A Solitary Blue


Book Description

A Newbery Honor–winning installment of the Cynthia Voigt’s classic Tillerman series. Jeff Greene was only seven when he came home from school to find a note from his mother. She felt that the world needed her more than her “grown up” son did. For someone who believed she could see the world’s problems so clearly, she was blind to the heartache and difficulties she pushed upon her son, leaving him with his reserved, undemonstrative father. So when, years later, she invites Jeff to spend summers with her in Charleston, Jeff is captivated by her free spirit and warmth, and a happiness he’s been missing fills him. But Jeff's second visit ends with a devastating betrayal and an aching feeling of loneliness. In life, there can be emotional pits so deep that seemingly nothing will grow—but if he digs a little deeper, Jeff might just come out on the other side.




The Secret of Richmond Manor


Book Description

As the Civil War rages, young Leah Carter moves with her ailing uncle Silas to what townspeople believe is a haunted house. But what she finds is even more frightening-something that sorely challenges her faith and strengthens her relationship with Jeff. The Secret of Richmond Manor is the third of a ten book series, that tells the story of two close families find themselves on different sides of the Civil War after the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861. Thirteen year old Leah becomes a helper in the Union army with her father, who hopes to distribute Bibles to the troops. Fourteen year old Jeff becomes a drummer boy in the Confederate Army and struggles with faith while experiencing personal hardship and tragedy. The series follows Leah, Jeff, family, and friends, as they experience hope and God’s grace through four years of war.




The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball, 2d ed.


Book Description

More than any other sport, baseball has developed its own niche in America's culture and psyche. Some researchers spend years on detailed statistical analyses of minute parts of the game, while others wax poetic about its players and plays. Many trace the beginnings of the civil rights movement in part to the Major Leagues' decision to integrate, and the words and phrases of the game (for example, pinch-hitter and out in left field) have become common in our everyday language. From AARON, HENRY onward, this book covers all of what might be called the cultural aspects of baseball (as opposed to the number-rich statistical information so widely available elsewhere). Biographical sketches of all Hall of Fame players, owners, executives and umpires, as well as many of the sportswriters and broadcasters who have won the Spink and Frick awards, join entries for teams, owners, commissioners and league presidents. Advertising, agents, drafts, illegal substances, minor leagues, oldest players, perfect games, retired uniform numbers, superstitions, tripleheaders, and youngest players are among the thousands of entries herein. Most entries open with a topical quote and conclude with a brief bibliography of sources for further research. The whole work is exhaustively indexed and includes 119 photographs.







Family, Slavery, and Love in the Early American Republic


Book Description

One of the finest historians of her generation, Jan Ellen Lewis (1949-2018) transformed our understanding of the early U.S. Republic. Her groundbreaking essays defined the emerging fields of gender and emotions history and reframed traditional understandings of the founding fathers and the U.S. Constitution. As significant as her work was within each of these subfields, her most remarkable insights came from the connections she drew among them. Gender and race, slavery and freedom, feelings and politics ran together in the hearts, minds, and lives of the men and women she studied. Lewis's brilliant research revealed these long-buried connections and illuminated their importance for America's past and present. Family, Slavery, and Love in the Early American Republic collects thirteen of Lewis's most important essays. Distinguished scholars shed light on the historical and historiographical contexts in which Lewis and her peers researched, wrote, and argued. But the real star of this volume is Lewis herself: confident, unconventional, erudite, and deeply imaginative.




