The Summer That Changed Us


Book Description

The new feel good read about three women searching for friendship in a sparkling seaside town, from your favourite storyteller Cathy Bramley 'An emotional tale of friendship. This is Cathy at her very best' Sarah Morgan 'A wonderful story about how friendship gets you through hard times' Katie Fforde The sparkling seaside village of Merle Bay, with its beautiful beach scattered with sea glass, is a place where anyone can have a fresh start. For Katie, it is the perfect hideout after a childhood trauma left her feeling exposed. For Robyn, the fresh sea air is helping to heal her scars, but maybe not her marriage. For Grace, a new start could help her move on from a heartbreaking loss. When they meet on Sea Glass Beach one day, they form an instant bond and soon they're sharing prosecco, laughter - and even their biggest secrets... Together, the women feel stronger than ever before. So can their friendship help them face old fears and find happy endings - as well as new beginnings? 'A real treat. No-one does friendship better than Cathy' Karen Swan 'A sure fire hit - I loved it!' Sophie Cousens 'Cathy's books never fail to make my heart sing and this was my favourite yet! Witty, inspiring and full of joy, I absolutely loved it' Sarah Turner 'I loved this brilliantly witty and wise novel, which so wonderfully celebrates the enduring power of female friendship' Isabelle Broom 'Wise and warm, a compelling story of female friendships' Alex Brown 'Empowering, tender and funny' Cressida McLaughlin 'A heartwarming and emotional story about finding hope and friendship when life doesn't go as expected. Comfort reading at its best' Fiona Lucas 'Warm, witty and hopeful, if any book's going to uplift us right now, it's this one' Woman's Weekly 'Uplifting, inspiring and full of hope, this is Cathy Bramley at her finest' My Weekly




The Summer That Changed Us


Book Description

The joyful and escapist Sunday Times bestseller about three women searching for friendship in a beautiful seaside town 'An emotional tale of friendship. This is Cathy at her very best' Sarah Morgan 'A wonderful story about how friendship gets you through hard times' Katie Fforde The sparkling seaside village of Merle Bay, with its beautiful beach scattered with sea glass, is a place where anyone can have a fresh start. For Katie, it is the perfect hideout after a childhood trauma left her feeling exposed. For Robyn, the fresh sea air is helping to heal her scars, but maybe not her marriage. For Grace, a new start could help her move on from a heartbreaking loss. When they meet on Sea Glass Beach one day, they form an instant bond and soon they're sharing prosecco, laughter - and even their biggest secrets... Together, the women feel stronger than ever before. So can their friendship help them face old fears and find happy endings - as well as new beginnings? 'A real treat. No-one does friendship better than Cathy' Karen Swan




The Movies That Changed Us


Book Description

Nick Clooney, one of America's most respected film critics and historians, presents a distinctive catalog of movies that have influenced and altered not only the world of cinema, but also the world in which we live. Since the advent of moving pictures, there have been films that exist as more than just entertainment. These rare movies have touched the collective soul of the public with such passion and artistic skill that they have actually changed the way we view life, history, and ourselves. Some have transformed the way movies are made and viewed -- and some have actually transformed us. In The Movies That Changed Us, Clooney explores, explains, and theorizes upon twenty films -- reaching from 1998 back to 1915 -- that forever shifted our perceptions about race, religion, sex, politics, and the very definition of humanity. From the ambitiously epic -- though manifestly racist -- Birth of a Nation, to the controversial violence of Taxi Driver, to the mythic idealism and visual cornucopia of 2001:A Space Odyssey and Star Wars, Clooney relates the stories behind the camera in an informative, engaging, and personal chronicle of cinema and society.




1919 The Year That Changed America


Book Description

WINNER OF THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 1919 was a world-shaking year. America was recovering from World War I and black soldiers returned to racism so violent that that summer would become known as the Red Summer. The suffrage movement had a long-fought win when women gained the right to vote. Laborers took to the streets to protest working conditions; nationalistic fervor led to a communism scare; and temperance gained such traction that prohibition went into effect. Each of these movements reached a tipping point that year. Now, one hundred years later, these same social issues are more relevant than ever. Sandler traces the momentum and setbacks of these movements through this last century, showing that progress isn't always a straight line and offering a unique lens through which we can understand history and the change many still seek.




Every Summer After


Book Description

"A radiant debut."—Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Named One of the Hottest Reads of Summer 2022 by Today ∙ Parade ∙ PopSugar ∙ USA Today ∙ SheReads ∙ BuzzFeed ∙ BookBub ∙ Bustle ∙ and more! Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right. They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart. Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without. For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart. When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past. Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic story of love and the people and choices that mark us forever.




Summer Everything Changed


Book Description

At Blueberry Bay Bed and breakfast in Maine, Louise Bessire and her daughter, Isobel, are both anticipating an exciting summer. Louise is hosting an important wedding that could make her business. Isobel is looking forward to writing her style and fashion blog and getting to know charming nineteen-year-old Jeff Otten. As the wedding draws closer, Louise has little time to focus on her daughter. Feeling isolated, especially when her father cancels a long-awaited visit, Isobel falls under Jeff's dynamic spell, with dangerous results. And soon, mother and daughter must find the courage to overcome unexpected challenges through the strength of their shared bond.




Red Summer


Book Description

A narrative history of America's deadliest episode of race riots and lynchings After World War I, black Americans fervently hoped for a new epoch of peace, prosperity, and equality. Black soldiers believed their participation in the fight to make the world safe for democracy finally earned them rights they had been promised since the close of the Civil War. Instead, an unprecedented wave of anti-black riots and lynchings swept the country for eight months. From April to November of 1919, the racial unrest rolled across the South into the North and the Midwest, even to the nation's capital. Millions of lives were disrupted, and hundreds of lives were lost. Blacks responded by fighting back with an intensity and determination never seen before. Red Summer is the first narrative history written about this epic encounter. Focusing on the worst riots and lynchings—including those in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Charleston, Omaha and Knoxville—Cameron McWhirter chronicles the mayhem, while also exploring the first stirrings of a civil rights movement that would transform American society forty years later.




An American Summer


Book Description

2020 J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE WINNER From the bestselling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods. The numbers are staggering: over the past twenty years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community? Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing about individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity--and the breaking point--of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and twenty years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends. Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get into your bones. This one summer will stay with you.




Rising


Book Description

A Pulitzer Prize Finalist, this powerful elegy for our disappearing coast “captures nature with precise words that almost amount to poetry” (The New York Times). Hailed as “the book on climate change and sea levels that was missing” (Chicago Tribune), Rising is both a highly original work of lyric reportage and a haunting meditation on how to let go of the places we love. With every record-breaking hurricane, it grows clearer that climate change is neither imagined nor distant—and that rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways. In Rising, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through these dramatic changes, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish. Rush sheds light on the unfolding crises through firsthand testimonials—a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago—woven together with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of these vulnerable communities. A Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal Best Book Of 2018 Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award A Chicago Tribune Top Ten Book of 2018




Summer Birds


Book Description

The story of a young girl living in the Middle Ages who took the time to observe the life cycle of butteflies--and in so doing disproved a theory that went all the way back to ancient Greece. Includes historical note.