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The Last Lecture [Secure]
by Randy Pausch
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"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."--Randy Pausch. When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, was asked to give a "last lecture," he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (... more info>>
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21 Reader Ratings:
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2
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The Glass Castle: A Memoir [Secure]
by Jeannette Walls
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The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family. The Wa... more info>>
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3
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Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance [Secure]
by Barack Obama
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In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father--a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man--has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey--first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Keny... more info>>
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26 Reader Ratings:
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4
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Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10 [Secure]
by Patrick Robinson, Marcus Luttrell
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Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July, 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to have a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive. This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, SEAL team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American N... more info>>
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22 Reader Ratings:
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5
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Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen [Secure]
by Julie Powell
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With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul. Julie Powell is 30-years-old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classi... more info>> (Published: 2001)
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6
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Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln [Secure]
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
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Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president. On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed ... more info>>
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7
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Shakespeare: The World as Stage [Secure]
by Bill Bryson
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William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself. Bryson documents the efforts of earlier scholars, from today's most respected academics to eccentrics like Delia Bacon, an American who developed a firm but unsubstantiated convi... more info>>
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11 Reader Ratings:
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8
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A Weeping upon the Thames [An Exploration of Charles Dickens]
by John T. Cullen
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Charles Dickens was one of the top three investigative journalists of his century, besides being a famous novelist. We explore the surprising and often shocking background that makes him as relevant today as he was in the Victorian world. London's rookeries were even more notorious than the Five Points section in Gangs of New York. (Published: 2003)
Words: 6200 - Reading Time: 17-24 min.
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9
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Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life [Secure]
by Steve Martin
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In the mid-seventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away." Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spec... more info>>
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10
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John Adams [Secure]
by David McCullough
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In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot--"the colossus of independence," as Thomas Jefferson called him--who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second President of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out... more info>> (Published: 2001)
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11
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Einstein: His Life and Universe [Secure]
by Walter Isaacson
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How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson's biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom. Based on newly released personal letters of Einstein, this book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk--a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate--became the mind reader of the creator of th... more info>>
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12
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Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson [Secure]
by Hunter S. Thompson
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Few American lives are stranger, more action-packed, or wilder than that of Hunter S. Thompson. Born a rebel in Louisville, Kentucky, Thompson spent a lifetime channeling his energy and insight into such landmark works as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas--and his singular and provocative style challenged and revolutionized writing. Now, for the first time ever, Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour have interviewed the Good Doctor's friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues and woven their memories in... more info>> (Published: 2007)
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13
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John Lennon: The Life [Secure]
by Philip Norman
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For more than a quarter century, Philip Norman's internationally bestselling Shout! has been unchallenged as the definitive biography of the Beatles. Now, at last, Norman turns his formidable talent to the Beatle for whom belonging to the world's most beloved pop group was never enough. Drawing on previously untapped sources, and with unprecedented access to all the major characters, here is the comprehensive and most revealing portrait of John Lennon that is ever likely to be published. This ma... more info>>
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14
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Somebody to Love?: A Rock-n-Roll Memoir [Secure]
by Grace Slick
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Grace Slick was the original "great rock diva." As the lead singer of Jefferson Airplane, which produced classics like "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love," she was at the forefront of the sixties and seventies counterculture. Now she offers a revealing portrait of the complex woman behind the rock-outlaw image and delivers a behind-the-scenes, no-holds-barred view of rock's grandest stages. Somebody to Love tells what it was really like during, and after, the summer of love--and how one remark... more info>>
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15
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What I Talk About When I Talk About Running [Secure]
by Haruki Murakami
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In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he'd completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a dozen critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and--even more important--on his writing. Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 N... more info>>
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16
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'Tis: A Memoir [Secure]
by Frank McCourt
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The sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Angela's Ashes, 'Tis is the story of Frank McCourt's American journey from impoverished immigrant to brilliant teacher and raconteur. Frank lands in New York at age nineteen, in the company of a priest he meets on the boat. He gets a job at the Biltmore Hotel, where he immediately encounters the vivid hierarchies of this "classless country," and then is drafted into the army and is sent to Germany to train dogs and type reports. When Frank returns to Amer... more info>> (Published: 2000)
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17
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American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson [Secure]
by Joseph J. Ellis
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For a man who insisted that life on the public stage was not what he had in mind, Thomas Jefferson certainly spent a great deal of time in the spotlight--and not only during his active political career. After 1809, his longed-for retirement was compromised by a steady stream of guests and tourists who made of his estate at Monticello a virtual hotel, as well as by more than one thousand letters per year, most from strangers, which he insisted on answering personally. In his twilight years Jeffer... more info>> (Published: 2000)
Words: 100000 - Reading Time: 285-400 min.
