Best of
Journalism

2004

Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War


Evan Wright - 2004
    It's only five in the afternoon, but a sandtorm has plunged everything into a hellish twilight of murky, red dust. On rooftops, in alleyways lurk militiamen with machine guns, AK rifles and the odd rocket-propelled grenade. Artillery bombardment has shattered the town's sewers and rubble is piled up in lagoons of human excrement. It stinks. Welcome to Iraq... Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ed combat since Vietnam. They were a new breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears-soldiers raised on hip hop, Internet porn, Marilyn Manson, video games and The Real World, a band of born-again Christians, dopers, Buddhists, and New Agers who gleaned their precepts from kung fu movies and Oprah Winfrey. Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary, and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional, and moral horrors ahead, the "First Suicide Battalion" would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq, and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer. Generation Kill is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality, and camaraderie of a new American war.

Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs


John Pilger - 2004
    The book - a selection of articles, broadcasts and books extracts that revealed important and disturbing truths - ranges from across many of the critical events, scandals and struggles of the past fifty years. Along the way it bears witness to epic injustices committed against the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and Palestine. John Pilger sets each piece of reporting in its context and introduces the collection with a passionate essay arguing that the kind of journalism he celebrates here is being subverted by the very forces that ought to be its enemy. Taken as a whole, the book tells an extraordinary 'secret history' of the modern era. It is also a call to arms to journalists everywhere - before it is too late.

The Devil's Highway: A True Story


Luis Alberto Urrea - 2004
    border policy." (The Atlantic) The author of Across the Wire offers brilliant investigative reporting of what went wrong when, in May 2001, a group of 26 men attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona. Only 12 men came back out.A national bestseller, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a "book of the year" in multiple newspapers, and a work proclaimed as a modern American classic.

Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays


Christopher Hitchens - 2004
    I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information." Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays showcases America's leading polemicist's rejection of consensus and cliché whether he's reporting from abroad in Indonesia, Kurdistan, Iraq, North Korea, or Cuba, or when his pen is targeted mercilessly at the likes of William Clinton, Mother Theresa ("a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud"), the Dalai Lama, Noam Chomsky, Mel Gibson and Michael Bloomberg. Hitchens began the nineties as a "darling of the left" but has become more of an "unaffiliated radical" whose targets include those on the "left," who he accuses of "fudging" the issue of military intervention in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, as Hitchens shows in his reportage, cultural and literary criticism, and opinion essays from the last decade, he has not jumped ship and joined the right but is faithful to the internationalist, contrarian and democratic ideals that have always informed his work.

Travels with Herodotus


Ryszard Kapuściński - 2004
    Dreaming no farther than Czechoslovakia, the young reporter found himself sent to India. Wide-eyed and captivated, he would discover in those days his life’s work—to understand and describe the world in its remotest reaches, in all its multiplicity. From the rituals of sunrise at Persepolis to the incongruity of Louis Armstrong performing before a stone-faced crowd in Khartoum, Kapuscinski gives us the non-Western world as he first saw it, through still-virginal Western eyes.The companion on his travels: a volume of Herodotus, a gift from his first boss. Whether in China, Poland, Iran, or the Congo, it was the “father of history”—and, as Kapuscinski would realize, of globalism—who helped the young correspondent to make sense of events, to find the story where it did not obviously exist. It is this great forerunner’s spirit—both supremely worldly and innately Occidental—that would continue to whet Kapuscinski’s ravenous appetite for discovering the broader world and that has made him our own indispensable companion on any leg of that perpetual journey.

Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime: From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism


Geoffrey R. Stone - 2004
    Stone delineates the consistent suppression of free speech in six historical periods from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the Vietnam War, and ends with a coda that examines the state of civil liberties in the Bush era. Full of fresh legal and historical insight, Perilous Times magisterially presents a dramatic cast of characters who influenced the course of history over a two-hundred-year period: from the presidents—Adams, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, and Nixon—to the Supreme Court justices—Taney, Holmes, Brandeis, Black, and Warren—to the resisters—Clement Vallandingham, Emma Goldman, Fred Korematsu, and David Dellinger. Filled with dozens of rare photographs, posters, and historical illustrations, Perilous Times is resonant in its call for a new approach in our response to grave crises.

The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them


Amy Goodman - 2004
    Her goal is "to go where the silence is, to give voice to the silenced majority," and she is fond of quoting Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." This book informs and empowers people to act on that principle. For years, Amy Goodman has confronted the Washington establishment and its corporate cronies while giving voice to the voiceless. She hosts the national radio and TV show Democracy Now!, which began in 1996 and is now the largest media collaboration in public broadcasting in North America. Democracy Now! is not just a show-it's a movement.

After the Fire: A True Story of Friendship and Survival


Robin Gaby Fisher - 2004
    Among the victims were Shawn Simons and Alvaro Llanos, roommates from poor neighborhoods who made their families proud by getting into college. They managed to escape, but both were burned terribly.After the Fire is the story of these young men and their courageous fight to recover from the worst damage the burn unit at Saint Barnabas hospital had ever seen. It is the story of the extraordinary doctors and nurses who work with the burned. It is the story of mothers and fathers, of faith and family and the invisible ties that bind us to each other. It is the story of the search for the arsonists - and the elaborate cover-up that nearly obscured the truth. And it is the story of the women who came to love these men, who knew that real beauty is a thing not seen in mirrors.

