April 2021 list by Donalee Jacobs
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The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals
by Chris McChesney & Sean Covey
Do you remember the last major initiative you watched die in your organization? Did it go down with a loud crash? Or was it slowly and quietly suffocated by other competing priorities? By the time it finally disappeared, it's likely no one even noticed. What happened? By following The 4 Disciplines -- Focusing on the Wildly Important; Acting on Lead Measures; Keeping a Compelling Scoreboard; and Creating a Cadence of Accountability -- leaders can produce breakthrough results, even when executing the strategy requires a significant change in behavior from their teams.
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Beautiful Things
by Hunter Biden
When he was two-years-old, Hunter Biden was badly injured in a car accident that killed his mother and baby sister. In 2015, he suffered the devastating loss of his beloved big brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer at the age of forty-six. These hardships were compounded by the collapse of his marriage and a years-long battle with drug and alcohol addiction. In Beautiful Things, Hunter recounts his descent into substance abuse and his tortuous path to sobriety. The story ends with where Hunter is today—a sober married man with a new baby, finally able to appreciate the beautiful things.
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Broken Horses
by Brandi Carlile
Brandi Carlile takes readers through the events of her life that shaped her very raw art-from her start at a local singing competitions, to her first break opening for Dave Matthews Band, to many sleepless tours over fifteen years and six studio albums, all while raising two children with her wife, Catherine Shepherd. This hard-won success ultimately led her to the Grammy stage, where she converted millions of viewers into instant fans. Evocative and piercingly honest, Broken Horses is an examination of faith through the eyes of a person rejected by the church's basic tenets and a meditation on the moments and lyrics that have shaped the life of a creative mind, and brilliant artist.
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Central America's Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration
by Aviva Chomsky
Chomsky explores Central American migration to the United States in the context of the region's history of conquest, colonialism, revolution, and neoliberalism, looking especially at the revolutionary experiments of the 1980s and their aftermath. She restores the region’s fraught history of repression and resistance to popular consciousness and connects the United States' interventions and influence to the influx of refugees seeking asylum today.
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Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
by Patrick Radden Keefe
The award-winning author of Say Nothing presents a narrative account of how a prominent wealthy family sponsored the creation and marketing of one of the most commonly prescribed and addictive painkillers of the opioid crisis.
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Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World
by Philip Matyszak
The ancient world of the Mediterranean and the Near East saw the birth and collapse of great civilizations. While several of these are well known, for all those that have been recorded, many have been unjustly forgotten. Our history is overflowing with different cultures that have all evolved over time, sometimes dissolving or reforming, though ultimately shaping the way we continue to live. But for every culture that has been remembered, what have we forgotten? This thorough guide explores those civilizations that have faded from the pages of our textbooks but played a significant role in the development of modern society.
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The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything
by Michio Kaku
When Newton discovered the law of gravity, he unified the rules governing the heavens and the Earth. Since then, physicists have been placing new forces into ever-grander theories. But perhaps the ultimate challenge is achieving a monumental synthesis of the two remaining theories—relativity and the quantum theory. This would be the crowning achievement of science, a profound merging of all the forces of nature into one beautiful, magnificent equation to unlock the deepest mysteries in science. Kaku also explains the intense controversy swirling around this theory in this captivating, gripping story.
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Higher Love: Climbing and Skiing the Seven Summits
by Kit Deslauriers
Spanning seven continents in just two years, this deeply personal memoir recounts Kit Deslauriers record breaking and, initially secret, journey that would change her life forever. From braving Antarctica's bone-chilling temperatures to trudging through an African rainforest, from corn snow on the slopes of Australia to blue ice on Everest, Kit leads you up each mountain and gives you a heart-racing ride back down. This candid, fast-paced story shows how inspiration, teamwork, and honoring our true nature blazes the trail to every summit, on or off the mountain.
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Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth
by Noa Tishby
Israeli American Noa Tishby offers a fresh, 360-degree view of Israe, bringing her straight-shooting, engaging, and slightly irreverent voice to the subject, and creating an accessible and dynamic portrait of a tiny country of outsized relevance. Through bite-sized chunks of history and deeply personal stories, Tishby chronicles her homeland's evolution, beginning in Biblical times and moving forward to cover everything from WWI to Israel's creation to the real disputes dividing the country today. Tackling popular misconceptions with an abundance facts, Tishby provides critical context around headline-generating controversies and offers a clear, intimate account of the richly cultured country of Israel.
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The Job Closer: Time-Saving Techniques for Acing Resumes, Interviews, Negotiations, and More
by Steve Dalton
Steve Dalton’s 2-Hour Job Search simplified the process of finding work by utilizing technology, and now The Job Closer helps you seal the deal by applying his time-saving techniques to the surrounding steps. As a career consultant, Dalton has found that job seekers routinely overinvest in trivial aspects of the employment hunt while underestimating the important ones.
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Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power
by Susan Page
The definitive biography of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful woman in American political history, written by New York Times bestselling author and USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page. Featuring more than 150 exclusive interviews with those who know her best—and a series of in-depth, news-making interviews with Pelosi herself—Madam Speaker is unprecedented in the scope of its exploration of Nancy Pelosi's remarkable life and of her indelible impact on American politics.
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The Marathon Don't Stop: The Life and Times of Nipsey Hussle
by Rob Kenner
The founding editor of Vibe presents an in-depth portrait of the hip-hop mogul, artist and activist. He shares insights into his motivational lyrics, visionary business savvy and tragic murder in a neighborhood he was trying to rebuild.
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Mixed Plate: Chronicles of an All-American Combo
by Jo Koy
A laugh-out-loud, fearlessly honest memoir by the award-winning Filipino-American comedian uncovers the true family experiences behind his popular routines, discussing his mixed heritage, struggles with family mental illness and eventual embrace of his identity.
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On the House: A Washington Memoir
by John Boehner
The former Speaker of the House shares candid tales from Washington, D.C.’s halls of power, offering insight into America’s Republican Party and the leadership successes and failures of Presidents from the past half century.
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On the Trail of Bigfoot: Tracking the Enigmatic Giants of the Forest
by Michael Dupler
This first-hand account from a paranormal researcher and skilled outdoorsman on his many years of investigating Bigfoot phenomena provides a wealth of information and reasoned speculation on the nature of these beings. It features the author's encounters with these enigmatic creatures and offers compelling theories as to the origins and arrival of Bigfoot in North America, as well as a detailed examination of stick structures attributed to Sasquatch.
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Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet
by Chelsea Wald
From an award-winning science journalist, a lively, informative, and humorous deep dive into the future of the toilet—from creative uses for harvested "biosolids," to the bold engineers dedicated to bringing safe sanitation to billions of people worldwide.
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Second Chances: A Marine, his dog, and Finding Redemption
by Craig Grossi
The author of Craig and Fred describes how his devoted canine companion and he visited Maine State Prison to work beside inmates who serve purposeful time in prison by training service dogs for disabled veterans.
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Stampede: Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike
by Brian Castner
A gripping account of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-1898 sets the experiences of tens of thousands of desperate people against a backdrop of the period’s economic depression while tracing the stories of the era’s most iconic characters.
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The Wild Silence
by Raynor Winn
This follow-up to the bestseller The Salt Path follows the difficulties faced by the author and her husband who is facing a terminal diagnosis after returning home from a 630 mile trek walking across the English coastline.
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World Travel: An Irreverent Guide
by Anthony Bourdain
A guide to some of the world’s most interesting places, as seen and experienced by writer, television host and relentlessly curious traveler Anthony Bourdain.
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