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  Letters of Mrs Adams the Wife of...

  Abigail Adams

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  Abigail Adams lived the American Revolution as the wife of one of its central figures--John Adams. Her family correspondence, published along with a memoir by her grandson, Charles Francis Adams, brings that era into eloquent focus. What was it like to hear the cannon's roar from your window? to face pestilence? food shortages? rampant inflation? devalued coinage? to raise four children alone--and earn the money to keep your household afloat, while your husband was engaged in politics and diplomacy miles and oceans away . . . for years at a time? It's all there in her private letters, letters that were never meant for public eyes, letters that she repeatedly asked to be burned!Writing to her husband, Abigail expressed anguish at nearby fighting: June 18, 1775, "Charlestown is laid in ashes . . . How many have fallen we know not. The constant roar of the cannon is so distressing, that we cannot eat, drink, or sleep." Yet, she displayed constant fortitude: August 5, 1777, "It is almost thirteen years since we were united, but not more than half that time have we had the happiness of living together. The unfeeling world may consider it in what light they please. I consider it as a sacrifice to my country . . ." And she enlivened her writing with pithy accounts of Revolutionary doings: July 31, 1777, "You must know that there is a great scarcity of sugar and coffee . . . An eminent, wealthy, stingy merchant had a hogshead of coffee in his store, which he refused to sell . . . under six shillings per pound. A number of females . . . assembled with a cart and trucks, marched down to the warehouse, and demanded the keys, which he refused to deliver. Upon which, one of them seized him by his neck . . ." The women "then opened the warehouse, hoisted out the coffee themselves, put it into the truck and drove off. . . .A large concourse of men stood amazed, silent spectators of the whole transaction."Abigail’s letters, letters of "a vigorous mind," are a fascinating read. (Introduction by Sue Anderson)

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  Hearth - A Global Conversation...

  Annick Smith, Susan O'Connor

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  A multicultural anthology, edited by Susan O’Connor and Annick Smith, about the enduring importance and shifting associations of the hearth in our world.A hearth is many things: a place for solitude; a source of identity; something we make and share with others; a history of ourselves and our homes. It is the fixed center we return to. It is just as intrinsically portable. It is, in short, the perfect metaphor for what we seek in these complex and contradictory times—set in flux by climate change, mass immigration, the refugee crisis, and the dislocating effects of technology.Featuring original contributions from some of our most cherished voices—including Terry Tempest Williams, Bill McKibben, Pico Iyer, Natasha Trethewey, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Chigozie Obioma—Hearth suggests that empathy and storytelling hold the power to unite us when we have wandered alone for too long. This is an essential anthology that challenges us to redefine home and hearth: as a place to welcome strangers, to be generous, to care for the world beyond one’s own experience.

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  Penalty Strike - The Memoirs of...

  Alexander V. Pyl'cyn

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  A WWII Soviet officer recalls leading a battalion of convict-soldiers in this rare firsthand account of a Red Army penal unit. Alexander Pyl’cyn was eighteen years old when he was drafted into the Red Army in 1941. He went on to serve with great distinction, earing the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Great Patriotic War, and the Order of the Red Star for his actions during the war. As the commander of a penal battalion on the Eastern Front, he led an unruly band of convict-soldiers, Gulag prisoners, and former Soviet POWs deemed untrustworthy.   Relegated to the most difficult and dangerous assignments, Pyl’cyn’s unit was called up to break through the enemy’s defenses. He led his penal unit through the Soviets’ massive offensive in the summer of 1944, the Vistula-Oder operation into eastern Germany, and the bitter assault on Berlin in 1945. Though his men suffered massive casualties, and he himself withstood multiple wounds, he survived the war to tell this incredible story.

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  The Forest

  Ben Jonson

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  The Forest is a short collection of Ben Jonson's poetry. This collection of fifteen poems first appeared in the 1616 first folio of his collected works. (Summary by Sheldon Greaves)

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  All of Us Together in the End

  Matthew Vollmer

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  Matthew Vollmer’s family memoir shimmers with wonder and enchantment and begins with the death of his mother from early-onset Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Soon after, flashing lights and floating orbs appear in the woods surrounding his family’s home in rural North Carolina, where his widowed father lives. Formative memories of having been raised in the Seventh-day Adventist church resurge in Vollmer’s mind, hastening self-reexamination and reckoning. He corresponds with a retired geology professor about “ghost lights,” which supposedly occur more in North Carolina than any other American state. He scrolls TikTok. He contacts an eccentric shaman who lives in Spain to have transcendental psychotherapy administered over Zoom. And then Jolene emerges, a woman endeared for decades to Vollmer’s father, holding secrets to their family’s past. Amidst the turmoil and loneliness of the pandemic, All of Us Together in the End is a poignant and often humorous investigation into belief set in a time where it seems people will believe anything. It is an elegiac affirmation of the awesome, strange, otherworldly ways our loved ones remain alive to us, even when they are out of reach.

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  The Autobiography of Benjamin...

  Benjamin Franklin, Frank...

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  Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is a record of the life of one of the most impressive people in the American history. Franklin's autobiography, although unfinished, represents one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written. His book is the record of an unusual life told in his own unexcelled conversational style. The Autobiography is Franklin's longest work, and yet it is only a fragment of it. The account of Franklin's life is divided in a manner that reflects the different periods in which he wrote them. The first part, written as a letter to his son, William Franklin, was not intended for publication; the composition is more informal and the narrative more personal than in the second part, from 1730 onward, which was written with a view to publication.   
  Contents:  
  Ancestry and Early Life in Boston 
  Beginning Life as a Printer 
  Arrival in Philadelphia 
  First Visit to Boston 
  Early Friends in Philadelphia 
  First Visit to London 
  Beginning Business in Philadelphia 
  Business Success and First Public Service 
  Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection 
  Poor Richard's Almanac and Other Activities 
  Interest in Public Affairs 
  Defense of the Province 
  Public Services and Duties 
  Albany Plan of Union 
  Quarrels with the Proprietary Governors 
  Braddock's Expedition 
  Franklin's Defense of the Frontier 
  Scientific Experiments 
  Agent of Pennsylvania in London 
  Electrical Kite 
  The Way to Wealth 
  The Whistle 
  A Letter to Samuel Mather

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