A Witness To Life

“A beautiful novel” of life and death, past and present, and the thin lines that lie between them (The Toronto Star). On a streetcar, on Christmas Day, 1950, clutching the chrome rail in front of him, Martin Radey looks at the woman seated beside him, a stranger, and utters his last words: “I can’t breathe.” Like millions, billions before him, it is his turn to die. But death is not what he expected. The journey has only begun. From 1880 to 1950, time happens to the world around him, not to memory, because memory, he discovers, is beyond time, traveling forward with him, shaping the earth, the sky, the heart. The prequel to the widely celebrated Shadow of Ashland, A Witness to Life “is an emotionally charged experience that will not soon be forgotten.” (Dallas Morning News)

"À la Tara Westover's Educated, Scorah's pensive, ultimately liberating memoir chronicles her formative years as a Jehovah's Witness...and captures the bewilderment of belief and the bliss of self-discovery."--O, The Oprah Magazine, Named one of "The Best Books by Women of Summer 2019" "Scorah's book, the bravery of which cannot be overstated, is an earnest one, fueled by a plucky humor and a can-do spirit that endears. Her tale, though an exploration of extremity, is highly readable and warm."--The New York Times Book Review A riveting memoir of losing faith and finding freedom while a covert missionary in one of the world's most restrictive countries. A third-generation Jehovah's Witness, Amber Scorah had devoted her life to sounding God's warning of impending Armageddon. She volunteered to take the message to China, where the preaching she did was illegal and could result in her expulsion or worse. Here, she had some distance from her community for the first time. Immersion in a foreign language and culture--and a whole new way of thinking--turned her world upside down, and eventually led her to lose all that she had been sure was true. As a proselytizer in Shanghai, using fake names and secret codes to evade the authorities' notice, Scorah discreetly looked for targets in public parks and stores. To support herself, she found work at a Chinese language learning podcast, hiding her real purpose from her coworkers. Now with a creative outlet, getting to know worldly people for the first time, she began to understand that there were other ways of seeing the world and living a fulfilling life. When one of these relationships became an "escape hatch," Scorah's loss of faith culminated in her own personal apocalypse, the only kind of ending possible for a Jehovah's Witness. Shunned by family and friends as an apostate, Scorah was alone in Shanghai and thrown into a world she had only known from the periphery--with no education or support system. A coming of age story of a woman already in her thirties, this unforgettable memoir examines what it's like to start one's life over again with an entirely new identity. It follows Scorah to New York City, where a personal tragedy forces her to look for new ways to find meaning in the absence of religion. With compelling, spare prose, Leaving the Witness traces the bittersweet process of starting over, when everything one's life was built around is gone.

2020 Banff Mountain Book Competition Finalist in Mountain Literature Richard K. Nelson was the host of the national public radio series, "Encounters" Nelson was an anthropologist who lived with Alaska Native tribes and spoke both Inupiag and Koyukon Based on Nelson’s journals and interviews with Gary Snyder, Barry Lopez, Rick Bass, and others "He listened to his [Native Alaskan] teachers, immersed himself in their landscapes as a naturalist, and became, without intending to, a great teacher himself." --Barry Lopez, from the foreword Before his death in 2019, cultural anthropologist, author, and radio producer Richard K. Nelson’s work focused primarily on the indigenous cultures of Alaska and, more generally, on the relationships between people and nature. Nelson lived for extended periods in Athabaskan and Alaskan Eskimo villages, experiences which inspired his earliest written works, including Hunters of the Northern Ice In Raven’s Witness, Lentfer tells Nelson’s story--from his midwestern childhood to his first experiences with Native culture in Alaska through his own lifelong passion for the land where he so belonged. Nelson was the author of the bestselling The Island Within and Heart and Blood. The recipient of multiple honorary degrees and numerous literary awards, he regularly packed auditoriums when he spoke. His depth of experience allowed him to become an intermediary between worlds. This is his story. Find out more at www.ravenswitness.com, and learn how you can help bring this story to life here.

Offers a photographic journey of Margaret Bourke - white in India, one of the first women photojournalists, and covers the period from early spring 1946 to 1948.

In a dark back alley, Boone and Andre witness a violent murder, and agree not to mention it. But the killers have different ideas and come after Boone and his friends, killing two of them. Boone is desperate to save himself but realizes to do so he will need to face the violent act in his past that continues to haunt him. Told in Norah McClintock's trademark suspenseful style and with spare black-and-white illustrations from Mike Deas, this compelling graphic novel looks into the darkness and forces us to face our deepest fears.

Historian Sir John Wheeler-Bennett (1902–1975) was one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary political observers. Through an ability to make important connections, he became an authority on Germany in the interwar years and was acquainted with all the German hierarchy, including Hitler and Hindenburg. He was one of the last people to interview Trotsky, writing an important analysis of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1917. As King George VI’s official biographer, he met and interviewed the major leaders of the postwar period, including Churchill, Coolidge, Truman, and members of the British Royal Family. A teacher at the universities of New York, Virginia, and Arizona, he also briefly supervised young Jack Kennedy’s master’s thesis at Harvard. This first biography of Wheeler-Bennett will fascinate anyone interested in the great political figures of world history during the twentieth century.

This family saga that travels through time—from modern Toronto to Depression-era Kentucky—and explores how the ghosts of the past shape our history. Every family has its stories: joys and losses, hopes and regrets. For the family that populates these three novels, the secrets forgotten with the passing of years become suddenly accessible, as journeys through time unite loved ones across the decades. Shadow of Ashland: Leo Nolan’s mother shows him a rose just before she dies—and claims it was given to her by her brother, who disappeared fifty years earlier. Leo is sure it’s the delirium talking, the rambling of a sick and elderly woman. But after her death, letters from the same long-lost brother begin to arrive at the family home, postmarked 1934—plunging Leo into a journey that will take him all the way from Canada to Ashland, Kentucky, where he will walk through a window that leads to another time and world. A Witness to Life: This prequel focusing on Leo’s maternal grandfather, Martin Radey, and the chronology of his life “is an emotionally charged experience that will not be soon forgotten” (Dallas Morning News). St. Patrick’s Bed: In the final chapter to the Ashland Trilogy, a son of the next generation asks questions about his biological father and sets off along with Leo on a quest for his heritage and history. A highly acclaimed epic from “a special writer,” The Ashland Trilogy blends the fantastical and the real in a tale that will resonate with anyone who has yearned to know more about the generations who came before (The Globe and Mail).