The Chilean coup d'A(c)tat of 1973 was a watershed event in the history of Chile. It was also a defining moment in the life of writer Marjorie AgosA-n. This collection of prose vignettes and free verse draws upon her experiences as a child in Chile, an expatriate abroad, and a minority Jewaeven in the land she calls homeato create a striking portrait of a life of exile. The tone of the book varies as it lyrically explores the geography of Chile and weaves into it the themes of exile and oppression. At times the words become hymns to the physical beauty of her country, evoking the grandeur of this land extending to the southernmost tip of the world. At times they are intimate and melancholy, exploring personal and familial history through miniature portraits that reveal the pain of being different. Finally the tone becomes angry as she denounces the injustices committed against her friends and against the families of the disappeared during the seventeen-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Combining themes of memory, childhood, minority issues, Judaism, and political oppression, this collection contains some of AgosA-nas strongest work. Of Earth and Sea is a poetic autobiography that explores the world of Chile with eyes that see both despair and hope.
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This is a true story of the struggle, survival, and ultimate success of a large black family in south Alabama who, in the middle decades of the 20th century, lifted themselves out of poverty to achieve the American dream of property ownership. Descended from slaves and sharecroppers in the Black Belt region, this family of hard-working parents and their thirteen children is mentored by its matriarch, Moa, the author's great grandmother, who passes on to the family, along with other cultural wealth, her recipe for moonshine. Without rancor or blame, and even with occasional humor, ""The Pecan Orchard"" offers a window into the inequities between blacks and whites in a small southern town still emerging from Jim Crow attitudes. Told in straightforward prose, the story radiates the suffocating midday heat of summertime cotton fields and the biting winter wind sifting through porous shanty walls. It conveys the implicit shame in 'Colored Only' restrooms, drinking fountains, and eating areas; the satisfaction of a job well done recognized by others; the manners required of southern society; and the joyful moments, shared memories, and bonds that sustain a proud family.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• List of Illustrations
• 1. The Melon Capital of the World
• 2. TJ Is a Wonderful Boy
• 3. I Met a Traveler from an Antique Land
• 4. Bad Day for a Black Brother
• 5. Remember Me
• 6. A Bump in the Road
• 7. The Diary.
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In this psychologically gripping memoir, Blake Allmendinger returns to his childhood home after a forty-year absence. His homecoming to the struggling farming community of Rocky Ford, Colorado, formerly known as the Melon Capital of the World, forces the author to confront his own sad and disturbing history, one that parallels his hometown's decline. Allmendinger's family was dominated by his emotionally and mentally unstable mother, who became depressed while living in Rocky Ford as a young woman. For the rest of her life she abused the members of her family, creating tensions that remained unresolved until the end of the author's visit, when his mother died suddenly, a family member committed suicide, and a secret diary was discovered. The Melon Capital of the World is a remarkable blend of personal narrative, memoir, and Allmendinger's interviews with people who knew his mother and her family. His story is a gritty but compassionate, and at times humorous, portrait of a family trying to survive in the rapidly disappearing rural American West.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Lincoln's Springfield
• In their Springfield prime
• The Lincoln boys' Springfield
• Samuel S. Ball's Bath & Barber Shop
• C. M. & S. Smith Store
• Lincoln's dentist
• Curran's Jewelry Shop
• Lincoln's invention
• Mary Lincoln's wedding ring
• Lincoln's hat
• Illinois State Register Office
• Campaign poles
• Fourth Street cottage
• Lincoln's Temperance Address
• Globe Tavern
• First Presbyterian Church
• Lincoln's funeral train
• Boardinghouse romance?
• Chenery House
• Brunswick's Billiard Hall
• Stuart & Lincoln Law Office
• Joshua Speed's Store
• Lincoln's last law office
• Simeon Francis Home
• The "Ball Alley"
• Springfield Marine & Fire Insurance Company
• Corneau & Diller Drug Store
• Cook's Hall
• The American House
• William Florville's Barber Shop
• Lincoln-era fire companies
• The Lyceum
• Lincoln's carriage maker
• Mary Lincoln's funeral
• The children's Lincoln
• Mary Lincoln's family
• Lincoln's horse
• Lincoln and animals
• Great Western Railroad Depot
• Animal problems
• Republican wigwams
• Political rallies and parades
• Wide-Awakes
• Masonic Hall
• Leaping Lincoln
• Virgil Hickox Home
• Clark and Ann Marie Smith Home (Vachel Lindsay Home)
• Illinois Executive Mansion
• Ninian and Elizabeth Edwards Home
• Mather's Grove.

Collecting fifty Abraham Lincoln sto-ries-some familiar and beloved, some fresh and unexpected-Looking for Lin-coln in Illinois: Lincoln's Springfield is a carefully research, richly illustrated guide to the Looking for Lincoln Story Trail. Created by the Lincoln Heritage Coalition, this trail consists of 215 il-lustrated story boards in sites of sig-nificance to Lincoln's life and career across fifty-two communities. Looking for Lincoln celebrates the trail as a rich historical resource, reproducing each of the existing storyboards and including twelve additional storyboards.The storyboards of the Lincoln Story Trail connect Lincoln-related tales to the geographical locations in which they occurred in Lincoln's hometown, giving readers a tour of the social and cultural landscape of Lincoln's nineteenth-century world while revealing the very human Lincoln known by friends and associ-ates. Through texts, historic photographs and images, and a map keyed to the fifty story locations in downtown Springfield, readers of this unprecedented volume are invited to imagine social and cultural landscapes that have been lost in time.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)