State of Denial – Bob Woodward – Audio Book

State of Denial – Bob Woodward : THE DETAILED, INSIDE STORY OF A WAR-TORN WHITE HOUSE

Bob Woodward examines how the Bush administration avoided telling the truth about Iraq to the public, to the Congress, and often to themselves in State of Denial. Woodward’s third book on President Bush is a sweeping narrative from the first days George W. Bush thought seriously about running for president, through the recruitment of his national security team, the war in Afghanistan, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the struggle for political survival in the second term.

State of Denial answers the core questions: What happened after the invasion of Iraq? Why? How does Bush make decisions and manage the war that he chose to define his presidency? And, is there an achievable plan for victory? Woodward provides the fullest account, and explanation, of the road Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and the White House staff have walked.

Once the book of Bob Woodward is read we do have the feeling that President Georges W. Bush decided mostly on its own to start the war in Irak. And after 4 years of it, it seems that there won’t be, in terms of victory, a pro-democracy future in Iraq. Of course there will be the pro and the contra about this book but Bob Woodward is known as a journalist committing himself in telling a story very accurately and not caring about what his critics may think. For a wide overwiewI recommend it.

Mornings on Horseback – David McCullough – Audio Book

Mornings on Horseback – David McCullough : Winner of the 1982 National Book Award for Biography, Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography fof the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it is the story of a remarkable little boy – seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma – and his struggle to manhood.

His father – the first Theodore Roosevelt, “Greatheart, ” – is a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. His mother – Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt – is a Southerner and celebrated beauty.

ornings on Horseback spans seventeen years – from 1869 when little “Teedie” is ten, to 1886 when he returns from the West a “real life cowboy’” to pick up the pieces of a shattered life and begin anew, a grown man, whole in body and spirit.

This is a tale about family love and family loyalty… about courtship, childbirth and death, athers and sons… about gutter politics and the tumultuous Republican Convention of 1884, about grizzly bears, grief and courage, and “blessed” mornings on horseback at Oyster Bay or beneath the limitless skies of the Badlands.

David McCullough write about history in a very easy way to read. History becomes a subject into which it is easy to plunge. What is remarkable in this book, let alone the politic’s part, is how far David McCullough goes to make us understand the events of the early life of Theodore Roosevelt, events which forged his destiny and let him become the President we all know about.

Sahara – Michael Palin – Audio Book

Sahara – Michael Palin : Michael Palin’s latest journey is across the Sahara desert, a place of romantic, almost magical appeal. Although famous as a geological location, its life, landscape and rich history are not so well-known. Periods of difficult travel will be repaid with new sights and sounds, people, languages, food and customs. The emphasis will be on Michael Palin’s interaction with the people he meets, and on stretching him and his team as they undergo this arduous expedition.

I am always amazed by Michael Palin’s books. This one in particular. He documents his encouters in a beautiful and vivid style. It seems to me that I am with him all along the journey and that I go with him into the homes and lives of the people he meets. It does not matter if you read it in one go or chapter after chapter, its worth doing it.

All of these People – Fergal Keane – Audio Book

All of these People – Fergal Keane : During his years of reporting from the world’s most savage and turbulent regions, Fergal Keane has witnessed the violence of the South African townships and the terror in Rwanda, the most extreme kinds of human behaviour, the horror of genocide and the bravery of peacekeepers faced with overwhelming odds.

As one of the BBC’s leading correspondents, he recounts extraordinary encounters on
the front lines. Alongside his often brutal experiences in the field, he also describes unflinchingly the challenges and demons he has faced in his personal life growing up in Ireland.

Keane’s existence as a war reporter is all that we imagine: frantic filing of reports and dodging shells, interspersed with rest in bombed-out hotels and concrete shelters.

Life in such vulnerable areas of the globe is emotionally draining, but full of astonishing moments of camaraderie and human bravery.

