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Biography and Memoir May 2020
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The House of Kennedy
by James Patterson
A revelatory portrait of the Kennedys explores how the dual mottos, “To whom much is given, much is expected” and “Win at all costs” shaped generations of life inside and outside the family.
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Life As a Casketeer : What the Business of Death Can Teach the Living by Francis TipeneA celebration of life and death. A book to make you laugh and cry. A deep, funny and personal story about the lives of New Zealand's favourite undertakers, Francis and Kaiora Tipene. Born and raised in Northland, the married couple and parents to five boys now star in the third series of their own reality television show The Casketeers, a show about day-to-day life (and death) at their Auckland funeral business, Tipene Funerals. This is Francis and Kaiora's story, a story about a modest yet richly cultural Maori upbringing in the communities of Pawarenga and Kaitaia, the trials and tribulations of their love and marriage, the joy of raising five sons, and the dedication and mahi required to grow a business. It's also a book about traditions of tangihanga, tikanga Maori and Polynesian ways of mourning the dead. Inspirational, hilarious, and wise: this is a book to make you see dying, grief and remembrance in a totally new light.
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| Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert KolkerWhat it is: a haunting and compassionate family biography that explores the relationship between biology and mental illness.
Starring: the Galvins, a Colorado family with 12 children, six of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia in the 1970s.
Book buzz: This "exceptional, unforgettable, and significant work" (Booklist) was recently named an Oprah's Book Club Pick. |
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A delayed life : the true story of the librarian of Auschwitz by Dita KrausThe powerful, heart-breaking memoir of Dita Kraus, the real-life Librarian of Auschwitz. Born in Prague to a Jewish family in 1929, Dita Kraus has lived through the most turbulent decades of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Here, Dita writes with startling clarity on the horrors and joys of a life delayed by the Holocaust. From her earliest memories and childhood friendships in Prague before the war, to the Nazi-occupation that saw her and her family sent to the Jewish ghetto at Terezín, to the unimaginable fear and bravery of her imprisonment in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and life after liberation. Dita writes unflinchingly about the harsh conditions of the camps and her role as librarian of the precious books that her fellow prisoners managed to smuggle past the guards. But she also looks beyond the Holocaust – to the life she rebuilt after the war: her marriage to fellow survivor Otto B Kraus, a new life in Israel and the happiness and heartbreaks of motherhood.
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The Longest Day : Standing Up to Depression and Tackling the Coast to Coast by Matt CalmanMatt Calman's most consistent tool for dealing with problems throughout his life was alcohol. But it got to the stage where he was no longer willing to put up with the dark side of his drinking. So he quit. But the problems that had been simmering away for most of his life merely came to a head. It led to a major depressive phase with panic attacks and thoughts of suicide. Finally Matt began the slow climb to rebuild himself with a much stronger foundation. Finally he was ready to find something, or for something to find him. It could have been anything. It just happened to be the Coast to Coast Multisport World Championships, the toughest endurance race in New Zealand. The Longest Day outlines Matt's path back from the depths of depression, his struggles to learn to run, cycle and kayak at an elite level, and the culmination of all that training: his Coast to Coast race. The book explores the parallels between the inner landscape (his journey to well being) and the outer landscape (the world around him and tackling the Coast to Coast). Through his training he learns about process rather than outcome, and how true success and enjoyment is embedded in the journey (not the destination). Matt is a brave, honest writer with a talent for articulating what is going on inside his head.
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| Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America by Catherine KerrisonWhat it is: a richly detailed portrait of Thomas Jefferson's daughters and the tumultuous times in which they lived.
Reviewers say: "Incisive and elegant, Kerrison's book is at once a fabulous family story and a stellar work of historical scholarship" (Publishers Weekly).
You might also like: Virginia Scharff's The Women Jefferson Loved, which explores how Jefferson was shaped by the women in his life. |
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| Ray & Joan: The Man Who Made the McDonald's Fortune and the Woman Who... by Lisa NapoliStarring: McDonald's founder Ray Kroc and his third wife, Joan, a philanthropist who supported his entrepreneurial efforts and donated $3 billion to various charitable causes after Ray's death.
Why you might like it: This well-researched portrait of a complicated yet loving partnership will "cause readers to never look at McDonald's the same way again" (Library Journal). |
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| Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce by Colm TóibínWhat it's about: how 19th-century Irish authors Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, and James Joyce grappled with their respective daddy issues in their lives and work.
Book buzz: Written by the award-winning author of Brooklyn, this concise group biography of three bad dads was originally a series of lectures presented at Emory University. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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