Even if others abandon you, you must never abandon yourself. This simple truth became Terry Helwig’s lifeline as she was forced to grow up too soon. Terry grew up the oldest of six girls in the big-sky country of the American Southwest, where she attended 12 schools in 11 years. Helwig’s stepfather, Davy, a good-hearted and loving man, proudly purchased a mobile home to enable his family to move more easily from one oil town to another, where Davy eked out a living in the oil fields.

Unblinded is the true story of New Yorker Kevin Coughlin, who became blind at age 36 due to a rare genetic disorder known as Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy. Twenty years later, without medical intervention, Kevin's sight miraculously started to return. He is the only known person in the world who has experienced a spontaneous, non-medically assisted regeneration of the optic nerve. Unblinded follows Kevin's descent into darkness and his unexplained reemergence to sight.

When World War II began, seventeen-year-old Letty from a rigid Orthodox Jewish family in Belgium is trapped in a resort nestled in the French Pyrenees with her mother and two sisters. Her oldest sister disowns the family to save herself as her mother’s distress turns into violent panic attacks. Ahead of Letty lay razzias, the French police round-ups of Jews, Nazi aircraft, young love, and uncertainty about who to trust or where to go in a country hell-bent on capturing her. Now her family’s fate, whether triumph or catastrophe, hinges on Letty’s escape plan.

When 12 year-old Jared Johnson’s little sister dies, just hours after his mother breathes her last after wasting away so her children could eat, he knows he is on own. Desperate to avoid the workhouse, he does everything he can to survive the inhospitable streets of Birmingham. Jared is blessed with the gift of the gab and soon attracts the attention of the King of the Tatters, Toby McGuire. Recognising a kindred spirit, Toby soon has Jared out on a cart hustling for rags.

In December 2008, twentysomething Jill Grunenwald graduated with her master’s degree in library science, ready to start living her dream of becoming a librarian. But the economy had a different idea. As the Great Recession reared its ugly head, jobs were scarce. After some searching, however, Jill was lucky enough to snag one of the few librarian gigs left in her home state of Ohio. The catch? The job was behind bars as the prison librarian at a men’s minimum-security prison. Talk about baptism by fire.

At the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, 13-year-old Nanchu watched Red Guards burst into her home and arrest her parents, whom they tortured and jailed. She was left to fend for herself and her younger brother on the streets of Shanghai, enduring poverty and near-starvation. As she grew older she herself became a Red Guard and was sent down to the largest work camp in China. There she faced primitive conditions, predatory officials, a viper's nest of party jealousies, and near-fatal injury before she finally won admittance to Madame Mao's university in Shanghai.

Last night my son, Shay, sneaked out of the house and didn’t come home. He promised not to go to the illegal party in the woods. But someone’s been attacked and Shay has gone missing. The police want to know if he saw what happened. I’m worried he could be involved. After all the trouble he’s been in lately, mixing with the wrong crowd, coming home beaten up and scared, I thought we’d put it all behind us. Trouble is, Shay resents me moving my new boyfriend into the family home. I found all sorts on his laptop, including a half-written email warning me not to trust David.

From a working-class family, Scotsman Andrew Cunningham stewards for wealthy travelers aboard elegant cruise ships of the early 20th century, but he resents those who flaunt their inherited wealth. New Yorkers Florence and Bradley Cumings, first-class passengers traveling aboard Titanic, are the exception, and the three discover an ancestral connection. As the ship sinks on the fateful morning of April 15, 1912, Florence watches in horror from her lifeboat.

One hot, humid day in July 1944, the Gestapo abducted 15-year-old Henry and his mother, forcing them onto cramped cattle cars in the Łódź Polish Ghetto. Like so many Jews before them, they had been selected to disappear–they were being sent to Auschwitz. 

When our hero, Victor, needs a pseudonym to avoid embarrassing his wife after deciding to pen a book about up-sticking to Greece, he dusts off his original name of V.D. Bucket, the name he was stuck with after being abandoned in a bucket as a baby. As Victor adapts to his adopted homeland, he battles an obsession with the exacting hygiene standards he demanded during his illustrious career as a public health inspector against the rather less exacting standards of rural Greece. His attempts to master the complexities of the language lead to a number of embarrassing misunderstandings.

In her enchanting memoir, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Uganda’s first wildlife veterinarian, tells the remarkable story from her animal-loving childhood to her career protecting endangered mountain gorillas and other wild animals. In the face of discrimination and a male dominated world, one woman’s passion and determination to build a brighter future for the local wildlife and human community offers inspiration and insights into what is truly possible for our planet when we come together.

"We do not take a trip; a trip takes us," John Steinbeck noted in his 1962 classic, Travels with Charley. In the summer of 2008, Bill Barich stumbled upon a used copy of Travels in Ireland, where he has lived for the past eight years, and it inspired him to explore the mood of the United States as Steinbeck had done almost a half century before. With a hotly contested election looming, and in the shadow of an economic meltdown, Barich set off on a 5,943-mile cross-country drive from New York to his old hometown in San Francisco via Route 50....

Nell Stillman's road is not easy. When her boorish husband dies soon after they move to the small town of Harvester, Minnesota, Nell is alone, penniless yet responsible for her beloved baby boy, Hillyard. Not an easy fate in small-town America at the beginning of the 20th century. In the face of nearly insurmountable odds, Nell finds strength in lasting friendships and in the rich inner life awakened by the novels she loves.

In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her mother's decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness. Haunted by her mother's fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother's racial lineage, tracing her family back to 18th-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage.

Jamestown promises to be a history lover’s dream, a reality series featuring 15 contestants who will spend six months living in 17th century conditions, their ability to adapt and overcome daily hardship judged by millions of TV viewers. Supplies will be replenished, and a medical officer will be on hand to ensure everyone’s well-being. Lucrative cash prizes will be awarded at the end.