Book picks similar to
Odyssey of a Desert Prospector by Herman W. Albert
the-living-west
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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
Dustoff 7-3: Saving Lives Under Fire in Afghanistan
Erik Sabiston - 2015
Complete opposites thrown together, cut off, and outnumbered, Chief Warrant Officer Erik Sabiston and his flight crew answered the call in a race against time, not to take lives—but to save them. The concept of evacuating wounded soldiers by helicopter developed in the Korean War and became a staple during the war in Vietnam where heroic, unarmed chopper crews flew vital missions known to the grateful grunts on the ground as Dustoffs. The crew of Dustoff 7-3 carried on that heroic tradition, flying over a region that had seen scores of American casualties, known among veterans as the Valley of Death. At the end of Operation Hammer Down, they had rescued 14 soldiers, made three critical supply runs, recovered two soldiers killed in action, and nearly died. It took all of three days.
Unbeatable: Notre Dame's 1988 Championship and the Last Great College Football Season
Jerry Barca - 2013
With a completely unlikely but forever memorable cast of characters—including the slight, lisping coach Lou Holtz; the star quarterback, Tony Rice; five foot nothing Asian kicker, Reggie Ho; NFL-bound Ricky Watters; and a crazed and ferocious defensive line, among others—Notre Dame whipped millions of fans into a frenzy. This roller coaster season of football includes the infamous Catholics vs. Convicts game (Notre Dame vs. Jimmy Johnson's #1 ranked Miami Hurricanes). The two teams were undefeated when they met at Notre Dame Stadium, with the Irish winning in the final seconds by a final score of 31-30.With original reporting and interviews with everyone from the players to the coaches, detailed research, and access to the Notre Dame archives, Jerry Barca tells a gripping story of an unbelievable season and the players who would become legends. More than a Notre Dame book, Unbeatable is a compelling narrative of one of the most incredible sports stories of the last century—the unlikely tale of an underdog team coming together and making history.
Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O'Malley, Baseball's Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles
Michael D'Antonio - 2009
Criticized in New York and beloved in Los Angeles, O’Malley is one of the most controversial owners in the history of American sports. He remade the major leagues and altered the course of history in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles when he moved the Dodgers to California. But while many New York critics attacked him, O’Malley looked to the future, declining to argue his case. As a result, fans across the nation have been unable to stop arguing about him—until now. Using never-before-seen documents and candid interviews with O’Malley’s players, associates, and relatives, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Michael D’Antonio finally reveals this complex sportsman and industry pioneer. Born into Tammany Hall connections, O’Malley used political contacts to grow wealthy during the Great Depression, and then maneuvered to take control of the formerly downtrodden Dodgers. After his defeat in a war of wills with the famed power broker, Robert Moses, O’Malley uprooted the borough’s team and transplanted them to Los Angeles. Once in Los Angeles, O’Malley overcame opponents of his stadium and helped define the city. Other owners came to regard him as their guide—almost an unofficial commissioner—and he worked behind the scenes to usher in the age of the players’ union and free agency. Filled with new revelations about O’Malley’s battle with Moses, his pioneering business strategies, and his relationship with Jackie Robinson, Forever Blue is a uniquely intimate portrait of a man who changed America’s pastime forever. His fascinating story is fundamental to the history of sports, business, and the American West.
Small World
Jonathan Evison - 2022
Set against such iconic backdrops as the California gold rush, the development of the transcontinental railroad, and a speeding train of modern-day strangers forced together by fate, it is a grand entertainment that asks big questions.The characters of Small World connect in the most intriguing and meaningful ways, winning, breaking, and winning our hearts again. In exploring the passengers' lives and those of their ancestors more than a century before, Small World chronicles 170 years of American nation-building from numerous points of view across place and time. And it does it with a fullhearted, full-throttle pace that asks on the most human, intimate scale whether it is truly possible to meet, and survive, the choices posed--and forced--by the age.The result is a historical epic with a Dickensian flair, a grand entertainment that asks whether our nation has made good on its promises. It dazzles as its characters come to connect with one another through time. And it hits home as it probes at our country's injustices, big and small, straight through to its deeply satisfying final words.
We're Desperate: The Punk Rock Photography of Jim Jocoy, SF/LA 1978-1980
Jim Jocoy - 2002
It developed concurrently everywhere, and every region had it's own identity. But it was in San Francisco and L.A. where the most radical behavior in stateside punk rock style and attitude was exhibited. It was anti-hippie, anti-disco, anti-parent and anti-"nice". And it was shockingly new. These photos are ground zero of punk rock style—delirious innovation and a snarling takeover of youth culture still resonating more than 20 years hence.
9/11 Ordinary People: Extraordinary Heroes
Will G. Merrill Jr. - 2011
London, Part 1 of 3
Edward Rutherfurd - 1998
He brings this vibrant city's long and noble history alive through the ever-shifting fortunes, fates, and intrigues of half-a-dozen families, from the age of Julius Caesar to the 20th century. Generation after generation, these families embody the passion, struggle, wealth, and verve of the greatest city in the world.
