Central Kansas Library System

A rich, complex and engaging account of Cook's voyages across the Pacific, from actor and raconteur Sam Neill. Captain James Cook first set sail to the Pacific in 1768, just over 250 years ago. These vast waters, one third of the earth's surface, were uncharted but not unknown. A rich diversity of people and cultures navigated, traded, lived and fought here for thousands of years. Before Cook, the Pacific was disconnected from the power and ideas...

Enrico Fermi is unquestionably among the greats of the world's physicists, the most famous Italian scientist since Galileo. Called the Pope by his peers, he was regarded as infallible in his instincts and research. His discoveries changed our world; they led to weapons of mass destruction and conversely to life-saving medical interventions. This unassuming man struggled with issues relevant today, such as the threat of nuclear annihilation and the...

When Rachel Weinhaus was five years old, a sixteen-year-old boy sexually assaulted her in the woods near her home. She never spoke of her violation, not to her parents, not to her siblings, not even, decades later, to her spouse-she wouldn't speak a word of it for thirty-eight years until an envelope arrived from her graduate school alma mater, informing her she was a part of a two-hundred-fifteen-million-dollar settlement claim against the University...

I Left the Occult for Christ is a memoir that shares my story about finding Jesus and eventually leaving the occult. I was an occult practitioner for many years -- for more than 15 years. I was a solitary practitioner who engaged in various practices, and I also had various friends in the occult. Somewhere along the way, I met Christ, perhaps He came to me -- or, I cannot tell -- but He was there with me and for me, and I was touched by a grace that...

An engaging, lively, provocative and, above all, inspiring memoir from one of our home-grown, unsung feminist heroes, Merle Thornton, who has lived a life full of daring, defiance and activism. Merle Thornton is one of Australia's most delightful, formidable and game-changing pioneering feminists - a woman who through her daring and defiance helped bring about positive change for generations of Australian women. In her most audacious act, in 1965...

As a New Testament character of note, the Apostle Paul is second only to Jesus. In this companion volume to Encounters with Jesus, Ben and Ann Witherington draw on the biblical text and deep knowledge of historical context to bring alive the reactions of several contemporaries to the famous apostle and his words and deeds. Here we hear from friends and companions as well as passing acquaintances and outright enemies of Paul. Including many photos...

A history of the family-owned, Nova Scotia beach canteen and two sisters determined to show their father that women can also be successful. Gladee's Canteen, several times voted as one of the ten best restaurants in Canada, was a special example of co-operative and communal spirit. At the centre of the operation were Gladee and her sister Flossie, supported by the extended Hirtle family. They offered a warm welcome and a memorable menu, in a setting...

The second instalment in a gripping memoir by Sakine Cansiz (codenamed 'Sara') chronicles the Kurdish revolutionary's harrowing years in a Turkish prison, following her arrest in 1979 at the age of 21. Jailed for more than a decade for her activities as a founder and leader of the Kurdish freedom movement, she faced brutal conditions and was subjected to interrogation and torture. Remarkably, the story she tells here is foremost one of resistance,...

With a voice as disarmingly bold, funny, and unsentimental as its author, a thoroughly unconventional memoir that shatters the myth of the tragic disabled life Harriet McBryde Johnson isn't sure, but she thinks one of her earliest memories was learning that she will die. The message came from a maudlin TV commercial for the Muscular Dystrophy Association that featured a boy who looked a lot like her. Then as now, Johnson tended to draw her own conclusions....

An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, groundbreaking portrait of the early days of the republic-and the birth of modern politics When the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly minted capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere, which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with Britain in 1812, Dolley Madison arrived, alongside...