One Last Job
Tom Pettifor - 2016
This book cuts through the myth to reveal the astonishing true-life story of its elderly mastermind, Brian Reader. Gang insiders, family, friends and detectives talk for the first time about Reader’s six-decade career, from mixing with the Krays and the cream of the London underworld to an ill-fated collaboration with violent gangster Kenny Noye.
Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times
Barry Wain - 2009
He adopted pragmatic economic policies alongside repressive political measures and showed that Islam was compatible with representative government and modernization. He emerged as a Third World champion and Islamic spokesman by standing up to the West.
May at 10
Anthony Seldon - 2019
May at 10 tells the compelling inside story of the most turbulent period in modern British politics for 100 years.Written by one of Britain’s leading political and social commentators, May at 10 describes how Theresa May arrived in 10 Downing Street in 2016 with the clearest, yet toughest, agenda of any Prime Minister since the Second World War: delivering Brexit. What follows defies belief or historical precedent. This story has never been told.Including a comprehensive series of interviews with May’s closest aides and allies, and with unparalleled access to the advisers who shaped her premiership, Downing Street’s official historian Anthony Seldon decodes the enigma of the Prime Minister’s tenure. Drawing on all his authorial experience, he unpacks what is the most intriguing government and Prime Minister of the modern era.
Bhais of Bengaluru
Jyoti Shelar - 2017
Kodigehalli Mune Gowda was crowned the city's first 'don' back in the 1960s, but it was in the '80s and the '90s that powerhouses like Muthappa Rai, Sreedhar, 'Boot House' Kumar aka Oil Kumar, Bekkina Kannu Rajendra and Srirampura Kitty emerged. In Bhais of Bengaluru, Jyoti Shelar, a print journalist with ten years of work experience as a field reporter, explores this mysterious and fascinating underbelly of India's Garden City.
To Change China: Western Advisers in China
Jonathan D. Spence - 1969
But the Chinese, while eagerly accepting Western technical advice, clung steadfastly to their own religious and cultural traditions. As a new era of relations between China and the United States begins, the tales in this volume will serve as cautionary histories for businessmen, diplomats, students, or any other foreigners who foolishly believe that they can transform this vast, enigmatic country.
Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food
Steve Striffler - 2005
He also reports on the way chickens are raised today and how they are consumed. What he discovers about America’s favorite meat is not just unpleasant but a powerful indictment of our industrial food system. The process of bringing chicken to our dinner tables is unhealthy for all concerned—from farmer to factory worker to consumer. The book traces the development of the poultry industry since the Second World War, analyzing the impact of such changes as the destruction of the family farm, the processing of chicken into nuggets and patties, and the changing makeup of the industrial labor force. The author describes the lives of immigrant workers and their reception in the small towns where they live. The conclusion is clear: there has to be a better way. Striffler proposes radical but practical change, a plan that promises more humane treatment of chickens, better food for the consumer, and fair payment for food workers and farmers.
The Bitter Sea: Coming of Age in a China Before Mao
Charles N. Li - 2008
Li brings into focus the growth pains of a nation undergoing torturous rebirth and offers an intimate understanding of the intricate, subtle, and yet all-powerful traditions that bind the Chinese family.Born near the beginning of World War II, Li Na was the youngest son of a wealthy Chinese government official. By the time he was twenty-one, he had witnessed enough hardship, hope, and tremendous change to last a lifetime. Li saw his family's fortunes dashed when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists came to power in 1945, transforming his father from a powerful official to a prisoner jailed for treason. He survived a year in a dangerous Nanjing slum and watched from his aunt's Shanghai apartment as the Communist army marched in and seized the city in 1948. He experienced both the heady materialism of the decadent foreign "white ghosts" in British Hong Kong and the crippling starvation within the harsh confines of a Communist reform school. He went from being Li Na—the dutiful Chinese son yearning for a harsh, manipulative father's love—to Charles, an independent Chinese American seeking no one's approval but his own.Lyrical and luminous, intense and extraordinary, The Bitter Sea is an unforgettable tale of one young man and his country.
Mail-Order Kid: An Orphan Train Rider's Story
Marilyn Coffey - 2010
There she entered a small and strange Volga German world whose inhabitants spoke a language she had never heard. In this odd world, she encountered whippings and sexual abuse. Perhaps half a million children, like Teresa, were plucked from orphanages and shipped by rail (or "relocated") to nearly every state in the Union from 1854 to 1929. Mail-Order Kid looks at the orphan train movement through the eyes of one small child who yearns to know her "real" mother, survives a tortured childhood, and ultimately, as an adult, comes to terms with her past, her faith, and herself.
Tibet on Fire: Self-Immolations Against Chinese Rule
Tsering Woeser - 2016
Most have died from their injuries. Author Tsering Woeser is a prominent voice of the Tibetan movement, and one of the few Tibetan authors to write in Chinese. Her stirring acts of resistance have led to her house arrest, where she remains under close surveillance to this day. Tibet On Fire is her account of the oppression Tibetans face and the ideals driving those who resist, both the self-immolators and other Tibetans like herself.With a cover image designed by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, Tibet on Fire is angry and cogent: a clarion call for the world to take action.
The Thirteenth Candle
Lobsang Rampa - 1972
His body twitched, and then lay still.The Lama nodded again to the acolyte, who touched flame to the third stick of incense. "Spirit now released from the suffering body," said the Lama, "pay attention before setting out on your journey; pay attention for I shall detail to you the steps you must take, and the path you must follow..."The fourth stick of incense was lit, and the smoke trailed upwards, as if it had been drawn in blue-gray chalk, straight as a pillar in the almost airless room...
