Get Twelve Years a Slave
First published in 1853, Twelve Years a Slave is the narrative of Solomon Northup’s experience as a free man sold into slavery. Northup’s memoir reveals unimaginable details about the slave markets, the horrors of life on a plantation, and the dreadful day-to-day treatment of the slaves from the perspective of a man who lived more than thirty years as a free man before being forcibly enslaved.
Written in the year after Northup was freed and published in the wake of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Northup’s story was quickly taken up by abolitionist groups and news organizations as part of the fight against slavery. The book fell into obscurity in later decades, only to be rediscovered in the early 1960’s. In 2013 it was adapted into a feature film entitled 12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen and produced by Brad Pitt. Pitt also played a supporting role in the film, alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti and Sarah Paulson.
Get My Year with Eleanor: A Memoir
In the tradition of My Year of Living Biblically and Eat Pray Love comes My Year with Eleanor, Noelle Hancock’s hilarious tale of her decision to heed the advice of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and do one thing a day that scares her in the year before her 30th birthday. Fans of Sloane Crosley and Chelsea Handler will absolutely adore Hancock’s charming and outrageous chronicle of her courageous endeavor and delight in her poignant and inspiring personal growth.
Get Rising from Quicksand: How I Rose Above Madness & Illness to Reclaim My Life (A Memoir)
Rose Ania Wallace lives with madness for twenty-six years. She thinks her small-town upbringing is normal – idyllic, even. But the sweet moments are sprinkled with the whisperings of Mania. Conventional medicine tags Tessa Miller, Rose’s mother, as bipolar and a hypochondriac. By acting on her imagined fears (sewer stomachs, wormy bellies, and poisoned heads), Tessa causes chaos. Rose confronts her mother’s doppelganger, clutched by Mania, and attempts to toss Tessa a mental lifeline. Rose’s review of her childhood through a woman’s eyes is heartbreaking, touching, shocking, and at times comical.
Rose attempts to bleach the stain of mental illness from her life with perfection. A lawyer, and a law-firm owner, Rose fights to change the way things are done in a cesspool area of practice: criminal defense. With a fast-paced career, a loving husband, and a peaceful home, Rose thinks she has it all, until unexplained attacks batter her into a wispy shadow figure. Her illness thrusts her into conventional medicine: the system she’s avoided since facing her mother’s doppelganger. Rose defies specialists to find answers to her rapid decline, and confronts the parallels between her healthcare odyssey and her mother’s medical mission to reach surprising conclusions.
Rose masterfully describes the transformational process from a powerless child subjected to her mother’s manic medical mission to a wholehearted, empowered woman with a fully integrated personal and professional life. Rose’s story reveals the potency of blood bonds, the unreliability of moods, the insidious nature of illness, and the many forms of madness.
Get Just Call Me Sgt. Mom: A Mother’s Journey Into Autism
Imagine a world where communication is almost nonexistent, where a noise or an environment causes pain or fear, a world unlike the one around us, a world that locks you away from the outside. This is Brianna’s world.
Meet Brianna Williams through the eyes of her mother as she opens up about raising a child with Autism. Journey with her as she takes you into the emotions, the day to day challenges, and the sunny side of having a child on the spectrum. This is her journal.
Get Two years to ‘normal’: a journey with cancer
In 2004 Karen Leibovitch was a busy mother of three young children, running a small counselling practice from home. But a routine visit to her GP led to a diagnosis of oral cancer, and within a matter of weeks Karen’s life was irrevocably changed.
Surgery saved her life but left her with many challenges and a distressing sense of emotional disconnection from the family she loves.
Desperate to find her way back, she is told it will take two years to regain what she has lost. The phrase two years to ‘normal’ becomes a barometer against which she measures her journey towards recovery.
A loving and inspirational memoir written with honesty, insight and a self-deprecating sense of humour, Two years to ‘normal’ will reassure those facing similar circumstances that they and their families are not alone in their experiences.
Get Strong of Heart: Life and Death in the Fire Department of New York
The Site
May 30, 2002
“How will we ever get through this?” is the question I asked on the night of September 11.
“How?”
Maybe the answer is here, all around me. Not just in the cleanup, not just in the purpose demonstrated by all who came and labored in these months.
The answer is in the enduring spirits of all assembled here. That, for me, is the miracle in all of this: having looked horror in the face, we bear the pain without losing heart.
— Thomas Von Essen
Get Heroes and Corruption: Memoirs from a Prison Officer
This collection of stories takes you down a road of pain, drama, corruption and murder. In the pilot installment of Heroes and Corruption, Justin Gunn shares some of his personal experiences in working in the largest prisons in Texas.
Get The Road to Kidneyville – A Journey through Diabetes, Dialysis, and Transplant
How do you react when you’re diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes at the age of 5?
What do you feel when you become disabled at 32?
What do you do when you face kidney failure and want to do the necessary dialysis treatments at home?
Where do you start when you need a transplant?
And how do you cope with all those events?
And what if you’re the friend or family member wanting to help this person?The Road to Kidneyville addresses all those questions and more, in a personal account written by the patient’s wife, with input from the patient himself, Larry Crain. She shares their emotional roller-coaster ride of life with diabetes, an honest view of hemodialysis at home, and the challenges of getting on the list (and staying there!) for a kidney transplant. This is a candid account of real life and a couple truly dedicated to each other.
Get Love and Abuse on 40 Acres
“Let my Mom go, or I’ll put a bullet right between your eyes,”
and with those words, my abuser turned me loose.The hardest words I’ve ever had to say tore from my throat. You’ve been fighting for a long time, you don’t have to fight anymore. You can leave whenever you’re ready. As soon as the words left my lips, my life changed forever, and my marriage of thirty-two years was over. I watched my husband leave my arms, and disappear into the arms of God.
God took my hand and walked with me, one step at a time, and I learned that life goes on. Being desperate and lonely, I turned to the Internet dating sites. Putting the mouse over just the right spot, I clicked “Send,” and the sweet talker from the south entered my life. After a whirlwind romance we were married. On our wedding night I was shocked to discover that I had married an abuser.
Do you know how to spot an abuser? Can you see the warning signs, before you, or someone you love, gets involved? Before it’s too late?
Walk with me, and we’ll laugh, cry, share, and learn together. Be there, as God takes my hand, and leads me on a journey, from a twice broken heart, to contentment in Him.
Get Fireflies: A Father’s Tale of Love and Loss
In the bestselling novels of suspense master David Morrell, fear is the main subject. But Morrell himself had never known genuine terror until he watched his 15-year-old son wage a heroic but doomed struggle with cancer. This is one father’s powerful and unforgettable story of fierce love, impenetrable loss, and an unexpected, breathtaking encounter with the miraculous. Ultimately, Fireflies is a tribute to the undying human spirit that has already given new hope to enthralled and grateful readers around the world.
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