The Bush Tragedy

The Bush Tragedy by Jacob Weisberg read by Robertson Dean

Description

In this first important consideration of the George W. Bush presidency and its profound impact on the state of the world, Jacob Weisberg crafts a wide-ranging portrait that is both balanced and insightful. Weisberg traces the evolution of Bush's political philosophy from its roots in his early life and his years as governor of Texas through the events of 9/11 and his turbulent two terms in office. With careful analyses, Weisberg offers an eye-opening assessment of Bush's deeply conflicted relationship with his father, former President George H. W. Bush, and with major figures in the administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This groundbreaking book of reportage, synthesis, and analysis will stand as the indispensable account of a presidency of enormous consequence.

Last Lecture

Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow read by Erik Singer

Description

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." - Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a 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 (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this audiobook, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

For more information visit www.theLastLecture.com

Kingfish

Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long by Richard D. White, Jr. read by Patrick Cullen

Description

Outrageous demagogue or charismatic visionary? In this powerful new biography, Richard D. White, Jr., brings Huey Long to life in all his blazing, controversial glory.

From the moment he took office as governor in 1928 to the day an assassin’s bullet cut him down in1935, Huey Long wielded all but dictatorial control over the state of Louisiana. A man of shameless ambition and ruthless vindictiveness, Huey orchestrated elections, hired and fired thousands at will, and deployed the state militia as his personal police force. And yet, paradoxically, as governor and later as senator, Huey did more good for the state’s poor and uneducated than any politician before or since.

With Kingfish, White has crafted a balanced, lucid, and absolutely spellbinding portrait of the life and times of the most incendiary figure in American politics.

Poe: A Life Cut Short

Poe: A Life Cut Short by Peter Ackroyd

Edgar Allan Poe's life (1809-1849) was Gothic, mysterious, theatrical, fatally flawed, original, dark, dazzling, satirical, inventive - in short, an ideal subject for Peter Ackroyd. Concise, dramatic and immensely readable, this is an essential and idiosyncratic addition to Ackroyd's canon of brilliant biographies.

Look Me in the Eye

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison read by Mark Deakins

Description

Ever since he was small, John Robison had longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits—an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother in them)—had earned him the label "social deviant." No guidance came from his mother, who conversed with light fixtures, or his father, who spent evenings pickling himself in sherry. It was no wonder he gravitated to machines, which could, at least, be counted on. After fleeing his parents and dropping out of high school, his savant-like ability to visualize electronic circuits landed him a gig with KISS, for whom he created their legendary fire-breathing guitars. Later, he drifted into a "real" job, as an engineer for a major toy company. But the higher Robison rose in the company, the more he had to pretend to be "normal" and do what he simply couldn't: communicate. It wasn't worth the paycheck. It was not until he was forty that an insightful therapist told him he had the form of autism called Asperger's syndrome. That understanding transformed the way Robison saw himself—and the world. LOOK ME IN THE EYE is the moving, darkly funny story of growing up with Asperger's at a time when the diagnosis simply didn't exist. A born storyteller, Robison takes you inside the head of a boy whom teachers and other adults regarded as "defective," who could not avail himself of KISS's endless supply of groupies, and who still has a peculiar aversion to using people's given names (he calls his wife "Unit Two"). He also provides a fascinating reverse angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents—the boy who would later change his name to Augusten Burroughs and write the bestselling memoir Running with Scissors. Ultimately, this is the story of Robison's journey from his world into ours, and his new life as a husband, father, and successful small business owner—repairing his beloved high-end automobiles. It's a strange, sly, indelible account—sometimes alien, yet always deeply human.

The Disappointment Artist

The Disappointment Artist by Jonathan Lethem read by Jonathan Lethem

Description

In a volume he describes as "a series of covert and no-so-covert autobiographical pieces," Jonathan Lethem explores the nature of cultural obsession—in his case, with examples as diverse as western films, comic books, the music of Talking Heads and Pink Floyd, and the New York City subway. Along the way, he shows how each of these "voyages out from himself" have led him home—home to his father's life as a painter, and to the source of his beginnings as a writer. THE DISAPPOINTMENT ARTIST is a series of windows onto the collisions of art, landscape, and personal history that formed Lethem's richly imaginative, searingly honest perspective on life as a human creature in the jungle of culture at the end of the twentieth century.From a confession of the sadness of a "Star Wars nerd" to an investigation into the legacy of a would-be literary titan, Lethem illuminates the process by which a child invents himself as a writer, and as a human being, through a series of approaches to the culture around him. In "The Disappointment Artist," a letter from his aunt, a children's book author, spurs a meditation on the value of writing workshops, and the uncomfortable fraternity of writers. In "Defending The Searchers" Lethem explains how a passion for the classic John Wayne Western became occasion for a series of minor humiliations. In "Identifying with Your Parents," an excavation of childhood love for superhero comics expands to cover a whole range of nostalgia for a previous generation's cultural artifacts. And "13/1977/21," which begins by recounting the summer he saw Star Wars twenty-one times, "slipping past ushers who'd begun to recognize me . . . occult as a porn customer," becomes a meditation on the sorrow and solace of the solitary movie-goer.THE DISAPPOINTMENT ARTIST confirms Lethem's unique ability to illuminate the way life, his and ours, can be read between the lines of art and culture.

Vibrations

http://www.davidamram.com

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

Beyond the Outer Shores

Beyond the Outer Shores - The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell by Eric Enno Tamm

Seeing Joseph Campbell's name mentioned, I picked up this book. Since reading the "Masks of God" thirty years ago, I've admired Joseph Campbell. Reading this book has reawakened my interest in him as well as created new interests in John Steinbeck and Robinson Jeffers as well as that of the subject of this biography Ed Ricketts. I've got copies of Ed Ricketts' "Between Pacific Tides", His and Steinbeck's "Sea of Cortez", Steinbeck's " Log from the Sea of Cortez" and "Cannery Row", and a paperback collection of Jeffers' poems which includes the "Roan Stallion" which features prominently in this book stacked up by my bedside.

I copied out three excepts from the book dealing with Joseph Campbell's relationship with Ed Ricketts which I'll share here.

From page 13:

Campbell was also at a personal impasse, in his "own deep swamps" as he recalled. Out of work for five years, he was depressed and confused.
"I've been saying no to life," Campbell told Ricketts one day.
"Well," Ed replied typically, "the best way to start saying yes to life is to get drunk. I'll take some of my laboratory alcohol, [and] we'll make a drink out of it."

From page 180:

It had been an "epochal voyage," according to Joseph Campbell. The 1932 trip brought about "one of the primary personal transformations of a life dedicated to self-discovery." Many of the philosophic conclusions reached during the voyage would resonate in the future work of both the marine ecologist and mythologist.

From page 214:

In his research at the time Joseph Campbell was coming to the conclusion that the same fate that befell the Haida was now befalling modern society. "We have seen what has happened, for example to primitive communities unsettled by the white man's civilization," Campbell later said, "with their old taboos discredited they immediately go to pieces, disintegrate, and become resorts of vice and disease. Today the same thing is happening to us."