Quiet Fire

Young poets and historians alike will delight in this new account of the life of Emily Dickinson, one of America’s most beloved poets

For decades, the small, quiet town of Hamlet, North Carolina, thrived thanks to the railroad. But by the 1970s, it had become a postindustrial backwater, a magnet for businesses in search of cheap labor and almost no oversight. Imperial Food Products was one of those businesses. The company set up shop in Hamlet in the 1980s. Workers who complained about low pay and hazardous working conditions at the plant were silenced or fired. But jobs were scarce in town, so workers kept coming back, and the company continued to operate with impunity. Then, on the morning of September 3, 1991, the never-inspected chicken-processing plant a stone's throw from Hamlet's city hall burst into flames. Twenty-five people perished that day behind the plant's locked and bolted doors. It remains one of the deadliest accidents ever in the history of the modern American food industry. Eighty years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, industrial disasters were supposed to have been a thing of the past in the United States. However, as award-winning historian Bryant Simon shows, the pursuit of cheap food merged with economic decline in small towns across the South and the nation to devalue laborers and create perilous working conditions. The Hamlet fire and its aftermath reveal the social costs of antiunionism, lax regulations, and ongoing racial discrimination. Using oral histories, contemporary news coverage, and state records, Simon has constructed a vivid, potent, and disturbing social autopsy of this town, this factory, and this time that exposes how cheap labor, cheap government, and cheap food came together in a way that was destined to result in tragedy.

Whether you read it quietly or loudly, learning about opposites has never been more fun - or funny - than with this winning book. Sniffles are quiet, but sneezes are loud. Amiably illustrated in a bright, graphic style, Leslie Patricelli’s spirited book, QUIET LOUD, stars an obliging, bald, and very expressive toddler who acts out each pair of opposites with comically dramatic effect.

The #1 New York Times bestseller! “Witty, wise, and tender. It's a marvel.” —Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train and A Slow Fire Burning “To say I love this book is an understatement. It’s a deep psychological mystery about the power of motherhood, the intensity of teenage love, and the danger of perfection. It moved me to tears.” —Reese Witherspoon From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Our Missing Hearts comes a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives. In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned—from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren—an enigmatic artist and single mother—who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town—and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs. Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood—and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster. Named a Best Book of the Year by: People, The Washington Post, Bustle, Esquire, Southern Living, The Daily Beast, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Audible, Goodreads, Library Reads, Book of the Month, Paste, Kirkus Reviews, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and many more... Perfect for book clubs! Visit celesteng.com for discussion guides and more.

Abraham Lincoln is the soul of America, calling us to our best as Americans. Lincoln scholar Duncan Newcomer has hosted more than 200 episodes of the radio series Quiet Fire: The Spiritual Life of Abraham Lincoln. Now, 30 of his best stories provide a month of inspirational reading in a unique volume that invites us to read the stories—or to follow a simple code to hear the original broadcast each day. “Since its beginning, radio has offered a warm medium for connecting the heart, the head, and the imagination. This delightful collection of Lincoln's wisdom was seeded in a creative radio show, Quiet Fire,” writes Sally Kane, CEO of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, where this series was born on WERU, a station in mid-coastal Maine. “Now, Quiet Fire has morphed into a daily companion for readers who connect the dots between time and space to map a new understanding of the chaotic times in which we live. Lincoln's words resonate more urgently than ever, and Duncan has played alchemist in Quiet Fire to one of our country's greatest souls and distilled an essence that can guide and comfort us.” “Duncan Newcomer captures Lincoln’s spirit in every one of these thirty meditations, and I love the fact that these began life on radio since I am a radio guy as well,” Day1 radio host Peter Wallace writes in the book’s Foreword. “By reading these sublime and soulful reflections, possessed—as Duncan puts it—by a quiet fire, you will find inspiration and insight that will make sense in your own life, in your own battles with fear and grief, in your own decisions over the best path to take in a certain situation, in your own yearning for deep meaning and purpose.” In the book, Newcomer reminds readers of Lincoln’s belief that it is “not the land that makes us American. It’s a mindset. Americans are not a race or a tribe. To Lincoln, Americans are a people who have received a great gift: a free nation with self-government.” And, Thirty Days With Abraham Lincoln—Quiet Fire reminds us, writes Newcomer, that “Americans did not create this free nation on their own; in Lincoln’s mind, a divine assistance made it possible.” In these short, daily stories, Newcomer touches repeatedly to the role of the divine in Lincoln’s thoughts, writings and deeds. In one story, Lincoln senses “an abiding presence everywhere for good.” In another, “God acting in history.” “It may just be,” writes Newcomer, “that more than two centuries after the birth of Lincoln, new generations of people are ready to follow Lincoln once again—in order to find a new birth of freedom. This spirit can make the young wide awake and relight the fire inside the old.” Sheryl Fullerton, retired Executive Editor for Religion & Spirituality at John Wiley & Sons, Inc, writes, “Duncan Newcomer gives us the gift of Abraham Lincoln’s wise words and Duncan’s own thoughtful reflections on a side of the great president most of us have not really seen. Read this book every day for a month, and you will not only be heartened and enlightened but also given hope for our own troubled times.” Thirty Days With Lincoln, collects Newcomer’s best stories from the radio series Quiet Fire, presenting them both in text and with a daily link that will play that original broadcast with the click of a smartphone app.

Monkey Mike is reprimanded for making noise when he taps pencils and clangs trash cans until he sees a drum set in the music store and puts his hands-on talents to work in a most impressive way.