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Monsieur mediocre : one American learns the high art of being everyday French / by Sothen, John von,author.;
"Americans love to love Paris. We buy books about how the French parent, why French women don't get fat, and how to be Parisian wherever you are. While our work hours increase every year, we think longingly of the six weeks of vacation the French enjoy, imagining them at the seaside in stripes with plates of fruits de mer. John von Sothen fell in love with Paris through the stories his mother told of her year spent there as a student. After falling for and marrying the French waitress he meets in New York, von Sothen follows his mother's dream and moves to Paris. But fifteen years in, he's finally ready to admit his mother's Paris is mostly a fantasy. In this hilarious and delightful collection of essays, von Sothen walks us through real life in Paris--myth-busting our Parisian daydreams but also revealing the inimitable and too often invisible pleasures of family life abroad. Through these essays, you'll learn about what to do when you unwittingly commit yourself to two weeks of vacation with friends who ration snacks down to the gram and who mock you mercilessly for sleeping in; how to react when French men turn to you, the American, for fashion tips such as where to find a Maine trapper vest; and how to tell if you're being invited to a super-exclusive secret society of intellectuals or, alternately, a weird sex club. Relentlessly funny and full of incisive observations, Monsieur Mediocre is ultimately a love letter to France--to its absurdities, its history, its ideals--but it's a very French love letter: frank, smoky, unsentimental. It is a clear-eyed ode to a beautiful, complex, contradictory country from someone who both eagerly and grudgingly calls it home"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Sothen, John von.; Americans; Authors, American;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A Song to Drown Rivers A Novel [electronic resource] : by Liang, Ann.aut; cloudLibrary;
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick • An October 2024 Indie Next Pick • An October 2024 LibraryReads Pick “Exquisite and devastating. It won’t fail to move you.” —Shelley Parker-Chan, #1 bestselling author of She Who Became the Sun Inspired by the legend of Xishi, one of the famous Four Beauties of Ancient China, A Song to Drown Rivers is an epic novel steeped in myth about womanhood, war, sacrifice, and love against all odds as the fate of two kingdoms hangs in a delicate balance. Her beauty hides a deadly purpose. Xishi’s beauty is seen as a blessing to the villagers of Yue—convinced that the best fate for a girl is to marry well and support her family. When Xishi draws the attention of the famous young military advisor, Fanli, he presents her with a rare opportunity: to use her beauty as a weapon. One that could topple the rival neighboring kingdom of Wu, improve the lives of her people, and avenge her sister’s murder. All she has to do is infiltrate the enemy palace as a spy, seduce their immoral king, and weaken them from within. Trained by Fanli in everything from classical instruments to concealing emotion, Xishi hones her beauty into the perfect blade. But she knows Fanli can see through every deception she masters, the attraction between them burning away any falsehoods. Once inside the enemy palace, Xishi finds herself under the hungry gaze of the king’s advisors while the king himself shows her great affection. Despite his gentleness, a brutality lurks and Xishi knows she can never let her guard down. But the higher Xishi climbs in the Wu court, the farther she and Fanli have to fall—and if she is unmasked as a traitor, she will bring both kingdoms down. "Stunning and heart-rending." —Chloe Gong, #1 bestselling author of Immortal LongingsGeneral adult.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Historical; Romantic; Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Contemporary Women;
© 2024., St. Martin's Publishing Group,
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Undiplomatic : how my attitude created the best kind of trouble / by Dyer, Deesha,author.;
"When Deesha Dyer applied for a White House internship, she was 31, a community college student and aspiring hip-hop journalist, working in an administrative role at a real estate company. When President Barack Obama was elected, she felt so inspired that she took a chance on herself despite having no political background or connections. Suddenly, she found herself in the White House at the epicenter of U.S. government. Her fellow interns were in their early 20s, went to Ivy League schools, and had previous political experience. But in spite of the little voice in her head telling her she didn't deserve to be there, Deesha thrived, accompanying President Obama on high-level trips, continuing to work for the administration full-time after her internship ended, and ultimately rising to the key administration role of Social Secretary, for which she orchestrated everything from major diplomatic summits to functions with Beyonce and the Pope. Still, Imposter Syndrome appeared at every turn threatening her self-esteem and proven aptitude. Undiplomatic is personal development book combining Deesha's personal story with hard-earned lessons on how she successfully combatted feelings of doubt while holding a top-level position. In this book, Deesha will share what she's learned along the way and reflect on how she changed her life by realizing that her imposter syndrome was neither her fault nor her responsibility. She will dive into how she learned to give herself the same grace she gives to others and offer her best wisdom about authenticity and curiosity, the myth of "being yourself", and the importance of understanding that what you have is what you've earned. Deesha is honest that nobody can "solve" imposter syndrome and never think of it again. But she invites you to walk beside her as she shows you what the journey of believing you belong really looks like, and the joy and freedom that await you on the other side"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Dyer, Deesha.; United States. White House Office; Impostor phenomenon.; Success.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Leonard Cohen, untold stories. by Posner, Michael,1947-author.;
