-Titulo Original : Dont Put Me In, Coach My Incredible Ncaa Journey From The End Of The Bench To The End Of The Bench-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: An irreverent, hilarious insiders look at big-time NCAA basketball, through the eyes of the nations most famous benchwarmer and author of the popular blog ClubTrillion (3.6m visits!). Mark Titus holds the Ohio State record for career wins, and made it to the 2007 national championship game. You would think Titus would be all over the highlight reels. Youd be wrong. In 2006, Mark Titus arrived on Ohio States campus as a former high school basketball player who aspired to be an orthopedic surgeon. Somehow, he was added to the elite Buckeye basketball team, given a scholarship, and played alongside seven future NBA players on his way to setting the record for most individual career wins in Ohio State history. Think thats impressive? In four years, he scored a grand total of nine-yes, nine-points. This book will give readers an uncensored and uproarious look inside an elite NCAA basketball program from Tituss unique perspective. In his four years at the end of the bench, Mark founded his wildly popular blog Club Trillion, became a hero to all guys picked last, and even got scouted by the Harlem Globetrotters. Mark Titus is not your average basketball star. This is a wild and completely true story of the most unlikely career in college basketball. A must-read for all fans of March Madness and college sports! Review Mark Titus knows a lot of personal secrets of mine. If he revealed any of them in this book, I will kick him right in the testicles. I’m not joking. -Greg Oden (#1 overall pick in 2007 NBA Draft, 2007 1st Team All-American) “Of all the players I’ve coached in my career, Mark Titus is one of them.” -Thad Matta (head basketball coach at Ohio State)“You want me to give you a quote? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve been riding my coattails for years, so of course you want to put my name on your book to sell more copies.” -Evan Turner (#2 overall pick in 2010 NBA Draft, 2010 college basketball National Player of The Year)“I haven’t read this book and probably never will, but the cover looks pretty cool I guess.” -Mike Conley Jr. (#4 overall pick in 2007 NBA Draft, 2007 NCAA Tournament South Regional MVP) If Mark Titus had been able to play basketball the way he can write, he would have joined his Ohio State team mates in the NBA. No kidding. This is nothing less than a modern-day basketball version of Ball Four, a terrific look behind the locker room door, funny and profane and real. Great stuff. -Leigh Montville, New York Times bestselling author of Ted Williams and EvelHilarious. -Chicago Tribune“As a good-humored book about what Titus calls ‘normal kids who do stupid things’ while playing big-time basketball, Don’t Put Me In, Coach should appeal not just to Buckeyes fans but also to anyone looking for a frank, humanizing peek in to the locker room....A funny read.” -Sports Illustrated “For a reminder of the fun that can be had in college sports, turn to Mark Titus...The book, a comic tale of coming to terms with failure, is littered with stories of pranks, jokes, and team hijinks that may turn around that understandably low opinion of college sports. Everybody seems to be having a great time.” -TheAtlantic “It’s not often we notice a college basketball player who, over his four year career, played a total of 48 minutes in 32 games while racking up just nine points. But when that player happens to be Mark Titus, a Brownsburg, Indiana native who parlayed his benchwarming days at Ohio State University into a blog with nearly 4 million views and a new book titled Don’t Put Me In, Coach, we make exceptions.” -The Onion’s A.V. Club (Indianapolis)“Don’t Put Me In, Coach, [is] a scabrously funny look at what it’s like to almost play for a No. 1-ranked NCAA hoops team. -The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA)The unique combination of snort-inducing hil...

-Titulo Original : Lawrence In Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly And The Making Of The Modern Middle East-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Review “A fascinating book, the best work of military history in recent memory and an illuminating analysis of issues that still loom large today. . . . Fine, sophisticated, richly detailed . . . filled with invaluably complex and fine-tuned information. . . . Eminently readable. . . . For those already fascinated by Lawrence’s exploits and familiar with his written accounts of them, Mr. Anderson’s thoughtful, big-picture version only enriches the story it tells. . . . Beyond having a keen ear for memorable wording, Mr. Anderson has a gift for piecing together the conflicting interests of warring parties. . . . It’s a big book in every sense, with a huge amount of terrain to cover.”-The New York Times “Brilliant. . . . A dazzling accomplishment that combines superb historical research with a compelling narrative.”-The Seattle Times “Thrilling. . . . Galvanizing and cinematic. . . . Anderson brilliantly evokes the upheavals and head-spinningly complex politics of an era. . . . It’s a huge assignment, explaining the modern roots of the region as it emerged from the wreckage of war. But it is one that Anderson handles with panache. . . . His story is character-driven, exhilaratingly so. . . . Shows how individuals both shape history and are, at the same time, helpless before the dictates of great power politics.”-The Boston Globe “Cuts through legend and speculation to offer perhaps the clearest account of Lawrence’s often puzzling actions and personality. . . . Anderson has produced a compelling account of Western hubris, derring-do, intrigue and outright fraud that hastened-and complicated-the troubled birth of the modern Middle East.”-The Washington Post“Superbly fine-tuned. . . . Anderson does a fine job of piecing together the many conflicting Middle East interests. . . . An original, illuminating history that requires and rewards close attention.”-Janet Maslin, Top 10 Favorite Books of the Year, The New York Times“[Anderson’s] expansive, mesmerizing, and-dare one say-cinematically detailed Lawrence in Arabia exemplifies the ways biography and history can enhance each other.”-The Wall Street Journal“No four-hour movie can do real justice to the bureaucratic fumblings, the myriad spies, heroes and villains, the dense fugue of humanity at its best and worst operating in the Mideast war theater of 1914-17. Thrillingly, Scott Anderson’s Lawrence in Arabia (four stars out of four) does exactly that, weaving enormous detail into its 500-plus pages with a propulsive narrative thread”-USA Today“Invigorating. . . . Through his large cast, Anderson is able to explore the muddles of the early 20th-century Middle East from several distinct and enlightening perspectives. . . . [An] engrossing, thoughtful and intricate account.”-The New York Times Book Review“Anderson carries his erudition lightly, but there’s enough scholarship there to make an academic proud. As with the best kind of yarns, you don’t realize what you’ve learned until the narrator goes silent.”-The Daily Beast“[A] well-researched, sweeping account . . . fresh and compelling. . . . A gripping narrative. . . . The book’s broader achievement is that it reveals the incompetence and deceit of Lawrence’s British superiors in shaping the postwar Middle East.”-Minneapolis Star Tribune“Anderson’s well-told tale of war, betrayal and depressing short-sightedness is also a vivid reminder of why the Middle East continues to preoccupy us.”-Richmond Times-Dispatch“Anderson’s magisterial study puts a complicated picture in context, showing how major powers’ old follies led to the wars, religious strife and brutal dictatorships that now pollute the development of the Middle East.”-The Buffalo News“Renders painfully clear how deeply the political structure of the Middle East has been born of eccentric fantasies.”-Esquire“One of the more fascinating reads I have encountered in years. [Anderson’s] cast of characters alone satisfies one’s appetite for how espionage really works in th...

-Titulo Original : American Colossus The Triumph Of Capitalism, 1865-1900-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: In this grand-scale narrative history, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands brilliantly portrays the emergence, in a remarkably short time, of a recognizably modern America. American Colossus captures the decades between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century, when a few breathtakingly wealthy businessmen transformed the United States from an agrarian economy to a world power. From the first Pennsylvania oil gushers to the rise of Chicago skyscrapers, this spellbinding narrative shows how men like Morgan, Carnegie, and Rockefeller ushered in a new era of unbridled capitalism. In the end America achieved unimaginable wealth, but not without cost to its traditional democratic values. Review “A superb new history. . . . A big, brash narrative.” -Bloomberg News“A first-rate overview of one of the most important periods in American history. . . . Brands is a terrific writer who commands his material, handles this sprawling, complicated story with authority and panache.” -The New York Times“Colorful. . . . Sweeping. . . . Brands masterfully chronicles this transformation. . . . His account serves admirably as a survey history of Gilded Age America.” -The Plain Dealer “An excellent book. . . . Brands is a smart, lively writer. . . . He demonstrates, as the best historians do, that past is prologue.” -The Dallas Morning News About the Author H. W. BRANDS holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A New York Times bestselling author, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for The First American and Traitor to His Class. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Prologue: The Capitalist Revolution John Pierpont Morgan enjoyed an excellent Civil War. He didn’t fight, although he was prime military material, being in his midtwenties and blessed with solid health. Instead he hired a substitute in the manner of many rich, tepid Unionists. Morgan’s father was a transatlantic banker with one foot in New York and the other in London; to train his son for the business he had sent him to school in Switzerland and college in Germany. The young man’s aptitude for numbers prompted one of his professors at Gottingen to suggest a post on the mathematics faculty, but he replied that he heard the family business calling, and he returned to America to become a commodities trader. In an early transaction he bought a boatload of coffee without authorization; before his astonished superiors could fire him, he unloaded the cargo for a fat profit. They appreciated the income but distrusted the audacity and so declined to make him a partner, whereupon, in 1861, he planted his own flag on Wall Street.His timing couldn’t have been better, nor his scruples more suited to the opportunities the war afforded. Hearing of a man who had purchased five thousand old carbines from an armory in New York for $3.50 each, Morgan proceeded to finance a second purchaser, who paid $11.50 per gun, rifled the barrels to improve the weapons’ range and accuracy, and sold them back to the government for $22.00 apiece. The government got something for the six-fold premium it paid to repurchase its guns, but not nearly as much as Morgan did.Morgan speculated in all manner of commodities during the war. Though he didn’t shun honest risk, neither did he unnecessarily court it. He cultivated confidential informants who could tell him, a critical moment before such news became common knowledge, of the latest developments on the battlefield. His rewards were remarkable, especially for one so young. The tax return he filed in the spring of Appomattox revealed an annual income of more than $50,000, at a time when an unskilled worker counted himself lucky to get $200.Morgan wasn’t alone in profiting from the nation’s distress. Andrew Carnegie had clerked on the Pennsylvania Railroad during the decade before the war; by the time the war ended he...

