Search:

The comfort of crows : a backyard year / by Renkl, Margaret,author.; Renkl, Billy,illustrator.;
"In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons-from a crow spied on New Year's Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring-what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author-and from us."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Essays.; Personal narratives.; Renkl, Margaret.; Animals.; Backyard gardens.; Natural history.; Nature observation.; Nature.; Seasons.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

War on peace : the end of diplomacy and the decline of American influence / by Farrow, Ronan,1987-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A harrowing exploration of the collapse of American diplomacy and the abdication of global leadership. US foreign policy is undergoing a dire transformation, forever changing America's place in the world. Institutions of diplomacy and development are bleeding out after deep budget cuts; the diplomats who make America's deals and protect its citizens around the world are walking out in droves. Offices across the State Department sit empty, while abroad the military-industrial complex has assumed the work once undertaken by peacemakers. We're becoming a nation that shoots first and asks questions later. In an astonishing journey from the corridors of power in Washington, DC, to some of the most remote and dangerous places on earth--Afghanistan, Somalia, and North Korea among them--acclaimed investigative journalist Ronan Farrow illuminates one of the most consequential and poorly understood changes in American history. His firsthand experience as a former State Department official affords a personal look at some of the last standard bearers of traditional statecraft, including Richard Holbrooke, who made peace in Bosnia and died while trying to do so in Afghanistan. Drawing on newly unearthed documents, and richly informed by rare interviews with warlords, whistle-blowers, and policymakers--including every living secretary of state from Henry Kissinger to Hillary Clinton to Rex Tillerson--[this book] makes a powerful case for an endangered profession. Diplomacy, Farrow argues, has declined after decades of political cowardice, shortsightedness, and outright malice--but it may just offer America a way out of a world at war."--Dust jacket.
Subjects: United States. Department of State.; Diplomacy.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Treasure state / by Box, C. J.,author.;
"The return of Cassie Dewell in Treasure State, the latest in the series that inspired the ABC hit series Big Sky, finds Cassie in Montana on the trail of a con man. Investigator Cassie Dewell--now the lead character in this year's most sensational TV crime show, Big Sky, from Big Little Lies creator David E. Kelley--is headed to Anaconda, Montana, in search of a slippery con man who has disappeared somewhere in the "treasure state". A wealthy California divorcee has accused him of absconding with her entire fortune, and wants Cassie to find him and get it back. But Anaconda, a quirky former copper mining town, is the perfect place to reinvent yourself, and as the case develops, Cassie begins to wonder if her client is telling her everything. Between searching for the con man and a second case, that of a rumored buried treasure somewhere in the vicinity that has led to a cutthroat competition among adventure-seeking treasure-hunters, Cassie has her hands full. C. J. Box's newest Cassie Dewell novel, the highly anticipated follow-up to The Bitterroots, is full of more twists and turns than the switchbacks through the Anaconda Range"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Novels.; Dewell, Cassie (Fictitious character); Missing persons; Serial murder investigation; Women private investigators;
Available copies: 3 / Total copies: 4
unAPI

One hundred Saturdays : Stella Levi and the search for a lost world / by Frank, Michael J.,1948-author.; Kalman, Maira,artist.;
With nearly a century of life behind her, Stella Levi had never before spoken in detail about her past. Then she met Michael Frank. He came to her Greenwich Village apartment one Saturday afternoon to ask her a question about the Juderia, the neighborhood in Rhodes where shed grown up in a Jewish community that had thrived there for half a millennium. Neither of them could know this was the first of one hundred Saturdays over the course of six years that they would spend in each others company. During these meetings Stella traveled back in time to conjure what it felt like to come of age on this luminous, legendary island in the eastern Aegean, which the Italians conquered in 1912, began governing as an official colonial possession in 1923, and continued to administer even after the Germans seized control in September 1943. The following July, the Germans rounded up all 1,700-plus residents of the Juderia and sent them first by boat and then by train to Auschwitz on what was the longest journey measured by both time and distanceof any of the deportations. Ninety percent of them were murdered upon arrival. Probing and courageous, candid and sly, Stella is a magical modern-day Scheherazade whose stories reveal what it was like to grow up in an extraordinary place in an extraordinary time and to construct a life after that place has vanished. One Hundred Saturdays is a portrait of one of the last survivors drawn at nearly the last possible moment, as well as an account of a tender and transformative friendship that develops between storyteller and listener as they explore the fundamental mystery of what it means to collect, share, and interpret the deepest truths of a life deeply lived.
