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Ben Roethlisberger
by Jeffrey ZuehlkeQuarterback Ben Roethlisberger set an amazing record in only his second year in the NFL. In late 2005, the twenty-four-year-old led the Pittsburgh Steelers on a wild ride to Super Bowl XL. With 11 wins, the Steelers just made a playoff spot. Next Ben and the team defeated three strong opponents on the road. Then in the big game, Ben became the youngest quarterback ever to achieve a Super Bowl victory. Having reached the top of his sport so early, many wondered what Big Ben would do next. A motorcycle accident and surgery almost took Ben out of play for 2006. He recovered, but his 2006 season had ups and downs. Still Pittsburgh fans are eager for more great play from this hugely talented young quarterback.
Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy
by Stephen KantrowitzThrough the life of Benjamin Ryan Tillman (1847-1918), South Carolina's self-styled agrarian rebel, this book traces the history of white male supremacy and its discontents from the era of plantation slavery to the age of Jim Crow.As an anti-Reconstruction guerrilla, Democratic activist, South Carolina governor, and U.S. senator, Tillman offered a vision of reform that was proudly white supremacist. In the name of white male militance, productivity, and solidarity, he justified lynching and disfranchised most of his state's black voters. His arguments and accomplishments rested on the premise that only productive and virtuous white men should govern and that federal power could never be trusted. Over the course of his career, Tillman faced down opponents ranging from agrarian radicals to aristocratic conservatives, from woman suffragists to black Republicans. His vision and his voice shaped the understandings of millions and helped create the violent, repressive world of the Jim Crow South.Friend and foe alike--and generations of historians--interpreted Tillman's physical and rhetorical violence in defense of white supremacy as a matter of racial and gender instinct. This book instead reveals that Tillman's white supremacy was a political program and social argument whose legacies continue to shape American life.
Ben-Gurion
by Anita ShapiraDavid Ben-Gurion cast a great shadow during his lifetime, and his legacy continues to be sharply debated to this day. There have been many books written about the life and accomplishments of the Zionist icon and founder of modern Israel, but this new biography by eminent Israeli historian Anita Shapira strives to get to the core of the complex man who would become the face of the new Jewish nation. Shapira tells the Ben-Gurion story anew, focusing especially on the period after 1948, during the first years of statehood. As a result of her extensive research and singular access to Ben-Gurion's personal archives, the author provides fascinating and original insights into his personal qualities and those that defined his political leadership. As Shapira writes, "Ben-Gurion liked to argue that history is made by the masses, not individuals. But just as Lenin brought the Bolshevik Revolution into the world and Churchill delivered a fighting Britain, so with Ben-Gurion and the Jewish state. He knew how to create and exploit the circumstances that made its birth possible. " Shapira's portrait reveals the flesh-and-blood man who more than anyone else realized the Israeli state.
Ben-Gurion: A Political Life (Jewish Encounters Series)
by Shimon Peres David LandauIsrael's current president gives us a dramatic and revelatory biography of Israel's founding father and first prime minister. Shimon Peres was in his early twenties when he first met David Ben-Gurion. Although the state that Ben-Gurion would lead through war and peace had not yet declared its precarious independence, the "Old Man," as he was called even then, was already a mythic figure. Peres, who came of age in the cabinets of Ben-Gurion, is uniquely placed to evoke this figure of stirring contradictions--a prophetic visionary and a canny pragmatist who early grasped the necessity of compromise for national survival. Ben-Gurion supported the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, though it meant surrendering a two-thousand-year-old dream of Jewish settlement in the entire land of Israel. He granted the Orthodox their first exemptions from military service despite his own deep secular commitments, and he reached out to Germany in the aftermath of the Holocaust, knowing that Israel would need as many strong alliances as possible within the European community. A protégé of Ben-Gurion and himself a legendary figure on the international political stage, Shimon Peres brings to his account of Ben-Gurion's life and towering achievements the profound insight of a statesman who shares Ben-Gurion's dream of a modern, democratic Jewish nation-state that lives in peace and security alongside its Arab neighbors. In Ben-Gurion, Peres sees a neglected model of leadership that Israel and the world desperately need in the twenty-first century.From the Hardcover edition.
