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Showing 4681 - 4700 of 9467 items
By Rhonda Lashley Lopez. 2011
Many people dream of "someday buying a small quaint place in the country, to own two cows and watch the…
birds," in the words of Texas ranchwoman Amanda Spenrath Geistweidt. But only a few are cut out for the unrelenting work that makes a family ranching operation successful. Don't Make Me Go to Town presents an eloquent photo-documentary of eight women who have chosen to make ranching in the Texas Hill Country their way of life. Ranging from young mothers to elderly grandmothers, these women offer vivid accounts of raising livestock in a rugged land, cut off from amenities and amusements that most people take for granted, and loving the hard lives they've chosen. Rhonda Lashley Lopez began making photographic portraits of Texas Hill Country ranchwomen in 1993 and has followed their lives through the intervening years. She presents their stories through her images and the women's own words, listening in as the ranchwomen describe the pleasures and difficulties of raising sheep, Angora goats, and cattle on the Edwards Plateau west of Austin and north of San Antonio. Their stories record the struggles that all ranchers face-vagaries of weather and livestock markets, among them-as well as the extra challenges of being women raising families and keeping things going on the home front while also riding the range. Yet, to a woman, they all passionately embrace family ranching as a way of life and describe their efforts to pass it on to future generations.By Doris L. Rich. 1993
Here is the brief but intense life of Bessie Coleman, America's first African American woman aviator. Born in 1892 in…
Atlanta, Texas, she became known as "Queen Bess," a barnstormer and flying-circus performer who defied the strictures of race, sex, and society in pursuit of a dream.By Joyce Johnson. 2004
Joyce Johnson’s classic memoir of growing up female in the 1950s, Minor Characters, was one of the initiators of an…
important new genre: the personal story of a minor player on history’s stage. In Missing Men, a memoir that tells her mother’s story as well as her own, Johnson constructs an equally unique self-portrait as she examines, from a woman’s perspective, the far-reaching reverberations of fatherlessness. Telling a story that has "shaped itself around absences," Missing Men presents us with the arc and flavor of a unique New York life—from the author’s adventures as a Broadway stage child to her fateful encounters with the two fatherless artists she marries. Joyce Johnson’s voice has never been more compelling. .By Carol Shields. 2001
"In her fictional biography, The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields created an astonishing portrait of Daisy Goodwill Flett, a modern woman…
struggling to understand her place in her own life. With the same sensitivity and artfulness that are the trade-marks of her award-winning novels, Shields here explores the life of a writer whose own novels have engaged and delighted readers for the past two hundred years. " "In Jane Austen, Shields follows this superb and beloved novelist from her early family life in Steventon to her later years in Bath, her broken engagement, and her intense relationship with her sister Cassandra. She reveals both the very private woman and the acclaimed author behind the enduring classics Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma. With its fascinating insights into the writing process from an award-winning novelist, Carol Shields's magnificent biography of Jane Austen is also a compelling meditation on how great fiction is created. "--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights ReservedBy Ellen Burstyn. 2006
By the time Ellen Burstyn arrived in New York to study acting, she'd already worked as a Texas fashion model,…
a Montreal chorus girl, suffered numerous toxic relationships, and just as many name changes and spiritual paths. Theater legend Moss Hart called her "a natural" but Ellen Burstyn was still trying discover who she was. This is the graceful story of a personal and professional quest, a life-long journey-by turns triumphant and terrifying, tragic and funny, thoughtful and illuminating. .By Charlotte Silver. 2012
Like Eloise growing up in the Plaza Hotel, Charlotte Silver grew up in her mother's restaurant. Located in Harvard Square,…
