They wanted to show in words and drawings what life looks like in places where the marketplace rules without constraints, where human beings and the natural world are used and then discarded to maximize profit. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is the searing account of their travels.The book starts in the western plains, where Native Americans were sacrificed in the giddy race for land and empire. It moves to the old manufacturing centers and coal fields that fueled the industrial revolution, but now lie depleted and in decay. It follows the steady downward spiral of American labor into the nation's produce fields and ends in Zuccotti Park where a new generation revolts against a corporate state that has handed to the young an economic, political, cultural and environmental catastrophe.

    Winner of the Orwell Special Prize On the Front Line is a collection of her finest work, a portion of the proceeds from which will go to the Marie Colvin Memorial Fund.Marie Colvin held a profound belief in the pursuit of truth, and the courage and humanity of her work was deeply admired. On the Front Line includes her various interviews with Yasser Arafat and Colonel Gadaffi; reports from East Timor in 1999 where she shamed the UN into protecting its refugees; accounts of her terrifying escape from the Russian army in Chechnya; and reports from the strongholds of the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers where she was hit by shrapnel, leaving her blind in one eye.Typically, however, her new eye-patch only reinforced Colvin’s sense of humour and selfless conviction. She returned quickly to the front line, reporting on 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza and, lately, the Arab Spring.Immediate and compelling, On the Front Line is a street-view of the historic events that have shaped the last 25 years, from an award-winning foreign correspondent and the outstanding journalist of her generation.

    Relying heavily on official records bulk of them still security classified in violation of democratic norms the book uncovers a systematic obstruction of justice by the Government of India. First for any book in India, the narrative has been augmented with the excerpts and images of still secret records. Archival material and information obtained under the freedom of information acts of India, the US and the UK has also been made use of.

    As his journey deepens, he painstakingly reports on the occupied Palestinians challenging schemes of demographic separation through unarmed protest. He talks at length to the leaders and youth of Palestinian society inside Israel now targeted by security service dragnets and legislation suppressing their speech, and provides in-depth reporting on the small band of Jewish Israeli dissidents who have shaken off a conformist mindset that permeates the media, schools, and the military.Through his far-ranging travels, Blumenthal illuminates the present by uncovering the ghosts of the past—the histories of Palestinian neighborhoods and villages now gone and forgotten; how that history has set the stage for the current crisis of Israeli society; and how the Holocaust has been turned into justification for occupation.A brave and unflinching account of the real facts on the ground, Goliath is an unprecedented and compelling work of journalism.

    Other key elements of the book will include:A careful account of Obama’s decision-making process as the raid was plannedThe fascinating story of a group of CIA analysts—largely women—who never gave up assembling the tiniest clues about OBL’s whereaboutsThe untold and action-packed history of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the SEALsAn analysis of what the death of OBL means for al Qaeda, and for Obama’s legacy. Just as Too Big to Fail captured, in riveting detail, the anatomy of this decade’s financial disaster, so too is Manhunt one of the key stories of this decade: the authoritative, immersive account of the operation that killed the man who organized the largest mass murder in American history.

    Whether through essay volumes (A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Consider the Lobster), short story collections (Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Oblivion), or his novels (Infinite Jest, The Broom of the System), the luminous qualities of Wallace's work recalibrated our measures of modern literary achievement. Conversations with David Foster Wallace gathers twenty-two interviews and profiles that trace the arc of Wallace's career, shedding light on his omnivorous talentJonathan Franzen has argued that, for Wallace, an interview provided a formal enclosure in which the writer -could safely draw on his enormous native store of kindness and wisdom and expertise.- Wallace's interviews create a wormhole in which an author's private theorizing about art spill into the public record. Wallace's best interviews are vital extra-literary documents, in which we catch him thinking aloud about his signature concerns--irony's magnetic hold on contemporary language, the pale last days of postmodernism, the delicate exchange that exists between reader and writer. At the same time, his acute focus moves across MFA programs, his negotiations with religious belief, the role of footnotes in his writing, and his multifaceted conception of his work's architecture. Conversations with David Foster Wallace includes a previously unpublished interview from 2005, and a version of Larry McCaffery's influential Review of Contemporary Fiction interview with Wallace that has been expanded with new material drawn from the original raw transcript.

    Ballard’s greatest interviews.J.G. Ballard was a literary giant. His novels were unique and surprising. To the journalists and admirers who sought him out, Ballard was the ‘seer of Shepperton’; his home the vantage from which he observed the rising suburban tide, part of a changing society captured and second-guessed so plausibly in his fiction.Such acuity was not exclusive to his novels and, as this book reminds us, Ballard’s restive intelligence sharpened itself in dialogue. He entertained many with insights into the world as he saw it, and speculated, often correctly, about its future. Some of these observations earned Ballard an oracular reputation, and continue to yield an uncannily accurate commentary today.Now, for the first time, ‘Extreme Metaphors’ collects the finest interviews of his career. Conversations with cultural figureheads such as Will Self, Jon Savage, Iain Sinclair and John Gray, and collaborators like David Cronenberg, are a reminder of his wit and humanity, testament to Ballard’s profound worldliness as much as his otherworldly imagination. This collection is an indispensable tribute to one of recent history’s most incisive and original thinkers.

    It is a creation of David Chang, the James Beard Award–winning chef behind the Momofuku restaurants in New York, Momofuku cookbook cowriter Peter Meehan, and Zero Point Zero Production—producers of the Travel Channel’s Emmy Award–winning Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.The result of this collaboration is a mélange of travelogue, essays, art, photography, and rants in a full-color, meticulously designed format. Recipes will defy the tired ingredients-and-numbered-steps formula. They’ll be laid out sensibly, inspired by the thought process that went into developing them. The aim of Lucky Peach is to give a platform to a brand of food writing that began with unorthodox authors like Bourdain, resulting in a publication that appeals to diehard foodies as well as fans of good writing and art in general.What's inside?-David Simon, creator of The Wire and Treme, remembers his father via pickles and cream.-Jonathan Gold and Robert Sietsema talk Teletubbies in Kansas City.-There's a “Choose Your Own Adventure”–style hunt for tacos through Texas and California.-Plus stuff from Harold McGee, Anthony Bourdain, Elvis Mitchell, and more!

