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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” by Betty Smith
Kate’s 2¢: “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” by Betty Smith
“A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” by Betty Smith
saying…
Maria Tucci did a good job of narrating this tory for us. Her slight variations of dialects added to our listening enjoyment and character recognition. .
I enjoyed this snapshot of life for this plucky child growing up under dire circumstances. The image of a tree struggling to grow in cement is an apt metaphor for the child’s existence.
A few take-aways:
–The one tree in Francie’s yard…was called the Tree of Hevan. No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree that struggled to reach the sky.
–In the old country a man is driven by the past of his father. Here, in this country, he belongs to the future…He can be what he will.
–The child must have the valuable thing called imagination…to have a secret world.
–Everything struggles to live…that tree grows out of the grate…it gets no sun and only water when it rains. It’s strong, because its struggle makes it that way.
–The sad thing is knowing that nerve would get them no where in the world.
–They conform to nothing but what was essential to their being able to live in that world.
–They purchased a two-foot fir tree growing in a wooden tub…It has roots…They put it on the fire escape.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Betty Smith (born Elisabeth Lillian Wehner; December 15, 1896 – January 17, 1972) was an American playwright and novelist, who wrote the 1943 bestseller A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Early years[edit]
Smith was born Elisabeth Lillian Wehner on December 15, 1896, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York to first-generation German-Americans John C. Wehner, a waiter,[1] and Katherine (or Catherine) Hummel.[2] She had a younger brother, William, and a younger sister, Regina.[3] At the time of her birth the family was living at 207 Ewen Street (now Manhattan Avenue). When she was four, they were living at 227 Stagg Street, and would move several times to various tenements on Montrose Avenue and Hopkins Street[4] before settling in a tenement on the top floor of 702 Grand Street. It was the Grand Street tenement that served as the setting for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.[5]
As a child, Smith developed an early passion for the written word, and at age eight she received an A for a school composition. “I knew then,” she was reported as saying, “that I would write a book one day.”[6] She made great use of the then-new public library near her home on Leonard Street,[7] and at age 11, had two poems published in a school publication.[6] Smith attended Public School 49 through fourth grade, then transferred to PS 18, which she disliked, before wangling her way into out-of-district PS 23 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where she finished eighth grade. At this point in her life, she was compelled to quit school by her mother and to go to work to support the family. She was 14. Four years later, at age 18, endeavoring to further her education, she discovered she could attend Girls’ High School in Brooklyn during the day while, at the same time, work a night job in Manhattan. But after two years of this rigorous schedule, she quit school because a well paying job she had accepted with the United States Postal Service required her to work days.[8]
In her teenage years, Smith was an active member at the Jackson Street Settlement House, operated by the School Settlement Association. Offering a diverse range of after school social activities, the settlement house became one of Smith’s favorite destinations.[9] Of particular interest were classes in play writing, as well as acting and other theatrical activities. It was at the settlement house in 1917 that she met her future first husband, George H. E. Smith, the coach of her debate team and a fellow German-American, whose family name had been changed during WWI from Schmidt.[10] It is claimed by some it was likely at the Jackson Street Settlement House, rather than near her apartment, that the tree grew which gave name to her best-known novel,[11] but this assertion is unsubstantiated.
Marriage and motherhood[edit]
In 1919, after moving briefly to Richmond Hill, Queens, with her mother and stepfather, she joined George Smith in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he pursued a law degree at the University of Michigan. They married October 18, 1919.[12] During the couple’s extended stay in Ann Arbor, Smith gave birth to two girls and then waited until they were in school before endeavoring to complete her education. Because she had only completed two years of high school, Smith first enrolled in Ann Arbor High School, even though the principal thought it “unusual for a married woman to be a high school junior but could find no law against it.”[13] However, she again was not able to graduate due to her husband finding work in Belding, Michigan, and later Detroit. Although George Smith’s career was thriving, he found the practice of law unfulfilling. As a result, they decided to return to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan to “start over,” with George studying political science, with an aim toward a career in politics.[13] Although she had not finished high school, the university allowed her to take classes as a special student without matriculating. Smith began to take her writing more seriously, realizing it could be a career. She honed her composition and journalism skills, submitting articles and recipes to newspapers as well as writing plays. Despite family money worries, instead of taking part-time jobs as she had before she continued with her writing endeavors.
In 1933, Betty and George H.E. Smith legally separated, and before the start of World War II, in 1938, they divorced. Although divorced, she continued to use the Smith surname throughout her writing career.
