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Irresistible North: From Venice to Greenland on the Trail of the Zen Brothers


Andrea di Robilant - 2011
    This delightful journey begins with Andrea di Robilant’s serendipitous discovery of a travel narrative published in Venice in 1558 by the Renaissance statesman Nicolò Zen: the text and its fascinating nautical map re-created the travels of two of the author’s ancestors, brothers who explored the North Atlantic in the 1380s and 1390s. Di Robilant set out to discover why later, in the nineteenth century, the Zens’ account came under attack as one of the greatest frauds in geographical history. Was their map—and even their journey—partially or perhaps entirely faked? In Irresistible North the author follows the Zens’ route from the Faeroes to Shetland to Iceland and Greenland, greeted by characters who help unravel the enigmas in the Zens’ account. The medieval world comes to life as di Robilant guides us through a landscape enlivened by the ghosts of power-hungry earls and bishops of the old Norwegian realm and magical tales of hot springs and smoking mountains. In this rich telling—an original work of history and a travel book in one—the magnetism of the north draws us in as powerfully as it drew the Zen brothers more than six centuries ago.

The Range Bucket List: The Golf Adventure of a Lifetime


James Dodson - 2017
    A few years ago, now in his sixties and one of the most respected golf writers of all time, Dodson rediscovered the piece of paper in an old trunk. Realizing that he had yet to achieve many of his thirteen-year-old dreams, and pondering the things he’d add to the list if he wrote it today, he expanded the list into a golfing “bucket list” of the people and places he had yet to meet and see in the golf world. In this tribute to the game he loves, Dodson takes readers on a journey around the world and into the lives of characters large and small. From an interesting lunch with Donald Trump to rounds with John Updike and intimate conversations with Arnold Palmer, from scoring a memorable thirteen on a hole at St. Andrews to revealing the real reason The Masters has always been broadcast on CBS, The Range Bucket List is simultaneously an exhilarating armchair adventure and one man’s love letter to a game that has fundamentally shaped him and his life, filled with unforgettable characters, untold history, and lots of heart.

Northwest Foraging: The Classic Guide to Edible Plants of the Pacific Northwest


Doug Benoliel - 1974
    Now fully updated and expanded by the original author, this elegant new edition is sure to become a modern staple in backpacks, kitchens, and personal libraries.A noted wild edibles authority, Doug Benoliel provides more than 65 thorough descriptions of the most common edible plants of the Pacific Northwest region, from asparagus to watercress, juneberries to cattails, and many, many more! He also includes a description of which poisonous "look-alike" plants to avoid -- a must-read for the foraging novice. Features include detailed illustrations of each plant, an illustrated guide to general plant identification principles, seasonality charts for prime harvesting, a selection of simple foraging recipes, and a glossary of botanical terms. Beginning with his botany studies at the University of Washington, Doug Benoliel has been dedicated to native plants. He has owned a landscaping, design, and nursery business, and done his extensive work with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Doug lives on Lopez Island, Washington.

City of Evil: The truth about Adelaide's strange and violent underbelly


Sean Fewster - 2010
    What they forget is that every church has a graveyard - and every graveyard is full of skeletons. Adelaide, an elegantly designed, civilised city, where the inhabitants are known for their love of the arts, good food and fine wine, is also the place where many of Australia's most bizarre and macabre crimes have taken place. The cases in this book show that Adelaide truly does have another side: from the murder of a transvestite, pro-wrestling truck driver by his two lesbian lodgers (who worked as prostitutes) during an argument over a camera; to the prosecution of an elderly couple by the RSPCA for keeping, in frightful conditions and almost starved to death, a collection of 120 stray dogs and six pigs. This book is more than a collection of some of the most attention-grabbing, shocking and puzzling cases from the past ten years: it also looks at why it might be that so many have happened in this sunny, conservative, unassuming state capital.

