Waiting for snow in Havana

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Alex Haley, David Stevens

Alex Haley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Roots, tells about his great-great-grandfather who came to Alabama from Ireland, married a slave and then fathered a daughter—Haley’s grandmother, Queen. The story begins in Ireland, where Haley’s white great-great-grandfather, James Jackson, Sr., is born. From there we travel with Jackson to Nashville, where he meets Andrew Jackson, the future president of the United States. The two men become business partners and James Jackson makes his fortune. He establishes his grand plantation, The Forks of Cypress, in Alabama, while Andrew ascends to the White House, and the rumblings that will explode into the Civil War gather force. James’s son, Jass Jackson, inherits the plantation just as the genteel, well-ordered antebellum world begins to crumble. His adolescent attraction to the beautiful and strongwilled slave named Easter blossoms into a powerful and lasting love, and from their passionate union comes Queen—the heroine of the tale, Alex Haley’s grandmother. This is history at its most compelling—from the Irish sod to the settlement of the South; from the Trail of Tears to the battlefield at Manassas; from the agonies of slavery to the tribulations of freedom—all rendered with the eye for telling detail and the sense of historical significance that readers have come to expect of Haley. A miniseries adaptation called Alex Haley’s Queen and starring Halle Berry, Danny Glover, Tim Daly, Ann-Margret and Ossie Davis aired on CBS on February 14, 1993.

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Haven Kimmel

A continuation of the memoir "A Girl Named Zippy" follows the story of her mother, Delonda, who reinvents her life by returning to college and losing fifty pounds, while Zippy continues to work out the dynamic of their nuclear family.

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Lauren St John

In 1978, in the final, bloodiest phase of the Rhodesian civil war, 11-year-old Lauren St John moves with her family to Rainbow's End, a wild, beautiful farm and game reserve set on the banks of a slowflowing river. The house has been the scene of a horrific attack by guerrillas, and when Lauren's family settles there, a chain of events is set in motion that will change her life irrevocably. This memoir captures the beauty and danger of life in the African bush. At the height of the war, Lauren rides through the wilderness on her horse, Morning Star, encountering lions, crocodiles, snakes, vicious ostriches, and mad cows. The constant threat of ruthless guerrillas prowling the land underscores everything, making each day more dangerous, vivid, and prized than the last.--From publisher description.

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Robert Drake

History and geography helped give the Drakes their identities: they knew who they were because they knew where they were and when they were, with no alienation from either time or place. Their lives were thus whole and full. Their home, their family, their community were all very real entities, nourishing and sustaining the individual while giving him a sense of belonging to something greater than himself. They gave order and meaning to life. The times have changed, but who can say that the world of the Drakes is any less meaningful for us today? Perhaps the memories of that world constitute a rebuke to our frenetic lives. But perhaps the legacy of their lives, their times, and, above all, their great love, can still exert its healing power on modern generations.