Other books that might interest you

• 

  Boys and Oil - Growing Up Gay in...

  Taylor Brorby

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  From a young, gay environmentalist, a searing coming-of-age memoir set against the arid landscape of rural North Dakota, where homosexuality "seems akin to a ticking bomb." 
   
   
   
  "I am a child of the American West, a landscape so rich and wide that my culture trembles with terror before its power." So begins Taylor Brorby's Boys and Oil, a haunting, bracingly honest memoir about growing up gay amidst the harshness of rural North Dakota, "a place where there is no safety in a ravaged landscape of mining and fracking." 
   
   
   
  In visceral prose, Brorby recounts his upbringing in the coalfields; his adolescent infatuation with books; and how he felt intrinsically different from other boys. Now an environmentalist, Brorby uses the destruction of large swathes of the West as a metaphor for the terror he experienced as a youth. From an assault outside a bar in an oil boom town to a furtive romance, and from his awakening as an activist to his arrest at the Dakota Access Pipeline, Boys and Oil provides a startling portrait of an America that persists despite well-intentioned legal protections.

  Show book

• 

  John Tyler - A Life from...

  Hourly History

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  John Tyler is perhaps one of America’s lesser-known presidents, and the fact that he even became president was due to the tragic death of his predecessor, William Henry Harrison. Throughout history, Tyler was indeed mostly known merely for the fact that he was the first vice president to be promoted to the presidency, but there is more to John Tyler’s story than that. He presided over a tumultuous time in American history and continued to play a decisive role in American politics even after leaving the White House. Here, in this book, we explore his life and his legacy in full.

  Show book

• 

  The First Anzacs

  George Hulse, Jimmy Thomson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  This is the unknown story of the combat engineers who kept World War I running. Although it has been repeatedly denied by the army, they were the first Australians to land at Anzac Cove: in any combat, even today, sappers are always the first in and last out. 
   
   
  They were airbrushed out of history. Official historian Charles Bean claimed the first Australian ashore at the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915 was an infantry officer. But Bean wasn't there, and a bunch of Australian and New Zealand army engineers were. Even today, the army is reluctant to accept that sappers were among the very first Australian soldiers ashore. 
   
  This is the untold story of the Australian and New Zealand sappers - combat engineers - who fought in World War I. They were always in the vanguard, clearing defences, and building bridges, roads and walkways for the troops who followed, usually under fire. At Gallipoli, strafed by machine guns and targeted by snipers, they dug trenches and tunnels to advance on the Turkish defences. On the Western Front, they burrowed under the German lines to plant massive explosives, whose eruption could be heard in England. In Egypt they demolished a Turkish railway in a day. 
   
  From Gallipoli to the sands of the Middle East, to the blood-soaked battlefields of France and Belgium, engineers put down their tools to also fight as combat soldiers at every major battle and campaign, often with heroic feats of astonishing courage. Three sappers stole a giant field gun from under German noses at Amiens. Sappers were classic Aussie larrikins, indefatigably practical men who don't take kindly to bureaucracy. Typically under-appreciated, two were cheated of their well-earned VCs by a British general after they, working alone, tricked a German platoon into surrendering. 
   
   
  'Sappers are the unsung heroes of the First World War and this book helps bring them back into the limelight where they belong.' WILL DAVIES, Beneath Hill 60 
   
   
  'It has taken 111 years for true stories to appear in a book adequately honouring Australian sappers in WW1 - you will remember these heroes forever'. COLONEL SANDY MACGREGOR MC (rtd) 
   
   
  'An excellent insight into the role of the Field Engineers as part of the combined arms team in World War One' BRIGADIER MICK SAY DSC, Head of Corps, Royal Australian Engineers

  Show book

• 

  In the Arena

  Beau Robinson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Success isn’t a linear path. There are unplanned twists and turns, soaring highs and devastating lows. But through it all, there are certain traits that set the successful apart from the rest of the pack … 
  In his first book, former professional rugby player turned business leadership coach, Beau Robinson, delivers a fresh perspective on what it takes to find success—in business and in life. 
  In the Arena is the culmination of an often turbulent yet successful sporting career, a lifetime’s worth of lessons, and intensive study in business and mindset. 
  Whether you’re at the start of your journey or on the top of the mountain, every listener can benefit from Beau’s honesty, perspective, and good humor.

  Show book

• 

  Disequilibria - Meditations on...

  Robert Lunday

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Disequilibria: Meditations on Missingness is a hybrid memoir that recounts the 1982 disappearance of the author's stepfather, James Edward Lewis, a pilot and Vietnam veteran. Recounting his family's experiences in searching for answers, Lunday interrogates the broader cultural and conceptual responses to the phenomenon of missingness by connecting his stepfather's case to other true-life disappearances as well as those portrayed in fiction, poetry, and film. In doing so Disequilibria explores the transience in modern life, considering the military-dependent experience, the corrosive effects of war, and the struggle to find closure and comfort as time goes by without answers.

  Show book

• 

  J M Barrie and the Lost Boys -...

  Andrew Birkin

  • 0
  • 1
  • 0

  This literary biography is “a story of obsession and the search for pure childhood . . . Moving, charming, a revelation” (Los Angeles Times).   J. M. Barrie, Victorian novelist, playwright, and author of Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, led a life almost as interesting as his famous creation. Childless in his marriage, Barrie grew close to the five young boys of the Davies family, ultimately becoming their guardian and surrogate father when they were orphaned.   Andrew Birkin draws extensively on a vast range of material by and about Barrie, including notebooks, memoirs, and hours of recorded interviews with the family and their circle, to describe Barrie’s life, the tragedies that shaped him, and the wonderful world of imagination he created for the boys. Updated with a new preface and including photos and illustrations, this “absolutely gripping” read reveals the dramatic story behind one of the classics of children’s literature (Evening Standard).   “A psychological thriller . . . One of the year’s most complex and absorbing biographies.” —Time   “[A] fascinating story.” —The Washington Post

  Show book