[PDF] Download The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties by Christopher Caldwell | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties Author: Christopher Caldwell Number of pages: Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 21, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 1501106899 Rating: 4,5     54 reviews

Book Description Review “Caldwell warrants attention. He is one of the right’s most gifted and astute journalists” — New York Times Book Review“Provocative and well-argued” — New York Journal of Books“The man is a genius.” — Freddy Gray, deputy editor of The Spectator and editor of Spectator USA, POLITICO Playbook “The Age of Entitlement is an eloquent and bracing book, full of insight.” — New York Magazine“Scholarly, provocative, insightful: this is history-writing at its best. Readers of Caldwell’s journalism will instantly recognize his capacity to use a single moment or event to illuminate a much wider phenomenon. Anyone wishing to understand the failure of the American elite over the more than half century since President Kennedy was assassinated, and thus why Donald Trump was elected, must read but profoundly thoughtful book.” — Andrew Roberts, New York Times bestselling author of Leadership in War“In this landmark cultural and political history of the last half-century, Christopher Caldwell brilliantly dissects the new progressive establishment, and shows how the reforms of the sixties gradually devolved into intolerance, self-righteousness, and the antithesis of what had started out as naive idealism. A singular analysis by a masterful chronicler of the sixties dreams that have gone so terribly, but predictably, wrong.” — Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Case for Trump“The Age of Entitlement rudely dismembers the moral pretensions of our ruling class in the tradition of Christopher Lasch. If the trajectory of political correctness leaves you bewildered, here you will learn its institutional logic—the key role it plays in legitimating new structures of inequality. Thanks to Caldwell, we now understand how this regime change happened, and why half the electorate thought it necessary to cast a vote of desperation in 2016.” —Matthew Crawford, New York Times bestselling author of Shop Class as Soulcraft“The sharpest and most insightful conservative critique of mainstream politics in years.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Caldwell’s is a deeper, wider cultural and constitutional narrative of the last half-century. If Klein is trying to explain why polarization fucks everything up, Caldwell is intent on telling us how this state of affairs came to be. Both are well worth reading (though Caldwell’s vibrant, mordant prose makes his a more unusual and enjoyable ride). … Caldwell’s account is indispensable — especially for liberals — in understanding how those resentments grew until they finally exploded under Barack Obama. … Caldwell’s book is far too nuanced and expansive to cover here. But he identifies key moments and key changes. …”  — Andrew Sullivan, New York Magazine“A sweeping but insightful examination into every social, political and legal decision, movement and trend that leaves us where we are today in a polarized nation. … a fascinating read that could ignite 1,000 conversations … Caldwell’s analysis of our Vietnam legacy is particularly masterful but the book brims with brisk evaluations of how a confident nation became an argumentative, fragmented one.” — The Associated Press Read more About the Author Christopher Caldwell is a contributing editor at the Claremont Review of Books and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. He was previously a senior editor at the Weekly Standard and a columnist for the Financial Times. He is the author of The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties and Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West. Read more Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1: 1963 1 1963 The assassination of Kennedy In the mid-1960s, at a moment of deceptively permanent-looking prosperity, the country’s most energetic and ideological leaders made a bid to reform the United States along lines more just and humane. They rallied to various loosely linked moral crusades, of which the civil rights movement, culminating in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, provided the model. Women entered jobs and roles that had been male preserves. Sex came untethered from both tradition and prudery. Immigrants previously unwanted in the United States were welcomed and even recruited. On both sides of the clash over the Vietnam War, thinkers and politicians formulated ambitious plans for the use of American power. Most people who came of age after the 1960s, if asked what that decade was “about,” will respond with an account of these crusades, structured in such a way as to highlight the moral heroism of the time. That is only natural. For two generations, “the sixties” has given order to every aspect of the national life of the United States—its partisan politics, its public etiquette, its official morality. This is a book about the crises out of which the 1960s order arose, the means by which it was maintained, and the contradictions at its heart that, by the time of the presidential election of 2016, had led a working majority of Americans to view it not as a gift but as an oppression. The assassination of Kennedy The era we think of as the sixties began with relative suddenness around the time of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Americans are right to say that nothing was ever the same after Kennedy was shot. You can hear the change in popular music over a matter of months. A year-and-a-half before Kennedy was killed, “Stranger on the Shore,” a drowsy instrumental by the British clarinetist Acker Bilk, had hit number one. A year-and-a-half after the assassination, the musicians who would form Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and various other druggie blues and folk-rock bands were playing their first gigs together in San Francisco. This does not mean that the assassination “caused” the decade’s cultural upheaval. The months before Kennedy’s death had already seen the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (August 1962), which upended notions about science’s solidity and a lot of social and political assumptions built on it; Rachel Carson’s exposé of pesticides, Silent Spring (September 1962); and The Feminine Mystique (February 1963), Betty Friedan’s attack on what she saw as the vapidity of well-to-do housewives’ existence. Something was going to happen. The two conflicts that did most to define the American 1960s—those over racial integration and the war in Vietnam—were already visible. In October 1962, rioting greeted attempts to enforce a Supreme Court decision requiring the segregated University of Mississippi to enroll its first black student, James Meredith. The last summer of Kennedy’s life ended with an unprecedented March on Washington by 200,000 civil rights activists. Three weeks before Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem was ousted and then murdered in a coup that Kennedy had authorized. Kennedy’s death, though, gave a tremendous impetus to changes already under way. Often peoples react to a political assassination, as if by collective instinct, with a massive posthumous retaliation. They memorialize a martyred leader by insisting on (or assenting to) a radicalized version, a sympathetic caricature, of the views they attribute to him. The example most familiar to Americans came in the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, when the country passed constitutional reforms far broader than those Lincoln himself had sought: not only a Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery but also a broad Fourteenth Amendment, with its more general and highly malleable guarantees of equal protection and due process. Something similar happened in the 1960s. A welfare state expanded by Medicare and Medicaid, the vast mobilization of young men to fight the Vietnam War, but, above all, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts—these were all memorials to a slain ruler, resolved in haste over a few months in 1964 and 1965 by a people undergoing a delirium of national grief. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, was able to take ideas for civil rights legislation, languishing in the months before Kennedy’s death, and cast them in a form more uncompromising than Kennedy could have imagined. Civil rights ideology, especially when it hardened into a body of legislation, became, most unexpectedly, the model for an entire new system of constantly churning political reform. Definitions of what was required in the name of justice and humanity broadened. Racial integration turned into the all-embracing ideology of diversity. Women’s liberation moved on to a reconsideration of what it meant to be a woman (and, eventually, a man). Immigration became grounds for reconsidering whether an American owed his primary allegiance to his country or whether other forms of belonging were more important. Anti-communist military adventures gave way, once communism began to collapse in 1989, to a role for the United States as the keeper of the whole world’s peace, the guarantor of the whole world’s prosperity, and the promulgator and enforcer of ethical codes for a new international order, which was sometimes called the “global economy.” There was something irresistible about this movement. The moral prestige and practical resources available to the American governing elite as it went about reordering society were almost limitless. Leaders could draw not just on the rage and resolve that followed Kennedy’s death but also on the military and economic empire the United States had built up after World War II; on the organizational know-how accumulated in its corporations and foundations; on the Baby Boom, which, as the end of the twentieth century approached, released into American society a surge of manpower unprecedented in peacetime; and, finally, on the self-assurance that arose from all of these things. The reforms of the sixties, however, even the ones Americans loved best and came to draw part of their national identity from, came with costs that proved staggeringly high—in money, freedom, rights, and social stability. Those costs were spread most unevenly among social classes and generations. Many Americans were left worse off by the changes. Economic inequality reached levels not seen since the age of the nineteenth-century monopolists. The scope for action conferred on society’s leaders allowed elite power to multiply steadily and, we now see, dangerously, sweeping aside not just obstacles but also dissent. At some point in the course of the decades, what had seemed in 1964 to be merely an ambitious reform revealed itself to have been something more. The changes of the 1960s, with