万本电子书0元读

万本电子书0元读

First Mothers
First Mothers
Angelo, Bonnie
¥88.56
Bonnie Angelo, a veteran reporter and writer for Time, has captured the daily lives, thoughts, and feelings of the remarkable women who played such a large role in developing the characters of the modern American presidents. From formidably aristocratic Sara Delano Roosevelt to diehard Democrat Martha Truman, champion athlete Dorothy Bush, and hard-living Virginia Clinton Kelley, Angelo blends these women's stories with the texture of their lives and with colorful details of their times. First Mothers is an in-depth look at the special mother-son relationships that nurtured and helped propel the last twelve American presidents to the pinnacle of power.
Seasons on Harris
Seasons on Harris
Yeadon, David
¥88.56
The Outer Hebrides of Scotland epitomize the evocative beauty and remoteness of island life. The most dramatic of all the Hebrides is Harris, a tiny island formed from the oldest rocks on earth, a breathtaking landscape of soaring mountains, wild lunarlike moors, and vast Caribbean-hued beaches. This is where local crofters weave the legendary Harris Tweed a hardy cloth reflecting the strength, durability, and integrity of the life there.In Seasons on Harris, David Yeadon, "one of our best travel writers" (The Bloomsbury Review), captures, through elegant words and line drawings, life on Harris the people, their folkways and humor, and their centuries-old Norse and Celtic traditions of crofting and fishing. Here Gaelic is still spoken in its purest form, music and poetry ceilidh evenings flourish in the local pubs, and Sabbath Sundays are observed with Calvinistic strictness. Yeadon's book makes us care deeply about these proud islanders, their folklore, their history, their challenges, and the imperiled future of their traditional island life and beloved tweed.
The Eyes of Willie McGee
The Eyes of Willie McGee
Heard, Alex
¥88.56
A gripping saga of race and retribution in the Deep South and a story whose haunting details echo the themes of To Kill a Mockingbird In 1945, Willie McGee, a young African-American man from Laurel, Mississippi, was sentenced to death for allegedly raping Willette Hawkins, a white housewife. At first, McGee's case was barely noticed, covered only in hostile Mississippi newspapers and far-left publications such as the Daily Worker. Then Bella Abzug, a young New York labor lawyer, was hired by the Civil Rights Congress an aggressive civil rights organization with ties to the Communist Party of the United States to oversee McGee's defense. Together with William Patterson, the son of a slave and a devout believer in the need for revolutionary change, Abzug and a group of white Mississippi lawyers risked their lives to plead McGee's case. After years of court battles, McGee's supporters flooded President Harry S. Truman and the U.S. Supreme Court with clemency pleas, and famous Americans including William Faulkner, Albert Einstein, Jessica Mitford, Paul Robeson, Norman Mailer, and Josephine Baker spoke out on McGee's behalf.By the time the case ended in 1951 with McGee's public execution in Mississippi's infamous traveling electric chair, "Free Willie McGee" had become a rallying cry among civil rights activists, progressives, leftists, and Communist Party members. Their movement had succeeded in convincing millions of people worldwide that McGee had been framed and that the real story involved a consensual love affair between him and Mrs. Hawkins one that she had instigated and controlled. As Heard discovered, this controversial theory is a doorway to a tangle of secrets that spawned a legacy of confusion, misinformation, and pain that still resonates today. The mysteries surrounding McGee's case live on in this provocative tale of justice in the Deep South.Based on exhaustive documentary research court tran*s, newspaper reports, archived papers, letters, FBI documents, and the recollections of family members on both sides Mississippi native Alex Heard tells a moving and unforgettable story that evokes the bitter conflicts between black and white, North and South, in America.
An Innocent, a Broad
An Innocent, a Broad
Leary, Ann
¥88.56
When Ann Leary and her husband, then unknown actor-comedian Denis Leary, flew to London in the early nineties for a brief getaway during Ann's second trimester of pregnancy, neither anticipated the adventure that was in store for them. The morning after their arrival, Ann's water broke as they strolled through London's streets. A week later their son, Jack, was born weighing only two pounds, six ounces, and it would be five long months before mother and son could return to the States.In the meantime, Ann became an unwitting yet grateful hostage to Britain's National Health Service -- a stranger in a strange land plunged abruptly into a world of breast pumps and midwives, blood oxygen levels, mad cow disease, and poll tax riots. Desperately worried about the health of her baby, Ann struggled to adapt to motherhood and make sense of a very different culture. At once an intimate family memoir, a lively travelogue, and a touching love story, An Innocent, a Broad is utterly engaging and unforgettable.
