Other books that might interest you

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  Joan Crawford and Bette Davis:...

  Charles River Editors

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  The life of Joan Crawford is one of the most famous Hollywood rags-to-riches tales. While it is common to think of Hollywood as a land offering great opportunity to hard-working actresses, the Horatio Alger myth rarely applies in reality, but it applied almost perfectly to Joan Crawford. Crawford grew up in relative poverty, with both of her childhood father figures abandoning the family before she became a teenager, and she relied on undying ambition in order to progress through the ranks of the show business circuit and then the Hollywood studio system. This drive to succeed continued throughout her entire career, and Crawford’s public battles with both studios (MGM in particular) and other stars (first Norma Shearer and later Bette Davis) were borne out of an unmatched competitive streak. Joan Crawford’s life and career also shed light on the treatment of women in pop culture and in cinema during the early 20th century.  
  	Bette Davis presided over Hollywood at a time in which the film industry was at its most influential. Every actress from Katharine Hepburn to Ingrid Bergman and Ginger Rodgers, themselves now considered among Hollywood’s greatest icons, lived in the shadow of Bette Davis. Not only was Davis a box office sensation and commercial success - she became the highest paid actress in 1938 - but she garnered more critical acclaim than any other actress during the time period, as evidenced by the fact that she was the first actress to be nominated for 10 Academy Awards.  Recently, her place in history was cemented when she was named as the second greatest actress of the 20th century by the American Film Institute behind only Katharine Hepburn (AFI 100 Years…100 Stars).

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  The Map Thief - The Gripping...

  Michael Blanding

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  Maps have long exerted a special fascination on viewers—both as beautiful works of art and as practical tools to navigate the world. But to those who collect them, the map trade can be a cutthroat business, inhabited by quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects.Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley spent years doubling as a map thief—until he was finally arrested slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library. The Map Thief delves into the untold history of this fascinating high-stakes criminal and the inside story of the industry that consumed him. 
  Acclaimed reporter Michael Blanding has interviewed all the key players in this stranger-than-fiction story, and shares the fascinating histories of maps that charted the New World, and how they went from being practical instruments to quirky heirlooms to highly coveted objects. Though pieces of the map theft story have been written before, Blanding is the first reporter to explore the story in full—and had the rare privilege of having access to Smiley himself after he'd gone silent in the wake of his crimes. Moreover, although Smiley swears he has admitted to all of the maps he stole, libraries claim he stole hundreds more—and offer intriguing clues to prove it. Now, through a series of exclusive interviews with Smiley and other key individuals, Blanding teases out an astonishing tale of destruction and redemption. 
  The Map Thief interweaves Smiley's escapades with the stories of the explorers and mapmakers he knew better than anyone. Tracking a series of thefts as brazen as the art heists in Provenance and a subculture as obsessive as the oenophiles in The Billionaire's Vinegar, Blanding has pieced together an unforgettable story of high-stakes crime.

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  Prisoner in Al-Khobar - A true...

  D. A. Norman

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  The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: extraordinarily wealthy, ultraconservative, a vast importer of arms and the world's largest producer and exporter of oil. It has earned an infamous reputation on the international stage both for its record on human rights and its treatment of women. When British contractor D. S. Norman relocated to the Kingdom for work in the early 1990s, little could have prepared him for the culture shock that would greet him. Working in Saudi Arabia during one of its most rampant periods of commercial expansion, Norman would have to balance his western ways with a radically different desert mindset, a culture in which faith comes first and corruption is commonplace. Prisoner in Al-Khobar: A true story about the life of an expatriate in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia during the 1990s reveals the realities and idiosyncrasies of living and working in Saudi Arabia as D. S. Norman share his jaw-dropping experiences and the important lessons he learned in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques. 

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  Behind The Face - As for my baby...

  Toranj Irani

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  A mother's triumphant journey from darkness to light after suffering a traumatic loss. Behind the Face "is a heart-wrenching story that will inspire you as Toranj Irani embarks on her path toward healing. 
  Toranj allows the reader insight into her journey from wondering why her life included so much suffering and why she was being punished to the realization that not everything is happening to you and into the knowing that things are always happening for you. With this new awareness, she was able to move from bitter to joyful. Toranj then went on to develop a connection with her daughter-although no longer in physical form but is very much a part of her everyday life which includes 'out of the blue' magical surprises. 
  This is a powerful story of her awakening and transformation."

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  Gangbuster The - To Catch a...

  Peter Bleksley

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  'Four million quid. There it was, inches away from me on a hotel table. Not in conventional currency, but in the world's deadliest commodity. Heroin.'  As part of Scotland Yard's undercover team, it was Peter Bleksley's job to infiltrate some of the capital's most dangerous gangs and bring them down. For ten years, he went deeper into the criminal underworld than any cop had before him.  Meeting with dealers, gangland leaders and members of the IRA and the Mafia, he lived the life of the Great Pretender, constantly changing his identity to ensure his cover was never blown.  Whilst undeniably thrilling work at times, it came at a heavy price. The more successful he was at bringing criminals to justice, the longer the list of those who wanted revenge became. Even now, Peter looks over his shoulder in case someone should wish to act on an old threat.  In The Gangbuster, Bleksley draws us into the world of drugs, violence and covert operations he inhabited for so long in the pursuit of justice.  Now a renowned policing and crime expert seen on the BBC and as the Chief on Channel 4's Hunted, Peter Bleksley reputation still precedes him the world over.

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  Climate Change Strikes

  PBS NewsHour

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  On Thursday’s NewsHour, NewsHour correspondent Hari Sreenivasan moderated a panel discussion on how Native American tribes are coping with climate change. 
  The panel included four native leaders representing their communities at the First Stewards symposium:Jeff Mears – Oneida tribe, Wisconsin, Environmental Area ManagerMicah McCarty – Makah tribe, Washington, ChairmanMike Williams – Akiak tribe, Alaska, Vice ChairmanKitty Simonds – Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council and native Hawaiian 
  When we began our NewsHour coverage on communities across the United States coping with climate change, we didn’t plan to focus on Native American tribes. But we soon realized that indigenous communities are on the frontlines of America’s climate-related dangers.

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