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Dancing with the octopus : a memoir of a crime / by Harding, Debora,author.;
"For readers of Educated and The Glass Castle, a harrowing, redemptive and profoundly inspiring memoir of childhood trauma and its long reach into adulthood. One Omaha winter day in November 1978, when Debora Harding was just fourteen, she was abducted at knifepoint from a church parking lot. She was thrown into a van, assaulted, held for ransom, and then left to die as an ice storm descended over the city. Debora survived. She identified her attacker to the police and then returned to her teenage life in a dysfunctional home where she was expected to simply move on. Denial became the family coping strategy offered by her fun-loving, conflicted father and her cruelly resentful mother. It wasn't until decades later - when beset by the symptoms of PTSD- that Debora undertook a radical project: she met her childhood attacker face-to-face in prison and began to reconsider and reimagine his complex story. This was a quest for the truth that would threaten the lie at the heart of her family and with it the sacred bond that once saved her. Dexterously shifting between the past and present, Debora Harding untangles the incident of her kidnapping and escape from unexpected angles, offering a vivid, intimate portrait of one family's disintegration in the 1970s Midwest, a rusted landscape where the loss of white male power can flare into unspeakable violence. Written with dark humor and the pacing of a thriller, Dancing with the Octopus is a literary tour de force and a groundbreaking narrative of reckoning, recovery, and the inexhaustible strength it takes to survive"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; True crime stories.; Harding, Debora.; Abduction; Kidnapping victims;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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My mess is a bit of a life : adventures in anxiety / by Pritchett, Georgia,author.;
"When Georgia Pritchett found herself lost for words - a bit of a predicament for a comedy writer - she booked an appointment with a therapist, who suggested that she try writing down some of the things that worried her. The therapist probably meant a light, mid-week grocery-list's worth of worries. Instead, Georgia wrote this book. From fretting about the monsters under her bed as a child (Were they comfy enough?) to agonizing about making too much of a fuss during childbirth ("Sorry to interrupt, but the baby is coming out of my body," I said politely) to being offered free gifts after an award ceremony (It was an excruciating experience. Mortifying), worry has accompanied her at every turn. With the levity of a package of potato chips and a healthy dose of self-deprecation, Georgia Pritchett guides readers from her anxiety-ridden early childhood, where disaster was around every corner (When I was little I used to think that sheep were clouds that had fallen to earth. On cloudy days I used to worry that I would be squashed by a sheep), through the challenges of breaking into a male-dominated TV writing industry, as well as the inevitable ups and downs of raising children. Honest, brave, and joyful, My Mess Is a Bit of a Life is a necessary reflection on how to live - and sometimes even thrive - with anxiety"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Pritchett, Georgia.; Anxiety; Television writers; Women television writers;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Young Mungo : a novel / by Stuart, Douglas,1976-author.;
"Douglas Stuart's first novel Shuggie Bain is one of the most successful literary debuts of the century so far. It was awarded the 2020 Booker Prize, and is now published or forthcoming in forty territories, having already sold more than a million copies worldwide. Now Stuart returns with Young Mungo, his extraordinary second novel. Five years in the writing, it is both a page-turner and literary tour de force, a vivid portrayal of working-class life and a deeply moving and highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James. Born under different stars-Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic-they should be sworn enemies if they're to be seen as men at all. Their environment is a hyper-masculine and sectarian one, for gangs of young men and the violence they might dole out dominate the Glaswegian estate where they live. And yet against all odds Mungo and James become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. As they fall in love, they dream of finding somewhere they belong, while Mungo works hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his big brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. But the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable. And when several months later Mungo's mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in Western Scotland, together with two strange men whose drunken banter belies murky pasts, he will need to summon all his inner strength and courage to try to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future. Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism and giving full voice to people rarely acknowledged in the literary world, Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the bounds of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much"--
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Novels.; Best friends; Catholic gays; First loves; Gay teenagers; Male friendship; Protestant gays; Working class families;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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The other family doctor : a veterinarian explores what animals can teach us about love, life, and mortality / by Fine, Karen R.,author.;
"All Creatures Great and Small meets Being Mortal in this compelling memoir of one woman's dream to become a veterinarian in a field historically dominated by men, and how, through her work both with her patients and their people, she comes to better understand humanity, mortality, and the unique role animals play in our lives. Karen Fine always knew that she wanted to be a vet and wasn't going to let anything stop her: not her allergy to cats, and not the fact that in the '80s veterinary medicine was still a mostly male profession. Inspired by her grandfather, a compassionate doctor who paid house calls to all his (human) patients, Dr. Fine persevered, and brought her Oupa's principles into her own practice, which emphasizes the need to contextualize pets' care in terms of their stories. And in The Other Family Doctor, Dr. Fine shares all these touching, joyful, heartbreaking, and life-affirming tales that make up her career as a vet. There's the feral cat who becomes a creature out of a fable when he puts his trust in a young vet to heal his injured paw; the pot-bellied pig who grows too big to fit in the car but remains a cherished part of her family; the surprising colony of perfectly behaved ferrets; the beloved aging pet who gives her people the gift of accompanying them on one final family vacation; and the dog who saves his owner's life in a most unexpected way. Woven into Dr. Fine's story are, of course, also the stories of her own pets: the birds, cats, and dogs who have taught her the most valuable lessons--how we can be better caretakers of the animals in our lives and, ultimately, of ourselves"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Fine, Karen R.; Veterinarians; Veterinarians; Veterinary medicine;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Everyone you hate is going to die : and other comforting thoughts on family, friends, sex, love, and more things that ruin your life / by Sloss, Daniel,author.;
