Books, History, Asia

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Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
by Penguin (Non-Classics) (Paperback)

The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools—especially for girls—that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.

Marcus Luttrell
Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
by Little, Brown and Company (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2007-06-12)

On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less then twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs remained alive. This is the story of fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing, and the desperate battle in the mountains that led, ultimately, to the largest loss of life in Navy SEAL history. But it is also, more than anything, the story of his teammates, who fought ferociously beside him until he was the last one left-blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing. Over the next four days, badly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell fought off six al Qaeda assassins who were sent to finish him, then crawled for seven miles through the mountains ...

Rory Freedman; Kim Barnouin
Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous
by Tantor Media (CD)

Not your typical boring diet book, this is a tart-tongued, no-holds-barred wake-up call to all women who want to be thin.

Steve Coll
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
by Penguin (Non-Classics) (Paperback)

Leslie T. Chang
Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China
by Spiegel & Grau (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-10-07)

An eye-opening and previously untold story, Factory Girls is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China.China has 130 million migrant workers—the largest migration in human history. In Factory Girls, Leslie T. Chang, a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China’s Pearl River Delta.As she tracks their lives, Chang paints a never-before-seen picture of migrant life—a world where nearly everyone is under thirty; where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a mobile phone; where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class. Chang takes us inside a sneaker factory so large that it has its own hospital, movie theater, and fire department; to ...

Colonel Jack Jacobs (retired), Douglas Century
If Not Now, When?: Duty and Sacrifice in America's Time of Need
by Berkley Hardcover (Hardcover)

A Medal of Honor recipient looks back at his own service—and ahead to America’s future.Jack Jacobs was acting as an advisor to the South Vietnamese when he and his men came under devastating attack. Severely wounded, 1st Lt. Jacobs took command and withdrew the unit, returning again and again to the site of the attack to rescue more men, saving the lives of a U.S. advisor and thirteen Allied soldiers. Col. Jacobs received the nation’s highest military award, the Medal of Honor. Here, with candor, humor, and quiet modesty, Col. Jack Jacobs tells his stirring story of heroism, honor, and the personal code by which he has lived his life, and expounds with blunt honesty and insight his views on our contemporary world, and the nature and necessity of sacrifice. If Not Now, When? is a compelling account of a unique life at both war and peace, and the all-too-often unexamined role of the citizenry in the service and defense of the Republic.

John McCain
Faith of My Fathers
by Diane Pub Co (Hardcover)

Michael Dobbs
One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War
by Knopf (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-06-03)

In October 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union appeared to be sliding inexorably toward a nuclear conflict over the placement of missiles in Cuba. Veteran Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs has pored over previously untapped American, Soviet, and Cuban sources to produce the most authoritative book yet on the Cuban missile crisis. In his hour-by-hour chronicle of those near-fatal days, Dobbs reveals some startling new incidents that illustrate how close we came to Armageddon.Here, for the first time, are gripping accounts of Khrushchev’s plan to destroy the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo; the accidental overflight of the Soviet Union by an American spy plane; the movement of Soviet nuclear warheads around Cuba during the tensest days of the crisis; the activities of CIA agents inside Cuba; and the crash landing of an American F-106 jet with a live nuclear weapon on board.Dobbs takes us inside the White House and the Kremlin as Kennedy ...

Anne Frank
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl - The Definitive Edition
by Doubleday (Hardcover) (Release Date: 1995-02-01)

Harold G. Moore, Joseph L. Galloway
We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam
by Harper (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-08-19)

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries—often with surprising results. More than fifteen years since its original publication, the number one New York Times bestseller We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young is still required reading in all branches of the military. Now Moore and Galloway revisit their relationships with ten American veterans of the battle—men such as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley and helicopter pilot Bruce "Old Snake" Crandall—as well as Lt. Gen. Nguyen Hu An, who commanded the North Vietnamese Army troops on the other side, and two of his old company commanders. These men and their countries have all changed dramatically since the first head-on collision between the two great armies back in November 1965. Traveling back to the red-dirt battlefields, commanders and ...

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