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The Club King: My Rise, Reign, and Fall in New York Nightlife


Peter Gatien - 2020
    Across four decades, a single mysterious figure stood behind them all: Peter Gatien, the leading impresario of global nightlife. His clubs didn’t follow the trends—they created movements. They nurtured vanguard music acts that brought rock, house, grunge, hip-hop, industrial, and techno to the beautiful ones who showed up night after night to tear the roof off every party. But as Peter and his innovative team ramped up the hedonistic highs, Rudolph Giuliani was leading a major shift in the city. Under the guise of improving New York City’s “quality of life,” the club scene was targeted—and Peter Gatien’s empire became a major focus of the administration.In this frank and gritty memoir, Peter Gatien charts the seismic changes in his personal and professional life and the targeted destruction of his nightclub empire. From Peter’s childhood in a Canadian mill town to the freedom of the 1970s, through the excesses of the 1980s and the ensuing crackdown in the 1990s, The Club King chronicles the birth and death of a cultural movement—and the life of the man who was in control of every beat.

Into Africa


Thomas Sterling - 2016
    But neither that simple drawing nor his matter-of-fact description gave Caillié's countrymen a sufficiently colorful picture to match their preconceptions of how Africa should look. They turned their backs on the young explorer, ignored his accomplishments, and let him die neglected. Here are the epic adventures of the European explorers who opened Africa – from Mongo Park and Vasco da Gama to Francis Burton and David Livingstone and Henry Stanley.

The Civil War: The War That Divided The United States


Lance T. Stewart - 2016
    Why did the southern states secede from the Union? What did the north hope to achieve by fighting against the south? Was Abraham Lincoln really an abolitionist? Why is Ulysses S. Grant the most famous Union general, when he didn’t take command of all the Union armies until near the very end of the war? How did Robert E. Lee end up having to deal with issues left unresolved by George Washington’s will, and was he a hero or a traitor?This book provides an exhaustive summary, not just of the major battles and major personalities of the Civil War, but of the political issues that brought the United States to the point of a terrible internal conflict. You’ll learn how the founding fathers predicted a great national conflict over slavery, and how Thomas Jefferson’s political philosophies influenced secessionist thinking in the south. From the history of the abolitionist movement to the election of 1860 and the creation of the Republican party, this book will give you all the facts you need to understand how the Civil War started, why Lincoln was so fed up with his generals, and how the war affects American society today.

What We See in the Stars: An Illustrated Tour of the Night Sky


Kelsey Oseid - 2017
     Combining art, mythology, and science, What We See in the Stars gives readers a tour of the night sky through more than 100 magical pieces of original art, all accompanied by text that weaves related legends and lore with scientific facts. This beautifully packaged book covers the night sky's most brilliant features--such as the constellations, the moon, the bright stars, and the visible planets--as well as less familiar celestial phenomena like the outer planets, nebulae, and deep space. Adults seeking to recapture the magic of youthful stargazing, younger readers interested in learning about natural history and outer space, and those who appreciate beautiful, hand-painted art will all delight in this charming book.

From Word to Kindle: Self Publishing Your Kindle Book with Microsoft Word, or Tips on Formatting Your Document So Your Ebook Won't Look Terrible


