Book picks similar to
'They'll Cut Off Your Project': A Mingo County Chronicle by Huey Perry
non-fiction
nonfiction
appalachian
government
Ronald Reagan
James B. Sutherland - 2008
He entered the White House in 1981, a time when many Americans were wondering if their country's best days were behind them. But things had changed by the time he left office--the economy was thriving and the Cold War was coming to a close.The child of an alcoholic, he was an intensely private man, yet he was so charming that he routinely befriended even his enemies. Reagan was both a complex man and political figure, and his legacy strongly influences politics today.
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates - 2015
Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
Love Fat
Tabitha Farrar - 2015
Tabitha Farrar became ill with anorexia at seventeen. This book describes her ten-year struggle with the disease and dispels many myths about eatings disorders. During her recovery, she felt bombarded with all sorts of conflicting advice on food and diet. An avid researcher, she became obsessed with nutritional science and "healthy" eating. Despite all the literature that informed her she was eating the right things, her body rebelled against her low-fat diet and ultra-healthy eating plans. Stuck in a battle between her head and her gut, who would have ever thought that she would learn to Love Fat.
Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents
Pete Souza - 2018
His years photographing the President gave him an intimate behind-the-scenes view of the unique gravity of the Office of the Presidency—and the tremendous responsibility that comes with it.Now, as a concerned citizen observing the Trump administration, he is standing up and speaking out.Shade is a portrait in Presidential contrasts, telling the tale of the Obama and Trump administrations through a series of visual juxtapositions. Here, more than one hundred of Souza's unforgettable images of President Obama deliver new power and meaning when framed by the tweets, news headlines, and quotes that defined the first 500 days of the Trump White House.What began with Souza's Instagram posts soon after President Trump's inauguration in January 2017 has become a potent commentary on the state of the Presidency, and our country. Some call this "throwing shade." Souza calls it telling the truth.In Shade, Souza's photographs are more than a rejoinder to the chaos, abuses of power, and destructive policies that now define our nation's highest office. They are a reminder of a President we could believe in, and a courageous defense of American values.
The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder
Charles Graeber - 2013
But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, journalist Charles Graeber presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, THE GOOD NURSE weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal.Graeber's portrait of Cullen depicts a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill, and whose shy demeanor masked a twisted interior life hidden even to his family and friends. Were it not for the hardboiled, unrelenting work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen's professional past, and a fellow nurse willing to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, there's no telling how many more lives could have been lost.In the tradition of In Cold Blood, THE GOOD NURSE does more than chronicle Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America's medical system. Harrowing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.
In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect
Ronald Kessler - 2009
Secret Service, that elite corps of agents who pledge to take a bullet to protect the president and his family. After conducting exclusive interviews with more than one hundred current and former Secret Service agents, bestselling author and award-winning reporter Ronald Kessler reveals their secrets for the first time.Secret Service agents, acting as human surveillance cameras, observe everything that goes on behind the scenes in the president’s inner circle. Kessler reveals what they have seen, providing startling, previously untold stories about the presidents, from John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as about their families, Cabinet officers, and White House aides. Kessler portrays the dangers that agents face and how they carry out their missions–from how they are trained to how they spot and assess potential threats. With fly-on-the-wall perspective, he captures the drama and tension that characterize agents’ lives.In this headline-grabbing book, Kessler discloses assassination attempts that have never before been revealed. He shares inside accounts of past assaults that have put the Secret Service to the test, including a heroic gun battle that took down the would-be assassins of Harry S. Truman, the devastating day that John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, and the swift actions that saved Ronald Reagan after he was shot.While Secret Service agents are brave and dedicated, Kessler exposes how Secret Service management in recent years has betrayed its mission by cutting corners, risking the assassination of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and their families. Given the lax standards, “It’s a miracle we have not had a successful assassination,” a current agent says.Since an assassination jeopardizes democracy itself, few agencies are as important as the Secret Service–nor is any other subject as tantalizing as the inner sanctum of the White House. Only tight-lipped Secret Service agents know the real story, and Ronald Kessler is the only journalist to have won their trust.
Six Men
Alistair Cooke - 1977
This is his highly personal and revealing account of six remarkable men who crossed Cooke's path during his lifetime and who, each in their own way, made a lasting impression on him.Here are candid portraits of the lovable yet unreliable Charlie Chaplin, who, when asked to be Cooke's best man, mysteriously vanished on the day; the complex and private man behind Humphrey Bogart's tough guy image; and the charming yet childlike 'golden boy' Edward VIII. Cooke also recalls his friend and mentor, the flawed contrarian and satirist H.L. Mencken, the larger-than-life liberal politician Adlai Stevenson and the heroic social reformer Bertrand Russell. Each superbly realized portrait gives us an insight into a golden age of 'great men', and is a masterpiece of observation, warmth and humour.
Michelangelo Buonarroti: A Life From Beginning to End (Biographies of Painters Book 3)
Hourly History - 2018
The ingenious artist we know as Michelangelo lived during the Renaissance in Northern Italy, and you could say that he was indeed a renaissance man—he was a painter, sculptor, poet, and an engineer all rolled up into one. Even though it has been some 450 years since his passing, his legacy remains one of the strongest on record. If the burgeoning art student of today wishes to learn from the best, he takes his notes directly from Michelangelo. Inside you will read about... ✓ Humble Beginnings ✓ Michelangelo Meets the Medicis ✓ Fist Fights and Dissections ✓ Rivalry with Leonardo da Vinci ✓ The Year of Atrocities ✓ Last Days and Death And much more! He lived for his art, and despite the chaos of kings, popes, and the civil government around him, Michelangelo Buonarroti made sure that his works of artistic expression would withstand the scrutiny of time. In this book you will get to learn more about the incredible personality behind the brushstrokes and caresses of clay. Here you will find the full panoramic display and showcasing of a masterful artist’s life well lived.
