Kirjahaku

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist recalls his youth in the impoverished mountain region of Virginia, New Jersey suburbia, and Depression-shadowed Baltimore and details his mother's struggle to educate and make something of her family

Russell Baker's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography about growing up in America during the Great Depression. "Magical....He has taken such raw, potentially wrenching material and made of it a story so warm, so likable, and so disarmingly funny...a work of original biographical art."--The New York Times In this heartfelt memoir, groundbreaking Pulitzer-winning New York Times columnist Russell Baker traces his youth from the backwoods mountains of Virginia to a New Jersey commuter town to the Depression-shadowed landscape of Baltimore. His is a story of adversity and courage, the poignancy of love and the awkwardness of sex, of family bonds and family tensions. We meet the people who influenced Baker's early life: his strong and loving mother, his bold little sister Doris, the awesome matriarch Ida Rebecca and her twelve sons. Here, too, are schoolyard bullies, great teachers, and the everyday heroes and heroines of the Depression who faced disaster with good cheer as they tried to muddle through. A modern day classic filled with perfect turns of phrase and traces of quiet wisdom, Growing Up is a coming of age story that is "the stuff of American legend" (The Washington Post Book World).

Gage and Roena Prescott are a couple that are literally from two different worlds. Gage is from earth. Roena is a purple-skinned woman from Lunitin with telepathic powers. Although very much in love, their marriage is a dangerous one. Earth and Lunitin have been at war for centuries. Knowing that their marriage has gotten them branded as traitors by both their worlds, Gage and Roena flee to the neutral system of Braxitar, a place where the war is not allowed and those fleeing the war may seek refuge. Enjoying their honeymoon and making plans for their future in the Braxitar sector, Gage and Roena believe they are safe. But their illusions are shattered when a ruthless bounty hunter named Tripar arrives to take them back for trial and execution. Gage and Roena flee, hoping to lose themselves in the crowd on board the space station until security can capture Tripar. But the bounty hunter proves more resourceful than they could have imagined. As Tripar closes in on them, they are left to wonder if even a place where war is outlawed is safe from the war.