The Secret Architecture Of Our Nation's Capital
The Secret Architecture Of Our Nation's Capital
Ovason, David
¥88.56
Today, there are more than twenty complete zodiacs in Washington, D.C., each one pointing to an extraordinary mystery. David Ovason, who has studied these astrological devices for ten years, now reveals why they have been placed in such abundance in the center of our nation's capital and explains their interconnections. His richly illustrated text tells the story of how Washington, from its foundation in 1791, was linked with the zodiac, with the meaning of certain stars, and with a hidden cosmological symbolism that he uncovers here for the first time.Fascinating and thoroughly researched, The Secret Architecture of Our Nation 's Capital is an engrossing book that raises provocative questions and otters complex insights into the meanings behind the mysterious symbols in Washington.
Grist for the Mill
Grist for the Mill
Dass, Ram
¥88.56
From one of the world's most influential spiritual teachers comes a revised and fully updated version of his timeless classic. In this exploration of the Buddhist concept of Dharma and the basic principles of enlightenment, Ram Dass illuminates the deep spiritual journey of self-discovery and what it means to be and to grow as human beings.
Auto Biography
Auto Biography
Swift, Earl
¥88.56
An unforgettable ode to American car culture, award-winning author Earl Swift's wise, funny, and captivating narrative follows an outlaw-genius motorhead as he attempts to restore an iconic 1957 Chevy from rusted-out wreck to gleaming, chromed work of American art before the FBI closes inA classic '57 Chevy, in wretched shape: Its surviving paint is sun-bleached, salt-pocked, and cracked like a dry lakebed. Its engine hasn't turned over in years. Slumped among hundreds of other rusting hulks on a windswept patch of eastern North Carolina, the Chevy evokes none of the Jet Age optimism that made it the most beloved and instantly recognizable car to ever roll off an assembly line. But for its unlikely rescuer a felon arrested seventy-odd times, and a man who's been written off as a ruin himself the Chevy isn't junk, it's a fossil of the twentieth-century American experience, of a people devoted to and forever changed by the automobile. For Tommy Arney, it's a piece of history, especially so because its decrepit skin conceals a rare asset: a complete provenance, stretching back more than fifty years through twelve previous owners. So, hassled by banks and the FBI, the Chevy's thirteenth owner embarks on a mission to save the car and preserve the long record of human experience it carries with it before his own volatile demons doom him and the car.Earl Swift's masterful narrative charts the shifting dreams and fortunes of the people who've gripped this endangered icon's steering wheel, and in the process captures America's strange and abiding relationship with the automobile as no book has before.
