During the Depression, the motion picture industry spun timeless fantasies of romance and adventure through the silvery images of its glamorous stars. The movie theatre was a house of dreams; a place of refuge for a population struggling with economic hardship and emotional despair. We continue to study and adulate the icons of Hollywood's golden era, but what do we know of the lives of the hard-working, middle class people that made Los Angeles a unique and thriving community? My Father Was A Bit Player gives us an engaging glimpse into that other, and far more real, Hollywood of the past. In 1933, Joe Cunningham, a struggling Philadelphia journalist, got his shot at realizing the Hollywood dream. Hired as a screenwriter at Fox Studios, he was confident that he had a lucrative and secure future in the movie business when he moved his large family to California. However, when his contract was not renewed, his ambitions were redesigned by necessity. The family's fortunes consequently began to rise and fall as Cunningham strove to carve a professional niche as a character actor, while continuing his freelance writing career. In this way he kept his lively family afloat and on the fringes of the exciting entertainment industry. In My Father Was A Bit Player, Joe Cunningham's daughter, Joan, remembers her extraordinary childhood with a clear eye and a fond heart. She writes with beautiful clarity and graceful humor to relate her recruitment to attend Shirley Temple's fifth birthday party; how she came to witness the legendary back lot burning of Atlanta, and what it was like to cheer her own dad's larger-than-life appearances on the big screen. My Father Was A Bit Player vividly evokes a childhood experience that is uniquely American. Joan Cunningham transports us to a time and place that continues to captivate us, as she tells the compelling life story of a man who was far more intriguing than any character he depicted on film.

My Father Was a Bit Player

Cunningham, Joan M.

Humor & Entertainment

Cune

When Arab Spring swept the region, Syria s President Bashar al-Asad thought that he was safe. Over the previous five years, the moderate opposition had been crushed. Unlike Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya, Syria had taken an anti-US stance since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Syrians were used to living under sanctions and being called terrorists. Asad told Brad and Angelina that he did not need personal security, because ordinary Syrians were protecting him. The Syrian president was convinced that Syrians loved him. And not only Syrians. Vogue agreed in its March 2011 puff piece that described Asad's wife as a "rose in the desert. "What of Syrian naysayers? Asad counted on his ruthless and all-seeing mukhabarat to keep them in line.

Syria - a Decade of Lost Chances: Repression and Revolution from Damascus Spring to Arab Spring

History

Wieland, Carsten

Middle East

Curse of the Achille Lauro: A Tribute to Lost Souls

Abu al-Abbas was one of Yasser Arafat s top generals. His name is forever linked to an operation in 1985 that sparked an international crisis: the hijacking of an Italian cruise liner named the Achille Lauro and the death of Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly American tourist. This memoir by the wife of Abu al-Abbas recalls an era of Palestinian resistance, the hard realities of a cause that faced impossible odds, and the irony that the death of a single man should outweigh all arguments of right and wrong.From a preview of Curse of the Achille Lauro:Abu al-Abbas told his wife . . . that his intention was to carry out an honorable operation against the Israeli Army . . . . I wanted them to reach Ashdod: not to fight the passengers on board (the Achille Lauro). (Abu al-Abbas) was to be haunted by the crime for the rest of his life. And when he died mysteriously in US custody in a Baghdad prison camp after America s 2003 invasion, all the world remembered of Al-Abbas was a crippled man called Leon Klinghoffer. No-one cared how an apparently healthy man would die in American hands.- Robert Fisk, The Independent

Reem al-Nimer

The Stage Warriors are women from around the world who use theater to talk about war, politics, crime, abuse, and violence in nations where these subjects are taboo. The interviews in this book explain why these women launch drama onto troubled waters, who they help, and the importance of their work. Beyond the boundaries of poverty, religion, and intolerance these women use theater to broaden citizen participation, bring focus and energy, and reshape national identity. Through the shows and workshops they create, the Warriors are finding ways to help the disenfranchised exert power in education, politics, the economy, and the home.

Stage Warriors: Women on the Front Lines of Dangerous Drama

Arts & Photography

Sarah Imes Borden

Performing Arts

When parents send their children to school, they are trusting teachers and administrators with their most precious treasure. Sad to say, that trust is betrayed all too often. What can we say when well-known, elite and very expensive private schools promise an education that sharpens the mind, strengthens the body, and uplifts the soul--only to afflict some students with regret, pain, and shame that can last a lifetime or even drive a student to suicide? Stephen Fife has written a compelling, soul-baring narrative of his experience of education and abuse at the prestigious Horace Mann School in New York City. He also provides practical advice to parents who wish to protect their children and to recognize the signs of disturbance when abuse may be taking place. The sad truth is that every secondary school in the country, at least to some degree, presents a risk of teacher-student abuse. We need to have the courage to encourage our children to leave the family nest. Yet we also need to exercise due diligence, to recognize the warning signs when our children are in trouble, and to understand situations that are structured in such a way that a tragic outcome is all too likely. Stephen Fife's story stimulates thought and pulls at the heart. And yet it also provides practical wisdom that will be of immeasurable help to concerned parents.

13th Boy: A Memoir of Education & Abuse

Biographies & Memoirs

Stephen Fife

Regional U.S.

