Biography: general Books

Book SynopsisJack Hill was a pioneering Arkansas documentary filmmaker dedicated to sharing his state’s history with a wider public. Following a decade as an award-winning investigative journalist and news anchor at KAIT in Jonesboro, Hill was pushed out by new management for his controversial reporting on corruption in a local sheriff’s office. What seemed like a major career setback turned out to be an opportunity: he founded the production company TeleVision for Arkansas, through which he produced dozens of original films. Although Hill brought an abiding interest in education and public health to this work from the beginning, he found his true calling in topics based in Arkansas history. Convinced that a greater acquaintance with the state’s most significant historical events would nurture a greater sense of homegrown pride, Hill tirelessly crisscrossed the state to capture the voices of hundreds of Arkansans recalling significant chapters in the state’s history, such as the oil boom in El Dorado and Smackover, the crucial contributions of the Arkansas Ordnance Plant in Jacksonville during World War II, and the role of Rosenwald Schools in expanding educational opportunities.In Reporting for Arkansas, Dale Carpenter and Robert Cochran present a biography of Hill alongside an annotated selected filmography designed to accompany sixteen of his best films on subjects related to Arkansas history—all newly hosted online by the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History.

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Book SynopsisA wildlife conservationist who describes his life as Mowgli meets Forrest Gump takes us on the wild ride that is his legendary career. Wrestles With Wolves is an adventurous trek to the frontlines of animal conservation that is at once touching, inspiring and funny.

