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  Amazing Grace - A Cultural...

  James Walvin

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  A fascinating journey through the history of one of the transatlantic world’s most popular hymns 
   
  Sung in moments of personal isolation or on state occasions watched by millions, “Amazing Grace” has become an unparalleled anthem for humankind. How did a simple Christian hymn, written in a remote English vicarage in 1772, come to hold such sway in all corners of the modern world? With this short, engaging cultural history, James Walvin offers an explanation. 
   
  The greatest paradox is that the author of “Amazing Grace,” John Newton, was a former Liverpool slave captain. Walvin follows the song across the Atlantic to track how it became part of the cause for abolition and galvanized decades of movements and trends in American history and popular culture. By the end of the twentieth century, “Amazing Grace” was performed in Soweto and Vanuatu, by political dissidents in China, and by Kikuyu women in Kenya. No other song has acquired such global resonance as “Amazing Grace.” Behold a compelling story of music and social change.

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  Kings and Queens - The History...

  Kelly Mass

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  This is a book that consists of 3 titles, which are these: 
  1 - As King Henry VIII's 2nd marriage partner, Anne Boleyn ruled as Queen of England from 1533 till 1536. Her marriage and execution by beheading for treason and other criminal offenses made her an essential player in the political and religious chaos that identified the start of the English Reformation. Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, first Earl of Wiltshire, and his marriage partner, Girl Elizabeth Howard. She got her education in Holland and France, mainly as a housemaid of honor to Queen Claude of France. Anne went to England in early 1522, meaning to wed her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; nevertheless, the marriage failed, and she found work as a housemaid of honor to Henry VIII's partner, Catherine of Aragon. 
  2 - Mary I, typically called Mary Tudor and called "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant challengers, ruled as Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 till November 17th, 1558. She is well recalled for her solid attempts to reverse the English Reformation, which started throughout her dad's reign, Henry VIII's reign. 
  Bloody Mary was cruel, cold, and from what we know, there was a cause for this. Let’s take a look at her life, her problems, and the way she handled them. 
  3 - From 768 to 800, Charlemagne, also referred to as Charles the Great, was King of the Franks, King of the Lombards, and Emperor of the Romans. Charlemagne combined many western and main Europe at the time of the Early Middle Ages. Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire 3 centuries before, he was the first acknowledged emperor to rule from western Europe. The Carolingian Empire is the name given to Charlemagne's broadening Frankish world. Antipope Paschal the Third later canonized him.

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  Green Oranges - A Journey into...

  Shin Fujiyama

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  Shin Fujiyama grew up as an ordinary Japanese-American kid in the suburbs of Virginia. As a small-statured immigrant, he questioned his self-worth—until he found soccer. Cut after mere months on his college team, his sense of direction dissolved as quickly as it formed. 
  When Shin saw a flyer for an international volunteer trip to Honduras, he took a chance. One week and his perspective was transformed. He returned to Honduras, determined to accomplish something no one believed he could do: end the cycle of generational poverty and gang violence in a riverbed shantytown. 
  In Green Oranges, Shin tells the story of how he, a naive outsider in a world of murder, extortion, and crushing poverty, created a village for the orphaned and homeless. Starting with nothing in a country with the highest homicide rate in the world at the time, Shin confronted his deepest insecurities and repeated failures, building schools for children with no prior access to education and revitalizing a community. As powerful as The New York Times’ bestsellers Thirst and The Promise of a Pencil, Green Oranges is a raw memoir of how one man, against overwhelming odds, inspired thousands to accomplish the extraordinary for the poorest of the poor.

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  The Last Jewish Gangster: The...

  David Larson

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  “A captivating and different kind of story” about the life of Bugsy Siegel’s godson, from the author “who captured his voice” (Nick Pileggi, author/screenwriter of Goodfellas and Casino). 
   
  In 1944 Brooklyn, newborn Michael J. Hardy is rejected by his mother so she can run with gangster Bugsy Siegel, Hardy’s godfather. Shirley Rook rose to the top of the criminal ranks. As the Queen of New York City crime, she laundered Mob money, ran the city’s largest bookmaking operation, and handed payouts to dirty cops, politicians, and judges. 
   
  To win his mother’s love and respect, Hardy became a fearless gangster. Throughout his career as a mercenary, he robbed banks and drug dealers alike, ran a kidnapping ring, and even became a hired gun. At his lowest, he ended up doing time for his mother’s counterfeiting operation in Mexico’s most dangerous prison. 
   
  Hardy’s criminal code of conduct combines elements of tough Ukrainian Jew and warm Southern Baptist, whether dealing with family and friends or fellow inmates during a combined twenty-six years spent in prisons and jails. He maintained this characteristic gregarious strength throughout his astonishing life in which Hardy was shot eleven times, committed fourteen hits for the Mob, twice wore wires for Rudy Giuliani to nab dirty cops, wrote a letter to JFK to get out of military prison, choked the Hillside Strangler, shared prison time with notorious criminals, and even spent ten years in Hollywood, cast in non-speaking roles in B-movies. 
   
  “A fascinating character study of an unapologetic criminal. David S. Larson masterfully weaves this tale in Michael Hardy’s own words, resulting in a powerful, inside story of a gangster’s life.” —Cathy Scott, Los Angeles Times-bestselling author

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  As the Crow Flies - From their...

  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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  A Ghost Story - From their pens...

  Mark Twain

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  Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri on the 30th November 1835 and is far better known by his pen name of Mark Twain.  An American writer and humorist of the first order he is perhaps best known for his novels ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and its sequel ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ which are often described with that mythic line The Great American Novel. 
  Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri which would later provide the backdrop to these great novels.  Apprenticed to a printer he also became a typesetter and then a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi.  Later, heading west with his brother Orion to make his fortune, he failed at gold mining and instead turned to journalism and thence his true calling as a writer of humorous stories where his wit and humor sparkled from every paragraph, his craft evident with every page and punctured target. 
  A staunch supporter of copyright protections this helped him keep much of the wealth his writing created, though much money was also lost on investments that he pursued in his love for science and technology as well as investing in his own inventions. 
  Twain was born during a visit by Halley’s comet, and he predicted that he would go out with it as well.  He died the day after its subsequent return on 21st April 1910, at his house, Stormfield, located in Redding, Connecticut.

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