More than a book, more than a non-fiction read, more than a memoir, CONFESSIONS OF A SURVIVING ALIEN will engage the reader like most have never experienced. It will take them through a maze of lifes pathos, and elicit the emotions of sadness, joy, pain, regret, guilt, remorse, pride, fear, revenge, happiness, forgiveness, evil, good, and much uniquely intertwined with humor, often times outrageously so. Although defined by the premise of Vietnam, it is much more than another war account, to the contrary. It is more often the dredge of a neophyte Marine trying to get more into the war and action, than out of it. It is more about his disillusionment in practically every aspect of that officially declared police action, but not in ways one might expect. It is more about his evolution and regression as a human being and inner torment, including feelings of alienation. The book starts at the end, and ends with the start, with a chronological account in between, covering four parts: Before Vietnam (BV), During Vietnam (DV), After Vietnam (AV), and finally, After Marines (AM). The story covers the life of a young American, and follows his incredible journey through the decades to find himself, to explore every possibility of livingand nearly dyingand reach some hopeful level of success, however that is defined. From having a unique tour in Vietnam, to escorting deceased Marines to their families and final resting place, to his life threatened by a mob guy, to learning about a deeply held family secret concerning his father, to experiencing a profound spiritual experience in the unlikely locale of Beverly Hills, California, and much more, author Jon Meades biggest challenge may be getting readers to believe his surreal story. He merely shrugs and says, I am just a very ordinary guy, with an extraordinary life to convey. It is nothing less, nor more than that. Maybe, he admits, in the end analysis, success in life is merely surviving life, failures and all. With that admission and a very personal and engaging approach and writing style, the genre of Memoirs may never be the same.
If ever there was a story that readers may find hard to believe, Memoir of a Kidnapped Bride, would surely be a leading candidate. It may defy description in the declarative sense, but its reality and truth will mesmerize you with the intricacies of the human condition and spirit, revealing in the most broad sense, what things are most important in life. No need to embellish or fabricate anything in this book, for its story will both enrapture and enrich your mind and heart. It just may be one of the great tales of survival and success.
A biography of my uncle's combat and capture in the Philippines, and POW survival there and in Japan, WWII. Includes my own visits, observations and investigations in the Philippines in 2016.
An inspiring autobiography by “one of the finest human beings, industrial leaders, and philanthropists on the planet” (Stephen R. Covey). The company Jon Huntsman founded in 1970, the Huntsman Corporation, is now one of the largest petrochemical manufacturers in the world, employing more than 12,000 people and generating over $10 billion in revenue each year. Success in business, though, was always a means to an end for him—never an end in itself. In Barefoot to Billionaire, Huntsman revisits the key moments in his life that shaped his view of faith, family, service, and the responsibility that comes with wealth. He writes candidly about his brief tenure in the Nixon administration, which preceded the Watergate scandal but still left a deep impression on him about the abuse of power and the significance of personal respect and integrity. He also opens up about his faith and prominent membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But most importantly, Huntsman reveals the rationale behind his commitment to give away his entire fortune before his death. In 1995, Huntsman and his wife, Karen, founded the Huntsman Cancer Institute and eventually dedicated more than a billion dollars of their personal funds to the fight for a cure. In this increasingly materialistic world, Barefoot to Billionaire is a refreshing reminder of the enduring power of traditional values.
“A brilliant orator, a firebrand for freedom and individual rights, Henry stands as an American luminary, and Kukla’s magisterial biography shines the glow of achievement on subject and author alike” (Richmond Times Dispatch). Patrick Henry restores its subject, long underappreciated in history as a founding father, to his seminal place in the story of American independence. Patrick Henry is best known for his fiery declaration, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” Born in 1736, he became an attorney and planter before being elected as the first governor of Virginia after independence, winning reelection several times. After declining to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Henry opposed the Constitution, arguing that it granted too much power to the central government. He pushed vigorously for the ten amendments to the new Constitution, and then supported Washington and national unity against the bitter party divisions of the 1790s. Henry denounced slavery as evil, but he accepted its continuation. Henry was enormously influential in his time, but many of his accomplishments were subsequently all but forgotten. Jon Kukla’s “detailed, compelling…definitive” (Kirkus Reviews) biography restores Henry and his Virginia compatriots to the front rank of advocates for American independence. Kukla has thoroughly researched Henry’s life, even living on one of Henry’s estates. He brings both newly discovered documents and new insights to Henry, the Revolution, the Constitutional era, and the early Republic. This “informational and enlightening biography of the great agitator for democracy” (Library Journal) is a vital contribution to our understanding of the nation’s founding.
