Download or read book Days of Hope Miles of Misery written by Fred Dickey and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The shout "giddap" starts the oxen down a path to the end of the world.For five months, and two thousand miles, the wagon train lumbers toward California on the Oregon Trail and into big trouble. The emigrants endure disease, dirt, and attacks from outlaws, and invaded Indians. Bitter strife erupts between ill-matched pioneers forced together by necessity.The 1845 wagon train is part of a vast westward movement; a monument to Americana that fascinates readers 175 years later. In one of the wagons is a heart-sick physician, Hannah Blanc, whose tribulations are Jobian: the suicide of a beloved husband, unfair denial of her medical career by graybeards of the profession, and a nightmarish new "marriage of necessity" to a vile man named Ed Spencer. Hannah tries to save a young boy from gangrene by amputating his leg. She has never done surgery by herself, let alone of that complexity. The guide is a hard-to-figure mountain man, Nimrod Lee, who knows the trail, but is also looking for a man he needs to kill. Guilt over the murder of his Crow wife beclouds his conscience. Betrayal of his word to her chief father threatens his life. The killer of his wife is still out there. A love affair between Hannah and Nimrod is inevitable, but it's complicated, because for both, painful histories and mixed-up emotions make tall walls. The heart of the story is the pool of misgivings that threatens to drown their tenuous affair.The wagon train is a village of strangers locked together with no escape. Cholera is the killer and diarrhea is the tormentor. Mosquitoes are a biblical plague. The sun, the heat, the cold, the snow-all are partners in misery.The last part of the trek is the most miserable. The dreaded Forty Mile Desert is all sand, sun and no water for days. The Sierra Nevada surprises with an early winter that takes their suffering to a higher plane.Beyond all they must endure, the pioneers keep fighting, and keep coming. Those who make it are survivors; survivors with a great story to tell.

Download or read book These Precious Days written by Ann Patchett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays. "The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." —Publisher's Weekly “Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

Download or read book A Little Life written by Hanya Yanagihara and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Download or read book Before We Were Strangers written by Renée Carlino and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the USA TODAY bestselling author of Sweet Thing and Nowhere But Here comes a love story about a Craigslist “missed connection” post that gives two people a second chance at love fifteen years after they were separated in New York City. To the Green-eyed Lovebird: We met fifteen years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House. You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more. We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music (you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley), photography (I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other. Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding… I didn’t see you again until a month ago. It was a Wednesday. You were rocking back on your heels, balancing on that thick yellow line that runs along the subway platform, waiting for the F train. I didn’t know it was you until it was too late, and then you were gone. Again. You said my name; I saw it on your lips. I tried to will the train to stop, just so I could say hello. After seeing you, all of the youthful feelings and memories came flooding back to me, and now I’ve spent the better part of a month wondering what your life is like. I might be totally out of my mind, but would you like to get a drink with me and catch up on the last decade and a half? M

Download or read book Bad Days in History written by Michael Farquhar and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2015 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Farquhar's ... entries draw from the full sweep of history to take readers through a complete year of misery, including tales of lost fortunes (like the would-be Apple investor who pulled out in 1977 and missed out on a $30 billion-dollar windfall), romance gone wrong (like the 16th-century Shah who experimented with an early form of Viagra with empire-changing results), and truly bizarre moments (like the Great Molasses Flood of 1919)"--

Download or read book The Miner s Girl written by Maggie Hope and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping saga from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Coal Miner's Daughter A terrible choice between her sweetheart and her reputation... Orphaned from birth, Mary Trent has always dreamed of the day she can escape from poverty, and when she meets the dashing young doctor Tom Gallagher, it seems her prayers have been answered. But an untimely pregnancy spells disaster and the threat of returning to a life of destitution. Is a marriage of convenience the only thing that can save her?

