Book picks similar to
Circus Pyongyang: A gig to North Korea by Juha Kurvinen
non-fiction
north-korea
pohjois-korea
political
Mastering Photographic Histograms: The key to fine-tuning exposure and better photo editing.
Al Judge - 2016
Photographic Histograms are unique to Digital Photography.
Most books on the subject of Photographic Histograms only discuss the Luminosity Histogram that is projected on the LCD screens of Digital cameras. There are three other types of Histograms that you should know about -- RGB, Colors, and Color Channel.Most books also only describe the basics of how to use the Luminosity Histogram to set exposure. In this relatively short but fact filled book you will learn how histograms are created and their significance to photography.Though they did not exist in the days of film photography, they are closely related to the Exposure Zones System created by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer around 1939. Can you identify with any of these experiences?
Do your eyes glaze over when people talk about histograms?
Do you feel that histograms are too technical for you?
Are you enthused about photography but confused by all the technical jargon?
Do you wonder how professional photographers get such great images?
Are you tired of well-intentioned friends giving you bad advice about photography?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, end the frustration. Just scroll up and grab a copy today.
Marine A: The truth about the murder conviction
Alexander Blackman - 2019
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For the first time, a blistering, highly charged account from the man known as 'Marine A' who was at the centre of the controversial murder of a wounded Taliban fighter. His case led to an unprecedented wave of public support which raised over £800,000 to fund his appeal. The nerve-shredding situations Sgt Blackman operated within, under sustained attack for long periods, living in the unrelenting horror of a theatre of war, took their toll mentally and physically.
'This book chronicles my young life, my recruitment and training, my first deployments, and then my experiences in the Middle East, where I fought first in Iraq, and later completed two tours of duty in Helmand, Afghanistan - before finally confronting the final moment of my 2011 tour, and the killing of the Afghan insurgent which led to my conviction for murder.
'I confront this moment in a spirit of total honesty, chronicling the weeks and months of a hellish tour that led up to it, the mental frailties the tour exposed - and, without seeking to make excuses, reclaim at least some of that experience for myself.
'This is a searingly honest look at the brutal realities of life in the military.'
- Sgt Alexander Blackman (Marine A)
Scrumptious Treats For Vintage Housekeepers
Alison May - 2012
If you are a vintage girl with a chaotic house, too much laundry and a child or six attached to your hip, then I promise you are in for a treat...You see, I want to make your life lovely- to show you the way to a house that's as fresh as a daisy, help you create teeny rituals that will change your life and teach you to bless your days with the kind of tiny joys that often pass unnoticed....Included in this book are five hundred and fifty gorgeous ways to add a little lavender scented vintage sparkle to your day, organised seasonally so you can brighten up a Summers morning and cosy up a Winters afternoon, while celebrating Christmas, and Halloween and everything in-between!
Rice from Heaven
Tina M. Cho - 2018
A wall so high, no one dares to climb. Beyond that wall and across the sea live children just like me, except they do not have food to eat.” Yoori lives in South Korea and doesn’t know what North Korea is like, but her father (Appa) does. Appa grew up in North Korea, where he did not have enough food to eat. Starving, he fled to South Korea in search of a better life. Yoori doesn’t know how she can help as she’s only a little "grain of rice" herself, but Appa tells her that they can secretly help the starving people by sending special balloons that carry rice over the border. Villagers glare and grumble, and children protest feeding the enemy, but Yoori doesn’t back down. She has to help. People right over the border don’t have food. No rice, and no green fields. With renewed spirit, volunteers gather in groups, fill the balloons with air, and tie the Styrofoam containers filled with rice to the tails of the balloons. With a little push, the balloons soar up and over the border, carrying rice in the darkness of the night over to North Korea.
Beneath Blossom Rain: Discovering Bhutan on the Toughest Trek in the World
Kevin Grange - 2011
He was thirty-three, at a turning point in life, and figured the best way to go at a crossroad was up. Against a backdrop of Buddhist monasteries and soaring mountains, Grange ventured beyond the mapped world to visit time-lost villages and sacred valleys. In the process, recounted here with a blend of laugh-out-loud humor, heartfelt insight, and acute observation, he tested the limits of physical endurance, met a fascinating assortment of characters, and discovered truths about faith, hope, and the shrouded secret of blossom rain. Beneath Blossom Rain, Grange’s account of his journey, packs an adventure story, a romantic twist, and a celebration of group travel into a single entertaining book. The result is the ultimate journey for any traveler, armchair or otherwise. Along with high adventure, it delivers an engaging look at Bhutan—a country that governs by a policy of Gross National Happiness and that many regard as the last Shangri-La.Watch a book trailer.Purchase the audio edition.
