Horse of a Different Color

Horse of a Different Color

Ralph Moody

Biographies & Memoirs

Horse of a Different Color ends the "roving days" of young Ralph Moody. His saga began on a Colorado ranch in Little Britches and continued at points east and west in Man of the Family, The Fields of Home, The Home Ranch, Mary Emma & Company, Shaking the Nickel Bush, and The Dry Divide. All have been reprinted as Bison Books.
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Forget You, Ethan: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

Forget You, Ethan: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

Whitney G.

Romance / Biographies & Memoirs / Literature & Fiction

**Keep your friends close and your enemies closer...**I've hated Rachel Dawson since I was seven years old. My next door neighbor and number one sworn enemy, she's the reason why almost all of our childhood fights ended with me setting something of hers on fire. (Or, vice versa.)She snitched on me when I broke curfew. I snitched on her when she lied about having a boyfriend. We went back and forth like this throughout high school, both vowing to never talk to each other again when we went off to college. But that was until she showed up at my apartment during my senior year and asked me for a temporary place to stay. Until I realized just how much between us had changed, and the line I thought we'd never cross became harder and harder to ignore...
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The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman

The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman

Ben H. Winters

Humor / Biographies & Memoirs / Historical Fiction

Ms. Finkleman is just our boring old music teacher. Or is she?It all starts with a Special Project in Mr. Melville's Social Studies class: Solve a mystery in your own life. For seventh grader Bethesda Fielding, one mystery is too tempting to ignore: Ms. Finkleman.Bethesda is convinced that her mousy Music Fundamentals teacher is hiding a secret life, and she’s determined to find out what it is. But no one is prepared for what she learns. Ms. Finkleman used tobe . . . a rock star? Soon the whole school goes rock crazy, and a giant concert is in the works with none other than timid Ms. Finkleman at the helm!But the case isn’t quite closed, and the questions continue to swirl forBethesda. Could there be even more to the secret life of Ms. Finkleman than she already revealed? With the help of her rock-obsessed classmate Tenny Boyer, Bethesda won’t stop until she solves the real mystery of Ms. Finkleman once and for all!From School Library JournalGr 4-7–Given a class assignment to find a mystery and solve it, seventh-grader Bethesda Fielding sets out to discover the true identity and personality of Ms. Finkleman, her seemingly ordinary music teacher. The woman is so ordinary that she is practically invisible to students and staff alike. This changes when Bethesda unearths some 1990s rock music paraphernalia and puts the pieces together (so she thinks), to find that Ms. Finkleman used to be Little Miss Mystery, in the band The Red Herrings. Bethesda is in a quandary after the project becomes the school's obsession. There is a rock star among them and so the choral corral that Ms. Finkleman was planning for a multischool competition will now showcase rock and a performance by her, instead of the 16th-century English folk ballads she had hoped the students would deliver. It is safe to say that Ms. Finkleman shuns the sudden fame and the attention it garners her. This story is part mystery, part friendship novel, part school story. There are twists and turns, but what is most enjoyable is the effect that learning and playing rock music has on the teacher's students. Everyone seems to discover their true inner selves through music, and that includes the not-so-mysterious-after-all Ms. Finkleman.–Tracy Karbel, Chicago Public Libraryα(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. From BooklistMs. Finkleman, a mild-mannered Music Fundamentals teacher, is a completely anonymous figure at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School. She is such a nonentity that ace student Bethesda Fielding determines there must be more to her—a secret history that needs to be uncovered. When Bethesda discovers her teacher’s punk-music past, the repercussions are hilarious, revolutionary, and TWR (“Totally Way Rock”). Bethesda is a lovable nerd and heads a cast of characters who are clearly types yet still believable, and their dialogue is authentic. This title touches on intriguing issues about identity, the way teachers connect with their students, and second chances, all of which could open up lively discussions. This is also a just-plain-fun read that culminates in a wholly satisfying ending, and it will easily appeal to fans of Andrew Clements and Gordon Korman, as well as anyone who ever watched School of Rock or High School Musical and imagined putting on the best show ever. Grades 5-8. --Kara Dean
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In the Midst of Life

In the Midst of Life

Jennifer Worth

Biographies & Memoirs

Just as Jennifer was present at the beginning of life in her midwife books, here she documents her experiences as a nurse and ward sister treating patients who were nearing the end of their lives. Interpersed with these stories from Jennifer's post-midwifReview'Few readers will fail to be moved by her stories, which are artfully used to examine some of the genuine societal dilemmas death presents, and to point up the ill effects that flow from the mixture of embarassment, denial and avoidance with which we surround it.' TLS 'This is a taboo subject and makes absolutely gripping reading because it is one that, whether we like it or not, is going to matter enormously to each and every one of us.' GOOD BOOK GUIDE About the AuthorJennifer Worth trained as a nurse at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, and was later ward sister at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in London, then the Marie Curie Hospital, also in London. Music had always been her passion, and in 1973 she left nursing in order to study music intensively, teaching piano and singing for about twenty-five years. Jennifer died in May 2011 after a short illness, leaving her husband Philip, two daughters and three grandchildren. Her books have all been bestsellers.
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I Regret Nothing: A Memoir

