Born to a family of artists known for their literary interests, Fairouz, an English Literature student from Syria was well known for her work in Arabic poetry, theatre, short stories, performance and local journalism long before the Syrian war began. As the Arab Spring reaches her town, she realises her life is transforming into a blockbuster movie before her very eyes, and so decides to document it with an unflinching honesty and rawness. Frequently described as the Syrian Anne Frank by pan Arab media, Fairouz Abdalla’s diary Lipsticks and Bullets takes us on an exclusive trip into her politically-charged world, from the hipsters on the historic roads of Hama to the upper class circles in the bourgeoisie private clubs of Damascus. Inspired by revolts in Tunisia and emboldened by Libya’s dissidents, Fairouz and her activist friends dream of a revolution and a Syria free from the rule of the tyrannical Bashar al-Assad and his minions. But revolutions are not so easily achieved, as she soon discovers.The spirited young beauty, the daughter of a Christian and a Muslim only has eyes for a handsome bachelor from the esteemed and well-connected Atassi family. The pastel-eyed engineer and member of the Arab student movement who stole her heart is swiftly torn away from her, seemingly forever. Fairouz faces losing all that she loves – Syria is a dangerous place for an activist ­– and especially for a woman. Fairouz must fight not just for a Syrian revolution, but also for the lives of her loved ones, herself, and against the growing nightmare that are western Jihadists.As the Arab spring turns to winter, Syria’s citizens will learn that nothing—not war, not politics, not even religion—can tear them apart. Together, they remain defiant and insist on keeping humour and hope alive. From Syria to Sweden, Istanbul, and Damascus, Lipsticks and Bullets is an intimate tale of love and adventure, by a celebrated Arab author who is a powerful witness to the terror and horror wrought by Assad, Iran and Russia on the lives and souls of Syrians. It is a vivid exploration of Middle Eastern culture, Romance, Islamic extremism, class conflict, and social activism. Syria's story is her story.

     The six novels, published in order of importance, are: • Nineteen Eighty-Four (the most important dystopian novel ever written, together with Huxley's Brave New World, and Zamyatin's "We" • Animal Farm (1945) • Burmese Days (1934) • Coming Up for Air (1939) • A Clergyman's Daughter (1935) • Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) His three non fiction books are: • Homage to Catalonia (1938), about the Spanish Civil War. • Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) The last book of the collection is called "ESSAYS: From Hitler, Franco & the Atomic Bomb; to Tolstoi, Dickens & Twain". Orwell was an acclaimed analyst of his country's reality during World War II and beyond (including the beginning of the cold war), which he reflects in his many articles and pamphlets collected in this book. He also did very deep literary and personal analysis of men like Mark Twain, Adolf Hitler, or even Tolstoi. The following is the list of essays. 1. THE SPIKE 2. A HANGING (1931) 3. BOOKSHOP MEMORIES (1936) 4. SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT (1936) 5. SPILLING THE SPANISH BEANS (1937) 6. MARRAKECH (1939) 7. BOYS' WEEKLIES AND FRANK RICHARDS'S REPLY (1940) 8. CHARLES READE (1940) 9. THE ART OF DONALD MCGILL (1941) 10. WELLS, HITLER AND THE WORLD STATE (1941) 11. RUDYARD KIPLING (1942) 12. MARK TWAIN–THE LICENSED JESTER (1943) 13. POETRY AND THE MICROPHONE (1943) 14. W B YEATS (1943) 15. ARTHUR KOESTLER (1944) 16. BENEFIT OF CLERGY: SOME NOTES ON SALVADOR DALI (1944) 18. ANTISEMITISM IN BRITAIN (1945) 19. FREEDOM OF THE PARK (1945) 20. FUTURE OF A RUINED GERMANY (1945) 21. GOOD BAD BOOKS 22. NONSENSE POETRY 23. NOTES ON NATIONALISM (1945) 24. REVENGE IS SOUR (1945) 25. THE SPORTING SPIRIT 26. YOU AND THE ATOMIC BOMB (1945) 27. A GOOD WORD FOR THE VICAR OF BRAY 28. A NICE CUP OF TEA (1946) 29. BOOKS VS. CIGARETTES 30. CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK REVIEWER 31. DECLINE OF THE ENGLISH MURDER 32. HOW THE POOR DIE 33. PLEASURE SPOTS 34. POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 35. SOME THOUGHTS ON THE COMMON TOAD 36. THE PREVENTION OF LITERATURE 37. WHY I WRITE (1946) 38. LEAR, TOLSTOY AND THE FOOL 39. SUCH, SUCH WERE THE JOYS (1947) 40. WRITERS AND LEVIATHAN (1948)

