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  Zelensky - A Biography of...

  Steven Derix

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  A vivid, up-to-date biography of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, covering his humble background and successful TV career to his corruption-dogged first years in office to Russia's invasion.Told with flair and authority, it is the gripping story of one of the most admired and inspirational leaders in the world.An action-packed biography of Ukraine's comedian-turned-PresidentVolodymyr Zelensky's life to date has been packed with drama and action.By the age of 20, the Jewish boy from the provincial town of Kryvyi Rih had become a star of the stage.At 30, he headed a multimillion-dollar TV company.At 40, he took on Ukraine's corrupt political and business elite in a TV drama, playing a history teacher who becomes President. Then he launched a real-life political party named after the TV show, won a landslide victory and became Ukraine's real President.When Russian troops flooded across the border, Zelensky refused Western offers to leave Kyiv. He has marshalled Ukraine's resistance and successfully obtained Western missile systems and anti-tank weapons. Zelensky said: 'If I am elected, they will first sling mud at me. Then they will learn to respect me. And finally cry when I leave.'Zelensky is written by a long-standing Russia and Ukraine reporter and a Russian- and Ukrainian speaking researcher. It's a pithy biography of Zelensky for anyone who wants to understand Ukraine's charismatic head of state, his complex country, and its vexed relationship with Russia.Covering Zelensky's life from his childhood to the Ukrainian presidency, Zelensky deals with his background in a Russian-speaking region of Ukraine, his early career in TV taking part in KVN talent competitions, and his rise through the Ukrainian and Russian television industry.Then it deals with Zelensky's breakthrough moment in the TV series Servant of the People playing a teacher who dreams of reforming Ukraine and ending its corruption. The show becomes a reality and Zelensky's party, Servant of the People, takes power.Zelensky's presidency is marred by his attempts to curry favour with the US President Donald Trump and the offshoring of millions of dollars.Nonetheless, Zelensky battles political rivals and takes on powerful vested interests in Europe's second-largest country. Then with his doggedness, speeches and strategy, he marshals Ukraine's staunch resistance to a superpower – a fight that most analysts assume Russia will quickly win. But they do not - and Ukraine starts to turn the tide of the war.Zelensky and his country become symbols of defiance against Vladimir Putin's aggression. Zelensky: A Biography of Ukraine's War Leader is both an uplifting story and an urgent message from Ukraine.ExtractIn April 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was elected as the sixth President of Ukraine, with nearly three-quarters of the vote.One month later, the Russian President attended the World Economic Forum in St. Petersburg. It had been five years since Russia's annexation of Crimea but daily skirmishes between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists were still commonplace in eastern Ukraine.'Why did you not congratulate Volodymyr Zelenksy when he became President?' asked the interviewer.Putin breathed a heavy sigh. The Russian officials and business magnates in the room playfully nudged one another: this was going to be good...Putin gave the enormous hall an almost pitying look and waited until the sniggering had died down... 'Listen, I do not know this man. I hope that we can meet one day. As far as I can tell, he's amazing at what he does, he's a marvellous actor.'Putin continued: 'But seriously: it's one thing to play a person, but quite another thing to be that person.'Laughter and generous applause filled the room.Buy the book to carry on listening

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  Sibylla

  Roger Lundgren

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  In this intimate portrait of Princess Sibylla of Sweden, renowned royal historian Roger Lundgren reveals the remarkable life of one of Europe's most misunderstood royal figures. Born a German princess in 1908, Sibylla married into the Swedish royal family and faced the challenge of raising five children-including the current King Carl XVI Gustaf-alone after her husband's tragic death in 1947. Drawing on exclusive interviews and previously unpublished correspondence, Lundgren reveals how this strong-willed princess navigated the complexities of being a German royal in post-war Sweden while preparing her young son for his future role as king. A poignant story of duty, resilience and motherhood in the face of personal tragedy and public scrutiny.

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  Encounters With Men

  Bob Ostertag

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  Encounters With Men is a searching memoir as only Bob Ostertag could tell it. In these pages are a lifetime of intimacies and distances, moments with fathers and teachers, friends and lovers, soldiers, cops, and criminals— even one of the great mass murderers of the late twentieth century.
  
  
  Bob Ostertag writes of the men he has known in stories shot through with deep love and deep violence, sex often at the core. Here, we encounter the worst of the AIDS epidemic and the best of human behavior. Fittingly, the final encounter occurs exclusively online, a stark yet compelling portrait of the new sex work in the digital age.
  
