Book picks similar to
Durham County: A History of Durham County, North Carolina by Jean Bradley Anderson
nonfiction
urbanism
durham
history
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life
Pamela Smith Hill - 2007
Using Wilder’s stories, personal correspondence, an unpublished autobiography, and experiences in South Dakota, Hill has produced a historical-literary biography of the famous and much-loved author. Following the course of Wilder’s life, and her real family’s journey west, Hill provides a context, both familial and literary, for Wilder’s writing career.Laura Ingalls Wilder examines Wilder’s inspirations as a writer, particularly her tumultuous, but ultimately successful, professional and personal relationship with her daughter—the hidden editor—Rose Wilder Lane. Wilder produced her timeless classics with the help of, but not reliance upon, her daughter’s editorial insights. Over the course of more than thirty years, Lane and Wilder engaged in a dynamic working relationship, shifting between trust, distrust, and respect. Hill argues that they differed in their visions of the path Wilder’s career should follow, but eventually Lane’s editing brought out the best of her mother’s writing, and allowed her creativity, expression, and experiences to shine through.
The Feckin' Book of Irish History
Colin Murphy - 2009
The Feckin’ Book of Irish History serves up a gansey-load of Irish history in a pint-sized, pithy, and entertaining package. Invasions, emergencies, and all sorts of Troubles. The Sieges of Limerick, the Big Fella, the Long Fella, and lots of English Fellas. And let’s not forget the IRB, IRA, EEC, GAA, BC, AD, ITGWU, and all them other initials. The Feckin’ Book of Irish History is with hilarious illustrations, “Interesting Stuff” sidebars that will educate you quickly and painlessly, and quotes from Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell, Oscar Wilde, and other sons o’ the sod. So grab your Guinness and get into some authentic Irish history. You don’t want to have to read this stuff in a boring ol’ run-o’-the mill book, now do ya?
Protecting the President: An Inside Account of the Troubled Secret Service in an Era of Evolving Threats
Daniel Bongino - 2017
Facing threats from fence jumpers and manifesto writers, and from fanatical terrorists and sophisticated spies, protecting the president is harder than ever. In an age of hyper-partisan politics, emotions are high and crazies are a dime a dozen. On top of that, with international tensions reaching a boiling point, it’s harder than ever to determine friend from foe. Yet the President of the United States is in very real danger if the Secret Service doesn’t change course soon and evolve with the rapidly changing threat environment. Highly motivated “bad guys” are already working on technologically advanced methodologies and are constantly striving to formulate the logistics of an attack on the White House. Eventually terrorist planners will find a way to acquire the technology, weapons, explosives, and know-how to make an attempt on the life of the President. The only question is “What are we going to do about it?” Protecting the President provides not only a rare insider glimpse of what the Secret Service does, but explores the challenges facing the agents today. Chock-full of relevant stories of protecting past presidents, veteran agent Dan Bongino explains how the agency can best protect the president today. This book covers how the Secret Service should • plan for a tactical assault by a terrorist attack team • prepare to respond to a severe medical emergency train to handle a chemical or biological weapon attack • prepare for an attack using explosives • plan for 9-11 style attacks from the air and fire threats • and much more
Merchants of Deception: An Insider's Chilling Look at the Worldwide, Multi Billion Dollar Conspiracy of Lies that is Amway and its Motivational Organizations
Eric Scheibeler - 2009
This book is gripping tale for anyone who has been or loves someone who has been recruited into a network marketing business. This well documented book has been utilized by government authorities in both India and the UK to take action against Amway's deceptive business scheme which knowingly has created losses for the majority of all induced to invest.
Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History
Eric Foner - 2017
In addition to articles in which Fonercalls out politicians and the powerful for their abuse and misuseof American history, Foner assesses some of his fellow leadinghistorians of the late 20th century, including Richard Hofstadter,Howard Zinn and Eric Hobsbawm. Foner ends with an open letterto Bernie Sanders analysing the great tradition of radicalism thathe has spent his career studying and which, he argues, Americansof progressive disposition should seek to celebrate and retrieve.
