A CASE FOR SOLOMON: BOBBY DUNBAR AND THE KIDNAPPING THAT HAUNTED A NATION chronicles one of the most celebrated—and most misunderstood—kidnapping cases in American history. In 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar, the son of an upper-middle-class Louisiana family, went missing in the swamps. After an eight-month search that electrified the country and destroyed Bobby’s parents, the boy was found, filthy and hardly recognizable, in the pinewoods of southern Mississippi. A wandering piano tuner who had been shuttling the child throughout the region by wagon for months was arrested and charged with kidnapping—a crime that was punishable by death at the time. But when a destitute single mother came forward from North Carolina to claim the boy as her son, not Bobby Dunbar, the case became a high-pitched battle over custody—and identity—that divided the South. Amid an ever-thickening tangle of suspicion and doubt, two mothers and a father struggled to assert their rightful parenthood over the child, both to the public and to themselves. For two years, lawyers dissected and newspapers sensationalized every aspect of the story. Psychiatrists, physicians, criminologists, and private detectives debated the piano tuner’s guilt and the boy’s identity. And all the while the boy himself remained peculiarly guarded on the question of who he was. It took nearly a century, a curiosity that had been passed down through generations, and the science of DNA to discover the truth. A Case for Solomon is a gripping historical mystery, distilled from a trove of personal and archival research. The story of Bobby Dunbar, fought over by competing New Orleans tabloids, the courts, and the citizenry of two states, offers a case study in yellow journalism, emergent forensic science, and criminal justice in the turn-of-the-century American South. It is a drama of raw poverty and power and an exposé of how that era defined and defended motherhood, childhood, and community. First told in a stunning episode of National Public Radio’s This American Life, A Case for Solomon chronicles the epic struggle to determine one child’s identity, along the way probing unsettling questions about the formation of memory, family, and self.

    But Egypt's nationalizing of the Suez Canal would set in motion events that would change her life forever. An enchanted existence suddenly ended by international hostilities, her family is quickly scattered far and wide, and Naggar is eventually swept into adulthood and the challenge of new horizons in America. Speaking for a different wave of immigrants whose Sephardic origins explore the American Jewish story through an unfamiliar lens, Naggar traces her personal journey through lost worlds and difficult transitions, exotic locales and strong family values. The story resonates for all in this poignant exploration of the innocence of childhood in a world breaking apart. An intriguing way of life that no longer exists. Glamorous, exciting, filled with the sophisticated life of a Jewish family living in Europe and the Middle East, Naggar documents times of elegant lifestyles, to the tumultuous struggles of war? And like every family, there is passionate love and loss, but always there is the undercurrent of delight and an indomitable will to do more than just survive.Alternate Cover Image: ISBN-10: 1612181414/ ISBN-13: 9781612181417)1

    How did he become Glasgow's most feared gangster, deemed a risk to national security?Arthur Thompson, Godfather of the crime world and senior partner of the Krays, recruited young Ferris as a bagman, debt collector and equaliser. Feared for his capacity for extreme violence, respected for his intelligence, Ferris was the Godfather's heir apparent. But when gang warfare broke, underworld leaders traded in flesh, colluding with their partners - the police. Disgusted, Ferris left the Godfather and stood alone. They gave him weeks to live.While Ferris was caged in Barlinnie Prison's segregation unit accused of murdering Thompson's son, Fatboy, his two friends were shot dead the night before the funeral and grotesquely displayed in a car on the cortége's route. Acquitted against all the odds, Ferris moved on, determined to make an honest living.They would not let him.The National Crime Squad, MI5, the police and two of the country's most powerful gangsters saw to that. A maximum-security prisoner, Ferris is known as 'Lucky' because he is still alive.This is one man's unique insight into Britain's crime world and the inextricable web of corruption - a revealing story of official corruption and unholy alliances.

    Throw in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the murders of John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe, Bugsy Siegel, Sam Giancana, Lucky Luciano, Tony the Ant Spilotro, Johnny Roselli and Jimmy Hoffa. Toss in Hollywood scandal and the mobbed up career of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack. Now you can begin to grasp the epic story of Tony Accardo. Why has this story never been told? Accardo killed everyone in his path: family, friends, cops, reporters, movie stars, and politicians. Operating from deep within the shadows Tony influenced national policy, exploited the FBI, owned politicians, and fixed presidential elections. Connected to every gangster from Al Capone to Lucky Luciano to John Gotti, Joe Batters is the must-read that every Godfather fan is craving.

    Meanwhile, the titanically talented Babe Ruth was beginning his assault on the home run record, which would culminate on September 30 with his sixtieth blast, one of the most resonant and durable records in sports history. In between those dates a Queens housewife named Ruth Snyder and her corset-salesman lover garroted her husband, leading to a murder trial that became a huge tabloid sensation. Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly sat atop a flagpole in Newark, New Jersey, for twelve days—a new record. The American South was clobbered by unprecedented rain and by flooding of the Mississippi basin, a great human disaster, the relief efforts for which were guided by the uncannily able and insufferably pompous Herbert Hoover. Calvin Coolidge interrupted an already leisurely presidency for an even more relaxing three-month vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gangster Al Capone tightened his grip on the illegal booze business through a gaudy and murderous reign of terror and municipal corruption. The first true “talking picture,” Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, was filmed and forever changed the motion picture industry. The four most powerful central bankers on earth met in secret session on a Long Island estate and made a fateful decision that virtually guaranteed a future crash and depression.     All this and much, much more transpired in that epochal summer of 1927, and Bill Bryson captures its outsized personalities, exciting events, and occasional just plain weirdness with his trademark vividness, eye for telling detail, and delicious humor. In that year America stepped out onto the world stage as the main event, and One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order.

