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Past Imperfect
by Joan CollinsJoan Collins, star of films and TV, tells the story of her life. She grew up in England, married young, and several times. She had several love affairs, beautiful children, and a life many women would love.
Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and
by Peter Charles HofferWoodrow Wilson, a practicing academic historian before he took to politics, defined the importance of history: "A nation which does not know what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today. " He, like many men of his generation, wanted to impose a version of America's founding identity: it was a land of the free and a home of the brave. But not the braves. Or the slaves. Or the disenfranchised women. So the history of Wilson's generation omitted a significant proportion of the population in favor of a perspective that was predominantly white, male and Protestant. That flaw would become a fissure and eventually a schism. A new history arose which, written in part by radicals and liberals, had little use for the noble and the heroic, and that rankled many who wanted a celebratory rather than a critical history. To this combustible mixture of elements was added the flame of public debate. History in the 1990s was a minefield of competing passions, political views and prejudices. It was dangerous ground, and, at the end of the decade, four of the nation's most respected and popular historians were almost destroyed by it: Michael Bellesiles, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose and Joseph Ellis. This is their story, set against the wider narrative of the writing of America's history. It may be, as Flaubert put it, that "Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. " To which he could have added: falsify, plagiarize and politicize, because that's the other story of America's history.
A Past in Hiding: Memory and Survival in Nazi Germany
by Mark RosemanA heart-stopping survivor story and brilliant historical investigation that offers unprecedented insight into daily life in the Third Reich and the Holocaust and the powers and pitfalls of memory.At the outbreak of World War II, Marianne Strauss, the sheltered daughter of well-to-do German Jews, was an ordinary girl, concerned with studies, friends, and romance. Almost overnight she was transformed into a woman of spirit and defiance, a fighter who, when the Gestapo came for her family, seized the moment and went underground. On the run for two years, Marianne traveled across Nazi Germany without papers, aided by a remarkable resistance organization, previously unknown and unsung. Drawing on an astonishing cache of documents as well as interviews on three continents, historian Mark Roseman reconstructs Marianne's odyssey and reveals aspects of life in the Third Reich long hidden from view. As Roseman excavates the past, he also puts forward a new and sympathetic interpretation of the troubling discrepancies between fact and recollection that so often cloud survivors' accounts.A detective story, a love story, a story of great courage and survival under the harshest conditions, A Past in Hiding is also a poignant investigation into the nature of memory, authenticity, and truth.
The Past is Myself & The Road Ahead Omnibus: When I Was a German, 1934-1945: omnibus edition of two bestselling wartime memoirs that depict life in Nazi Germany with alarming honesty
by Christabel BielenbergBrought together for the first time in one edition, both of Christabel Bielenberg's bestselling memoirs give an incredibly moving, emotionally charged and compelling insight into life in Nazi Germany during The Third Reich and during the aftermath of World War Two. Offering a new perspective, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the wartime era.'This is one of the best WWII books I have ever read' -- ***** Reader review'An excellent book and a must-read for anyone interested in this era' -- ***** Reader review'Absorbing' -- ***** Reader review'Intensely moving' -- ***** Reader review'A wonderful book. I couldn't put it down' -- ***** Reader review***********************************************************************************************The Past is MyselfChristabel Bielenberg, a niece of newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe, married a German lawyer in 1934. She lived through the war in Germany, as a German citizen under the horrors of Nazi rule and Allied bombings. The Past is Myself is her story of that experience - and an unforgettable portrait of an evil time.The Road AheadFollowing the extraordinary success of her wartime memoir, The Past is Myself, Christabel Bielenberg received thousands of letters from readers begging her to describe what happened next. In The Road Ahead she continues her story with the outbreak of peace - a time of struggle for reconciliation with, and the rebuilding of, a defeated nation. She also tells of life in her newly adopted country, Ireland, her involvement with the Peace Women of Northern Ireland, and with characteristic modesty and gratitude, looks back on a rich, full life.Anyone interested in the Second World War and life in the 1930s and 1940s will devour these unflinchingly honest and enthralling memoirs, published together in one edition for the first time.
