The Motherhood Manifesto: What America's Moms Want -- and What To Do About It


Joan Blades - 2006
    From professional women who hit the maternal wall, to childcare workers who can't afford quality care for their own children, this book captures what it means to be a mother in America today. This groundbreaking book also celebrates the successes of companies that have discovered the value of good family policies, families who are making it work, model childcare programs, and legislation that supports families.

When Hitler Took Cocaine: Fascinating Footnotes from History


Giles Milton - 2014
    Covering everything from adventure, war, murder and slavery to espionage, including the stories of the real war horse, who killed Rasputin, Agatha Christie's greatest mystery and Hitler's English girlfriend, these tales deserve to be told.

Don't Eat the Puffin: Tales From a Travel Writer's Life


Jules Brown - 2018
    Get paid to travel and write about it.Only no one told Jules that it would mean eating oily seabirds, repeatedly falling off a husky sled, getting stranded on a Mediterranean island, and crash-landing in Iran.The exotic destinations come thick and fast – Hong Kong, Hawaii, Huddersfield – as Jules navigates what it means to be a travel writer in a world with endless surprises up its sleeve.Add in a cast of larger-than-life characters – Elvis, Captain Cook, his own travel-mad Dad – and an eye for the ridiculous, and this journey with Jules is one you won’t want to miss.

To The Women: words to live by


Donna Ashworth - 2020
    

Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan


Max Evans - 2002
    The story of Silver City Millie, as she referred to herself, is the story of one woman's personal tragedies and triumphs as an orphan, a Harvey Girl waitress on the Santa Fe railroad, a prostitute with innumerable paramours, and a highly successful bordello businesswoman. Millie broke the mould in so many ways, and yet her life's story of survival was not unlike that of thousands of women who went West only to find that their most valuable assets were their physical beauty and their personality. Petite at five feet tall with piercing blue eyes, Millie captured men's attention by her very essence and her unmistakable joie de vivre. Born to Italian immigrant parents near Kansas City, she and her sister were orphaned early and separated from each other. Millie learned hard lessons on the streets, but she never gave up and she vowed to protect and support her ailing older sister. Caught in a domestic squabble in her foster home, Millie wound up in juvenile court with Harry Truman as her judge. This would be only the first of many brushes in her life with prominent politicians. West to a Catholic home in Deming, New Mexico, Millie moved with her. Expenses ran high and after a brief stint waiting tables as a Harvey Girl, Millie found that her meagre tips could easily be augmented by turning tricks. Thus, out of financial need and devotion to her sister, Mildred Cusey turned to a life of prostitution and a career at which she soon excelled and became both rich and famous.

Waiting Wives: The Story of Schilling Manor, Home Front to the Vietnam War


Donna Moreau - 2005
    Author Donna Moreau was the daughter of one such waiting wife, and here she writes of growing up at a time when The Flintstones were interrupted with news of firefights, fraggings, and protests, when the evening news announced death tolls along with the weather forecasts. The women and children of Schilling Manor fought on the emotional front of the war. It was not a front composed of battle plans and bullets. Their enemies were fear, loneliness, lack of information, and the slow tick of time. Waiting Wives: The Story of Schilling Manor, Home Front to the Vietnam War tells the story of the last generation of hat-and-glove military wives called upon by their country to pack without question, to follow without comment, and to wait quietly with a smile. A heartfelt book that focuses on this other, hidden side of war, Waiting Wives is a narrative investigation of an extraordinary group of women. A compelling memoir and domestic drama, Waiting Wives is also the story of a country in the midst of change, of a country at war with a war.

Joseph Smith's Kirtland: Eyewitness Accounts


Karl Ricks Anderson - 1989
    Anderson. 1996, Deseret Book.

Biltmore Estate


Ellen Erwin Rickman - 2005
    Created in the 1890s by George Washington Vanderbilt, a member of one of America's wealthiest families, the estate combined a 250-room French Renaissance-style chateau with 125,000 acres of gardens, forests, and working farms. Biltmore House served as Vanderbilt's primary residence for almost 20 years. After Mr. Vanderbilt's death in 1914, life at Biltmore continued for his wife Edith and daughter Cornelia. In 1930, Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil and her husband, Hon. John Francis Amherst Cecil, opened Biltmore House--the largest private home in the United States--to the public, firmly establishing the Asheville area as a major tourist destination.

