| Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces by Michael ChabonIn his signature stylish prose, Pulitzer Prize winner (and father of four) Michael Chabon reflects on parenting and his relationship with his own father in this breezy collection of essays. "You are born into a family and those are your people, and they know you and they love you, and if you are lucky, they even on occasion manage to understand you." |
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Coal Black Mornings
by Brett Anderson
Brett Anderson came from a world impossibly distant from rock star success, and in Coal black mornings he traces the journey that took him from a childhood as 'a snotty, sniffy, slightly maudlin sort of boy raised on Salad Cream and milky tea and cheap meat' to becoming founder and lead singer of Suede.
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A House in the Sky: A Memoir
by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett
Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout had an avid desire to travel from the time she was young. Early in her journalism career, she went to Somalia with her friend Nigel Brennan, an Australian photographer. There, they were kidnapped by bandits who demanded impossible sums for ransom and kept them shackled, starved, and in filthy conditions for 15 months.
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| Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World by Eileen McNamaraAn insightful portrait of the Stanford-educated Kennedy -- the 5th of Joseph and Rose's nine children -- whose efforts helped advance the disability rights movement. Shining a light on an overlooked member of the Kennedy dynasty, McNamara argues that Eunice's political legacy rivals that of her more famous brothers.
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Henrietta Maria : The Betrayed Queen
by Dominic Pearce
At the heart of the English Civil War stands the wife of Charles I, Henrietta Maria. She came to England in 1625 at the age of 15 ignorant of the language and institutions of her new country, undermined by her greedy French entourage, blocked by the forceful Duke of Buckingham, weighed down by instructions from the Pope to protect the Catholics of England. She was only a girl, and she had hardly a winning card in her hand; and yet fifteen years later she was the terror of Parliament, whose opposition members wanted, in 1642, to impeach her on grounds of treason.
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Innocence: a True Story of a Journey From Darkness Into Light
by Ludovic C. Romany
Most of us would consider the gift of innocence to be the birthright of every baby brought into this world. Unfortunately, within New Zealand, a perpetuating cycle of violence and poverty can often deny this birthright. Witere `Wi' Peepe is one of those who never received his `gift of innocence.' In his story, Wi recalls being subjected to the most monstrous crimes at the hands of his parents, from as young as two years of age. They extended to him the same violence and wrongful behaviour they themselves had experienced during their lives. All the pieces were in place to lead Wi down a similar path, but this account of his difficult journey tells how it was possible for him to come through the dark shadows and into the light.
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Mr Colenso's Wairarapa: Twelve Journeys: 1843-1852
by Ian St George
As the first missionary in Hawke's Bay, 1843-1852, Colenso's 'parish' extended west to Taupo and south to include the Wairarapa-Bush and this book records, from his own journals, his journeys on foot through the region. It records the tensions created by the collision of two very different moralities. It also records a gradual change from the enthusiasm and idealism of the young preacher with his paternalistic naivete about his Maori parishioners, towards a much more adult understanding from the sadder but wiser man he became. In the end he lost his wife and family, lost his position in the church and almost lost his will to live.
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Never look at the empty seats : a memoir
by Charlie Daniels
A personal account by the influential Country Music Hall of Famer traces his post-Depression childhood through his rise to success, sharing inside stories, celebrity encounters, personal reflections and rare photos from different times in his life and career.
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Bring the Noise : The Jürgen Klopp Story
by Raphael Honigstein
Traces the career of coach Jürgen Klopp, one of the greatest personal motivators, who left Germany to manage Liverpool, a once-mighty club that had not maintained success since the 1980s, showing how he turned the team around through his relentless commitment, drive and love of the sport and its players.