civil rights at their core, were not just a major new element in the Constitution. They were a rival constitution, with which the original one was frequently incompatible—and the incompatibility would worsen as the civil rights regime was built out. Much of what we have called “polarization” or “incivility” in recent years is something more grave—it is the disagreement over which of the two constitutions shall prevail: the de jure constitution of 1788, with all the traditional forms of jurisprudential legitimacy and centuries of American culture behind it; or the de facto constitution of 1964, which lacks this traditional kind of legitimacy but commands the near-unanimous endorsement of judicial elites and civic educators and the passionate allegiance of those who received it as a liberation. The increasing necessity that citizens choose between these two orders, and the poisonous conflict into which it ultimately drove the country, is what this book describes. Read more Customers Review: I’ve been wondering for years what the hell is going on with thiscountry. This book attempts to explain what’s happened. Itisn’t that the revolution is coming, the revolution has alreadyoccurred. Many people aren’t living in the country they thinkthey are. An extremely thought provoking idea. I bought this book with high expectations, instead, I came away disappointed. Which is a shame because I think this work of art can be so much more. A book is a message-delivery device. So my review will focus on both the message of the author and the medium he used. I will also offer thoughts on how future editions of the book can inch closer to a 5-star rating.MESSAGE REVIEW (4 stars)One-paragraph Summary of the book:The central thesis of the book is that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA-64) was a much bigger deal than its supporters realized. Had they known what they were backing, they probably would have re-considered it. The CRA-64, according to the author, is a rival constitution to the original constitution and so the United States of America can no longer be united since it is now being ruled by two opposing constitutions. One is the de jure, which favors conservatives, Republicans, in short, straight white men. The de jure is fading out in the face of the de facto constitution which favors anyone that is not white, male and straight.What I like about the message:1. The author repeated his key point many times. In page 120, we read: “Almost everyone other than white heterosexual males could benefit in some way from civil right laws. Vast, hitherto unenvisioned coalitions, perhaps even electoral majorities, could be formed by rallying other non-white groups.” He made variants of this statement so often that it’s hard for you to miss what he was trying to pass across.2. The author showed how the CRA-64 has worked against America. He, for instance, drew a straight line from the CRA-64 (and the twin offspring of Affirmative Action and Political Correctness it birthed) to the financial crisis of 2008. He also showed how recoveries from recession are now taking longer, thanks to the unintended(?) consequences of the CRA-64. If the author is to be believed, America’s debt will only soar because it has to pacify not one, but two constitutions. The alternative is anarchy.3. The author’s original views. Maybe I am not well read, but he is the first I have seen praise Nixon and vilify Reagan in the same sentence. I had to read sections of the book discussing Nixon over and again to be sure. According to the author, Reagan wasted an opportunity to right the disruptive course of the CRA-64. “The Reagan era had in retrospect marked a consolidation, not a reversal, of the movements that began in the 1960s. In the quarter-century after Reagan, conservatives lost every battle against the substance of political correctness.” (p. 163) To be fair, the author sounded unimpressed with all the Republican administration since Nixon: Reagan, Bush and his “even more reckless” son were all painted with a broad brush. No mention of Donald Trump (more on this later)4. I share his disdain for the excesses of Affirmative Action and Political Correctness. In page 154, for instance, we read: “Discouraging or disciplining racist attitudes was no longer enough – it had become necessary to destroy the life and livelihood of anyone even suspected of harboring them.” And “Only with the entrenchment of political correctness did it become clear what Americans had done in 1964: They had inadvertently voted themselves a second constitution without explicitly repealing the one they had. Each constitution contained guarantees of rights that could be invoked against the other – but in any conflict it was the new, un-official constitution, nurtured by elites in all walks of life, that tended to prevail…this was a recipe for strife.” (p.171)So why not give the message 5 stars?Because the author painted a bleak picture that is not necessarily true and sometimes exaggerated and he offered no way out except by a repeal of either the old constitution or the new one. He saw no other way. I am not sure I want to live in a pre-CRA-64 society where a hotel owner is free to deny service to a tired traveler “for any reason or no reason whatsoever” and call that “simple justice.”(p. 18) But I also don’t want cherished traditions and norms trampled upon in the name of the shifting sand of “diversity.”The book said elections are not a remedy either because the CRA-64 has marched along unabated through both Democratic and Republican administrations leaving winners and losers in its wake. I disagree. Elections have consequences, to borrow a popular saying. Elections matter a lot. The Trump administration just confirmed 187 federal judges, including 2 Supreme Court justices, because he is a Republican backed by a Republican-majority Senate. Without conservative victory at the ballot box, that won’t be possible. The way to fight the worst impulses of the CRA-64 is to have textualists on the bench. Elections can help achieve that. That, to me, is how we can keep the good of CRA-64 while reining in the bad. I would have loved for the author to point out cases where “liberal activists” lost in court because of the makeup of the bench. It would have been a good counterbalance and a call to action for all.REVIEW OF THE BOOK AS A WORK OF ART (Rating 0 Stars)This is a poorly edited book. I’m no editor but I know a shoddy work when I see one and trust me when I say this work is sub-par. The fatal flaw of this book is that it was published in January 2020; yet you could tell that it was written in the final months of 2016. You would be forgiven if you thought this book was published in January 2017 because there was no mention of Donald Trump, no mention of anything that happened in America in 2017, 2018 and 2019. For a book that wants to educate us on “America Since the Sixties,” omitting the last three years prior to publication in the narrative is unforgivable. I wonder how who thought that was a brilliant idea.There are other defects: Section 4 on War feels contrived and unnecessary. The book, for whatever reason, feels like it needs to dedicate an entire section to the Vietnam War. It tries to draw parallels with the civil right laws but fails to do so convincingly. There are many a paragraph where I kept asking myself “why is this material included?” A page or two on the War, tucked away in another section was all that was needed. 27 pages was a bit too much.One more: The author dropped a sentence without expanding further on it. In page 232, we read: “Now it became clear that the members of any group that felt itself despised and degraded could defend its interests this way. Even whites.” If I were editing this book, I would have pushed the author to show how whites have taken (or can take) advantage of the CRA-64. After all, two can play the game.HOW TO MAKE THIS GOOD BOOK GREATAverage of 4 and 0 is 2. This is why this book, as written, is worth not more than 2 stars. The following are ways future editions can be made better.1. Be current!! You cannot write a book on “America since the Sixties” and leave out three whole years prior to the book’s publication!2. Since the election of 2016 was such a seismic shift in the way people saw the country and the ignored forces at work, a great book would have shed more light on why the result was inevitable. This is especially so because, for two years, Republicans controlled everything: the White House, the two houses of Congress and the Supreme Court leaned conservative. The book wants us to feel that conservatism is dying because “there is less to conserve” each day due to the CRA-64, therefore the book has the duty to put America in 2017 and 2018 in perspective for its readers.3. Offer hope. Let’s be real. The CRA-64 cannot be repealed without another Civil War. Nobody wants that. So the question should NOT be cast in winner/loser, victim/perpetrator, black/white, dichotomies. Since the audience of the book, I think, is straight white males or conservatives in general, the book should offer ways they cannot just survive but thrive in this de facto constitution. They can litigate. They can vote. They can win. A great book tells people not just why and how we got here, but what they can do to get there. Given a choice of a hard-copy book, the Kindle version, or the Audible, you should probably pick the “real book.” This is a work you want to flip back and forth in, and that’s pretty hard with an e-book or audio version. And the Audible version is narrated by the author, whose reading style is lucid enough but rather monotonous. There’s a reason why audio books have “star” readers: they are experienced actors who know how to punch-up and modulate as needed.A few reviewers, in the NYTimes and elsewhere, have engaged in what appears to be a coordinated hit-job on this, misrepresenting it as a right-wing political tract. Somebody even called it “Highbrow Trumpism,” whatever that means. What this is, is a social history of the last 50+ years, one that explores a basic thesis that civil-rights legislation, judicial rulings, and enforcement have amounted to a rival Constitution, a body of rules and precedents that are effectively beyond challenge. It’s a sound observation, but the author also explores pop-cult fads and trends, political cant, and the various misadventures that shape our modern world. Brilliant explanation of how America got into the mess it is into today. Not an easy read but worth it. How did we get to the zero sum civil war of identity politics and tribal conflicts? By a process where minorities highjacked the civil rights laws and judicial tools, according to the author. It’s a formidably researched and informed but very readable and accessible ride. But unsatisfyingly incomplete. Ends before Trump and in one brief observation says reversal requires repeal of the civil rights laws. Come on. Fat chance of that. But I found it a very bracing real.

