Clara Brown: The Rags to Riches Story of a Freed Slave


Julie McDonald - 2016
    After being freed at the age of 57, she begins a tireless search for her only remaining family member, her daughter Eliza Jane. What Clara accomplishes in her 28 years of freedom will simply astound you! I first wrote about Clara Brown in my book Unbreakable Dolls, Too. This single story eBook is the expanded version, with much more information and 9 photos.

Nan Goldin


Guido Costa - 2001
    She is most famous for the long-term photographic record of the lives of her and her friends, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. She calls this "the diary I let people read." Her work comments frankly on all aspects of the lives of her immediate circle, the main themes being relationships, sexuality, eroticism, and the problems of alcohol and drug addiction. More recently, her images have shown the devastating effect AIDS has had on this community of friends. Her work is by turns disturbing, poignant, and celebratory.

Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube


Andrew Martin - 2012
    It is iconic, recognised the world over, and loved and despised by Londoners in equal measure. Blending reportage, humour and personal encounters, Andrew Martin embarks on a wonderfully engaging social history of London's underground railway system (which despite its name, is in fact fifty five per cent overground). Along the way he attempts to untangle the mess that is the Northern Line, visit every station in a single day - and find out which gaps to be especially mindful of.Underground, Overground is a highly enjoyable, witty and informative history of everything you need to know about the Tube.

Tortured Minds: Pennsylvania's Most Bizarre--But Forgotten--Murders


Tammy Mal - 2014
    A teenage girl disappears on her way home from Coatesville High School. A reputed witch turns up dead in Pottsville. A young woman seemingly helps solve her own murder after she dies in a Philadelphia park.True-crime author Tammy Mal digs up facts on four of Pennsylvania’s weirdest killings in her book Tortured Minds: Pennsylvania’s Most Bizarre—But Forgotten—Murders. These 1930s crimes have long fallen into obscurity, but Mal deftly revives them in stark detail, from discovery of the body and through the trial. Ghosts, witches, resentment, and sex factor into these crimes, giving them a chilling edge as Mal brings them back to life in her latest true-crime book. It’s a look into just what tortured minds can do, certain to convince you to lock your doors after dark.

The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence


Susie Linfield - 2010
    To look at these images is voyeuristic; to turn away is a gesture of respect.With The Cruel Radiance, Susie Linfield attacks those ideas head-on, arguing passionately that viewing such photographs—and learning to see the people in them—is an ethically and politically necessary act that connects us to our modern history of violence and probes our capacity for cruelty. Contending with critics from Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht to Susan Sontag and the postmoderns—and analyzing photographs from such events as the Holocaust, China’s Cultural Revolution, and recent terrorist acts—Linfield explores the complex connection between photojournalism and the rise of human rights ideals. In the book’s concluding section, she examines the indispensable work of Robert Capa, James Nachtwey, and Gilles Peress, and asks how photography has—and should—respond to the increasingly nihilistic trajectory of modern warfare.A bracing and unsettling book, The Cruel Radiance convincingly demonstrates that if we hope to alleviate political violence, we must first truly understand it—and to do that, we must begin to look.

Murder in Mississippi


John Safran - 2013
    A year later, he heard that the man had been murdered – and what was more, the killer was black.At first the murder seemed a twist on the old Deep South race crimes. But then more news rolled in. Maybe it was a dispute over money, or most intriguingly, over sex. Could the infamous racist actually have been secretly gay, with a thing for black men? Did Safran have the last footage of him alive? Could this be the story of a lifetime? Seizing his Truman Capote moment, he jumped on a plane to cover the trial.Over six months, Safran got deeper and deeper into the South, becoming entwined in the lives of those connected with the murder – white separatists, black campaigners, lawyers, investigators, neighbours, even the killer himself. And the more he talked with them, the less simple the crime, and the world, seemed.Murder in Mississippi is a brilliantly innovative true-crime story. Taking us places only he can, Safran paints an engrossing, revealing portrait of a dead man, his murderer, the place they lived and the process of trying to find out the truth about anything.

Columbine


Dave Cullen - 2009
    As we reel from the latest horror . . . " So begins a new epilogue, illustrating how Columbine became the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." It is a false script, seized upon by a generation of new killers. In the wake of Newtown, Aurora, and Virginia Tech, the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this plague grows more urgent every year.What really happened April 20, 1999? The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we "know" is wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths, or the Trench Coat Mafia. Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on scene, and spent ten years on this book-widely recognized as the definitive account. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists, and the killers' own words and drawings-several reproduced in a new appendix. Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar opposite killers. They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors.

Landscape Photography On Location: Travel, Learn, Explore, Shoot


Thomas Heaton - 2016
    It is packed with stories and anecdotes from behind the image. There are tips on using social media to get your images seen by millions. The book offers advice on hiking, travel and the great outdoors as well as useful information on technical subjects such as where to focus and shooting RAW. After reading this book, not only will your photography start to improve, but you will be inspired to get up and out at dawn and stay out until dark. This book is for the beginner as well as the seasoned professional. Travel, Learn, Explore, Shoot.

