Hydrofracked? One Man's Mystery Leads to a Backlash Against Natural Gas Drilling


Abrahm Lustgarten - 2011
    The hard part was proving it. Meeks’ struggle to get the energy companies to take responsibility, meticulously documented through three years of investigative reporting by ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten, coincide with a national uproar over the oil and gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing – a technology that promises to open large new energy supplies, perhaps at the expense of the nation’s water.

Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story


Julie K. Brown - 2021
    Brown recounts her uncompromising and risky investigation of Jeffrey Epstein's underage sex trafficking operation, and the explosive reporting for the Miami Herald that finally brought him to justice while exposing the powerful people and broken system that protected him.For many years, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's penchant for teenage girls was an open secret in the high society of Palm Beach, Florida and Upper East Side, Manhattan. Charged in 2008 with soliciting prostitution from minors, Epstein was treated with unheard of leniency, dictating the terms of his non-prosecution. The media virtually ignored the failures of the criminal justice system, and Epstein's friends and business partners brushed the allegations aside. But when in 2017 the U.S Attorney who approved Epstein's plea deal, Alexander Acosta, was chosen by President Trump as Labor Secretary, reporter Julie K. Brown was compelled to ask questions.Despite her editor's skepticism that she could add a new dimension to a known story, Brown determined that her goal would be to track down the victims themselves. Poring over thousands of redacted court documents, traveling across the country and chasing down information in difficulty and sometimes dangerous circumstances, Brown tracked down dozens of  Epstein's victims, now young women struggling to reclaim their lives after the trauma and shame they had endured.Brown's resulting three-part series in the Miami Herald was one of the most explosive news stories of the decade, revealing how Epstein ran a global sex trafficking pyramid scheme with impunity for years, targeting vulnerable teens, often from fractured homes and then turning them into recruiters. The outrage led to Epstein's arrest, the disappearance and eventual arrest of his closest accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and the resignation of Acosta. The financier's mysterious suicide in a New York City  jail cell prompted wild speculation about the secrets he took to the grave-and whether his death was intentional or the result of foul play.Tracking Epstein’s evolution from a college dropout to  one of the most successful financiers in the country—whose associates included Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and Bill Clinton—Perversion of Justice builds on Brown's original award-winning series, showing the power of truth, the value of local reportage and the tenacity of one woman in the face of the  deep-seated corruption of powerful men.

An Elementary Study Of Islam


Mirza Tahir Ahmad - 1997
    The articles of faith, which all Muslims believe in, are: Unity of God, Angels, Prophets, Holy Books and Life after Death.

Mandela: An Illustrated Autobiography


Nelson Mandela - 1996
    Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most inspiring political drama in the world. Mandela: An Illustrated Autobiography tells the extraordinary story of Nelson Mandela's life, an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph. With nearly 200 stunning photographs - many of them published here for the first time - and with text adapted from his remarkable memoir Long Walk to Freedom, this moving book captures the indomitable spirit of a moral giant and dramatically portrays his struggle toward freedom. Mandela's journey is vividly and eloquently recounted: the development of his political consciousness, his pivotal role in the formation of the African National Congress Youth League, his years underground - which led to a sentence of life imprisonment in 1964 - and his twenty-seven years behind bars. He also movingly recounts the momentous events leading up to his victory in South Africa's first-ever multiracial elections in 1994.

All Politics Is Local


Tip O'Neill - 1995
    The former Speaker of the House provides insight into how the world of politics really works and how to run a successful political campaign.

Hosoi: My Life as a Skateboarder Junkie Inmate Pastor


Christian Hosoi - 2012
    A mix of Tony Hawk and Brian Welch comes together in skateboarding legend Christian Hosoi, who reveals everything about his rise, fall, and redemption, in this amazing tell-all—from being named the greatest skater of all time to bottoming out on drugs to finally finding redemption through God.Fans of Slater Kelly’s Pipe Dreams and Brian Welch’s Save Me From Myself, and followers of Tony Alva, Jay Adams, and Steve Caballero, will be captivated by this extraordinary, star-studded story, a gripping read that ranges from the heart of the 1980s skateboarding scene to the inside of a prison, from Hollywood parties to intense prayer sessions.Hosoi: My Life as a Skateboarder Junkie Inmate Pastor takes readers to the heart of one little-known world after another—and he portrays them in all their gore and glory for all the world to see.

Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador


Suzana Sawyer - 2004
    As the source of this oil, the Ecuadorian Amazon has borne the far-reaching social and environmental consequences of a growing U.S. demand for petroleum and the dynamics of economic globalization it necessitates. Crude Chronicles traces the emergence during the 1990s of a highly organized indigenous movement and its struggles against a U.S. oil company and Ecuadorian neoliberal policies. Against the backdrop of mounting government attempts to privatize and liberalize the national economy, Suzana Sawyer shows how neoliberal reforms in Ecuador led to a crisis of governance, accountability, and representation that spurred one of twentieth-century Latin America’s strongest indigenous movements.Through her rich ethnography of indigenous marches, demonstrations, occupations, and negotiations, Sawyer tracks the growing sophistication of indigenous politics as Indians subverted, re-deployed, and, at times, capitulated to the dictates and desires of a transnational neoliberal logic. At the same time, she follows the multiple maneuvers and discourses that the multinational corporation and the Ecuadorian state used to circumscribe and contain indigenous opposition. Ultimately, Sawyer reveals that indigenous struggles over land and oil operations in Ecuador were as much about reconfiguring national and transnational inequality—that is, rupturing the silence around racial injustice, exacting spaces of accountability, and rewriting narratives of national belonging—as they were about the material use and extraction of rain-forest resources.

Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob


Dick Lehr - 2000
    Decades later, in the mid 1970's, they would meet again. By then, Connolly was a major figure in the FBI's Boston office and Whitey had become godfather of the Irish Mob. What happened next -- a dirty deal to being down the Italian mob in exchange for protection for Bulger -- would spiral out of control, leading to murders, drug dealing, racketeering indictments, and, ultimately, the biggest informant scandal in the history of the FBI.Compellingly told by two Boston Globe reporters who were on the case from the beginning, Black Mass is at once a riveting crime story, a cautionary tale about the abuse of power, and a penetrating look at Boston and its Irish population.

This Civilisation is Finished: Conversations on the end of Empire - and what lies beyond


Rupert Read - 2019
    It requires limitless economic growth on a finite planet. The reckless combustion of fossil fuels means that Earth's climate is changing disastrously, in ways that cannot be resolved by piecemeal reform or technological innovation. Sooner rather than later this global capitalist system will come to an end, destroyed by its own ecological contradictions. Unless humanity does something beautiful and unprecedented, the ending of industrial civilisation will take the form of collapse, which could mean a harrowing die-off of billions of people.This book is for those ready to accept the full gravity of the human predicament - and to consider what in the world is to be done. How can humanity mindfully navigate the inevitable descent ahead? Two critical thinkers here remove the rose-tinted glasses of much social and environmental commentary. With unremitting realism and yet defiant positivity, they engage each other in uncomfortable conversations about the end of Empire and what lies beyond.

Memoirs of the Senator's Wife


S.M. Ford - 2019
    Set during the '50s to the present-day; their romance spans decades of the most turbulent times in America.         Xavier Cyrus meets and marries the impoverished Estella in college during a tumultuous courtship. Being a member of a wealthy prominent political family, Xavier runs for Congress and easily wins. Thrusting his new family into the exciting DC social scene and an Ancient Secret Society. However, Xavier's abuse and indiscretions with celebrities quickly destroy their marriage. Due to the responsibilities of motherhood and duty Estella remains in her unhappy marriage but finds love with her kind and gentle protector, Michael. Will Estella abandon her responsibilities to live happily ever after with Michael or will she remain in the glamorous and powerful world of a Senator's wife?

A Death in Texas: A Book in the Cotton Creek Saga


Ciana Stone - 2019
    Russell and Richard Walker, twin brothers, were left as co-owners of the family legacy. Richard wasn't cut out for ranching life and wound up being a Senator for the state of Texas at the age of 40 and still holds the seat. Russell is, for all practical purposes, the patriarch of the family, the glue that holds it together. His five children, now all grown, will one day inherit Heritage and, with luck, will hold it in safe keeping for generations of Walker's to come. Of late, Russell has found himself trying to figure out which of his children will end up being the next guardian of Heritage. He'd also begun to wonder if he'll ever become a grandfather, and also if his fate is to end up alone. He's been through four marriages and none of them lasted. For years, he's swore he'll never marry again. He still sticks to that and hasn't been in a relationship in a very long time. All his female companions are casual, or women who know that friends with benefits are all they'll get from Russell. He was fine with that all this time, so why now is he becoming so dissatisfied with life? Maybe it has something to do with the woman who's in charge of the breeding program for Heritage. Naomie Taylor. She's damn good at what she does. Brilliant, in fact. And hot as a Texas sidewalk in the middle of July. But she works for him and they both have rules about being involved with peopel who work for or with. Not to mention she's much younger. Still, that doesn't keep him from wondering. Would they be a good match? Maybe one day he'll find out. For now, Heritage may be in for some troubling times, and danger could likely be in the future for all of them, so Russell and all his family need to be mindful and take care of their own. There's already been one threat against their family, and he doesn't take that lightly. If someone wants to come for his family, they'll have to go through him first. Walkers take care of their own. So, love and lust will just have to wait. At least that's what he tells himself.