[PDF] Download GameChanger: Trump Card: Turkey & Erdogan by Erbil Gunasti,Daphne Barak | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: GameChanger: Trump Card: Turkey & Erdogan Author: Erbil Gunasti,Daphne Barak Number of pages: Publisher: Post Hill Press (January 28, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 1642934593 Rating: 5     2 reviews

Book Description About the Author Erbil Gunasti worked for Erdogan for five years as a press officer and is slated to work for the Trump administration as a presidential appointee. He is accepted as an insider to both presidents and first ladies, alongside their inner circles. He is the life partner of Daphne Barak, known for her rating-breaking US network TV prime time news shows. Saving Amy, her book with Amy Winehouse, formed the basis of the documentary that won an Oscar. Gunasti’s exposure to Hollywood legends, heads of state, royals, and the like is not limited to the Clintons, Bushes, Obamas, dozens of other heads of state in power, or Hollywood bigwigs. Gunasti is deeply involved in wide-ranging global stories, from Princess Diana’s death to Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Read more Customers Review: This book is mind blowing! Lots of information about Turkey, about Muslims ..The author knows his material!He is not scared to be provocative, and make us think ..He explains why Turkish President Erdogan and President Donald Trump should be given a chance to work together,in order to benefit both countries and others.From what I read about Erdogan,I started to read the book with a negative opinion.But Erbil Gunasti provides an inside look into the Turkish leader. He backs it up with historical facts,and making us worried about the future..Unless we start a debate.. “Gamechanger”-like its name – IS a game changer.It is a totally fresh look about the relations between the US and Turkey.WHY it is so important for both countries? For the rest of the world? It describes a scary (but realistic) future, which will touch each one of us, unless both countries collaborate..It explains why both current leaders Trump and Erdogan are the only ones who can make this much needed collaboration happen..

[PDF] Download The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Author: Michelle Alexander Number of pages: Publisher: The New Press; Anniversary edition (January 7, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 1620975459 Rating: 4,7     2459 reviews

Book Description Review “Devastating. . . . Alexander does a fine job of truth-telling, pointing a finger where it rightly should be pointed: at all of us, liberal and conservative, white and black.”—Forbes “Alexander is absolutely right to fight for what she describes as a ‘much-needed conversation’ about the wide-ranging social costs and divisive racial impact of our criminal-justice policies.”—Ellis Cose, Newsweek “Invaluable . . . a timely and stunning guide to the labyrinth of propaganda, discrimination, and racist policies masquerading under other names that comprises what we call justice in America.”—Daily Kos “Many critics have cast doubt on the proclamations of racism’s erasure in the Obama era, but few have presented a case as powerful as Alexander’s.”—In These Times “Carefully researched, deeply engaging, and thoroughly readable.”—Publishers Weekly “[Written] with rare clarity, depth, and candor.”—Counterpunch “A call to action for everyone concerned with racial justice and an important tool for anyone concerned with understanding and dismantling this oppressive system. ”—Sojourners “Undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S.”—Birmingham News Read more About the Author Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar. She is a former Ford Foundation Senior Fellow and Soros Justice Fellow, has clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, and has run the ACLU of Northern California’s Racial Justice Project. Alexander is a visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary and an opinion columnist for the New York Times. The author of The New Jim Crow and The New Jim Crow: Young Readers’ Edition (both from The New Press), she lives in Columbus, Ohio. Read more Customers Review: While Alexander makes several good points about the dilemma of the US criminal Justice system, a system admittedly with many flaws, she constantly employs false dichotomies and uses single statistics to overreach and convey a conclusion that simply isn’t supported by her evidence. It’s hard to take cold, generalized statistics and apply them to every single individual case accurately. When you begin taking individual cases one by one, these cold statistics don’t always show the conclusion that someone like this author hopes they might.In one instance, the author attempts to paint President Clinton as a closeted racist, liberal sellout, and conservative crony intent on deploying the death sentence on as many black males as he can in order to sway white voters by falsely reporting the details of an execution he attended while Gov. of Arkansas. In the first chapter the author writes that in an effort to appeal to the white lower class voter,”Bill Clinton vowed that he would never permit any Republican to be perceived as tougher on crime than he. True to his word, just weeks before the critical New Hampshire primary, Clinton chose to fly home to Arkansas to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally impaired black man who had so little conception of what was about to happen to him that he asked for the dessert from his last meal to be saved for him until the morning.”At first glance I found this to be quite an appalling thing for the then Governor to focus on. It seemed as though some mentally impaired man had been a victim of his own impairment, possibly committing a crime he had no intention of committing or any knowledge of what he was actually doing, and that the state of Arkansas was about to murder him simply for being less intelligent than the general public. Alexander makes it sound as though this man was innocent. Her words lead you to believe Bill Clinton is the monster in this story and that Rector was the victim of racial prejudice.What she didn’t write, is that Ricky Rector murdered a man at a club because the bouncer wouldn’t let his friend, who wouldn’t pay the $3 cover charge, in to the building. Rector became angry, pulled a gun, and fired several shots at the bouncer, wounding two bystanders and killing one man instantly, after the man was struck in the throat and spine by Rector’s .38 caliber revolver round. Rector fled the scene, evaded police for 3 days, and eventually agreed to surrender to a police officer he’d known since childhood. This police officer, Robert Martin, visited Rector at Rector’s mother’s house, where it was implied the surrender would occur. Once in the house, Robert Martin was eventually shot twice in the back by Rector, and died shortly after. Rector now had 2 assaults and 2 murder’s on his list of pending charges. And by the way, he is not mentally impaired, at all. That comes next.Rector, realizing his grievous error in life choices decides enough is enough and walks out the back of his mother’s house, having just shot and killed Robert Martin, and puts the gun to his own head. He fires, but misses slightly. The round penetrates his skull, destroying his frontal lobe, but leaving him alive nonetheless. This is where his “mental impairment” begins.This doesn’t sound like much of a victim to me. This mental impairment the author appeals to is one of his own doing, and one resulting from a choice he made to kill himself after consciously deciding to fire several shots into a crowd of people and then intentionally killing an indefensible man. This sort of sweeping logic the author does in order to keep the dirt she want’s out and the rest under the rug makes for a difficult and frustrating read. You want to agree with her on most points, but she blatantly misrepresents the facts on so many occasions that you end up writing amazon reviews to express your frustration.This book started off okay, but it’s false implications like this that show the author’s intentions. While they are likely coming from a point of genuine concern, they are not in good faith, nor those of someone coming from an unbiased point of view. Read it, but don’t just take it at it’s word. Just like any other opinion. All I will say is if you read this book, check the footnotes and do your own independent research. The claims the author makes in this book are not supported by the truth. Are some issues that should be addressed raised? Yes. But the bulk of this book is unfair, not supported by facts, and simply more of the same in today’s discourse which often lacks a shred of truth or rational thought. I came into this book with a pretty decent grasp on Alexander’s thesis—thanks in part to the deserved hype her work has received over the years—but found myself captivated as she connected the dots on so many different aspects of mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, Jim Crow, and the historical intersection between classism and racism.Alexander notes in her preface that she wrote this book specifically for people who already care about racial justice, and if you’re one of those people, I urge you to read this with the promise that you will come away from it with a much more comprehensive understanding of our current racial caste system.It’s so well-researched, so informative, and so compelling. I’ve seen some readers lament that Alexander spends parts of the second half of the book rehashing arguments from the first half, but this approach actually worked for me: by reiterating certain points throughout, she helped me better understand their context within the bigger picture.Finally, I have to say that reading this book now—during this point in time—was especially impactful. I learned that there’s a deep history of politicians and wealthy whites exploiting white working class vulnerabilities and racial resentments in order to preserve power and deliberately driving a wedge between poor whites and poor minorities. With so much talk right now about the economic anxieties of white working class Trump voters, I came away from this book with an even deeper conviction that pandering to poor and working class whites exclusively is absolutely not the answer. Rather, we need a real movement that addresses class struggles among all races so that we don’t risk history continuing to repeat itself. This book opened my eyes.There are many powerful statements in this book but here are a few that stuck with me. “Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black.””The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol, it is estimated that three out of four young black men (and nearly all those in the poorest neighborhoods) can expect to serve time in prison.”I highly recommend this book to anyone who really want to understand about mass incarceration and how it effects everyone in America.

