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The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
A moving story of the remarkable bond between a journalist in search of a story and a homeless, classically trained musiciandestined to be a major motion picture from DreamWorks, starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.When Steve Lopez saw Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles skid row, he found it impossible to walk away. More than thirty years earlier, Ayers had been a promising classical bass student at Juilliardambitious, charming, and also one of the few African-Americansuntil he gradually lost his ability to function, overcome by schizophrenia. When Lopez finds him, Ayers is homeless, paranoid, and deeply troubled, but glimmers of that brilliance are still there. Over time, Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers form a bond, and Lopez imagines that he might be able to change Ayerss life. Lopez collects donated violins, a cello, even a stand-up bass and a piano; he takes Ayers to Walt Disney Concert Hall and helps him move indoors. For each triumph, there is a crashing disappointment, yet neither man gives up. In the process of trying to save Ayers, Lopez finds that his own life is changing, and his sense of what one man can accomplish in the lives of others begins to expand in new ways. Poignant and ultimately hopeful, The Soloist is a beautifully told story of friendship and the redeeming power of music..
Price: $15.81
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Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together
A dangerous, homeless drifter who grew up picking cotton in virtual slavery. An upscale art dealer accustomed to the world of Armani and Chanel. A gutsy woman with a stubborn dream. A story so incredible no novelist would dare dream it. It begins outside a burning plantation hut in Louisiana . . . and an East Texas honky-tonk . . . and, without a doubt, in the heart of God. It unfolds in a Hollywood hacienda . . . an upscale New York gallery . . . a downtown dumpster . . . a Texas ranch. Gritty with pain and betrayal and brutality, this true story also shines with an unexpected, life-changing love. .
Price: $8.83
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Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper
Decreed by David Letterman (tongue in cheek) on CBS TVs The Late Show to be the pick of Daves Book Club 2006, Candy Girl is the story of a young writer who dared to bare it all as a stripper At the age of twenty-four, Diablo Cody decided there had to be more to life than typing copy at an ad agency. She soon managed to find inspiration from a most unlikely source amateur night at the seedy Skyway Lounge. While she doesnt take home the prize that night, Diablo discovers to her surprise the act of stripping is an absolute thrill. This is Diablos captivating fish-out-of-water story of her yearlong walk on the wild side, from quiet gentlemens clubs to multilevel sex palaces and glassed-in peep shows. In witty prose she gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at this industry through a writers keen eye, chronicling her descent into the skin trade and the effect it had on her self-image and her relationship with her now husband..
Price: $2.99
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The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood
An exceptional father-son story about the reality that tests us, the myths that sustain us, and the love that saves us.
Paul Coates was an enigmatic god to his sons: a Vietnam vet who rolled with the Black Panthers, an old-school disciplinarian and new-age believer in free love, an autodidact who launched a publishing company in his basement dedicated to telling the true history of African civilization. Most of all, he was a wily tactician whose mission was to carry his sons across the shoals of inner-city adolescence—and through the collapsing civilization of Baltimore in the Age of Crack—and into the safe arms of Howard University, where he worked so his children could attend for free.
Among his brood of seven, his main challenges were Ta-Nehisi, spacey and sensitive and almost comically miscalibrated for his environment, and Big Bill, charismatic and all-too-ready for the challenges of the streets. The Beautiful Struggle follows their divergent paths through this turbulent period, and their father’s steadfast efforts—assisted by mothers, teachers, and a body of myths, histories, and rituals conjured from the past to meet the needs of a troubled present—to keep them whole in a world that seemed bent on their destruction.
With a remarkable ability to reimagine both the lost world of his father’s generation and the terrors and wonders of his own youth, Coates offers readers a small and beautiful epic about boys trying to become men in black America and beyond. .
Price: $11.00
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The Unlikely Spy
In this debut novel, veteran journalist Silva mines the reliable territory of World War II espionage to produce a gripping, historically detailed thriller In early 1944 the Allies were preparing their invasion of Normandy; critical to the invasion's success was an elaborate set of deceptions--from phony radio signals to bogus airfields and barracks--intended to keep Hitler in the dark about when and where the Allied troops would arrive. Catherine Blake is the beautiful, ruthless spy who could bring the whole charade crashing down; Alfred Vicary is the brilliant but bumbling professor Churchill has tapped to protect the operation. Along with a teeming cast of other characters, real and fictional, they bring the chase to a furious and satisfying climax..
Price: $4.16
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How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization
The global power of soccer might be a little hard for Americans, living in a country that views the game with the same skepticism used for the metric system and the threat of killer bees, to grasp fully. But in Europe, South America, and elsewhere, soccer is not merely a pastime but often an expression of the social, economic, political, and racial composition of the communities that host both the teams and their throngs of enthusiastic fans. New Republic editor Franklin Foer, a lifelong devotee of soccer dating from his own inept youth playing days to an adulthood of obsessive fandom, examines soccer's role in various cultures as a means of examining the reach of globalization. Foer's approach is long on soccer reportage, providing extensive history and fascinating interviews on the Rangers-Celtic rivalry and the inner workings of AC Milan, and light on direct discussion of issues like world trade and the exportation of Western culture. But by creating such a compelling narrative of soccer around the planet, Foer draws the reader into these sport-mad societies, and subtly provides the explanations he promises in chapters with titles like "How Soccer Explains the New Oligarchs", "How Soccer Explains Islam's Hope", and "How Soccer Explains the Sentimental Hooligan." Foer's own passion for the game gives his book an infectious energy but still pales in comparison to the religious fervor of his subjects. His portraits of legendary hooligans in Serbia and Britain, in particular, make the most die-hard roughneck New York Yankees fan look like a choirboy in comparison. Beyond the thugs, Foer also profiles Nigerian players living in the Ukraine, Iranian women struggling against strict edicts to attend matches, and the parallel worlds of Brazilian soccer and politics from which Pele emerged and returned. Foer posits that globalization has eliminated neither local cultural identities nor violent hatred among fans of rival teams, and it has not washed out local businesses in a sea of corporate wealth nor has it quelled rampant local corruption. Readers with an interest in international economics are sure to like How Soccer Explains the World, but soccer fans will love it. --John Moe.
