Book picks similar to
Alex Haley: The Playboy Interviews by Alex Haley
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Flophouse: Life on the Bowery
Dave Isay - 2000
Photos. NPR feature.
Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
Erica Armstrong Dunbar - 2017
In setting up his household he took Tobias Lear, his celebrated secretary, and nine slaves, including Ona Judge, about which little has been written. As he grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn’t get his arms around: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire.Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, the few pleasantries she was afforded were nothing compared to freedom, a glimpse of which she encountered first-hand in Philadelphia. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs.At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property.Impeccably researched, historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked it all to gain freedom from the famous founding father.
Code Blue: A Katrina Physician's Memoir
Richard E. Deichmann - 2006
Over two thousand people were trapped in the squalid conditions without security as the death toll steadily rose inside. Bodies stacked up in the chapel as the temperature soared in the overcrowded hospital and the situation became increasingly desperate. Doctors, nurses, and staff worked around the clock, caring for those inside and trying to evacuate the facility, also known as Baptist Hospital. Allegations of euthanasia would later make headlines across the country and be investigated by state and local officials. Code Blue: A Katrina Physician's Memoir finally tells the inside story of the hellish nightmare those who struggled to survive the ordeal were cast into. Dr. Richard Deichmann, the hospital's chief of medicine and one of the leaders of the evacuation, gives his compelling account of the rapidly deteriorating state of affairs at the hospital. He takes us through the daily horrors and numbing disappointments. This gripping tale of survival, despite betrayal and abandonment by the authorities, may change forever the way you view the threat of a mass disaster.
The Blood of Emmett Till
Timothy B. Tyson - 2017
His murder was part of a wave of white terrorism in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional. Only weeks later, Rosa Parks thought about young Emmett as she refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Five years later, Black students who called themselves “the Emmett Till generation” launched sit-in campaigns that turned the struggle for civil rights into a mass movement. Till’s lynching became the most notorious hate crime in American history.But what actually happened to Emmett Till—not the icon of injustice, but the flesh-and-blood boy? Part detective story, part political history, drawing on a wealth of new evidence, including a shocking admission of Till’s innocence from the woman in whose name he was killed. this book provides fresh insight into the way race has informed and deformed our democratic institutions.
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Sonia Purnell - 2019
We must find and destroy her."This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization deemed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare," and, before the United States had even entered the war, became the first woman to deploy to occupied France.Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. Just as she did in Clementine, Sonia Purnell uncovers the captivating story of a powerful, influential, yet shockingly overlooked heroine of the Second World War. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Virginia Hall came to be known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," coordinating a network of spies to blow up bridges, report on German troop movements, arrange equipment drops for Resistance agents, and recruit and train guerilla fighters. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped with her life in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates all imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had "more lives to save," she dove back in as soon as she could, organizing forces to sabotage enemy lines and back up Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic flare, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war.
Eat Less Cottage Cheese and More Ice Cream: Thoughts on Life from Erma Bombeck
Erma Bombeck - 2003
The result was a classic column full of Bombecks signature wit and warmth. Now the beloved column that has hung on hundreds of refrigerator doors has been cheerily illustrated and designed as a handsome gift book, Eat Less Cottage and More Ice Cream. In it, Bombeck gently reminds us of what is really important in life: If I had my life to live over again I would have waxed less and listened more.I would have cried and laughed less while watching television . . . and more while watching real life.But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it . . . look at it and really see it . . . try it on . . . live it . . . exhaust it . . . and never give that minute back until there was nothing left of it. . . . Long-time fans of Erma Bombeck will be thrilled to have this favorite column in the form of a beautiful keepsake. Readers discovering Bombeck for the first time will become fans instantly. Eat Less Cottage and More Ice Cream offers wisdom to inspire all of us.
The African Adventurers: A Return to the Silent Places
Peter Hathaway Capstick - 1992
Only Capstick "can write action as cleanly and suspensefully as the best of his predecessors" (Sports Illustrated). This long-awaited sequel to Death in the Silent Places (1981) brings to life four turn-of-the-century adventurers and the savage frontiers they braved.* Frederick Selous, a British hunter, naturalist, and soldier, rewrote the history books with his fearless treks deep into the Dark Continent.* English game ranger Constantine "Iodine" Ionides saved Tanganyikan villages from man-eating lions and leopards. He also gained lasting fame for his uncanny ability to capture black mambas, cobras, Gaboon vipers, and other deadly snakes.* The dashing Brit Johnny Boyes who gained the chieftainship of the Kikuyu tribe with sheer bravado and survived the ferocious battles and ambushes of intertribal warfare.* And Scottish ex-boxer, Jim Sutherland, one of the best ivory hunters who ever lived. His tracking skills and stamina afoot became the stuff of African hunting legend.If you are a Capstick fan, you'll relish The African Adventurers, his eleventh book. Once again he delivers "the kind of chilling stories that Hemingway only heard second-hand...with a flair and style that Papa himself would admire" (Guns and Ammo). The author's pungent wit and his authenticity gained from years in the bush make this quartet of vintage heroics an unforgettable return to the silent places.
NFL: 100 Years
National Football League - 2019
From its humble beginnings in Canton, Ohio, to its emergence as a sport cherished by millions, all the key moments and famous athletes are honored within the pages of this handsomely produced book. In addition to the lively text, and action and portrait photography, the story of the game and the context in which it grew are animated by original lists, charts, creative statistics, and infographics, along with beautiful photos of the evolving equipment and artifacts essential to the story of the sport. A perfect gift, NFL: 100 Years will be cherished by every football fan, new or old.
