R. F. Kuang

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

North Carolina

A Novel

White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences... Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn't write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American--in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R.F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel. 

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena's a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.

But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang's novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable. 

Yellowface

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Flannery O'Connor

Lauren Groff

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

California

With a new introduction from New York Times best-selling author Lauren Groff, these classic stories established Flannery O'Connor's reputation as one of the American masters of the short story.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

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Barbara Kingsolver

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Massachusetts

An Oprah's Book Club Selection

"Demon is a voice for the ages--akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield--only even more resilient. I'm crazy about this book, which parses the epidemic in a beautiful and intimate new way. I think it's her best." --Beth Macy, author of Dopesick

"An Appalachian David Copperfield...Demon Copperhead reimagines Dickens's story in a modern-day rural America contending with poverty and opioid addiction...Like Dickens, she is unblushingly political and works on a sprawling scale...Episode by episode she persuasively conveys the mind of a teenage boy...It's hard to think of another living novelist who could take a stab at Dickens and rise above the level of catastrophe." --New York Times

From the New York Times bestselling author of Unsheltered and Flight Behavior, a brilliant novel which enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturity.

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It's the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.

Demon Copperhead

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All Time Favorites

Sarah M. Broom

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A brilliant, haunting and unforgettable memoir from a stunning new talent about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a shotgun house in New Orleans East.

The Yellow House

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George W. Bush

Permanent marker mark on bottom of book block. See photos. First edition, first printing.  

A Portrait of My Father

The 43rd president offers an intimate biography of his father, who went from being a World War II fighter pilot to become the director of the CIA, vice president under Ronald Reagan and president of the United States himself.

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Billie Jean King

Johnette Howard

Maryanne Vollers

Some bends on the dust jacket but otherwise in great condition. Lots of black and and white and color photos included in this book! 

An Autobiography

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * An inspiring and intimate self-portrait of the champion of equality that encompasses her brilliant tennis career, unwavering activism, and an ongoing commitment to fairness and social justice.

"A story about the personal strength, immense growth, and undeniable greatness of one woman who fearlessly stood up to a culture trying to break her down."--Serena Williams

In this spirited account, Billie Jean King details her life's journey to find her true self. She recounts her groundbreaking tennis career--six years as the top-ranked woman in the world, twenty Wimbledon championships, thirty-nine grand-slam titles, and her watershed defeat of Bobby Riggs in the famous "Battle of the Sexes." She poignantly recalls the cultural backdrop of those years and the profound impact on her worldview from the women's movement, the assassinations and anti-war protests of the 1960s, the civil rights movement, and, eventually, the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

She describes the myriad challenges she's hurdled--entrenched sexism, an eating disorder, near financial peril after being outed--on her path to publicly and unequivocally acknowledging her sexual identity at the age of fifty-one. She talks about how her life today remains one of indefatigable service. She offers insights and advice on leadership, business, activism, sports, politics, marriage equality, parenting, sexuality, and love. And she shows how living honestly and openly has had a transformative effect on her relationships and happiness.

Hers is the story of a pathbreaking feminist, a world-class athlete, and an indomitable spirit whose impact has transcended even her spectacular achievements in sports.

All In

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Biography/Memoir

J. R. R. Tolkien

Some wear to edges of dust jacket but both pull out maps are included and book has never been read. Great condition. See photos for more details. 

For the first time ever, a special enhanced edition of the enchanting prelude to The Lord of the Rings, illustrated throughout with over 50 sketches, drawings, paintings and maps by J.R.R. Tolkien himself and with the complete text printed in two colors. Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an unexpected journey 'there and back again.' They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon . . . Written for J.R.R. Tolkien's own children, The Hobbit was published on 21 September 1937. With a beautiful cover design, a handful of black & white drawings and two maps by the author himself, the book became an instant success and was reprinted shortly afterwards with five color plates. Tolkien's own selection of finished paintings and drawings have become inseparable from his text, adorning editions of The Hobbit for more than 85 years. But the published art has afforded only a glimpse of Tolkien's creative process, and many additional sketches, colored drawings and maps - although exhibited and published elsewhere - have never appeared within the pages of The Hobbit. In this unique enhanced edition of Tolkien's enchanting classic tale, the full panoply of his art is reproduced for the first time, presenting more than 50 illustrations to accompany Bilbo Baggins on his adventure 'there and back again.'

