A Mexican love song called her "La Peregrina"--The Pilgrim - for Alma Reed's adventures as a journalist and explorer drew her around the globe, to the fabled and mysterious sites of lost civilizations. But her heart remained in the Yucatan, where she would be buried alongside her celebrated murdered lover, the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico. This is the first biography ever to recount Reed's remarkable story - as dramatic and romantic as the chronicles of Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham. Born in the gold-rush boomtown of San Francisco in 1889, Reed shocked her family by determining to become a writer. In an era when most women's vocation was marriage, she got a job at the San Francisco Call. It was a "woman's beat" - writing feature stories on the poor under the byline Mrs. Goodfellow - but Reed used it to jog the public conscience, forcing the state to spare a Mexican boy and to reform its laws on capital punishment. That campaign won her a tour of Mexico, where she would meet a lifelong friend, the famed muralist Jose Clemente Orozco, and a lifelong love, the Yucatan governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto. In Mexico she also found a new passion - archaeology - while breaking the story of the discovery of the Mayan treasures at Chichen Itza for the New York Times. Later, she would cover the excavation of Carthage, the home of Hannibal and Dido, the tragic queen of the Aeneid; the search for the River Styx, the portal of death in classical mythology; and other major expeditions. She lived her stories - even setting a deep-sea diving record on the quest for the lost continent of Atlantis. In 1925, the New York Times documented her adventures in a profile calling her "the only archaeological reporter in the world." In the years between the world wars, Reed's Greenwich Village apartment, nicknamed The Ashram in honor of Mahatma Gandhi, became one of New York's most glittering salons, the gathering place for an international mix of artists and intellectuals devoted to the cause of world peace. But Reed longed to return to Mexico and in 1950 finally realized her dream. There she would join in the exploration of Cozumel, the equivalent of Mecca or Jerusalem, sacred to Ixchel, the Mayan goddess/oracle. Passionate Pilgrim is a biography as vivid and dramatic as fiction, the inspiring account of a life magnificently lived. It should assign Alma Reed her rightful place in the pantheon of twentieth-century heroines.
Setting / LocationNew York City
Story EraModern Era
Protagonist / CorePassionate Pilgrim Lead Character
Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven't been burned as witches since 1727, life isn't exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get Brazilians? Why do bras hurt? Why the incessant talk about babies? And do men secretly hate them? Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women's lives with laugh-out-loud funny scenes from her own, from the riot of adolescence to her development as a writer, wife, and mother. With rapier wit, Moran slices right to the truth--whether it's about the workplace, strip clubs, love, fat, abortion, popular entertainment, or children--to jump-start a new conversation about feminism. With humor, insight, and verve, How To Be a Woman lays bare the reasons why female rights and empowerment are essential issues not only for women today but also for society itself.
Inspired by her Guardian newspaper column 'Just 70', Joan Bakewell describes what her life is like at seventy, as well as returning to issues that have always been close to her. She writes with characteristic honesty and humanity about the consequences of ageing.
"A deeply stirring memoir of fathers, sons, and the oldest bar in New York City. Since it opened in 1854, McSorley's Old Ale House has been a New York institution. This is the landmark watering hole where Abraham Lincoln campaigned and Boss Tweed kicked back with the Tammany Hall machine. Where a pair of Houdini's handcuffs found their final resting place. And where soldiers left behind wishbones before departing for the First World War, never to return and collect them. Many of the bar's traditions remain intact, from the newspaper-covered walls to the plates of cheese and raw onions, the sawdust-strewn floors to the tall-tales told by its bartenders. But in addition to the bar's rich history, McSorley's is home to a deeply personal story about two men: Rafe Bartholomew, the writer who grew up in the landmark pub, and his father, Geoffrey "Bart" Bartholomew, a career bartender who has been working the taps for forty-five years. On weekends, Rafe Bartholomew would tag along for the early hours of his dad's shift, polishing brass doorknobs, watching over the bar cats, and handling other odd jobs until he grew old enough to join Bart behind the bar. McSorley's was a place of bizarre rituals, bawdy humor, and tasks as unique as the bar itself: protecting the decades-old dust that had gathered on treasured artifacts; shot-putting thirty-pound grease traps into high-walled Dumpsters; and trying to keep McSorley's open through the worst of Hurricane Sandy. But for Rafe, the bar means home. It's the place where he and his father have worked side by side, serving light and dark ale, always in pairs, the way it's always been done. Where they've celebrated victories, like the publication of his father's first book of poetry, and coped with misfortune, like the death of Rafe's mother. Where Rafe learned to be part of something bigger than himself and also how to be his own man. By turns touching, crude, and wildly funny, Rafe's story reveals universal truths about family, loss, and the bursting history of one of New York's most beloved institutions."--provided by publisher.
When North Carolina farmer Stuart Taylor died after a sudden illness, his 46-year-old fiancée Velma Barfield, was overcome with grief. Taylor's family grieved with her―until the autopsy revealed traces of arsenic poisoning. Turned over to the authorities by her own son, Velma stunned her family with more revelations. This wasn't the first time the born-again Christian and devout Sunday school teacher had committed cold-blooded murder. Tried by the "world's deadliest prosecutor," and sentenced to death, Velma turned her life around and gained worldwide attention With chilling precision,New York Times bestselling author Bledsoe probes Velma's stark descent into madness. From her harrowing childhood to the shocking crimes that incited a national debate over the death penalty, to the dark, final moments of her execution―broadcast live on CNN―Velma Barfield's riveting life of crime and punishment, revenge and redemption is true crime reporting at its most gripping and profound.
Passionate Pilgrim by Antoinette May | Literally Just Books
