The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth


Matthew Algeo - 2011
    He boarded a friend’s yacht, sailed into the calm blue waters of Long Island Sound, and--poof!--disappeared. He would not be heard from again for five days. What happened during those five days, and in the days and weeks that followed, was so incredible that, even when the truth was finally revealed, many Americans simply would not believe it.The President Is a Sick Man details an extraordinary but almost unknown chapter in American history: Grover Cleveland’s secret cancer surgery and the brazen political cover-up by a politician whose most memorable quote was “Tell the truth.” When an enterprising reporter named E. J. Edwards exposed the secret operation, Cleveland denied it. The public believed the “Honest President,” and Edwards was dismissed as “a disgrace to journalism.” The facts concerning the disappearance of Grover Cleveland that summer were so well concealed that even more than a century later a full and fair account has never been published. Until now.

Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale


Adam Minter - 2019
    Decluttering. A parent's death. Sooner or later, all of us are faced with things we no longer need or want. But when we drop our old clothes and other items off at a local donation center, where do they go? Sometimes across the country-or even halfway across the world-to people and places who find value in what we leave behind.In Secondhand, journalist Adam Minter takes us on an unexpected adventure into the often-hidden, multibillion-dollar industry of reuse: thrift stores in the American Southwest to vintage shops in Tokyo, flea markets in Southeast Asia to used-goods enterprises in Ghana, and more. Along the way, Minter meets the fascinating people who handle-and profit from-our rising tide of discarded stuff, and asks a pressing question: In a world that craves shiny and new, is there room for it all?Secondhand offers hopeful answers and hard truths. A history of the stuff we've used and a contemplation of why we keep buying more, it also reveals the marketing practices, design failures, and racial prejudices that push used items into landfills instead of new homes. Secondhand shows us that it doesn't have to be this way, and what really needs to change to build a sustainable future free of excess stuff.

Don't Know Much About the American Presidents


Kenneth C. Davis - 2001
    Davis takes readers on a guided tour of American history. Examining each chief executive, from the low lights to the bright lights, the memorable to the forgettable and the forgotten, Davis tells all the stories, offering rich anecdotes about real people. He also charts the history of the presidency itself, debunking myths and grading the presidents from A+ to F. For history buffs and history-phobes alike, this entertaining book may change your understanding of the highest office in the land throughout more than two hundred years of history.

Silent Spring


Rachel Carson - 1962
    The book documents the adverse environmental effects caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly.The book appeared in September 1962 and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement.

Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition


Buddy Levy - 2019
    In July 1881, Lt. A.W. Greely and his crew of 24 scientists and explorers were bound for the last region unmarked on global maps. Their goal: Farthest North. What would follow was one of the most extraordinary and terrible voyages ever made.Greely and his men confronted every possible challenge—vicious wolves, sub-zero temperatures, and months of total darkness—as they set about exploring one of the most remote, unrelenting environments on the planet. In May 1882, they broke the 300-year-old record, and returned to camp to eagerly await the resupply ship scheduled to return at the end of the year. Only nothing came.250 miles south, a wall of ice prevented any rescue from reaching them. Provisions thinned and a second winter descended. Back home, Greely's wife worked tirelessly against government resistance to rally a rescue mission.Months passed, and Greely made a drastic choice: he and his men loaded the remaining provisions and tools onto their five small boats, and pushed off into the treacherous waters. After just two weeks, dangerous floes surrounded them. Now new dangers awaited: insanity, threats of mutiny, and cannibalism. As food dwindled and the men weakened, Greely's expedition clung desperately to life.Labyrinth of Ice tells the true story of the heroic lives and deaths of these voyagers hell-bent on fame and fortune—at any cost—and how their journey changed the world.

The Second Jim Corbett Omnibus.


Jim Corbett - 1992
    In My India, the first volume in the set, Corbett recounts his experiences in the Kumaon Hills. He discusses the villages he visited, the people he got acquainted with, and the lifestyles and customs he encountered. The second book, Jungle Lore, presents an autobiographical account of his initial days and experiences in the Himalayan region, and his frank, farsighted views on various aspects of wildlife conservation. In Tree Tops, the final title in the set, Corbett provides rich, fascinating glimpses of the stark, savage beauty of the Kenyan landscape and wildlife. An account of the 1952 royal visit of Princess Elizabeth is also included in this volume. The collection was released in 2001 by Oxford University Press. It received positive reviews for its remarkable presentation of Jim Corbett in a new light.About the AuthorJim Corbett was a British hunter-turned-conservationist, naturalist, author, and photographer, best-known for hunting several man-eaters in India. He has written several books such as The Jim Corbett Omnibus, Not While I Have Ammo, and Man-Eaters Of Kumaon. Corbett was born on July 25, 1875, in Nainital, India. He served as a Colonel in the British Indian Army for several years. Corbett played a vital role in protecting wildlife, particularly the Bengal tiger of India. He passed away on April 19, 1955, in Nyeri, Kenya. His life has been featured in various media, including a Hollywood movie, a TV movie, and a docudrama.topTable of ContentsMy IndiaIntroductionThe Queen of the VillageKunwar SinghMothiPre-Red-Tape DaysThe Law of the JunglesThe BrothersSultana: India's Robin Hood LoyaltyBudhuLalajeeChamariLife at mokameh GhatJungle LoreIntroductionChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveTree TopsIntroductionTree Tops

A Plague of Frogs: The Horrifying True Story


William Souder - 2000
    Since then, deformed frogs have been turning up in lakes around the world. Written by the only journalist granted access to secret hot spots where these deformed frogs are tested, and brainstorming sessions among the researchers, this compelling, fast-paced narrative is the first to offer a complete picture of what is quite possibly a global catastrophe in the making.

