Other books that might interest you

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  Survival - From Childhood Sexual...

  Dennis N. Griffin, Vinnie Curto

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  A world champion boxer tells his story of struggle and triumph—from his traumatic childhood to life in the ring and Hollywood celebrity.In 1996, at the age of 41, Vinnie Curto won the World Boxing Federation Super Cruiserweight Title. He was on top of the world, but he’d gone through hell to get there. Born in East Boston, Vinnie grew up with a violent father who subjected him to years of horrifying sexual abuse. At age 16, Vinnie escaped by lying about his age and joining the Navy. That decision changed his life—and probably saved it.   Vinnie’s success on the Navy boxing team opened the door to a storied career as a professional boxer. He joined the Olympic boxing team, trained with the legendary Angelo Dundee, and rubbed shoulders with mobsters and Hollywood celebrities. With Sylvester Stallone as his manager, Vinnie even started acting in television shows like Miami Vice and Walker, Texas Ranger.

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  Napoleon's Peninsular War - The...

  Paul L. Dawson

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  A renowned historian captures the French experience of the Peninsular War through soldiers’ unpublished memoirs and eyewitness accounts. 
   
  While much has been written about the British campaigns of the Peninsular War, surprisingly little has been published in English on their opponents, the French. Now, using previously unseen material from the French army archives in Paris, Paul Dawson tells the story of the early years of the Peninsular War as never before. 
   
  Eyewitness accounts of the Siege of Zaragoza and the Spanish defeats at Medellin and Ocaña are interspersed with details of campaign life and of struggling through the Galician mountains in pursuit of the British army. Dawson captures the perspectives of ordinary French soldiers and their beliefs about the war they were fighting for their Emperor. Napoleon’s Peninsular War is a vital and unprecedented addition to our understanding of the war in Iberia.

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  Twelve Years a Slave

  Solomon Northup

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  Twelve Years a Slave (Originally published in 1853 with the sub-title: "Narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana") is the written work of Solomon Northup; a man who was born free, but was bound into slavery later in life. Northup's account describes the daily life of slaves in Bayou Beof, their diet, the relationship between the master and slave, the means that slave catchers used to recapture them and the ugly realities that slaves suffered. Northup's slave narrative is comparable to that of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs or William Wells Brown, and there are many similarities. Scholars reference this work today; one example is Jesse Holland, who referred to him in an interview given on January 20, 2009 on Democracy.now. He did so because Northup's extremely detailed description of Washington in 1841 helps the neuromancers understand the location of some slave markets, and is an important part of understanding that African slaves built many of the monuments in Washington, including the Capitol and part of the original Executive Mansion. The book, which was originally published in 1853, tells the story of how two men approached him under the guise of circus promoters who were interested in his violin skills. They offered him a generous but fair amount of money to work for their circus, and then offered to put him up in a hotel in Washington D.C. Upon arriving there he was drugged, bound, and moved to a slave pen in the city owned by a man named James Burch, which was located in the Yellow House, which was one of several sites where African Americans were sold on the National Mall in DC. Another was Robey s Tavern; these slave markets were located between what are now the Department of Education and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, within view of the Capitol, according to researcher Jesse Holland, and Northup's own account[1]. Burch would coerce Northup into making up a new past for himself, one in which he had been born as a slave in Georgia. Burch told Northup that if he were ever to reveal his true past to another person he would be killed. When Northup continually asserts that he is a freeman of New York, Burch violently whips him until the paddle breaks and Rathburn insists on Burch to stop. Northup mentions different kind of owners that Northup had throughout his 12 years as a slave in Louisiana, and how he suffered severely under them: being forced to eat the meager slave diet, live on the dirt floor of a slave cabin, endure numerous beatings, being attacked with an axe, whippings and unimaginable emotional pain from being in such a state. One temporary master he was leased to was named Tibbeats; the man tried to kill him with an axe, but Northup ended up whipping him instead. Finally the book discusses how Northup eventually ended up winning back his freedom. A white carpenter from Canada named Samuel Bass arrived to do some work for Northup s current owner, and after conversing with him, Northup realized that Bass was quite different from the other white men he had met in the south; he said he stood out because he was openly laughed at for opposing the sub-human arguments slavery was based on. It was to Bass that Northup finally confided his story, and ultimately Bass would deliver the letters back to Northup s wife that would start the legal process of earning him his freedom back. This was no small matter, for if they had been caught, it could easily have resulted in their death, as Northup says.

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  Afterglow - (a dog memoir)

  Eileen Myles

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  “A ravishingly strange and gorgeous book about a dog that’s really about life and everything there is…astonishing.” —Helen Macdonald, New York Times-bestselling author of H Is for Hawk In 1990, poet Eileen Myles chose Rosie from a litter of pit bulls on the street, and their connection instantly became central to the writer's life and work. During the course of their sixteen years together, Myles was madly devoted to the dog’s well-being, especially in her final days. Starting from the emptiness following Rosie's death, Afterglow launches a heartfelt and fabulist investigation into the true nature of the bond between pet and pet owner. Through this lens, we witness Myles’s experiences with intimacy and spirituality, celebrity and politics, alcoholism and recovery, fathers and family history, as well as the fantastical myths we spin to get to the heart of grief. Moving from an imaginary talk show where Rosie is interviewed by Myles’s childhood puppet to a critical reenactment of the night Rosie mated with another pit bull, from lyrical transcriptions of their walks to Rosie’s enlightened narration from the afterlife, Afterglow illuminates all that it can mean when we dedicate our existence to a dog. “Myles gets at something no other dog book I’ve read has gotten at quite this distinctly: The sense of wordless connection and spiritual expansion you feel when you love and are loved by a creature who’s not human…raw and affecting.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR

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  Resignation Trilogy - True...

  J. Clark Allison

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  Three entertaining true stories reported by your intrepid food server from the front lines of the Great Resignation of 2021. Got a restaurant or other service business? Find out what not to do if you want to keep your current and future employees from leaving for greener pastures. It's not rocket science but has got a lot of you completely baffled, apparently. I'll give you a hint, the first rule is, don't be an a-hole.

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  Flight of the Diamond Smugglers...

  Matthew Gavin Frank

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  For nearly eighty years, a huge portion of coastal South Africa was closed off to the public. With many of its pits now deemed "overmined" and abandoned, American journalist Matthew Gavin Frank sets out across the infamous Diamond Coast to investigate an illicit trade that supplies a global market. Immediately, he became intrigued by the ingenious methods used in facilitating smuggling—particularly, the illegal act of sneaking carrier pigeons onto mine property, affixing diamonds to their feet, and sending them into the air.Entering Die Sperrgebiet ("The Forbidden Zone") is like entering an eerie ghost town, but Frank is surprised by the number of people willing—even eager—to talk with him. Soon he meets Msizi, a young diamond digger, and his pigeon, Bartholomew, who helps him steal diamonds. It's a deadly game: pigeons are shot on sight by mine security, and Msizi knows of smugglers who have disappeared because of their crimes.From the mining towns of Alexander Bay and Port Nolloth to Kleinzee's shores littered with shipwrecks, Frank investigates a long overlooked story. Weaving interviews with local diamond miners who raise pigeons in secret with harrowing anecdotes from former heads of security, environmental managers, and vigilante pigeon hunters, Frank reveals how these feathered bandits became outlaws in every mining town.

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