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At the Piano with Fauré
by Marguerite LongThe virtuoso pianist and teacher, Marguerite Long, was a great friend of Fauré and the foremost interpreter of his music.
At the Narrow Waist of the World: A Memoir
by Marlena Maduro Baraf&“With sensitivity and candor, Baraf examines mental illness, immigration, forgiveness, and community—all framed within the precocity of her life&’s circumstances.&” —Ms. Magazine &“At the Narrow Waist of the World is a compelling account of what it is like to live through turbulence and come out on the other side.&” —Foreword Clarion Review &“Deftly written, impressively candid, insightfully presented, At the Narrow Waist of the World is an extraordinary and memorable read.&” —Midwest Book Review &“By the end of At the Narrow Waist of the World, we have come to know, admire and even cherish its author in a way few memoirists manage to achieve . . . . &” —Jewish Journal Raised by a lively family of Spanish Jews in tropical and Catholic Panama of the 1950s and 1960s, Marlena depends on her many tíos and tías for refuge from the difficulties of life, including the frequent absences of her troubled mother. As a teenager, she pulls away from this centered world—crossing borders—and begins a life in the United States very different from the one she has known. This lyrical coming-of-age memoir explores the intense and profound relationship between mothers and daughters and highlights the importance of community and the beauty of a large Latin American family. It also explores the vital issues of mental illness and healing, forgiveness and acceptance. At the Narrow Waist of the World examines the author's gradual integration into a new culture, even as she understands that her home is still—and always will be—rooted in another place.
At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities
by Jean Amery Sidney Rosenfeld Stella P. Rosenfeld"These are pages that one reads with almost physical pain. . . all the way to its stoic conclusion. " --Primo Levi "The testimony of a profoundly serious man. . . . In its every turn and crease, it bears the marks of the true. " --Irving Howe, New Republic "This remarkable memoir. . . is the autobiography of an extraordinarily acute conscience. With the ear of a poet and the eye of a novelist, Amery vividly communicates the wonder of a philosopher--a wonder here aroused by the 'dark riddle' of the Nazi regime and its systematic sadism. " --Jim Miller, Newsweek "Whoever has succumbed to torture can no longer feel at home in the world. The shame of destruction cannot be erased. Trust in the world, which already collapsed in part at the first blow, but in the end, under torture, fully, will not be regained. That one's fellow man was experienced as the antiman remains in the tortured person as accumulated horror. It blocks the view into a world in which the principle of hope rules. One who was martyred is a defenseless prisoner of fear. It is fear that henceforth reigns over him. " --Jean Amery At the Mind's Limits is the story of one man's incredible struggle to understand the reality of horror. In five autobiographical essays, Amery describes his survival--mental, moral, and physical--through the enormity of the Holocaust. Above all, this masterful record of introspection tells of a young Viennese intellectual's fervent vision of human nature and the betrayal of that vision.
At the Loch of the Green Corrie
by Andrew GreigA homage to a remarkable poet and his world.'At The Loch of Green Corrie is more than merely elegant, more than a collection of albeit fascinating insights, laugh-out-loud observations and impressively broad erudition' - Sunday Herald'You could easily make a case that Andrew Greig has the greatest range of any living Scottish writer' - ScotsmanFor many years Andrew Greig saw the poet Norman MacCaig as a father figure. Months before his death, MacCaig's enigmatic final request to Greig was that he fish for him at the Loch of the Green Corrie; the location, even the real name of his destination was more mysterious still. His search took in days of outdoor living, meetings, and fishing with friends in the remote hill lochs of far North-West Scotland. It led, finally, to the waters of the Green Corrie, which would come to reflect Greig's own life, his thoughts on poetry, geology and land ownership in the Highlands and the ambiguous roles of whisky, love and male friendship. At the Loch of the Green Corrie is a richly atmospheric narrative, a celebration of losing and recovering oneself in a unique landscape, the consideration of a particular culture, and a homage to a remarkable poet and his world.
At the Loch of the Green Corrie
by Andrew GreigA homage to a remarkable poet and his world.'At The Loch of Green Corrie is more than merely elegant, more than a collection of albeit fascinating insights, laugh-out-loud observations and impressively broad erudition' - Sunday Herald'You could easily make a case that Andrew Greig has the greatest range of any living Scottish writer' - ScotsmanFor many years Andrew Greig saw the poet Norman MacCaig as a father figure. Months before his death, MacCaig's enigmatic final request to Greig was that he fish for him at the Loch of the Green Corrie; the location, even the real name of his destination was more mysterious still. His search took in days of outdoor living, meetings, and fishing with friends in the remote hill lochs of far North-West Scotland. It led, finally, to the waters of the Green Corrie, which would come to reflect Greig's own life, his thoughts on poetry, geology and land ownership in the Highlands and the ambiguous roles of whisky, love and male friendship. At the Loch of the Green Corrie is a richly atmospheric narrative, a celebration of losing and recovering oneself in a unique landscape, the consideration of a particular culture, and a homage to a remarkable poet and his world.