The House: The dramatic story of the Sydney Opera House and the people who made it


Helen Pitt - 2018
    When it did, the lives of everyone involved in its construction were utterly changed: some for the better, many for the worse.Helen Pitt tells the stories of the people behind the magnificent white sails of the Sydney Opera House. From the famous conductor and state premier who conceived the project; to the two architects whose lives were so tragically intertwined; to the workers and engineers; to the people of Sydney, who were alternately beguiled and horrified as the drama unfolded over two decades.With access to diaries, letters, and classified records, as well as her own interviews with people involved in the project, Helen Pitt reveals the intimate back story of the building that turned Sydney into an international city. It is a tale worthy of Shakespeare himself.'A drama-filled page turner' - Ita Buttrose AO OBE'Helen Pitt tells us so much about the building of the Sydney Opera House we've never heard before' - Bob Carr, former Premier of NSW'Australia in the seventies: mullets, platform shoes and, miraculously, the Opera House. At least we got one of them right. A great read.' - Amanda Keller, WSFM breakfast presenter

My Own Words


Ruth Bader Ginsburg - 2016
    Throughout her life Justice Ginsburg has been (and continues to be) a prolific writer and public speaker. This book’s sampling is selected by Justice Ginsburg and her authorized biographers Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams. Justice Ginsburg has written an introduction to the book, and Hartnett and Williams introduce each chapter, giving biographical context and quotes gleaned from hundreds of interviews they have conducted. This is a fascinating glimpse into the life of one of America’s most influential women.

323 Disturbing Facts about Our World


Nayden Kostov - 2020
    One of the chapters in each trivia book was “Disturbing Facts about Our World”. I decided to fill an entire volume with facts about upsetting crimes and mayhem, combined with unbelievable yet real instances of misfortune and misery. This is a book where grim examples of bigotry and hypocrisy are intertwined with amusing stories of bad luck. In the spirit of the times we live in, I dedicated a whole chapter to COVID-19 trivia and weird medical conditions. I am well aware that many potential readers might be overwhelmed by the condensed negativity, but hey… a fact is a fact! Continue to read if you are curious to learn:- Why were the trousers of New Zealand’s farmers exploding?- What is the depressing origin of the phrase “Hip Hip, Hooray”?- Why did the Spanish Habsburgs royal family sleep with human mummies?- Why was it legal in Iceland until 2015 to kill Basque people?- Who was the “Deep Throat” informer from the Watergate scandal?- How many people were killed trying to cross the notorious Berlin Wall?- Why do snakes make a better pet than cats or dogs?- How can millipedes cause a train crash?- What is the etymology of “thug”?- What are the chances of getting killed by rubbish falling from space?- How did polygamist men in Kuwait manage to visit all their wives during the coronavirus lockdown?However incredible these pieces of trivia might sound, all entries have been verified and fact-checked.

The Vietnam Air War: From The Cockpit


Dennis M. Ridnouer - 2018
    Showcasing seventy-two true stories told by American servicemen who fought from the skies, this unique and historically significant collection is a stunning record of the air war in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. There is no political agenda. There is no partisan opinion. There is no romanticizing. These are simply tales from the thick of an endlessly complex conflict, raw and uncut, told directly by the men who were foisted into its napalm- and sweat-soaked clutches. Occasionally funny, sometimes tragic, and often harrowing, these true accounts bring new and personal perspectives to one of the most studied and most maligned wars in America’s history, revealing with no Hollywood glamorizing what the war was really like for members of the US Air Force of all ranks and myriad functions who answered the call to fight. They saw no choice but to follow the orders they were given. And for better or for worse, by the time they returned, each of them would be changed forever.

Tainted Ladies: Female Outlaws, Renegade Women and Soiled Doves of the Wild West


Vickie Britton - 2012
    

Silver Dolphins: The Emblem of the Enlisted Submariner


Richard Hansher - 2015
    The author doesn't pull any punches describing the good, the bad, the funny and the just plain ridiculous of the Submarine Service. Besides a wealth of information about what it's like to serve on a submarine, you'll meet real life characters like Tongue, Snake and Button Butt John. Did submarines make them rude, crude, and crazy. Or does the Submarine Service act as a magnet for every nut in the Navy? One thing is sure, after two months underwater, and with their back pay in their back pocket, Sub Sailors are as wild as cowboys after a cattle drive. Bar the doors and hide your daughters. Every reader owes it to themselves to use Amazons "Look In" feature to take a peek inside this unique and entertaining book.

Huddled Masses: The Voyage to Ellis Island


Kevin Jackson - 2018
    Driven from their home countries by famine and persecution, they arrived at Ellis Island full of fear and hope, determined to claim their share of the American Dream.Among the first to pass through Ellis Island was young Israel Baline, a Russian Jew who at the age of just five had seen his homeland overrun by anti-Semitic violence. Forced to flee their village deep within the Russian Empire, the Baline family used their meagre life savings to cross Europe and buy a one-way steerage-class ticket to America. They landed at Ellis Island in 1893, only to find that the streets of New York were not quite paved with gold; the riches they had risked everything for would not be easily won.Israel Baline may have traded a rural slum for an urban one, but he was an American now. He would not stay impoverished for long. Blessed with talent, spurred by the will to succeed, Israel Baline would grow up to become—under another name—his adopted country’s most famous songwriter.