The Hindu Way: An Introduction to Hinduism
Shashi Tharoor - 2019
Although there are hundreds of books on Hinduism, there are only a few which provide a lucid, accessible, yet deeply layered account of the religion’s numerous belief systems, schools of thought, sects, tenets, scriptures, deities, rituals, customs, festivals and philosophies. This book is one of them. In the tradition of classics of the genre like K. M. Sen’s Hinduism and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s The Hindu View of Life, this book captures the essence of Hinduism with brevity, insight and an enviable grasp of the myriad layers and intricacies of one of the world’s greatest religions. It is a book that is especially timely given the rather controversial role that religion has played in countries around the world. The author tells us why Hinduism is a religion that is well-suited to the needs of the world today: ‘In the twenty-first century, Hinduism has many of the attributes of a universal religion—a religion that is personal and individualistic, privileges the individual and does not subordinate one to a collectivity; a religion that grants and respects complete freedom to the believer to find his or her own answers to the true meaning of life; a religion that offers a wide range of choice in religious practice, even in regard to the nature and form of the formless God; a religion that places great emphasis on one’s mind, and values one’s capacity for reflection, intellectual enquiry, and self-study; a religion that distances itself from dogma and holy writ, that is minimally prescriptive and yet offers an abundance of options, spiritual and philosophical texts and social and cultural practices to choose from. In a world where resistance to authority is growing, Hinduism imposes no authorities; in a world of networked individuals, Hinduism proposes no institutional hierarchies; in a world of open-source information-sharing, Hinduism accepts all paths as equally valid; in a world of rapid transformations and accelerating change, Hinduism is adaptable and flexible, which is why it has survived for nearly 4,000 years.The text of The Hindu Way is embellished with over a hundred photographs and illustrations, many of them in colour, on various aspects of the religion. Based on Dr. Tharoor’s extensive writing on the subject, including the bestselling Why I Am a Hindu, this book gives the reader an unrivaled understanding of Hinduism.
China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power
Rob Gifford - 2007
It flows three thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the Old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down.In this utterly surprising and deeply personal book, acclaimed National Public Radio reporter Rob Gifford, a fluent Mandarin speaker, takes the dramatic journey along Route 312 from its start in the boomtown of Shanghai to its end on the border with Kazakhstan. Gifford reveals the rich mosaic of modern Chinese life in all its contradictions, as he poses the crucial questions that all of us are asking about China: Will it really be the next global superpower? Is it as solid and as powerful as it looks from the outside? And who are the ordinary Chinese people, to whom the twenty-first century is supposed to belong? Gifford is not alone on his journey. The largest migration in human history is taking place along highways such as Route 312, as tens of millions of people leave their homes in search of work. He sees signs of the booming urban economy everywhere, but he also uncovers many of the country’s frailties, and some of the deep-seated problems that could derail China’s rise. The whole compelling adventure is told through the cast of colorful characters Gifford meets: garrulous talk-show hosts and ambitious yuppies, impoverished peasants and tragic prostitutes, cell-phone salesmen, AIDS patients, and Tibetan monks. He rides with members of a Shanghai jeep club, hitchhikes across the Gobi desert, and sings karaoke with migrant workers at truck stops along the way.As he recounts his travels along Route 312, Rob Gifford gives a face to what has historically, for Westerners, been a faceless country and breathes life into a nation that is so often reduced to economic statistics. Finally, he sounds a warning that all is not well in the Chinese heartlands, that serious problems lie ahead, and that the future of the West has become inextricably linked with the fate of 1.3 billion Chinese people.“Informative, delightful, and powerfully moving . . . Rob Gifford’s acute powers of observation, his sense of humor and adventure, and his determination to explore the wrenching dilemmas of China’s explosive development open readers’ eyes and reward their minds.” –Robert A. Kapp, president, U.S.-China Business Council, 1994-2004
Perfect: Don Larsen's Miraculous World Series Game and the Men Who Made It Happen
Lew Paper - 2009
In an improbable performance that the New York Times called "the greatest moment in the history of the Fall Classic," Larsen, an otherwise mediocre journeyman pitcher, retired twenty-seven straight Dodger batters to clinch a perfect game and, to date, the only postseason no-hitter ever witnessed in major league baseball. Here, Lew Paper delivers a masterful pitch-by-pitch account of that fateful day and the extraordinary lives of the players on the field- seven of whom would later be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Meticulously researched and relying on dozens of interviews, Paper's gripping narrative recreates Larsen's feat in a pitching duel that featured legendary figures such as Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Yogi Berra, and Roy Campanella. More than just the story of a single game, Perfect is a window into baseball's glorious past.
A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, Her Daring Escape, and Her Quest to Free China's Daughters
Chai Ling - 2011
Risking imprisonment and possible death for her leadership role in the student democracy movement, she was on the run in China for ten months while being hunted by the authorities. She eventually escaped to the U.S., completed her education at Princeton and Harvard, found true love, and became a highly successful entrepreneur. But her desperate quest for freedom, purpose, and peace--which she had sought in turn through academic achievement, romantic love, political activism, and career success--was never satisfied until she had an unexpected encounter with a formerly forbidden faith. Her newfound passion for God led to her life's greatest mission: Fighting for the lives and rights of young girls in China.
Joseph Smith's Kirtland: Eyewitness Accounts
Karl Ricks Anderson - 1989
Anderson. 1996, Deseret Book.