Chung investigates the mysteries and complexities of her transracial adoption in this chronicle of unexpected family for anyone who has struggled to figure out where they belong. Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. She was told her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling...

"A chillingly personal and exquisitely wrought memoir of a daughter reckoning with the brutal murder of her mother at the hands of her former stepfather, and the moving, intimate story of a poet coming into her own in the wake of a tragedy."--Dust jacket. At nineteen Trethewey's world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Grieving and still new to adulthood, she confronted the twin pulls of life and death in the...

An autobiography, this book is about the events and personalities of one hundred years of modern legends through the eyes of one who has lived it, stated in a uniquely opinionated manner. It includes wars and whores, the inside of business and politics on several continents, with unexpurgated revelations of individuals known to nearly everyone who lived during those times or learned about them since. Royalty, film figures, heads of state, corporate...

A startling and revelatory examination of Nabokov's life and works-notably Pale Fire and Lolita-bringing new insight into one of the twentieth century's most enigmatic authors Novelist Vladimir Nabokov witnessed the horrors of his century, escaping Revolutionary Russia then Germany under Hitler, and fleeing France with his Jewish wife and son just weeks before Paris fell to the Nazis. He repeatedly faced accusations of turning a blind eye to human...

It's 1963, Jean-Yves Soucy is 18 and dreams of being a fire warden scanning the boreal forest from a fire tower. But he ends up at an equipment depot between Val-d'Or and Chibougamau. To his delight, he is located near the Cree community of Wawanipi. With two Cree guides, including a man named William Saganash, he will be canoeing through the lakes and rivers of the region. On each encounter with the Crees, Jean-Yves expects to see a new world. Instead,...

This book is a collection of personal accounts of growing up in an Italian-American home in an inter-city neighborhood (Erie, PA) of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Accompanying the text are 52 pictures of an historical era many Americans hold close to their hearts and consider the most precious of their lives. The book fondly enlivens themes of America's melting pot. The author, a gifted storyteller, writes about topics that range from his parents' roots...

From the acclaimed biographer of Norway's most treasured cultural icons, Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Munch, comes a story of a migrant family in search of roots and for each other. Ivo de Figueiredo's lyrical and imagistic memoir navigates a difficult search for the origins of his estranged father, which opens a door to a family history spanning four continents, five centuries and the rise and fall of two empires. At the age of 45, Figueiredo traces...

Millions of viewers of Tony Brown's Journal, the longest-running series on PBS, know Tony Brown as an advocate for self-reliance and self-enrichment. Now, in his most personal book yet, he introduces us to the woman who brought him up and taught him the seven core values he lives by to this day: reality, knowledge, race, history, truth, patience, and love. What Mama Taught Me states that only by understanding one's place in the world can one become...

Lucy Terry was a devoted wife and mother, and the first known African-American poet. Abijah Prince, her husband, was a veteran of the French and Indian Wars and an entrepreneur. Together they pursued what would become the cornerstone of the American dream - having a family and owning property where they could live, grow, and prosper. When bigoted neighbors tried to run them off their own property, they asserted their rights, as they would do many...

A powerful eye-witness account of life in an Indian prison shows how ending incarceration is necessary to achieve a democratic transformation of society. The Maoist party has long been banned in India, but holds clandestine meetings and operations, which are considered India's number one internal threat to the country as a whole. Former political prisoner Arun Ferreira has been called the mastermind behind its propaganda and communications wing....