We Ain't Go No Drink, Pa


Hilda Kemp - 2015
    Too little money. An abusive father too drunk to notice his family is starving. This is the true story of a little girl's struggle to survive against the odds in the slums of 1920s south-east London.'We ain't got no drink, Pa.'I trembled as I spoke. Then somewhere inside me I found the anger, the courage to answer him back.'We don't have no grog cos you drank it all!'I knew he was going for me tonight, so I reckoned I might as well go down fighting after all.Growing up in the slums of 1920s and 30s Bermondsey, Hilda Kemp's childhood was one of chaos and fear. Every day was battleground, a fight to survive and a fight to be safe.For Hilda knew what it was to grow up in desperate poverty: to have to scratch around for a penny to buy bread; to feel the seeping cold of a foggy docklands night with only a thin blanket to cover her; to share her filthy mattress with her brothers and sisters, fighting for space while huddling to keep warm. She knew what it was to feel hunger - not the impatient growl of a tummy that has missed a meal; proper hunger, the type that aches in your soul as much as your belly.The eldest of five children, Hilda was the daughter of a hard drinker and hard hitter as well. A casual dockworker by day, a bare-knuckle fighter by night and a lousy drunk to boot, her pa honed his fists down the Old Kent Road and Blackfriars, and it was Hilda or her ma who bore the brunt of them at home.This is the powerful and moving memoir of Hilda's childhood growing up in dark, filthy, crime-ridden Bermondsey; a place where you knew your neighbours, where you kept your eyes down and your ears shut as defence against the gangs at war in the streets. It's a time when days were spent running wild down the docklands, jumping onto barges and stealing coal, racing through the dank back-streets of east London like water rats, dodging the milk cart or the rag-and-bone man.And out of this bleak landscape emerges a brave, resilient young girl whose life is a testament to the power of love and good humour. Moving, dazzling and sombre by turns, once opened this brilliant, seductive book will not let you rest.

Conversations With a Killer (Singles Classic)


Alec Wilkinson - 2016
    The murders took place between 1972 and 1978, when he was caught and arrested. No one else in America has ever been convicted of killing so many people. Twenty-seven of the bodies were buried in a crawl space beneath the house where Gacy lived, in a neighborhood out by O’Hare Airport. About many of the murders there was a suggestion of sexual torture. Twenty-one of the murders were committed before Illinois had enacted a death penalty, and for those Gacy was sentenced to twenty-one terms of life in prison. For the others, he was sentenced to death. He is to be killed on the tenth of May.Published just a month before Gacy’s execution, Alec Wilkinson’s Conversations With a Killer presents a chilling portrait of one of America’s most heinous killers as he sits on death row and maintains his innocence. At once too close for comfort and impossible to put down, Conversations With a Killer is a must-read for true crime fans. Conversations with a Killer was originally published in The New Yorker, April 18, 1994.Cover design by Adil Dara.

Playboy's Silverstein Around the World


Shel Silverstein - 2001
     While children and adults alike know Shel Silverstein for his classic books The Giving Tree, A Light in the Attic, and Where the Sidewalk Ends, they may be less aware that Silverstein also created a dazzling series of illustrated comic travelogues published by Hugh M. Hefner in Playboy. Playboy's Silverstein Around the World not only reproduces these fascinating articles in facsimile form, it also provides an introduction with never-before-seen photos and drawings and rare, illuminating biographical detail. Beginning in May 1957 with "Return to Tokyo," the pieces reproduced in this book took Silverstein from Scandinavia to Africa and the Middle East, from Paris and London to Moscow, ending in the summer of 1968 with the two-part epic "Silverstein Among the Hippies." This unique collection is a legacy of the close relationship between Silverstein and Hefner, who saw the great potential of this particular combination of artist and assignment, and the social revolution led by Playboy in the 1950s and 1960s. With its wry, ribald humor and beautifully produced color illustrations, this tableau of the mid-twentieth-century world is sure to please and fascinate Silverstein's millions of fans.

