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  Setting the Tone - Essays and a...

  Ned Rorem

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  A sterling collection of essays, commentary, reviews, and personal recollections on art, love, and the musical life, from Ned Rorem, award-winning composer and author extraordinaireNed Rorem, the acclaimed American composer and writer, displays his incisive, sometimes outrageous genius for artistic critique and social commentary with a grand flourish in this engaging collection of essays and diary entries. Fearlessly offering opinions on a wealth of subjects—from the lives of the famous and infamous to popular culture to the state of contemporary art—Rorem proves once again that he is an artist who tells unforgettable stories not only through music, but with a pen, as well. Setting the Tone gathers together essays and commentary previously published elsewhere and combines them with pages from Rorem’s ongoing diary, offering readers a vivid and enlightening view of Rorem’s world along with an honest portrait of the author himself. Whether he’s lambasting critics and former friends and acquaintances, vivisecting opera, or presenting his views on theater, film, books, or composers and their music, Rorem is ingenious, incorrigible, and madly entertaining.

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  Sniper in Helmand - Six Months...

  James Cartwright

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  “A book that conveys the realities of life for the sniper in Afghanistan, the highs and lows, the fear, boredom and excitement . . . thrilling.” —Firetrench 
   
  Few soldiers are deemed good enough to be selected and trained as snipers and even fewer qualify. As a result, snipers are regarded as the elite of their units and their skills command the ungrudging respect of their fellows—and the enemy. The author is one such man who recently served a full tour of duty with 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.  
   
  James describes the highs and lows of almost daily front-line action experienced by our soldiers deployed on active service in arguably the most dangerous area of the world. As part of the Battle Groups crack Mobile Operations Group, James’s mission was to liquidate as many Taliban as possible. The reader experiences sniper tactics and actions, whether in ambush or quick pre-planned strikes, amid the ever-present lethal danger of IEDs.  
   
  His book, the first to be written by a trained sniper in Afghanistan, reveals the psychological pressures and awesome life-and-death responsibility of his role and, in particular, the deadly cat-and-mouse games with the enemy snipers intent on their own kills. These involved the clinical killing of targets at ranges of 1,000 meters or greater. Sniper in Helmand is a thrilling action-packed, yet very human, account of both front-line service in the intense Afghanistan war and first-hand sniper action. Andy McNab inspired James to join the army and has written a moving foreword.

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  Headhunter - 5-73 CAV and Their...

  Peter C. Svoboda, Lt. Gen...

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  Selected in 2005 by the Army to be the first airborne reconnaissance squadron, 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, better known as 5-73 CAV, was formed from 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The members of the squadron were hand-selected by the squadron command team, Lieutenant Colonel Poppas and Command Sergeant Major Edgar. With just more than 400 paratroopers, they were half the size of a full-strength battalion and the smallest unit in the Panther Brigade.The squadron deployed to eastern Diyala in August, 2006. Despite their size, they were tasked with an enormous mission and were given the largest area of operations within the brigade. Appropriately for a unit known by the call sign of its CO—Headhunter—5-73 would go on to pursue various terrorist factions including Al Qaeda in Iraq. They got results, and 5-73 was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for launching the Turki Bowl campaign from November 2006 to January 2007 against insurgent groups in Diyala Province. However the toll would be heavy—the squadron lost twenty-two paratroopers during the deployment.Headhunter is a unique account of the War on Terror. It's a soldier's story, told by those very paratroopers who gallantly fought to tame Diyala.

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  Wayne Rooney: Boots of Gold

  Jon Sweeney

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  This book is not your usual whitewash. Irreverent, hilarious and surprising, Wayne Rooney: Boots of Gold is a tarts-and-all biography of England's most famous sportsman and an exposé of the iniquities of some of those who have sought their pound of flesh from his celebrity. Short-tempered and sweary he may be, but there's no doubting Rooney's passion for the beautiful game. But who is the real Wayne Rooney? On the one hand there was the disastrous World Cup in 2010, sex scandals and the unedifying spectacle of his grotesque contract negotiations with Manchester United; on the other, unprecedented success as the best British footballer of his time. On form, he's an unstoppable force, and the jewel in the crown of one of the most powerful club sides in history. But then there's the infamous entourage: a controversial agent, a crooked lawyer, tarts and gangsters, all attracted to the fabulous money Rooney gets for kicking a pig's bladder around a field. Wayne Rooney: Boots of Gold charts the rise and fall - and rise and fall again - of football's most intriguing star.

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  Sinopah the Indian Boy

  James Willard Schultz

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  "This is the Story of Sinopah, a Blackfoot Indian boy; he who afterward became the great chief Pitamakan, or, as we say, the Running Eagle. I knew Pitamakan well; also, his white friend and partner in many adventures, Thomas Fox. Both were my friends; they talked to me much about their boyhood days, so you may know that this is a true story."
  Contents: 
  Sinopah gets his Name    
  Sinopah and Sinopah
  Sinopah and his Playfellows    
  Sinopah's Escape from the Buffalo    
  The Clay Toys    
  The Story of Scarface    
  The Buffalo Trap    
  Spinning Top    
  Sinopah's First Bow
  Tracking a Mountain Lion    
  Sinopah joins the Mosquito Society

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  The Politician - An Insider's...

  Andrew Young

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  Like a nonfiction version of All the King's Men, The Politician offers a truly disturbing, even shocking, perspective on the risks taken and tactics employed by a man determined to rule the most powerful nation on earth. Idealistic and ambitious, Andrew Young volunteered for the John Edwards campaign for Senate in 1998 and quickly became the candidate's right-hand man. As the senator became a national star, Young's responsibilities grew. For a decade he was this politician's confidant, and he was assured he was "like family." In time, however, Young was drawn into a series of questionable assignments that culminated with Edwards asking him to help conceal the senator's ongoing adultery. Days before the 2008 presidential primaries began, Young gained international notoriety when he told the world that he was the father of a child being carried by a woman named Rielle Hunter, who was actually the senator's mistress. While Young began a life on the run, hiding from the press with his family and alleged mistress, John Edwards continued to pursue the presidency and then the vice presidency in the future Obama administration.Young had been the senator's closest aide and most trusted friend. He believed that John Edwards could be a great president and was assured throughout the cover-up that his boss and friend would ultimately step forward to both tell the truth and protect his aide's career. Neither promise was kept.Not only is The Politician a moving personal account of Andrew Young's political education, but it also offers a look at the trajectory that made John Edwards the ideal Democratic candidate for president and the hubris that brought him down, leaving his career, his marriage, and his dreams in ashes.

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