Big Russ and Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Life

Big Russ and Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Life

by Tim Russert (Author)

Meet the newsman's father in this stupendously entertaining book. The senior Tim Russert served in WWII, married and settled in South Buffalo, N.Y., worked days for the Sanitation Department, drove a night truck for the local evening paper and raised four kids. The younger Russert's memoir begins as a tribute to his dad and the lessons he taught through the years, but also takes ample time to tell how Russert junior grew up and became the moderator of Meet the Press. His neighborhood in the 1950s was tightly knit, Irish Catholic and anchored by the institutions of marriage, family, church and school. Nuns and Legionnaires shaped young Russert's character; in high school, his Jesuit instructors strengthened and solidified it. John Kennedy's short life and career still resonated when Russert began law school in 1970. He worked on Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1976 campaign, then on the senator's staff. A friend of Moynihan provided the link that brought Russert to NBC and the Today show. He first appeared as a panelist on Meet the Press in 1990, becoming moderator in 1991. Throughout his private and public life, Russert continually turned to his father for advice, and the older man's common sense served the younger pretty much without fail. The memoir is candid and generous, so warm-hearted that readers should forgive the occasional didactic touch (and it's a soft touch). There are hard ways to learn life lessons; fortunately, readers have Russert to thank for sharing his with them.

Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons

Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons
by Tim Russert (Author)

Surprised by the overwhelming and heartfelt reception to Big Russ and Me(2004), Russert follows that memoir of his relationship with his father with a collection of letters he received recounting relationships between fathers and their sons and daughters. Russert, host of NBC's Meet the Press, received 60,000 letters and e-mails from readers with their own touching memories of filial love. Interspersed throughout, Russert recollects moments as a son and as a father, as well as conversations with famous figures, including Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and news reporter Maria Shriver, about their fathers. But the contributors are decidedly ordinary Americans, many with recollections that highlight generational differences of a time when fathers were less than demonstrative. Many recall taciturn fathers who couldn't bring themselves to tell their children they loved them but showed it in myriad ways. Many write of lessons learned about honor from fathers. A man recalls going to a New York Giants game with his father, who passed up an opportunity to sell extra tickets to scalpers and instead sold them--at cost--to another father with his son. Women recall how ties to their father set the tone for later relationships with men. One contributor recalls her father's tolerance as she and her sisters practiced applying makeup on him, going so far as to paint his toenails. Once again, Russert celebrates the relationship between fathers and their children in this heartwarming book. Vanessa Bush

Nothing to Lose

Nothing to Lose
by Lee Child (Author)

From Publishers WeeklyAt the start of bestseller Child's solid 12th Jack Reacher novel (after Bad Luck and Trouble), the ex-military policeman hitchhikes into Colorado, where he finds himself crossing the metaphorical and physical line that divides the small towns of Hope and Despair. Despair lives up to its name; all Reacher wants is a cup of coffee, but what he gets is attacked by four thugs and thrown in jail on a vagrancy charge. After he's kicked out of town, Reacher reacts in his usual manner—he goes back and whips everybody's butt and busts up the town's police force. In the process, he discovers, with the help of a good-looking lady cop from Hope, that a nearby metal processing plant is part of a plan that involves the war in Iraq and an apocalyptic sect bent on ushering in the end-time. With his powerful sense of justice, dogged determination and the physical and mental skills to overcome what to most would be overwhelming odds, Jack Reacher makes an irresistible modern knight-errant.

Product Description

Two lonely towns in Colorado: Hope and Despair. Between them, twelve miles of empty road. Jack Reacher never turns back. It's not in his nature. All he wants is a cup of coffee. What he gets is big trouble. So in Lee Child’s electrifying new novel, Reacher—a man with no fear, no illusions, and nothing to lose—goes to war against a town that not only wants him gone, it wants him dead. It wasn’t the welcome Reacher expected. He was just passing through, minding his own business. But within minutes of his arrival a deputy is in the hospital and Reacher is back in Hope, setting up a base of operations against Despair, where a huge, seething walled-off industrial site does something nobody is supposed to see . . . where a small plane takes off every night and returns seven hours later . . . where a garrison of well-trained and well-armed military cops—the kind of soldiers Reacher once commanded—waits and watches . . . where above all two young men have disappeared and two frightened young women wait and hope for their return.Joining forces with a beautiful cop who runs Hope with a cool hand, Reacher goes up against Despair—against the deputies who try to break him and the rich man who tries to scare him—and starts to crack open the secrets, starts to expose the terrifying connection to a distant war that’s killing Americans by the thousand.Now, between a town and the man who owns it, between Reacher and his conscience, something has to give. And Reacher never gives an inch.