Aaron Shepard - 2011
    It's not hard to find instructions for converting from Word to Kindle -- but these instructions are usually less helpful than they could be. Many, for example, proclaim that Word's HTML output requires extensive alteration and cleanup before submission. This advice is misguided. Some who offer it have drawn their conclusions after simply choosing the wrong export option. Others fuss about a moderate amount of excess code, not realizing that it doesn't increase file size enough to matter or that the Kindle ignores it anyway. Other instructions will imply the opposite: that conversion is straightforward and just what you would expect. Supposedly, as long as you start with a properly formatted Word document, you'll wind up with a well-formatted ebook. Well, it doesn't really work that way -- not without a few techniques for tricking or bullying the Kindle into doing what you want. In this book, Aaron Shepard offers his own tips for moving your document from Word to Kindle, with a focus on desktop Word versions from 2003/2004 to 2010/2011. ///////////////////////////////////////////////// Aaron Shepard is a foremost proponent of the new business of profitable self publishing, which he has practiced and helped develop since 1998. He is the author of -Aiming at Amazon, - -POD for Profit, - and -Perfect Pages, - as well as two other books on Kindle formatting. ///////////////////////////////////////////////// CONTENTS Getting Started 1 FIRST STEPS Working with Word Document Setup Text Cleanup 2 KINDLE FORMATTING Special Characters Font Formatting Paragraph Styles Paragraph Spacing Paragraph Justification Line Breaking Page Layout 3 SPECIAL ELEMENTS Other Paragraphs Lists Tables Text Boxes and Sidebars Footnotes and Endnotes Pictures 4 NAVIGATION Web Links Internal Links Tables of Contents Menu Items 5 FINAL STEPS HTML Export Book Covers Book Data Submitting and Previewing ///////////////////////////////////////////////// SAMPLE By default, Word will apply the Normal style to your paragraphs. Amazon knows this, so for some Kindles, it hijacks that style, changing its formatting to what Amazon prefers. This can lead, for example, to unwanted space above or below a paragraph. If you want control of your own formatting, then, you'll have to avoid the Normal style and apply something different. There's no problem, though, with applying styles based on Normal, or even with applying a duplicate of Normal under a completely different name. In regard to this, watch out for manual page breaks in recent versions of Word. Unless you're in Compatibility Mode, each break is now placed in a paragraph of its own, and the Normal style is assigned automatically. That in itself isn't a problem -- but if you then hit Return and start typing, your new paragraph will be in Normal as well. (This is another reason to stick to the paragraph format setting -Page break before- to start a new page.) You can change all paragraphs already in Normal style to a different one by using the Format menu in the Find and Replace dialog. Don't enter any text, but place your cursor in first the Find box and then the Replace while choosing a style for each.

Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin


Damian McBride - 2013
    In Power Trip he writes candidly about his experiences at the heart of government, and provides the first genuine insider's account of Gordon Brown's time as Chancellor and Prime Minister. He reveals the personal feuds, political plots, and media manipulation which lay at New Labour's core, and provides a fascinating, funny, and at times shocking account of how government really works. His own journey from naive civil servant to disgraced spindoctor is also laid bare with brutal honesty. Power Trip is a riveting memoir and an eye-opening expose of politics in Britain.

Map Addict: A Tale of Obsession, Fudge & the Ordnance Survey


Mike Parker - 2009
    There, it's said " Maps not only show the world, they help it turn. On an average day, we will consult some form of map approximately a dozen times, often without even noticing: checking the A-Z, the road atlas, or the Sat Nav, scanning the tube or bus map, a quick Google online, or hours wasted flying over a virtual Earth, navigating a way around a shopping center, watching the weather forecast, planning a walk or a trip, catching up on the news, booking a holiday or hotel. Maps pepper logos, advertisements, illustrations, books, web pages, and newspaper and magazine articles: they are a cipher for every area of human existence. At a stroke, they convey precise information about topography, layout, history, politics, and power. They are the unsung heroes of life, and this guide sings their song. There are some fine, dry tomes out there about the history and development of cartography: this is not one of them. This exploration mixes wry observation with hard fact and considerable research, unearthing the offbeat, the unusual, and the downright pedantic in a celebration of all things maps. In "Map Addict," we learn the location of what has officially been named by the OS as the most boring square kilometer in the land; we visit the town fractured into dozens of little parcels of land split between two different countries and trek around many other weird borders of Britain and Europe; we test the theories that the new city of Milton Keynes was built to a pagan alignment and that women can't read maps. Combining history, travel, politics, memoir, and oblique observation in a highly readable, and often very funny, style, Mike Parker confesses how his own impressive map collection was founded on a virulent teenage shoplifting habit, ponders how a good leftie can be so gung-ho about British cartographic imperialism, and wages a one-man war against the moronic blandishments of the Sat Nav age.

