In the twilight of their days, Victor, Beth, and Clint find solace in reflection. Each carries a lifetime of choices, both celebrated and regretted. As they confront their pasts, a newfound peace washes over them. "Echo of Life" is a moving testament to the power of introspection, forgiveness, and the serenity that arrives just before the final curtain falls.
A William C. Morris Award Finalist "Brown has written a guidebook of survival and wonder."—The New York Times "Just brilliant."—Kirkus Reviews Heavily autobiographical and infused with magical realism, Black Girl Unlimited fearlessly explores the intersections of poverty, sexual violence, depression, racism, and sexism—all through the arc of a transcendent coming-of-age story for fans of Renee Watson's Piecing Me Together and Ibi Zoboi's American Street. Echo Brown is a wizard from the East Side, where apartments are small and parents suffer addictions to the white rocks. Yet there is magic . . . everywhere. New portals begin to open when Echo transfers to the rich school on the West Side, and an insightful teacher becomes a pivotal mentor. Each day, Echo travels between two worlds, leaving her brothers, her friends, and a piece of herself behind on the East Side. There are dangers to leaving behind the place that made you. Echo soon realizes there is pain flowing through everyone around her, and a black veil of depression threatens to undo everything she’s worked for. Christy Ottaviano Books
THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER IS NOW A MAJOR-MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD AND STARRING AMY ADAMS, GLENN CLOSE, AND GABRIEL BASSO "You will not read a more important book about America this year."—The Economist "A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal "Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York Times Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.
Blue lights in the red dust... Echo Springs on the edge of the outback – a town where everyone knows your name, and your business. But the wholesome country living and welcoming community aren't what they used to be. Echo Springs has a dark underbelly, and it is seeping ever outward. Born on the wrong side of the tracks to a family well–known for all the wrong reasons, Leila Mayne's childhood was marked with suspicion and derision from the people of Echo Springs. But her heart has always belonged to this town, so after graduating from the academy, she returns sporting a shiny new badge and the desire to be an agent of change. But change isn't easy, and Echo Springs isn't ready to accept a Mayne on the right side of the law. Everyone except her childhood sweetheart, the man she ran away from and has spent her time trying to forget. Hayden is as big and beautiful and supportive as ever. But he has secrets, dark secrets. Secrets that could destroy the integrity and fresh start Leila has worked so hard for. When it comes to a battle between her heart and her badge, Leila knows that there can be no winners, and she will lose everything. Echo Springs, book 3
"This book is almost alone in the literature on Korea for the sweep and sensitivity with which Abelmann situates peasants in the terrain of contested history—which I would describe as what the peasants know in their bones, versus what the state and the landlords wish them to believe."—Bruce Cumings, Northwestern University
This is a story of dysfunctional families and the effects encountered by one young woman who has been in a state of denial for decades. When the winds of change slowly blow in her direction-- this woman is reminded and convinced that her life has been a difficult one at best. She is forced to search her scattered and fragmented memories in an attempt to survive the unrelenting devastating blows of a difficult reality. The reality of her past begins to reveal it's haunting qualities early one morning after a disturbing dream and continues to grow while she survives one devastating blow after another. And through a persistant state of depression with a mutilated spirit and her amputated muse she begins therapy with a compassionate miracle worker. Her journey is a long one--as her therapist guides her though a maze of suppressed and repressed memories into recognition. And with recognition is a set of new eyes viewing and evaluating all of her choices while living in a life of denial that she created for existance. Survivng as a damaged person can dictate how a soul will evolve. An important component is the disposition of the person. A person's character dictates how the damaged person lives/survives and they usually know how to survive; it can be a negative or a positive life of survival. Survival depends strongly upon the individual, the boundaries and environment that they create to support his or her life. With the support of her family and friends she finds acceptance of her reality and purges her soul of a mistaken life style of fantasies.
The seventh Outlander novel from #1 National Bestselling author Diana Gabaldon. Jamie Fraser, erstwhile Jacobite and reluctant rebel, knows three things about the American rebellion: the Americans will win, unlikely as that seems in 1778; being on the winning side is no guarantee of survival; and he’d rather die than face his illegitimate son—a young lieutenant in the British Army—across the barrel of a gun. Fraser’s time-travelling wife, Claire, also knows a couple of things: that the Americans will win, but that the ultimate price of victory is a mystery. What she does believe is that the price won’t include Jamie’s life or happiness—not if she has anything to say. Claire’s grown daughter Brianna, and her husband, Roger, watch the unfolding of Brianna’s parents’ history—a past that may be sneaking up behind their own family.
THE GLOBAL BESTSELLER Sitting quietly in his room in an old people's home, Allan Karlsson is waiting for a party he doesn't want to begin. His one-hundredth birthday party to be precise. The Mayor will be there. The press will be there. But, as it turns out, Allan will not . . . Escaping (in his slippers) through his bedroom window, into the flowerbed, Allan makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, Allan's earlier life is revealed. A life in which - remarkably - he played a key role behind the scenes in some of the momentous events of the twentieth century. Translated by Roy Bradbury.
Fuzzy is a medivac pilot who spends his time trying to figure out which of his many lovers is the one great love of his life and modifying a WWII vintage P-38 Lightning. Suddenly, Mother Nature presents a perfect avalanche and an earthquake that nearly destroys his hometown of Juneau, Alaska. Fuzzy finds his ideal woman in the midst of the disaster.