Screen Burn


Charlie Brooker - 2004
    Sit back and roar as Brooker rips mercilessly into Simon Cowell, Big Brother, Trinny and Susannah, Casualty, Davina McCall, Michael Parkinson...and almost everything else on television. This book will make practically anyone laugh out loud.

Cane Mutiny: How the Miami Hurricanes Overturned the Football Establishment


Bruce Feldman - 2004
    Feldman has penned the inside story of the Miami Hurricanes--the college football dynasty they call the Miami Vice.

Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter


Carolin Emcke - 2004
    . . asked me for direct, practical help. . . . But over and over again people have asked me: 'Will you write this down?' "--Echoes of Violence ? Echoes of Violence is an award-winning collection of personal letters to friends from a foreign correspondent who is trying to understand what she witnessed during the iconic human disasters of our time--in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and New York City on September 11th, among many other places. Originally addressing only a small group of friends, Carolin Emcke started the first letter after returning from Kosovo, where she saw the aftermath of ethnic cleansing in 1999. She began writing to overcome her speechlessness about the horrors of war and her own sense of failure as a reporter. Eventually, writing a letter became a ritual Emcke performed following her return from each nightmare she experienced. First published in 2004 to great acclaim, Echoes of Violence in 2005 was named German political book of the year and was a finalist for the international Lettre-Ulysses award for the art of reportage.Combining narrative with philosophic reflection, Emcke describes wars and human rights abuses around the world--the suffering of civilians caught between warring factions in Colombia, the heartbreaking plight of homeless orphans in Romania, and the near-slavery of garment workers in Nicaragua. Freed in the letters from journalistic conventions that would obscure her presence as a witness, Emcke probes the abyss of violence and explores the scars it leaves on landscapes external and internal.

Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer


A.J. Liebling - 2004
    Just Enough Liebling gathers in one volume the vividest and most enjoyable of his pieces. Charles McGrath (in The New York Times Book Review) praised it as a judicious sampling-a useful window on Liebling's vast body of writing and a reminder, to those lucky enough to have read him the first time around, of why he was so beloved. Today Liebling is best known as a celebrant of the sweet science of boxing, and as a feeder who ravishes the reader with his descriptions of food and wine. But as David Remnick observes in his fond and insightful introduction, Liebling is boundlessly curious, a listener, a boulevardier, a man of appetites and sympathy-and a writer who, with his great friend and colleague Joseph Mitchell, deftly traversed the boundaries between reporting and storytelling, between news and art.

Nell


Nell McCafferty - 2004
    As a member of that brilliant 1960s generation of working-class idealists politicized by class, war and sex, McCafferty, in her writing and broadcasting on everything from the hunger strikes to football, has inspired and infuriated in equal measure.Yet, although she is an iconic figure Nell' (there is only one) her sexuality has remained in the background, hardly acknowledged and never, it seemed, to be discussed. Until now. In a memoir of scorching honesty McCafferty writes about what it is to be the public, and the private, Nell. Nell McCafferty was born on Derry's Bogside in 1944. She was the first of her family to go to university and after graduating she began a career in journalism which made her one of Ireland's most controversial commentators. She lives in Dubli

Who Let the Dogs In?: Incredible Political Animals I Have Known


Molly Ivins - 2004
    But those are just a few of the political animals who are honored and skewered for our amusement. Ivins also writes hilariously, perceptively, and at times witheringly of John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, H. Ross Perot, Tom DeLay, Ann Richards, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and the current governor of Texas, who is known as Rick “Goodhair” Perry.Following close on the heels of her phenomenally successful Bushwhacked and containing an up-to-the-minute Introduction for the campaign season, Who Let the Dogs In? is political writing at its best.From the Hardcover edition.

The Chase


Susan Wales - 2004
    To make matters worse, her high-profile boyfriend ends their relationship because it could damage his own political career. Returning to her hometown of Delavan, Wisconsin, to lick her wounds, Jill must settle for work at the town's small weekly newspaper. But the former Washington Gazette star soon finds herself caught up in a chilling race to uncover the evidence that will help her reclaim her job, preserve her family's reputation, and save her life. This exciting page-turner expertly blends suspense, romance, and a dynamic female lead into a gripping political thriller.

The Best American Crime Writing: 2004 Edition: The Year's Best True Crime Reporting


Otto Penzler - 2004
    Kennedy Jr., from The Atlantic Monthly “Watching the Detectives” by Jay Kirk, from Harper’s Magazine “For the Love of God” by Jon Krakauer, from GQ “Chief Bratton Takes on LA” by Heather Mac Donald, from City Journal “Not Guilty by Reason of Afghanistan” by John H. Richardson, from Esquire “Megan’s Law and Me” by Brendan Riley, from Details “Unfortunate Con” by Mark Schone, from The Oxford American “To Kill or Not to Kill” by Scott Turow, from The New Yorker

