image and description from Amazon.com 

No Place for a Woman

Harriet Dame's Civil War 

by Mike Pride  

 Winner, New Hampshire PBS Award for Literary Excellence 2023 

In June of 1861, 46-year-old Harriet Patience Dame joined the Second New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment as a matron. No Place for a Woman recounts her dedicated service throughout the Civil War. She camped  with the regiment on campaign, nursed its wounded after many major  battles, and carried out important wartime missions for her state and  the Union cause. Late in the 19th century, she battled alongside her  friend Dorothea Dix to overcome prejudice against bestowing pensions on  women who nursed during the war.

Historian  Mike Pride traces Harriet Dame’s service as a field nurse with a  storied New Hampshire infantry regiment during the Peninsula campaign,  Second Bull Run, Gettysburg, and Cold Harbor. Twice during that service,  Dame was briefly captured. In early 1863, she spent months running a  busy enterprise in Washington, DC, that connected families at home to  soldiers in the field. Later, at the behest of New Hampshire’s governor,  she traveled south by ship to check on the care of her state’s soldiers  in Union hospitals along the coast. She then served as chief nurse and  kitchen supervisor at Point of Rocks Hospital near Gen. Ulysses S.  Grant’s headquarters in Virginia. Dame entered Richmond shortly after  the Union victory and rejoined her regiment for the occupation of  Virginia. After the war, she worked as a clerk in Washington well into  her 70s and served as president of the retired war nurses’ organization.  She also became a revered figure at annual veterans’ reunions in New  Hampshire.

No Place for a Woman draws on newly discovered letters written by Harriet Dame and includes  many rare photographs of the soldiers who knew Dame best, of the nurses  and doctors she worked with, and of Dame herself. This biography  convincingly argues that in length, depth, and breadth of service, it is  unlikely that any woman did more for the Union cause than Harriet Dame.

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by Kristin Hannah

Alaska, 1974. Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed.

For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival.

Ernt  Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and  volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive  decision: He will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live  off the grid in America’s last true frontier. Thirteen-year-old Leni, a  girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her  parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land  will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a  place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for  the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown. 

At  first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild,  remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community  of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the  generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation  and dwindling resources. But as winter approaches and darkness descends  on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family  begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to  threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in  18 hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: They  are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but  themselves. 

In this unforgettable portrait of human  frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character  of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska - a  place of incomparable beauty and danger.  .