Acclaimed novelist and Florida resident Joy Williams traces U.S. Highway 1 from Key Largo to Key West, combining the best of local legend—colorful stories you won’t find in other guidebooks—with insightful commentary and the most up-to-date advice on where to stay, eat, and wander. Along the way, you will:• explore the exquisite underwater world of North America’s only living reef • discover the beautiful bridges that span the Keys, the forts, and the distinctive “conch” architecture of Key West• experience the eerie serenity of Florida Bay’s “backcountry” and the unique ecology of the Keys• visit the Key West cemetery and learn about the lives of some of the Keys’ eccentrics—writers, madmen, and entrepreneurs with various delusions• find the best (and avoid the worst) cafés, inns, and other establishments that the Keys have to offerHere is the most thorough and candid guide to the Keys, one of the most surprising locales in America. With insight and style, Joy Williams shares with us all of the region’s idiosyncrasies and delights.

    But radio came roaring back with a whole new concept. The war was over, the baby boom was on, the country was in clover, and a bold new beat was giving the syrupy songs of yesteryear a run for their money. Add transistors, 45 rpm records, and a young man named Elvis to the mix, and the result was the perfect storm that rocked, rolled, and reinvented radio.Visionary entrepreneurs like Todd Storz pioneered the Top 40 concept, which united a generation. But it took trendsetting “disc jockeys” like Alan Freed, Murray the K, Wolfman Jack, Cousin Brucie, and their fast-talking, too-cool-for-school counterparts across the land to turn time, temperature, and the same irresistible hit tunes played again and again into the ubiquitous sound track of the fifties and sixties. The Top 40 sound broke through racial barriers, galvanized coming-of-age kids (and scandalized their perplexed parents), and provided the insistent, inescapable backbeat for times that were a-changin’.Along with rock-and-roll music came the attitude that would literally change the “voice” of radio forever, via the likes of raconteur Jean Shepherd, who captivated his loyal following of “Night People”; the inimitable Bob Fass, whose groundbreaking Radio Unnameable inaugurated the anything-goes free-form style that would come to define the alternative frontier of FM; and a small-time Top 40 deejay who would ultimately find national fame as a political talk-show host named Rush Limbaugh.From Hunter Hancock, who pushed beyond the limits of 1950s racial segregation with rhythm and blues and hepcat patter, to Howard Stern, who blew through all the limits with a blue streak of outrageous on-air antics; from the heyday of summer songs that united carefree listeners to the latter days of political talk that divides contentious callers; from the haze of classic rock to the latest craze in hip-hop, Something in the Air chronicles the extraordinary evolution of the unique and timeless medium that captured our hearts and minds, shook up our souls, tuned in–and turned on–our consciousness, and went from being written off to rewriting the rules of pop culture.

    The subsequent stage play became one of Broadway's longest-running comdies and the 1958 film was nominated for six Oscars. This volume charts the success of Auntie Mame.

    Among those who served time at the maximum-security facility were the notorious gangster Al “Scarface” Capone (1899-1947) and murderer Robert “Birdman of Alcatraz” Stroud (1890-1963). When prisoners boarded the boat for Alcatraz, they knew that they had reached the end of the line. Not only was this the toughest of all Federal penitentiaries, but it was also said to be virtually escape-proof. The island was a natural fortress, separated from the mainland by a narrow strait of freezing water and deadly currents. This prison was the U.S. government’s drastic answer to the lawlessness unleashed under Prohibition, which continued throughout the “Roaring Twenties” and into the teeth of the Great Depression. Alcatraz, with its damp cold and austere isolation, its rigid discipline and strict rule of silence, was as tough as the criminals that were sent there, and by the time the prison closed down in 1963, "the Rock" had indisputably done its job. The book includes narratives of Alcatraz's most notable inmates who include Robert Stroud (Birdman of Alcatraz), Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Frank Morris, the Anglin Brothers, Doc Barker, Joe Cretzer, Bernard Coy, Miran Thompson, Sam Shockley, among others.Scroll to the top of the page and click Add To Cart to read more about this extraordinary chapter of history

    

    Yet, his purposes were obstensibly beneficient. An uneducated peasant, he left Siberia to become a wandering holy man and soon acquired a reputation as a healer. The empress was desperate to find a cure for the haemophilia from which her son Alexei suffered, and in 1905 Rasputin was presented at court. His positive effect on the heir's health made him indispensable. But his religious teachings were unorthodox, and his charismatic presence aroused in many ladies of the St Petersburg aristocracy an exalted response, which he exploited sexually. Shady financial dealings added to the atmosphere of debauchery and scandal, and he was also seen as a political threat. He was assassinated in 1916.

    Down, down he leads us, in intoxicating, nearly hallucinogenic prose-past the Yaqui, the Anasazi, and other ghosts of our collective history, past the hookers, winos, and assorted have-nots outside the prosperous circle by the fire. We meet a prisoner obsessed with painting presidents, sex offenders whose desires are not as alien as we wish, a murderer whose execution does not cure what ails us. I wound up looking at a world where cannibalism is life, Bowden writes, and of course, given the diet, a life without a future. He mourns a young artist who couldn't find a reason to keep living and tends a mesquite tree that won't die. And down among its metaphoric roots, he reacquaints us with the appetites-fierce, flawed, human-that might save us too. Blues for Cannibals is scripture for an age when bushes no longer burn.

