Book picks similar to
The Mind of Germany: The Education of a Nation by Hans Kohn
history
history-german-modern
nationalism
non-fiction
With British Snipers to the Reich
C. Shore - 1988
Captain Shore’s enthusiasm for firearms and especially for rifles led him to take every possible opportunity to try out different weapons, ammunition and methods of shooting. His interest was combined with sound common sense, and he would never countenance a rumour about a particular weapon or incident unless he was able to confirm it for himself.As a result everything in this book is based on his personal experience. In World War II Captain Shore took part in the British landings at D-Day, and fought in Normandy and northern Europe. He came across many different weapons in varying condition, some of the worst being those used by the Dutch and Belgian resistance fighters. He was keen to learn from experienced snipers and then to train others, and he became an officer sniping instructor at the British Army of the Rhine Training Centre.He shares a wealth of first-hand knowledge of different rifles, pistols, machine guns, ammunition, telescopes, binoculars and all the equipment a sniper should carry. This is not only an account of sniping in World War II but also a guide to all aspects of sniping based on personal knowledge and experience in training and battle. Illustrated heavily with photos, pictures and other illustrations of snipers, their weapons and their tactics.
The First Casualty: The Untold Story of the Falklands War 2nd April 1982
Ricky D. Phillips - 2017
Just sixty Royal Marines stood in the way of an armada of thousands, 8,000 miles from home and with no support. The story that followed was one of a shameful defeat and ignominious surrender. A story which has lasted for 35 years. Now, with first-hand accounts from the Royal Marines themselves, from the Argentine Marines who fought against them and from the people of Stanley who watched the battle rage on their very doorsteps, a new history has emerged. It is the story of an epic and heroic defence on a scale with Rorke's Drift; a story which neither the British nor the Argentine governments wanted told. It is a battle denied; the battle of Stanley, a battle which - we are told - never happened.
Lincoln's Story: The Wayfarer
Vel - 2012
He did not claim he was God’s agent. Did he believe in God? Did he look for a sign when he was desperate? Did he follow the Divine Will? Many believers are not followers; many followers are not believers. Is he a believer or a follower or both?
HMS Sheffield: The Life and Times of 'Old Shiny'
Ronald Bassett - 1988
Launched in 1936 by Princess Marina, the Duchess of Kent, HMS Sheffield was the third of the Royal Navy’s ten Town-class cruisers. She marked a number of firsts: the first ship to be named for Sheffield, the first to have stainless steel fixtures instead of brass, and the first to carry operational RDF (Radio Direction Finding) equipment. Old Shiny, as she became affectionately known, was manufactured to the high standards of peacetime. Even hitting a mine was unable to render her inactive for long. Her crew simply manufactured a wooden patch, and saw her safely home. Achieving twelve honours over thirty years’ service, Old Shiny notably exchanged salvoes with the Bismarck, engaged Admiral Hipper and Lützow, and helped sink Scharnhorst. A more unusual deployment came in 1956, as HMS Sheffield was one of the ships loaned by the Admiralty for the Technicolor epic The Battle of the River Plate! Drawn from the experiences of the men who lived, fought and served on board, in HMS Sheffield Ronald Bassett paints an evocative and highly personal portrait of Old Shiny, and shows how she was more than just a warship. Praise for Ronald Bassett ‘One of the most impressive things I found about the book was that you got a real feel for the time and place. Scenes set in India or England felt different and I think that's a great achievement.’ –
Library Thing
‘vividly described … the voyage as seen through the sleep-robbed eyes of matelots and officers alike’ –
Daily Telegraph
‘A catalogue of horror’ –
Eastern Daily Press
‘There is a degree of authenticity that makes the blood run cold’ –
Cambridge News
‘Fast, vigorous action’ –
Sheffield Morning Telegraph
‘Graphic tale of slave and convict ships… not for tender stomachs’ –
Books and Bookmen
Ronald Bassett (1924-1996) was born in Chelsea. During the Munich crisis, at age fourteen, he falsified enlistment papers to become a Rifleman of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles). Following active service, he was exposed and discharged. In his records, his colonel noted, ‘A good soldier. I am sorry to lose him.’ Undismayed, he immediately entered the Royal Navy, in which he remained for fourteen years, serving in the Arctic, North Atlantic, Mediterranean, the Far East and, later, Korea. He died in Surrey.