Miracle Ball: My Hunt for the Shot Heard 'Round the World
Brian Biegel - 2009
Giants third baseman Bobby Thomson hit the most dramatic home run in the history of baseball. The moment occurred in the bottom of the ninth inning of a sudden-death playoff game between the New York Giants and their arch rivals from Brooklyn, the Dodgers. People across the nation watched on their new TV sets, and the home run became known as “the Shot Heard ’Round the World.” But after clearing the left-field wall, the central artifact of the play–the ball itself–inexplicably went missing. The mystery of what happened to the legendary baseball has remained unsolved for a half century. Until now.Miracle Ball is the gripping account of author Brian Biegel’s two-year effort to unravel the mystery that experts said could never be solved. After his father, Jack, finds a baseball at a thrift store with clues dating back to 1951 and believes it could possibly be the most coveted piece of sports history, father and son begin a journey to prove its authenticity. Biegel becomes consumed with the quest–recognizing it as the only chance to rescue himself from an emotionally devastating personal crisis that had long been crippling him.The trail takes Biegel, a sports fan and documentary filmmaker, from an auction house in Long Island to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, to a backroom meeting straight out of a Martin Scorsese film to a dusty oil field in Texas, finally arriving at his final destination on a quiet gravel road in New Mexico, the last place he ever expected to be.Along the way the author meets an amazing cast of characters, including Bobby Thomson himself, who help him in his quest. Each adds their personal memories of the golden age of baseball, giving a broader scope and greater depth to this real-life detective story. As entertaining as it is inspiring, Miracle Ball is a story about faith, family, and heroes, about overcoming the odds and coming into the light, and about discovering the wondrous result of believing in yourself–and the amazing benefits of unconditional love. A sports story for the ages, an engrossing mystery narrative, and a moving account of a man’s unbreakable bond with his family and of his struggles to save himself, Miracle Ball delivers both heart and headlines.
Miss Ella of Commander's Palace
Ella Brennan - 2016
From childhood in the Great Depression to opening esteemed eateries, it’s quite a story to tell. When she and her family launched Commander’s Palace, it became the city’s most popular restaurant, where famous chefs such as Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse, and James Beard Award winner Troy McPhail got their start.Miss Ella of Commander’s Palace describes the drama, the disasters, and the abundance of love, sweat, and grit it takes to become the matriarch of New Orleans’ finest restaurant empire.
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
John Perkins - 2004
Former Economic Hit Man John Perkins goes behind the scenes of the current geopolitical crisis and offers bold solutions to our most pressing problems. Drawing on interviews with other EHMs, jackals, CIA operatives, reporters, businessmen, and activists, Perkins reveals the secret history of events that have created the current American Empire, including: How the defeats in Vietnam and Iraq have benefited big businessThe role of Israel as Fortress America in the Middle EastTragic repercussions of the IMF's Asian Economic CollapseThe current Latin American revolution and its lessons for democracyU.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon, and VenezuelaFrom the U.S. military in Iraq to infrastructure development in Indonesia, from Peace Corps volunteers in Africa to jackals in Venezuela, Perkins exposes a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe, with consequences reflected in our daily headlines. Having raised the alarm, Perkins passionately addresses how Americans can work to create a more peaceful and stable world for future generations.
Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon
Maxine Gordon - 2018
Davis, political activist, scholar, author, and speakerSophisticated Giant presents the life and legacy of tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon (1923-1990), one of the major innovators of modern jazz. In a context of biography, history, and memoir, Maxine Gordon has completed the book that her late husband began, weaving his "solo" turns with her voice and a chorus of voices from past and present. Reading like a jazz composition, the blend of research, anecdote, and a selection of Dexter's personal letters reflects his colorful life and legendary times. It is clear why the celebrated trumpet genius Dizzy Gillespie said to Dexter, "Man, you ought to leave your karma to science."Dexter Gordon the icon is the Dexter beloved and celebrated on albums, on film, and in jazz lore--even in a street named for him in Copenhagen. But this image of the cool jazzman fails to come to terms with the multidimensional man full of humor and wisdom, a figure who struggled to reconcile being both a creative outsider who broke the rules and a comforting insider who was a son, father, husband, and world citizen. This essential book is an attempt to fill in the gaps created by our misperceptions as well as the gaps left by Dexter himself.
Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack: A Boyhood Year During World War II
Charles Osgood - 2004
As the war rages somewhere far beyond the boundaries of his hometown, he spends his days delivering newspapers, riding the trolley to the local amusement park, going to Orioles' baseball games, and goofing around with his younger sister. With a sharp eye for details, Osgood captures the texture of life in a very different era, a time before the polio vaccine and the atomic bomb. In his neighborhood of Liberty Heights, gaslights still glowed on every corner, milkmen delivered bottles of milk, and a loaf of bread cost nine cents. Osgood reminisces about his first fist-fight with a kid from the neighborhood, his childhood crush on a girl named Sue, and his relationship with his father, a traveling salesman. He also talks about his early love for radio and how he used to huddle under the covers after his parents had turned off the lights, listening to Superman, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, and, of course, to baseball games.Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack is a gloriously funny and nostalgic slice of American life and a moving look at World War II from the perspective of a child far away from the fighting, but very conscious of the reverberations.
The Lightless Sky: My Journey to Safety as a Child Refugee
Gulwali Passarlay - 2018
Fast delivery through DHL/FedEx express.
The Diana Chronicles
Tina Brown - 2007
Was she “the people’s princess,” who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy? Only Tina Brown, former editor-in-chief of Tatler, England’s glossiest gossip magazine; Vanity Fair; and The New Yorker could possibly give us the truth. Updated with a new foreword.