At the heart of Fergal Keane’s story is a descent into and recovery from alcoholism, panning two generations, father and son; a different kind of war, but as much part of he journey of the last 25 years as the bullets and bombs.

Reading Fergal Keane’s book gave me an insight into the man. I admire his honesty in writing his memoir, memoir which is haunted by his alcoholic father. His influence is felt in his early days as a reporter on the Irish Press to his dream job as BBC Southern Africa correspondent. He worked from Northern Ireland to the Balkans and he reported as well about the genocide in Rwanda. To forget all this he, too, became an alcoholic. This was the biggest battled he had to fight ! To me this book is like a confession of the guilt he carries about the dead and injured he has filmed and then left.

Don McCullin,war photographer, once said: he justifies himself: ‘You can’t focus with tears in your eyes.’

No One Left Behind – Amy Waters Yarsinske – Audio Book

No One Left Behind – Amy Waters Yarsinske : On the opening eve of the Gulf War, an American pilot was shot down over Iraq. Two years later, the stunning discovery of the wreckage set off an investigation that, despite government insistence to the contrary, proved that the pilot had not only survived the crash, but was captured and might still be alive today …

On January 16, 1991, Lt. Comdr. Michael Scott Speicher launched from the USS Saratoga,
joining forty F/A-18 Hornets of which only 39 would return. Moments after an assault by
an Iraqi MiG, Speicher’s plane reportedly vanished in a fireball over the Baghdad desert.
The next day, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Colin Powell declared Speicher Killed in Action – the first casualty of the Gulf War.

Yet, two months later, a Kuwaiti secret police colonel claimed he was in the same hospital as a captured American pilot. Over the years, evidence of survival continued to emerge, and on January 10, 2001, Speicher was declared Missing in Action – the first time in history that a U. S. serviceman’s status had ever been changed.

Tracking this explosive story for the past eight years, Yarsinske has interviewed top government and military officials, diplomats, pilots, informers, and Iraqi defectors. The result is a stunning true account of government denials and cover-ups that obscured an essential fact: Speicher survived. No One left Behind takes us beyond the lies to unearth the truth of the pilot left behind.

There are so many evidence to put this whole situation into question. The USA have to pursue their search on what really happened, otherwise it will be an incredible “story” of lies and cover up. And the saying of the American army “no one is left behind” would be then an immense lie? It is not thinkable!

Undaunted Courage – Stephen E. Ambrose – Audio Book

Undaunted Courage – Stephen E. Ambrose : In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River, across the forbidding Rockies, and — by way of the Snake and mighty Columbia — down to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, endured incredible hardships and witnessed astounding sights. With great perseverance, they worked their way into an unexplored West and when they returned two years later, they had long since been given up for dead.

Lewis is supported by a variety of colorful characters: Jefferson and his vision of the West; Clark, the artist and map-maker; and Lewis — the enigma, who let brilliantly but considered the mission a failure After suffering several periods of depression – and despite his status as a national hero — Lewis died mysteriously, apparently by his own hand.

If an aunt of Stephan Ambrose had not given to him a complete set of the newspapers of the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to read, we would never have had the pleasure to read this magnificent and masterful autobiography.

Over the Edge of the World – Laurence Bergreen – Audio Book

Over the Edge of the World – Laurence Bergreen : In 1519 Magellan and his fleet of five ships set sail from Seville, Spain, to discover a water route to the fabled Spice Islands in Indonesia, where the most sought-after commodities — cloves, pepper, and nutmeg — flourished. Three years later, a handful of survivors returned with an abundance of spices from their intended destination, but with just one ship carrying eighteen emaciated men. During their remarkable voyage around the world the crew endured starvation, disease, mutiny, and torture. Many men died, including Magellan, who was violently killed in a fierce battle.

This is the first full account in nearly half a century of this voyage into history: a tour of the world emerging from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance; a startling anthropological account of tribes, languages, and customs unknown to Europeans; and a chronicle of a desperate grab for commercial and political power.