    

    And she got one-coming at her at forty miles per hour. Hit by a car and suffering debilitating injuries, and with no health insurance, the fashionista attempts to bounce back into her (thrift store-purchased) Jimmy Choos even as she deals with short-term memory loss, stalker ambulance drivers, trying to stay vegan on food stamps, crazy judges, hot doctors, and unsympathetic government workers.Inspired by her acclaimed one-woman show, this is a bitingly funny and keenly observed account of the cracks in our medical and social welfare system and how one woman's resilience combined with a generous dollop of humor helped her fight her way to recovery.

    Spending Sundays in the infamous 700 level of Veterans Stadium, or sitting in front of the TV with his father in a nearby recliner, Tom sees both the ugly and beautiful sides of Philadelphia football. Like all true Philadelphians, he connects with the players. From icons Chuck Bednarik and Steve Van Buren to modern-day greats Randall Cunningham, Donovan McNabb, and Brian Dawkins and controversial stars such as Terrell Owens, the Eagles players become a part of McAllister’s life. Watching them every Sunday, he tries to develop his own identity as a fan. Torn between his father’s calm and levelheaded fandom and the rowdy, profane, and violent crowds of Philadelphia legend, Tom struggles to achieve balance.  As a rabid Eagles fan, Tom McAllister experiences plenty of defeats and disappointments, but his biggest challenge is coping with the premature loss of his father to cancer. In Bury Me in My Jersey, McAllister explores the connection between his dedication to the Eagles and the death of his father. He details the intense bonds—between fathers and sons, among friends, and even between a city and its football team—and chronicles the joys and sorrows, victories and failures, of a lifetime of sports obsession.Any fan can relate: Tom drinks to excess, spends countless hours every week posting to an online Eagles message board, and spies on players in the fruit aisle of the supermarket. Without the example of his father to guide him, Tom often finds himself stumbling off track. But it is his girlfriend and eventual wife, LauraBeth, who keeps him grounded as he matures into adulthood.A touching, funny, beautifully crafted memoir, Bury Me in My Jersey is not only a marvelous tribute to a father, a way of life, and a team and its devoted followers but also a love letter to the city of Philadelphia.

    

    From seeing his father taken away to a concentration camp to arriving in Tel Aviv at the birth of Israel, Tommy Lapid lived every major incident of Jewish life since the 1930s first-hand.This sweeping narrative will captivate anyone with an interest in how Israel became what it is today. Tommy Lapid's uniquely unorthodox opinions - he belonged to neither left nor right, was Jewish, but vehemently secular - expose the many contradictions inherent in Israeli life today.

    But she quickly learned that while she may have been ready for Hollywood, Hollywood wasn't necessarily ready for her. At four foot two, Terra was born with achondroplasia, a form of short-limbed dwarfism, and because of her diminutive stature she often faced unimaginable prejudice and bigotry. After spending time in the trenches, as an evil elf on Ozzie Osbourne's Merry Mayhem Tour and later as a dancer on Miley Cyrus's Bangerz Tour, Terra struck out on her own and carved out a career for herself as a mini-Britney and mini-Gaga impersonator. But with her larger than life optimism and absolute belief in herself, Terra was determined not to be a "mini-anything" for long and she ultimately captured the hearts of reality TV fans around the world as the star and executive producer of the groundbreaking A+E Network's Lifetime television show Little Women: LA.

    I want a baby but not in that crazy, desperate way where I cringe whenever I see someone else with one, or I think nasty, evil thoughts about people who are pregnant, but a child of my own would complete my life and make my husband extremely happy.Jay-Jay Feeney has been married to Dom Harvey since 2004. She always imagined they'd get married, have children, grow old. But so far, things haven't worked out quite as she expected. A high-profile job, an unpredictable family life, and medical procedures and emergencies have kept her on her toes. Here is Jay-Jay's story, told with a mix of brutal honesty and humor, in which she charts the highs and lows of life lived both in the public gaze and in the shadow of infertility.

    Both personally and globally, change drives our lives. Despite the new opportunities change can bring, many of us resist and fear it, even as we long for a healthier lifestyle or agree we need a more sustainable culture. Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential turns this unavoidable condition of life from something fearsome to something empowering by revealing a new perspective on reality. The way we were taught to think of the world is not the way it really is. We are not a mosaic of separate beings in competition for resources. Instead, each of us is an integral part of a whole that encompasses all creation. We are an intrinsic driver behind the force of change. As such, our creative potential is limitless. That potential comes from what author Ilchi Lee discovered over the course of his inner explorations that each of us has a beautiful mind that desires to benefit all beings. This inherent nature is our true greatness and the true power to solidify the changes we envision in our personal lives and the world. Change is urgently needed; the current course of our civilization is no longer tenable. But major changes are not feasible, Lee says, unless we begin with changing ourselves. He says we can start a big change, no matter how daunting it is, with changing our personal attitudes and energy. Change tells you how.

    One day, they'll sell their cramped city-centre antiques shop and the overflowing upstairs flat and relocate to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. When a smallholding in a remote Dales village comes on the market, it seems like the answer to their prayers.

    I hurled myself through the doorway and into the room. I didn’t look back.”Caught in an Ecuador hotel room with 8kg of cocaine, Pieter Tritton was no mule or dupe. He had planned and organised everything. The consequence: a 12-year sentence inside one of the world’s deadliest prison systems, where gun fights, executions and riots are a part of everyday life. As a Brit banged up abroad, Pieter had to learn how to survive – and fast – because one wrong move would mean death.This is the insider account of what it’s like to live in a place worse than hell and come out a changed man on the other side.