The leaves that fell in April |
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Naomi Shihab Nye once said ... |
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I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else's story, the delicious ache of a last page.
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Saladin Ahmed once said ... |
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Simple things ought not to be taken for granted.
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Laila Lalami once said ... |
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...a good story can heal...
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Carolyn R. Russell |
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TILT-A-WHIRL
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"Back then, I would have done almost anything to be as thin as my idols. But I’d have gladly settled to look like one of my svelte sisters." Carolyn R. Russell's latest nonfiction piece, "TILT-A-WHIRL" was recently published by The RavensPerch.
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Elaina Battista-Parsons |
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TICKLE MY ARM and Mork
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"Grandma Jo (short for Josephine) had rough, worked hands with long fingernails—longer than I was used to on any woman in my family. Sort of wide and rectangular, rather than narrow and elegant.." Read Elaina Battista-Parsons's latest pieces, "TICKLE MY ARM" and "Mork," recently published by OVUNQUE SIAMO and Drunk Monkeys respectively.
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Joseph Lezza |
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I’m Never Fine
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"People tend not to ask how you are in the abruption, the days between bereavement and burial. Not, perhaps, for a few weeks. In that bubble, even the most imperceptive can draw the obvious conclusion."
An excerpt of Joseph Lezza's "I'm Never Fine" was recently published by Longreads.
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Edward W. Said once said ... |
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Texts are not finished objects.
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Andrew Verlaine writes satirical and speculative fiction and works as a research psychologist in Dublin, where he lives with my wife. His work has been published in Carta, The Irish Independent, and The Psychologist.
His novel, Stigmaplay, will be published in 2025.
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Edwin Way Teale once said ... |
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All things seem possible in May
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Check out our top-rated all-time bestsellers & other recommendations: |
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by Rusty Allen |
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Ella's War
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It’s 1943 on the American home front, and Ella’s pent-up, common-law husband finally decides to leave their farm and enlist. Ella must either depart their seafaring town in coastal Delaware to pursue other dreams inland or try to save their farm. Their grade-school son, Reese, won’t budge, and Ella sees that farmers have a patriotic duty to stay on the land.
The bay and ocean waters before them have been preyed upon by German U-boats, and their village has become a refuge for survivors. When an officer from a surrendered German submarine is sent to her as part of POW farm labor, can Ella embrace the help in order to survive? And what happens when Dieter becomes more than a hand to her, amidst prying eyes and under her beloved but conflicted son’s watch? How will she choose when her explosive husband returns from Europe wounded from infantry duty against the Germans?
In Ella’s War, we travel a journey amongst women and men whose lives are deeply altered by the circumstances of WWII. What heroic or questionable choices must they make to be true to themselves and come through the great conflict?
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by Sue Dobson |
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Burned: The Spy South Africa Never Caught
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From the snowy Soviet shooting range to the heat and dust of Africa, nothing is what it seems. And neither is Sue Dobson.
The image of South Africa in the 1980's as the golden paradise on the tip of the African continent conceals a brutal, racist Apartheid regime. Those who oppose it risk their lives. Beauty and brutality go hand in hand.
Sue Dobson, a young white South African woman lives a 'legend'—a life where she pretends to conform, moving easily through the echelons of the racist government in her work as a journalist, whilst concealing her espionage and military training in the Soviet Union, and her intelligence work for the banned African National Congress.
Matters come to a head when sinister forces try to derail the Namibian independence process and Sue's cover is blown during a difficult honey trap operation, bringing the Cold War to Africa, and leading to her desperate flight across Southern Africa with the Apartheid security police snapping at her heels.
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by Cynthia Newberry Martin |
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Love Like This
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Incredible escapes, fantastic sleight-of-hand-Houdini's most challenging performances are dramatically portrayed in Houdini's Fabulous Magic. Walter Gibson, co-author, was in close touch with Harry Houdini for a number of years before his death and worked with the master magician in preparing material for the book. It is with the aid of Houdini's own scrapbooks and notes that this book was written.
The spectacular highlights of Houdini's career are described--and explained--here. Included are the famous escapes: escapes from a padlocked milk can filled with water; from locked jail cells; from a water-filled Chinese torture cell while suspended upside down; from packing cases weighted underwater. Again, in this book, Houdini walks through a brick wall, vanishes a 10,000-pound elephant and is buried alive. Once more, Houdini and his wife Bessie mysteriously exchange places in a locked trunk-in three seconds!
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by Anne Pinkerton |
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Were You Close? a sister’s quest to know the brother she lost |
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A successful radiologist and elite athlete, Dr. Dave tended to the blistered feet of strangers on race courses and gave many of his trophies away. He was known for his generosity and camaraderie with family, friends, colleagues, and adventure racing teammates, the latter of whom usually accompanied him on excursions. But he embarked on his final pursuit alone—an attempt to summit all 54 of the 14ers in Colorado—and made an unknowable error, falling 200 feet to his death.
Were You Close? challenges the cultural notion that the bereaved should simply “get over” their losses, illustrating that integrating these experiences can actually help a mourner not just heal, but move forward with clarified purpose.
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by Roz Morris |
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Ever Rest (now available as an audiobook)
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A lyrical, page-turning novel in the tradition of Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano, Ever Rest asks how we carry on after catastrophic loss. It will also strike a chord with fans of Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings and Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones for its people bonded by an unforgettable time; fans of Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, for music as a primal and romantic force; and Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air for the deadly and irresistible wildernesses that surround our comfortable world.
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