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"Yamacraw Island was haunting, nearly deserted, and beautiful. Separated from the mainland of South Carolina by a wide tidal river, it was accessible only by boat. But for the handful of families that lived on Yamacraw, America was a world away. For years these families lived proudly from the sea until waste from industry destroyed the oyster beds essential to their very existence. Already poor, they knew they would have to face an uncertain future...
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A platoon commander in the first combat unit sent to fight in Vietnam, Lieutenant Caputo landed at Danang on March 8, 1965, convinced that American forces would win a quick and decisive victory over the Communists. Sixteen months later, and without ceremony, Caputo left Vietnam a shell-shocked veteran whose youthful idealism and faith in the rightness of the war had been utterly shattered. Now readers will see and feel the reality of the conflict...
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A Saudi Arabian princess describes the inequities for women in her country, discussing arranged marriages for child brides, the murder of female babies, and her own life in the shadow of men. By telling her story to Jean Sasson, Sultana has allowed us to see beyond the veils of this secret society, to the heart of a nation where sex, money, and power reign supreme.
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The best-selling author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers now trains her considerable wit and curiosity on the human soul. What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that's that--the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my lap-top?" In an attempt to find out, Mary Roach brings her tireless curiosity to bear...
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American Buffalo is a narrative tale of Rinella's hunt for this animal in the Alaskan wilderness. But beyond that, it is the story of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity. Rinella takes us across the continent in search of the buffalo's past, present, and future.
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Dr. Temple Grandin discusses how and why people with autism think differently, economical early intervention programs, how sensory sensitivities affect learning, the difference between bad behavior and bad behavior caused by a disability, teaching people with autism how to live in an unpredictable world, the pros and cons of alternate medicine and conventional medicine, and employment ideas for adults with autism.
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On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno that jumped from treetop to ridge as it raged, destroying towns and timber in the blink of an eye. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men -- college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps...
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"The soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines of the U.S. Special Operations Command are the cutting edge of America's war against radical Islamic terror. They--and their 'civilian' counterparts in the CIA and DEA-- are uniquely equipped to bring extraordinary force to bear against our nation's enemies in the most difficult and dangerous places on earth."
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Abandoned in a library book drop slot in the dead of winter, this remarkable kitten miraculously endured the coldest night of the year. When librarian Vicki Myron found him in the morning, she wrapped him in her arms, nurtured him back to health, and introduced him to his new home - the library. Helping Myron through a difficult time, and inspiring the struggling town of Spencer, Iowa, Dewey gained worldwide fame as a symbol of hope, warming the hearts...
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People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) experience such violent and frightening mood swings that they often fear for their sanity. They can be euphoric one moment, despairing and depressed the next. There are an estimated 18 million sufferers of BPD living in America today, each displaying remarkably similar symptoms such as: a shaky sense of identity ; Sudden outbursts of anger ; Oversensitivity to real or imagined rejection ; Brief, turbulent...
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Bernie Madoff was a king of the financial world. He was quietly running the largest hedge fund in the world, a fund that eventually spread to over forty nations and handled tens of billions of dollars. Harry Markopolos was a number cruncher at a Boston equity derivatives firm analyzing investment products. When a marketer handed Harry a prospectus outlining Madoff's strategy and asked him to create a similar product, he looked at the numbers. Within...
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The author of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravity. Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can't walk for a year? have sex? smell flowers?...
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In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America.
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We've all asked, "What is the world coming to?" But we seldom ask, "How bad was the world in the past?" In this startling new book, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker shows that the past was much worse. Evidence of a bloody history has always been around us: genocides in the Old Testament, gory mutilations in Shakespeare and Grimm, monarchs who beheaded their relatives, and American founders who dueled with their rivals. The murder rate in medieval...
18) Now you see it: how the brain science of attention will transform the way we live, work and learn
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Documents a 2003 experiment at Duke University where the author had free iPods issued to the freshman class to see how the device could be used academically, in a report that reveals other technological ideas that are revolutionizing education.
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An old lady, an antiques dealer, dies in Basel, Switzerland. Her devoted daughter-in-law finally steels herself to do what all families must in the aftermath of a death, she heads upstairs to the attic to sort through the old lady's effects. But this wasn't just any old lady, and this wasn't just any old family house. Helene (Leni) Elias was born Helene Frank, only daughter of Alice Frank and sister of Otto Frank, who in turn was Anne Frank's father....
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In this funny and thoughtful guide to a romanticized version of the American expansion west, children's book editor and memoirist McClure (I'm Not the New Me) attempts to recapture her childhood vision of "Laura World" (i.e., the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her Little House books about an 1880s pioneer family).