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First in Line: How COVID-19 Placed Me on the Frontlines of a Health Care Crisis
by Sandra LindsaySandra Lindsay, the first person to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, takes the reader on her journey from humble immigrant beginnings in 1980s Bronx to national health equity advocate and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Sandra Lindsay immigrated to the United States from Jamaica in 1986 with ambitions of becoming a nurse and living the American Dream. In December 2020, she became the first person to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and was subsequently honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lindsay tells her inspiring story, from leaving a stable home in Jamaica only to experience years of struggle in the Bronx, NY, as a single mother and struggling student. Her tenacity led to a successful thirty-year nursing career, including her leadership as the director of critical care at Northwell&’s Long Island Jewish Medical Center during the country&’s worst health crisis in 2020. In First in Line Lindsay lays out her triumphs and setbacks as a single mother and working student who overcomes barriers with the love of her family and the support of mentors and leaders. Her beginnings as a four-dollar-an-hour grocery store fortified her with the resilience to persevere over decades to become an executive at a globally recognized nationally known healthcare system. Lindsay recounts working through the darkest months of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 and leading the critical care units at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. The suffering and losses she witnessed ignited Lindsay&’s passion for seeing an end to inequities in healthcare. First in Line tackles a variety of issues: bias and inequity in healthcare; chronic disease in marginalized communities; maternal, infant, and Black and Brown women&’s health; and mental health. While Lindsay continues to beat the drum for vaccination as COVID-19 continues to impact our lives, she advocates for a holistic approach for improved, equitable healthcare for all people who live on the margins.
First in Line: Presidents, Vice Presidents, and the Pursuit of Power
by Kate Andersen BrowerFrom the author of the New York Times bestsellers First Women and The Residence, an intimate, news-making look at the men who are next in line to the most powerful office in the world—the vice presidents of the modern era—from Richard Nixon to Joe Biden to Mike Pence.Vice presidents occupy a unique and important position, living partway in the spotlight and part in the wings. Of the forty-eight vice presidents who have served the United States, fourteen have become president; eight of these have risen to the Oval Office because of a president’s death or assassination, and one became president after his boss’s resignation. John Nance Garner, FDR’s first vice president, famously said the vice presidency is "not worth a bucket of warm piss" (later cleaned up to "warm spit"). But things have changed dramatically in recent years. In interviews with more than two hundred people, including former vice presidents, their family members, and insiders and confidants of every president since Jimmy Carter, Kate Andersen Brower pulls back the curtain and reveals the sometimes cold, sometimes close, and always complicated relationship between our modern presidents and their vice presidents.Brower took us inside the lives of the White House staff and gave us an intimate look at the modern First Ladies; now, in her signature style, she introduces us to the second most powerful men in the world, exploring the lives and roles of thirteen modern vice presidents—eight Republicans and five Democrats. And she shares surprising revelations about the relationship between former Vice President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama and how Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump interact behind closed doors.From rivals to coworkers, there is a very tangible sense of admiration mixed with jealousy and resentment in nearly all these relationships between the number two and his boss, even the best ones, Brower reveals. Vice presidents owe their position to the president, a connection that affects not only how they are perceived but also their possible future as a presidential candidate—which is tied, for better or worse, to the president they serve. George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan had a famously prickly relationship during the 1980 primary, yet Bush would not have been elected president in 1988 without Reagan’s high approval rating. Al Gore’s 2000 loss, meanwhile, could be attributed to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal and Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Current Vice President Mike Pence is walking a high-stakes political tightrope as he tries to reassure anxious Republicans while staying on his boss’s good side.This rich dynamic between the president and the vice president has never been fully explored or understood. Compelling and deeply reported, grounded in history and politics, and full of previously untold and incredibly personal stories, First In Line pierces the veil of secrecy enveloping this historic political office to offer us a candid portrait of what it’s truly like to be a heartbeat away.
First in Peace: How George Washington Set the Course for America
by O'Brien Conor CruiseJust before he died after a long and distinguished international career as a politician, commentator, and author, Conor Cruise O’Brien completed a study of George Washington’s presidency. Cruise O’Brien has been described as "a man who so persistently asks the right questions” (The Economist), and in this, his last book, he explores the question of how early America’s future was determined. First in Peace considers the dissension between Washington and Jefferson during the first U. S. presidency, and reveals Washington’s clear-sighted political wisdom while exposing Jefferson’s dangerous ideology. Cruise O’Brien makes the case that Washington, not Jefferson, was the true democrat, and commends his clarity of vision in restoring good relations with Britain, his preference for order and pragmatism, and his aversion to French political extremism.