-Titulo Original : A Life In Secrets Vera Atkins And The Missing Agents Of Wwii-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Review “Brilliant. . . . One can only admire the way that Helm put together all the pieces of the puzzle.” -The Washington Post“Fascinating. . . . Compelling. . . . Gripping. . . . A stupendous job of reporting.” -The New York Times“Helms account is a chilling reminder of the ghastliness of WWII.” -Entertainment Weekly“A Life in Secrets is a work of history that is at once a compelling thriller, an intriguing mystery, and a biography of bravery. . . . Better than CSI because it is all true and inspiring.” -Tina Brown From an award-winning journalist comes this real-life cloak-and-dagger tale of Vera Atkins, one of Britain’s premiere secret agents during World War II. As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After the war, Atkins courageously committed herself to a dangerous search for twelve of her most cherished women spies who had gone missing in action. Drawing on previously unavailable sources, Sarah Helm chronicles Atkins’s extraordinary life and her singular journey through the chaos of post-war Europe. Brimming with intrigue, heroics, honor, and the horrors of war, A Life in Secrets is the story of a grand, elusive woman and a tour de force of investigative journalism. About the Author Sarah Helm is the author of Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitlers Concentration Camp for Women and A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII and the play Loyalty, about the 2003 Iraq War. She was a staff journalist on the Sunday Times (London) and a foreign correspondent on the Independent, and now writes for several publications. She lives in London with her husband and two daughters. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 11.NoraVera Atkins did not, as a rule, take too much notice of the opinions of others. When it was a question of judging the character of a particular agent, especially a woman agent, she liked to make up her own mind in her own time-which was usually within a few moments of their entering the room where she first met them, at Orchard Court.The flat in Orchard Court, just off Baker Street in London’s West End, was a base used by SOE’s French Section, or F Section, where headquarters staff could meet new recruits and also brief those departing on missions. Agents were never allowed into SOE’s HQ in Baker Street in case they heard or saw something they did not need to know.By the spring of 1943, when recruitment to F Section was fast picking up, a steady stream of young men and women would arrive at Orchard Court. The drill for new arrivals was by now well established. First, Park the doorman, in dark suit and tie, would lead the way (never asking names but always knowing exactly who a new arrival was) through the gilded gates of the lift and on up to the second floor. In perfect English or French, whichever they preferred, Park would then usher them into the flat and straight into a bathroom, because there was no space for a waiting room. “Back in the bathroom, please, sir [or madam],” he would say if they wandered out, and here the agents sat on the side of a deep, jet-black bath, or on the onyx bidet, surrounded by black and white tiles, while they waited to see what would happen next.Park would then lead the agent to meet Maurice Buckmaster, the head of F Section. A tall, slender, athletic figure (he once captained Eton at soccer) with angular facial features and fair, thinning hair, Buckmaster would shake the agent’s hand vigourously, then, perching momentarily on his desk, legs swinging, make a few warm welcoming remarks. To any recruit who seemed inquisitive he would say, “We don’t ask questions,” firmly stressing the need for secrecy at all times. He would then stride off with the recruit down the hallway and, opening another door, say,...

-Titulo Original : The Yankee Years-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Review “One of the best books about baseball ever written.”-New York Daily News An insightful and non-hagiographic look at a legendary manager and team during one of baseballs most transformational eras.--Boston Globe The consummate insiders view of what may be the last great dynasty in baseball history.--Los Angeles Times An appealing portrait of a likable, hard-working man. One closes the book with a high regard for Mr. Torre, not least as a manager.--Wall Street Journal A lively chronicle. . . . What this book does . . . very persuasively is chart the rise and fall of one of baseballs great dynasties, while showing the care and feeding it took to bring the city of New York four championships in five years. -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times A capacious fresh account of [Torre’s] great run in the Bronx.... Verducci has range and ease; hes a shortstop on the page. -The New Yorker Compelling. . . . A hybrid of insider reporting [and] autobiography. -The Christian Science Monitor “Fascinating reading.”-The New York Times Book Review “[Filled with] many insights, some about human nature, many about the great American game.” -Bloomberg News The definitive story of one of the greatest dynasties in baseball history, Joe Torres New York Yankees. When Joe Torre took over as manager of the Yankees in 1996, they had not won a World Series title in eighteen years. In that time seventeen others had tried to take the helm of America’s most famous baseball team. Each one was fired by George Steinbrenner. After twelve triumphant seasons-with twelve straight playoff appearances, six pennants, and four World Series titles-Torre left the Yankees as the most beloved manager in baseball. But dealing with players like Jason Giambi, A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson is what managing is all about. Here, for the first time, Joe Torre and Tom Verducci take readers inside the dugout, the clubhouse, and the front office, showing what it took to keep the Yankees on top of the baseball world. About the Author Joe Torre played for the Braves, the Cardinals, and the Mets before managing all three teams. From 1996 to 2007, Torre managed the New York Yankees. He is currently the manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Tom Verducci is the senior baseball writer for Sports Illustrated and SportsIllustrated , and a baseball analyst for the MLB Network. He coauthored Joe Torre’s first book, Chasing the Dream, and has also published an anthology of his work from Sports Illustrated, titled Inside Baseball: The Best of Tom Verducci. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Joe Torre was the fourth choice. The veteran manager was out of work in October of 1995, four months removed from the third firing of his managerial career, when an old friend from his days with the Mets, Arthur Richman, a public relations official and special adviser to Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, called him with a question. “Are you interested in managing the Yankees?” Torre made his interest known without hesitation. “Hell, yeah,” he said. Only 10 days earlier, Torre had interviewed for the general manager’s job with the Yankees, but he had no interest in such an aggravation-filled job at its $350,000 salary, a $150,000 cut from what he had been earning as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals be­fore they fired him in June. His brother Frank Torre did not think managing the Yankees was worth the hassle, either. After all, Stein­brenner had changed managers 21 times in his 23 seasons of own­ership, adding Buck Showalter to the bloody casualty list by running him out of town after Showalter refused to acquiesce to a shakeup of his coaching staff. It didn’t matter to Steinbrenner that the Yankees reached the playoffs for the first time in 14 years, even if it was as the first American League wild card team in a strike-shortened season. Showalter’s crimes in Steinbre...

-Titulo Original : Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister Three Women At The Heart Of Twentieth-century China-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: They were the most famous women in China. As the country battled through a hundred years of wars, revolutions and seismic transformations, the three Soong sisters from Shanghai were at the center of power, and each of them left an indelible mark on history.Red Sister, Ching-ling, married the Father of China, Sun Yat-sen, and rose to be Maos vice-chair.Little Sister, May-ling, became Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of pre-Communist Nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right.Big Sister, Ei-ling, became Chiangs unofficial main adviser - and made herself one of Chinas richest women.Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a gripping story of love, war, intrigue, bravery, glamour and betrayal, which takes us on a sweeping journey from Canton to Hawaii to New York, from exiles quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meeting rooms in Moscow, and from the compounds of the Communist elite in Beijing to the corridors of power in democratic Taiwan. In a group biography that is by turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape twentieth-century China. Review “Deeply researched, Chang’s book is a riveting read”-The New York Times Book Review “Chang adds another title to her series of lively depictions of key figures in Modern Chinese history . . . This accessible book will appeal to history buffs and biography fans in addition to those already familiar with the Chang’s body of work.”-Library Journal “The book intertwines the intimate with the big historical picture, tying their personal stories to the deep and irreconcilable political divisions among them . . . it is stamped by her revisionist impulse.”-The Atlantic “A highly readable and accessible introduction to three important women who deserve wider recognition.”-Booklist “Chang seamlessly chronicles the lives and marriages of the Soong sisters in this captivating triple biography. . . . This juicy tale will satisfy readers interested in politics, world affairs, and family dynamics.” -Publishers WeeklyOne of this autumns biggest reads, its an astounding story told with verve and insight-Stylist“The complicated history of China during this period is little-known to most Westerners, so this readable book helps fill a gap. By hooking it onto personalities, Jung Chang has been able to chart a comprehensible way through these decades and an immense mass of information that could otherwise be difficult to digest.”-Washington Times“Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a monumental work . . . Its three fairy-tale heroines, poised between east and west, spanned three centuries, two continents and a revolution, with consequences that reverberate, perhaps now more than ever, in all our lives to this day.”-The Spectator “The book’s strongest point is its nuanced sympathy for the sisters . . . The lives of the three Song sisters-the subjects of Jung Chang’s spirited new book-are more than worthy of an operatic plot.”-The Guardian “[Chang] paints China’s intense and complex history in bold strokes . . . It is a rollicking ride.”-Literary Review “Absorbing . . . In this lucid, wise, forgiving biography Chang gives a new twist to an old line. Behind every great man . . . is a Soong sister.”-The Times (UK)“Utterly engrossing…it stars a trio of extraordinary women, each of whom enjoyed tremendous privilege and fame, but also endured contact attached and mortal danger as well as heartbreak and despair. Their gripping collecting story reads like Wild Swans meets the Mitfords; and the history feels remarkably close to our own times too.-The Bookseller “[Chang’s] book is well worth reading, in particular for the way it shows how powerful women have helped to shape modern China. At a time when, 70 years after Mao’s victory, the country’s political leadership contains almost no prominent women at all, that is a particularly apposite message to hear.”-The Sunday Times“In...

