Résultats de recherche de titre
Articles 41 à 60 sur 1353
Fast into the Night: A Woman, Her Dogs, and Their Journey North on the Iditarod Trail
Par Debbie Clarke Moderow. 2016
&“Moderow&’s dedication and love for the Huskies that accompany her from Anchorage to Nome is the soul that drives this…
insightful and touching memoir.&”—Cowgirl Magazine At age forty-seven, a mother of two, Debbie Moderow was not your average musher in the Iditarod, but that&’s where she found herself when, less than 200 miles from the finish line, her dogs decided they didn&’t want to run anymore. After all her preparation, after all the careful management of her team, and after their running so well for over a week, the huskies balked. But the sting of not completing the race after coming so far was nothing compared to the disappointment Moderow felt in having lost touch with her dogs. Fast into the Night is the gripping story of Moderow&’s journeys along the Iditarod trail with her team of spunky huskies: Taiga and Su, Piney and Creek, Nacho and Zeppy, Juliet and the headstrong leader, Kanga. The first failed attempt crushed Moderow&’s confidence, but after reconnecting with her dogs she returned and ventured again to Nome, pushing through injuries, hallucinations, epic storms, flipped sleds, and clashing personalities, both human and canine. And she prevailed. A tale of survival, loyalty, and the mysterious connection between humans and dogs, Fast into the Night is &“what may be the quintessential Iditarod story . . . a great Alaskan adventure well told&” (Dave Atcheson, author of Dead Reckoning). &“When a memoir magically materializes before your eyes, striking all the right chords, it&’s a wonder to behold—truly beautiful. In Fast into the Night that is precisely what Debbie Clarke Moderow graces us with.&”—Anchorage PressNorth Country: A Personal Journey Through the Borderland
Par Howard Frank Mosher. 2014
&“A richly observant memoir of a coast-to-coast journey along the US-Canada border . . . An armchair traveler&’s delight&” (Kirkus Reviews). &“Part…
travelogue, part memoir, part meditation, part exploration,&” North Country is an account of a trip along the northern border of the United States in search of the country&’s last unspoiled frontiers (The Boston Sunday Globe). In this vast, sparsely settled territory, Howard Frank Mosher found both a harsh and beautiful landscape and some of the continent&’s most independent men and women. Here, he brings this remote area to vivid life in a book &“bright with anecdote and history and lore and most importantly with affection for his human subjects&” (Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Independence Day). &“A classic road book. You could, with confidence, place this book on the shelf next to such American classics as John Steinbeck&’s Travels with Charley and Jonathan Raban&’s Old Glory.&” —Detroit Free Press &“What Mosher&’s northern journey is really about is our society&’s loss of Eden, the garden we were promised when we came here. The garden we&’ve turned into pulp fiction and rocket ranges. The very fact that this brave book can stir up so many thoughts about the predicaments of civilization is surely an indication that it is well worth reading.&” —Ottawa CitizenThe Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1934–1939: 1934–1939 (The Diaries of Anaïs Nin #2)
Par Anaïs Nin. 1970
The second volume of &“one of the most remarkable diaries in the history of letters&” (Los Angeles Times). Beginning…
with the author&’s arrival in New York, this diary recounts Anaïs Nin&’s work as a psychoanalyst, and is filled with the stories of her analytical patients—as well as her musings over the challenges facing the artist in the modern world. The diary of this remarkably daring and candid woman provides a deeply intimate look inside her mind, as well as a fascinating chapter in her tumultuous life in the latter years of the 1930s.Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe
Par Jane Goodall. 2010
The renowned British primatologist continues the &“engrossing account&” of her time among the chimpanzees of Gombe, Tanzania (Publishers Weekly). …
In her classic, In the Shadow of Man, Jane Goodall wrote of her first ten years at Gombe. In Through a Window she continues the story, painting a more complete and vivid portrait of our closest relatives. On the shores of Lake Tanganyika, Gombe is a community where the principal residents are chimpanzees. Through Goodall&’s eyes we watch young Figan&’s relentless rise to power and old Mike&’s crushing defeat. We learn how one mother rears her children to succeed and another dooms hers to failure. We witness horrifying murders, touching moments of affection, joyous births, and wrenching deaths. As Goodall compellingly tells the story of this intimately intertwined community, we are shown human emotions stripped to their essence. In the mirror of chimpanzee life, we see ourselves reflected. &“A humbling and exalting book . . . Ranks with the great scientific achievements of the twentieth century.&” —The Washington Post &“[An] absolutely smashing account . . . Thrilling, affectionate, intelligent—a classic.&” —Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewSky's Story (Thrown Away Children Ser.)