In Part 2, a smattering of the novellas are a young Irishman's escapades as he experiences that the local legend isn't really a legend in The Washerwoman; help a young orphan find her biological parents and unearth her family's secrets in Looking for Home; experience the lives of a prisoner and his torturer in The Inquisitor; find out what Horatio really thinks of Hamlet in Horatio; and check out the follow up to Newly Minted Wings and salty French Fries in You Want Me to Clean What?
Pittsburgh Pirates star center fielder Andrew McCutchen didn't have much growing up. But he did have big dreams about playing for a Major League Baseball (MLB) team. In 2005, those dreams came true when the Pirates chose Andrew with the 11th pick in the MLB draft. The Pirates were a bad team. They hadn't been to the playoffs since 1992. Andrew helped change all that. In 2013, he led the Pirates to the playoffs, and he was named National League Most Valuable Player in the process.
The uplands are a crucial source of ecosystem services, such as water provision, carbon retention, maintenance of biodiversity, provision of recreation value and cultural heritage. This puts them in the focus of both environmental and social scientists as well as practitioners and land managers.. This volume brings together a wealth of knowledge of the British uplands from diverse but interrelated fields of study, clearly demonstrating their importance in 21st Century Britain, and indicating how we may through interdisciplinary approaches meet the challenges provided by past and future drivers of environmental change. The upland environments are subject to change. They face imminent threats as well as opportunities from pressures such as climate change, changes in land management and related changes in fire risk, increases in erosion and water colour, degradation of habitats, altered wildlife and recreational value, as well as significant changes in the economy of these marginal areas. This book presents up-to-date scientific background information, addresses policy related issues and lays out pressing land management questions. A number of world-class experts provide a review of cutting-edge natural and social science and an assessment of past, current and potential future management strategies, policies and other drivers of change. After appraisal of key concepts and principles, chapters provide specific examples and applications by focussing on UK upland areas and specifically the Peak District National Park as a key example for other highly valuable upland regions.
The perfect post-Bond spy...Move over, Jason Bourne." —BookPage Salim Dhar is the world's most wanted terrorist. After he narrowly failed to kill the U.S. president, the CIA is under pressure to hunt him down. Echelon, the West's intelligence analysis network, is in meltdown, monitoring all channels for the faintest trace of Dhar. But no one can find him. Only Daniel Marchant, renegade MI6 officer, knows where he is. Marchant pursues Dhar up into the Atlas Mountains outside Marrakech, where he sees an unmarked military helicopter take off and head east. Is someone shielding Dhar to perpetrate an act of proxy terrorism on the West? Or is the CIA right when it claims to have killed him? To discover the truth, Marchant must be recruited by Moscow. It's a role that will require him to believe his late father was a traitor, an allegation that he fought long and hard to dispel. Now he must rekindle those rumors and confront dark truths about his own loyalties. As Britain braces itself for an airborne terrorist attack, Marchant is about to discover that treachery is the greatest game of all.
Over a hundred eyewitness accounts of the reality of combat from some of the finest writers of the last century and our own. Lucid, vivid, complex images of conflict, from Walt Whitman on the American Civil War to contemporary reporting from Afghanistan. The collection includes Martha Gellhorn on the Battle of the Bulge, Michael Herr at Khe Sanh, David Rohde's and Anthony Shadid's Pulitzer-winning accounts of Bosnia and Iraq respectively, Christina Lamb's famous account of being under fire from the Taliban, Robert Fisk on being attacked in Afghanistan, and Nicholas Tomalin's 'The General Goes Zapping Charlie Kong' (one of the inspirations for Apocalypse Now) among many other pieces of exceptional war reporting.
As well as providing a history of economic statistics, the book includes contributions by economists from a number of countries, applying economic statistics to the past and to current economic issues.
