The next, he was lying facedown in an alley after being ambushed and shot in the back of the head by a mobster over a dispute.Russell miraculously healed, and rather than press charges, he maintained his cover. Soon he had a stroke of good luck when he saved a man from an attack by two street thugs. The man he saved turned out to be Andy Gerardo, one of the ranking captains of the Genovese crime family. Quickly earning the trust of his new friend, Russell would orchestrate one of the biggest Mafia takedowns of all time.Urged by his police handlers, Russell used his cover story---an ex-cop fired for excessive force who now made his living from an oil-delivery business---and street skills to assimilate into the Genovese crime family in New Jersey, ultimately leading to more than fifty arrests of mobsters, corrupt prison officials, and even a state senator. Straddling the thin line between collecting evidence and participating in the very crimes he was leaking to the cops, Russell consistently placed himself at risk—especially when his police handlers disregarded his wishes and his well-being, conducting premature raids on the gangsters. With his marriage suffering and his family in danger, Russell took extraordinary steps to ensure his financial security and safety, demanding better terms from the police and allowing a film crew to document the final moments of the epic bust for a documentary that was later sold to HBO.A real-life version of The Sopranos, Undercover Cop immerses readers in the colorful yet harrowing trials of a standout cop who faced the mob on his own terms, crippled organized crime in New Jersey, and forever redefined undercover law enforcement.

    Through the centuries, she’s been embraced and reviled, worshipped and feared, praised and battered—all the while standing at the crossroads of American politics, business, society, and culture. Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author Teresa Carpenter, a lifelong diary enthusiast, scoured the archives of libraries, historical societies, and private estates to assemble here an almost holographic view of this iconic metropolis. Starting on January 1 and traveling day by day through the year, these journal entries are selected from four centuries of writing—from the early 1600s to the present—allowing New York natives and visitors, writers and artists, thinkers and bloggers, to reach across time and share vivid and compelling snapshots of life in the Capital of the World. “Today I arrived by train in New York City, which I’d never seen before, walked through the grandeur of Grand Central Terminal, stepped outside, got my first look at the city and instantly fell in love with it. Silently, inside myself, I yelled: I should have been born here!”—Edward Robb Ellis, May 22, 1947“My experience is that a man cannot go anywhere in New York in an hour. The distances are too great—you must have another day to it. If you have got six things to do, you have got to take six days to do them in.”—Mark Twain, February 2, 1867“A Peregrine falcon just flew past my window.”—Johnny/Quipu Blogspot, February 5, 2003“I had a lot of dates but decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows.”—Andy Warhol, March 11, 1978“At ten we have Orders to march up the River for Mount-Washington. Adieu, New-York; perhaps forever!”—Philip Vickers Fithian, September 3, 1776New York Diaries reveals intimate, whimsical, profound, sobering, and indelible reflections on such historical moments as President Washington’s first State of the Union address, the death of Abraham Lincoln, the sinking of the Titanic, the end of World War II—even the first incursion of Europeans into the city’s Upper Bay on September 11, 1609, a presage to our country’s greatest catastrophe nearly four hundred years later. Featuring familiar faces and fascinating unknowns, these pages provide a rich mosaic that is uniquely New York.With excerpts from the writing of Sherwood Anderson • William H. Bell • Albert Camus • Chad the Minx • Noël Coward • Dorothy Day • John Dos Passos • Thomas Edison • Allen Ginsberg • William B. Gould • Keith Haring • Henry Hudson • Anne Morrow Lindbergh • Judith Malina • H. L. Mencken • John Cameron Mitchell • Joyce Carol Oates • Eugene O’Neill • Philippe Petit • Edgar Allan Poe • Theodore Roosevelt • Elizabeth Cady Stanton • William Steinway • Alexis de Tocqueville • Mark Twain • Gertrude Vanderbilt • Andy Warhol • George Washington • Kurt Weill • Walt Whitman • and many others.