Upstairs at the Pudding was a confection of pink linen tablecloths and twinkling chandeliers, a decadent backdrop for childhood. Over dinners of foie gras and Dover sole, always served with a Shirley Temple, Charlotte kept company with a rotating cast of eccentric staff members. After dinner, in her frilly party dress, she often caught a nap under the bar until closing time. Her one constant was her glamorous, indomitable mother, nicknamed "Patton in Pumps," a wasp-waisted woman in cocktail dress and stilettos who shouldered the burden of raising a family and running a kitchen. Charlotte's unconventional upbringing takes its toll, and as she grows up she wishes her increasingly busy mother were more of a presence in her life. But when the restaurant-forever teetering on the brink of financial collapse-looks as if it may finally be closing, Charlotte comes to realize the sacrifices her mother has made to keep the family and restaurant afloat and gains a new appreciation of the world her mother has built. Infectious, charming, and at times wistful, Charlotte au Chocolat is a celebration of the magic of a beautiful presentation and the virtues of good manners, as well as a loving tribute to the author's mother-a woman who always showed her best face to the world. .By Jennifer Barclay. 2014
"This book will make you laugh and cry and laugh again. I didn't want it to end."--Emma Woolf, author of…
An Apple a Day The Best Gifts in Life are the Gifts We Give Ourselves... Breathtaking ocean views, tranquil beaches, delicious food, and warm-hearted people...these are just a few of the reasons why Jennifer Barclay loves the Greek islands. But her dreams of living there full-time seem out of reach, until a break-up turns her world upside down. Jennifer realizes she is responsible for her own happiness--and decides to cut back on work, stay out of relationships, and vacation for a month on Tilos, her favorite Greek island. Life becomes instantly sweeter, and she resolves to uproot her life to Tilos. But then the strangest thing happens... A glimpse into life on a tiny Mediterranean island, Falling in Honey is a testament to the power of being good to yourself.By Elaine Lui. 2014
Most people think I'm exaggerating at first when I talk about the Chinese Squawking Chicken. But once they actually spend…
some time with her, they understand. They get it. Right away. She's Chinese, she squawks like a chicken, she is totally nuts, and I am totally dependent on her.When Elaine Lui was growing up, her mother told her, "Why do you need to prepare for the good things that happen? They're good. They won't hurt you. My job is to prepare you for the hard times, and teach you how to avoid them, whenever possible." Neither traditionally Eastern nor conventionally Western, the Squawking Chicken raised her daughter drawing on Chinese fortune-telling, feng shui blackmail, good old-fashioned ghost stories, and shame and embarrassment in equal measure. And despite years of chafing against her mother's parenting style, Elaine came to recognize the hidden wisdom--and immeasurable value--in her rather unorthodox upbringing.Listen to the Squawking Chicken lays bare the playbook of unusual advice and warnings used to teach Elaine about hard work ("Miss Hong Kong is a whore"), humility ("I should have given birth to a piece of barbecue pork"), love and friendship, family loyalty ("Where's my money?"), style and deportment ("Don't be low classy"), finding one's own voice ("Walk like an elephant, squawk like a chicken") among other essentials. Along the way, Elaine poignantly reveals how her mother earned the nickname "Tsiahng Gai" or "squawking chicken" growing up in Hong Kong, enduring and rising from the ashes of her own hard times.Listen to the Squawking Chicken is a loving mother-daughter memoir that will have readers laughing out loud, gasping in shock, and reconsidering the honesty and guts it takes to be a parent.By Nancy Gertner. 2011
From a "Human Rights Hero," a memoir of her illustrious career litigating groundbreaking cases In the boys' club climate of…
1975, Nancy Gertner launched her career fighting a murder charge on behalf of antiwar activist Susan Saxe, one of the few women to ever make the FBI's Most Wanted List. What followed was a storied span of groundbreaking firsts, as Gertner threw herself into criminal and civil cases focused on women's rights and civil liberties.Gertner writes, for example, about representing Clare Dalton, the Harvard Law professor who famously sued the school after being denied tenure, and of being one of the first lawyers to introduce evidence of Battered Women's Syndrome in a first-degree murder defense. She writes about the client who sued her psychiatrist after he had sexually preyed on her, and another who sued her employers at Merrill Lynch--she had endured strippers and penis-shaped cakes in the office, but the wildly skewed distribution of clients took professional injury too far. All of these were among the first cases of their kind.Gertner brings her extensive experience to bear on issues of long-standing importance today: the general evolution of thought regarding women and fetuses as legally separate entities, possibly at odds; the fungible definition of rape and the rights of both the accused and the victim; ever-changing workplace attitudes and policies around women and minorities; the concept of abetting crime. In Defense of Women is the one-of-a-kind memoir of an exceptional, self-proclaimed "outsider lawyer."By Trudi Kanter. 1984