Benchwarmer: A Sports-Obsessed Memoir of Fatherhood
by Josh WilkerFor most of his life, Josh Wilker has been on the sidelines. Spending his days in a cubicle in the far reaches of Chicago, and his nights in front of Red Sox games, he has been content to let others take center stage. From childhood onward, he sought comfort from anxiety and depression in the archival pages of sports almanacs and stat sheets: a place where forgotten players lingered, and time seemed to stop--a welcome relief from worldly problems. He found joy in the trivia of long-lost athletes, like the former NFL player Walter "Sneeze" Achiu. But when his first child was born in 2011, Wilker found his anxieties put to the test: how do you remain on the sidelines when a tender, fragile baby needs everything from you? How do you go from third-string forward on the winless 1988 Johnson State College Badgers to a strong, responsible father? Bit by bit, Wilker learns to overcome his demons, protect his son, and eventually take a few wobbly steps with him. In homage to his favorite pastimes, Wilker has written Benchwarmer as just that: an A-to-Z reference on failing at sports. In entries from Asterisk to Barry Bonds to "the Yips" to Zero, Wilker mingles his own story among those of famous collapses, errors, and also-rans. A candid, bighearted, funny presence, Wilker writes about sports the way Michael Chabon writes about comics, or Rob Sheffield writes about music: as if the universe was contained in every blocked shot or dropped fly ball. In Wilker's hands, it is.
Bend It Like Bullard
by Jimmy BullardJimmy Bullard may not have had the perfect hair-do, his Granada Ghia may not have been the flashiest of cars, and he definitely didn't have a string of Page 3 girls trying to sell kiss and tell stories about him to the tabloids. But what he has in spades is a genuine love for The Beautiful Game that few of his peers can match. One of the last graduates from football's old school, Jimmy actually worked in the real world - including as a painter and decorator - before turning pro. Maybe that's why he played football with a smile on his face, always says what's on his mind, and is no stranger to a spot of mischief.Having played under the likes of Barry Fry, Harry Redknapp and Phil Brown, appeared alongside names as diverse as Neil Ruddock and Paolo di Canio, and as long as Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Jimmy has racked up an amazing collection of tales and pranks both on and off the football front-line. Told with candour, Bend It Like Bullard is the extraordinary story of his journey from cable TV fitter to cult hero. It will make you smile, chuckle and, occasionally, ROFL.
Bend It Like Bullard
by Jimmy BullardA rip-roaring, life-enhancing, hilarious memoir from a football cult hero; very much in the same vein as recent bestsellers from Paul Merson and Jeff Stelling. Jimmy Bullard may not have had the perfect hair-do, his Granada Ghia may not have been the flashiest of cars, and he definitely didn't have a string of Page 3 girls trying to sell kiss and tell stories about him to the tabloids. But what he has in spades is a genuine love for The Beautiful Game that few of his peers can match. One of the last graduates from football's old school, Jimmy actually worked in the real world - including as a painter and decorator - before turning pro. Maybe that's why he played football with a smile on his face, always says what's on his mind, and is no stranger to a spot of mischief. Having played under the likes of Barry Fry, Harry Redknapp and Phil Brown, appeared alongside names as diverse as Neil Ruddock and Paolo di Canio, and as long as Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Jimmy has racked up an amazing collection of tales and pranks both on and off the football front-line. Told with candour, Bend It Like Bullard is the extraordinary story of his journey from cable TV fitter to cult hero. It will make you smile, chuckle and, occasionally, ROFL.
