Autobiography: general Books
September Publishing The Jive Talker: Or How to Get a British Passport
Book SynopsisA uniquely vivid and wickedly funny memoir of growing up ambitious, creative and sometimes hungry in Malawi. With exuberant prose, a cast of extraordinary characters and a rebellious spirit, Samson Kambalu tells the story of how a little boy obsessed with fashion, football, Nietzsche and Michael Jackson won a free education at the Kamuzu Academy ('The Eton of Africa') and began his journey to art school and artistic success. The son of a philosophising, hard-drinking, poorly paid hospital manager, Kambalu's award-winning conceptual work is shown in galleries across the world, and still evokes that childhood landscape of literary excitement, family chaos and music; post-colonial injustice, poverty and Aids.Trade Review'An African memoir unlike any other I have read ... Filled with wonder, humour and hope. It is a magnificent achievement.' - Aminatta Forna, Sunday Telegraph 'Read Kambalu, cry, clap your hands.' - Iain Finlayson, The Times 'A truly original book.' - Pride Magazine 'The charming and rare story of coming of age as an artist in Malawi.' - Daniel Bergner, author of Sing for your Life
£11.69
Gallery Books Never Grow Up
Book Synopsis
£14.80
Penguin Putnam Inc Untamed
Book Synopsis#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD! “Packed with incredible insight about what it means to be a woman today.”—Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club Pick)In her most revealing and powerful memoir yet, the activist, speaker, bestselling author, and “patron saint of female empowerment” (People) explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet others’ expectations and start trusting the voice deep within us.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • Cosmopolitan • Marie Claire • Bloomberg • Parade • “Untamed will liberate women—emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It is phenomenal.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls and Eat Pray LoveThis is how you find yourself.There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent—even from ourselves. For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice—the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world’s expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living. Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is. Untamed shows us how to be brave. As Glennon insists: The braver we are, the luckier we get.
£15.75
Somerville Press Down by the Liffeyside: A Dublin Memoir
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£14.25
Monsoon Books Bangkok Hard Time
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£7.99
The University of Chicago Press Black Metropolis A Study of Negro Life in a
Book SynopsisIn these autobiographical essays by pioneers in the field of animal behavior, the authors discuss childhood, education, moments of discovery, and the attractions of the research that each pursued. The field of animal behavior has been interdisciplinary throughout its history, and the two psychologists and seventeen biologists in Donald Dewsbury's collection provide a fascinating assortment of backgrounds and interests. Chosen by a panel of seven distinguished animal behaviorists, the men whose essays are collected here include two Nobel Prize winners and one Pulitzer Prize winner. All provide unique accounts of the development of the field written by its original leading practitioners.
£47.50
The University of Chicago Press The Autobiography of Maud Gonne A Servant of the
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£24.00
The University of Chicago Press An Invitation to Laughter A Lebanese
Book SynopsisAn autobiography of Fuad I Khuri, both an insider's and an outsider's perspective on life in Lebanon, elsewhere in Middle East, and in West Africa. It provides insights into such issues as mentality of Arabs toward women, eating habits of Arab world, impact of Islam on West Africa, and extravagant lifestyles of wealthy Arabs, and more.Trade Review"Fuad I. Khuri was one of the most thoughtful and insightful anthropologists working on the Middle East. His published work always exhibited two very special qualities: he chose bold issues and he had an extraordinary eye for the small yet revealing detail. No one should be surprised that An Invitation to Laughter captures and extends those traits so well." - Lawrence Rosen, Princeton University"
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Landscapes of a Distant Mother
Book SynopsisSaid had no contact with his mother after his parents divorced when he was an infant. For political reasons he lives in exile from his native Iran. In this emotional work, Said chronicles how he was reunited with his mother and describes how the Islamic Revolution has shadowed both their lives.
£27.00
The University of Chicago Press The Female Autograph Theory and Practice of
Book SynopsisThese original essays comprise a fascinating investigation into women's strategies for writing the selfconstructing the female subject through autobiography, memoirs, letters, and diaries. The collection contains theoretical essays by Donna Stanton, Sandra Gilbert, and Susan Gilbert, and Susan Gubar; chapters on specific issues raised by women's autographs, such as Richard Bowring's study of tenth-century Japanese diaries or Janel Mueller's on The Book of Margery Kempe; and annotated autobiographical fragments, including texts by Julia Kristeva, by a woman who became a czarist cavalry officer, and by a contemporary Palestinian poet. There are also chapters on the seventeenth-century painter Artemisia Gentileschi; Mme de. Sévigné; Mendelssohn's sister, Fanny Hensel; the black minister Jarena Lee; Virginia Woolf; and Eva Peron. The result is a conversation between writers and critics across cultural and temporal boundaries. Stanton's essay plays off Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.
£28.00
Indiana University Press From Cotton Fields to University Leadership
Book SynopsisFrom Cotton Fields to University Leadership is an uplifting story about the power of education, the impact of community and mentorship, and the importance of dreaming big.Trade Review"Far too often we meet leaders and forget their journeys to leadership. We forget the struggles, the stumbles, the surprises, and the enormous amount of hard work they put in, amidst twists and turns along the journey. Charlie Nelms has written an autobiography that is authentic, humble, and serves as an example for those leaders who will follow him. His voice, honesty, humor, and compassion shine through his life story."—Dr. Marybeth Gasman, Director, Penn Center for Minority-Serving Institutions, author of Educating a Diverse Nation: Lessons from Minority-Serving Institutions"I have called Charlie Nelms a friend for almost 40 years. In his memoir, the realities of his life take on the qualities of a good docudrama, providing the back story to the development of a remarkable educational leader. His is "the examined life," filled with honesty, humor, and humility. While this is uniquely Charlie's story, it is a story that will lift the hearts of many and inspire future generations of leaders."—Betty J. Overton, Director, National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good"In the tradition of Booker Washington and Benjamin Mays, Charlie Nelms tells his riveting story from share croppers' son in rural Arkansas to university president. His memoir is a testament to the power of aspiration, character and education to overcome poverty and adversity. At a time when young people ask if college matters, Nelms' testimony is proof that university education remains an engine of social mobility and personal transformation. "—Michael L. Lomax, President & CEO, United Negro College Fund (UNCF)Table of ContentsForeword by Dr. Walter M. KimbroughPrefaceAcknowledgments1. "I'll Fly Away"2. How I Got Over3. Tacks and Splinters4. College Bound5. From Dairy-hand to Bookstore Clerk6. Everything Before Us7. Boot Camp8. "If I Had a Hammer"9. Holding Fast10. This Spinning Top11. Full Circle
£15.19
University of Washington Press The Deepest Roots
Book SynopsisAs friends began going back to the land at the same time that a health issue emerged, Kathleen Alcalá set out to reexamine her relationship with food at the most local level. Remembering her parents, Mexican immigrants who grew up during the Depression, and the memory of planting, growing, and harvesting fresh food with them as a child, she decided to explore the history of the Pacific Northwest island she calls home. In The Deepest Roots, Alcalá walks, wades, picks, pokes, digs, cooks, and cans, getting to know her neighbors on a much deeper level. Wanting to better understand how we once fed ourselves, and acknowledging that there may be a future in which we could need to do so again, she meets those who experienced the Japanese American internment during World War II, and learns the unique histories of the blended Filipino and Native American community, the fishing practices of the descendants of Croatian immigrants, and the Suquamish elder who shares with her the food legacy of theTrade Review"The issues Alcalá explores are relevant beyond Bainbridge’s boundaries, . . . from the meaning of a homeland to the questions of who has power in the modern world and who has responsibility. . . . The stories have the effect of coming to the reader as they came to the writer, raising as many difficult questions as they answer." -- Rebekah Denn * Seattle Times *"As important now as when it was first published in 2016, Kathleen Alcalá’s book The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island recently released in paperback, allows the reader to come along as Alcalá explores the food culture of her home, Bainbridge Island, learns more about how to care for her health, and discovers the ways our collective fates are intimately connected." * 1889 Washington's Magazine *"This unique and fascinating memoir blends the history of Washington with the story of her family’s migration from Mexico, highlighted by informed insights on ecology, economy and gastronomy." -- Rigoberto González * NBC News Latino *"Combining memoir, historical records, and a blueprint for sustainability, The Deepest Roots shows us how an island population can mature into responsible food stewards and reminds us that innovation, adaptation, diversity, and common sense will help us make wise decisions about our future." * Birdbooker Report *"The Deepest Roots should inspire readers to expend elbow grease in working la tierra and seeking community with like-minded gente for healthier living." -- Michael Sedano * La Bloga *"Alcalá takes the local food movement, so long the province of hippy gringos, and brings it home to the immigrant communities for whom it has so long been a fact of life." -- Alejandra Oliva * Remezcla *"A layered experience of discovery, moving organically between personal stories, cultural history, and discussions of environmental policy. . . . Bainbridge Island is a perfect microcosm through which to explore the question of local sustainability. . . . It is a pleasant surprise to hear from some Whatcom County locals among Alcalá’s interviews." -- Lisa Gresham * Cascadia Weekly *Table of ContentsPreface | Island Living Introduction | The Clueless Eater 1. What We Have Always Known 2. To Market 3. School Me 4. Growing Our Own 5. Feast or Famine? 6. What We Can Do Together 7. Otaku Postscript | Last Song Notes Acknowledgments
£25.32
MP-WIS Uni of Wisconsin Story of My Boyhood and Youth
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£18.86
MP-WIS Uni of Wisconsin An Underground Life Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi
Book SynopsisThat Gad Beck, a gay Jew in the Berlin of Nazi Germany, lived through the Holocaust at all is amazing. His determination to keep loving, living and believing in every human possibility - even in the face of the unthinkably monstrous - makes this quite a different story of the Holocaust.
