Bøger udgivet af Rjhoops14

Refugees Among the Lines tells the story of two remarkable Americans who, after their college choices failed them, set out to reclaim their lives by rebuilding others' lives, to move past guilt and regret to purpose. Paul Garrity and Abby Archer serve as refugee workers in the most wretched and dangerous camps in the world between 1978 and 1985. Both former prisoners--Paul in Vietnam and Abby in California--they attempt to make sense of a conflicted world and repay a debt, one not necessarily of their own making.Volunteering with Catholic Relief Services to aid Vietnamese Boat People at the squalid refugee camps in Malaysia and Indonesia, Abby and Paul take on greater responsibilities and are hired by the United Nations HCR to help build and supervise camps along the perilous Thai-Cambodian border. Cambodians are desperately trying to survive a decade that began with an American bombing campaign and concluded in the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. From Southeast Asia, their journey takes them to Central America where right-wing death squads are slaughtering Maya and Moskito Indians, to the Gaza Strip where Palestinians are controlled by decades-long Israeli occupation, and back to Chicago's poorest neighborhoods.In the harsh world of Cold War regional conflicts that are unconcerned with the lives of the powerless and vulnerable, Paul's and Abby's commitment to ease the suffering of the unending lines of forgotten, desperate people is a tale of courage and inspiration.

Covid ambushes America just as the 2020 NCAA basketball tournaments are to begin. March Madness, the best event in all sports, is canceled before the first jump shot is taken. The San Joaquin Valley Sequoias, a team posed to make a deep run at the Big Dance, has its dream of glory dashed. Hoops and Seeds tells how one championship women's team from central California navigates The Pause led by a coach who envisions the Gold Ball not as a trophy but as life itself. As Americans die by the tens of thousands and the nation is torn apart by poisonous politics, Coach Molly Rascon invests her entire soul into shepherding her vulnerable ladies through the shadows until The Restart. It is a precarious journey during an unprecedented time.

At the height of the Cold War, just after President Reagan denounces the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire," a nuclear construction site in the Northern Urals vanishes, and a grandmother whose daughter works there struggles for understanding. Guided only by the instincts of her grandson, they set out on a journey of recovery across the two nations which lie at the heart of the Cold War. Their journey takes them to the mountains of Colorado in search of a man whom the grandson believes possesses the answers. There they meet a nuclear problem-solver with ties to the CIA, who also seeks answers. At the center of the mystery is a naval ensign who is currently classified as a deserter but who is also seeking answers. Capable of seeing what no longer exists, the grandson brings them all together at an abandoned mine near a restored church to discover the truths about the disaster.Laments for the Dead is a character-driven novel that looks backward and forward, hurtling the reader through a complex array of events that shaped three generations of Americans. It is the interplay between personal lives and a national crisis.