I think my father's rage at the trenches took me over, when I was very young, and has never left me. Do children feel their parents' emotionsYes, we do, and it is a legacy I could have done without. What is the use of itIt is as if that old war is in my own memory, my own consciousness.In this extraordinary book, the 2007 Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parents, each irrevocably damaged by the Great War. Her father wanted the simple life of an English farmer, but shrapnel almost killed him in the trenches, and thereafter he had to wear a wooden leg. Her mother, Emily, spent the war nursing the wounded in the Royal Free Hospital after her great love, a doctor, drowned in the Channel.In the fictional first half of Alfred and Emily, Doris Lessing imagines the happier lives her parents might have made for themselves had there been no war; a story that begins with their meeting at a village cricket match outside Colchester. This is followed by a piercing examination of their relationship as it actually was in the shadow of the Great War, of the family's move to Africa, and of the impact of her parents' marriage on a young woman growing up in a strange land."Here I still am," says Doris Lessing, "trying to get out from under that monstrous legacy, trying to get free." Triumphantly, with the publication of Alfred and Emily, she has done just that.

When Scott McKenzie was a young man, he thought he saw God . . .The deity was all in black with knee-high silver boots, a patent-leather breastplate, and full face makeup, clutching a beautiful, custom Les Paul guitar. Ace Frehley, lead guitarist for the rock group KISS, wasn't God but hearing his piercing, shrieking, screaming, outrageous guitar solos was a transcendent spiritual experience for a boy from rural Kentucky, making him feel uplifted, a witness to a higher power.Two decades later, a grown-up Scott McKenzie vowed to meet Ace Frehley in the flesh as well as the other gods and demigods who have held divine power over a generation of worshipful metal fans: legendary guitar champions like Glenn Tipton of Judas Priest and Phil Collen of Def Leppard, hallowed names like Steve Vai, Warren DeMartini, and John 5.Power Chord is a chronicle of Scott McKenzie's epic quest to stand in the presence of metal greatness to meet his omnipotent guitar gods face-to-face and get them to divulge their otherworldly secret.

From Steven V. Roberts comes My Fathers' Houses, a memoir of growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey, an immigrant community in the shadow of the Statue if Liberty, and the story of how his father and his grandfather's dreams and their own passion for writing and ideas influenced Steven's future, and inspired him to seek his fortune in New York City, the media capital of the world. This is a story of a town and a time and a boy who grew up there, a boy who became a New York Times correspondent, TV and radio personality, and best selling author. The town was Bayonne, New Jersey, a European village so close to New York that Steve could see the Statue of Liberty from his bedroom window. The time was the forties and fifties, when children of immigrants were striving to become American and find a place in a booming post war world. The core of Steve's world was one block, where he lived in a house his grandfather, Harry Schanbam, had built with his own hands. But the story starts back in Russia, where the family business of writing and ideas began. Steve's other grandfather, Abraham Rogowsky, stole money to become a Zionist pioneer in Palestine before moving to America. The tale continues through the Depression, when Steve's parents lived one block apart in Bayonne, wrote letters to each other and married in secret. During the war years, Steve's father wrote children's books and based one of his best sellers on outings he took with his twin sons to the local train station. As his byline, he used his boys' middle names Jeffrey Victor so Steve got his first writing credit before he was two. The story concludes with the boy leaving Bayonne, going on to Harvard, meeting the Catholic girl who became his wife, and starting work at the New York Times across the river, and worlds away, from where he began. Now a grandfather of five, Steve Roberts looks in the mirror and sees his own father and grandfather looking back at him–a family chain that started in 19th century Russia and thrives today in 21st century America.

In the bestselling tradition of The Dance of Anger, a compassionate and insightful guide that shows women how they can learn to feel good about who they are and what they do.

What Does It Mean To Grow Up Chicana/o?When I was growing up, I never read anything in school by anyone who had a "Z" in their last name. This anthology is, in many ways, a public gift to that child who was always searching for herself whithin the pages of a book.from the Introduction by Tiffany Ana LopezLouie The Foot Gonzalez tells of an eighty-nine-year-old woman with only one tooth who did strange and magical healings...Her name was Dona Tona and she was never taken seriously until someone got sick and sent for her. She'd always show up, even if she had to drag herself, and she stayed as long as needed. Dona Tona didn't seem to mind that after she had helped them, they ridiculed her ways.Rosa Elena Yzquierdo remembers when homemade tortillas and homespun wisdom went hand-in-hand...As children we watched our abuelas lovingly make tortillas. In my own grandmother's kitchen, it was an opportunity for me to ask questions within the safety of that warm room...and the conversation carried resonance far beyond the kitchen...Sandra Cisneros remembers growing up in Chicago...Teachers thought if you were poor and Mexican you didn't have anything to say. Now I know, "We've got to tell our own history...making communication happen between cultures."

