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Languages of truth : essays 2003-2020 / by Rushdie, Salman,author.;
"Salman Rushdie is celebrated as a storyteller of the highest order, illuminating deep truths about our society and culture through his gorgeous, often searing, prose. Now, in his latest collection of nonfiction, he brings together insightful and inspiring essays, criticism, and speeches that focus on his relationship with the written word, and solidify his place as one of the most original thinkers of our time. Gathering pieces written between 2003 and 2019, Languages of Truth chronicles Rushdie's own intellectual engagement with a period of momentous cultural shifts. Immersing the reader in a wide variety of subjects, he delves into the nature of storytelling as a deeply human need, and what emerges is, in myriad ways, a love letter to literature itself. Rushdie explores what the work of authors from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty, and Toni Morrison mean to him, often by telling vivid, sometimes humorous stories of his own personal encounters with them, whether on the page or in person. He delves deeper than ever before into the nature of "truth," revels in the vibrant malleability of language, and the creative lines that can join art and life, and he looks anew at migration, multiculturalism and censorship. The ideas, true stories and arguments presented here are at once revelatory, funny and eye-opening, enlivened on every page by Rushdie's signature wit and dazzling voice, making this volume a genuine pleasure to read"--
Subjects: Essays.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Demon Copperhead [text (large print)] : a novel / by Kingsolver, Barbara,author.;
Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It's the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Large type books.; Novels.; Opioid abuse; Orphans; Teenage boys;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Fire Exit A novel [electronic resource] : by Talty, Morgan.aut; cloudLibrary;
“Fire Exit, Morgan Talty’s debut novel, is utterly consuming. The novel absolutely smolders.” —Tommy Orange Does she remember this day? Does she remember it at all? Does she know this history—this story—her body holds secret from her? From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. On the far bank, he caught brief moments of Roger and Mary raising their only child, Elizabeth—from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from this family and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep. Now it’s been weeks since he’s seen Elizabeth and Charles is worried. As he attempts to hold on and care for what he can: his home and property, his alcoholic, quick-tempered and big-hearted friend Bobby, and his mother, Louise, who is slipping ever-deeper into dementia—he becomes increasingly haunted by his past. Forced to confront a lost childhood on the reservation, a love affair cut short, and the death of his beloved stepfather, Fredrick, in a hunting accident—a death that he and Louise cannot agree where to lay the blame—Charles contends with questions he’s long been afraid to ask. Is it his secret to share? And would his daughter want to know the truth?  From award-winning author of Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty’s debut novel, Fire Exit, is a masterful and unforgettable story of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture and inheritance, and what, if anything, we owe one another.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Native American & Aboriginal; Family Life;
© 2024., Knopf Canada,
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Master of me : the secret to controlling your narrative / by Palmer, Keke,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Keke Palmer thought she knew who she was. What it means to be a good person and what it takes to be a success. It all seemed so simple, until she realized the challenges she would have to face to prove to herself who she wanted to be. From feeling alienated to having to restart her career after ten years in to becoming a single mother just months after her son was born -- everything she worked for in life that she felt granted her what she wanted now also reminded her that "life is going to life" and throw curveballs regardless of what you deserve. It was in this realization that her understanding of value changed: "Real value doesn't come from what you experience in the world but from how you manage yourself in the midst of those storms." She found herself asking, Where do I find my power? How do I master myself? In her own raw and intimate words, Keke talks about everything from her struggles with boundaries to unconditional love, forgiveness, and worthiness. "Don't block your blessings and potential opportunities by allowing the voices of other people to influence your actions," she says. "How you're choosing to set yourself up for success is between you and the person looking back at you in the mirror." Throughout the book, Keke also poses readers with the questions needed to get them through their own challenging times by sharing personal stories and lessons she's learned along the way. She gets candid about the tools she's developed to take the reins, harness her vulnerability, and recognize ownership in the narrative of her life -- which allowed her to turn personal power into major power. In this exhilarating, deeply poignant, and often laugh-out-loud book, Lauren Keyana Palmer gets real about life, work, love, and belief. These pages will encourage readers to empower themselves with the truth, leverage their currency, and find the keys to master themselves and the art of alchemy. Keke writes. "You are not on anyone else's timeline, only your own." The result is a tour de force. They said, "Jack of all Trades, Master of None." She said, "No, I am the Master. Of Me.""