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Good citizens need not fear / by Reva, Maria,1989-author.;
"A bureaucratic glitch omits an entire building, along with its residents, from municipal records. So begins Reva's ingenious novel-in-stories, intertwined narratives that span the chaotic years leading up to and immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union. But even as the benighted denizens of 1933 Ivansk Street weather the official neglect of the authorities, they devise ingenious ways to survive. In "Bone Music," an agoraphobic woman survives by selling contraband LPs, mapping the vinyl grooves of illegal Western records into stolen x-ray film. A delusional secret service agent in "Letter of Apology" becomes convinced he's being covertly recruited to guard Lenin's tomb, if only he can convince a contrarian poet to officially apologize for reciting a forbidden joke. Weaving the narratives together is an unforgettable, chameleon-like girl named Zaya: a disfigured orphan in "Little Rabbit," a beauty-pageant crasher in "Miss USSR," and, when she reaches adulthood, a sadist-for-hire to the Eastern bloc's newly minted oligarchs in "Homecoming." Good Citizens Need Not Fear takes us from moments of intense paranoia to surprising tenderness and back again, exploring what it means to be an individual amidst the roiling forces of history. Inspired by her and her family's own experiences in Ukraine, Reva brings the black absurdism of early Shteyngart and the sly interconnectedness of Anthony Marra's The Tsar of Love and Techno to a fictional world that is as clever as it is heartfelt."--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Political fiction.; Apartment houses;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Vice [videorecording (BLURAY)]. by Bale, Christian; Adams, Amy; Carell, Steve; Rockwell, Sam; Plemons, Jesse; Pill, Alison;
Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Jesse Plemons, Alison Pill.Director, Adam Mckay.Blu-ray.MPAA rating: R.The story of Dick Cheney, a Washington insider and bureaucrat, who George W. Bush picked to run with him in the 2000 election, representing the Republican Party. After winning the election, Dick Cheney acquired substantial power and began to reshape the United States, along with the world, in ways that are still noticeable today.
Subjects: Drama.; Drama.; Comedy.;
© 2019., Fox Video,
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Doom : the politics of catastrophe / by Ferguson, Niall,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Setting the great crisis of 2020 in broad historical perspective, Niall Ferguson challenges the conventional wisdom that our failure to cope better with disaster was solely a crisis of political leadership, as opposed to a more profound systemic problem. Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted, or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of a number of developed countries, including the United States, to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why? The facile answer is to blame poor leadership. While populist leaders have certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, more profound problems have been exposed by COVID-19. Only when we understand the central challenge posed by disaster in history can we see that this was also a failure of an administrative state and economic elites that had grown myopic over much longer than just a few years. Why were so many Cassandras for so long ignored? Why did only some countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? Why do appeals to "the science" often turn out to be magical thinking? Drawing from multiple disciplines, including history, economics, public health, and network science, Doom is a global postmortem for a plague year. In books going back nearly twenty years, including Colossus, The Great Degeneration, and The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson has studied the pathologies that afflict modern America, from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online schism. Doom is the lesson of history that this country--indeed the West as a whole--urgently needs to learn--if we want to avoid the doom of irreversible decline"--
Subjects: COVID-19 (Disease); COVID-19 (Disease); Epidemics; Political leadership.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Vice [videorecording] / by Adams, Amy,actor.; Bale, Christian,1974-actor.; Carell, Steve,1963-actor.; McKay, Adam,1968-film director,screenwriter,film producer.; Pill, Alison,1985-actor.; Plemons, Jesse,1988-actor.; Rockwell, Sam,actor.; Entertainment One (Firm : Canada),publisher.;
Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Jesse Plemons, Alison Pill.The story of Dick Cheney, a Washington insider and bureaucrat, who George W. Bush picked to run with him in the 2000 election, representing the Republican Party. After winning the election, Dick Cheney acquired substantial power and began to reshape the United States, along with the world, in ways that are still noticeable today.Canadian Home Video Rating: 14A.MPAA rating: R; for language and some violent images.DVD ; widescreen presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1.
