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Most Valuable: Most Valuable (STAT #5)
by Amar'e StoudemireYoung Amar’e Stoudemire is back in the all-star basketball adventure based on the NBA sensation’s own life!Amar’e’s idol, Overtime Tanner, plans the biggest streetball tournament every year. But when Overtime gets hurt during a basketball game, he can’t make the arrangements in time. So Amar’e and his friends help set the tournament up. On top of that, each group of Amar’e’s friends wants him to play for their team and he’s torn on what to do. Planning a tournament is a lot more work than playing in one. Will Amar’e’s hard work pay off?Based on the life of All-Star NBA sensation Amar’e Stoudemire, who overcame many obstacles to become one of the most popular athletes of today, this is “a series of chapter books that celebrate sports, smarts and friendship . . . Amar’e is a likable protagonist” (Kirkus Reviews).Praise for the series“Will keep basketball fans riveted . . . Amar’e’s voice is refreshingly real.” —Publishers Weekly
The Most Wanted Man in China: My Journey from Scientist to Enemy of the State
by Fang LizhiThe long-awaited memoir by Fang Lizhi, the celebrated physicist whose clashes with the Chinese regime helped inspire the Tiananmen Square protestsFang Lizhi was one of the most prominent scientists of the People's Republic of China; he worked on the country's first nuclear program and later became one of the world's leading astrophysicists. His devotion to science and the pursuit of truth led him to question the authority of the Communist regime. That got him in trouble. In 1957, after advocating reforms in the Communist Party, Fang -- just twenty-one years old -- was dismissed from his position, stripped of his Party membership, and sent to be a farm laborer in a remote village. Over the next two decades, through the years of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, he was alternately denounced and rehabilitated, revealing to him the pettiness, absurdity, and horror of the regime's excesses. He returned to more normal work in academia after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, but the cycle soon began again. This time his struggle became a public cause, and his example helped inspire the Tiananmen Square protests. Immediately after the crackdown in June 1989, Fang and his wife sought refuge in the U.S. embassy, where they hid for more than a year before being allowed to leave the country. During that time Fang wrote this memoir The Most Wanted Man in China, which has never been published, until now. His story, told with vivid detail and disarming humor, is a testament to the importance of remaining true to one's principles in an unprincipled time and place.
Mostly Sunny: How I Learned to Keep Smiling through the Rainiest Days
by Janice DeanA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.Sometimes you have to make your own sunshine.When Janice Dean debuted on Imus in the Morning, she was bubbly, clever, and charismatic. When Imus mocked her intelligence and looks, she gave as good as she got. She had achieved the dream she’d had since kindergarten: being a reporter on TV. So why wasn’t she happy? She had just moved to New York from Canada with no family, no friends, and no boyfriend. Her boss was a notorious jerk, and the gap between her on-air persona and real life had never been bigger. In the decade that followed, how did she turn it all around? Now she is the beloved full-time meteorologist on Fox and Friends, surrounded by wonderful people, and has a line of children’s books and a beautiful family. When she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she was ready. She survived attacks, adversity, and a business controlled by ruthless men. She knows how love, counting your blessings, and having a good therapist can get you through more than you would expect.In this honest yet optimistic book, Janice reveals obstacles she’s faced that could have severely impacted any professional woman’s career, from online trolls to health issues to abusive and sexist bosses. In Mostly Sunny she talks about it all, including the fateful meeting with her firefighting husband after he lost his colleagues on 9/11 and how the pressure on women in television led her to a cosmetic procedure that could have ended her career. But no matter what storms blow her way, Janice refuses to let setbacks and challenges rain on her parade or cloud her outlook. Thanks to supportive coworkers and an upbeat attitude, she’s mastered turning countless would-be losses into victories. The funny, sweet, and wise Janice Dean you see on TV is now the real Janice Dean, and she’s on every page of her book, sharing her secrets and making your own forecast a little brighter.
Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Baseball
by Molly O'NeillMolly O'Neill's father believed that baseball was his family's destiny. He wanted to spawn enough sons for an infield, so he married the tallest woman in Columbus, Ohio. Molly came out first, but eventually her father's plan prevailed. Five boys followed in rapid succession and the youngest, Paul O'Neill, did, in fact, grow up to be the star right fielder for the New York Yankees. In Mostly True, celebrated food critic and writer O'Neill tells the story of her quintessentially American family and the places where they come together -- around the table and on the ball field. Molly's great-grandfather played on one of the earliest traveling teams in organized baseball, her grandfather played barnstorming ball, and her father pitched in the minor leagues, but after being sidelined with an injury in the war, he set his sights on the next generation. While her brothers raged and struggled to become their own men, Molly, appointed "Deputy Mom" at an age when most girls were playing with dolls, learned early how to be the model Midwestern homemaker and began casting about wildly for other possible destinies. As her mother cleaned fanatically and produced elaborate, healthy meals, Molly spoiled her brothers with skyscraper cakes, scribbled reams of poetry, and staged theatrical productions in the backyard. By the late 1960s, the Woodstock Nation had challenged some of the O'Neill values, but nothing altered their conviction that only remarkable achievement could save them. Mostly True is the uncommon chronicle of a regular family pursuing the American dream and of one girl's quest to find her place in a world built for boys. Molly O'Neill -- an independent, extraordinarily talented, and fiercely funny woman -- showed that home runs can be hit in many fields. Her memoir is glorious.
Mostly Water: Reflections Rural and North
by Mary OddenThese linked essays form a memoir exploring the American outback from eastern Oregon horse trails to the arctic and subarctic river towns of Alaska.In Mostly Water, Alaska-based journalist and nature writer Mary Odden shares a series of personal essays celebrating the beauty and independent spirit of America’s remote and rural Northern spaces. In these landscapes, human dwellers are entwined in histories and anecdotes as loopy as northern rivers.Odden invites the reader to a vivid patchwork of characters and seldom-seen places, with a soundtrack from fiddle dances and a menu that is “half potlatch and half potluck.” Each essay features a recipe for a traditional regional dish, such as mincemeat, creamed salmon, and lingonberry sauce. As the stories unfold, events of the churning twenty-first century rise like the sea—as does a love of human togetherness and the precious otherness of nature.
Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere
by Savannah GuthrieGuthrie persuasively renders the evolution of a hard-won religious belief that makes room for imperfection and "does not require us to ignore... the sorrows we experience or the unjustness we see but to believe past it." This openhearted offering inspires. - Publishers WeeklyMostly what God does is love you.If we could believe this, really believe this, how different would we be? How different would our lives be? How different would our world be?If you ever struggle with your connection to God (or whether you even feel connected to a faith at all!), you're not alone. Especially in our modern world, with its relentless, never-ending news cycle, we can all grapple with such questions. Do we do that alone, with despair and resignation? Or do we make sense of it with God, and with hope? In these uncertain times, could believing in the power of divine love make the most sense?In this collection of essays, Savannah Guthrie shares why she believes it does. Unspooling personal stories from her own joys and sorrows as a daughter, mother, wife, friend, and professional journalist, the award-winning TODAY show coanchor and New York Times bestselling author explores the place of faith in everyday life.Sharing hard-won wisdom forged from mountaintop triumphs, crushing failures, and even the mundane moments of day-to-day living, Mostly What God Does reveals the transformative ways that belief in God helps us discover real hope for this life and beyond.A perfect companion to your morning cup of coffee, this incisive volume—not a memoir but a beautiful tapestry of reflections crafted as a spiritual manual—includes:a fresh, biblically rooted look at six essentials of faith: love, presence, grace, hope, gratitude, and purpose;an honest exploration of questions, doubts, and fears about the love of God;a dose of encouragement for the faith-full, the faith-curious, and the faith-less; and…and much more. This deeply personal collection is designed to engage the practical ways that God loves you—not just the world, but you—and to inspire you to venture down a path of faith that is authentic, hopeful, destiny-shaping, and ultimately life-changing.
The Moth
by The Moth Catherine Burns Adam Gopnik George Dawes GreenThe first collection from celebrated storytelling phenomenon The Moth presents fifty spellbinding, soul-bearing stories selected from their extensive archive. With tales from writer Malcolm Gladwell's wedding toast gone horribly awry; legendary rapper Darryl "DMC" McDaniels' obsession with a Sarah McLachlan song; poker champion Annie Duke's two million-dollar hand; and A. E. Hotchner's death-defying stint in a bullring . . . with his friend Ernest Hemingway. Read about the panic of former Clinton Press Secretary Joe Lockhart when he misses Air Force One after a hard night of drinking in Moscow, and Dr. George Lombardi's fight to save Mother Teresa's life. Inspired by friends telling stories on a porch, The Moth was born in small-town Georgia, garnered a cult following in New York City, and then rose to national acclaim with the wildly popular podcast and Peabody Award-winning weekly public radio show The Moth Radio Hour. A beloved read for Moth enthusiasts and all who savor well-told, hilarious, and heartbreaking stories.