£14.36
University of Wisconsin Press Plain A Memoir of Mennonite Girlhood
Book SynopsisTells the story of Mary Alice Hostetter’s journey to define an authentic self amid a rigid religious upbringing in a Mennonite farm family. This quietly powerful memoir of longing and acceptance casts a humanizing eye on a little-understood American religious tradition and a woman’s striving to grow within and beyond it.Table of Contents Prologue The Girl at the Market Part One Hot Lard Class Pictures Once Upon a Time Making Soup Yearnings Wrestling with Peace Part Two Simple Pleasure Billy Graham’s Necktie Cleansed at Crystal Flow On Foot-Washing Sunday One of the Plain Girls Considering Lilies of the Field It’s Only Fair Leaving Home Part Three Making It to the Main Line Among the Right People Where Do I Fit?Zeit und Raum The Coming-Out Letters Epilogue Elegy to the Farm Where I Grew Up Acknowledgments
£20.66
WW Norton & Co Limits of the Known
Book SynopsisA celebrated mountaineer and author searches for meaning in great adventures and explorations, past and present.Trade Review"[G]ripping ... uplifting." -- The Wall Street Journal"This encapsulating narrative pinpoints human spirit and the limitations of the human body in the world of thrilling adventure." -- Adventure Travel"... his tales are thoughtful and insightful... A thoroughly enjoyable and readable book which manages to provide food for thought as well as a healthy dose of vicarious adrenalin." -- The Scottish Mountaineer"Limits of the Known takes the reader on magnificent journeys with some of the greatest explorers of their generations. The book is meticulously researched and skilfully written." -- Climber"What will almost certainly be the last of Roberts's many books is powerful and honest testimony to a life rich in both action and self-examination." -- Times Literary Supplement
£12.34
WW Norton & Co Kitchen Yarns
Book SynopsisIn this warm collection of essays and recipes, best-selling author Ann Hood nourishes both our bodies and our souls.Trade Review"These tales of ingredients, recipes, and meals will lift your spirits." -- Bethanne Patrick - The Washington Post"Hood’s essays are like hot chocolate, cozy and warm. Her collection of meditations on food and life touches the big themes." -- Editor's Choice - The New York Times Book Review
£12.34
WW Norton & Co Deep Creek Finding Hope in the High Country
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2020 Reading the West Advocacy Award Winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award for Creative Nonfiction "This is a book for all of us, right now." —Cheryl Strayed, author of WildTrade Review"Pam Houston is in possession of a deep, heart- achingly beautiful love for her own personal piece of earth. And as equally deep is her ability for hope." -- Sara Cutaia - Chicago Review of Books"Insightful and evocative" -- Nathan Devel - Los Angeles Times"Pam Houston is the rodeo queen of American letters. In Deep Creek, her voice has never been more fully realized, and her message never more important." -- Samantha Dunn, author of Not by Accident"Good writing can make you envious, no matter how foreign the terrain. Other times, you read a good memoir and find yourself wanting to track down the author and become friends. A third kind of book is so insightful and evocative, you shelve it beside other favorite and instructive titles. Deep Creek might just do all three." -- Nathan Deuel - Los Angeles Times"Pam Houston's Deep Creek is (of course) fantastic." -- Heather Hansman - Outside"There are few books I have read that remind me how knowing a place, studying a place—the soil and weather and beasts and flora and trails and light at a given time of year, and scent at another, and sounds at another—is one of the ways we heal, one of the ways we de-alienate, one of the ways we return to what we are—the earth; our home. Pam Houston’s Deep Creek is a miracle this way. It reminds us how to get home." -- Ross Gay, author of The Book of Delights"Deep Creek is a love letter to earth, animals, and the best of humanity. Pam Houston has taken our heartache and woven it back into hope. Her stories of love, loss, and a life lived in relationship to land give us good reasons not to give up on ourselves or each other. This is the book we need right now to remind us how to endure—passionately. An unstoppable heart song." -- Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Misfit’s Manifesto"In the face of the world’s turmoil, this book is utter clarity. In the face of the world’s harshness, this book is a soft place to land.… If you find yourself careening toward despair, pick up Deep Creek and read even just one page. The words there will lift you back to hope—not the sentimental kind, but the kind that can and does change the world for the better. What gratitude we owe to Pam Houston for writing it." -- B. K. Loren, author of Animal, Mineral, Radical"Full of wisdom, wit, and loving attention, Pam Houston’s survey of her life and land should be required reading for anyone who loves this planet we call home." -- Camille T. Dungy, author of Guidebook to Relative Strangers"Houston has a great range of vision, and she’s fun to read. She gets the land right.… In this perfectly American memoir, a restless heart finds its place." -- Craig Childs, author of Atlas of a Lost World"Pam Houston is in possession of a deep, heart-achingly beautiful love for her own personal piece of earth. And as equally deep is her ability for hope. In a time where the world is either drowning, or burning, or being drilled-into, Houston’s outlook promises a better tomorrow—even if that means we’re no longer here." -- Sara Cutaia - Chicago Review of Books"If Cowboys Are My Weakness was Pam Houston’s call to millions of women—blasting us with self-recognition of how we give away our own power—then her new book is the response to that call." -- Amy Reardon - Rumpus
£12.34
Harvard University Press Fanny Kembles Journals
Book SynopsisBorn into the first family of the British stage, Fanny Kemble was one of the most famous woman writers of the English-speaking world, a best-selling author on both sides of the Atlantic. Her autobiographical writings are compelling evidence of Kemble's wit and talent, and they also offer a dazzling overview of her transatlantic world.Trade ReviewThe fascination of a modern reader, I think, is partially rooted in the way Kemble braids a modernist sensibility (freedom, women's rights) with conventional prejudices (class, ethnicity). Like Henry James, I find Kemble's journals absorbing, and also like him, I presume, I find her beguiling. -- James L. Roark, Emory UniversityI enthusiastically recommend Fanny Kemble's Journals. Fanny Kemble has always been one of those mysterious fugitive characters about whom we would like to know more. With this new edition by Kemble's modern biographer, these writings will take their place in college classrooms and on the shelves of readers interested in the theater, the South, the Civil War, and women's studies. To shrink eleven volumes to one manageable one and to include the critical outlines of Kemble's life as well as her observations on aspects of American life such as politics and slavery is quite a triumph. Kemble writings afford readers a fascinating retelling of the outlines of an unusual life. It is not exaggerating to say that the Clinton selections created a new autobiography that in the past was obscured by the sheer mass of Kemble's memoirs. She is a terrific writer. Clinton has placed her emphasis on areas such as race, class, and women's issues, including the story of the marriage. Clinton's introduction locates the Journals within the context of Kemble's life, and as every editor must do, she makes a strong case for their relevance and historical significance. -- Jean H. Baker, author of Mary Todd Lincoln[From] six books of memoirs, Clinton has extracted an anthology...of consistent interest. Kemble is forthright throughout, and never boring...she writes candidly about acting, social and economic contracts between England and America, slavery, politics, religion, the status of women, her reading and herself. -- Stanley Weintraub * Wall Street Journal *A work of withering detail and explosive passion. -- Jonathan Yardley * Washington Post Book World *Parting the curtains obscuring a nineteenth-century celebrity, historian Clinton offers...journal excerpts by a woman who was an actress, author, and abolitionst...Composed over her 80-plus years, Kemble's journals convey a variety of nineteenth-century experiences, from the discomforts of travel to the wonders of Rome...Clinton has admirably restored to interest a multifaceted figure pertinent to Civil War and women's studies. -- Gilbert Taylor * Booklist *In Fanny Kemble's Journals, Clinton has edited down the journals and letters from a voluminous collection into a compendium of excerpts that gives the reader Kemble in her own voice. -- Stephanie Harvin * Post and Courier *Fanny Kemble has finally found a historian worthy of her remarkable career. -- Eric Foner * author of Reconstruction and the Story of American Freedom *A remarkable story...supplying color and atmosphere and Kemble's distinctive voice...Her journal, begun when she was 18 and kept regularly into her 70's, records her sharp