ABOUT THE BOOK

When The Glass Castle made the bestseller list and book groups everywhere were featuring it as their headliner, I shied away from the book. As a writer, and an instructor of literature, I tend to be skeptical of the bestseller list. Undoubtedly these are entertaining books, but I usually can't come up with a solid rationale for teaching them to a writing or literature class. So I didn't read The Glass Castle when it was at its

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Two motherless sisters--Bean and Liz--are shuttled to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that's been in their family for generations. When school starts in the fall, Bean easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz becomes increasingly withdrawn. Then something happens to Liz and Bean is left to challenge the injustice of the adult world.

"Internationally acclaimed psychologist Dr. Edith Eger--one of the few remaining Holocaust survivors--tells her unforgettable story in this moving testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of choice in our lives. At the age of sixteen, Edith Eger, a trained ballet dancer and gymnast, was sent to Auschwitz. Hours after her parents were killed, the 'Angel of Death, ' Nazi officer Dr. Josef Mengele, forced Edie to dance for his amusement--and...

The United States' most decorated winter Paralympic or Olympic athlete tells how she overcame Chernobyl disaster-caused physical challenges through sheer determination and a drive to succeed to win the world's best in elite rowing, biathlon, cross-countryskiing, and road cycling competitions.

"What did Brenda Myers-Powell want? When she turned to prostitution at the age of fifteen, she wanted to support her two baby daughters and have a little money for herself. She was pretty and funny as hell, and although she called herself "Breezy," she was also tough--a survivor in every sense of the word. Over the next twenty-five years, she would move across the country, finding new pimps, parties, drugs, and endless, profound heartache. And she...

During the long farewell of her mother's dying, Patricia Hampl revisits her Midwestern girlhood. Daughter of a debonair Czech father, whose floral work gave him entrée to St. Paul society, and a distrustful Irishwoman with an uncanny ability to tell a tale, Hampl remained, primarily and passionately, a daughter well into adulthood. She traces the arc of faithfulness and struggle that comes with that role-from the postwar years past the turbulent...

Chronicling the adventures of an eccentric, resilient and tight-knit family. A remarkable story of unconditional love. A young woman who, influenced by the joyfully wild nature of her deeply dysfunctional father, found the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

"A literary memoir of one woman's journey from wife to warrior, in the vein of breakout hits like Cheryl Strayed's Wild and Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle. At thirty-six years old, Caitlin Myer is ready to start a family with her husband. She has left behind the restrictive confines of her Mormon upbringing and early sexual trauma and believes she is now living her happily ever after . . . when her body betrays her. In a single week, she suffers...

"Jeanette Walls narra en EL CASTILLO DE CRISTAL el gran secreto de su familia. Su infancia queda marcada por unos padres carismáticos pero sobrecargados de problemas: el padre es alcohólico y la madre es una pintora que aborrece la vida convencional y no asume la responsabilidad de criar a sus hijos. Los cuatro hermanos aprenden a cuidar de sí mismos, se protegen unos a otros, y finalmente consiguen salir del círculo infernal en que se convierte...

"Caballos salvajes nos descubre los origenes de la disfuncional familia Walls. Si en El castillo de cristal los ninos nos conmovieron con su fortaleza y sus ganas de vivir, en esta precuela será Lily Casey Smith, su abuela, la que nos brinde su tenacidad y perseverancia ante las dificultades que atravesó en el camino de su vida. Heroina y pionera en el Lejano Oeste americano, Lily vivió durante sus casi primeros diez años en una caseta del desierto...