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18
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Angela's Ashes: A Memoir [Secure]
by Frank McCourt
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The #1 national bestseller. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle
Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the ABBY Award.
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive
at
all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is
hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is
the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish
Catholic childhood."
So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCo... more info>> (Published: 1999)
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19
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Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant [Secure]
by Daniel Tammet
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Born on a Blue Day is a journey into one of the most fascinating minds alive today--guided by its owner himself. Daniel Tammet sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn to speak new languages fluently, from scratch, in a week. In 2004, he memorized and recited more than 22,000 digits of pi, setting a record. He has savant syndrome, an extremely rare condition that gives him almost unimaginable mental powers, much like th... more info>>
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20
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Infidel [Secure]
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West. One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following an Islamist's murder of her colleagu... more info>>
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21
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Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster [Secure]
by Jon Krakauer
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Reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion, Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996. He hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours. As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had begun to roil with clouds.... This is the terrifying story of what really happened that fateful day at the top o... more info>> (Published: 2000)
Words: 150000 - Reading Time: 428-600 min.
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32 Reader Ratings:
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22
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Losing It, And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time [Secure]
by Valerie Bertinelli
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We all knew and loved Valerie Bertinelli as the girl next door cutie, Barbara Cooper, in the hit TV show "One Day at a Time." Now she is the divorced mother of a teenager and is conducting a very public--and already successful--campaign to lose weight as a spokesperson for Jenny Craig. Losing It is Bertinelli's frank motivational story--from her complicated family life to her struggles to maintain a healthy self-image while coping with celebrity, her tumultuous 20-year marriage to rock star Eddi... more info>>
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23
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Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish [Secure]
by Mark R. Levin
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Although Mark Levin is known as a constitutional lawyer and a nationally syndicated broadcaster, he is, first and foremost, a dog lover. In 1998, he and his family welcomed a half-Border Collie/half-Cocker Spaniel they named Pepsi into their lives. Six years later, his wife and son persuaded him to adopt a dog from the local shelter, a Spaniel mix. It turned out he was older than originally thought, and he was the most beautiful dog they'd ever seen. They named him Sprite. Their lives would neve... more info>>
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24
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The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers [Secure]
by Harry Bernstein
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"There are places that I have never forgotten. A little cobbled street in a smoky mill town in the North of England has haunted me for the greater part of my life. It was inevitable that I should write about it and the people who lived on both sides of its 'Invisible Wall.'" The narrow street where Harry Bernstein grew up, in a small English mill town, was seemingly unremarkable. It was identical to countless other streets in countless other working-class neighborhoods of the early 1900s, except... more info>>
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25
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Thomas Jefferson [Secure]
by Christopher Hitchens
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In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father. Situating Jefferson within the context of America's evolution and tracing his legacy over the past two hundred years, Hitchens brings the character of Jefferson to life as a man of his time and also as a symbolic figure beyond it. Conflicted by power, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as Min... more info>> (Published: 2006)
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![Long [100000 words]](/images/long.gif "Long [100000 words]")
![Very Long [150000 words]](/images/verylong.gif "Very Long [150000 words]")