    From the revolution in Iran that wasn't, to the Great Firewall of China and the imposition of super-injunctions from the filthy rich protecting their privacy, the traditional opponents of freedom of speech — religious fanaticism, plutocratic power and dictatorial states — are thriving, and in many respects finding the world a more comfortable place in the early 21st century than they did in the late 20th.This is not an account of interesting but trivial disputes about freedom of speech: the rights and wrongs of shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre, of playing heavy metal at 3 a.m. in a built-up area or articulating extremist ideas in a school or university. Rather, this is a story that starts with the cataclysmic reaction of the Left and Right to the publication and denunciation of The Satanic Verses in 1988 that saw them jump into bed with radical extremists. It ends at the juncture where even in the transgressive, liberated West, where so much blood had been spilt for Freedom, where rebellion is the conformist style and playing the dissenter the smart career move in the arts and media, you can write a book and end up destroyed or dead.

    And it was.As early as Armstrong’s first victory on the Tour in 1999, The Sunday Times (London) journalist David Walsh had reason to think that the incredible performances we were seeing from Armstrong were literally too good to be true. Based on insider information and dogged research, he began to unmask the truth. Cycling’s biggest star used every weapon in his armory to protect his name.But he could not keep everyone silent.In the autumn of 2012, the US Anti-Doping Agency published a damning report on Armstrong that resulted in the American being stripped of his seven Tour victories and left his reputation in shreds. Walsh’s long fight to reveal the truth had been vindicated. This book tells the compelling story of one man’s struggle to bring that truth to light against all the odds.

    It will feature the best sports writing from the website, delivered in a full-color book featuring original artwork and a host of print exclusives—including original fiction, new writing from editor-in-chief Bill Simmons, posters and pull-out sections, old-school baseball cards and mini-booklets, and a cover that looks and feels like you're holding a basketball. Like its namesake website, Grantland Quarterly will regularly include some of the most exciting and form-pushing sports writers currently plying the trade, including Chuck Klosterman, Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Bissell, Harris Wittels, John Brandon, Anna Clark, Chris Jones, Colson Whitehead, and many more.

    And yet, the evidence is irrefutable: when it comes to dealing with potential threats to our national security, the gloves always come off. As the enquiries into the on-going abuse of terror suspects uncover an ever more sinister and unpalatable chain of complicity - going right to the top of government - it is time to re-examine the assumption that the British don't 'do' torture. Drawing on previously unseen official documents, and the accounts of witnesses, victims and experts, prize-winning investigative journalist Ian Cobain looks beyond the cover-ups and the attempts to dismiss brutality as the work of a few rogue interrogators, to reveal a secret and shocking record of torture. From WWII to the War on Terror, via Kenya and Northern Ireland, Cruel Britannia shows how the British have repeatedly and systematically resorted to torture, turning a blind eye where necessary, bending the law where they can, and issuing categorical denials all the while. What emerges is a picture of Britain that challenges our complacency on human rights and exposes the lie behind our reputation for fair play.

    Based on Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s investigative reporting for Rolling Stone and BBC television, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps might be the most important book published this year--one that could save the election. Last week Billionaires & Ballot Bandits debuted on the NYT Bestseller list at #10 in paperback nonfiction.Billionaires & Ballot Bandits names the filthy-rich sugar-daddies who are super-funding the Super-PACs of both parties--billionaires with nicknames like "The Ice Man," "The Vulture" and, of course, The Brothers Koch. Told with Palast's no-holds-barred, reporter-on-the-beat style, the facts as he lays them out are staggering. What emerges in Billionaires & Ballot Bandits is the never-before-told-story of the epic battle being fought behind the scenes between the old money banking sector that still supports Obama, and the new hedge fund billionaires like Paul Singer who not only support Romney but also are among his key economic advisors. Although it has not been reported, Obama has shown some backbone in standing up to the financial excesses of the men behind Romney. Billionaires & Ballot Bandits exposes the previously unreported details on how operatives plan to use the hundreds of millions in Super-PAC money pouring into this election. We know the money is pouring in, but Palast shows us the convoluted ways the money will be used to suppress your vote.The story of the billionaires and why they want to buy an election is matched with the nine ways they can steal the election. His story of the sophisticated new trickery will pick up on Palast's giant New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

    A short ebook combining a 24,000-word essay with 36 detailed drawings, DISCORDIA is a feminist-art-gonzo-journalism project conceived at Occupy Wall Street and created in the summer of debt and doubt after the euphoric street protests of 2011-2012.In July 2012, artist Molly Crabapple and journalist Laurie Penny traveled to Greece. There, they drew and interviewed anarchists, autonomists, striking workers and ordinary people caught up in the Euro crisis. DISCORDIA is the result. In an impassioned climate where ‘objective’ journalism is impossible, Penny and Crabapple offer a snapshot of a nation in the grip of a very modern crisis where young and old see little reason to go on, the left is scattered and the far right is assuming greater power and influence. Along the way they drink far too much coffee, become hypnotized by street art, and somehow manage not to get arrested or mugged.DISCORDIA is an experiment in form, using the illustrated ebook format to its fullest extent to tell a story unique to the word length and digital platform involved. Crabapple's intricate, Victorian-inspired ink drawings lend a timeless quality to what is a conscious foray into a new kind of journalism - inspired by the New Journalism of the 1970s, in particular the art-journalism collaborations of Hunter Thompson and Ralph Steadman, but reworking that tradition for a 21st century world where young women must still fight at every turn to be taken seriously.DISCORDIA weaves together the personal and political, picking out those elements of the Greek crisis that are recognizable across the West to a generation struggling to articulate its purpose in a world of spiraling unemployment, democratic collapse and civil unrest. The solutions to the failure of modern neo-liberal statecraft are very different to the 'tune in, turn on, drop out' ethos of the sixties: these days the drugs are worse and rock 'n' roll can't save us. The future is a question in search of an answer.Available only digitally, with a foreword by economic journalist and writer Paul Mason, this beautifully illustrated ebook is part-polemic, part-travelogue and part-paean to the birthplace of civilization brought to its knees. Part of the Brain Shot series, the pre-eminent source of short form digital non-fiction.

    

    The Dogs are Eating Them Now is a highly personal narrative of our war in Afghanistan and how it went dangerously wrong. Written by a respected and fearless former foreign correspondent who has won multiple awards for his journalism (including an Emmy for the video series "Talking with the Taliban") this is a gripping account of modern warfare that takes you into back alleys, cockpits and prisons--telling stories that would have endangered his life had he published this book while still working as a journalist.From the corruption of law enforcement agents and the tribal nature of the local power structure to the economics of the drug trade and the frequent blunders of foreign troops, this is the no-holds-barred story from a leading expert on the insurgency. Smith draws on his unmatched compassion and a rare ability to cut through the noise and see the broader truths to give us a bold and candid look at the Taliban's continued influence--and at the mistakes, catastrophes and ultimate failure of the West's best intentions.