Laurence Bergreen’s Over the Edge of the World, is an engaging account of Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe.Bergreen write it in such a way that although this happens in the early sixteenth century we’ve got the impression that it happened only few years ago .Bergreen justifies the political and economic context of this misson : the importance, economically speaking, of the spice trade in Europe. With such a treasure a sailor could earn enough money to buy a house and to be sure of a financial security. An audio book worth to listen to.

Jarhead – Anthony Swofford – Audio Book

Jarhead – Anthony Swofford : Anthony Swofford weaves his experiences in war with vivid accounts of boot camp, reflections on the mythos of the marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family.

When the U.S. Marines — or “jarheads” — were sent to Saudi Arabia in 1990 for the first Gulf War, Anthony Swofford was there. He lived in sand for six months, he was punished by boredom and fear, he considered suicide, pulled a gun on a fellow marine, and was targeted by both enemy and friendly fire. And as engagement with the Iraqis drew near, he was forced to consider what it means to be an American, a soldier, a son of a soldier, and a man.

In Jarhead, Anthony Swofford has written a memoir of his life, particularly his involvement as a Marine during the first Persian Gulf war. He explains how he experiences the “Marine culture”, boredom and terror altogether and realized that to become a man was more demanding than becoming a soldier.This book is in its way a contribution to the literature of combat. Not an easy read but worth it.

Ugly Americans – Ben Mesrich – Audio Book

Ugly Americans – Ben Mesrich : Ugly Americans is the true story of John Malcolm, a Princeton graduate who traveled halfway around the world in search of the American dream and pulled off a trade that could be described as the biggest deal in the history of the financial markets.

Without speaking a word of Japanese, with barely a penny in his pocket, Malcolm was thrown into the bizarre life of an ex-pat trader. Surrounded by characters ripped right out of a Hollywood thriller, he quickly learned how to survive in a cutthroat world — at the feet of the biggest players the markets have ever known.

Malcolm was first an assistant trading huge positions for Nick Leeson, the rogue trader who brought down Barings Bank — the oldest in England. He was the right-hand man to an enigmatic and brilliant hedge-fund cowboy, Dean Carney, and grew into one of the biggest derivatives traders in all of Asia. Along the way, Malcolm fell in love with the daughter of a Yakuza gangster, built a vast fortune out of thin air, and came head to head with violent
Japanese mobsters. Malcolm and his twentysomething, Ivy League-schooled colleagues
rode the crashing waves of the Asian markets during the mid-to late 1990s, culminating in a single deal the likes of which had never been seen before, or since.

A real-life mixture of Liar’s Poker and Wall Street, brimming with intense action, romance,
underground sex, vivid locales, and exotic characters, Ugly Americans is the untold, true
story that will rock the financial community and redefine an era.

If this is a biography what would be a thriller compare to this story ! It’s unbelievable what
John Malcom did to reach the position he once had (or may be still have). In this book there is a mix of sex, money (of course), absolutly no moral, bad boys, and, and..I have to say that the author knows how to plot his story and that this book is a good read.

Bad Boy – Walter Dean Myers – Audio Book

Bad Boy – Walter Dean Myers : Into a memoir that is gripping, funny, heartbreaking, and unforgettable, Walter Dean Myers richly weaves the details of his Harlem childhood in the 1940s and 1950s: a loving home life with his adopted parents, Bible school, street games, and the vitality of his neighborhood.

Although Walter spent much of his time either getting into trouble or on the basketball court, secretly he was a voracious reader and an aspiring writer. But as his prospects for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and his books for comfort.

Here in his own words is the story of one of the strongest voices in children’s and young adult literature today.

His glimpse into his own childhood in Harlem in the 40s is really valuable, fascinating and inspiring for the young adult and children. His anecdotes and his memories are a mixture of joke and seriousness. Its the story of a colorful and unforgettable childhood. A real powerful read.