Theater and playwriting[edit]
From a young age, Smith had a deep and abiding interest in stage theater. She and her younger brother Willie regularly attended Saturday matinees at Brooklyn theaters for ten cents each, which allowed them to stand in the gallery. In a later autobiographical statement, Smith noted:
In all the years of growing up, I saw at least one play a week. I ran errands, made childish sacrifices of penny candy, tended babies, brought back deposit bottles. I had one objective: To get together a dime a week to see the Saturday matinee at one of three Brooklyn stock companies in our neighborhood.[14]
In 1916, Smith was able to see Sarah Bernhardt perform as part of her farewell tour of the United States. Despite Bernhardt having lost a leg to infection, her memories of the performance and of Bernhardt’s “lovely speaking voice and her limpid gestures” remained everlasting.[15]
University of Michigan and Yale[edit]
At the University of Michigan, Smith audited a number of journalism and playwriting courses and was a student in some of the classes of Professor Kenneth Thorpe Rowe. Under the guidance of Rowe, she wrote several plays, including the three-act Jonica Starrs, a story of adultery and the break-up of a marriage. The play won the Long Play Contest of the University of Michigan’s Division of English.[16] It was given a full production in Ann Arbor in June 1930.
Smith’s life reached a turning point when she won the University of Michigan’s Avery Hopwood Award for her full length play Francie Nolan, [17] which she later re-titled Becomes A Woman when she applied for copyright.[18][19] With the award, Smith received $1,000[20][21] a considerable amount of money in the early 1930s, but, perhaps more importantly, public attention for her work. However, Becomes A Woman wouldn’t be produced until 2023 when Mint Theater Company premiered the play.[22]
With the conferring of the Hopwood Award, Smith was invited to study drama at Yale University, where, under the tutelage of the renowned teacher George Pierce Baker, she wrote several plays during her two-year fellowship. At this time, she met a budding playwright, Robert V. Finch, known as “Bob,” who became a close confidante and companion. With outside pressures mounting, particularly money concerns as the fellowship had ended, her studies at Yale came to an end in the spring of 1934. Moreover, she deeply missed her children, who had been placed with her sister’s family on Long Island.
Because Smith never completed high school, she was unable to formally matriculate at the University of Michigan. As a result, she never earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, despite having taken more than enough courses. And without the B.A., she was unable to earn the Master of Fine Arts degree at Yale.
Federal Theatre Project[edit]
With the end of her drama studies at Yale, Smith and her children returned to live briefly in her mother’s house in Woodside, Queens. In 1935, an opportunity with the Works Projects Administration fortuitously arose, and Smith began working for the Federal Theatre Project as a play reader. In May 1936, she and three other Federal Theatre Project members, including Bob Finch, were shifted to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to participate in regional theater activities. It was in Chapel Hill that Smith finally found a place to call home, and despite continuing struggles with money, she began to write more earnestly.
Novelist[edit]
In the late 1930s, Smith began to shift her attention from play writing to attempting a novel. Encouraged by her longtime friend, playwright Bob Finch, as well as her writing group, she turned her eye toward a milieu she was familiar: the tenements and streets of Brooklyn. In total, Smith wrote four published novels during her lifetime, three of which take Brooklyn as a setting. Her first novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, was published in 1943. The book became an immediate bestseller and catapulted Smith to fame. Four years later, in 1947, the novel Tomorrow Will Be Better appeared. It would be another 11 years before Maggie-Now, her third book, was published in 1958. Smith’s fourth and final novel, Joy in the Morning appeared in 1963.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn[edit]
Main article: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (novel)
While living and working in Chapel Hill, Smith produced a novel with the working title of They Lived in Brooklyn. The work was rejected by several publishers before Harper and Brothers showed an interest in 1942. Working with Harper editors Smith substantially revised the novel, trimming characters, dialogue, and scenes, while selectively adding others. Finally, the book was accepted for publication and was released in 1943 with the title, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Smith later acknowledged the novel and its heroine Francie Nolan were largely based on her own life and experiences.[23] The novel is often categorized under the Bildungsroman literary genre.
In 1944, 20th Century Fox adapted the novel into a film directed by theater director Elia Kazan. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn starred James Dunn, Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Peggy Ann Garner, who won a Special Academy Award for Outstanding Child Actress of 1945. James Dunn’s performance as Johnny Nolan, Francie’s father, won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film also received a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
In 1974, a second film adaptation was released. In the early 1950s, Smith teamed with George Abbott to write the book for the 1951 musical adaptation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Tomorrow Will Be Better[edit]
Smith’s second book, Tomorrow Will Be Better, was published in 1947. Set in the tenements of 1920s Brooklyn, the novel presents a realistic portrayal of young adults who seek a brighter future. Published just four years after A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the second book naturally drew critical comparisons to the first because both novels dealt with family life in Brooklyn and the struggle with poverty. Margy Shannon, the central character in Tomorrow Will be Better, is from a poor family with a dominant mother. She meets and is courted by Frankie, a fellow Brooklynite, also contending with poverty. They strive to improve their lot, attempting to overcome the many personal and financial obstacles in their way.
