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  Mansa Musa and and Timbuktu: The...

  Charles River Editors

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  Recent research has revealed that the richest person of all time lived in the 14th century in West Africa and went by many names, including Kankan Musa Keita, Emir of Melle, Lord of the Mines of Wangara, Conqueror of Ghanata and the Lion of Mali II, but today he is usually referred to as Mansa Musa. Adjusting his wealth to modern values, he was worth about an estimated $400 billion as the Sultan of ancient Mali, which controlled the trade routes across the Sahara Desert.  
  	About 6,000 years ago, the ancient Sahara was a tropical jungle with lush grasslands and substantial rivers until it moved north of the Equator as a result of tectonic plate movements. The seismic activity changed the location of land and the composition of the atmosphere. The African Humid Period seems to have ended relatively quickly, taking a couple of thousand years before being replaced by a much drier climate, and this started a process of desertification that forced many animals and human inhabitants to the outer edges of the immense desert. There would have been passages through the area that vanished as the harsh climate inexorably clawed at the mountains and hills, turning them into the sand that obliterated all traces of their ever having been there. By about 600 BCE, the terrain and habitat had become much less hospitable, so much so that it was no longer possible to use horses and oxen to carry commodities. As a result, trading became difficult and sporadic and slowly disappeared. 
  	This all changed when camels were introduced to the Sahara, initially via Roman invaders and then with the Berber traders from Arabia moving across North Africa in search of gold and salt. As they reached the southern Sahel, they encountered the old established trading system and routes of the Garamantes, the people who handled the trade in and out of the Sahara from West Africa. The combination of the use of camels with the already re-established West African trade routes brought about rapid economic progress that resulted in the area supplying more than half the world’s gold for more than 1,000 years, beginning around 400 CE. 
  	Of course, this timing coincided with the rise of global trade routes such as the Silk Road and the beginning of Europe’s Age of Discovery. By the 12th century, it was believed that far to the east, beyond the lands controlled by the Muslim armies, lived a powerful Christian king named Prester John in the land of India. While he was a king, he was also a priest (“Prester” means Priest and was supposedly the only title he took). His kingdom was believed to be grand and contained many wonders. Marco Polo looked for Prester John, and the Crusaders wanted to reach out to Prester John. Portugal’s Henry the Navigator sent his ships out with explicit instructions of what they should do if they met Prester John, and on his historic voyages, Columbus carried two books, The Travels of Marco Polo and The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, both of which have long passages on Prester John. 
  	The belief in the existence of fabled African kingdoms and kings ensured that real African kings were also shrouded in lore, and few would become as legendary as Mansa Musa. Mansa Mansa Musa and Timbuktu: The History of the West African Emperor and Medieval Africa’s Most Fabled City looks at one of the most famous rulers of the Middle Ages and the development of the city. Along with pictures and a bibliography, you will learn about Mansa Musa and Timbuktu like never before.

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  The Faith of Elvis - A Story...

  Billy Stanley, Kent Sanders

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  Includes an audiobook-exclusive conversation between author Billy Stanley, his brother David Stanley, and writer Kent Sanders! 
  Behind the glamour and the crowds. Beyond the movies and the records.  
  Apart from all who knew him, wanted to know him, or just wanted to be near him. 
  Billy Stanley knew Elvis Presley as a brother—and as a man of deep faith. 
  From the day Billy Stanley arrived at Graceland and received a bear hug from the King of Rock and Roll to the last conversation they ever had, one thing stayed the same: Elvis’s passion for sharing God’s love with as many people he could. 
  In The Faith of Elvis,Billy illuminates Elvis’s Christian journey—from the notes Elvis made in his beloved Bible to his struggles with sin as his fame increased to his remarkable generosity toward fans and movie stars alike. 
  Through this first-hand account, you will findtouching family stories of the Elvis that pop culture doesn’t know;a keen look into how Elvis intricately wove his faith into every part of his life;insights into the ups-and-downs the four brothers experienced while at home and on the road together; andexamples of Elvis’s profound influence on others—from those closest to him to his cherished fans and, ultimately, the world at large. 
    
  Here you will find your own faith strengthened and your heart turned more toward heaven—or as Elvis would say, toward the only true King. 
  A discussion guide and photo insert are included in the audiobook companion PDF download.

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  Unhappy Achiever - Rejecting the...

  Ashley Jordan

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  Unhappy Achiever is a ​story of healing, of revolutionary awakening—of what happens when we summon our courage to step out from behind the mask of the “good girl” to wholeheartedly embrace our true selves and the joy of being perfectly imperfect.  
  
  It’s no secret that women have been sold a bill of goods: we’re taught we can—and should—have it all and that happiness is ours for the taking…if. If we go to college and become a degreed professional. If we marry someone respectable and buy a house in a picturesque neighborhood. If we become the proud parents of two children. If we land our dream job, get promoted, or make partner. Women spend decades, even lifetimes, believing: If I can just do—or have—or become—that one thing, I’ll be satisfied, content, complete.  
  
