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  Stan: The Life of Stan Laurel -...

  Fred Lawrence Guiles

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  Surprisingly, this is the first full-length biography of the legendary comic who was the creative half of the universally loved duo Laurel and Hardy. Based upon scores of interviews with family and friends (including the intimate diaries of Virginia Ruth Laurel, whom Stan married three times), Stan tells the very human story of Laurel’s struggle to survive against difficult odds, personal and professional.
  
  From precarious beginnings in vaudeville with Charlie Chaplin, skinny Stan changed his name and rose to enjoy success and universal acclaim with his big-bellied partner Oliver Hardy. Yet, beneath the exterior of the wistful comic whose sense of humor gave pleasure to so many millions was a man beset by financial worries, alcohol, and unhappy personal relationships that encompassed many dalliances and six marriages. This superb biography provides new insight into the supremely talented man behind the screen image and a fascinating panorama of show business in the first half of this century. A supplemental PDF is included with this audiobook.

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  Elon Musk - A Biography of an...

  Joseph Greene

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  ELON MUSK 
  Driven by idealism and the desire to be actively involved in the progression of humankind, Elon Musk has been dubbed a “thrillionaire” by The New York Times; a tech entrepreneur using his wealth to turn science fiction into science fact. 
  Musk wants to save planet Earth, send civilians into space, and colonize Mars. He wants to create artificial intelligence that will aid humanity, and he wants to treat spinal and other neurological diseases and injuries by implanting computer chips in people’s brains. 
  This book aims to serve as a biography-to-date of this interesting entrepreneur. By the completion of this book, you will have a much clearer understanding of who exactly Elon Musk is, how he got to where he is, and what might be next for him!

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  The Twice-Born - Life and Death...

  Aatish Taseer

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  When Aatish Taseer first came to Benares, the spiritual capital of Hinduism, he was eighteen, the Westernized child of an Indian journalist and a Pakistani politician, raised among the intellectual and cultural elite of New Delhi. Nearly two decades later, Taseer leaves his life in Manhattan to go in search of the Brahmins, wanting to understand his own estrangement from India through their ties to tradition.Known as the twice-born—first into the flesh, and again when initiated into their vocation—the Brahmins are a caste devoted to sacred learning. But what Taseer finds in Benares, the holy city of death also known as Varanasi, is a window on an India as internally fractured as his own continent-bridging identity. At every turn, the seductive, homogenizing force of modernity collides with the insistent presence of the past. In a globalized world, to be modern is to renounce India—and yet the tide of nationalism is rising, heralded by cries of "Victory to Mother India!" and an outbreak of anti-Muslim violence.From the narrow streets of the temple town to a Modi rally in Delhi, Taseer struggles to reconcile magic with reason, faith in tradition with hope for the future and the brutalities of the caste system, all the while challenging his own myths about himself, his past, and his countries old and new.

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  Wendell Berry - Life and Work

  Jason Peters

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  A portrait of an American thinker with contributions by Barbara Kingsolver, Bill McKibben, Sven Birkerts, Wes Jackson, and more: “A masterful collection.” —Charlotte Observer 
   
  Essayist, social critic, poet, “mad farmer,” novelist, teacher, and prophet: Wendell Berry has been called many things, but the broad sweep of his contemporary relevance and influence defies facile labels. With a unique perspective and far-reaching vision, Berry poses complex questions about humankind and our relationship to the land and offers simple but profound solutions. Berry’s writings give voice to a provocative but consistent philosophy that extends far beyond its agrarian core to include elements of sociology, the natural sciences, politics, religion, philosophy, linguistics, agriculture, and other seemingly incompatible fields of study. 
   
  Wendell Berry: Life and Work examines this wise, original thinker, appraising his written work and exploring his influence as an activist and artist. Each of the contributors—including Hayden Carruth, Sven Birkerts, Barbara Kingsolver, Stanley Hauerwas, Donald Hall, Ed McClanahan, Bill McKibben, Scott Russell Sanders, Norman Wirzba, Wes Jackson, and Eric T. Freyfogle—examines an aspect of Berry’s varied yet cohesive body of work. Also included are highly personal glimpses of Berry: his career, academic influence, and unconventional lifestyle. 
   
  These deft sketches show the purity of Berry’s agrarian lifestyle and demonstrate that there is nothing simple about the life to which he’s devoted himself. He embraces a life that sustains him not by easy purchase and haste but by physical labor and patience, not by mindless acquiescence to a centralized economy but by attention to local ways and wisdom. This book combines biographical sketches, personal accounts, literary criticism, and social commentary. The result is a rich portrait of one of America’s most profound and honest thinkers.

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  Unlikely Angel - The Untold...

  Ashley Smith, Stacy Mattingly

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  "He believed that I was an angel sent from God."---Ashley SmithIn April 2005, Ashley Smith made headlines around the globe when she miraculously talked her way out of the hands of alleged courthouse killer Brian Nichols after he took her hostage for seven hours in her suburban Atlanta apartment. In this moving, inspirational memoir, the 26-year-old widowed mother of a six-year-old girl shares for the first time the little-known details of her traumatic ordeal, and expands on how her faith and the bestselling book The Purpose-Driven® Life helped her survive and bring the killer's murderous rampage to a peaceful end.Just as she told her 6'1", 210-pound captor that his ultimate "purpose" in life was to end up spending the rest of his life in prison, preaching the teachings of Jesus Christ to his fellow inmates, Smith believes her own purpose is to spread that message of love to the rest of us. Juxtaposing the minute-by-minute tale of her experience with the never-before-told tragedies and triumphs of her own life, Unlikely Angel is a gripping tale of downfall and redemption, involving addiction, violence, death, loss, faith, and love. It is a story that will leave no reader untouched.

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  Cold War Face-off

  PBS NewsHour

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  Jim Lehrer discusses the significance of Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis with the presidential historians and Sergei Khrushchev, the son of the late Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

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