FREE/BARGAIN - Non-Fiction - 2015

[Little.Egret]

Get your great philosophers précis here

Acheron Press reprints of a couple of recent works

Plato's Shadow: A Primer on Plato (2009) by Neel Burton

This book provides the student and general reader with a comprehensive overview of the thought of Plato, Socrates, and the pre-Socratic philosophers. It includes an introduction to their lives and times, and - for the first time - a precis of each of Plato's dialogues, amongst which the Apology, Laches, Gorgias, Symposium, Phaedrus, Phaedo, Meno, Timaeus, Theaetetus, Republic, and 18 others.

"provides a tremendously useful service to anyone studying Plato, or to the more general reader who might otherwise struggle to make headway unaided"

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004LROWPW/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004LROWPW/
http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B004LROWPW/

Aristotle's Universe: A Primer on Aristotle (2011) by Neel Burton

Following in the footsteps of 'Plato's Shadow', this book aims to provide the student and general reader with a comprehensive overview of Aristotle's thought. It includes an introduction to the life of Aristotle, and, for the first time, a précis of each of his works, including Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Poetics, Rhetoric, and several others.


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MU9XPQ/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005MU9XPQ/
http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B005MU9XPQ/

[koland]

Waxkeep has 129 freebies right now. bound to be one or two new ones in the mix.

http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-...date-desc-rank

[GtrsRGr8]

Great finds, Little.Egret, ATDrake, and Koland! You've outdone yourselves!

I was starting to pick through ATDrake's finds . . . . make sure that you don't overpay and/or get a format that you're not the most pleased with. I just checked Comfort Food from the Dinner Doctor, by Anne Byrn. $2.99 sounds like a great/sale price, but it is $2.51 at Amazon (the book's only 75 pages). $2.99 is, in fact, the digital list price for the book, according to Amazon.

[GtrsRGr8]

Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce. By Kent Nerburn. Rated 4.8 stars, from 83 reviews at the present moment. Print list price $15.99; regular digital price $11.79; Kindle price now $1.99. HarperCollins e-books, publisher. 448 pages. http://www.amazon.com/Chief-Joseph-F...5PB0REM4FQ8SQ8.

Book Description
Hidden in the shadow cast by the great western expeditions of Lewis and Clark lies another journey every bit as poignant, every bit as dramatic, and every bit as essential to an understanding of who we are as a nation -- the 1,800-mile journey made by Chief Joseph and eight hundred Nez Perce men, women, and children from their homelands in what is now eastern Oregon through the most difficult, mountainous country in western America to the high, wintry plains of Montana. There, only forty miles from the Canadian border and freedom, Chief Joseph, convinced that the wounded and elders could go no farther, walked across the snowy battlefield, handed his rifle to the U.S. military commander who had been pursuing them, and spoke his now-famous words, "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

The story has been told many times, but never before in its entirety or with such narrative richness. Drawing on four years of research, interviews, and 20,000 miles of travel, Nerburn takes us beyond the surrender to the captives' unlikely welcome in Bismarck, North Dakota, their tragic eight-year exile in Indian Territory, and their ultimate return to the Northwest. Nerburn reveals the true, complex character of Joseph, showing how the man was transformed into a myth by a public hungry for an image of the noble Indian and how Joseph exploited the myth in order to achieve his single goal of returning his people to their homeland.

Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce is far more than the story of a man and a people. It is a grand saga of a pivotal time in our nation's history. Its pages are alive with the presence of Lewis and Clark, General William Tecumseh Sherman, General George Armstrong Custer, and Sitting Bull. Its events brush against the California Gold Rush, the Civil War, the great western pioneer migration, and the building of the telegraph and the transcontinental railroad. Once you have read this groundbreaking work, you will never look at Chief Joseph, the American Indian, or our nation's westward journey in the same way again.

[GtrsRGr8]

85% off of the digital list price.

The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village. By John Strausbaugh. Rated 4.4 stars, from 25 reviews at the present moment. Print list price $17.99; Digital list(?) price $12.99; Kindle price now $1.99. Ecco, publisher. 643 pages. http://www.amazon.com/Village-Bohemi...7CC93E23RHJAG8.

Book Description
Cultural commentator John Strausbaugh's The Village is the first complete history of Greenwich Village, the prodigiously influential and infamous New York City neighborhood.

