She came, I saw, I was conquered. In college, I didn't know two women making love was a mortal sin, but Lynn was Catholic and soon informed me. Ultimately, being lured by the beautiful liturgies of her church, I was baptized and entered a religious order dedicated to serving disturbed adolescent girls. After twelve years of joyous and deeply satisfying experiences, a misunderstanding with a superior and grave doubts about my vocation made the next five years most painful. At age forty-one, dispensed from my vows and determined to be heterosexual, I discover a world terrifyingly different from the one I had left seventeen years before. After workingt at a job I hated, during which time I am married briefly, am rejected by my family and am nearly murdered by a man I try to help, in desperation, I drop out and become a hippie, finding time to read and seek out possibilities for rebuilding my life. I finally meet some lesbian feminists who help set me securely on my way.
Hannah Blue Heron's story of her childhood begins with the imagined thoughts of the infant in her mother's womb. Even though she is born with painfully twisted feet and a severe allergy to milk, Anna Georgette becomes a happy, busy child. She, her railroader father, her amazingly understanding mother and her much older sister moved twelve times in as many years, but with her violin, her beloved bike, Cap'n Henry and her devotion to the Girl Scouts, Georgette was always busy organizing circuses, puppet shows, a sports club and a "kid's" newspaper. However, The future Hannah Blue Heron developed into a deeply caring person for the concerns of others. Her own pains, coming first with her father's retirement as the family "learned to be poor", and later, with the realization that high school boys disdained girls who were five feet ten inches tall. Blue Heron's detailed and straight forward manner of telling her story, makes her like a Depression-era Laura Ingalls Wilder. Here is a childhood, that produced a professional violinist, a nun for seventeen years, a hippie, a member of the women's back-to-the-land movement, and a proud lesbian/feminist/Buddhist writer.
Here is the deep inner picture of the popular writer Hannah Blue Heron. Although a totally standalone book, this also serves as the third volume of Hannah's memoirs. Journal entries, short stories, poems, dreams, daydreams, past life experiences, and thoughtful essays all work together to give a far richer picture of her growth and development in later life than could the factual chronological style that she has used in earlier books. New readers will marvel at the almost universally applicable qualities of depth and perception in the variety of thoughts that are shared here by Blue Heron as she reaches her eightieth birthday. She has been a professional violinist, a nun for seventeen years, a hippie, a member of the women's back-to-the-land movement, and a prolific feminist writer. Readers of the stories of her childhood in Growing Tall in Colorado, and the both heartbreaking and beautiful account of her middle years in That Strange Intimacy will recognize the same open and honest sharing in Self Portraits in the Nude, but with a new intensity. Under six headings: Lesbian Love, Love and Healing, Past Lives, Vivid Dreams, Mystical Musings, and finally On Growing Old, we are given insights into one woman's progress in learning and loving and living joyously. One very special and practical gift in this book, is Hannah's story of learning and growing in the practice of meditation and the inclusion of a CD illustrating her creative use of music as an aid to that practice.
Hannah Blue Heron’s many readers will be delighted with The Virgin, her first novel. Living in prehistoric times (c. 3200 BCE), the Temple Virgins serve the Goddess, Inanna, by bringing men from the local villages into union with Her in ecstasy. Their village of Al-Rah is threatened by the teachings of the rough men from the North, the Kurgans, who denigrate women and are beginning to destroy the temples of the Goddesses, replacing them with temples to their fierce Gods. At only twelve sun journeys of age, Ashannah is commanded by the village Oracle to lead the women of Al-Rah over the Great Mountain, which they have never attempted to climb beyond the lowest foothills. Ashannah is filled with fear and confusion. How would she know the way? Unpredictable appearances of Inanna to Ashannah help them begin their journey. Common sense and great determination get them through danger, loss and near starvation. They finally get over the mountain and down into the beautiful valley, only to find that there is already a village of men inhabiting it. The surprising ending, is, in some some ways, no ending at all.
