Secret Garden Books

On Their Own: Women Journalists and the American Experience in VietnamIn a series of overlapping biographies about a central group of women who invented themselves as war correspondents, this book tells a gripping yet largely unknown story of perseverance and triumph. With its portraits of Gloria Emerson, ... (more)Frances FitzGerald, Kate Webb, and Beverly Deepe, among others, women who covered the war are, at last, woven in the tapestry of Vietnam-era history. On Their Own fuses cultural history, journalism history, and women's history into a compelling narrative. Joyce Hoffmann, an award-winning author and journalist, is on the faculty at Old Dominion University and is public editor of the Virginian Pilot. She lives in Norfolk.Discussion and Book Signing, Wednesday, August 13 at 6 p.m.

The subtitle is: How to Handle the Most Exasperating Behavior of Your 2 to 5 Year OldBring your thorniest questions to ask these experts, and some lifesaving, no-nonsense advice will ensue!About the authors: Michelle Nicholasen, an award-winning filmmaker for Frontline and Nova, gave up her career in ... (more)2004 to raise five children under the age of five. After a two-year battle with infertility, she “hit the IVF jackpot.” Michelle gave birth to her first daughter in 2001, and when she and her husband tried for a second child, she became pregnant with triplets. And when her triplet daughters were ten months old, Michelle became spontaneously (and impossibly!) pregnant with her fifth child, a boy. Michelle survived an intense learning curve in child-raising and decided to put all her little-kid behavior strategies into a book to give a leg-up to other moms and dads. Barbara O’Neal has worked with preschool-aged children, teachers and families for more than forty years in the capacity of Educational Director, parent consultant and teacher trainer. She has co-directed the Arlington Children’s Center of Arlington, Massachusetts, for thirty years. Barbara is the mother of three children, and also has three grandchildren.Michelle Nicholasen's blog can be found here.

All the Whitney women can read the future in a piece of lace. But Towner Whitney has vowed never to use her gift––and never to return to Salem––after a terrible tragedy involving her twin sister, Lyndley, nearly left her mad. But her resolve is tested when her beloved Great Aunt Eva, Salem’s ... (more)original Lace Reader, disappears and Towner must return to the place that has been her family’s home for generations, the only place where she can find the truth about her aunt’s disappearance and her own disquieting past. But as one mystery is solved, another begins as a troubled and abused young woman named Angela disappears from Salem, a disappearance that could possibly be linked to a born-again preacher with deep ties to the Whitney clan and a cult-like following frighteningly reminiscent of a far earlier time. With the infamous and history-laden town of Salem, Massachusetts as a backdrop, this remarkable first-time author has created a modern community of fascinating characters whose ties to each other and the past are also inextricably bound to what a time and place have come to represent culturally as part of our national identity. The Lace Reader is a mesmerizing tale which spirals into a world of secrets as difficult to read as the lace itself. It is also an important story about the love of family, the bond between women, the mystery of twins, and the ever-present danger of the past repeating itself. The Lace Reader has been chosen as a Dual Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. The book's own website is here.

"A divorced mother's funny, chatty, revealing take on Splitsville-with just enough anguish and sadness to be utterly believable...An unexpected treat here is a vivid portrait of the author's thrice-married, utterly nonmaternal but generous mother...Women going through the pain and turmoil of separation ... (more)and divorce will appreciate Nestor's candor and wit. Not another slick how-to, but a comforting reminder that life goes on after the spouse is gone." --Kirkus.Check out the author's site here. Join us for a reading and book launch party!

"In the well-written, laugh-out-loud, self-deprecating spirit of Bill Bryson's A Walk In The Woods, and Nora Ephron's When Harry Met Sally, Dan White takes us along for a walk on the wild side of adventure and love. I could not put it down." - - Eric Blehm, National Outdoor Book Award winning author ... (more)of The Last Season.Dan White's humorous and heartfelt memoir, The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost my Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Coast Trail tracks the journey of Dan and his girlfriend, two inexperienced hikers, as they take on the challenging 2650 mile trail from Mexico to Canada.Dan White is a journalist, explorer, and author whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Backpacker. He received his MFA from Columbia University and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is his first book.Check out Dan White's blog here.

He was unemployed, seemingly aimless, and 10 years younger than she. Definitely not boyfriend material. She’d come out to the bar with friends that night fully prepared to end up on their couch, but there she was, leaving the bar with him, going back to his place, finding a condom, and realizing the ... (more)next morning that it had stayed, unopened, on the floor. At 39, intellectual, solo-flying, and nearly broke, Mary Pols got pregnant.Despite many obstacles--not the least of which is the shock of her Irish Catholic family--Mary perseveres and even manages to create a true friendship with the father of her child. With wry and funny prose, Mary takes us from the first drunken night to the first diaper change in this hip and honest story of unconventional motherhood.Mary Pols is a film critic for several Bay Area papers, including the Contra-Costa Times and Oakland Tribune. She was a Knight Fellow at Stanford in 2005-2006 and teaches part-time at U.C. Berkeley. Her son Dolan is nearly four years old.