A wild and bittersweet adventure into a world none but Machvaia Gypsies know - Susan Sarandon Gypsies in America are hidden. With estimates between fifty thousand and over a million, the Gypsy population is as mysterious as their ways, and vast amounts of misinformation swirl around them. Lola's Luck peers behind the curtain, past the paisley walls and twinkling lights to find an ""expert advisor on love, business and marriage."" Lola's Luck introduces a remarkable woman who drew a young anthropologist into her colorful society, changing her life. A true story of luck, kinship, love and an entire world hidden from view, Lola's Luck is a stunning personal memoir of life among the Gypsies of America. Here is a fresh response to the stereotypes that surround a traditional culture trying to keep itself alive in the face of American values. In the end, it is Lola's story-""the story of the world!""-that is riveting. Hand on hip, heart as big as the widest space, a Gypsy, yes, and a Queen.

Lola's Luck: My Life Among the California Gypsies

History

Miller,Carol

Americas

GemmaMedia

Maggie is forty-three years old and looking for romance. She loves her husband, Dan, but his idea of romance is a couple of drinks at the local bar and an early night at home. Her children think she's too old to care. And she's beginning to wonder if life has passed her by. But a chance meeting changes all that, and now Maggie faces tough decisions. Can she put the spark back into her marriage, or would she be better off calling it quits? Who is most important to her? Her husband? Her children? Herself? Of her earlier novel, He's Got to Go, Publisher's Weekly wrote, ""O'Flanagan manages to keep wisdom and humor at the forefront."" The Open Door Series: Originally designed to promote adult literacy in Ireland, these original stories from best-loved authors and new voices showcase some of our best writing in short fiction.

Maggie's Story

O’Flanagan, Sheila

Literature & Fiction

Longing to feel closer to his favorite grandfather, Oliver skips school on a sparkling September afternoon and hides out on a tired schooner. When he wakes up on the ways of his grandfather's boatyard and realizes he's been transported back to 1938, he must decide what to do before the dangerous hurricane he'd been studying in school hits. While the main character is a 12 year old boy, Oliver's story, and the story of a powerful weather event that still reverberates along the east coast, is more than appropriate for an adult audience. Written by a 2004 Olympian in sailing, this charming story includes 8 original illustrations, a glossary of nautical terms and a short history of the Great Hurricane of 1938 that devastated the eastern seaboard.

Oliver's Surprise: A Boy, a Schooner and the Great Hurricane of 1938

Children's Books

Carol Newman Cronin

The Faloorie Man

Tender fictional memoir of growing up in post-war Belfast. In one of the most captivating stories of childhood yet to emerge from Northern Ireland, The Faloorie Man traces the early years of Martin McBride, a young Catholic boy growing up on the streets of post-war Belfast. Stark, funny, at times heart-wrenching, Martins coming of age story is set against sectarian division. As he emerges from the cocoon of his family, he faces an uncertain world: the shocking discovery of the difference between boys and girls, the unprovoked fighting on the schoolyard, the torture of education, the doubtful pleasure of illicit sex, and the accidental discovery of a darkly hidden truth.

McEldowney, Eugene

Contemporary

Denis Lipman left London’s East End for Washington, DC more than 20 years ago, but made an annual pilgrimage year after year to visit aging parents, a pair of cantankerous, real-life Cockneys. He endured the visits as best he could. Enter an American wife. Not content with a grin-and-bear-it attitude, she declares that since the trip to England was inevitable, then it was to be enjoyed: see things, go places! Against his will, our expat becomes a tourist in his homeland and discovers it’s not so bad after all, certainly better than remembered! Here is a travel memoir more carbolic than bucolic. Discover a place where the sun doesn’t always shine, where going to the loo can be an adventure, and where canned beans on toast is a cornerstone of cuisine. Taste the real East End and tour with a colorful group as they rent cottages, host outrageous relatives, meet the locals and discover the English countryside.

A Yank Back to England: The Prodigal Tourist Returns

Travel

Lipman, Denis

Europe

When the award-winning Irish Times’ journalist Rosita Boland was a schoolgirl she had? in common with all Irish children?a map of Ireland. Iconic in its pinks, greens and yellows, the Educational Company map was a staple of the Irish schoolhouse. As the author matured and changed, so did the unique country she grew to know first-hand. With deep affection and curiosity, she followed her very own map from those by-gone schooldays to take the reader on a tour of Ireland, a tour like no other. In 32 colorful essays, Rosita visits each of the counties on the island and brings back tales so unusual that they could only be of Ireland.’ This is not your ordinary travel guide! From the monkey who crash-landed an American B-17 en route from Marrakesh to the French mausoleum in Monivea; from Europe’s most westerly , and windiest weather station to the Tayto factory in Armagh, this delightful book promises a most unusual, and engaging, exploration of a mad and marvelous land.

