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  Soldier - A Poet's Childhood

  June Jordan

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  With Soldier, world-renowned poet June Jordan presents a deeply personal memoir of her formative years in post-World War II Harlem, where she was raised the daughter of dirt-poor West Indian immigrants. June's first 12 years were at turns peaceful and tumultuous, sowing all the seeds of her later poetry.

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  Nom de Plume - A (Secret)...

  Carmela Ciuraru

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  A literary history of eighteen authors from the 19th and 20th centuries and their famous pseudonyms. 
   
  Exploring the fascinating stories of more than a dozen authorial impostors across several centuries and cultures, Carmela Ciuraru plumbs the creative process and the darker, often crippling aspects of fame. 
   
  Only through the protective guise of Lewis Carroll could a shy, half-deaf Victorian mathematician at Oxford feel free to let his imagination run wild. The three weird sisters from Yorkshire—the Brontës—produced instant bestsellers that transformed them into literary icons, yet they wrote under the cloak of male authorship. Bored by her aristocratic milieu, a cigar-smoking, cross-dressing baroness rejected the rules of propriety by having sexual liaisons with men and women alike, publishing novels and plays under the name George Sand. Highly accessible and engaging, these provocative stories reveal the complex motives of writers who harbored secret identities—sometimes playfully, sometimes with terrible anguish and tragic consequences. Part detective story, part exposé, part literary history, Nom de Plume is an absorbing psychological meditation on identity and creativity. 
   
   
   
  Praise for Nom de Plume 
   
  A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year 
   
  “Each page affords sparkling facts and valuable insights into . . . the eternally mysterious, often tormented interface between life and literature.” —Elif Batuman 
   
  “A richly documented literary excursion into the inner, secret lives of some of our favorite writers.” —Joyce Carol Oates 
   
  “You are on the second to last page . . . and wishing you weren’t because this book is such great fun.” —San Francisco Chronicle 
   
  “[An] engrossing, well-paced literary history. . . . It’s biography on the quick, and done well.” —Bookforum

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  The Life of Robert Burns

  Catherine Carswell

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  This classic and controversial biography of Scotland’s National Bard offers an unvarnished chronicle of the 18th century poet’s life. First published in 1930 to an unprecedented storm of protest, Catherine Carswell’s The Life of Robert Burns remains the standard work on its subject. Widely revered as Scotland’s greatest poet, Burns’s devotees were so upset by its contents that Carswell famously received a bullet in the mail, with instructions for its use. Carswell deliberately shakes the image of Burns as a romantic hero, exposing the sexual transgressions, drinking bouts and waywardness that other biographies chose to overlook. But Carswell’s real achievement is to bring alive the personality of a great man: passionate, hard-living, generous, melancholic, morbid and, above all, a brilliant and inspired artist.“Catherine Carswell’s The Life of Robert Burns is still, apart from Burns’ own account, the best.”—Alasdair Gray, The Observer, UK“It is not only an outlandishly good book, but one which raises questions about the nature of Scottish culture and cultural change.”—Sunday Times, UK“This is a book which makes you feel better for having read it. I only wish a few contemporary biographers wrote as well as Catherine Carswell did.”—Allan Massie, Literary Review, UK

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  The Restless Wave - Good Times...

  John McCain, Mark Salter

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  #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“History matters to McCain, and for him America is and was about its promise. The book is his farewell address, a mixture of the personal and the political. ‘I have loved my life,’ he writes. ‘All of it.’ The Restless Wave is a fitting valedictory for a man who seldom backed down.” —The Guardian (US)“A book-length meditation on what it means to face the hard challenges of long life and the sobering likelihood of imminent death…A reflection on hardship, a homily on purpose, a celebration of life — and a challenge to Americans to live up to their values and founding principles at a time when both are in jeopardy.” —The Boston GlobeIn this candid political memoir from Senator John McCain, an American hero reflects on his life and what matters most.“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. Maybe I’ll have another five years…Maybe I’ll be gone before you read this. My predicament is, well, rather unpredictable. But I’m prepared for either contingency, or at least I’m getting prepared. I have some things I’d like to take care of first, some work that needs finishing, and some people I need to see. And I want to talk to my fellow Americans a little more if I may.”So writes John McCain in this inspiring, moving, frank, and deeply personal memoir. Written while confronting a mortal illness, McCain looks back with appreciation on his years in the Senate, his historic 2008 campaign for the presidency against Barack Obama, and his crusades on behalf of democracy and human rights in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.Always the fighter, McCain attacks the spurious nationalism and political polarization afflicting American policy. He makes an impassioned case for democratic internationalism and bi-partisanship. He recalls his disagreements with several presidents, and minces no words in his objections to some of President Trump's statements and policies. At the same time, he tells stories of his most satisfying moments of public service and offers a positive vision of America that looks beyond the Trump presidency. The Restless Wave is John McCain at his best.

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  Escaping the Delta - Robert...

  Elijah Wald

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  The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was ignored by the core black audience of his time yet now celebrated as the greatest figure in blues history.Trying to separate myth from reality, biographer Elijah Wald studies the blues from the inside -- not only examining recordings but also the recollections of the musicians themselves, the African-American press, as well as examining original research. What emerges is a new appreciation for the blues and the movement of its artists from the shadows of the 1930s Mississippi Delta to the mainstream venues frequented by today's loyal blues fans.

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  Treasure Island

  Robert Louis Stevenson

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  Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers and buried gold". Its influence is enormous on popular perceptions of pirates, including such elements as treasure maps marked with an "X", schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen bearing parrots on their shoulders. Treasure Island is traditionally considered a coming-of-age story and is noted for its atmosphere, characters, and action. It is one of the most frequently dramatized of all novels. It was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881 through 1882 under the title Treasure Island, or the mutiny of the Hispaniola, credited to the pseudonym "Captain George North".

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