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Long Gone
by Richard Willis
Life in the 1930s and ’40s on the small family farms in eastern Iowa was threadbare and tough. It was made endurable by the web of humanity spun by the men and women who built their lives there. The land itself seemed indifferent to its relentless exploitation and yet people, towns, farms and landscape endured in some fashion. The best parts of the farm stayed with Richard Willis when he left, while the rest is long gone.
” Richard Willis’ Long Gone evokes, with an unsentimental and mordant voice, the less-than-idyllic, often brutal realities of Iowa farm life during the Great Depression. The language is spare and funny; the subject affecting. For anyone who has ever farmed, Long Gone rings true. And for any reader, Long Gone is a piercing, authentic memoir of American life.”
Nicola Smith, Harvest: A Year in the Life of an Organic Farm
The Sentence
by Gene Kraig
In the early 1980s, Jerry Kraig, an idealistic Cleveland attorney with a personal injury/family practice, was retained by his boyhood mentor, Reuben Sturman, to be his First Amendment Coordinator. Known as the ‘Czar of Pornography,’ Sturman ran one of the most highly successful operations in U. S. history. Kraig administrated the barrage of litigation lodged against Sturman by the Federal government. Little did Kraig know that his loyalty and belief in the Constitution would result in a legal nightmare culminating in his conviction by the U. S. government of conspiracy to defraud the IRS of Sturman’s taxes.
The House on Crash Corner: And Other Unavoidable Calamities
by Mindy Greenstein
Sardonic, funny, insightful, and completely honest, Mindy Greenstein’s The House on Crash Corner: And Other Unavoidable Calamities is, according to New York Times columnist David Brooks, “poignant, sometimes even hilarious.” Through anecdotes that are humorous, moving and sometimes sarcastic, Mindy Greenstein shares her unusual life and sharp insights. Mindy moves from a Yiddish-speaking, Orthodox Jewish upbringing by holocaust survivors, to becoming an expert gunslinger and prison psychologist, an Upper West Side yuppie mom, a therapist for cancer patients and then, ironically, a cancer survivor herself. Whether she’s studying for the GREs in her boyfriend’s bathtub, counseling cancer victims, coming to terms with her own illness, or reluctantly heeding her mother’s parenting tips, Greenstein’s observations are wise and witty, her experiences both funny and surprising.
Chosen as One of the “Ten Titles to Pick Up Now” in the May issue of “O, The Oprah Magazine”
How Not to Greet Famous People
edited by Jonathan Kravetz and Charles Salzberg
The Best Stories from ducts.org
Spend an afternoon with comedian, Pat Cooper; dive into the uncensored mind of a streaker; tune into an edition of the Ricki Lake Show in which she interviews four characters from Wuthering Heights; sing and dance your way into the Bill Riley Talent Competition; visit the Louisiana State Penitentiary rodeo; find out who the real Boogie Man is; and learn How Not To Greet Famous People.
“Remarkable writing by remarkable writers. Give this book to anyone who says people aren’t reading as much anymore. Better yet, buy two copies and give them as gifts.” –Patty Dann, Author of Mermaids and Sweet & Crazy
Between Heaven and Earth by Doug Garr
New York writer Doug Garr spent his college and early adult years as a “skydiving slut” — he’d do almost anything for a free jump — leaping from perfectly good airplanes with some of the sport’s most notorious and eccentric practitioners — from the Army’s elite Golden Knights to the outlaw jumpers who flew off the World Trade Center and into Shea Stadium during the World Series and the El Capitan peak in Yosemite National Park. The anecdotes are searing and scary, funny and poignant. His memoir delves into an intriguing analysis of the risk personality, but it goes beyond the intrinsic thrills of this often misunderstood sport. His book is also about love and kinship, egos and existentialism, loyalty and trust. As the reader will discover, there is a lot of hugging but few tears among the cult of the extreme.
“We’re Not Leaving” is a compilation of powerful first-person narratives told from the vantage point of World Trade Center disaster workers — police officers, firefighters,construction workers, and other volunteers at the site.
These stories, shared by ordinary people who responded to disaster and devastation in extraordinary ways, remind us of America’s strength and inspire us to recognize and ultimately believe in our shared values of courage, duty, patriotism, self-sacrifice, and devotion, which guide us in dark times.