"The second volume of the extraordinary life of the great music and literary icon Leonard Cohen, in the words of those who knew him best. Poet, novelist, singer-songwriter, artist, prophet, icon--there has never been a figure like Leonard Cohen. He was a true giant in contemporary western culture, entertaining and inspiring the world with his work. From his groundbreaking and bestselling novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers, to timeless songs such as 'Suzanne,' 'Dance Me to the End of Love,' and 'Hallelujah,' Cohen is one of the world's most cherished artists. His death in 2016 was felt around the world by the many fans and followers who would miss his warmth, humour, intellect, and piercing insights. Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories chronicles the full breadth of his extraordinary life. This second of three volumes--From This Broken Hill--follows him from the conclusion of his first international music tour in 1971 as he continued to compose poetry, record music, and search for meaning into the late 1980s. The book explores his decade-long relationships with Suzanne Elrod, with whom he had two children, and various other numerous romantic partners, including the beginning of his long relationship with French photographer Dominique Issermann and, simultaneously, a five-year relationship with a woman never previously identified. It is a challenging time for Cohen. His personal life is in chaos and his career stumbles, so much so that his 1984 album, Various Positions, is rejected by Columbia Records, while other artistic endeavours fail to find an audience. However, this period also marks the start of his forty-year immersion in Zen Buddhism, which would connect him to the legendary Zen master Joshu Sasaki Roshi and inspire some of his most profound and enduring art. In From This Broken Hill, bestselling author and biographer Michael Posner draws on hundreds of interviews to reach beyond the Cohen of myth and reveal the unique, complex, and compelling figure of the real man. Honest and entertaining, this is a must-have book for any Cohen fan."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Cohen, Leonard, 1934-2016.; Composers; Singers; Poets, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Blackness is a gift I can give her : on race, community, and Black women in hockey / by Hess, R. Renee,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."From the founder of Black Girl Hockey Club, a collection of deeply insightful and piercing essays that aims to shed light on the history of Black excellence--in all forms--in hockey, and how we can all do better when it comes to recognizing--and upheaving--systemic and institutionalized racism. Growing up, R. Renee Hess didn't care about hockey. In fact, she was barely aware of it. She was born and raised in Southern California, hardly a hotbed for the game, despite the state having three NHL teams. But, as Hess puts it, she is "a fan of being a fan," and when she found herself stuck in traffic after a hockey game, the streets filled with screams and cheers, something sparked within her. Ever since Hess made that discovery, she has been actively trying to bust the myth that "Black folks don't like hockey." In this collection, Hess shares her hockey origin story--how she came to understand the lack of authentic engagement in hockey culture with the Black community, and her journey to becoming a true game changer. But, as an academic, Hess knows that her singular viewpoint can't tell the full story, so she reached out to former hockey players, league executives, activists, fans, media, and to the parents and youth shaping the future of the game. We hear directly from players such as Sarah Nurse, Saroya Tinker, and Angela James; from trailblazers like Bernice Carnegie; and from the less-heralded, but equally urgent collective of Black Girl Hockey Club scholarship awardees and their families, emphasizing the importance of community and support. The result is a hockey book truly unlike any other. With essays that touch on representation and harmful stereotypes, the many nuanced aspects of biracial identity, on being the "lonely only," and the virtues of a lively group chat, Blackness Is a Gift I Can Give Her reads as a love letter to Black women everywhere, as well as a scathing ode to a game that Hess loves, even if it doesn't always love her back."--
Subjects: Essays.; Hockey players, Black.; Race.; Hockey;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Dark Wives Crack the case with Vera Stanhope in a new suspenseful mystery from the Sunday Times Bestseller [electronic resource] : by Cleeves, Ann.aut; cloudLibrary;
