Hard America, Soft America: Competition Vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future


Michael Barone - 2004
    Indeed, American students lag behind their peers in other nations, but America remains on the leading edge economically, scientifically, technologically, and militarily. The reason for this paradox, explains Barone in this brilliant essay, is that “from ages six to eighteen Americans live mostly in what I call Soft America—the parts of our country where there is little competition and accountability. But from ages eighteen to thirty Americans live mostly in Hard America—the parts of American life subject to competition and accountability.” While Soft America coddles, Hard America plays for keeps. Educators, for example, protect children from the rigors of testing, ban dodgeball, and promote just about any student who shows up. But most adults quickly figure out that how they do depends on what they produce. Barone sweeps readers along, showing how we came to the current divide—for things weren’t always this way. In fact, no part of our society is all Hard or all Soft, and the boundary between Hard America and Soft America often moves back and forth. Barone also shows where America is headed—or should be headed. We don’t want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or leave old people uncared for. But Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.Hard America, Soft America reveals: • How the American situation is unique: In Europe, schooling is competitive and demanding, but adult life is Soft, with generous welfare benefits, short work hours, long vacations, and state pensions• How the American military has reclaimed the Hard goals and programs it abandoned in the Vietnam era• How Hardness drives America’s economy—an economy that businesses and economists nearly destroyed in the 1970s by spurning competition • How America’s schools have failed because they are bastions of Softness—but how they are finally showing signs of Hardening• The benefits of Softness: How government programs like Social Security were necessary in what was a harsh and unforgiving America• Hard America, Soft America is a stunningly original and provocative work of social commentary from one of this country’s most respected political analysts.From the Hardcover edition.

Uninsured in America, Updated: Life and Death in the Land of Opportunity


Susan Starr Sered - 1999
    Based on interviews with 120 uninsured men and women and dozens of medical providers, policymakers, and advocates from around the nation, this book takes a fresh look at one of the most important social issues facing the United States today. A new afterword updates the stories of many of the people who are so memorably presented here.

After Tears


Niq Mhlongo - 2007
    A piercingly funny yet poignant novel by the author of Dog Eat Dog.

The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise


Joe Scarborough - 2009
    Delivering a searing indictment of the political leaders who have led us astray, Scarborough inspires conservatives to reclaim their heritage by drawing upon the strength of the movement’s rich history.With independent thinking and straight talk, Scarborough explains:• How Washington and Wall Street conspired to create the housing bubble that caused America’s financial meltdown• How the “candidate of change” has not only maintained but accelerated the reckless spending policies that led us to this historic economic collapse• How Washington’s bailout culture will cripple America’s future if left unchecked• How Barack Obama’s stimulus plan devolved into a socialist spending spree that would make FDR and LBJ shudder• And how conservatives need to take a closer look at Ronald Reagan’s political career before claiming his great legacyA fearlessly argued conservative manifesto that brings American conservatism into the twenty-first century, The Last Best Hope is a must-read for all who care about the direction America is heading.

Yzerman: The Making of a Champion


Douglas Hunter - 2004
    Drawing on the insights of coaches, teammates and league insiders, award-winning writer Douglas Hunter charts Yzerman's career as "the player's player," the embodiment of skill, dedication, sacrifice, and leadership.Yzerman went fourth overall to the Detroit Red Wings in the very strong 1983 NHL entry draft, which included such prospects as Tom Barasso, Cam Neely, and Pat LaFontaine. He made an immediate impact in the NHL with his dazzling offensive skills. In 1986, having just turned 21, he was made the youngest captain in league history.Despite his individual success, including being one of the only three players in NHL history to record a 155-point season, Yzerman's team struggled and Detroit's devoted hockey fans wondered when he would reverse the Red Wings' fortunes. When Detroit was unexpectedly bumped from the playoffs in the '95 Stanley Cup final, many fingers, pointed at the captain. Determined to bring a championship back to Detroit, shrugging off persistent trade rumors, Yzerman continued to adjust his game for the good of the team. While his finesse as a playmaker and goal scorer remained in evidence, the gritty centerman blocked shots, drove to the net, and worked tirelessly along the boards in the corners. He led by aggressive example on the ice and with quiet confidence in the dressing room.In 1997, when the Red Wings won their first Stanley Cup since 1955, Yzerman proved he was a winner. He proved it again the next season, when he raised the Cup for a second time and was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs' most valuable player. In 2002 the team captured its third Stanley Cup in seven seasons and that same year Yzerman was pivotal in Team Canada's Olympic gold medal victory.

