Pam Ward
Author
Language
English
Description
Charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark, which for years was the trendiest one in the world of letters. But in the nineteenth century, as grammar books became all the rage, the rules of how we use language became both stricter and more confusing, with the semicolon a prime example. Watson reveals how traditional grammer rules make us less successful at communication with each other than we might think. She argues that even the most...
Author
Language
English
Description
Born into poverty in a small desert town in the American Midwest, Thea Kronborg is one of seven children. But Thea is exceptional, a fact recognized by a discerning few, including Ray Kennedy, who longs to marry her but whose fate it is to set her free. With her rugged will and pioneer spirit, Thea carves her way from Moonstone, Colorado to Chicago, from Dresden to New York, culminating in a triumphant debut at the Metropolitan Opera. Thea has become...
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English
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"Cultural historian Ehrenreich explores a human impulse that has been so effectively suppressed that we lack even a term for it: the desire for collective joy, historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing. She uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. Although 16th-century Europeans viewed mass festivities as foreign and "savage," Ehrenreich shows that they were indigenous to the West,...
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English
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The definitive biography of Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, with exclusive insights from Ride's family and partner, by the ABC reporter who covered NASA during its transformation from a test-pilot boys' club to a more inclusive elite.
This book is a biography of Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, with exclusive insights from her family and partner, and by the ABC reporter who covered NASA during its transformation from a test-pilot...
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English
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Description
A major biography of the Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American Revolution, looks past the storybook general and selfless champion of righteous causes who, at the age of nineteen, volunteered to fight under George Washington, casting aside fortune and family (from one of France's oldest families; his ancestors served in the Crusades and alongside Joan of Arc) to advance the transcendent aims of liberty and justice. We see how Lafayette's...
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English
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Description
Psychologist and physician Leonard Sax's work with young people reveals that girls today have an incredibly brittle sense of self. Though they may look confident on the outside, teens and tweens are fragile inside, obsessed with grades, sports, networking sites, and appearances. They are confused about their sexual identity, as environmental toxins are accelerating physical maturity faster than their emotional maturity. Now, Sax gives us the tools...
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Pub. Date
[2015]
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English
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Description
"The first full biography of Jonas Salk offers a complete picture of the enigmatic figure, from his early years working on an influenza vaccine--for which he never fully got credit--to his seminal creation of the Polio vaccine, up through his later work to find a cure for AIDS"--
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Language
English
Description
McGaha never thought she would be pulling camouflage carpet off her ceiling or rescuing opossums from her barn and calling it "date night." Most importantly, she never thought she would only have $4.57 in her bank account. After she and her husband discovered that they owed a lot of back taxes, they foreclosed on their suburban home and moved to a one-hundred-year-old cabin in a North Carolina holler. What started as a last-ditch effort to settle...
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English
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Description
Recounts the story of the rise of the Standard Oil monopoly in the late 19th century and the work of pioneering investigative journalist Ida Tarbell, whose discoveries about the firm's unethical practices culminated in a landmark 1911 Supreme Court antitrust decision.
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English
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"It's the summer of 1944 and the world seems mired in a War that will never end. On the home front, the people of Elderberry, Georgia, are doing everything they can to support the troops. Even with a war on, the peaches are ripe for picking. As veteran teacher Miss Dimple Kilpatrick and her colleagues work in the orchard, they hear frantic calls for help: An eighteen-year-old girl, Prentice, has been missing--and is later found murdered. Miss Dimple...
Author
Publisher
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Language
English
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Description
“This eloquent, elegant book thoughtfully plumbs the . . . consequences of our dependence on plastics” (The Boston Globe, A Best Nonfiction Book of 2011).
From pacemakers to disposable bags, plastic built the modern world. But a century into our love affair, we’re starting to realize it’s not such a healthy relationship. As journalist Susan Freinkel points out in this eye-opening book,...
From pacemakers to disposable bags, plastic built the modern world. But a century into our love affair, we’re starting to realize it’s not such a healthy relationship. As journalist Susan Freinkel points out in this eye-opening book,...
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English
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Description
Joseph Stilwell was the military attaché to China in 1935 to 1939, commander of United States forces, and allied chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek in 1942-44. His story unfolds against the background of China's history, from the revolution of 1911 to the turmoil of World War II, when China's Nationalist government faced attack from Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents.