Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!


Jesse Ventura - 2008
    His previous books, I Ain't Got Time to Bleed and Do I Stand Alone?, were both national bestsellers. Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! is the story of his controversial gubernatorial years and his life since deciding not to seek a second term as governor in 2002. Written with award-winning author Dick Russell at a secluded location on Mexico's Baja Peninsula, Ventura's bestselling book reveals for the first time why he left politics—and why he is now considering reentering the arena with a possible independent run for the presidency. In a fast-paced and often humorous narrative, Ventura pulls no punches in discussing our corrupt two-party system, the disastrous war in Iraq, and what he suspects really happened on September 11. He provides personal insights into the Clinton and Bush presidencies, and elaborates on the ways in which third parties are rendered impotent by the country's two dominant parties. He reveals the illegal role of the CIA in states like Minnesota, sensitive and up-to-date information on the Blackwater security firm, the story of the American spies who shadowed him on a trade mission to Cuba, and what Fidel Castro told him about who really assassinated President John F. Kennedy. This unique political memoir is a must-read for anyone concerned about the direction that America will take.

Wiseguy


Nicholas Pileggi - 1985
    "Wiseguy" is Henry Hill's story, in fascinating, brutal detail, the never-before-revealed day-to-day life of a working mobster - his violence, his wild spending sprees, his wife, his mistresses, his code of honor.

Anthony Blunt: His Lives


Miranda Carter - 2001
    Once an untouchable member of England's establishment-- a world-famous art historian and a man knighted by the Queen of England-- in a single stroke Anthony Blunt became an object of universal hatred when, in 1979, Margaret Thatcher exposed him as a Soviet spy. In "Anthony Blunt: His Lives," Miranda Carter shows how one man lived out opposing trends of his century-- first as a rebel against his class, then as its epitome-- and yet embodied a deeper paradox. In the 1920s, Blunt was a member of the Bloomsbury circle; in the 1930s he was a left-wing intellectual; in the 50s and 60s he became a camouflaged member of the Establishment. Until his treachery was made public, Blunt was a world-famous art historian, recognized for his ground-breaking work on Poussin, Italian art, and old master drawings; at the Courtauld Institute he trained a whole generation of academics and curators. And yet even as he ascended from rebellion into outward conformity, he was a homosexual when homosexuality was a crime, and a traitor when the penalty was death. How could one man contain so many contradictions? The layers of secrecy upon which Blunt's life depended are here stripped away for the first time, using testimony from those who knew Blunt well but have until now kept silent and documents from sealed Russian archives, including a secret autobiography Blunt wrote for his controllers. Miranda Carter's "Anthony Blunt" is the first full biography of the mythical Cold War warrior, and is at once an astonishing history of one the century's greatest deceits and adeeply nuanced account of fifty years in the British power elite, as experienced by one deep inside who wished to bring it down.