Publisher: Musaicum Books
The Lay of the Land is a book for all, who love nature. The author, Dallas Lore Sharp, wrote this collection of essays about flora and fauna on his property in 1908. In addition to the descriptions the book offers diverse illustrations of the world of nature.
In his introduction to The Jackie Robinson Reader, sports historian Jules Tygiel succinctly observed, “Extraordinary lives often reveal ordinary truths. Jackie Robinson was born in 1919 and died in 1972. He crammed into these brief fifty-three years a legacy of accomplishment, acclaim, controversy, and influence matched by few Americans. He was, even before his historic baseball breakthrough, an athlete of legendary proportions. He won fame and adulation as the first African-American to play in the major leagues in the twentieth century, launching an athletic revolution that transformed American sports. He garnered baseball's highest honors: Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, and first-ballot election to the Hall of Fame. More significantly, Robinson became a symbol of racial integration and a prominent leader in the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s. Yet Jackie Robinson's half century among us illuminates not just the contours of an exceptional life, but much about the broader African-American experience of those years.” Given his legacy, many Americans today believe Jackie Robinson was the first black man to play in Major League Baseball, but that answer is wrong. As far back as the late 19th century, there had been professional baseball leagues that were every bit as segregated as any other aspect of society, but before that, there were, for a brief shining moment, there were teams of black and white men playing with and against each other. One of the first black men to play on such a team was Moses Fleetwood Walker, and he was the first who openly identified as black. As racism and segregation successfully pushed black players out of professional baseball, it was all but forgotten that professional baseball had once been integrated before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, ensuring that the contributions of Walker and other early black athletes would be obscured and then eclipsed.Show book
This is a true account by American woman journalist who, in 1889, set out to see whether she could beat the fictional journey in Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. Wearing one dress and carrying one handbag, Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (pen name “Nellie Bly”), reported her travels back to avid readers in America. (Summary by Mary Reagan)Show book
Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward writes the stories of the people and places she found absent in literature while growing up. Her new fiction novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, weaves the supernatural with genuine characters that are molded by the rural and poverty-stricken life in her Mississippi hometown. Ward joins Jeffrey Brown to talk about her community and the stories that have come from it.Show book
As a child, John Brennan wasn't an obvious candidate for success. School was a difficult, upsetting place and he was always at the bottom of the class. His battle with dyslexia meant that he felt stigmatised by a society that didn't understand him. Yet his determination to not be defined by his dyslexia created an ambition that has been matched by his business acumen. Now in his mid-fifties, John's optimism is still flowing. It is a measure of his character that, on being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the first thing he did was to buy a very run-down Dromquinna Manor on 46 acres of overgrown grounds. Ten years later, in the midst of a world pandemic that saw hotels closed all over the world, John again bought a new hotel. This is a fascinating account of a man with the vision to create his own life against the odds that will inspire people everywhere to find their own way too.Show book
This ebook is about the influence of the Western Culture on an Egyptian writer. I was very interested in politics and news. And the result was that I felt that all the western peoples hate us. Although generalization is a very common mistake, I was the victim of this mistake: I listened to the news and I generalized my feelings: all the western peoples hate us and want to destroy our countries. Since 2003, I began using the Internet. I dealt with many western persons. And gradually my feelings changed. I invite you to read this book and to discover my journey through the Western World.Show book
The 116th issue features essays, as well as some fiction and poetry, dedicated to the remembrance of former South African president Nelson Mandela. Published three times per year by Indiana University Press for the Hutchins Center at Harvard University, Transition is a unique forum for the freshest, most compelling ideas from and about the black world. Since its founding in Uganda in 1961, the magazine has kept apace of the rapid transformation of the African Diaspora and has remained a leading forum of intellectual debate. Transition is edited by Alejandro de la Fuente. December 2014 marked a year since the passing of Nelson Mandela—a man who was as much myth as flesh and blood. Transition pays tribute to Mandela’s worldly attainments and to his otherworldly sainthood. Featuring remembrances from Wole Soyinka, Xolela Mangcu, Pierre de Vos, and Adam Habib, this issue assembles Mandela’s staunchest allies—for whom he approached saintliness—as well as his most entrenched critics. Other contributors consider the iconicity of Mandela—including his representations in films; the importance of boxing to his political career; his time studying with the revolutionary army in Algeria; his stance on children’s rights; and even his ill-fated trip to Miami. Whoever you think Mandela was—or wasn’t—this issue is the new required reading.Show book
