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  Slow Road to San Francisco -...

  David Reynolds

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  Travel with David Reynolds as he sets off to explore route US Route 50, one of the few remaining two-lane highways running right across the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  Driving as slowly as safety permits, stopping frequently and often going backwards to have a second look at something glimpsed in passing, Reynolds talks to people on the streets, in bars and cafes, motels and gas stations. They talk about everything from cannabis in Colorado to slavery, from Aaron Burr to Marilyn Monroe via Truman Capote, and everyone has something to say about Donald Trump. Beautifully observed, with candour, insight and humour, this is a vivid and timely portrait of small-town USA as we head towards the US elections.

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  An Arabian Journey - One Man's...

  Levison Wood

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  The acclaimed author of Walking the Americas shares his epic journey through the war-torn Arabian Peninsula in this fascinating travelogue. 
   
  Following in the footsteps of famed explorers such as Lawrence of Arabia and Wilfred Thesiger, British explorer Levison Wood brings us along on his most complex expedition yet: a circumnavigation of the Arabian Peninsula. Starting in September 2017 in a city in Northern Syria, a stone’s throw away from Turkey and amidst a deadly war, Wood set forth on a 5,000-mile trek through the most contested region on the planet. 
   
  Wood moved through the Middle East for six months, from ISIS-occupied Iraq through Kuwait and along the jagged coastlines of the Emirates and Oman; across Yemen—in the midst of civil war—and on to Saudia Arabia, Jordan, and Israel, before ending on the shores of the Mediterranean in Lebanon. Like his predecessors, Wood travelled through some of the harshest and most beautiful environments on earth, seeking to challenge our perceptions of this part of the world. Through the people he meets—and the personal histories and local mythologies they share—Wood examines how the region has changed over thousands of years and what it means to its people today.

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  Life In Dakota With General...

  Elizabeth Bacon Custer

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  Since the Battle of Little Bighorn, George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) possessed one of the most unique places in American history. Although he was a capable cavalry officer who served honorably during the Civil War, he remains one of the most instantly identifiable and famous military men in American history due to the fact he was killed during one of the country’s most well known and ignominious defeats, the Battle of Little Bighorn. And yet, this one relatively insignificant battle during America’s Indian Wars has become one of the country’s most mythologized events and continues to fascinate Americans nearly 140 years later. Though he’s now best remembered for “Custer’s Last Stand”, Custer mastered the art of public relations, dressing impeccably and having newspaper correspondents accompany him on the campaign, all in an effort to help cultivate and enhance his legacy. For nearly 58 years, Elizabeth Bacon Custer was probably the most famous widow in the world. In this lively, fascinating, loving portrait of life on the plains with her already-famous husband, Libbie tells a civilized audience of the excitement, fun, and perils endured at a remote frontier post. Intelligent and beautiful, Libbie was a partner, confidant, and booster to the general, as well as an important figure in the social life of the posts he commanded. This book has been used as source material on the general's life as well as the frontier army for well over a century. Celebrated among the prominent people of her day, Libbie never remarried after Custer's death at the Little Bighorn in 1876. She spent the rest of her life writing and lecturing about him, burnishing his reputation and keeping his memory alive. Long a jewel of western Americana, this book continues to find and entertain new audiences in the 21st century.

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  Eli and the Octopus - The CEO...

  Matt Garcia

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  At 8 a.m. on February 3, 1975, Eli Black leapt to his death from the 44th floor of Manhattan's Pan Am building. The immigrant-turned-CEO of United Brands—formerly United Fruit, now Chiquita—Black seemed an embodiment of the American dream. United Brands was transformed under his leadership—from the "octopus," a nickname that captured the corrupt power the company had held over Latin American governments, to "the most socially conscious company in the hemisphere." How did it all go wrong?Eli and the Octopus traces the rise and fall of a business leader and his influence on the nascent project of corporate social responsibility. Born Menashe Elihu Blachowitz in Poland, Black arrived in New York at the age of three and became a rabbi before entering the business world. Driven by the moral tenets of his faith, he charted a new course in industries known for poor treatment of workers, partnering with labor leaders to improve conditions. But risky investments, economic recession, and a costly wave of natural disasters led Black away from the path of reform and toward corrupt backroom dealing.Matt Garcia presents an unvarnished portrait of Black's complicated legacy. Exploring the limits of corporate social responsibility on American life, Eli and the Octopus offers pointed lessons for those who hope to do good while doing business.

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  The Wild Marsh - Four Seasons at...

  Rick Bass

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  An account of one year in the Yaak Valley wilderness range, by the acclaimed naturalist and memoirist.   Beginning with his family settling in for the long northwestern Montana winter, and capturing all the subtle harbingers of change that mark each passing month—the initial cruel teasing of spring, the splendor and fecundity of summer, and the bittersweet memories evoked by fall—this is a beautiful evocation of the “fauna, flora and folks” in this rugged and spectacular landscape (Publishers Weekly, starred review).   It is full of rich observation about what it takes to live in the valley—toughness, improvisation and, of course, duct tape. The Wild Marsh is also poignant, especially as the author reflects on what it means for his young daughters to grow up surrounded by the strangeness and wonder of nature. He shares with them the Yaak’s little secrets—where the huckleberries are best in a dry year, where to find a grizzly’s claw marks in an old cedar—and discovers that passing on this intimate local knowledge, the knowledge of home, is a kind of rare and valuable love.   Bass emerges not just as a writer but as a father, a neighbor, and a gifted observer, uniquely able to bring us close to the drama and sanctity of small things, ensuring that though the wilderness is increasingly at risk, the voice of the wilderness will not disappear.   “A work of wonder, praise, and thanksgiving for all the marvels of nature, where every aspect is connected and every process has its place. Bass, grounding his book in science well, takes the facts and transforms them, as a musician transforms musical notes, into a work of great beauty. This walk through a year is a walk through the author’s soul, filled with passions, dreams, fears, and the exuberance of Walt Whitman.” —School Library Journal, starred review   “Whether the topic is a forest fire in his front yard or the excitement of the first tiny cheerful glacier lilies in spring, Rick Bass is a stirring companion on the trail that leads west from the Walden Pond of Henry David Thoreau and the Sand County of Aldo Leopold.” —Ivan Doig, author of The Whistling Season

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  America's Pastor - Billy Graham...

  Grant Wacker

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  During a career spanning sixty years, the Reverend Billy Graham's resonant voice and chiseled profile entered the living rooms of millions of Americans with a message that called for personal transformation through God's grace. How did a lanky farm kid from North Carolina become an evangelist hailed by the media as "America's pastor"? Why did listeners young and old pour out their grief and loneliness in letters to a man they knew only through televised "Crusades" in faraway places like Madison Square Garden? More than a conventional biography, Grant Wacker's interpretive study deepens our understanding of why Billy Graham has mattered so much to so many.Beginning with tent revivals in the 1940s, Graham transformed his born-again theology into a moral vocabulary capturing the fears and aspirations of average Americans. He possessed an uncanny ability to appropriate trends in the wider culture and engaged boldly with the most significant developments of his time, from communism and nuclear threat to poverty and civil rights. The enduring meaning of his career, in Wacker's analysis, lies at the intersection of Graham's own creative agency and the forces shaping modern America.Wacker paints a richly textured portrait: a self-deprecating servant of God and self-promoting media mogul, a simple family man and confidant of presidents, a plainspoken preacher and the "Protestant pope." America's Pastor reveals how this Southern fundamentalist grew, fitfully, into a capacious figure at the center of spiritual life for millions of Christians around the world.An EChristian, Inc production.

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