My Week at the Blue Angel: Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas


Matthew O'Brien - 2010
    Thompson’s Las Vegas, with the Good Doctor as tour guide. A Lord of the Rings-like adventure in the city’s underground flood channels. A seven-day stay at a seedy motel on East Fremont Street.The stories in My Week at the Blue Angel aren’t about Steve Wynn, Cirque du Soleil, or how to play poker and they aren’t set in Caesars Palace, XS Nightclub, or a 2,000-seat showroom. They’re about prostitutes, ex-cons, and the homeless and they’re set under Caesars Palace and in trailer parks and weekly motels.In this creative-nonfiction collection, Matthew O’Brien—author of Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas—and veteran photographer Bill Hughes show a side of the city rarely seen. A side beyond the neon lights, themed facades, and motel-room doors. A side beyond the barbwire fences, “No Trespassing” signs, and midnight shadows.A side of Las Vegas many locals and visitors are curious about, but few ever explore.

Flying the Knife Edge: New Guinea Bush Pilot


Matt McLaughlin - 2015
    ‘Flying the Knife Edge’ is the story of an ordinary man experiencing extraordinary things as a pilot in Papua New Guinea in the 1990s. After an untimely exit from the Royal New Zealand Air Force, New Zealander Matt McLaughlin took a leap into the unknown, travelling to Papua New Guinea to work as a missionary pilot. He soon switched from missionary to mercenary, and over the next three and a half years, as he built up the necessary experience to chase his goal of becoming an airline captain, his life was a rollercoaster ride of adventure, risk, near-misses, and tragedy. Matt lived on the knife edge of bush pilot ops in one of the world’s most dangerous flying environments. Along the way he soaked up some fascinating local history: the country's vital role in WWII’s Pacific Theatre; the disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhart; the chaos of the Bougainville civil war; the Morobe gold rush of the 1930s... “The gap in the cloud became smaller and smaller as I descended, a shrinking tunnel twisting down the gorge. In a matter of seconds I was so low my wheels barely cleared the trees on the valley floor as I passed, and jungle-clad walls closed in on me until I was a mere wingspan from both sides of the valley. And then, in an instant, the gap was gone and I was flying blind. In cloud. In the bottom of a gorge. With terrain on both sides rising thousands of feet above me. Time stopped. The passengers started screaming, anticipating the aircraft impacting the side of the mountain. And their deaths. I had the capacity for just one other thought: Will I hear the sound of the airframe smashing into the trees as we crash, or will I be dead before it registers?”

4th of July, Asbury Park: A History of the Promised Land


Daniel Wolff - 2005
    But behind this archetypal small-town landscape lies a complicated past.Starting with the town's founding as a religious promised land, music journalist and poet Daniel Wolff plots a course through 130 years of entwined social and musical history, touching on John Philip Sousa, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, and Frankie Lymon on the way to the town Bruce was born to run from. Out of the details of local history-the boardwalk in the Gilded Age; the celebrities who passed through, from Stephen Crane to Martin Luther King; sensational murder trials; the birth of Mob control; and a devastating mid-century "race riot"-emerges a universal story of one small town's fortunes. Told with grace and full of fascinating detail, Daniel Wolff's tour across thirteen decades of the Fourth of July in Asbury Park captures all the allure and heartbreak of the American dream reduced to blight and decay, with gentrification as the one hope for a return to its glory days.

I Married Wyatt Earp: The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp


Josephine Marcus Earp - 1976
    "I Married Wyatt Earp will not be the last word on the subject, but it ranks at the top or very near the top of the importatnt books on the Tombstone story and probably the best on the key figure of Wyatt."--Arizona Highways"For anyone remotely interested in this era and the events that punctuated it, this book is an invaluable source."--Remark"A sympathetic recollection of life with Wyatt Earp which reveals as much about "Josie" as Wyatt."--The Journal of San Diego History

Duel of Eagles: The Classic Pilot's Account of the Battle of Britain


Peter Townsend - 2021
    

Bushwhacker: Autobiography of Samuel S. Hildebrand


Samuel S. Hildebrand - 1871
    Like William Clarke Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, Samuel Hildebrand was a proud Missouri bushwhacker. In this long out of print book, Hildebrand describes raids and executions his band of men carried out. He remained at the end of the war and unreconstructed rebel and fervent racist. Like many of his southern brethren who fought, he never owned slaves but kept a captured black man with him after the war. This self-serving but fascinating account is a valuable addition to the canon of Civil War literature. In it, Hildebrand claims that others have tried to tell his story but have gotten it wrong, so he has a notarized statement by prominent men included as verification of authenticity. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time ever, this long-out-of-print book is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE or download a sample.

National Geographic Traveler: Taiwan


Phil MacDonald - 2001
    In the 41st volume of its award-winning guidebook series, National Geographic Traveler explores Taiwan.

