Other books that might interest you

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  Corporal Cannon - A Female...

  Savannah Cannon

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  Not even old enough to drink, Corporal Savannah Cannon is a young enlisted United States Marine deployed to support Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2010. As a tactical data networking specialist, she is sent away from everyone she knows and attached to a Regimental Combat Team where women are not allowed to repair communications. Her experiences over the next few months shed light on the unique and difficult positions women are placed in when supporting combat roles, while offering a raw look at the painful choices women must sometimes make.Cannon finds herself in a combat zone, ostracized from family, friends, and even her fellow Marines as the men are told to avoid her. The connections she makes are born from trauma and desperation and the choices she makes will echo throughout many lives.Corporal Cannon is not the story of a heroine; it is the hard-hitting account of just one of the flawed individuals who make up the United States' fighting forces. Mistakes in the battlefield can have dire consequences, personally and professionally. Reflecting on her time in service, the author weaves a story of past and present, and the healing that can come with admitting our mistakes and moving past them.

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  Kimpa Vita: The Life and Legacy...

  Charles River Editors

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  In 1515, a Portuguese missionary explorer by the name of Father Francisco Álvares entered Ethiopia and took note in the interior of the remnants of a civilization of obviously Christian origin, with living adherents conforming to a branch of the faith clearly founded in antiquity. Could this be the kingdom of Prester John? Father Álvares was intrigued, but he was wary of too fanciful a construction, and he speculated more practically on the legend of King Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, and other such muses. As for the city at the center of the civilization, he called it Aquasumo.  
  	As it turned out, the Portuguese were arriving in Western Africa at a time when the Kingdom of Kongo was one of the great pre-colonial empires of Africa, with its geographic range at its greatest extent covering most of northwestern Angola, the western edges of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Congo Republic, and overlapping at times into Cabinda and southern Gabon. It was centralized mostly within the borders of modern Angola, and it is most associated with the early history of that country, notwithstanding its name being applied to the two Congo republics. In fact, the name “Angola” derives from a vassal Kingdom of Kongo, the Ndonga, the kings of which were known as Ngola (hence the adaption to “Angola”).  
  	The Portuguese did eventually discover a Christian kingdom elsewhere in Africa, but their Christian influences helped lead to conversion movements in the Kingdom of Kongo, most famously that of Kimpa Vita, a young woman whose story included striking parallels with Joan of Arc. As the leader of a Christian movement, Kimpa Vita became involved in internal political disputes within the Kingdom of Kongo even as she set about spreading Christianity, and her ultimate fate has kept her memory alive as an ideal for later democratic and religious movements across the African continent. 

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  Malignant Metaphor - Confronting...

  Alanna Mitchell

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  An unprecedented take on cancer and recovery
  		 
  Winner of the Lane Anderson Award for Science Writing
  		 
  “Mitchell does a convincing job sorting fact from fiction, diffusing fear, and challenging the manipulative language of fundraisers who aim for pocketbooks rather than intellectual honesty . . . Mitchell’s research is rooted in science, while her writing remains grippingly personal.” — Quill & Quire
  		 
  Alanna Mitchell explores the facts and myths about cancer in this powerful book, as she recounts her family’s experiences with the disease. When her beloved brother-in-law John is diagnosed with malignant melanoma, Alanna throws herself into the latest clinical research, providing us with a clear description of what scientists know of cancer and its treatments. When John enters the world of alternative treatments, Alanna does, too, looking for the science in untested waters. She comes face to face with the misconceptions we share about cancer, which are rooted in blame and anxiety, and opens the door to new ways of looking at our most-feared illness.
  		 
  Beautifully written, Malignant Metaphor is a touching and persuasive book that has the power to change the conversation about cancer. Clear-eyed and compassionate, Mitchell opens the door to new ways of looking at our most-feared illness.

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  The Autobiography of Benjamin...

  Benjamin Franklin, Frank...

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  Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is a record of the life of one of the most impressive people in the American history. Franklin's autobiography, although unfinished, represents one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written. His book is the record of an unusual life told in his own unexcelled conversational style. The Autobiography is Franklin's longest work, and yet it is only a fragment of it. The account of Franklin's life is divided in a manner that reflects the different periods in which he wrote them. The first part, written as a letter to his son, William Franklin, was not intended for publication; the composition is more informal and the narrative more personal than in the second part, from 1730 onward, which was written with a view to publication.   
  Contents:  
  Ancestry and Early Life in Boston 
  Beginning Life as a Printer 
  Arrival in Philadelphia 
  First Visit to Boston 
  Early Friends in Philadelphia 
  First Visit to London 
  Beginning Business in Philadelphia 
  Business Success and First Public Service 
  Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection 
  Poor Richard's Almanac and Other Activities 
  Interest in Public Affairs 
  Defense of the Province 
  Public Services and Duties 
  Albany Plan of Union 
  Quarrels with the Proprietary Governors 
  Braddock's Expedition 
  Franklin's Defense of the Frontier 
  Scientific Experiments 
  Agent of Pennsylvania in London 
  Electrical Kite 
  The Way to Wealth 
  The Whistle 
  A Letter to Samuel Mather

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  The Life of Charlemagne

  Einhard

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  Einhard served Charlemagne, king and Holy Roman Emperor, for 23 years. From that experience, combined with his in-depth research, Einhard penned this biography of Charlemagne in the style of Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars. Because he felt indebted to Charlemagne, Einhard wrote in a partial tone, exalting the man’s achievements and overlooking certain unflattering details about his life. Despite this, historians regard The Life of Charlemagne as an important historical account that, while not far-reaching, is largely reliable.

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  Narco Wars - The Gripping Story...

  Tom Chandler

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  Tom Chandler arrived in Bogotá at the height of the cocaine boom. Pablo Escobar lay dead, the Cali Cartel had taken over much of the global supply, and an avalanche of coke was poised to hit Europe. Now the British government wanted Chandler and his team to do the impossible: infiltrate the most powerful crime syndicates on earth and stop their drug shipments. 
  It was a perilous assignment. The cartel bosses operated like a lethal multi-national, with armies of hitmen and myriad spies in ports, airports, police stations and government offices. Their intelligence systems flushed out turncoats and traitors, and they ruthlessly exterminated their enemies. Yet Chandler, an HM Customs investigator fluent in Spanish, knew he could only succeed by recruiting local informants, and went out into the field to find them. Within four years he had a network of fifty agents buried deep inside the trafficking organisations. The result was unprecedented. Their intel led to the arrest of hundreds of narcos and to the seizure of 300 tonnes of drugs, worth a staggering $3 billion. 
  Chandler's web disrupted the Bogotá mafia, who controlled the main airport and boasted they could put anything on a plane, from drugs to bombs; penetrated the go-fast crews who raced coke-laden speedboats to the transit station of Jamaica; dismantled the 'rip-on' teams who smuggled through the coastal ports; and identified the so-called motherships, the largest method of bulk transit ever discovered. 
  He faced appalling risks. Treacherous stool pigeons worked for both sides, and some of his Colombian law-enforcement colleagues were abducted, tortured and killed. Chandler too faced a grave threat when the crime lords learned he was responsible for a string of interdictions. Yet he persisted, driven to continue with the greatest series of sustained seizures ever made, until he finally burned out and his tour of duty came to an end. Two of his best sources were subsequently murdered, and his bosses dropped the entire overseas informant programme, with dire consequences. 
  Narco Wars is an unflinching story of danger fear and stress, and of the tradecraft and unsung heroism of the agents and their handlers.

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