Natalie Ashby has lived all of her life in active ministry. Her parents were evangelists and church planters with twelve children in tow -- she was the youngest girl. She married right out of high school and became a Pentecostal preacher's wife. When her husband was diagnosed with cancer, she expected life to slow down but it only increased in responsibility. Though the illnesses that plagued him were long-suffering, nothing could prepare her for the day he died. Suddenly, she was called "widow". A dirty word. A constant reminder of a long journey that led to the label. Natalie candidly shares the road to discovering her identity, purpose, calling and coming out on the other side. This book is her story in this season of life -- a newly-widowed former pastor's wife navigating life outside of full-time ministry. The tables have turned, her seat has changed, and she's along for the ride.
My Story is a refl ection on the events of my lifefrom my birth in 1926 until my marriage in 1949, at the age of 23. My experiences in growing up on a poor, hilly farm without electricity or inside plumbing during the depression years of the 1930s, then the diffi cult war years of the early 1940s, followed by the growing prosperity after WW II all helped to shape the kind of person that I wished to become. These events helped me to progressively establish three main goals for my life: Build a meaningful relationship with my Creator, get a worthwhile education, and fi nd a Special Girl to share my life. In those 23 years, I accomplish two of my goals. The one remaining goalmy fi rst and oldest objectivewas still a work in progress at the end of My Story. My efforts to fi nd an acceptable way of worshipping my God would not be realized until a few more years had passed. I had also determined that my Special Girl and I would reach this goal together. If time allows, I will complete that account in Our StoryAll the Way in the near future. My initial purpose in writing this account has been to preserve that heritage for my two sons, Steve and Jeff, and for their families . . . If My Story proves to be of any interest to others, so much the better. Jim Wahl - text should be Amazone BT for "Jim Wahl"
In this tender story of international adoption, a mother weaves a magical web of tales to explain how her child came to be part of the family. A young child asks his mother to tell the story of where he came from. I might tell how you came from a land far away in a hot air balloon. The basket slowly drifted down like a feather into our yard. I dropped the firewood I was carrying and ran to you. 'You're home now, ' I said. Or maybe it was a lark--and not a stork--that brought the child to the mother. Or perhaps he was rescued from a dragon! Each lyrical and fantastic tale contains a small kernel of truth that pieces together the baby's journey from China into his new mother's arms. Beautifully illustrated by Jessica Lanan, The Story I'll Tell is a gentle and moving story of international adoption and parental love that is sure to touch the hearts of readers everywhere, no matter how they came to be a family.
In the tradition of Michael Herr's Dispatches, a National Guardsman's account of the war in Iraq. John Crawford joined the Florida National Guard to pay for his college tuition, willingly exchanging one weekend a month and two weeks a year for a free education. But in Autumn 2002, one semester short of graduating and newly married—in fact, on his honeymoon—he was called to active duty and sent to the front lines in Iraq. Crawford and his unit spent months upon months patrolling the streets of Baghdad, occupying a hostile city. During the breaks between patrols, Crawford began recording what he and his fellow soldiers witnessed and experienced. Those stories became The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell—a haunting and powerful, compellingly honest book that imparts the on-the-ground reality of waging the war in Iraq, and marks as the introduction of a mighty literary voice forged in the most intense of circumstances.
