Download or read book Worthy Fights written by Leon Panetta and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leon Panetta has had two of the most consequential careers of any American public servant in the past fifty years. His first, beginning as an army intelligence officer and including a run as one of Congress's most powerful and respected members, lasted 35 years and culminated in his role as Clinton's budget czar and White House chief of staff. He then 'retired' to establish the Panetta Institute,to serve on the Iraq Study Group; and to protect the California coast. In 2009 he accepted what many said was a thankless task: returning to public office as the director of the CIA.
Download or read book Worthy Fights written by Leon E. Panetta and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The man who led the intelligence war that killed Osama bin Laden traces a life of leadership in public service, from his tenure in Congress through his years as director of the CIA and Secretary of Defense.
Download or read book Worthy Fights written by Leon Panetta and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling autobiography of a legendary political and military leader It could be said that Leon Panetta has had two of the most consequential careers of any American public servant in the past fifty years. His first career, beginning as an Army intelligence officer and including a distinguished run as one of the most powerful and respected members of Congress, lasted thirty-five years and culminated in his transformational role as budget czar and White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration. But after a brief “retirement,” he returned to public service in 2009 as the CIA director who led the intelligence war that killed Osama Bin Laden and then became the U.S. secretary of defense, inheriting two troubled wars in a time of austerity and painful choices. Like his career, Worthy Fights is a reflection of Panetta’s values. It is also a testament to a lost kind of political leadership that favors progress and duty to country over partisanship. Leon Panetta calls them as he sees them in Worthy Fights. Suffused with its author’s decency and common sense, the book is an inspiring American success story, a great political memoir, and a revelatory view onto many of the defining figures and events of our time.
Download or read book Beat the Drums Slowly written by Adrian Goldsworthy and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2011-08-11 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second novel in a brilliant new Napoleonic series from acclaimed historian Adrian Goldsworthy. Second in the series begun by TRUE SOLDIER GENTLEMEN, the story takes our heroes through the winter snows as Sir John Moore is forced to retreat to Corunna. Faced with appalling weather, and pursued by an overwhelming French army led by Napoleon himself, the very survival of Britain's army is at stake. But while the 106th Foot fights a desperate rearguard action, for the newly promoted Hamish Williams, the retreat turns into an unexpectedly personal drama. Separated from the rest of the army in the initial chaos, he chances upon another fugitive, Jane MacAndrews, the daughter of his commanding officer, and the woman he is desperately and hopelessly in love with. As the pair battle the elements and the pursuing French, picking up a rag-tag band of fellow stragglers along the way - as well as an abandoned newborn - the strict boundaries of their social relationship are tested to the limit, with surprising results. But Williams soon finds he must do more than simply evade capture and deliver Jane safe and sound to her father. A specially tasked unit of French cavalry is threatening to turn the retreat into a massacre, and Williams and his little band are the only thing standing between them and their goal.
Download or read book Spelunky written by Derek Yu and published by Boss Fight Books. This book was released on 2016 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A game's creation as told by its creator, perhaps the best rpimer on game design.
Download or read book Facts and Fears written by James R. Clapper and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The former Director of National Intelligence speaks out in this New York Times bestseller When he stepped down in January 2017 as the fourth United States Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper had been President Obama's senior intelligence advisor for six and a half years, longer than his three predecessors combined. He led the US Intelligence Community through a period that included the raid on Osama bin Laden, the Benghazi attack, the leaks of Edward Snowden, and Russia's influence operation on the 2016 U.S election. In Facts and Fears, Clapper traces his career through the growing threat of cyberattacks, his relationships with Presidents and Congress, and the truth about Russia's role in the presidential election. He describes, in the wake of Snowden and WikiLeaks, his efforts to make intelligence more transparent and to push back against the suspicion that Americans' private lives are subject to surveillance. Finally, it was living through Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and seeing how the foundations of American democracy were--and continue to be--undermined by a foreign power that led him to break with his instincts grown through more than five decades in the intelligence profession, to share his inside experience. Clapper considers such controversial questions as, is intelligence ethical? Is it moral to intercept communications or to photograph closed societies from orbit? What are the limits of what we should be allowed to do? What protections should we give to the private citizens of the world, not to mention our fellow Americans? Is there a time that intelligence officers can lose credibility as unbiased reporters of hard truths by asserting themselves into policy decisions? Facts and Fears offers a privileged look inside the United States intelligence community and addresses with the frankness and professionalism for which James Clapper is known some of the most difficult challenges in our nation's history.
