From 
Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Ever since the accused Atlanta courthouse killer took her hostage in April 2005 -- and then released her, an agonizing seven hours later -- many people have wondered just how Ashley Smith convinced Brian Nichols to let her go. How did the young widowed mother (and recovering drug user) start reading excerpts from The Purpose-Driven Life to a killer on the run? What made this man decide that he should let her go? What clicked? In Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero (written with Stacy Mattingly), Smith gives a close-to-the-bone account of her encounter with a criminal, a man who freaked out at the courthouse and who was desperate, as it turns out, for a new life's plan, even if engineered from behind bars. Smith shares her own troubled background and how the Bible carried her through times of great stress.
Memoir
Sidney Sheldon seems to have packed several lives into one: impoverished childhood; writer and producer of classic Hollywood movies, hit TV shows and Broadway plays; blockbuster novelist. He chronicles them in The Other Side of Me, also describing tough moments like his struggle with bipolar disorder and the grief of losing a daughter in infancy. In Snowstruck, Jill Fredston tells of all the on-the-job dangers she shares with her husband, Doug Fesler -- namely, avalanche research and rescue in some of the globe's most remote places.
Odds & Ends
Diligently reported, smoothly written, Jere Longman's If Football's a Religion, Why Don't We Have a Prayer? recounts the passion the diehard fans of Philadelphia have for their Eagles. And Anne Fadiman presents an array of thoughtful essays in Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love, explaining why some books deserve second and sometimes third reads, even after many years.
Advertisement 
Your Comments
See all
...