Enron Ascending


Book Description

A great fall cannot be understood apart from the rise that preceded it. Enron Ascending is the only book to date that examines in detail the first two-thirds of that iconic energy company's life. Thus, it is the only book to date that exposes the deepest causes of Enron's stunning collapse. Nobel economist Paul Krugman predicted that history would look upon Enron's plummet as a greater turning point than the fall of the Twin Towers. Enron Ascending explains the shock of the company's fall by recalling the astounding achievements of Enron’s birth, childhood, adolescence, and early maturity. It sets forth the once-celebrated but now-forgotten industry and innovation that caused the company and its reputation to soar stratospherically. At the same time, always conscious of the company's fate, the book highlights throughout the developing habits of thought and behavior that later evolved into self-destructive acts of desperation and deceit. Written fifteen years after the firm’s demise, Enron Ascending offers the long perspective of a uniquely positioned insider, Robert L. Bradley, Jr., the company's director of public-policy analysis and Chairman Ken Lay's personal speechwriter. The book also offers a library of previously unavailable information, drawn from Bradley’s innumerable corporate documents and unrepeatable interviews, which he collected in his capacity as the company's prospective historian. Most important, however, Enron Ascending offers an antidote to the unending stories, studies, and books about Enron that are presented as just-the-facts but are in reality shaped decisively by the worldview of their authors. Bradley shows, beyond dispute, that the early habits which set precedents for Enron's history-making demise were directly contrary to the free-market behaviors and capitalist attitudes generally blamed for Enron's fall.




Echoes of Rebellion


Book Description

Darci is a rebellious seventeen-year-old girl who feels suffocated by her father's overprotective nature. Her mother abandoned them when she was only five, leaving her father to raise her on his own. He works tirelessly to provide for them and attend all of Darci's school events, but she remains defiant and difficult to handle. One day, after a heated argument with her father, Darci decides she has had enough and leaves home with her boyfriend to start a new life in Houston. Her father is devastated by her sudden departure and spends every waking moment searching for her. As Darci tries to navigate life independently in Houston, she realizes that living independently is not as easy as she thought. She struggles to pay rent, find a job, and maintain a relationship with her boyfriend. Meanwhile, her father's relentless search for her uncovers horrifying truths about her friends and their dangerous world. Will Darci reconcile with her father and return home, or will she continue down the path of self-destruction that she started in Houston? Only time will tell in this gripping tale of family, love, and the consequences of our choices.




The Wild Zone


Book Description

Two brothers - Will and Jeff - and their friend Tom are out one night at their favorite South Beach bar when they decide to make a bet on who can be the first to seduce a mysterious-looking young woman drinking by herself. But Suzi has an agenda of her own. Soon another challenge is born, only this one proves to be lethal.




The Joy Fielding Collection #1


Book Description

Three unforgettable novels from New York Times bestselling author Joy Fielding. Still Life Beautiful, happily married and the owner of a successful interior design business, Casey Marshall couldn't be more content with her life. Until a car slams into her at almost fifty miles an hour, breaking nearly every bone in her body, and plunging her into a coma. Lying in her hospital bed, Casey realizes that although she is unable to see or communicate, she can hear everything. She quickly discovers that her friends aren't necessarily the people she thought them to be—and that her accident might not have been an accident at all. As she struggles to break free from her living death, she begins to wonder if what lies ahead could be even worse. The Wild Zone It starts as a joke among two brothers and their friend, out for a night of partying at the Wild Zone. Who will be the first to seduce a mysterious-looking young woman drinking by herself at a corner table? The $100 bet is on for the trio—Jeff, a charismatic personal trainer; his half-brother Will, a Princeton grad student; and Tom, a recently discharged military man—and the game begins. What they don’t know is Suzy Bigelow’s innocent, girl-next-door looks hide some dangerous secrets, or that she has reasons of her own for luring an unsuspecting young lover close to her. Now, as a harmless wager takes on an explosive life of its own, it becomes frighteningly clear that there’s no going back once you’ve entered The Wild Zone. Now You See Her Fifty-year-old Marcy Taggart’s life is in shambles. Two years ago, her twenty-one-year-old daughter, Devon, perished in a canoeing accident. Now in Ireland, on what was originally intended to be a celebration of her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary—if, that is, her husband had not left her for another woman—Marcy thinks she sees Devon casually strolling past her on the sidewalk. So begins Marcy’s desperate search to find Devon, to find herself, and to find the disturbing truth that might, in the end, be her only salvation.




The Cornell Era


Book Description