Non-fiction Books You have Read Recently

[JobyBryant24]

Currently reading PACIFIC RIMS by Rafe Bartholomew

[ScribblerGeek]

Sat for a while last Sunday in Powerbooks GB and saw compilation of Sylvia Plath's journal. Interesting book if I may say.

[F-A Soldier]

Creating A World Without Poverty- M. Yunus

[flipreads]

Currently reading The Forgotten Warriors by David J. Wallis and Ronald Darr http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Warr...dp/B00507TL76/

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Flipreads
http://www.flipreads.com

[C.I.C.C.I]

hardback
347 pages
copyright 2004
ISBN 0-393-05139-0

ANOTHER ******** NIGHT IN SUCK CITY - NICK FLYNN



In this razor-edged memoir, Nick Flynn, a prize-winning poet, tells the inventive, heartbreaking, and at time darkly comic story of an unconventional reunion between father and son and his attempt to make a shattered world whole.

Nick Flynn met his father when he was twenty-seven years old, working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger father, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Nick, his own life precariously unsettled (his mother committed suicide when he was in his late teens), was lkviign alternately in a ramshackle boat and in a warehouse that was once a strip joint. In bold, dazzling prose Another ******** Night in Suck City( a phrase Flynn senior uses to describe his life on the streets) tells the story of two lives, the story of Nick's boyhood in Scituate, Massachusetts, with his brother and young mother who struggled to keep the family together and the story of his larger-than-life father who refused to play by the rules, and the eerie trajectory that led Nick and his father into that homeless shelter, onto those streets and finally to each other.

With raw authenticity stripped of self-pity and a powerful narrative voice unlike any other, Another ******** Night in Suck City illuminates the great hidden story of fathers and sons in America. Nick Flynn has written a remarkable testament to the enduring strength of one's boy struggle for survival.

www.beingflynn.com

[Jameaux]

Last I read was The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris.

[bothwell]

After visiting Dachau Concentration Camp last month, I obtained two books on this topic.

1. Auschwitz by Miklos Nyiszli. This is a memoir of the author who was one of the camp’s prisoners but opted to join Dr. Mengele as his assistant. The author had it too good compared to the other prisoners and I personally felt that the author was trying to soften his participation in the thousands of human experiments done by Dr. Mengele. Nevertheless, Nyiszli provided many gruesome, albeit interesting details on camp activities. This is a good read.

2. Rena's Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz by Heather Dune Macadam and Rena Kornreich Gelissen. This book was rated 5 star out of 110 reviewers in Amazon.com. This is truly one of the most heart-breaking stories I’ve had read in many years! It’s about the imprisonment of Rena who eventually found her younger sister imprisoned in the same camp. She sacrificed and did everything in her human capacity to assist her sister to survive the horrific camp life (if you call that life at all). One has to read this book to be able to appreciate the real sufferings of the camp prisoners. This book was so Intense. It choked me up a number of time. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I’m willing to share the above ebooks (kindle format) to anyone interested.

[Alfonso209]

[Alfonso209]

[C.I.C.C.I]

^ since when was Memoirs of a Geisha NON-FICTION?

This is more of HISTORICAL FICTION

[pawnona]

Last month, "A Civil Action" by Jonathan Harr

[elijahsnow]

[bothwell]

Just finished All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis by Bethany Mclean

It’s a very interesting and easy to read book about the financial meltdown caused by CDOs.

It explains and narrates the greed, lies, deceptions and more lies perpetuated not only by wall street, but by insurance firms, bankers, rating agencies, and mortgagors/ guarantors. I also learned in this book how the U.S. regulators and the government in general contributed to the financial breakdown caused by the rampant use of derivatives in the market. There are no saints here.

This is the 2nd book I read from the author, the first was The Smartest Guys in the Room: the Rise and Fall of Enron. Both books are highly recommended.

[C.I.C.C.I]

hardback
263 pages
copyright 2008
ISBN 978-0-465-03815-2

THE ASSASSIN'S ACCOMPLICE - KATE CLIFFORD LARSON



Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, The Assassin’s Accomplice tells the gripping, true story of the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln through the eyes of its only female participant, the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government of the United States.

Mary Surratt, a Confederate sympathizer, ran the boardinghouse in Washington where the conspirators, including her rebel son, John Surratt, met to plan the assassination. The depth of Surratt’s complicity in the assassination of President Lincoln has been debated since the day she was arrested on April 17, 1865, three days after John Wilkes Booth murdered Lincoln as he sat watching a play at Ford’s Theatre. Less than three months after her arrest, Mary Surratt would hang. The military tribunal that found her guilty never doubted their decision, but five of the nine commissioners petitioned President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, to show mercy because of her sex and age. President Johnson, however, was unmoved, convinced that Surratt “kept the nest that hatched the egg.”

Based on long-lost interviews, confessions, and court testimony, this book reveals Mary’s deep complicity in the murder plot, and explores how Mary’s actions defied nineteenth-century norms of femininity, piety, and motherhood, leaving her vulnerable to deadly punishment historically reserved for men.

A riveting narrative account of sex, espionage, and murder cloaked in the enchantments of Southern womanhood, The Assassin's Accomplice offers a fresh perspective on America's most famous murder.