    Weatherman was a fringe group most of whose ideas were rejected by the dominant culture. But unfortunately their views on race were not. In succeeding decades the idea of "white skin privilege" became the new default position for racial crusaders and race hustlers alike who believed that white skin privilege was alive and well in our society -- not because white Americans were actively racist, but because they enjoyed the invisible privileges and prerogatives that go along with their skin color. In this searing pamphlet on the racial realities of contemporary America, David Horowitz and John Perazzo show that in fact the most insidious bias in our culture today is black skin privilege. Black skin privilege means the press will fail to report an epidemic of race riots targeting whites for beatings, shooting and other violence in major American cities over the last several years. Black skin privilege means that whites -- as in the case of the Duke lacrosse players -- will be presumed guilty of racial crimes when they are clearly innocent and then never accorded an apology by those who have stigmatized them. Black skin privilege has created an optical illusion in the liberal culture that white on black attacks are commonplace events when in fact there are five times as many black attacks on whites as the reverse. (As Horowitz and Perazzo note, in 2010, blacks committed more than 25 times the number of acts of interracial violence than whites did.) Black skin privilege exists in the affirmative action programs of our system of higher education and in our culture, where a black racist like Al Sharpton could be regarded by the national media as a civil rights leader and then hired as a TV anchor by NBC. This pamphlet gives the statistics and hard numbers the mainstream media conceal. It also probes the double standards and double talk that has come to dominate the way America talks when it talks about race.

    (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.

    'Thatcher's Britain' tells the story of Thatcherism for a generation with no personal memories of the 1980s, as well as for those who want to revisit the polemics of their youth.

    But they believe the party had lost sight of the ideals it believes in, like economic freedom, limited government, the sanctity of life, and putting families first. This isn’t your grandfather’s Republican party. These Young Guns of the House GOP—Cantor (the leader), Ryan (the thinker), and McCarthy (the strategist)—are ready to take their belief in the principles that have made America great and translate it into solutions that will make the future even better, solutions that will create private sector jobs, maximize individual freedom, and establish a better world for our children. This groundbreaking book is a call to action that sets forth a plan for growth, opportunity, and commitment that will propel this country to prosperity once again. Together, the Young Guns are changing the face of the Republican party and giving us a new road map back to the American dream.

    As the daughter of an Indian Muslim father and a white Australian mother, growing up in the conservative environment of 1970s Perth, Rabia Siddique was always going to be marked as different. Escaping her traumatic childhood, Rabia moved to London after graduating from law school to pursue her passionate commitment to social justice. She joined the British Army as a military lawyer just days after 9/11, finally finding herself stationed in Southern Iraq, where she pushed herself to make a difference in one of the most dangerous and testing environments on earth. On 19 September 2005, Rabia and another soldier were taken hostage by Islamic insurgents as they tried to negotiate the release of two kidnapped British SAS operatives. She battled for hours to save their lives, using her legal expertise, knowledge of Islam and Arabic to negotiate with their captors as a violent mob tried to storm the compound where she was being held. After their release, her colleague received a Military Cross, while Rabia received nothing. Her subsequent sex and race discrimination case against the British Army made headlines around the world. Her memoir is a story of grit, courage and conviction, born out of a unique perspective.

    Their time at the top has ranged from eight days for Frank Forde to eighteen years for Bob Menzies. But whatever the length of their term, each Prime Minister has a story worth sharing. Edmund Barton united the bickering states in a federation; Billy Hughes forced US President Woodrow Wilson to take notice of Australia. The unlucky Jimmy Scullin took office days before Wall Street crashed into the Great Depression, while John Curtin faced the ultimate challenge of wartime leadership. John Gorton, Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating each shook up their parties’ policies so vigorously that none lasted much longer than a single term in office. With characteristic wit and expert knowledge, Mungo MacCallum brings the nation’s leaders to vivid life. The Good, the Bad and the Unlikely tells the tale of the many men and one woman who’ve had a crack at running the country. It is a wonderfully entertaining education.

    The fall of Malaya and Singapore and the bombing of Darwin—what looked like the invasion of Australia—ebb and crash over a man’s long search to find a home and a woman’s determination to keep hers, connected by old memories and new betrayals. It is a thriller and a romance, a story of earth and water, air and metal—an unforgettable ride through the most precarious time in our region's recent history. Garry Disher writes: ‘Past the Headlands came from the same World War 2 research as The Stencil Man. I was struck by the power of two documents. The first was a letter written by a woman alone on a cattle station near Broome in 1942, at the time the Japanese were overrunning Malaya and Singapore and bombing areas of northern Australia. One day she found herself giving shelter to Dutch colonial officers and their families, who were fleeing Sumatra and Java ahead of the Japanese advance (many people like them lost their lives when Japanese planes shot up their waiting seaplanes in Broome Harbour in March, 1942). This woman stuck in my head (the isolation, the danger, the efforts to communicate, her bravery, etc). The second document was a war diary written by an Australian army surgeon who escaped Singapore ahead of the Japanese and was stuck in Sumatra, trying to get out. Here he treated many of the civilians (and Australian Army deserters) fleeing from Singapore. He was captured by the Japanese, but survived the war. But his last few diary entries detail how he and a mate were waiting for a plane or a ship to take them out, then one day he wrote, “Davis [his mate] left last night without telling me”. So much for mateship. I spent years trying to find my way into their stories. At one stage I spent a year writing 40,000 words before realising it wouldn’t work. I put it aside, then realised one subplot didn’t belong, so extracted it and turned it into a separate novel The Divine Wind, which has sold 100,000 copies around the world, won a major award and been published as both a young adult and a general market novel. But cutting it out like that freed me up to write about the woman and the man betrayed by his mate, in Past the Headlands.’