First in the Family: A Story of Survival, Recovery, and the American Dream
by Jessica HoppeAn unflinching and intimate memoir of recovery by Jessica Hoppe, Latinx writer, advocate, and creator of NuevaYorka. “A powerful thunderclap of a memoir.” —Lilliam Rivera, author of Dealing in Dreams A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024: Today.com, LupitaReads, Electric Literature, Esquire, Publishers Weekly In this deeply moving and lyrical memoir, Hoppe shares an intimate, courageous account of what it means to truly interrupt cycles of harm. For readers of The Recovering by Leslie Jamison, Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford, and Heavy by Kiese Laymon.During the first year of quarantine, drug overdoses spiked, the highest ever recorded. And Hoppe’s cousin was one of them. “I never learned the true history of substance use disorder in my family,” Hoppe writes. “People just disappeared.” At the time of her cousin’s death, she’d been in recovery for nearly four years, but she hadn’t told anyone.In First in the Family, Hoppe shares her journey, the first in her family to do so, and takes the reader on a remarkable investigation of her family’s history, the American Dream, and the erasure of BIPOC from recovery institutions and narratives, leaving the reader with an urgent message of hope.
First in the Field: Baseball Hero Jackie Robinson
by Derek T. DingleA biography which discusses the discrimination faced by Jackie Robinson, the baseball legend who became the first African American to play Major League baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
First of the Summer Wine: George Hirst, Schofield Haigh, Wilfred Rhodes and the Gentle Heart of Yorkshire Cricket
by Harry PearsonThe remarkable story of three Yorkshire cricketers from the Golden Age - George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Schofield Haigh - who transformed their county's fortunes, inspired a generation of cricketers and left a unique legacy on the game. Between them, Hirst, Rhodes and Haigh scored over 77,000 runs and took almost 9000 wickets in a combined 2500 appearances, helping Yorkshire to seven County Championship triumphs. The records they set will never be beaten, yet the three men - known throughout England as The Triumvirate - were born in two small villages just outside Huddersfield, in Last of the Summer Wine country. Hirst pioneered and perfected the art of swing and seam bowling, Rhodes took more first-class wickets than anyone else in history, while the genial Haigh's achievements as a bowler at Yorkshire have been surpassed only by his two close friends; their influence would extend far beyond England, as they all went to India to coach, laying the foundations of cricket in the subcontinent. Pearson, whose biography of Learie Constantine, Connie, won the MCC Book of the Year Award, brings the characters and the age vividly to life, showing how these cricketing stars came to symbolise the essence of Yorkshire. This was a time when the gritty northern professionals from the White Rose county took on some of the most glittering amateurs of the age, including W.G.Grace, C.B.Fry, Prince Ranji and Gilbert Jessop, and when writers such as Neville Cardus and J.M.Kilburn were on hand to bring their achievements to a wider audience. The First of the Summer Wine is a celebration of a vanished age, but also reveals how the efforts of Hirst, Rhodes and Haigh helped create the modern era, too.
First to Fall: Elijah Lovejoy and the Fight for a Free Press in the Age of Slavery
by Ken EllingwoodA vividly told tale of a forgotten American hero—an impassioned newsman who fought for the right to speak out against slavery. The history of the fight for free press has never been more vital in our own time, when journalists are targeted as &“enemies of the people.&” In this bnrilliant and rigorously researched history, award-winning journalist and author Ken Ellingwood animates the life and times of abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy. First to Fall illuminates this flawed yet heroic figure who made the ultimate sacrifice while fighting for free press rights in a time when the First Amendment offered little protection for those who dared to critique America&’s &“peculiar institution.&” Culminating in Lovejoy&’s dramatic clashes with the pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois—who were torching printing press after printing press—First to Fall will bring Lovejoy, his supporters and his enemies to life during the raucous 1830s at the edge of slave country. It was a bloody period of innovation, conflict, violent politics, and painful soul-searching over pivotal issues of morality and justice. In the tradition of books like The Arc of Justice, First to Fall elevates a compelling, socially urgent narrative that has never received the attention it deserves. The book will aim to do no less than rescue Lovejoy from the footnotes of history and restore him as a martyr whose death was not only a catalyst for widespread abolitionist action, but also inaugurated the movement toward the free press protections we cherish so dearly today.