At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War
by Michael Beschloss Strobe TalbottThe riveting behind-the-scenes account of the Cold War's endgame and the secret negotiations that changed world history. When US President George Bush met with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1989, the Berlin Wall had fallen and the twin policies of perestroika and glasnost were bringing new freedoms to millions of people across the Eastern Bloc. But the peaceful end of the Cold War was far from assured. It would require the leaders of rival superpowers to develop a partnership strong enough to look beyond the deep-seeded animosities of the past and embrace an uncertain future. At the Highest Levels is the fascinating story of that unlikely partnership and the role Bush, Gorbachev, and their closest advisers, including Secretary of State James Baker and Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Shevardnadze, played in the liberation of Eastern Europe, the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact, the suspension of the Soviet Communist Party, and the dissolution of the USSR. Granted extraordinary access during the crucial period from 1989 through 1991, coauthors Michael Beschloss and Strobe Talbott reveal the private conversations and closed-door meetings at the Kremlin, White House, Pentagon, CIA, and KGB that negotiated an end to the nuclear arms race and decades of proxy wars. We also see the human cost of high-stakes international diplomacy as Bush and Gorbachev, while growing closely attuned to each other, fall out of touch with their domestic constituencies and lose their jobs to Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin. Hailed by the New York Times as "intimate and utterly absorbing," At the Highest Levels is a spellbinding, almost hour-by-hour account of one of the most momentous historical changes in modern history.
At the Helm: My Journey with Family, Faith, and Friends to Calm the Storms of Life
by John H. DaltonFrom modest beginnings to Secretary of the Navy, John Dalton&’s life is an inspirational story filled with successes and failures in both the public and private sectors and how he navigated through them. INSIDE LOOK FROM SOMEONE WHO WAS THERE: Secretary of Navy during major crises including Tailhook, the Naval Academy cheating scandal, &“Don&’t Ask, Don&’t Tell,&” and women serving in the military. WELL-CONNECTED AND RESPECTED PUBLIC SERVANT: Author recounts interactions with such public figures as President Carter, President Clinton, Billy Graham, Roger Staubach, Bill Proxmire, Rahm Emanuel, George Steinbrenner, Lloyd Bentsen, Dianne Feinstein, and Hillary Clinton. Blurbs from some of these notable names included in marketing materials and the interior of the book. PLANNED SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS: Author to speak at the Sonoma Valley Authors Festival, Army and Navy Club, Metropolitan Club, and Cosmos Club (all in Washington, DC) and at book parties around the country.
At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
by Sarah BakewellGreat philosophy meets powerful biography in this entertaining and immensely readable portrait of mid-20th century Paris and the fascinating characters of Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, and their circle, who loved and hated, drank and debated with each other--and forever changed the way we think about thinking.<P><P> At the Existentialist Café is a thrilling look at the famous group of post-war thinkers who became known as the Existentialists: Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, Heidegger, and their circle. Starting with Paris after the devastation of the Second World War, Sarah Bakewell (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for her previous book) takes us inside the passionate debates and equally passionate lives of these brilliant, if flawed, characters. Here is a wonderful, vibrant look at the social, artistic and political currents that shaped the existentialist movement--a mode of thinking and being that, as Bakewell vividly shows, deeply affects us today. <P> Never has the story of this influential group, and especially that of the legendary relationship between Sartre and de Beauvoir, been told with such verve and sweep, weaving personal life with social upheaval and the universal quest for understanding.