'Expertly plotted and mesmerising crime' - Mick Herron A local myth. A deadly threat. Vera Stanhope, star of ITV's Vera, returns for her most shocking case so far . . . I can't see anything. It's as if this house is on its own in the world, as if I'm on my own in the world and nobody would care if I died . . . When a body is found on the common outside Rosebank, an isolated care home for troubled teens, DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who never showed up to work, and her only clue is the disappearance of fourteen-year-old resident Chloe. Vera can’t bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can’t dismiss the possibility. Then, in the wilds of the Northumbrian countryside, near the Three Dark Wives standing stones, a second body is found. As folklore and fact begin to collide, Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth. But it seems that there are dark secrets in their community - ones that may be far more dangerous than she could ever have believed . . . The Dark Wives is the next thrilling mystery in the Sunday Times No. 1 bestselling series from Ann Cleeves. **** 'Like Rendell and James before her, like McDermid and Rankin today, Ann Cleeves is one of our secret chroniclers, charting – under cover of a series of expertly plotted and mesmerising crime novels – how we live now' - Mick Herron, author of Slow Horses 'Cleeves's Northumberland novels are strong on atmosphere, combing old-fashioned detective work with a modern take on class' - The Sunday Times 'A thoroughly engrossing thriller' - The Mail on Sunday 'One of Britain's best crime writers' - Daily Express 'A story that keeps you guessing until the end where all the clues are pulled together masterfully' - Reader review 'As stunning on the page as on TV' - Reader review 'The storyline, the characters and the atmosphere of North East England all fit together beautifully' - Reader reviewGeneral adult.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Crime; Police Procedural; Women Sleuths;
© 2024., Pan Macmillan,
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Prisoners of the castle [text (large print)] : an epic story of survival and escape from Colditz, the Nazis' fortress prison / by Macintyre, Ben,1963-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor, a definitive and surprising new narrative of one of history's most famous prisons--and the remarkable cast of POWs who tried to relentlessly escape their Nazi captors. The myth of Colditz, the most infamous prison in history, has stood unchallenged for 70 years: prisoners of war, mustaches firmly set on stiff upper lips, defying the Nazis by tunnelling out of a grim Gothic castle on a German hilltop. Like all legends, that story contains only part of the truth. In Ben Macintyre's brilliant, cliche-smashing new history, he offers a vision of Colditz previously unimagined, a story of much more than an escape, just as the prison's inmates were far more complicated than the cardboard saints depicted in post-war pop culture. Colditz was a miniature replica of office-class society at the time, only far stranger: a lethal, high stakes boarding school surrounded by barbed wire, initially containing prisoners of all Allied nations, including Canada, but eventually only Britons and Americans, a heavily guarded cage with its own culture, eccentricities, and internal tensions. In intimate and compelling detail, Macintyre explores what happens to people when they are locked up without committing a crime and with no idea when or if they might be liberated. Colditz, then, is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of snobbery, class conflict, hidden sexuality, bullying, espionage, boredom, insanity, and farce. With access to declassified archives, private papers, and never-before-seen photos, the author reveals a remarkable cast of characters, previously hidden from history: Indian doctor Birendranath Mazymdar, the only non-white prisoner, whose ill-treatment, hunger-strike and eventual escape reads like fiction; Florimond Duke, America's oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; Christoper Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture escape aids for POWs, from maps hidden in playing cards to a compass secreted inside a walnut; and many others. Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed stunning new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told."--
Subjects: Large type books.; Schloss Colditz (Colditz, Germany); Prisoner-of-war escapes; Prisoners of war; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Led Zeppelin : the biography / by Spitz, Bob,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the author of the definitive New York Times bestselling history of the Beatles comes the authoritative account of the group Jack Black and many others call the greatest rock band of all time, arguably the most successful, and certainly one of the most notorious. Rock stars. Whatever those words mean to you, chances are, they owe a debt to Led Zeppelin. No one before or since has lived the dream quite like Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. In Led Zeppelin, Bob Spitz takes their full measure, for good and sometimes for ill, separating the myth from the reality with the connoisseurship and storytelling flair that are his trademarks. From the opening notes of their first album, the band announced itself as something different, a collision of grand artistic ambition and brute primal force, of delicate English folk music and hard-driving African-American blues. That record sold over 10 million copies, and it was the merest beginning; Led Zeppelin's albums have sold over 300 million certified copies worldwide, and the dust has never settled. Taken together, Led Zeppelin's discography has spent an almost incomprehensible ten-plus years on the album charts. The band is notoriously guarded, and previous books shine more heat than light. But Bob Spitz's authority is undeniable and irresistible. His feel for the atmosphere, the context--the music, the business, the recording studios, the touring life, the radio stations, the fans, the whole