A Strange Place To Call Home

When Lenore de Quincy's father gives her the key to a bank box containing a fortune in cash and then dies, she realizes she is no longer under constraints to remain unhappily married. She abandons her husband, taking her daughter, Angela, with her from a provincial town in western Pennsylvania to the bright lights of Manhattan. A PLACE TO CALL HOME is a novel inspired by true stories set against the First World War, The Roaring Twenties, and the Great Depression. It centers around two well-to-do families joined by an arranged marriage. The action is seen through Angela's eyes as she struggles with the effects on her life of her parents' divorce, a thing viewed in the 1920's as scandalous and tragic. Her travels between New York City and her father's nurturing family in a coal-belt town near Pittsburgh provide humorous and nostalgic anecdotes about growing up in the America of that era. Mary Ellen Stelling was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1915 and lived in New York, Florida, North Carolina and Texas before settling in 1946 in Atlanta. For five years a feature columnist on the Women's Page of the Atlanta CONSTITUTION, she was a member of the Georgia Poetry Society and the Poetry Society of Texas. During the 1950's and 1960's, her work appeared in poetry journals in almost every state of the Union, and most newspapers of the time which featured verse published her poems. She was the wife of a successful retail executive and a dedicated mother who did all the usual time-consuming things to support her son's activities. Behind the scenes she worked as time allowed to create a richly humorous prose document portraying her childhood experiences. Those sketches written in the 1950's totaling about a hundred pages were the seeds which inspired this book. Mrs. Stelling passed away at the age of 82 in 1998. Peter James Stelling was born in Charlotte, NC, in 1943 and has spent most of his life in Atlanta. A graduate of Washington and Lee University and Grady College of the University of Georgia, he spent four years in advertising in New York before returning home to work for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and for two different firms specializing in Group Incentive Sales Travel and Meeting Planning. One of his most memorable work experiences was serving as road manager for a traveling symphony orchestra during the early years of Robert Shaw's tenure as their Music Director. Now a contentedly retired father of two and grandfather of four, he is grateful for having had the luxury of time to complete this unique family document. He remains an active supporter of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Opera, Trinity Presbyterian Church, and serves on the Board of Governors of the Vinings Club in suburban Atlanta.

A Place to Call Home is a story of refugees no community wanted to see anywhere close to them, as if they were good for nothing. It is an epic portrayal of a painful dilemma of thousands of homeless internally displaced persons (IDPs) who were victims of the highly contested and disputed presidential election. The novel is a true, tear-jerking reflection of a botched election in December 2007 and January 2008, which culminated into a postelection violence that brutally killed almost there thousand innocent people. Some were burned alive inside a church—“God’s territory” as they called—where they had taken safe haven. About seven hundred thousand people were forcibly removed from their homes; some took refuge at police stations, while others fled to neighboring countries to remain alive. Business premises, vehicles, and other properties worth billions of shillings were destroyed, and domestic animals were stolen. This spate of violence happened at a time when thousands of ethnic militias heavily armed with homemade crude weapons were chanting war slogans and singing traditional war songs everywhere in the country. Loyal to their respective presidential candidates, the militias roamed the streets of towns and villages, making every journey perilous. Enemies who got caught were beheaded, and their heads were paraded or displayed on the main highways. Women were seized and gang-raped by the militias and got infected with the deadly HIV-AIDS virus. Amazingly, communities turned their backs against the combined IDPs who were looking for a permanent settlement, calling them foreigners, invaders, or land grabbers in their own country. Breathing under such horrifying circumstances, all IDPs drawn from various tribes resolved to live together in peace and harmony and to prove to the world that they could live with people from other communities without any problem, in spite of their language and cultural barriers. The idea of living together was instilled in the IDPs by VP Nyandege, who emerged as the leading light in their plight and the quest for what they could call home. VP Nyandege won a special place in fellow IDPs’ hearts and made them believe that life was worth fighting for. For seven years, these IDPs have been living in squalid conditions or in makeshift camps, waiting to be settled as promised by the ruling elite. The IDPs lived in rough and ready dwellings with no food, water, toilet facilities, social amenities, or sanitation at all. They were living in a world of their own; no laws, rules, or culture to observe. The fate of these IDPs is reminiscent of the Jews when they lived in Europe and were rejected by people in all countries after World War II and consequently had no place to call their home. After seven years in isolated makeshift camps, the IDPs were offered land to settle on by the Biblical Good Samaritan to prove that tribal groups, once sworn enemies, could live together peacefully and harmoniously. And now these IDPs would like to build the country’s first utopia, the same way the Israelis have transformed the desert land of Israel into another biblical Promised Land of Canaan, the land of milk and honey. (This unfortunate event was disseminated throughout the world by the mass media.)