observations of roads and accommodations and social behavior in the young American democracy [and her] blunt indictment of racial hypocrisy and sexual exploitation...The voice that 'reanimated the old drawing rooms, relighted the old lamps, retuned the old pianos,' is captured again. -- David Walton * New York Times Book Review *Kemble's writing rings with passion, liveliness and wit. It is almost shocking in its clarity, precision and logic, its audacity and relevance. I marked dozens of passages in Fanny Kemble's Journals to read to friends. -- Julie Brickman * San Diego Union-Tribune *Kemble's journal entries on slavery are both poignant and horrifying. She writes passionately against the use of slave women for sex by plantation owners, as well as the demands of backbreaking physical labor they performed. -- Robin Dougherty * Boston Globe *One of the most moving and edifying personal accounts I have ever read of how oppression of slaves--and, incidentally, of women, both black and white--resulted in a war that tore apart not just one family, but a whole nation. -- Ann Morrissett Davidon * Philadelphia Inquirer *Clinton's edition of Fanny Kemble's Journals offers fascinating selections from her heart-rending account of slavery and from earlier and later journals as well. Whether as a young girl weighing the pros and cons of marriage or as an older woman considering the question of women's suffrage, Kemble's keen mind and forthright style of expression are a constant delight. -- Merle Rubin * Los Angeles Times *Kemble's life wasn't entirely devoted to the rights of women and the wrongs of slavery: she acted and wrote, had triumphs, pleasures, and friends, and she often feels like our contemporary. Clinton doesn't insist that her subject was flawless, but she finds her irresistible. * New Yorker *Kemble's biographer, historian Catherine Clinton has edited a slender volume, selecting the juiciest, most revealing and most incisive sections of Kemble's oeuvre...Splendidly edited and handsomely designed, this collection clears room for readers to hear the unforgettable voice of Kemble herself, with little interference. * Publishers Weekly *In Fanny Kemble's Journals, Clinton has judiciously selected excerpts from Kemble's six published journals...Kemble casts her keen eye on the many foibles and failings of those around her. Her journals blaze with the fire of her passionate desire for reform in social institutions and justice in inequitable relationships. -- Henry L. Carrigan, Jr. * Columbia State *Despite its welcome place in my library, when I finished [Fanny Kemble's Civil Wars], I still felt that something was missing. An element of frivolity, a touch of wit, a hint of acerbity--of course! I missed...Fanny Kemble's own voice. The antidote: Fanny Kemble's Journals...So when I want Kemble's exact words about a topic in the biography, I need only reach for this compact compilation...It's been well more than a century since Kemble was widely toasted on either side of the Atlantic; perhaps her moment has arrived again. -- Annie Ludlum * Seattle Times *Clinton offers a second book, entitled Fanny Kemble's Journals, presenting a chronological narrative of Kemble's life in her own words Fanny Kemble's Journals is a useful introduction to the story of Kemble's life in the United States, especially during the period 1832 to 1865. -- John Anthony Scott * Civil War Book Review *
£24.26
MP-FLO Uni Press of Florida Holding on to the Air
Book SynopsisSuzanne Farrell, world-renowned ballerina, was one of George Balanchine's most celebrated muses and remains a legendary figure in the ballet world. In this memoir, she recalls career, professional and personal attachments, and their attendant controversies with a frankness and common sense.Trade ReviewAbsolutely spellbinding: Ballerina Farrell's autobiography is also the story of one of the greatest artistic collaborations in dance....An uplifting, splendid memoir. - Kirkus Reviews ""An extraordinarily moving story."" - New York Times Book Review ""Farrell's story is not only that of a great dancer but of a great star....this book is important. The subject is great, the views of Balanchine are real and unique."" - Washington Post Book World
£22.46
MP-VIR Uni of Virginia The Correspondence of William James v. 9 July
Book SynopsisThe ninth volume of William James's correspondence, covering the period July 1899 to 1901. It covers the period of James's great collapse, of his years of exile in Europe in search of health, and of the beginning of his withdrawal fron full time teaching at Harvard.
£72.90
University of Virginia Press Historian
Book SynopsisIn this eloquent memoir, already widely read and praised in the author's native South Africa, Hermann Giliomee weaves together the story of his own life with that of his country - a nation that continues to absorb and inspire him, both despite and because of its tortuous history.
£21.80
Wayne State University Press Getting to the Heart of the Matter
Book SynopsisRepresenting Michigan for thirty-six years in the US Senate, Carl Levin, the longest-serving senator in Michigan history, was known for his dogged pursuit of the truth, his commitment to holding government accountable, and his basic decency. Getting to the Heart of the Matter: My 36 Years in the Senate is his story.Trade Review[Carl Levin is] the model of serious purpose, principle, and personal decency, whose example ought to inspire the service of new and returning senators. Carl and I served together for five terms-thirty years-and we developed a very strong bond of personal trust. Our word was our bond and the security of our nation was always foremost. Even though we are from different political parties, we share a love of country, a commitment to do what is right, and a deep mutual admiration and respect for each other. We never let our policy differences turn into personal differences. And we served in a Senate where bipartisanship was something to be sought after, where compromise was not a dirty word but an essential ingredient to make our government function better. Getting to the Heart of the Matter reminds us there are patriots like Carl Levin who define 'honesty, integrity, and civility.' In a lifetime of dedicated service, he made government more accountable, the nation more secure, and fought for opportunity for all. He is an American hero. The Dingell and Levin families have shared decades of friendship and public service. Getting to the Heart of the Matter is a heartfelt, thoughtful narrative of his career which had a positive impact on so many people. Everyone interested in public service should read this. Carl Levin's life and work continue to be an inspiration to each of us who have had the privilege of knowing him. His commitment to public service and the leadership he exemplifies have made a remarkable and historic contribution to the country. His beautifully written autobiography makes me wish we had more like him now. Care about integrity? Read this book. Given up on finding truly selfless politicians? Read this book. Senator Carl Levin's riveting biography is food for our decency-starved souls and is a page-turning must-read for future public servants and all who love Michigan. Over fifty years of immersion in the Senate-writing about it, interacting with its members, and working inside it-I have seen very few of its members garner the universal admiration and respect of Carl Levin. Getting to the Heart of the Matter is a memoir, but it is much more than that. Writing about his six terms in the Senate, Levin gives us an intimate, inside portrait of thirty-six years of key policy decisions and political developments in the country-and his role, often a pivotal one, in many of them. Along the way, we get a sense of how the Senate worked during those decades. This book is a tribute to a remarkable, important career and is a must-read for all who care about the country, its values, and the workings of its institutions going forward. Senator Carl Levin is the epitome of a dedicated statesman. His wise, effective, and collegial service to our nation is admirable. His memoir is a must-read for those who seek to understand how our government should work. Carl Levin served as the de facto conscience of the United States Senate for thirty-six years. He never forgot the people he grew up with in Detroit where he started out driving a taxi and working in an automobile factory. As chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Levin ferreted out wrongdoing, abuses of taxpayers, and failed policies, its reports all issued with bipartisan agreement, a remarkable feat of dignity, duty, and moral strength in our era. Getting to the Heart of the Matter is an account of a splendid Senate career by one of its greats. But it is also a well-timed reminder of what the Senate is supposed to be: a place where the national good is earnestly considered, not a viper's nest for conspiracy theories and vitriol. Levin, a Democratic stalwart if ever there was one, was never a shrinking violet when it came to issues he cared about, and there were plenty of those. But his old-fashioned sense of fair play helped him forge productive relationships with Republicans and craft bipartisan legislation in the days before that phrase became an oxymoron.