Cain's Field: Faith, Fratricide, and Fear in the Middle East


Matt Rees - 2004
    While the world focuses almost exclusively on the violent clash between the two camps, Rees steers our gaze toward their centers, exposing the internal rifts that drain each society of its ability to act cohesively. The Palestinians focus on the occupation of the West Bank, the Jewish settlers, and other Israeli actions, while the Israelis see only the intifada and the suicide bombings -- and both overlook their bitter infighting. This dazzling, groundbreaking narrative goes behind the familiar moves of the big players to reveal the individuals who are at war not only with the enemy, but also with their own people.Beginning with the astonishing story of a Hamas member who is targeted both by Israel for his hand in attacks against Jews, and by the Palestinian Authority for the revenge killing of a police officer who murdered his brother, each chapter concentrates on one or two individuals with whom Rees has personal contact, and whose stories uncover the chaos at the hearts of these two warring groups. From Palestinian car thieves and filmmakers to Israeli settlers and Holocaust survivors, Rees traces the minute and numerous ways that Yasser Arafat betrays his people and the Israeli leadership veers between placating and abusing its clashing factions.Rees has unparalleled access to groups and people on both sides of the conflict, as well as an extraordinary talent for looking beyond the usual stories. In "Cain's Field," he suggests that the world has been looking inthe wrong place to explain the unending battles and in the wrong place for a solution. With heartbreaking detail, incisive revelations, and terrible and often moving stories of the human beings behind the intractable attitudes and violence, Rees offers a bold new perspective on this tragic and seemingly insoluble situation. In so doing, he also offers hope -- the hope that by turning the spotlight inward, these societies might heal their internal wounds and move toward a peaceful future.

The Perfect Distance: Ovett & Coe: The Record-Breaking Rivalry


Pat Butcher - 2004
    Between them they won three Olympic gold medals, two silvers, one bronze, and broke a total of twelve middle-distance records. As far apart as possible in terms of class and upbringing, their rivalry burned as intense on the track as away from it. The pendulum swung between the pair of them—each breaking the other's records, and, memorably, triumphing in each other's events in Moscow in 1980. The Perfect Distance is both a detailed re-creation and a fitting celebration of the greatest era of British athletics.

Racing in the Street: The Bruce Springsteen Reader


Martin Scorsese - 2004
    Racing in the Street is the first comprehensive collection of writings about Springsteen, featuring the most insightful, revealing, famous, and infamous articles, interviews, reviews, and other writings. This nostalgic journey through the career of a rock-’n’-roll legend chronicles every album and each stage of Springsteen’s career. It’s all here—Dave Marsh’s Rolling Stone review of Springsteen’s ten sold-out Bottom Line shows in 1975 in New York City, Jay Cocks’s and Maureen Orth’s dueling Time and Newsweek cover stories, George Will’s gross misinterpretation of Springsteen’s message on his Born in the USA tour, and Will Percy’s 1999 interview for Double Take, plus much, much more.

Inside the Carnival: Unmasking Louisiana Politics


Wayne Parent - 2004
    He resists resorting to vague hand-waving about "exoticism," while at the same time he brings to life the juicy stories that illustrate his points. Pa rent's main theme is that Louisiana's ethnic mix, natural resources, and geography define a culture that in turn produces its unique political theater. He gives special attention to immigration patterns and Louisiana's abundant supply of oil and gas, as well as to the fascinating variations in political temperaments in different parts of the state. Most important, he delivers thorough and concise explanations of Louisiana's unusual legal system, odd election rules, overwrought constitutional history, convoluted voting patterns, and unmatched record of political corruption. In a new epilogue, Parent discusses how the hurricanes of 2005 will affect state politics and politicians as Louisiana struggles to regain its footing in the New South.

All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine


Terry Teachout - 2004
    Not only have his works been danced by the New York City Ballet continuously since 1948, but they also have been performed by more than two dozen other companies throughout the world. In clear and elegant writing, Terry Teachout brings to life the dramatic story of George Balanchine, a Russian émigré who fell in love with American culture, married four times and kept a mistress on the side, and transformed the art of ballet forever.

Douglas Adams at the BBC: A Celebration of the Author's Life and Work


Douglas Adams - 2004
    This program is an A-Z look at Douglas Adams' career, taking in extracts from the many radio and TV programs he contributed to. These include guest appearances, his own radio programs, such as Last Chance to See (about the search for endangered species) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future (a look at impending technology), and even a "lost" segment of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which Adams wrote specially for BBC Radio in 1982. Also included are some of the many tributes paid to Adams following his untimely death in May 2001. This is a fascinating and in-depth audio biography of a man whose brilliant work has inspired, enraptured and entertained millions of people worldwide.

A Fist in the Hornet's Nest: On the Ground in Baghdad Before, During After the War


Richard Engel - 2004
    Based on his private journals and his public interviews, A Fist in the Hornet's Nest is Richard Engel's harrowing, fascinating, and informative view of Iraq from street level. Through his wartime reportage, Engel has emerged as one of the preeminent journalists of his generation and an invaluable source on Middle Eastern affairs. For those in search of an in-depth analysis or those trying to make sense of the recent war, Engel's book is as elucidating as it is riveting. His critical assessments for the future of the Gulf region and his analysis of where the American campaign succeeded and where, in some instances, it has failed constitute a book that is sure to be an invaluable contribution to the Middle Eastern debate for years to come.