The Moth and the Mountain: A True Story of Love, War, and Everest
by Ed Caesar&“An outstanding book.&” —The Wall Street Journal * &“Gripping at every turn.&” —Outside * &“A hell of a ride.&” —The Times (London) An extraordinary true story about one man&’s attempt to salve the wounds of war and save his own soul through an audacious adventure. In the 1930s, as official government expeditions set their sights on conquering Mount Everest, a little-known World War I veteran named Maurice Wilson conceives his own crazy, beautiful plan: he will fly a plane from England to Everest, crash-land on its lower slopes, then become the first person to reach its summit—completely alone. Wilson doesn&’t know how to climb. He barely knows how to fly. But he has the right plane, the right equipment, and a deep yearning to achieve his goal. In 1933, he takes off from London in a Gipsy Moth biplane with his course set for the highest mountain on earth. Wilson&’s eleven-month journey to Everest is wild: full of twists, turns, and daring. Eventually, in disguise, he sneaks into Tibet. His icy ordeal is just beginning. Wilson is one of the Great War&’s heroes, but also one of its victims. His hometown of Bradford in northern England is ripped apart by the fighting. So is his family. He barely survives the war himself. Wilson returns from the conflict unable to cope with the sadness that engulfs him. He begins a years-long trek around the world, burning through marriages and relationships, leaving damaged lives in his wake. When he finally returns to England, nearly a decade after he first left, he finds himself falling in love once more—this time with his best friend&’s wife—before depression overcomes him again. He emerges from his funk with a crystalline ambition. He wants to be the first man to stand on top of the world. Wilson believes that Everest can redeem him. This is the &“rollicking&” (The Economist) tale of an adventurer unlike any you have ever encountered: complex, driven, wry, haunted, and fully alive. He is a man written out of the history books—dismissed as an eccentric and gossiped about because of rumors of his transvestism. The Moth and the Mountain restores Maurice Wilson to his rightful place in the annals of Everest and tells an unforgettable story about the power of the human spirit in the face of adversity.
Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean: Remembering Chinese Scientist Pu Zhelong
by Sigrid Schmalzer Melanie Linden ChanMoth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean tells its story through the memories of a farm boy who, inspired by Pu Zhelong, became a scientist himself. The narrator is a composite of people Pu Zhelong influenced in his work. With further context from Melanie Chan’s historically precise watercolors, this story will immerse young readers in Chinese culture, the natural history of insects, and the use of biological controls in farming. Backmatter provides context and background for this lovely, sophisticated picture book about nature, science, and Communist China. “The first time I saw a scientist in my village was also the first time I saw a wasp hatch out of a moth’s egg,” writes the narrator of this picture book about Chinese scientist Pu Zhelong. “In that moment I could not have said which was the more unexpected—or the more miraculous.” In the early 1960s, while Rachel Carson was writing and defending Silent Spring in the U.S., Pu Zhelong was teaching peasants in Mao Zedong’s Communist China how to forgo pesticides and instead use parasitic wasps to control the moths that were decimating crops and contributing to China’s widespread famine. This story told through the memories of a farm boy (a composite of people inspired by Pu Zhelong) will immerse young readers in Chinese culture, the natural history of insects, and sustainable agriculture. Backmatter provides historical context for this lovely, sophisticated picture book. The author, Sigrid Schmalzer, won the Joseph Levenson Post-1900 Book Prize for 2018 for her book Red Revolution, Green Revolution. This is the most prestigious prize for a book about Chinese history, and the book upon which Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean is based. Fountas & Pinnell Level U
The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy
by Michael MccarthyThe moth snowstorm, a phenomenon Michael McCarthy remembers from his boyhood when moths "would pack a car's headlight beams like snowflakes in a blizzard," is a distant memory. Wildlife is being lost, not only in the wholesale extinctions of species but also in the dwindling of those species that still exist.The Moth Snowstorm is unlike any other book about climate change today; combining the personal with the polemical, it is a manifesto rooted in experience, a poignant memoir of the author's first love: nature. McCarthy traces his adoration of the natural world to when he was seven, when the discovery of butterflies and birds brought sudden joy to a boy whose mother had just been hospitalized and whose family life was deteriorating. He goes on to record in painful detail the rapid dissolution of nature's abundance in the intervening decades, and he proposes a radical solution to our current problem: that we each recognize in ourselves the capacity to love the natural world.Arguing that neither sustainable development nor ecosystem services have provided adequate defense against pollution, habitat destruction, species degradation, and climate change, McCarthy asks us to consider nature as an intrinsic good and an emotional and spiritual resource, capable of inspiring joy, wonder, and even love. An award-winning environmental journalist, McCarthy presents a clear, well-documented picture of what he calls "the great thinning" around the world, while interweaving the story of his own early discovery of the wilderness and a childhood saved by nature. Drawing on the truths of poets, the studies of scientists, and the author's long experience in the field, The Moth Snowstorm is part elegy, part ode, and part argument, resulting in a passionate call to action.
