Best of
Journalism

2006

We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction


Joan Didion - 2006
    Now the seven books of nonfiction that appeared between 1968 and 2003 have been brought together into one thrilling collection.Slouching Towards Bethlehem captures the counterculture of the sixties, its mood and lifestyle, as symbolized by California, Joan Baez, Haight-Ashbury. The White Album covers the revolutionary politics and the “contemporary wasteland” of the late sixties and early seventies, in pieces on the Manson family, the Black Panthers, and Hollywood. Salvador is a riveting look at the social and political landscape of civil war. Miami exposes the secret role this largely Latin city played in the Cold War, from the Bay of Pigs through Watergate. In After Henry Didion reports on the Reagans, Patty Hearst, and the Central Park jogger case. The eight essays in Political Fictions–on censorship in the media, Gingrich, Clinton, Starr, and “compassionate conservatism,” among others–show us how we got to the political scene of today. And in Where I Was From Didion shows that California was never the land of the golden dream.

Blood and Sand


Frank Gardner - 2006
    Simon was killed outright. Frank was brought down by shots in the shoulder and leg. As he lay bleeding in the street, a figure stood over him and pumped four more bullets into him at point blank range... Against all the odds, Frank Gardner survived and this is his remarkable account of the agonizing journey he has taken - from being shot and left for dead to where he is today, partly paralysed but alive. It is a journey that really began 25 years earlier when a chance meeting with explorer Wilfred Thesiger inspired what would become a lifelong passion for the Arab world. This would take him throughout the Middle East and eventually lead to his becoming a BBC journalist. And, in the wake of the events of 9/11, this passion sent him on the journey that came to dominate - and nearly end - his life: his coverage of Al-Qaeda.Honest, moving and inspiring, his story - now updated for this paperback edition - reveals a deep understanding of the Islamic world and offers a compelling analysis of the on-going 'War on Terror' and what it means in these uncertain times.

The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation


Gene Roberts - 2006
    It is the story of how the nation’s press, after decades of ignoring the problem, came to recognize the importance of the civil rights struggle and turn it into the most significant domestic news event of the twentieth century.Drawing on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews, veteran journalists Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff go behind the headlines and datelines to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen—first black reporters, then liberal southern editors, then reporters and photographers from the national press and the broadcast media—revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings and propelled its citizens to act. We watch the black press move bravely into the front row of the confrontation, only to be attacked and kept away from the action. Following the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision striking down school segregation and the South’s mobilization against it, we see a growing number of white reporters venture South to cover the Emmett Till murder trial, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the integration of the University of Alabama. We witness some southern editors joining the call for massive resistance and working with segregationist organizations to thwart compliance. But we also see a handful of other southern editors write forcefully and daringly for obedience to federal mandates, signaling to the nation that moderate forces were prepared to push the region into the mainstream.The pace quickens in Little Rock, where reporters test the boundaries of journalistic integrity, then gain momentum as they cover shuttered schools in Virginia, sit-ins in North Carolina, mob-led riots in Mississippi, Freedom Ride buses being set afire, fire hoses and dogs in Birmingham, and long, tense marches through the rural South. For many journalists, the conditions they found, the fear they felt, and the violence they saw were transforming. Their growing disgust matched the mounting countrywide outrage as The New York Times, Newsweek, NBC News, and other major news organizations, many of them headed by southerners, turned a regional story into a national drama.Meticulously researched and vividly rendered, The Race Beat is an unprecedented account of one of the most volatile periods in our nation’s history, as told by those who covered it.

Chernobyl: Confessions of a Reporter


Igor Kostin - 2006
    I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant near Chernobyl exploded, releasing 400 times more radioactive matter than the bombing of Hiroshima. Igor Kostin, then a reporter for the Novosti Agency, took the very first photograph of the accident, continuing to endure massive radiation overexposure to document the disaster for the International Atomic Energy Agency. For the next twenty years he persistently investigated the explosion’s effects on mankind and the environment.This never-seen-before photographic collection tells the incredible stories of liquidators, soldiers, scientists, and residents throughout Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Germany, Sweden, and France that have been socially, politically, and medically impacted by the catastrophe, creating a global perspective of the tragedy. With a distance of 20 years this spring, Chernobyl: Confession of a Reporter sparks timely debate over the health and sociological implications of current global energy policies.Igor Kostin, born in Moldava in 1936, is a laureate of the most distinguished international prizes including five World Press Photo, a contributor to Time, Newsweek, Paris-Match, Liberation, and Stern. Kostin lives and works in Kiev, 50 kilometers from Chernobyl.

The Collector of Leftover Souls: Field Notes on Brazil's Everyday Insurrections


Eliane Brum - 2006
    Brum’s reporting takes her into Brazil’s most marginalized communities: she visits the Amazon to understand the practice of indigenous midwives, stays in São Paulo’s favelas to witness the joy of a marriage and the tragedy of young men dying due to drugs and guns, and wades through the mud to capture the boom and bust of modern-day gold rushes. Brum is an enormously sensitive and perceptive interlocutor, and as she visits these places she provides intimate glimpses into both everyday and extraordinary lives: a poor father on the way to bury his son, a street performer who eats glass, a woman living out her final 115 days, and a hoarder rescuing the “leftover souls” of the city.The Collector of Leftover Souls showcases the best of Brum’s work from two books, combining short profiles with longer reported pieces. These vibrant missives range across current issues such as the human cost of exploiting natural resources, the Belo Monté Dam’s eradication of a way of life for those on the banks of the Xingu River, and the contrast between urban centers and remote villages. Told in the vibrant and idiomatic language of the people Brum writes about, The Collector of Leftover Souls is a vital work of investigative journalism from an internationally acclaimed author.

Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire


John Pilger - 2006
    World–renowned journalist John Pilger looks at five nations (Palestine, Diego Garcia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and South Africa) that have undergone long and painful struggles for freedom, yet are still waiting for its realization.

The Essential Interviews


Bob Dylan - 2006
    Among the highlights are the seminal Rolling Stone interviews -- anthologized here for the first time -- by Jann Wenner, Jonathan Cott, Kurt Loder, and Mikal Gilmore, as well as Nat Hentoff's legendary 1966 Playboy interview. Surprises include Studs Terkel's radio interview in 1963 on WFMT in Chicago, the interview Dylan gave to screenwriter Jay Cocks when he was a student at Kenyon College in 1964, a 1965 interview with director Nora Ephron, and an interview Sam Shepard turned into a one-act play for Esquire in 1987. Dylan expert Jonathan Cott writes an introduction to this must-have collection of the artist in his own words.

A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption & Death in Putin's Russia


Anna Politkovskaya - 2006
    It covers the period from the Russian elections of December 2003 to the tragic aftermath of the Beslan school siege in late 2005. The book is an unflinching record of the plight of millions of Russians and a pitiless report on the cynicism and corruption of Vladimir Putin’s presidency.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone


Rajiv Chandrasekaran - 2006
    Most Iraqis were barred from entering the Emerald City for fear they would blow it up. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and internal documents, Chandrasekaran tells the story of the people and ideas that inhabited the Green Zone during the occupation, from the imperial viceroy L. Paul Bremer III to the fleet of twentysomethings hired to implement the idea that Americans could build a Jeffersonian democracy in an embattled Middle Eastern country. In the vacuum of postwar planning, Bremer ignores what Iraqis tell him they want or need and instead pursues irrelevant neoconservative solutions—a flat tax, a sell-off of Iraqi government assets, and an end to food rationing. His underlings spend their days drawing up pie-in-the-sky policies, among them a new traffic code and a law protecting microchip designs, instead of rebuilding looted buildings and restoring electricity production. His almost comic initiatives anger the locals and help fuel the insurgency. Chandrasekaran details Bernard Kerik’s ludicrous attempt to train the Iraqi police and brings to light lesser known but typical travesties: the case of the twenty-four-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of reestablishing Baghdad’s stock exchange; a contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport; a State Department employee forced to bribe Americans to enlist their help in preventing Iraqi weapons scientists from defecting to Iran; Americans willing to serve in Iraq screened by White House officials for their views on Roe v. Wade; people with prior expertise in the Middle East excluded in favor of lesser-qualified Republican Party loyalists. Finally, he describes Bremer’s ignominious departure in 2004, fleeing secretly in a helicopter two days ahead of schedule. This is a startling portrait of an Oz-like place where a vital aspect of our government’s folly in Iraq played out. It is a book certain to be talked about for years to come.

Butt Book


Jop van Bennekom - 2006
    The best of the first 5 years of BUTT: Adventures in 21st century gay subculture Since its first legendary issue in 2001, international quarterly magazine BUTT has been bringing together groups of young alternative gay guys all around the world, connecting fashion, sex, and art with a good sense of irony.

Dances with Devils: A Journalist's Search for Truth


Jacques Pauw - 2006
    What he found was a rich array of personalities and a panoply of stories, ranging from the profoundly tragic to the intensely personal. Pauw's stories range from South Africa to Rwanda, from Sierra Leone and the Sudan to Mozambique. Readers are taken behind the scenes of sensational news reports with compassion, humor and occasional cynicism and emerge in the knowledge that, even if it s true that there is nothing new out of Africa, the writer has found fresh ways to present time-honored tales of love, life, misery and mortality.

Homeland Insecurity: The Onion Complete News Archives, Volume 17


The Onion - 2006
    Homeland Insecurity is Volume 17 in the always bestselling and always entertaining Onion series.The Onion is the world’s most popular humor publication, with more than 3.8 million weekly visitors to its website (theonion.com) and a print circulation of more than 500,000. More than a million copies of its various books have been sold to date, beginning with Our Dumb Century, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker


David Remnick - 2006
    Whether it’s the decline and fall of Mike Tyson, Al Gore’s struggle to move forward after his loss in the 2000 election, or Vladimir Putin dealing with Gorbachev’s legacy, Remnick brings his subjects to life with extraordinary clarity and depth. In Reporting, he gives us his best writing from the past fifteen years, ranging from American politics and culture to post-Soviet Russia to the Middle East conflict; from Tony Blair grappling with Iraq, to Philip Roth making sense of America’s past, to the rise of Hamas in Palestine. Both intimate and deeply informed by history, Reporting is an exciting and panoramic portrait of our times.