The Lost City of the Monkey God


Douglas Preston - 2017
    An ancient curse. A stunning medical mystery. And a pioneering journey into the unknown heart of the world's densest jungle.Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location.Three quarters of a century later, author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease.

Landmarks


Robert Macfarlane - 2015
    Landmarks is about the power of language to shape our sense of place. It is a field guide to the literature of nature, and a glossary containing thousands of remarkable words used in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to describe land, nature and weather. Travelling from Cumbria to the Cairngorms, and exploring the landscapes of Roger Deakin, J. A. Baker, Nan Shepherd and others, Robert Macfarlane shows that language, well used, is a keen way of knowing landscape, and a vital means of coming to love it.

The Birdman's Wife


Melissa Ashley - 2016
    In a society obsessed with natural history and the discovery of new species, the birdman’s wife was at its glittering epicentre. Her artistry breathed life into hundreds of exotic finds, from her husband’s celebrated collections to Charles Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches.Fired by Darwin’s discoveries, in 1838 Elizabeth defied convention by joining John on a trailblazing expedition to the untamed wilderness of Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales to collect and illustrate Australia’s ‘curious’ birdlife.From a naïve and uncertain young girl to a bold adventurer determined to find her own voice and place in the world, The Birdman’s Wife paints an indelible portrait of an extraordinary woman overlooked by history, until now.

Between Man and Beast: An Unlikely Explorer, the Evolution Debates, and the African Adventure That Took the Victorian World by Storm


Monte Reel - 2013
    When he emerged three years later, the summation of his efforts only hinted at what he'd experienced in one of the most dangerous regions on earth. Armed with an astonishing collection of zoological specimens, Du Chaillu leapt from the physical challenges of the jungle straight into the center of the biggest issues of the time--the evolution debate, racial discourse, the growth of Christian fundamentalism--and helped push each to unprecedented intensities. He experienced instant celebrity, but with that fame came whispers--about his past, his credibility, and his very identity--which would haunt the young man. Grand in scope, immediate in detail, and propulsively readable, Between Man and Beast brilliantly combines Du Chaillu's personal journey with the epic tale of a world hovering on the sharp edge of transformation.

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America


Timothy Egan - 2009
    Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men  —  college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps  —  to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them.Egan narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire with unstoppable dramatic force. Equally dramatic is the larger story he tells of outsized president Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of public land as our national treasure, owned by and preserved for every citizen. The robber barons fought Roosevelt and Pinchot’s rangers, but the Big Burn saved the forests even as it destroyed them: the heroism shown by the rangers turned public opinion permanently in their favor and became the creation myth that drove the Forest Service, with consequences still felt in the way our national lands are protected  —  or not —  today.

More Readings From One Man's Wilderness: The Journals of Richard L. Proenneke, 1974-1980


Richard Proenneke - 2005
    Proenneke--a modern-day Henry David Thoreau--built a cabin in Twin Lakes, Alaska, during the spring of 1968, sparking thirty years of personal growth in which he spent the majority of his time strengthening his relationship with the wilderness around him. Following in the footsteps of One Man's Wilderness, a classic book compiling some of the mountain man's journals, More Readings from One Man's Wilderness chronicles Proenneke's experiences with animals, the elements, park visitors, and observations he made while hiking in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. A master woodcraftsman, a mechanical genius, a tireless hiker with a keen eye, and a journalist, Proenneke's life at Twin Lakes has inspired thousands of readers for decades.Editor John Branson--a longtime friend of Proenneke's and a park historian--ensures that Proenneke's journals from 1974-1980 are kept entirely intact. His colloquial writing is not changed or altered, but Branson's footnotes make his world more approachable by providing a background for names and places that may have otherwise been unknown. Any reader with a love for conservation and true-life wilderness narratives will undoubtedly admire and relish Proenneke's tales of living in the wild.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports--books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team.In addition to books on popular team sports, we also publish books for a wide variety of athletes and sports enthusiasts, including books on running, cycling, horseback riding, swimming, tennis, martial arts, golf, camping, hiking, aviation, boating, and so much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

The Naming of the Shrew: A Curious History of Latin Names


John Wright - 2014
    Why on earth has the entirely land-loving Eastern mole been named "Scalopus Aquaticus" or the Oxford ragwort been called "Senecio Squalidus" (translation: "dirty old man")? What were naturalists thinking when they called a beetle "Agra Katewinsletae," a genus of fish "Batman," and a trilobite "Han Solo"? Why is zoology replete with names such as "Chloris Chloris Chloris" (the greenfinch) and "Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla" (a species of, well, gorilla)? The Naming of the Shrew will unveil these mysteries, exploring the history, celebrating their poetic nature, and revealing how naturalists sometimes get things so terribly wrong. With wonderfully witty style and captivating narrative, this book will make you see Latin names in a whole new light.

The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons


John Wesley Powell - 1895
    A bold foray into the heart of the American West’s final frontier, the expedition was achieved without benefit of modern river-running equipment, supplies, or a firm sense of the region’s perilous topography and the attitudes of the native inhabitants towards whites.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.