£25.46
University of Georgia Press Keeping the Chattahoochee Reviving and Defending
Book SynopsisSally Sierer Bethea was one of the first women in America to become a ‘riverkeeper’ - a vocal defender of a specific waterway who holds polluters accountable. In Keeping the Chattahoochee, she tells stories that range from joyous and funny to frustrating - even alarming - to illustrate what it takes to save an endangered river.Trade ReviewFor over a decade, Sally Bethea rocked the city with her fearless and principled leadership of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and insistence that the city and the people of Atlanta take notice, and then action, to correct pollution in the river. She taught me, and many others who were skeptical, the importance of civic advocacy in solving what seem like intractable problems. Sally offers the experience we need to preserve and protect the planet." - Shirley Franklin, former mayor of the City of Atlanta"Sally Bethea is a force of nature. Here the river activist, who made the Chattahoochee run cleaner, decides to deepen her relationship to the watershed. On foot, slowly, paying close attention, she travels repeatedly over the course of a year through a forest to the river. These explorations recall her two decades of stunning success—a courageous and unstoppable defender of nature looking forward, looking back. Impressive all around, this beacon of a book inspires, enlivens, and offers hope." - Janisse Ray, author of Wild Spectacle"My husband Rutherford and I realized that we needed to safeguard our life-sustaining drinking water. We co-founded Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and hired Sally Bethea. Beginning with only a canoe, she eventually won billions of dollars for the protection of one of America’s most important waterways. In this inspirational book, Sally describes her journey with entertaining stories that illustrate how to step up and make a significant difference." - Laura Turner Seydel, co-founder of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, board trustee of Waterkeeper Alliance, and board chair of Captain Planet Foundation"For all who love rivers, it would be an extremely special day to walk with Sally Bethea along the rapids of the Chattahoochee and hear about two decades of pathbreaking progress in conservation there. Now, thanks to this memoir, we get to do exactly that. Come along and learn about the enlightened and courageous efforts undertaken by this dedicated riverkeeper. Her success can inform us all regarding what must be done for our waters and for the communities that depend upon them." - Tim Palmer, author of Lifelines: The Case for River Conservation"Sally Bethea knows the Chattahoochee—its beauty, its importance for people and wildlife and the threats facing it—better than nearly anyone else. And the work of Ms. Bethea shows that dogged persistence, determination, public support, existing laws, prodding of government agencies and on and on can help win important environmental protection victories even in the face of substantial adversity." - Charles Seabrook, author of The World of the Salt Marsh: Appreciating and Protecting the Tidal Marshes of the Southeastern Atlantic Coast
£31.38
Seagull Books London Ltd It All Tastes of Farewell Diaries 19641970
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Following last year’s I Have No Regrets (translated by Berlin’s Lucy Jones), these books bring to life a highly talented and unconventional author, a woman determined to live life to its fullest despite the constrictions of her time. Now is a fine moment to (re)discover Brigitte Reimann. . . . [She] is a brilliant observer of social milieus, a ruthless self-analyst and often strikingly humorous." * Exberliner *Table of ContentsN
£23.75
The University of Tennessee Press Sara Teasdale Woman and Poet
Book SynopsisOffers a moving biography of one of the most widely read poets in America for over a decade preceding her death in 1933. Sara Teasdale's work reportedly influenced writers like John Berryman, Louise Bogan and Sylvia Plath.
£24.71
Pushcart Press Ghosting A Widows Voyage Out
Book Synopsis
£14.24
WW Norton & Co Greek to Me
Book SynopsisThe beloved Comma Queen returns with a buoyant and charming book about language, love and the wine-dark sea.Trade Review"What a fantastic book! Not only is Greek to Me educational, entertaining, and gorgeously written, it shows us how intellectual curiosity coupled with a dash of bravery can pave the way for a more meaningful life. Mary Norris does for Greek and Greece what Cheryl Strayed did for hiking. Readers will long to follow in her footsteps." -- Ann Patchett"In Greek to Me, Mary Norris’ love for all things Greek is palpable and infectious. She is a charming, insightful guide through both ancient and modern glories, and I expect her lush descriptions of the Greek countryside to provoke a tourism stampede." -- Madeline Miller"Poignant, antic, hilarious, Mary Norris is the definition of wearing your learning lightly, and after a lifetime of Greek immersion, pouring beer libations, and skinny-dipping in the waters of Aphrodite, her lessons slip down sweetly. This book is true ambrosia." -- Caroline Fraser"I fell in love with Mary Norris’s first book, and am now even more in love with this charming, ribald, highly informed, and always funny excursion through the language, culture, and oddities of Greece and the Greek language. An adventure tale for intellectuals—and also for the rest of us." -- Steve Martin"Greek to Me is a[n]... engaging hybrid, mixing philology, travelogue, memoir and psychoanalysis." -- The Telegraph"Mary Norris's book about her love affair with Greece and the Greek language starts with a terrific chapter about alphabets." -- The Spectator"A love letter to Greece and its language is full of delightful facts and brims with nerdish, bookish joy... Norris is a jaunty companion, splendidly bookish, full of excellent little facts about, say, the history of the alphabet that you feel pleased to acquire. Greek gives her, she is happy to admit, “an erotic thrill”. She represents a hearty riposte to the very British notion that a love of dead languages automatically renders one a chilly, Olympian elitist." -- The Guardian"Mary Norris has a remarkable gift for conveying and transmitting passion... In her second book, Greek to Me, she demonstrates this gift with still greater aplomb..." -- Times Literary Supplement
£19.94
Temple University Press,U.S. Not from Here Not from ThereNo Soy de Aqui ni de
Book SynopsisRaised in the squalor of a New York tenement until he was 10 years old, Nelson Díaz saw his life change when his family moved to a brand-new high-rise project in West Harlem in the 1950s. That experience, along with lessons learned as the only Latino law student at Temple University, would drive him throughout his life as a lawyer and activist, fighting for the expansion of rights for all Americans. No soy de aquí ni de allá is a mantra for Puerto Ricans who feel like foreigners wherever they are and who seek a place for themselves. In his inspiring autobiography, Not from Here, Not from There, Díaz tells the story of his struggles and triumphs as his perspective widened from the New York streets and law school classrooms to the halls of power in Philadelphia and Washington, DC. Whether as a leader in economic development, a pioneer in court reform, or a champion of fair housing, Díaz has never stopped advocating for others. Díaz was happy to be the first Latino to do something, butTrade Review“Nelson Díaz was exactly what a White House Fellow should be: smart, dedicated, and a true believer in public service. We worked together on bilingual education and employment, and his advocacy for fellow Latino voices at the highest levels of government helped usher in a change in national politics. As Not from Here, Not from There/No Soy de Aquí ni de Allá shows, he has spent a lifetime making the most of his chances and has blazed a trail for countless others to follow.” —Vice President Walter F. Mondale“Nelson Díaz has written a powerful and engrossing memoir of outstanding leadership, courage, and resiliency. Filled with practical advice backed by fascinating and inspiring personal lessons, victories, and challenges, this book is truly a gem—a smart read for everyone: the general public and leaders alike. An easy-to-read, invaluable resource that’s packed with insight, Not from Here, Not from There provides a solid road map for all leaders who want to better serve their communities.” —Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor of Public Policy, Rutgers University–Camden"This book is a valuable read for all young people, but especially for children of immigrants and for aspiring Latino and African American youth.”—John P. Clarke, St. John's University, New York"Diaz--a former judge, city solicitor, and member of the Clinton administration--unspools his gripping life story, beginning with his pregnant mother's 1946 voyage from Puerto Rico, winding through a youth in Harlem tenements, and concluding with his rise to prominence in Philly public life. Diaz's dual status--American but also other--is a constant theme. A vital read for turbulent times."—Philadelphia Magazine"This memoir by Philadelphia lawyer Nelson Diaz...is a fascinating read on many levels and is absolutely inspiring."--The Philadelphia Lawyer"Nelson Díaz has been a presence in Philadelphia since 1969, and a leader of its Latinx community almost as long. His new autobiography, Not from Here, Not from There (No Soy de Aquí ni de Allá) traces his remarkable career.... The most revealing parts of the narrative, which hopscotches through Díaz’s resume, are the personal encounters with people like former Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo, evangelist Billy Graham, and Leroy Otis, a homeless man in West Harlem who coached Díaz and other neighborhood kids in softball."--Broad Street Review
£24.69
University of Toronto Press But This is Our War
Book SynopsisPembroke. August 4, 1914. On a verandah in town four young people anxiously await news that will change irrevocably the course of their lives. A fifth arrives, out of breath, with the latest bulletin from the telegraph office. War has been declared – and it is their war.At the age of ninety, Grace Craig looks back to her youth and tells the story of the impact of the Great War on her family and friends. Letters from the young men on the Western Front are interwoven with her own memories of the war. Her brother Basil, youngest officer in the No. 1 Canadian Tunnelling Company, fights underground driving mineshafts deep below the tortured earth of no man's land; later, as an observer in the Royal Flying Corps, he flies above the enemy lines amidst the bursting shells. His older brother Ramsey, a lieutenant in the 38th Battalion, fights in the constant mud on the ground, and must lead his men 'over the top' in the face of enemy fire.At home their sister knits socks