Tomorrow Will Be Better was published to mixed reviews. It received a positive notice in The New York Times, which noted the work is noticeably different in spirit from Smith’s first book and praised Smith’s writing style as “remarkable for its unpretentiousness—an easy, tidy, direct kind of prose which calls no attention to itself”.[24] Other reviews, however, were less warm, often judging the novel as “gloomy”.
Maggie-Now[edit]
Maggie-Now was published in 1958.
Joy in the Morning[edit]
Joy in the Morning, Smith’s fourth, and last, novel appeared in 1963. The novel was adapted into the 1965 film of the same name.
Personal life[edit]
As a child, Smith was called Lizzie, but because she had difficulty pronouncing her z’s, her family took to calling her Liddie.[25] She had a younger brother, William (b. 1898) and a younger sister, Regina (b. 1903). Her relationship with her father John was warm and loving even though he was an alcoholic who only provided sporadically for his family. John Wehner died December 21, 1913, at the age of 40.[26]
In 1918, her mother Catherine married a second time to Michael Keogh, an Irishman 13 years her senior who worked in the city’s public works department. The marriage brought long needed financial stability to the family. Both William and Regina assumed the Keogh surname, and Lizzie, due to her age, did not. In either 1918 or early 1919, around the age of 22, Smith may have suffered the trauma of sexual abuse. Although she never directly identified anyone, her later correspondence and writings suggest the involvement of her stepfather Michael Keogh.[27] Additionally, after leaving the Keogh household in 1919, she returned infrequently, and then only briefly, until Keogh died in 1933.
Smith married three times. Her first marriage at age 23 was to George H.E. Smith on October 18, 1919, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She had met George in 1917 at the Jackson Street Settlement House and then joined him in Ann Arbor where they quickly wed. The couple had two children: Nancy Jean (b. 1922) and Mary Elizabeth (1924–1979). Due mainly to her husband’s infidelity, Betty and George separated and then divorced in 1938.[28] Her second marriage was to Joseph Piper Jones, a serviceman and editor she met in Chapel Hill. They married August 7, 1943 in Norfolk, Virginia. By June 1951, the marriage, which produced no children, was in trouble, and Smith cited incompatibility as a reason to divorce, noting they “had nothing at all in common”.[29] Smith traveled to Reno, Nevada, gained residency, and filed for divorce on December 13, 1951. Six years later in Chapel Hill, at the age of 61, she married Robert Voris Finch, a longtime friend and companion she had known since her studies at Yale University. Finch, who had issues with alcohol as well as cardiovascular problems, died on February 4, 1959.
Smith was a petite woman with dark brown hair and strikingly deep blue eyes. She enjoyed fishing, particularly at her cottage in Nags Head, North Carolina.[30] She also was an avid bingo player.[31]
Death[edit]
On January 17, 1972, Smith died of pneumonia in Shelton, Connecticut, at the age of 75.[32]
from NLS/BARD/LOC:
A tree grows in Brooklyn DB10426
Smith, Betty Reading time: 14 hours, 45 minutes.
Maria Tucci National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.
A novel about an Irish-American girl’s childhood and youth, her struggles with poverty, and her work to get an education. The setting is Brooklyn tenement life of the early 1900’s.
Download A tree grows in Brooklyn DB10426
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we’re going” by Vaclav Smil
Kate’s 2¢: “How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we’re going” by Vaclav Smil
“How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we’re going” by Vaclav Smil
–Main area of interest is energy studies: combine understanding of physics, history, biologogy, geology, and engineering; with attention to history, and social and economic political factors.
–Advocates for moving away from extreme views.
–Understanding energy, fuels, electricity
–Understanding food production; eating fossil fuels
–Understanding our material world; the four pillars of civilation
–Understanding globalization; engines, micro-chips, and beyond
–Understanding risks; from viruses to diets tosolar flares
–Understanding the environment; the only biosphere we have
–Understanding the future; between apocalypse and singularity
–Appendix: Understanding numbers (One might want to start with this chapter.)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
VaclavSmil.com
Vaclav Smil (Czech: [ˈvaːtslaf ˈsmɪl];[1] born December 9, 1943) is a Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst.[2] He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus[3] in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His interdisciplinary research interests encompass energy, environmental, food, population, economic, historical and public policy studies. He has also applied these approaches to energy, food and environmental affairs of China.
