Other books that might interest you

• 

  History's 9 Most Insane Rulers

  Scott Rank

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Few mixtures are as toxic as absolute power and insanity. When nothing stands between a leader's delusional whims and seeing them carried out, all sorts of bizarre outcomes are possible. 
  This audiobook will look at the lives of the nine most mentally unbalanced figures in history. Some suffered from genetic disorders that led to schizophrenia, such as French King Charles VI, who thought he was made of glass. Others believed themselves to be Gods representatives on earth and wrote religious writings that they guaranteed to the reader would get them into heaven, even if these leaders were barely literate.  
  Whether it is Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim I practicing archery on palace servants or Turkmenistan president-for-life Akhbar Turkmenbashi renaming the days of the week after himself and constructing an 80-foot-tall golden statue that revolves to face the sun, crazed leaders have plagued society for millenia.  
  While such stories are amusing, this audiobook also contemplates the addictive nature of power and the effects it has on those who cling to it for too long. It explores how leaders can undertake the extraordinarily complicated job of leading a country without their full mental faculties and sometimes manage to be moderately successful. It examines why society tolerates their actions for so long and even attempts to put a facade of normalcy on rulers, despite everyone knowing that they are mentally unstable. The audiobook also explores if insane rulers are a relic of the age of monarchs and will die out in the age of democracy, or if  they will continue to plague nations in the twenty-first century. 
  Finally, as many armchair psychologists question the mental health of Donald Trump and other populist politicians in the United States and Europe, all but diagnosing them with mental illness, this audiobook sets to show that truly insane rulers are categorically different in the ways they endanger their population.

  Show book

• 

  The Call of the Sagas - To...

  Pekka Piri

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A thrilling true story that made nautical history...
  In the year 1994, skipper Pekka Piri and navigator Matti Pulli piloted a 7-meter motorboat from Helsinki over the Baltic Sea, North Sea and North Atlantic to Iceland.
  Both 48 years old, Piri had lost his career as a personnel manager, and Pulli had lost his ship, the freighter m/s Finnpolaris, in a wreck off the west coast of Greenland. Now what they both needed was space.
  On May 17, 1994, they set out on a 2,200-mile voyage into the unknown. A journey that began with a skipper's dream and a navigator's faith in that dream led to unshakable trust in each other. 
  A Reading Experience:
  Make a historic ocean voyage in a small motorboat to the distant island of the Viking sagas.Experience the effort and the trust, the determination and the brotherhood, the overwhelming joy of limits broken and a dream fulfilled. You will laugh and you will cry.The voyage of The Call of the Sagas has become a legend and the book a classic praised by readers and master authors alike.
  An Author's Republic audio production.

  Show book

• 

  Fervent Freedom Fighters -...

  Daniel Cosculluela

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  This anthology brings to light the richness of the pamphleteer tradition in France, between the 16th and 20th centuries. Though satirists and pamphleteers have emerged out of various political backgrounds down through the centuries, what they have in common is irreverence, courage and insubordination to all forms of power. Among them: Blanqui, Bloy, Desmoulins, Libertad, Proudhon, Rivarol, Séverine Vallès and Zo d'Axa.
  At a time when freedom of expression is increasingly questioned, Daniel Cosculluela wanted to resurrect the fighting spirit of those who acted and wrote, often at the risk of their lives. Many of these fighters for freedom of speech and thought had to flee their countries to avoid prison or assassination. 
  The author wanted to engage in a dialogue with those who live on through our thoughts, dreams and revolts. His choices are personal, but the writers selected have all played a major role in the movement of ideas which inspire, consciously or not, the commitment and the choises of millions of men and women today.

  Show book

• 

  Between Two Worlds - From...

  Laurie Becklund, Zainab Salbi

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Zainab Salbi was eleven years old when her father was chosen to serve as Saddam Hussein's personal pilot, her family often forced to spend weekends with Saddam where he watched their every move. As a palace insider, Zainab offers a singular glimpse of what it is like to come of age under a dictator and provides an intimate portrait of the man she was taught to call "uncle." She watched as Saddam pitted friends, spouses and even children against each other to compete for his approval. She was sent to donate her mother's jewelry to one of the world's richest men, asked to erase her memory as she heard of crimes she was not supposed to hear of, and witnessed her mother hiding her tears lest it upset Saddam. Her mother eventually sent Zainab to America for an arranged marriage, to spare her from Saddam's growing affections, but the marriage intended to save her turned out to be another world of tyranny and abuse.Despite extraordinary psychological challenges, Zainab started over. She forged a new identity as founder and president of Women for Women International, a nonprofit organization for female victims of war, dedicated to providing women of war and civil unrest with the resources to become self-sufficient citizens and promote peace. Zainab has traveled and promoted her organization widely, speaking out on behalf of oppressed women around the world, but until now has never told this very personal tale.In BETWEEN TWO WORLDS Zainab Salbi reveals the tyrant through the eyes of a child, a secretly rebellious teenager, an abused wife, and ultimately a professional woman coming to terms with the horror of secrets her mother revealed only on her deathbed. Through her ability to come to terms with the child she used to be and dangerous world in which she managed to survive, BETWEEN TWO WORLDS emerges as a story of heroism like no other.

  Show book

• 

  Tinseltown - Murder Morphine and...

  William J. Mann

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  New York Times Bestseller • Edgar Award winner for Best Fact CrimeThe Day of the Locust meets The Devil in the White City and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in this juicy, untold Hollywood story: an addictive true tale of ambition, scandal, intrigue, murder, and the creation of the modern film industry.By 1920, the movies had suddenly become America’s new favorite pastime, and one of the nation’s largest industries. Never before had a medium possessed such power to influence. Yet Hollywood’s glittering ascendency was threatened by a string of headline-grabbing tragedies—including the murder of William Desmond Taylor, the popular president of the Motion Picture Directors Association, a legendary crime that has remained unsolved until now.In a fiendishly involving narrative, bestselling Hollywood chronicler William J. Mann draws on a rich host of sources, including recently released FBI files, to unpack the story of the enigmatic Taylor and the diverse cast that surrounded him—including three beautiful, ambitious actresses; a grasping stage mother; a devoted valet; and a gang of two-bit thugs, any of whom might have fired the fatal bullet. And overseeing this entire landscape of intrigue was Adolph Zukor, the brilliant and ruthless founder of Paramount, locked in a struggle for control of the industry and desperate to conceal the truth about the crime. Along the way, Mann brings to life Los Angeles in the Roaring Twenties: a sparkling yet schizophrenic town filled with party girls, drug dealers, religious zealots, newly-minted legends and starlets already past their prime—a dangerous place where the powerful could still run afoul of the desperate.A true story recreated with the suspense of a novel, Tinseltown is the work of a storyteller at the peak of his powers—and the solution to a crime that has stumped detectives and historians for nearly a century.

  Show book

• 

  Classic Short Stories - Volume...

  Hugh Walpole, Arnold Bennett

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Stories are one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements.  Whether written down or spoken they have an ability to capture our imagination and thoughts, and take us on incredible journeys in the space of a phrase and the turn of a page. 
   
  Within a few words of text or speech, new worlds and characters form, propelling a narrative to a conclusion with intricate ease. Finely crafted, perfectly formed these Miniature Masterpieces, at first thought, seem remarkably easy to conjure up. But ask any writer and they will tell you that distilling the essence of narrative and characters into a short story is one of the hardest acts of their literary craft.  Many attempt, but few achieve.

  Show book