Book picks similar to
Weird Kentucky: Your Travel Guide to Kentucky's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Jeffrey Scott Holland
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non-fiction
history
nonfiction
Leonardo da Vinci
Anna Abraham - 2014
Best known as one of the world's greatest painters, he sketched the foundations for inventions that would not come to fruition for centuries. Born a bastard in a hillside village in northern Italy, Leonardo became the protégé of princes, popes, and kings. He mastered so many branches of science that scholars still debate whether he was greater as an anatomist, botanist, cartographer, engineer, geographer, or naturalist. Nevertheless, he died unhappy, believing he had failed to work the miracles of which he had dreamed. Here, from New York Times bestselling author Anna Abraham, is his extraordinary story.
Flinders: The Man who Mapped Australia
Rob Mundle - 2012
In 1801 he was made commander of the expedition of his life, the first close circumnavigation of Terra Australis.Famous for his meticulous charts and superb navigational skills, Flinders was a bloody good sailor. He battled treacherous conditions in a boat hardly seaworthy, faced the loss of a number of his crewmen and, following a shipwreck on a reef off the Queensland coast, navigated the ship's cutter over 1000 kilometres back to Sydney to get help.Rob Mundle brings Matthew Flinders fascinating story to life from the heroism and drama of shipwreck, imprisonment and long voyages in appalling conditions, to the heartbreak of being separated from his beloved wife for most of their married life. This is a gripping adventure biography, in the style of BLIGH: MASTER MARINER.
Rescued By Ghosts: A True Inspirational Survivor Story of Child Abuse, Bullying, a Radical Ultra-Fundamentalist Religion, Ghosts, and Supernatural Events (My Ghosts Book 1)
Timothy L. Drobnick Sr. - 2020
at a chair in the church? I was born and raised in a radical, abusive, fear-controlling, ultra-fundamentalist religious family. This is my true inspirational story of how I survived abuse and neglect as a child and then escaped the church by seeking truth and freedom against all odds. Most people never escape religions with cultish control because the brainwashing is virtually impossible to break... ... So how did these ghosts rescue me from this control? This church had many cult elements and produced Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, plus Jonestown, Guyana cult leader & mass murderer Jim Jones and controlled thousands of people with fear. Written in story form to inspire you, make you laugh, cry, and think. Why was the tiny child required to warn bullies three times? Like the book “Educated A Memoir” meets Ghosts and the Supernatural. You will love this true story because everyone loves to see the hero win! Get it now.
Narrow Boat
L.T.C. Rolt - 1944
It was on a spring day in 1939 that L. T. C. Rolt first stepped aboard Cressy. This engaging book tells the story of how he and his wife adapted and fitted out the boat as a home and recreates the journey of some 400 miles that they made along the network of waterways in the Midlands. It recalls the boatmen and their craft, and celebrates the then seemingly timeless nature of the English countryside through which they passed. As Sir Compton Mackenzie wrote, "it is an elegy of classic restraint unmarred by any trace of sentiment" for a way of life and a rural landscape which have now all but disappeared.
The Great Nadar: The Man Behind the Camera
Adam Begley - 2017
A recent French biography begins, Who doesn't know Nadar? In France, that's a rhetorical question. Of all of the legendary figures who thrived in mid-19th-century Paris a cohort that includes Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Gustave Courbet, and Alexandre Dumas Nadar was perhaps the most innovative, the most restless, the most modern. The first great portrait photographer, a pioneering balloonist, the first person to take an aerial photograph, and the prime mover behind the first airmail service, Nadar was one of the original celebrity artist-entrepreneurs. A kind of 19th-century Andy Warhol, he knew everyone worth knowing and photographed them all, conferring on posterity psychologically compelling portraits of Manet, Sarah Bernhardt, Delacroix, Daumier and countless others a priceless panorama of Parisian celebrity. Born Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, he adopted the pseudonym Nadar as a young bohemian, when he was a budding writer and cartoonist. Later he affixed the name Nadar to the facade of his opulent photographic studio in giant script, the illuminated letters ten feet tall, the whole sign fifty feet long, a garish red beacon on the boulevard. Nadar became known to all of Europe and even across the Atlantic when he launched "The Giant," a gas balloon the size of a twelve-story building, the largest of its time. With his daring exploits aboard his humongous balloon (including a catastrophic crash that made headlines around the world), he gave his friend Jules Verne the model for one of his most dynamic heroes. The Great Nadaris a brilliant, lavishly illustrated biography of a larger-than-life figure, a visionary whose outsized talent and canny self-promotion put him way ahead of his time."
Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg & Three Cups of Tea
Greg Mortenson - 2009
The villagers saved his life, and he vowed to return and build them a school. The remarkable story of his promise kept is now perfect for reading aloud. Told in the voice of Korphe’s children, this story illuminates the humanity and culture of a relevant and distant part of the world in gorgeous collage, while sharing a riveting example of how one person can change thousands of lives.
Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Classic Children's Tales
Marta McDowell - 2013
Her characters—Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle Duck, and all the rest—exist in a charmed world filled with flowers and gardens. In Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, bestselling author Marta McDowell explores the origins of Beatrix Potter’s love of gardening and plants and shows how this passion came to be reflected in her work. The book begins with a gardener’s biography, highlighting the key moments and places throughout her life that helped define her. Next, follow Beatrix Potter through a year in her garden, with a season-by-season overview of what is blooming that truly brings her gardens alive. The book culminates in a traveler’s guide, with information on how and where to visit Potter’s gardens today.
Cryptozoology A to Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras & Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature
Loren L. Coleman - 1999
Recently, tales of these "monsters" have been corroborated by an increase in sightings, and out of these legends a new science has been born: cryptozoology -- the study of hidden animals.Cryptozoology A to Z, the first encyclopedia of its kind, contains nearly two hundred entries, including cryptids (the name given to these unusual beasts), new animal finds, and the explorers and scientists who search for them. Loren Coleman, one of the world's leading cryptozoologists, teams up with Jerome Clark, editor and author of several encyclopedias, to provide these definitive descriptions and many never-before-published drawings and photographs from eyewitnesses' detailed accounts. Full of insights into the methods of these scientists, exciting tales of discovery, and the history and evolution of this field, Cryptozoology A to Z is the most complete reference ever of the newest zoological science.
True Irish Ghost Stories
St. John D. Seymour - 1914
You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
Humans of New York: Stories
Brandon Stanton - 2015
The photos he took and the accompanying interviews became the blog Humans of New York. In the first three years, his audience steadily grew from a few hundred to over one million. In 2013, his book Humans of New York, based on that blog, was published and immediately catapulted to the top of the NY Times Bestseller List. It has appeared on that list for over twenty-five weeks to date. The appeal of HONY has been so great that in the course of the next year Brandon's following increased tenfold to, now, over 12 million followers on Facebook. In the summer of 2014, the UN chose him to travel around the world on a goodwill mission that had followers meeting people from Iraq to Ukraine to Mexico City via the photos he took.Now, Brandon is back with the follow up to Humans of New York that his loyal followers have been waiting for: Humans of New York: Stories. Ever since Brandon began interviewing people on the streets of NY, the dialogue he's had with them has increasingly become as in-depth, intriguing, and moving as the photos themselves. Humans of New York: Stories presents a whole new group of humans, complete with stories that delve deeper and surprise with greater candour.