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Book SynopsisAt the beginning of the Nazi period, 25,000 Jewish people lived in Tarnow, Poland. By the end of the Second World War, nine remained. Like Anne Frank, Israel Unger and his family hid for two years in an attic crawl space above the Dagnan flour mill in Tarnow. Their stove was the chimney that went up through the attic; their windows were cracks in the wall. Survival depended on the food the adults were able to forage outside at night. Against all odds, they emerged alive. Now, decades later, here is Unger's "unwritten diary." At the end of the war, following a time as people sans pays , the Unger family immigrated to Canada. After discovering a love of chemistry, Israel Unger had a stellar academic career, married, and raised a family in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger is as much a Holocaust story as it is a story of a young immigrant making every possible use of the opportunities Canada had to offer. This revised edition includes a reproduction of Dagnan'sList, a list of Jewish slave labourer similar Schindler's List, made famous in the Steven Spielberg movie. The name of Israel Unger's father appears on the list, in which Dagnan declares that Unger is an "essential worker"âa ruse that may have saved the father's life. This recently discovered document proves that Israel Unger's memory of this key part of the story was accurate. A new postscript details the importance of this startling document.Trade Review"This is like a detective story where we are also taken on the journey with the authors and become witnesses to the discovery of evidence that, in every detail, supports Israel's memories and stories. I have seldom been so moved that I literally stop everything else, including eating until I reach the end. There is a tension between the utter honesty and attention to detail of Israel's story, and the need to dig deeper and find out more emotionally. It makes this book powerful and indeed, empowering. This is storytelling / history / memoir / biography at its very best. The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger deserves an award for its content but also its methodology. It provides a useful blueprint for other writing-interviewing partnerships and shows how dedication to the cause can lead to an incredibly compelling book.... You cannot read this book fast. It is a slow read. It needs to be. Nor can you put it down. So, be prepared to find a safe haven, take plenty of time, and begin this journey. You will not emerge the same person as you began. This is one of those unique, life-changing books." -- Cathie Koa Dunsford -- Asia Pacific Review, 201304"[The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger] is a powerful story of courage, survival, humility, and love--love of family, love of community, and love of peace, justice, and truth.... Unger and his collaborator, Carolyn Gammon, wrote this book clearly intending to tell the story of an extraordinary life. In the process, it became more than just a writing exercise for them. Like so many works motivated by passion and discovery and framed within the borders of historical and family narratives, this book became a journey of self-discovery and narrative renewal.... This book of memory is as finely written an account of a life as I have read." -- Richard Blaquiere -- Bugle-Observer (Woodstock, NB), 20130510"In a small town in Poland, nine Jews hid from the Nazis in an attic crawl space for two years. All of them survived. Israel Unger, professor and dean emeritus of the University of New Brunswick, was one of them. With the help of Carolyn Gammon, Unger has shared his story in the Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger. Unger says the idea to write this book was not his, it was Gammon's. 'When she first suggested to me that we write a book, my answer to her was that there wasn't a book, that my memories were not very extensive because I was so young at the time,' he says. Unger was five when they first hid in the attic, seven when they left that tiny space after Poland was liberated. 'And I was 1 1/2 when the German war machine crashed into Poland,' he notes. 'But Carolyn then said, what happened afterwards is also interesting.' Looking at himself as a representative of what happened to many survivors, he realized that there might be a book. 'There were 350,000 Jews that survived Poland--10 per cent of the 3.5 million that were living there before the war--and I was one of those,' says Unger. 'It seemed to me, in telling the story, you could also tell in some ways the story of many other people.'... What [Unger] found particularly gratifying was that the external reviewer said his story wasn't just part of Holocaust history, it's part of Canadian history. The reviewer also said his story filled a gap. 'To me, it was kind of a justification for the book, that somebody considers it a part of Canadian history,' he says." -- Lori Gallagher -- Fredericton Daily Gleaner, 20130406The book's final section sets it apart from many other memoirs, in detailing the extensive research undertaken by Unger and Gammon, greatly facilitated by the internet, to reconstruct the circumstances of his Holocaust childhood: the hiding place, the Polish citizens who helped the nine Jews, others who knew about their refuge but did not denounce them, and even the fates of the five others who hid with the Unger family. Correspondence and personal encounters with various helpful and unhelpful Polish authorities enliven this account. A high point is Unger's meeting with the mill owner's son, who had known about the hidden Jews, and the discovery of and visits with two women from the group, sisters living in Israel. Another strength of the book is its rich photographic documentation, again largely the result of careful research.... Gammon and Unger have produced a readable, unpretentious, straightforward book that will be of interest to those studying immigration and exile, Holocaust memoir, and Canadian university life. Closing the account, the reader is inclined to agree with Unger's assertion that "every survivor story ... is unique and extraordinary" and to concur with his own self-assessment: "I have had a very good life." -- Cecile Zorach, Franklin and Marshall College -- Yearbook of German American Studies, Spring 2015Table of ContentsTable of Contents for The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger by Carolyn Gammon and Israel Unger Dedications Acknowledgements Foreword by Israel Unger Part I: The Only Jews in Poland Srulik is born in Tarnow Wysiedlenia My Father's Courage Dagnam's Flour Mill The Hideout The Only Jews in Poland Kissing a Soviet Soldier's Boot Matzos from America Part II: Sans Pays The Kielce Pogrom and a Gash on the Head Becoming âOrphansâ Aix-les-Bains Sans Pays in Paris Charlie and Sydney in London Back to Paris, Quartier Pére Lachaise Visions of Canada: Mounties, Snow, and Sheepskin Part III: Canadian Through and Through An Airplane, a Stevedore, and His Plymouth: Arriving at Pier 21 Home à la Mordecai Richler Ich hab dir gegebn lebn zwei molââI gave you life twiceâ The Yeshiva and Bnei Akiva Canada Through and Through The Octet Rule Collecting Butcher Bills Kafkaesque Encounters My Brother Charlie Part IV: The Bubble Counter Leaving Home: Montreal to Fredericton The Bubble Counter Photochemistry in Texas Under the Chuppah in Minto, New Brunswick The Young ProfessorâFrom Texas to Saint John ALSâMy Father's Death Charlie's Troubles A Mark for Canada Sharon and Sheila The Best Granny Part V: Dean Unger Dean Unger Struggles with Charlie My Mother and Her Backbone of Steel Marlene Making Up for Lost Time Airplane Accident Telling My Story Part VI: âThey Know My Name is Srulik!â Return to Tarnow A Modern Righteous Gentile: Meeting Adam Bartosz Meeting Mr. Dagnan Skorupa Kalman GoldbergâOutside the Hideout Rescue Children, Inc. Ryglice and Dabrowa State Archives and Registry Office My Birth House Matzevahs for my Family âThey know my name is Srulik!â âHow did the Holocaust affect you?â Afterword: Writing The Unwritten Diary by Carolyn Gammon Postscript Acknowledgements Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA fascinating collection of essays inspired by real obituaries and filled with quirky anecdotes, interesting perspectives, and thoughtful observations. Obittersweet delivers 120 life lessons, each dotted with a question to encourage meaningful reflection and organized into one theme for each month of the calendar year. Whether you have an insatiable curiosity about people, an appreciation of the craft of writing, or may be a connoisseur of the art of living, Obittersweet is a book to be cherished. This read is both timely and timeless. Readers will be back to purchase copies to gift to loved ones.Trade Review"...a funny and smart read that turns a popular pastime into witty life advice..."Catherine Dawson March, The Globe and Mail"Tamara Vukusic has a lovely knack of highlighting her favorite obits and turning them into nuggets of golden wisdom and humour...A decadent dissection of lives lived by characters whose habits and philosophies are worth emulating. A gentle reminder that it's not our salaries or credentials that define us." Shelley Joyce, CBC Radio"...thoughtfully written and surprisingly uplifting...We see how the individuals are shaped by their circumstances, the choices they made, the unique personalities they developed and the legacies they left." Heather Parrott, Associate Professor of Sociology, Long Island University