[PDF] Download Richard Scarry's Rabbit and His Friends (Little Golden Book) by Richard Scarry | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: Richard Scarry’s Rabbit and His Friends (Little Golden Book) Author: Richard Scarry Number of pages: Publisher: Golden Books; Reissue edition (January 14, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 1984849891 Rating: 5     2 reviews

Book Description About the Author RICHARD SCARRY (1919-1994) is one of the world’s best-loved children’s authors EVER! Generations of children all over the world have grown up spending hours poring over his books filled with all the colorful details of their daily lives. No other illustrator has shown such a lively interest in the words and concepts of early childhood. (Whenever he was asked how old he was, Scarry would always put up one hand and laugh, saying, “five!”) Born in 1919, Richard Scarry was raised and educated in Boston, Massachusetts. After five years of drawing maps and designing graphics for the US Army, he moved to New York to pursue a career in commercial art. But after showing his portfolio to one of the original editors at Golden Books, he found the perfect home for his work. The assignments first given to Scarry tended to be Little Golden Books that featured popular characters of the day, such as Winky Dink, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Smokey the Bear. Eventually, Scarry created his own original characters, such as Lowly Worm and Huckle Cat. But first came Nicholas, a young rabbit clad in red overalls, for the now-iconic classic I Am a Bunny. In his extraordinary career, Richard Scarry illustrated more than 150 books, many of which have never been out of print. His books have sold over 100 million copies around the world and are currently published in more than twenty languages. Richard Scarry Jr., also an illustrator, carries on his father’s work today under the name of Huck Scarry. Richard Scarry passed away at his home in Gstaad, Switzerland in 1994. He was posthumously awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Illustrators in 2012. Read more Customers Review: I finally found my favorite book as a tot. Glad I can share it with my littles

[PDF] Download Early: An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human by Sarah DiGregorio | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: Early: An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human Author: Sarah DiGregorio Number of pages: Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (January 28, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 0062820303 Rating: 5     4 reviews

Book Description Review &#8220Sarah DiGregorio delves deeply into the fraught world of premature birth. With bracing honesty, she recounts her own story and the stories of other women who draw on the power of love and meld it with cutting-edge science as they struggle to save the life of their newborn. This book opens our minds and hearts to a world that is rarely seen with such clarity.&#8221 (Jerome Groopman, MD, Recanati Professor, Harvard Medical School, author of The Anatomy of Hope)”A must read for anyone interested in the science―or the experience―of preterm birth.” (Emily Oster, author of the New York Times bestseller Cribsheet and Expecting Better)&#8220Fascinating. DiGregorio has strung together a riveting history of the preemie, from carnival incubator shows (really!) to the possible future of baby ziplocks. Throughout she has tenderly woven her personal experience with her tiny daughter in the NICU, a space where machine and mother uneasily coparent. At times shocking, heartbreaking, and inspiring, the tension between technology and humanity is evident throughout, and DiGregorio does not shy away from it.&#8221 ( Jennifer Block, author of Everything Below the Waist)”A sweeping cultural history, a consistently surprising and insightful examination on the porous line between life and death, and a graceful and hauntingly clear-eyed memoir all in one. Feels destined to live on shelves for a long time.” (Jayson Greene, author of Once More We Saw Stars)”Every health professional who cares for babies should read this book. A meticulously researched and stirring tribute to the life-affirming work that goes on in NICUs every day.” (Dr. John D. Lantos, pediatric bioethicist and author of Neonatal Bioethics: The Moral Challenges of Medical Innovation)”Sarah DiGregorio’s rigorous, gimlet-eyed reporting on premature birth is surpassed only by her empathy and affection for the people whose lives comprise its history and give it meaning. How can we better care for the most vulnerable people in our communities who, as DiGregorio makes clear, include not only the tiniest babies but the adults who come before them? . . . She triumphs at making issues typically confined to the NICU relevant to every human being.” (Angela Garbes, author of Like a Mother)&#8220DiGregorio makes clear that the problems facing preterm babies can be enormous, that consequences may not be apparent for years, and that the appropriateness of treatment can be debated. . . . Clear reporting that wisely urges careful decision-making by clinicians and parents alike.&#8221 (Kirkus Reviews)”Compassionate… Sensitively approaching the myriad practical and ethical challenges involved in caring for such fragile babies, DiGregorio gives vivid, individualized portraits of struggling parents, premature infants who developed into thriving children, and the specialists dedicated to helping them… DiGregorio delivers a candid yet gentle work with appeal for prospective parents and anyone interested in ‘what premature birth [can] teach us about being human.'” (Publishers Weekly) Read more About the Author Sarah DiGregorio is a freelance journalist who has written for various publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Village Voice, Food & Wine, BuzzFeed, Parade, and Saveur. Her work has been included in the Best American Food Writing yearly anthologies three times. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughter and her husband. Read more Customers Review: This gorgeously written book brought me to tears no less than 15 times as I read it. Sarah deftly weaves together her personal story of a premature birth with the history of neonatology, and the stories that show how being born early is not just a question of individual survival, but a common experience shared by many that offers a chance to examine how we value life. This isn’t just a book for parents of preemies or women who are pregnant, but of any human curious about how so many of us enter the world. Such a powerful story. I learned so much in the process. EARLY: will captivate you from the beginning. She weaves her personal story throughout the book while touching on topics that are historical, sensitive and controversial with such eloquence and grace. Even if you have not had the experience of premature birth, you will not want to put the book down.

[PDF] Download Just Like Me by Vanessa Brantley-Newton | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: Just Like Me Author: Vanessa Brantley-Newton Number of pages: Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (January 14, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 0525582096 Rating: 5     4 reviews

Book Description Review “Thoughtful, inclusive, and celebratory.” —Publishers Weekly“Simple, upbeat, and affirming—a great reminder of what is to be gained when girls appreciate their own uniqueness and that of others. A dynamic, uplifting, and welcoming world of girls.” —Kirkus Reviews“Bursting with positivity, this would be a great book to use in primary school classrooms when discussing issues of friendship, diversity, and self-esteem.” —Booklist Read more About the Author Vanessa Brantley-Newton is a self-taught illustrator, doll maker, and crafter who studied fashion illustration at FIT and children’s book illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She is the author and illustrator of Grandma’s Purse and has illustrated numerous children’s books, including Sewing Stories by Barbara Herkert. Vanessa currently makes her nest in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband, daughter, and a very rambunctious cat named Stripes. Learn more about Vanessa and her artwork at VanessaBrantleyNewton.com and on Facebook. Read more Customers Review: Vanessa Brantley Newton uses her paints and canvas to draw a world of acceptance and celebration for all young readers. She illustrated the hit–KING OF KINDERGARTEN. And now, she is painting and writing delightful poems allowing girls to see the splendor of their own reflections in JUST LIKE ME. This book is not to be missed. Caldecott Committee are you listening? It is long overdue. Newton’s great work deserves a Caldecott! This is a GORGEOUSLY illustrated book of poems that celebrates girlhood. The characters vary greatly in appearance and personality, and the wholistic beauty of each shines through. While the characters are all girls, this book is a valuable read for every child. Highly recommend!

[PDF] Download Ned The Nearsighted Butterfly by David Bruce Monteith,Nikki Dawes | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: Ned The Nearsighted Butterfly Author: David Bruce Monteith,Nikki Dawes Number of pages: Publisher: Ex Libris Novum (January 29, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 1733147705 Rating: 4,6     3 reviews

Book Description Even butterflies have legends. Stories they share while gathered together. Tales they tell to inspire and explain. This is among the oldest of the butterfly legends. Like most tales of butterflies, it is a story of change. This is the story of how butterflies learned their unique flight. Customers Review: A beautiful allegory about the importance of being your true self that will resonate with readers both young and old. “Find what lifts you up”! The writing is moving in its elegant economy and the illustrations are lovely. Highly recommended. My 10-yr-old and 6-yr-old boys loved this book. In fact, when we had finished it, my 6-yr-old asked if there was a second “Ned book.” When I said “not yet,” he asked me if I would tell him when the second one came out so we could get it at the library. ☺️ So it sounds like we already need a sequel! It has a wonderful message of growth and change and hope! Lovely book. The illustrations are so good. A captivating read that discusses the adventures of a nearsighted butterfly named Ned. Children will love this book! Definitely worth picking up at this price point!