£19.79
Duke University Press My Butch Career
Book SynopsisEsther Newtona pioneer figure in gay and lesbian studiestells the compelling and disarming story of her struggle to write, teach, and find love, all while coming to terms with her lesbian identity during one of the worst periods of homophobic persecution in the twentieth century.Trade Review"Newton is not afraid to get personal and offer her mistakes, personality development, and failed relationships for contemplation. After decades of personal and professional struggle, Newton finds a scholarly community in an evolved culture and helps to create the academic study of gender and sexuality. This book is simultaneously a memoir and an exemplar of this important field." -- Emily Dziuban * Booklist *"In the tradition of the best memoirs, it is chattily engaging, historically illuminating, and deeply, provocatively ruminative. . . . My Butch Career feels intoxicatingly, palpably real: It’s a story we can reach out and touch and one we can also situate ourselves in, even if we’re decades younger than the 78-year-old Newton. What makes My Butch Career so compelling is that while writing about herself, Newton is also examining her milieu with the eye of the cultural anthropologist she became. The story she tells is as much our story as it is hers." -- Victoria A. Brownworth * Curve *"The most captivating part of the book sees Newton circulating through second-wave feminist and lesbian circles in New York and Paris, where the debates, social hierarchies, and tangled affairs she encounters bring her to a late coming of age. In the eighties, her scholarship, once ignored, achieves recognition with the rise of gender and sexuality studies. The book is a thoughtful examination of how personal experiences spur intellectual progress." * The New Yorker *"Throughout My Butch Career, Newton is remarkably candid about the ways that class has influenced her work and perspective on the historical events unfolding around her. . . . It’s a testament to just how great an anthropologist and chronicler of queer life she is that Newton makes sure to include the kinds of details that paint a more complete and complex picture of the world as she’s experienced it." -- Alexis Clements * Los Angeles Review of Books *"Disarming and compelling. . . . My Butch Career is the humorous and graceful story of a gender outlaw in the making, blazing the trail in queer academia." * The Advocate *"My Butch Career joins a distinguished list of lesbian herstories. . .. It is for readers interested in the psychological and cultural challenges for an individual who identifies as a butch lesbian, as well as readers who are interested in lesbian herstory within the greater context of thegay rights movement." -- Cassandra Langer * Gay & Lesbian Review *"My Butch Career is an important narrative of liberation that contributes singularly to the growing body of collective LGBTQ history. It covers the first forty-one years of the writer’s life, a time frame that calls out for a sequel. Newton concludes her memoir with a tribute to the queer writers who have preceded her. With this work, she has secured her place in that pantheon." -- Anne Charles * Lambda Literary Review *“My Butch Career is an arrival story.... All anthropologists, students as well as educators, should read this because it calls attention to what has changed and shows the importance of LGBT/queer social movements and networks of non-normative communities.” -- Anika Keinz * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Quarterly *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. A Hard Left Fist 18 2. A Writer's Inheritance 33 3. Manhattan Tomboy 56 4. California Trauma 72 5. Baby Butch 81 6. Anthropology of the Closet 102 7. Lesbian Feminist New York 119 8. The Island of Women 160 9. In-Between Dyke 183 10. Paris France 198 11. Butch Revisited 237 Notes 249 Bibliography 261 Index 265
£25.19
University of Toronto Press Searching for W.P.M. Kennedy
Book SynopsisIn this highly entertaining biography, W.P.M. Kennedy emerges as a complicated yet compelling figure in the academic and legal history of Canada.Trade Review“[M]asterful biography…Friedland deftly weaves an account of Kennedy’s complex life with great insight and scholarship.” -- Bob Rae * Canada’s History *“[F]ascinating new biography… Friedland’s biography provides a meticulously researched evaluation of a man keen to obscure and rewrite his own past. Despite these challenges, Friedland succeeds in providing a vivid portrait of WPM Kennedy that places him in the context of his wider contribution to Canadian society.” -- Thomas Mohr * Dublin University Law Journal *“The book is skillfully written and very accessible. In fact, it is a real page turner in places….” -- Dr. Peter Ludlow, President-General of the Canadian Catholic Historical Association * Maritime Institute for Civil Society *“W.P.M. Kennedy is one of the most important Canadian legal figures that most Canadian legal academics have not heard of…Friedland deploys all his experience, ingenuity, and investigative skills to complete his ‘search for truth about the life of W.P.M. Kennedy.’” -- Adam M. Dodek * American Journal of Comparative Law *Table of ContentsW.P.M. Kennedy Timeline Preface 1. Coming to America 2. Earlier Years 3. After Trinity College Dublin 4. St. Michael’s College 5. Turning to the Canadian Constitution 6. Pauline Simpson 7. The Constitution of Canada and Beyond 8. Deeks v. Macmillan and H.G. Wells 9. The Irish Constitution 10. Productive Years 11. Lord Elgin and More 12. Starting a Law Program 13. Creating a Law School 14. More Projects 15. Running a Law School 16. Encouraging Scholarship 17. Rethinking the BNA Act 18. The War Years 19. The Changing Law School 20. The Cottage 21. The Family 22. Sidney Smith Arrives 23. Final Years as Dean 24. The Struggle Continues 25. Retirement 26. Final Days 27. Summing Up Endnotes
£70.55
University of Toronto Press Searching for W.P.M. Kennedy
Book SynopsisBorn in Ireland in 1879, W.P.M. Kennedy was a distinguished Canadian academic and the leading Canadian constitutional law scholar for much of the twentieth century. Despite his trailblazing career and intriguing personal life, Kennedy’s story is largely a mystery. Weaving together a number of key events, Martin L. Friedland’s lively biography discusses Kennedy’s contributions as a legal and interdisciplinary scholar, his work at the University of Toronto where he founded the Faculty of Law, as well as his personal life, detailing stories about his family and important friends, such as Prime Minister Mackenzie King. Kennedy earned a reputation in some circles for being something of a scoundrel, and Friedland does not shy away from addressing Kennedy’s exaggerated involvement in drafting the Irish constitution, his relationships with female students, and his quest for recognition. Throughout the biography, Friedland interjects with his own personal Trade Review“[M]asterful biography…Friedland deftly weaves an account of Kennedy’s complex life with great insight and scholarship.” -- Bob Rae * Canada’s History *“[F]ascinating new biography… Friedland’s biography provides a meticulously researched evaluation of a man keen to obscure and rewrite his own past. Despite these challenges, Friedland succeeds in providing a vivid portrait of WPM Kennedy that places him in the context of his wider contribution to Canadian society.” -- Thomas Mohr * Dublin University Law Journal *“The book is skillfully written and very accessible. In fact, it is a real page turner in places….” -- Dr. Peter Ludlow, President-General of the Canadian Catholic Historical Association * Maritime Institute for Civil Society *“W.P.M. Kennedy is one of the most important Canadian legal figures that most Canadian legal academics have not heard of…Friedland deploys all his experience, ingenuity, and investigative skills to complete his ‘search for truth about the life of W.P.M. Kennedy.’” -- Adam M. Dodek * American Journal of Comparative Law *Table of ContentsW.P.M. Kennedy Timeline Preface 1. Coming to America 2. Earlier Years 3. After Trinity College Dublin 4. St. Michael’s College 5. Turning to the Canadian Constitution 6. Pauline Simpson 7. The Constitution of Canada and Beyond 8. Deeks v. Macmillan and H.G. Wells 9. The Irish Constitution 10. Productive Years 11. Lord Elgin and More 12. Starting a Law Program 13. Creating a Law School 14. More Projects 15. Running a Law School 16. Encouraging Scholarship 17. Rethinking the BNA Act 18. The War Years 19. The Changing Law School 20. The Cottage 21. The Family 22. Sidney Smith Arrives 23. Final Years as Dean 24. The Struggle Continues 25. Retirement 26. Final Days 27. Summing Up Endnotes
£32.40
University of Toronto Press In Search of Greatness
Book SynopsisIn this book Yousuf Karsh, whose great photographic portraits have revealed so vividly the outstanding personalities of our time, writes about his own life and work. It is the story of an Armenian immigrant boy who rose to be the world's finest portrait photographer, whose pictures, reproduced in newspapers, magazines, and books, and shown in museums, art galleries and exhibitions, have been admired by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. Of his early years in Armenia, Karsh gives a brief but compelling account, writing without bitterness but not sparing the reader the impact on his youthful mind of the brutalities, massacres, and atrocities of that time. The dramatic impression made on him by his first experiences as a young citizen of Sherbrooke, Quebec. His several years of study in Boston with the famous photographer, Garo, show the gradual development of his ideas and skills in portraiture. In 1932, Karsh opened his own studio in Ottawa, capital city of Ca
£17.99
University of Toronto Press A Slice of Canada
Book SynopsisWatson Kirkconnell is one of the most familiar figures in the world of Canadian letters. Educated at Queen's and Oxford, he has published several volumes of poetry and poetry translations, was the founding father and first chairman of the Humanities Research Council, a charter member and national president (1942-44, 1956-58) of the Canadian Authors Association, and has shared in university life for 45 years.He has been active in many other areas of public life; as one of the founders of the Prisoners' Aid Society (now the John Howard Society of Manitoba), a joint organizer of the Citizenship Branch, Ottawa, a founder and first president of the Canadian-Polish Society, as well as the Baptist Federation of Canada of which he was national president (1953-56). In widespread recognition of his work in these many fields Dr. Kirkonnell has received twelve honorary doctorates from universities in Canada, the United States, Hungary, and Germany, knighthoods from Poland and Iceland, an