    But the 1998 Tour provided drama like no other. As the opening stages in Ireland unfolded, the Festina team's soigneur, Willy Voet, was arrested at the French-Belgian border with a carload of drugs. Raid upon police raid followed, with arrest after arrest hammering the Tour. In protest, there were riders' strikes and go-slows, with several squads withdrawing en masse and one expelled. By the time the Tour reached Paris, just 96 of the 189 starters remained, and of those 189 starters, more than a quarter were later reported to have doped. The 1998 ” “Tour de Farce's” status as one of the most scandal-struck sporting events in history was confirmed.Voet's arrest was just the beginning of cycling's biggest mass doping controversy--what became known as the Festina affair. It all but destroyed professional cycling as the credibility of the entire sport was called into question, and the cycling family began to split apart even as, ironically, the 1998 Tour was also one of the best races in years.The End of the Road is the first book in English to provide in-depth analysis and a colorful evocation of the tumultuous events of the 1998 Tour. Alasdair Fotheringham uncovers how the world's biggest bike race sank into such scandal. He explores its long-term consequences and what, if any, lessons were learned.

    The couples are John Ruskin and Effie Gray; Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh; John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor; George Eliot and G. H. Lewes; Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth.

    Now, as the Party's 18th National Congress oversees the biggest leadership transition in decades, and installs the Bo family's long-time rival Xi Jinping as president, China's rulers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their poisonous internal divisions behind closed doors.Bo Xilai's breathtaking fall from grace is an extraordinary tale of excess, murder, defection, political purges and ideological clashes going back to Mao himself, as the princeling sons of the revolutionary heroes ascend to control of the Party. China watcher John Garnaut examines how Bo's stellar rise through the ranks troubled his more reformist peers, as he revived anti-'capitalist roader' sentiment, even while his family and associates enjoyed the more open economy's opportunities. Amid fears his imminent elevation to the powerful Standing Committee was leading China towards another destructive Cultural Revolution, have his opponents seized their chance now to destroy Bo and what he stands for? The trigger was his wife Gu Kailai's apparently paranoid murder of an English family friend, which exposed the corruption and brutality of Bo's outwardly successful administration of the massive city of Chongqing. It also led to the one of the highest-level attempted defections in Communist China's history when Bo's right-hand man, police chief Wang Lijun, tried to escape the ruins of his sponsor's reputation.Garnaut explains how this incredible glimpse into the very personal power struggles within the CCP exposes the myth of the unified one-party state. With China approaching super-power status, today's leadership shuffle may set the tone for international relations for decades. Here, Garnaut reveals a particularly Chinese spin on the old adage that the personal is political.

     From the Number 1 Best Selling authors in Computers and Technology, this clear and concise guide will show you how to get the very best from the incredible new $49.99 Amazon Fire 7 Inch Tablet. Step by step instructions will take you from newbie to expert in just two hours! About the Authors: Tom and Jenna Edwards are the Amazon Tech authors behind the Number 1 Best-selling e-books 250+ Best Kindle Fire HD Apps for the New Kindle Fire Owner and Kindle Fire TV User Guide: Newbie to Expert in 1 Hour!

    Covering almost seventy years of conflict, it chronicles the events leading up to Partition, reflects on the consequent strife, and provides a fresh, discursive perspective on the figures who have shaped the story of this land—from Lord Louis Mountbatten and Muhammad Ali Jinnah to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.Covering historical, diplomatic and military perspectives, Where Borders Bleed is intrepid, engaging with a range of contentious issues that have shaped Indo-Pak relations—water sharing, Kashmir and Article 370. Equally, it is speculative. It asks: would terror have affected the world the way it has, if ‘PakIndia’ had been a benign single entity? What if India and Pakistan were to reunite, much like East and West Germany? As the now-largest nation in the world, would the mammoth PakIndia radically change the globe’s geo-political framework?These questions—combined with the author’s own diplomatic access to rare archival material and key leaders across borders—make this a one-of-a-kind book on the story of India and Pakistan.

    Mark Plaster takes readers beyond the ambulance bay doors into the stranger-than-fiction world of the Emergency Department. By turns heart-warming and gut-wrenching, "Night Shift" chronicles the ebb and flow of human life, in all of its unvarnished glory, as it passes through the doors of the ED.

    The victims were Ebora Alexander, Dietra Alexander, Damani Garner, and Damon Bonner—the mother, sister, and nephews of retired All-Pro cornerback for the San Francisco 49ers Kermit Alexander. In his own words, Kermit Alexander finally shares the full story of what happened to his loved ones and the aftermath of that tragic day. He recounts the hours leading up to the massacre, and how afterward he lost himself in the LA underworld, pleading, bribing, and threatening in a search for answers. He describes his journey through the “wilderness” of despair—the years of isolation living out of his car, broke, depressed, and sick. We also learn about his coming-of-age in 1950s LA, the following decade he spent in the NFL, the events leading up to that fateful August day, and finally the shocking truth behind the murders. Kermit opens up about his darkest hours, but also what it took to turn his life around, rebuild his family, and ultimately find peace. Ominous and intense, powerful and uplifting, tragic and triumphant, The Valley of the Shadow of Death is more than a rendering of one man’s adversity; it’s testament to the value of family and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming loss.

    Host Peter Marshall recounts his years on this revolutionary hit game show, featuring stories of stars Paul Lynde, Karen Valentine, Charlie Weaver, and a host of superstars from the movies, the pop charts and more! Includes a discount on the newly reissued CD ZINGERS FROM THE HOLLYWOOD SQUARES.