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The Long Hard Winter of 1880-81: What was it Really Like?
Dan L. White - 2011
She wrote of three day blizzards, forty ton trains stuck in the snow, houses buried in snowdrifts and a town that nearly starved.Was Laura's story just fiction, or was that one winter stranger than fiction? Was that winter really that bad, or was it just a typical old time winter stretched a bit to make a good tale?Author Dan L. White examines the reality of the long, hard winter. White uses contemporary newspaper articles, autobiographies and historical accounts of those who lived through that time to weave a fascinating story of the incredible winter of 1880-81.
Year of the Flu: A World War I Medical Thriller
Millys Altman - 2017
He was eager to begin his first practice, but it turned out to be more than he bargained for. In just two years, in September, 1918, the entire village was sickened in rapid succession in the flu pandemic that killed quickly and indiscriminately throughout the world. It was wartime, and Nixon was unable to find help., This story is an up close and personal account of what it was like to be sick with the HINI type virus in 1918. It is a tale of a dedicated doctor whose selflessness, compassion and courage helped the villagers survive in the pandemic that killed more people in a year than the Black Death killed in a century...
Holy Man: Father Damien of Molokai
Gavan Daws - 1973
Review"Beautifully written, deeply perceptive." -- Los Angeles Times "An absolutely fascinating book." --The Washington Post
Society's Queen
Anne de Courcy - 1993
Her husband served in the Ulster cabinet and was Air Minister in the National Government of 1934-5. Edith founded the Women's Legion during the First World War and was also an early campaigner for women's suffrage. She created the renowned Mount Stewart Gardens in County Down that are now owned by the National Trust.All her life, Edith remained at the heart of politics both in Westminster and Ireland. She is perhaps best known for her role as 'society's queen' - a hostess to the rich and famous. Her close circle of friends included Winston Churchill, Lady Astor, Neville Chamberlain and Harold Macmillan who congregated in her salon, known as 'The Ark'. Other members included artists and writers such as John Buchan, Sean O'Casey. Britain's first Labour prime minister, Ramsey MacDonald, became romantically obsessed by her.
Bukowski for Beginners
Carlos Polimeni - 2000
Unconventional, raw, and impossible to categorize, his work continues to provide powerful criticism of American culture, a society defined by excess and determined to break the human spirit.Born in Germany in 1920, Bukowski did not begin writing until the age of 40. Still, he managed to publish 45 books—six of them novels—capturing the brilliant range of his perspective. His voice was one of dry humor, a general distaste for society, dysphoria, and—from time to time—a bit of madness. Bukowski’s gritty, blunt growl was one of the greatest to rise out of Los Angeles—a city hiding behind fantasies of wealth and progress—and expose its contradictions and delusions.In Bukowski For Beginners, playwright Carlos Polimeni evaluates the life and literary achievements of the man behind the antipathy; the father of words—no, calls to action!—that linger still, rousing and challenging readers globally.
Def Jam, Inc.: Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin, and the Extraordinary Story of the World's Most Influential Hip-Hop Label
Stacy Gueraseva - 2005
Few could or would have predicted that the improvised raps and raw beats busting out of New York City's urban underclass would one day become a multimillion-dollar business and one of music's most lucrative genres. Among those few were two visionaries: Russell Simmons, a young black man from Hollis, Queens, and Rick Rubin, a Jewish kid from Long Island. Though the two came from different backgrounds, their all-consuming passion for hip-hop brought them together. Soon they would revolutionize the music industry with their groundbreaking label, Def Jam Records. Def Jam, Inc. traces the company's incredible rise from the NYU dorm room of nineteen-year-old Rubin (where LL Cool J was discovered on a demo tape) to the powerhouse it is today; from financial struggles and scandals-including The Beastie Boys's departure from the label and Rubin's and Simmons's eventual parting-to revealing anecdotes about artists like Slick Rick, Public Enemy, Foxy Brown, Jay-Z, and DMX. Stacy Gueraseva, former editor in chief of Russell Simmons's magazine, Oneworld, had access to the biggest players on the scene, and brings you real conversations and a behind-the-scenes look from a decade-and a company-that turned the music world upside down. She takes you back to New York in the '80s, when late-night spots such as Danceteria and Nell's were burning with young, fresh rappers, and Simmons and Rubin had nothing but a hunch that they were on to something huge. Far more than just a biography of the two men who made it happen, Def Jam, Inc. is a journey into the world of rap itself. Both an intriguing business history as well as a gritty narrative, here is the definitive book on Def Jam-a must read for any fan of hip-hop as well as all popular-culture junkies.