[PDF] Download Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises (Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism) by Joseph Azize | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises (Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism) Author: Joseph Azize Number of pages: Publisher: Oxford University Press (January 13, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 0190064072 Rating: 4,7     4 reviews

Book Description Review “This is an outstanding study of the practical basis of Gurdjieff’s teaching that will form a new benchmark in scholarly studies. Through sustained examination of the exercises taught orally by Gurdjieff and his pupils, Azize shows that the ‘Work’ was primarily created as something to do in everyday life, rather than a philosophical system to be decoded. This masterly account is required reading for everyone interested in how new, alternative and esoteric traditions are actually practiced in the modern world.” — Steven J. Sutcliffe, Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion, University of Edinburgh”This book is remarkable, a serious study of Gurdjieff’s ideas and exercises that will be of service not only to students of the fourth way but also to those who wish to better understand mysticism and contemplation in the Christian tradition. It contains unparalleled r�sum�s and analyses of Gurdjieff’s exercises and their evolution over the whole period of his teaching life. Azize points out that Gurdjieff not only drew on the work of collaborators such as Orage but he gradually embraced contemplative practice, drawing on Western orthodox methods, citing the idea: Behind ‘real I’ lies God. The author forcibly expresses the view that the real Gurdjieff exercises have been neglected and obscured and need to be restored and known. His book is one of the most substantial ever written about the actual ‘Gurdjieff work’ and deserves to be widely read and thought about deeply.” — Anthony Blake, author of The Supreme Art of Dialogue”Joseph Azize has the bright idea of collecting the basic exercises given by Gurdjieff and he concludes that their roots are in the Christian Orthodox tradition. A religious component of the Gurdjieff teaching is revealed: Gurdjieff formulated a new practical science of melding the biological emanations with the divine emanations.” — Basrab Nicolescu, author of From Modernity to Cosmodernity Read more About the Author Joseph Azize is a priest in the Maronite Catholic Church, working chiefly in the Chancery. He is also an honorary associate at the University of Sydney. For twenty-three years, he was a practicing attorney for the Commonwealth of Australia, serving at one time as acting Senior Assistant Director of Publications. He has published academically in three areas: ancient history, litigation law, and now in religious studies, and has also written some music for use in the Maronite liturgy. Read more Customers Review: The title of this book suggests an emphasis on the contemplative exercises that were so important to the latter years of Gurdjieff’s work in Europe. The emphasis is real enough, but the great value of the book for people not already attempting to practice the Gurdjieff Work is the carefully considered and meticulously presented introduction to this little understood teacher and his teaching. How valuable will the extensive information on the contemplative exercises be? That depends on what other information and guidance a person has. But, very significantly, this book will make it easier than ever for a reader to determine if they should be seeking live guidance so the exercises will lead to their intended end. For everyone else, it remains an excellent de-mystification of the man and an introduction to his Work. It is also written brilliantly and is, therefore, easily readable (not true of many of the related books). In the 70 years since Mr Gurdjieff passed, his techniques have not only been shrouded in the secrecy of the Foundation groups, worse yet, they have been altered, added to, or simply ignored, by the host of groups who somehow profess a lineage to him. For the first time, Joseph Azize has brought into one volume all of the Gurdjieff exercises that can be verifiably sourced to him, without alteration. His commentary places these exercises in context, not just within the Gurdjieff Work as a whole, but also in the context of Western mysticism, Mount Athos in particular. But even if the reader does not accept the theory of Athos as being a source of many of Gurdjieff’s exercises, this book is an invaluable resource to enable one to practice exercises as Gurdjieff himself intended.The writing is serious, meticulous, precise, and thought-provoking. Gurdjieff intended his Work for mankind, and now between his own writings and this book, serious seekers can access his teaching, even in the absence of a group or experienced leader. This exhaustive work is to be commended. It is the only book of its kind and brings new material and inner relationships to light. Closer editing of the chapter “The Reality of Being” would have made the work impeccable. Azize is influenced by his extensive work with George and Helen Adie, who were obviously extraordinary and vital people. Through Azize’s accounts I have been inspired to read his book, George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia. It is unfortunate that after their death Azize was subsequently exposed to the worst aspects of the ensuing bureaucracy from “official” quarters and its effects on others. As a result the author carries a bias against Jeanne de Salzmann and work within communities, particularly the Gurdjieff Foundations. His association with Oxford Press and the book’s scholarly nature give it an air of authority, and with no “fact checking” readers will swallow it whole. In some cases understanding requires participation with others, and no amount of meticulous written archives can substitute for it.

[PDF] Download Under Too Long: Bombs, Drugs, Untaxed Alcohol, Terrorism, And The Undercover Agents Who Brought It All Down by Billy The Liquor Guy | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: Under Too Long: Bombs, Drugs, Untaxed Alcohol, Terrorism, And The Undercover Agents Who Brought It All Down Author: Billy The Liquor Guy Number of pages: Publisher: Genius Book Company (January 31, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 1947521209 Rating: 4,7     17 reviews

Book Description In 2007, agents of the New York State Petroleum, Alcohol, and Tobacco Bureau (PATB) seized over half a million dollars in untaxed alcohol, drugs, and guns. This takedown, the largest in New York history, led to 87 arrests, the recovery of an unprecedented quantity of cocaine, crack, and marijuana, and captured the attention of law enforcement agencies all around the world. Under Too Long is the story of the PATB undercover team that led this investigation, as seen through the eyes of "Billy the Liquor Guy." Billy’s twelve-year odyssey into the world of undercover operations led him to dine in the homes of the "bad guys," buy bombs from a man in Yonkers, travel to Tunisia to find an informant, and be hired as a hit man. But his undercover life took an enormous toll on Billy and his family, almost destroying them both. The only thing he could rely upon to get him through were his confidence, his sense of humor, and his team. This story combines true life investigation, graphic behind-the-scenes scenarios, and a personal tale about what happens psychologically to an agent when he’s undercover too long. Customers Review: Billy, The Liquor GuyThis is an exceptionally detailed account of life undercover, and true drug bust stories.Billy is the Prime UnderCover Agent. Him, along with his team, broke up one of the country’s largest untaxed cigarette rings. Billy and his team prove to be effective, to detect, prevent, solve and prosecute criminal activities including: tax stamps for cigarettes; drugs, weapons, bombs, tax invasion and other surprises throughout the book.He is brutally honest in sharing the memories of life undercover.An enjoyable true crime read, filled with plenty of action and even a few good laughs.The most fascinating aspect of the entire book – has to be the effects that going undercover had on Billy. He shares the experience of the official recognition he felt, the depression he hid from his force, and the guilt which ate at him over betraying smiles.I was astounded to believe that some of the events that unfold – actually happened.A MUST READ!!! Let me say that it was a great book, very credible if you know Billy the Liquor Guy and very credible if you don’t. There is something for everyone, suspense, drama, humor, and a reality that we only want to read about and not experience personally. We know criminal activity is all around us, but Billy the Liquor Guy brings us in the room to feel the fear, the titillation, experience an outstanding ability to think quickly on your feet, affords us the opportunity for an understanding of what often is happening right under our nose, and even more important, he shows us himself and the impact that his dedication to doing the right thing brings to his own emotional well-being when as “an agent….. he’s under too long” Thank you for reminding us about all the folks out there dedicating a part or all of their career to make the world a safer and better place. Under Too Long takes us into the life of a team of undercover agents who worked together to get the job done. This book is exciting and informative, with some humor thrown in, taking us undercover and along for the ride on one of the largest take downs in NYS. This is a must read, not only for true crime enthusiast, but all readers. The author gave an accounting of how so many of our dedicated government employees carry out their jobs.They do what is right so that the rest of us can benefit.These dedicated “soldiers” run towards trouble, as the rest of us run away from it. Great book!! Once you start reading it, it’s hard to put down. Perect mix of humor, suspense and great dialogue between characters. Awsome book, wish there were more to follow. Wow! What a ride, I couldn’t put it down. Thank you all for your service, even though at times ,it was at great personal sacrifice. Job well done. This book is great , from the start it has kept me on the edge of what next . The life of undercover work you would never think!! Best book ever !!A must read.. Great read. Recommending to all my NY friends and family!!!