Early life and education[edit]
Smil was born during World War II in Plzeň, at that time in the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (present-day Czech Republic).[4] His father was a police officer and his mother a bookkeeper.[4] Growing up in a remote mountain town in the Plzeň Region, Smil cut wood daily to keep the home heated. This provided an early lesson in energy efficiency and density.[4]
Smil completed his undergraduate studies and began his graduate work (culminating in the RNDr., an intermediate graduate degree similar to the Anglo-American Master of Philosophy credential, in 1965)[5] at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Charles University in Prague, where he took 35 classes a week, 10 months a year, for five years.[4] “They taught me nature, from geology to clouds,” Smil said.[4] After graduation he refused to join the Communist party, undermining his job prospects, though he found employment at a regional planning office.[4] He married Eva, who was studying to be a physician.[4] In 1969, following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Eva’s graduation, the Smils emigrated to the United States, leaving the country months before a Soviet travel ban shut the borders.[4] “That was not a minor sacrifice, you know?” Smil says.[4] Smil then received his Ph.D. in geography from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences of Pennsylvania State University in 1971.[5][4][6]
Career[edit]
In 1972, Smil took his first job offer at the University of Manitoba where he remained for decades, until his retirement.[4] He taught introductory environmental science courses among other subjects dealing with energy, atmospheric change, China, population and economic development.[4]
Position on energy[edit]
Smil is skeptical that there will be a rapid transition to clean energy, believing it will take much longer than many predict.[4] Smil said “I have never been wrong on these major energy and environmental issues because I have nothing to sell,” unlike many energy companies and politicians.[4]
Smil noted in 2018 that coal, oil, and natural gas continue to make up 90% of the primary energy sources used in the world. Although renewable energy technologies have improved over time, the global share of energy produced from fossil fuels since 2000 has increased.[4] Smil emphasizes that replacing the use of fossil carbon in the production of primary iron, cement, ammonia, and plastics is a significant and ongoing challenge in the industrial sector. Together, these industries account for 15% of the world’s total fossil fuel consumption.[7] Smil stresses the need for energy prices to reflect their true costs, including greenhouse gas emissions, and promotes a decrease in the demand for fossil fuels through energy-saving measures.[8]
Position on economic growth[edit]
Smil believes economic growth has to end, that all growth is logistic rather than exponential, and that humans could consume much lower levels of materials and energy.[9][10][11]
Reception[edit]
Included among Smil’s admirers is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates,[12] who has read all of Smil’s 36 books.[13] “I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next Star Wars movie,” Gates wrote in 2017.[4] “He’s a slayer of bullshit,” says David Keith, an energy and climate scientist at Harvard University.[4]
Personal life[edit]
His wife Eva is a physician[4] and his son David is an organic synthetic chemist.
He lives in a house with unusually thick insulation, grows some of his own food, and eats meat roughly once a week.[10] He reads 60 to 110 non-technical books a year and keeps a list of all books he has read since 1969. He “does not intend to have a cell phone ever.”[14]
Smil is known for being “intensely private”, shunning the press while letting his books speak for themselves.[4] At the University of Manitoba, he only ever showed up at one faculty meeting (since the 1980s). The school accepted his reclusiveness so long as he kept teaching and publishing highly rated books.[4]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we’re going DB108428
Smil, Vaclav Reading time: 10 hours, 11 minutes.
Stephen Perring
Science and Technology
“An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible–a scientist’s investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don’t know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check–because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn’t inevitable–the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world’s rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020–and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions. Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2022.
Download How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we’re going DB108428
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins
Kate’s 2¢: “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins
“American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins
saying…
I downloaded “American Dirt” from BookShare. The story was read by synthesized speech and, I must admit, its Spanish pronunciationis even worse than my own.
My emotions ran from horror to elation and everything in-between as I listened to this gripping and compelling story. I can understand that each of the travelers has this/her own reason for leaving their homeland. Can they not understand that by flooding our borders, we may not be able to accommodate all of them without sinking our own ship?
A few take-aways:
–The author is more interested in stories of the victims, rather than the perpetraters…In characters who suffer inconceivable hardships.
— The violence presented in many stories can feed into the misconception about the Mexican people.
–How would you live in a place that began to collapse around you?
–At worst, we tend to see the migrants as resource draining criminals…at best, a sort of helpless, impoverished faceless, brown mass.
–We seldom think of them as our fellow human beings.
–After reading this story, when we see migrants on the news, we may begin to see these people as people.
–También de este lado hay sueños. On this side, too, there are dreams.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jeanine Cummins (born December 6, 1974)[1][failed verification] is an American author of Irish and Puerto Rican heritage. [2][3] She has written four books: a memoir titled A Rip in Heaven and three novels, The Outside Boy, The Crooked Branch, and American Dirt.[4] American Dirt was a notable success, selling over 3 million copies in 37 languages. However, it also gained controversy within the American literary community for its perceived cultural exploitation.