    In the meantime, if you'd like to read something that alternates between laugh-out-loud-funny and apocalyptically angry, keep holding this book. Steal it if necessary. In his latest collection of rants, raves, hastily spluttered articles and scarcely literate scrawl, Charlie Brooker proves that there is almost nothing in this universe, big or small, that can't reduce a human being to a state of pure blind hatred. It won't help you lose weight, feel smarter, sleep more soundly, or feel happier about yourself. It will provide you with literally hours of distraction and merriment. It can also be used to stun an intruder, if you hit him with it correctly (hint: strike hard, using the spine, on the bridge of the nose). Only a prick wouldn't buy this book. Don't be that prick.

    Last year saw governments collapse across the Middle East, in events documented on Twitter and You Tube hours before the mainstream media started their coverage. The phone hacking scandal placed unprecedented scrutiny on journalistic practices, with the Prime Minster calling for the relationship between politicians and the media to be 'reset'. We have seen the UK's first televised Prime Ministerial debate, the BBC relax restrictions on political broadcasts, and David Cameron forced to publish a full list of his contacts with the media. The focus of politics has shifted firmly from the street corner, to the box in the corner and elsewhere. In Live From Downing Street, the BBC's Political Editor, Nick Robinson, tells the inside story of the 'troubled marriage' which has forced politicians and broadcasters to live together, rarely in harmony, for over 70 years. With unprecedented access and insight he reveals how the key players, past and present, handle the portrayal of their role in the public eye with varying degrees of success. Coupled with an analysis of how the relationship between politics and instant broadcasting will develop further in the digital world, Live From Downing Street presents a fascinating and important story of politics and the media in our time.

    It¹s also been a stunning revolution in the way breaking news is reported around the world — and who controls the news.In this book, NPR social media chief Andy Carvin – “the man who tweets revolutions” – offers a unique first-person recap of the Arab Spring. Part memoir, part history, the book includes intimate stories of the revolutionaries who fought for freedom on the streets and across the Internet – stories that would have never been recorded before the days of social media.From the early weeks of the Tunisian revolution through the fall of the Libyan regime, Carvin became known for unflinching, real-time depiction of conflict. His work is reinventing how people experience the news. No longer merely consuming it, they participate in it, interacting with the very people on the ground engaged in the uprisings. Like Mosaab Elshamy, a young Egyptian pharmacy student who found himself caught in the most perilous fighting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Like Sami Ben Gharbia, the Paul Revere of Tunisia, who mobilized his country to protest via the Internet. Like Amina Arraf, a Syrian blogger whose reported kidnapping shook the foundations of the Arab Spring. And like Mohamed Nabbous, a Libyan tech geek who became the country¹s first independent journalist in over a generation ¬and stared death in the face just hours before NATO air support bombs began to fall.Controversial, visceral and timely, this book distills the Arab Spring¹s most important moments with these portraits of bravery: heroes who fought for freedom by embracing new technology to spread the true story of their revolution.

    By now, broad segments of the population have heard widely varying opinions about the wall’s effect on illegal immigration, international politics, and the drug war.But what about the wall’s effect on the Sonoran pronghorn antelope herds and the kit fox? On the Mexican gray wolf, the ocelot, the jaguar, and the bighorn sheep? In unforgettable images and evocative text, Continental Divide: Wildlife, People, and the Border Wall helps readers understand all that is at stake.As Krista Schlyer explains,  the remoteness of this region from most US citizens’ lives, coupled with the news media’s focus on illegal immigration and drug violence, has left many with an incomplete picture. As she reminds us, this largely isolated natural area, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, hosts a number of rare ecosystems: Arizona’s last free-flowing river, the San Pedro; the grasslands of New Mexico, some of the last undeveloped prairies on the continent; the single most diverse birding area in the US, located along the lower Rio Grande River in Texas; and habitat and migration corridors for some of both nations’ most imperiled species.?In documenting the changes to the ecosystems and human communities along the border while the wall was being built, Schlyer realized that the impacts of immigration policy on wildlife, on landowners, and on border towns were not fully understood by either policy makers or the general public. The wall not only has disrupted the ancestral routes of wildlife; it has also rerouted human traffic through the most pristine and sensitive of wildlands, causing additional destruction, conflict, and death—without solving the original problem.

    Amy Goodman has taken investigative journalism to new heights of exciting informative and probing analysis Noam Chomsky Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan began writing a weekly column Breaking the Sound Barrier for King Features Syndicate in 2006 This timely new sequel to Goodman s New York Timesbestseller of the same name gives voice to the many ordinary people standing up to corporate and government powerand refusing to be silent The Silenced Majoritypulls back the veil of corporate media reporting to dig deep into the politics of climate apartheid the implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster the movement to halt the execution of Troy Anthony Davis and the globalization of dissent From Tahrir Square to Liberty Plaza Throughout Goodman and Moynihan show the work of ordinary people to change their mediaand change the world Amy Goodmanis a multiple New York Timesbest selling author and the host and executive producer of Democracy Now a daily independent news program airing on more than one thousand television and radio stations Timenamed Democracy Now its Pick of the Podcasts along with NBC s Meet the Press Goodman is the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award widely known as the Alternative Nobel Prize Denis Moynihan since helping co found Democracy Now as an independent production company in 2002 has participated in the organization s growth focusing primarily on distribution infrastructure development and coordinating complex live broadcasts from all continents save Antarctica He lives in Denver Colorado Amy Goodman and her colleague Denis Moynihan began writing a weekly column Breaking the Sound Barrier for King Features Syndicate in 2006 Following the success of Goodman s book of the same name The Silenced Majority gives voice to the many ordinary people standing up to corporate and government power and refusing to be silent This fascinating collection pulls back the veil of corporate media repor

    Christened by national media as "Title Town, USA," Valdosta has thrived on the continuity of dominance: sons still play in front of fathers and grandfathers, creased men in pickups still offer steak dinners as a reward for gridiron glory, and Friday nights in the 11,000-seat stadium known as Death Valley still hold a central role in the town's social fabric.Now that place is in peril. As much as Valdosta is a romantic symbol of traditional American values, things are changing here just as they are in small towns everywhere. In Must Win, author Drew Jubera goes inside the country's most famous high school football team to chronicle its dramatic 2010 season, a quest by a program that's down but not out to regain past glory for both the team and the town it represents. This town, this school, and these people have been rocked by forces that have hit the entire country, but they're a long way from giving up. They still believe in the power of a game to overcome all.With a new coach, a new optimism, and a kaleidoscopic cast that includes an aspiring rapper, a beekeeper's son, the best athlete in the state, and the heir to a pro legacy cut short by a crack dealer's bullet, these Wildcats have been given one more chance. Must Win is the American story written across a bright green playing field.

