Some of these titles have already received a lot of notice (memoirs by Anthony Fauci and Griffin Dunne, for instance), but others may have escaped your attention and are worth a look too.
"Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez never knew his grandfather. Stories swirled around this mythologized, larger-than-life figure: that he had abandoned his family, and had possibly done something awful that put a curse on his descendants. About his grandfather, young Noé was sure of only one thing: That he had played the accordion. Now an adult, reckoning with the legacy of silence surrounding his family's migration from Mexico, Álvarez resolves both to take up the instrument and to journey into Mexico to discover the grandfather he never knew"-- Provided by publisher.
"The life and legacy of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, wife of John F. Kennedy Jr., are reexamined in this captivating and effervescent biography that is perfect for fans of My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy, What Remains, and Fairy Tale Interrupted. A quarter of a century after the plane crash that claimed the lives of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and sister-in-law Lauren, the magnitude of this tragedy remains fresh. Yet, Carolyn is still an enigmatic figure, a woman whose short life in the spotlight was besieged with misogyny and cruelty. Amidst today's cultural reckoning about the way our media treats women, Elizabeth Beller explores the real person behind the tabloid headlines and media frenzy. When she began dating America's prince, Carolyn was increasingly thrust into an overwhelming spotlight filled with relentless paparazzi who reacted to her reserve with a campaign of harassment and vilification. To this day, she is still depicted as a privileged princess-icy, vapid, and drug-addicted. She has even been accused of being responsible for their untimely death, allegedly delaying take-off until she finished her pedicure. But now, she is revealed as never before. A fiercely independent woman devoted to her adopted city and career, Carolyn relied on her impeccable eye and drive to fly up the ranks at Calvin Klein in the glossy, high-stakes fashion world of the 1990s. When Carolyn met her future husband, John was immediately drawn to her strong-willed personality, effortless charm, and high intelligence. Their relationship would change her life and catapult her to dizzying fame, but it was her vibrant life before their marriage and then hidden afterwards, that is truly fascinating. Based on in-depth research and exclusive interviews with friends, family members, teachers, roommates, and colleagues, this comprehensive biography reveals a multi-faceted woman worthy of our attention regardless of her husband and untimely death"-- Provided by publisher.
Millicent E. Brown's family home at 270 Ashley Avenue in Charleston, South Carolina, was a center of civil rights activity. There Brown gained intimate knowledge of the struggle for racial justice, and those experiences set her on a life course dedicated to the civil rights struggle. Best known as the named plaintiff in the federal court case that, in 1963, forced the initial desegregation of public schools in South Carolina, her experiences as an activist range across years and well beyond her native state. Another Sojourner Looking for Truth is Brown's insightful reflection on her search for freedom in a nation deeply mired in white supremacist beliefs and overt violence against people of color.
"Discover the work of the greatest writer in the English language as you've never encountered it before by pre-ordering internationally renowned actor Dame Judi Dench's SHAKESPEARE: The Man Who Pays The Rent - a witty, insightful journey through the plays and tales of our beloved Shakespeare. Taking a curtain call with a live snake in her wig... Cavorting naked through the Warwickshire countryside painted green... Acting opposite a child with a pumpkin on his head... These are just a few of the things Dame Judi Dench has done in the name of Shakespeare. For the very first time, Judi opens up about every Shakespearean role she has played throughout her seven-decade career, from Lady Macbeth and Titania to Ophelia and Cleopatra. In a series of intimate conversations with actor & director Brendan O'Hea, she guides us through Shakespeare's plays with incisive clarity, revealing the secrets of her rehearsal process and inviting us to share in her triumphs, disasters, and backstage shenanigans. Interspersed with vignettes on audiences, critics, company spirit and rehearsal room etiquette, she serves up priceless revelations on everything from the craft of speaking in verse to her personal interpretations of some of Shakespeare's most famous scenes, all brightened by her mischievous sense of humour, striking level of honesty and a peppering of hilarious anecdotes, many of which have remained under lock and key until now. Instructive and witty, provocative and inspiring, this is ultimately Judi's love letter to Shakespeare, or rather, The Man Who Pays The Rent"-- Provided by publisher.
"A memoir and coming-of-age story chronicling the successes and disappointments, wit and wildness of Dunne and his multigenerational family of larger-than-life characters"-- Provided by publisher.