Praise for Chloe Caldwell: "I read it a couple of months ago in one can't-put-it-down-even-though-it's-the-middle-of-the-night sitting. It's as intense and interesting and clear-hearted as they come."—Cheryl Strayed "I'll read anything Chloe Caldwell writes. She's a rare bird: fearless, dark, prolific, unpretentious, and truly honest."—Elisa Albert "Nothing's sexier than first love and first intimacies, and Caldwell's brave autobiographical tale twists the trope into a powerful story about unexpectedly falling in love with a woman and the discoveries, sexual and otherwise, that ensue."—Time Out New York "The essays in this collection are as exuberant as they are sad. Her storytelling is as vulnerable as it is bombastic. These essays roll in gangsta, but wear freshly picked daisies in their hair."—Rookie Magazine Flailing in jobs, failing at love, getting addicted and un-addicted to people, food, and drugs—I'll Tell You in Person is a disarmingly frank account of attempts at adulthood and all the less than perfect ways we get there. Caldwell has an unsparing knack for looking within and reporting back what's really there, rather than what she'd like you to see. Chloe Caldwell is the author of the novella Women, and the essay collection Legs Get Led Astray. Her work has appeared in the Sun, Salon, VICE, Hobart, Nylon, the Rumpus, Men's Health, and LENNY, among others. She teaches personal essay and memoir writing in New York City and lives in Hudson.
Satan's youngest daughter works at a call center. The Twelve Dancing Princesses lure men into an underground nightclub. A dancing bear falls in love and into addiction. The Queen of All Magic throws a party on the bayou to celebrate the death of her soulmate. I'll Tell You a Love Story does exactly as its title promises; tells love stories. Stories that blend the ordinary with the mythic, mixes the everyday with fables, and shifts between hope and heartache.
Some of the stories in Tell Me a Story, Ill Bake You a Cake will take you back to a carefree time when kids ran barefoot all summer, caught lightning bugs, climbed trees, and didnt have to come home until the streetlights came on at night. Joys humor is evident as she tells about kitchen disasters, poison ivy, family togetherness, the agony of math, the ecstasy of Baked Alaska, and the infamous Lavisson sisters. Some stories are funny, others poignant, but all are entertaining. The recipes are simple and non-threatening to the novice cook. As long as youre not looking for recipes for turnips, brussels sprouts, or liver, youll find a recipe to suit any occasion. Enjoy the stories. Now go into the kitchen, and cook something.
Local rather than international, the dramas and privations described in this memoir are not the stuff of headlines. This is the story of an ordinary boy growing up in Belfast after the war; an ordinary boy who would go on to become world-famous as a hostage in Beirut and author of the extraordinary testimony of imprisonment and survival that was An Evil Cradling. Brian Keenan has captured the vanished world of 1950s Belfast in all its vivid vernacular and grey, post-war austerity. I'll Tell Me Ma is an affectionate story of a disaffected childhood. At the centre is a shy, self-conscious boy of unusual moral integrity; a boy puzzled by religion and sectarianism, in love with books and music and full of curiosity about the world outside. It is also a book about coming-to-terms with the past: a resounding, thrilling record of redemption.
From striking new voice Simon P. Clark comes Tell the Story to Its End; richly atmospheric, moving, unsettling, and told in gorgeous prose, it is a modern classic in the making. "Tell the story to its end," says Eren with a grin. His yellow eyes are glowing like embers in the night. "When I reach the end," I say, "what happens? You'll have the whole story." "Hmm," he says, looking at me and licking his lips with a dry, grey tongue. "What happens then? Why don't we find out?" People are keeping secrets from Oli. His mum has brought him to stay with his aunt and uncle in the countryside, but nobody will tell him why his dad isn't there, too. Why hasn't he come with them? Has something happened? Why won't anyone talk about it? Oli has a hundred questions, and only an old, empty house in the middle of an ancient forest for answers. But then he finds a secret of his own: there is a creature that lives in the attic... Eren is not human. Eren is hungry for stories. Eren has been waiting for him. With Eren to listen, Oli starts to make sense of what's happening. But Eren is powerful, and though he's willing to help Oli, he's not willing to do it for free; he wants something in return. Oli must make a choice: he can learn the truth -- but to do so he must abandon himself to Eren's world, forever. -- “Savvy readers and would-be writers will love this exploration of story as an art form, a panacea, and an endless part of life.” - Kirkus Reviews “Clark does an admirable job of conveying Oli’s wonder, confusion, and frustration as he strays farther and farther from reality... Adeptly mixes fantasy with reality.” - Publishers Weekly
With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
