Other books that might interest you

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  The History of Democracy Has Yet...

  Thomas Geoghegan

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  “This book made me laugh out loud and also gave me glimpses of an entire horizon of possibility I hadn’t seen before.”—Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes End the filibuster. Abolish the Senate. Make everyone vote. Only if we do this (and then some), says Thomas Geoghegan, might we heal our fractured democracy. In 2008, Geoghegan―then an established labor lawyer and prolific writer―embarked on a campaign to represent Chicago’s Fifth District in Congress, in a special election called when Rahm Emanuel stepped down to serve as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff. For ninety days leading up to the election, Geoghegan, a political neophyte at age sixty, knocked on doors, shook hands at train stations, and made fundraising calls. On election night he lost, badly. But this humbling experience helped him develop a framework for reimagining American government in a way that is truly just, fair, and constitutional. Taking its title from Walt Whitman, The History of Democracy Is Yet to Be Written: How We Have to Learn to Govern All Over Again, combines hilarious tales from his time on the campaign trail with an incisive vision of how we might be able to create an America that fulfills its great promise. In a polarized country, where 100 million citizens don’t vote, and those who do are otherwise rarely politically engaged, he makes an impassioned case for the possibility of a truly representative democracy, one built on the ideals of the House of Representatives, the true chamber of the people, and inspired by the poet who gives the book its name. At once an engaging memoir and a call to arms, The History of Democracy Is Yet to Be Written will inspire and invigorate political veterans and young activists alike. “Witty, succinct . . . morally incisive.” —Rick Perlstein, New York Times–bestselling author of Reaganland   “Geoghegan’s punchy political memoir-and-manifesto is hilarious, poignant, and rippling with strong ideas and practical hope for change.” —Congressman Jamie Raskin

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  Days of Knight - How the General...

  Kirk Haston

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  “A personal glimpse into how the legendary Indiana basketball coach taught and mentored his team.”—Jared Jeffries, former Indiana Hoosier and New York Knick   What happens when a 6' 9" kid from Lobelville, Tennessee is recruited by legendary basketball coach Bob Knight? Kirk Haston’s life was changed forever with just a two-minute phone call. With previously unknown Knight stories, anecdotes, and choice quotes, Haston gives fans an inside look at the notoriously private man and his no-nonsense coaching style.   Which past Hoosier basketball greats returned to talk to and practice with current teams? How did Knight mentally challenge his players in practices? How did the players feel when Knight was fired? In this touching and humorous book, Haston shares these answers and more, including his own Hoosier highs—shooting a famous three-point winning shot against number one ranked Michigan State—and lows—losing his mom in a heartbreaking tornado accident. Days of Knight is a book every die-hard IU basketball fan will treasure.

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  The Delta in the Rearview Mirror...

  Di Rushing

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  In 1976, Di Rushing and her husband, Sam decided to open the first winery in Mississippi. Their business was thriving by 1990, with eight national award-winning wines, a beautiful vineyard, and a successful restaurant.But in March of 1990, a series of unforeseen events rocked the operation. After the Rushings discovered one of the tour guides, Ray Russell, selling drugs in the winery parking lot, they fired him. He responded with a terrorizing vengeance that persisted over the next nine months. In the early morning hours, the former guide broke into the winery and released the entire inventory—nearly a quarter of a million dollars' worth—down the drain. Fortunately, his incompetence thwarted his most destructive intention to blow up the restaurant. In his rampage, he broke all the windows, which allowed the gas from the kitchen oven to escape, sparing the premises. Though the Rushings rebuilt with the help of their community, Russell continued to stalk and threaten the young family. As his menacing behavior continued to escalate, the Rushings closed their business of fourteen years and moved to Ouray, Colorado, where they began rebuilding their lives. Culminating in the sudden, violent murders of Russell, his wife, and his father twenty-five years later, this book tells a story of both shock and resilience, charting Mississippi history in the process.