The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 1: 1832-1843


Abraham Lincoln - 2004
    He successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserved the Union, and ended slavery. He issued his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and promoted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery.This Special Congressional Collectors Edition contains Volume One of the Selected Papers and Writings of Mr. Lincoln, carefully selected from the Lincoln Archives by historian Rutger M. Lamont, a recognized expert in Civil War history and a respected Lincoln scholar. It includes The Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation, two of the most significant historical documents by Lincoln, and a cornerstone of our nation's independence. It also contains an Introduction by Theodore Roosevelt, with 'The Essay on Lincoln' by Carl Schurz and 'The Address on Lincoln' by Joseph Choate. This book provides the reader with a rare glimpse into the intellect, humor and wit that made Abraham Lincoln one of the most important political figures not only in American History, but a man for and of the world at large and an icon for the ages."This book is quintessential Lincoln, capturing the essence of one of our greatest historical leaders" - The Congressional Record "This is the definative collection of Lincoln's writings. Rutger M. Lamont's Special Collectors Edition should stand the test of time and is a monumental achievement." - Washington Post "Easy to read and highly thought provoking." - U.S. News and World Report

The Show: The Inside Story of the Spectacular Los Angeles Lakers in the Words of Those Who Lived It


Roland Lazenby - 2005
    LakersThe L.A. Lakers have long been one of the NBA's most exciting teams. In The Show, critically acclaimed sportswriter Roland Lazenby brings the story of this charismatic team to life in an unprecedented oral history, featuring such legendary players as Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul- Jabbar, and Magic Johnson, along with current stars like Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.Through in-depth interviews with players, coaches, and many other key figures, Lazenby follows the Lakers from their birthplace in 1946 Minneapolis to their eventual successes and failures in Los Angeles, using his flair for storytelling and eye for detail to show you exactly why the 14-time NBA champion Lakers are a celebrated favorite for sports fans all over America.

The Last Resort


Martin Parr - 1998
    Martin Parr is Europe's premier contemporary photographer, and The Last Resort is the book that is considered to have launched his career. Taken at the height of the Thatcher years, it depicts the "great British seaside" in all its garish glory. Described by some as cruel and voyeuristic and by others as a stunning satire on the state of Britain, early editions are now much sought after by collectors worldwide. Includes a new essay by Gerry Badger, photographer, architect, curator, and critic.

Diane Arbus: A Biography


Patricia Bosworth - 1984
    Her startling photographic images of dwarfs, twins, transvestites, and freaks seemed from the first to redefine both the normal and the abnormal in our lives and they were already becoming part of the iconography of the age when Arbus committed suicide in 1971. Arbus herself remained an enigma until the publication of this first full biography. Patricia Bosworth examines the life behind the eerie, mesmerizing photographs: Diane's pampered childhood; her passionate marriage to Allan Arbus and their work together as fashion photographers during the fifties; the emotional upheaval surrounding the end of that marriage; and the radically dark, liberating, and ultimately tragic turn Diane's art took during the sixties. Bosworth's engrossing book is a compassionate portrait of the woman behind some of the most powerful photographs of our time.

Lincoln's Story: The Wayfarer


Vel - 2012
    He did not claim he was God’s agent. Did he believe in God? Did he look for a sign when he was desperate? Did he follow the Divine Will? Many believers are not followers; many followers are not believers. Is he a believer or a follower or both?

Why Orwell Matters


Christopher Hitchens - 2002
    In true emulative and contrarian style, Hitchens is both admiring and aggressive, sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and problem. Answering both the detractors and the false claimants, Hitchens tears down the façade of sainthood erected by the hagiographers and rebuts the critics point by point. He examines Orwell and his perspectives on fascism, empire, feminism, and Englishness, as well as his outlook on America, a country and culture towards which he exhibited much ambivalence. Whether thinking about empires or dictators, race or class, nationalism or popular culture, Orwell's moral outlook remains indispensable in a world that has undergone vast changes in the fifty years since his death. Combining the best of Hitchens's polemical punch and intellectual elegance in a tightly woven and subtle argument, this book addresses not only why Orwell matters today, but how he will continue to matter in a future, uncertain world. Christopher Hitchens, one of the most incisive minds of our own age, meets Orwell on the page in this provocative encounter of wit, contention and moral truth.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72


Hunter S. Thompson - 1973
    Thompson wrote for Rolling Stone magazine while covering the 1972 election campaign of President Richard M. Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George S. McGovern. Hunter focuses largely on the Democratic Party's primaries and the breakdown of the national party as it splits between the different candidates.With drug-addled alacrity and incisive wit, Thompson turned his jaundiced eye and gonzo heart to the repellent and seductive race for president, deconstructed the campaigns, and ended up with a political vision that is eerily prophetic