The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods


Julia Butterfly Hill - 2000
    The area immediately next to Luna had already been stripped and, because, as many believed, nothing was left to hold the soil to the mountain, a huge part of the hill had slid into the town of Stafford, wiping out many homes.Over the course of what turned into an historic civil action, Hill endured El Nino storms, helicopter harassment, a ten-day siege by company security guards, and the tremendous sorrow brought about by an old-growth forest's destruction. This story--written while she lived on a tiny platform eighteen stories off the ground--is one that only she can tell.Twenty-five-year-old Julia Butterfly Hill never planned to become what some have called her--the Rosa Parks of the environmental movement. Shenever expected to be honored as one of Good Housekeeping's "Most Admired Women of 1998" and George magazine's "20 Most Interesting Women in Politics," to be featured in People magazine's "25 Most Intriguing People of the Year" issue, or to receive hundreds of letters weekly from young people around the world. Indeed, when she first climbed into Luna, she had no way of knowing the harrowing weather conditions and the attacks on her and her cause. She had no idea of the loneliness she would face or that her feet wouldn't touch ground for more than two years. She couldn't predict the pain of being an eyewitness to the attempted destruction of one of the last ancient redwood forests in the world, nor could she anticipate the immeasurable strength she would gain or the life lessons she would learn from Luna. Although her brave vigil and indomitable spirit have made her a heroine in the eyes of many, Julia's story is a simple, heartening tale of love, conviction, and the profound courage she has summoned to fight for our earth's legacy.

Che Guevara: A Biography


Richard L. Harris - 2010
    Che Guevara: A Biography provides a balanced and engaging introduction to the famous revolutionary leader. Based on original research, the biography reveals how Che's early life prepared him for leadership in the Cuban Revolution. It also explores his revolutionary activities in Africa and Bolivia, as well as the circumstances surrounding his tragic death on October 9, 1967.More than just a record of events, the book cogently examines Che's contributions to the theory and tactics of guerrilla warfare, his ideas about imperialism and socialism, and his enduring political legacy. It includes original information on the 1997 discovery of the hidden remains of his body and on the celebration of his life and ideals by the socialist regime in Cuba. And it looks at the reasons why leftist political leaders, movements, and governments in Latin America and the Caribbean still pay homage to this charismatic man.

Justin Bieber


Kathleen Tracy - 2010
    His meteoric rise to the top of the music charts is a Cinderella storywith a digital-age twist. Before he was famous, Justin had to overcome many struggles. His parents divorced when he was young. At school, he was frequently bullied because he was smaller than the other kids his age. But his decision to participate in a local talent contestand then to post his performance online for familywould change his life forever. Discover the behind-the-scenes story of Justins journey from growing up in a small Canadian town to becoming a global teenage heartthrob. Meet the people who helped get him his break, and find out what Justin says you should never do on a first date.

The President of Vice: The Autobiography of Joe Biden


The Onion - 2013
    In this scandalous memoir, America's favorite politician discusses his early years, before he became ultimate wingman to the leader of the free world. For the first time ever “Diamond” Joe discusses the formative experiences of his life, including his childhood selling hooch in Scranton, his years cruising college campuses picking up co-eds in a Del Rio, the grade-A tang he plowed in the summer of '87, and his "sweet ass gig" as Senator of Delaware. Speaking of his own work, Vice President Biden says, "Amigo, you're just one click away from buying Uncle Joe's tell all autobiography. My sweetest guitar riffs, bustiest lays, wildest benders, and sexiest appropriation bills, it's all in there. You'll not only hear about me and my buddy Barack, but I guarantee you'll pick up some tricks that'll serve you well in the sack. Plus, I'm deep in the hole right now and really need the scratch."