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Desert Mementos is a collection of loosely connected short stories set during the early stages of the Iraq War (2004 and 2005). The stories rotate from battles with insurgents and the drudgery of the war machine in Iraq to Nevada, where characters are either preparing for war, escaping it during their leave, or returning home having seen what they’ve seen. Cage captures similarities in the respective desert landscapes of both Iraq and Nevada, but it is not just a study in contrasting landscapes. The inter-connected stories explore similarities and differences in human needs from the perspectives of vastly different cultures. Specifically, the stories deftly capture the overlap in the respective desert landscapes of each region, the contrasting cultures and worldviews, and the common need for hope. Taken together, the stories represent the arc of a year-long deployment by young soldiers. Cage’s stories are bound together by the soldier’s searing experiences in the desert, bookended by leaving and returning home to Nevada, which in many ways can be just as disorienting as patrolling the Iraq desert.
What happened to the Jewish people in the forty years of wanderings, between the giving of the Torah and their entry into the Holy Land? Where did they go, and what was the purpose of these destinations? The Torah goes into very great detail about the travels and events that took place during these years, but the time, place, and specifics of many of the events have remained hidden between the profound words of the verses, leaving us with a blurred picture and understanding of this crucial period in Biblical and Jewish history. In yet another fascinating and eye-opening study, bestselling author Rabbi Alexander Hool, fortified with detailed mapping and satellite imagery, combines a meticulous study of the text with a plethora of detail, gleaned from diverse Rabbinic sources — in a fresh and exciting attempt to unlock the subtle and cryptic Scripture, and fathom the events, the journeys, and the significance of the desert encampments.
Newton Jibunoh’s fourth book, “Hunger for Power” is the story of an amazingly intriguing life which begins by exploring an orphan boy’s escape from a life of deprivation to culminate at the pinnacle of corporate Nigeria. It is a business primer, detailing the fault lines that will confront the man or woman intent on making a mark on Nigeria’s business landscape. It is also the history of contemporary Nigeria from just before the civil war and right through successive military regimes to the dawn of democracy. Then it is, finally, the detailed account of environmental activism and the travels across the Sahara desert from London to Nigeria, and Nigeria to London, in the quest to stop the menace - desert encroachment and desertification. In telling his life story as a business man and building engineer, husband and father, adventurer and environmentalist, Newton Jibunoh takes us on an excursion through the alleyways of power becoming at once a full participant in Nigeria’s history through his work and friendships. This is a compelling human portrait of a larger-than-life personage.
Inspired by Victoria Kelly’s experiences as the wife of a fighter pilot during three wartime deployments, this collection follows women whose lives have been impacted by war and military service as they struggle with their fragile ideas of home. In “Prayers of an American Wife,” a Navy wife grapples with loneliness when she discovers that her neighbor, also a Navy wife, is having an affair while their husbands are deployed on the same aircraft carrier. Tensions rise in “The Strangers of Dubai” as a soldier on leave tries to buy his wife a souvenir from an Afghan vendor. After attending eight funerals with fellow military wives whose husbands died in the Iraq war, the protagonist in “Finding the Good Light” divorces her Navy husband and tries to start a new life as a movie star. These, along with the eleven other stories in this collection, explore the emotional landscape of the resilient women who remain on the homefront. Kelly’s stories offer readers an intimate, eye-opening look into the sacrifices and steadfastness of military family members.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER​ ONE OF TIME’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Sex and the City meets Bad Blood and Catch Me if You Can in the astonishing true story of Anna Delvey, a young con artist posing as an heiress in New York City—as told by the former Vanity Fair photo editor who got seduced by her friendship and then scammed out of more than $62,000. Rachel DeLoache Williams’s new friend Anna Delvey, a self-proclaimed German heiress, was worldly and ambitious. She was also generous—picking up the tab for lavish dinners at Le Coucou, infrared sauna sessions at HigherDOSE, drinks at the 11 Howard Library bar, and regular workout sessions with a celebrity personal trainer. When Anna proposed an all-expenses-paid trip to Marrakech at the five-star La Mamounia hotel, Rachel jumped at the chance. But when Anna’s credit cards mysteriously stopped working, the dream vacation quickly took a dark turn. Anna asked Rachel to begin fronting costs—first for flights, then meals and shopping, and, finally, for their $7,500-per-night private villa. Before Rachel knew it, more than $62,000 had been charged to her credit cards. Anna swore she would reimburse Rachel the moment they returned to New York. Back in Manhattan, the repayment never materialized, and a shocking pattern of deception emerged. Rachel learned that Anna had left a trail of deceit—and unpaid bills—wherever she’d been. Mortified, Rachel contacted the district attorney, and in a stunning turn of events, found herself helping to bring down one of the city’s most notorious con artists. With breathless pacing and in-depth reporting from the person who experienced it firsthand, My Friend Anna is an unforgettable true story of “glamour, greed, lust for power” (The New York Times), and female friendship.