Mother American Night: My Life in Crazy Times
by John Perry Barlow Robert GreenfieldJohn Perry Barlow’s wild ride with the Grateful Dead was just part of a Zelig-like life that took him from a childhood as ranching royalty in Wyoming to membership in the Internet Hall of Fame as a digital free speech advocate.Mother American Night is the wild, funny, heartbreaking, and often unbelievable (yet completely true) story of an American icon. Born into a powerful Wyoming political family, John Perry Barlow wrote the lyrics for thirty Grateful Dead songs while also running his family’s cattle ranch. He hung out in Andy Warhol’s Factory, went on a date with the Dalai Lama’s sister, and accidentally shot Bob Weir in the face on the eve of his own wedding. As a favor to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Barlow mentored a young JFK Jr. and the two then became lifelong friends. Despite being a freely self-confessed acidhead, he served as Dick Cheney’s campaign manager during Cheney’s first run for Congress. And after befriending a legendary early group of computer hackers known as the Legion of Doom, Barlow became a renowned internet guru who then cofounded the groundbreaking Electronic Frontier Foundation.His résumé only hints of the richness of a life lived on the edge. Blessed with an incredible sense of humor and a unique voice, Barlow was a born storyteller in the tradition of Mark Twain and Will Rogers. Through intimate portraits of friends and acquaintances from Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia to Timothy Leary and Steve Jobs, Mother American Night traces the generational passage by which the counterculture became the culture, and it shows why learning to accept love may be the hardest thing we ever ask of ourselves.
Mother and Daughter: The Story of Daisy and Gladys Corunna
by Sally MorganSally Morgan’s My Place is an Australian classic. Since first publication in 1987, My Place has sold more than half a million copies in Australia, been translated and read all over the world, and been reprinted dozens of times. Sally’s rich, zesty and moving work is perhaps the best-loved biography of Aboriginal Australia ever written. My Place for Young Readers is an abridged edition, especially adapted for younger readers, that retains all the charm and power of the original. Mother and Daughter follows the lives of Daisy and Gladys Corunna, Sally’s grandmother and mother.
Mother and Me: Escape from Warsaw 1939
by Julian Padowicz"In 1939," Julian Padowicz says, "I was a Polish Jew-hater. Under different circumstances my story might have been one of denouncing Jews to the Gestapo. As it happened, I was a Jew myself, and I was seven years old." Julian's mother was a Warsaw socialite who had no interest in child-rearing. She turned her son over completely to his governess, a good Catholic, named Kiki, whom he loved with all his heart. Kiki was deeply worried about Julian's immortal soul, explaining that he could go to Heaven only if he became a Catholic. When bombs began to fall on Warsaw, Julian's world crumbled. His beloved Kiki returned to her family in Lodz; Julian's stepfather joined the Polish army, and the grief-stricken boy was left with the mother whom he hardly knew. Resourceful and determinded, his mother did whatever was necessary to provide for herself and her son: she brazenly cut into food lines and befriended Russian officers to get extra rations of food and fuel. But brought up by Kiki to distrust all things Jewish, Julian considered his mother's behavior un-Christian. In the winter of 1940, as conditions worsened, Julian and his mother made a dramatic escape to Hungary on foot through the Carpathian mountains and Julian came to believe that even Jews could go to Heaven.
