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  Crosstown Traffic - Jimi Hendrix...

  Charles Shaar Murray

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  Winner of the prestigious Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award, roots-savvy British critic Charles Shaar Murray assesses the lifework of guitarist Jimi Hendrix in the context of black musical tradition, social history, and the upheaval of the 1960s.

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  Shadows on the Tundra

  Dalia Grinkevičiūtė

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  An extraordinary piece of international survival literature, joining the likes of Primo Levi and Anne Frank.
  In 1941, 14-year-old Dalia and her family are deported from their native Lithuania to a labour camp in Siberia. As the strongest member of her family she submits to twelve hours a day of manual labour. At the age of 21, she escapes the gulag and returns to Lithuania. She writes her memories on scraps of paper and buries them in the garden, fearing they might be discovered by the KGB. They are not found until 1991, four years after her death. This is the story Dalia buried. The immediacy of her writing bears witness not only to the suffering she endured but also the hope that sustained her. It is a Lithuanian tale that, like its author, beats the odds to survive.
  Why Peirene chose to publish this book:
  There is only one word to describe this book, extraordinary. It blew me away when I first read it in German translation. Dalia's account goes far beyond a memoir. This is an outstanding piece of literature which should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the Soviet repression.
  'A distressing historic document and a literary work of great significance.' Neue Zürcher Zeitung
  'An incredible force of language … the story of constant indignation.'JFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

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  Drugs Used in Lethal Injections

  PBS NewsHour

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  As foreign supplies have dwindled, traditional lethal injection drugs are being replaced with others manufactured in the U.S. But inmates and lawyers are questioning whether these new drugs will result in death without undue pain and suffering. Gwen Ifill takes a closer look at the issue with Megan McCracken of the University of California, Berkeley and Joel Zivot of Emory University.

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  Defying the Nazis - The Sharps' War

  Artemis Joukowsky

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  In 1939, Rev. Waitstill Sharp, a young Unitarian minister, and his wife, Martha, a social worker, accepted a mission from the American Unitarian Association: They were to leave their home and young children in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and travel to Prague, Czechoslovakia, to help address the mounting refugee crisis. Armed with only $40,000, the Sharps quickly learned the art of spy craft and covertly sheltered political dissidents and Jews, and helped them escape the Nazis. After narrowly avoiding the Gestapo themselves, the Sharps returned to Europe in 1940 as representatives of the newly formed Unitarian Service Committee and continued their relief efforts in Vichy France. This riveting true story offers listeners a rare glimpse at high-stakes international relief efforts during World War II. Defying the Nazis is a fascinating portrait of resistance as told through the story of one courageous couple.

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  The Tall Boy - A Memoir

  Jess Gregg

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  “Walk tall, man,” the junkie behind him whispered. “Don’t let the bastards see that you care.” They were standing in line at police headquarters in Los Angeles, waiting to be fingerprinted. The twenty-two year old writer had just been arrested on a “vag-lewd” charge. Or, to put it more clearly, he had been busted for being gay. Entrapment, police stings, and unauthorized raids were still the acceptable tactics for catching and imprisoning gays in America in the mid-twentieth century. The gay world, regarded as criminal or sick, was a scorned minority with its own private vocabulary, but no voice politically, forced to rely on intuition, courage, and laughter to survive. What led up to this arrest, and the struggle to live it down afterwards, lies at the core of this very frank, and sometimes hilarious memoir. The Tall Boy includes close-ups of some of the legendary theatre and film figures Gregg came to know and work with, among them Elia Kazan, Tennessee Williams, Agnes de Mille, Gower Champion, Joshua Logan, Colette, Gian Carlo Menotti, Sir John Gielgud, Jean Cocteau, and Scan Connery. Just as colorful are the profiles of less celebrated figures—Ma Coyle, cheerleader to a generation of gay boys, Raymond, the smoldering icon at the Hollywood hotel, and Marty, the good-looking lesbian with whom Gregg set up housekeeping in an effort to go straight. Jess Gregg does not hold back in telling of the struggles and perils of those days. Neither does he stint on the fun and adventure. Or the progress. The twentieth century proved to be revolutionary; the walls that came tumbling down were not just social and cultural, but sexual.

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  n of 1 - One man's...

  Glenn Sabin, MD Dawn Lemanne

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  Twenty-five years ago my doctors had no cure for my cancer. So I went on a quest to find my own treatment. This is my story . . .  
  In 1991, Glenn Sabin was a twenty-eight-year-old newlywed diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)—a disease doctors called "uniformly fatal." Treatments could buy him some time and eventually ease his discomfort, but there was no conventional cure. Glenn's prognosis was clear: he was going to die. 
  Although Glenn and his wife, Linda, continued to consult with doctors, cancer specialists and top oncologists, Glenn made a monumental decision: he would become his own health advocate. While he continued to "watch and wait," Glenn would figure out how to stay alive. 
  No one could predict when a large-scale clinical trial would discover a cure for CLL, so Glenn began his own, medically monitored and carefully researched lifestyle changes. He would conduct his own, single patient clinical trial. 
  He would become an "n of 1." 
  Today, Glenn is not only alive, but a 2012 biopsy at Harvard confirmed that his bone marrow contains no leukemic cells. His case is now part of the medical literature.

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