English Local

A fantastic book! Timothy Egan describes his journeys in the Pacific Northwest through visits to salmon fisheries, redwood forests and the manicured English gardens of Vancouver. Here is a blend of history, anthropology and politics.

History of the American Frontier 1763-1893 by Frederic L. Paxson, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin. Houghton Mifflin Company 1924. Pulitzer Prize-winner in History, 1925. The prize-winning History of the American Frontier, 1763-1893 covers a very wide sweep of topics, with unusual strength in handling violent relations between the frontiersman and the Indians. Paxson emphasized the impact on people of the process of moving to the west, downplaying the static aspects of specific localities.

In the heart of America, a metropolis is quietly destroying itself. Detroit, once the richest city in the nation, is now its poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age - mass production, automobiles, and blue-collar jobs - Detroit is now America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, foreclosure, and dropouts. With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark and the righteous indignation that only a native son can possess, journalist Charlie LeDuff sets out to uncover what has brought low this once-vibrant city, his city.

Lone Star Nation is the gripping story of Texas' precarious journey to statehood, from its early colonization in the 1820s to the shocking massacres of Texas loyalists at the Alamo and Goliad by the Mexican army, from its rough-and-tumble years as a land overrun by the Comanches to its day of liberation as an upstart republic.

Since the election of Scott Walker, Wisconsin has been seen as ground zero for debates about the appropriate role of government in the wake of the Great Recession. In a time of rising inequality, Walker not only survived a bitterly contested recall that brought thousands of protesters to Capitol Square, he was subsequently reelected. How could this happen? How is it that the very people who stand to benefit from strong government services not only vote against the candidates who support those services but are vehemently against the very idea of big government?

Leaders in the church are called to be shepherds, not a board of directors. This requires involvement in a personal shepherding ministry among the people. The Shepherd Leader unpacks the four primary ministries of shepherds - knowing, feeding, leading, and protecting - on macro (churchwide) and micro (personal) levels, providing seven elements to be incorporated into an effective shepherding plan.

Most people think of New Jersey as a suburban-industrial corridor that runs between New York and Philadelphia. Yet in the low center of the state is a near wilderness, larger than most national parks, which has been known since the seventeenth century as the Pine Barrens.

A self-professed "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist", the inventor Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was undoubtedly a visionary. Fuller's creations often bordered on the realm of science fiction, ranging from the freestanding geodesic dome to the three-wheel Dymaxion car to a bathroom requiring neither plumbing nor sewage. Yet in spite of his brilliant mind and lifelong devotion to serving mankind, Fuller's expansive ideas were often dismissed, and have faded from public memory since his death.

By early 1977, New York City was in the grip of hysteria caused by a murderer dubbed "Son of Sam". And on a sweltering night in July, a citywide power outage touched off an orgy of looting and arson that led to the largest mass arrest in the city's history. As the turbulent year wore on, the city became absorbed in two epic battles: the fight between Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson and team manager Billy Martin, and the battle between Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo for the city's mayoralty.

With a broken heart and a broken spirit, Hattie is in need of a summer escape. So when an opportunity comes up to work at a beautiful, stately chateau in the Champagne region of France she books her flights quicker than the pop of a cork. Romance is the last thing Hattie is looking for but then she wasn’t expecting gorgeous Luc to stroll into her life. With picnics in the warm French sun and delicious foodie trips to the local market, Hattie starts to wonder if a holiday fling – or maybe even something more – might be just what she needs.

The massacre at Mountain Meadows on September 11, 1857, was the single most violent attack on a wagon train in the 30-year history of the Oregon and California trails. Yet it has been all but forgotten. Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets is an award-winning, riveting account of the attack on the Baker-Fancher wagon train by Mormons in the local militia and a few Paiute Indians.

Tormented girls writhing in agony, stern judges meting out harsh verdicts, 19 bodies swinging on Gallows Hill. The stark immediacy of what happened in 1692 has obscured the complex web of human passion which climaxed in the Salem witch trials. From rich and varied sources - many neglected and unknown - Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum give us a picture of the people and events more intricate and more fascinating than any other in the massive literature. It is a story of powerful and deeply divided families and of a community determined to establish an independent identity.

In 1587, 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina to establish the first English settlement in the New World. But when the new colony's leader returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers had vanished, leaving behind only a single clue - a "secret token" etched into a tree. What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? That question has consumed historians, archeologists, and amateur sleuths for 400 years. In The Secret Token, Andrew Lawler sets out on a quest to determine the fate of the settlers.

Gear up for a frightful jaunt into the darkest reaches of the ancient Appalachians. Folk deep within Appalachian hollers lean close to share stories of the inexplicable with hushed awe. Monsters rumbling in the hills. Strange lights darting through the pitch-black night sky. Horrible occurrences, almost ineffable in their bizarre tragedy. "Tall tales," you might say. But tell that to the Flatwoods monster in Braxton County, West Virginia.

It’s easy to fall in love but hard to find someone that will catch you. Can Madison find a way to continue her love story with Hamilton, or will telling him about their child prove too much to bear? Madison raises Liberty on her own, beginning her new life, and contemplating going back to the small-town she so longed to leave. An unexpected visit from her best friend, reveals more than she planned to share. Madison now must find a way to keep the secret she desperately wants to hold a while longer.

Immediately after two hijacked jets struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Dennis Smith volunteered in the rescue effort. Having spent his career as both a respected writer and a member of one of the city's busiest firehouses, Smith became determined to use his unique background to tell the story of the disaster and its aftermath with the empathy and understanding that only an insider could bring to it. In this audio memoir, he has collected astonishing first-person testimony.

This Spanish audiobook is the perfect way to learn how to speak just like the locals do so that when you finally go on your dream vacation, you won’t have to worry about sticking out like a sore thumb! In just 60 days, you’ll be able to understand important grammar rules, learn entertaining conversation starters, and understand local slang words and phrases everyone uses.

Learn about the bomb blast that rocked the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, killing four young girls.

In Draining New Orleans, renowned geographer Richard Campanella recounts the epic challenges and ingenious efforts to dewater the Crescent City. With forays into geography, public health, engineering, architecture, politics, sociology, race relations, and disaster response, he chronicles the herculean attempts to "reclaim" the city's swamps and marshes and install subsurface drainage for massive urban expansion.

The Everglades was America's last frontier, a wild country long after the West was won. In this book Michael Grunwald chronicles how a series of visionaries tried to drain and "reclaim" it and how Mother Nature refused to bend to their will; in the most harrowing tale, a 1928 hurricane drowned 2,500 people in the Everglades. But the Army Corps of Engineers finally tamed the beast with levees and canals, converting half the Everglades into sprawling suburbs and sugar plantations.