Bend, Not Break
by Ping Fu“Bamboo is flexible, bending with the wind but never breaking, capable of adapting to any circumstance. It suggests resilience, meaning that we have the ability to bounce back even from the most difficult times. . . . Your ability to thrive depends, in the end, on your attitude to your life circumstances. Take everything in stride with grace, putting forth energy when it is needed, yet always staying calm inwardly. ” —Ping Fu’s “Shanghai Papa” Ping Fu knows what it’s like to be a child soldier, a factory worker, and a political prisoner. To be beaten and raped for the crime of being born into a well-educated family. To be deported with barely enough money for a plane ticket to a bewildering new land. To start all over, without family or friends, as a maid, waitress, and student. Ping Fu also knows what it’s like to be a pioneering software programmer, an innovator, a CEO, and Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year. To be a friend and mentor to some of the best-known names in technology. To build some of the coolest new products in the world. To give speeches that inspire huge crowds. To meet and advise the president of the United States. It sounds too unbelievable for fiction, but this is the true story of a life in two worlds. Born on the eve of China’s Cultural Revolution, Ping was separated from her family at the age of eight. She grew up fighting hunger and humiliation and shielding her younger sister from the teenagers in Mao’s Red Guard. At twenty-five, she found her way to the United States; her only resources were $80 in traveler’s checks and three phrases of English: thank you, hello, and help. Yet Ping persevered, and the hard-won lessons of her childhood guided her to success in her new homeland. Aided by her well-honed survival instincts, a few good friends, and the kindness of strangers, she grew into someone she never thought she’d be—a strong, independent, entrepreneurial leader. A love of problem solving led her to computer science, and Ping became part of the team that created NCSA Mosaic, which became Netscape, the Web browser that forever changed how we access information. She then started a company, Geomagic, that has literally reshaped the world, from personalizing prosthetic limbs to repairing NASA spaceships. Bend, Not Break depicts a journey from imprisonment to freedom, and from the dogmatic anticapitalism of Mao’s China to the high-stakes, take-no-prisoners world of technology start-ups in the United States. It is a tribute to one woman’s courage in the face of cruelty and a valuable lesson on the enduring power of resilience. .
Bending Toward the Sun: A Mother and Daughter Memoir
by Leslie Gilbert-Lurie Rita LurieThis joint memoir details one mother’s childhood struggle to escape the Holocaust and the effect it has on her daughter.“A memoir that takes us through many worlds, through heartache and noble hopes, through the mysteries of family love . . . Read Bending Toward the Sun and enrich your life.”—Rabbi David Wolpe, author of Why Faith MattersA miraculous lesson in courage and recovery, Bending Toward the Sun tells the story of a unique family bond forged in the wake of brutal terror.Rita Lurie was five years old when she was forced to flee her home in Poland to hide from the Nazis in a cramped, dark attic with fourteen members of her family. Young Rita watched her younger brother and her mother die before er eyes. But the tragedy of the Holocaust was only the beginning of Rita’s story.Decades later, Rita’s daughter Leslie began probing the traumatic events of her mother’s childhood to discover how Rita’s pain has affected not only Leslie’s life and outlook but that of her own daughter, Mikaela, as well. The result is Bending Toward the Sun, a collaboration between mother and daughter that brings together the stories of three generations of a family to understand the legacy that unites, inspires, and haunts them all.“[An] affecting memoir. . . . Vivid. . . . Riveting. . . . An amazing story of wartime survival.”—Kirkus Reviews
Bending the Arc: My Journey from Prison to Politics
by Keeda J. HaynesA searing exposé of the profound failures in our justice system, told by a woman who has journeyed from wrongfully accused prisoner to acclaimed public defender Keeda Haynes was a Girl Scout and a churchgoer, but after college graduation, she was imprisoned for a crime she didn&’t commit. Her boyfriend had asked her to sign for some packages—packages she did not know were filled with marijuana. As a young Black woman falsely accused, prosecuted, and ultimately imprisoned, Haynes suffered the abuses of our racist and sexist justice system. But rather than give in to despair, she decided to fight for change. After her release, she attended law school at night, became a public defender, and ultimately staged a highly publicized campaign for Congress. At every turn of her unlikely story, she gives unique insights into the inequities built into our institutions. In the end, despite the injustice she endured, she emerges convinced that ours can become a true second-chance culture.
