Arturo and Alma Rivera have lived their whole
lives in Mexico. One day, their beautiful fifteenyear-
old daughter, Maribel, sustains a terrible
injury, one that casts doubt on whether she’ll ever be the same. And so,
leaving all they have behind, the Riveras come to America with a single
dream: that in this country of great opportunity and resources, Maribel
can get better.
When Mayor Toro, whose family is from Panama, sees Maribel in a Dollar
Tree store, it is love at first sight.
Would you cut out your healthy breasts and ovaries if you thought it might save your life? That’s not a theoretical question for journalist Lizzie Stark’s relatives, who grapple with the horrific legacy of cancer built into the family DNA. The BRCA mutation has robbed most of her female relatives of breasts, ovaries, peace of mind, or life itself.
In Pandora’s DNA, Stark uses her family’s experience to frame a larger story about the so-called breast cancer genes, exploring the morass of legal quandaries, scientific developments, medical breakthroughs, and ethical concerns that surround the BRCA mutations.
In this bold, fascinating book, Eula Biss addresses our fear of the government, the medical establishment, and what may be in our children’s air, food, mattresses, medicines, and vaccines. Reflecting on her own experience as a new mother, she suggests that we cannot immunize our children, or ourselves, against the world. As she explores the metaphors surrounding immunity, Biss extends her conversations with other mothers to meditations on the myth of Achilles, Voltaire’s Candide, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Susan Sontag’s AIDS and Its Metaphors,
When young Martha Long’s feckless mother hooks
up with Jackser (“that bandy aul bastard”), and
starts having more babies, the abuse and poverty
in the house grow more acute. Martha is regularly
sent out to beg and more often steal, and her wiles
(as a child of seven or eight) are often the only
thing keeping food on the table. Jackser is a master
of paranoid anger and outbursts, keeping the children in an unheated
tenement, unable to go to school, ready prey to his unpredictable rages.
Hollywood icon Dick Van Dyke will celebrate his 90th birthday in December 2015. He is a beloved legend, having starred in Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and The Dick Van Dyke Show. And he is still keeping himself busy, entertaining America on television, movies, the stage, and social media. Everyone wonders, “How does he do it?” For the first time, Van Dyke will share his secrets and tips on aging: Just keep moving.
Keep Moving is a heartwarming memoir and inspiring instruction book on how to embrace aging with a positive attitude.
Through words and illustrations, with evident pain and remarkable humor, Roz Chast revisits the struggle she went through with her aging parents as their physical and mental abilities gradually declined and they eventually became unable to care for themselves.