Key West: History of an Island of Dreams
Maureen Ogle - 2006
The city’s real story—told by Maureen Ogle in this lively and engaging illustrated account—is as fabulous as fiction. In the two centuries since the city’s pioneer founders battled Indians, pirates, and deadly disease, Key West has stood at the crossroads of American history. In 1861, Union troops seized control of strategically located Key West. In the early 1890s, Key West Cubans helped José Martí launch the Cuban revolution, and a few years later the battleship Maine steamed out of Key West harbor on its last, tragic voyage. At the turn of the century, a technological marvel—the overseas railroad—was built to connect mainland Florida to Key West, and in the 1920s and 1930s, painters, rumrunners, and writers (including Ernest Hemingway and Robert Frost) discovered Key West. During World War II, the federal government and the military war machine permanently altered the island’s landscape, and in the second half of the 20th century, bohemians, hippies, gays, and jet-setters began writing a new chapter in Key West’s social history.
A Mad Love: An Introduction to Opera
Vivien Schweitzer - 2018
A Mad Love offers a spirited and indispensable tour of opera's eclectic past and present, beginning with Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in 1607, generally considered the first successful opera, through classics like Carmen and La Boheme, and spanning to Brokeback Mountain and The Death of Klinghoffer in recent years. Musician and critic Vivien Schweitzer acquaints readers with the genre's most important composers and some of its most influential performers, recounts its long-standing debates, and explains its essential terminology.Today, opera is everywhere, from the historic houses of major opera companies to movie theaters and public parks to offbeat performance spaces and our earbuds. A Mad Love is an essential book for anyone who wants to appreciate this living, evolving art form in all its richness.
The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder
Daniel Stashower - 2006
One year later, a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe decided to take on the case-and sent his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the baffling murder of Mary Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Rog�t."
American Murder Houses: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of the Most Notorious Houses of Homicide
Steve Lehto - 2015
From a colonial manse in New England to a small-town home in Iowa to a Beverly Hills mansion, these residences have taken on a life of their own, gaining everything from local lore and gossip to national—and even global—infamy.Writer Steve Lehto recounts the stories behind the houses where Lizzie Borden supposedly gave her stepmother “forty whacks,” where the real Amityville Horror was first unleashed by gunfire, and where the demented acts of the Manson Family horrified a nation—as well some lesser-known sites of murder that were no less ghastly.Exploring the past and present of more than twenty-five renowned homicide scenes, American Murder Houses is a tour through the real estate of some of the most grisly and fascinating crimes in American history.INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS
Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: Rediscovering Life in an American Village
Barbara Holland - 1997
In Bingo Night at the Fire Hall, Holland recounts her adventures and misadventures adjusting to life in a rural community, as her small town adjusts to the inevitable encroachment of suburbia. Whether writing obituaries for the local paper or learning how to handle a chainsaw, Holland shares the triumphs and travails of being a newcomer to an old land with a rich history, a beautiful place sadly losing ground to subdivisions and four-lane highways. Filled with wonderful anecdotes, humor, and insight, Bingo Night at the Fire Hall is a fascinating portrait of a paradisical yet disappearing world.
Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans
Gary Krist - 2014
This early-20th-century battle centers on one man: Tom Anderson, the undisputed czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts from all sides. Surrounding him are the stories of flamboyant prostitutes, crusading moral reformers, dissolute jazzmen, ruthless Mafiosi, venal politicians, and one extremely violent serial killer, all battling for primacy in a wild and wicked city unlike any other in the world.