A Writer's Coach: An Editor's Guide to Words That Work


Jack R. Hart - 2006
    He gives invaluable advice on gathering ideas, writing theme statements and outlines, and using the "ladder of abstraction" to add variety and texture to writing. He provides a lexicon of lead sentences. He shares his ideas for composing and sustaining powerful writing, and for ensuring that what you write will be accessible to your audience. Discussing the ways writers can trip themselves up-procrastination, writer's block, and excessive polishing, to name just a few-Hart demonstrates how to overcome each obstacle. Excerpts from writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Joan Didion, and from articles gathered from magazines and newspapers, provide inspiration and instructive examples of both inadequate and exemplary writing. Like a personal, portable writing coach, "A Writer's Coach" will be a boon to writers, editors, teachers, and students.

Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans--Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild


Greg Palast - 2006
    Digging up reams of documents marked ?secret? and ?confidential,? Palast provides the latest lowdown on Bush?s secret plans to seize Iraq?s oil, the fix planned for the 2008 election, who drowned New Orleans, and the horror and the humor of the War on Terror. With diligent detective work, moral outrage, and a keen sense of the absurd, Palast takes on the ?armed and dangerous clowns that rule us? as only he can.

A Religious Orgy in Tennessee: A Reporter's Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial


H.L. Mencken - 2006
    MenckenFiercely intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny, H.L. Mencken’s coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial so galvanized the nation that it eventually inspired a Broadway play and the classic Hollywood movie Inherit the Wind.Mencken’s no-nonsense sensibility is still exciting: his perceptive rendering of the courtroom drama; his piercing portrayals of key figures Scopes, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan; his ferocious take on the fundamentalist culture surrounding it all—including a raucous midnight trip into the woods to witness a secret “holy roller” service.Shockingly, these reports have never been gathered together into a book of their own—until now.A Religious Orgy In Tennessee includes all of Mencken’s reports for The Baltimore Sun, The Nation, and The American Mercury. It even includes his coverage of Bryan’s death just days after the trial—an obituary so withering Mencken was forced by his editors to rewrite it, angering him and leading him to rewrite it yet again in a third version even less forgiving than the first. All three versions are included, as is a complete transcript of the trial’s most legendary exchange: Darrow’s blistering cross-examination of Bryan.With the rise of “intelligent design,” H.L. Mencken’s work has never seemed more unnervingly timely—or timeless.

The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11 & the Loss of Liberty


Jim Marrs - 2006
    The only question is whose conspiracy it was. According to the government, the conspiracy involved about nineteen suicidal Middle Eastern Muslim terrorists, their hearts full of hatred for American freedom and democracy, who hijacked four airliners, crashing two into the Twin Towers of New York City's World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon, near Washington, DC. The fourth airliner reportedly crashed in western Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to overcome the hijackers. To add insult to injury, this whole incredible Mission Impossible operation, which defeated a fortybilliondollar defense system, was under the total control of a devout Muslim cleric using a computer while hiding in a cave in Afghanistan.Primarily using mainstream media and government reports, Marrs has crafted the definitive journalistic account exposing the likely complicity of the Bush administration in the 9/11 attacks, providing a history of the overt and covert causes of the events. However, his analysis goes far beyond 9/11, enabling us to understand the motivation behind American foreign policy, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as primary examples of the US government's secret agenda.

The Knowing Is in the Writing: Notes on the Practice of Fiction


José Y. Dalisay Jr. - 2006
    Beginning with an overview of the nature and elements of fiction, the book then deals with specific issues in the writing of fiction, from plotting and characterization to the workshop esperience and publishing one's first book. "Through fiction," Dalisay says, "we best make sense of our lives by stepping away from them--by momentarily becoming strangers unto ourselves, by exploring more interesting alternatives to what we already know or most likely would do, and, ultimately, by giving ourselves a new reason to hope and believe that life indeed follows a plot we can direct--if we only knew what it was."

Selected Letters


Martha Gellhorn - 2006
    While Gellhorn's wartime dispatches rank among the best of the century, her personal letters are their equal: as vivid and fascinating as anything she ever published. Gellhorn's correspondence from 1930 to 1996--chronicling friendships with figures as diverse as Eleanor Roosevelt, Leonard Bernstein, and H. G. Wells, as well as her tempestuous marriage to Ernest Hemingway--paint a vivid picture of the twentieth century as she lived it. Caroline Moorehead, who was granted exclusive access to the letters, has expertly edited this fascinating volume, providing prefatory and interstitial material that contextualizes Gellhorn's correspondence within the arc of her entire life. The letters introduce us to the woman behind the correspondent--a writer of wit, charm, and vulnerability. The result is an exhilarating, intimate portrait of one of the most accomplished women of modern times.

Katrina: The Ruin and Recovery of New Orleans


The Times-Picayune - 2006
    It did not end when the last of the flood waters were pumped out of a city below sea level and residents who had fled to 50 states began to return. The worst urban disaster in American history was not over as the 2006 hurricane season opened in June and the Army Corps frantically raced to complete rudimentary repairs to the levee system that had failed so catastrophically. In 192 pages packed with images of destruction and revival, this book hints at the scope of the devastation and at the resilience of a city that has resolved to survive it. Katrina was much more than wind and flooding. Lives were torn apart as surely as houses and landscapes. Nor can it rightly be called a natural disaster. Engineering failures underlay the levee breaches and politics clouded and confounded the relief and recovery efforts.