Beyond Neptune Spear: The (Open) Secret History of SEAL Team Six, Post-9/11


Chris Martin - 2012
    Once mired in controversy and doubt, ST6 has blossomed into one of the most accomplished fighting units the world has ever known. Having taken down the highest of high-value targets, rescued American hostages in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Indian Ocean, and served as the silent guardian of the Coalition's conventional forces, SEAL Team Six has defined the post-9/11 world as much as it has been defined by it. The follow-up to SHAPING THE WORLD FROM THE SHADOWS -- the definitive open-source guide to Delta Force -- BEYOND NEPTUNE SPEAR is a contextual examination of DEVGRU's post-9/11 existence, from the most high-profile operations to the little-known missions that are still barely more than whispers. "Once again, Chris Martin has proven himself to be one of journalism's sharpest observers of U.S. special operations forces. BEYOND NEPTUNE SPEAR is a remarkable synthesis of the history, operations, and organization of SEAL Team Six. It is the most comprehensive guide to the unit ever published." - D.B. Grady, co-author of THE COMMAND: DEEP INSIDE THE PRESIDENT'S SECRET ARMY. "BEYOND NEPTUNE SPEAR tells much of what you wanted to know about SEAL Team Six post-9/11 but didn’t ask for fear of getting shot. Chris Martin begins with Team Six’s “rogue” beginnings then quickly springs into its operations post-9/11 until present. Although a short book, you’ll get bang for your buck here. For newcomers to the topic, BEYOND NEPTUNE SPEAR provides an exhaustive overview of Team Six’s current happenings. For experts on Team Six, Chris’s work provides an excellent summary of the post-9/11 Team with occasional information you probably missed. The reference page alone is a treasure for studying/reviewing the unit that whacked bin Laden. Also, because Chris used open sources to write this book, you don’t have to fear stealing government secrets and taking a bullet to the head." -Stephen Templin, New York Times bestselling co-author of SEAL TEAM SIX.

A Day in the Life of a Minimalist


Joshua Fields Millburn - 2012
    Once he embraced his newfound minimalist lifestyle, he never looked back. Suffice it to say, everything has changed in Millburn’s life in the last three years. After his mother died in October 2009 and his marriage ended a month later, he began questioning everything in his life: his material possessions, his career, his goals, his health, his relationships, his path in life. Soon he discovered minimalism. In the three years since the author adopted a minimalist lifestyle, he has written more than 300 essays about minimalism and intentional living. He has written about his journey, his failures, his lessons, and everything he has learned during his transformation. A Day in the Life of a Minimalist is a collection of his best, most important individual writings—rethought and edited specifically for this collection. This book contains 50 essays about living a meaningful life with less stuff, including “The Short Guide to Getting Rid of Your Crap,” “The Commodification of Love,” “Letting Go of Shitty Relationships,” and the title essay. Collectively, these essays are purposefully organized into nine sections—lifestyle, goals, experiments, clutter, relationships, changes, philosophy, consumer culture, and work—covering a variety of topics, viewpoints, and arguments within those themes. Also included are a special forward written by Colin Wright (the man who introduced Millburn to minimalism) and an introduction by Joshua Fields Millburn, as well as two unpublished essays that can’t be found anywhere else: “What If Everyone Was a Minimalist?” and “Work-Life Balance.” These essays were written to encourage readers to think critically about the excess in their lives and, ultimately, to take action towards living more intentionally. This collection is short enough to be read in a few sittings, or it can be digested slowly, reading one essay a day for nearly two months, applying its principals each day to your own life. Cover design by Dave LaTulippe · Published by Asymmetrical Press

The Curious Story of Malcolm Turnbull, the Incredible Shrinking Man in the Top Hat


Andrew P. Street - 2016
    You know, again.

Craic Baby: Dispatches from a Rising Language


Darach Ó Séaghdha - 2018
    While Motherfocloir was steeped in memory and a father-son relationship, Craic Baby hinges on the beginnings of a father-daughter relationship, and how watching a child learn to communicate changes how you think about language.

American Legends: The Life of Jimmy Stewart


Charles River Editors - 2013
    *Includes a bibliography for further reading.*Includes a table of contents. “A feller came up to me the other day and said ‘I don’t know whether this means anything to you but you’ve given me and my family a lot of enjoyment over the years.’ And I said to him, ‘Does it mean anything to me? It means everything to me. That’s the ballgame. That's it.’ And I think that if I have done that to that man, and maybe a couple more…then I’m proud of that.” – Jimmy StewartA lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. When the American Film Institute assembled its top 100 actors of all time at the close of the 20th century, Jimmy Stewart ranked third, behind only Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant. There is a certain inevitability to these three actors ranking at the top of the list; after all, they were the dominant faces of Hollywood during the height of the era known as classical Hollywood cinema, a time before the onset of television when the movies still enjoyed relatively uncontested supremacy over American entertainment. The popularity of Stewart, Grant, and Bogart also extends well beyond the success of any of their individual films, reflecting their much broader cultural significance as monuments of Hollywood during its Golden Age. In fact, if the list was reconstructed today, it is entirely possible that Stewart would rank first. Not only have movies such as It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Vertigo (1958) continued to gain in popularity even into the 21st century, but Stewart has come to embody an accessible image of American values that is easy for everyone to embrace. The wholesome, happy-go-lucky persona he cultivated represents perhaps a more palatable image of American masculinity than the gritty realism of Bogart or the erudite but occasionally snobbish tendencies of Cary Grant. If there is any actor that embodies not only classical Hollywood but also American culture more generally, it’s difficult to argue against Jimmy Stewart.The phenomenon of Jimmy Stewart becomes even more remarkable when considering the incredible harmony between the characters he portrayed in his films and his personality off the movie set. Most actors and actresses cultivate a persona in order to achieve success, and in most cases it’s an image that bears only a tangential relationship to an actor’s true personality, but there was no such division for Stewart. The all-American image conveyed in films such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and It’s a Wonderful Life corresponds seamlessly with Stewart’s off-screen pursuits, which included a degree in architecture from Princeton and an extended tenure as a pilot during World War II. There were elements of his life story that resisted cultural norms - he waited until age 41 before marrying, and his very decision to pursue acting in 1930s America could be seen as a deviation from more characteristically masculine professions - but there was an almost seamless congruence between the Stewart that audiences saw on screen and the man he was in real life. Naturally, his defining traits developed out of and in response to the values instilled in him by his family and cultural background, and for this reason, examining his filmography alongside his life story paints a complete picture of the delicate unity of Jimmy Stewart’s life.