    Much better.

    This is the chilling story of a two-year-long investigation into a dangerous criminal underworld and the merciless syndicates that will stop at nothing to obtain their prize. It is a tale of greed, folly and corruption, and of an increasingly desperate battle to save the rhino - which has existed for more than 50 million years - from extinction.Killing for Profit is a meticulous, devastating and revelatory account of one of the world’s most secretive trades. It exposes poachers, scoundrels, gangsters, conmen, mercenaries, killers, gun-runners, diplomats, government officials and kingpins behind the slaughter. And it follows the bloody trail from the frontlines of the rhino wars in south Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to the medicine markets of Vietnam and the lair of a wildlife-trafficking kingpin on the banks of the Mekong River in Laos …

    Hannah Dobbz makes the necessary addition of resources and needs in a book that is both a brilliant history of squatting in the USA and a template for the next stage of the Occupy movement.--Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums and Buda's WagonHow does "property" fit into designs for an equitable society? Nine-tenths of the Law examines the history of squatting and property struggles in the United States, from colonialism to twentieth century urban squatting and the foreclosure crisis of the late 2000s, and how such resistance movements shape the law. Stories from our most hard-hit American cities show that property is truly in crisis:One in five homes in Buffalo, NY, are abandoned.Our national housing vacancy rate is 14 percent. If we gave a house to every homeless person in the United States two-thirds of that stock would remain empty.In May of 2011, one in every 103 homes in Nevada was in foreclosure.Nine-tenths of the Law expands our understanding of property law and highlights recent tactics like creative squatting ventures and the use of adverse possession to claim title to vacant homes. Hannah Dobbz unveils the tangled relationship Americans have always had in creating and sustaining healthy communities.Hannah Dobbz is a writer, editor, filmmaker, and former squatter. In 2007 she produced a film about squatters in the Bay Area called Shelter. The film has screened widely at universities, bookstores, and community spaces, including the 2009 Three Rivers Film Festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

    Still, they took the deadly gamble—and lost. As acclaimed "New York Times" reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist John Branch writes in this harrowing tale of disaster and survival, "the very thing the skiers and snowboarders had sought—fresh, soft snow—instantly became the enemy." In less than a minute, Tunnel Creek turned from a playground into an icy tomb.

    As the projects went from idyllic to dangerous, Paul made his way to The New York Daily News where he became a copyboy and later a reporter. The News was still the largest circulating newspaper in the country but it was in the last, outrageous and often hilarious, gasp of The Front Page Era. Reporters wallowed in a swirl of alcohol, hookers and bad behavior but none of it stopped them from delivering an electric and engaging paper every day. Paul, a naif trapped in a Tabloid World, struggled to adapt. As a reporter, Paul had a front row seat to one of the most harrowing five year periods in New York's history: the city's brush with bankruptcy, the terror reign of Son of Sam, a riotous blackout and the murder of John Lennon. Thanks to The News, Paul was there every step of the way.

    Yet this very public figure, undoubtedly the twentieth century's most revered journalist, was a remarkably private man; few know the full story of his life. Drawing on unprecedented access to Cronkite's private papers as well as interviews with his family and friends, Douglas Brinkley now brings this American icon into focus as never before.Brinkley traces Cronkite's story from his roots in Missouri and Texas through the Great Depression, during which he began his career, to World War II, when he gained notice reporting with Allied troops from North Africa, D-day, and the Battle of the Bulge. In 1950, Edward R. Murrow recruited him to work for CBS, where he covered presidential elections, the space program, Vietnam, and the first televised broadcasts of the Olympic Games, as both a reporter and later as an anchor for the evening news. Cronkite was also witness to—and the nation's voice for—many of the most profound moments in modern American history, including the Kennedy assassination, Apollos 11 and 13, Watergate, the Vietnam War, and the Iran hostage crisis.Epic, intimate, and masterfully written, Cronkite is the much-anticipated biography of an extraordinary American life, told by one of our most brilliant and respected historians.

    A father, mother and son convicted of murder. The shocking truth about the “ honourless crime” that stunned a nation.On the morning of June 30, 2009, police in a small eastern Ontario city made a ghastly discovery: four females dead in a car submerged in a shallow canal. Sisters Zainab Shafia, 19, Sahar Shafia, 17, Geeti Shafia, 13, and Rona Mohammad Amir, 50, floated serenely inside the car, seemingly the victims of a terrible accident. That morning, Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba and their son, Hamed, arrived at the Kingston police station to report the four missing. In a sweeping covert investigation that spanned three continents, police uncovered layers of lies in the Shafias’ story and they developed a horrifying theory: Zainab, Sahar, Geeti and Rona had been the victims of a meticulously plotted family murder � Canada’ s first mass honour killing.In Without Honour, award-winning journalist Rob Tripp draws on three years of exhaustive research and exclusive interviews to make sense of a senseless crime in a way no other writer could. His unprecedented access tells a story beyond anything the jury heard: a story about a patriarch who fled war and strife in Afghanistan but who did not leave behind his devotion to repressive tradition. Tripp was the first journalist on the scene as the news broke and the only reporter to attend every day of court sessions, through to the convictions of Shafia, Tooba and Hamed on four counts each of first-degree murder, fuelled by what Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger called a “ twisted notion of honour.” In this gripping and compassionate account, Tripp reveals the heartbreaking and stunning truth about the desperate lives of four women who died in the pursuit of freedom.

    From sex to science, illness to ejaculation, Szumowski covers all the bases and does so with humor, a love for myth-busting, and substantial factual backing.

    Collected here from various sources (including the Guardian and GQ America) are the best of his adventures. Always intrigued by our ability to believe the unbelievable, Jon meets the man preparing to welcome the aliens to earth, the woman trying to build a fully-conscious robotic replica of the love of her life and the Deal or No Deal contestants with a fool proof system to beat the Banker. Jon realises that it’s possible for our madness to be a force for good when he meets America’s real-life superheroes or a force for evil when he meets the Reverend ‘Death’ George Exoo, who has dubiously assisted in more than a hundred mercy killings.He goes to a UFO convention in the Nevada desert with Robbie Williams, asks Insane Clown Posse (who are possibly America’s nastiest rappers) whether it’s true they’ve actually been evangelical Christians all along and rummages through the extensive archives of Stanley Kubrick. Frequently hilarious, sometimes disturbing, always entertaining, these compelling encounters with people on the edge of madness will have you wondering just what we’re capable of.