The Hobbit Illustrated by the Author

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Original World’s Best Reading Pamphlet, which includes a biography of Willa Cather, is included. 

Reader’s Digest the World’s Best Reading

My Ántonia

Arundhati Roy

The story of the tragic decline of an Indian family whose members suffer the terrible consequences of forbidden love, The God of Small Things is set in the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India. Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, the twins Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family -- their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts). When their English cousin and her mother arrive on a Christmas visit, the twins learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever. The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.

The God of Small Things

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Classics

Liane Moriarty

Discovering a tattered letter that says she is to open it only in the event of her husband's death, Cecelia, a successful family woman, is unable to resist reading the letter and discovers a secret that shatters her life and the lives of two other women.

The Husband's Secret

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Mitch Albom

This is the story of Charley, a child of divorce who is always forced to choose between his mother and his father. He grows into a man and starts a family of his own. But one fateful weekend, he leaves his mother to secretly be with his father--and she dies while he is gone. This haunts him for years. It unravels his own young family. It leads him to depression and drunkenness. One night, he decides to take his life. But somewhere between this world and the next, he encounters his mother again, in their hometown, and gets to spend one last day with her--the day he missed and always wished he'd had. He asks the questions many of us yearn to ask, the questions we never ask while our parents are alive. By the end of this magical day, Charley discovers how little he really knew about his mother, the secret of how her love saved their family, and how deeply he wants the second chance to save his own.

For One More Day

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A. S. King

Five white teenage cousins who are struggling with the failures and racial ignorance of their dysfunctional parents and their wealthy grandparents, reunite for Easter.

b1bc00a8-4802-4489-b83b-631f5f58e29a

Contemporary

Niall Ferguson

There are pencil marks in the first 100 pages of the books. 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A Financial History of the World

Chronicles the evolution of finance from its origins in Mesopotamia to the modern world's most recent upheavals, covering such topics as the stock market bubble that prompted the French Revolution and the theories behind common investment vehicles.

The Ascent of Money

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Nate Silver

Practically new, has never been read; the dust jacket on the spine has lightened in color after sun exposure. 

Why So Many Predictions Fail-But Some Don't

UPDATED FOR 2020 WITH A NEW PREFACE BY NATE SILVER "One of the more momentous books of the decade." —The New York Times Book Review Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger—all by the time he was thirty. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the “prediction paradox”: The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future. In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball to global pandemics, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good—or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary—and dangerous—science. Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise. With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver’s insights are an essential read.

The Signal and the Noise

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Arthur Simon

Former church library book. Tight spine. 

USA. Monograph on world hunger, emphasizing the role of food policy and aid coordination - covers food production, population growth and relations between hunger and poverty, focuses on the role of USA in relation to trade, foreign investment, development aid and the reduction of defence expenditure, suggests a programme for action, addressed to Christian citizens' movements as well as to individuals (private aid), and includes a brief guide to information sources. Graphs, references and statistical tables.

Bread for the World

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Economics

C. S. Lewis

A voyage to the very ends of the world Narnia ... where a dragon awakens ... where stars walk the earth ... where anything can happen. A king and some unexpected companions embark on a voyage that will take them beyond all known lands. As they sail farther and farther from charted waters, they discover that their quest is more than they imagined and that the world's end is only the beginning.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

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Emily Croy Barker

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

“If Hermione Granger had been an American who never received an invitation to Hogwarts, this might have been her story.” —People Earning comparisons to wildly popular fantasy novels by Deborah Harkness and Lev Grossman, Emily Croy Barker’s enchanting debut offers an intelligent escape into a richly imagined world. And with an appealing female protagonist, cinematic storytelling, wry humor, and wonderfully clever literary references, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic is sure to capture the imaginations of readers everywhere. During a miserable weekend at a friend’s wedding, eager to forget about her disastrous breakup and stalled dissertation, Nora Fischer wanders off and somehow finds herself in another realm. There, she meets glamorous Ilissa—who introduces Nora to a decadent new world—and her gorgeous son Raclin. But when the elegant veneer of this dreamland shatters, Nora finds herself in a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong. And the only way she can survive is by learning real magic herself.

