This book consists of different themes of my hometown - Taiwan. I conceptualize this book with some unique poems’ title such as beauty and peer because I dream them in my mind, and I really want to share this gladness with my readers. Besides, this book can let my readers explore my inner minds about how I observe my hometown and nature
A look back in time of a family of eight children growing up in a small hometown that they have never forgotten. A hometown that will always be a part of who they are and what they have become. It’s a memory that they will always cherish and be proud of. It’s a time they have left behind. A memory that will always be a part of who they are. Anyone without a hometown is welcomed to share in being part of mine. I want you to feel the sense of familiarity, competency, and comfort that a large family will share their most inner feelings with you and make you feel part of them. You will become part of the story that will take you on a journey. An account of real events that shares with you birth, sadness, death of a brother, happiness, and togetherness. A compelling story that at times will anger you, surprise you, and make you laugh. But it’s a story that each one of us eight children lived, and always look back on. The ending will be difficult to predict, surprise you, and comfort your thoughts. Life does not know what your journey will be. Accept each day and honor its beginning and end.
Welcome to Connor, My Hometown is a novel about a small town in Ohio and, more importantly, its various people, their lives, loves, failures and successes, and their interactions with one another. It employs a device, first seen in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, whereas, in that play, the stage manager would talk to the audience several times throughout the play. In this case, the town's editor of the Connor Gazette speaks to the reader. He himself is one of the strongest characters in the novel, and his love of the town and its people becomes readily apparent. There is romance. Jenna, owner of the Chit Chat Cafe, which is the public gathering place for many of the town's locals, meets Brian, an engineer and contract specialist from Sedwick Electronics, and they fall in love and get married. Both of them are in their mid-thirties. Pastor Barry Yoder and his wife, Sherry, are among the most beloved of the town's inhabitants, and they minister to the people. They come alongside a couple who have separated and help restore the lost love from their marriage. Jim and Bessie Benson are loved by everyone. He owns the town's Marathon gas station, and Bessie makes the best pies in the town, but she finds out she has cancer, and the whole town comes together and prays for her. There is Miss Ruth Hennessey, principal of Marshall Middle School, who is a no-nonsense woman on the outside but has a heart of gold on the inside. There's Jim Morrison, general contractor, and Randy Colthirst, the town's dentist. All three hang out nearly every weekday at the Chit Chat café, and their interactions and banter make for some lively discussions. And that's what makes the Chit Chat Cafe seem more like a home than a restaurant. There are many more memorable characters, including the mayor, police chief, fire chief, other pastors. You will grow to love the town and its people. The editor, who used to be a columnist for a major Chicago newspaper for twenty years, brings it all together. I would love to live in Connor myself!
Daughters of the Bear is an anthology of non-fiction by 53 Korean women such as a shopkeeper in Itaewon, a doctor in Apkujong, a musician in Myong-Dong, a housewife in Chamshil, and a student at Ewha Womans University. Shiver with a merchant as she recollects escaping with her sisters and mother across the 38th Parallel in a rowboat under Russian gunfire; share with a young professional her secret wedding to a coworker; and walk along the paths between green carpeted barley fields toward a woman's childhood home. Through their stories, Korean women of different generations explore family, sacrifice, memories, relationships, sexuality, society's expectations and constraints, education, and the search for fulfillment and identity. The book includes a foreword by Chang Pilwha and translations by Young-Oak Wells, Professor Kenneth Wells and Brother Anthony of Taizé. For additional information on the editors and their publications visit www.daughtersofthebear.com.
This anthology is a catalog of seeds—the work of a network of young writers and mentors, each cultivating a shimmering, emergent voice. For the past two years, New York City high school students have weathered an adolescence shaped by an ongoing global pandemic. Throughout it all, they have found new ways to build community and take root. Roots allow for living beings to journey into our past and forward into the future, toward and away from home, and enable us to withstand the storms that invariably pass through. In short stories, personal essays, poetry, and more, the students reflect on endurance, change, and growth. For twenty-five years, Girls Write Now has been amplifying transformative stories that break down the barriers of gender, race, age and poverty. In addition to being the first writing and mentoring organization of its kind, Girls Write Now continually ranks among the top programs nationwide for driving social-emotional growth for youth. The nationally award-winning nonprofit mentors the next generation of female and gender expansive writers and leaders who are shaping culture, impacting businesses and creating change.