The Place At The End Of The World: Essays From The Edge


Janine Di Giovanni - 2006
    A collection of essays from the frontline from a war correspondent, this title includes real stories from a near-abandoned hospital in Chechnya to bombed-out Tora Bora in Afghanistan, from Saddam Hussein's derelict palace in Baghdad to the inner-city barrios of Kingston, Jamaica.

On Her Trail: My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star


John Dickerson - 2006
    of photos.

As Used On the Famous Nelson Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade


Mark Thomas - 2006
    Under a fairly flimsy disguise and with the use of some worryingly poor accents, Mark set off on a journey of discovery in the company of arms dealers, torture victims, politicians, cops, crusties and geeks. The result is a shockingly entertaining read.Embedded within the sharpness of his humour is the truth of an industry fraught with loopholes, complacency and greed; that allows corrupt regimes to kill, maim and displace, but whose deals are often subsidised by the British taxpayer.

Bernard Fall: Memories of a Soldier-Scholar


Dorothy Fall - 2006
    One of the first (and the best-informed) Western observers to say that the United States could not win there either, he was killed in Vietnam in 1967 while accompanying a Marine platoon. Written by his widow Dorothy, Bernard Fall: Memories of a Soldier-Scholar tells the story of this courageous and influential Frenchman, who experienced many of the major events of the twentieth century. His mother perished at Auschwitz, his father was killed by the Gestapo, and he himself fought in the Resistance. It focuses, however, on Vietnam and on two love stories. The first details Fall’s love for Vietnam and his efforts to save the country from destruction and the United States from disaster. The second shows a husband and father dedicated to a cause that continuously lured him away from those he loved. With a foreword by the late David Halberstam.

Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis


John E. Richardson - 2006
    Assuming no prior knowledge of discursive theory, the book explores how the language of journalism works--its power, its function and its effects. Using wide-ranging and highly topical case studies and examples, students are shown discourse analysis of journalism "in action". Identifying and exploring key linguistic concepts and tools, Richardson provides a detailed introduction to a practical model of critical discourse analysis which students will be able to apply to their own newspaper research.

Threads and Traces: True False Fictive


Carlo Ginzburg - 2006
    It looks deeply into questions raised by decades of post-structuralism: What constitutes historical truth? How do we draw a boundary between truth and fiction? What is the relationship between history and memory? How do we grapple with the historical conventions that inform, in different ways, all written documents? In his answers, Ginzburg peels away layers of subsequent readings and interpretations that envelop every text to make a larger argument about history and fiction. Interwoven with compelling autobiographical references, Threads and Traces bears moving witness to Ginzburg’s life as a European Jew, the abiding strength of his scholarship, and his deep engagement with the historian’s craft.

The Manifesti of Radical Literature


Anne Elizabeth Moore - 2006
    Also, it is funny and of a pleasing form and light but increasing heft, perfect for spiriting away in one’s back pocket for an evening of street stenciling or shopdropping.This Questionably Diagrammed Edition features updated texts, an introduction and a postface by radical literarists Liz Mason and Mikki Halpin, and several medical illustrations of little sense and less value, by the author. Written and illustrated by Anne Elizabeth Moore.

Things as They Are: Photojournalism in Context Since 1955


Mary Panzer - 2006
    It takes us from the golden era of the illustrated press--the heyday of Life and Picture Post magazines and the moment of The Museum of Modern Art's defining Family of Man exhibition--to the explosion of digital media in the twenty-first century. This history is told through the presentation of 125 photojournalistic features shot and published around the world. The stories are presented in context--reproduced from the pages of the newspapers and magazines where they originally appeared, as their contemporary public would have experienced them. In this way, Things as They Are reveals how the events of the world, the fine art of photography, and the interests of publishers and the press converged on the printed page. It traces how photojournalism has developed over time alongside changing technology, media, fashions in photography--and a changing world. Includes landmark photo-essays by W. Eugene Smith, Sebastiao Salgado, Mary Ellen Mark and James Nachtwey, among others, each accompanied by expert commentary.

Violin Mastery: Interviews with Heifetz, Auer, Kreisler and Others


Frederick H. Martens - 2006
    This enlightening and encouraging book holds the answers, offering a series of interviews with the most celebrated violin teachers and performers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Twenty-four famous violinists reveal the secrets to their success, sharing the lessons of their artistry and experience. In addition to aesthetic and technical aspects of playing, they discuss their personal conceptions of violin mastery. Eugene Ysaye reminisces about his studies with Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, and Leopold Auer emphasizes the importance of fostering students' individual talents. Maud Powell describes her pioneering role as a female orchestral musician, and Jascha Heifetz voices his views on technical mastery and temperament. Hints and advice from other masters include tips on efficient practice, improving bow technique, and refining intonation. A rare find in the musical literature, this book is essential reading for every serious violinist.

War Stories


Jeremy Bowen - 2006
    He had witnessed violence already, both at home & abroad, but it wasn't until he covered his first war that he felt he had arrived. This is his story, examining his desire to become a war reporter & how the nature of the job has changed.