    

    Soon the Camp Fire was upon them, gobbling an acre a second. Less than two hours after it ignited, residents were trapped in flames, cremated in their homes and cars. By the next morning, eighty-five people were dead.San Francisco Chronicle reporter Lizzie Johnson was there as the town of Paradise burned. She saw the smoldering rubble of a historic covered bridge and the beloved Black Bear Diner, and she stayed long afterward, visiting shelters, hotels, and makeshift camps. Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and reams of public records, including 911 calls and testimony from a grand jury investigation, Johnson provides a minute-by-minute account of the Camp Fire, following residents and first responders as they fight to save themselves and their town. We see a young mother fleeing with her newborn; a school bus full of children in search of an escape route; and a group of paramedics, patients, and nurses trapped in a cul-de-sac, fending off the fire with rakes and hoses.Johnson documents the unfolding tragedy with empathy and nuance. But she also investigates the root causes, from runaway climate change to a deeply flawed alert system to Pacific Gas and Electric's decades-long neglect of critical infrastructure. A cautionary tale for a new era of megafires, Paradise is the gripping story of a town wiped off the map and the determination of its people to rise again.

    Bill was also one of the most influential broadcasters of all time, an inspiration to legions of his fellow broadcasters who looked up to him. No less an authority than John Madden tells Ken Korach in this 80,000-word testament to Bill’s uniqueness that when he turned from coaching to broadcasting, no one was more of an influence on him than Bill. But this was true of Bill the man as well, not merely Bill the broadcaster. “We all wanted to live vicariously through Bill. The things that he did, we wished we could do,” Madden tells Ken Korach. Korach, longtime voice of the A’s and Bill’s partner for ten seasons until King’s death in 2005, is the perfect one to bring Bill to life on the page. A half-century ago, Ken Korach was a kid in Los Angeles, spinning the night dial to tune in Warriors basketball games from faraway San Francisco for one reason: He just had to hear Bill. Now, in Holy Toledo – Lessons from Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic, he tells the remarkable story of King the legendary baseball, basketball and football broadcaster. Bill was a student of Russian literature, a passionate sailor, a fan of eating anything and everything from gourmet to onions and peanut butter, a remarkable painter. Korach draws on a lifetime of listening to and learning from King – as well as extensive research, including more than fifty interviews with King’s family members, colleagues, friends and associates – to create this rich portrait, eagerly awaited by thousands of fans who have flocked to the Holy Toledo Facebook page and heard about the book through Ken’s media appearances.Holy Toledo features a moving foreword by Hall of Fame broadcaster Jon Miller, previously of ESPN, and a brilliant cover by Mark Ulriksen, internationally recognized for his New Yorker magazine covers, that captures King’s flair and personality.Billy Beane“The best part about Bill wasn’t just that he was so good at his job but that he was so interesting outside of his job. His mustache epitomized that. He looked eccentric and he was eccentric, in a good way.”Bob Welch“If I had a hitter I had trouble with, I’d ask Bill how I should pitch him. He always had a good answer.”Greg Papa“Bill King was the greatest radio broadcaster in the history of the United States.”Tom Meschery“Talking with Bill was like talking with an encyclopedia.… If you wanted to talk sports, literature – when Bill talked you listened, because he always had something interesting to talk about.”Al Attles“He didn’t sugarcoat it. Bill was a departure from the way it was. If a player from the Warriors made a mistake, Bill told it like it was.”Ed Rush“I’d put the radio out the window and keep turning it to certain angles and it would go in and go out. I’d listen to the Warriors and the Raiders. To do all three sports like he did, he was phenomenal. He was out of this world.”Tom Flores“Bill made some of the great plays in the history of the Raiders even greater with his description. Those moments were kept alive in his voice.”Jason Giambi“He was such an incredible man. I had so much fun with him and he would always ask how my family was doing and I have the fondest memories of him. We would talk about life and all the things he had seen. He made me well rounded.”Rick Barry“He had the ability to see a game, a basketball game, and express what was happening in eloquent terms, at times instantaneously. When he was saying something, it was happening.”