Carnivore
Carnivore
Johnson, Dillard
¥88.56
Amid ferocious fighting that many times nearly took his life, Sergeant Dillard "C. J." Johnson and his crew are recognized by Pentagon reports to have accounted for astonishing enemy KIA totals while battling inside and out of the "Carnivore," the Bradley Fighting Vehicle Johnson commanded during Operation Iraqi Freedom. After miraculously beating stage-three cancer (caused by radiation exposure from firing armor-piercing depleted-uranium rounds during combat), he returned to his platoon in Baghdad for a second tour, often serving as a sniper protecting his fellow troops. Today, Johnson and his men's story is the stuff of legend—earning them a cover story in Soldier of Fortune and a display in the Fort Stewart Museum. But only now is Johnson telling his full story: reviewed and approved for publication by the Department of Defense, Carnivore is the gripping and unflinchingly honest autobiography of a remarkable American warrior. "The estimated enemy KIAs for Staff Sergeant Johnson’s BIFV [Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle] during this fight [22 March, 2003] was 488. The informal estimate from the troop was that Johnson and his crew killed at least 1,000 Iraqis on 23 March. Later in the move north, Johnson engaged and destroyed 20 trucks and tallied 314 KIAs in the vicinity of An Najaf. At Objective FLOYD, Johnson’s platoon fought yet another bitter fight against what they claim was a thousand paramilitary troops. … Events were corroborated by separate interviews with the remainder of C/3-7 CAV, to include the troop commander." —On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the official study of the 2003 invasion commissioned by the U.S. Army Chief of Staff
Death Punch'd
Death Punch'd
Spencer, Jeremy
¥88.56
A fascinating inside account of one of the most successful heavy metal bands of the past decade and a revealing personal journey through the wild highs and terrifying lows of rock 'n' roll from the cofounder of Five Finger Death Punch, Jeremy Spencer "Everything, including success, comes with a price." Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most unexpectedly consistently popular bands," Five Finger Death Punch has become the heavyweight champ of the metal scene. In this soulful, inspiring, and entertaining memoir, Jeremy Spencer, the band's cofounder and drummer, takes us behind the scenes, on tour, and into the studio to tell the band's raucous story and his own. Death Punch'd is a detailed in-depth account of the group's origins and influences. With fierce honesty and self-deprecating playfulness, Jeremy details cutting the band's first demo and hitting the road to tour the world, providing snapshots of a life fueled by sex, booze, drugs, and a thrashing metal sound. He also reveals the fighting and tensions among highly opinionated musicians that grew increasingly out of control—battles that created both intense drama and the music fans love. In addition to pulling back the curtain on the band, Death Punch'd tells Jeremy's personal hard-charging, laugh-out-loud tale of how he left small-town Indiana with $150 in his pocket and rose to rock royalty—and how he nearly destroyed it all for a good time. Jeremy takes us back to his childhood in the eighties, introduces us to his down-to-earth family, and recalls adolescent exploits and a journey to addiction that landed him in rehab at sixteen—dangerous behavior that became bigger, bolder, and badder until Jeremy bottomed out before it was too late. Told in his unique, darkly humorous voice, filled with Jeremy's twisted take on how his rock 'n' roll dream turned nightmare, and including dozens of photos, Death Punch'd is a lively, no-holds-barred ride as well as a sincere and inspiring cautionary tale to help anyone who is struggling to battle demons and addictions of their own.
Jungleland
Jungleland
Stewart, Christopher S.
¥88.56
"I began to daydream about the jungle...." On April 6, 1940, explorer and future World War II spy Theodore Morde (who would one day attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler), anxious about the perilous journey that lay ahead of him, struggled to fall asleep at the Paris Hotel in La Ceiba, Honduras. Nearly seventy years later, in the same hotel, acclaimed journalist Christopher S. Stewart wonders what he's gotten himself into. Stewart and Morde seek the same answer on their quests: the solution to the riddle of the whereabouts of Ciudad Blanca, buried somewhere deep in the rain forest on the Mosquito Coast. Imagining an immense and immaculate El Dorado–like city made entirely of gold, explorers as far back as the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés have tried to find the fabled White City. Others have gone looking for tall white cliffs and gigantic stone temples—no one found a trace. Legends, like the jungle, are dense and captivating. Many have sought their fortune or fame down the Río Patuca—from Christopher Columbus to present-day college professors—and many have died or disappeared. What begins as a passing interest slowly turns into an obsession as Stewart pieces together the whirlwind life and mysterious death of Morde, a man who had sailed around the world five times before he was thirty and claimed to have discovered what he called the Lost City of the Monkey God. Armed with Morde's personal notebooks and the enigmatic coordinates etched on his well-worn walking stick, Stewart sets out to test the jungle himself—and to test himself in the jungle. As we follow the parallel journeys of Morde and Stewart, the ultimate destination morphs with their every twist and turn. Are they walking in circlesOr are they running from their own shadowsJungleland is part detective story, part classic tale of man versus wild in the tradition of The Lost City of Z and Lost in Shangri-La. A story of young fatherhood as well as the timeless call of adventure, this is an epic search for answers in a place where nothing is guaranteed, least of all survival.