First to Leave the Party: My Life with Ordinary People... Who Happen to be Famous
by Salah BachirA marvelous and compulsively readable collection of stories from the life of Salah Bachir — philanthropist, art collector, movie industry insider — who, through his sheer joy of life, art, giving back, and human interaction, has endeared him to some of the most famous and creative people in recent times.Salah Bachir&’s encounters with stars who have passed through his beloved Toronto over the years opens on a backyard garden barbecue with Marlon Brando, and bread continues to be broken with icons as fascinating and seemingly disparate as Muhammad Ali and Liberace, Margaret Atwood and Cesar Chavez, Andy Warhol and Princess Margaret, to name just a few. But the true literary coup is that the biggest, brightest star we encounter is the author himself. Alan CummingSalah is the patron saint for all of us who are full of curiosity, hungry for celebration, horny for fun, and who won&’t stop until every need is fulfilled. His appetite and passion for life is voracious. His ability to transform those passions into making life better for others is even more impressive. Atom EgoyanSalah Bachir, who immigrated to Canada from Lebanon in the 1960s, has been a gay activist who has worked in the film world for over four decades. While this has given him undeniable front-row access to Hollywood&’s biggest stars, it is Salah&’s personal charm and kindness, his philanthropy, his overall style (think hats, scarves, brooches, pearls, diamonds) and deep involvement in the art world that has made him a friend, companion, confidante, and/or lover to so many — including Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Joan Rivers, Mary Tyler Moore, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Edward Albee, Orson Welles, Aretha Franklin, Norman Jewison, and Elizabeth Taylor — although it&’s true that Katharine Hepburn once turned him down, very nicely.Collected here in this wonderful book are personal stories of them all — some short, some long, some surprising, others juicy, and all fascinating. Through them we get to know Salah, a larger-than-life character that embodies the many worlds he shapes — the kind of person it would be hard to make up if he didn&’t already exist.
First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent
by Lorissa RinehartThe first authoritative biography of pioneering photojournalist Dickey Chapelle, who from World War II through the early days of Vietnam got her story by any means necessary as one of the first female war correspondents."I side with prisoners against guards, enlisted men against officers, weakness against power."From the beginning of World War II through the early days of Vietnam, groundbreaking female photojournalist and war correspondent Dickey Chapelle chased dangerous assignments her male colleagues wouldn’t touch, pioneering a radical style of reporting that focused on the humanity of the oppressed. She documented conditions across Eastern Europe in the wake of the Second World War. She marched down the Ho Chi Minh Trail with the South Vietnamese Army and across the Sierra Maestra Mountains with Castro. She was the first reporter accredited with the Algerian National Liberation Front, and survived torture in a communist Hungarian prison. She dove out of planes, faked her own kidnapping, and endured the mockery of male associates, before ultimately dying on assignment in Vietnam with the Marines in 1965, the first American female journalist killed while covering combat.Chapelle overcame discrimination both on the battlefield and at home, with much of her work ultimately buried from the public eye—until now. In First to the Front, Lorissa Rinehart uncovers the incredible life and unparalleled achievements of this true pioneer, and the mark she would make on history.
First, Best: Lessons in Leadership and Legacy from Today's Civil Rights Movement
by Steven L. Reed Fagan HarrisThe first Black mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, shares his story of making his way in a world that wasn&’t built for him, drawing on his rich heritage as the son of a civil rights leader.As a proud son of a civil rights leader, Steven L. Reed grew up hearing stories about how his father integrated Montgomery lunch counters and took advice directly from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy. However, it wasn&’t until Reed was in the fourth grade and received a death threat against his father that he began to understand more fully the importance of the lessons his father was trying to impart. At this pivotal moment, his father explained, &“My job is to prepare you to be a cross-bearer and not just a crown-wearer. Bigotry has no place in our household. It will only hold you down and make you small.&” First, Best is an essential antidote to the perpetual dehumanization and distortions of Black men in our culture and media. By sharing the story of forging his own path, Reed offers an alternative narrative to Black men coming of age, catalyzing their hope and sense of possibility. Although Reed took a circuitous path to the office of mayor that began by forging his identity at Morehouse College, pursuing entrepreneurship and exploring the wider world, and serving as a probate judge, each step was guided by the values of his father&’s generation. First, Best is not just about assuming the mantle of manhood or leadership, nor is it only about the expectation of greatness. Fundamentally, it&’s about responsibility and preparation, serving others, and being willing to pay the price of leadership by carrying the weight of each decision. First, Best affirms the next generation of Black men and women by showing, through story and example, their power and potential in a world that doesn&’t always root for them.