-Titulo Original : Sex On The Moon The Amazing Story Behind The Most Audacious Heist In History-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: From the bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House, this is the incredible true story of how a college student and two female accomplices stole some of the rarest objects on the planet-moon rocks-from an impregnable high-tech vault. But breaking into a highly secure laboratory wasnt easy. Thad Roberts, an intern in a prestigious NASA training program, would have to concoct a meticulous plan to get past security checkpoints, an electronically locked door with cipher security codes, and camera-lined hallways even before he could get his hands on the 600-pound safe. And then how was he supposed to get it out? And what does one do with an item so valuable that its illegal even to own? With his signature high-velocity style, Mezrich reconstructs the outlandish heist and tells a story of genius, love, and duplicity that reads like a Hollywood thrill ride. Review “An out-of-this-world heist.” -USA Today “Mezrich has uncovered another high-stakes, fascinating true story. . . . Part love story, part madcap caper, part astro-geekery, the book is one of the summer’s most fun reads.” -NPR “Movie-worthy treatment to the guy who stole moon rocks from NASA.” -The New York Daily News “Mezrich is a genius at using characters and dialogue. . . to turn nonfiction into something as compelling as any thriller.” -The Chronicle Herald “[An] in-depth look at Thad Roberts, who along with three other NASA interns, stole pieces of lunar rock to impress his girlfriend. Mezrich has done extensive research to recreate the story of how an aspiring astronaut ended up getting caught for stealing over 100 pieces of the moon.” -The Atlantic Monthly“A fast and furious read, powered along by Mezrich’s desire never to take his eyes off the story.” -Chicago Post-Tribune“Ben Mezrich’s latest straight-to-the-big-screen book. . . . a rollicking summertime page-turner crackling with sex, astronauts, stolen dinosaur bones and international cyber-intrigue.” -The Miami Herald“A breathless, credulous style. . . . memorable supporting characters. . . . adventure, sex, romance, a hero who is equal parts Clifford Irving from The Hoax, Frank Abagnale from Catch Me If You Can, and George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life.” -The Boston Globe“[A] thrilling account of space rock heist. . . fun, breezy action.” -Tampa Tribune“Eloquent prose and a direct view into the characters’ mind. . . the access to Roberts and re-creation of his motivation and personality are Sex On The Moon’s best qualities.” -The Onion“[A] fascinating story. . . . has the readability of popular fiction, a ripping story, and great characters. . . . Another winner from an extremely talented writer.” -Booklist, starred review“Out of this world heist. . . . one of the summer’s most buzzed-about books.” -CNN “Page-turner. . . . engaging read.” -San Antonio Express-News“Ben Mezrich, the gonzo-inspired biographer of Ivy League geeks. . . . [brings us a] stranger-than-fiction, true-life thriller of a man who went where no man has gone before. . . . [the] story ticked all the boxes: a charismatic dreamer with a troubled past, a Romeo-and-Juliet love story, a geek-alicious high-tech setting, an ingenious Oceans 11-style heist-and perhaps the most boneheaded mistake any man ever made to impress a girl. Even better, it was a journalist’s Holy Grail: a truly uncovered story.” -BookPage“Deliciously readable.” -Baltimore Jewish Times“Ben Mezrich goes to incredible lengths to bring readers a story that is both accurate and spellbinding, honest and riveting.” -Portsmouth Wire“A pulse-pounding tale.” -Patriot Ledger“This is the incredible story of a crime truly out of this world, told with verve by Mezrich.” -News of the World“Compelling.” -Atlanta Jewish Times“Enthusiastically re-creates this oddball 2002 moon-rock heist.” -Kirkus Reviews About the Author Ben Mezrich is the New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billiona...

-Titulo Original : Prisoners Dilemma John Von Neumann, Game Theory, And The Puzzle Of The Bomb-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Should you watch public television without pledging?...Exceed the posted speed limit?...Hop a subway turnstile without paying? These questions illustrate the so-called prisoners dilemma, a social puzzle that we all face every day. Though the answers may seem simple, their profound implications make the prisoners dilemma one of the great unifying concepts of science. Watching players bluff in a poker game inspired John von Neumann-father of the modern computer and one of the sharpest minds of the century-to construct game theory, a mathematical study of conflict and deception. Game theory was readily embraced at the RAND Corporation, the archetypical think tank charged with formulating military strategy for the atomic age, and in 1950 two RAND scientists made a momentous discovery.Called the prisoners dilemma, it is a disturbing and mind-bending game where two or more people may betray the common good for individual gain. Introduced shortly after the Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb, the prisoners dilemma quickly became a popular allegory of the nuclear arms race. Intellectuals such as von Neumann and Bertrand Russell joined military and political leaders in rallying to the preventive war movement, which advocated a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. Though the Truman administration rejected preventive war the United States entered into an arms race with the Soviets and game theory developed into a controversial tool of public policy-alternately accused of justifying arms races and touted as the only hope of preventing them. A masterful work of science writing, Prisoners Dilemma weaves together a biography of the brilliant and tragic von Neumann, a history of pivotal phases of the cold war, and an investigation of game theorys far-reaching influence on public policy today. Most important, Prisoners Dilemma is the incisive story of a revolutionary idea that has been hailed as a landmark of twentieth-century thought. From Publishers Weekly Poundstones three-dimensional outline of game theory mathematics sketches the life of its inventor, John von Neumann, and his role in Cold War policy-making. Photos. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review Both a fascinating biography of von Neumann, the Hungarian exile whose mathematical theories were building blocks for the A-bomb and the digital computer, and a brilliant social history of game theory and its role in the Cold War and nuclear arms race.--San Francisco Chronicle From the Back Cover Both a fascinating biography of von Neumann, the Hungarian exile whose mathematical theories were building blocks for the A-bomb and the digital computer, and a brilliant social history of game theory and its role in the Cold War and nuclear arms race.--San Francisco Chronicle About the Author William Poundstone studied physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of The Recursive Universe, about information theory and physics, and Labyrinths of Reason, an exploration of paradox in science. He is also known as the author of such popular books as Big Secrets, The Ultimate, and Prisoner’s Dilemma. He has written for Esquire, Harper’s, SPY, and other periodicals. He lives in Los Angeles...

-Titulo Original : Reagan The Life-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: From master storyteller and New York Times bestselling Historian H. W. Brands comes the definitive biography of a visionary and transformative president In his magisterial new biography, H. W. Brands brilliantly establishes Ronald Reagan as one of the two great presidents of the twentieth century, a true peer to Franklin Roosevelt. Reagan conveys with sweep and vigor how the confident force of Reagan’s personality and the unwavering nature of his beliefs enabled him to engineer a conservative revolution in American politics and play a crucial role in ending communism in the Soviet Union. Reagan shut down the age of liberalism, Brands shows, and ushered in the age of Reagan, whose defining principles are still powerfully felt today. Employing archival sources not available to previous biographers and drawing on dozens of interviews with surviving members of Reagan’s administration, Brands has crafted a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of the presidential years. He offers new insights into Reagan’s remote management style and fractious West Wing staff, his deft handling of public sentiment to transform the tax code, and his deeply misunderstood relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, on which nothing less than the fate of the world turned. Reagan is a storytelling triumph, an irresistible portrait of an underestimated politician whose pragmatic leadership and steadfast vision transformed the nation. Review “H.W. Brands’ new biography tells the [Reagan] story as well as you could ask for in a single volume. A lucid and witty writer, Mr. Brands lays out the facts in short chapters that bounce along like one of the ‘bare-fisted walloping action’ films that Reagan once starred in. He has a talent for letting his sources speak for themselves. . . . Illuminating. Mr. Brands recounts Reagan’s triumphs and the scandals even-handedly.” -The Economist“Reagan is an engaging study of a man who Brands says defeated Soviet communism and achieved a halfway economic revolution. Drawing on Reagan’s diary, speeches, statements, letters and memoirs, and on interviews with the president’s aides, Brands tells a briskly paced story. . . . Reagan’s legacy continues to fuel the ideas and frame the choices facing his would-be successors, and this astute biography is further evidence that the 40th president continues to cast a long shadow over a still largely conservative political order.” -The Washington Post“Brands is the rare academic historian who can write like a best-selling novelist. Through meticulous research, he recreates decades-old dialogue and puts the reader inside the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and the house in Reykjavik, Iceland where Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev debated the fate of the world and laid the groundwork for the end of the Cold War.” -USA Today“Superb . . . it is hard to imagine a biography of Ronald Reagan that could be more thorough, evenhanded and insightful.” -Dallas Morning News“A lively and lucid narrative of the life of America’s 40th president. . . . Brands is surely right that Reagan was the most persuasive political communicator since Roosevelt.” -San Francisco Chronicle “Brands’ judicious biography of Ronald Reagan is as much about the art of governing as about the man himself. . . . Reagan emerges as a great but terribly flawed president who managed to reorient government priorities after the exhaustion of liberal administrations and ideas, but one who also burdened the country with enormous debts that his successors had to pay down.” -Star Tribune“Brands work draws richly from Reagans presidential diaries and other recently released sources that earlier biographers couldnt tap. . . . His history of the important meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is detailed and balanced, with the views of both sides given equal weight. These chapters are Brands best writing, reinforcing the significance of those arms-reduction effo...

