The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous


Khushwant Singh - 2013
    This book will appeal not only to admirers of Khushwant Singhs writing but also to anyone Interested in the history, politics and socio economic scenario of twentieth century India.People profiled in this book include Jawaharlal Nehru, Krishna Menon, Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi, Amrita Sher Gil, Begum Para, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, M. S. Golwalkar, Mother Teresa, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Dhirendra Brahmachari, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, General Tikka Khan, Phoolan Devi, Giani Zail Singh and Bhagat Puran Singh.About the AuthorKhushwant singh is one of Indias best known and most widely read authors and columnists. He was founder-editor of Yojana and editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, National Heraldand the Hindustan Times. His first book, The Mark of Vishnu and Other Stories, was published in 1950 and he has published several acclaimed and bestselling books of fiction and non-fiction in the six decades since. He has also translated the work of major Punjabi and Urdu poets and writers, as well as the Japji and the Rehras: The Morning and Evening Prayers of the Sikhs.

A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea


Masaji Ishikawa - 2000
    This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity—and indomitable nature—of the human spirit

The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator


Joakim Palmkvist - 2017
    When a search yielded nothing, and all physical evidence had seemingly disappeared, authorities had little to go on—except a disturbing phone call five weeks later from Göran’s daughter Maria. She was sure that her sister, Sara, was somehow involved. At the heart of the alleged crime: Sara’s greed, her father’s land holdings, and his bitter feud with Sara’s idler boyfriend. With no body, there was no crime—and the case went as cold and dark as the forests of southern Sweden. But not for Therese Tang. For two years, this case was her obsession.A hard-working ex-model, mother of three, and Missing People investigator, Therese was willing to put her own safety at risk in order to uncover the truth. What she found was a nest of depraved secrets, lies, and betrayal. All she had to do now, in her relentless and dangerous pursuit of justice, was prove that it led to murder.

The Underground Girls of Kabul: in Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan


Jenny Nordberg - 2014
    A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as "dressed up like a boy") is a third kind of child – a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world. Jenny Nordberg, the reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times, constructs a powerful and moving account of those secretly living on the other side of a deeply segregated society where women have almost no rights and little freedom. The Underground Girls of Kabul is anchored by vivid characters who bring this remarkable story to life: Azita, a female parliamentarian who sees no other choice but to turn her fourth daughter Mehran into a boy; Zahra, the tomboy teenager who struggles with puberty and refuses her parents' attempts to turn her back into a girl; Shukria, now a married mother of three after living for twenty years as a man; and Nader, who prays with Shahed, the undercover female police officer, as they both remain in male disguise as adults. At the heart of this emotional narrative is a new perspective on the extreme sacrifices of Afghan women and girls against the violent backdrop of America's longest war. Divided into four parts, the book follows those born as the unwanted sex in Afghanistan, but who live as the socially favored gender through childhood and puberty, only to later be forced into marriage and childbirth. The Underground Girls of Kabul charts their dramatic life cycles, while examining our own history and the parallels to subversive actions of people who live under oppression everywhere.

More Hollywood Murders and Scandals: Tinsel Town After Dark, More Famous Celebrity Murders, Scandals and Crimes (Murder, Scandals and Mayhem Book 2)


Mike Riley - 2014
    It adds to the collection of the most famous and infamous Hollywood scandals and celebrity murders from the early beginnings of Hollywood right up to today.From Thomas Ince to Tupac Shakur and George Reeves to Natalie Wood, the stories will capture your imagination as they describe the backstories of the major characters, the circumstances of the celebrity crimes and the results of the investigations.Included are the famous murders of: The mysterious death of Paul Bern, husband of Jean Harlow The shocking death of Jayne Mansfield The loss of Sal Mineo Dorothy Stratten's senseless death and More. Included is a description of changes in the film industry, from the earliest film displayed in New York City to the films of today that provide entertainment and escapism for moviegoers around the world.Many of your questions about these Hollywood crimes and scandals will be answered and you will be amazed at all the facts and theories contained in this book associated with these incredible events. Click BUY to get your copy of More Hollywood Murders and Scandals: Tinsel Town After Dark NOW.