    He had a talent for drawing and an interest in birds, and he would spend the next thirty-five years traveling to the remotest regions of his new country–often alone and on foot–to render his avian subjects on paper. The works of art he created gave the world its idea of America. They gave America its idea of itself. Here Richard Rhodes vividly depicts Audubon’s life and career: his epic wanderings; his quest to portray birds in a lifelike way; his long, anguished separations from his adored wife; his ambivalent witness to the vanishing of the wilderness. John James Audubon: The Making of an American is a magnificent achievement.

    So begins Spinster, a revelatory and slyly erudite look at the pleasures and possibilities of remaining single. Using her own experiences as a starting point, journalist and cultural critic Kate Bolick invites us into her carefully considered, passionately lived life, weaving together the past and present to examine why­ she - along with over 100 million American women, whose ranks keep growing - remains unmarried. This unprecedented demographic shift, Bolick explains, is the logical outcome of hundreds of years of change that has neither been fully understood, nor appreciated. Spinster introduces a cast of pioneering women from the last century whose genius, tenacity, and flair for drama have emboldened Bolick to fashion her life on her own terms: columnist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. By animating their unconventional ideas and choices, Bolick shows us that contemporary debates about settling down, and having it all, are timeless - the crucible upon which all thoughtful women have tried for centuries to forge a good life. Intellectually substantial and deeply personal, Spinster is both an unreservedly inquisitive memoir and a broader cultural exploration that asks us to acknowledge the opportunities within ourselves to live authentically. Bolick offers us a way back into our own lives - a chance to see those splendid years when we were young and unencumbered, or middle-aged and finally left to our own devices, for what they really are: unbounded and our own to savor.

    Unlike many other writers who have parachuted into the swampy paradise for a few days or weeks, Rheta fell in love with the place, bought a second home and set in planting doomed azaleas and deep roots. She has found an assortment of beautiful people in a homely little town called Henderson, right on the edge of the Atchafalaya Swamp. These days, much is labeled Cajun that is not, and the popularity of the unique culture's food, songs and dance has been a mixed blessing. The revival of French Louisiana's traditional music and cuisine often has been cheapened by counterfeits. Confused pilgrims sometimes look to New Orleans for a sampler platter of all things Cajun. Close, but no cigar. Poor Man's Provence helps define what's what through lively characters and stories. The book is both personal odyssey and good reporting, travelogue and memoir, funny and frank. This beguiling place is as exotic as it gets without a passport. The author shares what keeps her coming home to French Louisiana. And as NPR commentator Bailey White observes in her foreword, "Both Rheta's readers and the people she writes about will be comfortable, well fed, highly entertained, and happy they came to Poor Man's Provence."