Download or read book The Will to See written by Bernard-Henri Lévy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unflinching look at the most urgent humanitarian crises around the globe, from one of the world’s most daring philosopher-reporters “Call[s] on people not just to see the world, but to be moved and interested by what they find there, and to do something about it.”—Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic “Fierce and elegant, Lévy’s musings will be of profound interest to any reader of modern continental philosophy.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review Over the past fifty years, renowned public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy has reported extensively on human rights abuses around the world. This new book follows the intrepid Lévy into eight international hotspots—in Nigeria; Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan; Ukraine; Somalia; Bangladesh; Lesbos, Greece; Libya; and Afghanistan—that have escaped global attention or active response. In a deeply personal introduction, Lévy recounts the intellectual journey that led him to advocacy, arguing that a truly humanist philosophy must necessarily lead to action in defense of the most vulnerable. In the second section, he reports on the eight investigative trips he undertook just before or during the coronavirus pandemic, from the massacred Christian villages in Nigeria to a dangerously fragile Afghanistan on the eve of the Taliban talks, from an anti-Semitic ambush in Libya to the overrun refugee camp on the island of Lesbos. Part manifesto, part missives from the field, this new book is a stirring rebuke to indifference and an exhortation to level our gaze at those most hidden from us.

Download or read book Days of Hope written by Patricia Sullivan and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2014-11-18 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1930s and 1940s, a loose alliance of blacks and whites, individuals and organizations, came together to offer a radical alternative to southern conservative politics. In Days of Hope, Patricia Sullivan traces the rise and fall of this movement. Using oral interviews with participants in this movement as well as documentary sources, she demonstrates that the New Deal era inspired a coalition of liberals, black activists, labor organizers, and Communist Party workers who sought to secure the New Deal's social and economic reforms by broadening the base of political participation in the South. From its origins in a nationwide campaign to abolish the poll tax, the initiative to expand democracy in the South developed into a regional drive to register voters and elect liberals to Congress. The NAACP, the CIO Political Action Committee, and the Southern Conference for Human Welfare coordinated this effort, which combined local activism with national strategic planning. Although it dramatically increased black voter registration and led to some electoral successes, the movement ultimately faltered, according to Sullivan, because the anti-Communist fervor of the Cold War and a militant backlash from segregationists fractured the coalition and marginalized southern radicals. Nevertheless, the story of this campaign invites a fuller consideration of the possibilities and constraints that have shaped the struggle for racial democracy in America since the 1930s.

Download or read book Days of Hope written by Lyn Andrews and published by Headline. This book was released on 2010-05-27 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The war may be over, but their troubles have only just begun... Days of Hope by bestselling author Lyn Andrews is a heart-warming saga set in 1940s Liverpool and Ireland, about the hurdles two sisters must cross on their journey to finding the happiness they seek. Perfect for fans of Anne Baker, Katie Flynn and Dilly Court. It's 1945 and the war is finally over. For the Devlin family in Liverpool, the wartime years have been almost too much to bear. But at long last sisters Grace and Chrissie can return to their normal lives. Level-headed and hard-working, Grace wants nothing more than to meet a nice man and settle down. Vivacious Chrissie, though, craves fun and excitement - and there's not much of that to be had in the austere post-war years. So when Chrissie meets Pat Kilroy, a handsome Irishman, she's swept off her feet and eagerly follows Pat to Ireland. Chrissie soon realises she has made a terrible mistake, and Grace rushes to her side to help. But the consequences of Chrissie's actions are to be as far-reaching as they are devastating. What readers are saying about Days of Hope: 'All of Lyn's books are easy to read and are entertaining but this story is by far the best. Days of Hope is excellent and the characters are very well written' 'I started this book Thursday night and finished it Saturday afternoon. This is a very good book, fast paced and easy to read'