First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety
by Sarah WilsonThe New York Times bestselling author of I Quit Sugar transforms cultural perceptions of the mental health issue of our age—anxiety—viewing this widespread condition not as a burdensome affliction but as a powerful spiritual teacher that can deepen our lives. <P><P>While reading psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison’s groundbreaking account of bipolar disorder An Unquiet Mind, Sarah Wilson discovered an ancient Chinese proverb that would change her life:To conquer a beast, you must first make it beautiful. <P><P>Wilson, a bestselling author, journalist, and entrepreneur, had spent years struggling with her own beast: chronic anxiety. And the words of this proverb would become the key to understanding her condition. <P><P>First, We Make the Beast Beautiful charts Wilson’s epic journey to make peace with her lifetime companion, and to learn to see it as a guide, rather than as an enemy. With intensive focus and investigatory skills, Wilson examines the triggers and treatments, the fashions and fads. She reads widely and interviews fellow sufferers, mental health experts, philosophers, and even the Dalai Lama, processing all she learns through the prism of her own experiences. <P><P>Pulling at the thread of accepted definitions of anxiety, she unravels the notion that it is a difficult, dangerous disease that must be medicated into submission, and re-frames it as a divine journey—a state of yearning that will lead us closer to what really matters. <P><P>Practical and poetic, wise and funny, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful is a small book with a big heart. It will encourage the myriad souls who dance with this condition to embrace it as a part of who they are, and to explore the possibilities it offers for a richer, fuller life.
First, You Cry: The Classic, Inspiring Story of One Woman's Triumph over Breast Cancer
by Betty Rollin"Every woman. . . should read it. Her book has the simple touch of truth." —Gail Sheehy, Author of The Silent PassageNBC News correspondent Betty Rollin, glamorous, successful, and happily married, had it all—and then she learned that she had a malignant tumor in her breast. Written with wit, warmth, and soul searching honesty, First, You Cry is the inspiring true story about how one woman transformed the most terrifying ordeal of her life into a new beginning. With a new introduction and epilogue, this unique memoir serves as a fascinating retrospective of the twenty-five years since Rollin's first mastectomy and, given the continuing threat of breast cancer, tells a story that will inform all women as it touches them with its honesty and even, humor.
First: Sandra Day O'Connor
by Evan ThomasThe intimate, inspiring, and authoritative biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first female Supreme Court justice, drawing on exclusive interviews and first-time access to Justice O’Connor’s archives—by the New York Times bestselling author Evan Thomas. <P><P>She was born in 1930 in El Paso and grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her law school class in 1952, no firm would even interview her. But Sandra Day O’Connor’s story is that of a woman who repeatedly shattered glass ceilings—doing so with a blend of grace, wisdom, humor, understatement, and cowgirl toughness. <P><P>She became the first ever female majority leader of a state senate. As a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, she stood up to corrupt lawyers and humanized the law. When she arrived at the United States Supreme Court, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, she began a quarter-century tenure on the Court, hearing cases that ultimately shaped American law. <P><P>Diagnosed with cancer at fifty-eight, and caring for a husband with Alzheimer’s, O’Connor endured every difficulty with grit and poise. Women and men who want to be leaders and be first in their own lives—who want to learn when to walk away and when to stand their ground—will be inspired by O’Connor’s example. This is a remarkably vivid and personal portrait of a woman who loved her family, who believed in serving her country, and who, when she became the most powerful woman in America, built a bridge forward for all women. <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
Firstborn Girls: A Memoir
by Bernice L. McFaddenFrom award-winning author and creative writing professor at Tulane University comes an intimate and powerful memoir exploring inherited trauma, family secrets, and the enduring bonds of love between mothers and daughters. On her second birthday in 1967, Bernice McFadden died in a car crash near Detroit, only to be resuscitated after her mother pulled her from the flaming wreckage. Firstborn Girls traces her remarkable life from that moment up to the publication of her first novel, Sugar. Growing up in 1980s Brooklyn, Bernice finds solace in books, summer trips to Barbados, and boarding school to escape her alcoholic father. Discovering the works of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, she finally sees herself and her loved ones reflected in their stories of &“messy, beautiful, joyful Black people.&” Interwoven with Bernice's personal journey is her family's history, beginning with her four-times enslaved great-grandmother Louisa Vicey Wilson in 1822 Hancock County, Georgia. Her descendants survived Reconstruction and Jim Crow, joined the Great Migration, and mourned Dr. King&’s assassination during the Civil Rights Movement. These women's wisdom, secrets, and fierce love are passed down like Louisa's handmade quilt. A memoir of many threads, Firstborn Girls is an extraordinarily moving portrait of a life shaped by family, history, and the drive to be something more.
