Title search results
Showing 161 - 180 of 12521 items
The I-35W Bridge Collapse: A Survivor's Account of America's Crumbling Infrastructure
By Kimberly J. Brown. 2018
A bridge shouldn t just fall down Senator Amy Klobuchar said after the August…
1 2007 collapse of the Minneapolis I-35W eight-lane steel truss bridge which killed 13 motorists injured 145 and left a collective wound on the city s psyche and infrastructure On her way to a soccer game with a fellow teammate Kimberly J Brown experienced the collapse firsthand falling 114 feet in her teammate s car to the Mississippi River Although terrified injured and in shock she survived In this sobering memoir and expos Brown recounts her harrowing experience In the aftermath of the disaster Brown became both an advocate for survivors and an unofficial whistle-blower about decaying infrastructure She details her investigation and correspondence with Thornton Tomasetti engineers including the false official account of the collapse and the eventual revelation of its real causes In addition she chronicles the ongoing decay of America s bridges and the continuing challenges faced by leaders to address infrastructure problems across the country After nearly a decade of research into the collapse and her active and ongoing recovery from psychic and physical injuries Brown shares her experience and answers the questions we should all be asking Why did this bridge collapse And what could have been done to prevent this tragedyOut Of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa
By Keith B. Richburg. 1997
Nothing in Keith Richburg's long and respected journalistic career at the Washington Post prepared him for what he would encounter…
as the paper's correspondent in Africa. He found a continent where brutal murder had become routine, where dictators and warlords silenced dissent with machine guns and machetes, and where starvation had become depressingly common. With a great deal of personal anguish, Richburg faced a difficult question: If this is Africa, what does it mean to be an African American?In this provocative and unvarnished account of his three years on the continent of his ancestors, Richburg takes us on a extraordinary journey that sweeps from Somalia to South Africa, showing how he confronted the divide between his African racial heritage and his American cultural identity.In Her Wake: A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother's Suicide
By Nancy Rappaport. 2009
In 1963, Nancy Rappaport’s mother committed suicide after a bitter divorce and custody battle. Nancy was four years old. As…
one of eleven children in a prominent Boston family, Nancy struggled to come to terms with the reasons why her mother took her own life. After years spent interviewing family and friends, Rappaport uncovers the story of a conflicted and troubled activist, socialite, and community leader. Drawing on court depositions, her mother’s unpublished novel, newspapers, and her own experiences, she highlights heartbreaking stories of a complicated life that played out in the public eye. Inspiring, honest, and engaging, Rappaport’s story sheds light on the agonizing nature of loss and healing, and reveals the permeable boundaries between therapists and the patients they treat.If Your Back's Not Bent: The Role of the Citizenship Education Program in the Civil Rights Movement
By Andrew Young, Vincent Harding, Dorothy F. Cotton. 2012
"Nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said at the end of…
a Citizenship Education Program (CEP), an adult grassroots training program directed by Dorothy Cotton. This program, called the best-kept secret of the twentieth century's civil rights movement, was critical in preparing legions of disenfranchised people across the South to work with existing systems of local government to gain access to services and resources they were entitled to as citizens. They learned to demonstrate peacefully against injustice, even when they were met with violence and hatred. The CEP was born out of the work of the Tennessee Highlander Folk School and was fully developed and expanded by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. King until that fateful day in Memphis in April 1968. Cotton was checked into the Lorraine Motel at that time as well, but she'd left to do the work of the CEP before the assassin's bullet was fired. If Your Back's Not Bent recounts the accomplishments and the drama of this training that was largely ignored by the media, which had focused its attention on marches and demonstrations. This book describes who participated and how they were transformed--men and women alike--from victims to active citizens, and how they transformed their communities and ultimately the country into a place of greater freedom and justice for all. Cotton, the only woman in Dr. King's inner circle of leadership, for the first time offers her account of the movement, correcting the historical impression that "we only marched and sang." She shows how the CEP was key to the movement's success, and how the lessons of the program can serve our democracy now. People, and therefore systems, can indeed change "if your back's not bent."Gandhi: An Illustrated Biography
By Pramod Kapoor. 2017
Rarely seen images and rigorous research provides fascinating insight into one of the most revered figures in modern Indian history.…
