Book picks similar to
Peoples of the USSR by Anna Louise Strong
non-fiction
ussr
history
marxism
A Wink from the Universe
Martin Flanagan - 2018
They were the rank underdogs and they swept to victory on an unprecedented tide of goodwill that washed over the nation. Only Martin Flanagan could bring to life this particular miracle. The club's two guiding spirits - captain Bob Murphy and coach Luke Beveridge - welcomed him in, Beveridge making available his match diaries, pre-match notes and video highlights. Flanagan interviewed every player, watched every match, talked with the trainers, the women in the football department, the fans who never miss a training session, the cheer squad.What Flanagan shows is that the Bulldogs found a new way to play partly because they found a new way to be a team - a new way to support each other, even a new way to be. A Wink from the Universe takes us into the heart of the community Luke Beveridge and Bob Murphy dreamt into being with the support of the Bulldog people around them. This is a classic of sportswriting - a book for fans of the club, and of the game, but also a book for anyone who wants to know how a group of people can will a miracle to happen.
The Taking of MH370
Jeff Wise - 2019
""It’s an astonishing performance. Wise goes through every piece of evidence, every report, every word and comes to the conclusion that investigators were deliberately and brilliantly misled by whoever took over the plane to look in the wrong place. Read this stunning piece of investigative journalism and see if he convinces you." -- John Podhoretz, Commentary magazine. Five years after a state-of-the-art Boeing 777 vanished into the night over the South China Sea, renowned science and aviation author Jeff Wise offers a compelling and detailed account of what happened that night and in the months and years that followed. In his follow-up to "The Plane That Wasn't There," named the Best Kindle Single of 2015, Wise walks readers through the many developments that have taken place in the meantime and explains why despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars and searching an area of seabed the size of Great Britain, authorities were unable to locate the plane's wreckage. Officials and independent experts were stunned by their failure, but Wise predicted it four years ago. Here he distills the fruits of exhaustive research and arrives at a conclusion that upends our understanding of what humans are capable of, both technologically and morally. Jeff Wise is a science journalist specializing in aviation and psychology. A licensed pilot of gliders and light airplanes, he has also written for New York, the New York Times, Time, Businessweek, Esquire, Popular Mechanics, and many others. He is also the author of Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger. A native of Massachusetts, he lives outside New York City with his wife and two sons.
21 Months, 24 Days: A blue-collar kid's journey to the Vietnam War and back
Richard Udden - 2015
Threatened by the draft in the late sixties, he enlisted in the Army to avoid becoming a grunt, yet ended up one anyway. He endured a grueling war in Vietnam and then returned to a country too angry to care. While his journey took unexpected turns, his choices got him there, so he did his best to react positively and keep moving forward.Udden delivers his story in a comfortable, friendly style. He conveys the experiences of basic training, advanced infantry training, and what it was like to live, work, guard, patrol, and fight in the jungle. The reader will feel the adrenalin rush of a firefight, the thrill of a wild ride dangling below a helicopter, and the humor in celebrating his 21st birthday on a firebase.Through his words and personal photographs, you will live through his journey exactly as he experienced it.
When We Are Called to Part: Hope and Heartbreak in the Vanishing World of the Kalaupapa Leprosy Settlement
Brooke Jarvis - 2013
Once it had been a forbidding place of exile, inhabited by thousands of the disease’s victims who had been removed from their families and confined against their will, far away from a society that feared and misunderstood their condition. When Brooke Jarvis came across a posting for a job in Kalaupapa, tending to the needs of the handful of remaining patients, it seemed like an impossibly exotic opportunity for a college student. But what she found there was both more remarkable and more familiar than what she had imagined. When We Are Called to Part is the absorbing, affecting, and often funny story of life in the last years of a rapidly vanishing community. “Even a prison,” she would learn, “eventually becomes a home, becomes something you mourn.”
The Unforgiven: The Story Of Don Revie's Leeds United
Rob Bagchi - 2002
'The Unforgiven' reveals how far the eccentric Revie was responsible for Leeds' outlaw status, using carpet bowls sessions for team building and exorcising a gypsy's curse at their ground.
