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  My Nile Odyssey - A memoir

  Kamil Idris

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  Kamil Idris, a man proud of his nomad ancestry, survived child labouring in darkened factories, boyhood journeys to Cairo balanced on the top of trains, hazardous treks to Europe in his teens, capture and death threats from piratical Nile fishermen who thought he was an evil spirit or djinn, and even being stranded in the ferocious heat of the Nubian desert. In later life, he was arrested and placed under house surveillance with his immediate family, because of his views on human rights and political reform. 
  Inspired by a promise to Nelson Mandela to write his memoir, the book is a cameo of a loving family devastated by a series of tragedies, of ancient souks, camel markets, eccentric characters, philosopher kings, and his father's tales of the earliest days of Africa, Nubia and the first wanderings of mankind. As a child, Kamil was taken to Meroe to gaze at the remains of the fabulous Kingdom of Kush which boasts twice as many pyramids as Egypt. Moreover, recent excavations are lifting a veil on the rediscovery of Sudan's astonishing Black Pharaohs, who once ruled over the whole of north east Africa and beyond over two and a half thousand years ago. 
  Above all the memoir is a magnificent celebration of and a tribute to Kamil's beloved and enduring River Nile, which he sees as a metaphor for all our destinies. It is an incredible story.

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  Deadly Deceits - My 25 Years in...

  Ralph W. McGehee

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  A veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency unmasks its culture of lethal lies in this devastating exposé, now with a new foreword by David MacMichael. Ralph W. McGehee was a patriot, dedicated to the American way of life and the international fight against Communism. Following his graduation with honors from Notre Dame, McGehee was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 and quickly became an able and enthusiastic cold warrior. Stationed in Southeast Asia in the mid-1960s, he worked to stem the Communist tide that was sweeping through the region, first in Thailand and later in Vietnam. But despite his notable successes in reversing enemy influence among the local peasants and villagers, McGehee found himself increasingly alienated from a company culture built on deceit and wholesale manipulation of the truth. While his country was being pulled deeper and deeper into the Vietnam quagmire, McGehee awoke to a chilling reality: The CIA was not a gatherer of actual intelligence to be employed in a legitimate war against dangerous enemies, but a tool of the president’s foreign-policy staff designed solely to stifle the truth and fabricate “facts” that supported the agency’s often immoral agenda. With courage and candor, Ralph McGehee illuminates the CIA’s dark catalog of misdeeds in his stunning, no-holds-barred memoir of a life in the service of deception. Startling, eye-opening, and infuriating, Deadly Deceits is an honest and unflinching insider’s look at a toxic government agency that the author cogently argues has no useful purpose and no moral right to exist.

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  The Cap - The Price of a Life

  Roman Frister

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  A Polish survivor’s “brutal and beautifully written” Holocaust memoir. “The power of his portrayal of one man’s instinct for survival . . . cannot be denied” (The Boston Globe).  The Cap is an unconventional Holocaust memoir that defies all moral judgment and ventures into a soul blackened by the unforgiving cruelty of its surroundings. Roman Frister’s memoir of his life before, during, and after his imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camps sparked enormous controversy and became an international bestseller. With bone-chilling candor, Frister illustrates how the impulse to live unhinges our comfortable notions of morality, blurring the boundary between victim and oppressor and leaving absolutely no room for martyrdom.   By the time Roman Frister was sixteen, he had watched his mother murdered by an SS officer and he had waited for his father to expire, eager to retrieve a hidden half loaf of bread from beneath the dying man’s cot. When confronted with certain death, he placed another inmate in harm’s way to save himself. Frister’s resilience and instinct for self-preservation—developed in the camps—become the source of his life’s successes and failures. Chilling and unsentimental, The Cap is a rare and unadorned self-portrait of a man willing to show all of his scars. Reflected in stark relief are the indelible wounds of all twentieth-century European Jews. An exceptional and groundbreaking testimony, Roman Frister’s “gut-wrenching memoir is a must-read” (Kirkus Reviews).   “Staggering in its honesty . . . Frister’s courage to plumb the ambiguity of his actions . . . leaves the reader awestruck.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

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  Frank Sinatra 2: Up Close and...

  Geoffrey Giuliano

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  Continuing the almost fairytale saga of the unlikely life of Frank Sinatra, in part two, Frank discusses his alleged ties with the mafia, his wild, international concert tours, and his private time at home with his wife Barbara, children, and grandchildren. It is an intimate look at the man behind the legend such as you will not find. Featuring rare interviews and commentary. Recommended for all library collections. Narrated by the author.

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  Brilliant Blunders - From Darwin...

  Mario Livio

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  Drawing on the lives of five great scientists, this “scholarly, insightful, and beautifully written book” (Martin Rees, author of From Here to Infinity) illuminates the path to scientific discovery.Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein all made groundbreaking contributions to their fields—but each also stumbled badly. Darwin’s theory of natural selection shouldn’t have worked, according to the prevailing beliefs of his time. Lord Kelvin gravely miscalculated the age of the earth. Linus Pauling, the world’s premier chemist, constructed an erroneous model for DNA in his haste to beat the competition to publication. Astrophysicist Fred Hoyle dismissed the idea of a “Big Bang” origin to the universe (ironically, the caustic name he gave to this event endured long after his erroneous objections were disproven). And Albert Einstein speculated incorrectly about the forces of the universe—and that speculation opened the door to brilliant conceptual leaps. As Mario Livio luminously explains in this “thoughtful meditation on the course of science itself” (The New York Times Book Review), these five scientists expanded our knowledge of life on earth, the evolution of the earth, and the evolution of the universe, despite and because of their errors.“Thoughtful, well-researched, and beautifully written” (The Washington Post), Brilliant Blunders is a wonderfully insightful examination of the psychology of five fascinating scientists—and the mistakes as well as the achievements that made them famous.

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  Trajan - Rome's Last Conqueror

  Nicholas Jackson

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  Until the publication of this captivating biography, no such volume on Trajan's life has been tailored to the general listener. The unique book illuminates a neglected period of ancient Roman history.Trajan rose from fairly obscure beginnings to become the emperor of Rome. He was born in Italica, an Italic settlement close to modern Seville in present-day Spain, and is the first Roman Emperor to be born outside of Rome. His remarkable rise from officer to general and then to emperor in just over twenty years reveals a shrewd politician who maintained absolute power. Trajan's success in taking the Roman Empire to its greatest expanse is highlighted in this gripping biography.Trajan's military campaigns allowed the Roman Empire to attain its greatest military, political, and cultural achievements. The book draws on novel theories, recent evidence, and meticulous research, including field visits to Italy, Spain, Germany, and Romania to ensure accurate, vivid writing that transports the reader to Trajan's territory.

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