Confronting Power and Chaos
What’s in a name?
Her trailblazer of a distant cousin forged a solitary, singular path during
and after WWII. Unassuming and somewhat clueless, Christine eventually finds she has to do pretty much the same.
Biography / History / Memoir
OK, Little Bird
Readers journey with Little Bird and her father as they navigate their unforgettable relationship, told through stories, voicemails, notes and crazy family dinners. The universal story of love, loss and grief shares how the gift of humor from her father helped Little Bird heal. Compelling, fast paced and laugh out loud funny, readers take a bouncy ride from laughter to tears, turning the last page inspired. We all have love and loss in our lives, learn how navigating that journey with humor become an incredible coping tool.
My Story, My Song
My Story, My Song tells the fascinating tale–sometimes sweet and sometimes not–of the eldest daughter in a family of thirteen children, nine boys and four girls, growing up in the fifties and sixties in rural Ontario. The one-room schoolhouse and the church on the hill with the huge steeple both affected the lives of all who lived in that Embro community. The memoir shows a close and caring society in the midst of a burgeoning post war economy, and the changing world that provided them all so much opportunity. Those changes wrought challenges for everyone.
A Finger of Land on an Old Man's Hand: Adventures in Mexico's Baja Wilderness
I met Earl and his wife, Suzanne, several years ago over lunch in Phoenix, discussing fundraising strategies for an NGO they set up in Guatemala, “Seeds for a Future,” which provides training to impoverished rural women on the South Coast. I soon learned that we shared a love and appreciation of Guatemala and the Desert Southwest and that Earl was also a writer and, in his case, a poet.
Democracy to Democrazy: A Warning to All Americans
Graham updated the initial book Democrazy to From Democracy to Democrazy: A Warning To ALL Americans as the first version came out a few weeks before the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress and a little over a year before Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine which provided important new material. She expresses the objective of both books as “How the U.S. was caught in an evil, repulsive and dangerous vortex from 2016-2020 and beyond.”
Home, My Story of House and Personal Restoration
Home braids the history of a New England house and town with teachings of motherhood, loss, and tradition—plus a little romance and humor along the way. In childhood, M.G. adores her old family house as if it were a guardian with heart and soul. After her mother dies, her father soon remarries and sends her and her brothers, one at a time, off to live with older siblings. M.G. buries her affection for that home, along with the family divisions and pain of her mother's departure.
The Golden Ticket
Palo Alto, California, is home to stratospheric real estate prices and equally high expectations, a place where everyone has to be good at something and where success is often defined by the name of a prestigious college on the back of a late-model luxury car. It’s also the place where Irena Smith—Soviet émigré, PhD in comparative literature, former Stanford admission reader—works as a private college counselor to some of the country’s most ambitious and tightly wound students . . . even as, at home, her own children unravel.
The Coca Cola Trail
If you like history of any type, you must read this book. Part history, part travel guide but always interesting, and when you’ve finished you’ll be a master of some particular Trivia questions. Each chapter represents a different town or historical story and while each are short, all are very interesting in their own way. The pictures are just an added bonus, bringing to life the places Jorgensen writes about. Well researched and well written, the author does justice to all that is Coca Cola – the iconic brand of the American 20th Century.
Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala
While researching for a documentary on the immigration crisis in Guatemala, I came across the reference of this book being one of the best books on the Guatemalan civil war, which lasted thirty-six-years and claimed some 200,000 people, the vast majority of whom died (or “disappeared”) at the hands of a U.S.-backed military government. The title sounded familiar, so I checked out my bookshelves and, low-and-behold, it surfaced and I’m so glad it did.
The President
I'd read this Latin American classic in Spanish years ago, but decided to read it again in English in order to share it with a broader audience. Although it was published before I was born, it’s relevant today, as it portrays the damaging psychological impact of a totalitarian government and the brutality it will go through to maintain power—a phenomenon all too real to Guatemalans today.