Waiting for the Mahatma


R.K. Narayan - 1955
    As a mark of his coming of age his grandmother allows his the pass-book to his savigns in the local bank, but Sriram is growing up in other ways, too, and an enchanting and unpredictable girl leads him into the entourage of Mahatma Gandhi.These are the opening events in R K Narayan's novel. It is the finest thing he has yet achieved, and his story of the triumphs and tragedies of a raw young zealot in the service of Gandhi is distinguished for its warmth, its humour, its lack of sentimentality and the stamp of absolute truth.Sriram's evolution into manhood is, for him, strange and bewildering process. Bharati, the girl he worship, is witty, infuriating, capable and, wonder of wonders, condescending to the moonstruck Sriram. Her first loyalty though, is to the Mahatma, a saint blessed with disconcerting common sense, a man whose tragedy is tat he is so much greater than his followers. Most of them accept his ideas enthusiastically, and without realizing it, pervert them to suit their coarser personalities. Sriram is inspired by Gandhi, but he is too easily influenced by glamorous patriots of the type of Jagadish, a terrorist.It is a tale of remarkable insight into the upsrge of Indian nationalism as witnessed through the eyes and hearts of Sriram and Bharati, and told with the all genius and compassion we have come to expect from R K Narayan.

Rick Steves' Amsterdam, Bruges & Brussels


Rick Steves - 2003
    He shows travelers how to delve into European culture, make friends with the locals, and experience each region's natural wonders -- economically and hassle free. Rick Steves' Amsterdam, Bruges and Brussels 2003 is packed with opinionated advice on visiting top sights, such as Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum, Bruges' 14th-century belfry, and La Grand Place in Brussels. This book provides a healthy dose of Back Door intimacy with visits to local markets, community theaters, and family-run chocolate shops. Also included is a broad array of dining and lodging options, from cheery cafeterias and backpackers' dorms to trendy cafes and elegant inns; self-guided walking tours that mix the famous and not-so-famous; practicalities, such as when to go, planning your time, estimated costs, red tape and taxes, and banking hours. This new edition has the most current information available in any European guidebook, based on research conducted during the summer before publication. "It's Rick Steves again, that one-man Euro-dynamo." -- Chicago Tribune

Lee Brilleaux: Rock'n'Roll Gentleman


Zoë Howe - 2015
    But he was also one of its greatest gentlemen - a class act with heart, fire, wanderlust and a wild streak. Exploding out of Canvey Island in the early 1970s - an age of glam rock, post-hippy folk and pop androgyny - the Feelgoods, with Lee Brilleaux and Wilko Johnson at the helm, charged into London, grabbed the pub rock scene by the throat and sparked a revolutionary new era, proving that you didn't have to be middle class, wearing the 'right clothes' or living in the 'right place' to succeed. Lee Brilleaux: Rock'n'Roll Gentleman, while a totally different work, is a companion of sorts to the hugely popular Wilko Johnson book: Looking Back At Me (also co-authored by Howe). It is the first comprehensive appreciation of Lee Brilleaux and, with its numerous exclusive interviews and previously unseen images, is a book no Dr Feelgood fan would wish to be without.

SS Panzer SS Voices (Eyewitness panzer crews) Books 1 & 2: Barbarossa to Berlin


Sprech Media - 2015
    . . within seconds, flaming gasoline was pouring out, burning white and orange . . .”“We shot at the Russian tanks when they came out of the dust cloud . . . the T34 exploded like a rotten fruit . . . engine, turret and deck all going in different directions, with the crew torn apart likewise . . .”Told by the men who fought in the tanks, with all the searing aggression and violence that they experienced . . . these are the shocking first-hand stories of the SS panzer troops themselves. The crews of the Panzer IV, the Stug, the Panther, Jagdtiger, Tiger and King Tiger . . . the authentic voices of the gunners, commanders and drivers who fought some of the deadliest battles in human history.In 1962, German researchers conducted a series of interviews with former members of the Waffen SS panzer troops who had fought in World War 2. The intention was to probe the SS veterans' motivations and psychology, but the men were unwilling to discuss these matters in depth. They were prepared, however, to describe their combat experiences - and they gave astonishing accounts of tank battles in Operation Barbarossa, Normandy, Italy, the Russian Front, the massive conflict at Kursk, the Ardennes and during the final apocalyptic battles against the Soviets within the Reich and for Berlin itself. These were men whose memories of battle were still vivid, and they were ready to relate the physical details of combat – the violent sights, sounds, and sensations of tank fighting, the weapons and tactics that they used, their triumphs and humiliations. Told in ice-cold, clinical detail, with phenomenal drama and sense of crisis, these first-hand accounts stand out today as one of the most remarkable testimonies to the experience of tank warfare in WW2. They will fascinate anyone interested in tank combat, the Waffen SS and the use of armor from 1941 to 1945.This book has the complete set of interviews from Books 1 and 2, with accounts of tank battles in:Operation Barbarossa (Panzer IV) Onslaught in the East (Stug III) Kursk (Tiger I)Italy (Elefant and Panther)Normandy (Panther)The Ardennes (Jagdtiger)Prussia (Stug IV)Berlin (King Tiger and Wirbelwind)A unique and shocking insight into panzer warfare in all its horrors.

