Other books that might interest you

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  Shift the Narrative - A Blind...

  Russell Redenbaugh

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  Shift is a blind man’s vision of how he changed his life narrative from the impossible to the economically probable and in the process, moved from welfare to wealth. Blind from the age of 16, Russell Redenbaugh's achievement as a successful investor and economist, a Commissioner on the US Civil Rights Commission serving under three US Presidents and a black belt, three time gold medal jiu-jitsu world champion fighting sighted opponents, prove that if he can, anyone can. Most people think that their circumstances produce their narratives, but Russell shows it is their narratives that produce their circumstances. If you change your story, you change your future. Through a set of actions and behaviors, Russell demonstrates how anyone can "Shift Your Narrative" to produce more of what they care about in their personal life, career and money matters, starting today.

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  George Orwell: The Life and...

  Charles River Editors

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  for many walks of life, including commercial, diplomatic, academic, philosophical, and historical pursuits. George Orwell’s campaign for perfectly written English in an artistic and content-oriented sense might seem obsessive now, but the importance of written accuracy and well-conveyed meaning for that age cannot be overstated. In fact, Orwell and his works remain famous in large measure because they’re so critical of the ways in which language can be manipulated.  
  	Orwell believed that a decaying language was a decaying society, open to misinformation, manipulation, and rewritten versions of history, the kind of themes that have become synonymous with his name and works. He was a philosophical and political writer caught between strong capitalistic, socialistic, communist, and fascist forces operating around the globe in the early 20th century, and to prevent extremes on both sides from adopting and distorting his works, he labored to simplify his style past the possibility of misconception. His works hauntingly warn readers of the dangers of extremism, totalitarianism, and all other kinds of tyranny that can be found in government, and as a result, the word Orwellian is often thrown around. In the same vein, critics of government policies or individual politicians often make reference to Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, dystopian works that were contemporary with World War II.  
  	With such a successful nom de plume, it is difficult for almost anyone but family relations to recall Orwell’s real name. Eric Arthur Blair wanted to be a writer from the beginning, but so controversial were his works that he wished to avoid embarrassing or opening his family up to criticism. The name Orwell likely came from the beautiful River Orwell in East Anglia. Either way, the gifted English novelist, essayist, and critic became a major force in political literature of the 20th century.

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  Knocking Myself Up - A Memoir of...

  Michelle Tea

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  From PEN/America Award winner, 2021 Guggenheim fellow, and beloved literary and tarot icon Michelle Tea, the hilarious, powerfully written, taboo-breaking story of her journey to pregnancy and motherhood as a 40 year-old, queer, uninsured woman 
  Written in intimate, gleefully TMI prose, Knocking Myself Up is the irreverent account of Tea’s route to parenthood—with a group of ride-or-die friends, a generous drag queen, and a whole lot of can-do pluck. Along the way she falls in love with a wholesome genderqueer a decade her junior, attempts biohacking herself a baby with black market fertility meds (and magicking herself an offspring with witch-enchanted honey), learns her eggs are busted, and enters the Fertility Industrial Complex in order to carry her younger lover’s baby. 
  With the signature sharp wit and wild heart that have made her a favorite to so many readers, Tea guides us through the maze of medical procedures, frustrations and astonishments on the path to getting pregnant, wryly critiquing some of the systems that facilitate that choice (“a great, punk, daredevil thing to do”). In Knocking Myself Up, Tea has crafted a deeply entertaining and profound memoir, a testament to the power of love and family-making, however complex our lives may be, to transform and enrich us.

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  History's 9 Most Insane Rulers

  Scott Rank

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  Few mixtures are as toxic as absolute power and insanity. When nothing stands between a leader's delusional whims and seeing them carried out, all sorts of bizarre outcomes are possible. 
  This audiobook will look at the lives of the nine most mentally unbalanced figures in history. Some suffered from genetic disorders that led to schizophrenia, such as French King Charles VI, who thought he was made of glass. Others believed themselves to be Gods representatives on earth and wrote religious writings that they guaranteed to the reader would get them into heaven, even if these leaders were barely literate.  
  Whether it is Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim I practicing archery on palace servants or Turkmenistan president-for-life Akhbar Turkmenbashi renaming the days of the week after himself and constructing an 80-foot-tall golden statue that revolves to face the sun, crazed leaders have plagued society for millenia.  
  While such stories are amusing, this audiobook also contemplates the addictive nature of power and the effects it has on those who cling to it for too long. It explores how leaders can undertake the extraordinarily complicated job of leading a country without their full mental faculties and sometimes manage to be moderately successful. It examines why society tolerates their actions for so long and even attempts to put a facade of normalcy on rulers, despite everyone knowing that they are mentally unstable. The audiobook also explores if insane rulers are a relic of the age of monarchs and will die out in the age of democracy, or if  they will continue to plague nations in the twenty-first century. 
  Finally, as many armchair psychologists question the mental health of Donald Trump and other populist politicians in the United States and Europe, all but diagnosing them with mental illness, this audiobook sets to show that truly insane rulers are categorically different in the ways they endanger their population.

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  Hollywood’s Most Famous Silent...

  Charles River Editors

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  At the end of the 20th century, the American Film Institute compiled a list of the 25 greatest actors and actresses in Hollywood over the past 100 years, but only a select few worked all the way back in the silent era of films, before “talkies” revolutionized the industry at the end of the 1920s. Among them was Mary Pickford, who was ranked 24th but was arguably the most influential actress when it came to creating the career template for all actresses who followed, from name changes to salary. 
  Of all the great movie stars, there may be none more enigmatic than Greta Garbo, who remains internationally famous despite the fact her life and career raise more questions than answers. How did a Swedish actress with very little film acting experience in her native land arrive in the United States and achieve instant stardom? Most actresses had to wait years before they were offered starring roles in major films, yet Garbo was ushered to the front of the line and perched atop the MGM pantheon at a time in which it was the studio par excellence. How was she able to transition from silent films to “talkies” so fluidly, giving many of her most decorated performances during the 1930s? 
  It goes without saying that the most enduring image of Gloria Swanson is the famous shot of her in Sunset Boulevard (1950), head tilted backward, stating, “Alright, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close up.” Indeed, for many, the very mention of “Gloria Swanson” conjures the name of “Norma Desmond,” her character in Sunset Boulevard, directed by Billy Wilder. That the shot of Desmond requesting her close-up remains indelibly imprinted in the minds of so many speaks in large part to the power of Sunset Boulevard, one of the most revered films of its times and the most famous film of Gloria Swanson’s career. By dint of her performance in the film, Swanson has become almost synonymous with Hollywood’s silent era. 

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  The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her...

  Barbara K. Lipska, Elaine McArdle

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  In January 2015, Barbara Lipska—a leading expert on the neuroscience of mental illness—was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to her brain. Within months, her frontal lobe, the seat of cognition, began shutting down. She descended into madness, exhibiting dementia—and schizophrenia—like symptoms that terrified her family and coworkers. But miraculously, just as her doctors figured out what was happening, the immunotherapy they had prescribed began to work. Just eight weeks after her nightmare began, Lipska returned to normal. With one difference: she remembered her brush with madness with exquisite clarity. 
  In The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind, Lipska describes her extraordinary ordeal and its lessons about the mind and brain. She explains how mental illness, brain injury, and age can change our behavior, personality, cognition, and memory. She tells what it is like to experience these changes firsthand. And she reveals what parts of us remain, even when so much else is gone.

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