Old Gold


Jay Stringer - 2012
    Having abandoned his morals, ambitions, and relationships for a life of alcohol, denial, and dirty work for local crime bosses, escape seems to be the only option left.But Eoin is surprised by a compulsion to root out his unknown enemies and fight for survival. All too soon, he finds himself caught in the crossfire between nearly every faction in town: rival crime lords, drug dealers, politicians, cops — even his estranged wife has a card in play.His quest to uncover the truth — and prove his innocence — resurfaces deep pains, old scars, and shattered relationships that threaten to bury him under regret. That is, if the killer doesn’t bury him first.

Lou Reed: The Last Interview and Other Conversations


Lou Reed - 2015
    In conversation with legendary rock critics and authors he respected, Reed’s interviews are as pithy and brilliant as the man himself.

Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer


Patrick French - 1994
    Admired by H.G Wells and Bertrand Russell, he launched early assaults on Mt. Everest, held the world record for the 300-yard dash, was the first European since Marco Polo to travel from Peking to Central Asia, discovered the source of the Indus, and, as a spy, his presumed death nearly sparked an Indo-Russian war. The quest to discover this man led Patrick French from the Himalayas to Kashmir and into Tibet in search of clues.

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century, Revised Edition, with a New Preface


Ross E. Dunn - 1987
    Ross Dunn here recounts the great traveler's remarkable career, interpreting it within the cultural and social context of Islamic society and giving the reader both a biography of an extraordinary personality and a study of the hemispheric dimensions of human interchange in medieval times.

The Prussian Captain


Ann Brough - 2017
    But life and love may be found in the most unlikely places—the poverty-stricken streets of Neck End. 1898… Edward turned twenty nine-years-old on the ship. Looking out over the gray water back towards America, his heart ached for both the country he had adopted and loved, and for the woman he had lost there. He was returning to England without having 'made good'. Without any fortune. When Edward meets Gertrude and is captivated by her youth and beauty, his hope for the future is transformed. But this is an era when the rich and poor of England each have their own firmly defined limits. More than any social boundary is a far greater problem—he’s already married. Giving a glimpse into the realities of the very wealthy and the desperately impoverished of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, The Prussian Captain is the story of two opposite lives colliding. One is marked by finery, decorum, servants, and first-class adventures crisscrossing the Atlantic. The other is stuck in a life of abuse, alcoholism, and the depressed state of the working poor of industrialized England. Start reading The Prussian Captain today and discover if Edward and Gertrude risk it all to overcome their stations in life. Will they each find what they are looking for? Find out today!

John Prine: In Spite of Himself


Eddie Huffman - 2015
    Across five decades, Prine has created critically acclaimed albums--John Prine (one of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time), Bruised Orange, and The Missing Years--and earned many honors, including two Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting from the Americana Music Association, and induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. His songs have been covered by scores of artists, from Johnny Cash and Miranda Lambert to Bette Midler and 10,000 Maniacs, and have influenced everyone from Roger McGuinn to Kacey Musgraves. Hailed in his early years as the "new Dylan," Prine still counts Bob Dylan among his most enthusiastic fans. In John Prine, Eddie Huffman traces the long arc of Prine's musical career, beginning with his early, seemingly effortless successes, which led paradoxically not to stardom but to a rich and varied career writing songs that other people have made famous. He recounts the stories, many of them humorous, behind Prine's best-known songs and discusses all of Prine's albums as he explores the brilliant records and the ill-advised side trips, the underappreciated gems and the hard-earned comebacks that led Prine to found his own successful record label, Oh Boy Records. This thorough, entertaining treatment gives John Prine his due as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation.

Italy: A History


Vincent Cronin - 2015
    Here, from New York Times bestselling historian Vincent Cronin, is the extraordinary story of Italy - from the birth of the Roman Empire to the rise of the city-states through the Renaissance and the making of modern Italy.

Russia And The Soviet Union: An Historical Introduction From The Kievan State To The Present


John M. Thompson - 1986
    Thompson also covers controversial topics including the impact of the Mongol conquest, the paradoxes of Peter the Great, the “inevitability” of the 1917 Revolution, the Stalinist terror, and the Gorbachev reform effort. This thoroughly revised and updated edition includes additional treatment of social and cultural issues as well as a new chapter on post-Soviet Russia and the Yeltsin and Putin eras. Distinguished by its brevity, it provides balanced coverage of all periods of Russian history and incorporates economic, social, and cultural developments as well as treating politics and foreign policy. The text is supplemented with maps and illustrations and includes a list of suggested readings at the end of each chapter.

