Nothing will ever compare to the amphetamine rush of my young life and the night I was nearly buggered by my girlfriend’s uncle in the Potteries...The opening line of Stuart Cosgrove’s Young Soul Rebels sets up a compelling and intimate story of northern soul, Britain’s most fascinating musical underground scene, and takes the reader on a journey into the iconic clubs that made it famous – The Twisted Wheel, The Torch, Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca and Cleethorpes Pier – the bootleggers that made it infamous, the splits that threatened to divide the scene, the great unknown records that built its global reputation and the crate-digging collectors that travelled to America to unearth unknown sounds.The book sweeps across fifty years of British life and places the northern soul scene in a social context – the rise of amphetamine culture, the policing of youth culture, the north–south divide, the decline of coastal Britain, the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry, the rise of Thatcherism, the miners’ strike, the rave scene and music in the era of the world wide web Books have been written about northern soul before but never with the same erudition and passion.

    their vendettas, their armies of servitors, partisans and sycophants, their love affairs, scandals, and shortcomings, all were the stuff of an imperial routine."Stasz reveals new facts and insights into the fascinating lives of three generations of Vanderbilt women who dominated New York society from the middle of the eighteenth century through the twentieth. Of special interest are the discovery of unpublished letters and a pseudonymous lesbian novel that shed light on the complex character of the most currently famous Vanderbilt woman, Gloria Vanderbilt.

    This biography of two great atheletes recounts the political legacy, extraordinary personal links and enduring friendship between four-times Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens, and World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Joe Louis, black athletes born in an America demeaned by racism and poverty.

    They were the rank underdogs and they swept to victory on an unprecedented tide of goodwill that washed over the nation. Only Martin Flanagan could bring to life this particular miracle. The club's two guiding spirits - captain Bob Murphy and coach Luke Beveridge - welcomed him in, Beveridge making available his match diaries, pre-match notes and video highlights. Flanagan interviewed every player, watched every match, talked with the trainers, the women in the football department, the fans who never miss a training session, the cheer squad.What Flanagan shows is that the Bulldogs found a new way to play partly because they found a new way to be a team - a new way to support each other, even a new way to be. A Wink from the Universe takes us into the heart of the community Luke Beveridge and Bob Murphy dreamt into being with the support of the Bulldog people around them. This is a classic of sportswriting - a book for fans of the club, and of the game, but also a book for anyone who wants to know how a group of people can will a miracle to happen.

     ""It’s an astonishing performance. Wise goes through every piece of evidence, every report, every word and comes to the conclusion that investigators were deliberately and brilliantly misled by whoever took over the plane to look in the wrong place. Read this stunning piece of investigative journalism and see if he convinces you." -- John Podhoretz, Commentary magazine. Five years after a state-of-the-art Boeing 777 vanished into the night over the South China Sea, renowned science and aviation author Jeff Wise offers a compelling and detailed account of what happened that night and in the months and years that followed. In his follow-up to "The Plane That Wasn't There," named the Best Kindle Single of 2015, Wise walks readers through the many developments that have taken place in the meantime and explains why despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars and searching an area of seabed the size of Great Britain, authorities were unable to locate the plane's wreckage. Officials and independent experts were stunned by their failure, but Wise predicted it four years ago. Here he distills the fruits of exhaustive research and arrives at a conclusion that upends our understanding of what humans are capable of, both technologically and morally. Jeff Wise is a science journalist specializing in aviation and psychology. A licensed pilot of gliders and light airplanes, he has also written for New York, the New York Times, Time, Businessweek, Esquire, Popular Mechanics, and many others. He is also the author of Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger. A native of Massachusetts, he lives outside New York City with his wife and two sons.

    Maybe, that’s why in the presidential election of 2012, more people did not vote than voted for either candidate. We, the people, must realize we hold the power through our one vote. If we do not exercise that power, we have no right to complain!In One Vote, Dr. Ben Carson makes an urgent, nonpartisan, and unbiased plea for every American citizen to exercise the power of their vote in every election. This convenient and easy-to-use book will give you everything you need to become an informed voter. After reading this book, you will know how to ask the right questions about candidates, parties, and voting records; find the candidates and political parties that coincide with your values; locate your own senator and congressman; request information from your representatives; discover what bills your representatives have sponsored; and uncover how your representatives have voted in the past.One Vote can help you make sure your voice is heard.

    Re-introduced to the Tour in 1976, Alpe d’Huez has risen to mythical status, thanks initially to a string of victories by riders from Holland, whose exploits attracted tens of thousands of their compatriots to the climb, which has become known as ‘Dutch mountain’. A snaking 13.8-kilometre ascent rising up through 21 numbered hairpins at an average gradient of 7.8%, Alpe d’Huez is the climb on which every great rider wants to win. Many of the sport’s most famous and now even infamous names have won on the Alpe, including Bernard Hinault, Joop Zoetemelk, Lucho Herrera, Marco Pantani and Lance Armstrong. As well as days of brilliance, there have controversies such as the high-speed and drug-fuelled duels of the EPO years in the 1990s and into the new millennium.  In Alpe d’Huez, veteran cycling journalist Peter Cossins reveals the triumphs, passion and despair behind the great exploits on the Alpe and discloses the untold details that have led to the mountain becoming as important to the Tour as the race is to resort at its summit. It is a tale of man and machine battling against breath-taking terrain for the ultimate prize.

    Three modern day Tom Sawyers, with no caving expertise but an abundance of bravado, made Hannibal ground zero for a terrifying calamity that would leave its traumatic mark for half a century. Joel Hoag, his brother Billy, and their friend Craig Dowell vanished after exploring a vast and complex maze cave system that had been exposed by highway construction. Fifty years later, their fate remains the ultimate unsolved mystery.