How May I Help You?: An Immigrant's Journey from MBA to Minimum Wage


Deepak Singh - 2017
    Armed with an MBA from India, Singh can get only a minimum-wage job in an electronics store. Every day he confronts unfamiliar American mores, from strange idioms to deeply entrenched racism.   Telling stories through the unique lens of an initially credulous outsider who is “fresh off the plane,” Singh learns about the struggles of his colleagues: Ron, a middle-aged African-American man trying to keep his life intact despite health concerns; Jackie, a young African-American woman diligently attending school after work; and Cindy, whose matter-of-fact attitude helps Deepak adapt to his job and his new life.   How May I Help You? is an incisive take on life in the United States and a reminder that the stories of low-wage employees can bring candor and humanity to debates about work, race, and immigration.

Previous Convictions: Assignments From Here and There


A.A. Gill - 2006
    Gill is probably the most widely read columnist in Britain. His books The Angry Island and A.A. Gill is away have found delighted fans in America as well, and sparked a loyal following. His new book of travel essays, Previous Convictions, ranges from Gill's nearby domestic locales of Glastonbury and the English countryside to Haiti, Guatemala, Pakistan and exotic, dangerous, downtown Manhattan. In this collection of notes from the corners of the globe, and sometimes from the edge of sanity, he confesses about his travels far and wide, "The more I see of the world, the less I think I understand. Familiarity breeds even more astonishment. The world just gets wider and deeper and weirder." These pieces are wickedly funny, sometimes pointedly — even purposely — critical of many cultures and traditions, and always edifying and enchanting. As an adventurer and as a writer, Gill never disappoints; while he may take others to task for their customs, habits, idiosyncrasies and plain bad taste, his own indefatigable curiosity keeps him going back again and again for more, and provides us with spectacular entertainment along the way.

Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single)


James McGrath Morris - 2014
     In 1892, America was on the verge of another civil war, this one over industrial slavery. It was the era of robber barons, and none was more reviled for his harsh treatment of workers than industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The deadly Homestead Steel Strike that summer had left Frick with blood on his hands, and two young, impassioned radicals thought he should pay for his crimes. Answering the utopian call of a world without government, Alexander Berkman and his lover, Emma Goldman, set out for revenge in the name of the proletariat. Theirs is the story of revolution by murder. James McGrath Morris is a biographer and writer of narrative nonfiction. His books include Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne’s Journey Through the Civil Rights Revolution (forthcoming); Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power; The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism; and Jailhouse Journalism: The Fourth Estate Behind Bars. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is currently writing a book about the friendship between writers Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. Cover design by Adil Dara Kim.

Cross-Checking


Evie Graham - 2020
    One of the hardest choices was ten years ago, when I left Coraline Campbell and Lilac Harbor in the rearview mirror to play hockey and provide for my father.Now, I’m back. Back in the small town I grew up in, breathing in the same air of the last person who made me feel whole. Chasing that feeling. Coraline has made her own choices. She’s not the same girl I fell in love with, and she has her own secrets to hide. When her final choice brings me to my knees, I have my own decision to make.Will I let the anger and betrayal consume me, or will I fight for the only thing in my life that makes sense? Can we have a second chance?

Hockey Tough


Saul L. Miller - 2003
    Hockey Tough provides players and coaches proven methods for mastering the mental side of the game. Author Saul Miller shares the psychological training and emotional management techniques he has successfully taught individual hockey players and teams for over 20 years.Throughout the book, NHL stars such as Mark Messier, Pavel Bure, Chris Pronger, and Markus Naslund offer insights and tips on a variety of topics related to achieving a winning mind-set for the sport. These players explain how to focus and score, how to deal with personality conflicts on and off the ice, and how to bounce back with confidence after a subpar performance.Miller, one of North America's most prolific and sought-after sport psychology consultants in hockey, presents mental exercises and assignments to help players-develop a winning attitude on and off the ice, -stay focused to execute skills and tactics, -maintain the mental stamina required in this physically demanding sport, -overcome emotional fatigue and physical aches and pains to perform at the highest level throughout the season, -manage their anger to avoid costly penalties in crucial game situations, and-develop the discipline and tenacity to force and capitalize on opponents' mistakes.Miller presents many other topics of interest, such as the intangibles that coaches and scouts look for in players and what it takes to make it to the top level of competition.Motivation, teamwork, leadership, and poise are essential factors to successful performance. Hockey Tough will strengthen each of these areas and help players achieve a mind-set to excel on the ice.