" FOR EVEN IN NAZI VIENNA, Trudi realized, women still looked in the mirror. . . . She knows that…
even in the bleak darkness, we feel, love, desire. She left no child (she and Walter tried, with no success); her hats are long lost, but her book is her legacy, discovered once again." --From the introduction by Linda Grant, a uthor of The Clothes on Their Backs, The Thoughtful Dresser and We Had It So Good In 1938 Trudi Kanter, stunningly beautiful, chic and charismatic, was a hat designer for the best-dressed women in Vienna. She frequented the most elegant cafés. She had suitors. She flew to Paris to see the latest fashions. And she fell deeply in love with Walter Ehrlich, a charming and romantic businessman. But as Hitler's tanks rolled into Austria, the world this young Jewish couple knew collapsed, leaving them desperate to escape. In prose that cuts straight to the bone, Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler tells the true story of Trudi's astonishing journey from Vienna to Prague to blitzed London seeking safety for her and Walter amid the horror engulfing Europe. It was her courage, resourcefulness and perseverance that kept both her and her beloved safe during the Nazi invasion and that make this an indelible memoir of love and survival. Sifting through a secondhand bookshop in London, an English editor stumbled upon this extraordinary book, and now, though she died in 1992, the world has a second chance to discover Trudi Kanter's enchanting story. In these pages she is alive--vivid, tenacious and absolutely unforgettable."A Mattress Maker's Daughter "richly illuminates the narrative of two people whose mutual affection shaped their own lives and in…
some ways their times. According to the Renaissance legend told and retold across the centuries, a woman of questionable reputation bamboozles a middle-aged warrior-prince into marrying her, and the family takes revenge. He is Don Giovanni de' Medici, son of the Florentine grand duke; she is Livia Vernazza, daughter of a Genoese artisan. They live in luxury for a while, far from Florence, and have a child. Then, Giovanni dies, the family pounces upon the inheritance, and Livia is forced to return from riches to rags. Documents, including long-lost love letters, reveal another story behind the legend, suppressed by the family and forgotten. Brendan Dooley investigates this largely untold story among the various settings where episodes occurred, including Florence, Genoa, and Venice. In the course of explaining their improbable liaison and its consequences, "A Mattress Maker's Daughter "explores early modern emotions, material culture, heredity, absolutism, and religious tensions at the crux of one of the great transformations in European culture, society, and statecraft. Giovanni and Livia exemplify changing concepts of love and romance, new standards of public and private conduct, and emerging attitudes toward property and legitimacy just as the age of Renaissance humanism gave way to the culture of Counter-Reformation and early modern Europe.By David Ignatius, Jackie Spinner, Jenny Spinner. 2006
When she arrived in Iraq in May 2004 as the most junior member of the Washington Post bureau staff, Jackie…
Spinner entered a war zone where traditional reporting had become impossible. Bombs were a daily occurrence and kidnapping an ever-present threat for American journalists. Yet "the longer I stayed, the more Iraq felt like my home," she writes. Tell Them I Didn't Cry is Jackie's vivid and intensely personal story of being a journalist in Iraq -- where for nine months she covered the war from its center in Baghdad, Fallujah, Kurdistan, and Abu Ghraib -- and of being transformed, eventually, from a rookie correspondent into a seasoned foreign reporter. As she grew accustomed to the realities of living and reporting in Iraq, Jackie found that there was as much to love as there was to fear. The frenetic and grueling pace was an exhilarating challenge, and she discovered a powerful sense of purpose in delivering the story of Iraq. Soon, the Iraqi translators, drivers, and bodyguards that the Post staff relied on to be their eyes and ears, and, more important, to keep them safe, became not only her colleagues, but also her close friends and tightly knit family. Still, security rapidly deteriorated and Jackie describes with chilling simplicity narrowly surviving a kidnapping attempt and writing her name and blood type on her flak jacket before covering the battle in Fallujah. By turns lighthearted, grave, vulnerable, and fiery, Jackie recounts the difficulties of being a woman in