Hannah Blue Heron’s many readers will be delighted with The Virgin, her first novel. Living in prehistoric times (c. 3200 BCE), the Temple Virgins serve the Goddess, Inanna, by bringing men from the local villages into union with Her in ecstasy. Their village of Al-Rah is threatened by the teachings of the rough men from the North, the Kurgans, who denigrate women and are beginning to destroy the temples of the Goddesses, replacing them with temples to their fierce Gods. At only twelve sun journeys of age, Ashannah is commanded by the village Oracle to lead the women of Al-Rah over the Great Mountain, which they have never attempted to climb beyond the lowest foothills. Ashannah is filled with fear and confusion. How would she know the way? Unpredictable appearances of Inanna to Ashannah help them begin their journey. Common sense and great determination get them through danger, loss and near starvation. They finally get over the mountain and down into the beautiful valley, only to find that there is already a village of men inhabiting it. The surprising ending, is, in some some ways, no ending at all.
Hannah Blue Heron's story of her childhood begins with the imagined thoughts of the infant in her mother's womb. Even though she is born with painfully twisted feet and a severe allergy to milk, Anna Georgette becomes a happy, busy child. She, her railroader father, her amazingly understanding mother and her much older sister moved twelve times in as many years, but with her violin, her beloved bike, Cap'n Henry and her devotion to the Girl Scouts, Georgette was always busy organizing circuses, puppet shows, a sports club and a "kid's" newspaper. However, The future Hannah Blue Heron developed into a deeply caring person for the concerns of others. Her own pains, coming first with her father's retirement as the family "learned to be poor", and later, with the realization that high school boys disdained girls who were five feet ten inches tall. Blue Heron's detailed and straight forward manner of telling her story, makes her like a Depression-era Laura Ingalls Wilder. Here is a childhood, that produced a professional violinist, a nun for seventeen years, a hippie, a member of the women's back-to-the-land movement, and a proud lesbian/feminist/Buddhist writer.
She came, I saw, I was conquered. In college, I didn't know two women making love was a mortal sin, but Lynn was Catholic and soon informed me. Ultimately, being lured by the beautiful liturgies of her church, I was baptized and entered a religious order dedicated to serving disturbed adolescent girls. After twelve years of joyous and deeply satisfying experiences, a misunderstanding with a superior and grave doubts about my vocation made the next five years most painful. At age forty-one, dispensed from my vows and determined to be heterosexual, I discover a world terrifyingly different from the one I had left seventeen years before. After workingt at a job I hated, during which time I am married briefly, am rejected by my family and am nearly murdered by a man I try to help, in desperation, I drop out and become a hippie, finding time to read and seek out possibilities for rebuilding my life. I finally meet some lesbian feminists who help set me securely on my way.
To artist-writer-naturalist Hannah Hinchman, the blank pages of a journal are a call to awaken the soul, to celebrate being alive in the world, to get to know both the wilderness of our inmost selves and the "unpredictable and potent" natural world. In the richly illustrated pages of this book, she unfolds a myriad of wonders — the pattern of a bee abdomen, varieties of ice forms and sky colors, the joys of a garden — and shows us how to capture them on the page. Hinchman's respect for the miracle of our five senses, and her passion for what they can tell us about the world, is contagious. "Start with a smell, like a crushed marigold leaf, the sea, coal smoke," she advises, and from such raw materials begin to "decant the stuff of life" into journal form, "where it remains fresh, still tasting of its source." Even for one who has no intention of journal-keeping, to delve into Hinchman's own work is to see with new eyes. A Trail Through Leaves is a true gift and inspiration, a treasure-box of ways to write, draw, and be alive to the world. * "This is an important book, brilliantly produced. Its light will linger a long, long time." — John R. Stilgoe, professor in the history of landscape, Harvard University * "[B]oth a rich work of performance art and a personal growth tool with many handles." — Boston Globe
At the Cherry Orchard Inn, "Cherry scones to die for" turns out to be all too true Tainted by a recent murder, the Cherry Orchard Inn is struggling to attract guests—until celebrated portrait painter Silvia Lumiere books a room for the summer. Whitney Bloom, the inn's new manager, can't believe her good luck. Between her scrumptious cherry scones and the painter's remarkable talent, the inn swiftly becomes the center of the Cherry Cove art scene. However, all is not the bowl of cherries it appears. There's a rotten core in the portrait painter that only Whitney and her friends can see. And just as Whitney's baking skills and patience are pushed to their limits, another death occurs at the inn. With all fingers pointing at her, Whitney realizes it will take all her cherry-tastic talents to bake her way out of this one. Includes recipes!