At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
by Sarah BakewellFrom the best-selling author of How to Live, a spirited account of one of the twentieth century’s major intellectual movements and the revolutionary thinkers who came to shape it<P><P> Paris, 1933: three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called Phenomenology. “You see,” he says, “if you are a phenomenologist you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!”<P> It was this simple phrase that would ignite a movement, inspiring Sartre to integrate Phenomenology into his own French, humanistic sensibility, thereby creating an entirely new philosophical approach inspired by themes of radical freedom, authentic being, and political activism. This movement would sweep through the jazz clubs and cafés of the Left Bank before making its way across the world as Existentialism.<P> Featuring not only philosophers, but also playwrights, anthropologists, convicts, and revolutionaries, At the Existentialist Café follows the existentialists’ story, from the first rebellious spark through the Second World War, to its role in postwar liberation movements such as anticolonialism, feminism, and gay rights. Interweaving biography and philosophy, it is the epic account of passionate encounters—fights, love affairs, mentorships, rebellions, and long partnerships—and a vital investigation into what the existentialists have to offer us today, at a moment when we are once again confronting the major questions of freedom, global responsibility, and human authenticity in a fractious and technology-driven world.
At the End of the Road
by Jorge García-Robles Daniel C. Schechter"We had finally found the magic land at the end of the road and we never dreamed the extent of the magic." Mexico, an escape route, inspiration, and ecstatic terminus of the celebrated novel On the Road, was crucial to Jack Kerouac's creative development. In this dramatic and highly compelling account, Jorge García-Robles, leading authority on the Beats in Mexico, re-creates both the actual events and the literary imaginings of Kerouac in what became the writer's revelatory terrain. Providing Kerouac an immediate spiritual freshness that contrasted with the staid society of the United States, Mexico was perhaps the single most important country in his life. Sourcing material from the Beat author's vast output and revealing correspondence, García-Robles vividly describes the milieu and people that influenced him while sojourning there and the circumstances between his myriad arrivals and departures. From the writer's initial euphoria upon encountering Mexico and its fascinating tableau of humanity to his tortured relationship with a Mexican prostitute who inspired his novella Tristessa, this volume chronicles Kerouac's often illusory view of the country while realistically detailing the incidents and individuals that found their way into his poetry and prose. In juxtaposing Kerouac's idyllic image of Mexico with his actual experiences of being extorted, assaulted, and harassed, García-Robles offers the essential Mexican perspective. Finding there the spiritual nourishment he was starved for in the United States, Kerouac held fast to his idealized notion of the country, even as the stories he recounts were as much literary as real.
At the End of Ridge Road
by Joseph BruchacAt the End of the Ridge Road traces Joseph Bruchac's path from "nature nut" to jock to writer, to his home at the end of Ridge Road near where he was raised by his grandparents. This colorful memoir from one of our best-known Native American writers explores the links between Bruchac's native Abenaki culture and his long-held views on human dignity and social justice." "Asking readers to remove their watches so they might "live time" rather than be ruled by it, Bruchac tells his own story - one that sits at the crossroads of his Abenaki and European heritage. From the foot of Glass Factory Mountain to the halls of Cornell, from a classroom in West Africa to a start-up literary magazine in a room of his grandfather's home, Bruchac superimposes Native American ways of seeing upon the structure of today's world. Bruchac believes the essential wisdom of native cultures, the balance of nature, and the power of a well-told story each holds ways to avoid humanity's most destructive impulses.
At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise That Saved the Union
by Robert V. ReminiIn 1850, America hovered on the brink of disunion. Tensions between slave-holders and abolitionists mounted, as the debate over slavery grew rancorous. An influx of new territory prompted Northern politicians to demand that new states remain free; in response, Southerners baldly threatened to secede from the Union. Only Henry Clay could keep the nation together.At the Edge of the Precipice is historian Robert V. Remini's fascinating recounting of the Compromise of 1850, a titanic act of political will that only a skillful statesman like Clay could broker. Although the Compromise would collapse ten years later, plunging the nation into civil war, Clay's victory in 1850 ultimately saved the Union by giving the North an extra decade to industrialize and prepare. A masterful narrative by an eminent historian, At the Edge of the Precipice also offers a timely reminder of the importance of bipartisanship in a bellicose age.
