Reading Recommendations: The Lost Saints of Tennessee, a novel, Amy Franklin-WillisWith enormous heart and dazzling agility, debut novelist Amy Franklin-Willis expertly mines the fault line in one southern working class family. Driven by the soulful and intrepid voices of forty two year old Ezekiel Cooper and his mother Lillian, The Lost Saints of Tennessee journeys from the 1940s to the 1980s as it follows Zeke's evolution from anointed son to honorable sibling to unhinged middle ages man. After Zeke loses his twin brother in a mysterious drowning and his wife to divorce, only ghosts remain in his home town of Clayton, Tennesse. Zeke makes the decision to leave Clayton in a final attempt to escape his pain, put his two treasured possessions, a childhood copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tucker, his dead brother's ancient dog, into his truck, and heads east. He leaves behind two adolescent daughters and his estranged mother, who reveals her own conflicting view of the Cooper Family Story in a vulnerable but spirited voice stricken by guilt over old sins as she clings to the hope that her family isn't beyond repair.When Zeke finds refuge with his sympathetic cousins in Virginia horse country, divine acts in the form of severe weather, illness, and a new romance collide, leading Zeke to a crossroads where he must decide the fate of his family, either by clinging to the way life was or moving toward what life might be.Written with abundant charm, warmth, and authority, this is a story of unique brotherhood and a moving consideration of the ways grief can first devastate and then restore.And Cronkite, Douglas BrinkleyFor decades, Walter Cronkite was known as "the most trusted man in America." Millions across the nation welcomed him into their homes, first as a print reporter for the United Press and the front lines of World War 11, and later, in the emerging medium of television, as a host of numerous documentary programs and as an anchor of the CBS Evening News from 1962 until his retirement in 1981. Yet this very public figure undoubtedly the twentieth century's most revered journalist, was a remarkably private man: few know the full story of his life. Drawing on access to Cronkites private papers as well as interviews with his family and friends, Brinkley now brings Cronkite to focus as never before. Brinkley traces Cronkite's story from his roots in Missouri and Texas through the Great Depression, during which he began his career, to World War 11, when he gained notice reporting with Allied troops from North Africa, D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. In 1950, Edward R. Murrow recruited him to work for CBS, and he covered presidential elections, the space program, Vietnam, and the first televised broadcasts of the Olympic Games, as both reporter and later as anchor of the evening news. Cronkite was witness to, and a nations voice for many of the most profound moments in American history, including the Kennedy assassination, Apollo 11 and 13, Watergate, the Vietnam War, and the Iran hostage crisis. Epic, intimate, and masterfully written, a much anticipated biography of an extraordinary American, told by one of our most brilliant and respected historians. And, Love, Life and Elephants, An African Love Story, Dame Daphne SheldrickDaphne Sheldrick, whose family arrived in Africa from Scotland in the 1820's is the first person ever to have successfully hand-reared new born elephants. Her deep empathy and understanding, her years of observing Kenya's rich variety of wildlife, and her pioneering work in perfecting the right husbandry and milk formula have saved countless elephants, rhinos, and other baby animals from certain death..But this is also a magical and heartbreaking human love story between Daphe and her husband David Sheldrick, the famous Tsavo National Park Warden. The reader will never forget this book, nor will I!See you at Rylander