-Titulo Original : The Last Hero A Life Of Henry Aaron-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter Two HENRY Henry Aaron set out to be a professional baseball player, having hardly been an amateur one. At Central High, he had dabbled in football, and once, either in 1947 or 1948, he played a regular-season game against West eld High and its sensational running back, Willie Mays. Central, however, had no baseball team, and Henry would not play football with great enthusiasm, for fear an injury would ruin his baseball prospects. He was expelled from Central, and was uninter­ested in anything but baseball while at Josephine Allen, which only elded a softball team anyway. Henry’s resume consisted of hitting bottle caps with a broom handle. As he grew older and more prominent, journalists would seek to know more about his early years, about his upbringing and his family, about how he could have been so sure he possessed the special ability it took to play baseball at the highest level. A lot of kids were the best in their neighborhoods, but it wasn’t exactly a given that Henry was even that. Henry would depend on a few of the old chestnuts that would be repeated for the next half century. The stories were odd and colorful, but none was particularly true or carried the kind of insight that would ll in the important pieces of his personal puzzle. At dif­fering times, he told various tales about the origin of his legendary wrists. He told one writer that despite his wiry frame, his bulging forearms came from a job hauling ice in Mobile; he told another he bene ted from mowing lawns; and he told people that for all of his right -handed greatness, he would have been an even better switch-hitter. That was because he batted cross-handed, which for a right-handed hitter was to say with his left hand on top, as a left-handed hitter would. In 1959, the writer Roger Kahn would attempt to pro le Henry for Sport magazine. He encountered the same frustration that sports editors of the Mobile newspapers had: Depending on the day, Henry would tell a different story about his origins, and, when placed side by side, no two stories ever exactly meshed. Kahn was never quite sure if he found himself more frustrated by Henry’s early story or by Henry’s unwillingness to tell it. “I did not nd him to be forthcoming,” Kahn recalled. “He wasn’t polished and really did not have the educational background at that time to deal with all of the things he was encountering in so short a time. If there was a word I would use to describe him then, it would be unsophisticated.” Even as a teenager, Henry was expressing his lack of comfort with public life. On subjects both complex and innocuous, he would not easily divulge information, and he developed an early suspicion of anyone who took an interest in him. The reason, he would later say, was not the result of any personal trauma, but, rather, that of growing up in Mobile, where the black credo of survival was to focus on the work and let it speak for itself. It was a trait that was equal parts Her­bert and Stella. Not only did Stella remind him never to be ostentatious but Herbert and all black males in Mobile knew what could happen to a black man who drew too much attention to himself. “My grandfather used to say all the time, ‘They don’t want you to get too high. Know your place,’ ” recalled Henry’s nephew, Tommie Aaron, Jr. “I think a lot of that rubbed off on all of us.” In fact, Henry would employ the recipe for star power best articu­lated in the old Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” That, too, was tting, because as a movie fan, Henry fell in love with Westerns. He did not volunteer much truth, so the scribes printed the legend. There was more than one drawback to Henry’s approach, however: As dif cult as it was to piece together his early years, writers-virtually all of them white, carrying the prejudices against blacks that were common at the time- lled in the blanks ...

-Titulo Original : Andrew Jackson His Life And Times-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: National Bestseller In this, the first major single-volume biography of Andrew Jackson in decades, H.W. Brands reshapes our understanding of this fascinating man, and of the Age of Democracy that he ushered in.An orphan at a young age and without formal education or the family lineage of the Founding Fathers, Jackson showed that the presidency was not the exclusive province of the wealthy and the well-born but could truly be held by a man of the people. On a majestic, sweeping scale Brands re-creates Jackson’s rise from his hardscrabble roots to his days as frontier lawyer, then on to his heroic victory in the Battle of New Orleans, and finally to the White House. Capturing Jackson’s outsized life and deep impact on American history, Brands also explores his controversial actions, from his unapologetic expansionism to the disgraceful Trail of Tears. This is a thrilling portrait, in full, of the president who defined American democracy. Review “Jackson was an American original, a wholly fascinating figure whom H. W. Brands brings to life in a big, rich biography. . . .Brands weaves together keen political history with anecdote and marvelous sense of place to produce a vivid tableau.” -The Boston Globe “A great story. . . . Serves up everything you might expect in a ripping yarn: murderous duels, savage Indian raids, equally savage counterattacks.” -The Washington Post Book World “Highly readable and entertaining. . . . [Brands] presents Jackson, warts and all, as the fascinating and exceedingly real character that he was and lets the man emerge from behind the image to stand on his own.” -Dallas Morning News “Revealing. . . . A masterful, detailed account of Jacksons life and his contributions to the nation. Thoroughly researched and thoughtfully told.” -The Oregonian About the Author H. W. BRANDS holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A New York Times bestselling author, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for The First American and Traitor to His Class. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1THE PRIZEThe struggle for North America began long before Andrew Jackson was born. Like similar struggles on all the inhabited continents, it ran back millennia, perhaps to the moment humans first found their way across the Arctic plain from Asia. Oral tradition and archaeological evidence indicate that conflict was a regular feature of life among the North Americans. They fought for forests where the game was most abundant, for rivers where the fish were thickest, for bottomlands where their corn and beans and squashes grew most readily. Great warriors were the heroes of their tribes, emulated by other men, sought by women, hallowed in memory. Strong tribes expanded their territories, driving the weak to less-favored regions and sometimes to extinction. Diplomacy complemented military force: the Iroquois confederation made that alliance a terror to its neighbors.The arrival of the Europeans added new elements to the competition. These far-easterners possessed weapons the aboriginals hadnt seen: steel knives, swords, and axes; muskets and rifles; cannon. But their most potent agents of conquest were ones neither they nor their victims understood: the pathogens to which long exposure had inured the Europeans but that devastated the native Americans. In many instances the novel diseases raced ahead of European settlers, who arrived to discover human deserts and concluded that the Christian God in his wisdom and power had prepared the way for their colonies.But the diseases didnt kill all the Indians. Those who survived often welcomed the interlopers, at least at first. Especially after smallpox and the other epidemics killed as many as three-fourths of the members of the afflicted tribes, there seemed room enough for all. And the newcomers traders brought goods the natives quickly learned to value: i...

-Titulo Original : Shakespeare The Biography-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Review “Demystifies the man and the artist. . . . Expertly evokes the townscape and landscape in and around Stratford, and the corresponding mindscape that vividly merges the urban and the rustic.” -The New York Times“William Shakespeares London comes to life with remarkable immediacy and clarity. . . . Ackroyds research is impressive.”-San Francisco Chronicle“Ackroyd provides the sights and sounds (and smells) of Stratford and London until youd swear Shakespeare was right at your elbow, sipping ale.”-The Philadelphia Inquirer “Captures the thrill of London and of a theater emerging, in a ‘hard and disenchanted age,’ to replace the church as the center of communal spectacle.”-The Wall Street Journal“Creates a tapestry of Elizabethan London so rich that you feel youve been there.” -Independent on Sunday A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BEST BOOK OF THE YEARDrawing on an exceptional combination of skills as literary biographer, novelist, and chronicler of London history, Peter Ackroyd surely re-creates the world that shaped Shakespeare--and brings the playwright himself into unusually vivid focus. With characteristic narrative panache, Ackroyd immerses us in sixteenth-century Stratford and the rural landscape-the industry, the animals, even the flowers-that would appear in Shakespeare’s plays. He takes us through Shakespeare’s London neighborhood and the fertile, competitive theater world where he worked as actor and writer. He shows us Shakespeare as a businessman, and as a constant reviser of his writing. In joining these intimate details with profound intuitions about the playwright and his work, Ackroyd has produced an altogether engaging masterpiece. From the Back Cover With his magisterial and ingenious re-creations of the lives of Chaucer, Dickens, T. S. Eliot, William Blake, and Sir Thomas More, Peter Ackroyd has long been recognized as todays foremost practitioner of the literary biography. His adroit style and unrivaled ability to uncover the telling detail have made those books both critical and commercial successes. And now, in SHAKESPEARE: THE BIOGRAPHY, Ackroyd delivers his crowning achievement. Thousands of books have been written about the playwright, but none has borne Ackroyds unique and accessible stamp. His method is to position Shakespeare in the context of his world, exploring everything from Stratfords humble town to its fields of wildflowers; discerning influences on the plays from unexpected quarters; and entering London with the playwright as modern theater, as we know it, is just beginning to emerge. We are with Shakespeare, observing him and his circle of friends, patrons, managers, and fellow actors and writers. It is as if Ackroyd were sitting with the Elizabethan audience as the plays are performed. Because the author is coming from so intimate a perspective, he is able to see Shakespeares genius from within, so we feel that Ackroyd the writer merges with Shakespeare the writer, the poet, the man; and thus with great sympathy and clarity we experience the way in which Shakespeare worked. SHAKESPEARE: THE BIOGRAPHY is unlike the works other writers-excellent academics-have written, which merely analyze and describe. Rather, Peter Ackroyd has used his skill, his extraordinary knowledge, and his historical intuition to craft this major full-scale book on one of the most towering figures of the Englishlanguage. About the Author PETER ACKROYD is the bestselling writer of both fiction and nonfiction, most notably the definitive history of London, London, The Biography. His most recent books include The Lambs of London and J.M.W. Turner, the second biography in the Ackroyd Brief Lives series. He has also written full-scale biographies of Dickens, Blake, and Thomas More and the novels The Clerkenwell Tales, The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, Milton in America, and The Plato Papers. He has won the Whitbread Award for Biography, the Royal Society of Litera...