    His People's History of the United States has sold over two million copies and has altered how we see and teach history. A hero in word and deed, Zinn's views on freedom, fairness, history, democracy, and our own human potential are educational and transformative. In few places is the genius of his voice more crystallized and accessible than in the dozens of articles he penned for The Progressive magazine from 1980 to 2009, offered together here in book form for the first time. Whether critiquing the Barack Obama White House, the sorry state of US government and politics, the tragic futility of US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, or the plight of working people in an economy rigged to benefit the rich and powerful, Zinn's historical clarity, unflappable optimism, and unshakable questions reverberate throughout The Historic Unfulfilled Promise: "Have our political leaders gone mad?" "What kind of country do we want to live in?" "What is national security?" "Do we have a right to occupy a country when the people of that country obviously do not want us there?" "Is not war itself terrorism?" "Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own?" "Has the will of the people been followed?" The Historic Unfulfilled Promise is a genuine work of conscience, rich in ideas, charged with energy; an invaluable introduction for the uninitiated and a must-have for Zinn's fans.

      A strong soldier for whom?Killing the Messenger is a searing work of narrative nonfiction that explores one of the most blatant attacks on the First Amendment and free speech in American history and the small Black Muslim cult that carried it out. Award-winning investigative reporter Thomas Peele examines the Black Muslim movement from its founding in the early twentieth century by a con man who claimed to be God, to the height of power of the movement’s leading figure, Elijah Muhammad, to how the great-grandson of Texas slaves reinvented himself as a Muslim leader in Oakland and built the violent cult that the young gunman eventually joined. Peele delves into how charlatans exploited poor African Americans with tales from a religion they falsely claimed was Islam and the years of bloodshed that followed, from a human sacrifice in Detroit to police shootings of unarmed Muslims to the horrible backlash of racism known as the “zebra murders,” and finally to the brazen killing of Chauncey Bailey to stop him from publishing a newspaper story.   Peele establishes direct lines between the violent Black Muslim organization run by Yusuf Bey in Oakland and the evangelicalism of the early prophets and messengers of the Nation of Islam.  Exposing the roots of the faith, Peele examines its forerunner, the Moorish Science Temple of America, which in the 1920s and ’30s preached to migrants from the South living in Chicago and Detroit ghettos that blacks were the world’s master race, tricked into slavery by white devils. In spite of the fantastical claims and hatred at its core, the Nation of Islam was able to build a following by appealing to the lack of identity common in slave descendants.  In Oakland, Yusuf Bey built a cult through a business called Your Black Muslim Bakery, beating and raping dozens of women he claimed were his wives and fathering more than forty children.  Yet, Bey remained a prominent fixture in the community, and police looked the other way as his violent soldiers ruled the streets. An enthralling narrative that combines a rich historical account with gritty urban reporting, Killing the Messenger is a mesmerizing story of how swindlers and con men abused the tragedy of racism and created a radical religion of bloodshed and fear that culminated in a journalist’s murder.THOMAS PEELE is a digital investigative reporter for the Bay Area News Group and the Chauncey Bailey Project. He is also a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism.  His many honors include the Investigative Reporters and Editors Tom Renner Award for his reporting on organized crime, and the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage. He lives in Northern California.

    

    They are all amazing characters who manage to carry a deep knowledge of their chosen species within a distinctly quirky shell. Other animals making an appearance include otters , house sparrows, robins , owls, bats, badgers, dolphins, toads, dragonflies, moths, foxes and adders.Hugh Warwick, animal enthusiast and hedgehog fanatic, writes a series of affectionate and quirky homages to the animals of the British Isles, composed of fieldwork and interviews with the people who love and conserve them.

    Like Gerard de Nerval, David Foster Wallace, Ann Quin and Virginia Woolf before him, Unger was not merely a writer who chose to end his life, but a writer whose work appeared forged from the knowledge of that event's temporary postponement. And while to the uninitiated these literary suicides would most likely appear completely unrelated to the suicide behaviors of insects parasitized by entomopathogenic fungi or nematomorpha, within the pages of this short study we are frequently presented with details that allow us to see the parallels between their terminal choreographies. He investigates what he believes are the essentially binary and contradictory motivations of his suicide case studies: where their self-dispatch becomes an instance of necro-autonomy (death as solution to an external thraldom, or the zombification of everyday life as something requiring the most extreme form of emancipation), while in addition being an instance of necro-equipoise (death as solution to an internal thraldom, or the anguish of no longer being able to slip back comfortably inside that very everydayness). The deadening claustrophobia of human life and achieving a stance outside of it: both barbs on the lines that can only ever detail the sickness, never cure it. Through extracts and synopses of Unger's books, marginalia and underscorings selected from his extensive library, and a brief itinerary of his movements in that last month of exile, a picture of the writer's suicidal obsession begins to form, and it forms at the expense of the man, the idea eating through his brain like a fungal parasite, disinterring the waking corpse to flesh its words.

    A celebration of the twentieth anniversary of one of the greatest seasons in hockey history Twenty years after the fact, the mere mention of the 1992-93 NHL season brings back vivid memories for hockey fans across North America.

    They may discover that they are right."—Noam Chomsky“Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank have skillfully smoked out the real Barack Obama . . . the technofascist military strategist disguised as a Nobel Peace Laureate, but owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, and the Pentagon.”—Thomas H. Naylor, co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA“The writers assembled here hit hard, with accuracy, and do not pull punches."—Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship: A Human HistoryThe Barack Obama revolution was over before it started, guttered by the politician’s overweening desire to prove himself to the grandees of the establishment. From there on, other promises proved ever easier to break. Here's the book that dares not let Obama off the hook. It's all here: the compromises, the backstabbing, the same old imperial ambitions. Covering all major "Obummer" categories since he took office, this fast-paced collection will delight the critical and offer food for thought for those contemplating the 2012 electoral circus—and beyond.Jeffrey St. Clair is co-editor of CounterPunch, author of Born Under a Bad Sky and Been Brown So Long it Looked Green to Me, and co-author of Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press.Joshua Frank is an environmental journalist and co-editor of Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland. His investigative reports and columns appear in CounterPunch, Chicago Sun-Times, Common Dreams, and AlterNet.