Bendita locura
by Raúl Gómez (Maraton Man)«Aventuras extremas, viajes a lugares recónditos, running y paternidad. Leer este libro te hará vivir la vida al más puro estilo Raúl Gómez, con mucha pasión y un punto de locura. Un libro tierno, divertido e inolvidable».Roberto Leal. «¡Estás loco, Raúl! ¡Eso es una locura!». No sabría decir la de veces que he escuchado esa frase. Desde el día que pisé Kenia presentándome a cámara con aquella perorata de «Soy Maraton Man», que eclipsaría mi nombre de pila para siempre, no he parado de viajar, correr, vivir aventuras y rendir homenaje a esa locura que nos mueve a soñar fuerte y sentirnos vivos. He corrido en soledad, desde la ciudad de Maratón hasta el centro de Atenas, sin puntos de avituallamiento, sin marcas de guía en el suelo y sin público animando. He convivido con los beduinos en mitad del desierto y he aprendido a vivir de la nada como lo hiciera el mismísimo Lawrence de Arabia. He saltado a las aguas gélidas del lago Prestvannet en Tromsø, Noruega, a menos quince grados. He buceado con los bajaus, una comunidad que vive en pueblos flotantes en mar abierto y cuya adaptación genética al buceo ha sido noticia en la comunidad científica. En el Triángulo de Ilemi, un territorio fronterizo disputado por varias tribus de Sudán del Sur, Etiopía y Kenia, he temido por mi vida por primera vez. Y, a pesar de todo, hoy, cuando miro a mis hijas, creo que ser padre es la más top de mis locuras, la Michael Jordan de todas ellas: «Bendita locura».
Bendtner: The Bestselling Autobiography
by Nicklas Bendtner Rune Skyum-Nielsen'Bendtner is wired differently from the rest of us.' -The Guardian'Explosive.' - The MirrorKnown as 'Lord Bendtner' to his fans and haters alike, Nicklas Bendtner has been lauded for his football skills at super clubs like Arsenal and Juventus. But his career was haunted by his rocky behaviour and tendency to self-sabotage.Very much a fable of the modern game, Bendtner talks with disarming honesty about the darker side of football and his own difficult fall from grace; about what it's like to have so much promise that you lose touch with reality altogether. It's about growing up in a working class neighbourhood and what happens when you give a troubled, overconfident teen millions to spend. It's about fighting to reach the top in the world's toughest league but having no respect for hierarchy. It's about friendship, rivalry, and the constant quest for an adrenaline kick. It's about money - having too much of it - and an industry that has lost sight of what really matters. A modern footballing fable, it's a story of decline, temper, talent, great football and ultimately the tragedy of unfulfilled potential.Not since the days of Paul McGrath's Back From The Brink have we seen such honesty in a footballer's memoir. Fans of Paul Merson, George Best and Tony Adam's autobiographies will also find pure fascination here in a story that has gripped international listeners...(p) 2020 Octopus Publishing Group
Bendtner: The Bestselling Autobiography
by Nicklas Bendtner Rune Skyum-Nielsen***WINNER OF 2019 DANISH SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR'Brutally candid.' - The Guardian'An extraordinary, granular depiction of a young football star's life.' - The Daily Mail'One of the best books I've read about being a Premier League star.' - Piers Morgan'An excellent read with some incredible stories.' - TalkSPORT Breakfast Show'One of the best football books I've read for a very long time.' - Sam Pilger, FourFourTwo Magazine'Explosive.' - The Mirror'Candid and brilliant.' - Nick Wright, Sky SportsKnown as 'Lord Bendtner' to his fans and haters alike, Nicklas Bendtner has been lauded for his football skills at super clubs like Arsenal and Juventus. But his career was haunted by his rocky behaviour and tendency to self-sabotage.Very much a fable of the modern game, Bendtner talks with disarming honesty about the darker side of football and his own difficult fall from grace; about what it's like to have so much promise that you lose touch with reality altogether. It's is about growing up in a working class neighbourhood and what happens when you give a troubled, overconfident teen millions to spend. It's about fighting to reach the top in the worlds' toughest league but having no respect for hierarchy. It's about friendship, rivalry, and the constant quest for an adrenaline kick. It's about money - having too much of it - and an industry that has lost sight of what really matters. A modern footballing fable, it's a story of decline, temper, talent, great football and ultimately the tragedy of unfulfilled potential.Not since the days of Paul McGrath's Back From The Brink have we seen such honesty on the page of a footballer's memoir. Fans of Paul Merson, George Best and Tony Adam's autobiographies will also find pure fascination here in a story that has gripped international readers...