Past Lives of the Rich and Famous
by Sylvia BrowneIn Past Lives of the Rich and Famous, Sylvia Browne, the renowned New York Times bestselling author and reigning queen of psychics provides a rare and riveting look at the (often very surprising) lives some of our most beloved celebrities experienced in the past—before our own time.Unlike any other book she has written, Past Lives of the Rich and Famous explains what happens before birth. With assistance from her spirit guide, Francine, she offers a unique new look at more than fifty beloved celebrities, including Steve Jobs, Amy Winehouse, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Martin Luther King Jr. Browne does not just reveal what celebrities were doing in their past lives, but also makes a spiritual connection between what they did then and what they did now. She also tells us whether this is a celebrity’s final life, or whether he or she will continue the journey into future lives.
Past Mortems: Life and death behind mortuary doors
by Carla ValentineA day in the life of Carla Valentine - curator, pathology technician and 'death professional' - is not your average day. She spent ten years training and working as an Anatomical Pathology Technologist: where the mortuary slab was her desk, and that day's corpses her task list.Past Mortems tells Carla's stories of those years, as well as investigating the body alongside our attitudes towards death - shedding light on what the living can learn from dead and the toll the work can take on the living souls who carry it out. Fascinating and insightful, Past Mortems reveals the truth about what happens when the mortuary doors swing shut or the lid of the coffin closes . . .
Past Mortems: Life and death behind mortuary doors
by Carla ValentineA day in the life of Carla Valentine - curator, pathology technician and 'death professional' - is not your average day. She spent ten years training and working as an Anatomical Pathology Technologist: where the mortuary slab was her desk, and that day's corpses her task list.Past Mortems tells Carla's stories of those years, as well as investigating the body alongside our attitudes towards death - shedding light on what the living can learn from dead and the toll the work can take on the living souls who carry it out. Fascinating and insightful, Past Mortems reveals the truth about what happens when the mortuary doors swing shut or the lid of the coffin closes . . .
Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself in Therapy
by Sacha MardouA brave and captivating graphic memoir about the power of therapy to heal anxiety and generational traumaWhen Sacha Mardou turned forty-years-old, she was leading a life that looked perfect on the outside: happily married to the love of her life, enjoying motherhood and her six-year-old daughter, and her first book had just been published. But for reasons she couldn&’t explain, the anxiety that had always plagued her only seemed to be getting worse and then, without warning, she began breaking out in terrible acne.The product of a stoic, working-class British family, Sacha had a deeply seeded distrust of mental health treatment, but now, living the life she&’d built in the US and desperate for relief, she finds herself in a therapist&’s office for the first time. There she begins the real work of growing up: learning to understand her family of origin and the childhood trauma she thought she&’d left hidden in the past but is still entangled in her present life.Past Tense takes us inside Sacha&’s therapy sessions, which over time become life-changing: She begins to come to terms with her turbulent and complicated upbringing, which centered around her now estranged father, who had a violent relationship with her mother and would later go to prison for sexually abusing her stepsister. With her therapist&’s guidance, she sees how these wounds and other generational trauma has been passed through her family as far back as her grandmother&’s experiences during The Blitz of World War Two. And she discovers modalities that powerfully shape her healing along the way, including the work of Bessel Van der Kolk and Richard Schwartz (Internal Family Systems).As Sacha&’s emotional life begins to unfreeze and she lets go of the shame she&’s long held, she realizes that the work she&’s doing and her love for her family can ripple outward too, changing her relationships now, and creating a new legacy for her daughter.Bravely told, visceral, and profoundly moving, Past Tense is a story about our power to break free of the past--once and for all--and find hope.
Pasteur and Modern Science
by Rene DubosThis is a fresh account of the extraordinary life of Louis Pasteur, and the monumental impact he had on biochemistry, microbiology, bacteriology and immunology.