    Best known through Hal Holbrook’s portrayal in the film version of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s All the President’s Men, Felt was regarded for decades as a conscientious but highly secretive whistleblower who shunned the limelight. Yet even after he finally revealed his identity in 2005, questions about his true motivations persisted.Max Holland has found the missing piece of that Deep Throat puzzle—one that’s been hidden in plain sight all along. He reveals for the first time in detail what truly motivated the FBI’s number-two executive to become the most fabled secret source in American history. In the process, he directly challenges Felt’s own explanations while also demolishing the legend fostered by Woodward and Bernstein’s bestselling account.Holland critiques all the theories of Felt’s motivation that have circulated over the years, including notions that Felt had been genuinely upset by White House law-breaking or had tried to defend and insulate the FBI from the machinations of President Nixon and his Watergate henchmen. And, while acknowledging that Woodward finally disowned the “principled whistleblower” image of Felt in The Secret Man, Holland shows why that famed journalist’s latest explanation still falls short of the truth.Holland showcases the many twists and turns to Felt’s story that are not widely known, revealing not a selfless official acting out of altruistic patriotism, but rather a career bureaucrat with his own very private agenda. Drawing on new interviews and oral histories, old and just-released FBI Watergate files, papers of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, presidential tape recordings, and Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate-related papers, he sheds important new light on both Felt’s motivations and the complex and often problematic relationship between the press and government officials.Fast-paced and scrupulously fact-checked, Leak resolves the mystery residing at the heart of Mark Felt’s actions. By doing so, it radically revises our understanding of America’s most famous presidential scandal.

    These 25 pieces represent numerous periods of his writing career, starting with early humor columns for his college paper, through freelance pieces during the '80s that showed early sparks of "Serge," including covering a Michael Jackson concert and the New Orleans World's Fair. Then into '90s (with reports on roller hockey and obscenity laws), and finally the post-"Florida Roadkill" years, which prompted publications to request first-person accounts of his book tours, research travels and anything else that followed Storms' swath of destruction.

    This includes how to write compelling reviews, how to pitch yourself as a writer, how to tackle some tricky ethical quandaries, and yes, even how to get free games. Based on Dan Amrich’s own experience as a game journalist for more than 15 years, it’s advice that can serve you for your entire career, from press start to game over.

    Features interviews with the cast and some of the few who actually saw the shows.

    When President Barack Obama ordered the surge of troops and aid to Afghanistan, Washington Post correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran followed. He found the effort sabotaged not only by Afghan and Pakistani malfeasance but by infighting and incompetence within the American government: a war cabinet arrested by vicious bickering among top national security aides; diplomats and aid workers who failed to deliver on their grand promises; generals who dispatched troops to the wrong places; and headstrong military leaders who sought a far more expansive campaign than the White House wanted. Through their bungling and quarreling, they wound up squandering the first year of the surge. Chandrasekaran explains how the United States has never understood Afghanistan—and probably never will. During the Cold War, American engineers undertook a massive development project across southern Afghanistan in an attempt to woo the country from Soviet influence. They built dams and irrigation canals, and they established a comfortable residential community known as Little America, with a Western-style school, a coed community pool, and a plush clubhouse—all of which embodied American and Afghan hopes for a bright future and a close relationship. But in the late 1970s—after growing Afghan resistance and a Communist coup—the Americans abandoned the region to warlords and poppy farmers. In one revelatory scene after another, Chandrasekaran follows American efforts to reclaim the very same territory from the Taliban. Along the way, we meet an Army general whose experience as the top military officer in charge of Iraq’s Green Zone couldn’t prepare him for the bureaucratic knots of Afghanistan, a Marine commander whose desire to charge into remote hamlets conflicted with civilian priorities, and a war-seasoned diplomat frustrated in his push for a scaled-down but long-term American commitment. Their struggles show how Obama’s hope of a good war, and the Pentagon’s desire for a resounding victory, shriveled on the arid plains of southern Afghanistan. Meticulously reported, hugely revealing, Little America is an unprecedented examination of a failing war—and an eye-opening look at the complex relationship between America and Afghanistan.

    A collection some of Mary Schmich's best columns, selected and organized for continuity by the author.

    Whether you're writing a rags-to-riches tell-all memoir or literary journalism, telling true stories well is hard work. In You Can't Make This Stuff Up, Lee Gutkind, the go-to expert for all things creative nonfiction, offers his unvarnished wisdom to help you craft the best writing possible. Frank, to-the-point, and always entertaining, Gutkind describes and illustrates every aspect of the genre. Invaluable tools and exercises illuminate key steps, from defining a concept and establishing a writing process to the final product. Offering new ways of understanding the genre, this practical guidebook will help you thoroughly expand and stylize your work.

    Written by today's leading journalists, the selections cover a range of developments in politics, international affairs, culture, and business -- from the increasingly short shelf lives of celebrity marriages to the ongoing fallout from Wall Street's financial malpractice, from the insidious effects of the lingering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the resurgent battle over issues pertaining to women's safety and health. Always engaging and informative, Best American Magazine Writing 2012 is an incomparable resource for the most noteworthy journalism and literary achievements of the year.Essays include Lawrence Wright (The New Yorker) on the history of Scientology and recent challenges to its mission and methods; Matthieu Aikins (The Atlantic) on the shady dealings and shifting sands of the war in Afghanistan; the late Christopher Hitchens (Vanity Fair) on the physical and emotional toll of cancer; and Joel Stein (Time) on the propensity for politicians and other popular figures to get into trouble on the Internet. John Jeremiah Sullivan (GQ) immerses himself in David Foster Wallace's curious legacy; Tim Crothers (ESPN) follows the inspiring story of Phiona Mutesi, a chess prodigy from the slums of Uganda; Chris Ballard (Sports Illustrated) recounts Dewayne Dedmon's struggle to reconcile his faith with a career in sports; Wesley Yang (New York) explores the pressure on Asian Americans to succeed and the psychological and cultural consequences when they don't; and Luke Dittrich (Esquire) shares the raw experiences of those who survived one of 2011's worst natural disasters: the tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri. The sparkling dialogue and vividly imagined, eccentric characters of Karen Russell's award-winning short story, "The Hox River Window" (Zoetrope: All-Story), rounds out the collection.

    The ransom note said the kidnappers were from an unheard of Islamic outfit and that they wanted the release of Pakistani militant leader Maulana Masood Azhar (later responsible for the attack on the Indian parliament). The kidnapping electrified the world and for the first time put the global spotlight on Kashmir. Within four days, one of the prisoners had made a hair-raising escape. A month on, was found, beheaded by his captors who had carved their name into his flesh. In the background, camped out in Delhi, the families of the missing struggled to keep their hopes alive, while international governments negotiated frantically with India, and the army, police and intelligence services tried to follow the trail. But the remaining four hostages were never found, their case forgotten - until now.About the AuthorCathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy are the authors of three books, including Deception (Penguin Books India, 2007). For sixteen years they worked as foreign correspondents and investigative reporters for The Sunday Times and then The Guardian. In 2009, the One World Trust named them British Journalists of the Year, having won Foreign Correspondents of the Year, in 2004.