Gandhi is an intimate history of the evolution of a mischievous, fun-loving boy into the Mahatma. From his schooling and early marriage in Kathiawar to his first brushes with the grandeur of London; from his chance employment for a legal case in South Africa to a train ride in Pietermaritzburg that led to his first fight for equality; from a relatively unsuccessful lawyer to a globally celebrated crusader for human rights-Gandhi was that rare rebel who redefined the meaning of mass resistance for generation to come. The chronological text and rarely seen photographs bring out his unique complexities for a new generation of readers.Our Year of War: Two Brothers, Vietnam, and a Nation Divided
By Daniel P. Bolger. 2017
Two brothers--Chuck and Tom Hagel--who went to war in Vietnam, fought in the same unit, and saved each other's life.…
They disagreed about the war, but they fought it together.1968. America was divided. Flag-draped caskets came home by the thousands. Riots ravaged our cities. Assassins shot our political leaders. Black fought white, young fought old, fathers fought sons. And it was the year that two brothers from Nebraska went to war.In Vietnam, Chuck and Tom Hagel served side by side in the same rifle platoon. Together they fought in the Mekong Delta, battled snipers in Saigon, chased the enemy through the jungle, and each saved the other's life under fire. But when their one-year tour was over, these two brothers came home side-by-side but no longer in step--one supporting the war, the other hating it.Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and his brother Tom epitomized the best, and withstood the worst, of the most tumultuous, shocking, and consequential year in the last half-century. Following the brothers' paths from the prairie heartland through a war on the far side of the world and back to a divided America, Our Year of War tells the story of two brothers at war--a gritty, poignant, and resonant story of a family and a nation divided yet still united.1978. El año que marchamos a la guerra
By Guillermo Parvex. 2018
El mismo autor del exitoso Un veterano de tres guerras entrega este relato que cobra actualidad a 40 a …
os de una guerra que no fue Mientras estudiaba Periodismo en la Universidad de Chile Guillermo Parvex fue llamado por el Ej rcito para recibir instrucci n militar espec fica y ser parte de las milicias chilenas que se dirigir an a la frontera con Argentina Era 1978 Parvex ten a 24 a os y la guerra con el pa s vecino era inminente Este libro reconstruye la historia personal del autor durante los meses que estuvo en la frontera y el contexto hist rico de esos dif ciles a os un relato in dito en primera persona que nos habla de aquellos a os convulsos en que se ocultaba la movilizaci n de tropas hasta las regiones lim trofes que nos separan del pa s vecino Rese a Un libro que reconstruye por primera vez la instrucci n militar que recibieron en secreto miles de j venes chilenosEsclavos de la consigna
By Jorge Edwards. 2018
Las nuevas y fascinantes memorias del Premio Cervantes En Esclavos de la consigna Jorge Edwards hace unretrato…
tan ir nico como entra able de lo que fuesu vida hacia mediados del siglo XX mostrando depaso un Chile que con la perspectiva de los a os leresulta m s libre creativo y comunitario que el de hoy pero tambi n m s c ndido lleno de convicciones ilusas de esclavos de la consigna Con gracia y agilidad notables Edwards narra el tiempo en que se form y consolid como escritor y como integrante de una escena cultural por en la que circulaban entre otros Pablo Neruda Nicanor Parra Enrique Lihn Luis Oyarz n Stella D az Var n Alejandro Jodorowsky y Jos Donoso Continuaci n plenamente aut noma del relato autobiogr fico que Edwards comenzara en Los c rculos morados este nuevo libro suyo invita a recordar un mundo ido y a reflexionar sobre el incierto presente Rese a Un retrato inolvidable del encanto y desencanto de los intelectuales con las utop as socialistasRoads to Berlin
By Laura Watkinson, Cees Nooteboom. 2012
Roads to Berlin maps the changing landscape of post-World-War-II Germany, from the period before the fall of the Berlin Wall…
to the present. Written and updated over the course of several decades, an eyewitness account of the pivotal events of 1989 gives way to a perceptive appreciation of its difficult passage to reunification.Nooteboom's writings on politics, people, architecture, and culture are as digressive as they are eloquent; his innate curiosity takes him through the landscapes of Heine and Goethe, steeped in Romanticism and mythology, and to Germany's baroque cities. With an outsider's objectivity he has crafted an intimate portrait of the country to its present day.From the Hardcover edition.Claiming Ground
By Laura Bell. 2010
In 1977, Laura Bell, at loose ends after graduating from college, leaves her family home in Kentucky for a wild…
and unexpected adventure: herding sheep in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin. Inexorably drawn to this life of solitude and physical toil, a young woman in a man's world, she is perhaps the strangest member of this beguiling community of drunks and eccentrics. So begins her unabating search for a place to belong and for the raw materials with which to create a home and family of her own. Yet only through time and distance does she acquire the wisdom that allows her to see the love she lived through and sometimes left behind.By turns cattle rancher, forest ranger, outfitter, masseuse, wife and mother, Bell vividly recounts her struggle to find solid earth in which to put down roots. Brimming with careful insight and written in a spare, radiant prose, her story is a heart-wrenching ode to the rough, enormous beauty of the Western landscape and the peculiar sweetness of hard labor, to finding oneself even in isolation, to a life formed by nature, and to the redemption of love, whether given or received. Quietly profound and moving, astonishing in its honesty, in its deep familiarity with country rarely seen so clearly, and in beauties all its own, Claiming Ground is a truly singular memoir.From the Hardcover edition.Temperance Creek: A Memoir