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No Place to Lay One's Head
by Françoise Frenkel
Françoise Frenkel was a Jewish woman born in Poland and enamoured of all things literary and French. In 1921 she set up the first French-language bookshop in Berlin, recognising the craving for French culture in that city in the wake of the First World War. Her business was a success attracting diplomats and celebrities, authors and artists. But life in Berlin for a Jewish woman and a foreigner soon became untenable. Frenkel was forced to flee to Paris and compelled to keep moving as she attempted to survive in a world disintegrating around her.
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My Opposition : The Diary of Friedrich Kellner - A German Against the Third Reich
by Friedrich Kellner
This is a truly unique account of Nazi Germany at war and of one man's struggle against totalitarianism. A mid-level official in a provincial town, Friedrich Kellner kept a secret diary from 1939 to 1945, risking his life to record Germany's path to dictatorship and genocide and to protest his countrymen's complicity in the regime's brutalities. Just one month into the war he is aware that Jews are marked for extermination and later records how soldiers on leave spoke openly about the mass murder of Jews and the murder of POWs; he also documents the Gestapo's merciless rule at home from euthanasia campaigns against the handicapped and mentally ill to the execution of anyone found listening to foreign broadcasts.
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Hunting the truth : memoirs of Beate and Serge Klarsfeld
by Beate Klarsfeld
A pair of European activists present the dramatic story of their work as Nazi hunters, describing their respective upbringings as survivors of persecution and their 50-year effort to expose, apprehend and prosecute Nazi war criminals, from torturer Klaus Barbie to Gestapo chief Kurt Kischka.
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Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in your Life
by Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li's searing personal story of hospitalizations for depression and thoughts of suicide is interlaced with reflections on the solace and affirmations of life and personhood that Li found in reading the journals, diaries, and fiction of other writers: William Trevor, Katherine Mansfield, and more.
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Film stars don't die in Liverpool : a true love story
by Peter Turner
A description of Gloria Grahame's last days recalls her past in New York and her eccentric life in a trailer and her life in Liverpool, where the author and his family cajoled, comforted, and wept with the dying Hollywood star.
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Country grit : a farmoir of finding purpose and love
by Scottie Brown Jones
Told with humor and hard-earned wisdom, the author shares her experience cutting ties with a material and convenient suburban life in order to start the Leaping Lamb Farm in Oregon, which, after many trials and tribulations, gave her and her husband a sense of purpose and a sense of place.
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Girlish : Growing Up in a Lesbian Home
by Lara Lillibridge
The story everyone wants to hear isn't the story I want to tell." Lara Lillibridge grew up with two moms--an experience that shaped and scarred her at the same time. Told from the perspective of "Girl," Lillibridge's memoir is the no-holds-barred account of childhood in an atypical household. Personally less concerned with her mother's sexuality and more with how she fits into a world both disturbed and obsessed with it, Girl finds that, in other people's eyes, "The most interesting thing about me is not about me at all; it is about my parents."
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| Logical Family: A Memoir by Armistead MaupinAfter brief stints in law school and the military, beloved author Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City) eschewed his conservative Southern upbringing for the freewheeling San Francisco of the 1970s, finding a community in the burgeoning LGBTQ rights movement. "Sooner or later, we have to venture beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us."
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Aiden, 19 So Far
by Aiden Cahill
Aidan was one of dozens and possibly hundreds of young men and women on New Zealand's streets. How do you meet someone in this situation, even if you have such an interest? How do they survive? Why are they in such a position? What are their aspirations? Such citizens of New Zealand are on the margins and few of us get anywhere close to those margins. Aidan's unconventional life story, so far, is a revelation for anyone interested in an aspect of life that is rarely, if ever, revealed with such candour. His story begins in his home town of Christchurch.
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| Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space by Lynn SherrAn intimate biography of the astronaut and icon, whose heavily guarded personal life remained a secret until her death in 2012, when her obituary revealed her as a lesbian survived by her partner of 27 years. Written with the cooperation of Ride's partner, family, and colleagues, journalist (and longtime friend of Ride) Lynn Sherr's sensitive, thoroughly researched portrait celebrates Ride's life and legacy.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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