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The new one : painfully true stories from a reluctant dad / by Birbiglia, Mike,author.; Stein, J. Hope(Jen Hope),author.;
"Mike Birbiglia never wanted to be a father. In fact, there are seven very specific reasons he never wanted a kid, including his aversion to sticky surfaces and his less-than-ideal genes: he's had Lyme Disease, a bladder tumor, diabetes, and dangerous sleepwalking, to name a few. Not to mention the fact that Mike generally doesn't think people (including himself) are really all that great. Then Mike's wife, poet Jen Hope Stein, becomes infected with the contagion 'baby fever' and convinces him she'll do all of the parenting and that their lives don't have to change because of future baby Oona. Yes, he bought that line. In a hilarious memoir about the trials and tribulations of parenting, Mike Birbiglia shares anecdotes all parents can relate to, including laugh-out-loud observations on the lead up to being a parent, the birth of the baby, and the very messy aftermath of bringing this new one home ... for a forever stay! Borne out of and based on his Broadway show The New One, and entirely expanded upon with at least 50% new material for this book, new dad Birbiglia will have you crying from laughter and smiling with joy as he falls in love with baby Oona, despite how smelly she is! Mike's candid thoughts on his reluctance about becoming a dad, what he describes as being the 'pudgy milkless vice president of his family,' laced with Stein's poetry combine to form a heartfelt and hilarious book"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Humor.; Poetry.; Birbiglia, Mike.; Birbiglia, Mike; Humorists, American; Fatherhood; Parent and child; Parenting; Parent and child; Parenting;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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My remarkable journey : a memoir / by Johnson, Katherine,author.; Hylick, Joylette,author.; Moore, Katherine(Writer at National Geographic Kids),author.; Page, Lisa Frazier,author.;
"Katherine Johnson was 97 years old in 2015, when the world caught up to her. That year, President Barack Obama awarded her the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom-the nation's highest civilian honor-for her pioneering work decades earlier as a mathematician on NASA's first flights into space. The next year, a blockbuster movie, Hidden Figures, told the world the story of the West Area Computing unit, where Katherine worked as a human computer among an unheralded cadre of African American female mathematicians. In the days before IBM introduced its first electronic computers and at a time when African Americans were subjected to inferior treatment and status, these brilliant women were among those doing the computations that helped send the United States' first manned spaceflights to the moon. Even among such a talented group, Katherine stood out. Astronaut John Glenn was reluctant to trust her computations of NASA's first electronic computers for the trajectory of his 1962 flight to the moon, until Katherine did the math by hand. "Get the girl," Glenn said then, referring to Katherine. "If she says they're good, then I'm ready to go." Now, in her definitive new memoir, Katherine shares her personal journey from a child prodigy growing up in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia to the peaceful centenarian she was in her final days. In A Remarkable Journey: The Wisdom, Grit, and Grace of a Pioneering NASA Mathematician, Katherine wraps her story around some of the basic tenets of her life-the value of knowing that no one is better than you, education is paramount, timing is everything, and asking questions can break barriers. Readers will see this heroine in full dimension-curious "daddy's girl," standout college student, pioneering professional, doting mother, grieving widow, and sage elder. They will hear the wisdom of a woman who handled great fame with genuine humility and great tragedy with enduring hope. They will see the brilliance of a young college student who latched onto a dream, inspired by a college professor who told her she would make a good "research mathematician." She would carry the mantle of that professor, who in 1933 became one of the first African Americans in the country to receive a doctorate in math, only to find his own dreams of becoming a research mathematician crushed by racism. The book moves with Katherine through 100 years of racial history, pausing to show, for example, the influential role that educators at segregated schools and Historically Black Colleges and Universities played in nurturing the dreams of trailblazers. In this uplifting narrative, readers see a woman who navigated tough racial terrain with the soft-spoken grace expected of a woman of her era, and the unrelenting grit required to make history and inspire future generations"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Johnson, Katherine G.; United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration; African American women mathematicians; Women mathematicians; African American teachers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Superfan : how pop culture broke my heart : a memoir / by Lee, Jen Sookfong,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A memoir in pieces that uses one woman's life-long obsession with pop culture as a lens to explore family, grief, the power of female rage, Asian fetish, and what it's cost her to resist the trap of being a "good Chinese girl." For most of Jen Sookfong Lee's life, pop culture was an escape from family tragedy and a means of fitting in with the larger culture around her. Anne of Green Gables assured her that, despite losing her father at the age of twelve, one day she might still have the loving family of her dreams, and Princess Diana was proof that maybe there was more to being a good girl after all. And yet as Jen grew up, she began to recognize the ways in which pop culture was not made for someone like her-the child of Chinese immigrant parents who looked for safety in the invisibility afforded by embracing Model Minority myths. Ranging from the rise of Gwyneth Paltrow, the father-figure familiarity of Bob Ross, and the surprising maternal legacy of the Kardashians, to the long shadow cast by The Joy Luck Club, Jen uses pop culture icons to understand her emotionally fraught upbringing. She also dissects how pop culture created both unrealistic ideals and harmful stereotypes that would devastate her as she struggled to carve out her own path as an Asian woman, single mother, and writer. With great wit, bracing honesty, and a deep appreciation for the ways culture shapes us, Jen draws direct lines between the spectacle of the popular, the intimacy of our personal bonds, and the social foundations of our collective obsessions."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Lee, Jen Sookfong.; Asians in mass media.; Model minority stereotype; Popular culture; Stereotypes (Social psychology) in mass media.; Women authors; Authors, Canadian (English); Chinese Canadian women; Chinese Canadians; Popular culture;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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How to sleep well : the science of sleeping smarter, living better, and being productive / by Stanley, Neil,1965-author.;
Subjects: Sleep disorders; Sleep.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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All fours / by July, Miranda,1974-author.;
"A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey"--
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Artists; Man-woman relationships; Middle-aged women; Self-actualization (Psychology) in women; Wives; Women artists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Walking the bowl : a true story of murder and survival among the street children of Lusaka / by Lockhart, Chris,1967-author.; Chama, Daniel Mulilo,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.For readers of Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Nothing to Envy, this is a breathtaking real-life story of four street children in contemporary Zambia whose lives are drawn together and forever altered by the mysterious murder of a fellow street child. Based on years of investigative reporting and unprecedented fieldwork, Walking the Bowl immerses readers in the daily lives of four unforgettable characters: Lusabilo, a determined waste picker; Kapula, a burned-out brothel worker; Moonga, a former rock crusher turned beggar; and Timo, an ambitious gang leader. These children navigate the violent and poverty-stricken underworld of Lusaka, one of Africa's fastest growing cities. When the dead body of a ten-year-old boy is discovered under a heap of garbage in Lusaka's largest landfill, a murder investigation quickly heats up due to the influence of the victim's mother and her far-reaching political connections. The children's lives become more closely intertwined as each child engages in a desperate bid for survival against forces they could never have imagined. Gripping and fast-paced, the book exposes the perilous aspects of street life through the eyes of the children who survive, endure and dream there, and what emerges is an ultimately hopeful story about human kindness and how one small good deed, passed on to others, can make a difference in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
Subjects: Biographies.; True crime stories.; Personal narratives.; Murder; Street children;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Wonder : a novel / by Donoghue, Emma,1969-author.;
Set in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s, 'The Wonder' - inspired by numerous cases of 'fasting girls' between the sixteenth century and the twentieth - is a psychological thriller about a child's murder. Pitting all the seductions of fundamentalism against sense and love, this book is a searing examination of what nourishes us, body and soul.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Psychological fiction.; Historical fiction.; Fasting; Murder;
Available copies: 3 / Total copies: 3
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The winter garden / by Cornick, Nicola,author.;
1605: Anne Catesby fears for her family. Her son, the darkly charismatic Robert, is secretly plotting to kill the king, placing his wife and child in grave danger. Anne must make a terrible choice: betray her only child or risk her family's security ... and her very life. Present Day: When her dreams of becoming a musician are shattered, Lucy takes refuge in her family's ancestral home in Oxfordshire. Everyone knows it was originally home to the notorious gunpowder plotter Robert Catesby. As Lucy spends more time in the beautiful winter garden that Robert made, she starts to have strange visions of a woman in Tudor dress, terrified and facing a heartbreaking dilemma. As Lucy's and Anne's stories converge, a shared secret that has echoed through the centuries separating them will change Lucy's life forever.
Subjects: Alternative histories (Fiction); Novels.; Catesby, Robert, 1573-1605; Gardens; Man-woman relationships; Mothers and sons; Secrecy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Spring rain : a life lived in gardens / by Hamer, Marc,author,illustrator.;
"From the beloved author of How to Catch a Mole and Seed to Dust comes a highly original memoir of childhood, old age, and the restorative power of the garden. In this restorative little book, best enjoyed in a single sitting under a tree, an adventurous young boy who traveled the world in his mind meets the old man he becomes, and together they build a new garden from a neglected plot behind his house on the edge of town. Alternate chapters follow author and professional gardener Marc Hamer as a child and his current life as a 65 year old. Hamer weaves practical gardening knowledge through these two memoir strands as he describes the planning and planting of his new small garden near Cardiff, Wales. In the words of Hamer, "Spring Rain is about the joy of your own back garden. It is a story about the joy of small things, the world in a grain of sand, a universe in a small garden, with love for all the insects and slugs and flowers and weeds and seeds and roots and boundaries and shade and weather that the garden contains.""--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Hamer, Marc.; Gardeners; Gardens; Human ecology.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Scarred : a memoir of a childhood stolen and a life reclaimed / by Fredericks, Clark,author.;
A memoir of trauma and transformation by a man who was haunted by childhood abuse but who fought his way back -- a journey from vengeance and prison to freedom and redemption. For a boy growing up in the 1970s, rural northern New Jersey was a year-round playground, filled with secret fishing holes, enchanted woods, and private trails to explore with friends. But this childhood idyll was snatched from Clark Fredericks by a man he regarded as a local hero: Dennis Pegg, the town's Boy Scout leader, a law enforcement officer with the Sussex County Sheriff's Department, and, as Fredericks would discover, a serial predator. Through his teenage years and young adulthood, Fredericks kept silent about the horrific abuse he experienced, turning to drugs, alcohol, gambling, and sex addiction to numb the memory. For decades, he remained tormented by shame, unable to share the secrets that were eating away at his psyche -- until he violently confronted his abuser. At once heartbreaking and uplifting, Scarred is the story of a man who overcame the destructive aftereffects of violence and abuse that nearly destroyed him. Now an advocate for victims and a prominent voice in support of child abuse law reform, Fredericks powerfully illustrates the healing power of love and trust.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Fredericks, Clark.; Fredericks, Clark; Adult child sexual abuse victims; Child sexual abuse; Rape victims; Sexually abused boys.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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