El Pastor: Desafíos, razones y reflexiones de Francisco sobre su pontificado
by Sergio Rubin Francesca AmbrogettiEl Pastor relata la fascinante historia de vida de Jorge Mario Bergoglio en la Argentina. Y al revelar sus orígenes, reflexiona, de manera realista y perspicaz, lo que está haciendo como Papa y hacia dónde pretende llevar a la Iglesia católica. Cuando Jorge Mario Bergoglio fue elegido el 266º pontífice de la Iglesia católica muchos se preguntaron quién era este cardenal argentino. Los datos biográficos que se conocían eran escuetos. Nada decían de su recorrido humano, de su pensamiento, de su visión, de sus sueños, de sus esperanzas. Muchas respuestas a estas preguntas estaban en El Jesuita. El libro -publicado en 2010 en la Argentina y que rápidamente se convirtió en un best seller mundial- condensaba dos años de conversaciones del futuro Papa con la periodista italiana Francesca Ambrogetti y el periodista argentino Sergio Rubin. Debía ser el epílogo de un cardenal próximo a retirarse y se convirtió en el prólogo del papa llegado del fin del mundo y acerca del cual los autores resolvieron seguir escribiendo. Retomando los hilos de su historia, la de su familia, sus preferencias, su personalidad. Pero esencialmente hablando de su defensa del medio ambiente y la paz mundial, de los desafíos de su papado, entre ellos la lucha contra el flagelo de los abusos y a favor de la transparencia de las finanzas del Vaticano. También analizaron las resistencias que debió enfrentar para avanzar por una Iglesia más abierta y comprensiva de las realidades de los hombres y las mujeres de nuestro tiempo, austera y especialmente comprometida con los pobres y los excluidos. El Pastor es el fruto de diez años de entrevistas en las que el papa Francisco no esquiva ningún aspecto de su vida y de un pontificado que está cambiando la Iglesia.
The Pastor and the Painter: Inside the lives of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran from Aussie schoolboys to Bali 9 drug traffickers to Kerobokans redeemed men
by Cindy WocknerA very personal look at Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Cindy Wockner was a journalist reporting the story of two surly drug smugglers. She was there from the beginning and would become a good friend of the two changed men.At 12.35 a.m. on 29 April 2015, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were led out in front of a firing squad. Strapped to wooden crosses, they looked straight down the barrels of their killers' rifles. On that day, the Indonesian government did not execute two drug smugglers, they executed a pastor and a painter.But who were Andrew and Myuran?In 2005, the lure of drugs, money, fast cars and a better life led them and seven other Australians into a smuggling plot to import heroin from Indonesia to Australia. Unbeknownst to them all, the Australian Federal Police knew of their plan and tipped off the Indonesian authorities. Charged with drug trafficking, Myuran and Andrew were found guilty and sentenced to death. Andrew was 21 years old. Myuran was 24.At the time, Cindy Wockner was the Indonesia correspondent for News Limited: for a decade she covered their story and she got to know Myuran, Andrew and their families. They let her into their lives and she watched them transform from angry, defiant young inmates into fully rehabilitated, good men.This is the intimate, and untold, story of Andrew and Myuran. It details their redemption inside Kerobokan prison and their passion for helping others - through Andrew's growing commitment to his faith and Myu's burgeoning artistic talent. It reveals the boys they were and the men they became, in a potent cautionary tale and a poignant reminder of what we all lose when we ignore the power of mercy.'gripping' DAILY TELEGRAPH on Cindy Wockner and Madonna King's BALI 9
El pastor de masas: AMLO: una religión populista
by José Gil OlmosAl verlo en el centro del Salón de Tesorería, un magno espacio construido para la realeza española del siglo XVI, me di cuenta de que no hablaba como presidente, político o siquiera líder social, sino como un pastor espiritual que se dirige a su grey. La primera vez que fui a la mañanera, vi a Andrés Manuel López Obrador de una manera distinta. No era aquel que conocí en 1995, en Villahermosa,platicando sobre el futuro del movimiento social que ya encabezaba. Tampoco era el hombre que tomaba pozos petroleros ni el candidato en permanente campaña. Al verlo en el centro del Salón de Tesorería, un magno espacio construido para la realeza española del siglo xvi, me di cuenta de que no hablaba como presidente, político o siquiera líder social, sino como un pastor espiritual que se dirige a su grey.Este libro es un intento por mostrar esta cara de AMLO: la del uso de la religión con fines políticos y electorales que ha desplegado desde 1992. Esta obra arranca con la génesis del personaje, continúa con el Éxodo (la caravana por la democracia que hizo desde Tabasco a la Ciudad de México) y concluye con los viacrucis que ha construido y atravesado. No se trata de denostar a un personaje, sino de presentar y describir esta parte importante de su trayectoria: la utilización de emblemas, símbolos, epifanías, narrativas y parábolas religiosas cuando lo ha necesitado. La estrategia le ha rendido frutos: su figura aparece no sólo al lado de los héroes nacionales en murales, pinturas y estatuas, sino también en escapularios, estampas religiosas, oraciones, novenarios y en la fe entre muchos de sus seguidores. Esta es la historia y sus implicaciones.