General Kamel Sachet was a favorite of Saddam Hussein's, a hero of the Iran-Iraq war, head of the army in Kuwait City during Desert Storm, governor of the province of Maysan, and father of nine children. When author Wendell Steavenson became intrigued by his story, she began with a few questions about Sachet and his fellow Baathist loyalists: "Why had they served such a regimeHow had they accommodated their own moralityHow had they livedHow had they lived with themselves?" Her journey to find these answers took five years, and an accumulation of facts, opinions, fears, confessions and suspicions from Sachet's family, friends, and enemies. The result is not just a gripping account of one man's rise and fall, but a vivid and compassionate portrayal of the Iraqi people.As Sachet rose from policeman to Special Forces officer and then General, he made more and more sacrifices to remain in Saddam's good favor. Steadfast in his loyalty to God and his President, Sachet attended military executions and endured his own imprisonment as Saddam's behavior took increasingly paranoiac and power-crazy turns. But when it came time for Sachet's sons to do their military service, he refused to let them join the "criminal" organization to which he had given his life. Kamel Sachet realized, too late, that he'd become a participant in the terror regime that had strangled his county and destroyed its people. Through his story and the stories of those around him, Wendell Steavenson shows the choices Iraqis have had to make between exile and collaboration, God and jihad. Here are the Iraqis behind the headlines and the tragedy begotten of unintended consequences. And here is the first full-length narrative from an immensely talented journalist who has already been compared by critics to Bruce Chatwin and Ryszard Kapucinksi.

On a blustery night in January 2001, detectives from the Massachusetts State Police knocked on Amy Gleason's door. Gleason, along with fellow nurse Kim Hoy, had helped a patient deal with pain and suffering at the end of her life. Now the patient was dead, and the two nurses were being investigated for murder. Both believed they had done the right thing, but they had no idea what it would cost them.What began on that cold night for Gleason and Hoy was an experience that would forever scar them, but for medical professionals everywhere, their situation the death, the investigation, and the aftermath is a by-product of quiet yet forceful ideological battles consuming American hospitals. These are battles over proper medical procedures, battles over the nature of care, and battles over how terminally ill patients should die.In this captivating and powerful true story, Dr. Lewis M. Cohen uses the experiences of Gleason, Hoy, and the nursing assistant who accused them of murder to explore what happens when decisions about end-of-life care shift from the hospital to the courtroom to the church. Cohen goes behind the scenes on both sides of this debate, examining how advances in modern medicine have given us tremendous tools for prolonging life but have also forced us to address how we treat patients who are dying and suffering.Tracing this issue from the uproar over Terri Schiavo's feeding tube to the controversial figure of Jack Kevorkian to the legitimate threat of serial killer medial professionals, Cohen balances the need for criminal justice with the realities of health care, all the while focusing on the human beings the nurses,the doctors, the family members, and, most of all, the patients who must confront the physical and emotional pain of death on a daily basis. What emerges is an evocative portrait of end-of-life care in America, one that takes a hard look at life-and-death decisions but never loses sight of the people who must make them.

The cow. The most industrious animal in the world. A beast central to human existence since time began, it has played a vital role in our history not only as a source of food, but also as a means of labor, an economic resource, an inspiration for art, and even as a religious icon. Prehistoric people painted it on cave walls; explorers, merchants, and landowners traded it as currency; many cultures worshipped it as a god. So how did it come to occupy the sorry state it does today more factory product than animal?In Beef, Andrew Rimas and Evan D. G. Fraser answer that question, telling the story of cattle in its entirety. From the powerful auroch, a now extinct beast once revered as a mystical totem, to the dairy cows of seventeenth-century Holland to the frozen meat patties and growth hormones of today, the authors deliver an engaging panoramic view of the cow's long and colorful history.Peppered with lively anecdotes, recipes, and culinary tidbits, Beef tells a story that spans the globe, from ancient Mediterranean bullfighting rings to the rugged grazing grounds of eighteenth-century England, from the quiet farms of Japan's Kobe beef cows to crowded American stockyards to remote villages in East Africa, home of the Masai, a society to which cattle mean everything. Leaving no stone unturned in its exploration of the cow's legacy, the narrative serves not only as a compelling story but as a call to arms, offering practical solutions for confronting the current condition of the wasteful beef and dairy industries. Beef is a captivating history of an animal whose relationship with humanity has shaped the world as we know it, and readers will never look at steak the same way again.