Community Journalism: Relentlessly Local


Jock Lauterer - 2006
    They get their first jobs at smaller local community newspapers that require a different style of reporting than the detached, impersonal approach expected of major international publications. As the primary textbook and sourcebook for the teaching and practice of local journalism and newspaper publishing in the United States, Community Journalism addresses the issues a small-town newspaper writer or publisher is likely to face.Jock Lauterer covers topics ranging from why community journalism is important and distinctive; to hints for reporting and writing with a community spin; to design, production, photojournalism, and staff management. This third edition introduces new chapters on adjusting to changing demographics in the community and best practices for community papers. Updated with fresh examples throughout and considering the newest technologies in editing and photography, this edition of Community Journalism provides the very latest of what every person working at a small newspaper needs to know.

A Voice in the Wilderness: Conversations with Terry Tempest Williams


Terry Tempest Williams - 2006
    With her distinctive, impassioned voice and familiar felicity of language, Terry Tempest Williams talks about wilderness and wildlife, place and eroticism, art and literature, democracy and politics, family and heritage, Mormonism and religion, writing and creativity, and other subjects that engage her agile mind—in a set of interviews gathered and introduced by Michael Austin to represent the span of her career as a naturalist, author, and activist.

Tutankhamun's Tomb: The Thrill of Discovery: Photographs by Harry Burton


Susan J. Allen - 2006
    1336–1327 B.C.).  These photographs, documenting every stage in the process of discovery, were taken by the renowned archaeological photographer Harry Burton. Burton was a staff member of the Metropolitan Museum Egyptian Expedition when he was “lent” to Howard Carter, the famed excavator of Tutankhamun’s tomb.From the rock-cut steps leading down to the entrance passage, to the opening of the sealed chambers inside, to the first view of the contents of the tomb and the removal of the objects, Burton’s beautiful black-and-white photographs show thousands of the richly made and decorated objects found in the tomb.  Carefully reproduced from Burton’s original prints, the photographs are accompanied by new descriptive text written by two prominent Egyptologists with extensive knowledge of the history of Tutankhamun and the contents of his tomb.

News Writing


Anna McKane - 2006
    The book deals fully with all aspects of writing news, including how to write a good intro, or first paragraph; how to order the information and assemble a winning story; and what language to use. It provides a step-by-step guide to constructing a story, with good and bad examples, and a detailed analysis of style, language, and grammar. There are checklists to help inexperienced writers to measure their work.

The Best American Crime Writing 2006


Mark BowdenRichard Rubin - 2006
    This thrilling compendium includes:Jeffrey Toobin's eye-opening exposé in The New Yorker about a famous prosecutor who may have put the wrong man on death rowSkip Hollandsworth's amazing but true tale of an old cowboy bank robber who turned out to be a "classic good-hearted Texas woman"Jimmy Breslin's stellar piece about the end of the Mob as we know it

Django Reinhardt and the Illustrated History of Gypsy Jazz


Michael Dregni - 2006
    A Gypsy who made his jazz guitar speak with a human voice, he was dashing, charismatic, childish . . . and doomed to die young after creating a legacy of Gypsy Jazz that remains vibrant today. Gypsy Jazz is a music both joyous and sad, timeless and modern. It was born from a marriage of Louis Armstrong’s trumpet with the anguished sound of Romany violin and the fire of flamenco guitar. Created amidst the glamour of Jazz Age Paris and reaching a peak during the horrors of World War II, Gypsy Jazz gave a voice to a dispossessed people. Today, Gypsy Jazz is more popular than ever. It has a legacy as strong as the Cuban sounds of the Buena Vista Social Club, the blues of B. B. King, or the R&B of Ray Charles. Django Reinhardt and the Illustrated History of Gypsy Jazz is a stylish collection of more than two hundred illustrations telling Django’s story and the history of Gypsy jazz. Running through the Paris Jazz Age of the 1920s to the current worldwide renaissance of Gypsy jazz bands (including Django’s grandsons, who are playing today), the images include rare archival photographs, modern images, posters, programs, tickets, guitars, memorabilia, paintings, and more.

Century of the Self: From the Same Director as "The Power of Nightmares" - Adam Curtis


Adam Curtis - 2006
    From the same director as "the power of nightmares"ContentsForwardOverviewAwardsCriticismEpisodesMusicVideo Download

Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice


Kyle Gann - 2006
    Charged with exploring every facet of cutting-edge music coming out of New York City in the 1980s and '90s, Gann writes about a wide array of timely issues that few critics have addressed, including computer music, multiculturalism and its thorny relation to music, music for the AIDS crisis, the brand-new art of electronic sampling and its legal implications, symphonies for electric guitars, operas based on talk shows, the death of twelve-tone music, and the various streams of music that flowed forth from minimalism. In these articles—including interviews with Yoko Ono, Philip Glass, Glenn Branca, and other leading musical figures—Gann paints a portrait of a bristling era in music history and defines the scruffy, vernacular field of Downtown music from which so much of the most fertile recent American music has come.