Firstborn: A Memoir
by Lauren ChristensenA lapidary memoir of losing a child before she can be born, which the author began writing the day she came home from the hospital—an intimate story about our most searing losses and brightest hopes&“Some days I still think this is all just a sad story I&’ll tell Simone one day.&”Lauren Christensen is a thirtysomething editor in New York City when she meets her future husband, Gabe, a writer with whom she falls in love right away. Her beloved grandfather is dying, but the young couple is bringing new life into the family: Lauren and Gabe joyfully discover she is pregnant with their daughter, Simone.As Lauren faces the prospect of becoming a parent, she learns to let go of the fear of abandonment and need for control instilled in her by growing up with a largely absent father and a high-powered mother who was often away on business. Lauren and Gabe are incandescently happy in their exuberant, messy, beautiful shared world. But just weeks after their wedding, they learn that their worst nightmare has come true: Simone is dying in the womb.In fierce, tender, spellbinding prose, Firstborn brings us to the very heart of the human paradox: How do we live when everyone who makes up our world will someday be gone? And how can we mourn when the cosmic order has been turned upside down—when a child dies before she is born?As she comes up against the brutal limits of maternal healthcare and the limitlessness of her love for her daughter, Lauren Christensen finds a key, generous and brave, in which to share her loss, a testimony whose diamond-like brilliance refracts a universal light.
Firstborn: A Tudor Rose short story
by Alison WeirFROM THE SUNDAY TIMES-BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE SIX TUDOR QUEENS SERIES.In this short prequel to Alison Weir's new novel, Elizabeth of York, The Last White Rose, the young princess is born - and the future of England hangs in the balance.The Palace of Westminster, 1466. As the Queen of England lies in her chamber, exhausted from childbirth, the court awaits news of the longed-for heir...The KingEdward prays for a son to ensure the succession of his line.The godfatherWarwick knows his influence over the King cannot last.The grandmotherCecily hopes her new grandchild will one day bring great fortune to England.The friendLord Hastings fears the growing hostility within King Edward's inner circle.The young rivalThe boy Henry does not yet know his own significance.The uncleRichard visits the new baby - and dreams that night of a golden crown.**Includes a preview of the spellbinding first novel in the Tudor Rose trilogy - Elizabeth of York, The Last White Rose**
Firstborn: A Tudor Rose short story
by Alison WeirFROM THE SUNDAY TIMES-BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE SIX TUDOR QUEENS SERIES.In this short prequel to Alison Weir's new novel, Elizabeth of York, The Last White Rose, the young princess is born - and the future of England hangs in the balance.The Palace of Westminster, 1466. As the Queen of England lies in her chamber, exhausted from childbirth, the court awaits news of the longed-for heir...The KingEdward prays for a son to ensure the succession of his line.The godfatherWarwick knows his influence over the King cannot last.The grandmotherCecily hopes her new grandchild will one day bring great fortune to England.The friendLord Hastings fears the growing hostility within King Edward's inner circle.The young rivalThe boy Henry does not yet know his own significance.The uncleRichard visits the new baby - and dreams that night of a golden crown.**Includes a preview of the spellbinding first novel in the Tudor Rose trilogy - Elizabeth of York, The Last White Rose**(P) 2022 Headline Publishing Group Ltd
Firsthand: How I Solved a Literary Mystery and Learned to Play Kickass Tennis while Coming to Grips with the Disorder of Things (Writers On Writing)
by Keith GandalFirsthand is an exploration—both suspenseful and comic—of the creative process in research writing. The book takes the reader through the ins and outs of a specific research journey, from combing through libraries and archives to the intellectual challenges involved with processing information that contradicts established ideas. More fundamentally, it addresses the somewhat mysterious portion of the intellectual process: the creative and serendipitous aspects involved in arriving at a fruitful research question in the first place. Keith Gandal combines this scholarly detective story with a comic personal narrative about how a midlife crisis accidentally sent him on a journey to write a research monograph that many in his profession—including at times himself—were dubious about. While researching how Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner faced their forgotten crises of masculinity, Gandal discovers that his own crisis is instrumental to his creative process. Incorporating stories from Gandal’s comic romp through the hyper-competitive world of middle-aged men’s tennis, adopting pitbulls, and discussing Michel Foucault, Firsthand gives readers an inside look at how to acquire accurate knowledge—about the world, about history, and about oneself.