In this splendid book, one of America's masters of nonfiction takes us home--into Hometown, U.S.A., the town of Northampton, Massachusetts, and into the extraordinary, and the ordinary, lives that people live there. As Tracy Kidder reveals how, beneath its amiable surface, a small town is a place of startling complexity, he also explores what it takes to make a modern small city a success story. Weaving together compelling stories of individual lives, delving into a rich and varied past, moving among all the levels of Northampton's social hierarchy, Kidder reveals the sheer abundance of life contained within a town's narrow boundaries. Does the kind of small town that many Americans came from, and long for, still exist? Kidder says yes, although not quite in the form we may imagine. A book about civilization in microcosm, Home Town makes us marvel afresh at the wonder of individuality, creativity, and civic order--how a disparate group of individuals can find common cause and a code of values that transforms a place into a home. And this book makes you feel you live there.
Why is there a twelve on the cover of this blackjack book instead of the usual twenty-one? No blackjack author in their right mind would put a hand of twelve on the cover. Glen Wiggy did—he is full of surprises like that. Part how-to manual, part memoir, 1536 Free Waters and Other Blackjack Endeavors—Finding Profit and Humor in Card-Counting chronicles Wiggy’s amusing experiences while playing blackjack during more than eight hundred casino visits from January 2001 until June 2008. It also introduces blackjack card-counting in a fun and easy-to-learn format. In addition to the everyday casino patrons, starving puppies, angry pit bosses, French doughnuts, talking sea gulls, and 1536 bottled waters make unforgettable appearances in these entertaining stories tailored for casual blackjack gamblers. For players pursuing the game for serious profit, Wiggy also presents practical tips on • Aspects of blackjack basic strategy • Fundamentals of card-counting • Techniques for managing money • Dangers of greedy gambling behavior Unlike most blackjack strategy guides, 1536 Free Waters and Other Blackjack Endeavors won’t teach you how to “kill” the dealer or make a living playing the game. Instead, you’ll learn basic strategy and introductory card-counting skills that give you enough confidence to approach the table with a positive attitude and reasonable expectation of winning. Plus, you’ll learn what to expect from the cards and the wonderfully strange people and places you may encounter. Enjoy the ride. “Undoubtedly, the most enjoyable blackjack book I’ve read in my twenty years as the editor of a gambling publishing company. It had me laughing out loud.” —Deke Castleman, editor for Huntington Press Read more at www.blackjackstories.com.
Commemorating Bruce Springsteen's twenty-five years as a recording artist, here is a panoramic view of his career in a form never seen before. This is the complete collection of Bruce Springsteen's recorded lyrics, illustrated with hundreds of never-before-published images from some of rock & roll journalism's greatest photographers, including Annie Leibovitz, David Gahr, Lynn Goldsmith, Bruce Weber, and many others. From Jim Marchese's informal backstage shots during the European leg of the 1980 The River tour to Neal Preston's amazing documentation of the Born in the U.S.A. days to Pam Springsteen's portraits showing a side of the musician rarely seen by the public, this is the most intimate look at Bruce Springsteen ever published. The photos and lyrics are accompanied by original commentary by Springsteen, in which he reflects on the songs, the performances, and the quarter-century career that for many defines the American dream. In words and in pictures, here is the one book no Bruce Springsteen fan can afford to be without.
Stories of Elke McKee's German soldier father making his way home after World War II ends but is captured and turned over to the Russians. He spends years in a Russian prison labor camp. The author first meets her father at age eleven in east Germany following his release in 1955. He recovers from prison despite impairments, adapts to home life, a new daughter, and the German government job he held before the army. Their lives improve. Elke ultimately moves to the US where this biography updates her life. Her father is asked to tape record his experiences which he reluctantly does and are recounted in this book. They include the Russian peasants, cruel guards, surviving unbelievably hard conditions, and overcoming despair.
While teaching English as a foreign expert at Peking University, the author grew to understand the lives & views of his students in a most profound way. In this chronicle of his time in China, the author features original essays written by his students for his class, offering keen insight into the minds of China's brightest students. Extremely candid discussions of social issues that include educations, social issues, & the meaning of love, supported by the illuminating observations of a supportive & encouraging teacher, prove that understanding earned in a classroom is not limited to that of the students.