Far from being a monolith with unanimous leadership loyalty to the cause of a separate nation, the Confederacy was in reality deeply divided over how to achieve independence. Many supposedly loyal leaders, civilian as well as elected officials, opposed governmental policies on the national and state levels, and their actions ultimately influenced non-support for military policies. Congressional differences over arming the slaves and bureaucratic squabbles over how to conduct the war disrupted the government and Cabinet of President Jefferson Davis. Rumors of such irreconcilable differences spread throughout the South, contributing to an overall decline in morale and support for the war effort and causing the Confederacy to come apart from within. When asked to make sacrifices, civilian leaders found themselves caught in the dilemma of either aiding the Confederacy or losing money through poor utilization of slave labor. To sustain profits, the business and planter classes often traded with the enemy. Upon consideration of arming the slaves, many members of Congress proclaimed that the war effort was not worth the demise of slavery and preferred instead to take their chances with the Northern government. Cultural leaders, clergy, newspapermen, and men of letters claimed their loyalty to the war effort, but often criticized government policies in public. By asking for financial support and instituting a military draft, the national government infuriated local patriots who wanted to defend their own states more than they desired to defeat the enemy.
With new commentary and Insights on the life and times of Jesse Livermore Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is the fictionalized biography of perhaps the most famous financial speculator of all time-Jesse Livermore. This annotated edition bridges the gap between Edwin Lefevre's fictionalized account of Livermore's life and the actual, historical events, places, and people that populate the book. It also describes the variety of trading approaches Livermore used throughout his life and analyzes his psychological development as a trader and the lessons gained through hard experiences. Analyzes legendary trader Jesse Livermore's strategies and explains how they can be used in today's markets Provides factual details regarding the actual companies Livermore traded in and the people who helped/hindered him along the way Explains the structure and mechanics of the Livermore-era markets, including the bucket shops and the commodity exchanges Includes more than 100 pages of new material Reminiscences of a Stock Operator has endured over 70 years because traders and investors continue to find lessons from Livermore's experiences that they can apply to their own trading. This annotated edition will continue the trend.
A collection of mystery criticism and essays from the reviewer of books for Ellery Queen Magazine. Jon Breen is the worthy successor of Anthony Boucher and his hundreds of reviews of books and authors is a must-have for all serious mystery fans. A Ramble House book
A classic collection of titles featuring one of the world's greatest traders: Jesse Livermore Jesse Livermore won and lost tens of millions of dollars playing the stock and commodities markets during the early 1900s, at one point making ten million dollars in one month of trading—an astronomical sum for this time. His ideas and keen analyses of market price movements are as true today as they were when he first implemented them. Now, for the first time ever, The Reminiscences of a Stock Operator Collection brings together three classic titles based on this unique individual and offers profound insights into his motivations, attitudes, and strategies. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, the fictionalized biography of Jesse Livermore, has endured over seventy years because traders and investors continue to find lessons from Livermore's experiences that they can apply to their own endeavors Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Illustrated Edition reproduces the original articles by Edwin Lefèvre and drawings by M.L. Blumenthal published in the Saturday Evening Post in the 1920s Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Annotated Edition bridges the gap between Edwin Lefevre's fictionalized account of Livermore's life and the actual, historical events, places, and people that populate the book. Throughout the book there are notes that detail the actual companies, people, or situations that Livermore encountered Engaging and informative, this collection provides a complete picture of Livermore's life and trading strategies, and offers tremendous value to today's serious investor or trader.
When Ella Tambussi Grasso ran for governor of Connecticut in 1974, she had not lost an election since she was first voted into the state’s General Assembly in 1952. The people of Connecticut chose her as the nation’s first woman to be elected governor in her own right—the capstone of a long and successful career dedicated to public service, effective government, and the democratic process. During her tenure as governor, Grasso’s leadership was tested in the face of fiscal problems, state layoffs, and budget shortfalls. The daughter of Italian immigrants, she endeared herself to her constituents during the great Blizzard of 1978, when she stayed at the State Armory around the clock to direct emergency operations and make frequent television appearances. Author Jon E. Purmont, who served as Grasso’s executive assistant when she was governor, draws on his diary from that time, research in Grasso’s archives, and interviews with Grasso’s family and friends to give us a rich and intimate portrait of this political pioneer.
This volume contains a series of essays which examine microeconomic or structural issues and attempt to explain why alternative prescriptions to monetarism could have avoided the massive rise in unemployment in the 1980s. Policies are suggested which could reduce and stabilize unemployment levels.
