Chasing Chaos
Chasing Chaos

Author: Jessica Alexander

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0770436919

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Jessica Alexander arrived in Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide as an idealistic intern, eager to contribute to the work of the international humanitarian aid community. But the world that she encountered in the field was dramatically different than anything she could have imagined. It was messy, chaotic, and difficult—but she was hooked. In this honest and irreverent memoir, she introduces readers to the realities of life as an aid worker. We watch as she manages a 24,000-person camp in Darfur, collects evidence for the Charles Taylor trial in Sierra Leone, and contributes to the massive aid effort to clean up a shattered Haiti. But we also see the alcohol-fueled parties and fleeting romances, the burnouts and self-doubt, and the struggle to do good in places that have long endured suffering. Tracing her personal journey from wide-eyed and naïve newcomer to hardened cynic and, ultimately, to hopeful but critical realist, Alexander transports readers to some of the most troubled locations around the world and shows us not only the seemingly impossible challenges, but also the moments of resilience and recovery.

Chasing Alexander
Chasing Alexander

Author: Christopher Martin

Publisher:

Published: 2021-09-28

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9781737259817

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A haunting, fast-paced war memoir, Chasing Alexander is Christopher Martin's account of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A failing college student obsessed with Alexander the Great, Martin enlists in the US Marines to become a different sort of man, a man like Alexander. From his difficulty at boot camp to his disappointing deployment to Iraq, Martin fears he may never follow in Alexander's footsteps. Then, after a strategy change, Martin and his unit arrive in Marjah, "the bleeding ulcer" of Afghanistan. There he faces heat, fleas, and a hidden enemy. As the casualties mount, Martin struggles to control his emotions and his newfound sense of power. Chasing Alexander looks unflinchingly at the seductive side of war, and its awful consequences.

Chasing The Monsoon
Chasing The Monsoon

Author: Alexander Frater

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Published: 2011-03-25

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 033054232X

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On 20th May the Indian summer monsoon will begin to envelop the country in two great wet arms, one coming from the east, the other from the west. They are united over central India around 10th July, a date that can be calculated within seven or eight days. Alexander Frater aims to follow the monsoon, staying sometimes behind it, sometimes in front of it, and everywhere watching the impact of this extraordinary phenomenon. During the anxious period of waiting, the weather forecaster is king, consulted by pie-crested cockatoos, and a joyful period ensues: there is a period of promiscuity, and scandals proliferate. Frater's journey takes him to Bangkok and the cowboy town on the Thai-Malaysian border to Rangoon and Akyab in Burma (where the front funnels up between the mountains and the sea). His fascinating narrative reveals the exotic, often startling, discoveries of an ambitious and irresistibly romantic adventurer.

Chasing the Silver Lining
Chasing the Silver Lining

Author: L. E. Hewitt

Publisher:

Published: 2014-11-30

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 9781596638723

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ABOUT THE BOOK AND AUTHOR: In this third publication from L.E. Hewitt, we once again explore the inexplicable world we live in. The stories tackle such riveting questions as "Why does bologna cost more than steak?" and "What's a guy to do when invited to a professional cheerleader tryout?" This collection of non-fiction stories ranges from nostalgic, to laugh-out-loud funny, to tearful. A truly heartwarming collection of life at its best. You will find yourself reflecting upon your own life and feeling better about where you are and where you have been. In this collection, the reader will find some old favorite characters and will also be introduced to some wonderful new ones. FuzzButt begins to take what he feels is his rightful place as the main center of attention and Sally says goodbye. The stories cover a period of great change in L.E.'s life. But, through it all, he just keeps CHASING THE SILVER LINING. The author (pictured above) currently resides in Indiana with all the animals the children left behind when they left for college. He devotes much of his time these days to his writing and music. The author says, "I have just always had the need for a creative outlet. The older I become, the more I am driven to write about my life and the lives of those around me. I hope that in reading my books, you will find occasion to both laugh and cry. Both of these emotions are essential for a life well lived." FROM THE BOOK ... We own four dogs and three cats. Well, I take that back ... one dog is disguised in the body of a Seal Pointe Siamese cat. He acts more like a dog than some dogs do. He comes when you say his name. He follows you around. He has even learned tricks. He sits up or "sits pretty," as some people say, and Will and Elizabeth have taught him to turn off light switches. I do, however, have to give him credit for being part cat too. He will sneak in the kitchen and steal food off the table or the stove top after dinner is over if we are not careful. He was once even seen dragging a whole pork chop down the stairs. It was one of those butterflied chops and was nearly as big as he is. He was walking all spread eagle just to support the weight of the thing! I know what his plan was going to be. He was going to sneak downstairs, have a big pig-out feast, then get sick from eating too much and find one of my shoes into which to deposit the excess.