--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Palmer, Keke.; Actresses; African American actresses; Self-realization.; Singers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Madness : race and insanity in a Jim Crow asylum / by Hylton, Antonia,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."On a cold day in March of 1911, officials marched twelve Black men into the heart of a forest in Maryland. Under the supervision of a doctor, the men were forced to clear the land, pour cement, lay bricks, and harvest tobacco. When construction finished, they became the first twelve patients of the state's Hospital for the Negro Insane. For centuries, Black patients have been absent from our history books. Madness transports readers behind the brick walls of a Jim Crow asylum. In Madness, Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist Antonia Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the last segregated asylums with surviving records and a campus that still stands to this day in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. She blends the intimate tales of patients and employees whose lives were shaped by Crownsville with a decade-worth of investigative research and archival documents. Madness chronicles the stories of Black families whose mental health suffered as they tried, and sometimes failed, to find safety and dignity. Hylton also grapples with her own family's experiences with mental illness, and the secrecy and shame that it reproduced for generations. As Crownsville Hospital grew from an antebellum-style work camp to a tiny city sitting on 1,500 acres, the institution became a microcosm of America's evolving battles over slavery, racial integration, and civil rights. During its peak years, the hospital's wards were overflowing with almost 2,700 patients. By the end of the 20th-century, the asylum faded from view as prisons and jails became America's new focus. In Madness, Hylton traces the legacy of slavery to the treatment of Black people's bodies and minds in our current mental healthcare system. It is a captivating and heartbreaking meditation on how America decides who is sick or criminal, and who is worthy of our care or irredeemable"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Crownsville State Hospital; African Americans; African Americans; Mentally ill; Psychiatric hospitals; Racism in medicine.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Endurance : a year in space, a lifetime of discovery / by Kelly, Scott,1964-author.; Dean, Margaret Lazarus,1972-author.;
"A stunning memoir from the astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station--a candid account of his remarkable voyage, of the journeys off the planet that preceded it, and of his colorful formative years. The veteran of four space flights and the American record holder for consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few have. Now, he takes us inside a sphere utterly inimical to human life. He describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both existential and banal: the devastating effects on the body; the isolation from everyone he loves and the comforts of Earth; the pressures of constant close cohabitation; the catastrophic risks of depressurization or colliding with space junk, and the still more haunting threat of being unable to help should tragedy strike at home--an agonizing situation Kelly faced when, on another mission, his twin brother's wife, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot while he still had two months in space. Kelly's humanity, compassion, humor, and passion resonate throughout, as he recalls his rough-and-tumble New Jersey childhood and the youthful inspiration that sparked his astounding career, and as he makes clear his belief that Mars will be the next, ultimately challenging step in American spaceflight. A natural storyteller and modern-day hero, Kelly has a message of hope for the future that will inspire for generations to come. Here, in his personal story, we see the triumph of the human imagination, the strength of the human will, and the boundless wonder of the galaxy."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Kelly, Scott, 1964-; International Space Station.; Astronauts;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Blind spots : when medicine gets it wrong, and what it means for our health / by Makary, Marty,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.More Americans have peanut allergies today than at any point in history. Why? In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a strict recommendation that parents avoid giving their children peanut products until they're three years old. Getting the science perfectly backward, triggering intolerance with lack of early exposure, the US now leads the world in peanut allergies-and this misinformation is still rearing its head today. How could the experts have gotten it so wrong? Dr. Marty Makary asks, Could it be that many modern-day health crises have been caused by the hubris of the medical establishment? Experts said for decades that opioids were not addictive, igniting the opioid crisis. They refused menopausal women hormone replacement therapy, causing unnecessary suffering. They demonized natural fat in foods, driving Americans to processed carbohydrates as obesity rates soared. They told citizens that there are no downsides to antibiotics and prescribed them liberally, causing a drug-resistant bacteria crisis. When modern medicine issues recommendations based on good scientific studies, it shines. Conversely, when modern medicine is interpreted through the harsh lens of opinion and edict, it can mold beliefs that harm patients and stunt research for decades. In Blind Spots, Dr. Makary explores the latest research on critical topics ranging from the microbiome to childbirth to nutrition and longevity and more, revealing the biggest blind spots of modern medicine and tackling the most urgent yet unsung issues in our $4.5 trillion health care ecosystem. The path to medical mishaps can be absurd, entertaining, and jaw-dropping-but the truth is essential to our health.