    Topics cover civil rights, road trips in Baja, and Elvis' s visits to his aging mother. Also tributes by authors such as Donna Tartt and Ron Rosenbaum.

    Frierson takes readers on a rare journey to eight of these remote and ancient islands, including the Kure Atoll, the oldest Hawa'i'ian island and the northernmost atoll in the world. In her 1,200-mile travels, Frierson discovers isolated landscapes, undisturbed ecosystems, and a nearly forgotten but well-preserved human history. It is a rich history of discovery by explorers and pirates, plus extensive military use. Frierson finds a vast wilderness, including the remnants of ancient volcanoes, and unique species of wildlife. She also explores the islands' location in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a major current that washes up the world's garbage. A lifelong resident of Hawai'i, Frierson draws broad conclusions relating to islands and their "canary in a coal mine" role.

     In the last two decades the decline of large city papers in the United States has been precipitous and shocking.  The reasons behind this fall are still not clearly understood, particularly by those within the newspaper industry.  The newspapers’ response to their problems has also been called into question, especially the dilution of content and the reduction of staffs.  And there is growing concern that a democratic republic without a vigorous press augurs poorly for an informed electorate and a healthy society.  Richard Tofel’s considerable experience as a newspaper executive gives his assessment of these events an insider's perspective.  His piece, released by Now and Then Reader, Digital Publishers of Serious Nonfiction, is filled with fresh insights and astute conclusions.---Richard Tofel is general manager of ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative journalism newsroom headquartered in New York and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, including the first for material not published in print.  He was formerly assistant publisher of the Wall Street Journal and, earlier, assistant managing editor as well as vice president for corporate communications and assistant general counsel of Dow Jones & Company.  More recently he was vice president and general counsel of the Rockefeller Foundation, and earlier president and chief operating officer of the International Freedom Center, a museum and cultural center that was planned for the World Trade Center site.  He is the author of Eight Weeks in Washington, 1861: Abraham Lincoln and the Hazards of Transition; Restless Genius: Barney Kilgore, The Wall Street Journal, and the Invention of Modern Journalism; Sounding the Trumpet: The Making of John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address; Vanishing Point: The Disappearance of Judge Crater, and the New York He Left Behind; and A Legend in the Making: The New York Yankees in 1939.  He lives in New York City.

    Sickened by the rot in his homeland, Juraj opts not to return. When the Communist regime forces him to renounce his Czechoslovak citizenship, he embarks on a new – wholly American – life. He changes his name and gains US citizenship. He does not visit family; he does not teach his children his native tongue. After the Velvet Revolution topples Communism in 1989, Juraj’s son Rick decides to go and live in Bratislava. As Rick finally connects with his grandfather who is dying and his grandmother who is nursing him, Juraj has cause to re-connect with family and friends and to redefine his relationship with the country he had turned his back on decades earlier.

    The truth about this mind-altering chemical cocktail is far more complex--and less controversial--than generally believed."Psychedelic Psychiatry" is the tale of medical researchers working to understand LSD's therapeutic properties just as escalating anxieties about drug abuse in modern society laid the groundwork for the end of experimentation at the edge of psychopharmacology. Historian Erika Dyck deftly recasts our understanding of LSD to show it as an experimental substance, a medical treatment, and a tool for exploring psychotic perspectives--as well as a recreational drug. She recounts the inside story of the early days of LSD research in small-town, prairie Canada, when Humphry Osmond and Abram Hoffer claimed incredible advances in treating alcoholism, understanding schizophrenia and other psychoses, and achieving empathy with their patients.In relating the drug's short, strange trip, Dyck explains how concerns about countercultural trends led to the criminalization of LSD and other so-called psychedelic drugs--concordantly opening the way for an explosion in legal prescription pharmaceuticals--and points to the recent re-emergence of sanctioned psychotropic research among psychiatric practitioners. This challenge to the prevailing wisdom behind drug regulation and addiction therapy provides a historical corrective to our perception of LSD's medical efficacy.

    "Our job is not to amuse our readers," says Auth of a national artistic heritage of editorial cartooning that began with Benjamin Franklin in 1754. "Our mission is to stir them, inform and inflame them."

    Trajce Cvetkovski interrogates the disorganizational effects of piracy and emerging technologies on the political economy of copyright in popular music, film and gaming industries.

    Specifically, they often wrote about war from the perspective of those left at home, struggling to keep the household afloat. And with 'How it feels to be forcibly fed' (1914) by Djuna Barnes, one of the world's very first experiential, or 'gonzo' journalists, came a new age of reporting. Since then, women have continued to break new ground in newspapers and magazines, redefining the world as we see it. Many of the pieces here feel almost unsettlingly relevant today -- the conclusions Emma 'Red' Goldman drew in her 1916 'The social aspects of birth control', Maddy Vegtel's 1930s article about becoming pregnant at 40, Eleanor Roosevelt's call for greater tolerance after America's race riots in 1943. Many have pushed other limits: Naomi Wolf's Beauty Myth brought feminism to a new generation; Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones caused a media revolution; Ruth Picardie's unflinchingly honest column about living with cancer in 1997 brought a wave of British candour and a host of imitators; and when two iconic women come face to face, we have at one end Dorothy Parker on Isadora Duncan (1928) and at the other Julie Burchill on Margaret Thatcher (2004). This collection of superlative writing, selected by the Sunday Times's most senior female editor, brings together the most influential, incisive, controversial, affecting and entertaining pieces of journalism by the best women in the business. Covering: War; Crime; Politics & Society; Sex & Romance; Body Image & Health; Family, Friendship & Birth; Emancipation & Having it All; Hearth & Home; Icons & Interviews. Including: Lynn Barber, Djuna Barnes, Julie Burchill, Angela Carter, Marie Colvin, Jilly Cooper, Joan Didion, Margaret Drabble, Helen Fielding, Zelda Fitzgerald, Kathryn Flett, Martha Gellhorn, Nicci Gerrard, Emma Goldman, Germaine Greer, Nicola Horlick, Erica Jong, Jamaica Kincaid, India Knight, Christina Lamb, Daphne du Maurier, Nancy Mitford, Suzanne Moore, Camille Paglia, Sylvia Pankhurst, Dorothy Parker, Allison Pearson, Ruth Picardie, Erin Pizzey, Eleanor Roosevelt, Zadie Smith, Susan Sontag, Gloria Steinem, Martha Stewart, Mary Stott, Jill Tweedie, Rebecca West, Zoe Williams, Jeanette Winterson, Naomi Wolf.

    Thompson.