Firsts: Coming of Age Stories by People with Disabilities
by Belo Miguel CiprianiTake a step back in time with some of the best writers with disabilities as they recount their first adventure, their first heartbreak, and the first time the unexpected treaded into their life. From body transformations to societal setbacks, to love affairs and family trauma, Firsts collects the most thought-provoking and exciting stories of our time by people with disabilities. Contributors include Nigel David Kelly, Kimberly Gerry-Tucker, Caitlin Hernandez, Andrew Gurza, and David-Elijah Nahmod.
Fish Out of Agua: My Life on Neither Side of the (Subway) Tracks
by Michele CarloA voice from the loudspeaker blared, "Will the family who brought the little redheaded white girl to the Puerto Rican Day parade please come to the bandstand to pick her up." I looked around. Wait a minute. I am at the bandstand. I am that lost girl!Michele Carlo, a redheaded, freckle-faced Puerto Rican raised in the Polish section of the Bronx, grew up as a permanent outsider. Too white for her proud, Spanish-speaking relatives and a mystery to her schoolmates, Michele braved a search for identity that was a long, rough and tumble ride. . .By turns heartbreaking and humorous, she recalls the family calamities, fumblings of first love, and all the people and events that shaped her. From her "playground battlefield" in the not-so-wholesome summer of '69 to many adrenaline-fueled, graffiti-filled afternoons and her emergence as an artist with a unique and alluring voice, Michele's story is an homage to a New York City gone by. . .and an iconically American, unforgettable portrait of growing up. "
Fish Out of Water: A Search for the Meaning of Life
by Eric MetaxasWhat Happens When One of America&’s Most Admired Biographers Writes His Own Biography? For Eric Metaxas, the answer is Fish Out of Water: A Search for the Meaning of Life—a poetic and sometimes hilarious memoir of his early years, in which the Queens-born son of Greek and German immigrants struggles to make sense of a world in which he never quite seems to fit. Renowned for his biographies of William Wilberforce, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Martin Luther, Metaxas is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, the witty host of the acclaimed Socrates in the City conversation series, and a nationally syndicated radio personality. But here he reveals a personal story few have heard, taking us from his mostly happy childhood—and riotous triumphs at Yale—to the nightmare of drifting toward a dark abyss of meaninglessness from which he barely escapes. Along the way he introduces us to an unforgettable troupe of picaresque characters who join this quintessentially first-generation American boy in what is both bildungsroman and odyssey—and which underscores just how funny, serious, happy, sad, and ultimately meaningful life can be.
Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison
by T. J. ParsellWhen seventeen-year-old T. J. Parsell held up the local Photo Mat with a toy gun, he was sentenced to four and a half to fifteen years in prison. The first night of his term, four older inmates drugged Parsell and took turns raping him. When they were through, they flipped a coin to decide who would own him. Forced to remain silent about his rape by a convict code among inmates (one in which informers are murdered), Parsell's experience that first night haunted him throughout the rest of his sentence. In an effort to silence the guilt and pain of its victims, the issue of prisoner rape is a story that has not been told. For the first time Parsell, one of America's leading spokespeople for prison reform, shares the story of his coming of age behind bars. He gives voice to countless others who have been exposed to an incarceration system that turns a blind eye to the abuse of the prisoners in its charge. Since life behind bars is so often exploited by television and movie re-enactments, the real story has yet to be told. Fish is the first breakout story to do that.