£33.30
University of Nebraska Press This Jade World
Book Synopsis2022 Book of the Year Award from the Chicago Writers Association 2022 Eric Hoffer Book Awards Finalist in Memoir 2021 Foreword Indies FinalistThis Jade World centers on a Thai American who has gone through a series of life changes. Ira Sukrungruang married young to an older poet. On their twelfth anniversary, he received a letter asking for a divorce, sending him into a despairing spiral. How would he define himself when he was suddenly without the person who shaped and helped mold him into the person he is? After all these years, he asked himself what he wanted and found no answer. He did not even know what wanting meant. And so, in the year between his annual visits to Thailand to see his family, he gave in to urges, both physical and emotional; found comfort in the body, many bodies; fought off the impulse to disappear, to vanish; until he arrived at some modicum of understanding. During this time, he sought to obliterate the stereotype of Trade Review"It was like watching an artist paint a picture. First come the random brushstrokes, then bits of color, then shape. Eventually the complete image emerges and what a thrill to have been there to see it evolve. While these essays circle around the topics of love and divorce, they're also about renewal, finding love again, and, of course, the joy of fatherhood."—Debbie Hagan, Brevity“In This Jade World Sukrungruang offers us a prayer and a meditation on the beginnings and endings of love. The love of parents and their children. The love among men and women. The love between the skin we live in and the memories we house. In this rare and beautiful offering, we experience a man undone by love and his journey to salvage hope in the face of incredible loneliness and doubt, a search for salvation found first in a dream.”—Kao Kalia Yang, author of Somewhere in the Unknown World and The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir “It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that when seemingly happy couples break up we all wonder what the hell happened. In Ira Sukrungruang’s affecting and vulnerable memoir, This Jade World, he narrates the dissolution of one marriage and the burgeoning of another as a double love story, laced with wonder, grief, downward spirals, and mature reinventions. Set in both Thailand and the U.S., examined against an epic web of family domestic strife and rearrangement, this gorgeously written book illuminates the necessity and complexity of intimate joy.”—Barrie Jean Borich, author of Body Geographic and Apocalypse, Darling “This Jade World is compulsively readable—its short chapters are polished stones, each delightful by itself while leading us on to another, another, until we’ve walked the road through the author’s divorce and into his new life and love. Mostly set during his yearly visits to his family, Sukrungruang offers a keenly observed Thailand—the monks slipping their cellphones into their robes, the tattoo artist praying before pushing his needle into the author’s back. And throughout we have the deepest pleasure—that of language charged with imagery, leavened with humor, and pierced with insight.”—Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Heating and Cooling: 52 Micro-MemoirsTable of ContentsAcknowledgments The First I I Am Sad In 1997 Touch A Brief History of Sex Stupid Men This Bed That Was Not My Bed Mount Crested Butte July 10 II After the Hysterectomy The Gastropub Sex Education The Abyss The Impossible Dream The Red Balloon Giggles July 10 III What I Want Bed, Bath, and Beyond The Sleep of the Restless It’s Raining July 10 IV Ruins Fortune July 10 V Inked Flesh of the Land Man Baby The Talk of the Body July 10 VI Monarchs and Memory The Broken Hearts Club To Have, to Hold Flowers Michael Chang Signs July 10 VII At the Border Balance Lesbians Invisible Partners July 10 VIII Okay That Long Couch Goodbye XI The Next Life
£15.19
Stanford University Press This Atom Bomb in Me
Book SynopsisThis Atom Bomb in Me traces what it felt like to grow up suffused with American nuclear culture in and around the atomic city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. As a secret city during the Manhattan Project, Oak Ridge enriched the uranium that powered Little Boy, the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The city was a major nuclear production site throughout the Cold War, adding something to each and every bomb in the United States arsenal. Even today, Oak Ridge contains the world's largest supply of fissionable uranium. The granddaughter of an atomic courier, Lindsey A. Freeman turns a critical yet nostalgic eye to the place where her family was sent as part of a covert government plan. Theirs was a city devoted to nuclear science within a larger America obsessed with its nuclear prowess. Through memories, mysterious photographs, and uncanny childhood toys, she shows how Reagan-era politics and nuclear culture irradiated the late twentieth century. Alternately tender and alarming, her book takes a Geiger counter to recent history, reading the half-life of the atomic past as it resonates in our tense nuclear present. Trade Review"In this book things radiate and travel—they're both material and immaterial, pulsing and still. Adding texture to the relationship between materiality and memory, Lindsey Freeman shows how tightly history and biography, social imaginaries and social worlds, are sewn together and emerge in scenes of everyday living." -- Kathleen Stewart * University of Texas at Austin *"These discrete vignettes spark off each other, collectively producing a text that is kaleidoscopic, wondrous, and witty. Sometimes richly comic, sometimes just quirky, but never sentimental or sugary, the writing is wry, the gaze jaundiced; there is love and affection but not affectation. Freeman presents us with an intricately conceived and intensely expressed structure of feeling, decked out here in vibrant hues." -- Graeme Gilloch * Lancaster University *"A gorgeously crafted memoir about the atomic sensorium of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Funny, wrenching, erudite. Gulp it down in a single sitting." -- Gabrielle Hecht * author of Being Nuclear *"With a scholar's rigor and a granddaughter's wistful heart, Lindsey Freeman reminds us—by atomizing memory and emotion with poetic authority—that nuclear might, at its core, is not a matter of techno-strategy, or even science, but a burden of the body, mind, and heart." -- Dan Zak * author of Almighty: Courage, Resistance and Existential Peril in the Nuclear Age *"Narrated in a voice both wildly innocent and deeply wise, This Atom Bomb in Me creates an astonishing, provocative collage of text and image that challenges us to face the devastating history and legacy of the nuclear age. Lyrical and poignant, with a dose of good storytelling, Lindsey Freeman's book sings of the urgency of our times." -- Kristen Iversen * University of Cincinnati, author of Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats *"Through a tapestry of interwoven vignettes, Freeman...revisits the surreal side of her Reagan-era childhood in a beautiful and haunting memoir....[An] evocative, quietly probing account." -- Publisher's Weekly"In This Atom Bomb in Me, [Freeman] assembles her 'blocks of text' into an artistic structure as solid as the Comesto houses themselves and spacious enough to hold the heart of a sensitive and thoughtful child growing up in an unusual place...This Atom Bomb in Me is more than a memoir. It's also a work of social science, however unconventional." -- Tina Chambers * Chapter 16 *"Both the mundane and the mysterious irradiate this slim memoir, which builds into something more than just the remembrance of a uniquely situated adolescence in Reagan's America. In addition to an idiosyncratic consideration of memory and belonging, This Atom Bomb in Me offers a poetic exploration of how culture and identity synthesize each other." -- Will Wlizlo * Rain Taxi Review of Books *"This Atom Bomb in Me is a sensitive experiment in producing theory from the place of the wolf, the belly of memory....I read this short book voraciously twice." -- Yani Kong * Memory Studies *
£18.89
University of Minnesota Press Wild Mares: My Lesbian Back-to-the-Land Life
Book SynopsisA wry memoir of growing up, coming out, and going back to the land as a lesbian feminist in the rural Midwest of the 1960s and 70s Dianna Hunter was a softball-loving, working-class tomboy in North Dakota, surviving the threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Mutually Assured Destruction in the shadow of a strategic air command base. Communists and antiwar hippies were the enemy, but lesbians were a threat, too: they were unhealthy, criminal, and downright insane. It took Dianna a while to figure out that she was one, a little longer to discover how she fit in with her new communities in the city and the countryside. This is her story—a frank account by turns comic and painful of a well-behaved Midwestern girl finding her way through polite denial and repression and running head-on into the eye-opening events of the 1960s and ’70s before landing on a dairy farm.A bumpy route takes Dianna to the Twin Cities, then to rural Minnesota and Wisconsin as—by way of the antiwar movement, women’s liberation, and a dose of lesbian feminism—she and her friends try to establish a rural utopia free of sexual oppression, violence, materialism, environmental degradation—and men. They dream big, love as they see fit, and make do until they don’t. Dianna buys a dairy farm and, with it, a new set of problems thanks to the Reagan-era farm crisis. A firsthand account of the lesbian feminist movement at its inception, Wild Mares is a deeply personal, wryly wise, and always engaging view of identity politics lived and learned in real life and, literally, on the ground, flourishing in the fertile soil of a struggling dairy farm in the American heartland.Trade Review"Dianna Hunter’s engaging memoir thoughtfully recounts a feminist era, ethos, and way of life that until recently has been largely lost to the historical record. Told with nuanced self-reflection and respect for wider contexts, Hunter’s stories will challenge any narrow assumptions about what it was like to create and live the ‘second wave.’"