Other books that might interest you

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  The Book of Delights - Essays

  Ross Gay

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  The winner of the NBCC Award for Poetry offers up a spirited collection of short lyric essays, written daily over a tumultuous year, reminding us of the purpose and pleasure of praising, extolling, and celebrating ordinary wonders.Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying collection of essays — some as short as a paragraph; some as long as five pages — that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. His is a meditation on delight that takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities, even the terrors, in his life, including living in America as a black man; the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture; the loss of those he loves.

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  Sailing Alone Around the World

  Joshua Slocum

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  Joshua Slocum is believed to be the first man to sail single-handedly around the world. After a distinguished nautical career, during which he worked his way up from cabin boy to captain, Slocum wrecked his ship off the coast of Brazil. Turning this catastrophe to his advantage, he built a sailing canoe from the wreckage and sailed back to New York. Moreover, he wrote Voyage of the Liberdade, a chronicle of his trip, and earned some literary success. This spurred him to attempt his perilous voyage.Having lost his fortune in the shipwreck, Slocum began his voyage on a shoestring. He was given the Spray, a century-old oysterboat in need of repairs. Two years and $500 later, he had rebuilt the wreck into an oceangoing wonder. On his 40,000-mile, three-year voyage, Slocum visited six of the seven continents, where he met cannibals, presidents, outlaws, and ambassadors. Amazingly, throughout his travels he lived off the land, fishing, trading, and giving lectures to keep his pantry full. He also met some remarkable people, including Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson and Paul Kruger, who, believing the world was flat, warned Slocum not to fall off! This adventure will captivate sailors and landlubbers alike.

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  Blanche - The Life and Times of...

  Nancy Schoenberger

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  A penetrating consideration of Tennessee Williams’s most enduring character—Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire—written by the co-author of The Fabulous Bouvier Sisters and Furious Love. 
  Ever since Jessica Tandy glided onto the stage in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1947, Blanche DuBois has fascinated generations of audiences worldwide and secured a place in the history of literature, theater, and film. One of Williams’s greatest creations, Blanche has bedazzled, amused, and broken the hearts of generations of audiences. Before the Covid pandemic, the stage classic was performed somewhere in the world every hour. It has been adapted into a ballet and an opera, and it was satirized in an episode of The Simpsons. The final twelve words Blanche utters at the play’s end—“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”—have taken on a life of their own. Endlessly fascinating, this indelible figment of one of America’s greatest midcentury playwrights garners nearly universal interest—but why? 
  In Blanche, Nancy Schoenberger searches for the answer. An exploration of the cultural impact of Blanche DuBois, Schoenberger’s absorbing study examines Tennessee Williams's most enduring creation through the performances of seven brilliant actresses who have taken on the role—Jessica Tandy, Vivien Leigh, Ann-Margret, Jessica Lange, Patricia Clarkson, Cate Blanchett, and Jemier Jenkins—as well as the influence of the playwright's tragic sister, Rose Williams, the person he was most haunted and inspired by. In examining various Blanches from throughout the decades and their critical reception, Schoenberger analyzes how our perception and understanding of this mesmerizing figure has altered and deepened over time. Exploring themes of womanhood, sexuality, mental illness, and the idealized South, Blanche is an engrossing cultural history of a rich and complex character that sheds light on who we are.

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  Ranger School - Discipline...

  Jimmy Blackmon

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  From Jimmy Blackmon comes a blow by blow account of his journey through the most challenging leadership and small tactics course in the world—US Army Ranger School. Through colorful dialogue and vivid storytelling for which Jimmy Blackmon has been praised, the listener will take a journey through Ranger School.From the nervous anticipation leading up to the course, to the extreme pain and suffering Ranger School demands, Jimmy shares the feelings and emotions that accompany extreme sleep and food deprivation. Furthermore, he shares what he learned about himself along the way. Ranger School is designed to replicate the extreme nature of combat in a multitude of environments. The attrition rate is over 50 percent. Jimmy openly shares how he dealt with extreme hunger, exhaustion, below freezing temperatures, and ultimately, a desire to quit and end the suffering.Despite all the aforementioned challenges, Ranger students must lead one another on complex missions in harsh terrain in order to succeed. How to motivate, inspire, and lead in such an extreme environment is powerful and will appeal to leaders of all types and in all industries.

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  Where the Children Take Us - How...

  Zain E. Asher

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  In this spellbinding memoir, popular CNN anchor Zain E. Asher pays tribute to her mother’s strength and determination to raise four successful children in the shadow of tragedy.  
  Awaiting the return of her husband and young son from a road trip, Obiajulu Ejiofor receives shattering news. There’s been a fatal car crash, and one of them is dead. 
   In Where the Children Take Us, Obiajulu’s daughter, Zain E. Asher, tells the story of her mother’s harrowing fight to raise four children as a widowed immigrant in South London. There is tragedy in this tale, but it is not a tragedy. Drawing on tough-love parenting strategies, Obiajulu teaches her sons and daughters to overcome the daily pressures of poverty, crime and prejudice—and much more. With her relentless support, the children exceed all expectations—becoming a CNN anchor, an Oscar-nominated actor—Asher’s older brother Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)—a medical doctor, and a thriving entrepreneur.  
  The generations-old Nigerian parenting techniques that lead to the family's salvation were born in the village where young Obiajulu and Arinze meet with their country on the brink of war. Together, they emigrate to London in the 1970s to escape the violence, but soon confront a different set of challenges in the West.  
  When grief threatens to engulf her fractured family after the accident, Obiajulu, suddenly a single mother in a foreign land, refuses to accept defeat. As her children veer down the wrong path, she instills a family book club with Western literary classics, testing their resolve and challenging their deeper understanding. Desperate for inspiration, she plasters newspaper clippings of Black success stories on the walls and hunts for overachieving neighbors to serve as role models, all while running Shakespeare theatre lines with her son and finishing homework into the early morning with Zain. When distractions persist, she literally cuts the TV cord and installs a residential pay phone. 
  The story of a woman who survived genocide, famine, poverty, and crushing grief to rise from war torn Africa to the streets of South London and eventually the drawing rooms of Buckingham Palace, Where the Children Take Us is an unforgettable portrait of strength, tenacity, love, and perseverance embodied in one towering woman.

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  Summary: Empire of the Summer...

  Brooks Bryant

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  Disclaimer: This is not the official book but a summary & it does not accompany the official. 
  Gwynne meticulously retraces the steps of the formidable Comanche nation, a tribe that rose to power with a force unparalleled in native North American history, thanks to their masterful horse riding and warrior skills. Their reign, known as the "Comanche Empire," struck fear into the hearts of Americans and Mexicans alike, shaping the course of the frontier with a brutal hand. 
  At the epicenter of this historical narrative is the incredible story of Cynthia Ann Parker, a nine-year-old girl kidnapped by the Comanche, who grows up to become the mother of Quanah Parker, the last and greatest Comanche chief. This dual biography intricately weaves the personal narratives of both Cynthia and Quanah, as they navigated a world at the crossroads of emerging American civilization and indigenous culture. 
  As you explore our summary, readers will be transported to a tumultuous period in American history, where the collision of cultures gave rise to heroism, cruelty, and the forging of the modern United States. S. C. Gwynne's masterful storytelling brings to life the flesh and blood people behind the historical figures, offering a sobering look at the realities of frontier life and the profound cost of progress. 
  Experience the gripping narratives that define "Empire of the Summer Moon," a story not just of a mother and son but of a nation struggling to birth itself through blood, battle, and sacrifice. It is a tale of endurance and the human spirit's indomitable will to survive in the face of unimaginable challenges.

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