The Montreal Canadiens: 100 Years of Glory


D'Arcy Jenish - 2008
    Founded on December 4, 1909, the team won its first Stanley Cup in 1916. Since then, the Canadiens have won 23 more championships, making them the most successful hockey team in the world. The team has survived two wars, the Great Depression, NHL expansion, and countless other upheavals, thanks largely to the loyalty of fans and an extraordinary cast of players, coaches, owners, and managers. The Montreal Canadiens captures the full glory of this saga. It weaves the personalities, triumphs, heartaches, and hysteria into a compelling narrative with a surprise on every page. It sheds new light on old questions – how the team colours were chosen, how the Canadiens came to be known as the Habitants – and goes behind the scenes of tumultuous recent events still awaiting thorough examination: why Scotty Bowman was passed over as general manager after Sam Pollock resigned; why Pollock’s successor, Irving Grunman, failed; why Serge Savard was dumped as GM so hastily despite his record.Colourful and controversial, The Montreal Canadiens is the history of a team that has been making news for 100 years – and continues to do so with the return of legendary player Bob Gainey as general manager, determined to bring the Stanley Cup back to Montreal.

Best Man: A Hockey Wedding Romance (Dallas Devils Book 6)


June Winters - 2021
    

Dead Men Tell Tales: The Memoir of a Police Surgeon


B. Umadathan - 2021
    Umadathan.Popularly known as the 'Sherlock Holmes of Kerala', Dr Umadathan revisits some of his strangest and most interesting cases, like the Chacko murder masterminded by Sukumara Kurup; the sensational Polakkulam case; and the baffling Panoor Soman case.Chilling, shocking and, at times, downright bizarre, Dead Men Tell Tales is unputdownable.

Becoming a Marihuana User


Howard S. Becker - 1953
    Sour Diesel. Wax, shatter, and vapes. Marijuana has come a long way since its seedy days in the back parking lots of our culture. So has Howard S. Becker, the eminent sociologist, jazz musician, expert on “deviant” culture, and founding NORML board member. When he published Becoming a Marihuana User more than sixty years ago, hardly anyone paid attention—because most people didn’t smoke pot. Decades of Cheech and Chong films, Grateful Dead shows, and Cannabis Cups later, and it’s clear—marijuana isn’t just an established commodity, it’s an entire culture. And that’s just the thing—Becker totally called it: pot has everything to do with culture. It’s not a blight on culture, but a culture itself—in fact, you’ll see in this book the first use of the term “users,” rather than “abusers” or “addicts.” Come along on this short little study—now a famous timestamp in weed studies—and you will be astonished at how relevant it is to us today.             Becker doesn’t judge, but neither does he holler for legalization, tell you how to grow it in a hollowed-out dresser, or anything else like that for which there are plenty of other books you can buy. Instead, he looks at marijuana with a clear sociological lens—as a substance that some people enjoy, and that some others have decided none of us should. From there he asks: so how do people decide to get high, and what kind of experience do they have as a result of being part of the marijuana world? What he discovers will bother some, especially those who proselytize the irrefutably stunning effects of the latest strain: chemistry isn’t everything—the important thing about pot is how we interact with it. We learn to be high. We learn to like it. And from there, we teach others, passing the pipe in a circle that begins to resemble a bona fide community, defined by shared norms, values, and definitions just like any other community.             All throughout this book, you’ll see the intimate moments when this transformation takes place. You’ll see people doing it for the first time and those with considerable experience. You’ll see the early signs of the truths that have come to define the marijuana experience: that you probably won’t get high at first, that you have to hold the hit in, and that there are other people here who are going to smoke that, too.

Quinn: The Life of a Hockey Legend


Dan Robson - 2015
         Tough guys sobbed. Networks carried montages of Quinn's rugged hits, his steely-eyed glare, and his famous victories. Quinn made a few enemies over the years, but there was no one who didn't respect the tough working-class kid who had fought his way to the very top of the hockey world.     He had butted heads with superstars, with management, and with the league itself. And he had also succeeded at every level, finishing his journeyman's career as the captain of an NHL team, then quickly emerged as one of the best coaches in the league. He gathered executive titles like hockey cards, and done things his own way, picking up a law degree along the way.      He was brash, dour, and abrasive--and people loved him for his alloy of pugnacity and flair, his three-piece suits and cigars, his Churchillian heft and his scowl.     In the end, the player who would never even have dreamed of being inducted into the Hall of Fame was the chair of the Hall's selection committee. That is Quinn's story: an underdog who succeeded so completely that his legacy has become the standard by which others are judged.      Told by bestselling author Dan Robson, and supported by the Quinn family and network of friends, Quinn is the definitive account of one of the game's biggest personalities and most storied lives.