"From one of the hottest young comedians at work today--two Netflix specials, a world tour, a brand new HBO special, and a well-earned reputation as mind-bogglingly funny and hilariously offensive and challenging--a book about his favorite subject ... and you will never think about relationships in the same way again. Daniel Sloss's comedy engages, enrages, offends, makes people uncomfortable, provides solace, and gets everyone roaring with laughter--all at the same time. Dark, his first Netflix comedy special, is a brilliant, somehow laugh-out loud funny meditation on our relationship with death. Jigsaw, his second Netflix special, needles apart the ideas of love, romantic relationships, and marriage--and according to Sloss has caused 120 divorces and some 50,000 break-ups (and he's got the Tweets to back up those numbers). Now, in his first book, he picks up where Jigsaw left off, and goes after every conceivable kind of relationship between two people--with one's country (Daniel's is Scotland), with America, with lovers, ex-lovers, ex-lovers who you hate, ex-lovers who hate you, parents, best friends (male and female), not-best friends, children, and siblings. Every relationship gets the full, inimitable Sloss treatment as he explains why each one is fragile and ridiculous and awful--but, just maybe, also valuable and meaningful. In any case, one way or the other, under his pen, they are all hilarious"--
Subjects: Interpersonal relations;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The last animal / by Ausubel, Ramona,author.;
"A playful, witty, and resonant novel in which a single mother and her two teen daughters engage in a wild scientific experiment and discover themselves in the process, from the award-winning writer of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty Jane is a serious scientist on the cutting-edge team of a bold project looking to "de-extinct" the wooly mammoth. She's privileged to have been sent to Siberia to hunt for ancient DNA, but there's a catch: Jane's two "tagalong" teen daughters are there with her in the Arctic, and they're bored enough to cause trouble. Brilliant, fiery, sharp-tongued Eve is fifteen and willing to talk back to the male scientists in a way her mother is not. And sweet, thirteen-year-old Vera, who seems to absorb all the emotional burdens of her small family, just wants to be home in Berkeley, baking cakes and watching bad tv. When Eve and Vera stumble upon a 4,000-year-old baby mammoth that has been perfectly preserved, their discovery sets off a chain of events that pit Jane against her colleagues, and soon her status at the lab is tenuous at best. So what does a female scientist do when she's a passionate devotee of her field but her gender and life history hold her back? She goes rogue. As Jane and her daughters ping-pong from the slopes of Siberia to a university in California, from the shores of Iceland to an exotic animal farm in Italy, The Last Animal takes readers on an expansive, big-hearted journey that explores the possibility and peril of the human imagination on a changing planet, what it's like to be a woman and a mother in a field dominated by men, and how a wondrous discovery can best be enjoyed with family. Even teenagers"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Mothers and daughters; Self-actualization (Psychology) in women; Single mothers; Women scientists; Woolly mammoth;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The blue collar CEO : my gutsy journey from rookie contractor to multi-millionaire construction boss / by Rennehan, Mandy,author.;
"Born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Mandy Rennehan began her business career at ten-years-old by catching bait and selling it to local fishermen. She was so good at her job, she was soon out-earning her father, a local lobster fisherman. At the age of seventeen, Rennehan decided to strike out on her own, so she packed a hockey bag full of her belongings and fled to Halifax, where she began cold calling construction companies, volunteering to work for free, so she could learn more about contracting and the trades. Three years later, Rennehan had garnered all the experience she needed to start her own company Freshco, a boutique retail maintenance and construction company. Still in her early twenties, Rennehan's reputation as a knowledgeable and trustworthy contractor, led to her first corporate contract with The Gap. Freshco has since gone on to become a multi-million-dollar company whose clients are some of the top corporations in North America, including Apple, Lululemon, Tiffany's, Sephora, Anthropologie, Nike, and Home Depot, to name but a few. Known as the Blue-Collar CEO for her ability to seamlessly navigate between the white- and blue-collar worlds, and as a tireless advocate for the trades, Rennehan's savvy business skills and innovative thinking, led her to the top of a male-dominated industry before she reached the age of thirty. This book is the "respectfully uncensored" story of how Rennehan succeeded in business through honesty, integrity, and most of all, authenticity - by always remaining true to herself and her vision for success."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Rennehan, Mandy.; Businesswomen; Construction industry; Women chief executive officers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The farewell tour : a novel / by Clifford, Stephanie,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.It's 1980, and Lillian Waters is hitting the road for the very last time. Jaded from her years in the music business, perpetually hungover, and diagnosed with career-ending vocal problems, Lillian cobbles together a nationwide farewell tour featuring some old hands from her early days playing honky-tonk bars in Washington State and Nashville, plus a few new ones. She yearns to feel the rush of making live music one more time and bask in the glow of a packed house before she makes the last, and most important, stop on the tour: the farm she left behind at age ten and the sister she is finally ready to confront about an agonizing betrayal in their childhood. As the novel crisscrosses eras, moving between Lillian's youth--the Depression, the Second World War, the rise of Nashville--and her middle-aged life in 1980, we see her striving to build a career in the male-dominated world of country music, including the hard choices she makes as she tries to redefine music, love, aging, and womanhood on her own terms. Nearing her final tour stop, Lil is forced to confront those choices and how they shaped her life. Would a different version of herself have found the happiness and success that has eluded her? When she reaches her Washington hometown for her very last show, though, she'll undergo a reckoning with the past that forces her to reconsider her entire life story. Exploring one unforgettable woman's creativity, ambition, and sacrifices in a world--and an art form--made for men, The Farewell Tour asks us to consider how much of our past we can ever leave behind.