Washington's Monument: And the Fascinating History of the Obelisk
John Steele Gordon - 2016
The story behind its construction is a largely untold and intriguing piece of American history, which acclaimed historian John Steele Gordon relates with verve, connecting it to the colorful saga of the ancient obelisks of Egypt.Nobody knows how many obelisks were crafted in ancient Egypt, or even exactly how they were created and erected since they are made out of hard granite and few known tools of the time were strong enough to work granite. Generally placed in pairs at the entrances to temples, they have in modern times been ingeniously transported around the world to Istanbul, Paris, London, New York, and many other locations. Their stories illuminate that of the Washington Monument, once again open to the public following earthquake damage, and offer a new appreciation for perhaps the most iconic memorial in the country.
Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York
Kathy Peiss - 1985
Kathy Peiss follows working women into saloons, dance halls, Coney Island amusement parks, social clubs, and nickelodeons to explore the culture of these young women between 1880 and 1920 as expressed in leisure activities. By examining the rituals and styles they adopted and placing that culture in the larger context of urban working-class life, she offers us a complex picture of the dynamics shaping a working woman's experience and consciousness at the turn-of-the-century. Not only does her analysis lead us to new insights into working-class culture, changing social relations between single men and women, and urban courtship, but it also gives us a fuller understanding of the cultural transformations that gave rise to the commercialization of leisure. The early twentieth century witnessed the emergence of "heterosocial companionship" as a dominant ideology of gender, affirming mixed-sex patterns of social interaction, in contrast to the nineteenth century's segregated spheres. Cheap Amusements argues that a crucial part of the "reorientation of American culture" originated from below, specifically in the subculture of working women to be found in urban dance halls and amusement resorts.
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.
Hugh Glass
Bruce Bradley - 2015
BOOK EXCERPT: By the time Hugh Glass reached Fort Tilton it was well into November. A foot of snow lay across the countryside. Fort Tilton was a small fort that belonged to the Columbia Fur Company. It had been built by William P. Tilton and boasted a garrison of only five men. As it sat near the site of another Mandan village, the Mandans who escorted Hugh dropped him off, then immediately went to visit their cousins. Hugh went to see Tilton, where he learned right away that any hopes of finding a boat to continue his journey were in vain. “Mr. Glass,” Tilton told Hugh, “I’d like to help you but I can’t. I’ve got five men here, besides myself. I can’t spare any of them. We’re under danger of attack here night and day by the Arikaras. I need every man I have to keep them away. Even if I could spare anyone, I doubt they would go. We’re watched constantly. I had one man who left the fort for only a few minutes. From out of nowhere, that devil Stanapat rode up and killed him, practically on our doorstep. If you hadn’t had the Mandans escorting you, don’t think for a moment that you would have made it in here. Those damn Arikaras would have gotten you before you even came within sight of the fort.” Disappointed, Hugh exhaled heavily. “Stanapat,” he said ruefully. “—The Little Hawk With The Bloody Hand…” Tilton looked at him. “You speak Arikara?” he asked Hugh. “Pawnee,” Hugh said absently. “The two languages are almost identical.” Tilton continued to stare at him. Slowly, a look of dread came over his features. “Oh no,” Tilton said. “Oh, Christ, I should have known by your scars—you’re the one the Indians call White Bear.” Hugh gave him a puzzled look. “How did you know?” “Mister, you’re the talk of the plains. BIG medicine. Went one on one with a grizzly, left for dead by two white men and still managed to crawl to Fort Kiowa. The Arikaras have tried to kill you and can’t, that’s what they say. Oh, I know all about you. So does every tribe from here to the Rockies. As soon as Stanapat finds out you’re here—and he will—he’ll tear this place down to get to you. New travels real fast in these parts, mister, and the news here is that the Arikaras want you real bad!” PRAISE FOR "HUGH GLASS" by Bruce Bradley-- "--The kind of book you hate to put down!" Fraser Whitbread - Muzzle Blasts Magazine "This recent book by Bruce Bradley is a great read and should be added to the library of those who have interest in the (Fur Trade) period or are an over-all student of early American History." - On the Trail Magazine "A very readable telling of an amazing story!" —Bob Griffith-Amazon.com