Synopses & Reviews
For fifteen years Sue Eisenfeld hiked in Shenandoah National Park in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, unaware of the tragic history behind the creation of the park. In this travel narrative, she tells the story of her on-the-ground discovery of the relics and memories a few thousand mountain residents left behind when the government used eminent domain to kick the people off their land to create the park.
With historic maps and notes from hikers who explored before her, Eisenfeld and her husband hike, backpack, and bushwhack the hills and the hollows of this beloved but misbegotten place, searching for stories. Descendants recount memories of their ancestors “grieving themselves to death,” and they continue to speak of their peoples displacement from the land as an untold national tragedy.
Shenandoah: A Story of Conservation and Betrayal is Eisenfelds personal journey into the parks hidden past based on her off-trail explorations. She describes the turmoil of residents removal as well as the human face of the government officials behind the formation of the park. In this conflict between conservation for the benefit of a nation and private land ownership, she explores her own complicated personal relationship with the park—a relationship she would not have without the heartbreak of the thousands of people removed from their homes.
Review
"A masterly stylist continues her uncompromising examination of the inner life."—Kirkus Reviews
Review
“Silverman’s language is, by turns, blunt, wrenching, sophisticated, lyrical, tender, hilarious. She writes with wicked dark humor, splendid intelligence, wry wit, and honest confrontation. There’s no other book quite like it.”—Lee Martin, author of From Our House
Review
“Reading The Pat Boone Fan Club feels like sitting down for coffee with a long-lost friend. Silverman reveals the heights that skillful and innovative memoir can achieve.”—Hope Edelman, author of Motherless Daughters
Review
“Filled with warmhearted humor and profound compassion, this tour de force exploration of the search for identity is a joy to behold.”—Kaylie Jones, author of Lies My Mother Never Told Me
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“Silverman is the Tennessee Williams of memoir.”—Robert Vivian, author of The Least Cricket of Evening
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“Although many of the topics and themes in these essays are somber and sincere, Silverman’s ever-present humor sets a self-deprecating tone. . . . Readers will relate to these stories, for while they’re directly about this writer’s spiritual journey, they’re also about the universal feeling that one doesn’t quite belong, and the fact that Silverman has survived, recovered, and discovered her true self gives hope to the rest of us.” —newpages.com
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"This book makes you think as you laugh out loud. . . . Take my advice and take some time to connect with your inner WASP-Jew."—Teri Cross Chetwood's Blog
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“Shenandoah is a beautifully written portrait of a history-haunted landscape: wistful, wild, and enchanting, like the best of autumn hikes through Shenandoah National Park.”—Tony Horwitz, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
Review
“The juxtaposition of delight with the land and the haunting of Shenandoah’s history is beautifully written, giving us the feel of the park and the lure of knowing its past.”—Katrina M. Powell, author of The Anguish of Displacement: The Politics of Literacy in the Letters of Mountain Families in Shenandoah National Park
Review
"For climbing and travel enthusiasts, this will be a treasured read."and#8212;Jay Freeman, Booklist starred review
Review
and#8220;It is Siebersonand#8217;s unabashed enthusiasm for climbing that is exposed here, and his bare appraisal of it all is engagingly straightforward.