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Country musicians; Homecoming; Identity (Psychology); Self-actualization (Psychology); Sisters; Tours; Women ; Women country musicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The godmother : murder, vengeance, and the bloody struggle of mafia women / by Nadeau, Barbie Latza,author.;
"The untold stories of the women who have risen to prominence and notoriety in Italy's mafia-many more ruthless than the fathers and husbands they replaced-and the octogenarian murderer who decades ago blazed a bloody trail for them to follow. In 1955 in a public market outside Naples, Italy, a pregnant teenage widow named Assunta "Pupetta" Maresca encounters the man she believes to be her husband's killer. Minutes later, police find the man dead, riddled with an astonishing 29 bullets. Pupetta is arrested and convicted for his death. "I killed for love," she declares in court, "and I'd do it again!" It is the middle of the twentieth century. Italy is impoverished after the war. Criminal organization are springing up where governments fail their citizens. Women are considered adjunct to the growth of the criminal class; they are mothers who train sons in the primacy of blood feuds, or they are daughters and sisters who deliver messages for imprisoned male relatives. But Pupetta changes that. She is heralded "Lady Camorra," and in prison she takes on legendary stature, with films and TV shows produced to capitalize on her outlaw image. The crime and even the killing does not stop there for Pupetta, and though she is arguably the first mafia godmother, she is not the worst. Some of the women who follow in her footsteps will meet terrible fates; others will lead their clans. But if CNN correspondent and Daily Beast Rome bureau chief makes one thing clear in The Godmother, it's that as women seize ever more control of Italy's criminal underworld, they are proving themselves more vicious, cunning and cutthroat than the men they replace."--
Subjects: True crime stories.; Mafia; Women and the mafia;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The falcon's eyes : a novel / by Stanfill, Francesca,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Set in France and England at the end of the twelfth century, the moving story of a spirited, questing young woman, Isabelle, who defies convention to forge a remarkable life, one profoundly influenced by the fabled queen she idolizes and comes to know--Eleanor of Aquitaine. Willful and outspoken, sixteen-year-old Isabelle yearns to escape her stifling life in provincial twelfth century France. The bane of her mother's existence, she admires the notorious queen most in her circle abhor: Eleanor of Aquitaine. Isabelle's arranged marriage to Gerard--a rich, charismatic lord obsessed with falcons--seems, at first, to fulfill her longing for adventure. But as Gerard's controlling nature, and his consuming desire for a male heir, become more apparent, Isabelle, in the spirit of her royal heroine, makes bold, often perilous, decisions which will forever affect her fate. A suspenseful, sweeping tale about marriage, freedom, identity, and motherhood, THE FALCON'S EYES brings alive not only a brilliant century and the legendary queen who dominated it, but also the vivid band of complex characters whom the heroine encounters on her journey to selfhood: noblewomen, nuns, servants, falconers, and courtiers. The various settings--Château Ravinour, Fontevraud Abbey, and Queen Eleanor's exiled court in England--are depicted as memorably as those who inhabit them. The story pulses forward as Isabelle confronts one challenge, one danger, after another, until it hurtles to its final, enthralling, page. With the historical understanding of Hillary Mantel and the storytelling gifts of Ken Follett, Francesca Stanfill has created an unforgettable character who, while firmly rooted in her era, is also a woman for all times."--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Eleanor, of Aquitaine, Queen, consort of Henry II, King of England, 1122?-1204; Arranged marriage; Identity (Psychology); Self-realization in women; Young women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Results 201 to 210 of 230 | « previous |