Fisherman's Friends: Sailing at Eight Bells
by Fisherman'S FriendsFor the past two decades ten men from Cornwall's Port Isaac have met on the village quayside every Friday summer evening to sing rousing sea shanties and traditional folk songs for little more than free beer. Then, in March 2010, everything changed when stardom came to this bunch of friends who had sought neither fame nor fortune. Within weeks of a record producer hearing their passionate, harmonic singing, they had a million-pound deal and were booked to appear at Glastonbury. By the end of that month a world tour was underway and Ealing Films had bought the rights to their story. Their first commercially produced album went gold almost immediately and they have now played live to hundreds of thousands of people, raising the roof everywhere with ballads such as 'The Cadgwith Anthem' and 'South Australia'. The book will tell the full story of how the boat came in for this group of burly middle-aged men, each of whom are or have been fishermen, lifeboatmen and coastguards (as well as builders, artisans, hoteliers and shop keepers) in their beloved Port Isaac. Each member of the group has his own story, and individual family histories tell of Cornwall's rugged, harsh landscape and the ever-present danger and bounty of the sea. The Fisherman's Friends have found a huge and ready audience and have rekindled interest in traditional music, striking a chord in the hearts of men and women, young and old, across the English-speaking world. With a new album due out in summer 2011, this is an affectionate and timely autobiography.
Fishers of Men
by Adam ElenbaasIn the tradition of memoirs like Daniel Pinchbeck's 2012 and Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries, Adam Elenbaas's Fishers of Men chronicles his journey from intense self-destruction and crippling depression to self-acceptance, inner awareness, and spiritual understanding, through participation in mindexpanding-and healing ayahuasca ceremonies in South America and beyond. From his troubled and rebellious youth as a Methodist minister's son in Minnesota, to his sex and substance abuse-fueled downward spiral in Chicago and New York, culminating in a depressive breakdown, Elenbaas is plagued by a feeling of emptiness and a desperate search for meaning for most of his young life. After hitting rock bottom at his grandfather's house in rural Michigan, a chance experience with psychedelic mushrooms convinces him that he must change his ways to achieve the sense of peace that he has always desired. Several subsequent psychedelic experiences inspire him to embark on a quest to South America and take part in a shamanic ceremony, where he consumes ayahuasca, a jungle vine revered for its spiritual properties. Over the course of nearly forty ayahuasca ceremonies during four years, Elenbaas discovers the truth about his own life and past, and begins to mend himself from the inside out. Fishers of Men is the gripping, heartbreaking, and yet ultimately uplifting story of the power to transcend one's past.
Fishing Stories: A Lifetime of Adventures and Misadventures on Rivers, Lakes, and Seas (Classic Ser.)
by Nick Lyons Mari LyonsAll fishermen who have fished for a lifetime have baskets of great stories and reminiscences about the sport they love. Nick Lyons's new collection is chock-full of them. From fishing a small Catskill creek and catching a huge brook trout when he was barely out of infancy to long opening day treks during his teens, and then on to fishing in France, Iceland, Key West, Montana, and widely elsewhere, Nick has spent a lifetime on the water.Fishing Stories features tales about bass, bluefish, tarpon, stripers, bluegill, and many other species as well as portraits of many of the unusual people with whom he has fished. Lyons describes a long, hilarious day with a character named Hawkes in one story, and then the next features a father and son on a Western lake.Through these memories, Lyons shows the comfortable pleasure of fishing waters close to home that one knows just about as well as his or her closest friends. Stories describe days of discovery and adventure on new waters; fishing with famous fishing writers, and new friends, and a granddaughter; and fishing in a little pond he built during the years he refers to as his Indian summer. An unforgettable fight with a gigantic fish in a Western river and simpler days fishing for bluegill and pickerel are also documented.No fisherman of any stripe will fail to find stories that echo his or her own experiences, and all will come closer to understanding the passion that drives all serious fishermen.