Conversations with Ray Bradbury


Ray Bradbury - 2004
    He enjoyed the pulp magazine Amazing Stories when it first appeared. He came to maturity just before World War II, when Nazis were firing V-1 and V-2 rockets at Britain, and began writing fiction as the space age was coming to full stride. In addition to having a moon crater named in his honor, he has received science fiction's Nebula Grandmaster Award for his lifetime achievements and in 2000 the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters."The writer's vocabulary need not be extensive," Bradbury says. "He shouldn't throw unusual words at the reader, but I do believe in using the right word. The reader should be given something more than the basic meaning by the use of words that are dynamic and colorful, that provide pictures for the reader."Since 1941, when Super Science Stories bought his first story, Bradbury has written and published hundreds of short stories, as well as novels, essays, dramas, operas, teleplays, poems, and screenplays. His film work in Ireland crafting the screenplay for John Huston's Moby-Dick in 1954 established Bradbury as a fixture in Hollywood. Versions of his works have been shown on all the major networks, and USA Network produced sixty-five of his teleplays for The Ray Bradbury Theater.During his career Bradbury has given more than 300 interviews. The selection included in this volume begins in 1948, spans more than five decades, and charts Bradbury's long creative life.A recent Ph.D. graduate from Florida State University, Steven Aggelis teaches at Tallahassee Community College.

Booknotes: On American Character


Brian Lamb - 2004
    And Booknotes, the flagship of its book programming, has become the premier place to see serious, thoughtful nonfiction get its television due. Over the past fifteen years, Brian Lamb, the CEO of C-SPAN and host of Booknotes, has interviewed 765 authors on the program, and these deep and wide-ranging interviews have been the basis for three bestselling Booknotes books. Now, in a new collection, Booknotes: On American Character, Lamb has selected seventy original pieces that reveal something about America: the nation's people, history, and character. Here are biographies of artists, businessmen, politicians, and inventors; stories of events famous, infamous, and less well-known in the nation's history; a look at how politics works in America and how the nation responds to conflict. Our leading historians, journalists, and public figures draw from a diverse set of sources to examine what kind of nation and people we are. The result is a valuable addition to the Booknotes legacy and a welcome read for any fan of the program.

A Terry Teachout Reader


Terry Teachout - 2004
    This collection gathers the best of Teachout’s writings from the past fifteen years. In each essay he offers lucid and balanced judgments that invariably illuminate, sometimes infuriate, and always spark a response—the mark of a critic whose thoughts, however controversial, cannot be ignored. In a thoughtful introduction to the book, Teachout considers how American culture of the twenty-first century differs from that of the last century and how the information age has altered popular culture. His selected essays chronicle America’s cultural journey over the past decade and a half, and they show us what has been lost—and gained—along the way. With highly informed opinions, an inimitable wit and style, and a genuine devotion to all things cultural, Teachout offers his readers much to delight in and much to ponder.

We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans, from World War II to the War in Iraq


Yvonne Latty - 2004
    Inspired by his moving story -- and eager to uncover the little-known stories of other black veterans, from those who served in the Second World War to the War in Iraq -- Latty set about interviewing veterans of every stripe: men and women; army, navy, and air force personnel; prisoners of war; and brigadier generals.In a book that has sparked discussions in homes, schools, and churches across America, Latty, along with acclaimed photographer Ron Tarver, captures not only what was unique about the experiences of more than two dozen veterans but also why it is important for these stories to be recorded. Whether it's the story of a black medic on Omaha Beach or a nurse who ferried wounded soldiers by heli-copter to medical centers throughout Asia during the Vietnam War, We Were There is a must-have for every black home, military enthusiast, and American patriot.

Seasons of Real Florida


Jeff Klinkenberg - 2004
    . . . Jeff loves Florida. It shows."--Randy Wayne White, author of Shark River and Everglades"Klinkenberg is a genius reporter and a wonderful writer. I read this book in one gulp, then went outside, looked at that magnificent Florida sky and made myself all sorts of promises."--William McKeen, author of Highway 61: A Father-and-Son Journey through the Middle of AmericaNo wonder Jeff Klinkenberg loves Florida. At any time of year he can find a place in the state that's ripe to enjoy or a person whose story has aged to perfection.Arranged by season, the book opens in the fall, which Klinkenberg says is like spring in the north--a time of celebration: "Having survived our harshest season, we feel renewed." Fair weather, good food, and the joys of nature lie ahead, described here in essays that are like time capsules of "old Florida values." Preserving the past, they reveal Klinkenberg's waggish appreciation of the state's history, folkways, and landscape, not to mention its barbequed ribs, smoked mullet, stone crab claws, and fresh lemonade.Many pieces focus off the beaten path and on modern rogues who seem to turn their backsides to the subdivisions and shopping malls that pave the state: Miss Ruby, whose fruit stand features rutabagas, boiled peanuts, and her own brightly colored plywood paintings; an 85-year-old resident of the remote island of Cayo Costa who hums Beethoven while she hunts for shells; the scientists who test mosquito repellent in Everglades National Park; and the unofficial caretaker of Lilly Spring on the Santa Fe River, who greets canoeists wearing glasses, a necklace, and on occasion a synthetic fur loincloth. Other pieces pay homage to Klinkenberg's literary heroes who've written in and about Florida, such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Rawlings's companion and memoirist Idella Parker, Everglades crusader Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and novelist Ernest Hemingway. Klinkenberg also revisits an old St. Johns River campsite of 19th-century botanist William Bartram, whose encounters with alligators there were as alarming as Klinkenberg's with beer cans and soda bottles.For anyone who has a stake in the real Florida--resident, tourist, naturalist, or newcomer--this tour of the seasons will linger in memory like the aroma of orange blossoms on a clear winter night.Florida native Jeff Klinkenberg has been writing for the St. Petersburg Times since 1977. He is the only two-time winner of the Paul Hansell Distinguished Journalism Award, the highest honor given by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors.