Beautiful Exiles


Meg Waite Clayton - 2018
    Headstrong, accomplished journalist Martha Gellhorn is confident with words but less so with men when she meets disheveled literary titan Ernest Hemingway in a dive bar. Their friendship—forged over writing, talk, and family dinners—flourishes into something undeniable in Madrid while they’re covering the Spanish Civil War.Martha reveres him. The very married Hemingway is taken with Martha—her beauty, her ambition, and her fearless spirit. And as Hemingway tells her, the most powerful love stories are always set against the fury of war. The risks are so much greater. They’re made for each other.With their romance unfolding as they travel the globe, Martha establishes herself as one of the world’s foremost war correspondents, and Hemingway begins the novel that will win him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Beautiful Exiles is a stirring story of lovers and rivals, of the breathless attraction to power and fame, and of one woman—ahead of her time—claiming her own identity from the wreckage of love.

If They Come for Us


Fatimah Asghar - 2018
    After being orphaned as a young girl, Asghar grapples with coming-of-age as a woman without the guidance of a mother, questions of sexuality and race, and navigating a world that put a target on her back. Asghar's poems at once bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it manifests in our relationships with friends and family, and in our own understanding of identity. Using experimental forms and a mix of lyrical and brash language, Asghar confronts her own understanding of identity and place and belonging.

Saigon Has Fallen


Peter Arnett - 2015
    Arnett’s clear-eyed coverage incurred the wrath of President Lyndon Johnson and officials on all sides of the conflict. Writing candidly and vividly about his gambles and glories, Arnett also shares his fears and fights in reporting against the backdrop of war. Arnett places readers at the historic pivot-points of Vietnam: covering Marine landings, mountaintop battles, Saigon’s decline and fall, and the safe evacuation of a planeload of 57 infants in the midst of chaos. Peter Arnett’s sweeping view and his frank, descriptive, and dramatic writing brings the Vietnam War to life in a uniquely insightful way for this year’s 40th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. Arnett won the Pulitzer Prize in 1966 for his Vietnam coverage. He later went on to TV-reporting fame covering the Gulf War for CNN. Includes 21 dramatic photographs from the AP Archive and the personal collection of Peter Arnett. About the Author Peter Arnett started as an intern at his local newspaper at age 18, but knew even then his interest was in covering the world. Less than a decade later, he was traveling the globe for The Associated Press, the first of several major American news organizations he would work for. His Vietnam War coverage for the AP won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1966. Arnett joined CNN at its birth in the early 1980s, earning a television Emmy for his live television coverage of the first Gulf War from Baghdad in 1991. Born in New Zealand in 1934, he later became an American citizen and now lives in Fountain Valley, CA. About The Associated Press The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, AP today is the most trusted source of independent news and information. On any given day, more than half the world's population sees news from AP.

Don Carlo: Boss of Bosses


Paul Meskil - 1973
    

The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing


Sonia Faleiro - 2021
    Sixteen-year-old Padma sparked and burned. Fourteen-year-old Lalli was an incorrigible romantic.They grew up in Katra Sadatganj, an eye-blink of a village in western Uttar Pradesh crammed into less than one square mile of land. It was out in the fields, in the middle of mango season, that the rumors started.Then one night in the summer of 2014 the girls went missing; and hours later they were found hanging in the orchard. Who they were, and what had happened to them, was already less important than what their disappearance meant to the people left behind.In the ensuing months, the investigation into their deaths would implode everything that their small community held to be true, and instigate a national conversation about sex and violence. Slipping deftly behind political maneuvering, caste systems and codes of honor in a village in northern India, The Good Girls returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli's short lives and shameful deaths, and dares to ask: what is the human cost of shame?

Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art


Carl Hoffman - 2014
    Now, Carl Hoffman uncovers startling new evidence that finally tells the full, astonishing story.Despite exhaustive searches, no trace of Rockefeller was ever found. Soon after his disappearance, rumors surfaced that he'd been killed and ceremonially eaten by the local Asmat—a native tribe of warriors whose complex culture was built around sacred, reciprocal violence, head hunting, and ritual cannibalism. The Dutch government and the Rockefeller family denied the story, and Michael's death was officially ruled a drowning. Yet doubts lingered. Sensational rumors and stories circulated, fueling speculation and intrigue for decades. The real story has long waited to be told—until now.Retracing Rockefeller's steps, award-winning journalist Carl Hoffman traveled to the jungles of New Guinea, immersing himself in a world of headhunters and cannibals, secret spirits and customs, and getting to know generations of Asmat. Through exhaustive archival research, he uncovered never-before-seen original documents and located witnesses willing to speak publically after fifty years.In Savage Harvest he finally solves this decades-old mystery and illuminates a culture transformed by years of colonial rule, whose people continue to be shaped by ancient customs and lore. Combining history, art, colonialism, adventure, and ethnography, Savage Harvest is a mesmerizing whodunit, and a fascinating portrait of the clash between two civilizations that resulted in the death of one of America's richest and most powerful scions.