The Naked Mountaineer guides us up mountainsand#8212;including his beloved Matterhornand#8212;and offers an insightful travelogue. The observations are fresh and yet familiar, as welcome as clean socks from a well-worn rucksack at the end of a long dayand#8217;s hike.and#8221;and#8212;Kyle Wagner, travel and fitness editor for the the
Denver Postand#160;
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Review
and#8220;From Western Washington to Italy to Indonesia this is a fun and delightful book. For anyone who has traveled or wished to travel to remote places Steve Siebersonand#8217;s The Naked Mountaineer gives an entertaining and humorous account of his mountain adventures and the characters he met along the way.and#8221;and#8212;Mike Mahanay, president of the Washington Alpine Club
Review
andquot;Take a walk on the weirder side of mountain life with Sieberson, whose alpine misadventures include bizarre local cuisine, insistent music fans, and oh yes, the Englishman who revels in taking naked selfies. . . . This delightfully anecdotal memoir hops from Norway to Japan to Greece, among other high altitude locales.andquot;andmdash;Backpacker.com
Review
“Bodybuilding Jesuses, glorious thorough moving explorations of the word ‘bolt, the search for the finest foosball table in the world, beardlessness, wrestling, the many glories of Canada, towns filled with Vulcans, superheroes, house-lust, love, pain—a wry and piercing collection of adventures and misadventures from a terrific essayist. A book both tart and gentle, which I savored from the first line to the last.”—Brian Doyle, author of Mink River and Leaping
Review
“A wonderful book of essays, wry and wise, in which Eric Freeze considers what it is to be a twenty-first-century literary mans man in all his house-remodeling, sweet-parenting, foosball-playing glory.”—Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins and The Financial Lives of the Poets
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“Eric Freeze is the kind of thoughtful writer and parent who will help us save the world.”—Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of Once Upon a River and American Salvage
Review
“Intelligent, curious, and self-effacing,
Hemingway on a Bike represents a truly singular work of creative nonfiction. Meditating on an improbably diverse range of subjects—including foosball, superheroes, Mormonism, home birthing, beards, fishing, Vulcans, and professional wrestling—Freeze proves himself to be the kind of writer who knows exactly how to plumb the idiosyncrasies of his own experience, and the results are playful and profound.”—Matthew Vollmer, author of
Inscriptions for Headstones and editor of
Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-interviews, Faux-lectures, Quasi-letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent ArtifactsReview
“This book is so much more than Hemingway on a bike, and thankfully so. In wide-ranging meanders, Eric Freeze takes us around the globe and into experiences both personal and universal, from transporting a foosball table to gutting a fish to growing a patchy beard to witnessing attacks by a barracuda and a British talk-show host. The essays move deftly, pausing to ponder or to play in language; they keep us moving; they move us. What it comes down to is this: the book is wonderful because Freezes mind is so unfetteredly interesting.”—Patrick Madden, author of
Quotidiana
Review
andquot;Author and lawyer Sieberson enjoys his hobby, which has taken him around the globe and to the top of many of the world's mountains. His mountaineering trials and tribulations provide ample fodder for this informative and amusing book.andquot;andmdash;Sara Miller Rohan,
Library JournalReview
"Silverman's writing is very alive. As a reader you feel immersed in her world, not just seeing it but feeling, tasting and smelling it. She weaves ribbons from moments in her childhood to odd obsessions and reactions she experiences in later life. It's an eye-opening tale that will have you re-examining your own life."—New Book Review
Review
"Eisenfeld writes about Shenandoah the way Annie Proulx writes about Wyoming or Edward Abbey about the deserts of the Southwest: pristine, unsentimental, eloquent prose."—Kirkus
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"Freeze covers a broad range of strange topics, from foosball to beards, pro wrestling to Vulcans, Angry Birds to barracudas. Freeze artfully captures not only his meditations on these varied subjects, but his enticing imagination as well. And his playfulness is contagious."—Elizabeth Brady, Brevity
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"Anyone with an interest in national parks or the history of the state of Virginia or travelers to Shenandoah or Skyline Drive will appreciate this book."—Rachel Owens, Library Journal
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"[Shenandoah is a] richly textured look at the human drama of creating one of the jewels of the national park system."—Rachel Jagareski, Foreword Reviews
Review
"
Shenandoah: A Story of Conservation and Betrayal . . . beautifully captures the mountain people and the official vendetta that made them refugees from their own land."—James Bovard,
Washington Times
Review
"The Pat Boone Fan Club is a rollicking road-trip of a book. It's a trip worth taking, again and again."—Kelly O'Toole, Blue Lyra Review
Review
“Silverman’s writing is very alive. As a reader you feel immersed in her world, not just seeing it but feeling, tasting and smelling it.”—The New Book Review
Synopsis
There are two ways to leave the Amishone is through life and the other through death. When Saloma Miller Furlongs father dies during her first semester at Smith College, she returns to the Amish community she had left twenty four years earlier to attend his funeral. Her journey home prompts a flood of memories. Now a mother with grown children of her own, Furlong recalls her painful childhood in a family defined by her fathers mental illness, her brothers brutality, her mothers frustration, and the austere traditions of the Amishtraditions Furlong struggled to accept for years before making the difficult decision to leave the community. In this personal and moving memoir, Furlong traces the genesis of her desire for freedom and education and chronicles her conflicted quest for independence. Eloquently told, Why I Left the Amish is a revealing portrait of life withinand withoutthis frequently misunderstood community.