a country where women are marginalized and a journalist where the press are no longer safe. She eloquently chronicles what occurred behind her headlines as she struggled to preserve her sanity, and sometimes her life, while also doing the one job in which she had found true meaning. Jackie's account is punctuated by brief vignettes written by her identical twin sister, Jenny, who watched as Jackie was drawn further and further into a world increasingly fraught with danger. Every morning she looked for Jackie's byline in the Post, knowing only then that her sister had survived another day. Through it all -- the violence and fear as well as the moments of humor, camaraderie, and warmth -- Jackie Spinner brings home with brilliant intensity and candor what it is like to report on a war under exceptional circumstances.By Lynn Marie Smith. 2005
Lynn Smith never wanted to be an addict. It just happened. One day, she was living a so-called normal life,…
and the next she woke up to reality. In the mirror she saw the face of a grinning skull and, in her head, the world was turned upside down. After a five-month binge on Ecstasy, Smith would never be the same. Rolling Away is the searingly honest confession of one young woman's frenzied flight into addiction and her long struggle to come back to earth. After growing up in small-town Pennsylvania, where she was a popular straight-A student, Lynn Smith moved to New York City to pursue her dream of acting. In the city, she came in contact with new people, new ideas, and a completely new way of life -- a way that exposed her to drugs. She tried pot, acid, and cocaine, but it was Ecstasy that changed her forever. She stopped auditioning and dedicated herself full-time to her newfound romance with the "love drug," spending her weekends popping pills and dancing all night long. Ignoring her symptoms of piercing headaches and paranoia, in only a short while Lynn went from living responsibly to barely living at all -- until the night she began to hallucinate uncontrollably, yet somehow managed to pick up the phone and call her mother. At once harrowing and inspiring, Rolling Away is the timely story of a too-fashionable new addiction and, ultimately, a triumphant narrative of survival and how a second chance can save your life.By Martha Tod Dudman. 2001
"I'm not telling you where I am. Don't try to find me." Remember Go Ask Alice? Augusta, Gone is the…
memoir Alice's mother never wrote. A single parent, Martha Tod Dudman is sure she is giving her two children the perfect life, sheltering them from the wild tumult of her own youth. But when Augusta turns fifteen, things start to happen: first the cigarette, then the blue pipe and the little bag Augusta says is aspirin. Just talking to her is like sticking your hand in the garbage disposal. Martha doesn't know if she's confronting adolescent behavior, craziness, her own failures as a parent -- or all three. Augusta, Gone is the story of a girl who is doing everything to hurt herself and a mother who would try anything to save her. It is a sorrowful tale, but not a tragic one. Though the book charts a harrowing course through the troubled waters of adolescence, hope -- that mother and daughter will be reunited and will learn to love one another again -- steers them toward a shore of forgiveness and redemption. Written with darkly seductive grace, Augusta, Gone conjures the dangerous thrill of being drawn into the heart of a whirling vortex. This daring book will be admired for its lyricism, applauded for its courage, and remembered for its power. It demands to be read from start to finish, in one breathless sitting.By Valerie Lawson. 1999
The remarkable life of P.L. Travers, the creator of Mary Poppins.An arresting life...Lawson is superb at excavating the details. -Library…
Journal The spellbinding stories of Mary Poppins, the quintessentially English and utterly magical nanny, have been loved by generations. She flew into the lives of the unsuspecting Banks family in a children's book that was instantly hailed as a classic, then became a household name when Julie Andrews stepped into the title role in Walt Disney's hugely successful and equally classic film. But the Mary Poppins in the stories was not the cheery film character. She was tart and sharp, plain and vain. She was a remarkable character. The story of Mary Poppins' creator, as this definitive biography reveals, is equally remarkable. The fabulous English nanny was actually conceived by an Australian, Pamela Lyndon Travers, who came to London in 1924 from Queensland as a journalist. She became involved with Theosophy, traveled in the literary circles of W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot, and became a disciple of the famed spiritual guru, Gurdjieff. She famously clashed with Walt Disney over the adaptation of the Mary Poppins books into film. Travers, whom Disney accused of vanity for "thinking you know more about Mary Poppins than I do," was as tart and opinionated as Julie Andrews's big-screen Mary Poppins was cheery. Yet it was a love of mysticism and magic that shaped Travers's life as well as the character of Mary Poppins. The clipped, strict, and ultimately mysterious nanny who emerged from her pen was the creation of someone who remained inscrutable and enigmatic to the end of her ninety-six years. Valerie Lawson's illuminating biography provides the first full look whose personal journey is as intriguing as her beloved characters.By Naomi Wolf. 2005