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

by Elissa Wall (Author), Lisa Pulitzer (Author)

In September 2007, a packed courtroom in St. George, Utah, sat hushed as Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, gave captivating testimony of how Jeffs forced her to marry her first cousin at age fourteen. This harrowing and vivid account proved to be the most compelling evidence against Jeffs, showing the harsh realities of this closed community and the lengths to which Jeffs went in order to control the sect's women.
Now, in this courageous memoir, Elissa Wall tells the incredible and inspirational story of how she emerged from the confines of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and helped bring one of America's most notorious criminals to justice. Offering a child's perspective on life in the FLDS, Wall discusses her tumultuous youth, explaining how her family's turbulent past intersected with her strong will and identified her as a girl who needed to be controlled through marriage. Detailing how Warren Jeffs's influence over the church twisted its already rigid beliefs in dangerous new directions, Wall portrays the inescapable mind-set and unrelenting pressure that forced her to wed despite her repeated protests that she was too young.
Once she was married, Wall's childhood shattered as she was obligated to follow Jeffs's directives and submit to her husband in "mind, body, and soul." With little money and no knowledge of the outside world, she was trapped and forced to endure the pain and abuse of her loveless relationship, which eventually pushed her to spend nights sleeping in her truck rather than face the tormentor in her bed.
Yet even in those bleak times, she retained a sliver of hope that one day she would find a way out, and one snowy night that came in the form of a rugged stranger named Lamont Barlow. Their chance encounter set in motion a friendship and eventual romance that gave her the strength she needed to break free from her past and sever the chains of the church.
But though she was out of the FLDS, Wall would still have to face Jeffs—this time in court. In Stolen Innocence, she delves into the difficult months on the outside that led her to come forward against him, working with prosecutors on one of the biggest criminal cases in Utah's history, so that other girls still inside the church might be spared her cruel fate.

Love the One You're With

Love the One You're With

by Emily Giffin (Author)

How do you know if you’ve found the one? Can you really love the one you’re with when you can’t forget the one who got away? Emily Giffin, author of the New York Times bestselling novels Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and Baby Proof, poses these questions—and many more—with her highly anticipated, thought-provoking new novel Love the One You’re With. Ellen and Andy’s first year of marriage doesn’t just seem perfect, it is perfect. There is no question how deep their devotion is, and how naturally they bring out the best in each other. But one fateful afternoon, Ellen runs into Leo for the first time in eight years. Leo, the one who brought out the worst in her. Leo, the one who left her heartbroken with no explanation. Leo, the one she could never quite forget. When his reappearance ignites long-dormant emotions, Ellen begins to question whether the life she’s living is the one she’s meant to live. At once heartbreaking and funny, Love the One You’re With is a tale of lost loves and found fortunes—and will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered what if.

Reviews From Amazon.com

"Giffin’s fluid storytelling and appealing characters give her novels a warm, inviting air, and her fourth is no exception . . . Giffin’s snappy prose makes (her heroine) Ellen’s dilemma compelling, once again proving she’s at the top of the chick-lit pack." --Booklist"Giffin delivers another relatable and multifaceted heroine who may behave unexpectedly but will ultimately find her true path. Sure to be a hit with the New York Times bestselling author’s many fans . . .” --Library Journal
"Giffin's talent lies in taking relatable situations and injecting with enough wit and suspense to make them feel fresh. The cat-and-mouse game between Ellen and Leo lights up these pages, their flirtation as dangerously addictive as a high-speed car chase. The ending isn't explosive, but what Ellen learns is quietly thrilling: Sometimes, you have to do whatever it taks to be with the one you love." --People

"Though it's easy to resent [Ellen] for taking [her] ideal life for granted, Giffin's vivid depictions of Ellen's steamy past with Leo help you commiserate with this realistically insecure woman." --Entertainment Weekly