Other books that might interest you

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  Jimmy Carter: We Can Have Peace...

  PBS NewsHour

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  Former President Jimmy Carter discusses his new book on the Middle East peace process, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan that Will Work, with Margaret Warner.

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  The Progressive Presidents

  Editors Charles River

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  When William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, young Theodore Roosevelt was thrust into the presidency, one that would earn him a place on Mount Rushmore, Roosevelt’s “Square Deal” domestic policies favored average citizens while busting trusts and monopolies. Roosevelt also promoted conservation as an environmental stance, while his “speak softly and carry a big stick” foreign policy is still an oft used phrase today. Roosevelt even earned a Nobel Prize during his presidency.   
  As one of the most influential men of the 20th century, there is no shortage of adjectives to use when describing Woodrow Wilson’s two terms as president of the United States. Wilson was a pioneer of the Progressive movement both before and during his presidency, becoming a populist champion a generation before Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. He ran for reelection by touting his neutrality during World War I, only to lead his nation into the war and become the architect of a world body that would lead to greater inter-connection among nations. Today Wilson is best remembered for his Fourteen Points, one of the most forceful arguments for an idealistic foreign policy in American history. 
  Franklin Delano Roosevelt might be America’s greatest 20th century president, but there’s no question that he was the most unique. A well-connected relative of Theodore Roosevelt, FDR was groomed for greatness until he was struck down by what was widely believed to be polio at the time. Nevertheless, he persevered, rising through New York politics to reach the White House just as the country faced its greatest challenge since the Civil War. For over a decade, Roosevelt threw everything he had at the Great Depression, and then threw everything the country had at the Axis powers during World War II. Ultimately, he succumbed to illness in the middle of his fourth term, just before the Allies won the war. 

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  When I Grow Up - A Memoir

  Juliana Hatfield

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  By the early nineties, singer-songwriter and former Blake Babies member Juliana Hatfield was in a position most aspiring alternative rockers only dream of: her solo career was taking off. She was on the cover of Spin and Sassy; Ben Stiller directed the video for her song "Spin the Bottle" from the Reality Bites film soundtrack; she was a featured guest on My So-Called Life. Then, after canceling a European tour to treat severe depression and failing to produce another "hit," she spent a decade releasing well-reviewed albums on indie labels and performing in ever-smaller clubs. Eventually, she found herself reading The New Yorker on a filthy couch in the tiny dressing room of a punk club and asked herself "Why am I still doing this?" No longer willing to play a kid's game by kid's rules, Hatfield resolved to take a year off and experiment with being a civilian. And that year reawakened her creative passion. She resolved to take charge of her career and write the great untapped songs that she knew were still in her. This newfound determination led directly to her eagerly awaited new album, aptly named How to Walk Away, the most energetic, polished, and creative work of her music career. More than a musician's memoir, When I Grow Up is a rich and revealing tour through an extraordinary mind. By turns wryly funny and woundingly sincere, it recounts her best and worst days, the origins of her songs, the source of her woes, and her quest to find purpose in life.

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  Hushabye - The Mystics the Music...

  Al Contrera

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  An original founding member of the Mystics, author Al Contrera tells the true story of how five Brooklyn teenagers went from singing on street corners to fame in the fifties with their first hit song, "Hushabye." Contrera, provides vivid and detailed accounts of the trials and adventures of forming a rock-'n'-roll group in a neighborhood controlled by the mob. He narrates the story of the group's formation, their recording and touring career, as well as their successes and heartbreaks, including the story of when the Mystics' lead singer was arrested for being an innocent witness to a holdup and accidental shooting by a neighborhood gang and was mistakenly jailed for two years. Hushabye tells about walking the fine line between the music and the mob and how peer pressure and the temptations of fame changed their lives. Contrera offers keen insight and background into the sweet sound of the street corner doo-wop harmonies of the 1950s.

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  Swimming to Freedom - My Escape...

  Kent Wong

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  An extraordinary memoir of Communist China, the Cultural Revolution, and a yearning to be free 
   
  When Kent Wong was a young boy, his father, a patriotic Chinese official in the customs office in Hong Kong, joined an insurrection at work, allowing the family to return to the newly established People’s Republic of China. Hailed as heroes, they settled in the southern city of Canton. But Chairman Mao’s China was dangerous and unstable, with landlords executed en masse and millions dying of starvation during the Great Leap Forward. 
   
  In Swimming to Freedom, Kent Wong captures his childhood amidst revolutionary times, where boyish adventures and school days mixed with dire poverty and political persecution. Mao’s Hundred Flower Campaign had ensnared Kent’s father. A decade later, the Cultural Revolution closed schools, plunged the country into chaos, and scattered Kent and his sisters to disparate villages, where they struggled to eke out a bare existence. As the son of a “capitalist rightist,” Kent began to realize that with higher education closed to him, he had no future in China. So when he hooked up with a dissident underground and heard about fellow countrymen, known as “Freedom Swimmers,” braving great hardship to reach freedom by swimming across miles of open water to Hong Kong, he decided to join them, risking his life for a better future. A gripping, heart-rending journey, this memoir is a moving testament to the human spirit.

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  My Wife's Canary

  Miles Maskell

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  Miles Maskell has lived a varied and adventurous life, and has travelled widely as amply demonstrated in his anecdotes. He has been a City of London wine merchant, owned two restaurants and a champagne bar, and eventually created a company letting top-of-the-range properties in southern France on behalf of their owners. 
   
  He has climbed mountains, shot wild boar in Poland, piloted a 4-seater aircraft of which he was a part-owner, parachuted in New Zealand, and ridden the Cresta Run in St Moritz. He is also a sculptor. 
   
  Written as a lighthearted and easy-to-read series of anecdotes, this is his autobiography and recounts some of the more entertaining experiences of his life to date, as well as a number of amusing incidents encountered by his relations and closest friends.

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