Conversations with the Conroys: Interviews with Pat Conroy and His Family
Walter Edgar - 2015
As Conroy's writings have been rooted in autobiography more often than not, his readers have come to know and appreciate much about the once-secret dark familial history that has shaped Conroy's life and work. Conversations with the Conroys opens further the discussion of the Conroy family through five revealing interviews conducted in 2014–15 with Pat Conroy and four of his six siblings: brothers Mike, Jim, and Tim and sister Kathy. In confessional and often comic dialogs, the Conroys openly discuss the perils of being raised by their larger-than-life parents, USMC fighter pilot Col. Don Conroy (the Great Santini) and southern belle Peggy Conroy (née Peek); the complexities of having their history of abuse made public by Pat's books; the tragic death of their youngest brother, Tom; the chasm between them and their sister Carol Ann; and the healing, redemptive embrace they have come to find over time in one another. With good humor and often-striking candor, these interviews capture the Conroys as authentic and indeed proud South Carolinians, not always at ease with their place in literary lore, but nonetheless deeply supportive of Pat in his life and writing. Edited and introduced by the Palmetto State's pre-eminent historian, Walter Edgar, Conversations with the Conroys includes the first publications of Pat Conroy's interview with Edgar as the keynote address of the 2014 One Book, One Columbia citywide "big read" program, the unprecedented interview with the Conroy siblings for SCETV Radio's Walter Edgar's Journal, the resulting live Conroy Family Roundtable held at the 2014 South Carolina Book Festival, and a recent interview in Charleston following Pat Conroy's induction into the Citadel's Athletics Hall of Fame. This collection is augmented with an afterword from National Book Award–winning poet Nikky Finney and nearly fifty photographs, many from the Pat Conroy Archive in the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of South Carolina Libraries, and published here for the first time. Through the resulting treasure trove of text and images, this volume is as much a keepsake for Conroy's legion of devoted fans as it is a wealth of insider information to broaden the understanding of readers and researchers alike of the idiosyncratic world of Pat Conroy and his family.
Napoleon and Hitler
Desmond Seward - 1989
First published in 1992.
The Browns Blues: Two Decades of Utter Frustration: Why Everything Kept Going Wrong for the Cleveland Browns
Terry Pluto - 2018
And their fans had ulcers. Now, veteran sports columnist Terry Pluto explains why everything kept going wrong. This detailed report on two decades of disappointment takes a behind-the-scenes look at upheaval in the front office, frustration on the field, and headaches and heartache in the stands. His earlier book False Start: How the New Browns Were Set Up to Fail told how the NFL hamstrung the new franchise. Who could have predicted the limping would last 19 years? This book picks up the story. Season after season began with hope in spring for the NFL draft (“the Browns’ version of the Super Bowl,” a fan called it) . . . often a new coach or GM or quarterback (or all three) . . . then the losses . . . and back to rebuilding. Pluto reviews all the major moves—draft choices and deals, hiring and firing and reshuffling—and the results. If you’re a Browns fan who wants to understand what went wrong with your team, this is the place to start. Includes heartfelt and humorous opinions contributed by fans.