Subjects: Comedy films.; Historical films.; Political films.; Biographical films.; Feature films.; Cheney, Richard B.; Bush, George W. (George Walker), 1946-; Rumsfeld, Donald, 1932-; Vice-Presidents; Vice-Presidential candidates; Political campaigns;
For private home use only.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The fifth act : America's end in Afghanistan / by Ackerman, Elliot,author.;
"A powerful and revelatory eyewitness account of the American collapse in Afghanistan, its desperate endgame, and the war's echoing legacy. Elliot Ackerman left the American military ten years ago, but his time in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Marines and, later, as a CIA paramilitary officer marked him indelibly. When the Taliban began to close in on Kabul in August of 2021 and the Afghan regime began its death spiral, he found himself pulled back into the conflict. Afghan nationals who had, for years, worked closely with the American military and intelligence communities now faced brutal reprisal and sought frantically to flee the country with their families. The official US government evacuation process was a bureaucratic failure that led to a humanitarian catastrophe. With his former colleagues, and friends, protecting the airport in Kabul, Ackerman was drawn into an impromptu effort alongside a group of journalists, and other veterans, to arrange flights and negotiate with both Taliban and American forces to secure the safe evacuation of hundreds. These were desperate measures taken during a desperate end to America's longest war, but the success they achieved afforded a degree of redemption. And, for Ackerman, a chance to reconcile his past with his present. The Fifth Act is an astonishing human document that brings the weight of twenty years of war to bear on a single week at its bitter end. Using the dramatic rescue efforts in Kabul as his lattice, Ackerman weaves in a personal history of the war's long progress, beginning with the initial invasion in the months after 9/11. It is a play in five acts, the fifth act being the story's tragic denouement, a prelude to Afghanistan's dark future. Any reader who wants to understand what went wrong with the war's trajectory will find a trenchant accounting here. And yet The Fifth Act is not an exercise in finger-pointing: it brings readers into close contact with a remarkable group of characters, American and Afghan, who fought the war with courage and dedication, in good faith and at great personal cost. Understanding combatants' experiences and sacrifices while reckoning with the complex bottom line of the post-9/11 wars is not an easy balance; it demands reservoirs of wisdom and the gifts of an extraordinary storyteller. It asks for an author willing to grapple with certain hard-earned truths. In Elliot Ackerman, this story has found that author. The Fifth Act is a first draft of history that feels like a timeless classic"--
Subjects: Ackerman, Elliot.; United States. Central Intelligence Agency.; United States. Marine Corps. Marine Regiment, 8th. Battalion, 1st.; Afghan War, 2001-2021; Afghan War, 2001-2021; Afghan War, 2001-2021; Disengagement (Military science); Paramilitary forces;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Thomas Becket : warrior, priest, rebel : a nine-hundred-year-old story retold / by Guy, John,1952 Nov. 17-;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Ancestry -- Upbringing -- Politics -- Paris -- A fresh start -- Apprentice -- Into the limelight -- Arrival at court -- Royal minister -- Bureaucrat and judge -- Warrior -- A solitary man -- Render unto Caesar -- Archbishop -- A broken relationship -- Conversion -- The clash -- Clarendon -- Northampton -- Exile -- Attack and counter-attack -- Search for a settlement -- The case against Becket -- Cat and mouse -- A trial of strength -- Return to Canterbury -- Murder in the cathedral -- Aftermath -- Martyr.
