5 Biographies e-Books

• The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life
  
• Stonewall Jackson
  
• Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul
  
• Japanese Girl at the Siege of Changchun: How I Survived China's Wartime Atrocity
  
• My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire

The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life
ISBN: 0316311464 | 2016 | EPUB | 288 Pages | 3 MB
After serving in Congress for more than thirty years as both a congresswoman and a senator, Senator Boxer has proven herself to be a passionate advocate for significant issues of our time, including the military, civil rights, universal health care, and the environment. With a who's who of politics of the past three decades, Boxer shows all of the machinations that it takes to make government work, much of it off the record. Featuring figures beloved and reviled, Boxer's memoir takes us behind the scenes to show us what it has been like to deal with George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitch McConnell, as well as Tip O'Neill, the Clintons, Obama, and so many more.
Raised in a Jewish, working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY, Boxer was a journalist who decided she could make a difference and ran for local office in California, inspired to fight tooth and nail to help bring that American dream of "a more perfect union" into fruition.
Behind closed doors in secret negotiating rooms, Boxer has seen it all: petty squabbling, bare-knuckled dysfunctional debate, and vicious character assassinations. Drawing back the curtain, she leads readers in a master class in statecraft, revealing the truth behind controversial policies, temperamental elected officials, and sensational media headlines that have dominated our national discourse. In this passionate, heartfelt testament to one woman's life's work to improve democracy for all, Senator Boxer offers her views on how American government is flawed and can be rescued to ultimately flourish, but only with the full participation of the nation at large.

Stonewall Jackson
English | 30 Jan. 2001 | ISBN: 0791060020, 079106140X | 81 Pages | PDF | 7 MB
Clear and concise biographies of the best-known Civil War personalities -C Includes interesting and informative sidebars -C Presented in an easy-to-read format -C Complements school curriculum

Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul
English | 2016 | ISBN: 0812993500 | 256 Pages | EPUB | 3,2 MB
Kill 'Em and Leave is more than a book about James Brown. Brown's rough-and-tumble life, through McBride's lens, is an unsettling metaphor for American life: the tension between North and South, black and white, rich and poor. McBride's travels take him to forgotten corners of Brown's never-before-revealed history: the country town where Brown's family and thousands of others were displaced by America's largest nuclear power bomb-making facility; a South Carolina field where a long-forgotten cousin recounts, in the dead of night, a fuller history of Brown's sharecropping childhood, which until now has been a mystery. McBride seeks out the American expatriate in England who co-created the James Brown sound, visits the trusted right-hand manager who worked with Brown for forty-one years, and interviews Brown's most influential nonmusical creation, his "adopted son," the Reverend Al Sharpton. He describes the stirring visit of Michael Jackson to the Augusta, Georgia, funeral home where the King of Pop sat up all night with the body of his musical godfather, spends hours talking with Brown's first wife, and lays bare the Dickensian legal contest over James Brown's estate, a fight that has consumed careers; prevented any money from reaching the poor schoolchildren in Georgia and South Carolina, as instructed in his will; cost Brown's estate millions in legal fees; and left James Brown's body to lie for more than eight years in a gilded coffin in his daughter's yard in South Carolina.

James McBride is one of the most distinctive and electric literary voices in America today, and part of the pleasure of his narrative is being in his presence, coming to understand Brown through McBride's own insights as a black musician with Southern roots. Kill 'Em and Leave is a song unearthing and celebrating James Brown's great legacy: the cultural landscape of America today.

Japanese Girl at the Siege of Changchun: How I Survived China's Wartime Atrocity
English | 2016 | ISBN: 1611720389 | 304 Pages | EPUB | 2 MB
150,000 innocents died in Changchun at the end of WW2 when Mao's Revolutionary Army laid siege. Japanese girl Homare Endo, then age 7, was traumatized but survived to devote her life to telling the world of the atrocity China now denies. This gripping, firsthand account is tough reading, full of both brutal descriptions and dispassionate commentary on politics and humanity.

My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire
ISBN: 0062329154 | 2016 | EPUB | 400 Pages | 4 MB
The late Grammy-winning founder of the legendary pop/R&B/soul/funk/disco group tells his story and charts the rise of his legendary band in this sincere memoir that captures the heart and soul of an artist whose groundbreaking sound continues to influence music today. With an introduction by Steve Harvey and a foreword by David Foster.
"To the readers of this book you need to know that EW&F is simply the greatest living group in my lifetime. No one put together lyrics to a melody like they did; no one put harmony to sound and rhythm like they did; no one added horns in the way that they did and no one, but no one messed with our minds about love and life like they did. . . . EARTH because they grow on you; WIND because it moves you in one loving direction and FIRE because they consume your heart in a single flame of love."-Steve Harvey
With its dynamic horns, contrasting vocals, and vivid stage shows, Earth, Wind & Fire was one of the most popular acts of the late twentieth century-the band "that changed the sound of black pop" (Rolling Stone)-and its music continues to inspire modern artists including Usher, Jay-Z, Cee-Lo Green, and Outkast. At last, the band's founder, Maurice White, shares the story of his success.
White reflects on the great blessings music has brought to his life and the struggles he's endured: his mother leaving him behind in Memphis when he was four; learning to play the drums with Booker T. Jones; moving to Chicago at eighteen and later Los Angeles after leaving the Ramsey Lewis Trio; forming EWF, only to have the original group fall apart; working with Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond; his diagnosis of Parkinson's; and his final public performance with the group at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Through it all, White credits his faith for his amazing success and guidance in overcoming his many challenges.
My Life with Earth Wind, and Fire is an intimate, moving, and beautiful memoir from a man whose creativity and determination carried him to great success, and whose faith enabled him to savor every moment.