Download or read book Undaunted written by John O. Brennan and published by Celadon Books. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** "John Brennan is one of the hardest-working, most patriotic public servants I've ever seen, and our country is better off for it. As president, he was one of my closest advisors and a great friend. And in his memoir, Undaunted, you'll see why. I hope you'll read it." —President Barack Obama A powerful and revelatory memoir from former CIA director John Brennan, spanning his more than thirty years in government. Friday, January 6, 2017: On that day, as always, John Brennan’s alarm clock was set to go off at 4:15 a.m. But nothing else about that day would be routine. That day marked his first and only security briefing with President-elect Donald Trump. And it was also the day John Brennan said his final farewell to Owen Brennan, his father, the man who had taught him the lessons of goodness, integrity, and honor that had shaped the course of an unparalleled career serving his country from within the intelligence community. In this brutally honest memoir, Brennan, the son of an Irish immigrant who settled in New Jersey, describes the life that took him from being a young CIA recruit enamored with the mystique of spy work, secretly defiant enough to drive a motorcycle and sport a diamond earring, and invigorated by his travels in the Middle East to being the most powerful individual in American intelligence. He details his experiences with very different presidents and what it’s been like to bear responsibility for some of the nation’s most crucial and polarizing national security decisions. He pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of the Agency, describing the selfless, patriotic, and invisible work of the women and men involved in national security. He also examines the insularity, arrogance, and myopia that have, at times, undermined its reputation in the eyes of the American people and of members of other branches of government. Through topics ranging from George W. Bush’s intervention in Iraq to his thoughts on the CIA’s controversial use of enhanced interrogation techniques to his eye-opening account of the planning of the raid that resulted in Bin Laden’s death to his realization that Russia had interfered with the 2016 election, Brennan brings the reader behind the scenes of some of the most crucial moments in recent U.S. history. He also candidly discusses the times he has failed to live up to his own high standards and the very public fallouts that have resulted. With its behind-the-scenes look at how major U.S. national security policies and actions unfolded during his long and distinguished career—especially during his eight years in the Obama administration—John Brennan’s memoir is a work of history with strong implications for the future of America and our country’s relationships with other world powers. Undaunted: My Fight Against America’s Enemies, at Home and Abroad offers a rare and insightful look at the often-obscured world of national security, the intelligence profession, and Washington’s chaotic political environment. But more than that, it is a portrait of a man striving for integrity; for himself, for the CIA, and for his country.
Download or read book Justice for All written by Jim Newton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-10-02 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most acclaimed and best political biographies of its time, Justice for All is a monumental work dedicated to a complicated and principled figure that will become a seminal work of twentieth-century U.S. history. In Justice for All, Jim Newton, an award-winning journalist for the Los Angeles Times, brings readers the first truly comprehensive consideration of Earl Warren, the politician-turned-Chief Justice who refashioned the place of the court in American life through landmark Supreme Court cases whose names have entered the common parlance -- Brown v. Board of Education, Griswold v. Connecticut, Miranda v. Arizona, to name just a few. Drawing on unmatched access to government, academic, and private documents pertaining to Warren's life and career, Newton explores a fascinating angle of U.S. Supreme Court history while illuminating both the public and the private Warren.
Download or read book It s Time to Fight Dirty written by David M. Faris and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2018 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American electoral system is clearly failing more horrifically in the 2016 presidential election than ever before. In It's Time to Fight Dirty, David Faris expands on his popular series for 'The Week' to offer party leaders and supporters concrete strategies for lasting political reform - and in doing so lays the groundwork for a more progressive future. With equal parts playful irreverence and persuasive reasoning, It's Time to Fight Dirty is essential reading as we head toward the 2018 midterms... and beyond.
Download or read book Vengeance Is Mine written by William W. Johnstone and published by Pinnacle Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One-man war on smuggling, other crimes on the border.
Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
Download or read book Daniel Fights a Hurricane written by Shane Jones and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-07-31 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since he was a boy, Daniel Suppleton has been deathly afraid of hurricanes, which he fears will arrive suddenly and reduce everyone he knows and loves to trembling skeletons. Retreating to live in a tipi in the woods, Daniel battles demons real and imagined. As his ex-wife, Karen, frantically searches for him, the long-awaited hurricane finally hits, and Daniel must find a way to save them both. Haunting, mesmerizing, and beautifully written, Daniel Fights a Hurricane is an affecting, original novel of love and loss, marriage and friendship, by a rising young talent.