The 13th Boy: A Memoir of Education and Abuse

These poems were originally written when I was between the ages of 15-18 or 22-27. I m now sixty and have a much different world-view and sense of self than I did then. In a few cases, this has resulted in my making some significant changes to a poem such as The Hobo, in which an entire stanza is new and some of the language is retouched, because in going back to it now, with all my subsequent experience of being an outsider in hard times, it simply resonated with me on a completely new level. I mean, the idea of poverty still had lots of romantic appeal to me at 16; at 60, after years of struggling to make the rent, not so much. Questions may arise, I suppose, about why I stopped writing poetry at 18 for four years and then stopped again for almost 35 years; and then why go back to these poems now? Most of the answers are contained in the memoir I recently finished writing, THE 13th BOY, which details the destructive relationships I had with my two high school poetry teachers at Horace Mann. One teacher in particular drove me to the brink of suicide, and I had to stop writing for those four years in order to preserve my sanity. I had a Federal poetry grant when I was 25, which allowed me to support myself for 18 months while continuing to write and give poetry readings. The end of the grant coincided with my getting married. Needing money, I turned away from poetry to other forms of writing that I hoped would provide me with a living wage. I had originally gone back to these screams into the canyon of oblivion in order to compile one volume of selected poems. But the more I worked on them, the more I found that they divided into two separate mindsets: these poems, which are more urban and experiential in nature; and others which I have grouped together in a companion volume titled DREAMING IN THE MAZE OF LOVE-GRIEF-MADNESS, and which tended to be more philosophical.

Twisted Hipster: Poetry by Stephen Fife

Do Americans live in a land of freedom and equality where people with vision, brains, and a strong work ethic can have rewarding lives? Or is ours a society where well-being, dignity, and independence are reserved for a narrow elite? Bitter Is the Wind is a coming of age novel that traces the lives of George Johnson Jr. and his father from the rural blue-collar landscape of upstate New York in the 1970s to the halls of Wharton Business School and the heights of Wall Street. After a tragedy strengthens their familial bond, the Johnsons contend with assembly line monotony and unfulfilled dreams of baseball stardom, and they learn what it means to be tempted, trapped, jailed, and ignored by a seemingly uncaring God. First time novelist Jim McDermott opens a window on the American working class and its aching desire for financial security, recognition, and respect. His characters confront a modern world with limited possibilities, ambiguous mores, and authorities who seem devoted to keeping the brightest and most talented members of the underclass on the other side of town. Bitter Is the Wind is a deft and timely deconstruction of the American Dream.

Bitter is the Wind

McDermott, Jim

The guns in Aleppo have fallen silent and the eastern part of the city is now rubble. Former east-end residents are gone and the streets are empty. In the meantime, Aleppo's UN-designated World Heritage Site has been damaged or destroyed. Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. How can Syria, and the world, recover this one-of-a-kind treasure? If the war of bombs and bullets and the parallel social war of one Syrian against another are to be resolved and the country rebuilt, Syrians will need to remember the ancient cultural touchstones that belong to every Syrian. This is the message of Aleppo-native Khaldoun Fansa, the author, and the illustrator Abdalla Asaad who lives in nearby Homs. Visit the Old City of Aleppo is Fansa s effort to remind fellow Syrians of their unique culture and to create a rallying point for Syrians and their friends all over the world who want to heal the divisions and to rebuild the country. Royalties from sales will be donated to restoration and relief efforts. If Syria is to be restored, the international community needs to value Aleppo and other one-of-a-kind Syrian treasures. Visit the Old City of Aleppo is a children's book for adults . . . as well as children. This book brings alive Aleppo s ancient city in a story set just before the troubles began in 2011. It tells of Tamim, a boy who visits Aleppo's historic neighborhoods. Of greater interest to adults, the author also provides historical sketches of the city and color illustrations and photographs, both historical and contemporary. Author Khaldoun Fansa is an Aleppo native and an architect who was active in many preservation projects in the Old City of Aleppo, and who looks forward to the city's restoration. Illustrator Abdalla Asaad is an illustrator and college professor who has lived through the devastation of Homs and has equal hopes for his home city. Visit the Old City of Aleppo is a valuable resource for everyone interested in the world's historic treasure cities . . . and for readers with heart who want to help in the restoration of Syrian civil society.

Visit the Old City of Aleppo: Come with Tamim to a World Heritage Site

Khaldoun Fansa

In the Middle East under Ottoman rule Freemasonry was tolerated, emerging in the ancient city of Damascus as early as 1868 and continuing under colonial rule. In 1941, after Hitler's occupation of Paris, the Vichy French outlawed Freemasonry in all French territory and colonies. During World War II in Syria, Freemasonry emerged as Vichy control weakened and it continued to exist until it was outlawed by Syria's Baath regime in 1965, two years after they took power. East of the Grand Umayyad is the story of Damascus Freemasonry from 1868 until 1965. It shows how the crème-de-la-crème of Syrian society were Freemasons, men such as Fares al-Khoury and Abdul Rahman Shahbandar (leaders of the anti-colonial movement). This book shows how they contributed to the building of their societies through scholarly work in an academic setting, politics, industry, and philanthropy.

East of the Grand Ummayad: Freemasons in Damascus 1868-1965

Sami Moubayed

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Books by Cune