A Force Like No Other: The real stories of the RUC men and women who policed the Troubles
Colin Breen - 2017
Bombs, death threats and murder became a regular part of the day job. Working right at the heart of the conflict, police officers were often caught in the middle – heroes to some, villains to others.Now, for the first time, the men and women who policed the Troubles tell their own stories in their own words. Covering all aspects of police work, from handling informants and conducting interviews with notorious criminals to dealing with the aftermath of tragic bombings, these candid, moving and sometimes blackly comic stories show the unpredictable, brutal and surreal world in which the RUC operated.As a former police officer, Colin Breen has unparalleled access to former RUC, Special Branch and CID officers who have never spoken out before. Their stories reveal the mayhem and madness that officers dealt with every day; the psychological and personal toll of the job; and the camaraderie – and the whiskey – that helped them to cope.Raw, unsettling and frank, A Force Like No Other tells the real story of the RUC.
Travels in England in 1782
Karl Philipp Moritz - 2004
You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
Clevenger Gold: The True Story of Murder and Unfound Treasure
S.E. Swapp - 2016
Once the old, cantankerous Sam Clevenger and his wife, Charlotte, hired Frank Willson and John Johnson to help with the move, their fate took a dark turn. These true events were documented by journalists through the 1887 trial and well into the 1900s, and stories have been told of Sam’s unfound treasure for nearly 130 years. But, this is the first detailed, documented, and vetted account of their bizarre and fascinating tale.
On Mutiny
David Speers - 2018
If we really do get the government we deserve, On Mutiny might provoke a civilian rebellion.
Reckless
William Nicholson - 2014
The Second World War has gone on too long. Shops are closed ‘for the duration’. Trains run a restricted service ‘for the duration’. Life has paused, for the duration. A little girl, Pamela, is growing up fast. A young Englishman, Rupert Blundell, vows there’ll be no more wars. Both are waiting for their lives to begin.Then comes Hiroshima. Finally, devastatingly, the war is over.1962. Rupert is now strategic advisor to Lord Mountbatten, and his close confidant. Pamela is eighteen and has moved to London, eager for love and experience of every kind. There’ll be parties at Cliveden, Christine Keeler, Stephen Ward, the Astors. Life is a whirlwind.But beneath the glamour lies quiet, desperate terror, as the Cuban missile crisis unfolds and the world spins ever closer to nuclear war.Reckless is a gripping novel set against the world in crisis, by a superb novelist at the height of his powers.
The Fourteen Infallibles
Sayed Ammar Nakshawani - 2012
Sayed Ammar Nashawani's lectures on the biographies of the fourteen infallible figures in Shi'a Islam.An invaluable resource that represents a Shi'a view of the history of Islam, the Prophet and Imams for the present day audience. This excellent book will be of benefit to many in understanding the true nature of Islam and also illustrate how the illustrious figures as representing and manifesting universal human values that can serve humanity at large
Torey Hayden Collection (Somebody Else's Kids, One Child, Ghost Girl, Beautiful Child)
Torey L. Hayden - 2011
What They Did There: Profiles from the Battle of Gettysburg
Steve Hedgpeth - 2014
"What They Did There: Profiles From the Battle of Gettysburg" offers a unique view of its subject, telling the story of the battle not through convention narrative but via 170 mini-bios of not only combatants blue and gray, but of civilians, doctors, nurses, artists, photographers, Samaritans; saints, sinners and the moral terrain in-between.
Call Sign Dracula: My Tour with the Black Scarves April 1969 to March 1970
Joe Fair - 2014
It is a genuine, firsthand account of a one-year tour that shows how a soldier grew and matured from an awkward, bewildered, inexperienced, eighteen year-old country “bumpkin” from Kentucky, to a tough, battle hardened, fighting soldier. You will laugh, cry and stand in awe at the true life experiences shared in this memoir. The awfulness of battle, fear beyond description, the sorrow and anguish of losing friends, extreme weariness, the dealing with the scalding sun, torrential rain, cold, heat, humidity, insects and the daily effort just to maintain sanity were struggles faced virtually every day. And yet, there were the good times. There was the coming together to laugh, joke, and share stories from home. There was the warmth and compassion shown by men to each other in such an unreal environment. You will see where color, race or where you were from had no bearing on the tight-knit group of young men that was formed from the necessity to survive. What a “bunch” they were! ... then the return to home and all the adjustments and struggles to once again fit into a world that was now strange and uncomfortable. "Call Sign Dracula" is an excellent and genuine memoir of an infantry soldier in the Vietnam War.