Ridgway Public Library

Written by a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, this is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within. With disarming honesty and...

"As a park ranger with the National Park Service's law enforcement team, Andrea Lankford led search and rescue missions in some of the most beautiful (and dangerous) landscapes across America, from Yosemite to the Grand Canyon. But though she had the support of the agency, Andrea grew frustrated with the service's bureaucratic idiosyncrasies, and left the force after twelve years. Two decades later, however, she stumbles across a mystery that pulls...

"In over a decade of working with veterans, Johnny Joey Jones has discovered the power of battle-forged friendships. Suffering a life-changing injury while deployed in Afghanistan, he faced a daunting recovery. But coming home would have been much harder without the support of his brothers and sisters in arms. In Unbroken Bonds of Battle, Joey tells the stories of those very warriors, who for years have supported and inspired him on the battlefield...

"Why would a mother ever abandon her child? And is an abandoned child destined to grow up and make the same mistake? These were some of Melissa Cistaro's questions after her mother drove off without explanation one summer. Decades later Melissa finds herself at her dying mother's bedside with 6 days to find answers, fearful that she could do the same to her own little girl. Then she discovers a cache of letters her mother wrote but never sent and...

Like the men whose epic stories Jon Krakauer has told in his previous bestsellers, Pat Tillman was an irrepressible individualist and iconoclast. In May 2002, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the United States Army. He was deeply troubled by 9/11, and he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in southeastern Afghanistan. Though...

"The King is dead. The Walrus is shot. The Greatest is no more. Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Muhammad Ali. These three icons changed not only the worlds of music, film, and sports, but the world itself. Their faces were known everywhere, in every nation, across every culture. And their stories became larger than life-until their lives spun out of control at the hands of those they most trusted. In Killing the Legends, Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard...

Drawing on journal entries, letters, and song lyrics to evoke the courage and spirit of female pioneers, a collection of portraits traces the lives of such individuals as Amelia Stewart Knight, Miriam Colt, and Clara Brown.

In the summer of 1776, Washington's army in Brooklyn and New York City faced one of the largest invading forces ever assembled by the British Empire. After suffering a series of devastating defeats, Washington's vulnerable and dejected troops were forced to evacuate the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Three weeks later, however, near the Canadian border, one of his favorite and most talented generals accomplished a tactical miracle by stalling the...

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. Shewas shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from...

An account of the 1963 death of the author's father describes how her mother, three sisters, and she were financially dependent on her father's wages and how their loss and Catholic faith resonated the experiences of the nation.