With ‘Tis, Frank McCourt brings us the remarkable sequel to the Pulitzer prize-winning Angela’s Ashes. McCourt, as narrator and protagonist, picks up just where he left off, upon his arrival in New York as a young Irish immigrant. True to form, McCourt narrates his life adventure with the innocence of a young man fearful and alone in the world. We first find McCourt working to make ends meet at the Biltmore Hotel. There he interacts with kitchen workers, hotel staff, and guests, all of whom are from different backgrounds. This disparate bunch is made up of people of all ages, religions, classes, and nationalities. Though repeatedly warned to stick with your own kind, McCourt finds his true kinship with these lost young immigrants.

The narrative continues with McCourt finding his way in America through work and study. He receives what proves to be life-changing advice from Irish bar owner Tim Costello, who encourages the young McCourt to get an education. In one scene, Costello throws McCourt out of his bar because McCourt cannot identify Samuel Johnson, the English poet, lexicographer, and gentleman. (He then sends McCourt to the New York public library to read The Lives of the English Poets.) McCourt eventually becomes a high school teacher, teaching creative writing. He marries and begins a family. And he discovers a love for a popular Irish past-time drinking. Not one to overlook his own faults, McCourt recounts how his drinking takes its toll on his marriage. More than just the story of one man, ‘Tis is the continuation of the story of the McCourt family. There are powerful, tense scenes between McCourt and his father, who struggle to come to terms with a painful past, but there is much humor, too. With less misery than Angela’s Ashes, ‘Tis provides the reader a funny and warm look at a young man coming of age and finding his voice.

A while back I had the pleasure of interviewing Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Maxine Kumin, who spoke not only about her writing but of her idyllic-sounding life on nearly 200 acres of farmland in New Hampshire with her husband, their sheep, dogs, and horses. Their utopia was shattered, however, on July 21, 1998, when an accident nearly killed Kumin. She was preparing for a horse show when her beloved horse bolted, dragging her along in a carriage, and in the end, breaking her vertebrae and causing other severe injuries. Ninety-five percent of such victims die before they reach the emergency room; of those who make it, 95 percent are paralyzed. Kumin was amazingly spared, mainly due to the on-the-spot efforts of her friend, an emergency room nurse.

Despite her luck, the writer’s recovery was long and torturous. Thankfully, Kumin’s gift for words hasn’t faltered. She recounts her excruciating recovery in Inside the Halo: The Anatomy of a Recovery (the halo is the device that kept her head immobile as the broken vertebrae healed).

Inside the Halo is short and fast-paced. Kumin manages to be frank without ever getting lost in self-pity. She was obviously brave, but never makes herself out to be a hero.

Kumin draws strength to keep going from friends and family, especially her daughter, Judith, who took a leave from her position as a United Nations press officer. She is also bolstered by other rehabilitation patients, primarily her roommate, 21-one-year old Nicole, who fell off a ladder and lost the use of her legs. Though age separates them by decades, Kumin and Nicole find themselves to be kindred spirits.

One of Kumin’s doctors pronounces her a walking miracle and suggests she consider her recovery a rebirth. Kumin confesses that Getting better was such an ordeal; by contrast, death looked so easy. But by the spring after her accident, life on the farm is starting to spring forth, and Kumin feels ready to rejoin her world. She remounts the horse that nearly killed her, saying, I am letting myself believe I will heal. Alice Cary writes from her home in Groton, Massachusetts.

For almost three decades, Betty Friedan has been a prominent writer, feminist, and political activist. In her autobiography, Life So Far, Friedan reflects on being a change agent while negotiating her own personal disasters and triumphs. It changed my life! was the typical response to Friedan’s first book, The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963. Her exploration of women’s lives and thwarted dreams exposed the boredom and isolation of suburban housewives. She astonished contemporaries by portraying this as a social problem rather than neurosis. Friedan outlined the mystique that lured women into narrowly defined roles, and revealed how media, business, and government marketed this image. As The Feminine Mystique became a bestseller and made Friedan a feminist icon, it is fascinating to see how dramatically it changed her own life.

As a child Betty was already an outsider, too smart for a girl and too Jewish for pre-war Peoria. Her mother provided an early prototype of the mystique : An extremely bright woman, she devoted her energy to manipulating her husband and children. All this pain aroused an interest in social justice. At college, Betty found both intellectual interests and a community of smart, socially conscious women. She finally felt comfortable with herself. After college, she lived in New York City working as a journalist and social activist and married Carl Friedan. Once the babies arrived, the Friedans fell into traditional roles: Carl left the theater for advertising and Betty became a housewife. The marriage unraveled. Carl stayed away later and longer. Betty wrote magazine articles, which were often rejected as unrelated to women’s concerns of romance, beauty, and family. These rejected articles became the foundation for her book. As Betty became successful, her marriage became violent. Her account of championing women’s rights while hiding scars and bruises is the most poignant of her stories.

The feminist movement grew quickly; in 1966, Friedan founded the National Organization for Women (NOW). She relates how the movement later splintered into various interest groups. Friedan herself envisioned more for women in the traditional arenas, not a radical restructuring of society. She ended up too moderate for the movement she’d created.

Betty Friedan describes a life in the vortex during immense social change. Her account of what happened to feminism, delivered in her blunt style, is passionate and thought provoking. Her personal stories both sad and joyful will touch even those unmoved by her cause.

Mary Helen Clarke is a writer and editor in Nashville.

Dalai Lama, My Son: A Mother’s Story is the autobiography of Diki Tsering, mother of the 14th Dalai Lama. She recently died in Darjeeling, India, where she had lived in exile with her family and the Dalai Lama. Being published at the same time is Transforming the Mind, by the Dalai Lama himself, (Thorsons, $20, 0722540302) which attempts to demonstrate ways of transforming difficult life situations into opportunities for spiritual growth. The two books use different methods to demonstrate the same theme: refinement through perseverance.

Dalai Lama, My Son tells how Diki Tsering lived through the drastic transformation from a hard-working farm girl on the high Tibetan plains to an esteemed political figure at the center of an international debate. She reveals life at the heart of Tibet’s difficult relationship with communist China, the persecution of the Tibetan people, and her family’s sorrowful flight to India in 1959. Diki Tsering explains her difficult transitions not as trials to overcome, but as inevitable and cleansing paths to follow.

I was named Sonam Tsomo. My birth name belongs to another life. Most people know me as Diki Tsering.

Ever since I went to live in Lhasa, I tried to become Diki Tsering, with all the social forms and graces that go with that name. Adventure lurks at every turn. Even in the calmly relayed chapters that describe everyday farm life, the reader will learn how women give birth in the stable, alone, and how terrifying superstitions about ghosts explain deaths from disease or malnutrition. The story transforms in the second half of the book from cultural history lesson to exciting fairy tale adventure. Diki Tsering’s son, known from birth as Lhomo Dhondup, undergoes strange trials leading to his new identity as a reincarnation of the Buddha. The family travels on a dangerous three-month journey from their farm to Lhasa, where Lhomo Dhondup will be received as Tibet’s revered leader, the Dalai Lama. Communist Chinese lurk everywhere, and disguise is the only hope of the persecuted. Unfortunately, this exotic fairy tale is reality, and the Dalai Lama continues to teach about compassion as an exiled man.

Amy Ryce is a writer in Nashville.