  
  Like encounters with bears, except with men.

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  The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth...

  Frances Wilson

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  A “sensitive and elegantly written” biography of Dorothy Wordsworth, sister and muse of the Romantic English poet William Wordsworth (Publishers Weekly).“[A] highly charged and forthright biography. . . . A ‘perpetual third party,’ Dorothy Wordsworth finally steps out of the shadows in this assured and involving reclamation of an intriguing, literary figure.” —Booklist (starred review)Described by the writer and opium addict Thomas De Quincey as “the very wildest . . . person I have ever known,” Dorothy Wordsworth was neither the self-effacing spinster nor the sacrificial saint of common telling. A brilliant stylist in her own right, Dorothy was at the center of the Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century. She was her brother William Wordsworth's inspiration, aide, and most valued reader, and a friend to Coleridge; both borrowed from her observations of the world for their own poems. William wrote of her, “She gave me eyes, she gave me ears.”In order to remain at her brother’s side, Dorothy sacrificed both marriage and comfort, jealously guarding their close-knit domesticity—one marked by a startling freedom from social convention. In the famed Grasmere Journals, Dorothy kept a record of this idyllic life together. The tale that unfolds through her brief, electric entries reveals an intense bond between brother and sister, culminating in Dorothy’s dramatic collapse on the day of William’s wedding to their childhood friend Mary Hutchinson. Dorothy lived out the rest of her years with her brother and Mary. The woman who strode the hills in all hours and all weathers would eventually retreat into the house for the last three decades of her life.In this succinct, arresting biography, Frances Wilson reveals Dorothy in all her complexity. From the coiled tension of Dorothy’s journals, she unleashes the rich emotional life of a woman determined to live on her own terms, and honors her impact on the key figures of Romanticism.“In The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, Ms. Wilson strides purposefully through Wordsworth’s intoxicating life. . . . One chapter begins with a quotation from the political-punk band Gang of Four: ‘This heaven gives me migraine.’ This book, its own kind of heaven, gave me quite the opposite.” —The New York Times“Entertaining and sometimes ingenious. . . . Wilson . . . makes a strong case for taking a fresh look at Dorothy Wordsworth.” —Los Angeles Times

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  The Story of One Awakening -...

  Zohar Leo Palfi

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  Dive into the dark yet irresistibly compelling world of "The Story of an Awakening", a psychological thriller about an artist stripped of everything but his unquenchable thirst for truth. 
  Elias Burton was once a dazzling painter whose canvases captivated audiences—until the betrayal of someone close shattered not only his career but his faith in himself. For ten years, he lived in the silence of his own oblivion, hiding from the world and from his own memories. Then mysterious letters—"Dawn," "Shadow," "Labyrinth"…—slipped beneath his door and stirred in him something far stronger than despair. 
  From his dusty studio to the crumbling mansion at 17 Elm Street, Elias follows a trail of symbols and mirror-like reflections that hide clues to a long-buried truth. Each page is a brushstroke on the canvas of his fate: the tension tightens, the past takes shape, and deep within the mirrored glass glimmers the key capable of resurrecting a life laid waste. 
  Perfectly balanced between psychological drama and enigmatic investigation, "The Story of an Awakening" will make you feel every emotion alongside its hero, keeping you on edge until the very end. Open the book—and experience one man's journey back from the shadows to claim his right to the dawn.

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  I Don't Need Therapy - (and...

  Toni Lodge

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  A hilarious memoir of home truths and whatever the opposite of 'that girl energy' is, from one half of the hit podcast Toni & Ryan. 
   
  Like most of us, Toni Lodge tells little white lies all the time. Whether it's 'I'm five minutes away' or 'It must have gone to my spam folder', most of these innocent fibs are harmless. But what if you realised that you weren't just lying about the little things, but the big 'life' stuff too?  
  When Toni sat down to write this memoir, she realised that the lies she was telling herself were hiding some pretty important home truths—about her work, her identity and her mental health. In her dogged pursuit of these truths, she brazenly explores everything from gastro, fame and Twilight to funerals, the Dalai Lama and Brazilian waxes.  
  In this hilarious warm hug of a book, Toni exposes the lies she has told herself about who she is and what she is capable of, inviting us on a riotous romp that will make you laugh, cringe, cry and utterly rethink the truth behind the stories we tell ourselves.

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