Par Louise Allen. 2022
When Sky and her older sister Avril were taken into care, the social workers knew this was a case like…
no other. Raised by troubled parents who hoarded compulsively, creating horrific conditions no child should live in, the two girls arrived at foster carer Louise's home, neglected, malnourished, and indoctrinated. Louise had to draw on all of her experience as one of Britain's leading foster carers to rehabilitate and change the course of their lives.But with constant attempts to thwart her work, Louise ends up under siege in her own home. Will she succeed or is their fate sealed forever?Private Equity: A Memoir
Par Carrie Sun. 2024
Named a most-anticipated book of 2024 by NPR.org, Oprah Daily, Town & Country, The Millions, Financial Times, and more.A gripping…
memoir of one woman&’s self-discovery inside a top Wall Street firm, and an urgent indictment of privilege, extreme wealth, and work cultureWhen we meet Carrie Sun, she can&’t shake the feeling that she&’s wasting her life. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Carrie excelled in school, graduated early from MIT, and climbed the corporate ladder, all in pursuit of the American dream. But at twenty-nine, she&’s left her analyst job, dropped out of an MBA program, and is trapped in an unhappy engagement. So when she gets the rare opportunity to work at one of the most prestigious hedge funds in the world, she knows she can&’t say no. Fourteen interviews later, she&’s in.Carrie is the sole assistant to the firm&’s billionaire founder. She manages his work life, becoming the right hand to an investor who can move mountains and markets with a single phone call. Eager to impress, she dives headfirst into the firm&’s culture, which values return on time above all else. A luxury-laden world opens up for her, and Carrie learns that money can solve nearly everything.Playing the game at the highest levels, amid the ultimate winners in our winner-take-all economy, Carrie soon finds her identity swallowed whole by work. With her physical and mental health deteriorating, she begins to rethink what it actually means to waste one&’s life. A searing examination of our relationship to work, Carrie&’s story illuminates the struggle for balance in a world of extremes: efficiency and excess, status and aspiration, power and fortune. Private Equity is a universal tale of self-invention from a dazzling new voice, daring to ask what we&’re willing to sacrifice to get to the top—and what it might take to break free and leave it all behind.The ABC's of LGBT+: (gender Identity Book For Teens, Teen And Young Adult Lgbt Issues)
Par Ashley Mardell. 2016
The YouTube star presents a personal, approachable, and informative guide for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of gender and sexual…
identity. The ABCs of LGBT+ is essential reading for questioning teens, teachers or parents looking for advice, or anyone who wants to learn how to talk about gender and sexual identity. In this volume, popular vlogger Ash Mardell, who embraces all pronouns, answers your questions about the post-binary world of the twenty-first century. With in-depth definitions, personal anecdotes, helpful infographics, resources, and more, Mardell lets readers know that it really does get better when we are empowered by information and understanding. In Mardell&’s own words, "This book is also for allies and LGBT+ people simply looking to pack in some extra knowledge . . . a critical part of acceptance. Learning about new identities broadens our understanding of humanity, heightens our empathy, and allows us different, valuable perspectives.&” Topics covered include: · LGBT and LGBTQIA+ · Gender identity · Sexual identity · Teens in a binary world · The LGBT family and morePulitzer Prize winner Kai Bird&’s fascinating memoir of his early years spent in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon…
provides an original and illuminating perspective into the Arab-Israeli conflict.In 1956, four-year-old Kai Bird, son of a charming American diplomat, moved to Jerusalem with his family. Kai could hear church bells and the Muslim call to prayer and watch as donkeys and camels competed with cars for space on the narrow streets. Each day on his way to school, Kai was driven through Mandelbaum Gate, where armed soldiers guarded the line separating Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem from Arab-controlled East. Bird would spend much of his life crossing such lines—as a child in Jerusalem, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and later, as a young man in Lebanon. In Crossing Mandelbaum Gate, a narrative that &“rips along like a spy novel&” (The New York Times Book Review), Bird&’s retelling of &“events such as Suez in 1956, the Six Day War of 1967, and Black September in 1970 are as clear and fresh as yesterday&” (The Spectator, UK). Bird vividly portrays emblematic figures like George Antonius, author of The Arab Awakening; Jordan&’s King Hussein; the Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled; Salem bin Laden; Saudi King Faisal; President Nasser of Egypt; and Hillel Kook, the forgotten rescuer of more than 100,000 Jews during World War II. Bird, his parents sympathetic to Palestinian self-determination and his wife the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, has written a &“kaleidoscopic and captivating&” (Publishers Weekly) personal history of a troubled region and an indispensable addition to the literature on the modern Middle East.Calling WPC Crockford