Subjects: Medical care.; Medical errors.; Medical policy.; Public health.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The great leader and the fighter pilot : the true story of the tyrant who created North Korea and the young lieutenant who stole his way to freedom / by Harden, Blaine.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Introduction: Players and Game -- Part I: Guerrilla and Rich Boy -- Beginnings -- Poodle and Pretender -- Sweet-Talking Stalin -- Part II: War -- The Great Liberation Struggle -- Kicked in the Teeth -- MiGs -- Return to North Korea -- An International Sporting Event -- Attack Maps and Defection Bribes -- Uncle Yoo -- Part III: Flight -- Flying Clear -- Squeezing the Moolah -- Right Stuff and Fake Stuff -- Learning and Purging -- Epilogue."From the bestselling author of Escape from Camp 14, the murderous rise of North Korea's founding dictator and the fighter pilot who faked him out. In The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot, New York Times bestselling author Blaine Harden tells the riveting story of how Kim Il Sung grabbed power and plunged his country into war against the United States while the youngest fighter pilot in his air force was playing a high-risk game of deception--and escape. As Kim ascended from Soviet puppet to godlike ruler, No Kum Sok noisily pretended to love his Great Leader. That is, until he swiped a Soviet MiG-15 and delivered it to the Americans, not knowing they were offering a $100,000 bounty for the warplane (the equivalent of nearly one million dollars today). The theft--just weeks after the Korean War ended in July 1953--electrified the world and incited Kim's bloody vengeance. During the Korean War the United States brutally carpet bombed the North, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and giving the Kim dynasty, as Harden reveals, the fact-based narrative it would use to this day to sell paranoia and hatred of Americans. Drawing on documents from Chinese and Russian archives about the role of Mao and Stalin in Kim's shadowy rise, as well as from never-before-released U.S. intelligence and interrogation files, Harden gives us a heart-pounding escape adventure and an entirely new way to understand the world's longest-lasting totalitarian state"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Kim, Il-sŏng, 1912-1994.; No, Kum-Sok.; Defectors; Dictators; Escapes; Fighter pilots; Korean War, 1950-1953; Theft;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The extraordinary life of an ordinary man : a memoir / by Newman, Paul,1925-2008,author.; Rosenthal, David,1953-compiler,editor.; Stern, Stewart,interviewer.;
"The raw, candid, unvarnished memoir of an American icon Several years before he died in 2008, Paul Newman commissioned his best friend to interview actors and directors he worked with, his friends, his children, his first wife, his psychiatrist, and Joanne Woodward, to create an oral history of his life. After hearing and reading what others said about him, Newman then dictated his own version of his life. Now, this long-lost memoir--90% Newman's own narrative, interspersed with wonderful stories and recollections by his family, friends, and such luminaries as Elia Kazan, Tom Cruise, George Roy Hill, Martin Ritt--will be published. This book will surprise and even shock people, it reveals unknown sides of Paul Newman: funny and tragic, charming and insightful, personal and professional. Newman's traumatic childhood is brilliantly detailed: his terrible relationship with his mother (he says she always considered him purely a decoration, not an actual child), his complicated relationship with his father (who once insisted eight-year-old Paul walk home several miles with a broken leg). He talks with extraordinary honesty, insight and humor, about his insecurities as a teenager, his lack of success with women, his feelings of failure. Tales of his army years feel like a movie in itself. His college years, his early yearnings to be an actor, learning his craft, his acting rivals at the beginning of his career (Brando and Dean), his films (good and bad)--he spares no one, including himself. He discusses the complicated relationship he had with his first wife, his son Scott's death, and his guilt about that death. Perhaps the most moving material in the book comes when he discusses Joanne Woodward--their love for each other, his dependence on her, even their sexually charged life together"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Newman, Paul, 1925-2008; Newman, Paul, 1925-2008; Newman, Paul, 1925-2008.; Motion picture actors and actresses;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Offside : my life crossing the line / by Avery, Sean,1980-author.;
"Hockey's most polarizing figure takes us inside the game, shedding light not only on what goes on behind closed doors, but also what makes professional athletes tick. Sean Avery has one of the biggest profiles of any NHL player in the past decade. He appears on Dancing with the Stars, Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, Letterman's Late Show, Good Morning America, and more. He's modeled for ads in Vanity Fair and was named to People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive list. He writes for The Players' Tribune. His wedding to supermodel Hillary Rodda was covered in the media across North America. And when he was arrested the day before the ceremony, the story appeared in media as varied as the New York Times, the Daily Mail in the UK, and Perez Hilton. (The charges were later dropped.) Avery is not afraid to break the rules laid down by hockey tradition. And the most respected of these is the code of silence. For the first time, a hockey player is prepared to reveal what really goes on in the NHL, in the spirit of what Ball Four did for baseball. The money, the personalities, the adultery and the drugs -- and also the little things that make up daily life in the league. Most athletes have little to say, but Sean doesn't have that problem. Yes, he tells us about the guys he's fought and the guys he's partied with, and he tells us where to find the best cougar bars in various NHL cities and what it's like to be hounded by the media when you're dating a celebrity. But Sean's job on the ice was always to get inside the heads of the guys he played against, and that insight on human nature is on full display in Offside. What makes millionaire athletes tick? What are their weaknesses? And in the end, what makes Sean Avery -- once called "the most hated player in the NHL" -- who he is? What is it like to make people hate you for a living? Sean Avery's misdeeds on and off the ice are well,documented, and he certainly has his detractors. But on the other hand, he has a lot of supporters, in part for things like being the first North American athlete to come out in favour of marriage equality, and in part just for being an interesting guy. Love him or hate him, he is one of the best-known players of the past few decades, and certainly one of the most colourful and outspoken. In Offside, he meets his accusers head-on, and gives them something to think about"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Avery, Sean, 1980-; Hockey players;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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