Best History eBooks of Gay & Gender Studies
Called "disgraceful," "third-rate," and "not nice" by Donald Trump, NBC News correspondent Katy Tur reported on—and took flak from—the most captivating and volatile presidential candidate in American history. Katy Tur lived out of a suitcase for a year and a half, following Trump around the country, powered by packets of peanut butter and kept clean with dry shampoo. She visited forty states with the candidate, made more than 3,800 live television reports, and tried to endure a gazillion loops of Elton John’s "Tiny Dancer"—a Trump rally playlist staple. is her darkly comic, fascinatingly bizarre, and often scary story of how America sent a former reality show host to the White House. “A cross between The Boys on the Bus and Miss Lonelyhearts” ( New York Review of Books ). “By the end of ‘Unbelievable’ it’s clear how wrong they all were in thinking they could run over “little Katy” (Trump’s snide name for Tur.). The chapters switch between key points in the campaign and Election Day, enhancing the feel of chaos that must have been a big part of covering the Trump campaign.” ( Associated Press ). Called “Disgraceful,” “third-rate,” and “not nice” by Donald Trump, NBC News correspondent Katy Tur reported on—and took flak from—the most captivating and volatile presidential candidate in American history. Tur lived out of a suitcase for a year and a half, following Trump around the country, powered by packets of peanut butter and kept clean with dry shampoo. She visited forty states with the candidate, made more than 3,800 live television reports, and tried to endure a gazillion loops of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”—a Trump rally playlist staple. Through all the long nights, wild scoops, naked chauvinism, dodgy staffers, and fevered debates, no one had a better view than Tur. Unbelievable is her darkly comic, fascinatingly bizarre, and often scary story of how America sent a former reality show host to the White House.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I can't put this down and had to write a 5-star revuew before I was done, because I wanted to counter all the trolls who clearly haven't read it and are just trashing the author. Here it leavens the horror show of the Trump campaign which she is somewhat reluctantly drawn into covering when she has a good job in London and a charming boyfriend in Paris."
"I know I have wondered - what would it have been like to really see Trump on the campaign trail? Tur explains how she ended up covering Trump, and what it was like to follow him, day in and day out, for the length of his campaign."
"I liked many things about this book except the way it was organized."
"As an embedded reporter for NBC during the Trump campaign, Ms. Tur had a front row seat to the weirdest presidential election in the history of this country."
"This is a quick, funny, light read that gives you a great idea of what goes through a correspondent's mind, though the events that unfolded are hopefully a once-in-history thing."
"I'm so gad I read this rich, entertaining and detailed book about Katy Tur's 500 days on the road covering the Trump campaign."
"This felt like I was sitting down with an old friend over a bottle of wine while she told me about her amazing year on the road."
"I’ve followed Katy following TRump since day 1."
Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has been heralded as a "lyrical work of nonfiction," and the book's extremely graceful prose depictions of some of Savannah, Georgia's most colorful eccentrics--remarkable characters who could have once prospered in a William Faulkner novel or Eudora Welty short story--were certainly a critical factor in its tremendous success. The book is also about the wealthy international antiques dealer Jim Williams, who played an active role in the historic city's restoration--and would also be tried four times for the 1981 shooting death of 21-year-old Danny Handsford, his high-energy, self-destructive house helper.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book kind of draws you in with it's very unusual characters (which there are many) and the way it's written - it casts its own spell on the reader."
"However, 25 percent into the book, I am still just reading chapters about the various characters and nothing about the story itself."
"And then go to Savannah, and then go back and read the book!"
"You will laugh out loud, be offended, entertained ,confused, think you actually live there and above all enjoy a read so much that you will not put it down."
"My daughter recently moved to Savannah and I wanted to revisit this classic."
"I was able to hear the sublteties of the characters and create the scenes in my mind. The whole atmosphere of Savanah during that time allowed me to leave the rainy day and enjoy another world."
"I had forgotten all the quirky people and events between the pages (watched movie, too many times) as well as the rich history associated with this place."
"Sometimes so called best sellers are just a wooden concoction of some rubbish where a fancifully name “ detective” make some mundane statements."
After her father was imprisoned and tortured by the regime for trading on the black-market, a risk he took in order to provide for his wife and two young daughters, Yeonmi and her family were branded as criminals and forced to the cruel margins of North Korean society. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea—and to freedom. Park confronts her past with a startling resilience, refusing to be defeated or defined by the circumstances of her former life in North Korea and China. Indeed, today she is a human rights activist working determinedly to bring attention to the oppression taking place in her home country. Park’s testimony is rare, edifying, and terribly important, and the story she tells in In Order to Live is heartbreaking and unimaginable, but never without hope. Clear-eyed and devastating Observer One of the most harrowing stories I have ever heard - and one of the most inspiring ... A book to make you newly thankful for the freedom you have never been forced to fight for.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I came to this book with the expectation of doing much the same - of reading someone's story and learning more about North Korea and what life is still like for the people living there. I watched Ms Park's One Young World speech (and cried along with her), and I was expecting the book to be emotional, and in particular I was looking forward to the parts when she was reunited with her family members. It takes a special type of strength to be able to be honest about the awful things that have happened to you - in particular being trafficked and raped - and I know deciding to tell that story must have been a difficult one. From the way her strength of spirit just bleeds out of the words on every page of this book, I have no doubt she will succeed."