Not Just Jane: Rediscovering Seven Amazing Women Writers Who Transformed British Literature
Shelley DeWees - 2016
Chances are you’ve also read Jane Eyre; if you were an exceptionally moody teenager, you might have even read Wuthering Heights. English majors might add George Eliot or Virginia Woolf to this list…but then the trail ends. Were there truly so few women writing anything of note during late 18th and 19th century Britain?In Not Just Jane, Shelley DeWees weaves history, biography, and critical analysis into a rip-roaring narrative of the nation’s fabulous, yet mostly forgotten, female literary heritage. As the country, and women’s roles within it, evolved, so did the publishing industry, driving legions of ladies to pick up their pens and hit the parchment. Focusing on the creative contributions and personal stories of seven astonishing women, among them pioneers of detective fiction and the modern fantasy novel, DeWees assembles a riveting, intimate, and ruthlessly unromanticized portrait of female life—and the literary landscape—during this era. In doing so, she comes closer to understanding how a society could forget so many of these women, who all enjoyed success, critical acclaim, and a fair amount of notoriety during their time, and realizes why, now more than ever, it’s vital that we remember.Rediscover Charlotte Turner Smith, Helen Maria Williams, Mary Robinson, Catherine Crowe, Sara Coleridge, Dinah Mulock Craik, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
Double Life: The Shattering Affair between Chief Judge Sol Wachtler and Socialite Joy Silverman
Linda Wolfe - 1994
He was the top justice of New York’s highest court. She was a stunning socialite and his wife’s step-cousin. In 1993 Sol Wachtler was convicted of blackmail and extortion against Joy Silverman, his former mistress. How did a respected jurist and one of the most prominent men in America end up serving time in prison? Linda Wolfe starts at the beginning—from Wachtler’s modest Brooklyn upbringing through his courtship and marriage to Joan Wolosoff, the only child of a wealthy real estate developer. Joy Fererh was three and a half when her father walked out. When she and Sol met, he was fifty-five and nearing the pinnacle of his legal career. She was a thirtysomething stay-at-home mother who, with Sol’s help, made a career for herself as a Republican Party fundraiser. They kept their affair a secret—until an explosive mix of sex, power, betrayal, and prescription-drug abuse set the stage for the tabloid headlines of the decade.
Backlund: From All-American Boy to Professional Wrestling's World Champion
Bob Backlund - 2014
He was a below-average student with a lackluster work ethic and a bad attitude, who hung with the wrong crowd and made a lot of bad choices. He was a kid whose life was headed for disaster—until a local coach took interest in him, suggested that he take up amateur wrestling, and offered to work with him if he promised to stay out of trouble.It was in North Dakota that Bob Backlund had the first of several chance encounters that would shape his destiny. While working out at the YMCA gymnasium in Fargo, North Dakota, where he wrestled for North Dakota State, Backlund met a well-known professional wrestler, “Superstar” Billy Graham. The men talked, and at Graham’s suggestion, Backlund was inspired to pursue a career in professional wrestling.Less than five years from that day, on February 20, 1978, Backlund would find himself halfway across the country, standing in the middle of the ring at Madison Square Garden with his hand raised in victory as the newly crowned World Wide Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Champion. The man Backlund pinned for the championship that night was none other than Superstar Billy Graham.Featuring contributions from Bruno Sammartino, Harley Race, Terry Funk, Pat Patterson, Ken Patera, Sergeant Slaughter, The Magnificent Muraco, George “The Animal” Steele, “Mr. USA” Tony Atlas, The Iron Sheik, and many others, this book tells the incredible story of the life and nearly forty-year career of one of the most famous men to ever grace the squared circle.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.
Space Chase (The Palmdale Files Book 1)
Harold Anderson - 2020
If the American people understood what really happened, the U.S. government feared life would have irrevocably changed for the worse. In Space Chase, the premier installment of The Palmdale Files, former agent Harold Anderson reveals the true story behind a mysterious Lockheed U-2 "Dragon Lady" crash in the mountains of Nevada and the extreme efforts the U.S. government went through to hide what happened. Space Chase—also known as Event 21 Zeta—is the first in a series of forgotten and buried events the author once destroyed to protect the peace and security of the United States—events the government would rather hide forever. Never heard of Palmdale? The author isn't surprised, and believes you never will outside of these short stories. The Palmdale Files share highlights from Harold Anderson's U.S. Air Force career, where he worked to defend the nation and the world from paranoid hysteria about unexplained phenomena and threats from above.
Lorca: A Dream of Life
Leslie Stainton - 1998
Drawing on fourteen years of research; more than a hundred letters unknown to prior biographers; exclusive interviews with Lorca's friends, family, and acquaintances; and dozens of newly discovered archival material, Stainton has brought her subject to Life as few writers can. She describes his carefree childhood in rural Andalusia; his residencies in Madrid and Granada, then in New York, Havana, and Buenos Aires; his potent interaction with other Spanish artists, such as Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel, and the composer Manuel de Falla; and, finally, Stainton shows how Lorca's marginal political activity during the Spanish Civil War still cost him his life.Throughout, Stainton meticulously but unobtrusively relates the oeuvre to the life. Her biography is quickly becoming the standard one-volume work on the poet.