Mother Angelica Her Grand Silence: The Last Years and Living Legacy
by Raymond Arroyo"Even now, I still meet with Mother in memory and in spirit. And though I miss her physical presence, the writing of this work has allowed me to once again spend long hours with her and share her essence with others. This final book in the canon captures the last bittersweet years of a faithful woman who, in her grand silence and through her pain, touched more lives and did more good than anyone imagined. It also gives us an opportunity to have one last visit with the sister we called 'Mother.'" - Raymond Arroyo For more than a decade, the beloved, wise cracking nun who founded EWTN, the world's largest religious media empire, was confined to her cell at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Alabama. Though Mother Angelica is still seen and heard by millions each week in reruns on seven continents, the private drama within her monastery, her personal supernatural encounters, and the prolonged suffering she endured has remained hidden. Until now. In a moving, dramatic conclusion to his four New York Times bestselling Mother Angelica books, Raymond Arroyo completes the saga of this singular nun with his most intimate book yet. Here are Mother Angelica's spiritual battles in her cell--including encounters with the devil. Revealed for the first time is the personal request Mother made of God--which sheds light on her long silence. Here are the unrevealed episodes of hilarity and inspiration; from playing possum (to avoid undesirable visitors to her room), to undertaking a secret trip to the far East, to blessing her nuns as they leave her care to create new monasteries, Mother Angelica's spunky spirit shines through the narrative. Mother Angelica Her Grand Silence, the touching, climactic coda to the Mother Angelica canon also offers readers the personal testimonies of people around the world who were spiritually transformed by Mother during her long public absence. And for the first time, the author writes movingly of his personal relationship with Mother--the highs and the lows. Eleven years after the release of the definitive biography of Mother Angelica, audiences want to know the rest of her story. This is it.From the Hardcover edition.
The Mother Code: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Myths That Shape Us
by Ruthie AckermanIn this propulsive memoir, an award-winning journalist blends history, science, and cultural criticism to uncover whether motherhood outside of society&’s rigid rules and expectations is possible—and whether she fits the mold for what a mother should be.&“This tender, generous book does the hard work of redefining &‘motherhood&’ and &‘family&’ so that they honor all aspects of a woman&’s life.&”—Christie Tate, author of the New York Times bestseller GroupRuthie Ackerman had long believed that the decision to not have children was a radical act. She&’d grown up being told that she came from a long line of women who had abandoned their kids and feared she would pass on her half-brother&’s rare genetic disorder. So when she marries a man who doesn&’t want children, she hopes she can be happy without any. But a voice in her head keeps returning to the question: What if mothering can be a radical act too? When her marriage veers off course, she goes searching through the twists and turns of her DNA to decide once and for all whether she should become a mother.By the time Ruthie finally determines that she desperately wants a child, she learns that motherhood won&’t happen the way she thought it would. Now she must enter the hall of mirrors where biology, genetics, and philosophy collide as she wonders what it means to both create and nurture a life. What does inheritance really entail? What does it mean to be a &“good&” mother? When it comes down to it, how important is nature versus nurture? And where are the models for what a &“good life&” can look like for women, both with and without children?Synthesizing reportage and memoir, The Mother Code unravels how we&’ve come to understand the institution of motherhood. What emerges is a groundbreaking new vision for what it means to parent: a mother code that goes beyond our bloodlines and genetics and instead urges us to embrace inheritance as the legacy we want to leave behind for those we love.
Mother Country: Real Stories of the Windrush Children
by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff***LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 JHALAK PRIZE***A leading new exploration of the Windrush generation featuring David Lammy, Lenny Henry, Corinne Bailey Rae, Sharmaine Lovegrove, Hannah Lowe, Jamz Supernova, Natasha Gordon and Rikki Beadle-Blair.For the pioneers of the Windrush generation, Britain was 'the Mother Country'. They made the long journey across the sea, expecting to find a place where they would be be welcomed with open arms; a land in which you were free to build a new life, eight thousand miles away from home. This remarkable book explores the reality of their experiences, and those of their children and grandchildren, through 22 unique real-life stories spanning more than 70 years. "The story of Windrush, is, like any other, a story of humanity. Of life, love, struggle, hope, misery, success and failure. It's one that is too often neglected in our media ... but this volume acts as a remedy to that failure of story-telling, which I ask you to both savour and share." - David Lammy MPContributors include: Catherine Ross, Corinne Bailey-Rae, David Lammy, Gail Lewis, Hannah Lowe, Howard Gardner, Jamz Supernova, Kay Montano, Kemi Alemoru, Kimberley McIntosh, Lazare Sylvestre, Lenny Henry, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen, Myrna Simpson, Naomi Oppenheim, Natasha Gordon, Nellie Brown, Paul Reid, Riaz Phillips, Rikki Beadle-Blair, Sharmaine Lovegrove, Sharon Frazer-Carroll.