A Secret Map of Ireland

Boland, Rosita

A powerful novel from one of Ireland's best writers on the turbulent birth of a nation, and the lovers it divides. A terrific novel. Moving and hugely entertaining.” - Roddy Doyle Ireland 1945. Young and beautiful, Iz begins a life on the south-east coast with her new husband. As she settles in to try and make her life by the sea, circumstances that have brought Iz to Monument are shrouded in mystery. The war in Europe is over, and change is about to brush away the old order. Soaring across the decades that follow Ireland’s newly won independence, sweeping across the fierce class issues and battles over land ownership that once defined Irish society, The Sea and the Silence is an epic love story set inside the fading grandeur of the Anglo-Irish class.

The Sea and the Silence

CUNNINGHAM, Peter

United States

  The adopted daughter of loving parents, Zara Phillips nonetheless felt out of place in her family and a misfit in the world around her. Although cherished by a well-meaning mother and father, she grew up feeling deeply insecure and alone, consumed by a void she found impossible to fill. Isolation led to alienation, yet her talent brought her to the center of the thriving London rock ‘n’ roll scene of the 1980s. Her downward spiral fueled by its lifestyle, Zara became lost in drugs, alcohol and destructive relationships. An intense search for the truth of her birth led to an awakening and successful recovery. Yet, it was her experience of becoming a mother that revealed what being an adopted person really meant to her. For the first time, she gained deep understanding and compassion for both her birth mother and her adoptive mother and was able to start the healing process. The tale of Zara’s search for her birth mother and her path to health is riveting, as are the stories of many people sharing her past. Zara’s activism for adoptee rights springs from a very personal passion. Mother Me is a brave and compelling memoir that illuminates the lifelong impact of adoption on every member of the “adoption triad”—adoptee, birth mother and adoptive mother—as well as the families of each.  

Mother Me: An Adopted Woman's Journey to Motherhood

Parenting & Relationships

Phillips, Zara H.

Adoption

In the repressive Fifties, an outsider in an impoverished, tightly knit Dublin community defies the odds to live her dream of independence. Until very recently, if a woman became pregnant out of marriage in Ireland, her future was grim. The child was usually taken away, often sold to America; the woman was incarcerated in a convent, one of the infamous “laundries,” and everything was swept under the carpet. Young, pregnant and alone, the unlikely heroine of The Lane devises a remarkable strategy and employs a fair amount of courage to take a different path. Not only does Kate sidestep scandal, she manages to keep her child and support them both, feats unheard of in Ireland of the day. The place is as important as the story. Tucked behind major roads, rows of squat cottages were built to house workers in the very heart of Dublin. What these neighborhoods lacked in amenities they made up for in fraternity. Our girl Kate, now the mysterious wife of an absent husband, becomes ensconced in the Redmond Cottages (a real place that has since been demolished) on the lane off Bath Avenue (a road that has survived.) Her nurse’s training and her small son endear her to the close clan on the lane, including a reclusive old man, who shares his own secrets with this brave young woman. It seems all the characters in The Lane go to extraordinary lengths to fit into Irish society. But, more astonishing, they go even farther for love. In the tradition of Maeve Binchy, The Lane paints a clear and poignant picture of Dublin in the Fifties; its people, their hardships and their humor. The Lane draws a sharp line under the restrictions on Irish women and shows how one woman prevailed.

The Lane: A Young Woman's Tale in the Heart of Dublin

Rooney Hitzenbuhler, Maura

Literary

A final novel from the beloved Irish writer, Nuala O'Faolain. Best Love, Rosie, she said, "...is the book of my years of commuting between the melancholy of Ireland and the optimism of America.” Like many a modern, well-travelled woman, Rosie has lived a fascinating life, full of adventure and the pleasure of many lovers in her younger years. Now, facing the challenges of middle-age, she finds the things that defined her most --- work, love, independence --- begin to fail her. She comes home to Ireland to care for her elderly aunt Min, trapped by circumstances in sleepy Dublin. But when an opportunity arises to visit New York again, the story takes an unexpected turn... Published to rave reviews last fall in France, Best Love, Rosie became an instant bestseller in Ireland, where it was published in May 2009 to mark the first anniversary of Nuala’s death. This posthumous novel is bittersweet, giving us one last look through those fierce eyes at aging, death, relationships and, as always, love.

Best Love, Rosie

O'Faolain, Nuala

Women's Fiction

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