Chronicles the life of the creator of one of America's most stunning museums-an American original whose own life was remade by art; includes archival photos of her world, museum and the art she collected.
"The memoir by the doctor who became a beacon of hope for millions through the COVID pandemic, and whose six-decade career in high-level public service put him in the room with seven presidents"-- Provided by publisher.
"A searing and deeply personal memoir that explores the institutions--family, society, country--that defined a Puerto Rican woman and what she unlearned to rediscover herself. Growing up in the Midwest, raised by a Puerto Rican mother who was abandoned by her family, Jamie Figueroa and her sisters were estranged from their culture, consumed by the whiteness that surrounded them. In Mother Island, Figueroa traces her search for identity as shaped by and against a mother who settled into the safety of assimilation. In lyrical, blistering prose, Figueroa recalls a childhood in Ohio in which she was relegated to the background of her mother's string of failed marriages; her own marriage in her early twenties to a man twice her age; how her work as a licensed massage therapist helped her heal her body trauma; and how becoming a mother has reshaped her relationship to her family and herself. Only as an adult in New Mexico was Figueroa able to forge her own path, using writing to recast her origin story. In a journey that takes her to Puerto Rico and back, Figueroa looks to her ancestors to reimagine her relationship to the past and to her mother's native island, reaching beyond her own mother into a greater experience of mothering and claiming herself. In stunning prose that draws from Puerto Rican folklore and mythology, a literary lineage of women writers of color, and narratives of identity, Figueroa presents a cultural coming-of-age story. Candid and raw, Mother Island gets to the heart of the question: Who do we become when we are no longer trying to be someone else?"-- Provided by publisher.
"In this thrilling memoir of a life spent exploring the most incredible places on Earth--from the Great African Seaforest to the crocodile lairs of the Okavango Delta--Craig Foster reveals how we can attend to the earthly beauty around us and deepen our love for all living things, whether we make our homes in the country, the city, or anywhere in between. Foster explores his struggles to remain present to life when a disconnection from nature and the demands of his professional life begin to deaden his senses. And his own reliance on nature's rejuvenating spiritual power is put to the test when catastrophe strikes close to home. Foster's lyrical, riveting Amphibious Soul draws on his decades of daily ocean dives, wisdom from Indigenous teachers, and leading-edge science"-- Provided by publisher.
"An intimate biography of legendary editor Judith Jones, the woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century-including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath"-- Provided by publisher.
"From the award-winning New York Times-bestselling author, Alexandra Fuller, comes a career defining memoir about grieving the sudden loss of her twenty-one-year-old child. "Fair to say, I was in a ribald state the summer before my fiftieth birthday." And so begins Alexandra Fuller's open, vivid new memoir, Fi. It's midsummer in Wyoming and Alexandra is barely hanging on. Grieving her father and pining for her home country of Zimbabwe, reeling from a midlife breakup, freshly sober and piecing her way uncertainly through a volatile new relationship with a younger woman, Alexandra vows to get herself back on even keel. And then--suddenly and incomprehensibly--her son Fi, at twenty-one years old, dies in his sleep. No stranger to loss--young siblings, a parent, a home country--Alexandra is nonetheless leveled. At the same time, she is painfully aware that she cannot succumb and abandon her two surviving daughters as her mother before her had done. From a sheep wagon deep in the mountains of Wyoming to a grief sanctuary in New Mexico to a silent meditation retreat in Alberta, Canada, Alexandra journeys up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains in an attempt to find how to grieve herself whole. There is no answer, and there are countless answers--in poetry, in rituals and routines, in nature and in the indigenous wisdom she absorbed as a child in Zimbabwe. By turns disarming, devastating and unexpectedly, blessedly funny, Alexandra recounts the wild medicine of painstakingly grieving a child in a culture that has no instructions for it"-- Provided by publisher.
"In 2011, three years after leaving the NFL, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that takes away the ability to move, talk, and breathe. Doctors gave him three years to live. He was thirty-three years old. As Steve says, he is now ten years past his expiration date. His memoir is the chronicle of a remarkable life, one filled with optimism and joy, despite the trauma and pain and despair he has experienced. Writing using eye-tracking technology, Gleason covers his pre-ALS life through the highs and lows of his NFL career with the New Orleans Saints, where he made one of the most memorable plays in Saints history, leading to a victory in the first post-Katrina home game, uplifting the city, making him a hero, and reflected in a nine-foot bronze statue outside the Superdome. Then came his heartbreaking diagnosis. Gleason lost all muscle function, he now uses Stephen Hawking-like technology to communicate, and breathes with the help of a ventilator. This book captures Gleason and his wife Michel's unmatched resilience as they reinvent their lives, refuse to succumb to despair, and face his disease realistically and existentially. This unsparing portrait argues that a person's true strength does not reside solely in one's body but also in the ability to face unfathomable adversity and still be able to love and treasure life"-- Provided by publisher.