Pastor Jack: The Authorized Biography of Jack Hayford
by S. David MooreJack Hayford is rightly known as a &“pastor of pastors.&” The facts bear this out: he is the author of over 50 books, the writer of 600 hymns and choruses (including the internationally popular &“Majesty&”), and a pentecostal leader committed to building bridges while maintaining the integrity of the gospel. For Pastor Jack, David Moore was granted unrestricted access to Hayford&’s journals and personal correspondence and completed over 60 hours of personal interviews to offer the first authorized biography of this extraordinary man. From the miraculous healings he experienced as a child to the moment he sensed God calling him to the pastorate for more than 60 years of fruitful ministry, Hayford has witnessed and proclaimed God&’s mighty works with boldness and grace. This exploration of his life and legacy will inspire Hayford&’s lifelong followers as well as those new to his words and faith.
Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint
by Nadia Bolz-WeberNow a New York Times bestseller, Nadia Bolz-Weber takes no prisoners as she reclaims the term "pastrix"(pronounced "pas-triks," a term used by some Christians who refuse to recognize female pastors) in her messy, beautiful, prayer-and-profanity laden narrative about an unconventional life of faith. Heavily tattooed and loud-mouthed, Nadia, a former stand-up comic, sure as hell didn't consider herself to be religious leader material-until the day she ended up leading a friend's funeral in a smoky downtown comedy club. Surrounded by fellow alcoholics, depressives, and cynics, she realized: These were her people. Maybe she was meant to be their pastor. Using life stories-from living in a hopeful-but-haggard commune of slackers to surviving the wobbly chairs and war stories of a group for recovering alcoholics, from her unusual but undeniable spiritual calling to pastoring a notorious con artist-Nadia uses stunning narrative and poignant honesty to portray a woman who is both deeply faithful and deeply flawed, giving hope to the rest of us along the way. Wildly entertaining and deeply resonant, this is the book for people who hunger for a bit of hope that doesn't come from vapid consumerism or navel-gazing; for women who talk too loud, and guys who love chick flicks; for the gay man who loves Jesus, and won't allow himself to be shunned by the church. In short, this book is for every thinking misfit suspicious of institutionalized religion, but who is still seeking transcendence and mystery.
The Pastures of Beyond: An Old Cowboy Looks Back at the Old West
by Dayton O. HydeAt age thirteen, Dayton Hyde, a spirited beanpole of a boy, ran away from home in Michigan to Yamsi, his uncle’s ranch in eastern Oregon. This was in the 1930s, and Yamsi was one of the last great cattle ranches of the West. Soon the boy, nicknamed "Hawk,” was riding a horse, soaking up ranch life from the hired hands, and winning the cowboys’ respect.A natural bronco buster, he eventually became a rodeo rider, bull fighter, clown, and photographer, working all over the West with the likes of Slim Pickens, Rex Allen, and Mel Lambert-all of whom went on to careers in Hollywood-and selling pictures to Life magazine. After the Second World War, he took over the reins at Yamsi, ensuring its survival in changing times. Now, half a century later, he gives us his valedictory ode to that last great period of the Old West. Full of humor, rollicking stories, and love of the land, Hyde pays homage to the cowboys, Indians, and great horses that made the West the legend it is today.
Pat and Dick
by Will SwiftWhen Americans remember the controversial Nixons, they usually focus on the political triumphs, the turbulent White House years, and the humiliating public downfall. But a very different image of the polarizing president emerges in this fascinating portrait of his relationship with Pat. Now, the couple's recently released love letters and other private documents reveal that as surely as unremitting adversity can fray the fabric of a marriage, devotion can propel it to surmount disgrace and defeat. In Pat and Dick, biographer Will Swift brings his years of experience as a historian and as a marital therapist to this unique examination of a long-misunderstood marriage. Nixon the man was enormously complicated: brilliant, insecure, sometimes coldly calculating, and capable of surprising affection with his wife. Much less is known about Pat. With the help of personal writings and interviews with family and friends, Swift unveils a woman who was warm and vivacious, yet much shrewder and more accomplished than she has been given credit for. From Dick's unrelenting crusade to marry the glamorous teacher he feared was out of his league through the myriad crises of his political career, the Nixons' story is filled with hopes and disappointments, both intimate and global. This remarkable biography shows us the couple at their most human: a wife walking a delicate line between self-sacrifice and healthy love while her husband struggles to balance global ambitions and personal intimacy. The Nixons came to represent the best and worst of American life and culture. But though their union was tested by all manner of trials, they managed to find the strength, courage, and resilience to sustain a true connection for more than half a century.
