John Key: Portrait of a Prime Minister


John Roughan - 2014
    As Key and his Government begin campaigning for a third term in Parliament, this in-depth portrait will give a clearer idea of Key, the man and politician. Journalist John Roughan has secured unprecedented access to John Key and his closest advisors. This book will provide insights into what motivates a multi-millionaire to become Prime Minister and examines his thoughts and aspirations. It will provide the clearest picture yet of what drives this country's Prime Minister. The book will follow Key's early life, starting with the break-up of his parents, his upbringing in a state house with an interesting Jewish refugee mother and his years at high school and university. It will follow his early career as a finance trader, his move into politics and his performance in power so far. Roughan will explore how Key's political views were formed by his life experiences, and how his political decisions fit within the context of his life story. John Key and his wife Bronagh have agreed to be interviewed for the book.

Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America's Border


Jan Brewer - 2011
    Unfairly tarred by liberal critics as a state comprised of racist rednecks, Arizona is on the front lines in the battle against illegal immigration—and the courageous stand of its leader, a national hero who’s been called so tough that she “eats scorpions for breakfast,” will educate and inspire Americans from coast to coast.

Pull No Punches: Memoir of a political survivor


Judith Collins - 2020
    

Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter


Carmen Aguirre - 2011
    Thousands were arrested, tortured and killed under General Augusto Pinochet's repressive new regime. Soon after the coup, six-year-old Carmen Aguirre and her younger sister fled the country with their parents for Canada and a life in exile.In 1978, the Chilean resistance issued a call for exiled activists to return to Latin America. Most women sent their children to live with relatives or with supporters in Cuba, but Carmen's mother kept her precious girls with her. As their mother and stepfather set up a safe house for resistance members in La Paz, Bolivia, the girls' own double lives began. At eighteen, Carmen herself joined the resistance. With conventional day jobs as a cover, she and her new husband moved to Argentina to begin a dangerous new life of their own.This dramatic, darkly funny narrative, which covers the eventful decade from 1979 to 1989, takes the reader inside war-ridden Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia, post-Malvinas Argentina and Pinochet's Chile. Writing with passion and deep personal insight, Carmen captures her constant struggle to reconcile her commitment to the movement with the desires of her youth and her budding sexuality. 'Something Fierce' is a gripping story of love, war and resistance and a rare first-hand account of revolutionary life.

Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion


Seth Stern - 2010
    These are what Jeffrey Toobin has called “a coveted set of documents” that includes Brennan’s case histories—in which he recorded strategies behind all the major battles of the past half century, including Roe v. Wade, affirmative action, the death penalty, obscenity law, and the constitutional right to privacy—as well as more personal documents that reveal some of Brennan's curious contradictions, like his refusal to hire female clerks even as he wrote groundbreaking women’s rights decisions; his complex stance as a justice and a Catholic; and details on Brennan’s unprecedented working relationship with Chief Justice Earl Warren. Wermiel distills decades of valuable information into a seamless, riveting portrait of the man behind the Court's most liberal era.

The Devil's Highway: A True Story


Luis Alberto Urrea - 2004
    border policy." (The Atlantic) The author of Across the Wire offers brilliant investigative reporting of what went wrong when, in May 2001, a group of 26 men attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona. Only 12 men came back out.A national bestseller, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a "book of the year" in multiple newspapers, and a work proclaimed as a modern American classic.

The Water and the Wine


Tamar Hodes - 2018
    Leonard Cohen is at the start of his career and in love with Marianne, who is also muse to her ex-husband, Axel. Australian authors George Johnston and Charmian Clift write, drink and fight. It is a hedonistic time of love, sex and new ideas. As the island hums with excitement, Jack and Frieda Silver join the community, hoping to mend their broken marriage. However, Greece is overtaken by a military junta and the artistic idyll is threatened.

Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer


Michael Keane - 2012
    Patton, Jr. is one of the most famous military figures in U.S. history. Yet, he is better known for his profanity than his prayers. Until now. In his new book Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer, author Michael Keane takes readers on a journey through Patton's career in three parts: his military prowess, his inspirational bravery, and his faith. Using Patton's own diaries, speeches, and personal papers, Keane examines the general's actions and personality to shed light on his unique and paradoxical persona. From his miraculous near-death experience to his famous prayer for fair weather, Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer recounts the seminal events that contributed to Patton's personal and religious beliefs. Comprehensive and inspiring, Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer is an extraordinary look at the public and private life of one of World War II's most storied generals.

Through Apache Eyes: Verbal History of Apache Struggle (Annotated and Illustrated)


Geronimo Chiricahua - 2011
    Yet, the one constant in the history of the Apache People is their constant struggle to survive in a world where they are surrounded by various enemies, including other Indian tribes, the Mexicans and finally their brutal nemesis the United States Army. Attacked, tricked, lied to and double crossed by all of those who surround and outnumber them, the Apache people continued their struggle until they were for all intent and purposes almost totally wiped out. One Apache’s name stands out in their brave yet woeful history and it is Geronimo, who at age 30 witnessed the massacre of his mother, wife and two young children.I’ve taken his recollections or accounts of the struggle of the Apache people and intertwined them with some archeological facts about this extraordinary tribe. In addition, I have searched and included some of the best photos of Apaches from that era, which I collected from Library of Congress Archives. What impressed me most about Geronimo was his brevity of words, yet his ability to take a knife to the heart of anyone who reads his verbal history. Like most Apaches, Geronimo said little, but what he did say was profound and truthful. But most powerful is what Geronimo didn’t say in his recollections. It is between this silence one can feel the pain, sorrow, pride and bravery of the Apache People. Chet DembeckPublisher of One

Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi


Neal Bascomb - 2009
    Following his escape from two American POW camps, his retreat into the mountains and out of Europe, and his path to an anonymous life in Buenos Aires, his pursuers are a bulldog West German prosecutor, a blind Argentinean Jew and his beautiful daughter, and a budding, ragtag spy agency called the Mossad, whose operatives have their own scores to settle (and whose rare surveillance photographs are published here for the first time). The capture of Eichmann and the efforts by Israeli agents to secret him out of Argentina to stand trial is the stunning conclusion to this thrilling historical account, told with the kind of pulse-pounding detail that rivals anything you'd find in great spy fiction.