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

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Fantasy

Philippa Gregory

The #1 New York Times bestselling author and “one of the great storytellers of our time” (San Francisco Book Review) turns from the glamour of the royal courts to tell the story of an ordinary woman, Alinor, who cannot bear to conform to the life that lies before her. Midsummer’s Eve, 1648, England is in the grip of a civil war between renegade king and rebellious parliament. The struggle reaches every corner of the kingdom, even the remote tidelands —the marshy landscape of the south coast. Alinor, a descendant of wisewomen, trapped in poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Instead, she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life. Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor’s ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbors. This is the time of witch mania, and Alinor, a woman without a husband, skilled with herbs, suddenly enriched, arouses envy in her rivals and fear among the villagers, who are ready to take lethal action into their own hands. It is dangerous for a woman to be different.

Tidelands

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Julia Quinn

Some wear in upper left hand corner. Shown in photos. Sprayed edges and includes ribbon bookmark. 

A stunning collectible edition containing the third and fourth novels in #1 New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn's beloved Bridgerton series. This edition features: gorgeous sprayed edges intricate foil iconography ribbon bookmark beautiful endpapers An Offer from a Gentleman Sophie Beckett never dreamed she'd be able to sneak into Lady Bridgerton's famed masquerade ball--or that she would be spinning in the arms of her "Prince Charming"--the debonair and devastatingly handsome Benedict Bridgerton. But when the clock strikes midnight, Sophie's enchanting evening ends. Since that night Benedict has been able to think of nothing but the bewitching young woman, and he's sworn to find and wed his mystery miss. Yet will another unexpectedly steal his heart--and his chance for a fairy tale love? Romancing Mister Bridgerton Penelope Featherington has secretly adored her best friend's brother from afar for forever--until she stumbles across Colin Bridgerton's deepest secret and fears she doesn't know him at all. Meanwhile, Colin is tired of his reputation as an empty-headed charmer and of the notorious gossip columnist Lady Whistledown. Upon his return to London, he discovers everything has changed--especially Penelope Featherington! The girl who was always simply there suddenly haunts his dreams. When he discovers that Penelope has secrets of her own, this elusive bachelor must decide . . . is she his biggest threat or his promise of a happy ending?

Offer from a Gentleman and Romancing Mister Bridgerton: Bridgerton Collector's Ed

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Peter Matthiessen

Joining a diverse group of visitors at the site of a former concentration camp, Polish-American academic Clements Olin performs research while witnessing personal and political tensions erupting among his fellow participants. By the National Book Award-winning author of Shadow Country.

In Paradise

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Fiction

Books in the Great Illustrated Classics edition series.

Rochelle Larkin

some page edge yellowing but otherwise like new

Virginia

First Classics Edition

Presents illustrated retellings of ten fairy tales for children, including the title work in which a little mermaid, enchanted with a prince she once saved from drowning, gives up her family, her tail, and her life for love.

Great Illustrated Classics: The Little Mermaid and Other Stories

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Robert Louis Stevenson

Mississippi

Embark on a swashbuckling adventure with Robert Louis Stevenson's classic Treasure Island. One of the most lively seafaring stories of all time, this pirate tale follows the adventures of Jim Hawkins and his crew who set sail for Treasure Island to find the lost loot of Captain Flint and do battle with dastardly rogues and villains, including the notorious Long John Silver. Enchanting for readers of all ages, this edition is beautifully illustrated by Justin Todd, making it a perfect volume for building a classics library.

Treasure Island

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Oklahoma

Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751

Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, swashbuckling novel about a young boy who is forced to go to sea and who is then caught up in high drama, daring adventure and political intrigue. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by Louise Welsh.Headstrong David Balfour, orphaned at seventeen, sets out from the Scottish Lowlands to seek his fortune in Edinburgh. Betrayed by his wealthy Uncle Ebenezer, he is carried away to sea to be sold into slavery in the Carolinas. On board, he secures a timely alliance with Jacobite adventurer Alan Breck, and together they make an epic escape across the western Highlands. Inspired by real events, Kidnapped is a swashbuckling adventure of bizarre encounters, political assassination and wild carousings with Robert Louis Stevenson's unique counterpoint of low morals and high comedy threaded throughout.