"Emmy Award-winning international journalist Hala Gorani weaves stories from her time as a globe-trotting correspondent and anchor with her own lifelong search for identity as the daughter of Syrian immigrants. What is it like to have no clear identity in a world full of labels? How can people find a sense of belonging when they have never felt part of a "tribe?" And how does a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman who's never lived in the Middle East honor her Arab Muslim ancestry and displaced family--a family forced to scatter when their home country was torn apart by war? Hala Gorani's path to self-discovery started the moment she could understand that she was "other" wherever she found herself to be. Born of Syrian parents in America and raised mainly in France, she didn't feel at home in Aleppo, Seattle, Paris, or London. She is a citizen of everywhere and nowhere. And like many journalists who've covered wars and conflicts, she felt most at home on the ground reporting and in front of the camera. As a journalist, Gorani has traveled to some of the most dangerous places in the world, covering the Arab Spring in Cairo and the Syrian civil war, reporting on suicide bombers in Beirut and the chemical attacks in Damascus, watching the growth of ISIS and the war in Iraq--sometimes escaping with her life by a hair. But through it all, she came to understand that finding herself meant not only looking inward, but tracing a long family history of uprooted ancestors. From the courts of Ottoman Empire sultans through the stories of the citizens from her home country and other places torn apart by unrest, But You Don't Look Arab combines Gorani's family history with rigorous reporting, explaining--and most importantly, humanizing--the constant upheavals in the Middle East over the last century."-- Provided by publisher.
"An electric, searing memoir by the original rebel girl and legendary front woman of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. Hey girlfriend I got a proposition, goes something like this: Dare ya to do what you want. Kathleen Hanna's rallying cry to feminists echoed far and wide through the punk scene of the '90s and beyond. Her band Bikini Kill embodies this iconic time, and today her personal yet feminist lyrics on anthems like "Rebel Girl" and "Double Dare Ya" are more powerful than ever. But where did this transformative voice come from? In Rebel Girl, Hanna's raw and insightful new memoir, she takes us from her tumultuous childhood home to her formative college years in Olympia, Washington, and on to her first years on tour, fighting hard for gigs and for her band. As Hanna makes clear, being in a "girl band," especially a punk girl band, in those years was not a simple or safe prospect. Male violence and antagonism threatened at every turn, and surviving as a singer who was a lightning rod for controversy took limitless amounts of determination. But the relationships she developed during those years buoyed her-including with her bandmates, Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Johanna Fateman; her friendships with Kurt Cobain and Ian MacKaye; and her introduction to Joan Jett- were all a testament to how the punk world could nurture and care for its own. Hanna opens up about falling in love with Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys and her debilitating battle with Lyme disease, and she brings us behind the scenes of her musical growth in her bands Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin. She also writes candidly about the Riot Grrrl movement, documenting with love its grassroots origins but critiquing its later exclusivity. In an uncut voice all her own, Hanna reveals the hardest times along with the most joyful-and how it continues to fuel her revolutionary art and music"-- Provided by publisher.
"From the acclaimed and bestselling author of Hemingway's Boat, the profoundly moving story of his father's wartime service as a night fighter pilot, and the prices paid by him, and other soldiers, for their acts of selfless, patriotic sacrifice"-- Provided by publisher.
