The Warlizard Chronicles


Warlizard - 2011
    Now I know why my dog likes her better. 2. I wish this were the worst thing she’d ever told me. About the book In “The Warlizard Chronicles”, Warlizard tells the tales of a misspent youth, from the story of his “dog-gasmic” ex-fiancée to the logic of serving as a German linguist in Iraq. The stories are light, fast-paced, graphic, and not remotely safe for work. You have been warned. Reader feedback: - “You tell all women that story? You should wash out your mouth!” - “I think I could listen to your stories for hours.” - “So you owe your marriage to the people who brought down the world trade center?” - “I have nothing else I can add or ask, except MORE STORIES.” - “Holy s**t. I wish I was you.” - “You slept with another man's wife and then lied to him about it, and can say with a straight face it was the right thing to do?” - “Godda***t, I spewed out laughter too loud at work, now I have to leave because everyone knows I'm not doing s**t. F*** this is hilarious, and disconcerting, at the same time.” - “He is the most interesting man in the world.” - “I feel like a failure reading these stories, they're awesome.” - “Your life experience makes me feel good. You good sir are somewhat of a new idol of mine. Nothing much you can do about that. Have a good day sir.” - “Warlizard doesn't always drink beer, but when he does, he prefers Dos Equis.” - “I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that not only a story like this exists but that a Reddit regular would be living it. And it kinda has this enthusiastic ‘and then it happened...’ moments in it that kinda style like you'd write fiction on the go.” - “This guy is either the most creative man in the world or the most interesting man in the world. Either way...”

The Woke Supremacy: An Anti-Socialist Manifesto


Evan Sayet - 2020
    There simply could not be a more important book at a more important juncture in American -- and world -- history.

Jihadi John: The Making of a Terrorist


Robert Verkaik - 2016
    Suddenly Islamic State had a face and the whole world knew the extent of their savagery. Weeks later, when his identity was revealed, Robert Verkaik was shocked to realise that this was a man he’d interviewed years earlier. Back in 2010, Mohammed Emwazi was a twenty-one-year-old IT graduate who claimed the security services were ruining his life. They had repeatedly approached him, his family and his fiancée. Had they been tracking an already dangerous extremist or did they push him over the edge? In the aftermath of the US air strike that killed Emwazi in November 2015, Verkaik’s investigation leads him to deeply troubling questions. What led Emwazi to come to him for help in the first place? And why do hundreds of Britons want to join Islamic State? In an investigation both frightening and urgent, Verkaik goes beyond the making of one terrorist to examine the radicalisation of our youth and to ask what we can do to stop it happening in future.

The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents


Ronald Kessler - 2014
    What the nation’s leaders are really like and what goes on behind the scenes remains hidden. Secret Service agents have a front row seat on their private lives and those of their wives and children.    Crammed with new, headline-making revelations, THE FIRST FAMILY DETAIL: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents by Ronald Kessler tells that eye-opening, uncensored story.   Since publication of his New York Times bestselling book In the President’s Secret Service, award-winning investigative reporter Ronald Kessler has continued to penetrate the wall of secrecy that surrounds the U.S. Secret Service, breaking the story that Secret Service agents who were to protect President Obama hired prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia and revealing that the Secret Service allowed a third uninvited guest to crash a White House state dinner.   Now Kessler presents far bigger and more consequential stories about our nation’s leaders and the agency sworn to protect them. Kessler widens his scope to include presidential candidates, former presidents after they leave the White House, and the presidents’ relationships to their first ladies and children.   From observing Vice President Joe Biden’s reckless behavior that jeopardizes the country’s safety, to escorting Bill Clinton’s mistress at Chappaqua, to overhearing First Lady Michelle Obama’s admonitions to the president, to witnessing President Nixon’s friends bring him a nude stripper, to seeing their own agency take risks that could result in an assassination, Secret Service agents know a secret world that Ronald Kessler exposes in breathtaking detail.  THE FIRST FAMILY DETAIL reveals: · Vice President Joe Biden regularly orders the Secret Service to keep his military aide with the nuclear football a mile behind his motorcade, potentially leaving the country unable to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack. · Secret Service agents discovered that former president Bill Clinton has a blond mistress. Within minutes of Hillary Clinton’s leaving, the woman—codenamed Energizer by agents—shows up to be with Bill every day while the likely future presidential candidate is away. · The Secret Service covered up the fact that President Ronald Reagan’s White House staff overruled the Secret Service to let unscreened spectators get close to Reagan as he left the Washington Hilton, allowing him to be shot by John W. Hinckley Jr.   · Secret Service agents have been dismayed to overhear Michelle Obama push her husband to be more aggressive in attacking Republicans and to side with blacks in racial controversies.  · Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan diverted agents from protecting President Obama and his family at the White House and ordered them instead to protect his assistant at her home and illegally retrieve confidential records as a favor to her.   · Because Hillary Clinton is so nasty to agents, being assigned to her protective detail is considered a form of punishment and the worst assignment in the Secret Service.   · Secret Service agents were ordered to ignore security rules and allow the SUV carrying actor Bradley Cooper to drive unscreened into a secure restricted area when President Obama was about to deliver his speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner.   · Vice President Joe Biden spends millions of taxpayer dollars flying to and from his home in Delaware on Air Force Two. His office tried to cover up the costs of the personal trips.  · Because the Secret Service refused to provide enough magnetometers at his campaign events, Mitt Romney regularly left himself open to assassination by giving speeches to unscreened crowds.   · Vice President Joe Biden swims nude at the vice president’s residence in Washington and at his home in Delaware, offending female agents.

Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians


Noam Chomsky - 1982
    Chomsky examines the origins of this relationship and its meaningful consequences for the Palestinians and other Arabs. The book mainly concentrates on the 1982 Lebanon War and the "pro-Zionist" bias of most U.S. media and intellectuals, as Chomsky puts it.

Eliza Hamilton: The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton


Tilar J. Mazzeo - 2018
    Fans fell in love with Eliza Hamilton—Alexander Hamilton’s devoted wife—in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s phenomenal musical Hamilton. But they don’t know her full story. A strong pioneer woman, a loving sister, a caring mother, and in her later years, a generous philanthropist, Eliza had many sides—and this fascinating biography brings her multi-faceted personality to vivid life. Eliza Hamilton: The Extraordinary Life and Times of The Wife of Alexander Hamilton follows Eliza through her early years in New York, into the ups and downs of her married life with Alexander, beyond the aftermath of his tragic murder, and finally to her involvement in many projects that cemented her legacy as one of the unsung heroes of our nation’s early days. Featuring Mazzeo’s “impeccable research and crafting” (Library Journal), and perfect for fans of the richly detailed historical books by Ron Chernow and Erik Larson, Eliza Hamilton is the captivating account of the woman behind the famous man.

Prince Eddy: The King Britain Never Had (Revealing History)


Andrew Cook - 2006
    1901–10) first son and heir to the throne, popularly known as Eddy, has virtually been airbrushed out of history. Eddy was as popular and charismatic a figure in his own time as Princess Diana a century later. As in her case, his sudden death in 1892 resulted in public demonstrations of grief on a scale rarely seen at the time, and it was even rumored (as in the case of Diana) that he was murdered to save him besmirching the monarchy. Had he lived, he would have been crowned king in 1911, ushering in a profoundly different style of monarchy from that of his younger brother, who ultimately succeeded as the stodgy George V. Eddy's life was virtually ignored by historians until the 1970s, when myths began to accumulate and his character somehow grew horns and a tail. As a result, he is remembered today primarily as a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 and for his alleged involvement in the Cleveland Street homosexual scandal of 1889. But history has found Eddy guilty of crimes he did not commit. Now, for the first time, using modern forensic evidence combined with Eddy's previously unseen records, personal correspondence, and photographs, Andrew Cook proves his innocence. Prince Eddy reveals the truth about a key royal figure, a man who would have made a fine king, and changed the face of the British monarchy.

Zero Hour for Gen X: How the Last Adult Generation Can Save America from Millennials


Matthew Hennessey - 2018
    Soon Gen Xers will be the only cohort of Americans who remember life as it was lived before the arrival of the Internet. They are, as Hennessey dubs them, “the last adult generation,” the sole remaining link to a time when childhood was still a bit dangerous but produced adults who were naturally resilient. More than a decade into the social media revolution, the American public is waking up to the idea that the tech sector’s intentions might not be as pure as advertised. The mountains of money being made off our browsing habits and purchase histories are used to fund ever-more extravagant and utopian projects that, by their very natures, will corrode the foundations of free society, leaving us all helpless and digitally enslaved to an elite crew of ultra-sophisticated tech geniuses. But it’s not too late to turn the tide. There’s still time for Gen X to write its own future. A spirited defense of free speech, eye contact, and the virtues of patience, Zero Hour for Gen X is a cultural history of the last 35 years, an analysis of the current social and historical moment, and a generational call to arms.

The Latham Diaries


Mark Latham - 2005
    The backroom deals, the frontroom coniving, the bitter defeat of idealism and the triumph of opportunism.

The Party's Over: How the Extreme Right Hijacked the GOP and I Became a Democrat


Charlie Crist - 2014
    In this no-holds-barred memoir, he shows why he switched sides and became a Democrat.After serving as a Republican governor—one who was on the short list for the vice presidency in 2008—Charlie Crist made headlines when he decided to run for the U.S. Senate as an Independent. He was on the front page again when he endorsed President Obama in 2012 and spoke at the Democratic National Convention—and yet again when he officially joined the Democratic Party later that year. In The Party’s Over, he’ll make even more news when he reveals:The inside story of his 2010 Senate primary campaign against Marco Rubio, where he learned exactly how vicious the Republican leadership can be.His journey from inner circle to persona non grata, thanks to his literal embrace of President Obama.His very frank opinions on Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and other top-tier Republicans.Why he believes that Democrats have the right vision for Florida and the nation. • What he’s learned as a member of both parties and why he remains convinced that the two-party system can still work—with the right leadership.Rather than just rehashing his career, in this book Crist offers a focused indictment of the failings of the Republican Party, naming names and identifying where things went wrong. The Party’s Over is as far from “politics as usual” as you can get.