Chasing Shakespeares
Chasing Shakespeares

Author: Sarah Smith

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-05-11

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 1439122199

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From an author the San Francisco Chronicle hails as "daring and splendid" comes an exhilarating novel of passion and ideas that cuts to the heart of one of literature's most fascinating and enduring mysteries: the enigma of Shakespeare. Meet Joe Roper, tough-minded young graduate student, who has been lucky enough to land a job cataloging the famed Kellogg Collection of Elizabethan texts and curiosities. Joe's been passionate about Shakespeare since he read a duct-taped paperback at age nine and found the witches, warriors, murders, and ghosts as much fun as Stephen King, but his working-class roots make him a fish out of water in the academic world. He is seemingly as far from adventure as it's possible to be -- until the delicious Posy Gould enters, stage right. A glamorous rising star at Harvard, she insists that a letter Joe has found, signed by one W. Shakespeare of Stratford, is a career-making discovery for them both -- because the letter says Shakespeare didn't write the plays. To Joe's mind, the letter is a forgery. When Posy insists they test it, the two literary sleuths head for England to prove their clashing theories. But they find themselves in a world where the London Eye looks out over Shakespeare's city, Hollywood producers rub elbows with Elizabethan spies, and mystery shadows the heart of Westminster Abbey and the lanes of rural England. And Joe and Posy find that, when you start chasing Shakespeares, what you find is not only who he was, but who you are, and how far you're willing to go.... A first-rate mystery from one of the masters of the genre, Chasing Shakespeares is also a literary shell game, a love story, and a profound meditation on identity and ownership. Sarah Smith has created a novel that rivals A. S. Byatt's Possession in its rich and fast-moving blend of literary history and page-turning suspense.

Siberia Bound
Siberia Bound

Author: Alexander Blakely

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13:

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Recounts the adventures of an American entrepreneur in Siberia, where he and Russian partner built a multi-million dollar company, and offers insightsnto the life in Novosibirsk.

Chasing Venus
Chasing Venus

Author: Andrea Wulf

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2012-05-01

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0307958612

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A “thrilling adventure story" (San Francisco Chronicle) that brings to life the astronomers who in the 1700s embarked upon a quest to calculate the size of the solar system, and paints a vivid portrait of the collaborations, rivalries, and volatile international politics that hindered them at every turn. • From the author of Magnificent Rebels and New York Times bestseller The Invention of Nature. On June 6, 1761, the world paused to observe a momentous occasion: the first transit of Venus between the Earth and the Sun in more than a century. Through that observation, astronomers could calculate the size of the solar system—but only if they could compile data from many different points of the globe, all recorded during the short period of the transit. Overcoming incredible odds and political strife, astronomers from Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Sweden, and the American colonies set up observatories in the remotest corners of the world, only to be thwarted by unpredictable weather and warring armies. Fortunately, transits of Venus occur in pairs; eight years later, they would have another opportunity to succeed. Thanks to these scientists, neither our conception of the universe nor the nature of scientific research would ever be the same.

Volunteers
Volunteers

Author: Jerad W. Alexander

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2021-11-09

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1643752189

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“Riveting and morally complex, Volunteers is not only an insider’s account of war. It takes you inside the increasingly closed culture that creates our warriors.” —Elliot Ackerman, author of the National Book Award finalist Dark at the Crossing As a child, Jerad Alexander lay in bed listening to the fighter jets take off outside his window and was desperate to be airborne. As a teenager at an American base in Japan, he immersed himself in war games, war movies, and pulpy novels about Vietnam. Obsessed with all things military, he grew up playing with guns, joined the Civil Air Patrol for the uniform, and reveled in the closed and safe life “inside the castle,” within the embrace of the armed forces, the only world he knew or could imagine. Most of all, he dreamed of enlisting—like his mother, father, stepfather, and grandfather before him—and playing his part in the Great American War Story. He joined the US Marines straight out of high school, eager for action. Once in Iraq, however, he came to realize he was fighting a lost cause, enmeshed in the ongoing War on Terror that was really just a fruitless display of American might. The myths of war, the stories of violence and masculinity and heroism, the legacy of his family—everything Alexander had planned his life around—was a mirage. Alternating scenes from childhood with skirmishes in the Iraqi desert, this original, searing, and propulsive memoir introduces a powerful new voice in the literature of war. Jerad W. Alexander—not some elite warrior, but a simple volunteer—delivers a passionate and timely reckoning with the troubled and cyclical truths of the American war machine.

Chasing Homer
Chasing Homer

Author: László Krasznahorkai

Publisher: New Directions Publishing

Published: 2021-11-02

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 0811227987

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A classic escape nightmare, Chasing Homer is sped on not only by Krasznahorkai’s signature velocity, but also by a unique musical score and intense illustrations In this thrilling chase narrative, a hunted being escapes certain death at breakneck speed—careening through Europe, heading blindly South. Faster and faster, escaping the assassins, our protagonist flies forward, blending into crowds, adjusting to terrains, hopping on and off ferries, always desperately trying to stay a step ahead of certain death: the past did not exist, only what was current existed—a prisoner of the instant, rushing into this instant, an instant that had no continuation … Krasznahorkai—celebrated for the exhilarating energy of his prose—outdoes himself in Chasing Homer. And this unique collaboration boasts beautiful full-color paintings by Max Neumann and—reaching out of the book proper—the wildly percussive music of Szilveszter Miklós scored for each chapter (to be accessed by the reader via QR codes).