Watch six breathtaking habitats from around the world transform in this beautifully illustrated book. Features simple facts about the habitats and the amazing animals that live in them. Nature is like a magical journey that transforms with every step. Peel back the pages of this beautifully illustrated book to discover a world of ever-changing animal habitats. Interactive split pages create an immersive experience that allows readers to take a visual journey through each unique home as they meet the incredible animals that live there. With simple facts and stunning, collaged artwork, this is the perfect book for nature lovers of all ages.
A middle-aged executive, wife, and mother of three young children acts on a daydream for a career change into the medical field. In the vivid adventure that follows, she not only has to overcome new challenges but also has to facepast demons. She comes to an understanding of her impact on other people, including her young son, who is struggling in school. In the end, the things this dreamer and doer learns are universal, heart-warming, healing and inspirational. This is a must-read for people who have suffered the abuse of a bully or the pain of depression. The story provides a break-through in consciousness that heals what ails.
New Jersey is a small but bustling industrial state. Along the boardwalks of its coastal cities, visitors and natives enjoy shops, restaurants, and the view of the ocean. In the south, a series of marshes and forests called The Pine Barrens dominates the land. In this book, students will learn all about New Jersey's landscapes, as well as its wildlife, festivals, and more.
In 2018, while teaching her kids to swim and working on urban river restoration projects, Hannah S. Palmer began a journal of social encounters with water. As she found herself dangling her feet in a seemingly all-white swimming pool, she started to worry about how her young sons would learn to swim. Would they grow up accustomed to the stubbornly segregated pools of Atlanta? Was it safe for them to wade in creeks laced with urban runoff or dive into the ever-warming, man-made swimming holes of the South? Should they just join the Y? But these weren’t just parenting questions. In the South, how we swim—and whether we have access to water at all—is tied up in race and class. As she took her sons pool-hopping across Atlanta, Palmer found an intimate lens through which to view the city’s neighborhoods. In The Pool Is Closed, she documents the creeks behind fences, the springs in the sewers, the lakes that had all but vanished since her own parents learned to swim. In the process, she uncovers complex stories about environmental history, water policy, and the racial politics of public spaces. Nothing prepared Palmer for the contamination, sewage, and bodies that appear when you look at water too long. Her search for water became compulsive, a way to make sense of the world. The Pool Is Closed is a book about water: where it flows and where it floods, who owns it, and what it costs. It’s also a story about embracing parenthood in a time of environmental catastrophe and political anxiety, of dwindling public space and natural resources. It chronicles a year-long quest to find a place to swim and finding, instead, what makes shared water so threatening and wild.
An emotional and unforgettable tale of a small town irrevocably affected by an unforeseen and shocking event—from the author of the “charming gem of a novel” (Elin Hilderbrand, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Mystic Summer. Wendell Combs is as local as they come. Born and raised in the small town of Saybrook, Connecticut, his venture into the larger world was met with heartbreak. Now, middle-aged and a confirmed bachelor, he seeks solitude from his tour of duty as a soldier back in his hometown, working as head caretaker for wealthy Alan Lancaster’s forty-acre estate, White Pines, a place he has come to love for its beauty, peace, and quiet. Alan’s eldest daughter, fifteen-year-old Julia, also loves White Pines, but for very different reasons. She and her little sister spend their days riding horses, swimming in the lake, and painting landscapes inspired by the property they adore. While her parents prepare to host their annual summer gala fundraiser, Julia’s eyes are set to the simpler joys of summer: she’s fallen in love with the boy-next-door and longs for their next encounter. But as the last guests leave on that magical summer night, a tragedy no one could have predicted suddenly occurs, shaking the entire town to its core. Wendell and Julia now face an uncertain future. At the height of their grief, two very different women return to Saybrook: Ginny Feldman, Wendell’s first love, who cannot stay away any longer, and Candace Lancaster, Julia’s estranged aunt who wants nothing to do with the town or the family estate she escaped decades earlier. Now, the only familiar things Julia has to cling to are Wendell and White Pines, but it looks like she’s about to lose both... With Hannah McKinnon’s “sharp and evocative” (Kirkus Reviews) prose, this stirring and affecting tale explores the connection between people and place and what, ultimately, makes up the fabric of a family.
