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  Short Nonfiction Collection Vol 008

  Various Various

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  A collection of fifteen short nonfiction works in the public domain. The essays, speeches, news items and reports included in this collection were independently selected by the readers, and the topics encompass history, politics, philosophy, nature and religion.

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  The Bitter Sea - Coming of Age...

  Charles N. Li

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  This haunting, illuminating memoir tells the remarkable true story of a young Chinese man’s coming-of-age during the tumultuous early years of the People’s Republic of ChinaIn this exceptional personal memoir, Charles N. Li brings into focus the growth pains of a nation undergoing torturous rebirth and offers an intimate understanding of the intricate, subtle, and yet all-powerful traditions that bind the Chinese family.Born near the beginning of World War II, Li Na was the youngest son of a wealthy Chinese government official. He saw his father jailed for treason and his family's fortunes dashed when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists came to power in 1945. He watched from his aunt's Shanghai apartment as the Communist army seized the city in 1948. He experienced the heady materialism of the decadent foreign "white ghosts" in British Hong Kong and starved within the harsh confines of a Communist reform school. Over the course of twenty-one tumultuous years, he went from Li Na, the dutiful Chinese son yearning for a stern, manipulative father's love, to Charles, an independent Chinese American seeking no one's approval but his own.Lyrical and luminous, intense and extraordinary, The Bitter Sea is an unforgettable tale of one young man and his country.

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  The Cairngorms - A Secret History

  Patrick Baker

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  A travelogue exploring the colorful history of the Scottish mountain range, by the author of The Unremembered Places.Cairngorms: A Secret History is a series of journeys exploring barely known human and natural stories of the Cairngorm Mountains. It looks at a unique British landscape, its last great wilderness, with new eyes. History combines with travelogue in a vivid account of this elemental scenery. There have been rare human incursions into the Cairngorm plateau, and Patrick Baker tracks them down. He traces elusive wildlife and relives ghostly sightings on the summit of Ben Macdui. From the search for a long-forgotten climbing shelter and the locating of ancient gem mines, to the discovery of skeletal aircraft remains and the hunt for a mysterious nineteenth-century aristocratic settlement, he seeks out the unlikeliest and most interesting of features in places far off the beaten track. The cultural and human impact of this stunning landscape and reflections on the history of mountaineering are the threads which bind this compelling narrative together.Praise for The Cairngorms“Perfect . . . full of ghosts of walkers past.” —Conde Nast Traveler“Describing a series of walks, Baker illuminates the bleak landscape, revealing the many stories linked to its ruined bothies, ancient gem mines and even haunted summits.” —FT Weekend“Exploring the Cairngorms has been a lifetime fascination for Patrick Baker and in this book he generously shares the results.” —Scotland Magazine“Packed with great stories and vivid descriptions.” —Scotland Outdoor

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  Behind the Gates of Gomorrah - A...

  Stephen Seager

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  A darker twist on Orange is the New Black, this true insider's account delivers an eye-opening look into the nation’s largest state-run forensic hospital, a facility that houses the real-life Hannibal Lecters of the world.Psychiatrist Stephen Seager was no stranger to locked psych wards when he accepted a job at California’s Gorman State hospital, known locally as “Gomorrah,” but nothing could have prepared him for what he encountered when he stepped through its gates, a triple sally port behind the twenty-foot walls topped with shining coils of razor wire. Gorman State is one of the nation’s largest forensic mental hospitals, dedicated to treating the criminally insane. Unit C, where Seager was assigned, was reserved for the “bad actors,” the mass murderers, serial killers, and the real-life Hannibal Lecters of the world.Against a backdrop of surreal beauty—a verdant campus-like setting where peacocks strolled the grounds—is a place of remarkable violence, a place where a small staff of clinicians are expected to manage a volatile population of prison-hardened ex-cons, where lone therapists lead sharing circles with sociopaths, where an illicit underground economy flourishes, and where patients and physicians often measure their lives according to how fast they can run. To cross through the gates of Gomorrah is to enter a looking-glass world, where the trappings of the normal calendar year exist—Halloween dances and Christmas parties (complete with visits from Santa), springtime softball teams and basketball leagues, but marked with paroxysms of brutality (Santa goes berserk), and peopled by figures from our nightmares.Behind the Gates of Gomorrah affords an eye-opening look inside a facility to which few people have ever had access. Honest, rueful, and at times darkly funny, Seager’s gripping account of his rookie year blends memoir with a narrative science, explaining both the aberrant mind and his own, at times incomprehensible, determination to remain in a job with a perilously steep learning curve.

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  Bill Russell: Book Of Quotes...

  Quotes Station

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  BILL RUSSELL: BOOK OF QUOTES 
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  ABOUT BILL RUSSELL 
  William Felton Russell (born February 12, 1934) is an American former professional basketball player who played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969. A five—time NBA Most Valuable Player and a 12—time All—Star, he was the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty that won eleven NBA championships during his 13—year career. Russell and Henri Richard of the National Hockey League are tied for the record of the most championships won by an athlete in a North American sports league. Russell led the San Francisco Dons to two consecutive NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956, and he captained the gold—medal winning U.S. national basketball team at the 1956 Summer Olympics. 
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  QUOTES SAMPLES 
  “To me, I was a better offensive player than a defensive player.” 
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  “Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.” 
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  “What's more important than who's going to be the first black manager is who's going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.” 
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  “Most people have a harder time letting themselves love than finding someone to love them.” 
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  “The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.” 
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  “Only the really good coaches see how important it is that all your players know how to pass from their position.” 
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  “To love someone is nothing, to be loved by someone is something, to love someone who loves you is everything.”

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  Vows - The Story of a Priest a...

  Peter Manseau

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  The 1950s was a boom time for the Catholic Church in America, with large families of devout members providing at least one son or daughter for a life of religious service. Boston was at the epicenter of this explosion, and Bill Manseau and Mary Doherty -- two eager young parishioners from different towns -- became part of a new breed of clergy, eschewing the comforts of homey parishes and choosing instead to minister to the inner-city poor. Peter Manseau's riveting evocation of his parents' parallel childhoods, their similar callings, their experiences in the seminary and convent, and how they met while tending to the homeless of Roxbury during the riot-prone 1960s is a page-turning meditation on the effect that love can have on profound faith.  Once married, the Manseaus continued to fight for Father Bill's right to serve the church as a priest, and it was into this situation that Peter and his siblings were born and raised to be good Catholics while they witnessed their father's personal conflict with the church's hierarchy. A multigenerational tale of spirituality, Vows also charts Peter's own calling, one which he tried to deny even as he felt compelled to consider the monastic life, toying with the idea of continuing a family tradition that stretches back over 300 years of Irish and French Catholic priests and nuns.  It is also in Peter's deft hands that we learn about a culture and a religion that has shaped so much of American life, affected generations of true believers, and withstood great turmoil. Vows is a compelling tale of one family's unshakable faith that to be called is to serve, however high the cost may be.

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