One Book, One Community
2013 - 2014
Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Healthy Madness
Former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley had written extensively about the criminal justice system. But it was only when his own son-in the throes of a manic episode-broke into a neighbor’s house that he learned what happens to mentally ill people who break a law.
This is the Earley family’s compelling story, a troubling look at bureaucratic apathy and the countless thousands who suffer confinement instead of care, brutal conditions instead of treatment, in the “revolving doors” between hospital and jail. With mass deinstitutionalization, large numbers of state mental patients are homeless or in jail-an experience little better than the horrors of a century ago. Earley takes us directly into that experience-and into that of a father and award-winning journalist trying to fight for a better way.
Recommended Reading (Available at the Bookstore)
John McDonnell: The Most Successful Coach in NCAA History
When John McDonnell began his coaching career at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville--choosing it over Norman, Oklahoma, because Fayetteville reminded him of his native Ireland--he could hardly have imagined that he would become the most successful coach in the history of American collegiate athletics. But, in thirty-six years at the university, he amassed a staggering resume of accomplishments, including forty national championships (eleven cross country, nineteen indoor track, and ten outdoor track), the most by any coach in any sport in NCAA history. His teams at Arkansas won the triple crown (a championship in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track in a single school year) a record five times. The Razorbacks also won eighty-three conference championships (thirty-eight in the Southwest Conference and forty-six in the Southeastern Conference), including thirty-four consecutive conference championships in cross country from 1974 to 2008. McDonnell coached 185 All-Americans, fifty-four individual national champions, and twenty-three Olympians. And from 1984 to 1995, his Razorback teams won twelve consecutive NCAA Indoor Track Championships, the longest streak of national titles by any school in any sport in NCAA history. This biography tells the story of the McDonnell's life and legacy, from his childhood growing up on a farm in 1940s County Mayo, Ireland, to his own running career, to the beginnings of his life as a coach, to all the great athletes he mentored along the way.
Funny Thing About Football
The University of Arkansas Razorback football team has taken fans on a rollercoaster ride of dizzying ups and down since joining the Southeastern Conference in 1991. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has chronicled the wild ride every game day with illustrated face-offs between the Razorbacks and their cartoon mascot opponents. Reconnect with the past through the favorites from our collection.
Arkansas Landscapes II
Tim Ernst is Arkansas' Wilderness Photographer. He has been hiking, driving and crawling around the wonderful Ozark Mountains for most of his life, preserving the images he sees on film for everyone to enjoy. His photographs have appeared in hundreds of national, regional and local publications. Some of his credits include National Geographic, Audubon, Backpacker, Outside, Outdoor Photographer, American Hiker, Natural History, Country, Chevy Outdoors, and Arkansas Times magazines, Sierra Club and Hallmark calendars, National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service maps and brochures, Readers Digest Books, and The New York Times. Much of his time these days is spent teaching digital photography workshops in the Buffalo River Wilderness.