The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew (American Lives)
by Sue William SilvermanGentile reader, and you, Jews, come too. Follow Sue William Silverman, a one-woman cultural mash-up, on her exploration of identity among the mishmash of American idols and ideals that confuse most of us—or should. Pat Boone is our first stop. Now a Tea Party darling, Boone once shone as a squeaky-clean pop music icon of normality, an antidote for Silverman’s own confusing and dangerous home, where being a Jew in a Christian school wasn’t easy, and being the daughter of the Anti-Boone was unspeakable. And yet somehow Silverman found her way, a “gefilte fish swimming upstream,” and found her voice, which in this searching, bracing, hilarious, and moving book tries to make sense of that most troubling American condition: belonging, but to what?Picking apricots on a kibbutz, tramping cross-country in a loathed Volkswagen camper, appearing in a made-for-television version of her own life: Silverman is a bobby-soxer, a baby boomer, a hippy, a lefty, and a rebel with something to say to those of us—most of us—still wondering what to make of ourselves.
Pat Conroy: Our Lifelong Friendship
by Bernie ScheinFor Pat Conroy Fans, a Loving, Laughter-Filled Homage to a Loyal, Big-Hearted Friend Pat Conroy, the bestselling author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini among many other books, was beloved by millions of readers. Bernie Schein was his best friend from the time they met in a high-school pickup basketball game in Beaufort, South Carolina, until Conroy’s death in 2016. Both were popular but also outsiders as a Jew and a Catholic military brat in the small-town Bible-Belt South, and they bonded. Wiseass and smart aleck, loudmouths both, they shared an ebullient sense of humor and romanticism, were mesmerized by the highbrow and reveled in the low, and would sacrifice entire evenings and afternoons to endless conversation. As young teachers in the Beaufort area and later in Atlanta, they were activists in the civil rights struggle and against institutional racism and bigotry. Bernie knew intimately the private family story of the Conroys and his friend’s difficult relationship with his Marine Corps colonel father that Pat would draw on repeatedly in his fiction. A love letter and homage, and a way to share the Pat he knew, this book collects Bernie’s cherished memories about the gregarious, welcoming, larger-than-life man who remained his best friend, even during the years they didn’t speak. It offers a trove of insights and anecdotes that will be treasured by Pat Conroy’s many devoted fans.
The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes and Stories of My Life
by Pat Conroy Suzanne Williamson PollakAmerica's favorite storyteller is back--this time with a cookbook that is also a memoir of good food and good company, from his beloved South to France, Rome, and beyond. One hundred recipes are featured, from Breakfast Shrimp Grits to Mocha Macaroons.
Pat in the City: My Life of Fashion, Style, and Breaking All the Rules
by Patricia FieldFrom the iconic stylist and fashion provocateur whose designs transformed culture—bringing the glitz of Studio 54 and the sophistication of Sex and the City to the mainstream—comes a playful yet intimate memoir of a life spent challenging conventions.Carrie Bradshaw’s pairing of a tutu with a tank top is one of the most iconic outfits ever seen on television—and a look that turned avant-garde New York designer and stylist Patricia Field into a household name. But before she was crowned the fairy godmother of haute couture, Field was the owner of the longtime East Village emporium Pat Field, a haven for drag queens, club kids, starving artists, NYU freshmen, and creative visionaries alike. Presiding over downtown with her distinctive vermillion hair and a constantly lit cigarette, Patricia was a rock ’n’ roll den mother to everyone from Amanda Lepore to Lady Bunny to Patti Smith, with her store providing the city’s eccentrics with a place to discover a sense of family, home, and a rhinestone bedazzled bustier or two.In Pat in the City, Patricia describes her journey from scrappy Queens kid peddling men’s pants to the fashion world’s most notorious renegade. As the daughter of immigrant parents, Field learned the principles of glamour from her entrepreneurial mother, and applied her NYU lessons on democracy to inform a fashion ethos that would reach millions. From her Studio 54 disco-glam styling to her award-winning work in The Devil Wears Prada and Sex and the City to today’s buzzy costuming in Emily in Paris, Field’s inimitable styling has pushed the envelope and created trends that have become the culture standard. Now in her seventies, Patricia Field is ready to tell her story—not to take a final bow, but to spread her credo of challenging convention and filling the world with joy and dancing.
