Island Of Hope

A story of those who entered the new world through Ellis Island in their own words.

A gripping supernatural mystery for fans of John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos from the author of Snakeskins. Workaholic TV news producer Nina Scaife is determined to fight for her daughter, Laurie, after her partner Rob walks out on her. She takes Laurie to visit Rob's parents on the beautiful but remote Hope Island, to prove to her that they are still a family. But Rob's parents are wary of Nina, and the islanders are acting strangely. And as Nina struggles to reconnect with Laurie, the silent island children begin to lure her daughter away. Meanwhile, Nina tries to resist the scoop as she is drawn to a local artists' commune, the recently unearthed archaeological site on their land, and the dead body on the beach...

Provides information about the immigration station in New York harbor, along with fictionalized accounts of the people who came through or worked there.

There existed an island of crystalline sand, palm trees, exotic birds, and beautiful flowers. It was an island of solitude and repose, of escape. It was his island, his alone, enduring only in the abyss of Delvin's mind. She was Glory. Beautiful, sweet, dead Glory. Their lives intertwined-her death, his innocence-linked by the hands of a cold-blooded murderer. But somehow she lived, on the invisible island, in the mind of a complete stranger, and the magic of this island enabled her to teach Delvin about the persistence of hope in a hopeless world. It was on this Island of Hope that young Delvin learned to live life, even though it wasn't his life to live. His youthful goals had been to escape the odds most of his peers faced, those of young black men. He'd once dreamed of defeating these odds that guaranteed turmoil, violence, hopelessness. But now his dreams were locked away in a prison cell, the result of a crime he hadn't committed. This is the story of his demoralizing ordeal, his vacillations between hope and despair, and his eventual resurrection. This heartfelt story hopes to teach us about the unpredictability of life and about the perseverance of hope. As Herman Melville once said, "Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable and attesting her eternity."

With thousands of migrants attempting the perilous maritime journey from North Africa to Europe each year, transnational migration is a defining feature of social life in the Mediterranean today. On the island of Sicily, where many migrants first arrive and ultimately remain, the contours of migrant reception and integration are frequently animated by broader concerns for human rights and social justice. Island of Hope sheds light on the emergence of social solidarity initiatives and networks forged between citizens and noncitizens who work together to improve local livelihoods and mobilize for radical political change. Basing her argument on years of ethnographic fieldwork with frontline communities in Sicily, anthropologist Megan Carney asserts that such mobilizations hold significance not only for the rights of migrants, but for the material and affective well-being of society at large.

The family of Rebekah Levinsky emigrates from Russia and settles in New York City, hoping their dreams will come true. But instead of finding streets paved with gold, they find they must work seven days a week in a sweatshop simply to survive. Will Rebekah conquer the odds and find happiness?

"The story of the tiny island, located fifty kilometers downstream from the port of Quebec, which served as a quarantine station for more than four million people en route to Canada between 1832 and 1937."

A groundbreaking account of how Britain became the base of operations for the exiled leaders of Europe in their desperate struggle to reclaim their continent from Hitler, from the New York Times bestselling author of Citizens of London and Those Angry Days When the Nazi blitzkrieg rolled over continental Europe in the early days of World War II, the city of London became a refuge for the governments and armed forces of six occupied nations who escaped there to continue the fight. So, too, did General Charles de Gaulle, the self-appointed representative of free France. As the only European democracy still holding out against Hitler, Britain became known to occupied countries as “Last Hope Island.” Getting there, one young emigré declared, was “like getting to heaven.” In this epic, character-driven narrative, acclaimed historian Lynne Olson takes us back to those perilous days when the British and their European guests joined forces to combat the mightiest military force in history. Here we meet the courageous King Haakon of Norway, whose distinctive “H7” monogram became a symbol of his country’s resistance to Nazi rule, and his fiery Dutch counterpart, Queen Wilhelmina, whose antifascist radio broadcasts rallied the spirits of her defeated people. Here, too, is the Earl of Suffolk, a swashbuckling British aristocrat whose rescue of two nuclear physicists from France helped make the Manhattan Project possible. Last Hope Island also recounts some of the Europeans’ heretofore unsung exploits that helped tilt the balance against the Axis: the crucial efforts of Polish pilots during the Battle of Britain; the vital role played by French and Polish code breakers in cracking the Germans’ reputedly indecipherable Enigma code; and the flood of top-secret intelligence about German operations—gathered by spies throughout occupied Europe—that helped ensure the success of the 1944 Allied invasion. A fascinating companion to Citizens of London, Olson’s bestselling chronicle of the Anglo-American alliance, Last Hope Island recalls with vivid humanity that brief moment in time when the peoples of Europe stood together in their effort to roll back the tide of conquest and restore order to a broken continent. Praise for Last Hope Island “In Last Hope Island [Lynne Olson] argues an arresting new thesis: that the people of occupied Europe and the expatriate leaders did far more for their own liberation than historians and the public alike recognize. . . . The scale of the organization she describes is breathtaking.”—The New York Times Book Review “Last Hope Island is a book to be welcomed, both for the past it recovers and also, quite simply, for being such a pleasant tome to read.”—The Washington Post “[A] pointed volume . . . [Olson] tells a great story and has a fine eye for character.”—The Boston Globe