Here is the deep inner picture of the popular writer Hannah Blue Heron. Although a totally standalone book, this also serves as the third volume of Hannah's memoirs. Journal entries, short stories, poems, dreams, daydreams, past life experiences, and thoughtful essays all work together to give a far richer picture of her growth and development in later life than could the factual chronological style that she has used in earlier books. New readers will marvel at the almost universally applicable qualities of depth and perception in the variety of thoughts that are shared here by Blue Heron as she reaches her eightieth birthday. She has been a professional violinist, a nun for seventeen years, a hippie, a member of the women's back-to-the-land movement, and a prolific feminist writer. Readers of the stories of her childhood in Growing Tall in Colorado, and the both heartbreaking and beautiful account of her middle years in That Strange Intimacy will recognize the same open and honest sharing in Self Portraits in the Nude, but with a new intensity. Under six headings: Lesbian Love, Love and Healing, Past Lives, Vivid Dreams, Mystical Musings, and finally On Growing Old, we are given insights into one woman's progress in learning and loving and living joyously. One very special and practical gift in this book, is Hannah's story of learning and growing in the practice of meditation and the inclusion of a CD illustrating her creative use of music as an aid to that practice.
Listening is Hannah Merker's moving and evocative account of her passage into the world of deafness after a mid-life skiing accident. It is also her examination of the many ways people who cannot literally hear can "listen" and communicate. As Henry Kisor says in his foreword to this new edition, Merker "learned how to pay attention to the world both without and within her. Hers has been not so much a struggle to grasp the remnants of her hearing as it has been an intellectual adventure into the nature of sound." First published by Harper Collins in 1994.
This is an original and wide-ranging account of the careers of a close-knit group of highly influential ecologists working in Britain from the late 1960s onwards. The book can also be read as a history of some recent developments in ecology. One of the group, Robert May, is a past president of the Royal Society, and the author of what many see as the most important treatise in theoretical ecology of the later twentieth century. That the group flourished was due not only to May's intellectual leadership, but also to the guiding hand of T. R. E. Southwood. Southwood ended his career as Linacre Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford, where he also served a term as Vice-Chancellor. Earlier, as a professor and director of the Silwood Park campus of Imperial College London, he brought the group together. Since it began to coalesce at Silwood it has been named here the Silwood Circle. Southwood promoted the interests of its members with the larger aim of raising the profile of ecological and environmental science in Britain. Given public anxiety over the environment and the loss of ecosystems, his actions were well-timed.Ecology, which had been on the scientific margins in the first half of the twentieth century, came to be viewed as a science central to modern existence. The book illustrates its importance to many areas. Members of the Silwood Circle have acted as government advisors in the areas of conservation and biodiversity, resource management, pest control, food policy, genetically modified crops, sustainable agriculture, international development, defence against biological weapons, and epidemiology and infectious disease control. In recounting the science they carried out, and how they made their careers, the book reflects also on the role of the group, and the nature of scientific success.
From the acclaimed author of Sailing Lessons and Mystic Summer—a “charming gem of a novel” (Elin Hilderbrand, #1 New York Times bestselling author)—an evocative and moving tale about what it means to be a family, set over the course of one unforgettable Connecticut summer. Siblings Perry, Jake, and Phoebe Goodwin were raised on the shore of a beautiful Connecticut lake in a close-knit family. The eldest of the family, forty-two-year-old Perry has long craved order as surely as his charismatic younger brother, Jake, has avoided it. Phoebe, their baby sister, courts both. As adults, the Goodwin siblings could not be more different. Perry is as married to his career in New York as a risk analyst as Phoebe is to her college sweetheart, but both have returned to Connecticut to raise their young families. Charismatic Jake, however, has spent his years living away wanderlust and unable to settle. The three have not spent much time together…until this summer. On the afternoon of their grandmother’s ninety-seventh birthday party, the siblings reunite at the lake house where Jake stuns the family with a stranger on his arm and an announcement. Olivia Cossette, daughter of a French chef, does not share the traditional Goodwin New England upbringing or sense of family. What she does share is parenthood, as the single mother of a little girl who does not speak. While the Goodwin family struggle to welcome the newcomers over the course of the summer, a series of bad choices made by each family member finally unravels, leaving them all to question just what truly makes a family. Can one fateful moment on a July afternoon undo a lifetime of good intentions? Only one thing is for certain—this extraordinary summer has irrevocably changed the Goodwin family and all that remains is the uncertain future. With Hannah McKinnon’s signature “enticing and refreshing” (Nancy Thayer, New York Times bestselling author) prose, this is a warm-hearted novel that is perfect for fans of Mary Alice Monroe’s the Beach House series and the works of Elin Hilderbrand.
