Other books that might interest you

• 

  Write Your Why (What Will Follow)

  Julia Whelan

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  An approachable craft talk, written and read by Julia Whelan. Combining her perspectives as a writer, an educator, and a narrator, she breaks down what makes books connect with readers. Using Simon Sinek's seminal TedTalk for the business community, "Knowing Your Why", as a starting point, Julia applies this to the broader craft of storytelling: If you know why you are writing something, your audience will know why they're reading it. So... how does one do that? Originally presented as a keynote speech at Nashville's WriterFest. 

  Show book

• 

  Portuguese Empire and the...

  Editors Charles River

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  By the start of the 15th century, ships were now much larger and able to support long distance travel with a minimum number of crew aboard. With that, the Portuguese started exploring the west coast of Africa and the Atlantic under orders from Prince Henry the Navigator. At this point, Europeans had not yet been capable of navigating completely around Africa since the ships being built were not yet fully capable of being able to sail very far from the coast and navigation in open waters was difficult, but the Portuguese continued pushing down the western African coast looking for ways to bypass the Ottomans and Muslims of Africa who had been making overland trade routes difficult. In 1451, Prince Henry the Navigator helped fund and develop a new type of ship, the caravel, that featured triangular lateen sails and would be able to travel in the open ocean and sail against the wind. In 1488, Bartholomew Diaz rounded the southern tip of Africa, named the Cape of Good Hope by King John of Portugal, and entered the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic.  
  	One explorer, Christopher Columbus, sought funding from the Portuguese to search for a passage to Asia by sailing westwards, but he was rejected. At this time in the late 15th century, Portugal’s domination of the western African sea routes prompted the neighboring Crown of Castile and the Catholic monarchs in modern Spain to search for an alternative route to south and east Asia (termed Indies), so they provided Columbus with the funding he required. Ultimately, Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492, and European settlements would soon follow. At the same time, when it became clear Columbus hadn’t landed in Asia, it was understood by everyone that this was not necessarily the route the Europeans were searching for, the Portuguese continued to send explorers around the world in several directions in an attempt to reach the East Indies. 

  Show book

• 

  Conspiracies of World War II -...

  Alexander MacDonald

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  There are a wealth of conspiracies surrounding World War II, from covert assassinations to outlandish secret missions and shocking cover-ups. Intelligence agencies practiced stunning deceptions and disinformation was spread widely, but what truths lie beneath these elaborate theories? Military historian Alexander Macdonald examines the evidence. 
   
  In this fascinating book, you will learn whether:The Nazis really set up a secret base in AntarcticaFranklin D. Roosevelt allowed Pearl Harbor to be bombed so that America could be drawn into the warA secret plot by US intelligence led to the assassination of top general George PattonAdolf Hitler really faked his own death and escaped from the bunker in 1945

  Show book

• 

  World’s Most Famous Megaliths...

  Editors Charles River

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Despite the fact some Neolithic communities grew to considerable sizes, they’re typically not considered when people think of the first ancient civilizations or the first major cities, so when German archaeologists discovered the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey in the 1990s, it created an academic firestorm that is still raging. Far from being just another settlement, Göbekli Tepe has been described as the world’s first temple and perhaps one of the locations where human civilization began. Subsequent archaeological work at Göbekli Tepe has revealed that the site was a spiritual center for the local population during a time when humans were undergoing a transition as hunter-gatherers in the Paleolithic Period to a more sedentary lifestyle in the Neolithic Period, more than 10,000 years ago.  
  	Naturally, when European archaeologists began unearthing the megaliths of Malta in the 19th century, they did not know what to think, which led to a plethora of theories, many of them quite fantastic. At least 23 of these temples were uncovered, but because the people who built them lacked the knowledge of writing, speculation over who built them and why remained well into the 20th century (Rountree 2003, 26). Some people theorized that the Malta megaliths were built by a race of giants, while others believed that it was the center of a “Mother Earth” cult that later spread through Neolithic Europe.  
  	On the Salisbury Plain, only a few hours from the hustle and bustle of Central London, remains one of the greatest surviving relics of humanity's ancient past: the mighty stone circle of Stonehenge. Stonehenge is one of the most well-known ancient sites in the world, and an image of it raises numerous associations and emotional responses. Its impressiveness comes not only from its size and remarkable level of preservation, but more so because of incredible precision during an era of simple technology.

  Show book

• 

  Intercourse

  Andrea Dworkin, Ariel Levy

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Andrea Dworkin, once called "Feminism's Malcolm X," has been worshipped, reviled, criticized, and analyzed—but never ignored. The power of her writing, the passion of her ideals, and the ferocity of her intellect have spurred the arguments and activism of two generations of feminists. Now the book that she's best known for—in which she provoked the argument that ultimately split apart the feminist movement—is being reissued for the young women and men of the twenty-first century. Intercourse enraged as many readers as it inspired when it was first published in 1987. In it, Dworkin argues that in a male supremacist society, sex between men and women constitutes a central part of women's subordination to men. (This argument was quickly—and falsely—simplified to "all sex is rape" in the public arena, adding fire to Dworkin's already radical persona.) In her introduction to this twentieth-anniversary edition of Intercourse, Ariel Levy, the author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, discusses the circumstances of Dworkin's untimely death in the spring of 2005, and the enormous impact of her life and work. Dworkin's argument, she points out, is the stickiest question of feminism: Can a woman fight the power when he shares her bed?

  Show book

• 

  Female Prisoners of World War...

  Nikki McDove

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Do you remember the stories of those taken prisoner during WWII? Can you name any heroes from the war? How many of those names are of women? 
  So often, we remember war heroes as men completing great feats of strength on the battlefield, saving the lives of their fellow soldiers. There have been multiple books, films, and articles written about soldiers during WWII. Some are fictional, while some are based on true stories. From Saving Private Ryan to The Great Escape, the public is not at any loss for the stories of the trials that men faced during the Second World War.  
  The stories that are all too often forgotten are those of the women. These are true stories of female prisoners of war, courageous nurses taken prisoner while serving in the military to take care of those soldiers. They are the women who risked life and limb to do what they could to stop the spread of fascism.  
  Within the pages of this book lie the stories of five incredible women prisoners of war during World War Two. These women not only risked their lives in the line of duty, just as their male counterparts did, but they also faced horrific atrocities and risks directly tied to their gender.  
  These women are:  
  • A flight nurse whose plane was shot down over enemy lines only to completely confuse the German Army as to what to do with her. 
  • An American woman living in Germany who worked to infiltrate the Nazis to dismantle the system from the inside. 
  • The sole survivor of a mass murder of nurses only to have her own government silence her from telling her story.  
  • A feminist and political activist working to stop fascism and educate her fellow women, even while inside a concentration camp. 
  • A nurse who simply wanted to return to her post regardless of the torture she endured. 
  It is our duty to remember these women who survived war and honor them as the true heroines they were.

  Show book