Early life[edit]
Cummins was born in Rota, Spain, where her father, Gene, was stationed as a member of the US Navy.[5] Her mother, Kay, was a nurse.[6] Cummins spent her childhood in Gaithersburg, Maryland and attended Towson University, where she majored in English and communications. In 1993 Cummins was a finalist in the Rose of Tralee festival, an international event that is celebrated among Irish communities all over the world; at each festival in Tralee, Ireland, a woman is crowned the Rose.[7]
Career[edit]
After university, Cummins spent two years working as a bartender in Belfast, Northern Ireland, before moving back to the United States in 1997 and beginning work at Penguin in New York City.[3] She worked in the publishing industry for 10 years.[8]
Her 2004 memoir, A Rip in Heaven, focuses on the attempted murder of her brother, Tom, and the murder of two of her cousins on the Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1991, when Cummins was 16.[1] She declined offers for film rights to the book.[9] She has said that her cousin Julie’s death specifically inspired her to become a writer, as Julie had been “a really gifted writer” and Cummins’s role model growing up, and Cummins felt a sense of responsibility to carry on her legacy.[9]
Her next two books were novels that explore Irish history. The Outside Boy (2010) is about Pavee travellers. The Crooked Branch (2013) is about the Great Famine of Ireland.[9] These books were published for the first time in Ireland in 2020.[7]
Cummins’ 2020 novel, American Dirt, tells the story of a mother and bookstore owner in Acapulco, Mexico, who attempts to escape to the United States with her son after her husband and her entire family is killed by a drug cartel.[10][11] In 2018 the book was sold to Flatiron after a three-day bidding war between nine publishers that resulted in a seven-figure deal.[12][3] From 2018 until its publication in January 2020, the book was heavily marketed, receiving many positive reviews and a coveted book release day endorsement by Oprah Winfrey as the 83rd book chosen for Oprah’s Book Club.[13][3] The novel eventually sold over 3 million copies, in 37 languages.[14]
Approximately one month prior to release of the book, a negative review from Latina author Myriam Gurba was published online.[15][16] Then, a week before release of the book, a string of critical reviews was published, including a review in The New York Times.[17][18][15] In these reviews and a letter signed by 142 writers, Cummins was accused of exploitation and inaccuracy in her portrayals of both Mexicans and the migrant experience.[19] Some also claimed that Cummins had previously identified as white but re-branded herself as Latina with the publication of the book, pointing to a line in a 2015 New York Times op-ed in which Cummins stated “I am white.”[16] Most did not refer to the entire statement in the op-ed, however, which was about the murder of Cummins’s cousins by a group of three black and one white men and included the line “I am white. The grandmother I shared with Julie and Robin was Puerto Rican, and their father is half Lebanese. But in every practical way, my family is mostly white.”[1] The controversy around Jeanine’s book was used to launch the organization and hashtag #DignidadLiteraria to highlight and address a perceived lack of diversity in the U.S. publishing industry.[20]
On January 30, 2020 Cummins’ book tour was cancelled. Flatiron Books’ President Bob Miller wrote, “Based on specific threats to booksellers and the author, we believe there exists real peril to their safety.”[21] The publisher later clarified that these were not death threats, but rather other threats made against Cummins, against booksellers hosting her, and against moderators participating in the events.[22]
Cummins has indicated that her next book might be set in Puerto Rico.[7]
Family[edit]
Cummins’ husband is an Irish immigrant who lived illegally in the U.S. for 10 years.[23] The couple have two daughters, and have also been foster parents.[24][25]
From BookShare:
Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.
Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy—two of them her favorites.
Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia—trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to? American Dirt will leave readers utterly changed. It is a literary achievement filled with poignancy, drama, and humanity on every page. It is one of the most important books for our times.
A New York Times Bestseller
Copyright:
2020
Book Details
Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
400 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781250209771
Related ISBNs:
9781250209764, 9781250805461
Publisher:
Flatiron Books
Date of Addition:
01/31/22
Copyrighted By:
Jeanine Cummins
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Literature and Fiction, Parenting and Family
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by kate
Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Edge of valor: a Todd Ingram novel” by John J. Gobbell
Kate’s 2¢: “Edge of valor: a Todd Ingram novel” by John J. Gobbell
“Edge of valor: a Todd Ingram novel” by John J. Gobbell
This was a book chosen at random by NLS and sent to me on a cartridge that contained seven books.
Well, there certainly was a lot of action and intrigue in this story.