Download or read book A Sliver of Hope written by Karla J. Nellenbach and published by Booktrope Editions. This book was released on 2013-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My twin sister was the only person in the world I thought I'd known inside and out. Apparently, I was wrong. Twin sisters share a unique bond, one that can't be broken by miles, time, or even death. Hannah and Hope Morton are no exception. When Hope takes her own life, Hannah loses a sister and a best friend, a catastrophe she isn't sure she'll survive herself. With her family in ruins, Hannah is slowly disappearing, drowning in a sea of misery. Even her wild, energetic best friend can't pull her out of her grief. Desperate to help Hannah, her brother comes home from college, bringing his best friend Julian along, the first boy to break Hannah's heart. None of their efforts are enough to pull Hannah off her self destructive path, though. Julian is the only one who can get through to her, working his way into her frozen soul with cocky remarks and genuine love that warms her from the inside out. As Hannah works to find answers, she continues to uncover new secrets and people that reveal a side of Hope she had never shared with her twin. Alone now, Hannah must make a decision of her own: move on and start a new life with the people she has left, or let the weight of her grief drag her down with her sister.

Download or read book Leaving Orbit written by Margaret Lazarus Dean and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, a breathtaking elegy to the waning days of human spaceflight as we have known it In the 1960s, humans took their first steps away from Earth, and for a time our possibilities in space seemed endless. But in a time of austerity and in the wake of high-profile disasters like Challenger, that dream has ended. In early 2011, Margaret Lazarus Dean traveled to Cape Canaveral for NASA's last three space shuttle launches in order to bear witness to the end of an era. With Dean as our guide to Florida's Space Coast and to the history of NASA, Leaving Orbit takes the measure of what American spaceflight has achieved while reckoning with its earlier witnesses, such as Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Oriana Fallaci. Along the way, Dean meets NASA workers, astronauts, and space fans, gathering possible answers to the question: What does it mean that a spacefaring nation won't be going to space anymore?

Download or read book Looking for God in Messy Places written by Jake Owensby and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2021-04-16 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This is beautiful and brilliant stuff, profound and plain, incredibly human, wise and charming. I trusted and enjoyed every word.” –Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author about Looking for God in Messy Places For any who feel frustrated and world-weary, and who want more than just wishful thinking or superficial spirituality, this book is for you! In these pages, my friend Jake Owensby poignantly shows how LOVE is what can truly give us hope to carry on: real love, God's love for us, our love for each other, right here, right now in all the struggles of this messy life. And God knows, we need this book NOW! —Bishop Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and author of Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times Life is messy. We can get discouraged by setbacks, overwhelmed by busyness, and shaken by worry. Hope is the power that gets us out of bed in the morning and gives us the courage to face adversity. Looking for God in Messy Places by Jake Owensby is a book about how love gives us an inextinguishable hope. This book is for anyone who has ever been frozen in place by loss or regret, anyone who has endured suffering, cruelty, or rejection. From word to word and page to page, readers will experience themselves as God’s beloved—so that they can be hopeful. From the introduction [This book is] For those whose struggles have been long and for those who are growing weary from heavy burdens. For those facing an unforeseen crisis or for those enduring a slow personal train wreck. For those whose throats have grown raw from crying for justice and for those whose wounds have gone unhealed. This is a book about hope, and I have written it especially for those who refuse to yield to discouragement and despair. Topics include: - The power of love to give us hope - The ways that God shows up in our daily lives - Recognizing God’s call in our lives - Becoming your true self - Having a sense of belonging - Forming a friendship with Christ - Contemplative faith

Download or read book Hope is the Last to Die written by Paul Albano and published by Page Publishing, Inc. This book was released on 2020-07-16 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Con artist Jimmy Ford has coerced, stolen, and cheated. Now, in the aftermath of an unspeakable chain of events, Jimmy lands in Naples, Italy, to clear his conscience and dismiss the poisonous notion of inevitable misery from his life. He seeks the help from his cousin Nina, who resides in Naples, all while keeping the truth of what really brought him to Italy away from Nina for as long as possible. But past lives are difficult to forget, and old tricks are even harder to dispose of as Jimmy accidentally witnesses a brutal act committed by the local mafia, the Camorra. Aiding him through his initial struggle of what to do next is Arianna, a woman who is a prisoner of a failing relationship and whose life ambition is to find happiness and beauty. It is only when Jimmy decides to use his con artist tactics on the Camorra do both he and Arianna try to discover a lost hope in their respective lives. What stands in their way of success are past mistakes, which pull along familiar friends and foes as Arianna and Nina inadvertently get tangled into Jimmy's greatest web of lies and deceit in order to not only save himself but his new love and old. Hope Is the Last to Die shines a unique perspective on the Neapolitan saying "La speranza è l'ultima a morire" as this crime thriller examines how one man attempts to battle fate while taken on a journey through the past, along the present, and into the future of a protagonist the literary world has not seen since Jay Gatsby and a conclusion that will leave readers utterly shocked.