-Titulo Original : Desert Queen The Extraordinary Life Of Gertrude Bell Adventurer, Adviser To Kings, Ally Of Lawrence Of Arabia-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: About the Author Janet Wallach is the author of The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age, as well as Seraglio and Chanel: Her Style and Her Life. She is also coauthor, with her husband John Wallach, of three previous books on the Middle East: The New Palestinians; Arafat: In the Eyes of the Beholder; and Still Small Voices: The Real Heroes of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. She lives in New York City. This “richly textured biography” (Chicago Tribune) inspired the mesmerizing documentary, Letters from Baghdad, soon to air on public television.Here is the story of Gertrude Bell, who explored, mapped, and excavated the Arab world throughout the early twentieth century. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in obtaining the loyalty of Arab leaders, and her connections and information provided the brains to match T. E. Lawrences brawn. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was, at the time, considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire. In this masterful biography, Janet Wallach shows us the woman behind these achievements-a woman whose passion and defiant independence were at odds with the confined and custom-bound England she left behind. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure. Review A major figure in the creation of modern-day Iraq. -Los Angeles Times Desert Queen, as timely as todays headlines, plucks Gertrude Bell out of the shadow of Lawrence of Arabia. -The Boston Globe Wallach has done an outstanding job of bringing Gertrude Bell to life. -The Dallas Morning News A richly textured biography of a . . . woman who devoted her life to knowing the desert Arabs better, perhaps, than any other European of her day. . . . Wallach comfortably commands the tangled political and diplomatic history of the Middle East. -Chicago Tribune From the Back Cover Turning away from the privileged world of the eminent Victorians, Gertrude Bell (1868--1926) explored, mapped, and excavated the world of the Arabs. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in obtaining the loyalty of Arab leaders, and her connections and information provided the brains to match T. E. Lawrences brawn. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was, at the time, considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire. In this masterful biography, Janet Wallach shows us the woman behind these achievements-a woman whose passion and defiant independence were at odds wit the confined and custom-bound England she left behind. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER ONE Of Great and Honored Stock -- Great persons, like great empires, leave their mark on history. The greatest empire of all time, the one that stretched over a greater amount of ocean, covered a greater amount of land, contained a greater number of people than any before it, was the British Empire of Queen Victoria. Her superpower left its mark on continents and subcontinents, from Europe to Australia to India to America to Africa to Asia, from Adelaide to Wellington, Bombay to Rangoon, Ottawa to the Virgin Islands, Alexandria to Zanzibar, Aden to Singapore. The British navy ruled the seas, British coal fueled the ships and industries, British bankers financed the businesses, British merchants ran the trade, British food fed the stomachs and British factories clothed the bodies of one fourth of all human beings who lived and worked and played in every cor...

-Titulo Original : The State Of Jones The Small Southern County That Seceded From The Confederacy-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Covering the same ground as the major motion picture The Free State of Jones, starring Matthew McConaughey, this is the extraordinary true story of the anti-slavery Southern farmer who brought together poor whites, army deserters and runaway slaves to fight the Confederacy in deepest Mississippi. Moving and powerful. -- The Washington Post.In 1863, after surviving the devastating Battle of Corinth, Newton Knight, a poor farmer from Mississippi, deserted the Confederate Army and began a guerrilla battle against it. A pro-Union sympathizer in the deep South who refused to fight a rich man’s war for slavery and cotton, for two years he and other residents of Jones County engaged in an insurrection that would have repercussions far beyond the scope of the Civil War. In this dramatic account of an almost forgotten chapter of American history, Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer upend the traditional myth of the Confederacy as a heroic and unified Lost Cause, revealing the fractures within the South. Review “A little known but fascinating slice of American history. . . . Well written, well read, and well researched. The true South is revealed.”-The Boston Globe“Lively. . . . Jenkins and Stauffer bring historical contexts to life and offer provocative interpretations.”-The New York Times Book Review“Moving and powerful. . . . An important story that personalizes what remains abstract and counterintuitive in much of our received history of the Civil War, even as we approach its 150th anniversary.”-The Washington Post “Informed. . . . Impressive. . . . The saga is related in fascinating detail.”-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution“Just when you thought you had heard it all about the Civil War, along comes this astonishing tale of rebellion within the heart of rebel territory. This is a riveting and memorable read about resistance, courage, love and, most of all, the long trail of justice and injustice in the American South. I couldn’t put it down.”-Tom Brokaw “Jenkins and Stauffer have brought fresh attention to a little-known and interesting sidebar of Civil War history.”-Wall Street Journal “Fascinating. . . . The book fittingly combines crisp narrative with exhaustive historical context. . . . Jenkins and Stauffer succeed in telling the complex history of the Civil War, and its disastrous Reconstruction aftermath, through the steely eyes of this crusty old man.”-Minneapolis Star-Tribune “A richly detailed, riveting and revealing account of this long-forgotten rebellion within a rebellion.”-Tulsa World “History at its finest and most captivating. The documentation is meticulous, yet this gem of a book reads like a novel, with a revelation at every turn. Jenkins and Stauffer have proved once again that the real history of this country is far more complex and fascinating than the prevailing mythology.”-David Maraniss, author of They Marched Into Sunlight and When Pride Still Mattered “Exceedingly readable and informative.”-Denver Post “Jenkins and Stauffer dug deep into state and military records to spin this fascinating yarn, and their bibliography is augmented by extensive (and intriguing) notes. . . . The State of Jones is a treasure. It’s a window into an obscure corner of Mississippi’s history and an account that further challenges myths of a South unified behind a ‘glorious’ cause.”-The Virginian-Pilot“Jenkins and Stauffer tell the fascinating tale of an unforgettable figure. . . . They follow the Knight family’s extraordinary lives over the course of six decades and in the process open a window onto a forgotten corner of the American landscape.”-Philip B. Kunhardt III, co-author of Looking for Lincoln “Here is the Civil War as it really was. You can’t fully know America’s epic until you’ve read this powerful book.”-David Von Drehle, author of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America “Highly recommended to Civil War aficionados. . . . The story is quite intriguing and will keep the reader looking fo...

-Titulo Original : Where Nobody Knows Your Name Life In The Minor Leagues Of Baseball (anchor Sports)-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Review “[T]errific…[R]eading this book will make you fall in love with baseball all over again.”-The Denver Post“One of the best sportswriters alive.”-USA Today “Feinstein’s work, like that of the best American sportswriters, is richly detailed and emotionally articulate...Feinsteins storytelling is compelling, his understanding of the structural cruelties and emotional consequences of winner-takes-all competition acute.”-The Guardian (UK) “Feinstein takes readers down the dusty roads of minor league baseball with a vivid look at the players dreaming of a shot at the big leagues.”-Parade “John Feinstein, one of our best-known sportswriters, explores…baseball’s International League, one of the two AAA leagues, just below the majors….With many of us counting down to opening day, this is a fitting time for a book whose subtitle might well be ‘hope springs eternal - every spring.’”-The Washington Post “[P]oignant … [2013] marked the 25th anniversary of ‘Bull Durham,’ and I’m pretty sure a lot of people still think thats how things go in the minors. Mr. Feinstein clears the perspective on the realities of minor-league life so that the reader can move on from Nuke LaLoosh imagery. And for the average baseball fan, this is no minor accomplishment.”-The Wall Street Journal Minor league baseball is quintessentially American: small towns, small stadiums, $5 tickets, $2 hot dogs, the never-ending possibility of making it big. But looming above it all is always the real deal: Major League Baseball. John Feinstein takes the reader behind the curtain into the guarded world of the minor leagues, like no other writer can. Where Nobody Knows Your Name explores the trials and travails of the inhabitants of Triple-A, focusing on nine men, including players, managers and umpires, among many colorful characters, living on the cusp of the dream. The book tells the stories of former World Series hero Scott Podsednik, giving it one more shot; Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoya, shepherding generations across the line; and designated hitter Jon Lindsey, a lifelong minor leaguer, waiting for his day to come. From Raleigh to Pawtucket, from Lehigh Valley to Indianapolis and beyond, this is an intimate and exciting look at life in the minor leagues, where you’re either waiting for the call or just passing through. About the Author JOHN FEINSTEIN is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the classics sports books A Season on the Brink and A Good Walk Spoiled, along with many other bestsellers. His first YA mystery, Last Shot, won The Edgar Allen Poe Award for mystery writing. He is a member of Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and The National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame. He is also a columnist for The Washington Post, Golf World, and Golf Digest. He is a contributor to the Golf Channel, and is an essayist for CBS Sports Television. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1Scott Elarton Starting OverThere is no aspect of baseball that has changed more in recent years than spring training. Or, more specifically, spring training facilities.Once, the winter homes of most baseball teams were old, dank, and cramped-minor-league facilities that served for six weeks each year as the headquarters for an entire baseball organization. The ballparks were older too, havens for fans who wanted to get close to players, but often creaking from age with outfield fences that looked as if they had been constructed shortly after Abner Doubleday invented the game.Even in Vero Beach, where in 1947 the Brooklyn Dodgers set up what was then the model for a spring training facility-Holman Stadium and the facilities around it became known as Dodgertown-there was the feeling of being in a time warp. The dugouts never even had roofs. They were just open-air cutouts along the baselines where players either sunbathed or baked-depending on one’s point of view-during games.Through the...