Dead Before Deadline: ...And Other Tales from the Police Beat


Robin Yocum - 2004
    Some were flukes; some were deserved. He interviewed decorated cops and transvestites, pimps, prostitutes, and pushers, killers, and child molesters. He went on drug, porn, and moonshine raids. He waded through cornfields looking for missing planes and children, a county landfill in a vain search for child pornography, through a squalid home with knee-high trash and a flooded basement where a family of ducks had taken up residence. He ruined so many slacks and shoes that he began wearing Sansabelt and cowboy boots because he needed something he could hose off at the end of his shift. Dead Before Deadline...and Other Tales from the Police Beat chronicles Yocum's years on the police beat for the Dispatch. The tales are sometimes sad, and sometimes funny, and sometimes in odd combination of both. Yocum takes the reader into the life behind the pyline and into the gritty world of crime reporting. It is not a rehash of old headlines, but Yocum explores his interactions with people who made headlines for all the wrong reasons. He tells of a prison interview with a 17-year-old who had murdered both parents; recounts the words of a mother who lost her son to senseless violence; and details a grieving father's plan to kill his former son-in-law. The police beat is not without its humor, and Yocum captures the personalities of the oddball set of characters. Yocum has woven together these vignettes into a compelling book that will fascinate and enthrall readers.

The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing


Jayna Davis - 2004
    They were part of a greater scheme, one which involved Islamic terrorists and at least one provable link to Iraq. This book, written by the relentless reporter who first broke the story of the Mideast connection, is filled with new revelations about the case and explains in full detail the complete, and so far untold, story behind the failed investigation-why the FBI closed the door, what further evidence exists to prove the Iraqi connection, why it has been ignored, and what makes it more relevant now than ever. Told with a gripping narrative style and rock-solid investigative journalism and vetted by men such as former CIA director James Woolsey, Davis's piercing account is the first book to set the record straight about what really happened April 19, 1995.

Ebony Rising: Short Fiction of the Greater Harlem Renaissance Era


Craig Gable - 2004
    This was a time marked by writing of extraordinary breadth and depth by some of the most famous authors in African American literary history. Among them were Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer, Dorothy West, and Claude McKay. Not surprisingly, these authors have received an unprecedented amount of critical attention, and their work remains popular to this day.For this anthology, Craig Gable has selected 52 short stories by 37 writers (20 women and 17 men) representing a wide range of style, form, subject matter, and social awareness. To underscore the movement's growth and change, the stories are arranged chronologically by year of publication. Some will be familiar to readers; many more will not, for this is not the "greatest hits" of the Harlem Renaissance. Instead, readers will find a remarkable collection of fiction by authors famous and obscure--some who lived in New York City and others who never resided there. There are stories set in Harlem, but they are just as likely to take place elsewhere in the United States. Alongside traditional stories, there are examples of detective fiction, political satire, even science fiction, with a few experiments in narrative structure and form for good measure. The stories take up issues of race, marriage, parenthood, crime, politics, religion, work, abuse, old age, and death--in short, the stuff of life, and of compelling and lasting fiction.A selected bibliography documents some 300 books and articles on the Harlem Renaissance. There is a separate list of sources for other short stories by the authors appearing in this anthology; a list of award-winning short fiction from two black literary contests of the day; timelines of important historical, literary, and cultural events; and other aids for teachers, students, and reading groups.

Shooting History


Jon Snow - 2004
    Jon Snow is perhaps the most highly regarded newsman of our time; his qualities as a journalist and as a human being – his passion, warmth, intelligence, frankness and humour – are widely recognised and evident for all to see most nights on Channel 4 News and now in the pages of his first book.His vivid personal chronicle is filled with anecdotes and pithy observations, and delightfully records his life and times since becoming a journalist in the early 1970s. He reported widely on Cold War conflicts in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Angola and Central America before becoming a resident correspondent in Washington D.C. in the 1980s, and he has met and interviewed most of the world’s leaders.Drawing lessons from these experiences, he has pertinent things to say about how the increasing world disorder came about following the fall of the Berlin Wall; how the West’s constant search for an enemy has helped unhinge the world; and how and why the media have, in general, been less than helpful in drawing attention to key political and global developments.

