Download or read book Siberian Education Growing Up in a Criminal Underworld written by Nicolai Lilin and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-04-11 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Marvelous and Illuminating. . . . Forces us to reassess our notions of good and evil." —Irvine Welsh In a contested, lawless region between Moldova and Ukraine known as Transnistria, a tightly knit group of “honest criminals” live according to strict codes of ritualized respect and fierce loyalty. In a voice utterly compelling and unforgettable, Nicolai Lilin, born and raised within this exotic subculture, tells the story of his moral education outside the bounds of “society” as we know it, where men uphold values with passion—and often by brute force.
Download or read book Siberian Education written by Nicolai Lilin and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2010 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid, shocking, at times poetic revelation of a world we never imagined existed. Siberian Education is a real-life Eastern Promises seen through the eyes of a boy growing up in the close-knit community of the Urkas, descendants of criminals relocated from Siberia to the banks of the Dniester River, between Moldavia and Ukraine, in the 1930s. A tale of an extreme boyhood -- violent, governed by rules of honour passed down through legend and taught via elaborate and mysterious tattoos, and ultimatedly doomed to disappear amidst post-Soviet capitalist gangsterism: an utterly unique look at a vanished society from someone who knew it intimately, even though he is not yet 30 years old.
Download or read book McMafia written by Misha Glenny and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 2009-01-19 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drugs, weapons, migrant labour, women — these are just a few of the many goods that effortlessly cross national borders in this globalized age, often without the knowledge or permission of the nations concerned. How is this remarkable criminal feat managed?From gun runners in the Ukraine, to money launderers in Dubai, cyber criminals in Brazil, racketeers in Japan, and the booming marijuana industry in western Canada, McMafia builds a breathtaking picture of a secret and bloody business.Internationally celebrated writer Misha Glenny crafts a fascinating, highly readable, and impressively well-researched account of the emergence of organized crime as a globalized phenomenon and shows how its secret and bloody business mirrors both the methods and the rewards of the legitimate world economy. Employing his journalistic talent and his prior experience covering organized crime in Eastern Europe, Glenny reports on his travels around the planet to investigate this worrying and worsening situation. After comprehensively surveying the criminal scene, Glenny ends by considering the future of organized crime. McMafia is an important book that assembles all the pieces of this worldwide puzzle for the first time.
Download or read book Tales from the German Underworld written by Richard J. Evans and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the means of four powerful and extraordinary narratives from the 19th-century German underworld, this book deftly explores an intriguing array of questions about criminality, punishment, and social exclusion in modern German history. Drawing on legal documents and police files, historian Richard Evans dramatizes the case histories of four alleged felons to shed light on German penal policy of the time. 25 illustrations.
Download or read book The World Book Encyclopedia written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An encyclopedia designed especially to meet the needs of elementary, junior high, and senior high school students.
Download or read book The Court of Miracles written by Kester Grant and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Les Misérables meets Six of Crows in this page-turning adventure as a young thief finds herself going head to head with leaders of Paris's criminal underground in the wake of the French Revolution. In the violent urban jungle of an alternate 1828 Paris, the French Revolution has failed and the city is divided between merciless royalty and nine underworld criminal guilds, known as the Court of Miracles. Eponine (Nina) Thénardier is a talented cat burglar and member of the Thieves Guild. Nina's life is midnight robberies, avoiding her father's fists, and watching over her naïve adopted sister, Cosette (Ettie). When Ettie attracts the eye of the Tiger--the ruthless lord of the Guild of Flesh--Nina is caught in a desperate race to keep the younger girl safe. Her vow takes her from the city's dark underbelly to the glittering court of Louis XVII. And it also forces Nina to make a terrible choice--protect Ettie and set off a brutal war between the guilds, or forever lose her sister to the Tiger.
Download or read book Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia written by Dant︠s︡ik Sergeevich Baldaev and published by Fuel Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than 30 years Danzig Baldayev was a prison warder in Kresty prison in St Petersburg. He collected more than 3000 images of Russian criminals' tattoos. These form the backbone to this encyclopedia that explores one of the world's more unusual art forms.
Download or read book Manchild in the Promised Land written by Claude Brown and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-12-27 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The autobiography of a young black man raised in Harlem. A realistic description of life in the ghetto.
Download or read book Once a Cop written by Corey Pegues and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "former cop sets the record straight in this ... memoir about his youth selling crack in the '80s with one of NYC's toughest gangs and later rise through the ranks of the NYPD to become a community leader"--
Download or read book Free Fall written by Nicolai Lilin and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2011-07-07 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free Fall tells the brutal engrossing story of the Second Chechen War, through the eyes of a young Russian Soldier. Nicolai Lilin was trained as a sniper in an unorthodox Russian Special Forces regiment called the Saboteurs. This hardened and close-knit band of brothers, operating beyond the control of military code, faced mercenary fighters, anti-personnel mines and torture of the most extreme kind. Free Fall offers a sniper's-eye view of one of the most controversial wars in living memory. It is unflinching, unforgiving and unputdownable.
