Drain the Swamp: How Washington Corruption is Worse than You Think


Ken Buck - 2017
    Committee chairmanships for sale. Pay-to-play corruption. Backroom arm-twisting. Votes on major legislation going to the highest bidder. Welcome to Washington, D.C., the swamp that President Donald Trump was elected to drain.Congressman Ken Buck is blowing the whistle on the real-life House of Cards in our nation's capital. Elected in 2014 as president of one of the largest Republican freshman classes ever to enter Congress, Buck immediately realized why nothing gets done in Congress, and it isn't because of political gridlock—in fact, Republicans and Democrats work together all too well to fleece taxpayers and plunge America deeper into debt."It is an insular process directed by power-hungry party elites who live like kings and govern like bullies," Buck reports.Buck has witnessed first-hand how the unwritten rules of Congress continually prioritize short-term political gain over lasting, principled leadership. When Buck tangled with Washington power brokers like former Speaker John Boehner, he faced petty retaliation. When he insisted Republicans keep their word to voters, he was berated on the House floor by his own party leaders. When other members of Congress dared to do what they believed to be right for America instead of what the party bosses commanded, Buck saw them stripped of committee positions and even denied dining room privileges by the petty beltway bullies.In Drain the Swamp, Buck names names and tells incredible true stories about what really happened behind closed doors in Congress during legislative battles that have ensued over the last two years including budget, continuing resolutions, omnibus, trade promotion authority, Iran, and more. If the Trump administration is going to bring real change to Washington, it first needs to get the whole story—from deep inside the swamp.

The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories


Marina Keegan - 2014
    She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash.As her family, friends, and classmates, deep in grief, joined to create a memorial service for Marina, her unforgettable last essay for the Yale Daily News, “The Opposite of Loneliness,” went viral, receiving more than 1.4 million hits. She had struck a chord.Even though she was just twenty-two when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation. The Opposite of Loneliness is an assem­blage of Marina’s essays and stories that, like The Last Lecture, articulates the universal struggle that all of us face as we figure out what we aspire to be and how we can harness our talents to make an impact on the world.

Car Camping: The Book of Desert Adventures


Mark Sundeen - 2000
    He's like Huckleberry Finn Sort of. He's a twenty-two-year-old housepainter living at his parents' house in Southern California, across a four-lane street from a gated subdivision. Now this suburban innocent is striking out on the only type of adventure he can afford: he's getting into his station wagon and going camping in the desert. Join Mark Sundeen on his rumble-tumble journey across the Southwest, and find that the mystical home of Butch Cassidy, Chief Cochise, and Major John Wesley Powell has been transformed into something entirely strange yet unexpectedly familiar. It's a new West of low-rent trailer parks and high-dollar houseboats, of hot-springs singles scenes and homeless river guides and hapless soul-searchers, for sun-beat old-timers chewing the cud of the land and survivalist teenagers hiding out form the Man. It's a place far from the America you thought you lived in, but close enough to drive to in your car. Car Camping is a modern-day western adventure in the spirit of Mark Twain and Jack London, and you're invited to come along.

Regarding Wave: Poetry


Gary Snyder - 1970
    The title, Regarding Wave,reflects "a half-buried series of word origins dating back through theIndo-European language: intersections of energy, woman, song and 'GoneBeyond Wisdom.'" Central to the work is a cycle of songs for Snyder'swife, Masa, and their first son, Kai. Probing even further than Snyder'sprevious collection of poems, The Back Country, this newvolume freshly explores "the most archaic values on earth… the fertilityof the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, theterrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance,the common work of the tribe…”

William Faulkner's Light in August


Leslie A. Juhasz - 1988
    

Your Glass Head against the Brick Parade of Now Whats


Sam Pink - 2016
    The much-anticipated poetry chapbook by Sam Pink, author of the cult favorites Person and I Am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat It, who the Los Angeles Review of Books called, “Simply one of the best, darkest, funniest, wildest, and [most] touching writers we’ve got.”

The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way: Poems


Ethan Coen - 2001
    In his screenplays and short stories, Ethan Coen surprises and delights us with a rich brew of ideas, observations, and perceptions. In his first collection of poems he does much the same. The range of his poems is remarkable–funny, ribald, provocative, sometimes raw, and often touching and profound.In these poems Coen writes of his childhood, his hopes and dreams, his disappointments, his career in Hollywood, his physically demanding love affair with Mamie Eisenhower, and his decade-long battle with amphetamines that produced some of the lengthier poems in the collection. You will chuckle, nodding with recognition as you turn the pages, perhaps even stopping occasionally to read a poem. Handsomely and durably bound between hard covers, this is a book that will stand up to most readers’ attempts to destroy it.