The Last Harvest: Truck Farmers in the Deep South


Perry Dilbeck - 2006
    Small and independent operators, truck farmers typically own fewer than forty acres of land and sell their vegetables and fruits at roadside stands or local farmers' markets. In recent years, the rise of large-scale commercial farming coupled with overdevelopment, which swallows up farmland daily, has greatly diminished this traditional business.To honor these farmers, Dilbeck chose to photograph them with a Holga, the simplest of plastic cameras. The Holga was first produced in 1982 as an inexpensive mass-market camera for working-class Chinese, who used them for family portraits or at family events. The sometimes surprising effects of the Holga, including vignetting and blurring, have popularized it with fine-art photographers.Dilbeck, who formed close relationships with the farmers he portrays, always carried a tape recorder with him. The farmers' stories and memories, which are quoted in the book, are filled with the same pride and dignity that come through in Dilbeck's photographs. The farmers' faces show signs of a vigorous life. Dilbeck's images also show the vibrant stamp of the men's presence on the landscape: their garden plots, their antique machinery, and their homes and outbuildings. A culmination of more than ten years of work, The Last Harvest pays tribute to the dignity of local ways in the face of globalism and urban expansion.

Throwing Stones


Kristi Collier - 2006
    Now, five years later, Andy is fourteen and beginning to feel the weight of his brother's legacy, especially when he holds Pete's basketball in his hands. Andy dreams of leading his high-school team to the Indiana state tournament, as his brother did before him. If only Andy could be a basketball star, maybe he could ease his parents' sadness, and, more important, feel like he truly belongs to his family. But when Andy lets pride get in the way--over a girl, no less--all bets are off.Set against the backdrop of Prohibition, this stunning novel tells of one boy's search for answers--and the perfect free throw.

In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing


Olivia Dresher - 2006
    Selections from diaries, notebooks, and letters; aphorisms; short prose pieces and vignettes... These are some of the fragmentary forms represented in this unique collection, the first of its kind to present a wide range of fragmentary writing as its own genre.

Life After Death: The Art of the Obituary


Nigel Starck - 2006
    As David Bowman, a distinguished Australian editor and journalist, says: 'In the English-speaking world, a newspaper of quality hardly seems complete these days without a regular obituary page.' This lively book by Dr Nigel Starck is the first to explore the evolution of the obituary in the English-language press. Its author, a journalist and scholar who is one of the world's foremost experts on the form of the obituary, traces its evolution through extracts drawn from newspapers and journals published since 1625. The characteristic wit, charm, candour and cultural significance of the obituary art are explored and analysed with many engaging examples. Painstakingly researched in newspaper archives on three continents, "Life After Death" includes the full texts of notable obituaries published in Britain, the United States and Australia. The subjects of these obits range from the famous to the obscure, from the evil and infamous to the plain unlucky.

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future


Jeff Goodell - 2006
    Goodell debunks the faulty assumptions underlying coal's revival and shatters the myth of cheap coal energy.In the tradition of Rachel Carson and Eric Schlosser, the veteran journalist Jeff Goodell examines the danger behind President George W. Bush's recent assertion that coal is America's "economic destiny." Despite a devastating, century-long legacy that has claimed millions of lives and ravaged the environment, coal has become hot again -- and will likely get hotter. In this penetrating analysis, Goodell debunks the faulty assumptions underlying coal's revival and shatters the myth of cheap coal energy. In a compelling blend of hard-hitting investigative reporting, history, and industry assessment, Goodell illuminates the stark economic imperatives America faces and the collusion of business and politics -- what is meant by "big coal" -- that have set us on the dangerous course toward reliance on this energy source.Few of us realize that even today we burn a lump of coal every time we flip on a switch. Coal already supplies more than half the energy needed to power our iPods, laptops, lights -- anything we use that consumes electricity. Our desire to find a homegrown alternative to Mideast oil, the rising cost of oil and natural gas, and the fossil fuel-friendly mood in Washington will soon push our coal consumption through the roof. Because we have failed to develop alternative energy sources, coal has effectively become the default fuel for the twenty-first century.

Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post-Soviet Caucasus: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post-Soviet Caucasus


Thomas Goltz - 2006
    Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Georgia fell prey to a series of power struggles, rampant crime and corruption, secessionist wars, and the spillover of the war in neighboring Chechenya. Journalist Goltz traces these developments with the same kind of vivid, personal narrative that made his previous books so compelling. This fast-paced, first-person account is filled with fascinating details about the ongoing struggles of this little-known region of the former Soviet Union. Featuring memorable portraits of individuals in high places and low, it traces the story from 1992 through the Rose Revolution, the resignation of Eduard Shevardnadze, and the new presidency of U.S.-educated Mikhail Saakashvili.

Dispatches From The Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival


Anderson Cooper - 2006
    Dispatches from the Edge, Cooper's memoir of "war, disasters and survival," is a brief but powerful chronicle of Cooper's ascent to stardom and his struggle with his own tragedies and demons. Cooper was 10 years old when his father, Wyatt Cooper, died during heart bypass surgery. He was 20 when his beloved older brother, Carter, committed suicide by jumping off his mother's penthouse balcony (his mother, by the way, being Gloria Vanderbilt). The losses profoundly affected Cooper, who fled home after college to work as a freelance journalist for Channel One, the classroom news service. Covering tragedies in far-flung places like Burma, Vietnam, and Somalia, Cooper quickly learned that "as a journalist, no matter ... how respectful you are, part of your brain remains focused on how to capture the horror you see, how to package it, present it to others." Cooper's description of these horrors, from war-ravaged Baghdad to famine-wracked Niger, is poignant but surprisingly unsentimental. In Niger, Cooper writes, he is chagrined, then resigned, when he catches himself looking for the "worst cases" to commit to film. "They die, I live. It's the way of the world," he writes. In the final section of Dispatches, Cooper describes covering Hurricane Katrina, the story that made him famous. The transcript of his showdown with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu (in which Cooper tells Landrieu people in New Orleans are "ashamed of what is happening in this country right now") is worth the price of admission on its own. Cooper's memoir leaves some questions unanswered--there's frustratingly little about his personal life, for example--but remains a vivid, modest self-portrait by a man who is proving himself to be an admirable, courageous leader in a medium that could use more like him. --Erica C. Barnett

