Book picks similar to
George W. Bushisms: The Slate Book of Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg


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The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life


Amy Tan - 2003
    With the same spirit and humor that characterize her acclaimed novels, she now shares her insight into her own life and how she escaped the curses of her past to make a future of her own. She takes us on a journey from her childhood of tragedy and comedy to the present day and her arrival as one of the world's best-loved novelists. Whether recalling arguments with her mother in suburban California or introducing us to the ghosts that inhabit her computer, The Opposite of Fate offers vivid portraits of choices, attitudes, charms, and luck in action--a refreshing antidote to the world-weariness and uncertainties we all face today.

Summer of Fear


T. Jefferson Parker - 1993
    Somehow, the case never appears on the police blotter - although Russell saw his former colleague, homicide chief Marty Parish, leaving the scene of the crime - and soon all evidence of the death disappears. Meanwhile, a string of killings continues in the same gruesome style, and Russell becomes the contact of the deranged man responsible. As Monroe gets dangerously entangled in this deadly intrigue, he must fight for his life while watching his wife fight for hers against a terminal brain tumor.

The Collected Stories


Eudora Welty - 1980
      Including the earlier collections A Curtain of Green, The Wide Net, The Golden Apples, and The Bride of the Innisfallen, as well as previously uncollected ones, these forty-one stories demonstrate Eudora Welty's talent for writing from diverse points-of-view with “vision that is sweet by nature, always humanizing, uncannily objective, but never angry” (Washington Post).A curtain of green and other stories.Lily Daw and the three ladies --A piece of news --Petrified man --The key --Keela, the outcast Indian maiden --Why I live at the P.O. --The whistle --The hitch-hikers --A memory --Clytie --Old Mr. Marblehall --Flowers for Marjorie --A curtain of green --A visit of charity --Death of a traveling salesman --Powerhouse --A worn path --The wide net and other stories.First love --The wide net --A still moment --Asphodel --The winds --The purple hat --Livvie --At the landing --The golden apples.Shower of gold --June recital --Sir Rabbit --Moon Lake --The whole world knows --Music from Spain --The wanderers --The bride of the Innisfallen and other stories.No place for you, my love --The burning --The bride of the Innisfallen --Ladies in spring --Circe --Kin --Going to Naples --Uncollected stories.Where is the voice coming from? --The demonstrators.

The Graduate


Charles Webb - 1963
    Embittered by the emptiness of his college education and indifferent to his grim prospects—grad school? a career in plastics?—Benjamin falls haplessly into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the relentlessly seductive wife of his father's business partner. It's only when beautiful coed Elaine Robinson comes home to visit her parents that Benjamin, now smitten, thinks he might have found some kind of direction in his life. Unfortunately for Benjamin, Mrs. Robinson plays the role of protective mother as well as she does the one of mistress. A wondrously fierce and absurd battle of wills ensues, with love and idealism triumphing over the forces of corruption and conformity.

Old School


Tobias Wolff - 2003
    He is an outsider who has learned to mimic the negligent manner of his more privileged classmates. Like many of them, he wants more than anything on earth to become a writer. But to do that he must first learn to tell the truth about himself.The agency of revelation is the school literary contest, whose winner will be awarded an audience with the most legendary writer of his time. As the fever of competition infects the boy and his classmates, fraying alliances, exposing weaknesses, Old School explores the ensuing deceptions and betrayals with an unblinking eye and a bottomless store of empathy. The result is further evidence that Wolff is an authentic American master.

The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band


Neil Strauss - 2001
    This is the life of Mötley Crüe, the heaviest drinking, hardest fighting, most oversexed and arrogant band in the world. Their unbelievable exploits are the stuff of rock 'n' roll legend. They nailed the hottest chicks, started the bloodiest fights, partied with the biggest drug dealers, and got to know the inside of every jail cell from California to Japan. They have dedicated an entire career to living life to its extreme, from the greatest fantasies to the darkest tragedies. Tommy married two international sex symbols; Vince killed a man and lost a daughter to cancer; Nikki overdosed, rose from the dead, and then OD'd again the next day; and Mick shot a woman and tried to hang his own brother. But that's just the beginning. Fueled by every drug they could get their hands on and obscene amounts of alcohol, driven by fury and headed straight for hell, Mötley Crüe raged through two decades, leaving behind a trail of debauched women, trashed hotel rooms, crashed cars, psychotic managers, and broken bones that has left the music industry cringing to this day. All these unspeakable acts, not to mention their dire consequences, are laid bare in The Dirt.Here -- directly from Nikki, Vince, Tommy, and Mick -- is the unexpurgated version of the whole glorious, gut-wrenching story. In these pages, published for the first time anywhere, are Tommy Lee's letters to Pamela Anderson from prison: Mick's confession to having an incurable disease that is slowly killing him; Vince's experience burying his own daughter -- and the train wreck that his life became afterward; and Nikki's anguished struggle to deal with an entire life fueled by anger over his childhood abandonment, his discovery of the family he never knew he had -- and his subsequent loss of them. And all of it accompanied by scores of rare, never-before-published photographs, mug shots, and handwritten lyrics. No one is spared. Not David Lee Roth, Ozzy Osbourne, Vanity, Aerosmith, Heather Locklear, AC/DC, Lita Ford, Iron Maiden, Pamela Anderson, Guns N' Roses, Donna D'Errico, RATT, or those two girls from Dallas, Texas.Make no mistake about it: these guys are geniuses. They invented glam metal and then left it in the dust; sold more than forty million albums from Shout at the Devil to Dr. Feelgood; toured the world dozen times and have the scars to prove it; and maintained a rabid following in an era of throwaway pop stars. Mötley Crüe has done nothing less than tattoo the psyche of the entire MTV generation. They are the ultimate rock 'n' roll band. And if you don't believe it, read The Dirt. You don't know what decadence is...