At the Edge of Empire: A Family's Reckoning with China
by Edward Wong&“This book&’s power comes from Wong&’s broad sense of the patterns of Chinese history, reflected in the lives of a father and son, and from his ability to toggle effortlessly between the epic and the intimate.&” —Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic&“Edward Wong&’s exquisite family chronicle achieves a level of humane illumination that only one of America&’s finest reporters on China could deliver. In tracing his father&’s journey—from Hong Kong to Xinjiang to America—Wong gives us a profound story of modern China itself. Anyone who once was absorbed by the power of Wild Swans will savor this meditation on memory, history, and belonging.&” —Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition, winner of the National Book AwardOne of Foreign Policy&’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024An epic story of modern China that weaves a riveting family memoir with vital reporting by the New York Times diplomatic correspondentThe son of Chinese immigrants in Washington, DC, Edward Wong grew up among family secrets. His father toiled in Chinese restaurants and rarely spoke of his native land or his years in the People&’s Liberation Army under Mao. Yook Kearn Wong came of age during the Japanese occupation in World War II and the Communist revolution, when he fell under the spell of Mao&’s promise of a powerful China. His astonishing journey as a soldier took him from Manchuria during the Korean War to Xinjiang on the Central Asian frontier. In 1962, disillusioned with the Communist Party, he made plans for a desperate escape to Hong Kong.When Edward Wong became the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, he investigated his father&’s mysterious past while assessing for himself the dream of a resurgent China. He met the citizens driving the nation&’s astounding economic boom and global expansion—and grappling with the vortex of nationalistic rule under Xi Jinping, the most powerful leader since Mao. Following in his father&’s footsteps, he witnessed ethnic struggles in Xinjiang and Tibet and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. And he had an insider&’s view of the world&’s two superpowers meeting at a perilous crossroads.Wong tells a moving chronicle of a family and a nation that spans decades of momentous change and gives profound insight into a new authoritarian age transforming the world. A groundbreaking book, At the Edge of Empire is the essential work for understanding China today.
At the Edge: Riding for My Life
by Danny MacAskill'I've already had my nine lives on the bike...'Danny MacAskill lives on the edge. The cyclist is legendary for his YouTube viral videos like 'The Ridge': nerve-jangling blurs of stunts and speed over towering buildings and mountain peaks. His life is one of thrills, bloody spills and millions of online hits.It hasn't been an easy ride. Fear, stress and the 'what if?' factor circle every trailblazing trick, which require imagination, daredevil techniques and movie-making smarts. He has spent his life pushing the extremes; somehow, he's still around to tell the tale.In this unflinching memoir of mayhem, Danny shares his anarchic childhood on the Isle of Skye and early days as a street trials rider, takes us behind the scenes of his training and videos, and reveals what it takes to go beyond the next level - both mentally and physically.Join Danny for a nerve-shredding ride. Just be sure to bring a crash helmet.
At the Coalface: My life as a miner's wife
by Catherine Paton BlackGrowing up in a mining family, Cath's husband Doug promised his father he wouldn't follow in his dangerous footsteps. But after struggling with terrible poverty in 1970s Scotland, Doug decided a pit job would provide his wife and young family much needed security, despite extraordinary risks to life and limb. Every day, Cath kissed her husband goodbye, not knowing if she'd see him again as he went to work at the coalface. And while her husband toiled deep below, the mother-of-five put her cooking and cleaning skills to use in the colliery canteen. In good times and bad, the miner's wives pulled together as much as their men underground. Then Thatcher swept to power and suddenly loyalties were tested and a fight for survival of a different kind ensued. One for their very existence.
At the Coalface: My life as a miner's wife
by Catherine Paton BlackGrowing up in a mining family, Cath's husband Doug promised his father he wouldn't follow in his dangerous footsteps. But after struggling with terrible poverty in 1970s Scotland, Doug decided a pit job would provide his wife and young family much needed security, despite extraordinary risks to life and limb. Every day, Cath kissed her husband goodbye, not knowing if she'd see him again as he went to work at the coalface. And while her husband toiled deep below, the mother-of-five put her cooking and cleaning skills to use in the colliery canteen. In good times and bad, the miner's wives pulled together as much as their men underground. Then Thatcher swept to power and suddenly loyalties were tested and a fight for survival of a different kind ensued. One for their very existence.
At the Chinese Table: A Memoir With Recipes
by Carolyn PhillipsPart memoir of life in Taiwan, part love story—a beautifully told account of China’s brilliant cuisines…with recipes. At the Chinese Table describes in vivid detail how, during the 1970s and ’80s, celebrated cookbook writer and illustrator Carolyn Phillips crosses China’s endless cultural and linguistic chasms and falls in love. During her second year in Taipei, she meets scholar and epicurean J. H. Huang, who nourishes her intellectually over luscious meals from every part of China. And then, before she knows it, Carolyn finds herself the unwelcome candidate for eldest daughter-in-law in a traditional Chinese family. This warm, refreshingly candid memoir is a coming-of-age story set against a background of the Chinese diaspora and a family whose ancestry is intricately intertwined with that of their native land. Carolyn’s reticent father-in-law—a World War II fighter pilot and hero—eventually embraces her presence by showing her how to re-create centuries-old Hakka dishes from family recipes. In the meantime, she brushes up on the classic cuisines of the North in an attempt to win over J. H.’s imperious mother, whose father had been a warlord’s lieutenant. Fortunately for J. H. and Carolyn, the tense early days of their relationship blossom into another kind of cultural and historical education as Carolyn masters both the language and many of China’s extraordinary cuisines. With illustrations and twenty-two recipes, At the Chinese Table is a culinary adventure like no other that captures the diversity of China’s cuisines, from the pen of a world-class scholar and gourmet.