[PDF] Download Big Mamma Cucina Popolare: Contemporary Italian Recipes by Big Mamma | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: Big Mamma Cucina Popolare: Contemporary Italian Recipes Author: Big Mamma Number of pages: Publisher: Phaidon Press (January 8, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 1838660356 Rating: 3,9     12 reviews

Book Description Review “Really good, if not downright delicious.”—Grace Dent, The Guardian on Gloria”No prizes for subtlety, but this gaudy Italian wins on flavour.”—Marina O’Loughlin, The Times on Gloria”Is this restaurants’ last hurrah before Brexit? French owners, Italian staff, ingredients imported from Italy, an atmosphere of optimism and glee currently in short supply on this side of the channel.”—Fay Maschler, Evening Standard on Gloria”When it comes to the food… there’s no time for jokes… Savour every bite.”—Luxury London on Gloria”Legitimately feels like the hottest place in town.”—Jimi Famurewa, Evening Standard on Circolo Popolare”You’ll have seen the cheese wheel carbonara on Instagram, heard about the 10-level lasagne from excited friends, and read about the mountainous lemon meringue pie in restaurant reviews… The menu is the main draw.”—Evening Standard”Trendy, Fresh, Authentic Italian Dining.”—HIP Paris”La Dolce Vita indeed.”—Tatler”Big Mamma sets out to evoke “the generosity, humor and simplicity of Italian gastronomy”… Think laid-back, vibey trattoria serving authentic Italian food.”—Urbanlogie”Legendary.”—Elle”A simple but extremely enticing collection of Italian classics.”—Harper’s Bazaar Arabia”Famous for its delicious pasta with truffles.”—Vogue France”Wow your guests.”—LoveFOOD”Perfect for newbies in the kitchen.”—The Week”Contemporary Italian recipes from 2019’s most instagrammed restaurant… Jam-packed with 130 mouth-watering recipes… Easy to prepare, delicious dishes.”—STYLIST”If you want a cookbook that reflects the perfect environment in which to dine with friends and family – in a stimulating and deliciously Italian atmosphere – this is it!… For those that have experienced the energy in London’s Gloria or Circolo Popolare – the book will be an extension of the fun and passion that you’re familiar with and give you an opportunity to recreate some of their unique Mediterranean magic ‘a casa’!”—Enjoy It!”[Big Mamma’s] OTT menus… have proved a huge success.”—The Telegraph”If you’re yet to hit up cult London eateries Gloria and Circolo Popolare, Big Mamma, the group behind the buzz, are bringing their twist on Italian cooking straight to your kitchen with a cookbook.”—Living Etc magazine”A big deal in Paris for some time, this book focuses on their biggest hits.”—Hot Dinners”This year, Big Mamma group has already nailed a couple of uber-sucessful restaurant openings… now it’s released some of the most sought-after recipes from the crowd pleasing menus at both of them.”—Sheerluxe”This is an ideal cookbook for readers who are looking to create Italian dishes with a contemporary twist.”—Publishers Weekly”Big Mamma includes 130 recipes inspired by its chefs who contributed dishes [with] silly names that reinforce the company motto to embrace food – and life – joyfully.”—Globe & Mail”Pleasingly bold.”—Restaurant magazine”This cookbook is good for anyone who got that taste of Big Mamma food and just can’t get enough. You may not be cooking French food, but it’s an Italian taste of Paris that gets the job done.”—Frenchly Read more About the Author Founded in 2015 by Victor Lugger and Tigrane Seydoux, the Big Mamma family includes (so far!) seven restaurants in Paris (BigLove, Pink Mamma and more), one in Lille, two in London (Gloria and Circolo Popolare), and with more to come. Big Mamma plans to fill the world with the tastes and aromas of Italy, one restaurant and one cookbook at a time. Read more Customers Review: Yes, a new simpler take on many traditional Italian dishes; it has all the symbols for Dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian BUT…..it’s more hype than delivery.Contemporary also means being more aware of the impact of meat on the planet and this book has way too many meat-based dishes. I did not expect a vegetarian book but I did expect one that could be “adapted” to a more contemporary approach to eating and more planet-friendly.

[PDF] Download Script for Scandal (A Lillian Frost and Edith Head mystery) by Renee Patrick | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: Script for Scandal (A Lillian Frost and Edith Head mystery) Author: Renee Patrick Number of pages: Publisher: Severn House Publishers; Main edition (January 7, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 0727889109 Rating: 4,2     15 reviews

Book Description Review The story is intricate and surprising, and the partnership between Head and her good friend Frost sets the stage for many further adventures (Booklist on Dangerous to Know)An exhilarating ride through Hollywood in its heyday . Lovers of old movies, fabulous gowns, and historical gossip will be enchanted (Publishers Weekly on Dangerous to Know)Vibrant, stylish and crackling, Design for Dying is both a gift to devotees of Golden Age Hollywood and a mystery lover’s delight. It’s a delicious cocktail, one you won’t want to end (Megan Abbott, bestselling author)A champagne-flavored frolic of a first mystery set during Hollywood’s golden age . Sure to delight fans of old Hollywood and Turner Classic Movies (Library Journal on Design for Dying)”This story, concerning a bank robbery, is genuinely gripping. Well done” (Booklist)”A meaty, densely packed presentation of Tinseltown driven by potentially murderous factions on the brink of World War II” (Kirkus Reviews)The warm working relationship that develops between Lillian and Edith will leave readers eager to see more of their adventures (Publishers Weekly on Design for Dying) Read more About the Author Renee Patrick is the pseudonym for married authors Rosemarie and Vince Keenan. Rosemarie is a research administrator and a poet. Vince is a screenwriter and a journalist. Both native New Yorkers, they currently live in Seattle, Washington. They have written two previous books starring Lillian Frost and Edith Head, Design for Dying and Dangerous to Know. Script for Scandal is their first book for Severn House. Read more Customers Review: I read the first two books in this series, and enjoyed the 50’s Hollywood aspects and the friendship between Edith Head and Lillian Frost. This third book has taken a turn towards the noir, which is not my cup of tea. It focuses more on the relationship between Lillian and her detective boyfriend, who is implicated in a corruption/murder scandal. Sometimes I think that authors don’t really get that readers may not actually remember that much about repeat characters when there is a wait between books. This book jumps right into the action – but it would have been helpful to revisit Lillian and Gene’s relationship, what they looked like, the connection between them, etc., so that I could care more about the outcome. Probably a good book if you like noir, but not as entertaining for me as the previous two novels. I love this series! Anything to do with the Goldem Age of Hollywood fascinates me. Add a deftly written book with an engaging heroine, and I am hooked!Bugsy Seigal, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford pop up. And the clothes, ah to wear an Edith Head or an Adrian!The plot centers around Gene, the heroine’s boyfriend, and the shadow that has rested over his detective career.Namely that his partner was shot during a bank robbery. Was Gene in on it?Enjoy your tour of Hollywood, glittering stars, mystery, and above all couture. At last the third book in the Lillian Frost and Edith Head mystery series by Renee Patrick (actually a wife and husband team) has arrived. Was it worth the wait? Yes!It takes place in 1939 in Hollywood. This time, the story is very personal to Lilian as the “script” in the title “Script for Scandal” is supposedly based on a real-life incident (that is, “real life” to the fictional characters) that reflects badly on someone near and dear to her. That someone positively lets Lillian know she should stay out of it, but, of course, it’s Lillian, and it involves a movie at Paramount. She’s got connections, including, of course, the divine Edith Head, and Lillian’s not about to sit back quietly and do nothing.It’s fast-paced and full of the clever quips and snappy patter one expects from Renee Patrick. The book is dedicated to Eddie Muller, renowned film noir expert and TCM host, and the interest in noir does extend to this book, which includes the sort of disreputable characters one would expect to encounter in Noir Alley. In fact, a famous noir role is foreshadowed in this book.We encounter some of our favorite Hollywood celebrities here, as well as a few less famous and a few more infamous characters. It takes me longer to read one of the Renee Patrick books than other books because I am frequently online looking up some unfamiliar characters to see if they were real or fictitious.This is the third book in the series, following “Design for Dying” and “Dangerous to Know.” If you want to start with this one, I believe you can without being lost, but it’s more fun to read them from the start. Definitely worth the wait for book three. This time Lillian and Edith are working an old mystery with ties to several characters, creating unexpected tension between some of them. A hallmark of this series is the way the authors seamlessly integrate actual people into the fictional narrative, bringing something extra to the series. Humor, deftly & subtly applied is another staple of the series. Case in point: the scene with Bette Davis is priceless (those that follow with Joan Crawford are phenomenal as well). I’m trying to keep this spoiler free but I was surprised at the end. Given the way events unfolded between certain characters I expected what followed but in the reverse. Noir! Fashion! Old Hollywood! All my favorite things. Love this book and the series. I’m going to read it again right away “Script for Scandal” is the third in the Golden Age of Hollywood historical mystery series written by Renee Patrick, and the authors (the writing team of Rosemarie and Vince Keenan) pull out all the stops in this one. You gotta love a book dedicated to Eddie Muller, the Turner Classic Movies noir king!Lillian Frost is the social secretary to Addison Rice – a movie-mad fan with lots of money, who loves to throw big parties. Lillian always manages to find herself involved in Hollywood murder and mayhem, lucky for us readers. The crux of the plot is a 1936 bank robbery and how Lillian’s boyfriend, policeman Gene Morrow is tainted by it. The proceeds of the robbery are still missing. Did he plan it? Does he have the money? Of course, Lillian wants to “fix” this – he’s her man and she wants to help. All the while rubbing shoulders with a whole bunch of Hollywood elite at Paramount Studios, where her friend and follow connoisseur of mysteries works – the famous costume designer, Edith Head.A movie script supposedly “tells all” – the scriptwriter is an ex-con. Coincidentally, the investigation into the robbery is being reopened. It’s not a good time for Gene. She needs to find out what the scriptwriter knows and how he knows it. To do this she needs to get in the gates at Paramount and meet with “people,” and of course Edith can help with that. And Edith can help with ferreting out a lot more, as we know from previous books.Pretty soon a shifty character is murdered – what did he know? Something to do with the bank robbery? Lillian has to know, ’cause there’s trouble all around and it’s getting closer to Gene.Oh, and did I say that Benjamin Siegel is part of the plot, too? And Virginia Hill? And talk of Nazi sympathizers, and the mob muscling in to movie extras’ unions? Karma will rear its pretty (ugly?) little head, too, especially for that “Bugsy” guy (you’ll find out more about the nickname), enough for plenty of people and for plenty of years to come. You’ll see. It might be a little too much, when you think about it. So, don’t think about it. Just enjoy the show.While all this is going on, we are treated to the Hollywood star stories that make up the vignettes we’ve come to know from these books. We’ll catch glimpses of Paulette Goddard, Fred MacMurray, George Raft, even Edward G. Robinson. But the best has to be the contretemps between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. I won’t tell you why they’re there – you’ll have to read that for yourself.Finally, there’s another murder that pulls it all together. And Edith observes, and the wheels turn behind those large dark frames. As Miss Head tells everyone, “Sometimes you have to look at the story from a new angle.”Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for a copy of this book, in exchange for this review.