John J. Gobbell is an American author and former member of the U.S. Navy. He is best known as the writer of Todd Ingram series of books which began in 2019 with the release of The Last Lieutenant.
Gobbell joined the Navy after he graduated from the University of Southern California. He saw active duty and fought the battle of Yankee Station when they formed a protective destroyer screen around the carrier USS Hancock in the South China Sea. After his naval career, he worked as an executive recruit. In his free time, he sails in Southern California yacht racing regattas.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Edge of valor: a Todd Ingram novel DB110008
Gobbell, John J Reading time: 14 hours, 53 minutes.
John Haag
Historical Fiction
War Stories
“Todd Ingram has just saved his ship from a kamikaze raid. While seeking repairs in Okinawa, he hears news of the war’s end…and then receives mysterious orders to defuse an imminent Soviet attack. In the process, he is to rescue a Red Cross representative with irrefutable proof of Japanese war crimes. The assignment brings him face-to-face with a Soviet adversary from his past—and a Japanese garrison determined to stop him. Three weeks ago, Todd was fighting the Japanese, and the Russians were supposed to be his ally. Now he doesn’t know whom to trust…and as his shipmates prepare to return to their loved ones, Todd’s war continues.” — Provided by publisher. Some violence and some strong language.
Download Edge of valor: a Todd Ingram novel DB110008
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Every Last Secret” by A. R. Torre A R
Kate’s 2¢: “Every Last Secret” by A. R. Torre A R
“Every Last Secret” by A. R. Torre A R
saying…
Maggy Stacy did a good job of reading this for us. I love the ending.
from: www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm/author_number/x17026/a-r-torre
A. R. Torre is a pseudonym for New York Times bestselling author Alessandra Torre. Torre is an award-winning author of more than twenty-six novels. She has been featured in such publications as ELLE and ELLE UK and has guest-blogged for Cosmopolitan and the Huffington Post.
Author Alessandra Torre is very popular because of her works and often features in various publications along with Jenny McCarthy such as Dirty Sexy Funny and Elle UK. She considers herself to be an indie and traditionally published author. Her main focus lies mainly towards writing erotic suspense and contemporary erotic romance stories.
from NLS/BARD/LOC:
Every last secret DB103215
Torre, A. R. Reading time: 9 hours, 28 minutes.
Read by Maggy Stacy.
Suspense Fiction
Psychological Fiction
Cat and her husband William live in the privileged California community of Atherton. When new neighbors move in, Cat does the right thing and welcomes them to the neighborhood. But wife Neena soon sets her eyes on William and everything Cat has. Except Neena doesn’t know Cat’s secrets. 2020.
Downloaded: November 2, 2023
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by kate
Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Floating coast: an environmental history of the Bering Strait”
Kate’s 2¢: “Floating coast: an environmental history of the Bering Strait”
by Bathsheba Demuth
“Floating coast: an environmental history of the Bering Strait”
This was a book chosen at random by NLS and sent to me on a cartridge that contained seven books.
–An exploration between Capitalism, Communism, and Arctic ecology since the dawn of the Industrial Age…through the story of animals and resources.
–Through the lense of the natural world, she views human life and economics a fundamentally about ccles of energy.
Emily Ellet did a good job of reading this book for us.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification.
Bathsheba Rose Demuth[1] is an environmental historian; she is the Dean’s Associate Professor of History and Environment and Society at Brown University.[2] She specializes in the study of the Russian and North American Arctic. Her interest in this region was triggered when she moved north of the Arctic Circle in the Yukon, at the age of 18, and learned a wide range of survival skills in the taiga and tundra.
Early life and education[edit]
Demuth was raised in Decorah, Iowa; she was homeschooled.[3]
Demuth obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Trauma Studies from Brown University in 2006; she completed a masters at Brown in international development in 2007. Demuth pursued doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving her PhD in history in 2016.
Career[edit]
Demuth is best known for her book Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait. The book was published in 2019 by W. W. Norton & Company and has won numerous awards, including the American Society for Environmental History’s 2020 George Perkins Marsh Prize for the best book in environmental history and the John H. Dunning Prize from the American Historical Association for the best book in American history.[4] The book was also nominated for the Pushkin Book Prize.[5] Since 2022, she has been an associate dean of history and environment and society at Brown University.[6]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Floating coast: an environmental history of the Bering Strait DB96869
Demuth, Bathsheba Reading time: 12 hours, 53 minutes.