-Titulo Original : Do As I Say (not As I Do) Profiles In Liberal Hypocrisy-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Review “A spirited attack on lefty icons.” -New York Times“An entertaining exposure . . . In a series of 11 profiles on leftist icons from Noam Chomsky and Al Franken to Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, Schweizer reveals that the most vocal liberals do not practice what they preach.”-The Weekly Standard “I don’t own a single share of stock.” -Michael MooreMembers of the liberal left exude an air of moral certitude. They pride themselves on being selflessly committed to the highest ideals and seem particularly confident of the purity of their motives and the evil nature of their opponents. To correct economic and social injustice, liberals support a whole litany of policies and principles: progressive taxes, affirmative action, greater regulation of corporations, raising the inheritance tax, strict environmental regulations, children’s rights, consumer rights, and much, much more. But do they actually live by these beliefs? Peter Schweizer decided to investigate in depth the private lives of some prominent liberals: politicians like the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, the Kennedys, and Ralph Nader; commentators like Michael Moore, Al Franken, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West; entertainers and philanthropists like Barbra Streisand and George Soros. Using everything from real estate transactions, IRS records, court depositions, and their own public statements, he sought to examine whether they really live by the principles they so confidently advocate. What he found was a long list of glaring contradictions. Michael Moore denounces oil and defense contractors as war profiteers. He also claims to have no stock portfolio, yet he owns shares in Halliburton, Boeing, and Honeywell and does his postproduction film work in Canada to avoid paying union wages in the United States. Noam Chomsky opposes the very concept of private property and calls the Pentagon “the worst institution in human history,” yet he and his wife have made millions of dollars in contract work for the Department of Defense and own two luxurious homes. Barbra Streisand prides herself as an environmental activist, yet she owns shares in a notorious strip-mining company. Hillary Clinton supports the right of thirteen-year-old girls to have abortions without parental consent, yet she forbade thirteen-year-old Chelsea to pierce her ears and enrolled her in a school that would not distribute condoms to minors. Nancy Pelosi received the 2002 Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farm Workers, yet she and her husband own a Napa Valley vineyard that uses nonunion labor.Schweizer’s conclusion is simple: liberalism in the end forces its adherents to become hypocrites. They adopt one pose in public, but when it comes to what matters most in their own lives-their property, their privacy, and their children-they jettison their liberal principles and embrace conservative ones. Schweizer thus exposes the contradiction at the core of liberalism: if these ideas don’t work for the very individuals who promote them, how can they work for the rest of us? From the Back Cover The American Left prides itself on a selfless commitment to economic and social justice. With moral certitude, confident of the purity of their motives and the evil nature of their opponents, they support a familiar litany of causes and programs: progressive taxes, affirmative action, greater regulation of corporations, increasing the inheritance tax, stricter environmental safeguards, consumer rights, and more. But do liberals actually practice what they preach? Peter Schweizer dug deep into the tax returns, real estate documents, business and investment patterns, court depositions, and hiring practices of Michael Moore, Al Franken, Noam Chomsky, the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, the Kennedys, Ralph Nader, Cornel West, George Soros and Barbra Streisand. All are adept at avoiding taxes, invest in the very industries they denounce, and abandon environmental causes when they impinge on their ...

-Titulo Original : The Zealot And The Emancipator John Brown, Abraham Lincoln And The Struggle For American Freedom-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: From the acclaimed historian and bestselling author: a page-turning account of the epic struggle over slavery as embodied by John Brown and Abraham Lincoln-two men moved to radically different acts to confront our nation’s gravest sin. John Brown was a charismatic and deeply religious man who heard the God of the Old Testament speaking to him, telling him to destroy slavery by any means. When Congress opened Kansas territory to slavery in 1854, Brown raised a band of followers to wage war. His men tore pro-slavery settlers from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords. Three years later, Brown and his men assaulted the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to arm slaves with weapons for a race war that would cleanse the nation of slavery.Brown’s violence pointed ambitious Illinois lawyer and former officeholder Abraham Lincoln toward a different solution to slavery: politics. Lincoln spoke cautiously and dreamed big, plotting his path back to Washington and perhaps to the White House. Yet his caution could not protect him from the vortex of violence Brown had set in motion. After Brown’s arrest, his righteous dignity on the way to the gallows led many in the North to see him as a martyr to liberty. Southerners responded with anger and horror to a terrorist being made into a saint. Lincoln shrewdly threaded the needle between the opposing voices of the fractured nation and won election as president. But the time for moderation had passed, and Lincoln’s fervent belief that democracy could resolve its moral crises peacefully faced its ultimate test. The Zealot and the Emancipator is the thrilling account of how two American giants shaped the war for freedom. Review An Amazon Best Book of October 2020: In this highly readable biography, Brands alternates between histories of John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, driving home just how much slavery was a part of the American fabric during their lifetimes. Although they never met, Brown-who believed God had chosen him to free the slaves-committed violent acts that would help to upend Lincoln’s attempts at political moderation. Brown’s activism ended at Harper’s Ferry-but he became a martyr to the North and demon to the South, as the nation lurched toward Civil War. -Chris Schluep, Amazon Book ReviewEditors pick: Using expert storytelling, H. W. Brands brings two ambitious men to life and raises questions that still resonate today.-Chris Schluep, Amazon Editor Review One of Smithsonian Magazines Best Books of 2020“[Brands] scrupulously narrates the relevant facts and trusts readers to form their own conclusions. . . The Zealot and the Emancipator relates these familiar events skillfully. . . [Brands] recognize[s] that the contrast between Brown and Lincoln offers a lesson that has never been timelier. Prudence and idealism are complementary virtues. And zeal unencumbered by a concern for consequences is indistinguishable, in practice, from bloodlust.”-The Wall Street Journal“Brands’s study of Brown and Lincoln [is] at heart an appraisal of contrasting political designs and personas in prerevolutionary times. . . [The Zealot and the Emancipator] builds on strengths long evident in Brands’s books, combining expert storytelling with thoughtful interpretation vividly to render major events through the lives of the chief participants. . . This book presents a gripping account of the politics that led to Southern secession, war and the abolition of slavery.”-The New York Times Book Review“Gripping. . . [Brands poses] a worthy question for any era but particularly for the one we’re living through. . . Brands offers a nuanced middle path. In Brown and Lincoln, he presents two perfectly imperfect heroes who act in ways that both excite and disappoint us. . . The Zealot and the Emancipator feels particularly well timed. . . The lessons it contains about America’s slow progress toward a more perfect union, even duri...

-Titulo Original : Case Closed Lee Harvey Oswald And The Assassination Of Jfk-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, continues to inspire interest ranging from well-meaning speculation to bizarre conspiracy theories and controversial filmmaking. But in this landmark book,reissued with a new afterword for the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Gerald Posner examines all of the available evidence and reaches the only possible conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. There was no second gunman on the grassy knoll. The CIA was not involved. And although more than four million pages of documents have been released since Posner first made his case, they have served only to corroborate his findings. Case Closedremains the classic account against which all books about JFK’s death must be measured. Review “Persuasive. . . . Brilliantly illuminating. . . . More satisfying than any conspiracy theory.” -The New York Times“By far the most lucid and compelling account. . . . No serious historian who writes about the assassination in the future will be able to ignore it.” -The New York Times Book Review“Superb. . . . The most convincing explanation of the assassination.” -Robert Dallek, The Boston Sunday Globe“Required reading for anyone interested in the American crime of the century.” -Newsday“Utterly convincing. . . . Fascinating and important. . . . Case closed, indeed.” -Chicago Tribune From the Inside Flap The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, continues to inspire interest ranging from well-meaning speculation to bizarre conspiracy theories and controversial filmmaking. But in this landmark book,reissued with a new afterword for the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Gerald Posner examines all of the available evidence and reaches the only possible conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. There was no second gunman on the grassy knoll. The CIA was not involved. And although more than four million pages of documents have been released since Posner first made his case, they have served only to corroborate his findings. Case Closedremains the classic account against which all books about JFK s death must be measured. From the Back Cover The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, continues to inspire interest ranging from well-meaning speculation to bizarre conspiracy theories and controversial filmmaking. But in this landmark book, reissued with a new afterword for the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Gerald Posner examines all of the available evidence and reaches the only possible conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. There was no second gunman on the grassy knoll. The CIA was not involved. And although more than four million pages of documents have been released since Posner first made his case, they have served only to corroborate his findings. Case Closed remains the classic account against which all books about JFKs death must be measured. About the Author Gerald Posner, a former Wall Street lawyer, is an award-winning author of many books on subjects ranging from Nazi war criminals, to assassinations, to the lives and careers of politicians. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1 Which One Are You? President John F. Kennedy had been dead less than an hour. J. D. Tippit, only the third Dallas policeman in a decade to die in the line of duty, was killed shortly after the President. Rumors swept the city. Dealey Plaza, the site of the presidential assassination, was in pandemonium. Dozens of witnesses sent the police scurrying in different directions in futile search of an assassin. While most police mobilized to hunt the Presidents killer, more than a dozen sped to Dallass Oak Cliff, a quiet middle-class neighborhood, to search for Tippits murderer.At 1:46 P.M., after an abortive raid on a public library, a police dispatcher announced: Have information a suspect just went in the Texas Theater on West Jefferson. Within minutes, ...