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Levi, Stella.; Auschwitz (Concentration camp); Holocaust survivors.; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Sugar street : a novel / by Dee, Jonathan,author.;
"In Jonathan Dee's elegant and explosive new novel, Sugar Street, an unnamed male narrator has hit the road. Rid of any possible identifiers, his possessions amount to $168,548 in cash stashed in an envelope under his car seat. Vigilantly avoiding security cameras, he drives until he hits a city where his past is unlikely to track him down, and finds a room to rent from a less-than-stable landlady whose need for money outweighs her desire to ask questions. He seems to have escaped his former self. But can he? In a story that moves with swift dark humor and insight, Dee takes us through his narrator's attempt to disavow his former life of privilege and enter a blameless new existence. Having opted out of his material possessions and human connections, the pillars of his new self-simplicity, kindness, above all invisibility-grow shakier as he butts up against the daily lives of his neighbors in their politically divided working-class city. With the suspense of a thriller and the grace of our best literary fiction, Dee unspools the details of our unlikely hero's former life and his developing new one in a drumbeat roll up to a shocking final act. Dee has been compared by the Wall Street Journal to authors such as Jonathan Franzen and Jennifer Egan for his expansive, contemporary, social novels; Sugar Street is a leaner, more personal, but still uncannily timely look at the volatile America of today. A risky, engrossing, and surprisingly visceral story about a white man trying to escape his own troubling footprint and start his life over"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Novels.; Neighbors; Suburban life;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Sisters in resistance : how a German spy, a banker's wife, and Mussolini's daughter outwitted the Nazis / by Mazzeo, Tilar J.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In 1944, the war had reached its climax in continental Europe. News of secret diaries kept by Italy's former Foreign Minister, Galeazzo Ciano, had permeated public consciousness. What wasn't reported, however, was how three women-a Fascist's daughter, a German spy, and an American socialite-risked their lives to ensure the diaries would reach the Allied forces, who would use the papers as key evidence against the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. Just a year earlier, Edda Mussolini, Benito Mussolini's daughter, had given Hitler and her father an ultimatum: release her husband, Galeazzo Ciano, from prison, or risk her leaking her husband's journals to the press. Knowing the diaries will expose Nazi lies and create a foundation for a criminal war crimes prosecution, Hitler and Mussolini vow to do everything in their power to see the diaries destroyed-even if it means liquidating Mussolini's daughter. To do this, they ordered Hilde Beetz, a German spy, to seduce Ciano in prison in order to learn the diaries' location. As the seducer becomes the seduced, however, Hilde shifts her loyalties and becomes a double agent, joining forces with Edda to save Ciano from execution. When this fails, Edda flees to Switzerland with Hilde's daring assistance to keep Ciano's final wish: to see the diaries published for use by the Allies. When the head of United States' intelligence, Alan Dulles, learns of Edda's escape, he sends in socialite Frances De Chollet, an "accidental" spy, assigned by chance to a mission that would change her life. Her task is to find Edda, gain her trust, and, crucially, hand the diaries over to the Americans. Against all expectations, what develops is a rich and humanizing friendship between the two women. One step ahead of the Gestapo agents who are hunting Edda, together they succeed in preserving one of the most important historic documents of the Second World War. Drawing from in-depth research and first-person interviews with people who witnessed parts of this true story, Mazzeo gives readers a riveting look into this little-known moment in cultural history and shows how, without Edda, Hilde, and Frances's involvement, certain convictions would never have been possible at Nuremberg. Sisters in Resistance is a powerful look at women's intelligence work during WWII, a moving story of unlikely wartime friendships, and an inspirational investigation into three people who, navigated the place where truth, loyalty, justice, and betrayal collide"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Ciano, Edda Mussolini, Contessa.; Ciano, Galeazzo, conte, 1903-1944; Ciano, Galeazzo, conte, 1903-1944.; Purwin, Hilde, 1919-2010.; Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei. Schutzstaffel. Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Amt VI.; Espionage, German; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Good girls : a story and study of anorexia / by Freeman, Hadley,author.;