The commissioners found Mary Surratt's case an extraordinary challenge. Overwhelming evidence, coupled with an incompetent defense team, destroyed any possibility of acquittal. Mary's inability or refusal to offer plausible alternative explanations for her actions in the weeks and days leading up to the assassination, and a stunning lack of supportive and believable character witness, left few doubting her guilt. In addition, her black lace veil, shielding her from public scrutiny during the trial, added fodder to the sinister view of her. Her steely resolve and stoic demeanor throughout most of the trial also confirmed, for some observers, the depth of her callousness. Perhaps a little arrogant and overconfident, Mary contributed to her own negative public image, helping to reinforce notions of her guilt. - page 196

[kim G]

finishing the jaycee duggard story

hope should never be discounted in any way,shape or form

[bothwell]

The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder and The Birth of the American Mafia- by Mike Dash

This book tells about the formation and transition of the Italian mafia in the U.S. It is well-researched with photographs of the main participants. It gives a good narration of the murders and crimes committed by the organization in its early days. The turf war was one of the more interesting pieces of subjects tackled in this book. The rise and fall of all capo di tutti capi (boss of bosses) were most interesting as well. Overall, I felt this book reads like a piece of academic research rather than what I expected to be a more interesting view on this subject.

The most fascinating story I read about the mafia was The Last Mafioso. I’d read that book many years ago but that one started my interest on this subject.

[talkplaylove]

Histories by Herodotus. I haven't finished it yet.

[C.I.C.C.I]

hardback
248 pages
copyright 2011
ISBN 978-1-4516-4251-3

AN INVISIBLE THREAD - LAURA SCHROFF and ALEX TRESNIOWSKI



THIS IS THE TRUE STORY of the unlikely friendship between Laura Schroff and Maurice Macyzk, two people from vastly different worlds who lived just two blocks apart in high-flying 1980's Manhattan. In the course of their many meetings Laura learned about Maurice's abusive father and drug-addicted mother, about his drug-dealing unles and knife-wielding grandmother, about the many filthy shelters and welfare hotels he had called home in the course of his short life. She discovered how Maurice's turbulent childhood echoed her own in Long Island, where her father's violent alcoholic tirades wreaked havoc on the family.

Laura and Maurice spent their time together doing simple things --- baking cookies, setting a table, trimming a Christmas tree - exposing Maurice to a way of life he didn't know existed and allowing him, for the first time ever, to dream of a better future than what he knew. Laura, herself caught up in the ever-present crush schedules and ambition, began to discover valuable lessons about the true meaning of friendship, courage, perseverance, and love and was finally able to come to terms with her own history of family chaos and violence.

An Invisible Thread tells the parallel stories of Laura and Maurice and how their lives were fated to converge just around the corner from Broadway. It describes the poignant meetings through which they built a lasting trust and learned the simple things that really matter. most of all, this is a book about how, if we learn to let go of fears and burdens and expectations, we can find ourselves plunged into the sweet, unplanned blessings of life.

[C.I.C.C.I]

hardback
295 pages
copyright 1998
ISBN 0-688-16082-4

THE DAY DIANA DIED - CHRISTOPHER ANDERSEN



When I was born, I was unwanted.
When I married Charles, I was unwanted.
When I joined the Royal Family, I was unwanted
I want to be wanted."

Where were you the day Diana died? Like the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the tragic death of the Princess of Wales on August 31, 1997, is one of those defining benchmarks in history --- and event that touched each of us so profoundly, we will never forget the moment we heard the news.

A full year after the Paris car crash that ended Diana's life at age thirty-six, millions around the world remain in shock. During the sixteen years since her storybook wedding to Prince Charles, she had evolved from "Shy Di" into the planets most photographed, written-about, and talked-about woman --- indeed, the most famous person in the world.

For all Diana's global fame, much of the human drama that swirled around her death remains veiled in mystery and intrigue. Now, in the manner of his headline-making Kennedy biographies, Jack and Jackie and Jackie after Jack, Christopher Andersen draws on important sources--- many of whom have agreed to speak here for the first time --- to re-create in vivid and often startling detail the events leading up to that fateful night in Pairs. Among the revelations:

Important new information about Diana's final moment's alive, the accident itself --- and what no one knew about the other convicted drunk driver in the car that night.

Prince Charles's surprising reaction to the news of Diana's death --- including his shock the first time he saw her body --- the Queen's bizarre request, and a riveting account of how Prince William and Prince Harry coped with their shock and grief.

The broken romance that pushed her into the arms of Dodi Fayed, their curious relationship, and whether or not she truly planned to marry him.

A behind-the-scene account of the battle royal that raged between the Queen and Prince Charles in the leading up to the funeral.

Diana's quest, and the warnings that might have saved her.

Final answers to persistent rumors that Diana was pregnant at the time of the accident, that cocaine was found in the car --- and that she was the victim of a murder plot.

At the end, Diana wanted for her sons, her vision of a future King William -- and the man she most wanted him to emulate.

Diana was, in every sense of the word, larger than life --- a force of nature that, as the Royal Family learned, could be neither dismissed nor ignored. A bittersweet sage, of triumph, love, and loss, The Day Diana Died captures those last days when Diana's star never shone brighter --- and evokes the beauty, grace, heartache, and compassion that made Diana one of the most compelling figures of our time.

[nightrider]

Taming The Gods - Ian Buruma