"Yeonmi's account of her life under this cruel dictatorship shows the human side of living without any rights."
"It took so much courage for Yeonmi to escape North Korea, and endure the human trafficking, fear, isolation and desperation in China, to eventually survive the freezing desert and reach freedom in South Korea ."
"N Korea is in the news."
"Ms. Park did an outstanding job of relating the personal story of her and her family while under the total control of the North Korean government in very recent times."
"It opens your eyes to the struggles of the people in North Korea, and it makes me want to go to South Korea and volunteer with the refugees to help them learn about the world."
"What this young woman and has experienced, survived, overcome, conquered, and then contributed to society and personally excelled is amazing."
"It's a gripping story that tells of the horror of life in North Korea and what one incredible girl most do in order to save herself and her family."
Best Social History eBooks
Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens , returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. While Sapiens looked back at our evolutionary development, this new book examines where we might be headed ( Homo Deus is subtitled “A Brief History of Tomorrow”). His innovative new book blends science, history and philosophy to explore the future of humanity in the face of artificial intelligence and examine whether our species will be rendered completely redundant.” – Cambridge Network “Spellbinding. “ It’s a chilling prospect, but the AI we’ve created could transform human nature, argues this spellbinding new book by the author of Sapiens .” – The Guardian. “Nominally a historian, Harari is in fact an intellectual magpie who has plucked theories and data from many disciplines — including philosophy, theology, computer science and biology — to produce a brilliantly original, thought-provoking and important study of where mankind is heading.” – Evening Standard. He’s opened a portal for us to contemplate on what kind of relationships we are forming with our data-crunching machines and whether ‘right’ must be determined by empirical evidence or good old ‘gut instinct.’” – The Hindu “[Harari’s] propositions are well-developed, drawing upon a combination of science, philosophy and history. While the book offers a rather pessimistic and even nihilistic view of man’s future, it is written with wit and style and makes compelling reading.” – iNews.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Yuval Noah Harari's "Homo Deus" continues the tradition introduced in his previous book "Sapiens": clever, clear and humorous writing, intelligent analogies and a remarkable sweep through human history, culture, intellect and technology. He starts with exploring the three main causes of human misery through the ages - disease, starvation and war - and talks extensively about how improved technological development, liberal political and cultural institutions and economic freedom have led to very significant declines in each of these maladies. Continuing his theme from "Sapiens", a major part of the discussion is devoted to shared zeitgeists like religion and other forms of belief that, notwithstanding some of their pernicious effects, can unify a remarkably large number of people across the world in striving together for humanity's betterment. As in "Sapiens", Mr. Harari enlivens his discussion with popular analogies from current culture ranging from McDonald's and modern marriage to American politics and pop music. Mr. Harari's basic take is that science and technology combined with a shared sense of morality have created a solid liberal framework around the world that puts individual rights front and center. Ranging from dating to medical diagnosis, from the care of the elderly to household work, entire industries now stand to both benefit and be complemented or even superseded by the march of the machines. For reading more about these aspects, I would recommend books like Nick Bostrom's "Superintelligence", Pedro Domingos's "The Master Algorithm" and John Markoff's "Machines of Loving Grace". As a proficient prognosticator Mr. Harari's crystal ball remains murky, but as a surveyor of past human accomplishments his robust and unique abilities are still impressive and worth admiring."
"And he claims that humanism believes that individuals always know best about their own needs (when in fact, many have emphasized the importance of education in our development--he does not even reference John Dewey). For most of the book, Harari appears to be adopting a materialistic perspective, and one which is also extremely unsentimental and discounts the significance of human morale and character. He also discusses how animals and people have consciousness and subjective experiences, and presumes that artificial intelligence will remain unconscious (the "weak AI" hypothesis of John Searle). And on the very last page, he makes us wonder if his hardcore materialistic perspective has just been a long, extended ruse: he asks us to question a worldview that would deny the significance of consciousness. So it seems likely that in a future book he will focus on the nature of consciousness, and argue for non-theistic Buddhism (an understated agenda in Harari's writing--perhaps he thinks that this is the way for humanity to avoid the grim fate predicted here?). The comment begins with "Harari indeed believes that developing an understanding of consciousness, a science of mind, or however else one wishes to phrase it is the best and perhaps the only way to avert the grim fate that threatens humanity in this century."
Best AIDS
Upon it's first publication twenty years ago, And The Band Played on was quickly recognized as a masterpiece of investigative reporting. His work is critical of the medical and scientific communities' initial response and particularly harsh on the Reagan Administration, who he claims cut funding, ignored calls for action and deliberately misled Congress. "An exhaustive account of the early years of the AIDS crisis, this outlines the medical, social and political forces behind the epidemic's origin and rapid spread," reported PW .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"There was no sex education that i could remember and the only thing I do remember about AIDS was a gym teacher telling the class that if you are gay, your tongue will turn purple and you will die of AIDS."
