by Ingrid Persaud Sometimes the only way home is to leave the one you know. Written in two distinct, alternating voices, If I Never Went Home follows ten years in the turbulent lives of two narrators - thirty-something Bea, an immigrant in Boston, and ten-year-old Tina in Trinidad - as they separately navigate devastating losses, illness and betrayal in their quest to belong. Moving back and forth from the present to the past through flashbacks, this is the powerful story of how these women unearth family secrets that go beyond anything they could have imagined. Then unexpectedly their lives collide, and they are offered the chance to create a home. But can this gamble survive one last surprise about Tina's real identity?
Warren Hahn inherited his familys German work ethic. He knows the meaning of grueling farm labor, the sweat and toil that come from tilling the land, and the endless hours of work that life on an old homestead demands. Hes seen many changes in his life, but at the root of everything are the precious seeds of family and history. In this autobiographical work, Warren honors his family and the many hardships they endured to start a new life in America in the mid-1800s. His family grew from hardy and hardworking German people who risked everything to create a better future for their children. Warren grew up on tales of the difficult and dangerous ocean crossings, love, adventure, ambition, death, disaster, hardship, and hope; he knew that these stories needed to be preserved and celebrated. His ancestors settled in the harsh frontier lands of Texas and scrambled to create a future in a hostile, unforgiving environment and time. Now younger generations can come to know the price these strong-willed settlers paid for their family. Offering more than just a family history, he shares the story of his own life in modern-day Gillespie County, Texas. Every person has a story worth telling. In honor of his familys rich history, Warren has gathered many lifetimes of those stories to inspire future generations.
This book is a compilation of stories and lifetime experiences over a seventy-one year period in the author’s life. From World War II through the Space Age: from childhood innocence through the adventures of adulthood. All of this, motivated by her desire for her children, grandchildren, and subsequent generations to see what she has seen, and know her as a person. “I’ve always wished I had asked my grandmothers more questions about their lives. I don’t think I’m unique in that respect,” she says. Its filled with humor, history, and simply the joy of living while striving to become the person you think you were meant to be.
Now available from Thomas Wolfe’s original publisher, the final novel by the literary legend, that “will stand apart from everything else that he wrote” (The New York Times Book Review)—first published in 1940 and long considered a classic of twentieth century literature. A twentieth-century classic, Thomas Wolfe’s magnificent novel is both the story of a young writer longing to make his mark upon the world and a sweeping portrait of America and Europe from the Great Depression through the years leading up to World War II. Driven by dreams of literary success, George Webber has left his provincial hometown to make his name as a writer in New York City. When his first novel is published, it brings him the fame he has sought, but it also brings the censure of his neighbors back home, who are outraged by his depiction of them. Unsettled by their reaction and unsure of himself and his future, Webber begins a search for a greater understanding of his artistic identity that takes him deep into New York’s hectic social whirl; to London with an uninhibited group of expatriates; and to Berlin, lying cold and sinister under Hitler’s shadow. He discovers a world plagued by political uncertainty and on the brink of transformation, yet he finds within himself the capacity to meet it with optimism and a renewed love for his birthplace. He is a changed man yet a hopeful one, awake to the knowledge that one can never fully “go back home to your family, back home to your childhood…away from all the strife and conflict of the world…back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time.”
Jade is a little girl growing up in a small town of two thousand people. She doesn’t know any better, but to take the abuse her mother has to dole out. Her father doesn’t acknowledge her or try to save her, although he knows what is going on. This story is about how a little girl gets through her childhood not knowing where to turn or where to run. Everywhere she looks and thinks to go for help, she finds that her mother has already painted her as an uncontrollable child. When Jade looks for help, she receives blank stares back as if nobody’s home. She finds the strength to survive it all only to start out her adulthood unsure of what the future is holding for her. Nobody’s Home was written to inspire others who are in the same situation or know someone who needs help that is in an abusive household.
The deluxe eBook edition of Never Broken includes more than an hour of audio tracks and video footage, including live performances, exclusive a cappella recordings of each song featured in the book, and a rare recording of the audition that Jewel made at age fifteen for Interlochen Arts Academy. These additions, along with photographs of handwritten lyrics, personal artwork from Jewel’s archives, behind-the-scenes tour footage, and more, enrich the heartfelt emotion and sense of adventure already so present in Jewel’s words. New York Times bestselling poet and multi-platinum singer-songwriter Jewel explores her unconventional upbringing and extraordinary life in an inspirational memoir that covers her childhood to fame, marriage, and motherhood. When Jewel’s first album, Pieces of You, topped the charts in 1995, her emotional voice and vulnerable performance were groundbreaking. Drawing comparisons to Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, a singer-songwriter of her kind had not emerged in decades. Now, with more than thirty million albums sold worldwide, Jewel tells the story of her life, and the lessons learned from her experience and her music. Living on a homestead in Alaska, Jewel learned to yodel at age five, and joined her parents’ entertainment act, working in hotels, honky-tonks, and biker bars. Behind a strong-willed family life with an emphasis on music and artistic talent, however, there was also instability, abuse, and trauma. At age fifteen, she moved out and tasked herself with a mission: to see if she could avoid being the kind of statistic that her past indicated for her future. Soon after, she was accepted to the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, and there she began writing her own songs as a means of expressing herself and documenting her journey to find happiness. Jewel was eighteen and homeless in San Diego when a radio DJ aired a bootleg version of one of her songs and it was requested into the top-ten countdown, something unheard-of for an unsigned artist. By the time she was twenty-one, her debut had gone multiplatinum. There is much more to Jewel’s story, though, one complicated by family legacies, by crippling fear and insecurity, and by the extraordinary circumstances in which she managed to flourish and find happiness despite these obstacles. Along her road of self-discovery, learning to redirect her fate, Jewel has become an iconic singer and songwriter. In Never Broken she reflects on how she survived, and how writing songs, poetry, and prose has saved her life many times over. She writes lyrically about the natural wonders of Alaska, about pain and loss, about the healing power of motherhood, and about discovering her own identity years after the entire world had discovered the beauty of her songs.
The Day the Whores Went Home is based on an actual event that occurred in the small town of Sault Ste. Marie in far northern Michigan just as the Prohibition Era was ending. This story’s characters are as diverse as any the reader will encounter: a notoriously sinister gangster, a young woman with a painful past and a farmer whose moral code is, at best, fluid. The Day the Whores Went Home will pull the reader along on a voyage that explores pain and possibilities, condemnation and redemption, wins and losses.
Alive with insight, wit and Dyer's characteristic irreverence, this collection of essays offers a guide around the cultural maze, mapping a route through the worlds of literature, art, photography and music. Besides exploring what it is that makes great art great, Working the Room ventures into more personal territory with extensive autobiographical pieces - 'On Being an Only Child', 'Sacked' and 'Reader's Block', among other gems. Dyer's breadth of vision and generosity of spirit combine to form a manual for ways of being in - and seeing - the world today.
I do hope these writtings will be very inspirational to you, and inspire you with more hope for the future. I have written a lot of Truck driving songs and Humorus songs also. You will find songs and Poetry of different Holidays too. So come on and let's go on a journey into the past, the present, and hope for the Future.
