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  Godless - How an Evangelical...

  Dan Barker

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  One man shares the story of his transformation from evangelical Christian to atheist and examines the train of thought that brought him there. 
   
  After almost twenty years of evangelical preaching, missionizing, and Christian songwriting, Dan Barker “threw out the bathwater and discovered that there is no baby.” In Godless, Barker describes the intellectual and psychological path he followed in moving from fundamentalism to freethought. Godless includes sections on biblical morality, the historicity of Jesus, biblical contradictions, the unbelievable resurrection, and much more. It is an arsenal for skeptics and a direct challenge to believers. Along the way, Barker relates the positive benefit readers will experience from learning to trust in reason and human kindness instead of living in fear of false judgment and moral condemnation. 
   
  Advance Praise for Godless 
   
  “Valuable in the human story are the reflections of intelligent and ethical people who listen to the voice of reason and who allow it to vanquish bigotry and superstition. This book is a classic example.” —Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great 
   
  “The most eloquent witness of internal delusion that I know—a triumphantly smiling refugee from the zany, surreal world of American fundamentalist Protestantism—is Dan Barker.” —Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion 
   
  “Godless was a revelation to me. I don’t think anyone can match the (devastating!) clarity, intensity, and honesty which Dan Barker brings to the journey—faith to reason, childhood to growing up, fantasy to reality, intoxication to sobriety.” —Oliver Sacks, author of Musicophilia 
   
  “In Godless, Barker recounts his journey from evangelical preacher to atheist activist, and along the way explains precisely why it is not only okay to be an atheist, it is something in which to be proud.” —Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine 
   
  “Godless is a fascinating memoir and a handbook for debunking theism. But most of all, it is a moving testimonial to one man’s emotional and intellectual rigor in acclaiming critical thinking.” —Robert Sapolsky author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers

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  Struggle and Suffrage in Morpeth...

  Craig Armstrong

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  A portrait of the battle for voting rights in a rural English county, and the dramatic life and death of one fierce suffragette. 
   
  For much of the nineteenth century, the women of Northumberland occupied crucial, though largely underappreciated, roles in society. Aside from the hard life of raising families in an area where money was often hard to come by and much of the available work was labor-intensive and dangerous, women were also expected to help bring money into the household. 
   
  In what was a largely agrarian county, female laborers, known as bondagers, were widely respected for their contribution to the local economy, though there were those who criticized the system for forcing women to undertake hard manual labor. The farming economy in Northumberland depended so much on female labor that many men found it easier to be taken on by an employer if they were able to bring a suitable female worker with them. 
   
  The period was also one of considerable upheaval. There were a number of prominent Northumbrian suffragists, and the local radical suffragettes launched attacks in the area. Morpeth was a very early supporter of women’s suffrage and the mayor and local council actively supported the cause, though they remained largely opposed to the actions of the suffragettes. Among other topics, this book follows the story of London-born Emily Wilding Davison, whose mother was Northumbrian and had a wide network of relations in the county. After her father’s death, her mother relocated to the Northumberland village of Longhorsley and Emily spent long periods with her, recuperating after her numerous hunger strikes. Famously losing her life after being struck by the king’s horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby, Emily was buried with great ceremony in a quiet churchyard and to this day remains one of Morpeth’s most famous (adopted) daughters, her grave a site of pilgrimage for supporters of women’s rights.

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  Narrative of the Life of...

  Frederick Douglass

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  Born into a life of bondage, Frederick Douglass secretly taught himself to read and write. For a slave, it was a crime punishable by death, but it resulted in one of the most eloquent indictments of slavery ever recorded. Douglass's autobiography traces his birth into slavery, his escape to the North, and the beginnings of the career that was to make him the preeminent spokesman for his people. His gripping narrative takes us into the fields, cabins, and manors of pre-Civil War plantations in the South and reveals the daily terrors he suffered as a slave.Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is one of the most influential autobiographies ever written. This classic text did as much as or more than any other book to motivate the abolitionists to continue to fight for freedom in America. Written more than a century and a half ago, this timeless classic still speaks directly to our age. It is a record of savagery and inhumanity that goes far to explain why America still suffers from the great injustices of the past.

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  On This Day: August 4

  Emily Goldstein

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  On This Day: August 4. Daily podcast of historical and noteworthy activity on this calendar day. Birth of Barack Obama; launch of US space probe Phoenix; and birth of Louis Armstrong.

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  My Secret Life Vol 2 Chapter 7

  Anonymous

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  My Secret Life, the anonymously written erotic memoirs of a Victorian English gentleman who refers to himself simply as 'Walter' is one of the most idiosyncratic and prurient books ever written. In this vast autobiographical confessional the author recounts, in meticulous detail, his sexual exploits throughout the course of a life devoted entirely to the pursuit of carnal pleasure. Through this compelling exploration of the author's sexual behavior we are left with a uniquely entertaining insight into life behind the closed doors of Victorian society. My Secret Life is funny, sorrowful, suspenseful, compulsively readable, obscene, titillating, exciting and erotic...in it we are privy to the thoughts, emotions and memories of one of the most unusual, unsung and colorful English eccentrics of the Victorian era.Now, for the first time, the complete unabridged version of this unique text is being narrated and scored by film composer Dominic Crawford Collins as an 'audiofilm' (an audiobook in which the emotional landscape is explored through the music score). Each chapter of My Secret Life will be released at monthly intervals over the next ten to fifteen years culminating in what is likely to become the longest audio book ever to be produced.

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  Winston Churchill at the Telegraph

  Warren Dockter

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  This fascinating collection of reportage chronicles the Prime Minister’s life through the newspaper where he began his career. 
   
  The Telegraph had a uniquely close connection with Winston Churchill at every stage of his life. Beginning with his early days as a war correspondent for the paper, the association continued as he himself became the news—reported on in its pages at every stage of his historic political career. 
   
  Collected here, for the first time, is the best reportage on this complex man. Unencumbered by the legendary status he would later acquire, there is praise and blame in equal measure: finding space for both dramatic accounts of his wartime premiership and affectionate reports on the animals living at Chartwell, his country estate. 
   
  The Telegraph was also a happy home for Churchill the journalist, and featured within are many pieces written in his unmistakable prose. Capturing the urgency of the time in which he lived, Churchill at the Telegraph is a celebration of an intimate relationship that lasted over sixty years and shows Winston Churchill in all his paradoxical glory.

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