LITMIR.BIZ

Finding Edith: Surviving the Holocaust in Plain Sight is the coming-of-age story of a young Jewish girl chased in Europe during World War II. Like a great adventure story, the book describes the childhood and adolescence of a Viennese girl growing up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the religious persecution of Jews throughout Europe. Edith was hunted in Western Europe and Vichy France, where she was hidden in plain sight, constantly afraid of discovery and denunciation. Forced to keep every thought to herself, Edith developed an intense inner life. After spending years running and eventually hiding alone, she was smuggled into Switzerland. Deprived of schooling, Edith worked at various jobs until the end of the war when she was able to rejoin her mother, who had managed to survive in France. After the war, the truth about the death camps and the mass murder on an industrial scale became fully known. Edith faced the trauma of Germany’s depravity, the murder of her father and older brother in Auschwitz, her mother’s irrational behavior, and the extreme poverty of the postwar years. She had to make a living but also desperately wanted to catch up on her education. What followed were seven years of struggle, intense study, and hard work until finally, against considerable odds, Edith earned the Baccalauréat in 1949 and the Licence ès Lettres from the University of Toulouse in 1952 before coming to the United States. In America, Edith started at the bottom like all immigrants and eventually became a professor and later a financial advisor and broker. Since her retirement, Edith dedicates her time to publicly speaking about her experiences and the lessons from her life.

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In the early 1900s, Mary Matthews and Lella Gaddis forged trails for women at Purdue University and throughout Indiana. Mary was the first dean of the School of Home Economics. Lella was Indiana's first state leader of Home Demonstration. In 1914, Mary hired Lella to organize Purdue's new Home Economics Extension Service. According to those who knew them, Lella was a «sparkler» who traveled the state instructing rural women about nutrition, hygiene, safe water, childcare, and more. «Reserved» Mary established Purdue's School of Home Economics, created Indiana's first nursery school, and authored a popular textbook. Both women used their natural talents and connections to achieve their goals in spite of a male-dominated society. As a land grant institution, Purdue University has always been very connected to the American countryside. Based on extensive oral history and archival research, this book sheds new light on the important role female staff and faculty played in improving the quality of life for rural women during the first half of the twentieth century. It is also a fascinating story, engagingly told, of two very different personalities united in a common goal.

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As the anti-Vietnam War movement drew to a close, a twenty-six-year-old unknown playwright began an affair with a glamorous older woman, a feminist activist and acclaimed poet/novelist at the height of her career. What she saw in a neurotic, sexually naïve, poorly educated but very sweet guy was apparent to no one, especially him. Using a wildly self-skewering but oddly sympathetic narrative voice that fulfills The New York Times' assessment of his «special gift for heartwarming comedy,» Ira Wood re-imagines his early years with Marge Piercy in a series of chronologically linked essays, never failing to raise the question that few have failed to ask: You're married to Her? With the brazen candor of Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and the wicked lunacy of David Sedaris, Wood tells tales of his first true love, who he told his parents were dead; his disastrous affair with a promiscuous single mother, while he was involved with Piercy; his childhood dependence on speed; and running for public office on a lark—and winning—only to find himself responsible for the government of a small town. Thirty years later he's still married to Her, confident enough to share, and laugh at, what men do when their behavior slips to the level of their self-esteem. Ira Wood is the author of two novels and the co-author, with Marge Piercy, of two highly acclaimed books, a novel and a writing text. His talk show The Lowdown streams on WOMR-FM, a Pacifica network affiliate.

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No one in their right mind travels across Siberia in the middle of winter in a modified Russian jeep, with only a CD player (which breaks on the first day) for company. But Jacek Hugo-Bader is no ordinary traveler. As a fiftieth birthday present to himself, he sets out to drive from Moscow to Vladivostok, traversing a continent that is two and a half times bigger than America, awash with bandits, and not always fully equipped with roads. But if his mission sounds deranged it is in keeping with the land he is visiting. For Siberia is slowly dying — or, more accurately, killing itself. This is a traumatized post-Communist landscape peopled by the homeless and the hopeless: alcoholism is endemic, as are suicides, murders, and deaths from AIDS . As he gets to know these communities and speaks to the people, Hugo-Bader discovers a great deal of tragedy, but there is also dark humor to be found amongst the reindeer shepherds, the former hippies, the modern-day rappers, the homeless and the sick, the shamans, and the followers of ‘one of the six Russian Christs,’ just one of the many arcane religions that flourish in this isolated, impossible region.

