Book picks similar to
Freak Power - Hunter S. Thompson's Campaign for Sheriff by Daniel Joseph Watkins
history
art-photography
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The Gore Supremacy
James Wolcott - 2012
(He died on July 31st, 2012 at the age of 86.) The triumphant arc of Vidal’s literary career wasn’t solely a mastery of language, though that never hurts. Handsome, poised, slim, charismatic, able to hold his own in verbal fisticuffs without losing his imperious cool, Vidal was the premiere star author of his generation, the one who elevated the role of talk-show guest to a command performance--a theatrical event. He brought the electronic crackle of the TV screen to his prose and the tactical precision of his prose to combat debate on TV. His near-violent altercations on camera with William F. Buckley, Jr. and Norman Mailer are the stuff of YouTube legend and the secret to The Gore Supremacy. A contributing writer to Vanity Fair, a partisan observer of pop culture, and the author of the New York-in-the-70s memoir Lucking Out (which comes out in paperback this fall), James Wolcott has been a closeup observer of Vidal on-camera and off for more years than seems respectable. This, his first Kindle Single, is his way of paying homage--and saying goodbye.
The Great American Divorce: Why Our Country Is Coming Apart—And Why It Might Be for the Best
David Austin French - 2020
How to Stop Your Doctor Killing You
Vernon Coleman - 1996
It shows how patients can protect themselves against an increasingly incompetant and dangerous medical profession.
21 Speeches That Shaped Our World: The people and ideas that changed the way we think
Chris Abbott - 2010
He examines the power of the arguments embedded in these speeches to inspire people to achieve great things, or do great harm. Abbott draws upon his political expertise to explain how our current understanding of the world is rooted in pivotal moments of history. These moments are captured in the words of a range of influential speakers including: Emmeline Pankhurst, Martin Luther King, Jr, Enoch Powell, Napoleon Beazley, Kevin Rudd, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, Margaret Beckett, Winston Churchill, Salvador Allende, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Tim Collins, Mohandas Gandhi, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Robin Cook and Barack Obama. The speeches in this book are arranged thematically, linked by concepts such as 'might is right', 'with us or against us' and 'give peace a chance'. Each transcript is accompanied by an insightful commentary that analyses how the words relate to our modern society. Fresh and relevant, this is a book that will make you stop in your tracks and think about what is really happening in the world today.
Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco
Daniel J. Flynn - 2018
The Reverend Jim Jones, the darling of the San Francisco political establishment, orchestrates the murders and suicides of 918 people at a remote jungle outpost in South America. Days later, Harvey Milk, one of America’s first openly gay elected officials—and one of Jim Jones’s most vocal supporters—is assassinated in San Francisco’s City Hall. This horrifying sequence of events shocked the world. Almost immediately, the lives and deaths of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk became shrouded in myth. The distortions and omissions have piled up since. Now, forty years later, this book corrects the record. The product of a decade of research, including extensive archival work and dozens of exclusive interviews, Cult City reveals just how confused our understanding has become. In life, Jim Jones enjoyed the support of prominent politicians and Hollywood stars even as he preached atheism and communism from the pulpit; in death, he transforms into a fringe figure, a “fundamentalist Christian,” and a “fascist.” In life, Harvey Milk outed friends, faked hate crimes, and falsely claimed that the U.S. Navy dishonorably discharged him over his homosexuality; in death, he is honored in an Oscar-winning movie, with a California state holiday, and with a U.S. Navy ship named for him. His assassin, a blue-collar Democrat who often voted with Milk in support of gay issues, is remembered as a right-winger and a homophobe. But the story extends far beyond Jones and Milk. Author Daniel J. Flynn vividly portrays the strange intersection of mainstream politics and murderous extremism in 1970s San Francisco—the hangover after the high of the Summer of Love. In recounting the fascinating, intersecting lives of Jim Jones and Harvey Milk, Cult City tells the story of a great city gone horribly wrong.
James Madison: A Life From Beginning to End
Henry Freeman - 2016
As the people who crafted the documents that would win Americans freedom from Great Britain and establish a constitutional republic, they were indeed a special group. One of the most overlooked Founders is James Madison. His life was as extraordinary as the others, but for some reason, he doesn't often find himself in the popularity column. Inside you will read about... ✓ Early Life ✓ Early Political Career ✓ Father of the Constitution ✓ The Federalist Papers ✓ Politician and Statesman ✓ President 1809-1817 ✓ Personal Life ✓ Later Years This ebook will introduce you to James Madison. Besides becoming the 4th president of the United States, he served in government for most of his life. You will meet him as he goes off to college, when he returns home to Montpelier, and when he decides to assist with the greatest achievement of his life, the writing of the U. S. Constitution. James Madison was a man not to be forgotten. This ebook will prove to you why.
Tortured Minds: Pennsylvania's Most Bizarre--But Forgotten--Murders
Tammy Mal - 2014
A teenage girl disappears on her way home from Coatesville High School. A reputed witch turns up dead in Pottsville. A young woman seemingly helps solve her own murder after she dies in a Philadelphia park.True-crime author Tammy Mal digs up facts on four of Pennsylvania’s weirdest killings in her book Tortured Minds: Pennsylvania’s Most Bizarre—But Forgotten—Murders. These 1930s crimes have long fallen into obscurity, but Mal deftly revives them in stark detail, from discovery of the body and through the trial. Ghosts, witches, resentment, and sex factor into these crimes, giving them a chilling edge as Mal brings them back to life in her latest true-crime book. It’s a look into just what tortured minds can do, certain to convince you to lock your doors after dark.