“All the world loves Kristin Hannah,” raves Newsday about this New York Times bestselling author. And it’s no wonder: She consistently writes compelling, beautifully told contemporary novels full of resilient characters and powerful emotion. Now for the first time, four of Hannah’s best-loved tales are together in one eBook bundle: ON MYSTIC LAKE “Superb . . . I’ll heartily recommend On Mystic Lake to any woman . . . who demands that a story leaves her with a satisfied glow.”—The Washington Post Book World Annie Colwater’s husband has just confessed that he’s in love with a younger woman. Devastated, Annie retreats to the small town where she grew up. There, she is reunited with her first love, Nick Delacroix, a recent widower who is unable to cope with his silent, emotionally scarred young daughter. Together the three of them begin to heal. But just when Annie believes she’s been given a second chance at happiness, she is forced to make a choice that no woman in love should ever have to make. SUMMER ISLAND “Many a daughter will see something of herself in Ruby.”—People Years ago, Nora Bridge walked out on her marriage and her family. Now she is a celebrity talk-show host. Her daughter Ruby is a struggling comedienne. The two haven’t spoken in more than a decade. Then a scandal from Nora’s past is exposed, and Ruby is offered a fortune to write a tell-all. Reluctantly she returns to the family house on Summer Island, with its frayed memories of joy and heartache. Confronting a mother who has harbored terrible secrets, Ruby finally begins to understand the complex ties that bind—and the healing that comes with forgiveness. DISTANT SHORES “There are real-life lessons here told with truth, humor, and courage. You will love this story.”—Adriana Trigiani Elizabeth and Jackson Shore married young and weathered the storms as they built a family. From a distance their lives look picture perfect. But after their two girls leave home, Jack and Elizabeth quietly drift apart. Then tragedy turns Elizabeth’s world upside down. In the aftermath, she questions everything about her life—her choices, her marriage, even her long-forgotten dreams. In a move that shocks her husband, friends, and daughters, she lets go of the woman she has become—and reaches out for the woman she wants to be. HOME AGAIN “A tender, beautifully told story of emotional growth, forgiveness [and] the possibility of miracles.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) Madelaine Hillyard may be a world-famous heart surgeon, but her personal life is less successful. Her teenage daughter, Lina, is fast becoming a stranger—a rebel desperate to find the father who walked away before she was born. Complicating matters are the vastly different DeMarco brothers: While priest Francis is always ready to lend a helping hand, Angel long ago took on the role of bad boy. Years earlier Angel abandoned Madelaine—and fatherhood—to seek fame and fortune, leaving her devastated. Now he needs help from the very people he betrayed—as a patient in dire need.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Hannah examines whether love and commitment are enough to sustain a marriage when two people who have put their individual dreams on ice get a chance to defrost them . . . in fast-moving prose punctuated by snappy asides.”—People Elizabeth and Jackson Shore married young, raised two daughters, and weathered the storms of youth as they built a family. From a distance, their lives look picture perfect. But after the girls leave home, Jack and Elizabeth quietly drift apart. When Jack accepts a wonderful new job, Elizabeth puts her own needs aside to follow him across the country. Then tragedy turns Elizabeth’s world upside down. In the aftermath, she questions everything about her life—her choices, her marriage, even her long-forgotten dreams. In a daring move that shocks her husband, friends, and daughters, she lets go of the woman she has become—and reaches out for the woman she wants to be.
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