Steven Winn and his wife, Sally, held out for as long as they could. When the San Francisco couple finally gave in to their only child Phoebe's pleas for a dog, they adopted a scraggly terrier mutt from a local animal shelter. The new family pet, Como, turned out to hate men especially the author and proved to be a cunning escape artist. Traumatized, single-minded, and exceptionally clever, Como was bent on breaking Winn's sanity and self-respect, his bank account and his heart. Come Back, Como is the story of one man's hilarious and poignant quest to win the trust of a dog who wanted nothing to do with him. With humor and pathos, Winn describes the maddening but ultimately rewarding effects Como had on his family, the misadventures and ordeals and terrifying events he and his dog endured together, and the greatest lesson Como taught him: that loving a dog can make us more human.

Biologists and laypeople alike have repeatedly claimed victory over life. A thousand years ago we thought we knew almost everything; a hundred years ago, too. But even today, Rob Dunn argues, discoveries we can't yet imagine still await.In a series of vivid portraits of single-minded scientists, Dunn traces the history of human discovery, from the establishment of classification in the eighteenth century to today's attempts to find life in space. The narrative telescopes from a scientist's attempt to find one single thing (a rare ant-emulating beetle species) to another scientist's attempt to find everything in a small patch of jungle in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. With poetry and humor, Dunn reminds readers how tough and exhilarating it is to study the natural world, and why it matters.

From the freewheeling rush of hijacking trucks to the brutal race wars that marked his decade-long stint in jail, former Mafia insider Louis Ferrante describes his remarkable journey from rising mobster to federal prison inmate to full-time writer. As Louis Ferrante tells it, the bottom line was money and his word was good. During his teenage years, Ferrante and his crew members hijacked delivery trucks and drove them to drop-offs all over New York, reselling the merchandise and pocketing thousands of dollars per load. For a seventeen-year-old who liked fist fighting and fast cars, it was the quickest money on the street, and it soon earned Ferrante the attention of the infamous Gambino crime family, led by late Mob boss John Gotti. In the early nineties, Ferrante's growing Mafia connections enabled him to pull off some of the most lucrative heists in American history all by the age of twenty-one.But the same handshakes that once sealed deals soon could no longer be trusted, and the betrayal by several of his close friends brought the feds banging down Ferrante's door. Symptomatic of the nation's larger crackdown on organized crime, indictments came from the Secret Service, the Nassau County Organized Crime Force, and the FBI. By 1994, Ferrante faced a life sentence in prison. He pleaded guilty and would serve nearly a decade in some of the most notorious penitentiaries in America. With raucous violence teeming around him, Ferrante relied on his Mob connections and street smarts to keep him alive until an unexpected exchange with a guard propelled him to a painful self-reckoning: Who am IWhat is it that makes me this wayDo I have a purpose?Desperate to escape from his bleak surroundings, Ferrante immersed himself in the study of history and literature. Over the term of his incarceration, each book became a much-needed sanctuary from the brutal chaos of his everyday existence, each page a challenge to his rapidly expanding knowledge of the world. Ferrante read voraciously a journey of the mind that took him from philosophy and ancient classics to nineteenth-century fiction. He also learned the art of writing and studied the major world religions, eventually deciding to become an Orthodox Jew. And with only limited access to legal texts, Ferrante taught himself enough about the American justice system to successfully appeal his own conviction, in a case that is now cited in courtrooms across the country. Gritty and hard-hitting, Ferrante's memoir recounts his rapid rise to the upper echelons of the Mafia hierarchy, his time in prison, and his struggle to turn his life around. Unlocked is an astonishing journey a true story of personal transformation that is both shocking and unforgettable.

Did You Know Female alcoholics are twice as likely to die as male alcoholics in the same age group Women metabolize alcohol differently from men, more quickly developing such physical complications as liver disease, high blood pressure, and hepatitis. A female alcoholic is more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, which may not go away even if she stops drinking. An astonishing four million women in the U.S. meet the diagnostic criteria for abuse or dependence. When a woman drinks, she is five times more likely to be raped. These are just a few of the alarming facts you will learn from this book -- facts every woman needs to know. Mixing cutting-edge research with affecting stories of women who struggle with alcohol problems, Happy Hours challenges our assumptions and expands our awareness of the role alcohol plays in women's lives.

