Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions by Russyell Brand
Addiction can effect anyone and comes in all shapes and
sizes. Russell Brand shares his story of addiction in brutal honesty on how he
worked each of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in his life since his
recovery in 2002. A long lasting value
of this book is the author’s personal story, which makes it powerful and
incredibly engaging. This is a story of
hope against hopelessness and Brand is vulnerable, honest, compassionate as
well as funny in telling of his story.
From Addiction to Serenity by Vaughn W
Experience can be
the driver of teaching when a life purpose comes out of the abyss of
addiction. Vaughan, a world war II
veteran and Michigan native utilized his struggle of reaching sobriety as a
life career to share with others and help them understand the long road of
addiction and a path toward finding inner serenity. Utilizing personal experience, Vaughan
developed a recovery prototype, which became a prominent model at Marquette
General and St Mary’s hospital. Vaughn
celebrated 50 years of continuous sobriety and wrote this book in his
retirement years with a desire to show that there is still hope when facing an
uphill battle every day of your life.
Forged in Crisis by Nancy Koehn
For leaders in the
21st century, there is only one pressing question: What set of
skills are necessary to lead in a crisis? Does history have the answers?
Harvard Business School historian professor Nancy Koehn surveyed some of
history’s greatest leaders and made an incredible discovery: courageous leaders
are not born but made, and the power to lead resides in each of us. Leaders include Ernest Shackleton; Abraham
Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Rachel Carson.
Forged in Crisis is an insightful read that can teach anyone how to
develop remarkable leadership skills.
The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the
Vote by Elaine Weiss
A journalist by trade, Elaine Weiss weaves
the historical context on the political battle in the State of Tennessee in
1920 over the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US
Constitution. What strengthens the
narrative are the author’s minibiographies of primary characters in this
“furious campaign”—Carrie Chapman Catt (“it was [her] her life’s mission—to
guide American women to the promised land of political freedom”), Alice Paul,
Josephine Pearson, and Presidents Warren G. Harding and Woodrow Wilson—as well
as of the less-well-known players (mostly Tennessee politicians and lobbyists).
Pearson is the most visible of the women who opposed suffrage, believing that
it posed a danger “to the American family, white supremacy, states’ rights, and
cherished southern traditions.” Perhaps the most famous of the anti-suffragists
was reform-minded journalist Ida Tarbell, whom Weiss chronicles briefly. The
author clearly explains how the opposition by women—a stance that will surprise
some modern readers—derived partly from their desire to be sheltered from
politics, partly from the negative influence of men in their lives, and partly
from racism (providing ballots to white women would open the floodgates of
black women voters).
-Diana
Menhennick, Reference
Department
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