From the Dutch settlers and Washington Square patricians, to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and Prohibition-era speakeasies; from Abstract Expressionism and beatniks, to Stonewall and AIDS, the connecting narratives of The Village tell the story of America itself.

Illustrated with historic black-and-white photographs, The Village features lively, well-researched profiles of many of the people who made Greenwich Village famous, including Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Twain, Margaret Sanger, Eugene O’Neill, Marcel Duchamp, Upton Sinclair, Willa Cather, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Jackson Pollock, Anais Nin, Edward Albee, Charlie Parker, W. H. Auden, Woody Guthrie, James Baldwin, Maurice Sendak, E. E. Cummings, and Bob Dylan.

[GtrsRGr8]

Beautiful photos! Attractive maps!

The 88% markdown is from the regular digital price.

The Queen's Houses (Royal Britain at Home). By Alan Titchmarsh. Rated 4.3 stars, but from only 7 reviews at Amazon at the present moment; rated 4.50 at Goodreads, but from only 2 reviews. Print list price $35.00; regular digital price $17.27; Kindle price now $1.99. BBC Digital, publisher. 256 pages. http://www.amazon.com/Queens-Houses-...een%27s+Houses.

Book Description
The Queen’s life is dedicated to her public – every move is scrutinised, every word noted. But her homes are havens where peace can be found, away from watchful eyes; sanctuaries of private calm in a whirlwind life of public duty.

In The Queen’s Houses, Alan Titchmarsh takes us on a tour of the royal residences, examining the personal family stories behind these magnificent buildings. Through personal reflections, interviews with royal staff and meticulous historical research, Alan looks beyond the formal grandeur of Buckingham Palace, the imposing structure of Windsor Castle and the private escape offered by Balmoral and others.

Illustrated with intimate family photographs and evocative memorabilia, The Queen’s Houses offers a glimpse of life behind the state banquets and sovereign duties – a respectful study of the royal family at home.

[AnemicOak]

The Fortress by Robert Payne - FREE
Amazon US | UK | CA

‘The Fortress’ is a dramatic and gripping work of history.

It describes the century-long struggle (from 1825 – 1917) of the great Russian revolutionaries to overthrow the monarchy.

Their punishment was to be thrown into the Peter and Paul Fortress in Leningrad, then the most dreaded of Russian prisons and a symbol of Tsarist cruelty, where they were tortured and sometimes beaten to death, or left to rot in the silence of their cells.

Who were these revolutionaries?

They included such figures as Pushkin, the aristocratic Decembrists (who attempted a coup d'etat against the Tsar as early as 1825), Dostoyevsky (who was forced to suffer a mock execution after joining the Petrashevsky group), Bakunin (the great anarchist), Nechayev (the terrorist youth who became the hero of ‘The Possessed’), Zhelyabov (who engineered the assassination of Alexander II), Sazonov (who masterminded the murder of the brutal Minister of the Interior, Plehve), and Kaliayev (the poet who killed the Grand Duke Sergey.

They were idealists, they were ruthless terrorists but Payne also shows their human qualities. They come alive in graphic detail, as do the terrible horrors of torture and being left to go mad in prison.

[GtrsRGr8]

88% from the digital list price.

Cary Grant was at his cinematic pinnacle (1940's) before most of us were born and almost certainly before any of us reached adulthood. Maybe there is someone among us, however, who has watched his movies or for some other reason has an interest in the man. At any rate, this was a hard book not to post given its high ratings and big markdown.

I was told one time that I looked like Cary Grant. Yeah. Then, I awoke from my dream. ha.

Cary Grant: Dark Angel. By Geoffrey Wansell. Rated 4.4 stars, but from only 18 reviews at the present moment; rated 3.81, from 37 reviews at GoodReads. Print list price $24.95; digital list price $16.99; Kindle price $1.99. Arcade Publishing, publisher. 192 pages. http://www.amazon.com/Cary-Grant-Ang...NFYKY0Q6WGC0YZ.

Book Description
His signature jaw line and charismatic characters made him an American symbol. His films, including Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, and North by Northwest, were timeless classics. However, Grant was also married five times and sustained a tortured, obsessive relationship with money. In this beautifully illustrated and comprehensive book, Geoffrey Wansell traces the threads of both light and darkness in one of Holly-wood’s greatest stars. As his friend and co-star Deborah Kerr wrote, he was “one of the most outstanding personalities in the history of the cinema.”

