Warriors In Transition A Memoir In TwentyEight Stories Ellen Woods 9780989068253 Books
Download As PDF : Warriors In Transition A Memoir In TwentyEight Stories Ellen Woods 9780989068253 Books
This debut memoir "Warriors in TransitionA Memoir in Twenty-Eight Stories" is incisive, provocative and astute, unflinching in its revelation of a personal journey rooted in social realities of times past and present. Growing up in Indiana, Woods explores a child's reaction to racial hatred and the Ku Klux Klan with arresting simplicity, as well as her protection of her ill mother, the suicide of a first love, and midlife adoption and parenting. Coming of age during the sixties in Berkeley, her engagement with The Black Panther Party and The Women's Movement revive her childhood dreams of justice and change, yet are unsettling as she encapsulates tough truths. Her life's unfolding delivers to the reader losses and gifts, in full-bodied slice-of-life vignettes that command engagement with all the readers senses. Throughout, Divine guidance appears in the form of old souls, wise teachers, and nature.
Warriors In Transition A Memoir In TwentyEight Stories Ellen Woods 9780989068253 Books
Compelling autobiography, told in straightforward, honest voice, with unexpected scope -- moving from childhood innocence, as this little white girl first encounters the "unfair" of racism, through growing up in her times, make a "blood" pact with a friend to fight the Ku Klux Klan -- a child's gesture that bears fruit years later working with the Black Panthers. At every turn in this rich journey, there is palpable sense of grace --interventions that guide and strengthen her, a spiritual path unfolding. She becomes a legal secretary in Berkeley's first feminist law office, marries and enters the struggle to adopt when a child doesn't 'happen.' Her joyful embracing of motherhood deepens and shapes the last half of the story, along with her practice of Zen Buddhism where she begins to question her habit of "preparing for the worst." Her relationship with her daughter throws up unexpected challenges and her philosophy of mothering, her response to these curve balls, is inspiring -- the book, like its author, keeps getting deeper in insight and more gripping, By the end, this writer is a person I want to know -- I'm thanksful she has lived to tell the tale, and come to tell it so well.Product details
|
Tags : Warriors In Transition: A Memoir In Twenty-Eight Stories [Ellen Woods] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This debut memoir Warriors in Transition:A Memoir in Twenty-Eight Stories is incisive, provocative and astute,Ellen Woods,Warriors In Transition: A Memoir In Twenty-Eight Stories,Word Project Press,0989068250,Biography & Autobiography General,Biography Autobiography,Biography: general,General
People also read other books :
- More Spanish Vocabulary SparkNotes Study Cards SparkNotes Books
- Footnotes to an Autobiography A Collection of Original Poetry edition by Chris Julian Vanderslice Christian West Literature Fiction eBooks
- Ella Spanish Edition eBook H Rider Haggard
- 2011 Kia Soul Owners Manual Kia Books
Warriors In Transition A Memoir In TwentyEight Stories Ellen Woods 9780989068253 Books Reviews
I swallowed this collection of—what should they be called? they are memoir essays, but read like short stories—in a single gulp. Ellen Woods has a gift for drawing you into her experience with emotional immediacy, but then she can still surprise you at the end when the scene widens out to the perspective of wisdom. She has lived through the stirring events of a boomer's lifetime, and through the intimate challenges and rewards of family life. Her memoir makes for engaging reading on both levels.
Arranged chronologically, the stories move from Woods's early childhood into her sixties, telling a woman's story that is at once individual and universal. You read about childhood disillusionments and adult dilemmas, about love and loss, her professional and her spiritual journeys. Woods communicates in the straightforward terms of a friend sitting on your couch with a cup of tea, and her scenes are acutely observed and brought to vivid life. She tells what she knows, and the reader is the wiser for it.
A few of the essays lacked a feeling of resolution, but that just kept me moving on to find out what happened next. It’s curious to me that the title phrase, “warriors in transition,” comes from a euphemism, while the book is all about getting to the honest truth of things. Not sure what I think about that. The book deserved a better interior design than it got, with its recessive titles and oversize paragraph indents and folios, but that’s a quibble from the perspective of a publishing professional. I hope to read more from the pen of this late-blooming memoirist!
I found this engaging book difficult to put down. . . Visceral, moving, unnerving, fascinating (and very funny at times) but not self-indulgent as so many memoirs can be. Woods renders the fine tightrope of small and great moments of life into fascinating prose. A good memoirist enfolds new and caring companions into her life and provokes evocations of the reader's own life experiences -- Woods succeeds brilliantly at both.
What an enjoyable read! Lovely prose with both heart and understated humor.... The stories carried me along through adventures of coming of age, adoption, single parenthood, and personal growth. Very satisfying to follow the writer through so many life stages. Relatable and honest. Recommend highly.
Ellen Woods provides readers with an intimate sense of place, allowing us to walk alongside like a welcome friend. One of my favorite pieces is“Blood Sisters” in which the author describes the sounds and smells of a barn in close-up detail Fleet foot the horse’s “nostrils quivering and shiny with snot,” the barn’s “tangy smell of manure blended with the sweetness of hay, the dust it created tickling my throat.” Woods’ scene setting—observations from a child’s eyes—draws the reader into the year 1956 and the budding consciousness about racial hatred. The ritual performed and pact that Emma and the narrator make--proclaiming themselves as Freedom Sisters-- evoked memories of my own childhood, when entire utopic worlds were created in sandboxes and in the garages of suburban San Francisco homes, not unlike this barn near Bloomington, Indiana. Such universal insights, found in many of the stories in this collection, give hope to readers, for they are delivered with wisdom and a multi-faceted sense of spirituality.
Compelling autobiography, told in straightforward, honest voice, with unexpected scope -- moving from childhood innocence, as this little white girl first encounters the "unfair" of racism, through growing up in her times, make a "blood" pact with a friend to fight the Ku Klux Klan -- a child's gesture that bears fruit years later working with the Black Panthers. At every turn in this rich journey, there is palpable sense of grace --interventions that guide and strengthen her, a spiritual path unfolding. She becomes a legal secretary in Berkeley's first feminist law office, marries and enters the struggle to adopt when a child doesn't 'happen.' Her joyful embracing of motherhood deepens and shapes the last half of the story, along with her practice of Zen Buddhism where she begins to question her habit of "preparing for the worst." Her relationship with her daughter throws up unexpected challenges and her philosophy of mothering, her response to these curve balls, is inspiring -- the book, like its author, keeps getting deeper in insight and more gripping, By the end, this writer is a person I want to know -- I'm thanksful she has lived to tell the tale, and come to tell it so well.
0 Response to "⇒ PDF Free Warriors In Transition A Memoir In TwentyEight Stories Ellen Woods 9780989068253 Books"
Post a Comment