"Eminent geographer Yi-Fu Tuan's letters to his friends and colleagues - distilling observations, ideas, and experiences - have carried Tuan's insights, and his reputation, far beyond his chosen field. Culling the most characteristic thoughts and compelling moments from these prized letters, Dear Colleague at long last gives readers near and far the opportunity to share what Tuan's correspondents have already read - and to discover the pleasures of the underlined passages in a book of life at once edifying, entertaining, and exemplary."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
In the tradition of Young Men and Fire and Fire on the Mountain, Stuart Palley’s memoir Into the Inferno documents eight years of devastating wildfire in California, showing how fire can transform a landscape as well as a soul ... For nearly a decade, Palley has been on the frontline of fire. He has witnessed homeowners on the worst day of their lives. He’s seen puddles of aluminum where cars were once parked. He’s watched as 150-foot walls of flame cascaded down mountainsides and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. And he’s captured, time and again, the tireless commitment of firefighters as they work to save lives and homes, in terrain where fire always seems to have the upper hand. In this memoir, Palley recalls how he went from learning to be safe on the fireline to a fire-savvy documentarian of wildfire and climate change. He covers some of California’s largest, most destructive, and deadliest fires between 2012 and 2020, lugging his gear from the Wine Country Fire Siege to the Thomas Fire and ultimately to the Woolsey Fire in Malibu. And he shows how, in a relatively short span of time, fire season in California has grown into a perpetual crisis, requiring billions of dollars and thousands of firefighters each year. Ultimately, the experiences, the voices, the science shared in the memoir form an urgent call for climate action. Into the Inferno stands alongside Palley’s photography to show just what kind of environmental tragedy we can expect if we do nothing.
Who writes novels about war? For nearly a century after World War I, the answer was simple: soldiers who had been there. The assumption that a person must have experienced war in the flesh in order to write about it in fiction was taken for granted by writers, reviewers, critics, and even scholars. Contemporary American fiction tells a different story. Less than half of the authors of contemporary war novels are veterans. And that’s hardly the only change. Today’s war novelists focus on the psychological and moral challenges of soldiers coming home rather than the physical danger of combat overseas. They also imagine the consequences of the wars from non-American perspectives in a way that defies the genre’s conventions. To understand why these changes have occurred, David Eisler argues that we must go back nearly fifty years, to the political decision to abolish the draft. The ramifications rippled into the field of cultural production, transforming the foundational characteristics— authorship, content, and form—of the American war fiction genre.
Are you ready for more joy in your life? Writer Flora Bowley believes that everyone can learn how to create a joy-filled life by practicing what she calls The Art of Aliveness. Aliveness, in this context, goes well beyond the acts of sleeping, eating, working, etc., inviting us instead to look into the depths of our own experience, embrace what we find there, and commit to bringing our truest self into the world. The Art of Aliveness teaches us how to create beauty out of sorrow, find meaning in the apparent madness that we sometimes find in the world, and choose to build a life we love regardless of the cards we’ve been dealt. In this powerful, moving, and deeply personal book, Bowley shares pieces of her own story and the life lessons she’s learned to help readers cultivate this Aliveness within themselves. Packed with exercises and writing prompts, The Art of Aliveness offers readers a way to make lasting change in their lives. If you’re ready to be the artist of your life, this book can show you how.