A war novel of breathtaking power, this finalist for the Booker Prize presents "an astonishing triumph of the imagination" ("The New Yorker"). In the summer of 1944, fifteen-year-old Sebastian Westland joins the SS, knowing that he and his cohorts will probably be destroyed in the last stages of a war they neither welcome nor comprehend. At the Battle of the Bulge, this army of boys makes its last stand--and Sebastian is transfigured by his fear.
Reminiscent of the classic Random Family and The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, but told by the man who lived it, The Cook Up is a riveting look inside the Baltimore drug trade portrayed in The Wire and an incredible story of redemption. The smartest kid on his block in East Baltimore, D. was certain he would escape the life of drugs, decadence, and violence that had surrounded him since birth. But when his brother Devin is shot-only days after D. receives notice that he's been accepted into Georgetown University-the plans for his life are exploded, and he takes up the mantel of his brother's crack empire. D. succeeds in cultivating the family business, but when he meets a woman unlike any he's known before, his priorities are once more put into question. Equally terrifying and hilarious, inspiring and heartbreaking, D.'s story offers a rare glimpse into the mentality of a person who has escaped many hells.
Turn these pages, and you will find yourself surprisingly inspired by a murderer locked up in prison, a drug-using football player who dreamed of the pros, and a selfish, womanizing dare-devil who died and met God. You will root for a husband and father whose marriage was a battleground, a homosexual man searching desperately to belong, and an innocent lamb who lost, in a single moment, everyone he cared about most. And you will rejoice that their sins and their pasts were no obstacle for heaven. All of these men became living beacons of hope, walking proof of the triumph of the human spirit over darkness. In the heat of the fiercest of spiritual battles, when all seemed lost and these men were left with nothing to stand on but stormy seas, they were given a lifeboat, a new path in life-one that they never dreamed of, not for an instant. They were pulled in a different direction that, at first, they didn't want, and then at last, they loved. In the boat of safety, they sailed with sure victory into breathtaking, unknown vistas. This book exposes the inner lives of six remarkable men: their private guilt, masked pain, secret hopes and loves-things they normally do not share, but perhaps with one human being. Yet, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, they have openly revealed to us what most men never do, their souls. While this book may be about six males, it is for everyone, because it is also a book about a woman. That woman is the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the boat of safety for all of us, the surest and safest passage to the heart of her Son. She is our victory and sweet reassurance that God's plan is infinitely better than our own; and she is our challenge to follow her Son, no matter the cost, no matter how fierce the battle. Read the stories of these brave men, and you will inevitably come away with a desire to climb in the boat with them and sail safely home.
Contains a sample of the research conducted by members of the Texas Folklore Society at the turn of the millennium as represented at the 1998, 1999, and 2000 meetings.
LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to share, print and post images for personal use.
The generation that toiled through the Great Depression and won the Second World War has become known as “the greatest generation.” But not all of them qualified for that exaggerated epithet in the eyes of their own children. In this tender but unsparing memoir, Mary Cimarolli remembers a world in which the family home was lost to foreclosure, her father made his way by bootlegging, and school was a haven to hide from her brother’s teasing. Her stories are about struggle and survival, making do and overcoming, and, ultimately, reconciliation. From her perspective as a child, she describes the cotton stamps and other programs of the New Deal, the yellow-dog Democrat politics and racism of East Texas, and the religious revivals and Old Settlers reunions that gave a break from working in the cotton patch. The colorful colloquialisms of rural East Texas that dot the manuscript help express both the traditionalism of the region and its changes under the impact of modernization, electrification, and the coming of war. Along with these regional and national trends, Cimarolli skillfully interweaves the personal: conflict between her parents, the death of her brother a few days before his sixteenth birthday, and her own inner tensions.
The J.R. Watkins Company began in a back room of a small house in Plainview, Minnesota, in 1868. Through direct selling and innovative ideas like placing "Trial Marks" on bottles and offering money-back guarantees, Watkins grew from a one-man company into the world's largest direct selling company, an international corporation spanning North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and England. Today, the company is still in business selling the liniment that founder J.R. Watkins first bottled in 1868. With the help of nearly 40,000 sales associates worldwide, the Watkins name and its quality products are instantly recognizable to customers across the globe.