Price: $5.25
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Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you)
What does a Hip-Hop artist, Waffle House waitress, tire salesman, and disabled girl have to do with discovering spiritual truth? What if embracing authentic Christianity is a journey of unlearning? Welcome to Jim Palmer's world! Don Miller meets Anne Lamott meets Brian McLaren in this tale of shedding religion and plunging into uncharted depths of knowing God. Jim Palmer, emergent pastor, shares his compelling off-road spiritual journey and the unsuspecting people who became his guides. "Perhaps God's reason for wanting me," writes Palmer, "is much better than my reason for wanting him. Maybe God's idea of my salvation trumps the version I am too willing to settle for. Seeing I needed a little help to get this, God sent a variety pack of characters to awaken me." For all those hoping there's more to God and Christianity than what they've heard or experienced, each chapter of Divine Nobodies gives the reader permission and freedom to discover it for themselves. Sometimes comical, other times tragic, at times shocking, always honest; Jim Palmer's story offers an inspiring and profound glimpse into life with God beyond institutional church and conventional religion. "I am tempted to say that Jim Palmer could well be the next Donald Miller, but what they have in common, along with an honest spirituality and extraordinary skill as storytellers, is a unique voice . . . Divine Nobodies is a delight to read, and it was good for my soul to read it."
-BRIAN MCLAREN
Author of The Secret Message of Jesus "You hold in your hands an amazing story of a broken man finding freedom in all the right places-in God's work in the lives of some extraordinarily ordinary people around him. You will thrill to this delightful blend of gut-wrenching honesty and laugh-out-loud hilarity, and in the end you'll find God much closer, the body of Christ far bigger and your own journey far clearer than you ever dreamed."
-WAYNE JACOBSEN
Author of Authentic Relationships .
Price: $1.92
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She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall
In the aftermath of the Columbine High School tragedy, a story came out about Cassie Bernall, a young woman who allegedly professed her belief in God in the moments before she was shot dead. Hailed a modern-day martyr by Christian groups and the media, detectives revealed months later that she may never have had such an exchange with her killer. Bernall's parents responded to the news with a statement: "Our intent was to share Cassie's story in an effort to encourage parents and teenagers. If any of our actions have hurt or offended anyone, we sincerely apologize." In She Said Yes, a moving memoir written by Cassie's mother, Misty Bernall, we meet the real Cassie, a typical adolescent who struggles with peer pressure and her relationship with her parents. Once headed down the common teenage path of self-loathing and depression, Cassie turned her life around through her faith and the support of a group of people who helped her find peace and purpose--her youth group at church. Though Cassie was far from the perfect child, She Said Yes tells the story of how Cassie's faith gave her the strength to overcome the obstacles she faced in her young life. Regardless of what happened at Columbine, She Said Yes is a moving tribute to an extraordinary young woman and a lesson for both parents and teenagers alike. .
Price: $1.00
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Strides: Running Through History With an Unlikely Athlete
Acclaimed novelist Benjamin Cheever--author of The Plagiarist, Famous After Death, and The Good Nanny--brings his buoyant literary style to this impassioned memoir about the sport that changed his life. From Pheidippides, who rant the first marathon in 490 BC--bringing news to Athens of the Greek victory on the plains of Marathon--to our own soldiers in Iraq today, running is an integral part of human culture and legend. In Strides, heralded author Benjamin Cheever explores the role of running in human history while interspersing this account with revelations of his own decades-long devotion to the sport. Cheever has traveled the world writing features for Runner's World magazine, and he draws from this rich experience on every page. His adventures have taken him to Kenya in search of the secrets of the world's fastest long-distance runners and to a 10-K race with American soldeirs in Baghdad. Cheever celebrates the quotidian personal satisfaction of a morning run and the more exotic pleasures of the Medoc Marathon in Bordeaux, where fine wines are served at water stations and the first prize is the winner's weight in grand crus. He shares vivid moments from the New York Marathon and waxes rhapsodic about the granddaddy of American distance events--the Boston Marathon. But what truly distignuishes Strides as a memorable read is the unique lens through which this sparkling writer explores our deep bond to running, an experience he likens to that of being able to fly. .
Price: $12.88
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One Day, All Children...: The Unlikely Triumph Of Teach For America And What I Learned Along The Way
From her dorm room at Princeton University, twenty-one-year-old college senior Wendy Kopp decided to launch a movement to improve public education in America. In One Day, All Children... , she shares the remarkable story of Teach For America, a non-profit organization that sends outstanding college graduates to teach for two years in the most under-resourced urban and rural public schools in America. The astonishing success of the program has proven it possible for children in low-income areas to attain the same level of academic achievement as children in more privileged areas and more privileged schools.
One Day, All Children… is not just a personal memoir. It's a blueprint for the new civil rights movement--a movement that demands educational access and opportunity for all American children.
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Price: $1.94
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