Dan's Picks | storyandsong

Dan Lorber

Dan has been a voracious reader since the age of 9. After studying creative writing with Toni Morrison in graduate school, Dan opened Down in Denver Used and Rare Books and operated it for 27 years. Although starting out as a lover of Literature and Literary Fiction, he has cultivated a keen interest in non-fiction. primarily Biography, History, Memoir, Native American History and Exploration & Outdoor Adventure. However, fiction is still in his literary diet and he has recently been plowing through 20th Century American literature.

In this comprehensive and lively history, Zinn shows how, in the last 244 years, democratic rights, justice and equality were not given freely by the American government to any minority unless that minority demanded and fought for those rights. Zinn reveals hundreds of details about American history that none of us ever got to read in high school or college textbooks. A book for those who really want to understand the history of American democracy.	This is one of the most fascinating and exciting books I've ever read. There are two stories running concurrently in this book: First: What life was like for American Whale hunters at the beginning of the 19th century, especially sailing out of Nantucket. This part of the book is a perfect complement to the second -- the incredible true story about the Essex, a whaling vessel that is rammed by a whale in the Pacific Ocean, 10,000 miles from home, and how the sailors cope with the outcome.	Have you ever spent a night in the woods alone? I've spent a few hundred nights in the woods, but only 3 times totally alone -- the whole night. Christopher Knight spent almost 10,000 consecutive nights in the woods, in a tent, IN MAINE, completely alone. "Hi" was the only word he spoke to another human in 27 years. Read how this incredible man left home and society at the age of 20 and walked into the woods, not to emerge until nearly three decades later.
The book’s cover tells it all: a lonely little boy in the back of his mother's car, driving a desolate highway. She is single and cares deeply for her son, fleeing a "bad situation" and hoping to start a new life. With simple yet compelling prose, Wolff captures what his childhood was like -- lonely, poor and with a mother who made bad decisions, especially when it came to men, and had profound effects on the young Tobias. A sweet book and a triumph by one of America's unsung gifted writers.