Author: Ebony Roberts Publisher: HarperCollins ISBN: 006287666X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
A Notable Memoir by the New York Times Medium’s Books to Help You Transition Into 2020 With echoes of Just Mercy and An American Marriage, a remarkable memoir of a woman who falls in love with an incarcerated man—a poignant story of hope and disappointment that lays bare the toll prison takes not only on those behind bars, but on their families and relationships. Ebony’s parents were high school sweethearts and married young. By the time Ebony was born, the marriage was disintegrating. As a little girl she witnessed her parents’ brutal verbal and physical fights, fueled by her father’s alcoholism. Then her father tried to kill her mother. Those experiences drastically affected the way Ebony viewed love and set the pattern for her future romantic relationships. Despite being an educated and strong-minded woman determined not to repeat the mistakes of her parents—she would have a fairytale love—Ebony found herself drawn to bad-boys: men who cheated; men who verbally abused her; men who disappointed her. Fed up, she swore to wait for the partner God chose for her. Then she met Shaka Senghor. Though she felt an intense spiritual connection, Ebony struggled with the idea that this man behind bars for murder could be the good love God had for her. Through letters and visits, she and Shaka fell deeply in love. Once Shaka came home, Ebony thought the worst was behind them. But Shaka’s release was the beginning of the end. The Love Prison Made and Unmade is heartfelt. It reveals powerful lessons about love, sacrifice, courage, and forgiveness; of living your highest principles and learning not to judge someone by their worst acts. Ultimately, it is a stark reminder of the emotional cost of American justice on human lives—the partners, wives, children, and friends—beyond the prison walls.
Author: Shaka Senghor Publisher: Convergent Books ISBN: 1101907312 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 290
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An “extraordinary, unforgettable” (Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow) memoir of redemption and second chances amidst America’s mass incarceration epidemic, from a member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100 Shaka Senghor was raised in a middle-class neighborhood on Detroit’s east side during the height of the 1980s crack epidemic. An honor roll student and a natural leader, he dreamed of becoming a doctor—but at age eleven, his parents’ marriage began to unravel, and beatings from his mother worsened, which sent him on a downward spiral. He ran away from home, turned to drug dealing to survive, and ended up in prison for murder at the age of nineteen, full of anger and despair. Writing My Wrongs is the story of what came next. During his nineteen-year incarceration, seven of which were spent in solitary confinement, Senghor discovered literature, meditation, self-examination, and the kindness of others—tools he used to confront the demons of his past, forgive the people who hurt him, and begin atoning for the wrongs he had committed. Upon his release at age thirty-eight, Senghor became an activist and mentor to young men and women facing circumstances like his. His work in the community and the courage to share his story led him to fellowships at the MIT Media Lab and the Kellogg Foundation and invitations to speak at events like TED and the Aspen Ideas Festival. In equal turns, Writing My Wrongs is a page-turning portrait of life in the shadow of poverty, violence, and fear; an unforgettable story of redemption; and a compelling witness to our country’s need for rethinking its approach to crime, prison, and the men and women sent there.
Author: Dwayne Epstein Publisher: IPG ISBN: 1936182416 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 315
Book Description
The first full-length, authoritative, and detailed story of the iconic actor's life to go beyond the Hollywood scandal-sheet reporting of earlier books, this account offers an appreciation for the man and his acting career and the classic films he starred in, painting a portrait of an individual who took great risks in his acting and career. Although Lee Marvin is best known for his icy tough guy roles—such as his chilling titular villain in The ManWho Shot Liberty Valance or the paternal yet brutally realistic platoon leader in The Big Red One—very little is known of his personal life; his family background; his experiences in WWII; his relationship with his father, family, friends, wives; and his ongoing battles with alcoholism, rage, and depression, occasioned by his postwar PTSD. Now, after years of researching and compiling interviews with family members, friends, and colleagues; rare photographs; and illustrative material, Hollywood writer Dwayne Epstein provides a full understanding and appreciation of this acting titan's place in the Hollywood pantheon in spite of his very real and human struggles.
Author: Vivian Gornick Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN: 1466819006 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 216
Book Description
In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. There have been numerous books about mother and daughter, but none has dealt with this closest of filial relations as directly or as ruthlessly. Gornick's groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O'Brien has called "the prinicpal crux of female despair": the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of "urban peasants," Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband. Next door lives Nettie, an attractive widow whose calculating sensuality appeals greatly to Vivian. These women with their opposing models of femininity continue, well into adulthood, to affect Gornick's struggle to find herself in love and in work. As Gornick walks with her aged mother through the streets of New York, arguing and remembering the past, each wins the reader's admiration: the caustic and clear-thinking daughter, for her courage and tenacity in really talking to her mother about the most basic issues of their lives, and the still powerful and intuitively-wise old woman, who again and again proves herself her daughter's mother. Unsparing, deeply courageous, Fierce Attachments is one of the most remarkable documents of family feeling that has been written, a classic that helped start the memoir boom and remains one of the most moving examples of the genre.
Author: Shaka Senghor Publisher: Convergent Books ISBN: 0593238028 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 241
Book Description
The New York Times bestselling author of Writing My Wrongs invites men everywhere on a journey of honesty and healing through this book of moving letters to his sons—one whom he is raising and the other whose childhood took place during Senghor's nineteen-year incarceration. “A visceral and visual journey for the ages . . . the perfect road map for us to remove the barriers and obstacles against our true feelings.”—Kenya Barris, creator of black-ish ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—Essence Shaka Senghor has lived the life of two fathers. With his first son, Jay, born shortly after Senghor was incarcerated for second-degree murder, he experienced the regret of his own mistakes and the disconnection caused by a society that sees Black lives as disposable. With his second, Sekou, born after Senghor's release, he has experienced healing, transformation, intimacy, and the possibilities of a world where men and boys can openly show one another affection, support, and love. In this collection of beautifully written letters to Jay and Sekou, Senghor traces his journey as a Black man in America and unpacks the toxic and misguided messages about masculinity, mental health, love, and success that boys learn from an early age. He issues a passionate call to all fathers and sons—fathers who don't know how to show their sons love, sons who are navigating a fatherless world, boys who have been forced to grow up before their time—to cultivate positive relationships with other men, seek healing, tend to mental health, grow from pain, and rewrite the story that has been told about them. Letters to the Sons of Society is a soulful examination of the bond between father and sons, and a touchstone for anyone seeking a kinder, more just world.
Author: M. L. Rio Publisher: Flatiron Books ISBN: 1250095301 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 368
Book Description
“Much like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, M. L. Rio’s sparkling debut is a richly layered story of love, friendship, and obsession...will keep you riveted through its final, electrifying moments.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest "Nerdily (and winningly) in love with Shakespeare...Readable, smart.” —New York Times Book Review On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it. A decade ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extras. But in their fourth and final year, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students’ world of make-believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent. If We Were Villains was named one of Bustle's Best Thriller Novels of the Year, and Mystery Scene says, "A well-written and gripping ode to the stage...A fascinating, unorthodox take on rivalry, friendship, and truth."
Author: Claire Vaye Watkins Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0593330226 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, VOGUE, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, NPR, ESQUIRE, AND KIRKUS “There’s some kind of genius sorcery in this novel. It’s startlingly original, hilarious and harrowing by turns, finally transcendent. Watkins writes like an avenging angel. It's thrilling and terrifying to stand in her wake.” —Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation and Weather A darkly funny, soul-rending novel of love in an epoch of collapse—one woman’s furious revisiting of family, marriage, work, sex, and motherhood. Since my baby was born, I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things. a) As much as I ever did. b) Not quite as much now. c) Not so much now. d) Not at all. Leaving behind her husband and their baby daughter, a writer gets on a flight for a speaking engagement in Reno, not carrying much besides a breast pump and a spiraling case of postpartum depression. Her temporary escape from domestic duties and an opportunity to reconnect with old friends mutates into an extended romp away from the confines of marriage and motherhood, and a seemingly bottomless descent into the past. Deep in the Mojave Desert where she grew up, she meets her ghosts at every turn: the first love whose self-destruction still haunts her; her father, a member of the most famous cult in American history; her mother, whose native spark gutters with every passing year. She can’t go back in time to make any of it right, but what exactly is her way forward? Alone in the wilderness, at last she begins to make herself at home in the world. Bold, tender, and often hilarious, I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness reaffirms Watkins as one of the signal writers of our time.
Author: Mary Mapes Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin ISBN: 1250098513 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 416
Book Description
Mary Mapes's Truth (previously published as Truth & Duty) was made into the 2015 film Truth, starring Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Topher Grace and Elizabeth Moss. A riveting play-by-play of a reporter getting and defending a story that recalls All the President's Men, Truth puts readers in the center of the "60 Minutes II" story on George W. Bush's shirking of his National Guard duty. The firestorm that followed that broadcast--a conflagration that was carefully sparked by the right and fanned by bloggers--trashed Mapes' well-respected twenty-five year producing career, caused newsman Dan Rather to resign from his anchor chair early and led to an unprecedented "internal inquiry" into the story...chaired by former Reagan attorney general Richard Thornburgh. Truth examines Bush's political roots as governor of Texas, delves into what is known about his National Guard duty-or lack of service-and sheds light on the solidity of the documents that backed up the National Guard story, even including images of the actual documents in an appendix to the book. It is peopled with a colorful cast of characters-from Karl Rove to Sumner Redstone-and moves from small-town Texas to Black Rock-CBS corporate headquarters-in New York City. Truth connects the dots between a corporation under fire from the federal government and the decision about what kinds of stories a news network may cover. It draws a line from reporting in the trenches to the gutting of the great American tradition of a independent media and asks whether it's possible to break important stories on a powerful sitting president.
Author: Robert Walason Publisher: ISBN: 9781733526425 Category : True Crime Languages : en Pages : 310
Book Description
There are three ways most people leave the life of a mobster. Dying, Disappeared into Witness Protection, or just Disappeared. Bobby Walason defied the odds and walked away from the life...and lived to tell the story
Author: Jessica Pack Publisher: Kensington ISBN: 149671816X Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
“Characters as rich and indelible as the life they endure . . . A phenomenal read.” —Internationally Bestselling Author Davis Bunn Five a.m.: Amanda Mallorie wakes to the knowledge that her son Robbie is gone. And a new chapter of her own life must begin. She has spent four years as her son’s only support, desperately trying to understand the actions that landed him on death row and to change his fate. Now Amanda faces an even more difficult task—finding a way, and a reason, to move forward with her own life. Before the tragedy that unfolded in a South Dakota mall, Robbie was just like other people’s sons or daughters. Sometimes troubled, but sweet and full of goodness too. That’s the little boy Amanda remembers as she packs up his childhood treasures and progress reports, and discovers a class ring she’s never seen before. Who does it belong to and why did Robbie have it in his possession? So begins a journey that will remind her not only of who Robbie used to be, but of a time when she wasn’t afraid—to talk to strangers, to help those in need, to reach out. Robbie’s choices can never be unmade, but there may still be time for forgiveness and trust to grow again. For a future as wide as the sky.
Author: Ebony Roberts
Author: Shaka Senghor
Author: Dwayne Epstein
Author: Vivian Gornick
Author: Shaka Senghor
Author: M. L. Rio
Author: Claire Vaye Watkins
Author: Mary Mapes
Author: Robert Walason
Author: Jessica Pack