Irrationally Yours
Irrationally Yours
Ariely, Dan
¥88.56
Three-time New York Times bestselling author Dan Ariely teams up with legendary The New Yorker cartoonist William Haefeli to present an expanded, illustrated collection of his immensely popularWall Street Journal advice column, “Ask Ariely”. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely revolutionized the way we think about ourselves, our minds, and our actions in his books Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth about Dishonesty. Ariely applies this scientific analysis of the human condition in his “Ask Ariely” Q & A column in the Wall Street Journal, in which he responds to readers who write in with personal conundrums ranging from the serious to the curious: What can you do to stay calm when you’re playing the volatile stock market What’s the best way to get someone to stop smoking How can you maximize the return on your investment at an all-you-can-eat buffet Is it possible to put a price on the human soul Can you ever rationally justify spending thousands of dollars on a RolexIn Ask Ariely, a broad variety of economic, ethical, and emotional dilemmas are explored and addressed through text and images. Using their trademark insight and wit, Ariely and Haefeli help us reflect on how we can reason our way through external and internal challenges. Readers will laugh, learn, and most importantly gain a new perspective on how to deal with the inevitable problems that plague our daily life.
The Violin Maker
The Violin Maker
Marchese, John
¥88.56
How does a simple piece of wood become a violin, the king of instrumentsWatch and find out as Eugene Drucker, a member of the world–renowned Emerson String Quartet, commissions Sam Zygmuntowicz, a Brooklyn craftsman, to make him a new violin. As he tells this extraordinary story, journalist John Marchese shares the rich lore of this beloved instrument and illuminates an art that has barely changed since the Renaissance. Marchese takes readers from start to finish as Zygmuntowicz builds the violin, from the first selection of the wood, to the cutting of the back and belly, through the carving of the scroll and the fingerboard, to the placement of the sound peg. Though much of the story takes place in the craftsman's museum–like Brooklyn workshop, there are side trips across the river to the rehearsal rooms of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln center, and across the world. Stops on the itinerary include Cremona, Italy, the magical city where Antonio Stradivari (and a few of his contemporaries) achieved a level of violin–making perfection that has endured for centuries, as well as points in France and Germany integral to the history of the violin. A stunning work of narrative nonfiction that's also a finely crafted, loving homage to the instrument that most closely approximates the human voice.
The Price of Privilege
The Price of Privilege
Levine, Madeline, PhD
¥88.56
Madeline Levine has been a practicingpsychologist for twenty-five years, but it was only recently that she began to observe a new breed of unhappy teenager. When a bright, personable fifteen-year-old girl, from a loving and financially comfortable family, came into her office with the word empty carved into her left forearm, Levine was startled. This girl and her message seemed to embody a disturbing pattern Levine had been observing. Her teenage patients were bright, socially skilled, and loved by their affluent parents. But behind a veneer of achievement and charm, many of these teens suffered severe emotional problems. What was going onConversations with educators and clinicians across the country as well as meticulous research confirmed Levine's suspicions that something was terribly amiss. Numerous studies show that privileged adolescents are experiencing epidemic rates of depression, anxietydisorders, and substance abuse rates that are higherthan those of any other socioeconomic group ofyoung people in this country. The various elements of a perfect storm materialism, pressure to achieve, perfectionism, disconnection are combining to create a crisis in America's culture of affluence. This culture is as unmanageable for parents mothers in particular as it is for their children. While many privileged kids project confidence and know how to make a goodimpression, alarming numbers lack the basic foundation of psychological development: an authentic sense of self. Even parents often miss the signs of significant emotional problems in their "star" children. In this controversial look at privileged families, Levine offers thoughtful, practical advice as she explodes one child-rearing myth after another. With empathy and candor, she identifies parenting practices that are toxic to healthy self-development and that have contributed to epidemic levels of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse in the most unlikely place the affluent family.
Journal of the Dead
Journal of the Dead
Kersten, Jason
¥88.56
I killed and buried my best friend today ...When authorities found Raffi Kodikian -- barely alive -- four days after he and his friend David Coughlin became lost in Rattlesnake Canyon, they made a grim and shocking discovery. Kodikian freely admitted that he had stabbed Coughlin twice in the heart. Had there been a darker motive than mercyAnd how could anyone, under any circumstances, kill his best friend?Armed with the journal Kodikian and Coughlin carried into Rattle- snake Canyon, Jason Kersten re-creates in riveting detail those fateful days that led to the killing in an infamously unforgiving wilderness.