France, 1940. The once glittering boulevards of Paris teem with spies, collaborators, and the Gestapo now that France has fallen to Hitler's Wermacht. For André Breton, Max Ernst, Victor Serge, Marc Chagall, Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, Remedios Varo, Benjamin Péret, and scores of other cultural elite denounced as enemies of the Third Reich, fear and uncertainty define daily life. One wrong glance, one misplaced confidence, could mean arrest, deportation, and death. Their only salvation is the Villa Air-Bel, a ch?teau outside Marseille where a group of young people will go to extraordinary lengths to keep them alive. Financed by the Emergency Rescue Committee, a private American relief organization, unlikely heroes—feisty graduate student Miriam Davenport, Harvard-educated classical scholar Varian Fry, beautiful and compelling heiress Mary Jayne Gold, and brilliant young Socialist and survivor of the Battle of Dunkerque Danny Bénédite and his British wife, Theo—cajole, outwit, and use every means possible to stave off the Nazis and newly installed Vichy government officials circling closer with each passing day. The ch?teau was a vibrant artistic salon, home to lively debates and clandestine affairs, to Sunday art auctions and subversive surrealist games. Relationships within the house were tense and arguments were common, but the will to survive kept the covert operation under wraps. Beyond the ch?teau's luscious fa?ade war raged, yet hope reverberated within its halls. With the aid of their young rescuers, this diverse intelligentsia—intense, brilliant, and utterly terrified—was able to survive one of the darkest chapters of the twentieth century. Villa Air-Bel is a powerfully told, meticulously researched true story. Rosemary Sullivan explores the diaries, memoirs, and letters of the individuals involved while uncovering their private worlds and the web of relationships they developed. Filled with suspense, drama, and intrigue, Villa Air-Bel is an excellent work of narrative nonfiction that delves into a fascinating albeit hidden saga in our recent history.

A snarky, fact-filled look at the people and places that made the indie/punk scene what it is today The American underground music scene is exploding everywhere not just in New York City and L.A. (although we've got those cities covered too!): In Washington, D.C. . . . Ian MacKaye and Fugazi inspired the straightedge culture, which had kids everywhere drawing black X's on their hands in magic marker. In Omaha, Nebraska . . . A young Conor Oberst, aka Bright Eyes, started writing and performing gut-wrenching love songs at the tender age of thirteen.On Long Island, New York . . . Taking Back Sunday and Brand New battled for emo supremacy and the fragile hearts of a million teenage girls.From the coauthor of the cult-worthy Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture comes Wish You Were Here a combination travel guide and tortured history covering everything from what constitutes proper rock critic etiquette in Minneapolis to why pop-punk bands in Chicago have so much suburban angst, to how freegans in the Bay Area can feed themselves on a budget that would make frugal Rachael Ray's face blush.

When her son, Neal, was diagnosed withautism, former Hollywood acting coach Elaine Hall, aka Coach E, took matters into her own hands and used her resources to guide him toward an increasingly independent life. In the process, she founded The Miracle Project, a groundbreaking organization that uses the performing arts to connect with children with autism. Both controversial and unorthodox, Halls innovative approach has been praised by leaders in the field of autism, including Temple Grandin, Barry Prizant, and Dr. Stanley Greenspan. She was also the subject of the Emmy Award winning documentary Autism: The Musical. Hall now speaks around the country sharing her wisdom. Now I See the Moon is a story of hope, faith, and miracles; itis a story only a mother could tell.

Money. It affects us all. So why is it so difficult for us to acknowledge its enormous impact on our private affairsIn this riveting and provocative anthology of original essays, more than two dozen of America's most esteemed women writers share their deepest feelings about personal finance and how it profoundly influences their relationships with parents, children, spouses, siblings, lovers, and ultimately with themselves. Witty, nuanced, and startlingly intimate, The Secret Currency of Love offers a transformative look at the delicate nature of love and money while providing fascinating insight into how a modern generation of women is defining itself in the new social economy.Contributors include Leslie Bennetts Veronica Chambers Julia Glass Lori Gottlieb Kathryn Harrison Sheri Holman Ann Hood Karen Karbo Dani Shapiro Amy Sohn