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Through heartbreaking, often comic, genre-non-conforming pieces spanning the past 10 years, Rachel Zucker trains her relentless attention on marriage, motherhood, grief, the need to speak, depression, sex, and many other topics. Part poetry, part memoir, part lyric essay&mdash;and not limited by any of these categories&mdash;<em>SoundMachine </em>is a book written out of the persistent feeling that the human voice is both a meaningless sound and the only way we know we exist.

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What is a &quot;normal childhood?&quot; Does it include almost being murdered by your sister with an ax? Speeding around town in the back of a station wagon because your mom is chasing an &quot;alien spaceship&quot;? Being busted by the police for intent to light a pond on fire? Tackling your mom to the ground and wrestling a knife out of her hand because she was trying to kill your dad? While my stories may be unique, readers will be able to relate to the broader themes are part of a normal childhood such as sibling rivalry, eccentric parents, doing stupid things, and frequently preventing one&#39;s parents from literally murdering each other.<br><br>Although some of the subject matter is not something one would generally laugh at, you have my permission to laugh. Social rules don&#39;t apply here; my rules do. It works for me, and who knows, after reading the stories from my past, you might be inspired to see your own screwed up past in a more humorous light.

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Looking at the positive influences, great talents and unique thought processes of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders, this book is a celebration of those who have used their autism to shine in life. Writers from all over the world at different stages in their careers, and from very different backgrounds, share their experiences of creating a successful life on the autism spectrum. Each explains how it is possible to draw on autistic strengths not just to make your way in the world, overcoming challenges and obstacles, but also to make your life a real success. Education, the world of work, and relationships are the focus of the first part of the book, which then goes on to look at exceptional creativity, and the use of special interests. The autobiographical stories in this book are full of wisdom and humour, and will be an inspiration for anyone with high-functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome, their family and friends, and the professionals who work alongside them.

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In this incredible true story of familial love and triumph through adversity, Thuhang Tran and Sharon Orlopp document decades in the lives of Thuhang and her father, Chinh Tran. Thuhang was born in 1970 in Saigon, near the end of the Vietnam War. She contracted polio as a baby, and though her family sacrificed much to seek treatment, their efforts were halted by the fall of Saigon. Chinh was an air traffic controller in the South Vietnam Air Force at the time, and was lost in the evacuations from Saigon, separated from Thuhang and the rest of his family and presumed dead. This powerful memoir follows Thuhang and her father Chinh through their respective struggles, from Thuhang's battle with polio and the impact of her father's absence, to Chinh's immigration to the United States and his desperate 15-year mission to be reunited with his family. Thuhang has remained hopeful and resilient through all the seemingly impossible hurdles she's faced, and lives today to tell her story and inspire those around her to find strength through perseverance.

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Three articulated trucks load in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: two Volvo 4X2 European road artics and a Mercedes 6X6 desert artic. Their destination is Sharawrah, somewhere south of The Empty Quarter. Seven days to travel a thousand kilometers, a third of which are open desert. Seven days that will turn into seventy.... This is the true story of Gordon Pearce, an English truck driver determined to get the job done. With the help of Bedouins, he crossed three hundred kilometers of unpredictable desert in the height of the summer of 1978. Aside from the physical challenges, he also has to battle bureaucracy and begins to dread hearing the word bukkera (tomorrow). Told in an ironic modest style and illustrated with photos from that time, Where's Sharawrah? is a captivating book for vehicle enthusiasts and anyone who is passionate about truck adventures. [Subject: Memoir, Transportation]

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Sparks from the Smiddy tells the life story of David Wilson, a sixth generation blacksmith and world champion farrier (a craftsman who trims and shoes horses' hooves). The book includes details of David's memories of annoying his father as a child by nailing horse shoes to the smiddy floor, his first experience of trying to catch a horse, the hard work he put into learning his trade, along with picking up and running the family business. The story follows the highs and lows of David's earliest competitions through to his ultimate win at the 1985 World Championship in Calgary, Canada. And, it concludes with tales of the travel opportunities that his work and successes opened up to him, including meeting the Princess Royal in 1995. Told in a humorous yet modest style, and including 60 of David's photos, Sparks from the Smiddy sheds light on this previously unreported aspect of working and shoeing horses, helping readers to understand the skills of a farrier and giving a nostalgic look back over this important part of rural life. [Subject: Memoir, Animal Care, Traditional Trades and Skills]

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