Fragments of Grace: My Search for Meaning in the Strife of South Asia


Pamela Constable - 2004
    Following religious conflicts, political crises, and natural disasters, she also searched for signs of humanity and dignity in societies rife with violence, poverty, prejudice, and greed. In Afghanistan, she made numerous visits while the country suffered under the hostile rule of the Taliban, attempted to reach the capital in a convoy that was ambushed and saw four journalists killed. She finally moved to Kabul in late 2001 to chronicle the country’s post-Taliban rebirth. In Pakistan, she covered a military coup in 1999, immersed herself in the mys-terious world of Muslim mosques and academies, and discovered both the extremist and tolerant faces of Islam. In India, she attended one of the largest spiritual gatherings of Hindu pilgrims in history and then rushed to the horrific aftermath of a devastating earthquake. She repeatedly visited the Kashmir Valley, where Pakistani-backed Muslim guerrillas are waging a seemingly endless war with Indian security forces. In Nepal, she covered the crown prince’s massacre of the royal family and journeyed to remote villages where communist rebels brought rigid moral order to life. In Sri Lanka, she explored a tropical paradise where reclusive insurgents trained children to become suicide bombers in pursuit of a utopian ethnic homeland. Between extended sojourns in South Asia, Constable returned to the West to reflect on the risks and rewards of her profession, revisit her roots, and compare her experiences with Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity. Her book is a uniquely personal exploration of the rich but solitary life of a foreign correspondent, set against a regional backdrop of extraordinary political and religious tumult.

Time: D-Day: 24 Hours That Saved the World


Time-Life Books - 2004
    40,000 first printing.

Tributes II: Remembering More of the Worlds Greatest Wrestlers (Wrestling Observer)


Dave Meltzer - 2004
    Picking up where Tributes: Remembering Some of the WorldÂ’s Greatest Professional Wrestlers left off, author Dave Meltzer focuses on sports entertainmentÂ’s most recent and high-profile losses, including Road Warrior Hawk, Curt Hennig, Elizabeth, Stu Hart, Tim Woods, Davey Boy Smith, Gorilla Monsoon, Terry Gordy, Wahoo McDaniel, Johnny Valentine, The Sheik, Freddie Blassie, and Lou Thesz. Tributes II: Remembering More of the WorldÂ’s Greatest Wrestlers also offers expanded versions of some of the most popular profiles from Tributes, including Owen Hart, and Andre the Giant. Offering candid and detailed accounts of bona fide wrestling legends and a foreword by Bret Hart, Tributes II takes its place among the most important books ever written on the world of pro wrestling. Tributes II also includes an in-depth interview with Dave Meltzer that will take readers Beyond the Book. This very candid, personal interview will give fans even more insight into the biggest names in the history of professional wrestling.

Meyer Berger's New York


Meyer Berger - 2004
    A reporter and columnist for The New York Times for thirty years, he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for his account of the murder of thirteen people by a deranged war veteran in Camden, New Jersey.Berger is best known for his About New York column, which appeared regularly in the Times from 1939 to 1940 and from 1953 until his death in 1959. Through lovingly detailed snapshots of ordinary New Yorkers and far corners of the city, Berger's writing deeply influenced the next generation of writers, including Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe.Originally published in 1960 and long out of print, Meyer Berger's New York is a rich collection of extraordinary journalism, selected by Berger himself, which captures the buzz, bravado, and heartbreak of New York in the fifties in the words of the best-loved reporter of his time.Mike Berger was one of the great reporters of our day . . . he was a master of the color story, the descriptive narrative of sights and sounds-of a parade, an eclipse, a homicidal maniac running amok . . . or just a thunderstorm that broke a summer heat wave . . . .-The New York Times, obituary, February 6, 1959Dip into Meyer Berger's New York, at any point, and you will find things you never knew or dreamed of knowing. . . . It has a heart, a soul, and a beauty all its own.-Phillip Hamburger, The New York Times Book Review

Life Below: The New York City Subway


Christophe Agou - 2004
    Bridging the worlds of documentary and art photography, Life Below is a series of frozen moments, revealing fear, love, affection, stress and solitude.

Generalissimo El Busho: Essays Cartoons on the Bush Years


Ted Rall - 2004
    His GENERALISSIMO EL BUSHO is the ultimate chronicle of the most polarizing presidency in modern American history, a brilliantly tragicomic week-by-week dissection of the Bush Administration's follies and crimes as seen by America's most courageous editorial cartoonist and political writer. Ted Rall, who has traveled and reported from the world's hottest trouble spots, recognizes a dictator when he sees one. And he doesn't scare easily. Having seized power extraconstitutionally, Bush and his cabal of corrupt businessmen made it obvious that they intended to rule with ruthless zeal. Unlike most of his fellow journalists, however, Rall refused to be cowed--even in the wake of 9/11. Others came out of the woodwork during 2003, but Ted Rall's ferocious denunciations of our ersatz president and his assaults on our precious freedoms stood virtually alone during the flag-waving weeks and months following the attacks on New York and Washington. And unlike every other commentator, Rall used two different forms of media--cartoons and essays--to speak brutally honest truth to power even as he fended off death threats.Brave, uncompromising and fiercely devoted to traditional American values of freedom and integrity, Ted Rall's GENERALISSIMO EL BUSHO collects the best of his hilarious cartoons and brutally honest essays during the Bush years.