[Little.Egret]

Charles River Editors

The Apache Scouts: The History and Legacy of the Native Scouts Used During the Indian Wars

Siberia: The History of Russia's Most Notorious Territory and Home of the Soviet Gulags

The Black Sox Scandal: The History and Legacy of America's Most Notorious Sports Controversy

British Legends: The Life and Legacy of Freddie Mercury

The Parthian Empire: The History and Culture of One of Ancient Rome's Most Famous Enemies

The Life and Trial of Lizzie Borden: The History of 19th Century America's Most Famous Murder Case

Sacco and Vanzetti: The History of 20th Century America's Most Controversial Case

The Fall of France: The History of Nazi Germany's Invasion and Conquest of France During World War II


http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-...=charles+river

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=searc...=charles+river
http://www.amazon.ca/s/?url=search-a...=charles+river

[AnemicOak]

The Class of 1846 by John Waugh - $1.99
Amazon US | Kobo | Google | B&N | eBooks.com | OmniLit

No single group of men at West Point--or possibly any academy--has been so indelibly written into history as the class of 1846. The names are legendary: Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Powell Hill, Darius Nash Couch, George Edward Pickett, Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox, and George Stoneman. The class fought in three wars, produced twenty generals, and left the nation a lasting legacy of bravery, brilliance, and bloodshed.

This fascinating, remarkably intimate chronicle traces the lives of these unforgettable men--their training, their personalities, and the events in which they made their names and met their fates. Drawing on letters, diaries, and personal accounts, John C. Waugh has written a collective biography of masterful proportions, as vivid and engrossing as fiction in its re-creation of these brilliant figures and their pivotal roles in American history.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

The Class of 1846 by John Waugh - $1.99
. . . .

Great post. It looks like a great book. I was thinking seriously of posting it myself, until I saw that you had already posted it.

I might take a little exception to something that the book description said. It said, "No single group of men at West Point--or possibly any academy--has been so indelibly written into history as the class of 1846."

Yeah, that statement has some publishers' hype. And it may have been born of more than a little Americentrism. How many people outside of the U.S. would recognize any of the names that the book description gave--"Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Powell Hill, Darius Nash Couch, George Edward Pickett, Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox, and George Stoneman"?

Most, if not all, of those men gained recognition or fame because of their service in the American Civil War. And, I wonder if those men--great though they were--still have the name recognition that they do in the U.S. today primarily because of the endless fascination that many Americans have today for the American Civil War.

Compare that to the West Point class of 1915. Many of those who graduated from there that year attained worldwide fame. Ever heard of Omar Bradley, a high-ranking, highly-successful general in Europe in World War II? How about Dwight Eisenhower, who not only became the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II, but then went on to become President of the United States? Talk about "indelibly written into history"! Those are just two of the many graduates of that class who obtained lasting, worldwide fame.

That class was so stellar that historians and others call it "The Class the Stars Fell On." I have to agree with them and say that the greatest class of West Point was that of 1915. The class of 1846 was perhaps the second greatest.

[koland]

Perhaps the fascination is because of the personal conflict of the war that the earlier class fought in. And it remains the war with the largest US casualty count.

Not near as much conflict against a leader committing mass genocide and taking over Europe little by little, whose allies then attacked us directly.

After all, what fame is there from freeing nations and entire peoples, when you can later go on to burn parts of your own country with impunity or commit genocide on a race much closer to home?

[HarryT]

Moderator Notice
This discussion is interesting, but a lot more appropriate to the P&R forum than here. Could you start a thread in that forum to continue it, please?

Thanks!

[koland]

I think it's best to let it drop ... just a good thing those yahoos on the interstate overpass today, waving at least 20 such flags, didn't let any of them drop down on us drivers ...

Today's free book from Charles River:
http://www.amazon.com/Alger-Hiss-His...dp/B011B2BBWQ/

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This discussion is interesting, but a lot more appropriate to the P&R forum than here. Could you start a thread in that forum to continue it, please?

Thanks!

I didn't intend to get involved in a discussion, but only challenge the premise of the book. However, I might have slipped up had you not given your admonitory. Thanks for the remark, and that so early on!