Riding Outside The Lines: International Incidents and Other Misadventures with the Metal Cowboy
Joe Kurmaskie - 2003
A jaunt through such far-flung locations as Ireland, Australia, Mexico, South America, and beyond, here is a collection of tales woven together with one central theme: the world is a much smaller place when you view it from the seat of a bicycle.Whether he’s weekending in the buff after accidentally stumbling into a nudist colony wedding, knocking back red wine in tin cans with a gun-toting ex–bounty hunter, combing the countryside in a quest to find the all-girl bagpipe squad he met in his dreams, or playing a rousing game of ice golf on the frozen tundra, Joe Kurmaskie writes of his gonzo global trek in a spirit infused with insight, good humor, and optimism. Riding Outside the Lines encourages travel buffs and armchair explorers alike to get on your bike and see the beauty of our planet and the colorful souls who populate it.
Attack of the Flickering Skeletons: More Terrible Old Games You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
Stuart Ashen - 2017
You will probably wish you still didn’t.YouTube sensation Stuart Ashen is back with his second instalment of terrible old computer games you’ve probably never heard of... because what the world needs right now is to know exactly how bad Domain of the Undead for the Atari 8-bit computers was.Attack of the Flickering Skeletons is even bigger than the original Terrible Old Games You’ve Probably Never Heard Of – this second excavation of gaming’s buried past will not only unearth more appalling excuses for digital entertainment, but also feature guest contributors and several special interest chapters not based around single specific games.These are NOT the games you’ve heard of a million times in YouTube videos. This is a compilation of truly obscure and dreadful games. Dripping with wry humour and featuring the best, worst graphics from the games themselves, this book encapsulates the atrocities produced in the days of tight budgets and low quality controls.These are even more appalling games that leaked from the industry’s tear ducts, taken down from the dusty shelves of history by the man who has somehow made a living by sticking rubbish on a sofa and talking about it.
Island of Blood
Anita Pratap - 2001
Wherever there was a story to be told--from her native India to Afghanistan and Sri Lanka--Pratap braved the odds to send in reports from the front, managing to track down elusive stories and make headlines. With determined diligence she exposed the terrors inside such frightening regimes as the Taliban, returning home each time with a renewed determination to appreciate and celebrate the ordinary.
Pearl: Lost Girl of White Oak Mountain
Bill Yates - 2020
The search for little Pearl consumed the next several weeks, and the story became front page news all over the United States. Hundreds of residents from the nearby towns of Waldron and Booneville Arkansas helped in the search, and a mysterious mountain hermit seemed to hold the secret to Pearl's disappearance. The incredible events that followed contributed to a mountain legend that still exists today.
The Deep Dark: Disaster and Redemption in America's Richest Silver Mine
Gregg Olsen - 2005
Mining there, as everywhere, was not an easy life, but regardless of the risk, there was something about being underground, the lure of hitting a deep vein of silver. The promise of good money and the intense bonds of friendship brought men back year after year. Mining is about being a man and a fighter in a job where tomorrow always brings the hope of a big score. On May 2, 1972, 174 miners entered Sunshine Mine on their daily quest for silver. Aboveground, safety engineer Bob Launhardt sat in his office, filing his usual mountain of federal and state paperwork. From his office window he could see the air shafts that fed fresh air into the mine, more than a mile below the surface. The air shafts usually emitted only tiny coughs of exhaust; unlike dangerously combustible coal mines, Sunshine was a fireproof hardrock mine, nothing but cold, dripping wet stone. There were many safety concerns at Sunshine, but fire wasn’t one of them. The men and the company swore the mine was unburnable, so when thick black smoke began pouring from one of the air shafts, Launhardt was as amazed as he was alarmed. When the alarm sounded, less than half of the dayshift was able to return to the surface. The others were trapped underground, too deep in the mine to escape. Scores of miners died almost immediately, frozen in place as they drilled, ate lunch, napped, or chatted. No one knew what was burning or where the smoke had come from. But in one of the deepest corners of the mine, Ron Flory and Tom Wilkinson were left alone and in total darkness, surviving off a trickle of fresh air from a borehole. The miners’ families waited and prayed, while Launhardt, reeling from the shock of losing so many men on his watch, refused to close up the mine or give up the search until he could be sure that no one was left underground.In The Deep Dark, Gregg Olsen looks beyond the intensely suspenseful story of the fire and rescue to the wounded heart of Kellogg, a quintessential company town that has never recovered from its loss. A vivid and haunting chapter in the history of working-class America, this is one of the great rescue stories of the twentieth century.From the Hardcover edition.
Little Mother of Russia: A Biography of the Empress Marie Feodorovna (1847-1928)
Coryne Hall - 1999
She was betrothed to Tsarevitch Nicholas of Russia, a love match on both sides, but tragically he died months before the wedding. A year later, out of duty she married his brother the new Tsarevich and sailed for Russia in 1866.
Brian Clough: Nobody Ever Says Thank You
Jonathan Wilson - 2011
It was in the unforgiving world of post-war football where their identities and reputations were made - a world where, as Clough and Taylor's mentor Harry Storer once said, 'Nobody ever says thank you.'Nonetheless, Clough brought the gleam of silverware to the depressed East Midlands of the 1970s. Initial triumph at Derby was followed by a sudden departure and a traumatic 44 days at Leeds. By the end of a frazzled 1974, Clough was set up for life financially, but also hardened to the realities of football. By the time he was at Forest, Clough's mask was almost permanently donned: a persona based on brashness and conflict. Drink fuelled the controversies and the colourful character; it heightened the razor-sharp wit and was a salve for the highs of football that never lasted long enough, and for the lows that inevitably followed. Wilson's account is the definitive portrait of this complex and enduring man.