—Finn Enke, author of Finding the Movement"Wild Mares is the riveting story of the struggles and integrity of a contemporary pioneer who tried to change the world with few resources other than her own extraordinary courage, stamina, resourcefulness, and idealism. From teaching the first women’s studies class at her college, to chopping wood and hauling it home through snowdrifts on a horse-drawn sleigh, to operating her own dairy farm, to advocating at the state government for struggling farmers, Dianna Hunter is an inspiring feminist force."—Nancy Manahan, author of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence"Wild Mares helps to remind people reading it in 2018 and beyond that much work has been done over the decades in the LGBTQ community, but the forces that aim to divide and regress are always present"—Woman Today"A worthwhile look at non-traditional twentieth-century farming, and at Midwestern lesbian history."—South Florida Gay News"Wild Mares refers to the horses Hudson loved, but also to the eager, sometimes-confused and socially-conscious wild young lesbians on whose shoulders the new generations stand."—Twin Cities Pioneer Press "Wild Mares is a slow burn of a read that offers an important glimpse into a slice of all-too-recent history. There is power in storytelling, in lifting voices, in showing how we were part of major cultural moments. " —AutoStraddleTable of ContentsPrologue1. The Great Man and the Dead Cow2. MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD World3. They Can’t Kill Us All (Can They?)4. A Room of My Own 5. Getting There6. The First Lesbian Conference7. Country Lesbian Manifesto8. The Trouble with Land9. Suzanne Takes You Down10. Family of Woman11. Women, Horses, and Other Embodied Spirits12. Lurk-in-the-Ditch13. Another Dance and a Funeral14. At the Speed of Hooves15. Rising Moon16. Making Hay17. Mel’s Place (Dick Pulls Us Through)18. Del Lago 19. Thundering Ice, Talking Spirits20. Ravenna’s Refuge21. Dancing Leads to This22. Divorce and Dispossession23. Going, Going, GoneAcknowledgmentsResources
£14.39
University of Minnesota Press Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of
Book SynopsisA young woman from Minnesota searches out the Colombian father she’s never known in this powerful exploration of what family really means He loved Colombia too much to leave it. The explanation from her Minnesotan mother was enough to satisfy a child’s curiosity about her missing father. But at twenty-one, Anika Fajardo wanted more. She wanted to know her father better and to know what kind of country could have such a hold on him. And so, in 1995, Fajardo boarded a plane and flew to Colombia to discover a birthplace that was foreign to her and a father who was a stranger. There she learns that sometimes, no matter how many pieces you find, fitting together a family history isn’t easy.With her tentative entry into her father’s world, Fajardo steps on a path that will take her in surprising directions, toward unsuspected secrets about her family and herself. Set against the changing backdrops of Colombia and the American Midwest, her journey carries her back to the 1970s and the beginnings of her parents’ broken marriage, and forward to the present day, where the magic and reality of love and heartache—and her own experience as a parent—await her. The way is strewn with obstacles, physical and metaphysical—from the perils encountered on a mountain road in Colombia to the death of a loved one to the birth of her own child—but the toughest to negotiate are the shifting place of memory and truth while coming to understand her place in her family and in the world.Vivid and heartfelt in the telling, Fajardo’s story is powerfully compelling in its bridging of time and place and in its moving depiction of self-transformation. Family, she comes to find, is where you find it and what you make of it.Trade Review"Incredibly well written and compelling, Anika Fajardo’s Magical Realism for Non-Believers is a remarkable memoir about the search for a father, a culture, a self. I felt like I was reading about my own life and the price I paid for assimilation and acculturation. I simply couldn’t put it down."—Pablo Medina, author of The Island Kingdom and Cubop City Blues"Bicultural experience is a dispassionate term for life lived across borders, identities, and even family trees. As Anika Fajardo makes clear in this searching and lyrical memoir, there is nothing dispassionate about flying back to one’s birthland, walking its soil again, or breaking bread with family who have become as good as strangers. Fajardo seeks to reconnect these missing and scattered pieces, and it is a privilege to journey beside her."—Lila Quintero Weaver, author of Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White"A rare read, you know the kind: you don’t want it to end but you can’t put it down. Bewitching and beautiful, bound to move anyone who was ever a parent or a child, and just as compelling (and magical) the second time around."—Dinah Lenney, author of The Object Parade"A forthright and sensitive tale of a daughter's quest."—Kirkus Reviews"Fajardo revisits interactions and places with intricately remembered emotion, making for a delicious dive into the complicated, beautiful messes that love can make."—Booklist"Fajardo describes the pain of yearning for something you can't quite articulate, of getting what you thought you wanted and finding it less than satisfying. She dives into her family's past and continues her story into her own adulthood, laying bare the many complicated ways our family informs who we are and how we interact with the world."—BuzzFeed"Anika Fajardo’s beautifully written memoir is a full, satisfying read."—Star Tribune"Anika Fajardo has written a wonderful, sensitive and compelling memoir about her journey to forge a relationship with the father she never knew. She uses her talents to spin a tale that could have been fiction but is all the more special because it is all true."—I Am Book Minded"Magical Realism for Non-Believers is filled with honest and authentic truths about the complex relationship between children and their neglectful parents and the struggle to find one’s place between two cultures."—School Library Journal
£17.99
University of Minnesota Press Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of
Book SynopsisA young woman from Minnesota searches out the Colombian father she’s never known in this powerful exploration of what family really means He loved Colombia too much to leave it. The explanation from her Minnesotan mother was enough to satisfy a child’s curiosity about her missing father. But at twenty-one, Anika Fajardo wanted more. She wanted to know her father better and to know what kind of country could have such a hold on him. And so, in 1995, Fajardo boarded a plane and flew to Colombia to discover a birthplace that was foreign to her and a father who was a stranger. There she learns that sometimes, no matter how many pieces you find, fitting together a family history isn’t easy.With her tentative entry into her father’s world, Fajardo steps on a path that will take her in surprising directions, toward unsuspected secrets about her family and herself. Set against the changing backdrops of Colombia and the American Midwest, her journey carries her back to the 1970s and the beginnings of her parents’ broken marriage, and forward to the present day, where the magic and reality of love and heartache—and her own experience as a parent—await her. The way is strewn with obstacles, physical and metaphysical—from the perils encountered on a mountain road in Colombia to the death of a loved one to the birth of her own child—but the toughest to negotiate are the shifting place of memory and truth while coming to understand her place in her family and in the world.Vivid and heartfelt in the telling, Fajardo’s story is powerfully compelling in its bridging of time and place and in its moving depiction of self-transformation. Family, she comes to find, is where you find it and what you make of it.Trade Review"Incredibly well written and compelling, Anika Fajardo’s Magical Realism for Non-Believers is a remarkable memoir about the search for a father, a culture, a self. I felt like I was reading about my own life and the price I paid for assimilation and acculturation. I simply couldn’t put it down."—Pablo Medina, author of The Island Kingdom and Cubop City Blues"Bicultural experience is a dispassionate term for life lived across borders, identities, and even family trees. As Anika Fajardo makes clear in this searching and lyrical memoir, there is nothing dispassionate about flying back to one’s birthland, walking its soil again, or breaking bread with family who have become as good as strangers. Fajardo seeks to reconnect these missing and scattered pieces, and it is a privilege to journey beside her."—Lila Quintero Weaver, author of Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White"A rare read, you know the kind: you don’t want it to end but you can’t put it down. Bewitching and beautiful, bound to move anyone who was ever a parent or a child, and just as compelling (and magical) the second time around."—Dinah Lenney, author of The Object Parade"A forthright and sensitive tale of a daughter's quest."—Kirkus Reviews"Fajardo revisits interactions and places with intricately remembered emotion, making for a delicious dive into the complicated, beautiful messes that love can make."—Booklist"Fajardo describes the pain of yearning for something you can't quite articulate, of getting what you thought you wanted and finding it less than satisfying. She dives into her family's past and continues her story into her own adulthood, laying bare the many complicated ways our family informs who we are and how we interact with the world."—BuzzFeed"Anika Fajardo’s beautifully written memoir is a full, satisfying read."—Star Tribune"Anika Fajardo has written a wonderful, sensitive and compelling memoir about her journey to forge a relationship with the father she never knew. She uses her talents to spin a tale that could have been fiction but is all the more special because it is all true."—I Am Book Minded"Magical Realism for Non-Believers is filled with honest and authentic truths about the complex relationship between children and their neglectful parents and the struggle to find one’s place between two cultures."—School Library Journal
£13.29
Irwin Law At the Barricades: A Memoir
£22.49
University of Massachusetts Press An American Dream: The Life of an African
