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  The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln

  Helen Nicolay

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  The Boys’ Life of Abraham Lincoln is a biography with many anecdotes that takes one deeper into the thoughts, personality, and beliefs of the man that was Lincoln. While the title indicates the book is about Lincoln’s life as a boy, the book is a full, if somewhat shortened biography. It is very well written and was a joy to record. One might ask, "Who was Helen Nicolay?" Her father, John George Nicolay, was Abraham Lincoln's private secretary and doubtless much of the material comes from his complete biography of Abraham Lincoln. ( Summary by Tom Weiss)

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  Off to the Side - A Memoir

  Jim Harrison

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  A New York Times Notable Book: A memoir of the writing life of Jim Harrison, from hardscrabble years to high-profile Hollywood friendships, “as engaging as it is eccentric” (The Washington Post Book World).   In this “sprawling, impressionistic memoir”, which was selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Jim Harrison chronicles his coming-of-age, from a boy drunk with books to a young man making his way among fellow writers he deeply admires—including Peter Matthiessen, Robert Lowell, W.H. Auden, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Allen Ginsberg (The New York Times Book Review). Harrison discusses forthrightly the life-changing experience of becoming a father, and the minor cognitive dissonance that ensued when this boy from the heartland somehow ended up a highly paid Hollywood screenwriter. He gives free rein to his seven obsessions—alcohol, food, stripping, hunting and fishing (and the dogs who have accompanied him in both), religion, the road, and our place in the natural world—which he elucidates with earthy wisdom and an elegant sense of connectedness. Off to the Side is a work of great beauty and importance, a triumphant achievement that captures the writing life and brings all of us clues for living. A true masterpiece of memoir from an author whose “writing bears earthy whiffs of wild morels and morals and of booze and botany, as well as hints of William Faulkner, Louise Erdrich, Herman Melville, and Norman Maclean.” (San Francisco Chronicle)   “This fine memoir is a worthy capstone to a fascinating career.” —Publishers Weekly

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  Breaking the Silence

  Joanne Milne

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  Jo Milne was profoundly deaf from birth and is when she also began to lose her sight. Just before turning thirty, Jo was diagnosed with Usher Syndrome, a rare genetic and progressive condition that will one day rob her of her sight altogether. In 2014 she made a life-changing decision to undergo major surgery. She had cochlear implants fitted allowing her to hear for the first time. Every moment of Jo's days since the operation has become a journey of discovery.

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  From Deptford to Antarctica -...

  Pete Wilkinson

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  Pete Wilkinson grew up in Deptford, south London, in the 50s. Somehow he got to grammar school and was spat out of the education system in 1962 with a few GCE 'O' levels and no idea of what to do with his life. The 60s rock 'n' roll scene, motor scooters and free love offered a mild distraction but, as a general malcontent, he drifted from job to job, uncertain of where life would take him. He was feisty, easy to provoke and had a fierce sense of what decency and justice should look like, qualities which found their natural home when he finally found - unlike U2, a band which would ultimately provide the justification for his jaundiced view of environmentalists - what he was looking for. Pete helped establish Friends of the Earth, leaving after suffering three years of the classism which prevented his natural campaigning flair to flourish, and then joined Greenpeace UK. He was a co-founding member and became a central figure in the UK's embryonic green movement. His friendship with the charismatic father of the modern Greenpeace phenomenon, the late David Fraser McTaggart, and his naturally strategic mind helped Wilkinson to the highest positions in the organisation from where he ran what one journalist called 'some of the most important and successful environmental campaigns of the 80s'. And they were campaigns that he and his colleagues won: radioactive waste dumping at sea, whaling, Canadian sealing, the Orkey seal cull, captive cetaceans, the fur industry, Sellafield: no company or industry was too big for Greenpeace to take on. Even Antarctica. After finally falling foul of the growing Greenpeace hierarchy, Wilkinson was despatched by Greenpeace to Antarctica where, over six consecutive seasons, their campaign succeeded in protecting the entire continent from exploitation for 50 years. This is Wilkinson's story told in his own gritty style and containing his unabridged Antarctic diaries which build into a fascinating insight into the Greenpeace world as it was, but as it is no more. Includes many campaign photographs.

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  Pot Shards - Fragments of a Life...

  Donald P. Gregg

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  “Donald Gregg’s career . . . would make a great spy novel. This autobiography makes an even better book.” —Tim Weiner, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and bestselling author of Enemies 
   
  Pot Shards is a memoir, based on the author’s unforgettable experiences. He served as a CIA agent on the island of Saipan, during ten years in Japan, and a tour in Burma. He then spent four years tied up in the Vietnam War, two tours in Korea, the second time as ambassador, and spent ten years in the White House, where he worked for Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. 
   
  “Don Gregg is that authentic and admirable thing: a great American. He spent most of his life serving his country: in the CIA, at the White House and as a US ambassador. He has stories to tell, many of them gripping, and they are beautifully and movingly recollected here in this memoir of a splendid life.” —Christopher Buckley  
   
  “A personal witness to decades of largely hidden intelligence and diplomatic history, Donald Gregg recounts his unlikely and amazing career as a CIA officer, national security advisor, and US diplomat. His adventures and insider knowledge of US relations with East Asian nations over many decades make for a lively narrative, entertaining for the general reader and useful for serious scholars alike. Through it all, Ambassador Gregg expresses a natural warmth and concern for humanity that makes his story a truly personal journey.” —Nicholas Dujmovic, PhD, CIA Staff Historian, Center for the Study of Intelligence

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  9 Presidents Who Screwed Up...

  Brion McClanahan

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  Of the forty-four presidents who have led the United States, nine made mistakes that permanently scarred the nation. Which nine? Brion McClanahan, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers and The Founding Fathers' Guide to the Constitution, will surprise listeners with his list, which he supports with exhaustive and entertaining evidence. 9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America is a new look back at American history that unabashedly places blame for our nation's current problems on the backs of nine very flawed men.

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