Two spectacular dead bodies—Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947, and Marilyn Monroe, found dead in her home in August 1962—bookend this new history of Hollywood’s postwar transition. Short’s murder called attention to the lives of the many disenfranchised in Los Angeles; she was, after all, one of them. Monroe’s death involved the entourage inhabiting her movie star orbit: quack doctors, gangsters, Hollywood celebrities, the FBI and the CIA, and, inevitably, the Kennedys. Hard-Boiled Hollywood focuses on the many lives lost at the crossroads of a dreamed-of Hollywood and the real thing following the collapse of the studio system as celebrities, moguls, mobsters, gossip mongers, and industry wannabes came into frequent contact and conflict.
Serial Killers, Murderers, Abductors, Rapist, Bank Robbers, Sniper Terrorists, Home Invasion Burglars, Death Row Escapees, Bearing Witness to Evil has them all. The real-life crime stories include first-hand accounts and insider tidbits that can only come from those who were at the scene of the crime. The Story Behind the Story segments that follow each crime case highlight and honor real world heroes. Steve Neal (Lawman) and Jon Burkett (Crime Reporter) masterfully blend reverence for victims and loved ones with a fervent quest for justice. Book Review 1: "Serial Killers, Murderers, Abductors, Rapist, Bank Robbers, Sniper Terrorists, Home Invasion Burglars, Death Row Escapees, Bearing Witness to Evil has them all. The real-world crime stories are compelling, yet maddeningly sorrowful at the same time. I was awe-struck by the Stories Behind the Story” segments. Steve Neal (Lawman) and Jon Burkett (Crime Reporter) masterfully blend reverence for victims and loved ones with a fervent quest for justice." -- Mike Wade - Henrico County Sheriff (Ret.) Book Review 2: "It’s FANTASTIC!! A real page-turner with stories behind the stories! Jon Burkett and Steve Neal have a winner with this piece!!" -- Jeff Katz - Chief of Police, Chesterfield County, Va. Book Review 3: "15 crime cases that are truly dreadful. Steve Neal (Lawman) and Jon Burkett, (Crime Reporter), give the reader first-hand accounts and insider tidbits that can only come from someone who was at the scene of the crime. The Story Behind the Story segments that follow each crime case highlight and honor real world heroes whose experiences are interesting, informative, and inspiring. If you like true crime stories, and real-life heroes, Bearing Witness to Evil is a must read." -- Patrick Yoes- FOP National President Book Review 4: "Steve and Jon are truly Warriors, Servants, Leaders – from protecting and serving their community in their respective careers, to now, sharing the stories of those who were the least, the last, and the lost, forgotten by many. Thank you for your compassion, and for Bearing Witness to Evil." -- Pat Welsh - Founder and CEO of PJ Welsh and Associates, Author, Speaker, Trainer
Covering both the great military leaders and the critical civilian leaders, this book provides an overview of their careers and a professional assessment of their accomplishments. Entries consider the leaders' character and prewar experiences, their contributions to the war effort, and the war's impact on the rest of their lives. The entries then look at how history has assessed these leaders, thus putting their longtime reputations on the line. The result is a thorough revision of some leaders' careers, a call for further study of others, and a reaffirmation of the accomplishments of the greatest leaders. Analyzing the leaders historiographically, the work shows how the leaders wanted to be remembered, how postwar memorists and biographers saw them, the verdict of early historians, and how the best modern historians have assessed their contributions. By including a variety of leaders from both civilian and military roles, the book provides a better understanding of the total war, and by relating their lives to their times, it provides a better understanding of historical revisionism and of why history has been so interested in Civil War lives.
Lincoln's Last Days is a gripping account of one of the most dramatic nights in American history—of how one gunshot changed the country forever. Adapted from Bill O'Reilly's bestselling historical thriller, Killing Lincoln, this book will have young readers—and grown-ups too—hooked on history. In the spring of 1865, President Abraham Lincoln travels through Washington, D.C., after finally winning America's bloody Civil War. In the midst of celebrations, Lincoln is assassinated at Ford's Theatre by a famous actor named John Wilkes Booth. What follows is a thrilling chase, ending with a fiery shoot-out and swift justice for the perpetrators. With an unforgettable cast of characters, page-turning action, vivid detail, and art on every spread, Lincoln's Last Days is history that reads like a thriller. This is a very special book, irresistible on its own or as a compelling companion to Killing Lincoln.