"In 1995, Hadley Freeman wrote in her diary: "I just spent three years of my life in mental hospitals. So why am I crazier than I was before????" From the ages of fourteen to seventeen, Freeman lived in psychiatric wards after developing anorexia nervosa. Her doctors informed her that her body was cannibalizing her muscles and heart for nutrition, but they could tell her little else: why she had it, what it felt like, what recovery looked like. For the next twenty years, Freeman lived as a "functioning anorexic," grappling with new forms of self-destructive behavior as the anorexia mutated and persisted. Anorexia is one of the most widely discussed but least understood mental illnesses. In a brilliant narrative that combines personal experience with deep reporting, Freeman delivers an incisive and bracing work that details her experiences with anorexia--the shame, fear, loneliness and rage--and how she overcame it. She interviews doctors to learn how treatment for the illness has changed since she was hospitalized and what new discoveries have been made about the illness, including its connection to autism, OCD, and metabolic rate. She learns why the illness always begins during adolescence and how this reveals the difficulties for girls to come of age. Freeman tracks down the women with whom she was hospitalized and reports on how their recovery has progressed over decades. Good Girls is an honest and hopeful story of resilience that offers a message to the nearly 30 million Americans who suffer from eating disorders: Life can be enjoyed, rather than merely endured."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Freeman, Hadley; Anorexia nervosa;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Good intentions : a novel / by Ali, Kasim,author.;
"If love really is a choice, how do you decide where your loyalties lie? It's the countdown to midnight on New Year's Eve and Nur is steeling himself to tell his parents that he's seeing someone. A young British Pakistani man, Nur has spent years omitting details about his personal life to maintain his image as the golden eldest child. And it's come at a cost. Once, Nur was a restless college student, struggling to fit in. At a house party, he meets Yasmina, a beautiful and self-possessed aspiring journalist. They start a conversation-first awkward, then absorbing-that grabs Nur's attention like never before. And as their relationship develops, so too does Nur's self-destruction. He falls deeper into traps of his own making, attempting to please both Yasmina and his family until he must finally be honest and reveal the truth he's kept hidden: Yasmina isn't Pakistani, she's Black, and he loves her. Deftly transporting readers between that first night and the years beyond, Good Intentions exposes with unblinking authenticity the complexities of immigrant families and racial prejudice. It is a crackling, wryly clever depiction of standing on the precipice of adulthood, attempting to piece together who it is you're meant to be"--
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Children of immigrants; Interracial dating; Man-woman relationships; Pakistanis; Sudanese;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Seeking social democracy : seven decades in the struggle for equality / by Broadbent, Ed,1936-author.; Abele, Frances,author.; Sas, Jonathan,author.; Savage, Luke,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The first full-length treatment of Ed Broadbent's ideas and remarkable seven-decade engagement in public life. Ed Broadbent is unique among living political leaders of international stature in offering a fully developed analysis of social democracy and its relevance in the 21st century. His career as a political philosopher, activist, and politician and his conversations with contemporaries such as Willy Brandt, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Fidel Castro, and Mikhail Gorbachev inform his analysis of the struggles for social justice in the long 20th century. Having come to the socialist and social democratic traditions by way of academic study, Broadbent tested and tempered his ideas in the great postwar struggles over social rights, gender and racial equality, workers' rights, the containment of capital, and reversing the commodification of private life. The book explores the roots of his egalitarianism and the formation of his social democratic ideas, Broadbent's engaged internationalism and relationship with key historical figures, and his experiences and reflections in practical politics and pursuit of government across several of the most momentous decades in the history of Canada. He was a Member of Parliament for over two decades and was, for most of this period, leader of the New Democratic Party. He remains to this day an important social democratic voice in the public debates of the nation. Part political history, part intellectual biography, part manifesto for social democracy this first-ever full-length treatment of Broadbent's thought will be animated in dialogue with three collaborators from different generations, each similarly immersed in the history of social democratic ideas--the result being a fresh analysis of social democracy, Canadian politics, and a lively contribution to current debates and dilemmas."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Broadbent, Ed, 1936-; Equality.; Socialism.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Close knit [text (large print)] : a novel / by Colgan, Jenny,author.;
"In the northernmost reaches of Scotland, where a string of little islands in the North Sea stretches towards Norway, lives Gertie Mooney, a proud island girl by birth. Her social circle is small but tight: family and friends, particularly the women in her knitting circle. In the whitewashed cottages of their hometown, everyone knows everyone, and the ladies of the knitting circle know more than most. In a place of long dark winters and geographic isolation, the knitting circle is a precious source of gossip, home, laughter, and comfort for them all. And while she knits, Gertie's busily plotting what to do with the rest of her life. When Gertie develops a crush on Callum Frost, who owns the local airline, she dares herself to take a job as an air stewardess on the little plane that serves the local islands. Terrifying at first, the sixteen-seat puddle jumper also offers the first taste of real freedom she's ever known. Will Gertie's future lie in the skies? Or will she need to go further afield to find the adventure she craves?"--
Subjects: Chick lit.; Large print books.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Female friendship; Flight attendants; Knitters (Persons); Man-woman relationships;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI