Everyday life is essential. Having lost her husband in a plane crash, a mother is encouraged by the growth of a persimmon tree, to convey the importance of life, despite the despair and hard life she and her children face.

It is 1942 in the Dutch East Indies, and Nick Duncan is a young Australian butterfly collector in search of a single exotic butterfly. With invading Japanese forces coming closer by the day, Nick falls in love with the beguiling Anna van Heerden. Their time together is brief, as both are forced into separate, dangerous escapes. They plan to reunite and marry in Australia but it is several years before their paths cross again, scarred forever by the dark events of a long, cruel war. In The Persimmon Tree, Bryce Courtenay gives us a story of love and friendship set against the dramatic backdrop of the Pacific during the Second World War.

"Dr. Kikumura has written a moving study of a woman whose large spirit, courage, dedication to her principles, and common sense is a model to women of all ages and ethnic origins. It reminds us of the uses of culture – giving otherwise ordinary lives a dignity and purpose that enlarges them, linking even mundane concerns to a meaningful sense of history, to others, to one's own ancestors, to the gods. Dr. Kikumura writes about her own mother, a Japanese American whose life works are of the kind not ordinarily recorded or applauded. Yet her story is worthy of admiration; not less than inspirational at times, We can be grateful that anthropologists have recently come to appreciate the value of looking at the significant people in their own experience, as people having something to teach the world, for a tale told about people known and loved has an immediacy and vitality that is completely engaging and convincing. The reader leaves this work with affection and a touch of envy, for the insight into the mother and daughter – their special relationship deepened and understood through the device of a conscious study." Barbara Myerhoff University of Southern California

Raised with twelve brothers in a part of the segregated South that provided no school for African American children, Sylvia Bell White went North as a teenager, dreaming of a nursing career, but in Milwaukee she and her brothers found only racial discrimination, and she had to persevere through racial rebuffs to find work. When a Milwaukee police officer killed her younger brother in 1958, the Bell family suspected a racial murder but could do nothing to prove it?until twenty years later, when one of the officers involved in the incident unexpectedly came forward. Sylvia was the driving force behind the family's four-year quest for justice through a civil rights lawsuit.

The second novel in Howard W. Odums Black Ulysses trilogy

A lucid, moving view into an often obscured part of our world, exploring notions of democracy, identity, and the resilience of the human spirit In the wake of losing her beloved grandfather, Delphine Minoui decided to visit Iran for the first time since the revolution. It was 1998. She was twenty-two and a freshly minted journalist. She would stay for ten years. Quickly absorbed into the everyday life of the city, Minoui attends secret dance parties that are raided by the morality police and dines in the home of a young couple active in the Basij—the fearsome militia. She befriends veteran journalists battling government censorship, imprisoned student poets, and her own grandmother (a woman who is discovering the world of international affairs through her contraband satellite TV). And so it is all the more crushing when the political situation falters. Minoui joins street protests teeming with students hungry for change and is interrogated by the secret police; she sees a mirrored rise in the love of country—the yearning patriotism of the left, the militant nationalism of the right. Friends disappear; others may be tracking her movements. She finds love, loses her press credentials, marries, and is separated from her husband by erupting global conflict. Through it all, her love for Iran and its people deepens. In her family’s past she discovers a mission that will shape her entire future. Framed as a letter to her grandfather and filled with disarming characters in momentous times, I’m Writing You from Tehran is a remarkable blend of global history, family memoir, and the making of a reporter, told by someone both insider and outsider—a child of the diaspora who is a world-class political journalist.

In a neighborhood jammed with look-alike clapboard houses in a South Carolina Cotton mill village, author William Hale grew up as an inquisitive boy who climbed trees, played sandlot baseball, and learned his greatest life lessons from unexpected places. Amid the darkness of the Great Depression, Hale was never without food, love, or a little bit of sparkle from Azzie, a washwoman with a broad smile, big voice, and never-ending encouragement for little Hale. With humor, sensitivity, and candor, Hale delves deeply into the delicate fabric of life as he details experiences derived from a distinctive coming-of-age journey full of fun, challenges, and timeless messages. As he learned to love ?winnie? soup, whiled away the hours on the porch swing, and discovered that time is the greatest healer of all, Hale details how he grew from boy into man and realized the impact of his choices that eventually led him in a different direction. The Village and Beyond offers one man's poignant reflections on life as he revels in the powerful world of the human spirit and discovers that he will never be without questions.

A “beautifully written” Pulitzer Prize–winning novel about prejudice and a distinguished family’s secrets in the American South (The Atlantic Monthly). Seven generations of the Howland family have lived in the Alabama plantation home built by an ancestor who fought for Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. Over the course of a century, the Howlands accumulated a fortune, fought for secession, and helped rebuild the South, establishing themselves as one of the most respected families in the state. But that history means little to Abigail Howland. The inheritor of the Howland manse, Abigail hides the long-buried secret of her grandfather’s thirty-year relationship with his African American mistress. Her fortunes reverse when her family’s mixed-race heritage comes to light and her community—locked in the prejudices of the 1960s—turns its back on her. Faced with such deep-seated racism, Abigail is pushed to defend her family at all costs. A “novel of real magnitude,” The Keepers of the House is an unforgettable story of family, tradition, and racial injustice set against the richly drawn backdrop of the American South (Kirkus Reviews). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Shirley Ann Grau, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

Robert Jarman lived in Hempstead County, in what was known as the “wilds of Arkansas.” Hearing of the war coming to Arkansas, Robert and his three friends soon joined the 4th Arkansas Infantry, Confederate States of America, having to leave their families and sweethearts behind. The war took the four friends through the battles of Elkhorn Tavern (Pea Ridge) in Arkansas; Farmington, Mississippi; Richmond, Kentucky; and Murfreesboro, Tennessee (Stones River), all in 1862. Having volunteered to defend their homes in Arkansas, they ended up fighting their first four battles in four different states. Standing on the Edge of Time brings out the many hardships and the suffering the soldiers endured on the campaigns and long marches sometimes through the worst weather conditions. Hundreds of historical facts are included, giving a unique view of the Civil War as rarely seen.