Six Years at the Russian Court


Margaret Eager - 2015
    Originally published in 1906, the book captures Eager’s years as governess to the four daughters of the Emperor and Empress Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna: the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. All of whom would be executed during the Russian civil war just over a decade later.This first-person account provides a fascinating insight into what was everyday life for the Romanov family. From religious celebrations and family illness to assassination attempts and life during the war; Eager’s central role gained her access to some of the family’s most precious and testing times. In addition to documenting the time spent with her royal employers, Eager also reveals intriguing aspects of Russian society as whole. Through a series of anecdotal references she includes recollections of her time in Russia regarding such things as the tough life of the peasantry, criminal activity and even the national post service.This classic, written from the unsuspecting eyes of a foreign nanny, shows early twentieth century Russia and the last Russian royal family like you’ve never seen before. Margaret Eager (1863-1936) left the Russia in 1904 and returned to Ireland where she received a pension from the Russian government for her time as a nurse. She kept in contact with the family she had known so well right up to their brutal deaths in 1918. Eager’s family stated that she never fully recovered from the news.Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up


Rana Ayyub - 2016
    Posing as Maithili Tyagi, a filmmaker from the American Film Institute Conservatory, Rana met bureaucrats and top cops in Gujarat who held pivotal positions in the state between 2001 and 2010. The transcripts of the sting operation reveal the complicity of the state and its officials in crimes against humanity. With sensational disclosures about cases that run parallel to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah’s ascent to power and their journey from Gujarat to New Delhi, the book tells you the hushed truth of the state in the words of those who developed amnesia while speaking before commissions of enquiry, but held nothing back in the secretly taped videos which form the basis of this remarkable read.

Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan


Daman Singh - 2014
    My mother smiles encouragingly. My father shows nosign of having heard. He is immersed in an editorial,no doubt another scathing comment on the state ofthe nation. Bravely, I continue. I say I am thinking ofwriting a book about them.' Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan is that book. In 2004, Manmohan Singh became prime minister of India. Over the next ten years he led the country through opportunities and challenges,not without some controversy. But this is not that story. This is the story of what went before, and it is told by his daughter Daman Singh. It charts the journey of a young boy growing up in undivided India, battling family hardship to pursue his dream of higher education, determining his intellectual and moral compass and learning to live life on his own terms. It is equally about Gursharan Kaur, the womanwith whom he made that life. Vivacious and talented Gursharan, the centre of the family and of the circle of friends they shared. And about their three daughters, Upinder, Daman and Amrit, growing up with aresilient mother and a workaholic father who stepped into the limelight.Based on conversations with her parents and hours spent in libraries and archives, this honest and affectionate memoir provides new insights into the former prime minister and his wife. Movingfrom Gah, Nowshera and Peshawar; through Amritsar, Patiala and Hoshiarpur; to Chandigarh, Cambridge and Oxford; then New York, Bombay and Geneva; and on to New Delhi, this intimate portrayal of two lives is also the history of a nation unfolding over half a century.

Sourav Ganguly: Cricket, Captaincy and Controversy


Saptarshi Sarkar - 2015
    He is undoubtedly one of India's most successful captains, one who moulded a new team when India was at its lowest ebb, reeling from the betting scandal. There can be no argument about his cricketing genius, right from the time he scored a Test century at Lord's to the time he led India to the 2003 World Cup final. But the world of cricketing fans is divided into those who adore him fiercely and despise him greatly. He could be arrogant on occasion: Ganguly allegedly refused to carry the drinks as a twelfth man. He constantly challenged authority. Greg Chappell discarded him from the team during his stint as coach. Ganguly cared little for convention: remember the bare-chested celebration at an Indian win? Yet, in all the years of his roller-coaster ride through Indian cricket, no one questioned the man's utter devotion to the game or his team. In this account of one of India's greatest cricketers, shot through with intimate details, Saptarshi Sarkar tackles controversies around the legendary cricketer head on. Racy and gripping, Sourav Ganguly: Cricket, Captaincy and Controversy investigates the big events in Dada's interesting career. It probes the symbiotic relationship between the man and the cricketer. What was Ganguly thinking before a match? Why did he demand that the grass be trimmed just before start of play at the Nagpur pitch? What was the Indian dressing room like? What was that Greg Chappell chapter all about? An unflinching biography of a man who never shied away from controversies, this is as much a ready reckoner for Sourav Ganguly fans as it is an examination of a crucial era in Indian cricket.