The Girl Who Dated Herself
Susannah Shakespeare - 2018
You didn’t choose it and you can’t get out of it. After a lifelong quest to find “the one” a British writer living in L.A. finds herself single again in her mid-thirties and admits defeat. But instead of blaming the string of past ex-boyfriends, she turns the spotlight on herself. Taking a year off dating men, she tries to date herself in a search for some answers. A fun “honeymoon period” concludes with a shocking discovery. She starts to dig deeper, seeking the source of her problems, but the truth is a bitter pill to swallow. The Girl Who Dated Herself begins as an entertaining “rom com for one” but evolves into an engaging and thought-provoking journey that ultimately questions our preconceptions about love and the foundations of self worth. A book for women and men of all ages, this creative memoir is endlessly amusing and endearing. It touches on subjects painfully familiar to some and uncomfortably shocking to others. A journey of self-discovery, it is also a beautiful love letter to Los Angeles, taking the reader to the real world behind the glitz and gloss of Beverly Hills and Hollywood.
Yellow and black: A season with Richmond
Konrad Marshall - 2017
With unprecedented access to club officials, players and coaches, author Konrad Marshall takes the reader inside the rooms at the key moments the campaign, chronicling the Tigers' journey towards premiership contention. This is not just a book of wins and losses, it's the story of a professional football club and how it operates at every level: from the fitness staff, to the coaching panel, the players, and the Board. Football has changed enormously since Richmond's last flag, in 1980, and Marshall explains in great detail the enormous amount of work and thought that goes into every decision made-on and off the field. Whether the Tigers make it to the last Saturday in September or not, their story is rich and explosive. A Season with Richmond is full of unparalleled access to all the key moments, including frank and occasionally emotional interviews with all the key figures. A Season with Richmond is a compulsory read for all football fans.
Ken Burns: The Kindle Singles Interview (Kindle Single)
Tom Roston - 2014
In this illuminating, in-depth Q & A, “America’s storyteller” lets readers in on his philosophical approach to understanding our nation’s past, as well as a little family secret for overcoming your fears.Tom Roston is a veteran journalist who began his career at The Nation and Vanity Fair magazines, before working at Premiere magazine as a senior editor. He writes a regular blog about nonfiction filmmaking on PBS.org and he is a frequent contributor to The New York Times. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in New York City. Cover design by Adil Dara.
The New Chardonnay: The Unlikely Story of How Marijuana Went Mainstream
Heather Cabot - 2020
Drawing on exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names in the world of cannabis, Cabot explores the economic and social forces that have collided to create a frenetic gold rush mentality that has spurred new culinary trends, inspired innovative new uses for health, beauty and wellness, and attracted tens of millions in investor dollars while generating hundreds of thousands of jobs and untold tax revenue. All as cannabis remains federally illegal in America. Cabot takes readers on the road with Snoop Dogg and his business partner Ted Chung as they roll out the star's own brand of bud; to wine country, where chefs and vintners are harkening a new age of elevated dining; on the wild adventures of marijuana mogul Beth Stavola, where vaults of cash, armed guards and shady characters are just another day at the office; to the Marijuana Business Convention, as professionals gather to see cutting-edge technology for growing, manufacturing, and packaging a whole new generation of consumer products. The New Chardonnay tells the unbelievable story of pot's astonishing rebranding, pulling back the curtain to show how a drug that was once the subject of multi-million dollar PSA warnings managed to shed its unsavory image and land at the center of a booming and surprisingly upstanding industry.
One Trip Too Many - A Pilot's Memoirs of 38 Months in Combat Over Laos and Vietnam
Wayne A. Warner - 2012
It is primarily a story to share with family and friends about my personal involvement in the conflict and the turbulent decade of the 60s and does not attempt to question the politics of the era. It begins with a brief description of my quest to gain admittance to the United States Air Force Academy, my four years at the Academy, and the subsequent year of pilot training. I flew three different types of aircraft in combat and the book provides insight into the training that took place for the C-130 Hercules, the F-105 Thunderchief, and the A-1 Skyraider. Each of the three tours in combat over Laos and Vietnam is described with emphasis on the more memorable flights including a bailout in the A-1 and the final crash on takeoff that ended my active duty Air Force career. My time in various hospitals is described at the end of the book and the epilogue tells briefly of my life after retirement from the United States Air Force. The book has been described as a combination of Band of Brothers, Top Gun, and Forrest Gump.
The Carroll Shelby Story
Carroll Shelby - 2019
He was born to
race
—some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway.
