Books about Somebody from Amazon.com

A psychological thriller of secrets, dark motives, and an adoption buried in the past

At the center of Elizabeth Brundage’s new novel lies an adoption under stressed and tragic circumstances Willa, brought up in elegant prosperity, is now a student at the prestigious Pioneer School. But her biological father, a failing writer and former drug addict, can’t live with himself without seeing her again.

In this idyllic Berkshires landscape, Willa’s adoptive parents have fled a mysterious past; a feminist sculptor initiates a reckless affair; teenagers live in a world to which adults turn a blind eye; and the headmaster’s wife is busy keeping her husband’s disastrous history and current indiscretions well hidden. The culmination of these forces is the collision of two very different fathers—biological and adoptive—and a villain whose ends and means slowly unfold with the help, witting and unwitting, of all around him. Somebody Else’s Daughter delivers an electric, suspenseful tale of richly conflicted characters and the disturbed landscape of the American psyche..
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I've come to the conclusion that roughly 50 percent of the adults in this country are simply too ignorant and functionally incompetent to be living in a free society.

You might think I'm off base, but every day around half the people in this country go out of their way to prove me right. —from Somebody's Gotta Say It

Think you've got it all figured out? Think again.

Neal Boortz—the Talkmaster, the High Priest of the Church of the Painful Truth—has been edifying, infuriating, and entertaining talk radio audiences for more than three decades with his blend of straight talk and twisted humor. Now, the author of the smash number one bestseller The FairTax Book returns to gore every sacred cow in the pasture, from the subversive agendas behind children's books to the scam artists behind "High Art."

In Somebody's Gotta Say It, Boortz warms up for the coming political season with a preemptive strike in "the War on the Individual": "The Democrats' theme for 2008 will be 'The Common Good.' I can't speak for you, but I am an individual. Government exists to protect my rights, not to order my life. And I damn sure don't exist to serve government." He takes on liberal catchphrases like giving back ("Nobody—especially not the evil, wretched rich—actually earns anything anymore. Why do liberals think this way? Because they find it impossible to acknowledge that people work for money"), our rampant civic idiocy ("We are not a democracy. Never were. Weren't supposed to be. And we shouldn't be"), and Big Brother ("We have smoke-free workplaces. We have drug-free school zones. I say let's start establishing government-free oases, where we can be free to leave our seat belts unbuckled, and peel the labels off anything we choose"). And somehow, along the way, he finds room for pop quizzes, cat-chasing contests, and an answer, once and for all, to the eternal question, "Neal, why don't you run for president?"—in a chapter called "No Way in Hell."

Full of irresistible wisecracks and irrefutable libertarian wisdom, Somebody's Gotta Say It is one man's response to America at a time when the government overreaches, the people underperform—and the truth hurts.

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Even if you've never attended a wedding in the South, you'll find laughter in the pages of this deliciously entertaining slice of Southern life and love, complete with recipes, advice, and a huge dose of that famous charm"In the Mississippi Delta, funerals bring out the best in people, while weddings, which are supposed to be happy occasions, bring out the worst." So say Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays, authors of the bestseller Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies' Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral, who turn their keen eyes and sharp wit from the end of the life cycle to the all-important midpoint. For anyone planning, participating in, or attending a wedding (Southern or not), this book will amuse, entertain, and provide advice for marital bliss, including:--It's OK to peek at an etiquette book, but if you rely too heavily on it, people will think that you are not fully acquainted with what is right and wrong. --Anything that was not done in the past doesn't need to be done now -- consider this before ordering a groom's cake, especially one featuring a fishing-tackle or golfing theme..
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Self-preservation did not come instinctually to Irish journalist Nuala O'Faolain. One of 9 children--her mother had 13 pregnancies in all--she grew up in the 1940s and '50s in a defeated Dublin household. Her reporter father seems to have spent his time and money, and even love, elsewhere--and as the family grew more isolated and unable to cope, alcohol became her mother's only way out. "One of the stories of my life has been the working out in it of her powerful and damaging example in everything," the author admits, "Nothing mattered to her except passion." Some of O'Faolain's siblings emphatically didn't make it, but she was lucky to find refuge in books. They have been a defense, a comfort, and a delight.