    White's understanding of Tupac's art will uncork the bottled up rage and confusion that attends the way hip-hop culture is produced and received. Rebel details each step in Shakur's development, from his early exposure to racism and political activism to his move from New York to the West Coast and his innovative work with early hip hop culture and music. Through connections drawn between Shakur and Public Enemy, Notorious B.I.G., Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Sister Souljah, White examines Shakur's life as a prism for the hip-hop world. Photographs, a useful chronology of important dates in the life of Shakur, and an updated discography and filmography of his career as a rapper and actor are included. "Talk about diversity, talk about identity, talk about icons—White's in-depth look at Tupac Shakur talks about all of 'em."—Booklist "White has written a nuanced, expansive and impassioned study of the life and art of Tupac Shakur."—Tyrone Williams, Metro Times Literary Quarterly "Rebel ... is a means of analyzing the rage, fatalism and rootlessness of the contemporary rap scene."—Select Magazine

    

    God wasn’t bothered by Jim Crow. Baby Jesus had white skin. Meet Plantation Jesus: a god who is comfortable with bigotry, and an idol that distorts the message of the real Savior. That false image of God is dead, right? Wrong, argue the authors of Plantation Jesus, an authoritative new book on one of the most urgent issues of our day. Through their shared passion for Jesus Christ and with an unblinking look at history, church, and pop culture, authors Skot Welch and Rick Wilson detail the manifold ways that racism damages the church’s witness. Together Welch and Wilson take on common responses by white Christians to racial injustice, such as “I never owned a slave,” “I don’t see color; only people,” and “We just need to get over it and move on.” Together they call out the church’s denials and dodges and evasions of race, and they invite readers to encounter the Christ of the disenfranchised.With practical resources and Spirit-filled stories, Plantation Jesus nudges readers to learn the history, acknowledge the injury, and face the truth. Only then can the church lead the way toward true reconciliation. Only then can the legacy of Plantation Jesus be replaced with the true way of Jesus Christ.

    Two rival football teams. Two legendary coaches. Two talented quarterbacks. Together they broke the color line, revolutionized college sports, and transformed the NFL.1967. TWO RIVAL FOOTBALL TEAMS. TWO LEGENDARY COACHES. TWO STAR QUARTERBACKS. TOGETHER THEY BROKE THE COLOR L INE, REVOLUTIONIZED COLLEGE SPORTS, AND TRANSFORMED THE NFL. In September 1967, after three years of landmark civil rights laws and three months of devastating urban riots, the football season began at Louisiana’s Grambling College and Florida A&M. The teams were led by two extraordinary coaches, Eddie Robinson and Jake Gaither, and they featured the best quarterbacks ever at each school, James Harris and Ken Riley. Breaking the Line brings to life the historic saga of the battle for the 1967 black college championship, culminating in a riveting, excruciatingly close contest. Samuel G. Freedman traces the rise of these four leaders and their teammates as they storm through the season. Together they helped compel the segre­gated colleges of the South to integrate their teams and redefined who could play quarterback in the NFL, who could be a head coach, and who could run a franchise as general manager. In Breaking the Line, Freedman brilliantly tells this suspenseful story of character and talent as he takes us from locker room to state capitol, from embattled campus to packed stadium. He captures a pivotal time in American sport and society, filling a missing and crucial chapter in the movement for civil rights.

    It is a genuine, firsthand account of a one-year tour that shows how a soldier grew and matured from an awkward, bewildered, inexperienced, eighteen year-old country “bumpkin” from Kentucky, to a tough, battle hardened, fighting soldier. You will laugh, cry and stand in awe at the true life experiences shared in this memoir. The awfulness of battle, fear beyond description, the sorrow and anguish of losing friends, extreme weariness, the dealing with the scalding sun, torrential rain, cold, heat, humidity, insects and the daily effort just to maintain sanity were struggles faced virtually every day. And yet, there were the good times. There was the coming together to laugh, joke, and share stories from home. There was the warmth and compassion shown by men to each other in such an unreal environment. You will see where color, race or where you were from had no bearing on the tight-knit group of young men that was formed from the necessity to survive. What a “bunch” they were! ... then the return to home and all the adjustments and struggles to once again fit into a world that was now strange and uncomfortable. "Call Sign Dracula" is an excellent and genuine memoir of an infantry soldier in the Vietnam War.

    

    Such highly successful titles as Death in the Long Grass, Death in the Silent Places, and Death in the Dark Continent have established him as the modern-day master of African adventure writing. Sportsman, adventurer, raconteur par excellence, Capstick has in many ways done for contemporary hunting literature what Hemingway and Robert Ruark did in decades past.Until now, Capstick has written post facto about classic hunters of the past and safaris in which he participated as a professional hunter. Peter Capstick's Africa, however, is a very different breed of book: it is the enthralling tale of an entirely new safari, an exciting first-person adventure in which Peter Capstick returns to the long grass for his own dangerous and very personal excursion. The result is a definitive work on African hunting, and one of Peter Capstick's greatest achievements to date.In 1985, Capstick went back into the African bush with two top photographers and a crack professional hunter, It was a venture taken for personal challenge, and for the chance to look anew at what had become of the Africa immortalized in his own earlier works. Peter Capstick's Africa is the chronicle, in text and pictures, of this safari. It is full of the same edge-of-the-seat narration, witty anecdotes, and wry observations that have made Capstick's earlier books so popular. But in addition, it tells the story of Africa today as Capstick sees it: a place that is in some ways the same as, but in many different from, the "dark continent" of even a few years ago. The text of the book has been integrated with the photographs of Paul Kimble and Dick van Niekerk into a lavish full-color production that illustrates Capstick's story in a way his fans have never seen before.Peter Capstick's Africa is a book few lovers of travel and adventure will want to be without.