Other books that might interest you

• 

  Finding Miss Fong

  James A. Wolter

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In 1961, Jim Wolter leaves medical school in Chicago for Malaya thinking he could change the world by teaching biology and avoid his mother's dream of his marrying Lolly. He's excited about his new job as a biology teacher at a secondary school in Malaya. But that excitement is short-lived. After he arrives, his bosses pull a bait-and-switch and put him in teaching jobs he isn't qualified for and create other challenges to fit their own motives. Disappointed and feeling helpless, he decides to return to Chicago and do what is expected of him. That is, until a friend drags Jim to a work picnic on an island in the South China Sea and he sees the most beautiful girl in the world. Now, Jim wants to stay in Malaya to be near Miss Fong Moke Chee. 
  Finding Miss Fong is the journey of a naïve twenty-two year old from the northwest side of Chicago trying to find his way in an unfamiliar world back in the early 1960s. As a biologist from a working-class background thrust into post-Colonial Malaya, he finds himself caught up in unexpected adventures while struggling with disillusionment in work and juggling entanglements in love.

  Show book

• 

  Rivermouth - A Chronicle of...

  Alejandra Oliva

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In this powerful and deeply felt polemic memoir, Alejandra Oliva, a Mexican-American translator and immigrant justice activist, offers a chronological document of her experience interpreting at the US-Mexico border, and of the people she has encountered along the way. Tracing her family's long and fluid relationship to the border, each generation born on opposite sides of the Rio Grande, and having worked on asylum cases since 2016, she knows all too well the gravity of taking someone's trauma and delivering it to the warped demands of the American immigration system. 
   
   
   
  In Rivermouth, Oliva focuses on the physical spaces that make up different phases of immigration and looks at how language and opportunity move through each of them; from the river as the waterway that separates the US and Mexico, to the table as the place over which Oliva prepares asylum seekers for their Credible Fear Interviews, and finally, to the wall as the behemoth imposition that runs along America's southernmost border. 
   
   
   
  As investigative and analytical as she is meditative and introspective, sharp as she is lyrical, and incisive as she is compassionate, in Rivermouth, Oliva argues for a better world while guiding us through the suffering that makes the fight necessary and the joy that makes it worth fighting for.

  Show book

• 

  Phocion - Good Citizen in a...

  Thomas R. Martin

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  "Elegant and enlightening." —Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal 
   
   
    
  Phocion (402–318 BCE) won Athens's highest public office by direct democratic election an unmatched forty-five times and was officially honored as a "Useful Citizen." A student at Plato's Academy, Phocion gained influence and power during a time when Athens faced multiple crises stemming from Macedonia's emergence as an international power under Philip II and his son Alexander the Great. Following Athens's defeat by Macedonia, Phocion unsuccessfully sought mild terms of surrender. Oligarchy was imposed on democratic Athens, and more than twelve thousand "undesirable" Athenians were exiled. When the oligarchic regime was overthrown and the exiles returned, dispossessed Athenians took out their volcanic anger on Phocion, who throughout his career had often been a harsh critic of the citizens' political decisions. His inflammatory rhetoric contributed to the popular conclusion that he lacked a genuine sense of belonging to the community he wished so desperately to preserve. When he was eighty-four, the Athenians convicted him of treason and condemned him to die by hemlock. In this fresh biography, Thomas R. Martin explores how and why Phocion ultimately failed as a citizen and as a leader. His story offers unsettling lessons for citizens in democracies today.

  Show book

• 

  The Twenty - One Woman’s Trek...

  Marianne C. Bohr

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Marianne Bohr and her husband, about to turn sixty, are restless for adventure. They decide on an extended, desolate trek across the French island of Corsica—the GR20, Europe’s toughest long-distance footpath—to challenge what it means to grow old. Part travelogue, part buddy story, part memoir, The Twenty is a journey across a rugged island of stunning beauty little known outside Europe. 
  From a chubby, non-athletic child, Bohr grew into a fit, athletic person with an “I’ll show them” attitude. But hiking The Twenty forces her to transform a lifetime of hard-won achievements into acceptance of her body and its limitations. The difficult journey across a remote island provides the crucible for exploring what it means to be an aging woman in a youth-focused culture, a physically fit person whose limitations are getting the best of her, and the partner of a husband who is growing old with her. More than a hiking tale, The Twenty is a moving story infused with humor about hiking, aging, accepting life’s finite journey, and the intimacy of a long-term marriage—set against the breathtaking beauty of Corsica’s rugged countryside.

  Show book

• 

  The View from My Foxhole - A...

  William Swanson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, millions of young American men were eager to join up and defend their country. William Swanson was among them. 
   
   
   
  The View from My Foxhole tells William Swanson's story of fighting in the jungles of Bougainville and Guam and the ash heap of Iwo Jima. Through it he maintains his sense of humor and thanks his lucky stars for every day he survives. 
   
   
   
  From The View from My Foxhole: 
   
   
   
  We move past the torn bodies of our buddies, hoping and praying that we will be spared, yet knowing in our hearts that many will not. Fear is on me again—fear of death, of course—but I have found that it is relatively easy to resign oneself to death and, on occasion, even welcome the thing. It is really the violence, the pain, the suddenness, and unpredictability of events that tear our insides. We cannot be sure of anything—not the next step or the next second—and that is the real terror.

  Show book

• 

  Folk Heroes of the Frontier

  Editors Charles River

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The Wild West and the frontier have long held a special place in the narrative of American history, and all of the legends and folk heroes who lived in the 19th century owe their reputation to the original American frontier folk hero, Daniel Boone. Boone was literally a trailblazer: the legendary pioneer established his Wilderness Road by striking west into present-day Kentucky and establishing Boonesborough, one of the earliest white settlements west of the Appalachians. Hundreds of thousands of settlers would follow his path by the end of the 18th century.  
  While that was an important and proud legacy for the former Revolutionary War militiaman and Virginia State Assemblyman, Boone became known for the outsized tales and adventures associated with his foray into the frontier. Far and wide, people spoke of Boone’s expert marksmanship, his encounters with wild bears, and his hardscrabble frontier life, making him a living legend and the prototypical Western frontier folk hero in America.  
  Of all the legends and folk heroes who lived in the 19th century, none became as famous as Davy Crockett, “The King of the Wild Frontier”. Crockett had the distinction of being a living legend in his own life. Known as a hardscrabble frontiersman who could spin a good yarn but who also took a no-nonsense approach that brought him from the backwoods of Tennessee to the halls of Congress. Though he served during the presidency of another Westerner, Andrew Jackson, Crockett was very much his own man, and he was distrustful of other politicians, a sentiment that has only endured him further to subsequent generations of Americans.  
  In 1834, Crockett was promoting his autobiography, which provided colorful accounts of his life on the frontier, all while facing reelection. 

  Show book