Akron Public Library

Chronicles the life of America's second president, including his youth, his career as a Massachusetts farmer and lawyer, his marriage to Abigail, his rivalry with Thomas Jefferson, and his influence on the birth of the United States.

The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely...

The author dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors he feels are responsible for history's broadest patterns

An insightful drama about one woman's drive and its emotional toll on her and her family. Grandma Kurnitz has endured many crises, ranging from a harsh childhood in Germany to being a young widow with six children in a foreign country. From her life she learned to be strong, hard, and cold, and this is the lesson she tries to instill in her four remaining children. While her two teenage grandsons are in her care, the three learn the importance of...

From the Blurb: This is the life-size portrait of a man of genius and an eccentric of unique proportions. Joseph Pulitzer revolutionized American journalism and exerted a powerful, progressive effect on American life. He did this by the force of a personality that was as admirable as it was outrageous. A Hungarian by birth, Joseph Pulitzer served briefly in the Civil War and then began his newspaper career in St. Louis. He started out penniless;...

"An old man lies dying. Propped up in his living room and surrounded by his children and grandchildren, George Washington Crosby drifts in and out of consciousness, back to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in Maine. As the clock repairer's time winds down, his memories intertwine with those of his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler and his grandfather, a Methodist preacher beset by madness. At once heartbreaking and life affirming,...

"For nearly the past quarter century, while most Americans were unaware, Afghanistan has been the playing field for intense covert operations by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies -- invisible wars that sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks and that provide its context. From the Soviet invasion in 1979 through the summer of 2001, the CIA, KGB, Pakistan's ISI, and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Department all operated directly and secretly...

The scandal that rocked Palm Beach - The real story

Three novels include two from the Snopes trilogy, "The Town," and "The Mansion," which portrays the downfall of the rapacious, cruel dynasty, and a lesser-known comic novel "The Reivers," which is set around a Memphis brothel