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"A memoir that braids the evolution of one of America's most iconic branding campaigns with the stirring tales of the women who lived behind its facade--told by the inheritor of their stories. In 1899, Allie Rowbottom's great-great-great-uncle bought the patent to Jell-O from its inventor for $450. The sale would turn out to be one of the most profitable business deals in American history, and the generations that followed enjoyed immense privilege--but...
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"Based on genealogical breakthroughs and previously unreleased records, this is the first book to explore the inspiring story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped famine, created a life together in a city hostile to Irish, immigrants, and Catholics, and launched the Kennedy dynasty in America. Their Irish ancestry was a hallmark of the Kennedys' initial political profile, as JFK leveraged his working-class roots to connect with blue-collar...
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"In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis, the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few precious items as a token of love and to try to ensure Ashley's survival. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the bag in spare yet haunting language--including Rose's wish...
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Prince Charles is the oldest heir to the British throne in more than three hundred years. This biography -- the product of four years of research and hundreds of interviews with palace officials, former girlfriends, spiritual gurus, and more -- is filled with fresh insights into Charles's life, in and out of the public eye. It begins with his lonely childhood, in which he struggled to live up to his father's expectations and sought companionship from...
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"In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA, Dani Shapiro received the astonishing news that her beloved deceased father was not her biological father. Over the course of a single day, her entire history--the life she had lived--crumbled beneath her. In just a few hours of Internet sleuthing, she was able to piece together the story of her conception and, remarkably, find a YouTube video of her...
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Little Black Library
Mental Health Awareness Month - Nonfiction
Mental Health: Lived Experiences
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Mental Health Awareness Month - Nonfiction
Mental Health: Lived Experiences
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In this stylish and complex memoir, Laymon, an English professor at the University of Mississippi and novelist (Long Division), presents bittersweet episodes of being a chubby outsider in 1980s Mississippi. He worships his long-suffering, resourceful grandmother, who loves the land her relatives farmed for generations and has resigned herself to the fact of commonplace bigotry. Laymon laces the memoir with clever, ironic observations about secrets,...
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"In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, Daniella Mestyanek Young's Uncultured is more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome. Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother...
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"Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, Owsley County is the poorest county in Kentucky and the second poorest in the country. Buildings are crumbling and fields sit vacant, as tobacco farming and coal mining decline. But strong women are finding creative ways to subsist in their hollers in the hills. Cassie Chambers grew up amidst these hollers, and through the women who raised her, she traces her own path out of and back into the Kentucky mountains....
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"She was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in the New York of the 1930s--and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted. When special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey selected twenty lawyers to help him clean up the city's underworld, she was the only member...
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"'A stirring, vividly told story of a young woman's quest to find the family she lost...an impressive debut'-Peter Balakian; Born into poverty in southern New Jersey and raised in a commune of single mothers, Mary Anna King watched her mother give away one of her newborn sisters every year to another family. All told, there were seven children: Mary, her older brother, and five phantom sisters. Then one day, Mary was sent away, too. Living in Oklahoma...
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"A warm, heartfelt memoir of family, loss, and a house jam-packed with decades of goods and memories. After almost twenty years of caring for elderly parents--first for their senile father, and then for their cantankerous ninety-three-year old mother--author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, twenty-three...
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"In the spirit of Fierce Attachments, Bettyville, and The End of Your Life Book Club, acclaimed novelist Brian Morton delivers a moving, darkly funny memoir of his mother's vibrant life and the many ways in which their tight, tumultuous relationship was refashioned in her twilight years. Tasha Morton is a force of nature: a brilliant educator who's left her mark on generations of students--and also a whirlwind of a mother, intrusive, chaotic, oppressively...
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"They were the closest of sisters and the best of friends. But when, in a quixotic twist of fate, their uncle Edward Vlll decided to abdicate the throne, the dynamic between Elizabeth and Margaret was dramatically altered. Forever more Margaret would have to curtsey to the sister she called 'Lillibet.' And bow to her wishes. Elizabeth would always look upon her younger sister's antics with a kind of stoical amusement, but Margaret's struggle to find...
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"From the New York Times bestselling author of Irena's Children comes a comprehensive and riveting biography of the extraordinary life and times of Eliza Hamilton, the wife of founding father Alexander Hamilton, and a powerful, unsung hero in America's early days. Fans fell in love with Eliza Hamilton--Alexander Hamilton's devoted wife--in Lin-Manuel Miranda's phenomenal musical Hamilton. But they don't know her full story. A strong pioneer woman,...
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"A heartrending literary memoir of the tragic death of Kohler's older sister describes how in the aftermath of a fatal car accident, the author investigated their unusual shared childhood and her brother-in-law's violent history, "--NoveList.
After learning that her sister Maxine was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg, Kohler flew back to the country where she was born, determined to reckon with the tragedy and...
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Adult - Black History Month
OBD Patron Picks Winter Reading 2022-2023 (Adult)
OBD Reese's Book Club Picks - Adult
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OBD Patron Picks Winter Reading 2022-2023 (Adult)
OBD Reese's Book Club Picks - Adult
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"A poignant and transporting cross-cultural love story set against the lush backdrop of the Sicilian countryside, where one woman discovers the healing powers of food and family in her darkest hour. It was love at first sight when Tembi met professional chef, Saro, on a street in Florence. There was just one problem: Saro's traditional Sicilian family did not approve of him marrying a black American woman, an actress no less. However, the couple,...
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"Since the day they said, "I do," Peggy's previous "doting" lifestyle met with her husband John's minimalist ways and became the backdrop for years of adventure and a quirky sense of humor because of their differences. From thoughts of wearing headlamps in the house to save energy, to squeezing out the last drop of toothpaste with a workbench vise, Peggy learned to pick her battles and celebrate the hilarity in each situation. Once their boys were...
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"The next volume in Alexander Larman's biographical chronicle of the Windsor family, as they go to war with Adolf Hitler--and each other. At the beginning of 1937, the British monarchy was in a state of turmoil. The previous king, Edward VIII, had abdicated the throne, leaving his unprepared and terrified brother Bertie to become George VI, surrounded by a gaggle of courtiers and politicians who barely thought him up to the job. Meanwhile, as the...
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"The #1 New York Times bestselling author of William and Kate and The Day Diana Died takes a compulsively readable look into the relationships and rivalries of Queen Elizabeth, Camilla Parker Bowles, and Kate Middleton. One has been famous longer than anyone on the planet--a wily stateswoman and an enduring symbol of a fading institution. One is the great-granddaughter of a king's mistress and a celebrated homewrecker who survived a firestorm of scorn...
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"As a teen, Anna Qu is sent by her mother to work in her family's garment factory in Queens. At home, she is treated as a maid and suffers punishment for doing her homework at night. Her mother wants to teach her a lesson: she is Chinese, not American, and such is their tough path in their new country. But instead of acquiescing, Qu alerts the Office of Children and Family Services, an act with consequences that impact the rest of her life. Nearly...
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