I Regret Nothing: A Memoir

Jen Lancaster

Biographies & Memoirs / Literature & Fiction

RetailNew York Times bestselling author Jen Lancaster has lived a life based on re-invention and self-improvement. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, she’s managed to document her (and her generation’s) attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all—sometimes with disastrous results…Sure Jen has made mistakes. She spent all her money from a high-paying job on shoes, clothes, and spa treatments. She then carried a Prada bag to the unemployment office. She wrote a whole memoir about dieting…but didn’t lose weight. She embarked on a quest for cultural enlightenment that only cemented her love for John Hughes movies and Kraft American Singles. She tried to embrace everything Martha Stewart, while living with a menagerie of rescue cats and dogs. (Glitter…everywhere.)Mistakes are one thing; regrets are another.After a girls’ weekend in Savannah makes her realize that she is—yikes!—middle-aged (binge watching is so the new binge drinking), Jen decides to make a bucket list and seize the day, even if that means having her tattoo removed at one hundred times the cost of putting it on.From attempting a juice cleanse to studying Italian, from learning to ride a bike to starting a new business, and from sampling pasta in Rome to training for a 5K, Jen is turning a mid-life crisis into a mid-life opportunity, sharing her sometimes bumpy—but always hilarious—attempts to better her life…again.
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Bay of Spirits

Bay of Spirits

Farley Mowat

Outdoors & Nature / History / Biographies & Memoirs

In 1957, Farley Mowat shipped out aboard one of Newfoundland’s famous coastal steamers, tramping from outport to outport along the southwest coast. The indomitable spirit of the people and the bleak beauty of the landscape would lure him back again and again over the years. In the process of falling in love with a people and a place, Mowat also met the woman who would be the great love of his life. A stunningly beautiful and talented young artist, Claire Wheeler insouciantly climbed aboard Farley’s beloved but jinxed schooner as it lay on the St. Pierre docks, once again in a cradle for repairs, and changed both their lives forever. This is the story of that love affair, of summers spent sailing the Newfoundland coast, and of their decision to start their life together in Burgeo, one of the province’s last remaining outports. It is also an unforgettable portrait of the last of the outport people and a way of life that had survived for centuries but was now passing forever. Affectionate, unsentimental, this is a burnished gem from an undiminished talent.*I was inside my vessel painting the cabin when I heard the sounds of a scuffle nearby. I poked my head out the companionway in time to see a lithesome young woman swarming up the ladder which leaned against Happy Adventure’s flank. Whining expectantly, the shipyard dog was endeavouring to follow this attractive stranger. I could see why. As slim and graceful as a ballet dancer (which, I would later learn, was one of her avocations), she appeared to be wearing a gleaming golden helmet (her own smoothly bobbed head of hair) and was as radiantly lovely as any Saxon goddess. I invited her aboard, while pushing the dog down the ladder.“That’s only Blanche,” I reassured my visitor. “He won’t bite. He’s just, uh . . . being friendly.”“That’s nice to know,” she said sweetly. Then she smiled . . . and I was lost.*–From Bay of SpiritsFrom the Hardcover edition.From Publishers WeeklyIn this ruminative memoir, Mowat chronicles the disappearance of a way of life in Newfoundland and the chance encounter that brought him the love of his life. As a young writer in 1957, Mowat decided to travel on a tramp steamer among the small fishing villages known as outports that dotted the Newfoundland coast. These outports were the home of hardy and colorful fisherfolk of Basque, English, Irish and French descent. Government policy and the depletion of the regional fisheries by huge commercial trawlers were slowly forcing the locals out of their centuries-old homes. Mowat enjoyed the area so much that he bought a schooner for further exploration. Soon afterward, a young woman fleeing the overeager attentions of an amorous mutt stumbled on board his ship and romance quickly followed. Mowat and Claire Wheeler spent the next decade sailing in the rocky bays, thick fogs and sudden squalls of the region. The author of 40 books, mostly on nautical and adventure themes, Mowat has a deep understanding of the sea and the natural world. His observations of the outporters are equally perceptive and provide a fascinating window into a little known corner of North America. In this tender elegy to a lost Newfoundland, Mowat shows an amused tolerance for almost everything except the human greed that has inexorably destroyed his adopted home's cultures and environment. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistCanada's most idiosyncratic province is as large a presence as Canada's most idiosyncratic writer in this moving memoir of the love of a woman and the love of a particular place. In 1957, Mowat boarded a steamer that plied Newfoundland's rugged coastline. It was love at first sight, and Mowat would revisit often until he bought his Happy Schooner. On one Newfoundland nautical adventure he met Claire Wheeler. He was married to another then and had two small children. Never trying to justify his behavior, Mowat presents how he transferred his affections and his domicile matter-of-factly. The emotional heart of the story lies in remote Burgeo, Newfoundland, where he and Claire settled. The book concludes bittersweetly when the killing of a trapped whale nearly becomes an international incident with Mowat in the thick of it. Mowat has visited whale killing before (A Whale for the Killing, 1972) but here offers a more personal perspective. In Newfoundland, he realized that, no matter how he loved this orneriest of provinces, he would forever remain a stranger. June SawyersCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Bright Evening Star

Bright Evening Star

Madeleine L'engle

Literature & Fiction / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Biographies & Memoirs

For over fifty years, L'Engle has been delighting and inspiring readers with her warm, eloquent prose, and inspirational poetry. She continues this tradition with Bright Evening Star, a personal reflection of the mystery and majesty of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Bright Evening Star provides a glimpse into the life stories of this prolific author and her encounters with God. With a foreword by John Tesh, L'Engle invites us on a spiritual adventure that leads to hope, joy, and a closer relationship with Jesus. "Christmas," says Madeleine L'Engle, "should be a time of awed silence." If you're looking for a unique and Christ-centered Christmas meditation, Bright Evening Star will be a rich and delightful discovery — year round!
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A Good Day for Climbing Trees

A Good Day for Climbing Trees

Jaco Jacobs

Biographies & Memoirs

Sometimes, in the blink of an eye, you do something that changes your life forever. Like climbing into a tree with a strange girl. Marnus is tired of feeling invisible, living in the shadow of his two brothers. His older brother is good at breaking swimming records and girls' hearts. His younger brother is already a crafty entrepreneur who has tricked him into doing the dishes all summer. But when a girl called Leila ends up on their doorstep one morning asking him to sign a petition, it's the start of an unexpected adventure. And finally, Marnus gets the chance to be noticed...
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The Rainbow Comes and Goes

The Rainbow Comes and Goes

Anderson Cooper

Nonfiction / Biographies & Memoirs

A charming and intimate collection of correspondence between #1 New York Times bestselling author Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, that offers timeless wisdom and a revealing glimpse into their lives.Anderson Cooper's intensely busy career as a journalist for CNN and CBS' 60 Minutes affords him little time to spend with his ninety-one year old mother. After she briefly fell ill, he and Gloria began a conversation through e-mail unlike any they had ever had before—a correspondence of surprising honesty and depth in which they discussed their lives, the things that matter to them, and what they still want to learn about each other.Both a son's love letter to his mother in her final years and an unconventional mother's life lessons for her grown son, The Rainbow Comes and Goes offers a rare window into their close relationship and fascinating lives. In these often hilarious and touching exchanges, they share their most private thoughts and the...
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Journey

Journey

James A. Michener

Historical Fiction / History / Biographies & Memoirs

One of the premier novelists of the twentieth century, James A. Michener captures a frenzied time when sane men and women risked their very lives in a forbidding Arctic land to win a dazzling and elusive prize: Yukon gold. In 1897, gold fever sweeps the world. The promise of untold riches lures thousands of dreamers from all walks of life on a perilous trek toward fortune, failure--or death. Journey is an immersive account of the adventures of four English aristocrats and their Irish servant as they haul across cruel Canadian terrain toward the Klondike gold fields. Vivid and sweeping, featuring Michener's probing insights into the follies and grandeur of the human spirit, this is the kind of novel only he could write. Praise for Journey "Stunning . . . Michener at his best."--Houston Chronicle "Michener brings sharply into focus the hardships encountered by those who dreamed of...
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Aleph

Aleph

Paulo Coelho

Literature & Fiction / Nonfiction / Biographies & Memoirs

Transform your life. Rewrite your destiny. In his most personal novel to date, internationally best-selling author Paulo Coelho returns with a remarkable journey of self-discovery. Like the main character in his much-beloved The Alchemist , Paulo is facing a grave crisis of faith. As he seeks a path of spiritual renewal and growth, he decides to begin again: to travel, to experiment, to reconnect with people and the landscapes around him. Transform your life. Rewrite your destiny. In his most personal novel to date, internationally best-selling author Paulo Coelho returns with a remarkable journey of self-discovery. Like the main character in his much-beloved The Alchemist, Paulo is facing a grave crisis of faith. As he seeks a path of spiritual renewal and growth, he decides to begin again: to travel, to experiment, to reconnect with people and the landscapes around him. Setting off to Africa, and then to Europe and Asia via the Trans-Siberian Railway, he initiates a journey to revitalize his energy and passion. Even so, he never expects to meet Hilal. A gifted young violinist, she is the woman Paulo loved five hundred years before—and the woman he betrayed in an act of cowardice so far-reaching that it prevents him from finding real happiness in this life. Together they will initiate a mystical voyage through time and space, traveling a path that teaches love, forgiveness, and the courage to overcome life’s inevitable challenges. Beautiful and inspiring, Aleph invites us to consider the meaning of our own personal journeys: Are we where we want to be, doing what we want to do?
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