Letters Left Unsent is a rare look into the work and life of a humanitarian through the eyes of a full-time, professional aid worker as he grapples with the question of how to be an aid worker, and what it means. Aid worker, blogger, and humanitarian fiction author, J., pulls together a collection of previously published blog posts and articles, edited and distilled for use by students, instructors, and anyone who has ever dreamed of being a humanitarian.
Jonathon Bender had something to say to the world; unfortunately, the world wasn't listening, and didn't start until Jonathon committed suicide. Dear Everybody is his last will and testament: unsent letters addressed to relatives, friends, teachers, classmates, professors, roommates, employers, former girlfriends, his ex-wife, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the state of Michigan, and a weather satellite, just to name a few, alongside the eulogizing reminiscences of his closest acquaintances. Michael Kimball fills in the story of Jonathon's life through his letters, bringing the reader to laughter and tears in an involving and sympathetically written work of fiction.
Letters I Never Mailed: Clues to a Life, by Alec Wilder, in a new, annotated edition with introduction and supplementary material by David Demsey, foreword by jazz pianist Marian McPartland, and photographs by Louis Ouzer. Letters I Never Mailed: Clues to a Life, by Alec Wilder, in a new, annotated edition with introduction and supplementary material by David Demsey, foreword by jazz pianist Marian McPartland, and photographs by Louis Ouzer. Alec Wilder is a rare example of a composer who established a reputation both as a prolific composer of concertos, sonatas, and operas, and as a popular songwriter [including the hit "I'll Be Around"]. He was fearsomely articulate and had a wide and varied circle of friends ranging from Graham Greene to Frank Sinatra and Stan Getz. Letters I Never Mailed, hailed at its first publication [in 1975, by Little, Brown], tells the story of Wilder's musical and personal life through unsent "letters" addressed to various friends. In it, he shares his insights -- and sometimes salty opinions -- on composing, musical life, and the tension between art and commercialism. Thisnew, scholarly edition leaves Wilder's original text intact but decodes the mysteries of the original through an annotated index that identifies the letters' addressees, a biographical essay by David Demsey, and photographs by renowned photographer and lifelong friend of Wilder, Louis Ouzer. David Demsey is Professor of Music and coordinator of jazz studies at William Paterson University and an active jazz and classical saxophonist. He is co-author of Alec Wilder: A Bio-Bibliography [Greenwood Press] and has contributed to The Oxford Companion to Jazz.
Three women, united by love and kinship, struggle to conform to the social norms of the times in which they lived. In 1931, Katherine Henderson leaves behind her small town in Kansas and the marriage proposal of a local boy to live on her own and work at the Sears & Roebuck glove counter in Chicago. There she meets Annie--a bold, outspoken feminist who challenges Katherine's idea of who she thinks she is and what she thinks she wants in life. In 1997, Katherine's daughter, Joan, travels to Lawrence, Kansas, to clean out her estranged mother's house. Hidden away in an old suitcase, she finds a wooden box containing trinkets and a packet of sealed letters to a person identified only by a first initial. Joan reads the unsent letters and discovers a woman completely different from the aloof and unyielding mother of her youth-a woman who had loved deeply and lost that love to circumstances beyond her control. Now she just has to find the strength to use the healing power of empathy and forgiveness to live the life she's always wanted to live.
A cache of unsent love letters from the 1950s is found in a suitcase on a remote island in this mysterious love story in the tradition of the novels by Kate Morton and Elizabeth Gilbert. 1951. Esther Durrant, a young mother, is committed to an isolated mental asylum by her husband. Run by a pioneering psychiatrist, the hospital is at first Esther’s prison but soon surprisingly becomes her refuge. 2018. Free-spirited marine scientist Rachel Parker embarks on a research posting in the Isles of Scilly, off the Cornish coast. When a violent storm forces her to take shelter on a far-flung island, she discovers a collection of hidden love letters. Captivated by their passion and tenderness, Rachel determines to track down the intended recipient. But she has no idea of the far-reaching consequences her decision will bring. Meanwhile, in London, Eve is helping her grandmother, a renowned mountaineer, write her memoirs. When she is contacted by Rachel, it sets in motion a chain of events that threatens to reveal secrets kept buried for more than sixty years. With an arresting dual narrative that immediately captivates the reader, The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant is an inspirational story of the sacrifices made for love.
Unsent Letters to My Mother combines the skills of an anthropologist with the eye of a storyteller, making visible perspectives seldom explored in either literature or journalism: the expatriate woman in Kuwait, the woman as border-crosser, and the stories of struggle that rise above tragedy and travesty to highlight perseverance and hope. It is also a window into a hidden culture largely overlooked in the West, one in which slavery is alive and well, and back-street abortions, alcoholism, drug-smuggling, prostitution, domestic violence, and social inequality are as rampant as in any country of the Western hemisphere.The book is also a powerful testament to the author's journey, as a woman as well as an anthropologist. The women's stories and the analyses of the culture are all interspersed with the author's evocative epistolary accounts of her failing marriage, an extra-marital affair, and her humiliating departure, all set against the backdrop of a wealthy kingdom torn between Muslim traditions and Westernization. Páramo merges ethnography, memoir, research, quest, epistolary, and poetry, inventing the language to describe a sustained exploration of women's lives in Kuwait.
In this captivating dual narrative novel, a modern-day woman finds inspiration in hidden notes left by her home’s previous owner, a quintessential 1950s housewife. As she discovers remarkable parallels between this woman’s life and her own, it causes her to question the foundation of her own relationship with her husband--and what it means to be a wife fighting for her place in a patriarchal society. When Alice Hale leaves a career in publicity to become a writer and follows her husband to the New York suburbs, she is unaccustomed to filling her days alone in a big, empty house. But when she finds a vintage cookbook buried in a box in the old home's basement, she becomes captivated by the cookbook’s previous owner--1950s housewife Nellie Murdoch. As Alice cooks her way through the past, she realizes that within the cookbook’s pages Nellie left clues about her life--including a mysterious series of unsent letters penned to her mother. Soon Alice learns that while baked Alaska and meatloaf five ways may seem harmless, Nellie's secrets may have been anything but. When Alice uncovers a more sinister--even dangerous--side to Nellie’s marriage, and has become increasingly dissatisfied with the mounting pressures in her own relationship, she begins to take control of her life and protect herself with a few secrets of her own.
75 brief self-care reflections that will aid workers, activists, and volunteers prevent burnout, renew their sense of purpose, and achieve fulfillment Heal from over-exhaustion, prevent burnout, and regain your motivation with these short readings from a psychologist who has spent many years in the field working in conflict and disaster areas. Gathered from Alessandra Pigni’s interaction with humanitarian professionals and backed up by cutting–edge research, these concrete tools offer new perspectives and inspiration to anyone whose work is focused on helping others.
Harry S. Truman made plain speaking his trademark, and it was a common belief that "Give 'em hell" Harry spared few with his words. However, this fascinating collection of 140 amusing, angry, sarcastic, and controversial letters President Truman wrote but never mailed proves that conception wrong. Addressed to admirers and enemies alike, including Adlai Stevenson, Justice William Douglas, Dwight Eisenhower, Joe McCarthy, and Truman's wife, Bess, these intriguing letters cover such diverse subjects as the atomic bomb, running the country, and human greed.