Maoism: A Global History


Julia Lovell - 2019
    As disagreements and conflicts between China and the West are likely to mount, the need to understand the political legacy of Mao will only become more urgent.Yet during Mao’s lifetime and beyond, the power and appeal of Maoism has always extended beyond China. Across the globe, Maoism was a crucial motor of the Cold War: it shaped the course of the Vietnam War (and the international youth rebellion it triggered) and brought to power the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; it aided, and sometimes handed victory to, anti-colonial resistance movements in Africa; it inspired terrorism in Germany and Italy, and wars and insurgencies in Peru, India and Nepal, some of which are still with us today – more than forty years after the death of Mao.In this new history, acclaimed historian Julia Lovell re-evaluates Maoism, analysing both China’s engagement with the movement and its legacy on a global canvas. It’s a story that takes us from the tea plantations of north India to the sierras of the Andes, from Paris’s 5th Arrondissement to the fields of Tanzania, from the rice paddies of Cambodia to the terraces of Brixton.Starting from the movement’s birth in northwest China in the 1930s and unfolding right up to its present-day violent rebirth, this is the definitive history of global Maoism.

The First Ten Books


Confucius
    They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

Titanic Voices: 63 Survivors Tell Their Extraordinary Stories


Hannah Holman - 2012
    There were 712 survivors of the Titanic disaster and their horrific experience has captivated readers and movie goers for almost 100 years. But what was it actually like for a woman to say goodbye to her husband? For a mother to leave her teenage sons? For the unlucky many who found themselves in the freezing Atlantic waters (a few did live to tell the tale)? TITANIC VOICES is the most comprehensive collection of Titanic survivors' accounts ever published and includes many unpublished, and long forgotten accounts, unabridged, together with an authoritative editorial commentary. It is also the first book to include substantial accounts from women survivors - most of the previously well known accounts were written by men.

Norma Kamali I Am Invincible


Norma Kamali - 2021
    Manifesto, memoir, and essential guide, its pages are informed by 50 years of Kamali’s twists, turns, triumphs, and failures experienced while finding the courage and conviction to race after her dreams and never look back.   At 75, Kamali looks—and acts—nearly half her age. The secret, she writes, is learning to age with power: Embracing a healthy lifestyle and looking forward to every milestone and the changes they bring, with the realization that reaching one’s potential has no date. With wisdom and wit, Kamali imparts her lessons on authentic beauty, timeless style, career-building, fitness, and health through personal stories, worldly insight, and actionable advice designed to help women of every age create their happiest, healthiest, most successful and fulfilling lives.

The Scavenger's Daughters


Kay Bratt - 2013
    Together they build a fulfilling life around the most menial of jobs—Benfu’s work collecting trash. As he sorts through the discards of others, he regularly discovers abandoned children. With unwavering determination, he and Calli spend decades creating a family of hand-picked daughters that help heal the sorrow and brighten their modest home. But all is not perfect and when crisis threatens to separate their family, Benfu—or possibly his band of headstrong daughters—must find a way to overcome the biggest hardship yet. Inspired by a true story, and set against the backdrop of a country in transition, The Scavenger’s Daughters is a sweeping present day saga of triumph in the face of hardship, and the unbreakable bonds of family against all odds.

But Darling, I'm Your Auntie Mame!: The Amazing History of the World's Favorite Madcap Aunt


Richard Tyler Jordan - 1998
    The subsequent stage play became one of Broadway's longest-running comdies and the 1958 film was nominated for six Oscars. This volume charts the success of Auntie Mame.

A Single Swallow


Ling Zhang - 2017
    After their deaths, each year on the anniversary of the broadcast, their souls would return to the Chinese village of their younger days. It’s where they had fought—and survived—a war that shook the world and changed their own lives in unimaginable ways. Now, seventy years later, the pledge is being fulfilled by American missionary Pastor Billy, brash gunner’s mate Ian Ferguson, and local soldier Liu Zhaohu.All that’s missing is Ah Yan—also known as Swallow—the girl each man loved, each in his own profound way.As they unravel their personal stories of the war, and of the woman who touched them so deeply during that unforgiving time, the story of Ah Yan’s life begins to take shape, woven into view by their memories. A woman who had suffered unspeakable atrocities, and yet found the grace and dignity to survive, she’d been the one to bring them together. And it is her spark of humanity, still burning brightly, that gives these ghosts of the past the courage to look back on everything they endured and remember the woman they lost.