Kindred Souls: The Friendship Of Eleanor Roosevelt And David Gurewitsch


Edna P. Gurewitsch - 2002
    Roosevelt wrote, "Above all others, you are the one to whom my heart is tied...." This defines the intense relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and David Gurewitsch-- friends who often traveled and entertained together and eventually, after his marriage to Edna Perkel, bought and shared a town house in Manhattan.Their private friendship, a companionship they both treasured, has always intrigued historians, but not much was known about it. David kept diaries and took thousands of photographs, but he never publicly discussed their time together. Now, for the first time, his wife, Edna, has decided to reveal their story and hers after she married into their complicated relationship. Reading David's diaries and the hundreds of letters that he and Mrs. Roosevelt exchanged over the years, and then reflecting on her own life after the death of her husband, enabled Edna finally to write this story. She sheds new light on Mrs. Roosevelt's very private journey of self-discovery as she gained the confidence and knowledge to follow her own personal and political convictions: visiting Khrushchev at his home in Yalta, working on Adlai Stevenson's campaign, being charmed by the young Senator John Kennedy into giving her support for his presidential candidacy, and above all inspiring the love and respect of people all over the world for her compassion, eloquence, and devotion to humanity.Given her husband's unique role as doctor and confidant to Mrs. Roosevelt, Edna Gurewitsch draws on his insights and her own as a close friend to offer us a very human and inspiring portrait of this complex woman. Perceived as a strong and deeply caring person, which she was, Mrs. Roosevelt also struggled terribly with loneliness and jealousy and a need to transcend her sometimes overwhelming feelings of inadequacy. Her capacity for friendship was enormous, and Edna Gurewitsch describes what it was like to be on the receiving end of her exceptional thoughtfulness-- the carefully chosen gifts left on doorsteps, the generous notes, and the open conversations she welcomed with a humility that never trumpeted her own virtues or called attention to herself as one of the great minds of the twentieth century.Kindred Souls is filled with personal and unpublished letters from Mrs. Roosevelt. Sometimes chatty and fact-filled, but more often heartfelt and passionate, these letters reveal her yearnings and vulnerabilities as well as her comings and goings, her personal as well as her global concerns. And yet they are always balanced by her special dignity and probity. The book also includes thirty-two pages of never-before-seen photographs taken by David Gurewitsch. Combined with the author's own memories and observations, Kindred Souls is a unique, intimate look at three friends and their extraordinary lives.

Strange Behavior: Tales of Evolutionary Neurology


Harold Klawans - 2001
    From the woman suffering from "painful foot and moving toe syndrome" to the Indiana farmer who contacted a variant of mad cow disease from his herds of livestock, Klawans deduced a great deal from his patients, not only about the immediate causes of their ailments, but about the evolutionary underpinnings of their behavior.

History's Most Powerful Witches: Their Life, Witchcraft and Spells


Desmond Wilde - 2016
    Learn about their life, their legacy and their secrets and powerful spells Download FREE with Kindle Unlimited! Witches have always worried, scared, and fascinated people in equal measure. From dark magic to home remedies, they have been part of the cultural landscape for people across the world. From Europe to the Americas, Asia to Africa, the idea of women who delve deep into magic has created some of the most enduring stories in the history of humanity. Often, these stories blend the real with the unreal, truth with fiction, and magic with the mundane. In this book, we will look at witches from across the world and many thousands of years. But witches are not always welcome. Often, they are feared. People worry about satanic practices and dark magic. Should a child fall sick, it is not uncommon for people to blame a local woman. Many have been falsely accused of witchcraft throughout history and, sometimes, these people have been killed as a result. Sometimes, even the rumored practice of dark magic can be enough to condemn a person to be burned at the stake. Throughout this book, we will look into the history of witchcraft as it has been practiced by people over the ages. Not only that, but we will look into some of the spells that they relied upon for their power. By studying their specific arts, we can better understand the scope and the power of witchcraft. If you would like to know more about history’s most powerful witches, then read on and get to grips with some of the strangest, oddest, most magical, and most twisted tales in human history." Read on your favorite devices such as Kindle, IPhone, IPad, Android cellular phone, tablet, laptop, or computer with Amazon's free reading Kindle App. Scroll back up and click the BUY NOW button at the top right side of this page for an immediate download!