-Titulo Original : Isabella The Warrior Queen-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Review Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book PrizeLonglisted for the 2015 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for BiographyA Kirkus Best Biography of 2014“A tale of feminist ambition that reads like a pulpy novel. (Dont be a snob-thats a good thing.)” -TIME “[An] immensely provocativefigure . . . [who] successfully maneuvered in an almost exclusively male world of politics.” -Kathryn Harrison, The New York Times Book Review“Downey humanizes rather than idealizes her subject. . . . Isabella offers the reader a deeply satisfying portrait of a fascinating and complex woman.” -Barbara Mujica, Washington Independent Review of Books“In a fascinating revisionist portrait, Downey sketches a monarch both adored and demonised, and makes the case that Isabella laid the foundation for the first global superpower.” -BBC “From Game of Thrones to Pillars of the Earth, popular culture offers up medieval stories where royal blood grabs for power, where crucial alliances are built between church and state, where important people suddenly fall over dead after a sumptuous meal, poisoned by a hidden rival. But this world did, in fact, exist, and the subject of Kristen Downey’s new biography, Queen Isabella of Castile, maneuvered through it with unlikely and thrilling success. . . . Downey writes with eloquence and intensity about Isabella’s life, making what could have been a distant history into a dramatic page turner.” -BookPage“A strong, fascinating woman, Isabella helped to usher in the modern age, and this rich, clearly written biography is a worthy chronicle of her impressive yet controversial life.” -Kirkus Reviews, (starred review)“Kirstin Downey triumphantly restores Isabella to her rightful place in history. This is an engrossing new portrait of one of the most fascinating and controversial women who ever lived.” -Amanda Foreman, author of the New York Times bestseller Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire“Kirstin Downey makes medieval history read like a modern day thriller. Queen Isabellas life unfolded at the pivotal moment when the old world was astonished by the discovery of the new, and this graceful and insightful biography reveals her crucial role in making it happen.” -Deirdre Bair, National Book Award-winning author of Samuel Beckett“In this astonishing biography, Kirstin Downey brings to life the most powerful queen in history, whose extraordinary impact on the world-for good and ill-continues to this day. Downey is particularly good at showing the human side of Isabella, whose life was an unending struggle to assert herself while navigating the countless intrigues and treachery of men who wanted to bring her down, including her own faithless and jealous husband, Ferdinand. Its a fascinating story with great resonance for today.” -Lynne Olson, author of the New York Times bestseller Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh and Americas Fight Over World War II“Queen Isabella wasthe most important woman in the history of Europe, and more than any person of her era she set the stage for modern Europe and America. Using Muslim, Jewish, and Christian sources, Kirstin Downeys gripping biography reveals how Isabella acquired such importance and vividly narrates the incredible drama of her life.” -Jack Weatherford, author of the New York Times bestseller Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World“Perfect for both historical novices and experts in European history, this solidly-researched, engaging description of Isabella’s achievements also humanizes her through discussion of her intricate relationships with combative family members and allows readers to see Isabella’s fingerprints on Renaissance culture and religion.” -Publishers Weekly An engrossing and revolutionary biography of Isabella of Castile, the controversial Queen of Spain who sponsored Christopher Columbuss journey to the New World, established the Spanish Inquisition, and became one of the most influential female rulers in histo...

-Titulo Original : Hourglass Time, Memory, Marriage-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Elle Best Books of 2017Kirkus Best Books of 2017The best-selling novelist and memoirist delivers her most intimate and powerful work: a piercing, life-affirming memoir about marriage and memory, about the frailty and elasticity of our most essential bonds, and about the accretion, over time, of both sorrow and love. Hourglass is an inquiry into how marriage is transformed by time--abraded, strengthened, shaped in miraculous and sometimes terrifying ways by accident and experience. With courage and relentless honesty, Dani Shapiro opens the door to her house, her marriage, and her heart, and invites us to witness her own marital reckoning--a reckoning in which she confronts both the life she dreamed of and the life she made, and struggles to reconcile the girl she was with the woman she has become. What are the forces that shape our most elemental bonds? How do we make lifelong commitments in the face of identities that are continuously shifting, and commit ourselves for all time when the self is so often in flux? What happens to love in the face of the unexpected, in the face of disappointment and compromise--how do we wrest beauty from imperfection, find grace in the ordinary, desire what we have rather than what we lack? Drawing on literature, poetry, philosophy, and theology, Shapiro writes gloriously of the joys and challenges of matrimonial life, in a luminous narrative that unfurls with urgent immediacy and sharp intelligence. Artful, intensely emotional work from one of our finest writers. Review “Compassionate, insightful, and powerfully honest, in Hourglass Dani Shapiro illuminates the deepest mysteries, contradictions, and consolations of so very much-love, memory, the people we used to be and the people we’ve become. In other words: life. I was absorbed by Hourglass and consoled by it, too. It’s a beautiful book by a writer of rare talent.” -Cheryl Strayed “Gorgeous, stunning, extraordinary- life-changing.” -Will Schwalbe “Rilke reminds us that “There are multitudes of people, but there are many more faces, because each person has several of them.” And how do we, moment after elusive moment, marry then continue to change and grow yet still accommodate these multitudes in one another? This is just one of the piercingly compelling questions Dani Shapiro explores in her masterfully rendered new memoir. Written with erudition, hard-earned wisdom, and sensual grace, Hourglass is a fearless and lovely mosaic of those very fragments that make life worth living, the only one we get. I adore this book.” -Andre Dubus III “Dani Shapiro’s prose is elegant and crystal clear, the perfect vehicle for her fierce intelligence and curiosity about things that lurk just out of view. Hourglass is such a lovely book.” -Richard Russo “Reading this book was like skating across a perfect piece of ice and then slowly noticing the cracks. Dark, cold water shows through. We can’t see the depths. Be careful, Shapiro warns, be careful, but still she skates on in the fading light with remarkable beauty and grace.” -Jenny OffillPoignant... Timeless... Brutal honesty is the bread and butter of the marriage memoir, yet Shapiro still manages to make her husband sound quirky and tenacious in the manner of the best romantic comedy leads. And her prose has a way of making even mundane disappointments feel portentous and universal...by the end of her short book, we want to know what will happen next.-The New York Times Book Review “In this touching and intimate memoir… Shapiro beautifully weaves together her own moving language and a commonplace book’s worth of perfect quotes from others. -Publishers Weekly (starred review) “To write openly about an enduring intimate relationship requires courage and tact… In this compelling account of her 18-year marriage, Shapiro carefully exposes the vulnerabilities that have subtly begun to surface within the relationship…The narrative demonstrates Sha...

-Titulo Original : I Dont Know What You Know Me From My Life As A Co-star-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: About the Author Judy Greer was born in Detroit and studied at The Theatre School, DePaul Universitys prestigious theater conservatory program. She is one of the most prolific actresses of her time, appearing to date in over eighty roles across film and television. Greer notably starred in the Oscar-winning film The Descendants. No stranger to the small screen, she stars in the sitcom Married, voices a character on the cult hit Archer, and can also be seen in Arrested Development. On stage, Greer recently made her Broadway debut in Dead Accounts. Online, she stars in her own ! series called Reluctantly Healthy. Greer currently lives in Los Angeles. This is Judy Greer’s story, from her self-described childhood as “Ugly Judy” in suburban Detroit-ish, Michigan, to trying out for drama school to get even with her frenemy, and then breaking into movies as the ultimate best friend. Judy is a refreshingly honest, self-deprecating, and totally relatable guide to Hollywood life, speaking candidly about what it’s really like to shoot on location, to go to the Oscars, and to feel like you’re building a tortoise career in a town full of hares. Beneath the Spanx, Judy is like the best friend youve always wanted. She chills out with her giant, gassy bulldog, Buckley; meets the love of her life on a blind date; happily dives into being a stepparent; and through it all maintains an unshakeable belief in the restorative power of a late-night drugstore run. Review The most fun thing in the world is sitting with Judy Greer and talking about her life while drinking perhaps a touch more wine than youd intended. If you cant make that happen, the second most fun thing is reading her book. While you over-pour and drink the wine. --Jennifer Garner (Judys co-star in 13 Going on 30)“Will make you wish Greer was your wacky best friend.” -People “A hilarious, heartfelt memoir.” -InStyle“Intimate and frank. . . . I Dont Know What You Know Me From proves what [her fans] have always suspected: Judy Greer shines in the starring role.” -The Daily Beast “Finally this perennial co-star gets to confound Hollywood’s expectations and take center stage in a role that’s every bit as hilarious, delightful, and brutally honest as the comedienne herself.” -Mitch Hurwitz, creator of Arrested Development“If you’ve heard Judy speak even once you can hear her voice all through these wonderful stories, because she writes like she talks and what she says is so much fun to listen to. My only complaint was how much I missed her when the book was over-but that’s how I always feel after a long stay with a good friend.” -Jim Parsons, star of The Big Bang Theory “The book is so funny it might make her a household name.” -Ladies’ Home Journal “Shes nothing if not honest-sometimes brutally so.” -Los Angeles Times “Her book is just as honest, witty, and observant as she actually is. From her early life and her experiences in love and friendship to the weird world of Hollywood, she candidly spills the beans and consistently entertains. So now is your chance-you too can be friends with Judy (sort of).” -Rashida JonesI read it in one sitting. Then I flushed. --Zach Galifianakis “Charming. . . . [Greer’s] bubbly best-friend personality and self-deprecating anecdotes will have readers rooting for her.” -Booklist “Greer is an engaging and witty storyteller, at turns wistful and unsparingly honest.” -Kirkus Reviews Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Excerpted from the hardcover edition. Chapter 1Detroit-­ishi grew up in a suburb of detroit, michigan. no, not Grosse Pointe. Not 8 Mile. To everyone who is not from Michigan: there are more places besides Grosse Pointe and 8 Mile in the Detroit area. Grosse Pointe is for superrich people, of which I was/am not. And 8 Mile is a road, not a place. It is a long road that goes from Eminem-­land all th...