The Myth of Hindu Terror: Insider account of Ministry of Home Affairs 2006-2010


R.V.S. Mani - 2018
    In his insider account, author RVS Mani discloses how the country’s internal security establishment functioned in the period of 2004-2014 when India faced some of the bloodiest terrorist carnages. This former Home Ministry official posted in the Internal Security Division between 2006-2010 also poses several questions that the nation should seek answers to.

It's All Downhill from Here: On the Road with Project 86


Andrew Schwab - 2004
    His guitarist is trying to get them all killed. Fans are stealing his things. Mechanics are rebuking his lifestyle. Even his own fragile, uptight psyche is antagonizing him. But despite having every odd stacked against him, Project 86's frontman is living the dream and loving it. In It's All Downhill From Here, Andrew Schwab chronicles the highs and lows, the struggles and triumphs of this underground, independent rock band's rocky road to stardom. From a hostage situation on their first day on the road, to a drummer's crushed hand, a haunting female fan and an '80s rocker's halitosis problem, Schwab tells it like it is, with biting wit and rock star charm. This insider's look at the real life of a rock band not only reaffirms that everyone's human, but makes you hungry for a dream of your own to chase after.

Makers of Modern India


Ramachandra Guha - 2010
    The existence of such a complex and distinctive democratic regime qualifies as one of the world's bona fide political miracles. Furthermore, India's leading political thinkers have often served as its most influential political actors--think of Gandhi, whose collected works run to more than ninety volumes, or Ambedkar, or Nehru, who recorded their most eloquent theoretical reflections at the same time as they strove to set the delicate machinery of Indian democracy on a coherent and just path. Out of the speeches and writings of these thinker-activists, Ramachandra Guha has built the first major anthology of Indian social and political thought. Makers of Modern India collects the work of nineteen of India's foremost generators of political sentiment, from those whose names command instant global recognition to pioneering subaltern and feminist thinkers whose works have until now remained obscure and inaccessible.

Rodeo In Joliet


Glenn Rockowitz - 2009
    The story takes us from Glenn's unexpected diagnosis of 'three months at best' just days before the birth of his only child, to his miraculous remission and the ironic death of his father. It is a journey that is by turns heartbreaking, painfully funny, misanthropic, loving and ultimately heroic. Rodeo In Joliet tramples the Hallmark cliches and platitudes of traditional cancer survival stories and presents in their place an experience that leaves the reader in awe and grateful for his or her every breath.

Wrestling Observer's Tributes: Remembering Some of the World's Greatest Wrestlers


Dave Meltzer - 2001
    Book by Meltzer, Dave

RAYA : Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara


Srinivas Reddy - 2020
    The empire he inherited was weak from two messy dynastic succession, and ambitious enemy kings loomed large on all sides – a haughty king of Orissa in the east, five upstart Deccan Sultans to the North, revolting Tamil rajas in the South and enterprising Portuguese soldiers from the West. But Krishnadevaraya quickly rose to the challenge, and in the course of his remarkable twenty-year reign, he changed history forever. He won every single battle he fought and unified the whole of South India under his banner. Krishnadevaraya is remembered today as one of India’s greatest kings, not only because of his successes on the battlefield or the dazzling splendour of his empire, but because he was India’s first truly global leader. He had to confront very modern problems, such as building international alliances and negotiating overseas trade deals, while grappling with the challenges of globalism and multiculturalism. The Deccan of his time was a cosmopolitan place where Hindus and Muslims, North Indians and South Indians, Persians and Portuguese, all intermingled as they made their lives and fortunes. This cultural dynamism also inspired Krishnadevaraya to look back at India’s past and reflect on her histories and traditions. As a philosopher-king who was also a celebrated poet in his own right, he presided over an Indian Renaissance, when ancient texts and traditions were reinvigorated and infused with a fresh and modern vitality. Five hundred years after krishnadevaraya’s death, he is still remembered and loved as a compassionate and wise king, one who is immortalised in films and folk tales, poems and Ballads. This fascinating and riveting book is meticulously researched and beautifully written. Based on Portuguese and Persian chronicles, as well as many overlooked Telugu literary sources, Raya is the definitive biography of one of the world’s greatest leaders.

