Stolen

Stolen
Author: Richard Bell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501169459

This “superbly researched and engaging” (The Wall Street Journal) true story about five boys who were kidnapped in the North and smuggled into slavery in the Deep South—and their daring attempt to escape and bring their captors to justice belongs “alongside the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edward P. Jones, and Toni Morrison” (Jane Kamensky, Professor of American History at Harvard University). Philadelphia, 1825: five young, free black boys fall into the clutches of the most fearsome gang of kidnappers and slavers in the United States. Lured onto a small ship with the promise of food and pay, they are instead met with blindfolds, ropes, and knives. Over four long months, their kidnappers drive them overland into the Cotton Kingdom to be sold as slaves. Determined to resist, the boys form a tight brotherhood as they struggle to free themselves and find their way home. Their ordeal—an odyssey that takes them from the Philadelphia waterfront to the marshes of Mississippi and then onward still—shines a glaring spotlight on the Reverse Underground Railroad, a black market network of human traffickers and slave traders who stole away thousands of legally free African Americans from their families in order to fuel slavery’s rapid expansion in the decades before the Civil War. “Rigorously researched, heartfelt, and dramatically concise, Bell’s investigation illuminates the role slavery played in the systemic inequalities that still confront Black Americans” (Booklist).

The Atman Project

The Atman Project
Author: Ken Wilber
Publisher: Quest Books
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2014-01-23
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0835630927

Wilber traces human development from infancy into adulthood and beyond, into those states described by mystics and spiritual adepts. The spiritual evolution of such extraordinary individuals as the Buddha and Jesus hints at the direction human beings will take in their continuing growth toward transcendence.

I Will Survive

I Will Survive
Author: Gloria Gaynor
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2014-03-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1466865954

I Will Survive is the story of Gloria Gaynor, America's "Queen of Disco." It is the story of riches and fame, despair, and finally salvation. Her meteoric rise to stardom in the mid-1970s was nothing short of phenomenal, and hits poured forth that pushed her to the top of the charts, including "Honey Bee," "I Got You Under My Skin," "Never Can Say Goodbye," and the song that has immortalized her, "I Will Survive," which became a #1 international gold seller. With that song, Gloria heralded the international rise of disco that became synonymous with a way of life in the fast lane - the sweaty bodies at Studio 54, the lines of cocaine, the indescribable feeling that you could always be at the top of your game and never come down. But down she came after her early stardom, and problems followed in the wake, including the death of her mother, whose love had anchored the young singer, as well as constant battles with weight, drugs, and alcohol. While her fans always imagined her to be rich, her personal finances collapsed due to poor management; and while many envied her, she felt completely empty inside. In the early 1980s, sustained by her marriage to music publisher Linwood Simon, Gloria took three years off and reflected upon her life. She visited churches and revisited her mother's old Bible. Discovering the world of gospel, she made a commitment to Christ that sustains her to this day.

The Ranch That Was Us

The Ranch That Was Us
Author: Becky Crouch Patterson
Publisher: Trinity University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1595341269

Braiding strands of earthen insight with uproarious storytelling, Texas Hill Country legendary author Becky Patterson recreates the history of the Steiler Hill Ranch in twenty-four anecdotal chapters interspersed with original artwork. The result is a mixture of memoir and montage, treasure chest and tableau vivant of a world that’s beautiful, brash, and wonderfully heartbreaking. Patterson -- the daughter of Texas folk hero and self-proclaimed mayor of Luckenbach, Hondo Crouch -- has big shoes to fill and she does so successfully in this colorful collection of Hill Country and Texas ranch vignettes. Foreman and general cowboy guru Raymond Kuhlmann tells stories of the Goat King and German drinking songs, the buzzard traps and Mexican corridos that filled the nighttime pastures. First-person accounts and vivid historical narratives evoke the ranch’s past, overlaid with Patterson’s breathless personal histories of afternoons spent rescuing a doe in a nightgown, or saving a porcupine from a pack of dogs. This is a book that will connect you to whatever patch of earth you hold dear. It is poignant reminder of the landscapes we’ve forgotten to keep close, of the land that does not belong to us but simply is who we are. The Ranch That Was Us is an affectionate reminder to go outside and touch the earth that is you.

Swing by Sailor

Swing by Sailor
Author: Catherine Dyson
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2011-02-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0733627900

This is a nostalgic look back at the 1940s, a fascinating insight into a unique journey taken by a group of ordinary women, a sympathetic portrait of youth and its hopes and expectations - and a reflection on the challenges of life, and love.

Grog War

Grog War
Author: Alexis Wright
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-11-25
Genre: Aboriginal Australians
ISBN: 9780369378668

A revamped Magabala classic by Miles Franklin award-winning author Alexis Wright.First published in 1997, this vivid portrayal of how the Indigenous people of Tennant Creek worked together to achieve community-wide alcohol restrictions, is more relevant now than ever. A searing account of what transpired over 25 years ago, Grog War provides historical context and Indigenous-led solutions to the challenges still confronting communities and towns throughout Australia.In the '90s, Wright was commissioned by the Julalikari Council of Tennant Creek to write Grog War, to document how Aboriginal Elders and leaders dealt with the invasion of grog on Warumungu land and the enormous struggle it took to introduce simple alcohol restrictions in the town. Grog War traces an Indigenous-led movement of self-determination that shifted the blame from Aboriginal people for public drunkenness to looking at the way grog is pushed and sold, in turn challenging the town and government to share responsibility.Aboriginal Elders and community advisors in Tennant Creek fought for years to put alcohol restrictions in place and they are still fighting. Their courage and tenacity is an inspiration for other towns in Australia who are battling against the tide of alcohol abuse and resistance from licencees and the broader community.Grog War is essential reading for all those working towards and interested in Indigenous self-determination, for community leaders, legislators, health workers, social workers - and for our young people - so that all Australian children might grow up with a better understanding of what Indigenous people have fought hard to achieve in this country.