Download or read book The Restless Wave written by John McCain and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “History matters to McCain, and for him America is and was about its promise. The book is his farewell address, a mixture of the personal and the political. ‘I have loved my life,’ he writes. ‘All of it.’ The Restless Wave is a fitting valedictory for a man who seldom backed down.” —The Guardian (US) “A book-length meditation on what it means to face the hard challenges of long life and the sobering likelihood of imminent death…A reflection on hardship, a homily on purpose, a celebration of life — and a challenge to Americans to live up to their values and founding principles at a time when both are in jeopardy.” —The Boston Globe In this candid political memoir from Senator John McCain, an American hero reflects on his life and what matters most. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. Maybe I’ll have another five years…Maybe I’ll be gone before you read this. My predicament is, well, rather unpredictable. But I’m prepared for either contingency, or at least I’m getting prepared. I have some things I’d like to take care of first, some work that needs finishing, and some people I need to see. And I want to talk to my fellow Americans a little more if I may.” So writes John McCain in this inspiring, moving, frank, and deeply personal memoir. Written while confronting a mortal illness, McCain looks back with appreciation on his years in the Senate, his historic 2008 campaign for the presidency against Barack Obama, and his crusades on behalf of democracy and human rights in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Always the fighter, McCain attacks the spurious nationalism and political polarization afflicting American policy. He makes an impassioned case for democratic internationalism and bi-partisanship. He recalls his disagreements with several presidents, and minces no words in his objections to some of President Trump's statements and policies. At the same time, he tells stories of his most satisfying moments of public service and offers a positive vision of America that looks beyond the Trump presidency. The Restless Wave is John McCain at his best.
Download or read book The Right Fight written by Saj-nicole Joni and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-02-02 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Right Fight, the new management guide from noted business strategists Saj-nicole Joni and Damon Beyer, turns management thinking on its head and shows why, in the fast-moving, hyper-competitive marketplaces of the 21st century, leaders need to both foster alignment and orchestrate thoughtful controversy in their organizations to get the best out of them. The authors’ groundbreaking research—including examples as diverse as Unilever, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Dell, the Clinton Administration, and the Houston Independent School System—shows that happy workers can become bored or complacent and thus less productive than workers who are subjected to a little properly managed tension. Readers of Good to Great and Winning, as well as the Harvard Business Review and Strategy + Business, will find much to ponder in The Right Fight.
Download or read book Caesar written by Adrian Goldsworthy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2006-09-22 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “captivating biography” of the great Roman general “puts Caesar’s war exploits on full display, along with his literary genius” and more (The New York Times) Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of the Julius Caesar’s life, Adrian Goldsworthy not only chronicles his accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters during which he was high priest of an exotic cult and captive of pirates, and rebel condemned by his own country. Goldsworthy also reveals much about Caesar’s intimate life, as husband and father, and as seducer not only of Cleopatra but also of the wives of his two main political rivals. This landmark biography examines Caesar in all of these roles and places its subject firmly within the context of Roman society in the first century B.C. Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar’s character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate thousands of years later.
Download or read book One of Us Is Lying written by Karen M. McManus and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The international bestselling YA thriller by acclaimed author Karen M. McManus - now available in a bold new cover look complete with a blood red background and matching sprayed edges. Five students walk into detention. Only four come out alive. Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule. Sports star Cooper only knows what he's doing in the baseball diamond. Bad boy Nate is one misstep away from a life of crime. Prom queen Addy is holding together the cracks in her perfect life. And outsider Simon, creator of the notorious gossip app at Bayview High, won't ever talk about any of them again. He dies 24 hours before he could post their deepest secrets online. Investigators conclude it's no accident. All of them are suspects. Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you'll go to protect them. 'Tightly plotted and brilliantly written, with sharp, believable characters, this whodunit is utterly irresistible' - HEAT 'Twisty plotting, breakneck pacing and intriguing characterisation add up to an exciting single-sitting thrillerish treat' -THE GUARDIAN 'A fantastic murder mystery, packed with cryptic clues and countless plot twists. I could not put this book down' - THE SUN 'Pretty Little Liars meets The Breakfast Club' - ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY But the story doesn't end here, it continues with One of Us Is Next. . .
Download or read book Cut Time written by Carlo Rotella and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2003 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning sportswriter reflects on the world of boxing and describes how the lessons of the ring parallel a more formal education, exploring the hard-won wisdom of the fight, fighters' choices and pleasures, and other important aspects of the boxing world.