Does her memoir then follow the standard rags-to-self-acceptance trajectory? Are you wondering if perhaps you can give it a miss, and in fact send the entire genre on a well-deserved vacation? Don't. Are You Somebody (the title unaccountably lost a question mark somewhere between the Irish and American editions) offers a wrenching account of childhood and a highly provocative take on the sexual and professional situation of Irish women. Though literature made O'Faolain, the male-dominated literary life and industry certainly didn't, and she now gives it more than a few body blows. It was a world in which writing and drink mattered far more than women: "The 'literary Dublin' I saw lied to women as a matter of course and conspired against the demands of wives and mistresses.... Women either had to make no demands, and be liked, or be much larger than life, and feared."

Irish women didn't seem to know to look for, let alone demand, equality. O'Faolain miraculously avoided pregnancy; but others were not so blessed. "Lives were ruined at that time, thousands and thousands of them, quite casually.... They were hotly pursued, and half longed to yield, but they were not able to defend themselves against pregnancy, and they were destroyed if they got pregnant." For all her energy and ambition and good fortune (and she needed this trio to jump her family's "sinking ship" and avoid getting pregnant), O'Faolain fell for the cant that she must marry, have children, and serve. Some will be initially shocked by her assertion that she was lucky never to have had a child. "Childbearing, along with bad education, relationships that managed to be simultaneously all-absorbing and rewarding, and financial dependence--these were the enemies of promise. But that's not why I'm glad; I didn't think of myself as having promise. I'm glad because under the old system it was so easy to rear children badly. The child wouldn't have properly survived." Yet the '70s enabled her to break out of the assumptions and realities of Irish women's lives, not to mention her yearning to be like "the troubled, rich, English upper-class people in books."

At the end of her memoir, O'Faolain knows she finally is, in fact, somebody. Still, those who don't recognize her see her only as a single, middle-aged woman. Like children, such individuals "aren't supposed to kick up." Thanks to this bracing book, the author gets to permanently do so. The writing exercise has answered some of her questions and some of her fears, but O'Faolain is too honest not to admit that for others there is no response or cure. She leaves us wanting to know more about her life but grateful that she has allowed us in..
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With his bestselling All Over but the Shoutin', Rick Bragg gave us memorable stories of his own childhood. In Somebody Told Me, he offers the best of his work as a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist writing the remarkable stories of others.

For twenty years, Bragg has focused his efforts on the common man. So while some of these stories are about people whose names we know-such as Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother who drowned her two sons-most are people whose names we've never heard, people who have survived tornadoes and swamps, racism and bombs. In incisive, unadorned prose that is nonetheless strikingly beautiful, these pieces rise above journalism to become literature and show the triumph of the human spirit..
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The collaborative team that brought you The Little Soul and the Sun (Hampton Roads, ISBN 1-57174-087-2, 1998) returns with an uplifting follow-up. The first book in a new series of Little Soul adventures, The Little Soul and the Earth finds our favorite little soul being asked by God to return to Earth in order to "experience who he really is." Walsch's first picture book, The Little Soul and the Sun, has sold more than 120,000 copies. Walsch, who has authored more than 20 books, is the bestselling author of The Conversations with God series. Frank Riccio is the Parents' Choice Award-winning illustrator of Curriculum of Love and other books..
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It’s time for the end of year parent-teacher conference, and Hank’s in a panic. He’s afraid that his teacher is going to tell his parents that he has to repeat the fourth grade. So Hank creates an elaborate scheme to have his parents win an out-of-town trip so they’re gone during the conference days. Of course, the plan backfires. Will Hank have to stay in fourth grade forever?.
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