"From New York Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and bestselling author Nicholas D. Kristof, an intimate and gripping memoir about a life in journalism Since 1984, Nicholas Kristof has worked almost continuously for The New York Times as a reporter, foreign correspondent, bureau chief, and now columnist, becoming one of the foremost reporters of his generation. Here, he recounts his event-filled path from a small-town farm in Oregon to every corner of the world. Reporting from Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo, while traveling far afield to India, Africa, and Europe, Kristof witnessed and wrote about century-defining events: the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the Yemeni civil war, the Darfur genocide in Sudan, and the wave of addiction and despair that swept through his hometown and a broad swath of working-class America. Fully aware that coverage of atrocities generates considerably fewer page views than the coverage of politics, he nevertheless continued to weaponize his pen against regimes and groups violating basic human rights, raising the cost of oppression and torture. Some of the risks he took while doing so make for hair-raising reading. Kristof writes about some of the great members of his profession and introduces us to extraordinary people he has met, such as the dissident whom he helped escape from China and a Catholic nun who browbeat a warlord into releasing schoolgirls he had kidnapped. These are the people, the heroes, who have allowed Kristof to remain optimistic. Side by side with the worst of humanity, you always see the best. This is a candid memoir of vulnerability and courage, humility and purpose, mistakes and learning--a singular tale of the trials, tribulations, and hope to be found in a life dedicated to the pursuit of truth."-- Provided by publisher.
"A brilliant debut memoir about a young writer--struggling with depression, family issues, and addiction--and his life-changing decade working for Joan Didion"-- Provided by publisher.
"I never imagined I would make it to the Olympics, or be at this level, or write a book about this unlikely career that I've had. But I've really enjoyed the ride, this journey." Katie Ledecky is one of the best swimmers ever to compete. She has won more individual Olympic races than any female swimmer in history. A three-time Olympian, a seven-time gold medalist, a twenty-one-time world champion, eight-time NCAA Champion, and world record-holder in individual swimming events, Ledecky shares what it takes to compete at an elite level. Again and again, Katie Ledecky has broken records: those of others and, increasingly, her own. She is both consistent and innovative-consistent at setting goals and shattering them, and innovative in the way she approaches her training. A true competitor, she sets her goals by choosing the ones that feel the scariest. But, crucially, she never sacrifices the joy of competition, even in the face of adversity. Her positive mental outlook and a great support system provides the springboard to her success. This candid and inspiring memoir charts Ledecky's life in swimming. It details her start in Bethesda, Maryland, where she played sharks and minnows and first discovered the joy of the pool; her early foray into the Olympics at the tender age of fifteen where, as the youngest member of the American team, she stunned everyone by winning her first gold medal; her time balancing competition and her education at Stanford University; how she developed a champion's mindset that has allowed her to persevere through so many meets, even under intense pressure; and how she has maintained her dominance in a sport where success depends on milliseconds. You learn how every element of her life-from the support of her family to the tutelage of her coaches, from her childhood spent in summer league swimming to the bright lights of Olympic pools in London, Rio, and Tokyo-set her up to become the champion she is. In the end, Katie's story is about testing yourself against the difficult, and seeing who you become on the other side"-- Provided by publisher.
"A shockingly frank memoir from a prize-winning economist, reflecting on his remarkable personal odyssey and his changing positions on identity, race, and belief. Economist Glenn C. Loury is one of the most prominent public intellectuals of our time: he's often radically opposed to the political mainstream, and delights in upending what's expected of a Black public figure. But more so than the arguments themselves--on affirmative action, institutional racism, Trumpism--his public life has been characterized by fearlessness and a willingness to recalibrate strongly held and forcefully argued beliefs. Loury grew up on the south side of Chicago, earned a PhD in MIT's economics program, and became the first Black tenured professor of economics at Harvard at the age of thirty-three. He has been, at turns, a young father, a drug addict, an adulterer, a psychiatric patient, a born-again Christian, a lapsed born-again Christian, a Black Reaganite who has swung from the right to the left and back again. In Late Admissions, Loury examines what it means to chart a sense of self over the course of a tempestuous, but well-considered, life."-- Provided by publisher.
"In late 2021, Diane Foley sat at a table across from her son's killer, Alexanda Kotey, a member of the ISIS group known as "The Beatles" who plead guilty to the kidnapping, torture, and murder of her son seven years before. Kotey was about to go serve life imprisonment and this was Diane's chance to talk to the man who had been involved with brutally taking her son's last breath. What would she say to his killer? What would he reveal to her? Might she even be able to summon forgiveness for him? So begins American Mother-- which reads alternately like a thriller, a biography, a mystery, a memoir, and a literary examination of grace. Diane looks back on the early days when Jim was a child and his journey to journalism, and the killing fields of the world where he reports with indefatigable determination and insight on the plight of those caught up in the agonies of war. She guides us through her family history and the difficulties they faced when Jim was captured. And she also charts the tenacity it takes to turn her grief into grace as she seeks to give voice to those who are still being kidnapped and wrongfully detained around the world. Few journeys are more worthy than this and, in this astonishing book, we are all invited to celebrate the lives of those who are never, in the end, gone." -- Amazon.com.