Alex & Me
Alex & Me
Pepperberg, Irene
¥88.56
On September 6, 2007, an African Grey parrot named Alex died prematurely at age thirty-one. His last words to his owner, Irene Pepperberg, were "You be good. I love you."What would normally be a quiet, very private event was, in Alex's case, headline news. Over the thirty years they had worked together, Alex and Irene had become famous two pioneers who opened an unprecedented window into the hidden yet vast world of animal minds. Alex's brain was the size of a shelled walnut, and when Irene and Alex first met, birds were not believed to possess any potential for language, consciousness, or anything remotely comparable to human intelligence. Yet, over the years, Alex proved many things. He could add. He could sound out words. He understood concepts like bigger, smaller, more, fewer, and none. He was capable of thought and intention. Together, Alex and Irene uncovered a startling reality: We live in a world populated by thinking, conscious creatures.The fame that resulted was extraordinary. Yet there was a side to their relationship that never made the papers. They were emotionally connected to one another. They shared a deep bond far beyond science. Alex missed Irene when she was away. He was jealous when she paid attention to other parrots, or even people. He liked to show her who was boss. He loved to dance. He sometimes became bored by the repetition of his tests, and played jokes on her. Sometimes they sniped at each other. Yet nearly every day, they each said, "I love you." Alex and Irene stayed together through thick and thin despite sneers from experts, extraordinary financial sacrifices, and a nomadic existence from one university to another. The story of their thirty-year adventure is equally a landmark of scientific achievement and of an unforgettable human-animal bond.
How to Lose WWII
How to Lose WWII
Fawcett, Bill
¥88.56
An engrossing and fact-filled collection of the great screwups of the Great War Never had there been a war on the scale of World War II a global conflict so widespread and involving so many different military organizations from such a diverse pool of combatant countries that the consequences of every decision, both the brilliant and the bad, were multiplied one hundredfold. Bill Fawcett, popular chronicler of monumental military mistakes and truly boneheaded battlefield blunders now looks closely at the historic errors that ultimately determined the course of post-WWII history. A cornucopia of catastrophic missteps, including: An unprepared Poland is caught napping as the Nazis storm in virtually unopposed Germany misses a golden opportunity to take Britain out of the war at Dunkirk Russia plays Goliath to Finland's David Four valuable months are wasted as Allied forces sit trapped on the beaches of Anzio Germany squanders its costly development of jet power The secret 1942 battle Marshal Zhukov lost, along with half a million soldiers Battles lost that should have been won, including Moscow, Stalingrad, and D-Day
How to Make Love to a Plastic Cup
How to Make Love to a Plastic Cup
Wolfe, Greg
¥88.56
The man's guide to anything and everything in the infertility universe Greg Wolfe went through four cycles of IVF on his rocky journey to fatherhood and now, with profound sympathy and side-splitting humor, he lays it all out for guys on similar baby-making quests. How to Make Love to a Plastic Cup is not your typical nuts and bolts (no pun intended) medical guide but a helpful handbook designed specifically with the male partner in mind, with answers to his most pressing questions about the infertility process, including: Why are boxers better than briefsHow can hamsters help determine what's wrong with my spermMy wife's already moody enough why am I injecting her with even more hormonesIs it necessary for me to fill the whole cup at the fertility clinicFrom understanding a woman's cycle to "porn etiquette" at the clinic, How to Make Love to a Plastic Cup has everything a man needs to know to get the job done!