The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee


Marja Mills - 2014
    But for the last fifty years, the novel’s celebrated author, Harper Lee, has said almost nothing on the record. Journalists have trekked to her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, where Harper Lee, known to her friends as Nelle, has lived with her sister, Alice, for decades, trying and failing to get an interview with the author. But in 2001, the Lee sisters opened their door to Chicago Tribune journalist Marja Mills. It was the beginning of a long conversation—and a great friendship. In 2004, with the Lees’ blessing, Mills moved into the house next door to the sisters. She spent the next eighteen months there, sharing coffee at McDonalds and trips to the Laundromat with Nelle, feeding the ducks and going out for catfish supper with the sisters, and exploring all over lower Alabama with the Lees’ inner circle of friends. Nelle shared her love of history, literature, and the Southern way of life with Mills, as well as her keen sense of how journalism should be practiced. As the sisters decided to let Mills tell their story, Nelle helped make sure she was getting the story—and the South—right. Alice, the keeper of the Lee family history, shared the stories of their family. The Mockingbird Next Door is the story of Mills’s friendship with the Lee sisters. It is a testament to the great intelligence, sharp wit, and tremendous storytelling power of these two women, especially that of Nelle. Mills was given a rare opportunity to know Nelle Harper Lee, to be part of the Lees’ life in Alabama, and to hear them reflect on their upbringing, their corner of the Deep South, how To Kill a Mockingbird affected their lives, and why Nelle Harper Lee chose to never write another novel.

In the Skin of a Jihadist: Free Sampler: Inside Islamic State’s Recruitment Networks


Anna Erelle - 2015
    Bilel is the French right-hand man of the most dangerous militant in the world, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Caliph of Islamic State. He offers Mélodie a way to fill the boredom in her young life: he cares about her, offers beautiful things, spiritual purpose and, in less an idyllic life. Bilel’s seduction is honey-tongued and forceful – and all Mélodie must do is join him and ISIS in their Syrian jihad. Every day he gives more detail, telling her how he drives a jeep filled with guns and bottles of the chocolate milk he loves for hundreds of miles on murderous missions of execution. Every night he lures, seduces and manipulates this vulnerable young woman.A riveting page-turner In the Skin of a Jihadist is a shocking inquiry into how technology is spreading radicalism, the lure of ISIS propaganda, and the factors that motivate young people – including many British teenagers – to join extremist wars in Syria and elsewhere.

Yellow: The verses of hurting and healing


Urja Joshi - 2020
    Mohi symbolises ""the hurting"" and Kabir is all about ""the healing"" that comes after it. A book written and illustrated by author,which is for everyone. for those who believe in love and compassion and for those who don't. Those who have healed and those who are still in process. Those who aren't able to move on and those who have successfully done it. It is for feminists, the activists, the believers, the gender norm shatterers.It is a gift, a book on its journey to make difference in it's reader's life.

Highly Unstable


Mayank - 2020
    

When Day Is Done


Elizabeth Gill - 2004
    But Vinia is tragically already married to Dryden's employer, Joe, manager of the Black Prince coal pit. Joe's jealousy over the growing connection between his wife and Dryden, sends Dryden into the arms of the beautiful and fiery Roberta Grant. But can Dryden ever truly forget Vinia?

Blush


CICI B - 2016
    B is known for her amazing ability to make readers feel like they are walking beside her with every page that they turn, and this book, the follow up to the notorious "Letters To My Ex," is another testament to that. Fresh out of an intense break-up, and with her three closest friends by her side, Cici brings you with her as she learns what it means to take back control of her life, and to be her own woman. Completely raw and unfiltered, as always, she doesn't hold back. This is a story for the modern day grown woman. It will make you smile, laugh out loud, hold your breath, bite your bottom lip, and most importantly... Blush.

A Gorgeous Sense of Hope: A Love Fable


Emma Magenta - 2006
    Determined to save her love, she sets out on a love expedition, where she learns that the road to love can be rocky and full of twists and turns, but if we have the courage to stick with it, or perhaps even to forge our own path, it might just lead us to exhilarating heights and astonishing synchronicity in love. Through all the seasons of the heart, this beautifully illustrated book candidly relates the "exquisite bubble" of new love, followed by the perils of "the insidious zone of complacency" where the shower of passion dries up and silence ensues. Finally, the girl realizes that the only guarantee of keeping the love she wants is to create the map for it herself.A Gorgeous Sense of Hope is a quirky and profound keepsake for new, promising relationships, for tired, troubled relationships, and for anyone who appreciates the fragility of love. It's for everyone who has been in love and those who might be, someday. After all, couldn't everyone use a gorgeous sense of hope?

A Place in Time: Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership


Wendell Berry - 2002
    In this new collection, the author’s first piece of new fiction since the publication of Andy Catlett in 2006, the stories date’s range from 1864, when Rebecca Dawe finds herself in her own reflection at the end of the Civil War, to one from 1991 when Grover Gibbs’ widow, Beulah, attends the auction as her home place is offered for sale. It feels as if the entire membership, all the Catletts, Burley Coulter, Elton Penn, the Rowanberrys, Laura Milby, the preacher’s wife, Kate Helen Branch, Andy’s dog, Mike, nearly everyone returns with a story or two, to fill in the gaps in this long tale. Those just now joining the Membership will be charmed. Those who’ve attended before will be enriched.The story of the community of Port William is one of the great works in American literature. Published in the author’s 78th year, this collection, the tenth volume in the series, is the perfect occasion to celebrate his huge achievement."And so it’s all gone. A new time has come. Various ones of the old time keep faith and stop by to see me, Coulter and Wilma and a few others. But the one I wait to see is Althie. Seems like my whole life now is lived under the feeling of her hand touching me that day of the sale, and every day still. I lie awake in the night, and I can see it all in my mind, th old place, the house, all the things I took care of so long. I thought I might miss it, but I don’t. The time has gone when I oculd do more than worry about it, and I declare it’s a load off my mind. But the thoughts, still, are a kind of company." -- Beulah Gibbs