Emily Ellet
Science and Technology
Environmental historian chronicles the changes experienced by the Bering Strait–the strip of sea separating Alaska from Russia–from 1848 to 1990. Sections are the sea, shore, land, underground, and ocean. Topics include whale populations, arctic sea ice, the tundra, seismic activity, and the impact of whaling on the food chain. 2019.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The grand biocentric design: how life creates reality” by Robert Paul Lanzaand; Bob Berman; Matej Pavšič
Kate’s 2¢: “The grand biocentric design: how life creates reality” by Robert Paul Lanzaand; Bob Berman; Matej Pavšič
“The grand biocentric design: how life creates reality” by Robert Paul Lanzaand; Bob Berman; Matej Pavšič
This was a book chosen at random by NLS and sent to me on a cartridge that contained seven books.
I must admit that I’m not far enough along this leg of my journey to understand this book.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
The grand biocentric design: how life creates reality DB103338
Lanza, R. P, (Robert Paul); Berman, Bob; Pavšič, Matej Reading time: 8 hours, 20 minutes.
Peter Ganim
Science and Technology
Medical doctor Lanza, theoretical physicist Pavsic, and astronomer Berman present the theory of biocentrism which posits that life creates reality. Discusses the history of physics and prominent theories like Quantum Theory, examines consciousness in humans and animals, and what it means to construct reality. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2020.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The Good Liar” by Catherine McKenzie
Kate’s 2¢: “The Good Liar” by Catherine McKenzie
“The Good Liar” by Catherine McKenzie
I enjoyed listening to Emily Ellet read this story. I’m reminded of the saying: Oh, the webs we weave.
www.CatherineMcKenzie.com
Catherine McKenzie was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. A graduate of McGill in History and Law, Catherine practiced law for twenty years before leaving the practice to write full time. An avid runner, skier and tennis player, she’s the author of numerous bestsellers including HIDDEN, FRACTURED, THE GOOD LIAR and I’LL NEVER TELL. Her works have been translated into multiple languages and PLEASE JOIN US and I’LL NEVER TELL have all been optioned for development into television series.
Her next novel, HAVE YOU SEEN HER, is releasing on June 27, 2023!
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
The good liar DB90857
McKenzie, Catherine. Reading time: 10 hours, 17 minutes.
Read by Emily Ellet.
Suspense Fiction
Psychological Fiction
A year ago, an explosion destroyed a Chicago building. Running late to meet her husband, Cecily survived, but she is not exactly a grieving widow. Although presumed dead, Kaitlyn instead fled to Canada. And Franny was determined at all costs to connect with her birth mom, who worked in the building. Strong language. 2018.
Downloaded: December 7, 2023
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “All the light we cannot see: a novel” by Anthony Doerr
Kate’s 2¢: “All the light we cannot see: a novel” by Anthony Doerr
“All the light we cannot see: a novel” by Anthony Doerr
saying…
Jill Fox did a very good job of reading this lengthy story. This was the second time I enjoyed spending the time to listen to the novel, although, the time changes of foreshadowing, current time, then, back flashes were sometimes confusing.
A few take-aways:
–To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness…there exists an older, more raw world.
–Open your eyes and see what you can with them, before they close forever.
–Was it true that Captain Nemo never left the Nautilus?
–The keeper of the stone would live forever, but …misfortune would fall on all those he loved.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anthony Doerr is an American author of novels and short stories. He gained widespread recognition for his 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Early life and education[edit]
Raised in Cleveland, Ohio,[1] Doerr attended the nearby University School, graduating in 1991. He then majored in history at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, graduating in 1995. He earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University.[2]
Career[edit]
Doerr’s first book was a collection of short stories called The Shell Collector (2002). Many of the stories take place in countries within Africa and New Zealand, where he has worked and lived. His first novel, About Grace, was released in 2004. His memoir, Four Seasons in Rome, was published in 2007, and his second collection of short stories, Memory Wall, was published in 2010.
Doerr’s second novel, All the Light We Cannot See, is set in occupied France during World War II and was published in 2014. It received significant critical acclaim and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.[3] The book was a New York Times bestseller, and was named by the newspaper as a notable book of 2014.[4] It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2015. It was runner-up for the 2015 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction [5] and won the 2015 Ohioana Library Association Book Award for Fiction.[6]
Doerr writes a column on science books for The Boston Globe and is a contributor to The Morning News, an online magazine.
From 2007 to 2010, he was the Writer in Residence for the state of Idaho.[7][8]
Doerr’s third novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, follows three story lines, scattered throughout time: 13-year-old Anna and Omeir, an orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy, on opposite sides of formidable city walls during the 1453 siege of Constantinople; teenage idealist Seymour and octogenarian Zeno in an attack on a public library in present-day Idaho; and Konstance, decades from now, who turns to the oldest stories to guide her community in peril.[9] Cloud Cuckoo Land was released September 28, 2021. It was shortlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction.[10]
Personal life[edit]
Doerr is married, has twin sons and lives in Boise, Idaho.[11]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
All the light we cannot see: a novel DB79182
Doerr, Anthony. Reading time: 16 hours, 3 minutes.