Brooklyn North
Peter McDonnell - 2020
Jonathan Fleming, Sundhe Moses, Jabbar Washington, and John Bunn were among dozens of innocent New Yorkers who spent decades in prison —guilty until proven innocent. This documentary follows their relentless fight to unveil an insidious pattern of police and prosecutorial corruption in Brooklyn at the height of the war on drugs and a historic peak in violent crime in the 1980s and '90s.
The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption
Barbara Bisantz Raymond - 2007
Part social history, part detective story, part exposé, The Baby Thief is a riveting investigative narrative that explores themes that continue to reverberate today.
Narco Wars: The Gripping Story of How British Agents Infiltrated the Colombian Drug Cartels
Tom Chandler - 2018
Pablo Escobar lay dead, the Cali Cartel had taken over much of the global supply, and an avalanche of coke was poised to hit Europe. Now the British government wanted Chandler and his team to do the impossible: infiltrate the most powerful crime syndicates on earth and stop their drug shipments. It was a perilous assignment. The cartel bosses operated like a lethal multi-national, with armies of hitmen and myriad spies in ports, airports, police stations and government offices. Their intelligence systems flushed out turncoats and traitors, and they ruthlessly exterminated their enemies. Yet Chandler, an HM Customs investigator fluent in Spanish, knew he could only succeed by recruiting local informants, and went out into the field to find them. Within four years he had a network of fifty agents buried deep inside the trafficking organisations. The result was unprecedented. Their intel led to the arrest of hundreds of narcos and to the seizure of 300 tonnes of drugs, worth a staggering $3 billion. Chandler's web disrupted the Bogotá mafia, who controlled the main airport and boasted they could put anything on a plane, from drugs to bombs; penetrated the go-fast crews who raced coke-laden speedboats to the transit station of Jamaica; dismantled the 'rip-on' teams who smuggled through the coastal ports; and identified the so-called motherships, the largest method of bulk transit ever discovered. He faced appalling risks. Treacherous stool pigeons worked for both sides, and some of his Colombian law-enforcement colleagues were abducted, tortured and killed. Chandler too faced a grave threat when the crime lords learned he was responsible for a string of interdictions. Yet he persisted, driven to continue with the greatest series of sustained seizures ever made, until he finally burned out and his tour of duty came to an end. Two of his best sources were subsequently murdered, and his bosses dropped the entire overseas informant programme, with dire consequences. Narco Wars is an unflinching story of danger fear and stress, and of the tradecraft and unsung heroism of the agents and their handlers.
24 Hours Inside the President's Bunker: 9-11-01: The White House
Robert J. Darling - 2010
Robert J. Darling organizes President Bush's trip to Florida on Sept. 10, 2001, he believes the next couple of days will be quiet. He has no idea that a war is about to begin. The next day, after terrorists crash airliners into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, Maj. Darling rushes to the president's underground chamber at the White House. There, he takes on the task of liaison between the vice president, national security advisor and the Pentagon. He works directly with the National Command Authority, and he's in the room when Vice President Cheney orders two fighter jets to get airborne in order to shoot down United Flight 93. Throughout the attacks, Maj. Darling witnesses the unprecedented actions that leaders are taking to defend America. As Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and others make decisions at a lightning pace with little or no deliberation, he's there to lend his support. Follow Darling's story as he becomes a Marine Corps aviator and rises through the ranks to play an incredible role in responding to a crisis that changed the world in 9-11-01: The White House: Twenty-Four Hours inside the President's Bunker.
The Medusa File: Secret Crimes and Coverups of the U.S. Government
Craig Roberts - 1996
During the period of 1940 to this day the power brokers, working from their positions of trust, have committed and then covered up the most heinous of crimes known to mankind. Investigative journalist Craig Roberts, author of "Kill Zone--a Sniper Looks at Dealey Plaza", now provides us with the results of his ten -year investigation regarding the secret crimes and coverups of the U.S. Government. You will read his case files on such subjects as the Japanese "Devil Unit 731" who experiments on American POWs in WWII with germ warfare weapons--and what happened when the war ended and the commanding officer was hired by the government instead of hanged for war crimes; Operation Paperclip in WWII when the U.S. brought Nazi scientists to America to work for us on our weapons programs instead of standing trial as war criminals; CIA and military mind control experiments on unsuspecting citizens--including children--without our knowledge; Secret drug and bacteriological weapons experiments on the American population; Atomic guinea pigs, Agent Orange, and the Gulf War Syndrome; what really happened to over 30,000 U.S. POWs after World War II, Korea and Vietnam; International assassinations, drug smuggling and money laundering; What the media did not tell you about the shoot down of TWA 800, the bombing of Pan AM 103, the Oklahoma City bombing, the crash of Arrow Air in Gander, Newfoundland, the derailment of the Sunset Limited in Arizona, the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and much more….
Heart of the Trail: The Stories of Eight Wagon Train Women
Mary Barmeyer O'Brien - 1997
First hand accounts from their letters and diaries, most written on the trail.
Princess Alice: The Life and Times of Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Carol Felsenthal - 1988
Here is both the delightful and the dark sides of her life.