age, and of a woman's public triumphs and personal tragedies, The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb is the irresistible epic of a heroine who conquered the country with a heart as big as her dreams - and whose story will surely win over yours.

    The provocative collection includes the widely anthologized essays “On Being a Cripple” and “On Not Liking Sex.”

    Stewart's captivating missives from her homestead in Wyoming bring to full life the beauty, isolation, and joys of working the prairie.

    Ludo reads Homer in the original Greek at 4 before moving on to Hebrew, Japanese, Old Norse, and Inuit; studying advanced mathematical techniques (Fourier analysis and Laplace transformations); and, as the title hints, endlessly watching and analyzing Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, The Seven Samurai. But the one question that eludes an answer is that of the name of his father: Sibylla believes the film obliquely provides the male role models that Ludo's genetic father cannot, and refuses to be drawn on the question of paternal identity. The child thinks differently, however, and eventually sets out on a search, one that leads him beyond the certainties of acquired knowledge into the complex and messy world of adults.The novel draws on themes topical and perennial--the hothousing of children, the familiar literary trope of the quest for the (absent) father--and as such, divides itself into two halves: the first describes Ludo's education, the second follows him in his search for his father and father figures. The first stresses a sacred, Apollonian pursuit of logic, precise (if wayward) erudition, and the erratic and endlessly fascinating architecture of languages, while the second moves this knowledge into the world of emotion, human ambitions, and their attendant frustrations and failures.The Last Samurai is about the pleasure of ideas, the rich varieties of human thought, the possibilities that life offers us, and, ultimately, the balance between the structures we make of the world and the chaos that it proffers in return. Stylistically, the novel mirrors this ambivalence: DeWitt's remarkable prose follows the shifts and breaks of human consciousness and memory, capturing the intrusions of unspoken thought that punctuate conversation while providing tantalizing disquisitions on, for example, Japanese grammar or the physics of aerodynamics. It is remarkable, profound, and often very funny. Arigato DeWitt-sensei. --Burhan Tufail

    Filled with vivid personalities, gossipy anecdotes, grand houses, and a wealth of period details--plus photographs, illustrations, quotes, and the finer points of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette--To Marry An English Lord is social history at its liveliest and most accessible.

    She’s spent her whole life in the copper-mining town of Calumet, Michigan where men risk their lives for meager salaries—and had barely enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. The women labor in the houses of the elite, and send their husbands and sons deep underground each day, dreading the fateful call of the company man telling them their loved ones aren’t coming home. When Annie decides to stand up for herself, and the entire town of Calumet, nearly everyone believes she may have taken on more than she is prepared to handle. In Annie’s hands lie the miners’ fortunes and their health, her husband’s wrath over her growing independence, and her own reputation as she faces the threat of prison and discovers a forbidden love. On her fierce quest for justice, Annie will discover just how much she is willing to sacrifice for her own independence and the families of Calumet. From one of the most versatile writers in contemporary fiction, this novel is an authentic and moving historical portrait of the lives of the men and women of the early 20th century labor movement, and of a turbulent, violent political landscape that may feel startlingly relevant to today.

    Until his wife's death, not even his children -- Diana's nieces and nephews -- have known about Diana and her lifetime companion Constance. But now David seeks to bridge over those years and recapture the closeness of childhood, to become part of Diana's life, to have her be a major part of his.For the independent, irascible Diana, the overtures from her brother are an unwelcome intrusion. Retired from her medical practice, she spends her days fully occupied with Constance, for whom memory is increasingly a sometime thing.David, growing ever more fond of the enchanting Constance, struggles to win her trust... and Diana is inexorably drawn into the events and drama of David's family life.In Memory Board the incomparable Jane Rule gives us her tenderest, most poignant, most humor-filled novel... and brings to us altogether fresh insights into living and loving and the nature of commitment.

    Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper, and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible. For the first time, Rise of the Rocket Girls tells the stories of these women--known as "human computers"--who broke the boundaries of both gender and science. Based on extensive research and interviews with all the living members of the team, Rise of the Rocket Girls offers a unique perspective on the role of women in science: both where we've been, and the far reaches of space to which we're heading.

    Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own. She was fully assimilated and perfectly happy when, at nineteen, she was ransomed back to white society. She became an instant celebrity, but the price of fame was high and the pain of her ruptured childhood lasted a lifetime.Based on historical records, including letters and diaries of Oatman’s friends and relatives, The Blue Tattoo is the first book to examine her life from her childhood in Illinois—including the massacre, her captivity, and her return to white society—to her later years as a wealthy banker’s wife in Texas.Oatman’s story has since become legend, inspiring artworks, fiction, film, radio plays, and even an episode of Death Valley Days starring Ronald Reagan. Its themes, from the perils of religious utopianism to the permeable border between civilization and savagery, are deeply rooted in the American psyche. Oatman’s blue tattoo was a cultural symbol that evoked both the imprint of her Mohave past and the lingering scars of westward expansion. It also served as a reminder of her deepest secret, fully explored here for the first time: she never wanted to go home.