The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World
Peter Frankopan - 2018
Today, they lead to Beijing.'When The Silk Roads was published in 2015, it became an instant classic. A major reassessment of world history, it compelled us to look at the past from a different perspective. The New Silk Roads brings this story up to date, addressing the present and future of a world that is changing dramatically.Following the Silk Roads eastwards, from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, The New Silk Roads provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected. In an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the Western world stand in sharp contrast to events along the Silk Roads since 2015, where ties have been strengthened and mutual cooperation established.With brilliant insight, Peter Frankopan takes a fresh look at the network of relationships being formed along the length and breadth of the Silk Roads today, assessing the global reverberations of these continual shifts in the centre of power - all too often absent from headlines in the West. This important - and ultimately hopeful - book asks us to reassess who we are and where we are in the world, illuminating the themes on which all our lives and livelihood depend.
How to Analyze People: Analyze & Read People with Human Psychology, Body Language, and the 6 Human Needs (How to Analyze People 101)
Michael Draper - 2015
You will also learn the 3 elements of practical psychology, what someone's music taste says about them, and will be provided practical exercises at the end of each chapter to follow through on.Furthermore,
How to Analyze & Read People with Human Psychology, Body Language, and the 6 Human Needs
will teach you about: Transactional Analysis and How it Can Benefit You The 5 Rules That WILL Make Your Life Miserable The Stroke Economy Bottom Lines and How They Dictate Your Life Even Though You Had No Say in Them - Until Now! What The Four Primal and Two Spiritual Needs are in Your Life Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Yourself to Analyze Others Accurately Macro versus Micro Facial Expressions Cold Reading People at First Glance The Winner's Triangle and The Drama Triangle And more... What are you waiting for? Stop overthinking and start ANALYZING! Scroll up and 'Buy with 1-Click' NOW!
Unscripted: My Ten Years in Telly
Alan Sugar - 2015
But how did the famously straight-talking entrepreneur end up fronting one of our most successful and long-running shows, and why were some of his biggest challenges during his ten years in television to be found outside the boardroom and off camera?
In Unscripted, Alan Sugar reveals all this and more as he embarks on a new and sometimes bewildering career. He describes how he lost patience with some of the luvvies, wafflers and wannabees he encountered along the way, and tells us what he really thought of some of the tasks and candidates he came across during the making of The Apprentice, giving his reaction to the egos and the backbiting as well as the genuine talent that shone through. He explains how he brought on board Nick Hewer, Margaret Mountford and Karren Brady, what became of the winners when the cameras stopped rolling - and how working on the show has inspired him and many others. As with his previous books, What You See Is What You Get and The Way I See It, there is no ghostwriter; this is written by the man himself. And, as ever, it is honest, funny and outspoken - Alan Sugar at his entertaining best.
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
Malala Yousafzai - 2012
When I almost died it was just after midday.When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.
Ronald Reagan
James B. Sutherland - 2008
He entered the White House in 1981, a time when many Americans were wondering if their country's best days were behind them. But things had changed by the time he left office--the economy was thriving and the Cold War was coming to a close.The child of an alcoholic, he was an intensely private man, yet he was so charming that he routinely befriended even his enemies. Reagan was both a complex man and political figure, and his legacy strongly influences politics today.
The Broken Road Home: A True Story
Evie Gallagher - 2019
Evie much later on also became a survivor of Domestic Violence, as a young wife and mother. Melvin, a family friend, and sexual predator carved a path for himself using Evie’s young innocence, by showing her kindness in a place of loneliness. Evie had no one to turn to, her mother an alcoholic, and her step-father a cruel, and vicious man. Evie through the years was placed in several different foster homes; Evie ran away from them all, even living on the cold streets of London at eleven years old. A homeless traveller took Evie under their wing, kept her safe, and eventually helped to guide her home. All she had to cling to in the end was her biological father, also an alcoholic, her Nan, and her great love of horses. Evie would later marry Andrew, yet another man in her life who deceived her in every heartbreaking way imaginable. Andrew viciously beat Evie many times over during a six-year period, and he had numerous affairs with prostitutes, as well as affairs with other women whom she knew. Evie had nowhere to run to, that Andrew would not find her, and bring her back. She felt broken in mind, body, and spirit, with no one to protect her. Evie sometimes felt like giving up her very existence, though it was her deep bond, and love for her children that she found the strength to keep on going. Evie’s great fondness for books eventually led her to find spirituality, which gave her calm and peaceful moments, and through spirituality she met two amazing women, and with their help she found the strength to take back her life, and then she met Steve. Steve gave Evie a love story, which she would never, ever forget. Evie wanted to keep her readers in mind, and so her re- account of her childhood memories of being sexually abused is written in such a way, as to not to be too upsetting, and so she decided to write about it very softly, and only touching on this subject very briefly. Her story may appear very harrowing, though it has it does have it’s up’s and down’s, as well it's funny and sad moments. Evie does however eventually experience a beautiful love, and she does have her happy ever after, by walking a broken road…home.