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Book SynopsisIn 1976, at the age of twenty-three, Farideh Goldin left Iran in searchof her imagined America. Meanwhile, the political unrest in Iranintensified and in 1979, Farideh’s family was forced to flee Iranon the last El-Al flight to Tel Aviv. Farideh's father was awell-respected son of the chief rabbi and dayan of the Jews of Shiraz.During his last visit to the US in 2006, he handed Farideh his memoirchronicalling his life after exile: the confiscation of hispassport when he returned to Iran for his belongings, the years ofloneliness as he struggled against a hostile bureaucracy to return tohis wife and family in Israel, and the eventual loss of the poultryfarm that had supported his family. Leaving Iran knitstogether Farideh's story of dislocation and loss with her ownexperience as an Iranian Jew in a newly adopted home.

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Book SynopsisGavin Maxwell was a romantic, self-destructive adventurer, brave and handsome, with a deep sympathy for the underdog, a wonderfully curious mind and a dogged commitment to discovering the truth. It was said of him that he was loved by women, had sex with men but his emotional life was ruled by animals. His father died in the trenches in the year of his birth, so he and his brothers enjoyed a wonderfully carefree childhood, living in passionate proximity to their mother, the widowed daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, in an isolated house on the south-west coast of Scotland. He became one of the most brilliant and quixotic of British travel-writers, who wrote about Iraq (where he travelled with Wilfrid Thesiger in 1956 and acquired his first otter), Sicily (where he befriended both Communist peasants and Mafia hitmen) and Morocco (where he spent six years chronicling the rise and fall of a Berber dynasty). But he would become even more famous for his trilogy of books set in the north-west coast of Scotland, which was a true fulfilment of his affinity with nature and a love of wild things, most especially otters. Despite the success of Ring of Bright Water, The Rocks Remain and Raven Seek thy Brother, the vast bulk of his life remained a closely guarded secret. He was by turns a shark-hunter, a wartime secret agent, portrait-painter, racing car-driver, naturalist, poet and a social renegade. Often poised on the edge of bankruptcy he could also be insanely profligate and generous.Trade Review'Totally absorbing, wonderfully written. David Attenborough; 'Here is a life woven from the stuff of high romance, a tragic and fascinating quest. Elspeth Barker, Independent; 'Could hardly be bettered Botting s great achievement is to have looked his friend square in the face, portraying his frailties while remaining loyal to his gifts. Fraser Harrison, New Statesman

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