Leap Year
Steve Erickson - 1989
He paints a portrait of a country already far beyond its own crossroads.
Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw
Hanadi Falki - 2017
The first Indian Army officer to be promoted to the five-star rank of Field Marshal, Sam Bahadur continues to be the most admired of our Army Chiefs.
Bench Press
Sven Lindqvist - 1988
Quoting from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, Lindqvist muses on what bodybuilding's increasing popularity says about contemporary society. "Bench Press" is an intoxicating blend of philosophical and political insight, emotional candor, and forgotten annals of the history of exertion.
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance
Mark Howard - 2012
Its Internet community web site, Fox Nation, serves as the online gathering place for Fox viewers to absorb and spread the aggregated disinformation and conspiracy theories hatched by Fox News.Two years ago the first volume of Fox Nation vs. Reality was published revealing an Internet operation that was dedicated to fiercely partisan, right-wing distortions of the truth. Its mission was, and remains, to construct a safe haven for the broader Fox News community to reinforce their preferred fantasies and unfounded preconceptions. Since then Fox Nation has evolved into an even more sheltered environment that has taken on many characteristics of culthood. It is a pattern they adopted from their parent, Fox News, where the slogan “fair and balanced” was an implicit condemnation of all other news sources as being neither. Recognizing that the prime directive of a cult is to convince your followers that your version of reality is the only true version and that all others are agents of deception, Fox segregated their disciples to prevent them from being contaminated by impure thoughts, otherwise known as facts.In Fox Nation vs. Reality you will find a compilation of articles originally published on the media analysis web site News Corpse. They provide an eye-opening look into the lengths that committed propagandists will go in order to fabricate an alternative political reality. And remember that Fox Nation is not some remote outpost on the Internet Superhighway. It is an integral part of Fox News whose executives are wholly responsible for the stain it produces on journalism.
How to be an MP: Learning the 'Commons Knowledge'
Paul Flynn - 1998
And in the process it provides the outsider with a riveting insight into life as a Member.
Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks and Other Creeps:Volume 1 - New York City
Joe Bruno - 2011
Although Italian-American criminals are covered, this is not just another Italian mafia book. The book covers the Jewish gangsters as well (who truly were the pioneers of organized crime) and the Irish gangs, who were one of the first ethnic groups to run the New York City rackets. Joe even presents a few "lady gangsters" too.Most of all, “ Mobsters, Gangs, Crooks and Other Creeps-Volume 1- New York City" is easy to read. The short-chapter format is a stroke of genius. It is interesting, informative, entertaining, and to the point. You won't be bored reading it. Joe Bruno has hit the mark in presenting Old New York the way it really was. Rough and bloody! Mathew J. Mari - Criminal Attorney
American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime
Teri Thompson - 2009
In twenty-four seasons pitcher Roger Clemens put together one of the greatest careers baseball has ever seen. Seven Cy Young Awards, two World Series championships, and 354 victories made him a lock for the Hall of Fame. But on December 13, 2007, the Mitchell Report laid waste to all that. Accusations that Clemens relied on steroids and human growth hormone provided and administered by his former trainer, Brian McNamee, have put Clemens in the crosshairs of a Justice Department investigation.Why did this happen? How did it happen? Who made the decisions that altered some lives and ruined others? How did a devastating culture of drugs, lies, sex, and cheating fester and grow throughout Major League Baseball's clubhouses? The answers are in these extraordinary pages.American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime is about much more than the downfall of a superstar. While the fascinating portrait of Clemens is certainly at the center of the action, the book takes us outside the white lines and inside the lives and dealings of sports executives, trainers, congressmen, lawyers, drug dealers, groupies, a porn star, and even a murderer—all of whom have ties to this saga. Four superb investigative journalists have spent years uncovering the truth, and at the heart of their investigation is a behind-the-scenes portrait of the maneuvering and strategies in the legal war between Clemens and his accuser, McNamee.This compelling story is the strongest examination yet of the rise of illegal drugs in America’s favorite sport, the gym-rat culture in Texas that has played such an important role in spreading those drugs, and the way Congress has dealt with the entire issue. Andy Pettitte, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez, and Chuck Knoblauch are just a few of the other players whose moving and sometimes disturbing stories are illuminated here as well. The New York Daily News Sports Investigative Team has written the definitive book on corruption and the steroids era in Major League Baseball. In doing so, they have managed to dig beneath the disillusion and disappointment to give us a stirring look at heroes who all too often live unheroic shadow lives.
Call Me Sister: District Nursing Tales from the Swinging Sixties
Jane Yeadon - 2013
Staff nursing in a ward where she's challenged by an inventory driven ward sister, she reckons it's time to swap such trivialities for life as a district nurse.Independent thinking is one thing, but Jane's about to find that the drama on district can demand instant reaction; and without hospital back up, she's usually the one having to provide it. She meets a rich cast of patients all determined to follow their own individual star, and goes to Edinburgh where Queen Victoria's Jubilee Institute's nurse training is considered the cr me de la cr me of the district nursing world.Call Me Sister recalls Jane's challenging and often hilarious route to realizing her own particular dream.