"From the National-Book-Award-winning author of All That She Carried, an intimate and revelatory reckoning with the myth and the truth behind an American everyone knows and few really understand. Harriet Tubman is, if surveys are to be trusted, one of theten most famous Americans ever born, and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she's a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero-the woman who, despite being barely five-feet tall, illiterate, and suffering from a brain injury, managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others North to freedom, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some 750 people without loss of life. You could almost say she's America's Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood. Tiya Miles's extraordinary Night Flyer changes all that. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman's life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman's surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritualwilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs. What emerges, uncannily, is a human being whose mysticism becomes the more palpable the more we understand it-a story that offers us powerful inspiration for our own time of troubles.Harriet Tubman traversed many boundaries, inner and outer. Now, thanks to Tiya Miles, she becomes an even clearer and sharper signal from the past, one that can help us to echolocate a more just and sustainable path"-- Provided by publisher.
"A memoir-in-recipes from the best-selling and award-winning author that looks back at her family and at the long century of Jewish cooking in Europe and America. In her most personal book, Joan Nathan looks back at her own family's history - her family's arrival in America from Germany, Poland, and Slovakia; her childhood in post-war New York and Rhode Island; the influence of her in-laws, who came from Poland after fleeing the Nazis; her years in New York, Israel, and Washington, DC. Nathan shares her story - a life well-lived and centered around meals - and she punctuates it with all the recipes she has come to love. From roast chicken to rugelach, from matzoh ball soup to challah and brisket, here are updated versions of her most beloved recipes. But here too are new favorites: Fragrant Spiced Chicken with Rice, Eggplant, Peppers and Zucchini, Yemeni White Bean Stew, and a Pecan Lemon Torte. This is a treasury of recipes and stories - and an invitation to a seat at Joan's table"-- Provided by publisher
"A spirited and poignant family love story, revealing how an icon of rugged American masculinity was profoundly shaped by the women in his life, especially his mother, sisters, and wives"
"A thrilling new biography of Dwight Eisenhower set in the months leading up to D-Day, when he grew from a well-liked general into one of the singular figures of American history"-- Provided by publisher.
"For decades, Joni Mitchell's life and music have enraptured listeners. One of the most celebrated artists of her generation, Mitchell has inspired countless musicians--from peers like James Taylor, to inheritors like Prince and Brandi Carlile--and authors, who have dissected her music and her life in their writing. At the same time, Mitchell has always been a force beckoning us still closer, as--with the other arm--she pushes us away. Given this, music critic Ann Powers wondered if there was another way to draw insights from the life of this singular musician who never stops moving, never stops experimenting. In Traveling, Powers seeks to understand Mitchell through her myriad journeys. Through extensive interviews with Mitchell's peers and deep archival research, she takes readers to rural Canada, mapping the singer's childhood battle with polio. She charts the course of Mitchell's musical evolution, ranging from early folk to jazz fusion to experimentation with pop synthetics. She follows the winding road of Mitchell's collaborations with other greats, and the loves that emerged along the way, all the way through to the remarkable return of Mitchell to music-making after the 2015 aneurysm that nearly took her life. Along this journey, Powers' wide-ranging musings on the artist's life and career reconsider the biographer's role and the way it twines against the reality of a fan. In doing so, Traveling illustrates the shifting nature of biography, and the ultimate contradiction of celebrity: that an icon cannot truly, completely be known to a fan. Kaleidoscopic in scope, and intimate in its detail, Traveling is a fresh and fascinating addition to the Joni Mitchell canon, written by a biographer in full command of her gifts who asks as much of herself as of her subject"-- Provided by publisher.
The first memoir from critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose, about the close relationship she developed with activist Anthony Russo, one of the men who leaked the Pentagon Papers--and the year when our country changed.
"The fascinating story behind the most consequential presidential transition in US history, from Franklin Roosevelt to Harry Truman, and the legacy Truman struggled to overcome to lead America into a new, post-war world."-- Provided by publisher.
The internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner speaks out for the first time about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, when an attempt was made on his life, in this deeply personal meditation on violence, art, loss, love and finding the strength to stand up again.