Conversations with Tom Robbins


Liam O. Purdon - 2010
    1932) has become known as the principal voice of American countercultural fiction. His cult celebrity was further solidified by the success of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) and Still Life With Woodpecker (1980). Robbins's mix of vivid language, ribald humor, philosophical musings, controversial commentary on religion and sexuality, and concentration on female protagonists and feminine consciousness has marked almost all of his fiction, as well as his short writings.Despite his undeserved reputation as 1960s hippie icon, all of Robbins's work remains popular and in print, and his later novels--including Jitterbug Perfume (1984), Skinny Legs and All (1990), Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994), Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates(2000), Villa Incognito (2003), and B Is for Beer (2009)--engage thoroughly with current politics, mores, and trends.Conversations with Tom Robbins brings together more than twenty interviews with the acclaimed author, from the mid-1970s to the present. Throughout the volume, Robbins discusses his working methods, his fusion of Eastern and Western philosophical traditions, the need for wit and humor in serious fiction, and the ways living in the Pacific Northwest has fueled his work.

I Could Not Be Hindu : The Story of a Dalit in the RSS


Bhanwar Meghwanshi - 2020
    Despite his untouchable status, he quickly rises to the post of karyavah. Ahead of the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992, he becomes the district office chief of Bhilwara. He hates Muslims with a passion without having met one. He joins thousands of karsevaks to Ayodhya. He mocks Mulla-Yam Singh. He participates in riots. He goes to jail. He finds Hindutva intoxicating. He is ready to die for the Hindu Rashtra.And yet he remains a lesser Hindu. He turns into a critic of the Sangh, becomes an Ambedkarite and makes it his life’s mission to expose the hypocrisies of Hindutva.In this explosive memoir, translated by Nivedita Menon from the Hindi, Bhanwar Meghwanshi tells us what it meant to be an untouchable in the RSS. And what it means to become Dalit.

I Accuse-: The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984


Jarnail Singh - 2009
    It was outrage at this state of affairs that led Jarnail Singh, an unassuming, law- abiding journalist, to throw his shoe at home minister P Chidambaram during a press conference in New Delhi. He readily acknowledges that this was not an appropriate means of protest, but asks why, twenty-five years after the massacres, so little has been done to address the issues that are still unresolved and unanswered and a source of anguish to the whole community.? ? Who initiated the pogrom and why? ? Why did the state apparatus allow it to happen? ? Why, despite the many commissions and committees set up to investigate the events, have the perpetrators not been brought to book? ? I Accuse is a powerful and passionate indictment of the state's response to the killings of 1984. It explores the chain of events, the survivors' stories and the continuing shadow it casts over their lives. Because, finally, 1984 was not an attack on the Sikh community alone; it was an attack on the idea at the very core of democracy?that every citizen, irrespective of faith and community, has a right to life, liberty and security.

Easy Target: The Long Strange Trip of a Scout Pilot in Vietnam (Taking Flight)


Tom Smith - 1996
    Initially cast as target-spotters for gunships and air-assault forces, the scout pilots evolved into live bait as enemy weapons and tactics improved. Their small helicopters were vulnerable even to minor damage, and parachuting from a damaged bird was impossible. Casualty rates could be as high as 50%; a scout unit often resembled a WWI fighter squadron, with replacements dying almost before they could unpack. Yet fresh volunteers kept coming, even if only to stay out of the infantry. In his visceral memoir, Smith tells the familiar story of a young man who flunked out of college, sampled the 1960s counterculture and found himself first in the army, then in Vietnam. For Smith, the war was a theater of the absurd whose only meaning was survival. His narrative of low-altitude, high-risk operations in 1969-70 replicates that of others: initial confusion giving way first to proficiency and pleasure in stalking and killing anonymous enemies, later to a sense that both his skill and his luck are running out. Gritty enough to appeal to adventure fans, this memoir makes a useful contribution to a subject, American helicopter pilots in Vietnam, whose recorded history is largely still in its anecdotal stage.

Valley Walls: A Memoir of Climbing and Living in Yosemite


Glen Denny - 2016
    Photographer Glen Denny was a key figure in this golden age of climbing, capturing pioneering feats on camera while tackling challenging ascents himself.In entertaining short pieces enlivened by his iconic black-and-white images of Yosemite's big wall legends, Denny reveals a young man's coming of age and provides a vivid look at Yosemite’s early climbing culture. He relates such precarious achievements as hauling water in glass gallon jugs up the east face of Washington Column, nailing the 750-foot Rostrum in a punishing heat wave, and dangling overnight on El Capitan’s Dihedral Wall in a lightning storm. Each true tale captures the spirit of historic Camp 4, where Denny and others plan the next big climb while living on the cheap and dodging park rangers.