Central Kansas Library System

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....

The final entry in a trilogy of memoirs in which Dave Pelzer, brutally abused as a child, discusses the struggles he faced as an adult, and his determination to have a meaningful life.

"An award-winning journalist's intimate investigation of the true scope of domestic violence, revealing how the roots of America's most pressing social crises are buried in abuse that happens behind closed doors. We call it domestic violence. We call it private violence. Sometimes we call it intimate terrorism. But whatever we call it, we generally do not believe it has anything at all to do with us, despite the World Health Organization deeming it...

An imprisoned man seeking redemption for his role in a terrible act of harm writes letters to a woman who would start over, protect loved ones and attempt forgiveness after fleeing an abusive marriage.

"In this brave and beautiful memoir...a woman chronicles how her marriage devolved from a love story into a shocking tale of abuse--examining the tenderness and violence entwined in the relationship, why she endured years of physical and emotional pain, and how she eventually broke free."--