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Biography and Memoir April 2017
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New and Recently Released |
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Walking to Listen : 4,000 Miles Across America, One Story at a Time by Andrew Forsthoefel At 23, Andrew Forsthoefel headed out the back door of his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, with a backpack, an audio recorder, and a sign that read "Walking to Listen." He had just graduated and was ready to begin his adult life, but he didn’t know how. So he decided to take a cross-country quest for guidance, one where everyone he met would be his guide. In the year that followed, he faced an Appalachian winter and a Mojave summer. He met beasts inside: fear, loneliness, doubt. But he also encountered incredible kindness from strangers. Thousands shared their stories with him, sometimes confiding their prejudices, too. Often he didn’t know how to respond. How to find unity in diversity? How to stay connected, even as fear works to tear us apart? He listened for answers to these questions, and to the existential questions every human must face, and began to find that the answer might be in listening itself.
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Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy : Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961 by Nicholas E ReynoldsA riveting international cloak-and-dagger epic, here is the stunning untold story of Ernest Hemingway's dangerous secret life -- including his role as a Soviet agent code-named "Argo" -- that fueled his art and his undoing. As he examines the links between Hemingway's work as an operative and as an author, Reynolds reveals how Hemingway's secret adventures influenced his literary output and contributed to the writer's block and mental decline that plagued him during the postwar years. Reynolds also illuminates how those same experiences played a role in some of Hemingway's greatest works, including For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, while also adding to the burden that he carried at the end of his life and perhaps contributing to his suicide. A literary biography with the soul of an espionage thriller, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy is an essential contribution to our understanding of the life, work, and fate of one of America's most legendary authors.
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The Rules Do Not Applyby Ariel LevyWhen Ariel Levy left for a reporting trip to Mongolia in 2012, she was pregnant, married, financially secure, and successful on her own terms. A month later, none of that was true. Levy picks you up and hurls you through the story of how she built an unconventional life and then watched it fall apart with astonishing speed. Like much of her generation, she was raised to resist traditional rules—about work, about love, and about womanhood. In this “deeply human and deeply moving” (The New York Times Book Review) memoir, Levy chronicles the adventure and heartbreak of being, in her own words, “a woman who is free to do whatever she chooses.” Her story of resilience becomes an unforgettable portrait of the shifting forces in our culture, of what has changed—and of what is eternal.
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The Inkblots : Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, and the Power of Seeing by Damion SearlsIn 1917, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind: a set of ten carefully designed inkblots. A visual artist himself, Rorschach had come to believe that who we are is less a matter of what we say, as Freud thought, than what we see. After Rorschach’s early death, his test quickly made its way to America, where it took on a life of its own. Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor, it was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials and in the jungles of Vietnam. The test was also given to millions of defendants, job applicants, parents in custody battles, and people suffering from mental illness or simply trying to understand themselves better. Damion Searls draws on unpublished letters and diaries and a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach’s family, friends, and colleagues to tell the unlikely story of the test’s creation, its controversial reinvention, and its remarkable endurance. Elegant and original, The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century’s most visionary synthesis of art and science.
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No Barriers : A Blind Man's Journey To Kayak the Grand Canyon by Erik Weihenmayer No Barriers is the moving story of Erik Weihenmayer's journey since descending Mount Everest: from leading expeditions around the world with blind Tibetan teenagers to helping injured soldiers climb their way home from war, from adopting a son from Nepal to facing the most terrifying reach of his life: to solo kayak the thunderous whitewater of the Grand Canyon. Along the course of Erik’s journey, he meets other trailblazers who, despite trauma, hardship, and loss, have broken through barriers of their own. These pioneers show Erik surprising ways forward that surpass logic and defy traditional thinking. Like the rapids of the Grand Canyon, created by inexorable forces far beneath the surface, No Barriers is a dive into the heart and mind at the core of the turbulent human experience. It is an exploration of the light that burns in all of us, the obstacles that threaten to extinguish that light, and the treacherous ascent towards growth and rebirth.
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Revolution for dummies : laughing through the Arab Spring by Bassem Youssef In Revolution for Dummies, Youssef recounts his life and offers hysterical riffs on the hypocrisy, instability, and corruption that has long animated Egyptian politics. From the attempted cover-up of the violent clashes in Tahrir Square to the government’s announcement that it had created the world’s first "AIDS cure" machine, to the conviction of officials that Youssef was a CIA operative—recruited by Jon Stewart—to bring down the country through sarcasm. There’s much more—and it’s all insanely true. Interweaving the dramatic and inspiring stories of the development of his popular television show and his rise as the most contentious funny-man in Egypt, Youssef’s humorous, fast-paced takes on dictatorship, revolution, and the unforeseeable destiny of democracy in the Modern Middle East offers much needed hope and more than a few healing laughs.
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Friday, April 27 Foods and Flavors of Thailand 6:30 p.m. Local resident and food professional Jennifer Diamond will demonstrate cooking with the spices and flavors of Thailand. A special tasting will be part of the event. Friday, April 28 Additions and Alterations to Historic Homes 7:00 p.m. Architect Eric Holterman discusses renovations to older homes. Saturday, April 29 Stamp Roadshow 10:30 a.m. The Hamilton Township Philatelic Society will be on hand to evaluate the worth of your stamp collection! They'll also give pointers to the novice collector. Saturday, May 6 Used Book Collection 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Donate your gently used books.
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Saturday, May 6 Ask the Real Estate Lady 10:00 a.m. Susan Patterson leads a conversation with buyers and sellers about the contract process. Thursday, May 11 Using the Cloud 1:00 p.m. What is the Cloud and what does it have to do with me? We'll teach you ways to upload files, documents, and photos to the Cloud so you can access them from any device. Friday, May 12 On a Roll: Sushi Making with Sofia Milner 7:00 p.m. Come learn the basics of sushi making. Saturday, May 20 Healthy Habits for a Healthy You 10:30 p.m. Learn techniques to prevent Alzheimer's disease. Friday, June 2 The Vinyl Dialogues with Mike Morsch 6:30 p.m.
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Cranbury Public Library
23 North Main Street ~
Cranbury, NJ 08512 ~ Phone: 609-655-0555 ~ Contact Us
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