Pakistan: Courting the Abyss


Tilak Devasher - 2016
    He also dwells at length on the Pakistan movement, where the seeds of many current problems were sown the opportunistic use of religion being the most lethal of these. With data-driven precision, Devasher takes apart the flawed prescriptions and responses of successive governments, especially during military rule, to the many critical challenges the country has encountered over the years. These, as much as the particular trajectory of its creation and growth, he contends, have brought Pakistan to an abyss where it risks multi-organ failure unless things change dramatically in the near future.

Afghan Heat: SAS Operations in Afghanistan


Steve Stone - 2013
    The book follows individual operations where special forces, aircraft, and the latest surveillance technology are fused together - in order to capture key figures or simply take out an enemy stronghold.The books account is both gritty and graphical as it follows the SAS, battling at times against overwhelming odds in a hostile country. Fighting a war hardened enemy with years of experience fighting occupying forces. Even these elite soldiers with advanced weaponry and immense fire support at their disposal are put to the ultimate test of skill and courage fighting in the 'Stan.'

The Loneliest Hobo: The Longest Road


Geoffrey Peyton - 2015
    I was in no real rush to get back home immediately and I fancied a bit of a stroll anyway. This stroll took me over a month to complete, and as the chilly autumn became a very cold winter I realised that living the life of a hobo wasn't as easy as one may think. The only only items on my person that kept me going through the seven weeks or so was a hot water bottle, a single calor gas stove and my radio. But there were times when even those life savers ran out of their respective fuels, and soon depression, hunger and eventual thieving, took priority for my needs.      This is the story of my 250 mile walk home to Birmingham from St. Ives, Cornwall, in the autumn of 1990.

The Comanche Captivity of Sarah Ann Horn


James A. Crutchfield - 2015
    After spending several months in New York City, the family signed up for a journey to the Republic of Texas where they could homestead and eventually acquire 137 free acres for their efforts. Soon growing discontented with, not only the land, but also the management of the colony in which they had settled, the Horns decided to return to England. But, it was not to be. Attacked and captured by a party of Comanche Indians, Sarah Ann was faced with challenges and realities the like of which she never could have dreamed. Over a period of fifteen months of Comanche captivity, she and her captors rode endlessly across the Texas plains until finally she was purchased out of bondage and befriended by traders in New Mexico. This is the true story of a remarkable woman who endured an unimaginable amount of suffering and pain in her short lifetime.

Sailing Into Oblivion: The Solo Non-stop Voyage of the Mighty Sparrow


Jerome Rand - 2020
    A testament to endurance and adventure, this memoir recounts what life is like aboard a small sailboat during a 271 day voyage around the globe, alone and without stopping. One of the greatest challenges of both body and mind, the author will take you onboard during the good times and the bad. As one of only a handful of people to have ever succeed in such a small boat, this story is truly the adventure of a lifetime.

Carrier! (Annotated): Life Aboard a World War II Aircraft Carrier


Max Miller - 2015
    Author Max Miller spent many weeks at sea gathering material for his book, and presents his observations in an easy-to read fashion. Carrier! is intended to provide civilians with a glimpse into what life aboard these massive ships was like during World War 2.*New 2019 edition includes footnotes and images.

An Elaborate Scheme Leading to Love


Lorelei Brogan - 2019
    When any hope seems to be lost, her mother decides to struggle for a better future and answer an ad for a mail-order bride. Their fate is inevitable, so they have no other option than to move to her mother's future husband's ranch. However, little does Josie know that she is about to feel her heart shiver when the rancher's handsome nephew approaches her. But is his supposed interest in her genuine? Or is there something darker hiding behind his smile? When Adam's cousins inform him that their father has plans to remarry, he agrees to help them carry out a secret scheme. Their aim: to sabotage their father's relationship with his new mail-order bride and her two children. And even though he initially believed that achieving the plan would be a piece of cake, he reckoned without his host. What will happen if, over the course of time, he starts having doubts and unexpected feelings for the mail-order bride's beautiful daughter? Could his treacherous cousins betray him too?While a hidden plot is being hatched, some of the schemers can't help thinking that maybe they're taking this too far... By Josie's side, Adam feels he wants to be a better person, for the first time in years. But how can any of the complications and heartache be resolved when too many lies have been told, and too many family secrets crop up?

The Orphan Train


Brent Ford - 2013
    As a resolute Bobby, teamed up with with old timer, Diggory, set off after the killers, Ella is placed at the mercy of an unscrupulous priest and soon finds herself aboard one of America's infamous, Orphan Trains. Bobby and Diggory, now accompanied by his reluctant, young schoolteacher, Miss Halfpenny, are faced with the critical dilemma of searching for his sister, or the continued quest of his parents' killer. And so, a desperate pursuit ensues across America's still untamed and perilous Wild West.