This selection of the very best writing on Everest begins with the first attempts and continues, via Mallory's failed bid and Hillary and Tenzing's triumph, to the disasters of recent years. It features 35 white-knuckle accounts of climbing on the world's highest mountain, with all the tragedy and triumph of humankind's striving for the top of the world, by those who know the 'Death Zone' best - the climbers themselves. But this is much more than just the best of exhilarating first-hand accounts of climbing on Everest. It includes the full history of the conquest of Everest, and provides an evocative portrait of the cruel, natural beauty of Chomolungma, 'The Mother Goddess of the World'.
When Philadelphia narcotics detective Doyle Carrick loses his mother and step-father within weeks of each other, he gains a twenty-day suspension for unprofessional behavior and instructions to lay low at the unfamiliar house he's inherited in rural Pennsylvania. Feeling restless and out of place, Doyle is surprised to find himself falling for his new neighbor, Nola Watkins, who's under pressure to sell her organic farm to a large and mysterious development company. He's more surprised to see high-powered drug dealers driving the small-town roads—dealers his bosses don't want to hear about. But when the drug bust Doyle's been pushing for goes bad and the threats against Nola turn violent, Doyle begins to discover that what's growing in the farmland around Philadelphia is much deadlier than anything he could have imagined . . . Quick, clever, and terrifying, Jon McGoran's Drift is a commercial thriller in the tradition of Nelson DeMille's Plum Island. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Bloomberg Businessweek In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power. Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things—women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris—Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America. Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history. The father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and of the settling of the West, Jefferson recognized that the genius of humanity—and the genius of the new nation—lay in the possibility of progress, of discovering the undiscovered and seeking the unknown. From the writing of the Declaration of Independence to elegant dinners in Paris and in the President’s House; from political maneuverings in the boardinghouses and legislative halls of Philadelphia and New York to the infant capital on the Potomac; from his complicated life at Monticello, his breathtaking house and plantation in Virginia, to the creation of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was central to the age. Here too is the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion. The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world. Praise for Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power “This is probably the best single-volume biography of Jefferson ever written.”—Gordon S. Wood “A big, grand, absorbing exploration of not just Jefferson and his role in history but also Jefferson the man, humanized as never before.”—Entertainment Weekly “[Meacham] captures who Jefferson was, not just as a statesman but as a man. . . . By the end of the book . . . the reader is likely to feel as if he is losing a dear friend. . . . [An] absorbing tale.”—The Christian Science Monitor “This terrific book allows us to see the political genius of Thomas Jefferson better than we have ever seen it before. In these endlessly fascinating pages, Jefferson emerges with such vitality that it seems as if he might still be alive today.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin
This book documents a contingent valuation study for a significant environmental good: preventing the likely injuries from oil spills on the coast of Central California. It functions as a 'how-to' guide by documenting design, administration, and analysis of such studies, to reduce the long lead time which characterizes most economic damage assessments. The book includes a CD-ROM containing a wealth of additional material: data, questionnaires, transcripts and more.
“[A] scrupulously researched and beautifully crafted account of how nineteenth-century Americans went in search of health, rest, and diversion.” —Lena Lencek and Gideon Bosker, coauthors of The Beach. The History of Paradise on Earth In First Resorts: Pursuing Pleasure at Saratoga Springs, Newport, and Coney Island, Jon Sterngass follows three of the best-known northeastern American resorts across a century of change. Saratoga Springs, Newport, and Coney Island began, he finds, as similar pleasure destinations, each of them featuring “grand” hotels where visitors swarmed public spaces such as verandas, dining rooms, and parlors. As the century progressed, however, Saratoga remained much the same, while Newport turned to private (and lavish) “cottages” and Coney Island shifted its focus to amusements for the masses. Fifty-nine illustrations enliven Sterngass’s unique study of the commodification of pleasure that occurred as capitalist values flourished, travel grew more accessible, and leisure time became democratized. These three resorts, he argues, served as forerunners of twentieth-century pleasure cities such as Aspen, Las Vegas, and Orlando. “An engaging, creative book replete with evocative illustrations and witty quotes . . . a pleasant read.” —Thomas A. Chambers, New York Academy of History “Sterngass’s discussions about privacy, community, commercialization, consumption, leisure, and the desire to be conspicuous are important and new. With its well-chosen illustrations, this is a handsome book as well as an important one.” —Kathryn Allamong Jacob, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University “Having mined every conceivable source about his three sites, Sterngass has presented a wealth of interesting material not only about the resort experience but also about the residents, politicians, and entrepreneurs who built them.” —Journal of American History
Although it has been occupied for as long and possesses a mound-building tradition of considerable scale and interest, Muller contends that the archaeology of the lower Ohio River Valley—from the confluence with the Mississippi to the falls at Louisville, Kentucky – remains less well-known that that of the elaborate mound-building cultures of the upper valley. This study provides a synthesis of archaeological work done in the region, emphasizing population growth and adaptation within an ecological framework in an attempt to explain the area’s cultural evolution.
