Publisher: The Penguin Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/16/2013
ISBN-13: 9781594204258
ISBN-10: 159420425X

John F. Kennedy's last hundred days, ending with his assassination on November 22, 1963, were filled with family sorrow at home and complicated international and domestic political developments in the Oval Office. Historian Thurston Clarke examines the welter of details from those few months and paints an intriguing portrait of Kennedy -- as a father after the death of infant son Patrick and as a president working on a diverse array of initiatives in the U.S. and abroad. Though it's impossible to know what Kennedy would have achieved if he had lived longer, Clarke's "graceful, bittersweet chronicle" (Library Journal) poses some fascinating questions.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 08/06/2013
ISBN-13: 9781451645163
ISBN-10: 1451645163

In 1967, several well-known Hollywood figures were murdered in two separate home invasions. The leader of the group of killers was a charismatic sociopath named Charles Manson; he called his followers his "Family." The Manson Family, especially their leader, became world-famous not only for their gruesome crimes but for their cult-like lifestyle. Biographer Jeff Guinn details Manson's youth, largely spent in jails and reform schools, his craving for a music career, and his ability to manipulate others. Guinn includes vignettes of members of the Family and the group's Summer of Love activities and analyzes the crimes themselves. This is a compelling biography for fans of true crime and readers interested in the dark side of the 1960s.

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/09/2013
ISBN-13: 9780547385426
ISBN-10: 0547385420

Novelist and memoirist Howard Norman reminisces on the unusual people he's encountered and situations where he's found himself, detailing each episode in autobiographical essays that evoke strange, sometimes mystical events, humorous conversations, and even a murder-suicide. In the background are always the healing grace of life in the wilderness and the power of words to produce and maintain balance. Kirkus Reviews says these "bracing, no-nonsense" reflections offer new insights into death, life, and love. For another absorbing memoir -- focused on Norman's literary work among the Manitoba Inuit -- read In Fond Remembrance of Me.

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Publisher: Citadel Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/30/2013
ISBN-13: 9780806536156
ISBN-10: 0806536152

The daughter of Rod Serling, the late host of The Twilight Zone, shares personal photos, revealing letters and beautifully rendered scenes of his childhood, war years and their family's time together, celebrating the extraordinary relationship she had with this visionary, storyteller and humanist.

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Publisher: Doubleday
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 07/09/2013
ISBN-13: 9780385536264
ISBN-10: 0385536267

The PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of The Great Man builds on her popular food-centric blog to recount her unconventional upbringing and her unusually happy and occasionally sorrowful life of literary and culinary sensuality.

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Publisher: One World Trade Paperbacks
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/29/2009
ISBN-13: 9780345510464
ISBN-10: 0345510461

Raised in a loving family in Darfur, educated at local schools, and becoming a physician, Halima Bashir lived a stable, middle-class life despite discrimination against her as a black African in Sudan. This relatively ordinary existence ended when civil war broke out and Arab-led Janjaweed forces brought destruction and death to Darfur. After surviving this devastation, which included being raped and tortured, and fleeing to Britain, Bashir struggled to convince Westerners that the strife in her homeland was a real emergency. In Tears of the Desert, which Publishers Weekly calls "a vehement cri de coeur," she chronicles her peaceful childhood and youth and the terror inflicted by the Janjaweed.

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Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/17/2002
ISBN-13: 9780618257324
ISBN-10: 0618257322

Marine architect Steven Callahan was participating in a cross-Atlantic boat race in 1981 when a storm sank his boat, leaving him with a six-person life raft and some emergency equipment. Though he was able to catch fish to eat and collect fresh water, he was entirely alone for 76 days until his rescue. Adrift describes the shipwreck and how Callahan learned to use his equipment to keep himself going; the memoir also explains how the most difficult part of the ordeal was the solitude. Illustrations portray the limitations of the raft and equipment, enhancing the impact of this remarkable account.

Publisher: Vintage Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 03/01/1989
ISBN-13: 9780679722052
ISBN-10: 067972205X

The shipwrecked survivor in this 1955 account was Colombian sailor Luis Alejandro Velasco, who was washed overboard along with several others (who all drowned) and survived for ten days adrift on the Atlantic. Much to his surprise, he was greeted as a hero after he finally made it to shore. At the time, Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez was working as a newspaper reporter, and his interviews form the basis of this vivid, exquisitely written account detailing the seaman's ordeal and subsequent events and bringing Velasco's own words to life. Publishers Weekly calls The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor a "superb example of journalism by a professional of the art."

Publisher: Sheridan House
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/01/2004
ISBN-13: 9781574091847
ISBN-10: 1574091840

Author Violet Jessop served as an ocean liner stewardess; in her autobiography, she describes how she was on board during three unfortunate events at sea involving White Star ships -- and survived. The Olympic came through a minor collision in 1911; in 1912 came the disastrous maiden voyage of Titanic. During World War I, she was a volunteer nurse aboard Britannic when it was sunk by a mine in the Aegean Sea. After the war, Jessop returned to working as a stewardess for the rest of her career. This memoir describes her early life and remarkable maritime adventures, depicting an ordinary woman thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Titanic aficionados and readers of early-20th-century biography will find Titanic Survivor riveting.

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Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/28/2012
ISBN-13: 9780393342819
ISBN-10: 0393342816

Army Special Forces Colonel Jim Thompson was captured by the North Vietnamese after his plane crashed in 1964; he went on to become the longest-held prisoner of the war. Glory Denied depicts his ordeal, his unsuccessful efforts to escape, and the disappointment when he returned home to find that his wife and children had believed him dead. The psychological scars from his imprisonment made it difficult to adjust to civilian life, so that his post-war existence became another series of misfortunes. Author Tom Philpott relates the grim details of Thompson's prison experience and later difficulties in this wrenching account. Two Souls Indivisible, James Hirsch's account of two POWs who saved each other, provides another absorbing prisoner survival tale.

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