Kidnapped

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Great Illustrated Classics

Bodie Thoene

Brock Thoene

Ex library book (see pictures for details)

The third book in the Zion Covenant series, continuing the breathtaking drama of Vienna Prelude and Prague Counterpoint. 800 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution set sail on a battered freighter with no harbor that will take them in.

Munich Signature

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Hardcover

Historical Fiction

Light wrinkling on top of dust jacket and an indent in the spine. Both of these callouts are shown in the listing photos. 

Oversized Hardcover (4 to 6 lbs)

The official report presented to President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 24, 1964

The Warren Commission Report

Anthony Kemp

Metz 1944

"The battle of Metz in the autumn of 1944 was the last time in the history of modern warfare when supposedly out-dated fortresses, built nearly a half century earlier, were able to play a decisive role. Impervious to heavy artillery and air bombardment, they enabled a weak and die-hard German force to resist, and, for o time, stop powerful American forces who had sliced across France. It was also a battle of 'might-have-beens.'"--Book Jacket.

The Unknown Battle

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History

Brad Meltzer

First edition, first printing. Looks like there may have been some sort of wetness on the top of the book (see pictures). 

An unexpected meeting with his long-lost father thrusts Cal Harper into a high-stakes pursuit of an enigmatic weapon linked to a pair of murders--the killing of Cain in the Bible, and the murder that inspired the creation of the comic-book hero Superman.

The Book of Lies

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Peter Swanson

Printing error, see pictures of front and back pages: excess glue/tape from production. 

"Fiendish good fun." --Anthony Horowitz From the hugely talented author of Before She Knew Him comes a chilling tale of psychological suspense and an homage to the thriller genre tailor-made for fans: the story of a bookseller who finds himself at the center of an FBI investigation because a very clever killer has started using his list of fiction's most ingenious murders. Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre's most unsolvable murders, those that are almost impossible to crack--which he titled "Eight Perfect Murders"--chosen from among the best of the best including Agatha Christie's A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin's Death Trap, A. A. Milne's Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox's Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity, John D. Macdonald's The Drowner, and Donna Tartt's A Secret History. But no one is more surprised than Mal, now the owner of the Old Devils Bookstore in Boston, when an FBI agent comes knocking on his door one snowy day in February. She's looking for information about a series of unsolved murders that look eerily similar to the killings on Mal's old list. And the FBI agent isn't the only one interested in this bookseller who spends almost every night at home reading. There is killer is out there, watching his every move--a diabolical threat who knows way too much about Mal's personal history, especially the secrets he's never told anyone, even his recently deceased wife. To protect himself, Mal begins looking into possible suspects . . . and sees a killer in everyone around him. But Mal doesn't count on the investigation leaving a trail of death in its wake. Suddenly, a series of shocking twists leaves more victims dead--and the noose around Mal's neck grows so tight he might never escape.

Eight Perfect Murders

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Mystery

Nonfiction books about nature or fiction books that deal directly or are inspired by nature.

Lucia St. Clair Robson

Tiana was a Cherokee woman. She grew up learning the magic, spells, and nature religion of her people. Before Sam Houston became the father of Texas, he was a young man who had run away from his home in Tennessee to live among the Cherokee. He came to love Tiana. As the Cherokee would say, she walked in his soul. But Sam was a white man, and Tiana, a Cherokee. And the dreams each had for their land and their people were far apart.... From the Paperback edition.