Chuvalo: A Fighter's Life: The Story of Boxing's Last Gladiator


George Chuvalo - 2013
    After teaching himself the basics, he turned pro as an eighteen-year-old in 1956 and over the next twenty-three years fought some of the sport's greatest names: Joe Frazier, George Foreman and, most famously, Muhammad Ali (twice). Since retiring from the ring in 1979, Chuvalo has had to come to terms with a series of crushing body blows. His youngest son, a heroin addict, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Two other sons died from heroin overdoses. His first wife, overcome with grief, took her own life. Yet Chuvalo has stoically fought back. He formed his Fight Against Drugs foundation in 1996 and has spent the past seventeen years travelling across Canada and to parts of the United States, talking to tens of thousands of students and young adults about what happened to his family.An inspirational story of a Canadian icon, Chuvalo is both a top-flight boxing memoir and a poignant, hard-hitting story of coping with unimaginable loss.

Greatness: Reagan, Churchill, and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders


Steven F. Hayward - 2005
    Until now. In Greatness, Steven F. Hayward—who has written acclaimed studies of both Reagan and Churchill—goes beneath the superficial differences to uncover the remarkable (and remarkably important) parallels between the two statesmen. In exploring these connections, Hayward shines a light on the nature of political genius and the timeless aspects of statesmanship—critical lessons in this or any age.A swift-moving and original book, Greatness reveals:• The striking similarities between Reagan’s and Churchill’s political philosophies: the two were of the same mind on national defense, the economy, and many other critical issues• What made both Reagan and Churchill so effective in the public arena—including their shared gift for clearly communicating their messages to the people • The connecting thread of the Cold War, which was bookended by Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” address of 1946 and Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech of 1987• The odd coincidences that mark everything from their childhoods to their shifts from Left to Right to their shared sense of personal and national destinyUltimately, Hayward shows, the examples of Churchill and Reagan teach us what is most decisive about political leadership at the highest level—namely, character, insight, imagination, and will. Greatness also serves as a sharp rebuke to contemporary historians who dismiss notions of greatness and the power of individuals to shape history. Hayward demonstrates that the British historian Geoffrey Elton had it right when he wrote, “When I meet a historian who cannot think that there have been great men, great men moreover in politics, I feel myself in the presence of a bad historian.”From the Hardcover edition.

Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL Test: Student Book and CD-ROM with Answer Key: The Next Generation


Deborah Phillips - 2005
    This book gives students all the tools they need to succeed on the new TOEFL integrated-skills test.

What Makes Sammy Run?


Budd Schulberg - 1941
    He is one of the symp-toms of our times—from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick. What makes them run?This is the question Schulberg has asked himself, and the answer is the first novel written with the indignation that only a young writer with talent and ideals could concentrate into a manuscript. It is the story of Sammy Glick, the man with a positive genius for being a heel, who runs through New York’s East Side, through newspaper ranks and finally through Hollywood, leaving in his wake the wrecked careers of his associates; for this is his tragedy and his chief characteristic—his congenital incapacity for friendship.An older and more experienced novelist might have tempered his story and, in so doing, destroyed one of its outstanding qualities. Compromise would mar the portrait of Sammy Glick. Schulberg has etched it in pure vitriol, and dissected his victim with a precision that is almost frightening.When a fragment of this book appeared as a short story in a national magazine, Schulberg was surprised at the number of letters he received from people convinced they knew Sammy Glick’s real name. But speculation as to his real identity would be utterly fruitless, for Sammy is a composite picture of a loud and spectacular minority bitterly resented by the many decent and sincere artists who are trying honestly to realize the measureless potentialities of motion pictures. To this group belongs Schulberg himself, who has not only worked as a screen writer since his graduation from Dartmouth College in 1936, but has spent his life, literally, in the heart of the motion-picture colony. In the course of finding out what makes Sammy run (an operation in which the reader is spared none of the grue-some details) Schulberg has poured out everything he has felt about that place. The result is a book which the publishers not only believe to be the most honest ever written about Hollywood, but a penetrating study of one kind of twentieth-century success that is peculiar to no single race of people or walk of life.