Bendtner: The Bestselling Autobiography
by Nicklas Bendtner Rune Skyum-Nielsen***WINNER OF 2019 DANISH SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR'Brutally candid.' - The Guardian'An extraordinary, granular depiction of a young football star's life.' - The Daily Mail'One of the best books I've read about being a Premier League star.' - Piers Morgan'An excellent read with some incredible stories.' - TalkSPORT Breakfast Show'One of the best football books I've read for a very long time.' - Sam Pilger, FourFourTwo Magazine'Explosive.' - The Mirror'Candid and brilliant.' - Nick Wright, Sky SportsKnown as 'Lord Bendtner' to his fans and haters alike, Nicklas Bendtner has been lauded for his football skills at super clubs like Arsenal and Juventus. But his career was haunted by his rocky behaviour and tendency to self-sabotage.Very much a fable of the modern game, Bendtner talks with disarming honesty about the darker side of football and his own difficult fall from grace; about what it's like to have so much promise that you lose touch with reality altogether. It's is about growing up in a working class neighbourhood and what happens when you give a troubled, overconfident teen millions to spend. It's about fighting to reach the top in the worlds' toughest league but having no respect for hierarchy. It's about friendship, rivalry, and the constant quest for an adrenaline kick. It's about money - having too much of it - and an industry that has lost sight of what really matters. A modern footballing fable, it's a story of decline, temper, talent, great football and ultimately the tragedy of unfulfilled potential.Not since the days of Paul McGrath's Back From The Brink have we seen such honesty on the page of a footballer's memoir. Fans of Paul Merson, George Best and Tony Adam's autobiographies will also find pure fascination here in a story that has gripped international readers...
Beneath My Feet: The Memoirs of George Mercer Dawson
by Phil JenkinsGeorge Mercer Dawson is a towering figure in Canadian history -- and science -- as the man who led the Geological Survey during its exploration of the Canadian West, mostly from horseback or from a canoe. A tough job for anyone, it was an extraordinary achievement for Dawson. Born in 1849, Dawson was crippled by a childhood illness that left him hunchbacked and in constant pain. He never grew taller than a young boy, and he never let his disabilities stop him. An avid photographer, amateur painter, professional geologist and botanist, and by necessity an ethnographer, Dawson wrote constantly: poetry, journals, reports, notes, and more than five thousand letters, his first at the age of six and his last just two days before he died in 1901.But Dawson never wrote his memoirs. So, a century after his death, Phil Jenkins has lent him a hand. Using Dawson's own words, and filling in the gaps in Dawson's voice, Jenkins presents the man who left his heart in western Canada. Their countless stories -- from witnessing the last great buffalo stampede to encountering the timeless customs of the Haida -- evoke the real excitement of the age of exploration. Dawson knew the pain of unrequited love, suffered the bite of a million mosquitoes, and yet he travelled on, over mountainous physical odds, to become one of the most respected and enjoyed of Victorian Canadians, in the thought-provoking times of Dickens and Darwin.From the Hardcover edition.