"I remember hearing of a "homosexual disease" in early summer 1981, which was surprisingly early, especially for an Ohioan."
"I didn’t really understand the beginning of the HIV/AIDS crisis since I was too young."
"This book gives the story of the start of the aids epidemic and the missteps and prejudices by doctors, government, and media that led to this problem."
"The story successfully blends a number of elements: competitive jealousies within the scientific community (it's likely that the French actually discovered the AIDS virus, despite a neck-in-neck US researcher who claimed the glory), the politics of the slow-moving National Institutes of Health (NIH), Reagan's stubborn refusal to address the AIDS issue (he finally did so six years after the epidemic began--and after 20,850 citizens had died), and a number of incredibly touching stories of people with the disease. One thing I hadn't known was the schism within the gay community: some people recognizing the reality of the threat while others (understandably) discounted it as internalized homophobia or as a homophobic attempt at sexual repression. This book captures a period in time where, in the midst of sometimes slow-moving science, second-class-citizen politics, and a seemingly indifferent larger society, some dedicated people struggled to raise awareness, to change habits, and others, to face death with equanimity."
"The "Butcher's Bill," the tally of deaths to AIDS, is a steady drumbeat in each chapter as LGBT activists on the ground race to care for the dying as bureaucracy hampers research and recognition for the virus."
Best History eBooks of Race & Ethnicity
With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties. A Look Inside The Warmth of Other Suns The author's father as a Tuskegee Airman George Starling as a young manThe author's mother at Meridian Hill The author’s mother at Howard University with friends A migrant man studying a mapA migrant man packing his suitcaseIda Mae Brandon Gladney as a young womanRobert Joseph Pershing Foster as a young physician Starred Review.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper writer, has now come back to write a fascinating and sweeping book on what she calls ""the biggest underreported story of the twentieth century." Of course we all know the tale of the "Dust Bowl" and the "Okies", as captured by Steinbeck in words, by Dorothea Lange in photographs, and even in song by Woody Guthrie. The title of this book is taken from Richard Wright's "Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth": "I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns, and, perhaps, to bloom." Our families became friends, as also "Miz Edna's" husband had served in New Guinea with my father (as a cook, however, remember the WWII Army was still segregated) ."
"It does a commendable job of presenting the sweep of history while also telling individual stories of those who left brutal conditions for better lives elsewhere."
"I am awed by the sacrifice and courage displayed by my mother who made the decision to leave her family in Alabama to give us a chance to realize our greatest potential by driving north to start a new life."
"This collection of stories takes the reader through the history of the black migration from the South to the North and lays out in clear terms the challenges blacks faced and provides a foundational understanding of the challenges blacks continue to face in America today."
"This book was well articulated by a very pleasant-voice lady."
"I knew very little about this period in our history, and as a result of this book, I've sought out more information."
"This book, by focusing on the stories few individuals citizens, transcendentally captures both the unspeakable tragedy of Jim Crow, and the remarkable faith and sheer fortitude of those making the journey north (I'll never forget Ida Mae!!)."
Best Social History eBooks of Labor & Workforce
#1 Bestseller in Business and Money, Small Business, Entrepreneurship and International Economics A Top 3 'Start Your Own Business' Book -Inc Magazine. — Why a 20th century world view to career search questions like “What career is right for me?” and “How do I find a career?” could be the source of your frustration (and a better way to think about it). — Taylor’s 67 must-read business books and the best entrepreneur books to fuel your entrepreneurial career. — Access to a private community to discuss the book and get support from a community of like-minded individuals to inspire, motivate, and assist each other in seeking out apprenticeships, your career search and other elements around “how to find a career” and other career guidance questions like “what career is right for me?”. Early Stage Entrepreneurs - If you’re already involved in small business entrepreneurship, but doubting yourself and wondering if you made a smart choice to abandon the traditional career path? Taylor spent the last three years meeting with hundreds of entrepreneurs from Los Angeles to Vietnam, Brazil to New York, and worked with dozens of them, in industries from cat furniture to dating, helping them to grow their businesses. Based on hundreds of interactions and and dozens of recent books and studies, he wrote The End of Jobs to show others how they could invest in entrepreneurship to create more freedom, meaning, and wealth in their lives.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"3 years ago I picked up Tim Ferriss' "4 Hour Work Week” - the bible of the first wave of nomadic online entrepreneurs. The End of Jobs presents an even more compelling argument on how the traditional education, career and asset accumulation script is failing. It's the necessary balance of age-old philosophical theories, real-world examples of successful entrepreneurs, and nitty-gritty strategies and tactics that can create a catalyst for change: not only the WHY, but the HOW and WHEN (i.e. right now)!"
"This book was suggested by a Facebook buddy."
"While we have largely accepted technological disruption of blue-collar work (albeit reluctantly), Pearson explains that many white collar careers are ripe for disruption by technology, global competition and other factors."
"I'd give 3 stars if you've already read a lot books on the subject, 4 stars if you're new to it."
"I really like Taylor's book I have listened to it four times now and I really think he is on to something."
"This book is uplifting and practical, providing templates from Taylor's website and strategies for you to employ today, in 2015, to bring yourself into the new world that we live in."