-Titulo Original : Live Fast Die Hot-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: *A NEW YORK TIMES HUMOR BESTSELLER*By the author of I Like You Just the Way I Am and a frequent Chelsea contributor, an outrageous collection of personal stories about motherhood, responsibility, and other potential disasters.Jenny Mollen is a writer and actress living in New York. Until recently, her life was exciting, sexy, a little eccentric, and one hundred percent impulsive. She had a husband who embraced her crazy-who understood her need to occasionally stalk around the house in his ex-girlfriend’s old beach caftans and to invite their drug dealer to Passover seder (so he wouldn’t feel like they were using him only for drugs). Then they had their son, Sid, and overnight, Jenny was forced to grow up: to be responsible, to brush her hair, to listen to her voicemail. Searingly funny and surprisingly affecting, Live Fast Die Hot is a collection of stories about what happens when you realize that some things are more important than crafting the perfect tweet-and a reminder that even if you never thought you were cut out for parenting, at least you can be better at it than your mother. Review Praise for Jenny Mollen’s Live Fast Die Hot“Jenny Mollen is hovering only slightly above sanity, which is the one quality I require in order to be friends with a mother. . . . [A] hysterical circus of a book.” -Chelsea Handler, author of Uganda Be Kidding Me“Raucous. . . . Mollen employs her singular wit to confront the anxieties of motherhood and finally growing up.” -People “I kind of can’t believe Jenny Mollen is an actual person and not a character-she’s biting, hilarious, surprising, oversharing, and relatable.” -Andy Cohen, author of Superficial “With her incomparable wit and acidic wisdom, Jenny now turns her signature perspective to the most terrifying of feminine terrain: motherhood. . . . A generous helping of demented antics and just enough vulnerability to make you cry.” -Lena Dunham, author of Not That Kind of Girl“Sharp, saucy, and mildly disturbing, she reminds me of a young, psychotic Nora Ephron. . . . You’ll inhale [Mollen’s] memoir like an illegal substance.” -Sarah Knight, New York Magazine’s Vulture “One of the funniest books I’ve read this year. . . . Reaches a level of hilarious candor and keen eye for absurdity in the everyday that echoes the late essayist Nora Ephron. . . . A remarkable feat.” -Jo Piazza, Forbes “Raunchy, witty, whip-smart fun. Jenny Mollen is the girl your mother warned you about.” -Jennifer Weiner, author of Hungry Heart “Even a life beautifully enriched by a child couldn’t dampen [Mollen’s] effortlessly snarky outlook on kids, love, marriage, and Tinder. . . . Hilariously candid.” -Kirkus Reviews “Wild, wonderful. . . . Proof that life is often stranger and always funnier than fiction.” -Piper Kerman, author of Orange is the New Black About the Author JENNY MOLLEN is an actress and the New York Times bestselling author of I Like You Just the Way I Am, as well as the writer, executive producer, and star of a television series for ABC Digital based on the book. She was a columnist for Playboy Online and The Smoking Jacket and has contributed to Cosmopolitan, Glamour, New York, and Elle . She has been heralded by The Huffington Post as one of the funniest women on both Twitter and , and named one of Five to Follow by T Magazine. jennymollen...

-Titulo Original : Shot In The Heart-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * A murder tale from inside the house where murder is born. Haunting, harrowing, and profoundly affecting, Shot in the Heart exposes and explores a dark vein of American life that most of us would rather ignore. It is a book that will leave no reader unchanged. Gary Gilmore, the infamous murderer immortalized by Norman Mailer in The Executioners Song, campaigned for his own death and was executed by firing squad in 1977. Writer Mikal Gilmore is his younger brother. In Shot in the Heart, he tells the stunning story of their wildly dysfunctional family: their mother, a black sheep daughter of unforgiving Mormon farmers; their father, a drunk, thief, and con man. It was a family destroyed by a multigenerational history of child abuse, alcoholism, crime, adultery, and murder. Mikal, burdened with the guilt of being his fathers favorite and the shame of being Garys brother, gracefully and painfully relates his story from inside the house where murder is born... a house that, in some ways, [he has] never been able to leave. Shot in the Heart is the history of an American family inextricably tied up with violence, and the story of how the children of this family committed murder and murdered themselves in payment for a long lineage of ruin. Review NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * A murder tale from inside the house where murder is born. Haunting, harrowing, and profoundly affecting, Shot in the Heart exposes and explores a dark vein of American life that most of us would rather ignore. It is a book that will leave no reader unchanged. Gary Gilmore, the infamous murderer immortalized by Norman Mailer in The Executioners Song, campaigned for his own death and was executed by firing squad in 1977. Writer Mikal Gilmore is his younger brother. In Shot in the Heart, he tells the stunning story of their wildly dysfunctional family: their mother, a black sheep daughter of unforgiving Mormon farmers; their father, a drunk, thief, and con man. It was a family destroyed by a multigenerational history of child abuse, alcoholism, crime, adultery, and murder. Mikal, burdened with the guilt of being his fathers favorite and the shame of being Garys brother, gracefully and painfully relates his story from inside the house where murder is born... a house that, in some ways, [he has] never been able to leave. Shot in the Heart is the history of an American family inextricably tied up with violence, and the story of how the children of this family committed murder and murdered themselves in payment for a long lineage of ruin. From Publishers Weekly This L.A. Times award winner by the brother of murderer Gary Gilmore tells a multigenerational tale of familial abuse. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZEOne of the most beautifully written, moving nonfiction books published in the past five years. -- Deidre Donahue, USA Today. Remarkable, astonishing... Shot in the Heart reads like a combination of Brothers Karamazov and a series of Johnny Cash ballads... chilling, heartbreaking, and alarming. -- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times. Mesmerizing... riveting and immensely moving... Shot in the Heart is a gesture of sustained courage that just happens to be a page-turner. -- Daphne Merkin,The New Yorker. From the Publisher Gary Gilmore, the infamous murderer immortalized by Norman Mailer in The Executioners Song, campaigned for his own death and was executed by firing squad in 1977. Writer Mikal Gilmore is his younger brother. In Shot In The Heart, he tells the stunning story of their wildly dysfunctional family: their mother, a blacksheep daughter of unforgiving Mormon farmers; their father, a drunk, thief, and con man. It was a family destroyed by a multigenerational history of child abuse, alcoholism, cr...

-Titulo Original : After The Prophet The Epic Story Of The Shia-sunni Split In Islam-Fabricante : Anchor-Descripcion Original: Review “Fascinating. . . . Lively and engaging. . . . Anyone seeking to understand today’s Middle East can learn from this book. . . . Hazleton not only recounts the facts behind the split but also expertly uses centuries-old accounts to convey the depth of emotional and spiritual associations bundled within a simple word like ‘Karbala.’ . . . [She] deftly uses original sources, many based on contemporaneous or nearly so oral accounts, to give life and breath to figures familiar to every Muslim but unknown to most non-Muslims.”-Seattle Times“Illuminating. . . . After the Prophet will be held up as a primer for grasping the modern-day Middle East.”-The Miami Herald“Remarkable. . . . A story of human passion and consequence, told with consummate skill. . . . [Hazleton] manages the not inconsiderable feat of maintaining scholarly respect for her subject while also showing a real fondness for the people at the story’s heart-people who, we learn, were not unlike us, and whose tale is directly linked to today’s newscast.”-Dallas Morning News“Thrilling in its depiction of long-ago events. . . . Passionately and scrupulously done.”-The Wall Street Journal“As sectarian aggression flares in Iraq, Hazleton’s explanation of its deep, entrenched roots is essential.”-Christian Science Monitor “A remarkable and respectful telling of the story of Islam-a tale of power, intrigue, rivalry, jealousy, assassination, manipulation, greed, and faith that would have made Machiavelli shudder (had he read it), but above all it is a very human story, told in a wonderfully novelistic style that puts most other, often dreary, explanations of the Shia-Sunni divide to shame.”-Hooman Majd, author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ “A profound story masterfully told. . . . An exceptional book.”-Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A page turner that reads like an incredible cross between a suspense thriller and a fairy tale. All the elements of a fantastic story are here: intense spirituality; murder, violence, and bloodshed; dynastic power struggles; poison and atrocities; wife murdering husband; slave killing caliph; inspiring heroes; dastardly villains; heresy and apostasy. . . . The implications of [After the Prophet] are huge. . . . A superbly written first step for the uninformed to become knowledgeable. Don’t miss it.”-The Fredericksburg Lance-Star “Hazleton’s gripping narrative of the rise of Islam and the subsequent split between Shia and Sunni branches paints a picture that is far more epic, nuanced, and tragic. . . . Hazleton unspools this historically tangled tale with assurance and admirable clarity.”-The Bellingham Herald (Washington) “My only regret is that Hazleton didn’t write this terrific and necessary book in time to enlighten Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, et al., before they so unwisely invaded a land, and a religious culture, of which they were reprehensibly ignorant. I hope they read it now, with proper rue. Meanwhile, the rest of us can take pleasure in Hazleton’s vigorously drawn characters, her lucid storytelling, and her enthralling, imaginative grasp of the roots and consequences of the Sunni-Shia divide.”-Jonathan Raban, author of My Holy War and Surveillance “A new masterpiece. . . . Thrillingly and intelligently distills one of the most consequential trains of events in all history.”-Booklist (starred review) “Whether or not George Bush even knew there were such things as Shias and Sunnis before invading Iraq, after reading Lesley Hazleton’s gripping book no one will be able to plead ignorance about why the split between them happened and what it all means.”-Alan Wolfe, Director, Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, and author of The Future of Liberalism “Hazleton succeeds in bringing out the truly epic character of the Shia-Sunni split, telling the story with great empathy. The general Western reader will come away from this book with a newfound respect for the depth and power of the early schism in Islam an...