Beneath a Scarlet Sky by: A Novel
by Mark SullivanBased on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours. Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders. Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.
Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel
by Mark SullivanPino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager--obsessed with music, food, and girls--but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. <P><P>In an attempt to protect him, Pino's parents force him to enlist as a German soldier--a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler's left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich's most mysterious and powerful commanders. <P><P>Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share. <P><P>Fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this riveting saga of history, suspense, and love.
Beneath the Black Water: The Search for an Ancient Fish
by Jon Berry"When I was very young and on holiday in Scotland, my cousin told me about giant trout that lived in small numbers at the bottom of the Highlands deepest lochs. They were called salmo ferox, and they were rumoured to be uncatchable." In his twenties, wholly accidentally, Jon Berry caught one. This led to an obsession that would cost him every pound he had to his name, a few thousand that he did not, a couple of girlfriends and his home. It would take him to Scotland, Cumbria and the wildest corners of Ireland, in the company of a disparate band of fanatics, alcoholics, mountain men, scientists, tree-planting eco-warriors and one genuine soothsayer. Not all of them survived. This compelling account of Berry's mission to catch salmo ferox will have you hooked, fellow fisherman or not. His drive and determination is infectious, and the ups and downs of his life in the process thought-provoking. This is not just a story of a fish, albeit a cannibalistic giant trout of the glacial lochs; it is a tale of compulsion and escape, of the author's rediscovery of a landscape and a clan, and of a willing descent into madness.
Beneath the Blue Sky: 40 Years of the Gypsy Traveller Life
by Dominic ReeveIn a lifetime traversing Britain's lanes and byways, Dominic Reeve has witnessed a changing world for the Romani Gypsies. Since the 1950s, the horse-drawn wagons have given way to brightly chromed vehicles, stopping-places have disappeared - but the Travellers still cling to the precious old traditions and the freedom of an outdoor life.Beneath the Blue Sky tells of horse-fairs and fireside deals, of snowbound Christmases and the joy of taking possession of a new motor. Dominic Reeve recalls feuds and friendships, cycles of parting and meeting, and the struggle in the face of prejudice. Above all, he paints an unforgettable picture of the self-reliance, wit and courage of the Romani people.
Beneath the Blue Sky: 40 Years of the Gypsy Traveller Life
by Dominic ReeveIn a lifetime traversing Britain's lanes and byways, Dominic Reeve has witnessed a changing world for the Romani Gypsies. Since the 1950s, the horse-drawn wagons have given way to brightly chromed vehicles, stopping-places have disappeared - but the Travellers still cling to the precious old traditions and the freedom of an outdoor life.Beneath the Blue Sky tells of horse-fairs and fireside deals, of snowbound Christmases and the joy of taking possession of a new motor. Dominic Reeve recalls feuds and friendships, cycles of parting and meeting, and the struggle in the face of prejudice. Above all, he paints an unforgettable picture of the self-reliance, wit and courage of the Romani people.
Beneath the Fig Leaves
by Olympia PanagiotopoulosIn 1955, in a village in Greece that was marred by war and poverty, Giannoula and Fotios Panagiotopoulos dreamed of providing a better life for their children. Australia, it was rumoured, was a land of opportunity where hard work brought reward. Leaving behind family and friends, they set off to make a new home on the other side of the world. Half a lifetime later, under the shade of a fig tree and in the dappled Melbourne sunlight, Giannoula regales her youngest daughter, Olympia, with stories of her homeland and journey. An evocative exploration of the ties that bind, Beneath the Fig Leaves weaves an irresistible tapestry of family, food and history to stir the heart and senses.