Mother Country: Real Stories of the Windrush Children
by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff***LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 JHALAK PRIZE***A leading new exploration of the Windrush generation featuring David Lammy, Lenny Henry, Corinne Bailey Rae, Sharmaine Lovegrove, Hannah Lowe, Jamz Supernova, Natasha Gordon and Rikki Beadle-Blair.For the pioneers of the Windrush generation, Britain was 'the Mother Country'. They made the long journey across the sea, expecting to find a place where they would be be welcomed with open arms; a land in which you were free to build a new life, eight thousand miles away from home. This remarkable book explores the reality of their experiences, and those of their children and grandchildren, through 22 unique real-life stories spanning more than 70 years. "The story of Windrush, is, like any other, a story of humanity. Of life, love, struggle, hope, misery, success and failure. It's one that is too often neglected in our media ... but this volume acts as a remedy to that failure of story-telling, which I ask you to both savour and share." - David Lammy MPContributors include: Catherine Ross, Corinne Bailey-Rae, David Lammy, Gail Lewis, Hannah Lowe, Howard Gardner, Jamz Supernova, Kay Montano, Kemi Alemoru, Kimberley McIntosh, Lazare Sylvestre, Lenny Henry, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen, Myrna Simpson, Naomi Oppenheim, Natasha Gordon, Nellie Brown, Paul Reid, Riaz Phillips, Rikki Beadle-Blair, Sharmaine Lovegrove, Sharon Frazer-Carroll.
Mother Daughter Me
by Katie HafnerThe complex, deeply binding relationship between mothers and daughters is brought vividly to life in Katie Hafner's remarkable memoir, an exploration of the year she and her mother, Helen, spent working through, and triumphing over, a lifetime of unresolved emotions. Dreaming of a "year in Provence" with her mother, Katie urges Helen to move to San Francisco to live with her and Zoë, Katie's teenage daughter. Katie and Zoë had become a mother-daughter team, strong enough, Katie thought, to absorb the arrival of a seventy-seven-year-old woman set in her ways. Filled with fairy-tale hope that she and her mother would become friends, and that Helen would grow close to her exceptional granddaughter, Katie embarked on an experiment in intergenerational living that she would soon discover was filled with land mines: memories of her parents' painful divorce, of her mother's drinking, of dislocating moves back and forth across the country, and of Katie's own widowhood and bumpy recovery. Helen, for her part, was also holding difficult issues at bay. How these three women from such different generations learn to navigate their challenging, turbulent, and ultimately healing journey together makes for riveting reading. By turns heartbreaking and funny--and always insightful--Katie Hafner's brave and loving book answers questions about the universal truths of family that are central to the lives of so many. Advance praise for Mother Daughter Me "This brilliant, funny, poignant, and wrenching story of three generations under one roof is quite unlike anything else I have ever read. I love Katie Hafner's prose, her humor, the images she conjures, her choices of what to tell and when, the weaving together of family threads to produce this luminous and lasting tapestry. The story lingered with me long after I read the last page."--Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone "Brilliant . . . Mother Daughter Me is a beautifully written, intimately provocative, and courageous unpeeling of the deep rhythms of love, hate, fear, and redemption in three generations of females. I love this book!"--Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain "An emotional whodunit that uses brilliant journalistic acumen to crack the code of old family secrets."--Madeleine Blais, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Uphill Walkers "Heartbreakingly honest . . . In a narrative that skillfully moves between her present predicament and her difficult childhood, Hafner offers a compelling portrait of her remarkable mother and their troubled relationship."--Kirkus ReviewsFrom the Hardcover edition.
Mother Emily of Sinsinawa: American Pioneer
by Mary SynonMother Emily set up mission schools and instituted educational reforms. She continued the Mazzuchelli school, making it one of the outstanding educational institutions of the Middle West. But her goal was not merely secular instruction. More than that, she strove to form good American citizens imbued with a thirst for social betterment. For forty-two years she led her company of nuns with love and wisdom, inspiring them to weather trials and tribulations with her zeal and spiritual fervor.