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
by George Tenet Bill HarlowAutobiography of the CIA director from 1997 to 2004, during 9/11 and the initial invasion of Iraq
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
by George Tenet Bill HarlowIn the whirlwind of accusations and recriminations that emerged in the wake of 9/11 and the Iraq war, one man's vital testimony has been conspicuously absent. Candid and gripping, At the Center of the Storm recounts George Tenet's time at the Central Intelligence Agency, a revealing look at the inner workings of the most important intelligence organization in the world during the most challenging times in recent history. With unparalleled access to both the highest echelons of government and raw intelligence from the field, Tenet illuminates the CIA's painstaking attempts to prepare the country against new and deadly threats, disentangles the interlocking events that led to 9/11, and offers explosive new information on the deliberations and strategies that culminated in the U.S. invasion of Iraq.Beginning with his appointment as Director of Central Intelligence in 1997, Tenet unfolds the momentous events that led to 9/11 as he saw and experienced them: his declaration of war on al-Qa'ida; the CIA's covert operations inside Afghanistan; the worldwide operational plan to fight terrorists; his warnings of imminent attacks against American interests to White House officials in the summer of 2001; and the plan for a coordinated and devastating counterattack against al-Qa'ida laid down just six days after the attacks. Tenet's compelling narrative then turns to the war in Iraq as he provides dramatic insight and background on the run-up to the invasion, including a firsthand account of the fallout from the inclusion of "sixteen words" in the president's 2003 State of the Union address, which claimed that Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium from Africa; the true context of Tenet's own now-famous "slam dunk" comment regarding Saddam's WMD program; and the CIA's critical role in an administration predisposed to take the country to war. In doing so, he sets the record straight about CIA operations and shows readers that the truth is more complex than suggested in other versions of recent history offered thus far. Through it all, Tenet paints an unflinching self-portrait of a man caught between the warring forces of the administration's decision-making process, the reams of frightening intelligence pouring in from around the world, and his own conscience. In At the Center of the Storm, George Tenet draws on his unmatched experience within the opaque mirrors of intelligence and provides crucial information previously undisclosed to offer a moving, revelatory profile of both a man and a nation in times of crisis.
At the Center of the Circle (1773–1847): and the Writers She Influenced During Europe's Revolutionary Era
by Barbara de BoinvilleThis first-ever biography of Harriet de Boinville explores her close relationships with Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and other leading writers of the Romantic era, but also tells the gripping story of Harriet&’s early years as the wife of an aristocratic military officer during the French-English Wars, when she experienced a naval attack in the Caribbean, a shipwreck off the coast of France, and detention as a suspected spy in Dunkirk. Combining literary history and gender study with the engaging story of a courageous and caring woman, this ground-breaking book has generated extraordinary praise from renowned authors and experts.
At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude And The Creative Life
by Fenton JohnsonA profound meditation on accepting, and celebrating, one’s solitude. Whether seeking more time for solitude or suffering what seems a surfeit of it, readers will find the best of companions here. Fenton Johnson’s lyrical prose and searching sensibility explores what it means to choose to be solitary and celebrates the notion, common in his Roman Catholic childhood, that solitude is a legitimate and dignified calling. He delves into the lives and works of nearly a dozen iconic “solitaries” he considers his kindred spirits, from Thoreau at Walden Pond and Emily Dickinson in Amherst, to Bill Cunningham photographing the streets of New York; from Cézanne (married, but solitary nonetheless) painting Mont Sainte-Victoire over and over again, to the fiercely self-protective Zora Neale Hurston. Each character portrait is full of intense detail, the bright wakes they’ve left behind illuminating Fenton Johnson’s own journey from his childhood in the backwoods of Kentucky to his travels alone throughout the world and the people he has lost and found along the way. Combining memoir, social criticism, and devoted research, At the Center of All Beauty will resonate with solitaries and with anyone who might wish to carve out more space for solitude.