Journal of Light: The Visual Diary of a Florida Nature Photographer


John Moran - 2004
    This remarkable collection of images and essays celebrates the magic of a landscape born of water, he writes, and "blessed with beauty beyond measure."            The book caps Moran's 20-year odyssey to discover the soul of one of the most photographed states in the country. Still, he says, for a photographer who works on the road, he doesn't get around very much. The outer limits of his travels ordinarily are defined by places close to home, with names like Live Oak, Cedar Key, and Micanopy. Working mostly in north and central Florida, Moran says his pictures consecrate a region "steeped in blackwater swamps and rivers, populated by egrets and alligators."Keenly aware that much of the state's wilderness has all but vanished, his pictures sometimes only suggest the illusion of unspoiled nature. "I can't tell you how often I've had to recompose my pictures to eliminate a beer can or a bed mattress or worse in the woods," he writes. At times, he's made his best pictures literally within sight of his car, "aware of my own impact on the land, mindful of the myth of untainted nature that I promote with my camera." He's also worked in unconventional situations, lying inside a homemade PVC pipe-and-burlap blind to photograph dancing sandhill cranes and perching inside a bucket truck 50 feet aboveground to photograph nesting ospreys.The companion essays reflect Moran's philosophy about both nature and photography, and they weave together personal narrative, natural history, and photo-technical instruction. They include commentary about the actual moment he snapped each picture, factual information about the place, and sometimes a historical perspective on the setting by such well-known writers and naturalists as William Bartram and Archie Carr. Moran emphasizes "making" pictures as opposed to casually taking them, and writes that his job can't be done without a plan and a specific set of tools and materials. But, he says, his job "isn’t always about the picture, it's about the experience of just being there, chasing the light; alive and awake and aware." And he recalls some of the best advice he ever received: before you focus your camera, first focus yourself.

The Goose Step: A Study of American Education


Upton Sinclair - 2004
    Sinclair, American novelist, essayist, playwright, and short story writer, whose works reflected his socialistic views. Among his most famous books is The Jungle, which launched a government investigation of the meatpacking plants of Chicago, and changed the food laws of America. In this volume the author lays out the facts on the current state of American Education. Sinclair writes in the introduction: What is the so-called higher education of these United States? You have taken it, for the most part, on faith. It is something which has come to be; it is big and impressive, and you are impressed. Every year you pay a hundred million dollars of public funds to help maintain it, and half that amount in tuition fees for your sons and daughters. You take it for granted that this money is honestly and wisely used; that the students are getting the best, the highest education the money can buy. Suppose I were to tell you that this educational machine has been stolen? That a bandit crew have got hold of it and have set it to work, not for your benefit, nor the benefit of your sons and daughters, but for ends very far from these? That our six hundred thousand young people are being taught, deliberately and of set purpose, not wisdom but folly, not justice but greed, not freedom but slavery, not love but hate? See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Hitler: Neither Vegetarian nor Animal Lover


Rynn Berry - 2004
    He has adroitly demolished one of history's most enduring lies.

Ossabaw: Evocations of an Island


Jack Leigh - 2004
    Visitors rarely leave untouched by its tranquillity and mystery. Many are struck by the sense of solitude it imparts--even though Ossabaw lies just twenty miles south of Savannah.The book’s three creators have powerful connections to Ossabaw: Jack Leigh’s photography and James Kilgo’s nature writing have led them there, while Alan Campbell has taken part in the artists’ retreat known as the Ossabaw Island Project. This retreat has been a source of inspiration and rejuvenation for such attendees as the writer Annie Dillard, architect Robert Venturi, composer Samuel Barber, and sculptor Ann Truitt. Leigh’s black-and-white photographs, Campbell’s watercolor and oil paintings, and Kilgo’s essay offer three highly individual interpretations of a similar experience--that of deep personal connection with Ossabaw’s timelessness and beauty.In “Place of the Black Drink Tree” Kilgo’s meditations on the yaupon holly tea used ritually by Ossabaw’s aboriginal inhabitants lead to other thoughts about the island’s natural and human history. Leigh and Campbell's images depict scenes of the contemporary Ossabaw that evoke a landscape as it may have appeared to its Native American, and even its earliest European, inhabitants: deserted beaches strewn with massive pieces of driftwood, palm trees tilting toward the water’s edge, an alligator lounging on the bank of a sandy creek, a flock of seabirds winging across a marsh.

Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century


Gary Giddins - 2004
    More then 140 pieces, written over a 14-year period, are brought together for the first time in this superb collection of essays, reviews, and articles. Weather Bird is a celebration of jazz, with illuminating commentaryon contemporary jazz events, today's top muscicians, the best records of the year, and on leading figures from jazz's past. Readers will find extended pieces on Louis Armstrong, Erroll Garner, Benny Carter, Sonny Rollins, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Billie Holiday, Cassandra Wilson, Tony Bennett, and many others. Giddins includes a series of articles on the annual JVC Jazz Festival, which offers a splendid overview of jazz in the 1990s. Other highlights include an astute look at avant-garde music (Parajazz) and his challenging essay, How Come Jazz Isn't Dead? which advances a theory about the way art is born, exploited, celebrated, and sidelined to the museum. A radiant compendium by America's leading music critic, Weather Bird offers an unforgettable look at the modern jazz scene.

