Bøger udgivet af Modern Times

Unthinkable just a generation ago, Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency and Nancy Pelosi's ascension to Speaker of the House have cast the spotlight on American political women as never before. In the 230 years of this country's history, never has a woman--let alone a mother and a grandmother--risen to such a position of power as Nancy Pelosi did when she assumed her role as the first female Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency. In Madam Speaker, Marc Sandalow, an esteemed journalist and political analyst who covered Pelosi for decades, offers a richly nuanced portrait of the woman who made history. He charts Pelosi's political roots, honing in on her father, who spent five terms in Congress and stored hundreds of copies of the Congressional Record under her bed, and goes on to examine how Pelosi, who didn't run for political office until she was 47 years old, juggled her family life and fought hard to forge a place for herself in Washington, ultimately becoming one of the most influential voices in our nation. Based on hundreds of interviews with Pelosi's colleagues, family, and friends--and the Speaker herself--Sandalow culls together insightful anecdotes and political analysis to chronicle Pelosi's meteoric rise and controversial tenure. Madam Speaker illuminates the inspiring life of a woman who has already made history.

For nearly eight years as the monthly columnist for Outside magazine, and in his award-winning books, Mark Jenkins has held fans spellbound with his riveting accounts of expeditions to remote parts of the globe. In To Timbuktu, he sets out with three friends to attempt their first descent of the Niger River, hoping to reach the legendary city of Timbuktu. Along the way they are attacked by killer bees, charged by hippos, and stalked by crocodiles. They stumble upon a group of completely blind men living alone in the bush and dance with a hundred naked women. That Jenkins finally reaches his goal--riding alone across the Sahara on a motorcycle--stands in sharp contrast to what befell earlier explorers who tried to find Timbuktu and whose fates the author interweaves with the narrative of his own journey. A rich combination of cultural exploration, history, and gripping adventure, this beautifully repackaged edition of To Timbuktu is a journey not to be missed.

With this brilliant account of his journey--at once edge-of-your-seat exciting and literary--Mark Jenkins established himself as the master of adventure/travel writing. In 1989 he and six companions--two Americans and four Russians--set out on an arduous, first-ever crossing of Siberia by bike, cycling across rutted dirt roads, swamps, the Ural Mountains, and through Moscow and Leningrad. This beautifully repackaged edition of Jenkins's travel classic vividly chronicles the highlights of this amazing voyage, including a month spent biking through an 800-mile swamp and the team's interactions with some fascinating characters--from the widow who makes Mark sleep in her dead son's bed to the Lithuanian searching for the concentration camp where his wife spent her childhood. Combining the exhilaration of record-setting adventure with thoughtful introspection, Jenkins's words allow readers to recognize the extraordinary in the day-to-day lives of ordinary Russians. USA Today called Off the Map "a literary epic." Newsweek declared "the ornery, observant Jenkins [is] good company on every page." And Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, wrote: "Jenkins is a master of the fundamental writer's talent: an ability to see things in new ways, as no one has ever seen them before."