[PDF] Download This Is the Church by Sarah Raymond Cunningham,Ariel Landy | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: This Is the Church Author: Sarah Raymond Cunningham,Ariel Landy Number of pages: Publisher: Beaming Books (January 28, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 1506445322 Rating: 5     1 reviews

Book Description About the Author Sarah Raymond Cunningham is the author of Portable Faith and The Well Balanced World Changer and the creator of the children’s Christmas book The Donkey in the Living Room. As a freelance consultant, she has also helped develop some of the top Christian events in the country. She blogs about finding extraordinary friendships in an ordinary world at sarahcunningham.org.As soon as Ariel Landy learned how to draw a sky beyond a blue scribbled line, she knew she wanted to be an illustrator. Although raised on coloring books and crayons outside of Boston, she now lives in New York City. Working digitally, Ariel aims to create illustrations that are imaginative, whimsical, and original; characters and scenes that would make a child put down an iPad and pick up a book. She is constantly drawn to themes of the underdog (sometimes an actual dog), human-animal friendships, and adventure within imagination. Read more Customers Review: This sweet picture book shows that the church isn’t about a building, whether it be big or small, but rather the church is THE people! It shows a variety of places the church gathers to meet….even underground in places where it isn’t safe to meet.In beautiful rhyme beside compelling and artful illustrations, this children’s picture book shines!I received a review copy and all opinions are completely my own.

[PDF] Download 100 Ways to Love Your Husband/Wife Deluxe Edition Bundle by Matt Jacobson,Lisa Jacobson | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: 100 Ways to Love Your Husband/Wife Deluxe Edition Bundle Author: Matt Jacobson,Lisa Jacobson Number of pages: Publisher: Revell; Deluxe edition (January 7, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 0800737709 Rating: 4,6     42 reviews

Book Description About the Author Matt Jacobson was an executive in the publishing industry for 25 years and for the past 16 years, has been a teaching elder/pastor of Tumalo Bible Fellowship. Matt is also the founder of FaithfulMan.com, an online social media community focusing on the topics of marriage, parenting, and biblical teaching, with a cross-platform reach of over 1 million viewers/visitors per month. He is the author of 100 Words of Affirmation Your Wife Needs to Hear. He lives with his wife, Lisa, in the Pacific Northwest where they have raised their eight children.Lisa Jacobson is an author, a speaker, and the founder and host of Club31Women.com, a powerful online community of Christian women authors who write weekly on the topics of husband, home, family, and biblical truths–a powerful voice for biblical womanhood. Her combined social media platforms have a reach well over 1 million viewers/visitors per month. She is the author of 100 Words of Affirmation Your Husband Needs to Hear. She lives with her husband, Matt, in the Pacific Northwest where they have raised their eight children. Read more Customers Review: A review of the following books:100 Ways to Love Your Wife by Matt Jacobson100 Ways to Love Your Husband by Lisa Jacobson100 Words of Affirmation Your Wife Needs to Hear by Matt Jacobson100 Words of Affirmation Your Husband Needs to Hear by Lisa JacobsonAfter 11 years of a difficult and rocky marriage my husband and I weren’t sure if we wanted it to continue. After a very long discussion after a huge fight, we resolved to do whatever we could to save our marriage until the end of this year. If it didn’t improve in that amount of time, we would separate. The next day I was invited to be a part of this book launch. This was a miracle from God in my opinion. I read the “Wife” books first because if they weren’t correct I didn’t want to give them to my husband to read. But I’m happy to report that they are 100% accurate to what a wife wants to hear and see from her husband -at least this wife does! When I read The “Husband” books I didn’t realize how encouraged and humbled I would be. I finally understand what my husband has been wanting and needing to hear and see from me and now I have the tools to meet those needs. I didn’t realize how much I was taking him for granted. When I gave the books to my husband to read, we took the time to read a few together and it brought us closer together instantly and has given me a lot of hope for our future. We are appreciating each other more and our love for one another is being renewed a little more each day. I’m so thankful for God placing these books in our path! If you are looking to improve your marriage I whole-heartedly recommend these books by Matt and Lisa Jacobson. The books are very easy to read, most of the 100 Ways are a page or two. So you can quickly and easily go through the book in less than a day, but I recommend that you take your time and really allow each one to enter deep into your heart, meditate on it, pray and then put it into practice and see how your spouse reacts. The past few weeks have been a very positive experience for me and my husband as we have been reading these books. Although I received a digital copy of each book and a copy of the 100 Affirmations bundle for free, I purchased both the Love and Affirmation bundles and intend on purchasing more to give as wedding, anniversary, and Christmas gifts. All opinions are mine. @Faithfulman @club31women These books have been such an encouragement in our marriage and they’ve become one of our staple wedding gifts. We love seeing each others’ book laying around the house in different places, just knowing we’re individually pursuing a better marriage. Keep up the great work! I want to Love my husband well! 100 Ways to Love Your Husband gave me the practical ways to do just that. This book showed me new ways to Love him as well as reminded me of ways I had forgotten. This book is an easy read and is written in such a way that I can read one way a day or several a day.My husband is not much of a reader but has enjoyed 100 Ways to Love Your Wife. I can tell he has taken to heart each way to Love me better. Marriage is tough but we are called to Love each other deeply. These books are a great way to start! The 100 Way to Love Your Husband/Wife books by Matt and Lisa Jacobson are a great easy read. We have been married 22 years and I would say we have a great marriage! But even so we are always looking for ways to make it even better and grow it even deeper! These books teach us so many different ways to speak love to each other, ways that we may not even have realized WAS speaking love. I have bought a 2nd set now to give as a wedding gift! As with any books the principles need to be read and “applied” for you to experience the difference in your own marriages! So go buy these books and happy reading!! These two books are great to read as a couple or individually. I have enjoyed 100 Ways to Love your Husband and learned new ways to show my love. The ideas are short and to the point so a very easy read. Read and start implementing immediately, no need to read it all first. These are especially great for couples who don’t enjoy reading a ton or have limited time. I purchased these books and gave to my husband for Valentine’s Day. We are enjoying reading them and putting the tips into practice. Straight to the point advice on how to appreciate and understand your spouse, therefore improving your marriage. Definitely recommend read again and again over time. Not particularly insightful.

[PDF] Download From Childhood to Adolescence by Maria Montessori | Free EBOOK PDF English

	Book Details Title: From Childhood to Adolescence Author: Maria Montessori Number of pages: Publisher: Language: English ISBN: 9350026139 Rating: 3,9     6 reviews
Book Description Customers Review: a vital source for Montessori Philosophy too old and dirty, i do not want it! I adored this book! It can be a little thick reading, but it was very interesting and fun to read!