Seldom Disappointed
Seldom Disappointed
Hillerman, Tony
¥88.56
When Tony Hillerman looks back at seventy-six years spent getting from hardtimes farm boy to bestselling author, he sees lots of evidence that Providence was poking him along. For example, when an absentminded Army clerk left him off the hospital ship taking the wounded home from France, the mishap put him on a collision course with a curing ceremony held for two Navajo Marines, thereby providing the grist for a writing career that now sees his books published in sixteen languages around the world and often on bestseller lists. Or, for example, when his agent told him his first novel was so bad that it would hurt both of their reputations, he nonetheless sent it to an editor, and that editor happened to like the Navajo stuff. In this wry and whimsical memoir, Hillerman offers frequent backward glances at where he found ideas for plots of his books and the characters that inhabit them. He takes us with him to death row, where he interviews a man about to die in the gas chamber and details how this murderer became Colton Wolf in one of his novels. He relates how flushing a solitary heron from a sandbar caused him to convert Joe Leaphorn from husband to widower, and how his self-confessed bias against the social elite solved the key plot problem in A Thief of Time. No child abuse stories here: The worst Hillerman can recall is being sent off to first grade (in a boarding school for Indian girls) clad in cute blue coveralls instead of the manly overalls his farm-boy peers all wore. Instead we get a good-natured trip through hard times in college; an infantry career in which he "rose twice to Private First Class" and also won a Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart; and, afterward, work as a truck driver, chain dragger, journalist, professor, and "doer of undignified deeds" for two university presidents. All this is colored by a love affair (now in its fifty-fourth year) with Marie, which involved raising six children, most of them adopted. Using the gifts of a talented novelist and reporter, seventy-six-year-old Tony Hillerman draws a brilliant portrait not just of his life but of the world around him.
The Oysters of Locmariaquer
The Oysters of Locmariaquer
Clark, Eleanor
¥88.56
On the northwest coast of France, just around the corner from the English Channel, is the little town of Locmariaquer (pronounced "loc-maria-care"). The inhabitants of this town have a special relationship to the world, for it is their efforts that maintain the supply of the famous Belon oysters, called les plates ("the flat ones"). A vivid account of the cultivation of Belon oysters and an excursion into the myths, legends, and rich, vibrant history of Brittany and its extraordinary people, The Oysters of Locmariaquer is also an unforgettable journey to the heart of a fascinating culture and the enthralling, accumulating drama of a unique devotion.
The Cactus Eaters
The Cactus Eaters
White, Dan
¥88.56
The Pacific Crest Trail stretches from Mexico to Canada, a distance of 2,650 grueling, sun-scorched, bear-infested miles. When Dan White and his girlfriend announced their intention to hike it, Dan's parents among others thought they were nuts. How could two people who'd never even shared an apartment together survive six months in the desert with little more than a two-person tent and some trail mixBut when these addled adventurers, dubbed "the Lois and Clark Expedition" by their benevolent trail-guru, set out for the American wilderness, the hardships of the trail and one delicious-looking cactus test the limits of love and sanity.
Love Cemetery
Love Cemetery
Galland, China
¥88.56
By the eve of the Civil War, there were four million slaves in North America, and Harrison County was the largest slave-owning county in Texas. So when China Galland returned to research her family history there, it should not have surprised her to learn of unmarked cemeteries for slaves. "My daddy never let anybody plow this end of the field," a local matron told a startled Galland during a visit to her antebellum mansion. "The slaves are buried there." Galland's subsequent effort to help restore just one of these cemeteries Love Cemetery unearths a quintessential American story of prejudice, land theft, and environmental destruction, uncovering racial wounds that are slow to heal.Galland gathers an interracial group of local religious leaders and laypeople to work on restoring Love Cemetery, securing community access to it, and rededicating it to the memories of those buried there. In her attempt to help reconsecrate Love Cemetery, Galland unearths the ghosts of slavery that still haunt us today. Research into county historical records and interviews with local residents uncover two versions of history one black, one white. Galland unpacks these tangled narratives to reveal a history of shame of slavery and lynching, Jim Crow laws and land takings (the theft of land from African-Americans), and ongoing exploitation of the land surrounding the cemetery by oil and gas drilling. With dread she even discovers how her own ancestors benefited from the racial imbalance.She also encounters some remarkable, inspiring characters in local history. Surprisingly, the original deed for the cemetery's land was granted not by a white plantation owner, but by Della Love Walker, the niece of the famous African-American cowboy Deadwood Dick. Through another member of the Love Cemetery committee, Galland discovers a connection to Marshall's native son, James L. Farmer, a founder of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and organizer of the 1961 Freedom Riders. In researching local history, Galland also learns of the Colored Farmers' Alliance, a statewide group formed in the 19th century that took up issues ranging from low wages paid to cotton pickers to emigration to Liberia.By telling this one story of ultimate interracial and intergenerational cooperation, Galland provides a model of the kind of communal remembering and reconciliation that can begin to heal the deep racial scars of an entire nation.