Walk in My Soul

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Great American Deserts

Bernd Heinrich

A Naturalist at Large

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Nature

Louis L'Amour

Hopalong sets out to free the Jordans, who are being held captive by the murderous Avery Sparr and his goon at the Circle J Ranch

The Rustlers of West Fork

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Love Medicine

Michael Patrick F. Smith

A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood, and Transformation in an American Boomtown

“A book that should be read . . . Smith brings an alchemic talent to describing physical labor.” —The New York Times Book Review “Beautiful, funny, and harrowing.” – Sarah Smarsh, The Atlantic “Remarkable . . . this is the book that Hillbilly Elegy should have been.” —Kirkus Reviews A vivid window into the world of working class men set during the Bakken fracking boom in North Dakota Like thousands of restless men left unmoored in the wake of the 2008 economic crash, Michael Patrick Smith arrived in the fracking boomtown of Williston, North Dakota five years later homeless, unemployed, and desperate for a job. Renting a mattress on a dirty flophouse floor, he slept boot to beard with migrant men who came from all across America and as far away as Jamaica, Africa and the Philippines. They ate together, drank together, argued like crows and searched for jobs they couldn't get back home. Smith's goal was to find the hardest work he could do--to find out if he could do it. He hired on in the oil patch where he toiled fourteen hour shifts from summer's 100 degree dog days to deep into winter's bracing whiteouts, all the while wrestling with the demons of a turbulent past, his broken relationships with women, and the haunted memories of a family riven by violence. The Good Hand is a saga of fear, danger, exhaustion, suffering, loneliness, and grit that explores the struggles of America's marginalized boomtown workers—the rough-hewn, castoff, seemingly disposable men who do an indispensable job that few would exalt: oil field hands who, in the age of climate change, put the gas in our tanks and the food in our homes. Smith, who had pursued theater and played guitar in New York, observes this world with a critical eye; yet he comes to love his coworkers, forming close bonds with Huck, a goofy giant of a young man whose lead foot and quick fists get him into trouble with the law, and The Wildebeest, a foul-mouthed, dip-spitting truck driver who torments him but also trains him up, and helps Smith "make a hand." The Good Hand is ultimately a book about transformation--a classic American story of one man's attempt to burn himself clean through hard work, to reconcile himself to himself, to find community, and to become whole.

The Good Hand

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North Dakota

Tom. Watson

Previous owner’s name written in pen (see photos)

Essays and Memoirs from Indiana

Home Again

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Paperback

A collection of books Ryan Holiday has written about or recommends in his monthly Reading List Email (thepaintedporch.com/collections/january-2025)

Donald J. Robertson

Kentucky

The Stoic Emperor

Experience the world of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and the tremendous challenges he faced and overcame with the help of Stoic philosophy This novel biography brings Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE) to life for a new generation of readers by exploring the emperor's fascinating psychological journey. Donald J. Robertson examines Marcus's relationships with key figures in his life, such as his mother, Domitia Lucilla, and the emperor Hadrian, as well as his Stoic tutors. He draws extensively on Marcus's own Meditations and correspondence, and he examines the emperor's actions as detailed in the Augustan History and other ancient texts. Marcus Aurelius struggled to reconcile his philosophy and moral values with the political pressures he faced as emperor at the height of Roman power. Robertson examines Marcus's attitude toward slavery and the moral dilemma posed by capturing enemies in warfare; his attitude toward women; the role of Stoicism in shaping his response to the threat of civil war; the treatment of Christians under his rule; and the naming of his notorious son Commodus as his successor. Throughout, the Meditations is used to shed light on the mind of the emperor--his character, values, and motives--as Robertson skillfully weaves together Marcus's inner journey as a philosopher with the outer events of his life as a Roman emperor.

Marcus Aurelius

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#paperback #fiction #bestseller #majormotionpicture #theroad #horrorfiction #suspensethrillers 

New York

In a novel set in an indefinite, futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, a father and his young son make their way through the ruins of a devastated American landscape, struggling to survive and preserve the last remnants of their own humanity.

The Road

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Books & Cooks 📚🐾

Washington

A NEW YORK TIMES "TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2022"

An Oprah's Book Club Selection * An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller * A #1 Washington Post Bestseller 

"Demon is a voice for the ages--akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield--only even more resilient." --Beth Macy, author of Dopesick

"May be the best novel of 2022. . . . Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love." (Ron Charles, Washington Post)

From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturity

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.

Ryan Holiday Reading List

Max Barry

In a corporate-governed future world where people take the last names of the companies they work for, Hack Nike tries to get out of a contract that requires him to shoot teenagers and finds himself pursued by a government agent.

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All Time Favorites

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Contemporary

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Ryan Holiday Reading List

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World's Best Reading Series