Book SynopsisThroughout his life, Clarence Adams exhibited self-reliance, ambition, ingenuity, courage, and a commitment to learning - character traits often equated with the successful pursuit of the American Dream. Unfortunately, for an African American coming of age in the 1930s and 1940s, such attributes counted for little, especially in the South. Adams was a seventeen-year-old high school dropout in 1947 when he fled Memphis and the local police to join the U.S. Army. Three years later, after fighting in the Korean War in an all-black artillery unit that he believed to have been sacrificed to save white troops, he was captured by the Chinese. After spending almost three years as a POW, during which he continued to suffer racism at the hands of his fellow Americans, he refused repatriation in 1953, choosing instead the People's Republic of China, where he hoped to find educational and career opportunities not readily available in his own country. While living in China, Adams earned a university degree, married a Chinese professor of Russian, and worked in Beijing as a translator for the Foreign Languages Press. During the Vietnam War, he made a controversial anti-war broadcast over Radio Hanoi, urging black troops not to fight for someone else's political and economic freedoms until they enjoyed these same rights at home. In 1966, having come under suspicion during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, he returned with his wife and two children to the United States, where he was subpoenaed to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities to face charges of ""disrupting the morale of American fighting forces in Vietnam and inciting revolution in the United States."" After these charges were dropped, he and his family struggled to survive economically. Eventually, through sheer perseverance, they were able to fulfill at least part of the American Dream. By the time he died, the family owned and operated eight successful Chinese restaurants in his native Memphis.Trade ReviewAn important addition to the remarkably scant canon of African American memoirs about war, as well as a meaningful American memoir. - Jeff Loeb, editor of Memphis-Nam-Sweden: The Autobiography of a Black American Exile by Terry Whitmore ""Black participation in the Korean War is an extremely important, yet understudied topic. I expect that future scholars will make use of this narrative both as a source and even as a starting point for further historical inquiry."" - Nikhil Pal Singh, author of Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy
£20.66
Gallaudet University Press,U.S. Orchid of the Bayou
Book Synopsis
£22.50
Gallaudet University Press,U.S. Deaf Daughter, Hearing Father
Book SynopsisWhen Richard Medugno and his wife Brenda learned in 1993 that their17-month-old daughter Miranda was deaf, they grieved, as many hearing parents do. Soon, however, Medugno seized hold of the need to take positive action for Miranda. Deaf Daughter, Hearing Father recounts the remarkable story of their journey during the past fourteen years. Medugno first researched the best communication mode for Miranda. Quickly dismissing the speech pathology model, he and his wife chose ASL alone as the best, natural language for Miranda. He surrounded his daughter with opportunities to learn ASL, by arranging to meet deaf individuals and families, and also by hiring deaf babysitters. He also determined to learn ASL himself, to ensure communication with his daughter. As Miranda neared school age, Medugno spearheaded a transcontinental search for exactly the right school for her education. So that Miranda could attend the California School for the Deaf (CSD), the Medugno family moved from Toronto, Canada to Fremont, CA. In "Deaf Daughter, Hearing Father", Medugno shares practical information on many of the common challenges faced by hearing parents. He provides a list of games that hearing and deaf children can play together, an important consideration for many families. His enthusiasm for all possibilities, from exploring the potential of video phones to helping stage CSD musicals, reveals his abiding devotion to Miranda. Such a foundation has enabled her to feel proud, confident, and happy in her pursuits. At the same time, Medugno recognizes that the rewards of having a deaf daughter are far greater than he could have hoped for or imagined.
£19.00
Gallaudet University Press,U.S. Deaf in Delhi
Book SynopsisIn 1952, after two weeks of typhoid fever and the mumps, 11-year-old Madan Vasishta awoke one night to discover that he could no longer hear. He was horrified because in India, the word for "deaf" in all three main languages, Punjabi, Urdu, and Hindi, described someone who was not really human. But, he was young, brash, and irrepressible, and his autobiography "Deaf in Delhi: A Memoir" reveals how his boundless optimism enabled him to persist and prevail. Vasishta's story reflects the India of his youth, an emerging nation where most people struggled with numbing poverty and depended upon close family ties, tradition, and faith to see them through. His family's search for a cure took him to a host of medical specialists and just as many sadhus and mahatmas, holy men and priests. The school in his small village was ill-prepared to educate deaf students then, so he herded the family cattle, usually the work of hired servants. Vasishta refused to accept this as his final lot in life and fantasized constantly about better jobs. Eventually, he moved to Delhi where his dream of becoming a photographer came true. He also discovered the Delhi Deaf community that, with his family, helped him to achieve an even higher goal, traveling to America to earn a degree at Gallaudet College.
£22.50
University of South Carolina Press Knowing Who I am: A Black Entrepreneur's Memoir
Book SynopsisEarl M. Middleton (b. 1919) has prospered in ways few African Americans have in the rural South. As owner of a successful business that cuts across racial lines and as a political leader in the cause of civil rights, Middleton has garnered hard-won recognition for his efforts from blacks and whites alike. His life story is at once illustrative of dynamic developments in southern race relations over the past eight decades and inspirational in telling how one individual capitalized on those changes to perpetuate a family legacy of entrepreneurship and service in his community.A World War II veteran, Middleton trained as a Tuskegee Airman in 1942 and then served as an infantry soldier in the Pacific theater. Returning to Orangeburg in 1946, he became a barber and then a restaurant owner before finding his true vocation in real-estate. What is now one of the region's most profitable real estate firms began as a sideline in the back of a barbershop, but Middleton quickly developed a reputation for superior knowledge and inclusive definitions of community that allowed him to succeed.As a civil rights activist in the 1950s and 1960s, Middleton witnessed firsthand the bravery of Orangeburg's citizens. His wife, then the head of South Carolina State's library science department, was jailed for joining a student protest. From these experiences Middleton developed an unconquerable forbearance that complemented his unshakable belief in equality. In 1974, he was elected to the South Carolina General Assembly, where he served for a decade. There he was a founding member of the Legislative Black Caucus and an influential voice on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Today Middleton is still active in the daily operations of the real-estate business he founded and the agency continues to expand with racially diverse agents serving equally diverse populations.
£24.65
University of South Carolina Press Ramblings of a Lowcountry Game Warden: A Memoir
Book SynopsisThis title features the career-spanning tales of a coastal crimefighter, ranging from the dangerous to the hilarious.Moise served with distinction as a South Carolina game warden for nearly a quarter century, patrolling the coastal woods and waters of the Palmetto State. In this colorful memoir, the cigar-chomping, ticket-writing scourge of lowcountry fish and game law violators chronicles grueling stakeouts, complex trials, hair-raising adventures, and daily interactions with a host of outrageous personalities. Along the way he paints a vivid and fluid portrait of evolving attitudes and changing regulations governing coastal conservation.In briskly paced accounts of episodes ranging from dangerous to humorous, he introduces a lively cast of watermen, lawyers, country judges, hunters, and poachers who animate the coastal environs and whose quirky personalities and foibles are the game warden's daily stock in trade. Moise's narrative highlights the working lives of commercial crabbers and shrimpers, the antics of overly enthusiastic fishermen, and the great lengths to which hunters will go in their quests for doves, ducks, and marsh hens. Moise also describes encounters with displaced ""urban wildlife,"" the coastal marijuana smuggling business, and his fellow game wardens.The memoir also features a foreword by Lloyd Newberry, celebrated hunter and senior editor of ""Sporting Classics Magazine"".
£35.83
St Augustine's Press The Politics of Morality – Portraits in Seven
Book SynopsisHere are seven readable biographical sketches of important people who influenced the times in which they lived by bringing their faith to bear on social issues. In writing about them the author incorporates biography, theology, and politics into a coherent whole portrait of the subjects. Present day journals like First Things, National Review, and Christianity Today began as an extension of the personalities of the people profiled in this book, whose interests guided faithful believers in the midst of changing and turbulent times. The Politics of Morality combines a scholarly penchant for fact with historical evidence to show how these men connected the principles of government with the ideals of Christianity. Here is the story of Russell Kirk’s original vision, and William F. Buckley’s ornery conservative conscience. Francis Schaeffer’s zealous evangelicalism meets Richard J. Neuhaus’s keen insight and Chuck Colson’s passion for justice. Carl F.H. Henry’s novel vision for a Christian magazine is compared to Michael Novak’s refutation of socialism. This book is a help because it analyzes the lives of people who remain influential in bringing Christian principles to bear on issues in the public square. Anyone interested in current issues has something to learn from the life and work of these individuals.
£26.60