A Mother for All Seasons: A Memoir
by Debbie Phelps Mim E. RivasThe unsinkable Debbie Phelps—who captured the hearts of the world when her son, Michael, triumphed at the Beijing Olympic games—shares her inspirational story A Mother for All Seasons is the heartfelt, intimate memoir of an everywoman—a single mom and an educator who raised three exceptional children, including the greatest Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps.During the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, when Michael achieved the impossible with his record-shattering eight gold-medal wins, Debbie Phelps nearly stole the show. For the millions who were riveted to the most watched Olympics in history, few could forget the homage that Michael consistently paid to the one person on Team Phelps most responsible for making it all possible: his mom. Nor can we forget how after each medal ceremony, Michael walked proudly to the stands to reach up to his mother and his sisters, Hilary and Whitney, to deliver his winning bouquets to them. While those highlights will forever be remembered the world over, very few know the behind-the-scenes stories as lived by the members of Team Phelps—a roller-coaster ride full of dramatic ups and downs, heartbreaks, and disappointments, yet one guided to triumph by vision, courage, and tenacity. Now at last, in A Mother for All Seasons, we're given the untold story as lived by the mom on the team. An educator in home economics, motivational spokeswoman, visionary middle-school principal, mother of three, and grandmother of two, Debbie Phelps is also the eternal cheerleader who was raised in a small, blue-collar, working-class town. An avid believer that achievement is limitless for each and every child, no matter the odds, Debbie reveals the universal themes of her story, which is rich with struggle, humor, hope, advice, and passion. Infused with the indomitable spirit of “America's mom,” as she has been called, A Mother for All Seasons rallies us to cheer for all of our children at every stage of their growth and in every endeavor. Candid, lively, and charming, it offers timely, commonsense wisdom, lessons, and insights, and provides a much-needed reminder that life doesn't always turn out how you plan it, but in fact it can sometimes turn out even better.
A Mother in History
by Jean StaffordJean Stafford's unforgettable portrait of Marguerite Oswald, the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald.Curious about &“the influences and accidents and loves and antipathies and idiosyncrasies&” that shaped Lee Harvey Oswald, the novelist and short story writer Jean Stafford spent nine hours interviewing Marguerite Oswald in May 1965. A Mother in History (1966) is the acerbic result, an indelible portrait of a woman hungry for money, fame, and attention, full of righteous self-pity, and relentless in professing her son&’s blamelessness: &“Killing does not necessarily mean badness. You find killing in some very fine homes for one reason or another.&” Stafford&’s controversial profile elicited mixed reviews—Newsweek praised it as a &“masterpiece of character study,&” while Time called it &“the most abrasively unpleasant book in recent years&”—and angry readers accused her of seeking to &“enthrone a wicked woman&” and &“demolish the sacred throne of motherhood.&” It captures a moment in history when the trauma of Dallas was still raw, Lee Harvey Oswald&’s guilt was widely accepted, and Marguerite Oswald, with her obsessive &“research&” into hidden &“truths&” and the machinations of an omnipresent &“they,&” appeared to be a singular prisoner of maternal delusion, and not a harbinger of the decades to come.
Mother in the Middle
by Sybil LockhartSybil Lockhart, a Berkeley neurobiologist, became a "mother in the middle" when she was pregnant with her second daughter and her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. What makes Sybil's story different, and so powerful, is that she understood the neurological processes, by turns exciting and devastating, that were taking place in the brains of those she loved. Interweaving her scientific expertise with her own complicated emotions, she writes with elegant simplicity and breathtaking honesty about biology's inevitable, powerful effects on the people around her. When her mother begins to show the first subtle signs of the disease that is slowly ravaging her brain, Sybil refuses to consider the possibility of dementia, insisting that all her mother needs is a daughter nearby. She relocates her young family to her beloved San Francisco Bay Area, where her memories of her mother and her childhood are deeply anchored. As Sybil sets about creating new memories against the backdrop of her pst, the emerging undeniable truth about her mother's condition threatens to overwhelm her ability to maintain her career, nurture her marriage, raise her young daughter, and care for herself during her second pregnancy. Even though she appreciates the beauty of the dramatic biological processes at work inside the brains of her family members, she also understands their inevitable power, and she bravely describes the complicated emotions -- denial, rage, ambivalence, exhaustion -- that so many caregivers experience. With a unique combination of science and intimate experience, Mother in the Middle is a story of mothers and daughters, science and creativity, and life's exquisite intertwining of love and loss.
