Other books that might interest you

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  A Diary from Dixie

  Mary Chesnut

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  This is the original diary of the wife of Confederate General James Chesnut, Jr., who was an aide to President Jefferson Davis. It is a fascinating narrative of all the years of the American Civil War. It focuses on the daily lives and hardships of all who suffered through the war, from ordinary people to the Confederacy's generals and political elite. 
  Mary Chesnut's prose has lost none of its provocative bite through the ages: "I think incompatibility of temper began when it was made plain to us that we get all the opprobrium of slavery while they, with their tariff, get the money there is in it." Nor any of its ironic sense of humor: "We try our soldiers to see if they are hot enough before we enlist them. If, when water is thrown on them they do not sizzle, they won't do; their patriotism is too cool."

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  Plantagenet Princesses - The...

  Douglas Boyd

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  A look at the royal women of twelfth-century England—from the empowered to the imprisoned—and their roles in the ruling dynasty. 
   
  Eleanor of Aquitaine and her second husband, Henry II, are commonly considered medieval figures, but their era was really the violent transition from the Dark Ages, when countries’ borders were defined with fire and sword. Henry grabbed the English throne thanks largely to Eleanor’s dowry, because she owned one third of France. But their less famous daughters also lived extraordinary lives.  
   
  If princes fought for their succession to crowns, the princesses were traded—usually by their mothers—to strangers to gain political power without the usual accompanying bloodshed. Years before what would today be marriageable age, royal girls were dispatched to countries whose speech was unknown to them, and there became the property of unknown men—their duty the bearing of sons to continue a dynasty and daughters who would be traded in their turn. Some became literal prisoners of their spouses; others outwitted would-be rapists and the Church to seize the reins of power when their husbands died.  
   
  Eleanor’s daughters Marie and Alix were abandoned in Paris when she divorced Louis VII of France. By Henry II, she bore Matilda, Aliénor, and Joanna. Between them, these extraordinary women and their daughters knew the extremes of power and pain. Joanna was imprisoned by William II of Sicily and treated worse by her brutal second husband in Toulouse. Eleanor may have been libeled as a whore, but Aliénor’s descendants include two saints, Louis of France and Fernando of Spain. And then there were the illegitimate daughters, whose lives read like novels. This fascinating volume tells their stories.

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  Notes on David McCullough's 1776...

  Instaread

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  PLEASE NOTE: This is a companion to David McCullough’s 1776 and NOT the original book. 
   
  Preview: 
   
  1776 by David McCullough traces the military conflicts between the American and the British armies during the first 18 months of the Revolutionary War. The author chooses three of the war’s most pivotal moments—the Battle of Dorchester Heights, the Battle of Long Island, and the Battle of Trenton—to tell a tale that’s as much about luck, coincidence, and fateful weather as it is about strategic warfare… 
   
  Inside this companion to the book:Overview of the BookInsights from the BookImportant PeopleAuthor's Style and PerspectiveIntended Audience 
  About the Author: With Instaread, you can get the notes and insights from a book in 15 minutes or less. Visit our website at instaread.co.

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  An Irrational Hatred of Luton

  Robert Banks

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  Somewhere in a parallel universe there is another Robert Banks, who is a season ticket holder at Manchester United and is a highly successful novel writer and adored by everyone in the world, regardless of footballing, religious or racial denomination. But is he happy? You bet the hell he is. But Robert Banks is not that man. Since childhood, he has been obsessed with West Ham United Football Club. A team of persistent and historical under-achievers. After all, the only thing West Ham ever brought home was the 1966 World Cup, but that doesn't count, apparently. Laugh out loud funny, and almost devastatingly poignant, AN IRRATIONAL HATRED OF LUTON is an odyssey through the world of a committed football supporter. A real-life Fever Pitch, and with a Hornby-esque deftness of tone, Banks' book shows how intricately in the life of a true fan, football interconnects with the everyday. Banks' friendships, relationships, work, emotions of joy and despair all take place against a backdrop of claret and blue. Then Saturday comes and he watches his team get thumped again. A compelling and hilarious journey into the nature of obsession.

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  True Crime Case Histories -...

  Jason Neal

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  36 True Crime Stories of Murder & Mayhem (3 Book Collection) 
  Readers love this series - More than 7,000 five-star ratings 
  A sampling of the 36 stories includes: 
  The Darlington Cannibal: The story of a young English man who had plans to become the UK’s most notorious serial killer but couldn’t keep his mouth shut after his first kill and bragged to over twenty of his friends. 
  The Carnival Cult: A group of four young men who believed they could do anything they wanted because their lord Satan protected them. Satan apparently couldn’t protect them from prison. 
  Dead in the Water: A father of eight children lured women to his boat, raped them, and threw them overboard. Ingenious forensic science was eventually used to catch the killer. 
  The Crossbow Killer: A young, intelligent man who would rather kill his entire family with a crossbow than tell his girlfriend that he had been lying to her. 
  The Broomstick Killer: The Texas Penal System failed to protect the people of Texas by releasing a brutal killer of three teenagers. As a result, he killed as many as eleven more women. 
  The Copper Gulch Killer: A sixteen-year-old prodigy child is found with five gunshots from three different guns, but police are convinced there was only one killer. Ten years later, crime scene evidence is found in an abandoned storage locker. 
  The Incest Killer: Katie Fusco learned she was adopted when she was eighteen. Within a year, she was married to her biological father and pregnant with his child. When authorities force them apart, everybody dies. 
  Plus, 21 more truly disturbing true crime stories. 
  Scroll up to get your copy.

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  Mies van der Rohe - A Critical...

  Franz Schulze, Edward Windhorst

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  An “excellent” new edition of the definitive biography of the architectural genius, with more than a hundred photos (Booklist, starred review).   Upon publication, this book was praised by the Chicago Tribune and “the most comprehensive book ever written about the master designer and, by any measure, the best,” while the Christian Science Monitor noted that “Schulze has both the gift of an architectural historian able to render Mies’s building innovations and that of a biographer able to paint the humanity and shortcomings of the man.” Newsweek called it “a revelation.”   Now, this biography of the iconic modernist architect and designer has been extensively updated, providing an even more enlightening and intimate portrait of a man who helped to create the twentieth century world.   “This excellent revised edition…has 138 illustrations, incisive descriptions of Mies’ innovative creations and a fascinating account of his Pyrrhic victory in a lawsuit against his disaffected client Edith Farnsworth.”—Booklist (starred review) “This authoritative biography of Mies van der Rohe has been updated through building records, the recollections of students and a court transcript. It's a gripping read.”—Christopher Woodward, Building Design

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