The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle


Ray E. Boomhower - 2006
    When he died, Pyle's popularity and readership was worldwide, with his column appearing in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers. Written by award-winning author and historian Ray E. Boomhower, The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle, a biography aimed at young readers, explores the reporter's legendary career from his days growing up in the small town of Dana, Indiana, to his life as a roving correspondent with the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, to his growing fame as a columnist detailing the rigors of combat faced by the average G.I. during World War II. The book also features numerous illustrations, samples of Pyle's World War II columns, a detailed bibliography of World War II sources, and an index.

Four More Wars!


Mike Luckovich - 2006
    His cartoons appear regularly in Newsweek, Time, the Washington Post, and in over 150 other U.S. newspapers. His book, Four More Wars!, is a collection of those cartoons, accompanied by humorous anecdotes. The majority of cartoons in this collection centre on Luckovich’s muse, George W. Bush, Jr. Luckovich says, “If every time Bush did something outrageous, and I climbed to the top of a building and screamed, people would ignore me. I believe people pay attention when I tear Bush a new one, humorously.” Although President Bush is a frequent target, Luckovich also satirizes President Clinton, Congress, Pat Robertson, the Catholic Church, Tom Cruise, and the Boy Scouts. Four More Wars! covers stories about Luckovich’s run-ins with various politicians, including his flight on Air Force One, in which he convinced Clinton to draw a caricature of himself. With hilarious anecdotes about Rumsfeld and Easter bunnies, this book is sure to tickle your funny bone — no matter your political persuasion.

Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq


James M. Fallows - 2006
    After events confirmed many of his predictions, Fallows went on to write some of the most acclaimed, award-winning journalism on the planning and execution of the war, much of which has been assigned as required reading within the U.S. military.In Blind Into Baghdad, Fallows takes us from the planning of the war through the struggles of reconstruction. With unparalleled access and incisive analysis, he shows us how many of the difficulties were anticipated by experts whom the administration ignored. Fallows examines how the war in Iraq undercut the larger ”war on terror” and why Iraq still had no army two years after the invasion. In a sobering conclusion, he interviews soldiers, spies, and diplomats to imagine how a war in Iran might play out. This is an important and essential book to understand where and how the war went wrong, and what it means for America.

After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006: Rephotographing the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire


Mark Klett - 2006
    The result is an elegant and powerful comparison that challenges our preconceptions about time, history, and culture. “I think the pictures ask us to become aware of the extraordinary qualities of our own distinct moment in time. But it is a realization that a particular future is not guaranteed by the flow of time in any given direction.” So says Mark Klett discussing this multilayered project in an illuminating interview included in this lavishly produced volume, which accompanies an exhibition at The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006 features a vivid essay by noted environmental historian Philip Fradkin on the events surrounding and following the 1906 earthquake, which he describes as “the equivalent of an intensive, three-day bombing raid, complete with many tons of dynamite that acted as incendiary devices.” A lyrical essay by acclaimed writer Rebecca Solnit considers the meaning of ruins, resurrection, and the evolving geography and history of San Francisco.Copub: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Roadside Relics: America's Abandoned Automobiles


Will Shiers - 2006
    Automotive photographer Will Shiers has captured these dreams on film for over ten years, and this volume collects his images between two covers for the first time. Here are the beautiful husks Shiers has found in the United States fields and barns, shops, and salvage yards across States. Divided into five categories�General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Independents, and Special Vehicles�these wrecks and relics from 1910 to the 1970s come equipped with all the relevant information: history, model, location. And because few salvage yards today keep anything older than a 1980 vintage, many of these cars have been lost to the metal crusher. The most comprehensive and beautifully photographed collection of abandoned cars ever published, this volume preserves for all time the exquisite skeletons of American automotive might.

Love and Other Technologies: Retrofitting Eros for the Information Age


Dominic Pettman - 2006
    Using the writings of such important thinkers as Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Bernard Stiegler as a springboard, Pettman explores the techtonic movements of contemporary culture, specifically in relation to the language of Eros. Highly ritualized expressions of desire - love, in other words - always reveal an era's attitude toward what it means to exist as a self among others. For Pettman, the articulation of love is a technique of belonging: a way of responding to the basic plurality of everyone's identity, a process that becomes increasingly complex as the forms of mediated communication, from cell phone and text messaging to the mass media, multiply and mesh together. Wresting the idea of love from the arthritic hands of Romanticism, Pettman demonstrates the ways in which this dynamic assemblage - the stirrings of the soul-have always been a matter of tools, devices, prosthetics, and media. Love is, after all, something we make. And, love, this book argues, is not eternal, but external.