Pat Mora, the Storyteller (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Vocabulary Readers #Leveled Reader: Level: 4, Theme: 2.1)
by Ramirose Attebury Wendt Nancy G. AtteburyBrief biography of author Pat Mora.
The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir
by Claude LanzmannThe unforgettable memoir of 70 years of contemporary and personal history from the great French filmmaker, journalist and intellectual Claude LanzmannBorn to a Jewish family in Paris, 1925, Lanzmann's first encounter with radicalism was as part of the Resistance during the Nazi occupation. He and his father were soldiers of the underground until the end of the war, smuggling arms and making raids on the German army. After the liberation of France, he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, making money as a student in surprising ways (by dressing as a priest and collecting donations, and stealing philosophy books from bookshops). It was in Paris however, that he met Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. It was a life-changing meeting. The young man began an affair with the older de Beauvoir that would last for seven years. He became the editor of Sartre's political-literary journal, Les Temps Modernes—a position which he holds to this day—and came to know the most important literary and philosophical figures of postwar France. And all this before he was 30 years old. Written in precise, rich prose of rare beauty, organized—like human recollection itself—in interconnected fragments that eschew conventional chronology, and describing in detail the making of his seminal film Shoah, The Patagonian Hare becomes a work of art, more significant, more ambitious than mere memoir. In it, Lanzmann has created a love song to life balanced by the eye of a true auteur.
The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir
by Claude Lanzmann"Even if I lived a hundred lives, I still wouldn't be exhausted." These words capture the intensity of the experiences of Claude Lanzmann, a man whose acts have always been a negation of resignation: a member of the Resistance at sixteen, a friend to Jean-Paul Sartre and a lover to Simone de Beauvoir, and the director of one of the most important films in the history of cinema, Shoah.In these pages, Lanzmann composes a hymn to life that flows from memory yet has the rhythm of a novel, as tumultuous as it is energetic. The Patagonian Hare is the story of a man who has searched at every moment for existential adventure, who has committed himself deeply to what he believes in, and who has made his life a battle.The Patagonian Hare, a number-one bestseller in France, has been translated into Spanish, German, Italian, Hebrew, Polish, Dutch, and Portuguese. Claude Lanzmann's brilliant memoir has been widely acclaimed as a masterpiece, was hailed as "a true literary and historic event" in the pages of Le Monde, and was awarded the prestigious Welt-Literaturpreis in Germany.
Patagonian Road: A Year Alone Through Latin America
by Kate MccahillSpanning four seasons, 10 countries, three teaching jobs, and countless buses, Patagonian Road chronicles Kate McCahill's solo journey from Guatemala to Argentina. In her struggles with language, romance, culture, service, and homesickness, she personifies a growing culture of women for whom travel is not a path to love but to meaningful work, rare inspiration, and profound self-discovery. Following Paul Theroux's route from his 1979 travelogue, McCahill transports the reader from a classroom in a Quito barrio to a dingy room in an El Salvadorian brothel, and from the neighborhoods of Buenos Aires to the heights of the Peruvian Andes. A testament to courage, solitude, and the rewards of taking risks, Patagonian Road proves that discovery, clarity, and simplicity remain possible in the 21st century, and that travel holds an enduring capacity to transform.
Patchwork: A Memoir of Love and Loss
by Mary Jo DoigA wife and mother of a grown son and two teen daughters, a woman enjoying her career and life, Mary Jo Doig wants nothing more from life than to live out her days embraced by the deep roots of family, friends, and her community. Tightly wrapped in a life-long protective cocoon, she has no idea how wounded she is—until, on one starless night following the death of a relative, she has a flashback that opens a dark passageway back to her childhood and the horrific secrets buried deep inside her psyche. Part mystery and part inspirational memoir, Patchwork is the riveting story of one woman who strived to live a life full of love, only to endure tragedies with two of her children and struggles in her marriages—the consequences of a mysterious life-long behavior unnoticed by her family or teachers. Like a needle stitching together a quilt, the memories Mary Jo recovers following her first flashback show her why her early years were threaded with a need to be invisible, as well as core beliefs that she was stupid, not good enough, and vastly different from her peers. Shattered by these revelations, overcome by depression, hopelessness, and a loss of trust in others, Mary Jo embarks on a healing journey through the underground of her life that ultimately leads to transformation.