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  All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

  Malcolm Bradbury

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  Malcolm Bradbury’s humorous look at Britain’s transition to midcentury modernity After spending a year teaching in an American university in the 1950s, Malcolm Bradbury returned to England only to realize that his native country had become nearly as mystifying to him as the American Midwest. As Britain marched toward a new decade, much of the country was changing inexorably, its agrarian past paved over by suburban developers, its quiet traditionalism replaced by beehive hairdos and shiny, glass-walled office buildings. And so, to confront this curious moment in British history, Bradbury turned to the sharpest tool in his arsenal: humor. In All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go, he writes of a country balancing precariously on the boundary of two worlds, with the wry wit and keenly observant eye that have made him one of the twentieth century’s greatest satirists.

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  The Red Baron

  Barry Pickthall

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  Beginning his wartime career on the Western Front in August 1916, Manfred von Richthofen, or the Red Baron as he became known, had shot down an impressive total of fifteen aircraft by January 1917, as well as being appointed commander of his own unit. By the time of his death in 1918, he had destroyed a staggering total of eighty allied aircraft. From the perspective of the allies, he was a deadly menace. For the Germans, he was a fighter pilot hero of legendary significance. This fascinating collection of rare images offers a fresh perspective on the Baron himself, as well as a number of his adversaries from the Allied side of the line.

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  Late Edition - A Love Story

  Bob Greene

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  A loving and laughter-filled trip back to a lost American time when the newspaper business was the happiest game in town.In a warm, affectionate true-life tale, New York Times bestselling author Bob Greene (When We Get to Surf City, Duty, Once Upon a Town) travels back to a place where—when little more than a boy—he had the grand good luck to find himself surrounded by a brotherhood and sisterhood of wayward misfits who, on the mezzanine of a Midwestern building, put out a daily newspaper that didn't even know it had already started to die."In some American cities," Greene writes, "famous journalists at mighty and world-renowned papers changed the course of history with their reporting."  But at the Columbus Citizen-Journal, there was a willful rejection of grandeur—these were overworked reporters and snazzy sportswriters, nerve-frazzled editors and insult-spewing photographers, who found pure joy in the fact that, each morning, they awakened to realize: "I get to go down to the paper again."At least that is how it seemed in the eyes of the novice copyboy who saw romance in every grungy pastepot, a symphony in the song of every creaking typewriter.  With current-day developments in the American newspaper industry so grim and dreary, Late Edition is a Valentine to an era that was gleefully cocky and seemingly free from care, a wonderful story as bracing and welcome as the sound of a rolled-up paper thumping onto the front stoop just after dawn.

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  Forsaken Warriors - The Story of...

  Robert L. Tonsetic

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  An insider’s account of the South Vietnamese elites who strove to carry on the war against the Communists during the U.S. Army’s withdrawal. 
   
  The book is a personal memoir of the author’s service as a U.S. Army advisor during the end-stages of America’s involvement in Vietnam. During the period 1970–71, the U.S. was beginning to draw down its combat forces, and the new watchword was Vietnamization. It was the period when the will of the U.S. to prosecute the war had slipped, and transferring responsibility to the South Vietnamese was the only remaining hope for victory. 
   
  The author served as a U.S. Army advisor to South Vietnamese Ranger and Airborne units during this critical period. The units that the author advised spearheaded several campaigns in South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, as the U.S. combat units withdrew. Often outnumbered and outgunned, the elite ranger and airborne units fought Viet Cong and North Vietnamese units in some of the most difficult terrain in Southeast Asia, ranging from the legendary U Minh forest and Mo So mountains in the Mekong Delta, to the rugged hills of southern Laos. 
   
  The role of the small U.S. advisory teams is fully explained in the narrative. With little support from higher headquarters, these teams accompanied the Vietnamese units on highly dangerous combat operations over which they had no command or control authority. When U.S. advisors were restricted from accompanying South Vietnamese forces on cross-border operations in Cambodia and especially Laos, the South Vietnamese forces were badly mauled, raising concerns about their readiness and training, and their ability to operate without their U.S. advisors. As a result, a major effort was placed on training these forces while the clock continued to run on the U.S. withdrawal. 
   
  Having served with a U.S. infantry battalion during the peak years of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Robert Tonsetic—the acclaimed author of Days of Valor—is able to view the war through two different prisms and offer criticisms and an awareness of why the South Vietnamese armed forces were ultimately defeated. 
   
  “An exciting account of Robert Tonsetic’s combat tours during the final stages of our long involvement in the Vietnam War. Soldiers & Marines training for advisory duty in Iraq or Afghanistan would do well to read this excellent work.” —Proceedings 
   
  “Of special interest is the way [Tonsetic] recounts the dynamics of personalities & their effect on indigenous commanders & units. A must read for any soldiers likely to conduct partnering activities in the future.” —Soldier Magazine

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  Gifts

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  In Gifts Ralph Waldo Emerson muses on the function of and expectations surrounding the giving of gifs. He touches on what gifts communicate about the nature of the giver and receiver, and how the best kind of gift is a gift of love.

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  Barry Pain - A Short Story...

  Barry Pain

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  Barry Eric Odell Pain was born at 3 Sydney Street in Cambridge on 28th September 1864. He was one of 4 children. 
   
  He was educated at Sedbergh School and then Corpus Christi College, Cambridge where he read classics and contributed to and edited Granta. 
   
  Four years of service as an Army coach followed before he moved to London. In 1889, Cornhill Magazine published his short story ‘The Hundred Gates’.  This opened the way for Pain to advance his literary career on several fronts. He became a contributor to Punch and The Speaker, as well as joining the staff of both the Daily Chronicle and Black and White.  
   
  In 1897 he succeeded Jerome K Jerome as editor of To-Day but still contributed regularly, until 1928, to the Windsor Magazine. 
   
  It is often said that Pain was discovered by Robert Louis Stevenson, who compared his work to that of Guy de Maupassant.  It’s an apt comparison. Pain was also a master of disturbing prose but able to inject parody and light comedy into many of his works.  A simple premise could in his hands suddenly expand into a world very real but somehow emotionally fraught and on the very edge of darkness as many of these short stories demonstrate.   
   
  Despite applying his talents to several genres and forms today Pain is more readily thought of, especially during the first decade of the 20th Century, as perhaps the leading British humorist of his day.  These stories reveal a darker side and beg to differ. 
   
  Barry Pain died on 5th May 1928 in Bushey, Hertfordshire. 
  1 - Barry Pain - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - The Diary of a God by Barry Pain 
  3 - The Act of Heroism by Barry Pain 
  4 - The Green Light by Barry Pain 
  5 - A Complete Recovery by Barry Pain 
  6 - The Magnet by Barry Pain 
  7 - The End of a Show by Barry Pain 
  8 - The Case of Vincent Pyrwhit by Barry Pain 
  9 - Murder, from The Memoirs of Constantine Dix by Barry Pain 
  10 - Post Mortem by Barry Pain

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