Synopsis
There are two ways to leave the Amishone is through life and the other through death. Eloquently told, Why I Left the Amish is a revealing portrait of life withinand withoutthis frequently misunderstood community.
Synopsis
Gentile reader, and you, Jews, come too. Follow Sue William Silverman, a one-woman cultural mash-up, on her exploration of identity among the mishmash of American idols and ideals that confuse most of us—or should. Pat Boone is our first stop. Now a Tea Party darling, Boone once shone as a squeaky-clean pop music icon of normality, an antidote for Silverman’s own confusing and dangerous home, where being a Jew in a Christian school wasn’t easy, and being the daughter of the Anti-Boone was unspeakable. And yet somehow Silverman found her way, a “gefilte fish swimming upstream,” and found her voice, which in this searching, bracing, hilarious, and moving book tries to make sense of that most troubling American condition: belonging, but to what?
Picking apricots on a kibbutz, tramping cross-country in a loathed Volkswagen camper, appearing in a made-for-television version of her own life: Silverman is a bobby-soxer, a baby boomer, a hippy, a lefty, and a rebel with something to say to those of us—most of us—still wondering what to make of ourselves.
Synopsis
The Naked Mountaineer recounts a series of solo journeys to some of the worldand#8217;s most exotic peaks in places such as Switzerland, Japan, and Borneo. However, it is far from the typical heroic mountain-expedition book. Although Steve Sieberson did reach many summits, in most cases his travels were more memorable for what he encountered along the way than for the actual climbing. His real adventures involved peculiar people, strange foods, and tropical diseases, rather than pitons, ice axes,and#160;and carabiners. On the Matterhorn he met an English alpinist who reveled in naked selfies, he stumbled into a cockfight in a Balinese village, and on a volcano in Italy he was mistaken for a famous singer by an insistent fan.
The Naked Mountaineer offers mountain-themed travel stories with a wide-eyed view of the world, while presenting irreverent commentary on climbers and their peculiar sport. These are rollicking tales, filled with the unexpected.
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Synopsis
A collage-like mash-up of personal anecdote, popular culture, masculinity, sports, and parenting, Hemingway on a Bike takes readers through the many and varied twists and turns of the life and mind of its author, Eric Freeze. Delving into obsessions and experiences, Freezes essays display a keen intelligence with insights on topics as diverse as Mormonism and foosball, Angry Birds and professional wrestling, superheroes and freebirthing, Ernest Hemingway and Star Trek.
“Carnecopia” mashes experiences fishing and snorkeling with an exhibit at Monacos oceanographic museum to comment on how human beings unwittingly enact harm on their environment. “Bolt” explores the authors fascination with sprinting and shares moments in France and the Midwest, where the words “to bolt” sometimes have unforeseen consequences. “Supergirl” plays on the childhood fascination with superheroes juxtaposed with adulthood manifestations of gendered expectations.
By turns playful, poignant, celebratory, and searching, Hemingway on a Bike meanders through ruminations on a number of subjects, and these reflections combine to dissect identity, belonging, and migration in an age when borders and boundaries, whatever the type, are continually transgressed and traversed.
About the Author
Steve Sieberson began his mountaineering career in the late 1970s in Washington State and eventually became a climb leader for one of the countryand#8217;s premier outdoor organizations, the Mountaineers. He spent sixteen years as a member of Seattle Mountain Rescue, practiced international law in Seattle for twenty-five years, and is now a professor of law at Creighton University in Omaha.
Lou Whittaker is the dean of American mountaineering and the countryand#8217;s foremost professional mountaineering guide.
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