ecosystem of popular music--is unparalleled. His account of the melding of Page and Jones, the virtuosic London sophisticates, with Plant and Bonham, the wild men from the Midlands, into a band out of the ashes of the Yardbirds, in a scene dominated by the Beatles and the Stones but changing fast, is in itself a revelation. Spitz takes the music seriously, and brings the band's artistic journey to full and vivid life. The music is only part of the legend, however: Led Zeppelin is also the story of how the 60's became the 70's, of how playing in clubs became playing in stadiums and flying your own jet, of how innocence became decadence. Led Zeppelin may not have invented the groupie, and they weren't the first rock band to let loose on the road, but they took it to an entirely new level, as with everything else. Not all the legends are true, but in Bob Spitz's careful accounting, what is true is astonishing, and sometimes disturbing. Led Zeppelin gave no quarter, and neither has Bob Spitz. Led Zeppelin is the full and honest reckoning the band has long awaited, and richly deserves"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Led Zeppelin (Musical group); Rock musicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Barn The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi [electronic resource] : by Thompson, Wright.aut; cloudLibrary;
"The Barn is serious history and skillful journalism, but with the nuance and wallop of a finely wrought novel… The Barn describes not just the poison of silence and lies, but also the dignity of courage and truth.” — The Washington Post “The most brutal, layered, and absolutely beautiful book about Mississippi, and really how the world conspired with the best and worst parts of Mississippi, I will ever read…Reporting and reckoning can get no better, or more important, than this.” —Kiese Laymon “An incredible history of a crime that changed America.” —John Grisham "With integrity, and soul, Thompson unearths the terrible how and why, carrying us back and forth through time, deep in Mississippi—baring, sweat, soil, and heart all the way through.” —Imani Perry A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long Wright Thompson’s family farm in Mississippi is 23 miles from the site of one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history, yet he had to leave the state for college before he learned the first thing about it. To this day, fundamental truths about the crime are widely unknown, including where it took place and how many people were involved. This is no accident: the cover-up began at once, and it is ongoing.  In August 1955, two men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were charged with the torture and murder of the 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. After their inevitable acquittal in a mockery of justice, they gave a false confession to a journalist, which was misleading about where the long night of hell took place and who was involved. In fact, Wright Thompson reveals, at least eight people can be placed at the scene, which was inside the barn of one of the killers, on a plot of land within the six-square-mile grid whose official name is Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, fabled in the Delta of myth as the birthplace of the blues on nearby Dockery Plantation. Even in the context of the racist caste regime of the time, the four-hour torture and murder of a Black boy barely in his teens for whistling at a young white woman was acutely depraved; Till’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley’s decision to keep the casket open seared the crime indelibly into American consciousness. Wright Thompson has a deep understanding of this story—the world of the families of both Emmett Till and his killers, and all the forces that aligned to place them together on that spot on the map. As he shows, the full horror of the crime was its inevitability, and how much about it we still need to understand. Ultimately this is a story about property, and money, and power, and white supremacy. It implicates all of us. In The Barn, Thompson brings to life the small group of dedicated people who have been engaged in the hard, fearful business of bringing the truth to light. Putting the killing floor of the barn on the map of Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, and the Delta, and America, is a way of mapping the road this country must travel if we are to heal our oldest, deepest wound.  
Subjects: Electronic books.; South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV);
© 2024., Penguin Publishing Group,
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900 days [videorecording] : myth & reality of the siege of Leningrad / by Agt, Beatrijs van,film producer.; Engel, Frank van den,film producer.; Gorter, Jessica,1969-film director.; Winden, Marieke van der,film producer.; Icarus Films,film distributor.; IKON Televisie,production company.; Zeppers Film & TV,production company.;
Cinematography, Sander Sneop ; editing, Danniel Danniel ; music, Frank Gorter.Documentary about the Blockade of Leningrad during World War II. The film presents an emotional picture of the struggle of some survivors, whose personal memories tend to be overshadowed by the heroic myth held up by the authorities. That myth is in painful contrast with the horrific truth they were forbidden to mention all these years.E.DVD-R ; widescreen presentation.
Subjects: Motion pictures, Russian.; Foreign films.; Documentary films.; Historical films.; War films.; Nonfiction films.; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
For private home use only.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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