By Teresa Jordan, Pamela Royes. 2016
In the early seventies, some of us were shot like stars from our parents' homes. This was an act of…
nature, bigger than ourselves. In the austere beauty and natural reality of Hell's Canyon of Eastern Oregon, one hundred miles from pavement, Pam, unable to identify with her parent's world and looking for deeper pathways has a chance encounter with returning Vietnam warrior Skip Royes. Skip, looking for a bridge from survival back to connection, introduces Pam to the vanishing culture of the wandering shepherd and together they embark on a four-year sojourn into the wilderness. From the back of a horse, Pam leads her packstring of readers from overlook to water crossing, down trails two thousand years old, and from the vantages she chooses for us, we feel the edges of our own experiences. It is a memoir of falling in love with a place and a man and the price extracted for that love.Written with deep lyricism, Temperance Creek is a work of haunting beauty, fresh and irreverent and rooted in the grit and pleasure of daily life. This is Pam's story, but the courage and truth in the telling is part of our human experience. Seen through a slower more primary mirror, one not so crowded with objectivity, Pam's memoir, is a kind of home-coming, a family reunion for shooting stars.High Points and Lows
By Austin Carty. 2010
Read Austin Carty's posts on the Penguin Blog For readers who loved Blue Like Jazz, comes inspiration and advice from…
Survivor contestant and Christian speaker Austin Carty Figuring out who you want to be in life is never easy. In High Points and Lows, Austin Carty traces his own stumbling journey toward adulthood and true faith, drawing on lessons from pop culture and Christianity. In these funny and moving essays that address questions on faith, goals, and vocation, Carty offers an uplifting message for religious and secular audiences alike. By turns amusing and endearing, Carty's essays explore everything from misguided evangelicals who treat salvation as a cottage industry to the real danger of cheating in school-everyone will think you're brilliant and then you've got a real problem. Whether he is failing miserably at his first real job as a nightclub gofer, explaining how Saved by the Bell has ruined our youth, or struggling to come to terms with the death of a beloved friend, Carty demonstrates how finding the courage to be ourselves is the best way to forge a genuine connection with friends, family, and God. .Della
By Chuck Barris. 2010
This surprisingly candid, often funny, and entirely moving memoir is Chuck Barris's story about life with his only child, Della.…
Born on Christmas Eve in 1962, Della was a lovable charmer like her father, an adventurous and quick-witted kid. She had a carefree suburban childhood, even while her father was fast becoming an entertainment superstar, inventing, hosting, and producing his legendary game shows. When Barris and his wife eventually divorced, Della was shuttled between parents in New York and California, then moved from boarding school in Switzerland to Beverly Hills High, among other places. Bored, lonely, and often depressed, she discovered drugs and petty crime early in adolescence, and her escapades soon took on a far more alarming and dangerous aspect. She was lost, yearning for attention and guidance, and growing up in Los Angeles amid temptation everywhere. Her father felt helpless: caring for a daughter was more than Barris had bargained for. Ranging from late-night phone calls from the neighbors to emergency room visits, Della's behavior was out of control. When Della decided at age sixteen to move out on her own, Barris didn't object. He gave her a trust fund and let her go out into the world alone, a regret that he shares with readers here in heartbreaking and clear-eyed detail as he chronicles Della's descent into addiction and her eventual death from an overdose at age thirty-six. But Della is not just a grief-stricken story. Filled with loving memories and spontaneous humor, it is a brave and hard-earned reflection on fatherhood and a tribute to innocence lost.Lopsided
By Meredith Norton. 2008
'As far as I'm concerned, Lance Armstrong and I are close to exact opposites, both physically and mentally . .…
. If surviving this particularly deadly form of breast cancer required any of the Lance-like traits, such as a willingness to physically exert myself, I was as good as dead. 'When well-meaning family and friends found out about her diagnosis, they often came armed with copies of Lance Armstrong's cancer survival book. Meredith reacted by penning a sharp, irreverent and laugh-out-loud funny memoir. More than just an account of her harrowing and, at times, hilarious treatments during her illness, Lopsided offers up entertaining memories of an offbeat life. A fiesty and irreverent memoir about life and death, family and friends, and everything in between.The Forgetting River