Par Ruth D'Alessandro. 2022
In the early 1950s, the Berkshire Constabulary finally opened its ranks to more women. And WPC Crockford was one of…
those early pioneers... When 21-year-old Gwendoline Crockford signed up to join the Berkshire Constabulary in 1951, she had little idea of what she was getting herself into. Whether carrying a human skeleton out of the woods, finding a missing child, investigating thefts, or chasing an escaped zebra, every day brought fresh adventures.In this nostalgic, tender and honest account of post-war British society, we follow a bright, determined woman navigating a man's world, serving as many people as she can. From performing traffic duties to unravelling a dark secret at the heart of an impoverished family, WPC Crockford's career was full of joy, thrills – and heartbreak.Written by her daughter Ruth, this is the story of a real-life woman police constable as she embarks on her police career.The Secret Prison Governor: The Brutal Truth of Life Behind Bars
Par The Secret Governor. 2022
Unedited, uncensored and unbelievable: this book shows the harsh reality of life behind bars from a real prison governor who…
spares no details. How do you bring order to the lawless?The Secret Prison Governor has spent decades surrounded by every type of prisoner known to man, from petty thieves and street-level drug dealers to crime bosses and dangerous serial killers.Since starting as a rookie, he has experienced the reality of the UK's harsh prison system and the hard challenge of ruling those within it.In his own words, the Secret Prison Governor spares no detail of prison life, whether that's breaking up shiv fights, crushing vast underworld networks, negotiating with hostage-takers or dealing with full-scale cellblock gang wars.This is the truth of what life is like behind bars.The Secret Prison Governor: The Brutal Truth of Life Behind Bars
Par The Secret Governor. 2022
Unedited, uncensored and unbelievable: this book shows the harsh reality of life behind bars from a real prison governor who…
spares no details. How do you bring order to the lawless?The Secret Prison Governor has spent decades surrounded by every type of prisoner known to man, from petty thieves and street-level drug dealers to crime bosses and dangerous serial killers.Since starting as a rookie, he has experienced the reality of the UK's harsh prison system and the hard challenge of ruling those within it.In his own words, the Secret Prison Governor spares no detail of prison life, whether that's breaking up shiv fights, crushing vast underworld networks, negotiating with hostage-takers or dealing with full-scale cellblock gang wars.This is the truth of what life is like behind bars.Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw: Reimagining Success as a Disabled Achiever
Par Eddie Ndopu. 2023
Apple's Best Books of August 2023 A memoir penned with one good finger, Ndopu writes about being profoundly disabled and profoundly…
successful. Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative motor neuron disease affecting his mobility. He was told that he wouldn&’t live beyond age five and yet, Ndopu thrived. He grew up loving pop music, lip syncing the latest hits, and watching The Bold and the Beautiful for the haute couture, and was the only wheelchair user at his school, where he flourished academically. By his late teens, he had become a sought after speaker, travelling the world to address audiences about disability justice. Ndopu was ecstatic when he was later accepted on a full scholarship into one of the world's most prestigious schools, Oxford University. But he soon learns that it's not just the medical community he must thwart— it's the educational one too. In Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw, we follow Ndopu, sporting his oversized, bejewelled sunglasses, as he scales the mountain of success, only to find exclusion, discrimination, and neglect waiting for him on the other side. Like every other student, Ndopu tries to keep up appearances—dashing to and from his public policy lectures before meeting for cocktails with his squad, all while campaigning to become student body president. Privately, however, Ndopu faces obstacles that are all too familiar to people with disabilities, yet remain unnoticed by most people. With the revolving door of care aides, hefty bills, and a lack of support from the university, Ndopu feels alienated by his environment. As he soars professionally, sipping champagne with world leaders, he continues to feel the loneliness and pressure of being the only one in the room. Determined to carve out his place in the world, he must challenge bias at the highest echelons of power and prestige. But as the pressure mounts, Ndopu must find his stride or collapse under the crushing weight of ableism. Written with his one good finger, this evocative, searing, and vulnerable prose will leave you spellbound by Ndopu&’s remarkable journey to reach beyond ableism, reminding us of our own capacity for resilience.Living My Best Life, Hun: Following Your Dreams Is No Joke
Par London Hughes. 2023
From stand-up comedian, actress, and host of The Netflix Afterparty, London Hughes, comes an uplifting and raucously funny memoir to show you how to…
ditch the self-loathing, start the self-loving, and engage with your inner winner. London Hughes has come a long way from secretly writing Frasier fan fiction alone in her bedroom. Between her breakout Netflix comedy special, To Catch a D*ck, her dating podcast &“London, Actually,&” and her award-winning TV performances, London the South Londoner has taken the entertainment world by storm. And now, in this sassy, brash, fearless, and funny memoir, London is ready to inspire women of all ages and races with her story—because London is absolutely the best person in the whole wide world to take you on a wild journey of self-discovery. As she herself puts it: &“I&’ve always been funny. I&’ve always been cute. I&’ve always been confident. I was born to do this shit.&” All her life, London longed to be a badass—an awesome bullet-proof woman who nobody could mess with. At a young age, she made sure she was ready to become a star, developing her own living-room popstar training regimen to prepare for her future life. But London also had her fair share of disastrous experiences in terms of friendships, relationships, and career choices. Each of the fiascos in London&’s life has, with hindsight, proved to be a formative life lesson, and helped her grow into the fearless person she is today. You'll definitely be grateful these setbacks happened to her and not you, but you'll also learn that however bad things get, you can always build your self-worth, think long-term, and emerge triumphant, no matter what the world throws at you. From starring in a school sex education video called &“Swings and Roundabouts&” to being gushed over by a fan while standing next to the Renee Zellweger, London leaves no stone unturned in Living My Best Life, Hun. It took London some time to find her voice and her people, but now that she has, she's mentally high-fiving her 14-year-old self every day.Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me
Par Bernie Taupin. 2023
**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** An evocative, clear-eyed, and revealing memoir by Bernie Taupin, the lyrical master and long-time collaborator of…
Elton John&“I loved writing, I loved chronicling life and every moment I was cogent, sober, or blitzed, I was forever feeding off my surroundings, making copious notes as ammunition for future compositions. . . . The thing is good, bad, or indifferent I never stopped writing, it was as addictive as any drug.&” This is the memoir music fans have been waiting for. Half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music, Bernie Taupin is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits, and sold millions and millions of records. Together, they were a duo, a unit, an immovable object. Their extraordinary, half-century-and-counting creative relationship has been chronicled in biopics (like 2019's Rocketman) and even John's own autobiography, Me. But Taupin, a famously private person, has kept his own account of their adventures close to his chest, until now. Written with honesty and candor, Scattershot allows the reader to witness events unfolding from Taupin's singular perspective, sometimes front and center, sometimes from the edge, yet always described vibrantly, with an infectious energy that only a vivid songwriter's prose could offer. From his childhood in the East Midlands of England whose imagination was sparked and forever informed by the distinctly American mythopoetics of country music and cowboy culture, to the glittering, star-studded fishbowl of &’70s and &’80s Beverly Hills, Scattershot is simultaneously a Tom Jones-like picaresque journey across a landscape of unforgettable characters, as well as a striking, first-hand account of a creative era like no other and one man&’s experience at the core of it. An exciting, multi-decade whirlwind told in a non-linear yet grounded narrative, Scattershot whizzes around the world as we ride shotgun with Bernie on his extraordinary life. We visit Los Angeles with him and Elton on the cusp of global fame. We spend time with him in Australia almost in residency at an infamous rock 'n' roll hotel in an endless blizzard of drugs. And we spend late, late night hours with John Lennon, with Bob Marley, and hanging with Frank Sinatra. And beyond the world of popular music, we witness memorable encounters with writers like Graham Greene, painters like Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, and scores of notable misfits, miscreants, eccentrics, and geniuses, known and unknown. Even if they're not famous in their own right, they are stars on the page, and we discover how they inspired the indelible lyrics to songs such as &“Tiny Dancer,&” &“Candle in the Wind,&” &“Bennie and The Jets,&” and so many more. Unique and utterly compelling, Scattershot will transport the reader across the decades and around the globe, along the way meeting some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th century, and into the vivid imaginings of one of music's most legendary lyricists.Tell It Like It Is: My Story
