Catalog Search Results
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared--Lt. Louis Zamperini. Captured by the Japanese and driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Born a slave in Virginia in 1856, Booker T. Washington rose in prominence to become black America's foremost spokesman. This is the dramatic autobiographical account of Washington's struggle to succeed and prosper in a country that refused to acknowledge his existence. From his fight for an education to his founding of the world-renowned Tuskegee Institute, Up From Slavery is one of the most significant and defining works in American literature. A...
Author
Language
English
Description
The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family. - Publisher. "Much of my lecture at Carnegie Mellon focused on the professional side of my life--my students, colleagues and career. The book is a far more personal look at my childhood dreams and all the lessons I've learned....
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In this tribute to teachers everywhere. McCourt records the trials, triumphs and surprises he faces in public high schools around New York City. His methods anything but conventional, McCourt creates a lasting impact on his students through imaginative assignments, singalongs and field trips. As he struggles to find his way in the classroom, he spends his evenings drinking with writers and dreaming of one day putting his own story to paper. The book...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Drawing from the newly catalogued Washington papers at the University of Virginia, Joseph Ellis paints a full portrait of George Washington's life and career - from his military years through his two terms as president. Ellis illuminates the difficulties the first executive confronted as he worked to keep the emerging country united in the face of adversarial factions. He richly details Washington's private life and illustrates the ways in which...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
The Deep South of the late 1950's was another country: a land of lynchings, segregated lunch counters, whites-only restrooms, and a color line etched in blood across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. White journalist John Howard Griffin, working for the black-owned magazine Sepia, decided to cross that line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a southern white man for the disenfranchised...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Helen shares her struggles with unassuming charm and intelligence: the frustration of not being able to express herself-- like wandering though a dense fog-- and the happiness of finally apprehending light breaking through the mist. The joy she felt when she first made the connection between the word water and the cold, wet liquid that poured over her fingers, comes spilling onto the pages with girlish, infectious enthusiasm. Written when she was...
11) Angela's ashes
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
"My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four ... When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the...
12) The legends club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an epic college basketball rivalry
Author
Language
English
Description
On March 18, 1980, the immensely powerful Duke basketball program announced the hiring of its new coach -- the man who would resurrect the team, restore glory to Duke, and defeat the legendary Dean Smith, who coached down the road at UNC Chapel Hill and had turned UNC into a powerhouse. Duke's new man was Mike Krzyzewski. The only problem was, no one knew who Krzyzewski was, he had a so-so record in his short time as head coach of Army, and worst...
13) Alicia: my story
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Recounts the capture of Alicia, her mother, and brother by the Nazis, Alicia's escape and rescue of other Jews during the war, and her leadership of an underground escape route for Jews when she was sixteen years old.
14) Becoming
Author
Language
English
Description
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America, she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private. A deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A classic story of agonizing circumstances and enduring hope, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an eloquent account of a young man's life under slavery and his eventual escape. Written to promote the abolitionist cause, it became the best-selling fugitive slave narrative of the era. This autobiography is a powerful reminder of the brutality of slavery and the terrors that African-American people were forced to endure.
Author
Language
English
Description
"Before John Glenn orbited the earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as 'human computers' used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Danticat came to think of her uncle Joseph, a charismatic pastor, as her "second father" when she was placed in his care at age four when her parents left Haiti for America. So she experiences a jumble of emotions when, at twelve, she joins her parents in New York City, whom she struggles to remember--she has left behind Joseph and the only home she's ever known. The story of a new life in a new country while fearing for those still in Haiti soon...
Author
Language
English
Description
Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. Her father distrusted the medical establishment, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse....
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In First Man, Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over 50 hours of interviews with the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive access to private documents and family sources, this "magnificent panorama of the second half of the American twentieth century" (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review) is an unparalleled biography of an American icon. When Apollo 11 touched down on the moon's surface in 1969, the first man...