[PDF] Download Chagall (Basic Art Series 2.0) by Ingo F. Walther | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: Chagall (Basic Art Series 2.0) Author: Ingo F. Walther Number of pages: Publisher: TASCHEN; 2000 ed. edition (January 15, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 3836527839 Rating: 4,4     21 reviews

Book Description About the Author Rainer Metzger studied art history, history, and German literature in Munich and Augsburg. In 1994, he earned his Ph.D. on the subject of Dan Graham, and subsequently worked as a fine arts journalist for the Viennese newspaper Der Standard. He has written numerous books on art, including volumes on van Gogh and Chagall. Since 2004, he has worked as Professor of art history at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe.Ingo F. Walther (1940–2007) was born in Berlin and studied medieval studies, literature, and art history in Frankfurt am Main and Munich. He published numerous books on the art of the Middle Ages and of the 19th and 20th centuries. Walther’s many titles for TASCHEN include Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Art of the 20th Century, and Codices illustres. Read more Customers Review: Purchased for my granddaughter. Too many nudes. Is what it’s supposed to be.. Good pictures and information. Thank you fast shipping. I love the status of the item.

[PDF] Download Start by Believing: Larry Nassar's Crimes, the Institutions that Enabled Him, and the Brave Women Who Stopped a Monster by Dan Murphy | Free EBOOK PDF English

Book Details Title: Start by Believing: Larry Nassar’s Crimes, the Institutions that Enabled Him, and the Brave Women Who Stopped a Monster Author: Dan Murphy Number of pages: Publisher: Hachette Books (January 14, 2020) Language: English ISBN: 0316532150 Rating: 5     7 reviews

Book Description Review “A taut dramatic narrative, critical new reporting, and a full understanding of how Larry Nassar’s unfathomable evil was enabled and given long life. Start by Believing will shock you with its truths, and lift you with the courage of these women.”―Bob Ley, Emmy Award-winning former host of ESPN’s Outside the Lines“This is a horrifying story, and an important one, powerfully and carefully told by journalists John Barr and Dan Murphy. Their meticulously reported narrative presents a riveting account of the courage of these heroic women who will forever define the beginnings of the #MeToo movement.”―Christine Brennan, bestselling author and USA Today national sports columnist“Thank you John Barr and Dan Murphy for shedding light on the historical account of the crimes of Larry Nassar. This book connects the dots of when and how this atrocity happened, and chronicles the stories of the brave women who eventually acknowledged their truth, found their voice, and fueled a revolution of Time’s Up.”―Valorie Kondos Field, Former UCLA gymnastics coach and seven-time NCAA Champion“A meticulously reported and fearless work, Start by Believing is an epic indictment of the people who for decades enabled the culture of abuse and exploitation that made Larry Nassar’s crimes possible, even inevitable. John Barr and Dan Murphy expose the institutional callousness-from coaches to top executives at the USAG-and the price that generations of girls and young women have had to pay.”―Joan Ryan, bestselling author of Little Girls in Pretty Boxes“Start by Believing is a powerful look at how victims of Larry Nassar’s abuse were failed at every step along the way by the institutions-and people-that allowed it to continue unchecked for 25 years. If you want to understand how these unimaginable crimes continued for so long, and what we need to do to ensure that no more young athletes have to face similar dangers, you need to start by reading Start by Believing.”―Scott Berkowitz, President and Founder of RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National “Not a day goes by when I don’t reflect on the survivors of Larry Nassar’s horrific crimes. This empathetic, sensitively written book takes a deeper dive into the lives of the people who were hurt and shines a spotlight on their courage. I thank John and Dan for their efforts, which will no doubt support the overall goal of making our beautiful sport safe for athletes once again.”―Dominique Moceanu, 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist “An incredible story.”―Cheddar TV“Shocking…enraging.”―Salon Talks“An important story that needs to be told.”―PopSugar“[Start By Believing] features reporting so deep, broad, and incisive that it is unlikely to be surpassed…the book is a must-read.”―Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Read more About the Author John Barr has worked as an investigative reporter for ESPN since 2003. In 2019 his coverage of the Larry Nassar scandal was honored with a Peabody Award and the IRE Sports Investigations Award. In 2011, his report on human trafficking during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa won a National Edward R. Murrow Award. Prior to joining ESPN, Barr produced and reported stories for The National Geographic Channel, Court TV, and, for more than a decade, in local television. A native of London, Ontario, Canada. He lives just outside of Philadelphia.Dan Murphy is an investigative reporter at ESPN. He was honored with a Peabody Award and the IRE Sports Investigations Award in 2019. His coverage of college athletics and broader issues in the world of sports has appeared on ESPN’s digital, television and print outlets. Based now in Michigan, Murphy is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Read more Customers Review: I bought this book after hearing the authors (and 2 former women gymnasts) on a recent episode of the “The Doctors”. I was familiar with this story, but realized there was much more to be learned. ESPN reporters Jim Barr and Dan Murphy spent over 2 years investigating how the sexual predator and pedophile Larry Nassar was able for so long to sexually assault so many girls who were involved with USA Gymnastics, as well as at Michigan State. In this well written book, the authors take the reader into the insular, cult-like world of high level gymnastics, where girls endure brutal training (including emotional and physical abuse) in order to perfect difficult routines where a few tenths of a point score can make the difference between first and last place. Larry Nassar became the confidant and physician to these girls, the “good guy” in this bizarre environment. When a few brave girls complained about Nassar, they were further victimized by persons in positions of authority (including law enforcement) who didn’t believe them and/or failed to effectively act. The courage of those victims who persisted is amazing. But the massive failures are shocking, and the authors’ criticisms spare no one, including famous coaches, cowardly administrators, and inept university and law enforcement officials. Finally, some public officials showed the integrity and commitment to fight for justice, and their stories are also told. Each reader will come to his/her own conclusions, but I think that the fanatical obsession with winning was the major force which created a toxic situation for girls who were supposed to be protected. Later as young women, they confronted Nassar at his sentencing in a powerful conclusion to this story. I highly recommend this book which can offer lessons and inspiration for all of us. Spell binding and gut wrenching.I am a couple of hundred hours and thousands of pages of documents into Nassar, focused on health care administration and regulatory failures and academic administration failures. This has given me a deep but not a human view.This narrative is so well reported and so well written I could not put it down. I am supposed to be an objective reviewer of the facts but this took me to a human level that was really compelling.Criticism? The guys could have spent a few more pages beating and berating the College of Medicine and MSU, no big deal.Tom You should buy this book. Then, once it arrives do not pick it up until you have 5-6 hours to spare without anything pressing happening because it will be impossible to put down.There are of course mixed feelings when reading about such a tragic situation, but one gets the feeling publicizing it will decrease the odds of something similar happening again.It is amazing that Nassar’s abuse was able to go on for so long and that the network of enablers was so widespread. The courage of the women who came forward is inspiring. Thank you to the authors for taking the time to write this. I really think this is a good, well documented companion to the Rachel Denhollender book, “How much is a little girl worth?” You can really see here the entire chessboard of what led to and enabled the abuse, and the efforts by a noble few like Rachel and John Manly and Jamie Denscher to bend the arc of justice towards a successful outcome. This book is not about what happened- we all know what happened- but about HOW it happened and was allowed to continue, for almost half a century. That is what makes this well-researched book an important read. It’s no longer about damning the one man- but the masses of enablers who held him up. If you paid attention to the news as the story unfolded, you already know the basics of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal. What Dan Murphy and John Barr do in their book “Start by Believing” is assemble the story as a cohesive whole.The reporting played out over time and each news story held a bit of information. Elements were revealed as they were discovered, not in chronological order. The dissembling by USA Gymnastics and Michigan State were more effective when there was not the opportunity to put their statements in context next to the facts and their despicable inaction. Some of those facts are only first revealed in this book.So what they have created is a superlative book. The first three-quarters are a truly harrowing tale of depravity on the part of Larry Nassar, blindness on the part of many who might have interceded and willful neglect by several. People who will probably go to jail for their actions and institutions that only cared about protecting their “brands.”Murphy and Barr take you through the gradual escalation of Nassar’s crimes, the slow developing understanding by women that they were not alone, but part of a vast pattern of sexual abuse that entangled both USA Gymnastics and Michigan State. Then the coverup. Given the opportunity to protect athletes, the leaders of these institutions chose to try to protect their reputations above all else.But the best part of the story is what happened then. The brave actions of Rachael Denhollander and the other athletes who stood together and ensured that Larry Nassar would never leave jail for the rest of his life. These women also changed culture around sexual abuse. By standing up and saying, “yes this happened to me” they have reduced the stigma and challenged the victim blaming that had gone on for so long. This comes through powerfully in the book. That is also a tale worth telling.“Start by Believing” puts years of investigation and reporting into a coherent context and tells a gripping story.