Lights on a Ground of Darkness: An Evocation of a Place and Time


Ted Kooser - 2009
    With a poet’s eye for detail, Kooser captures the beauty of the landscape and the vibrancy of his mother’s Iowa family, the Mosers, in precise, evocative language. The center of the family’s love is Kooser’s uncle, Elvy, a victim of cerebral palsy. Elvy’s joys are fishing, playing pinochle, and drinking soda from the ice chest at his father’s roadside Standard Oil station. Kooser’s grandparents, their kin, and the activities and pleasures of this extended family spin out and around the armature of Elvy’s blessed life. Kooser has said that writing this book was the most important work he has ever undertaken because it was his attempt to keep these beloved people alive against the relentless erosion of time.

Not Without a Fight: The Autobiography


Helen Zille - 2016
    She documents her early days in the Democratic Party and the Democratic Alliance, at a time when the party was locked in a no-holds-barred factional conflict. And she chronicles the intense political battles to become mayor of Cape Town, leader of the DA and premier of the Western Cape, in the face of dirty tricks from the ANC and infighting within her own party.This is a story about political intrigue and treachery, floor-crossing and unlikely coalitions, phone tapping and intimidation, false criminal charges and judicial commissions. It documents Zille’s courageous fight against corruption and state capture and her efforts to realign politics and entrench accountability. And it describes a mother’s battle to raise children in the pressured world of South African politics.This book is as frank, honest and unflinching as Helen Zille herself, and will appeal to anyone interested in the story of South African politics over the past fifty years.

Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch


Sally Bedell Smith - 2012
    But through the fog of glamour and gossip, how well do we really know the world’s most famous monarch? Drawing on numerous interviews and never-before-revealed documents, acclaimed biographer Sally Bedell Smith pulls back the curtain to show in intimate detail the public and private lives of Queen Elizabeth II, who has led her country and Commonwealth through the wars and upheavals of the last sixty years with unparalleled composure, intelligence, and grace. In Elizabeth the Queen, we meet the young girl who suddenly becomes “heiress presumptive” when her uncle abdicates the throne. We meet the thirteen-year-old Lilibet as she falls in love with a young navy cadet named Philip and becomes determined to marry him, even though her parents prefer wealthier English aristocrats. We see the teenage Lilibet repairing army trucks during World War II and standing with Winston Churchill on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on V-E Day. We see the young Queen struggling to balance the demands of her job with her role as the mother of two young children. Sally Bedell Smith brings us inside the palace doors and into the Queen’s daily routines—the “red boxes” of documents she reviews each day, the weekly meetings she has had with twelve prime ministers, her physically demanding tours abroad, and the constant scrutiny of the press—as well as her personal relationships: with Prince Philip, her husband of sixty-four years and the love of her life; her children and their often-disastrous marriages; her grandchildren and friends.

Twelve Days on the Somme: A Memoir of the Trenches, 1916


Sidney Rogerson - 1933
    By the end of the action, very little ground had been won: the Allied Forces had made just 12 km. For this slight gain, more than a million lives were lost. There were more than 400,000 British, 200,000 French, and 500,000 German casualties during the fighting. Twelve Days on the Somme is a memoir of the last spell of front-line duty performed by the 2nd Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. Written by Sidney Rogerson, a young officer in B Company, it gives an extraordinarily frank and often moving account of what it was really like to fight through one of the most notorious battles of the First World War. Its special message, however, is that, contrary to received assumptions and the popular works of writers like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, men could face up to the terrible ordeal such a battle presented with resilience, good humour and without loss of morale. This is a classic work whose reprinting is long overdue.This edition includes a new Introduction by Malcolm Brown and a Foreword by Rogerson's son Commander Jeremy Rogerson.

Backstairs Billy: The Life of William Tallon, the Queen Mother's Most Devoted Servant


Tom Quinn - 2015
    For much of his life he was driven by two demons: a powerful sex drive and an intense, almost pathological love for the Queen Mother…” From humble beginnings as a shopkeeper’s son in Coventry to ‘Page of the Backstairs’ at Clarence House, William Tallon, or ‘Backstairs Billy’ as he came to be known, entered royal service at the age of fifteen. Over the next fifty years, he became one of the most notorious and flamboyant characters ever to have graced the royal household - the one servant the Queen Mother just could not do without. While others came and went, he remained by her side, becoming one of her most trusted friends and confidants. The fascinating life story of the man who spent more than half a century working for one of the world’s most elusive institutions, Backstairs Billy provides a rare glimpse of what the royals really get up to behind closed doors…