Mother Ireland: A Memoir
by Edna O'Brien"Countries are either mothers or fathers... Ireland has always been a woman, a womb, a cave, a cow, a Rosaleen, a sow, a bride, a harlot, and, of course, the gaunt Hag of Beare." In her first work of nonfiction, Edna O'Brien finds the pulsing heart of Ireland as cannily as in her fiction she probes the recesses of the human soul. "Irish? In truth I would not want to be anything else," she writes. "It is a state of mind as well as an actual country... Ireland for me is moments of its history, and its geography, a few people who embody its strange quality, the features of a face, a holler, a line from a Synge play, the whiff of night air--"but Ireland, insubstantial like the goddesses poets dream of, who lead them down into strange circles. I live out of Ireland because something in me warns that I might stop if I lived there, that I might cease to feel what it has meant to have such a heritage, might grow placid, when in fact I want yet again and for indefinable reasons to trace that same route, that trenchant childhood route, in the hope of finding some clue that will or would or could make possible the leap that would restore one to one's original place and state of consciousness, to the radical innocence of the moment just before birth." It is that trenchant childhood route that Edna O'Brien traces as she journeys through an Irish landscape; the tracing is at once autobiographical and mythological, physical and imaginative. Fergus Bourke's magnificent photographs, taken especially for Mother Ireland, provide graphic commentary as Edna O'Brien evokes Ireland's rich and tragic past. Here is a portrait of rural Ireland. Its essential poetry, beauty, humor, strangeness, simplicity, contradiction, superstition, and fear linger in the reader long after the book is closed.
Mother Is a Verb: An Unconventional History
by Sarah KnottWelcome to a work of history unlike any other.Mothering is as old as human existence. But how has this most essential experience changed over time and cultures? What is the history of maternity—the history of pregnancy, birth, the encounter with an infant? Can one capture the historical trail of mothers? How?In Mother Is a Verb, the historian Sarah Knott creates a genre all her own in order to craft a new kind of historical interpretation. Blending memoir and history and building from anecdote, her book brings the past and the present viscerally alive. It is at once intimate and expansive, lyrical and precise.As a history, Mother Is a Verb draws on the terrain of Britain and North America from the seventeenth century to the close of the twentieth. Knott searches among a range of past societies, from those of Cree and Ojibwe women to tenant farmers in Appalachia; from enslaved people on South Carolina rice plantations to tenement dwellers in New York City and London’s East End. She pores over diaries, letters, court records, medical manuals, items of clothing. And she explores and documents her own experiences.As a memoir, Mother Is a Verb becomes a method of asking new questions and probing lost pasts in order to historicize the smallest, even the most mundane of human experiences. Is there a history to interruption, to the sound of an infant’s cry, to sleeplessness? Knott finds answers not through the telling of grand narratives, but through the painstaking accumulation of a trellis of anecdotes. And all the while, we can feel the child on her hip.
Mother Island: A Daughter Claims Puerto Rico
by Jamie FigueroaA searing memoir that explores the institutions that defined a Puerto Rican woman and what she unlearned to rediscover herself • "A lushly written, deeply felt investigation into the meanings of home, lineage and selfhood." —Melissa Febos, bestselling author of Body Work and GirlhoodGrowing up in the Midwest, raised by a Puerto Rican mother who was abandoned by her family, Jamie Figueroa and her sisters were estranged from their culture, consumed by the whiteness that surrounded them. In Mother Island, Figueroa traces her search for identity as shaped by and against a mother who settled into the safety of assimilation. In lyrical, blistering prose, Figueroa recalls a childhood in Ohio in which she was relegated to the background of her mother&’s string of failed marriages; her own marriage in her early twenties to a man twice her age; how her work as a licensed massage therapist helped her heal her body trauma; and how becoming a mother has reshaped her relationship to her family and herself. Only as an adult in New Mexico was Figueroa able to forge her own path, using writing to recast her origin story. In a journey that takes her to Puerto Rico and back, Figueroa looks to her ancestors to reimagine her relationship to the past and to her mother&’s native island, reaching beyond her own mother into a greater experience of mothering and claiming herself. Drawing from Puerto Rican folklore and mythology, a literary lineage of women writers of color, and narratives of identity, Figueroa presents a cultural coming-of-age story. Candid and raw, Mother Island gets to the heart of the question: Who do we become when we are no longer trying to be someone else?