The Thorny Road to Success
The Thorny Road to Success

Author: Karl Maramorosch

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2015-12-03

Total Pages: 809

ISBN-13: 1491754095

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Karl Maramorosch may be best known for his accomplishments as a top scientist, but the story of how he became such a success has never been tolduntil now. Born in Vienna in 1915, his family moved to Poland, and he fled with his wife, Irene, to Romania in September 1939. They spent four years in Polish refugee camps and were in Soviet-occupied Romania until October 1946, before coming to the United States in January 1947 on an immigration visa. But they did not arrive unscathed: Maramoroschs father died in the gas chamber in Belzec in 1942, and his mother also died at the camp. His brother died in the Kolomyya jail on Yom Kippur in 1942. His wifes closest relatives died in Treblinka in 1942. The inseparable couple refused to let any of that stop them from forging ahead: He began a scientific career that spanned more than sixty years, and she became a librarian at the New York Public Library, where she worked thirty years. Maramorosch recalls the painful losses of the past and the brutalities of war, but he also celebrates his love for his wife and life in The Thorny Road to Success.

One Day I Will Write About This Place
One Day I Will Write About This Place

Author: Binyavanga Wainaina

Publisher: Graywolf Press

Published: 2011-07-19

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1555970346

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*A New York Times Notable Book* *A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice* *A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year* Binyavanga Wainaina tumbled through his middle-class Kenyan childhood out of kilter with the world around him. This world came to him as a chaos of loud and colorful sounds: the hair dryers at his mother's beauty parlor, black mamba bicycle bells, mechanics in Nairobi, the music of Michael Jackson—all punctuated by the infectious laughter of his brother and sister, Jimmy and Ciru. He could fall in with their patterns, but it would take him a while to carve out his own. In this vivid and compelling debut memoir, Wainaina takes us through his school days, his mother's religious period, his failed attempt to study in South Africa as a computer programmer, a moving family reunion in Uganda, and his travels around Kenya. The landscape in front of him always claims his main attention, but he also evokes the shifting political scene that unsettles his views on family, tribe, and nationhood. Throughout, reading is his refuge and his solace. And when, in 2002, a writing prize comes through, the door is opened for him to pursue the career that perhaps had been beckoning all along. A series of fascinating international reporting assignments follow. Finally he circles back to a Kenya in the throes of postelection violence and finds he is not the only one questioning the old certainties. Resolutely avoiding stereotype and cliché, Wainaina paints every scene in One Day I Will Write About This Place with a highly distinctive and hugely memorable brush.