"When Suzanne Scanlon was a student at Barnard in the 90s, grieving the loss of her mother-feeling untethered and swimming through inarticulable pain-she made a suicide attempt at twenty years old that landed her in the New York State Psychiatric Institute. After nearly four years and countless experimental treatments, Suzanne left the ward on shaky legs. In the decades it took her to recover from the experience, Suzanne came to understand her suffering as part of something larger. She began to see herself as part of a long tradition of women whose stories are reduced to "crazy chick" narratives, rather than stories of women who forged complicated and compromised stories of self-actualization: Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Frances Farmer, Jean Seberg, Sylvia Plath, Shulamith Firestone. It was a thrilling discovery, and she searched for more books, more woman writers, as the journey of her life converged with her journey through the literature that shapes and ultimately saves her. Committed is Suzanne's story about discovery and recovery, reclaiming the idea of the "madwoman" as one template for insight and transcendence. Committed ducks and weaves through the works of these seminal madwomen via Suzanne's own story of resilience and being. She paints vivid portraits of friends and lovers, life on the ward and after, and the women who saved her life by encouraging her to live it"-- Provided by publisher.
"Father Emil Kapaun, a humble priest, went far beyond the call of duty during World War II and the Korean War. Often found with the combat medics on the front lines, unarmed, ministering to the wounded, and known for his intense devotion to the soldiers whom he called "my boys," Kapaun became the most decorated chaplain in US military history, awarded a Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross and the Legion of Merit. But Father Kapaun's leadership, bravery and selflessness don't end there. When the story of human history is over, evil, death, darkness--they don't get the final word. It was Father Kapaun's love for God that gave him the courage to lay down his life for his friends and for his country"-- Provided by publisher.
"From the acclaimed economist-historian and author of The Marshall Plan comes a dramatic and powerful new perspective on the political career of Henry Wallace-a perspective that will forever change how we view the making of US and Soviet foreign policy at the dawn of the Cold War"-- Provided by publisher.
Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999) is best known as the composer of one of the most popular works of music in the twentieth century--the Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra. It's been featured in movies and television commercials and remains a staple of concert programs for orchestras around the world. Miles Davis said, "After listening to it for a couple of weeks...I couldn't get it out of my mind," and he used it as inspiration for his album Sketches of Spain. But as Javier Suárez-Pajares and Walter Aaron Clark reveal in this musical biography--the first complete study in English--Rodrigo's work and influence extend far beyond that singular composition.
"A captivating family history that illustrates how small actions can have an outsized political impact. Small acts of courage matter. Sometimes, they change the world. Our history books are filled with the stories of those who fought for democracy and freedom-for idealism itself-against all odds, from Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. These iconic struggles for social change illustrate the importance of engagement and activism, and offer a template for the battles we are fighting today. But using the right words is often easier than taking action; action can be hard, and costly. More than a century ago, MSNBC host Ali Velshi's great-grandfather sent his seven-year-old son to live at Tolstoy Farm, Gandhi's ashram in South Africa. This difficult decision would change the trajectory of his family history forever. From childhood, Velshi's grandfather was imbued with an ethos of public service and social justice, and a belief in absolute equality among all people-ideals that his children carried forward as they escaped apartheid, emigrating to Kenya and ultimately Canada and the United States. In Small Acts of Courage, Velshi taps into 125 years of family history to advocate for social justice as a living, breathing experience-a way of life more than an ideology. With rich detail and vivid prose, he relates the stories of regular people who made a lasting commitment to fight for change, even when success seemed impossible. This heartfelt exploration of how we can breathe new life into the principles of pluralistic democracy is an urgent call to action-for progress to be possible, we must all do whatever we can to make a difference"-- Provided by publisher.
"Ojibwe tradition calls for fathers to walk their children through the world, sharing the ancient understanding "that we are all, animate and inanimate alike, living on the one pure breath with which the Creator gave life to the Universe." In this new entry in the Seedbank series, an intimate series of letters to the six-year-old son from whom he was estranged, Richard Wagamese fulfills this traditional duty with grace and humility, describing his own path through life--separation from his family as a boy, substance abuse, incarceration, and ultimately the discovery of books and writing--and braiding this extraordinary story with the teachings of his people, in which animals were the teachers of human beings, until greed and a desire to control the more-than-human world led to anger, fear, and, eventually, profound alienation."-- Provided by publisher.