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  The Watson Dynasty - The Fiery...

  Richard S. Tedlow

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  This account of IBM’s famed father-and-son CEOs and the family conflicts behind the scenes is “a revealing look at the making of corporate America” (Publishers Weekly). 
   
  For an extraordinary fifty-seven-year period, one of the nation's largest and fastest-growing companies was run by two men who were flesh and blood. The chief executives of the International Business Machines Corporation from 1914 until 1971 were Thomas J. Watson, Sr. and Thomas J. Watson, Jr., and that great corporation bears the imprint of both men’s ambitions and strengths—but it also bears the consequences of a family that was in near-constant conflict. 
   
  Sometimes wrong but never in doubt, both Watsons had clear and farsighted visions of what their company could become. They also had volcanic tempers. Their fights with each other combined with their commitment to leadership and excellence made IBM one of the most rewarding yet gut-clutching firms to work for in the history of American business. 
   
  Our expectations of professional behavior include leaving emotions and vulnerabilities at home each day. In the case of the Watsons, filial and sibling strife could not be excluded from the office. In closely studying the desires and frustrations of the Watson family, eminent historian Richard S. Tedlow has produced something more than a family portrait or a company history. He delves into the role of emotion in corporate life, and explores the interplay between the personalities of these two extraordinary men and the firm they created.  
   
  Both Watsons had deeply held beliefs about what a corporation is and should be. These ideas helped make “Big Blue” the bluest of blue-chip stocks during their long tenure. These very beliefs, however, also sowed the seeds for IBM’s disasters in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the company had lost sight of the original meaning behind many of the practices each man put into place. Tracing the family’s idiosyncratic ability to cope with each other’s weaknesses but not their strengths, The Watson Dynasty is a “highly readable” portrait of a towering pioneer of the technology industry and the father and son who built it (Library Journal). 
   
  “Crisp, engaging.” —Enterprise & Society

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  Taming the Nueces Strip - The...

  George Durham, Clyde Wantland

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  “Durham’s account is modest and straightforward . . . has many lessons for anyone interested in the history of the Old West, leadership or law enforcement.” —American West Review   Only an extraordinary Texas Ranger could have cleaned up bandit-plagued Southwest Texas, between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande, in the years following the Civil War. Thousands of raiders on horseback, some of them Anglo-Americans, regularly crossed the river from Mexico to pillage, murder, and rape. Their main objective? To steal cattle, which they herded back across the Rio Grande to sell. Honest citizens found it almost impossible to live in the Nueces Strip. In desperation, the governor of Texas called on an extraordinary man, Captain Leander M. McNelly, to take command of a Ranger company and stop these border bandits. One of McNelly’s recruits for this task was George Durham, a Georgia farm boy in his teens when he joined the “Little McNellys,” as the Captain’s band called themselves. More than half a century later, it was George Durham, the last surviving “McNelly Ranger,” who recounted the exciting tale of taming the Nueces Strip to San Antonio writer Clyde Wantland.   In Durham’s account, those long-ago days are brought vividly back to life. Once again the daring McNelly leads his courageous band across Southwest Texas to victories against incredible odds. With a boldness that overcame their dismayingly small number, the McNellys succeeded in bringing law and order to the untamed Nueces Strip—succeeded so well that they antagonized certain “upright” citizens who had been pocketing surreptitious dollars from the bandits’ operations.  “The reader seems to smell the acrid gunsmoke and to hear the creak of saddle leather.” —Southwestern Historical Quarterly

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  The Burden is Light - The...

  Eugenia Price

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  Told in the vibrant, honest prose that has made Eugenia Price a classic religious writer and bestselling novelist, The Burden Is Light offers an intimate account of her conversion to Christianity at the age of thirty-three. Traversing the mountains and valleys of her journey from birth to rebirth in Jesus Christ, Ms. Price examines closely her spiritual, personal, and professional development through the years.

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