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  Black Chameleon - Memory...

  Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton

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  This program is read by the author.In the literary tradition of Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, and Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped, this debut memoir confronts both the challenges and joys of growing up Black and making your own truth.Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah Mouton felt alienated from the stories she learned in class. She yearned for stories she felt connected to—true ones of course—but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. What she encountered was almost always written by white writers who prospered in a time when human beings were treated as chattel, such as the Greek and Roman myths, which felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins. When she sought myths written by Black authors, they were rooted too far in the past, a continent away.Mouton writes, “The phrases of my mother and grandmother began to seem less colloquial and more tied to stories that had been lost along the way. . . . Mythmaking isn’t a lie. It is our moment to take the privilege of our own creativity to fill in the gaps that colonization has stolen from us. It is us choosing to write the tales that our children pull strength from. It is hijacking history for the ignorance in its closets. This, a truth that must start with the women.”Mouton’s memoir Black Chameleon is a song of praise and an elegy for Black womanhood. With a poet’s gift for lyricism and poignancy, Mouton reflects on her childhood as the daughter of a preacher and a harsh but loving mother, living in the world as a Black woman whose love is all too often coupled with danger, and finally learning to be a mother to another Black girl in America. Of the moment yet timeless, playful but incendiary, Mouton has staked out new territory in the memoir form.A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.

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  Homegrown Democrat - A Few Plain...

  Garrison Keillor

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  In his inimitable style, Keillor draws on a lifetime of experience amongst the hardworking, God-fearing people of the Midwest and pays homage to the common code of civic necessities that arose from the left: Protect the social compact. Defend the powerless. Maintain government as a necessary force for good. As Keillor tells it, these are articles of faith that are being attacked by hard-ass Republican tax cutters who believe that human misery is a Dickensian fiction. In a blend of nostalgic reminiscence, humorous meditation, and articulate ire, Keillor asserts the value of his boyhood—the values of Lake Wobegon—that do not square with the ugly narcissistic agenda at work in the country today.

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  Classic Short Stories - Volume...

  Arthur Conan Doyle, Stacy Aumonier

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  Stories are one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements.  Whether written down or spoken they have an ability to capture our imagination and thoughts, and take us on incredible journeys in the space of a phrase and the turn of a page. 
   
  Within a few words of text or speech, new worlds and characters form, propelling a narrative to a conclusion with intricate ease. Finely crafted, perfectly formed these Miniature Masterpieces, at first thought, seem remarkably easy to conjure up. But ask any writer and they will tell you that distilling the essence of narrative and characters into a short story is one of the hardest acts of their literary craft.  Many attempt, but few achieve.

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  The Biography of Captain Bruce...

  Tonie Holt, Valmai Holt

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  Bruce Bairnsfather created one of the best-known cartoon characters of the First World War - 'Old Bill' and he drew what many consider to be the most enduring cartoon of all time - the 'Better Ole'.Reprinted due to popular demand this biography was the first to be published about the man and his work. During the First World War the contribution of Bairnsfather's work to the morale of the Nation, through laughter, is without question. Indeed these were those who thought he was the 'man who won the war'. The authors trace his life in fascinating detail. This delightful book reveals details of the man who was a compelling paradox - a desperately shy person who adored the limelight, a loyal loveable personality, ridden with suspicion, an upper class product who was more comfortable in the company of the working class man.Bairnsfather's work appears on plates, cups, jugs, mugs and pots, carmascots, ashtrays and the like - all collector's pieces. His characters appear on postcards, playing cards, cigarette card, jig-saw puzzles and during the Second World War on the noses of the daylight bombers of the American Eighth Airforce.The story is lavishly illustrated with over 150 photographs and drawings, and includes a useful section setting out the range and values of Bairnsfather memorabilia and collectables.

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  Misremembering Dr King -...

  Jennifer J. Yanco

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  We all know the name. Martin Luther King Jr., the great American civil rights leader. But most people today know relatively little about King, the campaigner against militarism, materialism, and racism—what he called the "giant triplets." Jennifer J. Yanco takes steps to redress this imbalance. "My objective is to highlight the important aspects of Dr. King's work which have all but disappeared from popular memory, so that more of us can really 'see' King." After briefly telling the familiar story of King's civil rights campaigns and accomplishments, she considers the lesser-known concerns that are an essential part of his legacy. Yanco reminds us that King was a strong critic of militarism who argued that the United States should take the lead in promoting peaceful solutions rather than imposing its will through military might; that growing materialism and an ethos of greed was damaging the moral and spiritual health of the country; and that in a nation where racism continues unabated, white Americans need to educate themselves about racism and its history and take their part in the weighty task of dismantling it.

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  The Names of All the Flowers - A...

  Melissa Valentine

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  A “poignant, painful, and gorgeous” memoir that explores siblinghood, adolescence, and grief for a family shattered by loss (Alicia Garza, cocreator, Black Lives Matter). 
   
  Melissa and her older brother Junior grow up running around the disparate neighborhoods of 1990s Oakland, two of six children to a white Quaker father and a black Southern mother. But as Junior approaches adolescence, a bullying incident and later a violent attack in school leave him searching for power and a sense of self in all the wrong places; he develops a hard front and falls into drug dealing. Right before Junior’s twentieth birthday, the family is torn apart when he is murdered as a result of gun violence. 
   
  The Names of All the Flowers connects one tragic death to a collective grief for all black people who die too young. A lyrical recounting of a life lost, Melissa Valentine’s debut memoir is an intimate portrait of a family fractured by the school-to-prison pipeline and an enduring love letter to an adored older brother. It is a call for justice amid endless cycles of violence, grief, and trauma, declaring: “We are all witness and therefore no one is spared from this loss.” 
   
  “A portrait of a place, a person who died too young, the systems that led to that death, and the keen insights of the author herself. Lyrical and smart, with appropriate undercurrents of rage.” —Emily Raboteau, author of Searching for Zion 
   
  “Eloquently poignant.” —Kirkus Reviews

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