    He lives in Canberra. In 1858, fourteen-year-old French cabin boy Narcisse Pelletier was aboard the trader Saint-Paul when it was wrecked off the eastern tip of New Guinea. Scrambling into a longboat, Narcisse and the other survivors crossed almost 1000 kilometres of the Coral Sea before reaching the shores of Far North Queensland. If not for the local Aboriginal people, Narcisse would have perished. For seventeen years he lived with them, growing to manhood and participating fully in their Uutaalnganu world. Then, in 1875, his life was again turned upside down.Drawing from firsthand interviews with Narcisse after his return to France and other contemporary accounts of exploration and survival, and documenting the spread of European settlement in Queensland and the brutal frontier wars that followed, Robert Macklin weaves an unforgettable tale of a young man caught between two cultures in a time of transformation and upheaval.

    

    The third edition, Obama’s Last Stand, follows the reelection campaign of President Barack Obama as it struggles to find the winning formula in a political landscape that has changed dramatically since his history-making victory in 2008. Though battered and bruised after nearly four years in office, Barack Obama remains the most competitive player on the field in American politics today. In Obama’s Last Stand, POLITICO White House correspondent Glenn Thrush chronicles the efforts of the president and his team to secure a second term in the face of a determined opposition, unfavorable economic headwinds, and a series of missteps by his own team. This is a revealing portrait of the president at the most precarious moment in his political life, with insights and anecdotes drawn straight from the notebook of one of the most perceptive reporters in America. The trash-talking schoolyard athlete in Obama is very much in evidence, especially when he speaks caustically about his Republican rivals, including the man he thinks is trying to steal his legacy, Mitt Romney. Yet apart from Romney and the uncertain economy, Obama’s greatest obstacle on the road to reelection may be Obama 2008. He and his team of talented advisers must try to reconcile their nostalgia for that once-in-a-lifetime campaign with the realities of an election fundamentally altered by the advent of super PACs and the evaporation of Obama’s superstar popularity. That challenge has led a campaign operation that once prided itself on flawless execution of strategy to commit several of the most dangerous unforced errors of Obama’s political career. Yet the game is far from over. If Obama is sometimes his own worst enemy, he also has the talent and drive to reclaim this race. Spurred on by the realistic prospect of losing, and growing ever more impatient with the foibles of his campaign staff, Obama the competitor is gearing up for the most critical fourth quarter of his career. This is the story of the last stand that will either cement his legacy forever—or consign him to a roster of once-promising one-term presidents.

    The Conservatives had won their first Commons majority for twenty-three years and the Prime Minister had achieved the seemingly impossible: increasing his popularity while in government, winning more seats than in 2010 and confounding almost every pundit and opinion poll in the process. Within hours, his defeated rivals Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage had all resigned, stunned and devastated by the brutality of their losses. Political journalist Tim Ross reveals the inside story of the election that shocked Britain. Based on interviews with key figures at the top of the Conservative Party, and with private access to Cabinet ministers, party leaders and their closest aides, this gripping account of the 2015 campaign uncovers the secret tactics the Tories used to such devastating effect.

    Evil is at play in a South African game reserve.A poacher vanishes into thin air, defying logic and baffling ace tracker Mia Greenaway.Meanwhile Captain Sannie van Rensburg, still reeling from a personal tragedy, is investigating the disappearance of two young girls who locals fear have been abducted for use in sinister traditional medicine practices.But poachers are also employing witchcraft, paying healers for potions they believe will make them invisible and bulletproof.When a tourist goes missing, Mia and Sannie must work together to confront their own demons and challenge everything they believe, and to follow a bloody trail that seems to vanish at every turn.

    From a life of luxury in the opulent city of Dubai to promised ruination, Jaubert tells a tale of espionage and escape that rivals any best selling novel on the market. Immersed in a luxury submarine business, Jaubert was hired as CEO by Dubai World to develop and design miniature subs for the wealthy. Once problems developed within the business, Herve Jaubert became the scapegoat of government officials and found himself ensnared in a web of police threats, extortion, human rights abuses and coercion. With no chance to make it through their biased legal system, Jaubert planned the escape of his life.