Bestselling author Naomi Wolf was brought up to believe that happiness is something that can be taught -- and learned.…
In this magical book, Naomi shares the enduring wisdom of her father, Leonard Wolf, a poet and teacher who believes that every person is an artist in their own unique way, and that personal creativity is the secret of happiness. Leonard Wolf is a true eccentric. A tall, craggy, good-looking man in his early eighties, he's the kind of person who likes to use a medieval astrolabe, dress in Basque shepherd's clothing, and convince otherwise sensible people to quit their jobs and follow their passions. A gifted teacher, he's dedicated his life to honoring individualism, creativity, and the inspirational power of art. Leonard believes, and has made many others believe, that inside everyone is an artist, and success and happiness in life depend on whether or not one values and acts upon one's creative impulse. In The Treehouse, Naomi Wolf's most personal book yet, Naomi outlines her father's lessons in creating lasting happiness and offers inspiration for the artist in all of us. The book begins when Naomi asks Leonard to help build a treehouse for his granddaughter. Inspired by his dedication to her daughter's imaginative world, Naomi asks her father to walk her through the lessons of his popular poetry class and show her how he teaches people to liberate their creative selves. Drawn from Leonard's handwritten lecture notes, the chapters of The Treehouse remind us to "Be Still and Listen," "Use Your Imagination," "Do Nothing Without Passion," and that "Your Only Wage Will Be Joy," and "Mistakes Are Part of the Draft. " More than an education in poetry writing, this is a journey of self-discovery in which the creative endeavor is paramount. Naomi also offers glimpses into her father's past -- from his youth during the Depression to his bohemian years as a poet in 1950s San Francisco -- and the evolution of Leonard's highly individualistic vision of the artist's way. She reconsiders her own childhood and realizes the transformative effect Leonard's philosophy has had on her own life, as well as the lives of her students and friends. The Treehouse is ultimately a stirring personal history, a meditation on fathers and daughters, an argument for honoring the creative impulse, and unique instruction in the art of personal happiness.By Ruth Reichl. 2014
"Reading Ruth Reichl on food is almost as good as eating it," The Washington Post Book World once declared. If…
that's the case, then this eBook bundle is a nonfiction feast. With a résumé that includes such posts as editor in chief of Gourmet magazine and restaurant critic for The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, Reichl has elevated the food memoir into an art form with stories that overflow with love, life, humor, and--of course--marvelous meals. TENDER AT THE BONE Growing Up at the Table "An absolute delight to read . . . How lucky we are that [Reichl] had the courage to follow her appetite."--Newsday At an early age, Ruth Reichl discovered that "food could be a way of making sense of the world." Beginning with her mother, the notorious food-poisoner known as the Queen of Mold, Reichl introduces us to the fascinating characters who shaped her world and tastes, from the gourmand Monsieur du Croix, who served Reichl her first foie gras, to those at her table in Berkeley who championed the organic food revolution in the 1970s. Spiced with Reichl's infectious humor and sprinkled with her favorite recipes, Tender at the Bone is a witty and compelling chronicle of a culinary sensualist's coming-of-age. COMFORT ME WITH APPLES More Adventures at the Table "Reichl writes with gusto, and her story has all the ingredients of a modern fairy tale: hard work, weird food, and endless curiosity."--The New Yorker Comfort Me with Apples picks up Reichl's story in 1978, when she puts down her chef 's toque and embarks on a career as a restaurant critic. Her pursuit of good food and good company leads her to New York and China, France and Los Angeles, and her stories of cooking and dining with world-famous chefs range from the madcap to the sublime. Through it all, Reichl makes each and every course a hilarious and instructive occasion for novices and experts alike, told in a style so honest and warm that readers will feel they are enjoying a conversation over a meal with a friend.By Hannah Arendt. 2013