History's Greatest Generals: 10 Commanders Who Conquered Empires, Revolutionized Warfare, and Changed History Forever


Michael Rank - 2013
    Whether it is Hannibal of Carthage marching elephants across the Alps and attacking the heart of Rome, Khalid ibn al-Walid boasting an undefeated military career and destroying the Persian Empire while subduing the Byzantines, or Russian General Alexander Suvurov and his elevation of the bayonet to a work of art that could cut down any European army, great military leaders have exerted tremendous influence on society. This book will look at the lives of the ten greatest military commanders in history. Some conquered the fullest expanse of the known world, as did Alexander the Great. Still others were master statesmen and capable of translating military victory into long-term political gains, such as Julius Caesar, whose vanquishing of the Gauls and his political opponents laid the groundwork for several centuries of unmatchable Roman imperial might. It will also look at the tactics they used to bring down stronger armies and befuddle them at every turn; whether it is Napoleon, who nearly conquered Europe through his deadly manoeuvre sur les derrieres and marching unexpectedly away from the enemy's main strength and concentrating on a weak but vital enemy point; or Hannibal's double entrapment maneuver, which has been the envy of military strategists for the last 2,000 years. Whatever their background, these rulers show that the right military commander at the right time in history can destroy an empire, change civilization, and alter the course of world history forever.

Ike and Monty: Generals at War


Norman Gelb - 1994
     But although it was led by two great commanders, they seldom saw eye to eye. Dwight David Eisenhower and Bernard Law Montgomery were men of such profoundly contrasting temperaments and strategic orientation that their relationship was bound to be stormy. ‘Ike and Monty’ is the first book to focus exclusively on how their often bitter relationship determined the fate of the Allied effort to liberate Europe in World War II. From the invasion of North Africa to D-Day, from the Battle of the Bulge to the fall of Berlin, Ike and Monty draws a masterful portrait of a tortured union between two military giants. It is also an account of how their clash of wills came to personify the historic moment when the United States assumed the role of superpower in the West and once-powerful Great Britain was obliged to accept that it could no longer aspire to such exalted status. Norman Gelb has written several highly acclaimed books, including 'Desperate Venture: The Story of Operation Torch', 'The Allied Invasion of North Africa' and 'Dunkirk: The Complete Story of the First Step in the Defeat of Hitler'. He lives in London and is a correspondent for New Leader magazine. Praise for Norman Gelb: “Mr. Gelb has excavated beneath surface events, delved into political and psychological factors, and produced an intelligent, fast-moving narrative.” — PROFESSOR ARNOLD AGES, Baltimore Sun “Vivid and comprehensive … Absorbing … Sets a high standard for other reconstructions” — Kirkus Reviews

Behind the Sequins: My Life


Shirley Ballas - 2020
    In 1996, Shirley retired from competitive dancing to become a highly-acclaimed coach and now holds the enviable position of Head Judge on BBC One's prime time show Strictly Come Dancing.In Behind the Sequins, she leads us through her dramatic and determined life, from growing up in a rough estate on the Wirral and leaving home at 14 years old, to conquering the high-octane world of ballroom and coping with betrayal, bullying, two broken marriages and a personal tragedy that left Shirley and her family devastated.Speaking from the heart, Shirley leaves her dancing shoes at the door to tell you the story of a fiery, strong-willed grafter who could make the brat pack blush.

The Massacre at El Mozote


Mark Danner - 1994
    Although reports of the massacre -- and photographs of its victims -- appeared in the United States, the Reagan administration quickly dismissed them as propaganda. In the end, El Mozote was forgotten. The war in El Salvador continued, with American funding.When Mark Danner's reconstruction of these events first appeared in The New Yorker, it sent shock waves through the news media and the American foreign-policy establishment. Now Danner has expanded his report into a brilliant book, adding new material as well as the actual sources. He has produced a masterpiece of scrupulous investigative journalism that is also a testament to the forgotten victims of a neglected theater of the cold war.

Bermondsey Boy: Memories of a Forgotten World


Tommy Steele - 2006
    Later, this Bermondsey boy would become known as Tommy Steele . In this engaging memoir Tommy recalls his childhood years growing up in Bermondsey. He relives with great fondness Saturdays as a young boy, spent gazing at the colourful posters for the Palladium and days spent wandering up Tower Bridge Road to Joyce's Pie Shop for pie and mash. But he also brings to life with extraordinary vividness what it was like to live through the devastation of the Blitz. Yet it was once he joined the merchant navy and began singing and performing for his fellow seamen that his natural ability as an entertainer marked him out as a favourite. And it was while ashore in America that he became hooked on rock'n'roll and a legend was born . From Tommy's humble beginning to life at sea and finally as a performer, Bermondsey Boy is a colourful, charming and deeply engaging memoir from a much-loved entertainer.