His Finest Hour: A Biography of Winston Churchill


Christopher Catherwood - 2010
    As a young man he was a maverick journalist; his many positions in politics before 1940 marked him as a courageous but foolhardy man. Yet it is Churchill’s record in war, which has recently been questioned, that confirms his genius as a military commander and national leader—someone who understood the dangers of Nazi Germany before 1939 and someone uniquely capable to lead the empire through the turmoil of the Second World War. Christopher Catherwood argues that it was Churchill’s stand in 1940-41 that saved Britain and that only he was able to bring together the allies that eventually defeated Hitler in 1945. Catherwood has produced a challenging yet lively reassessment of the life and career of Winston Churchill, lion of British history and flawed hero.

Letters to Judy


Judy Blume - 1986
    She has achieved multimillion-copy sales with her adult novels--Smart Women and Wifey--as well as her young adult novel Forever and fourteen children's titles. In Letters to Judy, she answers the questions and worries that concern parents and kids most.

Yoga for dummies


Larry Payne - 1999
    Today, Yoga is employed by atheletes in training, recovering heart patients, chronic back pain sufferers' and new mothers, before and after delivery. In "Yoga For Dummies, " George Feuerstein and Larry Payne draw on their comprehensive, expert knowledge of Yoga to demonstrate, in simple and plain language, that anyone can use Yoga for improved health and greater peace of mind.

The Merry Wives of Windsor


William Shakespeare
    

The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar


Robert Alexander - 2003
    Now an ancient Russian immigrant, Leonka claims to be the last living witness to the Romanovs' brutal murders and sets down the dark secrets of his past with the imperial family. Does he hold the key to the many questions surrounding the family's murder? Historically vivid and compelling, The Kitchen Boy is also a touching portrait of a loving family that was in many ways similar, yet so different, from any other.

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk


Legs McNeil - 1996
    Iggy Pop, Danny Fields, Dee Dee and Joey Ramone, Malcom McLaren, Jim Carroll, and scores of other famous and infamous punk figures lend their voices to this definitive account of that outrageous, explosive era. From its origins in the twilight years of Andy Warhol's New York reign to its last gasps as eighties corporate rock, the phenomenon known as punk is scrutinized, eulogized, and idealized by the people who were there and who made it happen.

Peyton Place


Grace Metalious - 1956
    At the centre of the novel are three women, each with a secret to hide: Constance MacKenzie, the original desperate housewife; her daughter Allison, whose dreams are stifled by small-town small-mindedness; and Selena Cross, her gypsy-eyed friend from the wrong side of the tracks.

Ethics


Baruch Spinoza - 1677
    Following a logical step-by-step format, it defines in turn the nature of God, the mind, the emotions, human bondage to the emotions, and the power of understanding - moving from a consideration of the eternal, to speculate upon humanity's place in the natural order, the nature of freedom and the path to attainable happiness. A powerful work of elegant simplicity, the Ethics is a brilliantly insightful consideration of the possibility of redemption through intense thought and philosophical reflection. The Ethics is presented in the standard translation of the work by Edwin Curley. This edition also includes an introduction by Stuart Hampshire, outlining Spinoza's philosophy and placing it in context.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I


Edward Gibbon - 1776
    Its subject is the fate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirteen centuries - its rulers, wars, and society, and the events that led to its disastrous collapse. Here, in book one and two, Gibbon charts the vast extent and constitution of the Empire from the reign of Augustus to 395 AD. And in a controversial critique, he examines the early Church, with fascinating accounts of the first Christian and last pagan emperors, Constantine and Julian.This volume also includes updated further reading, a new chronology, appendices and notes.