Breverton's Phantasmagoria: A Compendium of Monsters, Myths and Legends
Terry Breverton - 2011
People, Beings and BeastsWhere does the boogeyman come from?What creatures feast on faithful men?How do you defeat a minotaur?What really riles a dragon?Where would you find real-life werewolves?What happened to Atlantis?From dragons, vampires, werewolves and fairies to flying carpets, lost cities and modern-day mysteries,this delightful compendium of over 250 weird and wonderful legends, myths and monsters will entertain and astound anyone
40 Acres and No Mule
Janice Holt Giles - 1967
With their savings, the couple bought a ramshackle house and forty acres of land on a ridge top and set out to be farmers like Henry's forebears.To this personal account of the trials of a city woman trying to learn the ways of the country and of her neighbors, Janice Holt Giles brings the same warmth, humor, and powers of observation that characterize her novels. Enlightening and evocative, personal and universally pertinent, this description of a year of "backaches, fun, low ebbs, and high tides, and above all a year of eminent satisfaction" will be welcomed by Janice Holt Giles's many readers, old and new.Janice Holt Giles (1905-1979), author of nineteen books, lived and wrote near Knifley, Kentucky, for thirty-four years. Her biography is told in Janice Holt Giles: A Writer's Life.
The Phoenix Lights
Lynne D. Kitei - 2004
Amber orbs in formation. It was a massive triangular array of lights moving silently but in unison as though they were connected. Many people throughout Phoenix and across the state of Arizona saw them.Optical illusion? Unlikely. Military aircraft? That's what the U.S. government wanted her to think. UFOs? That's what her evidence and subsequent years of careful research, interviews, and documentation, including photographic proof, strongly suggest. The result is The Phoenix Lights, a sober, well-researched account, both personal and scientific, of the story behind the lights, of the theories and cover-ups, the facts and denials that surrounded this event.Kitei, a well-respected Phoenix physician, had always thought of herself as grounded and practical, not one to be taken up with new age interests. But her firsthand experience and the undeniable reality of the photographs she took changed all that. She found herself a key insider in a complex mystery that has baffled humanity for centuries. What are UFOs? Who are the beings presumed to fly them? What do they want? How does it change your life to see one?The answers to these questions and more are found in The Phoenix Lights. Over the years since the sightings, she's become an ardent, tireless researcher into the truth of the Phoenix Lights and an advocate for public disclosure by the government about the subject of unexplained phenomena.
Wellington's Men
W.H. Fitchett - 1900
As a commentary on the texts, Fitchett inserts his own criticism and analysis of parts of four biographies.Each of these men were eyewitnesses to the major events of Wellington’s Peninsula Campaign, and write critically about their own experiences in vivid prose that takes us directly back to the battlefields of Europe.They are the “actual human documents, with the salt of truth, of sincerity, and of reality in every syllable,” as Fitchett writes.‘Wellington’s Men’ is a fascinating history of the Napoleonic Wars as told by the men who saw it.W.H. Fitchett (1841-1928) was a minister, educator and writer, who wrote a column for the Spectator magazine. He published works of fiction and non-fiction, including a four-volume collection How England Saved Europe in 1909.Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.
The Great Book of Ireland: Interesting Stories, Irish History & Random Facts About Ireland (History & Fun Facts 1)
Bill O'Neill - 2019
In this trivia book, you’ll learn more about Ireland’s history, pop culture, folklore, and so much more! In The Great Book of Ireland, you’ll learn:
How did Ireland get its name?
Why is it known as the Emerald Isle?
Who was St. Patrick really?
What do leprechauns and shamrocks have to do with St. Patrick’s Day?
Which Irish company had a 9,000-year lease?
What is Ireland’s top attraction?
Which movies have been filmed in Ireland?
Which famous novel may have been based on an Irish myth?
Which legends did the Irish believe in?
And so much more! This book is packed with trivia facts about Ireland. Some of the facts you’ll learn in this book are shocking, some are tragic, and others will leave you with goosebumps. But they’re all interesting! Whether you’re just learning about Ireland or you already think you’re an expert on the state, you’ll learn something you didn’t know in every chapter. Your history teacher will be interesting at all of your newfound knowledge. So what are you waiting for? Get started to learn more about Ireland!