Read by Jill Fox. A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.
Bestsellers
War Stories
When Paris is invaded by the Nazis, Marie-Laure LeBlanc’s father evacuates her to St. Malo to stay with her great-uncle. Blind since the age of six, Marie-Laure must learn the town by the scale model her father has left. Then, the Germans arrive. Violence, and descriptions of sex. Bestseller. 2014.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Winter solstice” by Rosamunde Pilcher
Kate’s 2¢: “Winter solstice” by Rosamunde Pilcher
“Winter solstice” by Rosamunde Pilcher
saying…
Vanessa Maroney did a good job of reading this lengthy story for the NLS. Her British accent fit right in with the characters.
How does this sound for a picnic feast? Hot soup laced with Sherry from mugs, fresh rolls filled with thick slices of ham and English mustard, a bacon and egg quiche, chicken drumsticks, tomato salad, crisp green apples and chunck of cheddar cheese, plus a flask of boiling hot coffee.
It took a long time to introduce each character, but once they finally came together in the Estate House, all ended as it should. I enjoyed this story.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rosamunde Pilcher, OBE (née Scott; 22 September 1924 – 6 February 2019)[2] was a British novelist, best known for her sweeping novels set in Cornwall. Her books have sold over 60 million copies worldwide.[3] Early in her career she was published under the pen name Jane Fraser. In 2001, she received the Corine Literature Prize’s Weltbild Readers’ Prize for Winter Solstice.
Personal life[edit]
She was born Rosamunde Scott on 22 September 1924 in Lelant, Cornwall. Her parents were Helen (née Harvey) and Charles Scott, a British civil servant.[2] Just before her birth her father was posted in Burma, while her mother remained in England.[4] She attended the School of St. Clare in Penzance and Howell’s School Llandaff before going on to Miss Kerr-Sanders’ Secretarial College.[5] She began writing when she was seven, and published her first short story when she was 18.[6]
From 1943 until 1946, Pilcher served with the Women’s Royal Naval Service. On 7 December 1946, she married Graham Hope Pilcher,[5] a war hero and jute industry executive who died in March 2009.[7] They moved to Dundee, Scotland. They had two daughters and two sons.[8] Her son, Robin Pilcher, is also a novelist.[9]
Pilcher died on 6 February 2019, at the age of 94, following a stroke.[10]
Writing career[edit]
In 1949, Pilcher’s first book, a romance novel, was published by Mills and Boon, under the pseudonym Jane Fraser. She published a further ten novels under that name. In 1955, she also began writing under her real name with Secret to Tell. By 1965 she had dropped the pseudonym and was signing her own name to all of her novels.[5]
The breakthrough in Pilcher’s career came in 1987, when she wrote the family saga The Shell Seekers, her fourteenth novel under her own name.[10] It focuses on an elderly British woman, Penelope Keeling, who relives her life in flashbacks, and on her relationship with her adult children. Keeling’s life was not extraordinary, but it spans “a time of huge importance and change in the world.”[6] The novel describes the everyday details of what life during World War II was like for some of those who lived in Britain.[6] The Shell Seekers sold around ten million copies and was translated into more than forty languages.[2] It was adapted for the stage by Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham.[8] Pilcher was said to be among the highest-earning women in Britain by the mid-1990s.[11]
Her other major novels include September (1990), Coming Home (1995) and Winter Solstice (2000).[10][12] Coming Home won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by Romantic Novelists’ Association in 1996.[13] The president of the association in 2019, the romance writer Katie Fforde, considers Pilcher to be “groundbreaking as she was the first to bring family sagas to the wider public”.[10] Felicity Bryan, in her obituary for The Guardian, writes that Pilcher took the romance genre to “an altogether higher, wittier level”; she praises Pilcher’s work for its “grittiness and fearless observation” and comments that it is often more prosaic than romantic.[2]
Pilcher retired from writing in 2000.[5] Two years later, in the 2002 New Year Honours, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to literature.[14][15]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Winter solstice / DB50844
Pilcher, Rosamunde Reading time: 19 hours, 25 minutes.
Vanessa Maroney A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.
Human Relations
Bestsellers
Elfrida, a retired actress; Oscar, a recent widower; Carrie, recovering from a love affair; Lucy, Carrie’s niece; and Sam, deserted by his wife, spend the winter solstice in a Scottish cottage, where they form a lasting bond that allows them to recover from their various challenges and losses. Bestseller. 2000.
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