Beneath the Fig Leaves: A Memoir Food And Family
by Olympia PanagiotopoulosIn 1955, in a village in Greece that was marred by war and poverty, Giannoula and Fotios Panagiotopoulos dreamed of providing a better life for their children. Australia, it was rumoured, was a land of opportunity where hard work brought reward. Leaving behind family and friends, they set off to make a new home on the other side of the world. Half a lifetime later, under the shade of a fig tree and in the dappled Melbourne sunlight, Giannoula regales her youngest daughter, Olympia, with stories of her homeland and journey. An evocative exploration of the ties that bind, Beneath the Fig Leaves weaves an irresistible tapestry of family, food and history to stir the heart and senses.
Beneath the Mask of Holiness: Thomas Merton and the Forbidden Love Affair that Set Him Free
by Mark ShawSpiritual writer Thomas Merton is the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century. Despite appearances to the contrary, in 1966 he was a troubled, lonely monk. Only when the suffering Merton fell madly in love with a student nurse, a forbidden, erotic affair condemned by the Catholic Church, would he discover whether his devotion to God was stronger than his dedication to the woman he called "a miracle in my life." Truly an inspirational story based on Merton's personal journals, new information and sources such as fellow monks, Beneath the Mask of Holiness presents a unique portrayal of the famous man, one never revealed in its entirety before.
Beneath the Pale Blue Burqa: One Woman's Journey Through Taliban Strongholds (Big Sky Publishing Ser.)
by Kay DanesOn September 11, 2001, the World changed forever when ruthless Al-Qaeda terrorists launched an aerial attack on the United States of America. Oblivious to the world&’s terror, Kay and Kerry Danes sat half a world away, secure in an Embassy after a terrifying 11-month hostage ordeal in communist Laos. As fear gripped the globe, Kerry an Australian Special Forces soldier, comforted his wife Kay, as they struggled to come to terms with their hellish ordeal of torture, mock executions and the helplessness of leaving behind 58 political prisoners of a long forgotten war. The couple&’s hopes focused only on seeing their children again. In the years after regaining their freedom and working to re-piece together family life, Kerry returned to active duty with the Special Forces and Kay turned her dark experiences towards creating social justice, over the years becoming a leading international humanitarian. In November 2008, amidst haunting memories of her Laos ordeal, Kay faced her fears and embarked on a humanitarian aid mission to deliver life-changing opportunities and aid to people devastated in war-torn Afghanistan. In an old dusty Toyota mini-van, armed only with hope, Kay and her companions, a florist from Arizona, a nurse from Texas, a public servant from Australia and a US Marine Korean War veteran, drove the ancient Silk Road amidst kidnappings, suicide bombings, carnage and chaos. This powerful story will have you gripping your chair and holding your breath, as you travel with Kay through Taliban strongholds and the remote wastelands of Al Qaeda terrorists. Her story provides a rare glimpse of places we may never visit and the courageous Afghan people determined to persevere against overwhelming odds. Beneath the Pale Blue Burqa is a truly inspiring journey and an important contribution to the selfless efforts of all who have gone before to brave the perils of Afghanistan. Foreword - By Afghan Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
Beneath the Restless Wave: Memoirs of a Cold War Submariner
by Edward Couzens-Lake Tony Beasley<p>A Royal Navy submariner and hero of the Cold War reveals his incredible true story of covert ops against the Soviets in this military memoir.<p> <p>Tony Beasley was just a teenager when he joined the Royal Navy in 1946. Throughout his training and specialization as a telegraphist, he anticipated a life above the water, not beneath it. But with the Cold War brewing, new threats emerged, and Beasely was sent to work on submarines. In this candid memoir, he recounts his adventures patrolling the seas and spying on the Soviet Fleet.<p> <p>Tony took part in numerous missions, including covert operations in the Barents Sea. Before this mission, the crew of the submarine was advised that if anything went wrong it “never happened.” When things inevitably did go wrong, Tony emerged a hero. For many years afterward, he wasn't allowed to tell anyone where he had been or what he had done. Now in his eighties, Tony finally gets to tell his story.<p>