The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton And Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press


Jeremy Clay - 2013
    HOLIDAYMAKER FIGHTS OFF AFRICAN LION IN WELSH HOTEL ROOMMAN SWALLOWS MOUSE AND DIESWIFE DRIVEN MAD BY HUSBAND TICKLING FEETPALLBEARER KILLED BY COFFIN IN GRAVEYARDLIBERALS EAT DOGFrom the newspaper archives of the British Library, Jeremy Clay has unearthed the long-lost stories that enthralled and appalled Victorian Britain.Within these pages are the riotous farces and tragedies of 19th-century life, a time when life was hard, pleasures short-lived, and gloating over other people’s misfortune a thoroughly acceptable form of entertainment.Deliciously appalling and deliriously funny, The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton will have you, one way or another, in tears …

Madness and Memory: The Discovery of Prions--A New Biological Principle of Disease


Stanley B. Prusiner - 2014
    Prusiner received a Nobel Prize, the world's most prestigious award for achievement in physiology or medicine. That he was the sole recipient of the award for the year was entirely appropriate, for his struggle to identify the agent responsible for ravaging the brains of animals suffering from scrapie and mad cow disease, and of humans with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, had been waged largely alone and in some cases in the face of strenuous disagreement.   In this book, Prusiner tells the remarkable story of his discovery of prions—infectious proteins that replicate and cause disease but surprisingly contain no genetic material—and reveals how superb and meticulous science is actually practiced using talented teams of researchers who persevere. He recounts the frustrations and rewards of years of research and offers fascinating portraits of his peers as they raced to discover the causes of fatal brain diseases. Prusiner’s hypothesis, once considered heresy, now stands as accepted science and the basis for developing diagnoses and eventual cures. He closes with a meditation on the legacy of his discovery: What will it take to cure Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s and other devastating diseases of the brain?

Ian Gillan: The Autobiography of Deep Purple's Lead Singer


Ian Gillan - 1993
    This is the autobiography of their lead singer, Ian Gillan. Here he tells his life story, and that of the band he helped to make great. Stories of friction and violence, groupies and non-stop partying, drugs and alcohol, and how, finally, it all spiralled out of control to destroy the band.

The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home


Denise Kiernan - 2017
    Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, Henry James, and Edith Wharton.Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage from one of New York’s best-known families. She grew up in Newport and Paris, and her engagement and marriage to George Vanderbilt was one of the most watched events of Gilded Age society. But none of this prepared her to be mistress of Biltmore House.Before their marriage, the wealthy and bookish Vanderbilt had dedicated his life to creating a spectacular European-style estate on 125,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness. He summoned the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to tame the grounds, collaborated with celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt to build a 175,000-square-foot chateau, filled it with priceless art and antiques, and erected a charming village beyond the gates. Newlywed Edith was now mistress of an estate nearly three times the size of Washington, DC and benefactress of the village and surrounding rural area. When fortunes shifted and changing times threatened her family, her home, and her community, it was up to Edith to save Biltmore—and secure the future of the region and her husband’s legacy.The Last Castle is the uniquely American story of how the largest house in America flourished, faltered, and ultimately endured to this day.

The Red Thread: A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy


Diana West - 2019
    officials were turning the surveillance powers of the federal government -- designed to stop terrorist attacks -- against the Republican presidential team. These were the ruthless tactics of a Soviet-style police state, not a democratic republic.The Red Thread asks the simple question: Why? What is it that motivated these anti-Trump conspirators from inside and around the Obama administration and Clinton networks to depart so drastically from "politics as usual" to participate in a seditious effort to overturn an election?Finding clues in an array of sources, Diana West uses her trademark investigative skills, honed in her dazzling work, American Betrayal, to construct a fascinating series of ideological profiles of well-known but little understood anti-Trump actors, from James Comey to Christopher Steele to Nellie Ohr, and the rest of the Fusion GPS team; from John Brennan to the numerous Clintonistas still patrolling the Washington Swamp after all these years, and more.Once, we knew these officials by august titles and reputation; after The Red Thread, readers will recognize their multi-generational and inter-connecting communist and socialist pedigrees, and see them for what they really are: foot-soldiers of the Left, deployed to take down America's first "America First" and most anti-Communist president.If we just give it a pull, the "red thread" is very long and very deep.