By Doreen Carvajal. 2012
The unexpected and moving story of an American journalist who works to uncover her family’s long-buried Jewish ancestry in Spain.…
Raised a Catholic in California, New York Times journalist Doreen Carvajal is shocked when she discovers that her background may actually be connected to conversos in Inquisition-era Spain , Jews who were forced to renounce their faith and convert to Christianity or face torture and death. With vivid childhood memories of Sunday sermons, catechism, and the rosary, Carvajal travels to the south of Spain, to the centuries-old Andalucian town of Arcos de la Frontera, to investigate her lineage and recover her family’s original religious heritage. In Arcos, Carvajal is struck by the white pueblo's ancient beauty and the difficulty she encounters in probing the town's own secret history of the Inquisition. She comes to realize that fear remains a legacy of the Inquisition along with the cryptic messages left by its victims. Back at her childhood home in California, Carvajal uncovers papers documenting a family of Carvajals who were burned at the stake in the 16th-century territory of Mexico. Could the author’s family history be linked to the hidden history of Arcos? And could the unfortunate Carvajals have been her ancestors?As she strives to find proof that her family had been forced to convert to Christianity six-hundred years ago, Carvajal comes to understand that the past flows like a river through time –and that while the truth might be submerged, it is never truly lost. .The Barn House
By Ed Zotti. 2008
A rollicking yarn about a home-improvement project that took a man and his family to hell and back. In 1993,…
after Chicago lost many of its residents to the suburbs, Ed Zotti and his family gambled their future by fixing up a dilapidated Victorian home in a dicey neighborhood. Where most saw a shabby façade, the Zottis saw promise?even when it dragged and drained every resource. ?The Barn House? had a collapsed ceiling, wiring that shorted, and oak floors painted red, white, and blue. Unsettling discoveries included a box of . 38 caliber bullets?with five missing?and the mere fact that the house was built on a bed of sand. Alternately harrowing and hilarious, this is a classic account of one family?s private urban renewal project, featuring burglars, irate neighbors, and a lively cast of workers. From its grim beginning to its unexpected outcome, The Barn House is the inspiring story of what it means to live (and totally rewire) the American Dream. .Brother One Cell
By Cullen Thomas. 2007
Cullen Thomas was just like the thousands of other American kids who travel abroad after college. He was hungry for…
meaning and excitement beyond a nine-to-five routine, so he set off for Seoul, South Korea, to teach English and look for adventure. What he got was a three-and-a- half-year drug-crime sentence in South Korea's prisons, where the physical toll of life in a cell was coupled with the mental anguish of maintaining sanity in a world that couldn't have been more foreign. This is Thomas's unvarnished account of his eye-opening, ultimately life-affirming experience. Brother One Cellis part cautionary tale, part prison memoir, and part insightful travelogue that will appeal to a wide readership, from concerned parents to armchair adventurers.Family Romance
By John Lanchester. 2007
Family Romance is a beautifully written memoir in which John Lanchester joins the dots of his parents' history, their extraordinary…
secrets and the shape of their shared life. From his grandparents' beginnings in rural Ireland and colonial Rhodesia, Lanchester navigates through his parents' lives: his father Bill's devastating war-time separation from his parents; his mother Julia's tragic first love, her decision to become a nun and her adoption of a new identity. Lanchester illuminates their characters and Julia's motives with moving insight.703
By Nancy Makin. 2010
Nancy Makin weighed an astounding 703 pounds in May 2000. She was forty-five years old and had diabetes and heart…
disease. Thanks in equal parts to shame and logistics, she'd been homebound for a dozen years. All that changed after her sister gave her a computer. Nancy ignored it for months, until finally boredom and curiosity pushed her into cyberspace. And there, in a chat room, she found the friendliness, the support, and even the love she'd been missing for so long. Nobody flinched when Nancy spoke up; people treated her with the same respect accorded to everybody else. Thanks to these emotional connections, Nancy's life was transformed. She followed no diet plan - no pills, potions or ab-crunching exercises played a part. There was no silver bullet, no magical, elusive ingredient, and yet today Nancy has lost more than 530 pounds. A moving, funny, tongue-in-cheek, and deadly serious story, Nancy's tale is one of redemption, and of reevaluating her worth.In a Special Light
By Elroy Bode. 2006
Elroy Bode's books on nature and life have made him a favorite of readers and critics. Here he explores his…
home city of El Paso, the land and people of Central Texas, and his roles as teacher, father, and writer. These sharply observed, beautifully written pieces find the universal in the particular - a young boy in a barbershop, plaza life, a young couple in Smokey's Barbecue. In a Special Light discovers pleasure in the lives of ordinary people, and joy in the worlds in which they live.