Download or read book When Life Hurts written by Wayne D. Dosick and published by Harper San Francisco. This book was released on 1998 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A profoundly personal and deeply inspiring meditation on rebuilding after tragedy.

Download or read book The Desert and the Sea written by Michael Scott Moore and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Scott Moore, a journalist and the author of Sweetness and Blood, incorporates personal narrative and rigorous investigative journalism in this profound and revelatory memoir of his three-year captivity by Somali pirates—a riveting,thoughtful, and emotionally resonant exploration of foreign policy, religious extremism, and the costs of survival. In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International—and funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting—Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates. Subjected to conditions that break even the strongest spirits—physical injury, starvation, isolation, terror—Moore’s survival is a testament to his indomitable strength of mind. In September 2014, after 977 days, he walked free when his ransom was put together by the help of several US and German institutions, friends, colleagues, and his strong-willed mother. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history. Caught between Muslim pirates, the looming threat of Al-Shabaab, and the rise of ISIS, Moore observes the worlds that surrounded him—the economics and history of piracy; the effects of post-colonialism; the politics of hostage negotiation and ransom; while also conjuring the various faces of Islam—and places his ordeal in the context of the larger political and historical issues. A sort of Catch-22 meets Black Hawk Down, The Desert and the Sea is written with dark humor, candor, and a journalist’s clinical distance and eye for detail. Moore offers an intimate and otherwise inaccessible view of life as we cannot fathom it, brilliantly weaving his own experience as a hostage with the social, economic, religious, and political factors creating it. The Desert and the Sea is wildly compelling and a book that will take its place next to titles like Den of Lions and Even Silence Has an End.

Download or read book Days of Hope written by André Malraux and published by London : Hamilton. This book was released on 1968 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Days of Hope is the classic novel of the early days of the Spanish Civil War, when the International Brigade had just been formed and Madrid was besieged. Amongst many memorable characters, two are outstanding - Manuel, the communist worker who becomes a Colonel, and Magnin the former air-line pilot who commands the International Air Force. Manuel has to build an army for untrained, ill-armed men, while Magnin recruits his aviators from professional civil pilots and amateurs who have kept up their annual refresher courses. The book ends with the defeat of the Italians at Guadalajara, 'days of hope' indeed.

Download or read book Four Days of You and Me written by Miranda Kenneally and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Miranda Kenneally, author of the beloved high school romance Hundred Oaks series, comes a funny enemies to lovers romcom about second, third...maybe even fourth chances. Every May 7th, the students at Coffee County High School take a class trip. And every year, Lulu's relationship with Alex Rouvelis gets a little more complicated. Freshman year they went from sworn enemies to more than friends after a close encounter in an escape room. It's been hard for Lulu to quit Alex ever since. Through break-ups, make-ups, and dating other people, each year's class trip brings the pair back together and forces them to confront their undeniable connection. From the science museum to Six Flags, New York City to London, Lulu learns one thing is for sure: love is the biggest trip of all. Are Lulu and Alex meant to be, or are they better apart? Other teen romance books by Miranda Kenneally: Catching Jordan Stealing Parker Things I Can't Forget Racing Savannah Breathe, Annie, Breathe Jesse's Girl Defending Taylor Coming Up for Air