  Many of us nearly “do” ourselves to death, sacrificing health and relationships to arrive at some elusive, “ultimate” point of existence. Still, no matter how much we do, genuine satisfaction evades us. And the parts of us we sought to fill with the trappings of wealth, power, goodness, and praise somehow feel emptier than before. All the while, missing the most fundamental key to our happiness—the joy of inner fulfillment.  
  
  For most of her life, journalist, public speaker, and former lawyer Ashley Jordan ingested the commodified myth, bought and sold on the open market of capitalist culture, that what was missing inside her could be fixed by something outside her. Then, shortly after her 37th birthday, life cracked her open. An unexpected trigger sent her spiraling into the darkness of traumatic grief she buried when she was 13 years old. These memories inspired a new perspective: love isn’t earned by what we do, have, or become. That everything Ashley needed to be, she already was at 37, at 13, and since the moment her soul made its home in her body.  
  
  Deeply personal and openly forthright in the style of Erica L. Sanchez’s Crying in the Bathroom and told with the tender and soulful storytelling of Shauna Niequist's Present Over Perfect, this is an intimate memoir of one unhappy achiever’s journey to discover the self underneath the accomplishments. Conjuring the courage to upend every aspect of her existence—from her friendships to her career to her marriage—to make her life more reflective of her heart’s deepest desires, Ashley shares stories of healing from loss, her struggle with eating disorders, perfectionism, stories of love and friendship, and the complex relationship between mother and daughter—and what we go on to teach our own daughters about self-worth.  
  
  Unhappy Achiever is the story of how we use masks of achievement to buffer against the world and protect us from pain, how these masks keep us disconnected from ourselves and distanced from those around us—and ultimately, the magic, wisdom, and wholeness we encounter when we exist unencumbered and unobscured by external pursuits.

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  Anusual

  Anu Aggarwal

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  Anu Aggarwal, a Delhi girl, shot to fame with her very first Bollywood movie, Aashiqui, but then turned her back on films and went and joined a yogashram. She
  had a near-fatal car accident that put her in coma for twenty-nine days but from which she miraculously recovered. She took sanyas, but then returned to
  Mumbai to teach yoga.
  
  Storytel brings to you the story of this 'Anusual' woman in her own voice.

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  Enlargement - From their pens to...

  John Davys Beresford

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  John Davys Beresford was born on 17th March 1873.  His life was blighted by infantile paralysis which left him partially disabled. 
  After an education at Oundle school he trained to be an architect.  However, he quickly decided that his life was to be centred on a literary career.  His first offerings were in drama and as a journalist. 
  As well as being a book reviewer for the Manchester Guardian he contributed to New Statesman, The Spectator, Westminster Gazette, and the Theosophist magazine The Aryan Path.   
  His spiritual journey in early adulthood had claimed him as an agnostic, in defiance of his clergyman father.  This view he later abandoned in preference to describing himself as a Theosophist and a pacifist. 
  As well as many novels, many themed with spiritual and philosophical elements.  Beresford was also a gifted short story writer particularly across the science-fiction, horror and ghost genres. 
  All of these elements helped him to obtain a prominent place in Edwardian Literary London. 
  John Davys Beresford died on the 2nd February 1947. He was 73.

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  “They Know I Know Everything” -...

  Robert Bourgi

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  A key figure in French Africa, Robert Bourgi, for the first time ever in a book, discusses his life, his relationship with his mentor Jacques Foccart and all the "missions" he undertook over almost forty years, on behalf of African and French presidents, including the leading lights of the Right (Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, Charles Pasqua, Jacques Toubon, Dominique de Villepin, Claude Guéant, François Fillon etc.). He reveals the financing networks of French political parties, based on his personal notes that he kept for 40 years. He also describes the sensitive cases in which he was involved—the liberation of French journalists from Lebanon in the 1980s; rehabilitation of Mobutu Sese Seko; the liberation of the French hostage, Clothilde Reiss, in Iran; the rescue of Laurent Gbagbo; the resignation of Jean-Marie Bockel; the appointment of French ambassadors to Africa; his lobbying of the Élysée Palace on behalf of African heads of state. From Félix Houphouët-Boigny and Laurent Gbagbo (Ivory Coast) to Mobutu Sese Seko (DR Congo), via Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso), Mathieu Kérékou (Benin), Abdoulaye Wade and Macky Sall (Senegal), Mohamed ould Abdel Aziz (Mauritania) and Gnassingbé Eyadéma (Togo), Pascal Lissouba, Denis Sassou Nguesso (Congo), and above all Omar and Ali Bongo (Gabon), this book throws light on the psychology of numerous presidents, south of the Sahara, and their regimes, giving the reader a fresh look at France's African policy over several decades.

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