Memoirs Books

Book SynopsisThat itch is getting worse. Your dreary office job is simply not doing it for you. You''re sick of reading all those exciting tales of other people taming gorillas in Rwanda or scaling Andean peaks. How you wish you were brave enough to quit and follow in their footsteps. Isn''t there somewhere a little less scary?And then one day you see the advert in the paper: Teach English in Japan! Experience a new culture! Earn money!Now that''s more like it, you say. Yes, Japan! Perfect! An enticing blend of the exotic and the modern. And safe too!Next thing, you''re on the plane, excited at the prospect of your own adventure about to start.What could possibly go wrong?Quite a lot, it turns out.''GAIJIN: Nine Cautionary Tales of Life in Japan''s English Teaching Community'' is the story of a bunch of ordinary folk who, for a variety of reasons, decide to strike out and make a new life for themselves in the Far East. We watch as their lives unfold. There are highs and lows. There are shocks and surprises aplenty. There''s a contender for the world''s worst karaoke performance. There are challenges and tough choices. Spoiler alert: It rarely ends well.Anyone who''s spent time in Japan will find plenty to relate to.And anyone considering a change of country might do well to read this first.Some people are probably better off staying home.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA young boy waves at passing cars on a dusty rural road in Upper Michigan, and dreams of the wide world. Then step by step he follows his dream, becoming his family''s first college graduate, and studies in Europe help him realize the excitement and diversity of the wide world.Peace Corps service brings him to Senegal on the edge of Africa''s Sahara Desert where he experiences first-hand the hardships of the world''s poorest people - who teach him important lessons about generosity, sufficiency and luxury. In Africa, he finds love and discovers a career that opens the world to him, eventually visiting 90 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, working to make the world a better place.His adventures lead him to ride wild stallions, camels, and elephants. He gets into and barely out of trouble in the Grand Canyon. He climbs mountains and volcanoes in Africa and Asia, scuba dives and learns how to make a good rum punch in the Mediterranean, and drives his growing family on safari on Kenya''s Serengeti Plains amid galloping giraffes and herds of zebra and gazelle.He experiences multiple health challenges and faces them with remarkable optimism, deals with aging parents with appreciation, and approaches retirement with sharable sensible planning. His life goal centers on raising his children to become remarkably kind and generous adults.This memoir of openness and wonder offers reflections on attitudes toward life and core values as strengths of character. Bravery in the face of the unknown, and faith in love and family are true guiding stars.

Read more less

Book SynopsisSubjugate or Exterminate! is an authoritative first-hand account of the Russo-Chechen conflict by a Chechen leader who played a central role in all the main events. Akhmed Zakayev rose rapidly from an actor of Shakespearean roles to Commander of the Western Group for the Defense of Ichkeria, and later served as Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya and, in exile, as Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI). It describes how the Kremlin set about discrediting and destroying a democratic government by interacting with criminal gangs and fomenting Islamist forces to split the Chechen independence movement in a perverse reversal of the “War on Terror.”Akhmed Zakayev’s memoir begins with a historical survey of the fraught relations between the Chechens and the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, up to the collapse of the USSR. The advent of Gorbachev’s Perestroika raised hopes that independence might enable Chechnya to end centuries of oppression and exploitation.Russia’s first war against Chechnya (1994-1996), initially conceived by the military as a way of disguising the large-scale theft and embezzlement of funds from illegal sales of Soviet armaments during the withdrawal from East Germany, ended in humiliating defeat for Russia. Thereafter, Russia set about subverting the democratically elected government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria by instigating the gruesome murder of Western humanitarian aid workers and business partners, and by financing criminal gangs and anti-democratic Islamist groups that the ChRI police were unable to subdue. Interference by nationals of countries in the Middle East caused further disruption. In August 1999, Russia launched a brutal second war in Chechnya, on grounds widely believed to be fabricated and characterized by widespread war crimes. The West did not intervene. This is an eyewitness account of the dangers faced by the Chechen leaders as they tried to resist and negotiate with a treacherous opponent. It ends in the year 2000, with Vladimir Putin’s election as Russia’s president.

Read more less