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  Confessions of a Eurosceptic

  David Heathcoat-Amory

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  The former politician details his career while offering an insider’s look at Britain’s European involvement in the 1980s and ‘90s in this personal memoir. Few are better placed to write on Britain's relations with the European Union than David Heathcoat-Amory. In describing his own journey from initial enthusiasm for a Common Market to rejection of the EU, he gives an insider’s view of the delusions and deceits which surround the European question. As a Member of Parliament, Minister of State and Privy Councillor, Heathcoat-Amory witnessed two prime Ministers wresting with the ‘elephant in the room’. He describes Margaret Thatcher’s struggles against EU control and the clashes with cabinet colleagues which split the Conservative Party and brought her down. Under John Major, David Heathcoat-Amory played a pivotal role in the parliamentary battles over the Maastricht Treaty. As Minister of State for Europe he was intimately involved in keeping Britain out of the euro, thereby avoiding the worst of the current devasting financial crisis. He resigned as Paymaster General in 1996 on a matter of principle. In Opposition, he was sent by the House of Commons to negotiate a Constitution for Europe, which he opposed with a small group of dissidents from other EU countries. As they predicted, the European Constitution was decisively rejected in referendums in France and Holland but was forced through anyway, with Blair’s government refusing a referendum at home. The book includes a blueprint for a radically new relationship between Britain and the EU. The Author argues that, with leadership and ambition, this is now attainable, with the final decision resting with the people in a referendum.Praise for Confessions of a Eurosceptic “An elegant memoir that outlines his euroscepticism but also touched with personal and family tragedy.” —Total Politics “A brisk and unpompous memoir, which incidentally makes a brisk and unpompous case against the EU.” —Standpoint “This book is unlike most books by politicians. With unusual clarity this book tells the story of Britain’s European involvement since the mid-Eighties.” —The Daily Telegraph

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  The Future of the American Negro

  Booker T. Washington

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  Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856-1915) was an African American political leader, educator and author. He was one of the dominant figures in African American history in the United States from 1890 to 1915. Born into slavery in Franklin County, Virginia, at the age of 9, he was freed and moved with his family to West Virginia, where he learned to read and write while working in manual labor jobs. He later trained as a teacher, and in 1881 was named the first leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The Future of the American Negro was written to put more definite and permanent form the ideas regarding the condition of the negro. Booker T. Washington, a prominent African American leader, educator, and author, articulates the importance of Industrial education. He emphasized the importance of the development of the Negro in hand and heart training, which would provide the solid foundation necessary to attain the highest form of citizenship. This volume is the outgrowth of a series of articles written to enlighten readers on the doctrine of Industrial education that would address the mistakes of the reconstruction period. Booker T. Washington expresses arguments through sound reason in an impassioned plea to resolve the problems of increased crime, ignorance, discrimination, and debilitating debt crippling the black race. He substantiates his case with inspiring examples of former students of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute who overcame adversity to achieve their dreams. Listeners will develop a greater understanding of the horrific outcomes of slavery, the colossal errors of the reconstruction period, the extreme levels of poverty and ignorance, the failures of government, and the instability of industry in the south. In the midst of these problems, Booker provides a remedy, which in many respects is still relevant to the future of the American Negro.

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  Half Broke - A Memoir

  Ginger Gaffney

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  At the start of this remarkable story of recovery, healing, and redemption, Ginger Gaffney answers a call to help retrain the troubled horses at an alternative prison ranch in New Mexico, a facility run entirely by the prisoners. The horses are scavenging through the dumpsters, kicking and running down the residents when they bring the trash out after meals. One horse is severely injured. 
  The horses and residents arrive at the ranch broken in one way or many: the horses are defensive and terrified, while the residents, some battling drug and alcohol addictions, are emotionally and physically shattered. With deep insight into how animals and humans communicate through posture, body language, and honesty of spirit, Gaffney walks us through her struggle to train the untrainable. 
  Gaffney peels away the layers of her own story—a solitary childhood, painful introversion, and a transformative connection with her first horse, a filly named Belle—and she, too, learns to trust people as much as she trusts horses. As her year-long odyssey builds toward a dramatic conclusion, the group experiences triumphs and failures, brave recoveries and relapses, as well as betrayals and moving stories of trust and belonging.

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  The Cure for Anything Is Salt...

  Mary South

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  At forty, Mary South had a beautiful home, good friends, and a successful career in book publishing. But she couldn't help feeling that she was missing something intangible but essential. So she decided to go looking for it . . . at sea. Six months later she had quit her job, sold the house, and was living aboard a forty-foot, thirty-ton steel trawler she rechristened Bossanova. Despite her total lack of experience, South set out on her maiden voyage—a fifteen-hundred-mile odyssey from Florida to Maine—with her one-man, two-dog crew. But what began as the fulfillment of an idle wish became a crash course in navigating the complicated byways of the self.

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  My Life as a Goddess - A Memoir...

  Guy Branum

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  “Smart, fast, clever, and funny (As f*ck!)” (Tiffany Haddish), this collection of side-splitting and illuminating essays by the popular stand-up comedian, alum of Chelsea Lately and The Mindy Project, and host of truTV’s Talk Show the Game Show is perfect for fans of the New York Times bestsellers Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby.From a young age, Guy Branum always felt as if he were on the outside looking in.From a stiflingly boring farm town, he couldn’t relate to his neighbors. While other boys played outside, he stayed indoors reading Greek mythology. And being gay and overweight, he got used to diminishing himself. But little by little, he started learning from all the sad, strange, lonely outcasts in history who had come before him, and he started to feel hope.In this “singular, genuinely ballsy, and essential” (Billy Eichner) collection of personal essays, Guy talks about finding a sense of belonging at Berkeley—and stirring up controversy in a newspaper column that led to a run‑in with the Secret Service. He recounts the pitfalls of being typecast as the “Sassy Gay Friend,” and how, after taking a wrong turn in life (i.e. law school), he found stand‑up comedy and artistic freedom. He analyzes society’s calculated deprivation of personhood from fat people, and how, though it’s taken him a while to accept who he is, he has learned that with a little patience and a lot of humor, self-acceptance is possible.“Keenly observant and intelligent, Branum’s book not only offers uproarious insights into walking paths less traveled, but also into what self-acceptance means in a world still woefully intolerant of difference” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). My Life as a Goddess is an unforgettable and deeply moving book by one of today’s most endearing and galvanizing voices in comedy.

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  Between Two Worlds - From...

  Laurie Becklund, Zainab Salbi

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  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.

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