The Ride of Her Life

The Ride of Her Life

Author: Elizabeth Letts

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2022-06-07

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0525619348

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The triumphant true story of a woman who rode her horse across America in the 1950s, fulfilling her dying wish to see the Pacific Ocean, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Horse and The Eighty-Dollar Champion “The gift Elizabeth Letts has is that she makes you feel you are the one taking this trip. This is a book we can enjoy always but especially need now.”—Elizabeth Berg, author of The Story of Arthur Truluv In 1954, sixty-three-year-old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money and no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor’s advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men’s dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn’t even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness. Annie, Tarzan, and her dog, Depeche Toi, rode straight into a world transformed by the rapid construction of modern highways. Between 1954 and 1956, the three travelers pushed through blizzards, forded rivers, climbed mountains, and clung to the narrow shoulder as cars whipped by them at terrifying speeds. Annie rode more than four thousand miles, through America’s big cities and small towns. Along the way, she met ordinary people and celebrities—from Andrew Wyeth (who sketched Tarzan) to Art Linkletter and Groucho Marx. She received many offers—a permanent home at a riding stable in New Jersey, a job at a gas station in rural Kentucky, even a marriage proposal from a Wyoming rancher. In a decade when car ownership nearly tripled, when television’s influence was expanding fast, when homeowners began locking their doors, Annie and her four-footed companions inspired an outpouring of neighborliness in a rapidly changing world.


Acquired Tastes

Acquired Tastes

Author: Benjamin R. Cohen

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-08-17

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0262542919

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How modern food helped make modern society between 1870 and 1930: stories of power and food, from bananas and beer to bread and fake meat. The modern way of eating—our taste for food that is processed, packaged, and advertised—has its roots as far back as the 1870s. Many food writers trace our eating habits to World War II, but this book shows that our current food system began to coalesce much earlier. Modern food came from and helped to create a society based on racial hierarchies, colonization, and global integration. Acquired Tastes explores these themes through a series of moments in food history—stories of bread, beer, sugar, canned food, cereal, bananas, and more—that shaped how we think about food today. Contributors consider the displacement of native peoples for agricultural development; the invention of Pilsner, the first international beer style; the “long con” of gilded sugar and corn syrup; Josephine Baker’s banana skirt and the rise of celebrity tastemakers; and faith in institutions and experts who produced, among other things, food rankings and fake meat.


Canaan's Secret

Canaan's Secret

Author: R. Lawson Gamble

Publisher:

Published: 2018-08-08

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780692167755

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A murder, Mormon mysteries, and a cave full of bones. Zack Tolliver left the Federal Bureau of Investigation to be with his family but when his niece is threatened in the aftermath of the horrific murder of a high school classmate, Zack responds. He learns clues may reside in old bones in a hidden cave on the summit of Canaan Mountain. There is another murder. Some powerful force doesn't want the bones exposed. Zack begins to unravel a conspiracy which potentially involves activist ranchers, the local sheriff's department, Mormon fundamentalists, high-powered state politicians, and secrets carefully guarded for over a hundred years.


Lost Oasis

Lost Oasis

Author: R. Lawson Gamble

Publisher:

Published: 2020-06

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781733805247

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Modern science and high technology come up against deeply rooted cultures and ancient rituals in this Zack Tolliver, FBI, mystery where the Eagle Mountains are surrounded by the goblin rocks and barren flats of Joshua Tree National Park. A world-class scientist goes missing while consulting for a design team constructing a huge electric storage battery from the deserted pits of the old Kaiser Iron mines. Did this eccentric world-renown hydrologist simply wander off? Or was his fate more //ominous? The project moves ahead, but FBI Supervisory Agent Janice Hooper asks Zack to take a look. When someone plants a bomb in his Jeep the day he arrives, Zack realizes there is something more at stake. Soon he finds himself in a desperate duel with an unknown assassin who may very well be more than his match.


Talk Talk

Talk Talk

Author: T.C. Boyle

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2007-06-26

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780143112150

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Over the past twenty-five years, T.C. Boyle has earned wide acclaim and an enthusiastic following with such adventurous, inimitable novels as The Tortilla Curtain, Drop City, and The Road to Wellville. For his riveting eleventh novel, Boyle offers readers the closest thing to a thriller he has ever written, a tightly scripted page turner about the trials of Dana Halter, a thirty-three-year-old deaf woman whose identity has been stolen. Featuring a woman in the lead role (a Boyle first), Talk Talk is both a suspenseful chase across America and a moving story about language, love, and identity from one of America's most versatile and entertaining novelists.


The Possibility of Somewhere

The Possibility of Somewhere

Author: Julia Day

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Published: 2016-09-06

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1250097363

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Together is somewhere they long to be. Ash Gupta has a life full of possibility. His senior year is going exactly as he’s always wanted-- he's admired by his peers, enjoying his classes and getting the kind of grades that his wealthy, immigrant parents expect. There's only one obstacle in Ash's path: Eden Moore—the senior most likely to become class valedictorian. How could this unpopular, sharp-tongued girl from the wrong side of the tracks stand in his way? All Eden's ever wanted was a way out. Her perfect GPA should be enough to guarantee her a free ride to college -- and an exit from her trailer-park existence for good. The last thing she needs is a bitter rivalry with Ash, who wants a prized scholarship for his own selfish reasons. Or so she thinks. . .When Eden ends up working with Ash on a class project, she discovers that the two have more in common than either of them could have imagined. They’re both in pursuit of a dream -- one that feels within reach thanks to their new connection. But what does the future hold for two passionate souls from totally different worlds?


While We Were Watching Downton Abbey

While We Were Watching Downton Abbey

Author: Wendy Wax

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2013-04-02

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 1101599391

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From the bestselling author of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding comes a novel about four friends who share a passion for a beloved British television show that will change all of their lives. When the concierge of The Alexander, a historic Atlanta apartment building, invites his fellow residents to join him for weekly screenings of Downton Abbey, four very different people find themselves connecting with the addictive drama, and—even more unexpectedly—with each other... Samantha Davis married young and for the wrong reason: the security of old Atlanta money—for herself and for her orphaned brother and sister. She never expected her marriage to be complicated by love and compromised by a shattering family betrayal. Claire Walker is now an empty nester and struggling author who left her home in the suburbs for the old world charm of The Alexander, and for a new and productive life. But she soon wonders if clinging to old dreams can be more destructive than having no dreams at all. And then there’s Brooke MacKenzie, a woman in constant battle with her faithless ex-husband. She’s just starting to realize that it’s time to take a deep breath and come to terms with the fact that her life is not the fairy tale she thought it would be. For Samantha, Claire, Brooke—and Edward, who arranges the weekly gatherings—it will be a season of surprises as they forge a bond that will sustain them through some of life’s hardest moments—all of it reflected in the unfolding drama, comedy, and convergent lives of Downton Abbey.


Science Blogging

Science Blogging

Author: Christie Wilcox

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2016-01-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0300197551

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Here is the essential how-to guide for communicating scientific research and discoveries online, ideal for journalists, researchers, and public information officers looking to reach a wide lay audience. Drawing on the cumulative experience of twenty-seven of the greatest minds in scientific communication, this invaluable handbook targets the specific questions and concerns of the scientific community, offering help in a wide range of digital areas, including blogging, creating podcasts, tweeting, and more. With step-by-step guidance and one-stop expertise, this is the book every scientist, science writer, and practitioner needs to approach the Wild West of the Web with knowledge and confidence.