The shocking poignant story of eviction, expulsion, and the hard-scrabble fight for a home They are reviled. For centuries the Roma have wandered Europe; during the Holocaust half a million were killed. After World War II and during the Troubles, a wave of Irish Travellers moved to England to make a better, safer life. They found places to settle down – but then, as Occupy was taking over Wall Street and London, the vocal Dale Farm community in Essex was evicted from their land. Many did not leave quietly; they put up a legal and at times physical fight. Award-winning journalist Katharine Quarmby takes us into the heat of the battle, following the Sheridan, McCarthy, Burton and Townsley families before and after the eviction, from Dale Farm to Meriden and other trouble spots. Based on exclusive access over the course of seven years and rich historical research, No Place to Call Home is a stunning narrative of long-sought justice.

“Rarely will a book touch your heart like A Place to Call Home. So sit back, put up your feet, and enjoy.”—The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Twenty years ago, Claire Maloney was the willful, pampered, tomboyish daughter of the town's most respected family, but that didn’t stop her from befriending Roan Sullivan, a fierce, motherless boy who lived in a rusted-out trailer amid junked cars. No one in Dunderry, Georgia—least of all Claire’s family--could understand the bond between these two mavericks. But Roan and Claire belonged together . . . until the dark afternoon when violence and terror overtook them, and Roan disappeared from Claire's life. Now, two decades later, Claire is adrift, and the Maloneys are still hoping the past can be buried under the rich Southern soil. But Roan Sullivan is about to walk back into their lives. . . . By turns tender and sexy and heartbreaking and exuberant, A Place to Call Home is an enthralling journey between two hearts—and a deliciously original novel from one of the most imaginative and appealing new voices in Southern fiction. Praise for A Place to Call Home “A beautiful, believable love story.”—Chicago Tribune “For sheer storytelling virtuosity, Ms. Smith has few equals.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch “Enchanting new novel . . . a beautiful love story of reunion.”—The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC “Stylishly written, filled with Southern ease and humor.”—Tampa Tribune

Under the desert's cracked and barren skin, spadefoot toads are waiting for rain. In the endless black of the deepest caves, blind fish find their way. Even in the frozen hearts of glaciers, ice worms by the billion flourish. In this fascinating look at fourteen animals who defy the odds by thriving in Earth's most dangerous places, renowned poet Marilyn Singer and celebrated artist Ed Young show that of all the miracles of life, it is life's persistence that astounds the most.

Poems about fourteen animals who defy the odds by thriving in Earth's most dangerous places where they live.

A Place to Call Home? by Lynda Smith is set in 1936, a time between the two world wars, but Jacob’s story begins in 1905. He is a Russian Jewish immigrant whose parents and younger sister are desperate to escape the escalating danger of the Russian pogroms. They embark on a long, perilous sea journey and arrive in the northwest of England where, at the age of ten years, Jacob starts a new life in his adopted country. His ambition is to be a successful businessman, and he achieves that goal. His life becomes even more complicated when he falls in love with one of his female employees. They enter into an affair, resulting in the birth of a son, who is blissfully unaware that Jacob is his father. Torn between his loyalty to his wife and daughters, his deeply embedded Jewish roots, and his mistress and his son, Jacob is in constant turmoil about what to do so as to cause the least amount of hurt and pain to all the people he holds dear. The story takes into account the horror of the Great War, in which Jacob enlisted as a boy solider in 1916. Threaded throughout this story are the themes of socio-economic disparity, religious bigotry, ignorance, and anti-Semitism.

The two young sisters overheard a conversation between their parents as they discussed leaving Indiana for some unknown place called Arkansas. Carrie was filled with fear and apprehension, while Lillie was excited about the prospect of a new adventure. Neither of them knew what adventures and trials lay ahead for them as they traveled on a wagon train crossed a great river on a ferry and built a new life in a distant place. These adventures would prepare them for greater hardships later in life. Benjamin and Salina Street were well past fifty years of age when they left Indiana, traveled by wagon train and carved out a new life when they homesteaded land in north Arkansas as the nineteenth century was drawing to a close. This is their story.