Arendt was one of the most important thinkers of her time, famous for her idea of "the banality of evil"…
which continues to provoke debate. This collection provides new and startling insight into Arendt's thoughts about Watergate and the nature of American politics, about totalitarianism and history, and her own experiences as an émigré.Hannah Arendt: The Last Interview and Other Conversations is an extraordinary portrait of one of the twentieth century's boldest and most original thinkers. As well as Arendt's last interview with French journalist Roger Errera, the volume features an important interview from the early 60s with German journalist Gunter Gaus, in which the two discuss Arendt's childhood and herescape from Europe, and a conversation with acclaimed historian of the Nazi period, Joachim Fest, as well as other exchanges.These interviews show Arendt in vigorous intellectual form, taking up the issues of her day with energy and wit. She offers comments on the nature of American politics, on Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, on Israel; remembers her youth and her early experience of anti-Semitism, and then the swift rise of the Hitler; debates questions of state power and discusses her own processes of thinking and writing. Hers is an intelligence that never rests, that demands always of her interlocutors, and her readers, that they think critically. As she puts it in her last interview, just six months before her death at the age of 69, "there are no dangerous thoughts, for the simple reason that thinking itself is such a dangerous enterprise."By Carole Boyce Davies. 2008
In Left of Karl Marx, Carole Boyce Davies assesses the activism, writing, and legacy of Claudia Jones (1915-1964), a pioneering…
Afro-Caribbean radical intellectual, dedicated communist, and feminist. Jones is buried in London's Highgate Cemetery, to the left of Karl Marx--a location that Boyce Davies finds fitting given how Jones expanded Marxism-Leninism to incorporate gender and race in her political critique and activism. Claudia Cumberbatch Jones was born in Trinidad. In 1924, she moved to New York, where she lived for the next thirty years. She was active in the Communist Party from her early twenties onward. A talented writer and speaker, she traveled throughout the United States lecturing and organizing. In the early 1950s, she wrote a well-known column, "Half the World," for the Daily Worker. As the U. S. government intensified its efforts to prosecute communists, Jones was arrested several times. She served nearly a year in a U. S. prison before being deported and given asylum by Great Britain in 1955. There she founded The West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News and the Caribbean Carnival, an annual London festival that continues today as the Notting Hill Carnival. Boyce Davies examines Jones's thought and journalism, her political and community organizing, and poetry that the activist wrote while she was imprisoned. Looking at the contents of the FBI file on Jones, Boyce Davies contrasts Jones's own narration of her life with the federal government's. Left of Karl Marx establishes Jones as a significant figure within Caribbean intellectual traditions, black U. S. feminism, and the history of communism.By Helen Stevenson. 2000
When living abroad, there are two rules to be followed: 1—If you are lucky enough to find a place you…
belong, you should never actually live there. And 2—Never live with a man you think you could never live without. But then, what fun would that be? In this funny, forthright, and charming memoir, Helen Stevenson chronicles her experiences as a young British expatriate living in the countryside of France. With emotional depth and lyrical sensitivity, Stevenson introduces readers to the myriad residents of the quaint hamlet known only as "le village." There's Stefan, the Maoist tennis buff, who has his own unique way of showing empathy for the masses; Gigi, the chic Parisian who uses her boutique to dress her ex-lovers' girlfriends; and Luc, the cowboy painter and part-time dentist, who, overcoming his aversion to blondes, becomes enamored of the Englishwoman who has been warmly embraced by the rural community. But her troubled love affair with this local lothario comes to represent the poignant truth: she is still, somehow, an outsider. Luc reminds her: "Le village, c'est moi," and she can never say the same. Evoking the languid, sensual essence of Mediterranean France, Instructions for Visitors is a very personal revelation of the wonders and the difficulties of relocating one's home—and one's heart.