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  Kindred Beings - What...

  Sheri Speede

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  Enter a world of tender friendships, staunch loyalties, violent jealousies—and enduring love.As a child, Sheri Speede knew that she wanted to advocate for animals in any way she could. But it was not until many years after veterinary school, when she was transporting a chimpanzee named Pierre away from a biomedical facility as part of her job as a conservation advocate in Cameroon, that Dr. Speede discovered her true calling. She began to search for land for a forest sanctuary for captive chimpanzees that were held on chains and in small cages at local hotels.Dr. Speede eventually founded the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, a forested home for orphans of the illegal ape meat trade. One chim- panzee, Dorothy, was rescued by Dr. Speede and her colleagues from a bleak existence imprisoned on a chain and forged a deep friendship with her. Dr. Speede explains how chimpanzees, like humans, are capable of a broad spectrum of emotional behaviors—both hateful and loving. Dr. Speede also candidly reveals her own struggles as a stranger in a foreign culture trying to adjust to rural African village life. And she admits that unlike Dorothy, she was not always kind, gentle, and forgiving.Dorothy died of old age at the sanctuary, and a photograph of Dorothy's funeral, in which Dr. Speede cradled Dorothy's head while her family of chimpanzees mournfully viewed her body, went viral after being published in National Geographic. The world was surprised at the depth of the chimps' grief at the loss of their friend, but Dr. Speede was not. Through the chimps, she had come to understand the meaning of love, loyalty, and true connection.While this is a compelling story about the emotional complexity of the chimpanzees she rescued and befriended, it is also Dr. Speede's story. Major events in her personal life, including love affairs, dangerous run-ins with criminals, and the birth of her daughter, unfold as the development of her primate rescue center runs parallel to her own development. Ultimately, Kindred Beings is a story of profound resilience, of both the apes and the woman who loved them.

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  Not My Boy! - A Father a Son and...

  Danelle Morton, Rodney Peete

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  "Like most fathers, I'd dreamt of doing all sorts of things with my son. I had so many plans, but when I was told my son was autistic, those plans seemed more like a fantasy. Well, eight years after that dreadful diagnosis, I am writing this book to let every father know that your plans for you and your son can still be a reality. It's just the path that takes you there that has to be altered."Autism affects four times as many boys as it does girls. For their fathers, expectations and hopes are drastically changed-NFL star Rodney Peete's were when his son R.J. was diagnosed at the age of three. After a period of anger and denial, an all-too-common reaction among fathers, Rodney joined his wife, Holly, in her efforts to help their son. With determination, love, and understanding, the family worked with R.J. to help him once again engage with the world. Eight challenging years later, R.J. has gone from the son one doctor warned would never say, "I love you," to a thriving, vibrant boy who scored his first soccer goal while his dad cheered from the sidelines.

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  Roots of Gratitude - A Young...

  Daria Hosseinyoun

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  If you had it all, what would you do?At the age of 20, Daria felt he had everything and nothing.  To outside observers, he had it all: a loving family, a beautiful girlfriend, materials riches, and a family business waiting for him to assume leadership, but there was a gnawing feeling that something was missing.  When Daria’s friend dies at the age of 21, he is shaken at the roots. Witnessing death for the first time, he questions every aspect of life including the origins of suffering and happiness. He wonders why he is following the herd in a life-consuming race towards emptiness. Hungry for meaning, he leaves everything he’s ever known to expose himself to the reality of the world through his own experience.His journey takes him on an expedition through the countryside of Mongolia where he learns of generosity, surfing the coasts of Bali, experiences the essence of martial arts from Aikido masters and back-country snowboarding in Japan. He ventures through India, learning yoga and meditation, and finds a prominent monk in Nepal who “freezes” him, shifting his understanding of the world around him. With his new found knowledge, he sets out on a 12-day trek to witness the colossal peaks of the Everest region, where his experience is nothing short of the divine. Daria’s path leads him to snakes and stitches, avalanches and wolves, death and rebirth in order to return to society and impart one message: a new-found understanding.  Daria makes no claims to be a saint or a revolutionary. He faces the same dilemmas that many of us face on a daily basis and through his mistakes gains a better understanding of who he is and how he wants to live his life. Roots of Gratitude presents an inspirational and captivating journey of a young man’s search for his true self. By sharing his experiences with readers – his struggles between following his dreams and societal expectations, and his magnificent spiritual awakening – he imparts courage to follow our hearts and to experience the world for ourselves, so that we may all find a way to our true (and grateful) selves. 

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  The March to Kandahar - Roberts...

  Rodney Atwood

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  The story of the British commander who led a three-hundred-mile march from Kabul to Kandahar and became the toast of Victorian England.   This book examines the role of Frederick Roberts in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, culminating in his famous march in 1880 with ten thousand British and Indian soldiers, covering three hundred miles in twenty-three days, from Kabul to Kandahar to defeat the Afghan army of Ayub Khan, pretender to the Amirship of Kabul. The march made Roberts one of late Victorian England’s great military heroes, partly because of the achievement itself, partly because the victory restored British prestige after defeat, and finally because of Roberts’ astute use of the press to puff his victory.   This overcame the earlier damage done to his reputation by the political storm that followed his hanging of over eighty Afghans in revenge for the massacre of a British envoy and his escort. It enabled the liberal Viceroy of India, Lord Ripon, to extract his forces from an Afghan imbroglio with prestige restored and an emir on the Afghan throne who for thirty-nine years maintained friendship with British India. Roberts (or Bobs as he was known) subsequently advanced to command the Indian Army, working closely with future viceroys to influence Indian defense policy on the North-West Frontier, and being hymned by Rudyard Kipling, poet of empire. His bestselling autobiography, Forty-One Years in India, established his image before the British public and he remains one of Britain’s best known, if least understood, military figures

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  Lifeline - An Elegy

  Stephanie Kain

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  What happens when someone you love suddenly cliff-dives into mental illness? And then you discover that there may be no return?
  		 
  This experimental memoir reflects on the author’s intimate and complicated relationship with a woman diagnosed with suicidal depression, and the startling and chaotic new world of locked wards, heavy medications, and electroconvulsive therapy that follows.
  		 
  Interweaving personal essays, fragmented prose, poetry, stream-of-consciousness, and text exchanges, this collage-style book invites the reader into the mysterious world of a treatment-resistant condition and illuminates the urgency and intimacy of caring for someone with an ultimately fatal mental illness. Running through the center of the narrative is the relationship between two people whose fierce love for each other is both the tie that binds and the anchor that drowns.
  		 
  Lifeline is a testament to the importance of hard conversations, humor, and dignity in the face of a courageous battle for sanity; an interrogation of the flaws in the medical system; a debate on when life stops being worth living; and a conversation and reflection on what it means to love someone enough to go on without them.

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  The Empire of Russia from the...

  John Stevens Cabot Abbott

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  A history of Russia from 500 B.C. to 1855 A.D., written by John Stevens Cabot Abbott, the brother of Jacob Abbott. (Summary by Jean Bascom)

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