Carroll Shelby wasn’t born to run. He was born to race—some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway. The exciting new feature film Ford v Ferrari--starring Matt Damon as Shelby and Christian Bale as fellow racer Ken Miles--immortalizes the small-town Texas boy who won the notorious Le Mans 24-hour endurance challenge, and changed the face of auto racing with the legendary Shelby Cobra. But there’s much more to his high-velocity, history-making story.A wizard behind the wheel, he was also a visionary designer of speed machines that ruled the racetrack and the road. While his GT40s racked up victories in the world’s most prestigious professional racing showdowns, his masterpiece, the Ford Cobra, gave Europe’s formidable Ferrari an American--style run for its money. If you’ve got a need for speed, strap in next to the man who put his foot down on the pedal, kept his eyes on the prize, and never looked back.
NPR Road Trips: Roadside Attractions: Stories That Take You Away...
Noah Adams - 2009
The Elvis Is Alive Museum in Wright City, Missouri. The Velvet Museum (“Velveteria”) in Portland, Oregon. A 13-foot Styrofoam scale model of Stonehenge. The Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas . . . or is it in Darwin, Minnesota? Roadside attractions are the staples of the American road trip. Many are slowly disappearing from our highways and byways. Are they culture or kitsch? Are their creators artists or innovators? Listeners are invited along for the ride to decide for themselves.
Militant
Michael Crick - 1984
Although the rise of Jeremy Corbyn is to be attributed to more than hard-left entrism, to some within the party, Crick's book must seem like a lesson from history.Militant was a secret Trotskyite organisation that consistently denied being a party, though at its peak in the mid-1980s it could boast around 8,000 members, all of whom also belonged to the Labour Party. Militant operated clandestinely inside the Labour Party, edging out moderates at grass-roots level and recruiting people to its own ranks. Whilst eventually most of its leaders were expelled, it caused damaging rifts within Labour. Crick's book explores the origins, organisation and aims of Militant. It also explores the famous boss politics of Derek Hatton and Militant in Liverpool, and the party hierarchy's determined and ultimately successful attempts to squash the tendency.An important historical document, it is today seen as a field guide to how hard-left factions can infiltrate the Labour party, with some in the centre of the party allegedly urging its supporters to treat the long unavailable book as a 'war manual'.
Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion
Harry Sword - 2020
Harry Sword traces the line from neolithic Indo-European traditions to the modern underground by way of mid-20th Century New York, navigating a beguiling topography of archeoacoustics, ringing feedback, chest plate sub bass, avant-garde eccentricity, and fervent spiritualism. From ancient beginnings to bawdy medieval troubadours, Sufi mystics to Indian raga masters, North Mississippi bluesmen to cone-shattering South London dub reggae sound systems, Hawkwind's Ladbroke Grove to the outer reaches of Faust, Ash Ra Temple and sonic architects like La Monte Young, Brian Eno, and John Cale, the opium-fueled fug of The Theatre of Eternal Music to the caveman doom of Saint Vitus, the cough syrup reverse hardcore of Swans to the seedy VHS hinterland of Electric Wizard, ritual amp worship of Earth and Sunn O))) and the many touch points in between, Monolithic Undertow probes the power of the drone: something capable of affording womb-like warmth or evoking cavernous dread alike.This story does not start in the twentieth century underground: the monolithic undertow has bewitched us for millennia. The book takes the drone not as codified genre but as an audio carrier vessel deployed for purposes of ritual, personal catharsis, or sensory obliteration, revealing also a naturally occurring auditory phenomenon spanning continents and manifesting in fascinatingly unexpected places.Monolithic Undertow will be a book about music and the very human need for transcendence and intoxication through sound. It seeks to reveal the drone as a tool of personal liberation that exists far outside the brittle confines of commodity culture.
The Names of My Mothers
Dianne Sanders Riordan - 2013
In 1942 Elizabeth Bynam Sanders was a young woman who left home under false pretenses and travelled to Our Lady of Victory, a home for unwed mothers in upstate New York. Shortly after surrendering her daughter for adoption, she returned to her life in Johnston County, North Carolina. She never married and never had another child of her own. This powerful and moving memoir speaks of the profound need for connection. It is a story about identity, the hunger we feel for a sense of belonging and the ineffable significance of blood.
Call Me Sister: District Nursing Tales from the Swinging Sixties
Jane Yeadon - 2013
Staff nursing in a ward where she's challenged by an inventory driven ward sister, she reckons it's time to swap such trivialities for life as a district nurse.Independent thinking is one thing, but Jane's about to find that the drama on district can demand instant reaction; and without hospital back up, she's usually the one having to provide it. She meets a rich cast of patients all determined to follow their own individual star, and goes to Edinburgh where Queen Victoria's Jubilee Institute's nurse training is considered the cr me de la cr me of the district nursing world.Call Me Sister recalls Jane's challenging and often hilarious route to realizing her own particular dream.