Download or read book The Education of Henry Adams written by Henry Adams and published by Standard Ebooks. This book was released on 2022-10-04T17:27:17Z with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most well-known and influential autobiographies ever written, The Education of Henry Adams is told in the third person, as if its author were watching his own life unwind. It begins with his early life in Quincy, the family seat outside of Boston, and soon moves on to primary school, Harvard College, and beyond. He learns about the unpredictability of politics from statesmen and diplomats, and the newest discoveries in technology, science, history, and art from some of the most important thinkers and creators of the day. In essentially every case, Adams claims, his education and upbringing let him down, leaving him in the dark. But as the historian David S. Brown puts it, this is a “charade”: The Education’s “greatest irony is its claim to telling the story of its author’s ignorance, confusion, and misdirection.” Instead, Adams uses its “vigorous prose and confident assertions” to attack “the West after 1400.” For instance, industrialization and technology make Adams wonder “whether the American people knew where they were driving.” And in one famous chapter, “The Dynamo and the Virgin,” he contrasts the rise of electricity and the power it brings with the strength and resilience of religious belief in the Middle Ages. The grandson and great-grandson of two presidents and the son of a politician and diplomat who served under Lincoln as minister to Great Britain, Adams was born into immense privilege, as he knew well: “Probably no child, born in the year, held better cards than he.” After growing up a Boston Brahmin, he worked as a journalist, historian, and professor, moving in early middle age to Washington. Although Adams distributed a privately printed edition of a hundred copies of The Education for friends and family in 1907, it wasn’t published more widely until 1918, the year he died. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1919, and in 1999 a Modern Library panel placed it first on its list of the best nonfiction books published in the twentieth century. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.
Download or read book Zebratown written by Greg Donaldson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-08-24 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eight years in the making, this edgy, in-depth account follows a black felon’s attempt to find a new life for himself with a white woman in a small-town neighborhood where—as the book’s title implies—such relationships are common. A remarkably intense read, Zebratown reveals a rhythm of life spiked with violence, betrayal, sex, and the emotional dangers created by passionate love. Greg Donaldson’s Zebratown follows the life of Kevin Davis, an ex-con from Brownsville, Brooklyn, who, after his release from prison, moves to Elmira, New York, and takes up with Karen, a young woman with a six-year-old daughter. Kevin is seemingly the embodiment of hip-hop gangsterism—a heavily muscled, feared thug who has beaten a murder rap. And yet, as Donaldson’s stunning reportage reveals, Kevin has survived on the streets and in prison with a sharp intelligence and a rigid code of practical morality and physical fitness while yearning to make a better life for himself and be a better man. Month by month and year by year, Donaldson follows Kevin and Karen’s attempt to make a home together, a quest made harder by Kevin’s difficulty finding legal employment. The dangerous lures of the street remain for him, both in New York City and in Zebratown, and he is not always successful at avoiding them. Meanwhile, as Kevin and Karen struggle, the reader comes to care for them, even as they act in ways that society may not condone. Theirs is a complex story with many moments of drama, suffering, desire, and revelation—a story that is frequently astonishing and unforgettable to the end. Like Adrian Nicole LeBlanc in Random Family, Donaldson explores a largely hidden world; such immersion journalism is difficult to achieve but uniquely powerful to read. In addition to spending long periods with Kevin and Karen, Donaldson interviews policemen, judges, family members, and others in Kevin and Karen’s orbit, providing a remarkably panoramic account of their lives. Relationships between white women and black men have long been a hot issue in American culture. Even years after the 2008 presidential election, when society has in some ways seemingly moved on to a "postracial" perspective, people still have a lot to say about interracial relationships. Zebratown takes us into the heart of one and offers the paradoxical truth that while race is rarely not an issue in such relationships, in the end, what transpires between a couple is intensely individual. Meanwhile, the difficulty that ex-cons have successfully reentering society is an ongoing problem—for them, their families, and the communities where they live. Zebratown makes this struggle real, as Kevin Davis confronts not only his criminal record and his poor formal education but the cruelties of the postindustrial economy. Both his and Karen’s stories resonate powerfully with twenty-first-century American reality, and in telling them, Greg Donaldson confirms his position as one of the most intrepid journalists at work today.
Download or read book All Is Grist A Book of Essays written by G. K. Chesterton and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This early work by G. K. Chesterton was originally published in 1903. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London in 1874. 'All is Grist' is a collection of essays. He studied at the Slade School of Art, and upon graduating began to work as a freelance journalist. Over the course of his life, his literary output was incredibly diverse and highly prolific, ranging from philosophy and ontology to art criticism and detective fiction. However, he is probably best-remembered for his Christian apologetics, most notably in Orthodoxy (1908) and The Everlasting Man (1925). We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Download or read book Red Notice written by Bill Browder and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A true story of high finance, murder, and one man's fight for justice.
Download or read book Children s World written by Catriona Kelly and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 714 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pioneering history of the experiences of children during Russia's most disrupted century How a country views its children reveals a great deal about that country. This landmark history of childhood in twentieth-century Russia presents an enthralling and detailed picture of a society where childhood was celebrated everywhere but children's real needs were often neglected by the state. Catriona Kelly, one of the foremost cultural historians of modern Russia, explores every aspect of children's lives, including the stresses and joys of ordinary family life, friendships, sports and games, first love, clothing, and schools. She examines the experiences of children in institutions, orphanages, and Stalin's camps, as well as the impact on their lives of such historical tragedies as revolution, civil and world war, and political purges. Based on unprecedented research in archives, hundreds of interviews, and the study of a huge range of newspapers, books, and pamphlets, the book has an immediacy which is startling. Over 100 illustrations sharpen the focus still more. Kelly weaves together information about the relationships between children and adults, prevailing ideas about childhood, and the actual experiences of children to create an unforgettable account of the intimate workings of Russian and Soviet society.
Download or read book The Spy and the Traitor written by Ben Macintyre and published by Crown. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War. “The best true spy story I have ever read.”—JOHN LE CARRÉ Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist • Shortlisted for the Bailie Giffords Prize in Nonfiction If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets. Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky's nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre's latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man's hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.
Download or read book The Circle written by Dave Eggers and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A bestselling dystopian novel that tackles surveillance, privacy and the frightening intrusions of technology in our lives—a “compulsively readable parable for the 21st century” (Vanity Fair). When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.