At the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up the Pieces
by Donald Collins Mary CollinsIn this collaborative memoir, a parent and a transgender son recount wrestling with their differences as Donald Collins undertook medical-treatment options to better align his body with his gender identity. As a parent, Mary Collins didn’t agree with her trans son’s decision to physically alter his body, although she supported his right to realize himself as a person. Raw and uncensored, each explains her or his emotional mindset at the time: Mary felt she had lost a daughter; Donald activated his “authentic self.” Both battled to assert their rights. A powerful memoir and resource, At the Broken Places offers a road map for families in transition.
At the Altar of the Road Gods: Stories of motorcycles and other drugs
by Boris MihailovicCaution: Contains incidents of insane motorcycle antics, drug use and swearing.In this fast, furious book, Boris Mihailovic shares his wild stories of motorcycling, mateship and frequent, two-wheel-related mayhem. Boris has had a life-long obsession with motorbikes and in this collection of yarns he shares pivotal moments in his riding life, from his first XJ650 Yamaha and the crazy, wild years of learning to ride faster and faster to finding friends with a similar passion who all look like outlaws.In At the Altar of the Road Gods Boris reveals the consequences of high-sides, tank-slappers, angry police and pilgrimages to Bathurst and Phillip Island, and explains how motorbike riding was the rite of passage into manhood he'd been searching for.Be warned: this is a book that may cause laughter, sleeplessness and the desire to buy a Lucifer-black Katana.Praise for MY MOTHER WARNED ME ABOUT BLOKES LIKE ME`It's a sad disconnect that exists in our largely ordered and overregulated society: that those who choose to live a colourful life of lawlessness, decadence, indulgence and abandon often lack the requisite skill to write about how damn fun it is. Mihailovic with his debut memoir, suffers no such problem...Highly recommended.? - 4 x 4 MAGAZINE`There is no requirement to love everything on two wheels to enjoy this book but it would seriously help, as our resident bike nut said about Boris: ?This guy lives and breathes motorbikes. He?s the epitome of two wheel freedom.? ' - MINING CHRONICLE
At the Altar of the Appellate Gods: Arguing before the US Supreme Court, A Memoir
by Lisa Sarnoff GochmanHave you ever wondered what it's like to argue before the Supreme Court of the United States?In this poignant and compelling memoir, Lisa Sarnoff Gochmancaptures the terror, wonder, and joy of preparing for and arguing a landmark criminal case before the nine justices of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC. At the Altar of the Appellate Gods traces the arc of a violent, racially motivated crime by white supremacist Charles C. Apprendi Jr. in rural Vineland, New Jersey, through the New Jersey state court system, and all the way up to the Supreme Court, where Gochman defended the constitutionality of New Jersey's Hate Crime Statute before a very hot bench. Gochman went head-to-head with Justice Antonin Scalia, fielded tough questions from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and strolled down memory lane with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Told with grace and humor, At the Altar of the Appellate Gods will interest anyone who is curious about the inner workings of our court system and what it is really like to bring a case before the highest court in the country.
At the Altar of Speed: The Fast Life and Tragic Death of Dale Earnhardt
by Leigh MontvilleHe was The Intimidator. A nightmare in the rear-view mirror. A unique winner in the boardroom. A seven-time Winston Cup champion. A driver whose personal success story and dedication inspired the adoration of millions of fans. Then on February 18, 2001, just seconds from the Daytona 500 finish line, the world of stock-car racing suffered a devastating loss as Dale Earnhardt fatally careened into a track wall. The tragic shock waves, and an unprecedented outpouring of respect and love, have not stopped since. At the Altar of Speedtakes readers behind the scenes of Earnhardt's celebrated life, tracing his rags-to-riches journey to the top of America's fastest-growing sport. Beginning with Earnhardt's early days growing up in small-town North Carolina, veteran sports writer Leigh Montville examines how a ninth-grade dropout started on the dusty dirt tracks of the South, went through two marriages and a string of no-future jobs before turning twenty-five, then took about a million left turns to glory. Through the pitfalls and triumphs, Earnhardt would ultimately become a celebrated champion, whose lifetime earnings would top forty-one million dollars. The son of a legendary racer, the father of a NASCAR star, he lived a total auto-racing life filled with triumph and sadness, great joy and great pain. Transporting readers to the colorful, noisy world of stock-car racing, where powerful engines allow drivers to reach speeds of 200 m. p. h. ,At the Altar of Speedvividly captures the man who drove the black No. 3 car, a man whose determination and inner strength left behind a legacy of greatness that has redefined his sport. Illustrated with a section of full-color photographs,At the Altar of Speedis a tribute to both the man and his unbeatable spirit.