My 21 Years in the White House
Alonzo Fields - 1960
Fields (1900-1994) began his employment at the White House in 1931, and kept a journal of his meetings with the presidents and their families; he would also meet important people like Winston Churchill, Princess Elizabeth of England, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, presidential cabinet members, senators, representatives, and Supreme Court Justices. He would also witness presidential decision-making at critical times in American history -- the attack on Pearl Harbor, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the desegregation of the military, and the outbreak of hostilities in Korea. As Fields often told his staff, “...remember that we are helping to make history. We have a small part ... but they can't do much here without us. They've got to eat, you know.” Included are sample menus prepared for visiting heads-of-state and foreign dignitaries.
Mao's Great Famine: The History Of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62
Frank Dikötter - 2010
Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up and overtake Britain in less than 15 years. The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives. Access to Communist Party archives has long been denied to all but the most loyal historians, but now a new law has opened up thousands of central and provincial documents that fundamentally change the way one can study the Maoist era. Frank Dikotter's astonishing, riveting and magnificently detailed book chronicles an era in Chinese history much speculated about but never before fully documented. Dikotter shows that instead of lifting the country among the world's superpowers and proving the power of communism, as Mao imagined, in reality the Great Leap Forward was a giant - and disastrous -- step in the opposite direction. He demonstrates, as nobody has before, that under this initiative the country became the site not only of one of the most deadly mass killings of human history (at least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death) but also the greatest demolition of real estate - and catastrophe for the natural environment - in human history, as up to a third of all housing was turned to rubble and the land savaged in the maniacal pursuit of steel and other industrial accomplishments. Piecing together both the vicious machinations in the corridors of power and the everyday experiences of ordinary people, Dikotter at last gives voice to the dead and disenfranchised. Exhaustively researched and brilliantly written, this magisterial, groundbreaking account definitively recasts the history of the People's Republic of China.
Everywoman: One Woman’s Truth About Speaking the Truth
Jess Phillips - 2017
. . and here she shows how scary and sad as well as joyful and liberating the answers can be.' Damian Barr'Everywoman has all the laughs [of Lena Dunham and Caitlin Moran] with a backbone of real glinting anger . . .there were so many funny and wise things on each page that whittling them down into a review seemed impossible.' Julie Birchill, Spectator'As fresh as mountain air amid the Westminster tumbleweed.' Metro'Arresting.' ObserverIf you’re thinking, ‘Jess, who?’ then I’m glad that there was something about ‘Everywoman’ and ‘truth’ that caught your eye.Or you might already know me as that gobby MP who has a tendency to shout about the stuff I care about. Because I’m a woman with a cause, I have been called a feminazi witch, a murderer and threatened with rape. The internet attracts a classy crowd. So, speaking the truth isn’t always easy but I believe it’s worth it. And I want you to believe it too. The truth can be empowering, the truth can lead to greater equality, and the world would be incredibly boring if we let all of those people who allegedly know everything, say everything. By demanding to be heard, by dealing with our imposter syndrome, by being cheerleaders, doers not sayers, creating our own networks and by daring to believe that we can make a difference, we can. We’re women and we’re kick-ass. And that’s the truth.
Precious Silver Chopsticks: A True Story of a Korean Noble Family
Mae Adams - 2017
With the past full of ghosts, her final challenge is to share her story. Rejected by a mother who did not want a second daughter, Mae grew up on the periphery of her aristocratic Korean family. Her loving step-grandma (a commoner) took care of her, allowing her to explore the joys and perils of their rural home. Mae describes her emergence into Korean culture, from her Japanese-style education to her most prized possession: her pair of silver chopsticks. She endures her mother’s abuse, almost-tragic accidents, and her father’s funeral. But things would get much worse. At the end of World War II, Mae and her family flee to South Korea, while her grandma stays behind. Within five years the Korean War erupts, and again they spend several years as refugees before Mae came to the United States for a college education. Her memoir delves into Korean history and the Japanese occupation, following Mae until her happy ending: marriage to a US Marine colonel and a family and career of her own. Precious Silver Chopsticks is a wonderfully written memoir of a North Korean girl and her journey to America. A truly inspirational story that you will not want to miss. Scroll up and grab a copy of Precious Silver Chopsticks today.