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  Pirates of Barbary - Corsairs...

  Adrian Tinniswood

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  It's easy to think of piracy as a romantic way of life long gone-if not for today's frightening headlines of robbery and kidnapping on the high seas. Pirates have existed since the invention of commerce itself, but they reached the zenith of their power during the 1600s,when the Mediterranean was the crossroads of the world and pirates were the scourge of Europe and the glory of Islam. They attacked ships, enslaved crews, plundered cargoes, enraged governments, and swayed empires, wreaking havoc from Gibraltar to the Holy Land and beyond.Historian and author Adrian Tinniswood brings alive this dynamic chapter in history, where clashes between pirates of the East (Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli) and governments of the West (England, France, Spain, and Venice) grew increasingly intense and dangerous. In vivid detail, Tinniswood recounts the brutal struggles, glorious triumphs, and enduring personalities of the pirates of the Barbary Coast, and how their maneuverings between the Muslim empires and Christian Europe shed light on the religious and moral battles that still rage today.As Tinniswood notes in Pirates of Barbary, "Pirates are history." In this fascinating and entertaining book, he reveals that the history of piracy is also the history that shaped our modern world.

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  Boltzmann's Atom - The Great...

  David Lindley

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  In 1900 many eminent scientists did not believe atoms existed, yet within just a few years the atomic century launched into history with an astonishing string of breakthroughs in physics that began with Albert Einstein and continues to this day. Before this explosive growth into the modern age took place, an all-but-forgotten genius strove for forty years to win acceptance for the atomic theory of matter and an altogether new way of doing physics. Ludwig Boltz-mann battled with philosophers, the scientific establishment, and his own potent demons. His victory led the way to the greatest scientific achievements of the twentieth century.Now acclaimed science writer David Lindley portrays the dramatic story of Boltzmann and his embrace of the atom, while providing a window on the civilized world that gave birth to our scientific era. Boltzmann emerges as an endearingly quixotic character, passionately inspired by Beethoven, who muddled through the practical matters of life in a European gilded age.Boltzmann's story reaches from fin de siècle Vienna, across Germany and Britain, to America. As the Habsburg Empire was crumbling, Germany's intellectual might was growing; Edinburgh in Scotland was one of the most intellectually fertile places on earth; and, in America, brilliant independent minds were beginning to draw on the best ideas of the bureaucratized old world.Boltzmann's nemesis in the field of theoretical physics at home in Austria was Ernst Mach, noted today in the term Mach I, the speed of sound. Mach believed physics should address only that which could be directly observed. How could we know that frisky atoms jiggling about corresponded to heat if we couldn't see them? Why should we bother with theories that only told us what would probably happen, rather than making an absolute prediction? Mach and Boltzmann both believed in the power of science, but their approaches to physics could not have been more opposed. Boltzmann sought to explain the real world, and cast aside any philosophical criteria. Mach, along with many nineteenth-century scientists, wanted to construct an empirical edifice of absolute truths that obeyed strict philosophical rules. Boltzmann did not get on well with authority in any form, and he did his best work at arm's length from it. When at the end of his career he engaged with the philosophical authorities in the Viennese academy, the results were personally disastrous and tragic. Yet Boltzmann's enduring legacy lives on in the new physics and technology of our wired world.Lindley's elegant telling of this tale combines the detailed breadth of the best history, the beauty of theoretical physics, and the psychological insight belonging to the finest of novels.

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  Broadway Butterfly - Vivian...

  Anthony M. DeStefano

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  Indiana-born Vivian Gordon fluttered to New York in 1920 looking for fame and fortune. Before long, the flame-haired chorus girl parlayed her youth, beauty, and ambition into more profitable means as a tough and glamorous symbol of Prohibition-era excess. She was a speakeasy owner, blackmailer, high-end escort, extortionist, racketeer, and con woman. But given her dangerously intimate associations, Vivian was also a woman who knew too much and who rightfully feared for her life. On February 26, 1931, Vivian's bludgeoned and garroted body was found dumped in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. Now, in the first in-depth biography of its kind, Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning journalist Anthony M. DeStefano unravels her tumultuous life and the headline-making murder that became an obsession for many. The evidence Vivian left behind was damning: a diary with more than three-hundred names implicating powerful officials, philanthropists, businessmen, and every major gangland figure in collusion and corruption. The investigation eventually resulted in the career-ending of James "Jimmy" Walker, disgraced mayor of New York City. Broadway Butterfly finally finds a place in history for Vivian, a woman with a rare legacy in gangster lore, whose demise was as tragically inevitable as the brutality of the city's demimonde during Prohibition.

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  The Reason I Jump - The Inner...

  Naoki Higashida, Keiko Yoshida

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  You've never read a book like The Reason I Jump. Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within. Using an alphabet grid to painstakingly construct words, sentences, and thoughts that he is unable to speak out loud, Naoki answers even the most delicate questions that people want to know. Questions such as: "Why do people with autism talk so loudly and weirdly?" "Why do you line up your toy cars and blocks?" "Why don't you make eye contact when you're talking?"  and "What' s the reason you jump?"  (Naoki's answer: "When I'm jumping, it's as if my feelings are going upward to the sky.")  
  With disarming honesty and a generous heart, Naoki shares his unique point of view on not only autism but life itself. His insights-- into the mystery of words, the wonders of laughter, and the elusiveness of memory-- are so startling, so strange, and so powerful that you will never look at the world the same way again.

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  Tell No One

  Brendan Watkins

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  A stunning memoir of one man's search for his birth parents, which uncovered an astonishing global scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church.When Brendan Watkins was eight years old, his parents told him he was adopted. In his late twenties, he discovered the identity of his birth mother - a woman who had been a Catholic nun when he was born - but she wanted nothing to do with him. For thirty years he only managed limited communication with her, and had no clues to the identity of his birth father. In 2018, a DNA test led him to the truth: he was the son of a celebrated missionary priest. His father had studied in a Trappist monastery in Ireland, had a career as a builder, was a Bondi Lifesaver, a trophy-winning ballroom dancer, was a landscape painter, a fine chocolate maker, met Mother Teresa and toured the world. An astounding story had been uncovered which simply had to be told. After decades of searching, Brendan Watkins had discovered that his birth parents were a Catholic priest and a nun. Tell No One explores the questions, anxieties and reflections arising from this hidden past.

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  The Secret Prison Governor

  Anonymous Anonymous

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  An eye-opening, thought-provoking and mind-blowing account from a genuine prison governor of what it's really like behind bars.How do you bring order to the lawless?The Secret Prison Governor has spent decades surrounded by every type of prisoner known to man, from petty thieves and common drug dealers to crime bosses and dangerous serial killers.Since starting as a rookie, he has experienced the reality of the UK's harsh prison system and the hard challenge of ruling those within it.In his own words, the Secret Prison Governor spares no detail of prison life, whether that's breaking up shiv fights, investigating and crushing vast networks of contraband, negotiating with hardened criminals or dealing with full-scale cellblock gang wars.This is the brutal truth of what life is really like behind bars.

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