The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State


Nadia Murad - 2017
    A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon.On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia's brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade.Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten. Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety.Today, Nadia's story - as a witness to the Islamic State's brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi - has forced the world to pay attention to an ongoing genocide. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war.

Deadhouse: Life in a Coroner's Office


John Temple - 2005
    Ed Strimlan is a doctor who never got to practice medicine. Instead he discovers how people died. Mike Chichwak is a stolid ex-paramedic, respected around the office for his compassion and doggedness. Tiffani Hunt is twenty-one, a single mother who questions whether she wants to spend her nights around dead bodies.All three deputy coroners share one trait: a compulsive curiosity. A good thing too because any observation at a death scene can prove meaningful. A bag of groceries standing on a kitchen counter, the milk turning sour. A broken lamp lying on the carpet of an otherwise tidy living room. When they approach a corpse, the investigators consider everything. Is the victim face-up or down? How stiff are the limbs? Are the hands dirty or clean? By the time they bag the body and load it into the coroner's wagon, Tiffani, Ed, and Mike have often unearthed intimate details that are unknown even to the victim's family and friends.The intrigues of investigating death help make up for the bad parts of the job. There are plenty of burdens--grief-stricken families, decomposed bodies, tangled local politics, and gore. And maybe worst of all is the ever-present reminder of mortality and human frailness.Deadhouse also chronicles the evolution of forensic medicine, from early rituals performed over corpses found dead to the controversial advent of modern forensic pathology. It explains how pathologists "read" bullet wounds and lacerations, how someone dies from a drug overdose or a motorcycle crash or a drowning, and how investigators uncover the clues that lead to the truth.

Stryker: The Siege of Sadr City


Konrad R.K. Ludwig - 2013
    For nearly three months, American and Iraqi troops fought for control over the most dangerous urban district of Baghdad, against the ruthless insurgent militia of the Jaish al-Mahdi - a struggle that would change the face of the entire war.Sgt Ludwig's gripping narrative offers and unfiltered view of the Final Battle of Sadr City, as seen through his eyes from behind the wrath of a machine gun. Still a young idealistic boy, he enlists with a high-impact urban assault Stryker unit known as "Bull Company" and comes face-to-face with his own oblivion. Up against the full might of the Jaish al-Mahdi, they embark on a one-way mission deep behind enemy lines, to capture a well-guarded militia stronghold and defend their ground "for as long as it takes."This is the story of what really happened in the late years of Operation Iraqi Freedom.The story our media neglected to tell.

The Border Outlaws: An Authentic and Thrilling History of the Most Noted Bandits of Ancient Or Modern Times: The Younger Brothers, Jesse and Frank James, and Their Comrades In Crime


James William Buel - 1881
     They terrorized the towns and countryside across the West, robbing banks, committing murders, holding up stage coaches and stealing from helpless citizens. The story of these infamous villains begins with the outbreak of the American Civil War when the Younger brothers signed up for the Confederacy to fight in Quantrill’s vicious band of guerrillas. Buel takes the reader through the actions undertaken by the group as they fought for the South in quick lightning strikes against the armies of the North, developing tactics that would come in useful in their later lives. After the end of the war Buel explains how the gang slipped effortlessly from guerrilla warfare to bank robberies, evading capture and killing opponents. They could not evade lawmen and vigilantes forever, Buel explains in vivid detail the gang’s eventual demise. The Border Outlaws is essential reading for anyone interested in the American Civil War and the actions of Quantrill’s raiders as well as outlaws of the Old West. The authority of this work is explain by Paul Iselin Wellman in A Dynasty of Western Outlaws: “This may be the first of the books published about the James and Younger outlaws … Buel had no illusions about them. He names names and quotes dates. At times he includes contemporary newspaper accounts. At others he cites correspondence of the outlaws themselves, to relatives or friends, and in some instances to himself.” “It is the best source material we have.” Outlaws on Horseback, Harry Sinclair Drago James W. Buel was a journalist, based initially in Kansas City and later in St. Louis. He wrote over fifty books during his lifetime on the wilds of Africa and the American West. The Border Outlaws was first published in 1881. He died in San Diego, California, in 1920.