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  Rough Magic - Riding the World's...

  Lara Prior-Palmer

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  At the age of nineteen, Lara Prior-Palmer discovered a website devoted to "the world's longest, toughest horse race"—an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of twenty-five wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. On a whim, she decided to enter the race. As she boarded a plane to East Asia, she was utterly unprepared for what awaited her. 
  Riders often spend years preparing to compete in the Mongol Derby, a course that recreates the horse messenger system developed by Genghis Khan, and many fail to finish. Prior-Palmer had no formal training. She was driven by her own restlessness, stubbornness, and a lifelong love of horses. She raced for ten days through extreme heat and terrifying storms, catching a few hours of sleep where she could at the homes of nomadic families. Battling bouts of illness and dehydration, exhaustion and bruising falls, she decided she had nothing to lose. Each dawn she rode out again on a fresh horse, scrambling up mountains, swimming through rivers, crossing woodlands and wetlands, arid dunes and open steppe. 
  Told with terrific suspense and style, Rough Magic captures the extraordinary story of one young woman who forged ahead, against all odds, to become the first female winner of this breathtaking race.

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  Theodore Bayley Hardy VC DSO MC...

  David Raw

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  In 1916, at the age of fifty four, a slight, short sighted, unassuming country vicar and local school master became an Army Chaplain.  Theodore Bayley Hardy was destined to become the most decorated noncombatant in the First World War. He was to be awarded the Victoria Cross, the D.S.O., and the M.C. By day he performed the usual priestly and chaplaincy tasks but by night he would work the trenches dropping in with his inimitable "It's only me!" to bring comfort and moral and spiritual support in the nightmare of wars.Sadly, he was to die of wounds only a few days before the Armistice.

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  Knight of Germany - Oswald...

  Johannes Werner

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  The story of the World War I fighter pilot the Red Baron himself sought to emulate . . . 
   
  German air ace Oswald Boelcke was a national hero during World War I. He was the youngest captain in the German air force, decorated with the Pour le Mérite while still only a lieutenant, and credited with forty aerial victories at the time of his death. 
   
  Becoming a pilot shortly before the outbreak of the war, Boelcke established his reputation on the Western front first in reconnaissance, then in scouts, before finally becoming the best known of the early German aces, along with Max Immelmann. After Immelmann’ s death, he was taken off flying and traveled to the Eastern front where he met a young pilot called Manfred von Richthofen. Transferred back to the Western Front in command of Jasta 2, he remembered von Richthofen when new small fighting units were formed and chose him as a pilot for his new Staffel. Boelcke was tragically killed in a flying accident during combat in October 1916, although not before the reputation of his unit, together with his own, had been firmly established forever. 
   
  This absorbing biography was written with the blessing of Boelcke’s family. Professor Werner was given access to his letters and other papers, and presents here a rounded and fascinating portrait of a great airman and a remarkable soldier who became known as the father of the German Jagdflieger. 
   
  This edition has been completely reoriginated while remaining faithful to the language of the time of its original translation from German in the 1930s.

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  The Hermit King - The Dangerous...

  Chung Min Lee

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  This program includes an author's note read by the author.North Korea is poised at the crossroads of history. Which direction will its leader take?Throughout the world, oppressive regimes are being uprooted and replaced by budding democracies, but one exception remains: The People's Republic of North Korea. The Kim family has clung to power for three generations by silencing dissidents, ruling with an iron fist, and holding its neighbors hostage with threats of war. Under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, North Korea has come closer than ever to creating a viable nuclear arsenal, but widespread famine and growing resistance are weakening his regime's stability.In The Hermit King, Asian geopolitical expert Chung Min Lee tells the story of the rise of the Kim Dynasty and its atrocities, motivations, and diplomatic goals. He also discusses the possible outcomes of its aggressive standoff with the world superpowers.Kim Jong Un is not a crazed "Rocket Man" or a bumbling despot; he has been groomed since birth to take control of his country and stay in power at all costs. He is now at a fateful crossroads. Will he make good on decades of threats, liberalize North Korea and gain international legitimacy, or watch his regime crumble around him? Lee analyzes the likelihood and consequences of each of these possibilities, cautioning that in the end, a humanitarian crisis in the region is all but unavoidable. The Hermit King is a thoughtful and compelling look at the most complicated diplomatic situation on Earth.

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  Lou and JonBenét - A Legendary...

  John Wesley Anderson

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  On Christmas Night 1996, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in her family's home in Boulder, Colorado. A ransom note was found, but it was hours before her father, John, found her body in the basement. She had been strangled with a garrote and her skull was fractured. The media sensationalized the tragic death of the "child beauty queen" and public speculation and rumors ran rampant. What followed was one of the most notorious unsolved murder investigations in American history.Boulder police fixated on JonBenet's parents as suspects. Needing investigative help, the Boulder DA brought in legendary homicide detective Lou Smit. However, he was soon disenchanted with law enforcement's obsession with the Ramsey family as the primary suspects, excluding other possibilities. Smit resigned but continued to work on his own time, and at his own expense, determined to find justice for JonBenet. He determined the Ramsey family was not involved in her death but died in 2010 before he could identify the killer. Along with a handful of retired detectives, Smit's lifelong friend and colleague, John Anderson, and Smit's family continue to pursue justice based on his work. In Lou and JonBenet, Anderson tells the story of Smit's investigation and why the Smit family team now believes that the killer can be identified.Contains mature themes.

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  Stay of Execution - A Sort of...

  Stewart Alsop

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  A poignant memoir of a full life and an impending death, written by one of America’s foremost journalists during his battle with terminal cancer.    For three decades, from the end of World War II well into the Watergate era, internationally renowned newspaper and magazine columnist Stewart Alsop was a fixture on the Washington, DC, political landscape. In 1971, the respected journalist was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia, marking the beginning of his courageous three-year battle with the terrible cancer that ravaged his body but could not damage his spirit or slow his facile and brilliantly incisive mind.   A passionate social critic and peerless political analyst who hobnobbed with presidents from FDR to Nixon, and enjoyed the respectful fellowship of such notable figures as Winston Churchill, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and Henry Kissinger, Alsop insightfully chronicles the course of his medical history without a trace of maudlin self-pity while celebrating his family, friends, colleagues, and an extraordinary life well lived.  Stay of Execution is Stewart Alsop’s moving, powerful, and inspiring memoir of his terminal illness and his life before—an unforgettable true story of courage and accomplishment, trials and tragedy from one of the most revered American journalists of the twentieth century.  

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