The Long Bridge

A woman's account of departure from middle class life in Stalinist Russia, to the gulag. With an uplifting view of the world and human nature born of the author's natural compassion and struggle to survive.

Named after the 40th governor of Louisiana, the Huey P. Long Bridge, just outside of New Orleans in Jefferson Parish, is the longest railroad bridge in the United States. For 15 years after it opened in 1935, it was the longest railroad bridge in the world. Initially conceived in 1892, the Huey P. was the first bridge to span the deep-draft navigation channel of the lower Mississippi River, opening the path for a southern transcontinental railroad. The highway and pedestrian portions of the bridge provided additional transport, which previously had only been available by ferry. New Orleans and its surrounding regions grew in population and economic importance as the publicly owned bridge connected the Port of New Orleans to the rest of the United States through six Class I railroads. The Huey P. continues to function in its original, now undersized, capacity. In April 2006, the state began a widening of the bridge to double its automobile lanes from 18 feet to 43 feet. In September 2012, the American Society of Civil Engineers dedicated the Huey P. Long Bridge as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

After her community in the awe-inspiring Montana mountains is suddenly consumed by a raging wildfire, one young Amish woman finds herself in a new town where she’s introduced to the Native culture of the Kootenai people. When the Mast family is forced to evacuate their home in the West Kootenai region of Montana, Christine chooses not to move with her family to her father’s childhood home in Kansas. Instead, she wants to stay closer to home and to her beau, Andy Lambright, who has yet to ask for her hand in marriage and who seems to be holding tightly to secrets from his past. Now, living with her aunt and uncle in St. Ignatius, Christine is on her own for the first time in her life. While working in her uncle’s store Christine meets Raymond Old Fox, whom she befriends, and he introduces her to his rich native culture with strong ties to the earth and nature. Despite the warnings of her aunt and uncle, Christine is inexplicably drawn to Raymond, and her mind is opened to a history and heritage far different from her own. With her newly expanding horizons, Christine wonders if she can return to the domestic life that is expected of her. Her heart still longs to be with Andy, but she isn’t the same person she was before the fire, and she wonders if he can accept who she is becoming. Has too much distance grown between them? Or can they bridge the gap from past to present and find their way back together?

For over 600 years, Old London Bridge represented the pulsating heart of London. The scene of commerce and battle, romance and ceremony, it remained a vibrant focal point for 20 generations of Londoners. This remarkable structure—with its drawbridge, nineteen arches, and nineteen piers—stood majestic through the centuries and was an inspiration to many who saw it. This is the story of the bridge, its inhabitants, and its extraordinary evolution—and of how it came to live on in affectionate folk memory, occupying a unique place in London’s heritage.

It goes without saying that everyone wishes to live a life that matters. But how do we harness this potential and positively impact the world around us? In Be Audacious: Inspiring Your Legacy and Living a Life that Matters, author and motivational speaker Michael W. Leach offers a simple, four-part game plan for overcoming adversity, living authentically, uncovering purposeful passion, and developing vision. Leach encourages readers to embrace nonconformity—to "shed the shackles of societal norms"—in pursuit of their dreams. Fresh, vulnerable, and contemporary, this call to action speaks to millennials and any others who aspire to break out of the box on the path to a purposeful journey uniquely their own.

During the summer of 1954 Ludlow Falls is celebrating its Sesquicentennial. The entire town has turned out for the birthday party. But if it were up to Shorty Long, Mary Gordon, Lake Jagger, and Lord Baltimore, the party wouldnt go according to plan. On the surface, this small Midwestern town has enjoyed a rich and colorful one hundred and fifty years - even though Moon Erhart always said, The only thing they did when they put up this town was to ruin a perfectly good cornfield. But something was lurking in the Falls past. And an accidental discovery by a young boy is about to expose a century old secret. A secret that will change lives and split the old town right down the middle.

New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Award "Nimbly splices together history, science, reporting and personal experiences into a taut and cautiously hopeful narrative.… Egan’s book is bursting with life (and yes, death)." —Robert Moor, New York Times Book Review The Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior—hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of surface fresh water and provide sustenance, work, and recreation for tens of millions of Americans. But they are under threat as never before, and their problems are spreading across the continent. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is prize-winning reporter Dan Egan’s compulsively readable portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come.

The best-selling author of Nixonland presents a portrait of the United States during the turbulent political and economic upheavals of the 1970s, covering events ranging from the Arab oil embargo and the era of Patty Hearst to the collapse of the South Vietnamese government and the rise of Ronald Reagan.

The story is based on a fictional disaster that occurred in Peru on July 20, 1714. A rope bridge woven by the Incas on the road between Lima and Cuzco collapsed when five people were crossing it. They all fell into the river from a great height and were killed. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan friar who was about to cross the bridge himself, witnessed the tragedy. Being deeply pious, he saw in what happened a possible divine providence. Did the dead deserve to have their lives cut short in such a terrible way? The monk tries to learn as much as he can about the five victims, finding and questioning people who knew them. As a result of years of investigation, he compiles a voluminous book with all the evidence he has gathered that the beginning and end of human life are part of God's plan... The Bridge of San Luis Rey won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, and remains widely acclaimed as Wilder's most famous work. In 1998, the book was rated number 37 by the editorial board of the American Modern Library on the list of the 100 best 20th-century novels. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

First published in 1972, The Great Bridge is the classic account of one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. Winning acclaim for its comprehensive look at the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, this book helped cement David McCullough's reputation as America's preeminent social historian. Now, The Great Bridge is reissued as a Simon & Schuster Classic Edition with a new introduction by the author. This monumental book brings back for American readers the heroic vision of the America we once had. It is the enthralling story of one of the greatest events in our nation's history during the Age of Optimism -- a period when Americans were convinced in their hearts that all great things were possible. In the years around 1870, when the project was first undertaken, the concept of building a great bridge to span the East River between the great cities of Manhattan and Brooklyn required a vision and determination comparable to that which went into the building of the pyramids. Throughout the fourteen years of its construction, the odds against the successful completion of the bridge seemed staggering. Bodies were crushed and broken, lives lost, political empires fell, and surges of public emotion constantly threatened the project. But this is not merely the saga of an engineering miracle: it is a sweeping narrative of the social climate of the time and of the heroes and rascals who had a hand in either constructing or obstructing the great enterprise. Amid the flood of praise for the book when it was originally published, Newsday said succinctly "This is the definitive book on the event. Do not wait for a better try: there won't be any."