Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Well Of Pen Morfa

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Elizabeth Gaskell was a regular contributor to Charles Dickens's weekly magazine, Household Words, from 1850 through to 1858. In addition to three serialized novels, Cranford, North and South, and My Lady Ludlow, Dickens published 18 shorter works by Gaskell, which made her the major literary contributor to the magazine apart from Dickens himself. The Well of Pen Morfa is a short story set in rural North Wales.

  Show book

• 

  Air Mail - Letters of Politics...

  Pam Houston, Amy Irvine

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  “Air Mail is the record of an epistolary friendship forged in a time of political peril, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. These letters are pure outpourings of deep thought and daily life, sent back and forth across the Continental Divide, missives ‘as necessary as air, beautiful and maternal and brutal all at once.’ Houston and Irvine reveal the ferocity of women who have made their lives in the wilderness and by the pen, the depths of wisdom hard-won, survival and what it cost, and all of this in a language where horse hooves can be heard thundering. They invite us to read our precarious moment in the light of conscience, as they excavate the layers of denial and historical amnesia that have kept us from knowing who we are, and then with determination and grace, they envision our possible future.” 
  —CAROLYN FORCHÉ, author of In the Lateness of the World 
  When the state of Colorado ordered its residents to shelter in place in response to the spread of coronavirus, writers Pam Houston and Amy Irvine—who had never met—began a correspondence based on their shared devotion to the rugged, windswept mountains that surround their homes, one on either side of the Continental Divide. As the numbers of infected and dead rose and the nation split dangerously over the crisis, Houston and Irvine found their letters to one another as necessary as breath. Part tribute to wilderness, part indictment against tyranny and greed, Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and Place reveals the evolution of a friendship that galvanizes as it chronicles a strange new world. 

  Show book

• 

  Forward from Here - Leaving...

  Reeve Lindbergh

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In her funny and wistful new book, Reeve Lindbergh contemplates entering a new stage in life, turning sixty, the period her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, once described as "the youth of old age." It is a time of life, she writes, that produces some unexpected surprises. Age brings loss, but also love; disaster, but also delight. The second-graders Reeve taught many years ago are now middle-aged; her own children grow, marry, have children themselves. "Time flies," she observes, "but if I am willing to fly with it, then I can be airborne, too." A milestone birthday is also an opportunity to take stock of oneself, although such self-reflection may lead to nothing more than the realization, as Reeve puts it, "that I just seem to continue being me, the same person I was at twelve and at fifty." At sixty, as she observes, "all I really can do with the rest of my life is to...feel all of it, every bit of it, as much as I can for as long as I can."  Age is only one of many subjects that Reeve writes about with perception and insight. In northern Vermont, nature is an integral part of daily life, especially on a farm. Whether it is the arrival and departure of certain birds in spring and fall, wandering turtles, or the springtime ritual of lambing, the natural world is a constant revelation.  With a wry sense of humor, Reeve contemplates the infirmities of the aging body, as well as the many new drugs that treat these maladies. Briefly considering the risks of drug dependency, she writes that "the least we [the "Sixties Generation"] can do for ourselves is live up to our mythology, and take lots of drugs." Legal drugs, that is -- although what sustains us as we grow older is not drugs but an appreciation for life, augmented by compassion, a sense of humor, and common sense.  And of course there is family -- especially with the Lindberghs. Reeve writes about discovering, thirty years after her father's death and two and a half years after her mother's, that her father had three secret families in Europe. She travels to meet them, learning to expand her self-understanding: "daughter of," "mother of," "sister of" -- sister of many more siblings than she'd known, in a family more complicated than even she had imagined. Forward from Here is a brave book, a reflective book, a funny book -- a book that will charm and fascinate anyone on the journey from middle age to the uncertain future that lies ahead.

  Show book

• 

  Fink - It Isn't Until it Is

  Fink

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Released alongside the band’s ‘Acoustic Best Of’ record, It Isn’t Until It Is, Fin Tim and Guy recount the first 10 years of the band’s history through words and memories. “3 men. 1 manager, 1 record company. The first 10 years. The first 5 albums. 498 gigs in 60 countries. We thought we should write something down about the whole trip before the sands of time washed out all the detail. There will be lies, truths, harsh realities and rose-tinted spectacles, but this is the way we’re feeling it right now… and we figure it's way more interesting this way…”

  Show book

• 

  Boxing for Cuba - An Immigrants...

  Guillermo Vicente Vidal

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Guillermo Vicente Vidal's memoir chronicles his journey from Castro's Cuba to the United States—a tapestry of his coming of age, a broken family, and disorientation of political unrest. Vidal was barely ten years old when he proudly shook the hand of Fidel Castro.  Although Vidal’s parents were once staunch supporters of La Revolucion, they soon found they could no longer keep their sons safe in the new face of Castro’s reign, making the difficult decision to send Vidal and his brothers to the U.S. via Operation Peter Pan in 1961. Vidal was on his way to Sacred Heart Orphanage in Pueblo, Colorado when a chance encounter in the airport led to shaking the hand of Robert Kennedy. Years later, Vidal graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver. He went on to become executive director of the state department of transportation and head of the Denver Regional Council of Governments before he was tapped by Mayor John Hickenlooper to become Deputy Mayor.  When Hickenlooper became the Colorado Governor, Vidal became the Mayor of Denver.Despite his fears, as an adult Guillermo returns to his beloved Camagüey and delivers truths that shows the beauty and struggles that remain to this day. "Boxing For Cuba" is not just a story. It is a tale of faith, hope and a family who becomes more than Operation Peter Pan could have ever dreamed.

  Show book

• 

  Tales From Bow Street

  Joan Lock

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Bow Street Magistrates Court is justly famous as the birthplace of an efficient system of summary jurisdiction. Less well-known are some of the fascinating characters who have taken part in the court's dramas over the years. Most people know of the early pioneer stipendiary magistrates, Henry and John Fielding. But what of Nicholas Bond, the ambitious and devious Bow Street Runner, who (under John's patronage) became a clerk of the court, and later a Bow Street Magistrate? And what of the “noted highwayman Hawke” who had escaped prison in 1774, and now terrorised the wealthiest Londoners? Not to mention Mary Scroote, who brutally felled the man who refused her advances. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Bow Street took on a legally armed Britain. Tales from Bow Street is a gripping narrative of the history of London's policing. Join Joan Lock as she delves into the criminal underworld of 18th century London, a city riddled with pick-pockets, prostitutes, highwaymen and murderers.  From the hanging murders of the 1700s, through to Cold War espionage, and the birth of the 1950s policewoman, Lock's book is rich in periodic detail, readable history and enlightening anecdotes.

  Show book