“Incomparable insight into an early colonial legal system thoroughly influenced by Biblical interpretations . . . sure to appeal.” —Harvard Law Review In the mid-seventeenth century, judges in the short-lived New Haven Colony presided over a remarkable series of trials ranging from murder and bestiality, to drunken sailors, frisky couples, faulty shoes, and shipwrecks. The cases were reported in an unusually vivid manner, allowing readers to witness the twists and turns of fortune as the participants battled with life and liberty at stake. When the records were eventually published in the 1850s, they were both difficult to read and heavily edited to delete sexual matters. Rendered here in modernized English and with insightful commentary by eminent judge Jon C. Blue, the New Haven trials allow readers to immerse themselves in the exciting legal battles of America’s earliest days. The Case of the Piglet’s Paternity assembles thirty-three of the most significant and intriguing trials of the period. As a book that examines a distinctive judicial system from a modern legal perspective, it is sure to be of interest to readers in law and legal history. For less litigious readers, Blue offers a worm’s-eye view of the full spectrum of early colonial society—political leaders and religious dissidents, farmhands and apprentices, women and children. “An engaging and intelligent microhistory of this time period and colony that nonlegal scholars can understand” —Journal of American Culture
More than a book, more than a non-fiction read, more than a memoir, CONFESSIONS OF A SURVIVING ALIEN will engage the reader like most have never experienced. It will take them through a maze of lifes pathos, and elicit the emotions of sadness, joy, pain, regret, guilt, remorse, pride, fear, revenge, happiness, forgiveness, evil, good, and much uniquely intertwined with humor, often times outrageously so. Although defined by the premise of Vietnam, it is much more than another war account, to the contrary. It is more often the dredge of a neophyte Marine trying to get more into the war and action, than out of it. It is more about his disillusionment in practically every aspect of that officially declared police action, but not in ways one might expect. It is more about his evolution and regression as a human being and inner torment, including feelings of alienation. The book starts at the end, and ends with the start, with a chronological account in between, covering four parts: Before Vietnam (BV), During Vietnam (DV), After Vietnam (AV), and finally, After Marines (AM). The story covers the life of a young American, and follows his incredible journey through the decades to find himself, to explore every possibility of livingand nearly dyingand reach some hopeful level of success, however that is defined. From having a unique tour in Vietnam, to escorting deceased Marines to their families and final resting place, to his life threatened by a mob guy, to learning about a deeply held family secret concerning his father, to experiencing a profound spiritual experience in the unlikely locale of Beverly Hills, California, and much more, author Jon Meades biggest challenge may be getting readers to believe his surreal story. He merely shrugs and says, I am just a very ordinary guy, with an extraordinary life to convey. It is nothing less, nor more than that. Maybe, he admits, in the end analysis, success in life is merely surviving life, failures and all. With that admission and a very personal and engaging approach and writing style, the genre of Memoirs may never be the same.
Jon Stratton provides a pioneering work on Jews as a racialized group in the popular music of America, Britain and Australia during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Rather than taking a narrative, historical approach the book consists of a number of case studies, looking at the American, British and Australian music industries. Stratton's primary motivation is to uncover how the racialized positioning of Jews, which was sometimes similar but often different in each of the societies under consideration, affected the kinds of music with which Jews have become involved. Stratton explores race as a cultural construction and continues discussions undertaken in Jewish Studies concerning the racialization of the Jews and the stereotyping of Jews in order to present an in-depth and critical understanding of Jews, race and popular music.
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