Obese from the Heart


Sara L. Stein - 2009
    Overweight is a lifestyle issue with risk to health; obesity is a brain disease with associated illness. Our current prescription of behavior modification fails to address the underlying causes of obesity, and sets the obese person up for failure. This is a why-not book, a what-about-me book, a my-turn-now book. Drawing on her own battles with weight loss and years of experience as a physician and a psychiatrist, Sara L. Stein, M.D., tackles obesity with a fresh, honest, and holistic approach. Losing weight is the result of treating the whole person, mending Mind, Body, and Spirit. Obese From the Heart addresses the everyday challenges of obesity - the fruitless struggle to lose weight, the self-conscious embarrassment of first impressions, and the hopeless, hollow chorus of 'I'll start tomorrow...'. Starting from the inside out, Dr. Stein teaches healthy, balanced, and energetic living that anyone can practice starting now.ADVANCE PRAISE FOR OBESE FROM THE HEARTObese from the Heart made me cry, and made me laugh. It touches upon so many things we as humans live with, or without. Sara Stein has an ability to speak to everyone, young and old, rich and poor, any race, religion, or gender.” ~~ Pamela Heller, Photographer“This book is almost lyrical, almost like a wonderful song. It has a rhythm to it that is entirely appropriate and unchanging throughout. Severely wonderful!“ ~~ Louise Hoffman, Bariatric RN“I wasn’t going to read this until I had a bit more time, but I couldn’t help glancing at it....and I didn’t stop until it was finished. Obese from the Heart is marvelous. Sara Stein writes with unequaled candor, wry humor and vivid story-telling. I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart.” ~~ Philippa Kennealy MD MPH CPCC PCC

A 1960s Childhood: From Thunderbirds to Beatlemania


Paul Feeney - 2010
    To the young people of today, the 1960s seems like another age. But for those who grew up in this decade, school life, 'mod' fashions and sixties pop music are still fresh in their minds. From James Bond to Sindy dolls and playing hopscotch in the street, life was very different to how it is now. After the tough and frugal years of the fifties, the sixties was a boom period, a time of changed attitudes and improved lifestyles. With chapters on home and school life, games and hobbies, music and fashion, alongside a selection of charming illustrations, this delightful compendium of memories will appeal to all who grew up in this lively era. Take a nostalgic look at what it was like to grow up during the sixties and recapture all aspects of life back then.PAUL FEENEY is a writer and part-time business consultant. He has also written a local history of Highgate and A 1950s Childhood: from Tin Baths to Bread and Dripping. He lives in Surrey."If you grew up in the Swinging Sixties, you’ll love Paul Feeney’s A 1960s Childhood." - Reviewed in Yours Magazine, 23rd Feb ’10."The author captures the atmosphere and 'furniture' of the Sixties to perfection, even recreating a typical family Christmas of the time. Whether you were a child or an adult in that most eventful decade, this excellent book, with charming black and white illustrations, will throw up lots of talking points." - Reviewed in This England, Summer 2010 edition

The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


Ambrose Bierce - 1911
    There, a bore is "a person who talks when you wish him to listen," and happiness is "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another." This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition ever of Ambrose Bierce’s satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete all other versions that have appeared in the book’s ninety-year history.A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi’s exhaustive investigation into the book’s writing and publishing history. All of Bierce’s known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.