    Due to the diseases they carry and inject, mosquitoes are responsible for more human deaths than any other animal. The most deadly of these diseases is malaria, which although eradicated from much of the northern hemisphere, continues to pose a mortal threat in developing countries. Two billion people a year are exposed to malarial infection, of which over 350 million succumb, and nearly 700,000 die, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa. In Mosquito, Richard Jones recounts the history of mosquitoes’ relationship with mankind, and their transformation from a trivial gnat into a serious disease-carrying menace. Drawing on scientific fact, historical evidence, and literary evocation, the book provides a colourful portrait of this tiny insect and the notorious diseases it carries. Mosquito offers a compelling warning against the contemporary complacency surrounding malaria and other diseases in western society, whilst also exploring the sinister reputation of the insect in general. Written in an accessible style for a broad readership, this book will appeal to all those with an interest in tropical medicine and disease, as well as anyone pestered in the night by the annoying, familiar whine of this diminutive airborne adversary. Richard Jones is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London and the Linnean Society of London, and was President of the British Entomological and Natural History Society 2001–02. He has published a number of books on insects and wildlife including Nano Nature (2009) and Extreme Insects (2010).

    Other true stories include up-close visits with super-celebrity Paris Hilton, South Asian Republican hopeful Gov. Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, Ultimate Fighting Championship impresario Dana White, and coaching phenom Pete Carroll.Plus: A man who spent twenty-nine years in prison for a crime he did not commit. A Muslim immigrant who worked to save the life of the white supremacist who tried to kill him. The best-dressed man in America. An ugly guy in a town that worships beauty. A farm in the mountains where wounded marine veterans are taking care of their own. And “The Porn Identity,” where a divorced dad takes to the road to find former starlets and to rediscover his mojo.“Mike Sager writes with uncommon grace and, always, with respect for those who give him their time. His stories cut to the bone of our common humanity.”–Paul Hendrickson, author of Seminary and Hemingway’s Boat, on The Someone You’re Not

    But Vidal was also a terrific conversationalist; indeed Dick Cavett once described him as “the best talker since Oscar Wilde.” Vidal was never more eloquent, or caustic, than when let loose on his favorite topic: the history and politics of the United States.This book is made up from four interviews conducted with his long-time interlocutor, the writer and radio host Jon Wiener, in which Vidal grapples with matters evidently close to his heart: the history of the American Empire, the rise of the National Security State, and his own life in politics, both as a commentator and candidate.The interviews cover a twenty-year span, from 1988 to 2008, when Vidal was at the height of his powers. His extraordinary facility for developing an argument, tracing connections between past and present, and drawing on an encyclopedic knowledge of America’s place in the world, are all on full display. And, of course, it being Gore Vidal, an ample sprinkling of gloriously acerbic one-liners is also provided.

    U.S. News & World Report’s latest special collector’s issue, Secrets of the Civil War, brings you the inside story of the bitter struggle to save the union on the occasion of the war’s sesquicentennial. Inside, historians reveal the real Lincoln behind the myths; offer fresh insights into the pivotal battles of Antietam, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg; and examine the complex, often conflicted personalities of Lee and Grant. Also, •Bearing Witness: Celebrated Americans who lived through the war poignantly capture its terrible cost in words and pictures •A Nation in Shock: Lincoln’s assassination and the aftermath •Losses Beyond Measure: New evidence suggests previous casualty counts were much too low. •Escape from Libby—Union soldiers carry out a notorious prison break •A tourist’s guide to must-see Civil War sites

    Fixx’s book had been a huge best-seller, selling more than a million hard-cover copies, arguably creating the first running boom. If Fixx did not create the boom with that book and a second best-seller, The Second Book of Running, he certainly served as mid-wife. Fixx had just spent a month on Cape Cod with his extended family, running several road races from 10 to 20 kilometers. Prior to the start of that vacation, he had completed work on his latest book, Maximum Sports Performance. His family would recall him during their time together as tired, but happy, both running and playing tennis daily. At the end of the stay at Cape Cod, he climbed in his car and drove six hours north to where he had rented a cabin for a month’s stay with his current companion, a former high school girlfiend. Arriving late afternoon, he went for the run.An hour or so later, a motorcyclist found him lying dead by the side of the road.The death of Jim Fixx both shocked and horrified the running community. He was their role model. Once overweight, a smoker, a man in a high-pressure New York job, his family history included a father who suffered a heart attack at age 35 and died at age 43. Thus, Jim Fixx resembled in so many ways those who took up running after buying his best-selling book. He was the prophet who would lead these new runners to the Promised Land. His death at the age of 52 was an embarrassment. Suddenly all their non-running friends questioned their obsession. Why had Jim Fixx died?Hal Higdon, author of his own best-selling book Fitness After Forty and a Senior Writer for The Runner magazine, was asked to answer that question. Higdon talked to the friends and family of Jim Fixx, as well as medical experts, to trace the last days leading to his fatal heart attack. An autopsy showed one artery with 95 percent blockage, others at 80 and 45 percent, numbers predictive of almost certain cardiovascular problems. Why had Jim Fixx not recognized obvious symptoms which, if treated, might have saved his life?Higdon’s article became the cover story for the November, 1984 issue of The Runner: “JIM FIXX: How He Lived. Why He Died.” Now that landmark article is available for download from The Kindle Store in an expanded version, the author reflecting a quarter century later on the impact Jim Fixx’s death had on the sport of running and what we know now about the dangers of that sport.Here then is, The Death of Jim Fixx by Hal Higdon.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Anne Frank Unbound looks beyond this young girl's words at the numerous ways people have engaged her life and writing. Apart from officially sanctioned works and organizations, there exists a prodigious amount of cultural production, which encompasses literature, art, music, film, television, blogs, pedagogy, scholarship, religious ritual, and comedy. Created by both artists and amateurs, these responses to Anne Frank range from veneration to irreverence. Although at times they challenge conventional perceptions of her significance, these works testify to the power of Anne Frank, the writer, and Anne Frank, the cultural phenomenon, as people worldwide forge their own connections with the diary and its author.

    The Defender was a platform and voice for talents such as Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and W.E.B. DuBois. What began as a humble weekly grew into the largest and most influential black newspaper in the country, leading an entire race to leave the oppressive South for a better life in the North. Born in 1868 on the heels of the Reconstruction Era, Abbott--the son of former slaves--managed to influence the first two decades of the 20th century and was a major contributor to the prolific movement known as the "Great Northern Migration." Boasting a circulation of over 300,000 nationally, the Defender was secretly delivered by Pullman porters across the United States. By 1920, the paper's tagline read, "The World's Greatest Weekly." The story of the Defender is one of inspiration, struggle, triumph, and irreversible pathways being forged.