Other books that might interest you

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  The Sporting Gun's Bedside...

  Douglas Butler

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  Thirty shooting stories in pursuit of pheasant, mallard, geese, hares, mink, even an old wild goat, these modern tales involve bi-lingual dogs, an ignominious goose, red-letter days and disappointments, days on boglands, grouse moors, smart shoots and estuaries.
  
  Punt gunning, rough shooting and wildfowling, dawns and dusks and assorted brushes with ecstasy and near-death. Douglas Butler has an ear for a good shooting story and, as an inveterate shooter himself, knows just what curious, unexpected, dramatic things can sometimes happen when out in the fields, woods and marshes with fellow guns and dogs.

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  Resolute Determination -...

  Donald Sutherland

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  In these lectures, Professor Donald M.G. Sutherland  explores the life and times of Napoleon, one of history’s  most brilliant strategic thinkers. But despite his  inarguable brilliance, Napoleon has also been  denounced as unscrupulously ambitious and as alone  responsible for the wars that bear his name. With his  scholarly eye, Professor Sutherland imparts a fuller  understanding of this polarizing figure and deftly shows  how Napoleon fit into the sweep of history—and how  he helped to define it.

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  Dog Man - An Uncommon Life on a...

  Martha Sherrill

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  As Dog Man opens, Martha Sherrill brings us to a world that Americans know very little about-the snow country of Japan during World War II. In a mountain village, we meet Morie Sawataishi, a fierce individualist who has chosen to break the law by keeping an Akita dog hidden in a shed on his property.During the war, the magnificent and intensely loyal Japanese hunting dogs are donated to help the war effort, eaten, or used to make fur vests for the military. By the time of the Japanese surrender in 1945, there are only sixteen Akitas left in the country. The survival of the breed becomes Morie's passion and life, almost a spiritual calling.Devoted to the dogs, Morie is forever changed. His life becomes radically unconventional-almost preposterous-in ultra-ambitious, conformist Japan. For the dogs, Morie passes up promotions, bigger houses, and prestigious engineering jobs in Tokyo. Instead, he raises a family with his young wife, Kitako-a sheltered urban sophisticate-in Japan's remote and forbidding snow country.Their village is isolated, but interesting characters are always dropping by-dog buddies, in-laws from Tokyo, and a barefoot hunter who lives in the wild. Due in part to Morie's perseverance and passion, the Akita breed strengthens and becomes wildly popular, sometimes selling for millions of yen. Yet Morie won't sell his spectacular dogs. He only likes to give them away.Morie and Kitako remain in the snow country today, living in the traditional Japanese cottage they designed together more than thirty years ago-with tatami mats, an overhanging roof, a deep bathtub, and no central heat. At ninety-four years old, Morie still raises and trains the Akita dogs that have come to symbolize his life.In beautiful prose that is a joy to read, Sherrill opens up the world of the Dog Man and his wife, providing a profound look at what it is to be an individualist in a culture that reveres conformity-and what it means to live life in one's own way-while expertly revealing Japan and Japanese culture as we've never seen it before.

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  Louisa May Alcott's Love For...

  Niina Niskanen

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  Louisa May Alcott´s Little Women is the author´s love song for German culture and literature. In the novel, there are many moments when the characters make references to German literature, and Jo's love interest professor Bhaer is also based on Alcott's favourite writer, the German poet Goethe. When Friedrich helps Jo when she struggles writing to Weekly Volcano, we can see her influences from Goethe, Friedrich recommends Jo read Shakespeare and study characters like Goethe would have done. It is also remarkable that Alcott gives Jo a German love interest because German immigrants were widely discriminated in 19th century America, but in Concord where Alcott's resided there was a full-blown German epidemic with people rushing to buy German books and anything that came from Germany. 
  In the very first chapter of Little Women Jo wishes for a copy of Undine and Sintram as a Christmas present. Undine and Sintram is a collection of Scandinavian and Germanic fables written by French-German author Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. This book appears again in the last Little Women book, Jo´s boys. Marches help the poor Hummel family who has immigrated from Germany. Beth and Marmee are especially close to them. Beth catches terrible scarlet fever, but the Marches never blame the Hummels. Epidemic diseases were rather common back then and Louisa always writes about the Hummels with great sympathy. In the chapter "Camp Lawrence" John Brooke translates a German song for Meg and reads her parts from "Mary Stuart", a play that was written by German poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller. At Meg´s and John´s wedding, Laurie suggests that they dance as the Germans do.

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  Deaths of Despair are Cutting...

  PBS NewsHour

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  In spite of decades of advancements in health care, diet and safety, white Americans are now living shorter lives, a trend that has surprised experts. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports out of Maysville, Kentucky, an area struggling with an increase in addiction, overdoses and suicide.

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  Muncie Murder & Mayhem

  Douglas Walker, Keith Roysdon

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  The authors of Wicked Muncie tell the city’s lurid history in the true stories of its most infamous criminals and the lawmen who brought them down.   Muncie epitomizes the small-town America of squeaky-clean 1950s sitcoms, but its wholesome veneer conceals a violent past. Public scandals and personal tragedy dogged the long, notorious life of Dr. Jules LaDuron. Baseball ace Obie McCracken met a tragic and violent end after joining the police force. A mother’s love could not stop James Hedges from committing murder. The paranoid delusions of Leonard Redden hounded him until one day he carried a shotgun into a quiet classroom. Detectives Melvin Miller and Ambrose Settles chased a murderer across county lines in pursuit of justice. And newsman George Dale’s showdown with the Klan prepared him for the political fight of his life. Douglas Walker and Keith Roysdon, authors of Wicked Muncie, introduce a new cast of characters from the city's notorious past.   Includes photos!

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