Par Aaron Neville. 2023
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2023 BY BEST CLASSIC BANDS For the first time, legendary singer and songwriter and Grammy…
Hall-of-Famer Aaron Neville tells his personal story of overcoming poverty, racism, addiction, and loss through faith, family, and music. Aaron Neville&’s first #1 hit, &“Tell It Like it Is,&” was released in 1966. In the mid-70s he formed the Neville Brothers with Art, Charles, and Cyril—now known as the &“First Family of New Orleans&”—and they released more than a dozen influential albums. Given his one-of-a-kind, soaring falsetto, Aaron was the breakout star, and over the next six decades, he had four platinum albums, three #1 songs, numerous film and television appearances, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2014. His triple-platinum duets with Linda Ronstadt (including the Grammy-Award-winning hit &“I Don&’t Know Much&”) showcased the softer side of his voice, and the smoking hot funky soul of the Neville Brothers cemented his legacy as an R&B legend. But few people know the challenging and circuitous road Aaron took to fame. Born in a housing project in New Orleans of Black and Native American heritage, Aaron struggled as a teenage father working to raise a family while building his career as a musician, surviving a stint in jail for car theft and many years battling heroin addiction. Recognized by the dagger tattoo on his cheek and his St. Jude medallion earring, Neville credits St. Jude—the patron saint of lost cases—for turning his life around. He found healing and salvation in music. Aaron Neville is a man who by all accounts should not have made it. Tell It Like It Is shares his story for the first time.Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment
Par Susannah Breslin. 2023
A Belletrist Book Pick for December 2023Lab Girl meets Brain on Fire in this provocative and poignant memoir delving into a woman's formative…
experiences as a veritable "lab rat" in a lifelong psychological study, and her pursuit to reclaim autonomy and her identity as a adult. What if your parents turn you into a human lab rat when you&’re a child? Will that change the story of your life? Will that change who you are? When Susannah Breslin is a toddler, her parents enroll her in an exclusive laboratory preschool at the University of California, Berkeley, where she becomes one of over a hundred children who are research subjects in an unprecedented thirty-year study of personality development that predicts who she and her cohort will grow up to be. Decades later, trapped in what she feels is an abusive marriage and battling breast cancer, she starts to wonder how growing up under a microscope shaped her identity and life choices. Already a successful journalist, she makes her own curious history the subject of her next investigation. From experiment rooms with one-way mirrors, to children&’s puzzles with no solutions, to condemned basement laboratories, her life-changing journey uncovers the long-buried secrets hidden behind the renowned study. The question at the gnarled heart of her quest: Did the study know her better than she knew herself? At once bravely honest and sharply witty, Data Baby is a compelling and provocative account of a woman&’s quest to find her true self, and an unblinking exploration of why we turn out as we do. Few people in all of history have been studied from such a young age and for as long as this author, but the message of her book is universal. In an era when so many of us are looking to technology to tell us who to be, it&’s up to us to discover who we actually are.Finding Baby Holly: Lost to a Cult, Surviving My Parents' Murders, and Saved by Prayer
Par Holly Marie. 2023
Holly Marie was forty-two years old the day she found out she was missing. At ten months old, Holly…
Marie was brought to the door of a church by three barefoot women in white robes and head coverings. Adopted by the pastor and raised in a loving Christian home, Holly nevertheless struggled with the ache of not knowing what had happened to her biological parents. She still felt their absence even as she married and started a family of her own. When two detectives showed up at the restaurant where she worked and informed her that she had a large family in Florida who had been searching for her for over 40 years, Holly&’s past became the reality of her present, and she began the sometimes painful journey of discovering the truth about her origins: Her parents had been brutally murdered, their case still unsolved. With the help of law enforcement across four states, forensic genealogists, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and her newly discovered family members, the missing pieces began to come together. Except these—why had her parents been murdered? And who had murdered them? She soon found out that the truth leads not always to answers but sometimes to more questions, that it also brings healing and restoration, and that we must surrender our unknowns to God until, in His perfect timing, all truths are revealed. Finding Baby Holly is the true, inspiring story of a wife and mother who was &“missing&” for over forty years after her parents&’ murders, the persistent detectives who never stopped investigating, and the birth family who never lost hope in finding her.Part memoir, part inspirational, Jeff Deel&’s From These Roots tells of his sometimes michievous childhood as the son of a…
holiness preacher and the change of heart and events that led him as an adult to work alongside his brother, ministering to the lost and forgotten people of Atlanta&’s inner city.Through Jeff&’s stories from his own past, along with those of the countless transformations he has witnessed at City of Refuge, readers will see how being a follower can be just as important as being a leader. Jeff Deel has lived in the shadow of his older brother, Bruce, for his entire life. He wouldn&’t have had it any other way. While being the sons of a holiness preacher, they still found ways to get into their fair share of mischief, with older brother Bruce taking on the role of &“leader&”—for better or worse. Yet Jeff never questioned his place as his brother&’s follower and supporter—for better or worse. Then came adulthood and Jeff&’s turbulent search to find himself. Through a series of failed occupations and the desire to avoid ministry at all costs, Jeff was predictably led right back to his brother&’s side. This time, instead of finding mischief, Jeff and Bruce worked together building the City of Refuge in Atlanta. Through their work, COR has welcomed thousands upon thousands of individuals who have found themselves in dire straits, whether as victims of abuse and sex trafficking, or as people whose own choices have thrust them to rock bottom. Jeff and Bruce have found their experience watching their parents minister to the least of these and teaching them what it means to offer a person dignity, love, and hope, prepared them more than they ever could have realized.Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class
Par Rob Henderson. 2024
In this raw coming-of-age memoir, in the vein of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, The Other Wes…
Moore, and Someone Has Led This Child to Believe, Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending elite universities, and pioneering the concept of &“luxury beliefs&”—ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the less fortunate.Rob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, ultimately shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. Divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his adolescent and teen years, propelling Henderson to join the military upon completing high school. An unflinching portrait of shattered families, desperation, and determination, Troubled recounts Henderson&’s expectation-defying young life and juxtaposes his story with those of his friends who wound up incarcerated or killed. He retreads the steps and missteps he took to escape the drama and disorder of his youth. As he navigates the peaks and valleys of social class, Henderson finds that he remains on the outside looking in. His greatest achievements—a military career, an undergraduate education from Yale, a PhD from Cambridge—feel like hollow measures of success. He argues that stability at home is more important than external accomplishments, and he illustrates the ways the most privileged among us benefit from a set of social standards that actively harm the most vulnerable.Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit: Essays
Par Aisha Sabatini Sloan. 2024
An electric essay collection about Blackness, art, and dreaming of new possibilities in a time of constrictionThis collection of innovative,…
penetrating, and lively essays features swimming pools and poets, road trips and museums, family dinners and celebrity sightings. In a voice that is at once piercing, mournful, and slyly comic, Aisha Sabatini Sloan inhabits several roles: she is an art enthusiast in Los Angeles during a city-wide manhunt; a daughter on a road trip with her father; a professor playing with puppets in the wilds of Vermont; an interloper on a police ride-along in Detroit; a collector of the dreams of scientists at a biostation. As she watches cell phone video recordings of murder and is haunted in her sleep by the news, she reflects on her formative experiences with aesthetic and spiritual discovery, troubling those places where Blackness has been conflated with death.Sabatini Sloan’s lively style is perfectly suited to the way she circles a subject or an idea before cinching it tight. The curiosity that guides each essay, focusing on the period between the 2016 election and the onset of the pandemic, is rooted in the supposition that there is an intrinsic relationship between the way we conceptualize darkness and our collective opportunity for awakening.