Subjects: Thomas, à Becket, Saint, 1118?-1170.; Christian martyrs; Christian saints; Statesmen;
© c2012., Random House,
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Trail of the lost : the relentless search to bring home the missing hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail / by Lankford, Andrea,author.;
"As a park ranger on the National Park Service's law enforcement team, Andrea Lankford led search and rescue missions in some of the most beautiful (and dangerous) landscapes in America, from Yosemite and Zion to the Grand Canyon. But though she had the official support of the agency, Andrea found herself increasingly frustrated with the service's bureaucratic idiosyncrasies, and after twelve years, she finally left the force, haunted by her own failure to find a lost hiker in 1995. Two decades later, however, she stumbles across a mystery that pulls her right back where she left off: three young men have vanished from the Pacific Crest Trail, the 2,650-mile trek made famous by Cheryl Strayed, and no one has been able to find them. It's bugging the hell out of her. Andrea's concern leads her to a wild environment she didn't have to traverse when she last searched for the lost: missing person Facebook groups. Andrea launches an investigation, joining forces with an eclectic team of amateurs who are determined to solve the cases by land and by screen: a mother of the missing, a retired pharmacy manager, and a mapmaker who monitors terrorist activity for the government. Together, they track the activities of kidnappers and murderers, investigate a cult, rescue a psychic in peril, cross paths with an unconventional scientist, and reunite an international fugitive with his family. Searching for the missing is a brutal psychological and physical test with the highest possible stakes, and it takes its toll on each of them. And the insidious nature of the internet wreaks havoc on their investigation, with obsessive "fans" of missing person pages offering fabricated clues, financial requests, and, most damaging of all, false hope. But their hardships begin to bear strange fruits. They discover clues -- bloody socks on the trail, a novel with underlined passages, bones in the desert -- that were missed by the authorities, ones that lead them to places and people they never saw coming. TRAIL OF THE LOST is a female-driven true crime adventure that explores the power and limits of determination, generosity, and hope. It paints a vivid picture of hiker culture and its complicated relationship with the ever-expanding online realm. It offers a deep awe of the natural world, even as it unearths just how vast and treacherous it can be. And along the way, Andrea tells the tale of the incredible strength and inventiveness that brought three bodies home, and that changed the searchers' lives forever. On the TRAIL OF THE LOST, you may not find what you are looking for, but you will certainly find more than you seek"--
Subjects: Hikers.; Missing persons.; Park rangers.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The rendezvous [videorecording] / by Jaffrey, Raza,actor.; Katic, Stana,actor.; Matalqa, Amin,film director.; Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (Firm),publisher.;
Stana Katic, Raza Jaffrey.Rachel, a Jewish-American doctor, and Jake, an Arab-American government bureaucrat, go on a goose chase across the Middle East trying to solve the mysterious death of Rachel's treasure hunting brother. From Los Angeles to the deserts of Jordan and the ancient city of Petra, they find themselves hunted by a doomsday group called the Armageddonites who believe Rachel and Jake possess the missing Dead Sea Scroll that could bring about the end of days.Canadian Home Video Rating: 14A.DVD ; widescreen presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1.
Subjects: Action and adventure films.; Feature films.; Video recordings for the hearing impaired.; Dead Sea scrolls; Brothers; Jews;
For private home use only.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Great state : China and the world / by Brook, Timothy,1951-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.China is one of the oldest states in the world. It achieved its approximate current borders with the Ascendancy of the Yuan dynasty in the thirteenth century, and despite the passing of one Imperial dynasty to the next, has maintained them for the eight centuries since. China remained China through the Ming, the Qing, the Republic, the Occupation, and Communism. But despite the desires of some of the most powerful people in the Great State through the ages, China has never been alone in the world. It has had to contend with invaders as well as foreign traders and imperialists. Its rulers for the majority of the last eight centuries have not been Chinese. China became a mega-state not by conquering others, Timothy Brook contends, but rather by being conquered by others and then claiming right of succession to the empires of those Great States. What the Mongols and Manchu ruling families wrought, the Chinese ruling families of the Ming, the Republic, and the People's Republic, have perpetuated. Yet a contemporary Chinese idea of a 'fatherland' that is, and always has been, completely and naturally Chinese persists. Brook argues that China, like everywhere, is the outcome of history, and like every state, rests on its capacities to conquer and suppress. In The Great State, Brook examines China's relationship with the world at large for the first time, from the Yuan through to the present, by following the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people navigating the spaces where China met, and continues to meet, the world.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Saving Arm Pit / by Hyde, Natalie,1963-;
Includes Internet addresses (p. 136)."When vandals deface the Harmony Point sign, the town does indeed seem to become the "arm Pit" of the region. The baseball team hasn't won a game in two seasons and the town itself is falling into disrepair. But when the new postmaster becomes the new ball coach, Clay and the rest of the Terriers finally seem to stand a chance of winning a game. Until they overhear a bureaucrat from the city say that the post office will close unless "the numbers" work out. The team begins "Operation Tennis Elbow": a letter-writing campaign designed to generate enough mail to keep the post office--and its postmaster--in town. And along the way, they learn the power of the pen in effecting positive changes in their community"--http://www.amazon.com.LSC
Subjects: Baseball stories.; Baseball teams; Baseball coaches; Postmasters; Post office stations and branches; Community life;
© c2011., Fitzhenry & Whiteside,
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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