The Bremer Detail: Protecting the Most Threatened Man in the World


Frank Gallagher - 2014
    In May 2003 President George W. Bush appointed Paul Bremer as presidential envoy to Iraq. Bremer banned the Ba'ath party and dismantled the Iraqi army, which made him the prime target for dozens of insurgent and terrorist groups. Assigned to protect him during his grueling sixteen-hour days were Blackwater security expert Frank Gallagher and a team of former Marines, SEALs, and other defense professionals. When they arrived, Baghdad was set to explode. As the insurgency gathered strength Bremer and the men who guarded him faced death daily. They were not in the military, but Gallagher and his team were on the front lines of the Iraq War. This fascinating memoir takes the reader deep behind the scenes of a highly dangerous profession.

Untold Stories


Alan Bennett - 2001
    A Common Assault describes an incident in Italy when he was mugged, and found himself trying to give a statement to the police in bad Italian. The History Boys harks back once more to Bennetts time at school, and shows how the raw material of experience was eventually transformed into the highly-acclaimed stage play The History Boys. Arise, Sir..., finishes on a light-hearted note, in which Bennett muses on the Honours List in typically iconoclastic mode.

गांधीहत्या आणि मी


Gopal Godse - 1965
    This book written by Gopal Godse brings out the facts behind & about that incident & its consequences upon him & his family

The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag


Jim Corbett - 1946
    This volume, however, consists of a single story, often considered the most exciting of all Corbett's jungle tales. He gives a carefully-detailed account of a notorious leopard that terrorized life in the hills of the colonial United Provinces. This story represents Corbett's most sustained and unique effort.

Emotion


Sadhguru - 2018
    In a literal sense also, emotions are a chemical cocktail that course through our bodies. But while we have no problems with pleasant emotions, unpleasant emotions are the source of much angst in our lives. In Emotion: The Juice of Life, Sadhguru looks at the gamut of human emotions and how to turn them into stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks.Sadhguru is a yogi and profound mystic of our times. An absolute clarity of perception places him in a unique space in not only matters spiritual but in business, environmental and international affairs, and opens a new door on all that he touches.

An Unpopular War: From Afkak to Bosbefok: Voices of South African National Servicemen


J.H. Thompson - 2006
    This book is a collection of reflections and memories of that time, collected by JH Thompson, who interviewed men who did National Service in the Apartheid-era South African Defence Force. Contributors include ordinary soldiers, Special Forces members, helicopter pilots, chefs and religious objectors. The book is a fast, fascinating read that captures the spirit and atmosphere, the daily duties, the boredom, fear and other intense experiences of an SADF soldier. For everyone who did military service, as well as their loved ones, this book is a must.

Nothing of Importance: A Record of Eight Months at the Front with a Welsh Battalion, October 1915 to June 1916


John Bernard Pye Adams - 1916
     Nothing could have prepared him for the reality he ended up facing. Placing his focus on the day to day existence of the soldiers in the trenches, Adams presents a grim picture of mud-coated billets, relentless artillery barrages, working parties, training and the art of military sniping. Just as it would have been for the soldiers’ lives, Adams heightens his work with an emotive account of his first night patrol, the detonation of mines, battlefield duels and being wounded whilst out wiring in No Man’s Land. Understated and striving for truth over melodrama, Nothing of Importance is the original memoir of the First World War — the only record published while the conflict was still being fought — and the definitive account of trench warfare. Bernard Adams (1890-1917) was a British Army officer, joining 1 Royal Welsh Fusiliers as a Lieutenant in November 1914. He was the first of a triumvirate of authors who, for a time, served simultaneously in the same battalion: the second was Siegfried Sassoon, the third Robert Graves. Written whilst convalescing in 1916, he did not live to see it published.