     Lavinia writes: "It WAS in the fall and winter of eighteen fifty-nine that my husband and I decided to emigrate to the far West. Imprudent speculations and other misfortunes had embarrassed us financially to such an extent that our prospects for the future looked dark and forbidding; we then determined to use the small remnant of our fortune to provide a suitable outfit for a lengthy journey toward the setting sun. We were both young and inexperienced, my husband still in his twenties, and I a young and immature girl scarce twenty years of age. "A journey across the plains of the West was considered a great event in those early days. It was long thought of and planned seriously with and among the various members of the family to which the would be traveler belonged. Whoever had the temerity to propose turning their backs on civilized life and their faces toward the far-off Rocky mountains were supposed to be daring with a boldness bordering on recklessness. Emigration then meant the facing of unknown dangers in a half-savage country. "After many lengthy debates over the manner of transportation, and a diversified quantity of advice from our numerous friends, as to the merits of horses, mules or oxen, we at last decided (and it proved to be a wise decision) to purchase three yoke of strong, sturdy oxen and a large well-built emigrant wagon; roomy enough to hold all we wanted to take with us, and in which we might travel with some degree of comfort." CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Preparations For A Journey—Bidding Farewell—The Start CHAPTER II. Camping In Kansas— A Novice With Camp Fires —Marching On Foot CHAPTER III. Fire And Fuel—Storm Bound—Fellow Emigrants—Settlers In Nebraska CHAPTER IV. Buffalo Country—Returning Gold Seekers—Our Whiskey Barrel CHAPTER V. Indians CHAPTER VI. Trials Of The Spirit —Thirsting For Water—Gathering Buffalo Chips—Sick On The Desert—Bay Rum, Bergamont, And Castor Oil—Mirage CHAPTER VII. Infant Denver—Hanging By The Vigilance Committee—An Indian And His Scalps—The Parting With My Brother—A Sale Of Glassware—On To California CHAPTER VIII Toward Laramie—Fording A Dangerous Stream—celebrating The Fourth Of July—Entertaining Strangers—An Indian Village On The Move CHAPTER IX. The Rocky Mountains—Cheyenne Pass—Lost Cattle Restored—Crossing The Chugwater—Shoeing Lame Oxen—Arriving At Fort Laramie CHAPTER X. The Overland Road—Joining Company With A Band Of Emigrants—A Threatened Attack Of Indians—A Night Of Storm And Suspense Deserting The Company Of Emigrants—Independence Rock—Mormon Emigrants—Meeting Fellow Travelers Who Passed On To Destruction—Money Giving Out—Philip CHAPTER XI. In Mormon Land—The Trading Post—Discarded Possessions—The Pony Express—Our Indian Protector—Amusing The Children . CHAPTER XII. Salt Lake City—Disappointment At Fort Bridger—Letters From Home—An Old Acquaintance;—Mormon Women CHAPTER XIII. The Deserts—Indescribable Sunsets—Alkau Dust—Chance Acquaintances—The Welcome Sunday Morning Flap-jack—Salt Well—Fish Springs—Willow Springs—T

    Fossey's extraordinary efforts to ensure the future of the rain forest and its remaining mountain gorillas are captured in her own words and in candid photographs of this fascinating endangered species. As only she could, Fossey combined her personal adventure story with groundbreaking scientific reporting in an unforgettable portrait of one of our closest primate relatives. Although Fossey's work ended tragically in her murder, Gorillas in the Mist remains an invaluable testament to one of the longest-running field studies of primates and reveals her undying passion for her subject.

    With a tremendous cracking and splintering of oak, it struck the ship just beneath the anchor secured at the cat-head on the port bow..." In the Heart of the Sea brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex - an event as mythic in its own century as the Titanic disaster in ours, and the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history.In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the book delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature, drawing on a remarkable range of archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship's cabin boy.At once a literary companion and a page-turner that speaks to the same issues of class, race, and man's relationship to nature that permeate the works of Melville, In the Heart of the Sea will endure as a vital work of American history.

    He encounters enterprising owners, dedicated managers, die-hard fans, Hall of Fame instructors, and hopeful players. 8-page insert.

    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...

    Overnight, these women were transformed from military spouses into American royalty. They had tea with Jackie Kennedy, appeared on the cover of Life magazine, and quickly grew into fashion icons.Annie Glenn, with her picture-perfect marriage, was the envy of the other wives; JFK made it clear that platinum-blonde Rene Carpenter was his favorite; and licensed pilot Trudy Cooper arrived with a secret that needed to stay hidden from NASA. Together with the other wives they formed the Astronaut Wives Club, providing one another with support and friendship, coffee and cocktails.As their celebrity rose-and as divorce and tragedy began to touch their lives-the wives continued to rally together, forming bonds that would withstand the test of time, and they have stayed friends for over half a century. THE ASTRONAUT WIVES CLUB tells the story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest heroes in American history.

    When all was said and done, Gilbert Joseph Bland, Jr., had become the Al Capone of cartography. 20 illustrations throughout.