Moms and daughters.They can go from best friends to mortal enemies with breakneck speed. From boyfriends to curfews and from outfits to eating habits, mothers and daughters often end up in conflict about everything. Now with Side by Side, mothers finally have a proven program to help navigate their relationship with their daughters of any age.Dr. Charles Sophy has dedicated his career to the physical and mental health of children and families from all walks of life. Through hundreds of consultations, he found the most promising and most problematic family dynamic is that between mother and daughter.Side by Side introduces the Four Truths of every mother-daughter relationship and a revolutionary communication approach called the Chair Strategy. This mom-driven strategy is designed to harness her power to resolve even the most volatile situations with love, understanding, and respect. It provides a concrete visual of the way mothers and daughters communicate, revealing that at all times, moms and daughters approach each other in one of three positions: back-to-back when mom and daughter are at odds, neither looking at one another or listening to what the other is saying face-to-face when they are discussing an issue openly, honestly, and with respect, regardless of whether they agree or not side-by-side when both are looking in the same direction, sharing the same perspective Dr. Sophy reveals how to develop the essential skill for identifying your current position and then moving you and your daughter toward the best position for achieving a productive outcome.Being a mom is hard work, and this practical and accessible explanation of the most important role you will ever play steers you through even the roughest waters, including the hot-button issues of sex, money, and divorce. With exercises, guided conversations, journaling, and real-world stories, this book takes the mother-daughter relationship, regardless of its current state, and leads it toward a new level of understanding, love, and true connection. Side by Side is the pivotal first step to having a strong and rewarding relationship with your daughter for years to come.

Playing With The Big Boys -- And Beating Them At Their Own Game! From Meg Whitman of eBay to Marcy Carsey of Carsey-Warner and Oxygen Media, today's leading businesswomen show how to make it in the notorious boys' club of corporate America.Gone are the days when men called the shots. More and more women have replaced men or excelled over rivals in male-dominated industries because they possess the qualities of leadership that top firms are seeking today. Esther Wachs Book introduces the new Female Leader and reveals the seven key, and uniquely female, qualities of leadership that are turning the world around -- and allowing more women to achieve success.Filled with compelling insights gleaned from the country's highest-ranking businesswomen, Why the Best Man for the Job Is a Woman reveals how these exceptional women have soared to the top and captures their strategies for success.

Prominent feminist author Barbara Walker has revamped, retold, and infused with life some of your favorite classic fairy tales. No longer are women submissive, helpless creatures in need of redemption through the princely male! Instead they are vibrantly alive, strong women who take fate into their own hands.

A groundbreaking and inspiring exploration of the unique relationship between dogs and humans, from the bestselling author of Dogs Never Lie About Love Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson has long been interested in the relationships between humans and animals, and he's always been aware that there was something very special in our bond with dogs. No other animals love us in quite the same way as dogs love us. And it is mutual. Is it possible that we developed our capacity for love, sympathy, empathy, and compassion because of our long association with dogs?In The Dog Who Couldn't Stop Loving, Masson considers the far-reaching consequences of the coevolution of dogs and humans, drawing upon recent scientific research. Over the past forty thousand years a collective domestication has occurred that brings us to where we are today humans have formed intense bonds with dogs, and the adoration is almost always reciprocal. Masson himself has experienced a profound bond with his new dog, Benjy, a failed guide dog for the blind, who possesses an abundance of uninhibited love. Masson knows that the love he feels for Benjy the same feeling Benjy has for all the people and animals around him is not unique, but exemplifies a love affair unmatched in the animal world.With wisdom, insight, and a brilliant analysis of recent scientific findings, bestselling author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson delivers a provocative and compelling book that will change the way we think about love and our canine companions.

Alaska is a place where know-how is currency and a novice's mistakes can kill you. An extreme landscape in both its beauty and challenges, the state is nicknamed "The Last Frontier" with good reason: Here is a paradoxical landscape where boundaries between community and isolation, bounty and deprivation, conservation and exploitation are constantly in flux.But the state has also always been a place for reinvention, a refuge as much for those desperate to escape something as for those on a quest for something else. In Tide, Feather, Snow, Miranda Weiss, a young woman who grew up landlocked in well-kept East Coast suburbs, moves with her boyfriend to Homer, Alaska, where the days are quartered by the most extreme tides in the country, where the years are marked by seasons of fish, and where locals carry around the knowledge of fish, tides, boats, and weather as ballast. At first, she struggles to make a place for herself in this unfamiliar country. But ultimately, Weiss learns the skills to survive on her own, from setting a fishing net to befriending the locals, from jarring rosehip butter to skinning a sea otter. Weiss's keenly observed prose introduces readers to the memorable people and peculiar beauty of Alaska's vast landscape and takes us on her personal journey of adventure, physical challenge, and culture clash. In the tradition of John McPhee's Coming into the Country, this elegant and affecting memoir is nature writing at its best.