Front-Page Girls: Women Journalists in American Culture and Fiction, 1880-1930


Jean Marie Lutes - 2006
    Wells and fictional characters like Henrietta Stackpole, the lady-correspondent in Henry James's Portrait of a Lady. It chronicles the exploits of a neglected group of American women writers and uncovers an alternative reporter-novelist tradition that runs counter to the more familiar story of gritty realism generated in male-dominated newsrooms.Taking up actual newspaper accounts written by women, fictional portrayals of female journalists, and the work of reporters-turned-novelists such as Willa Cather and Djuna Barnes, Jean Marie Lutes finds in women's journalism a rich and complex source for modern American fiction. Female journalists, cast as both standard-bearers and scapegoats of an emergent mass culture, created fictions of themselves that far outlasted the fleeting news value of the stories they covered.Front-Page Girls revives the spectacular stories of now-forgotten newspaperwomen who were not afraid of becoming the news themselves--the defiant few who wrote for the city desks of mainstream newspapers and resisted the growing demand to fill women's columns with fashion news and household hints. It also examines, for the first time, how women's journalism shaped the path from news to novels for women writers.

Strange State: Mysteries and Legends of Oklahoma


Cullan Hudson - 2006
    Included are: UFO's, Spook Lights, Bigfoot, Hauntings, Hidden Treasure, Historic Mysteries, Voodoo, Witchcraft, and others.

In Conflict: Iraq War Veterans Speak Out on Duty, Loss, and the Fight to Stay Alive


Yvonne Latty - 2006
    The book features more than two dozen veterans from all military branches, from fighter pilots, nurses, medics, and foot soldiers to prison guards, POWs, and reservists, each accompanied by a compelling photograph. Together they comprise a group portrait of American men and women located all over the country and from all age, race, and socioeconomic groups -- men and women whose voices, surprisingly, are rarely heard in the din of discussion on this endlessly analyzed subject. They speak from veterans' hospitals, homes, army bases, and homeless shelters. While their viewpoints are as diverse as their backgrounds -- some supportive, some opposing, some simply confused -- "In Conflict captures one thing these eloquent commentators share: all have been irrevocably changed by their experience.

Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations


Susan Ratcliffe - 2006
    Over 1900 new quotes have been added for this edition, as well as author descriptions, placing the quotes firmly in context. The dictionary has been complied using the unique process of quote identification by the largest ongoing language research program in the world, the Oxford English Corpus. An easy-to-use keyword index traces quotations and their authors, while the appendix material, including Catchphrases, Film Lines, Official Advice, and Political Slogans, offers further topics of interest. Complete with vivid illustrations, the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations is an essential addition to every designer's and artist's studio shelf.

Fallen Bastions: The Central European Tragedy


G.E.R. Gedye - 2006
    Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

I See Red: The Shocking Story of a Battle Against the Warehouse


Judith Bell - 2006
    

The Best of Mary McGrory: A Half-Century of Washington Commentary


Phil Gailey - 2006
    She wrote lyrically, and she never had difficulty expressing an opinion. But perhaps most impressive was Mary's reporting. She seemed to know everyone in politics, and in many other fields besides. And her columns always revealed something to readers that they never would have otherwise known."More About The Best of Mary McGroryFor years, fellow journalist Phil Gailey attempted to persuade legendary columnist Mary McGrory to compile her best work into one career-spanning collection. He would even offer to help his dear friend. But the response was always the same. "You do it when I'm gone," Mary would say. With Mary's passing in 2004, that's exactly what Gailey sought to do. Now, her legendary writing lives on in The Best of Mary McGrory, the first-ever comprehensive collection of her very best work. During her prolific journalism career that spanned 50 years, McGrory built her reputation through powerful commentaries on major U.S. events such as President Kennedy's assassination, the Vietnam War, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Bill Clinton's sex scandal. But her greatest reader reactions typically came when she wrote about the small struggles of everyday life. This collection includes more than 100 jewels carefully selected from her treasure chest of more than 7,000 columns-a blend of her biting political wit mixed with her fresh perspectives on seemingly mundane daily life. From Mary's early columns on the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings to her final essay on "Blossoms and Bombs," which juxtaposed the start of the Iraq War with the dawn of spring, The Best of Mary McGrory captures the elegant writing and the versatility of the Grande Dame of the Washington journalism scene during the 20th century.

Journalism That Matters: How Business-to-Business Editors Change the Industries They Cover


Robert Freedman - 2006
    Examples from outstanding business-to-business articles are accompanied by explanations of how they were successful in changing their respective industries in this indispensible and informative handbook. Business-to-business journalism provides the information that fuels American corporations and industries. In this collection, business-to-business editors share their advice and success stories providing specialized and instructional information on how to write superb trade articles.

News Talk: Investigating the Language of Journalism


Colleen Cotter - 2006
    Colleen Cotter goes behind the scenes, revealing how language is chosen and shaped by news staff into the stories we read and hear. Tracing news stories from start to finish, she shows how the actions of journalists and editors - and the limitations of news writing formulas - may distort a story that was prepared with the most determined effort to be fair and accurate. Using insights from both linguistics and journalism, News Talk is a remarkable picture of a hidden world and its working practices on both sides of the Atlantic. It will interest those involved in language study, media and communication studies and those who want to understand how media shape our language and our view of the world.