The Best of Hal Lebovitz: Great Sportswriting from Six Decades in Cleveland


Hal Lebovitz - 2004
    Hal covered just about every major sports event over 60 years, reporting on each with honest, straightforward words and firm opinions--and most likely a scoop on the competition. He wrote about the greats--Jim Brown, Bob Feller, Ted Williams, Woody Hayes . . . and the great moments--the Indians' 1948 playoff game, the Browns' 1964 championship season, Rocky Colavito's four consecutive home runs. His writing was featured 17 times in the annual Best Sports Stories and selected for numerous other anthologies. He won countless writing awards and been inducted into 12 halls of fame--including the National Baseball Hall of Fame.Always, Hal has written for the fans. And for as long as anyone can remember, fans have been reading Hal for his particular take on events. His constant, steady presence in the local sports pages for so many decades has made Hal Lebovitz a legitimate icon in Cleveland sports--a guy who, with his typewriter, has been as remarkable and consistent and rare as a .400 hitter.

Imagery of Lynching: Black Men, White Women, and the Mob


Dora Apel - 2004
    Nice people, it is felt, do not talk about it, and they certainly do not look at images representing the atrocity.In Imagery of Lynching, Dora Apel contests this adopted stance of ignorance. Through a careful and compelling analysis of over one hundred representations of lynching, she shows how the visual documentation of such crimes can be a central vehicle for both constructing and challenging racial hierarchies. She examines how lynching was often orchestrated explicitly for the camera and how these images circulated on postcards, but also how they eventually were appropriated by antilynching forces and artists from the 1930s to the present. She further investigates how photographs were used to construct ideologies of "whiteness" and "blackness," the role that gender played in these visual representations, and how interracial desire became part of the imagery.Offering the fullest and most systematic discussion of the depiction of lynching in diverse visual forms, this book addresses questions about race, class, gender, and dissent in the shaping of American society. Although we may want to avert our gaze, Apel holds it with her sophisticated interpretations of traumatic images and the uses to which they have been put.

Five Thousand Days: Press Photography in a Changing World


British Press Photographers Association - 2004
    Selected by the British Press Photographers Association from the work of its members, this collection does justice to the photography in a way that newspaper printing never can. It is also an opportunity for some of the best images, which may not have served the newspaper editors needs at the time, to be seen. From front page news to quirky picture stories, the collection encompasses everything from shattering global events such as September 11 to startling, surprising, humorous and beautiful pictures of the politics, sports, arts and entertainment of the period.

Between Two Rivers: Stories from the Red Hills to the Gulf


Susan Cerulean - 2004
    Thirty leading naturalists and writers survey the fabulous geographies of north Florida's Gulf Coast and the Red Hills of southwest Georgia.

Believe it! World Series Champion Boston Red Sox & Their Remarkable 2004 Season


The Boston Globe - 2004
    They did it for the baby boomers in North Conway, NH, and Groton, MA. They did it for the kids in Central Falls, RI, and Putnam, CT. True. New England and a sprawling Nation of Sox fans can finally exhale. The Red Sox are World Champs. No more Curse of the Bambino. No more taunts of "1918." The suffering souls of Bill Buckner, Grady Little, Mike Torrez, Johnny Pesky, and Danny Galehouse are released from Boston Baseball's Hall of Pain. The 2004 Red Sox are champions because they engineered the greatest comeback in baseball history when they won four straight games against the hated Yankees in the American League Championship Series. It was baseball epic, an event for the ages putting the Sox into a World Series that was profoundly anticlimactic. En route to eight consecutive postseason wins, the Sons of Tito Francona simply destroyed a St. Louis Cardinals team that won a major league-high 105 games in 2004. Celebrate this historic win with two books partnered with

The Good Fight


Donna Hicken - 2004
    Like New

3:59.4: The Quest to Break the Four Minute Mile


John Bryant - 2004
    with a time which will be a new English Native, British National, All-Comers, European, British Empire and World Record. The time was three..."As the announcer spoke those fateful words, the crowd roared, and the century-long quest to run 'the world's greatest race' was finally at an end.For decades, amateur athletes like the American Lon Myers, a stick-thin hypochondriac who was sick before and after every race, yet still held every US record from 50 yards to the mile, and Joe Binks, an English journalist who only trained once per week, dominated the field. Paavo Nurmi, the 'Phantom Finn', won nine Olympic gold medals and set so many world records that statisticians still argue over the total, but even he couldn't breach the magic four-minute mark.As competition intensified, the Swede Gunder 'the Wonder' Haegg ran the mile in 4:01.4 - but it took the legendary Roger Bannister and his two co-runners to finally accomplish 'the most significant sporting achievement of the twentieth century'. It took a wholesale reimagining of running itself, as each generation built on the discoveries and secrets of the last, until the fateful day finally arrived, and an impossible dream became reality:6 May 1954. Roger Bannister. 3:59.4.

Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib


Seymour M. Hersh - 2004
    Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his explosive stories in The New Yorker, including his headline-making pieces on the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Now, Hersh brings together what he has learned, along with new reporting, to answer the critical question of the last four years: How did America get from the clear morning when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq?In Chain of Command, Hersh takes an unflinching look behind the public story of the war on terror and into the lies and obsessions that led America into Iraq. Hersh draws on sources at the highest levels of the American government and intelligence community, in foreign capitals, and on the battlefield for an unparalleled view of a critical chapter in America's recent history. In a new afterword, he critiques the government's failure to adequately investigate prisoner abuse -- at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere -- and punish those responsible. With an introduction by The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, Chain of Command is a devastating portrait of an administration blinded by ideology and of a president whose decisions have made the world a more dangerous place for America.