Book picks similar to
The Haunted Palace: A Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Frances Winwar
biographies
biography
little-library
non-fiction
Mission 27
Mark Feinsand - 2019
With the previous season's failed playoff bid still as fresh as the paint job on the new Yankee Stadium, a 27th championship flag represented both the floor and the ceiling in the eyes of a squad. It was the last title for the "Core Four"—Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte—who would each retire over the course of the next five years. It would be the lone title for Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett, and Nick Swisher, each of whom saw memorable peaks and valleys during their time in the Bronx. For CC Sabathia and Brett Gardner, it was their first championship, though the veterans were still in pinstripes as the latest generation of Yankees arrived for what they hope will be the next dynasty. Mission 27 is a thoroughly reported examination of an unforgettable season, packed with interviews with the full cast of key players, team executives, broadcasters, and more.
Justin Bieber: Uncovered!: Unauthorized
Tori Kosara - 2010
An Internet phenomenon, the R&B cutie has nearly two million followers on Twitter and three million on Facebook, and his music videos have gained more than 130 million hits on YouTube. Signed by music legend Usher, his second album shot straight to the top of the charts, and he found himself singing at the White House Christmas celebration and appearing on Saturday Night Live. This brilliant book gives fans the low-down on the whirlwind rise of the world’s hottest teen star. Crammed with cool quotes, top trivia, fun quizzes, gorgeous photos, and fantastic facts, fans can find out everything about their favorite star.
Diary of Indignities
Patrick Hughes - 2007
With full-color photo essays, the author guides readers past good taste, sense and even logic into the magical, mayhem-ridden world known as his life.
Dave Matthews Band: Step Into the Light
Morgan Delancey - 1998
This revised edition includes 75 exclusive photos and two new chapters that chart the band’s activities from 1998 to 2001, right up to the release of Everyday and the mysterious discovery of the Lillywhite sessions. Included is fascinating commentary on Before These Crowded Streets, Live at Luther College, and Listener Supported. The personal lives of each band member are expanded upon, and new coverage of DMB tours, the creation of Dave’s own record label, and the worldwide growth of DMB fans is provided.
The Totally Awesome Book of Crazy Stories: Crazy But True Stories That Actually Happened!
Bill O'Neill - 2020
My Bloody Efforts: Life as a Rating in the Modern Royal Navy
Stephen Bridgman - 2012
Daysearlier, while traversing the Straits of Sicily the crew had discovered a crack in one ofthe nuclear reactor pipes, requiring the immediate shutting down of the reactor toprevent a potential reactor accident, an operation never before conducted on a Britishsubmarine at sea.Th e previous six days had been a difficult time for the crew of the submarine. Initialindications of a nuclear reactor defect had quickly escalated into a full scale potential nuclearreactor accident at sea, requiring decisive action by the crew to make the reactor safe, toidentify the defect and attempt to repair the reactor, and then to surface the submarine andto sail her safely back to the nearest safe harbor using emergency propulsion machinerydesigned for very limited use. The resulting lack of electrical power resulted in the crewhaving to sacrifice lighting, air-conditioning, bathing facilities and even hot food until theirreturn to harbor, and to suffer in the excessively hot interior of the boat. Throughout,there remained the fear of exposure to deadly radiation and the uncertainty that the reactormight still be one step away from a major accident.For one man onboard, this episode formed the culmination of a 25 year navalengineering career almost fated for this moment. Charge Chief Stephen Bridgman,the senior nuclear propulsion technician, had needed all of his engineering knowledgeand experience in the identification and eventual repair of the submarine reactor,subsequently being awarded an MBE together with a colleague for his services to navalengineering for his actions.This book provides an insight into a remarkable naval career starting as a 16 year oldStoker on the final proper British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal in 1977, throughthe Falklands War, being selected for naval technician training and submarine service,submarine training, submarine patrols in the supposed post cold-war period, theKosovo conflict, progression through the ranks, submarine refi t and refueling throughto the nuclear reactor accident onboard HMS Tireless.While there are countless accounts of naval life during wartime, this book tells theunique story of life as a British naval rating in the modern era, starting from the lowestlevel at a time of decline for the Royal Navy in the late 1970s, and paralleling the majorpolitical and military events of the 1980s and 1990s.
Caged Lion: Joseph Pilates and His Legacy
John Howard Steel - 2020
He not only invented an exercise regimen—which today is practiced by more than ten million people—but in the process, reinvented himself.John Howard Steel brings Joseph Pilates and his eponymous exercise regime to life from his unique perspective as a student, friend, and confidant. Joe’s influence profoundly changed Steel’s life; in turn, Steel was crucial for the survival of the Pilates Method and Joe’s legacy. Steel’s vivid account traces the expansion of Pilates from a small cadre of dedicated adherents, through two periods of near extinction, to the global sensation it is today. Steel describes Joseph Pilates’s years as a prisoner during World War I, Joe’s motivation to discover his system of exercises, his inspirational teaching technique, and the unique attraction of the Pilates Method. It’s quite a story.
Boganaire: The Rise and Fall of Nathan Tinkler
Paddy Manning - 2013
He had gambled and won, but his volatility and reluctance to pay his debts were making him enemies. He lived the high life as only a young man would, buying luxury homes, private jets, sports cars and football teams, and splurging massively to build a horseracing empire.But Tinkler’s dreams had extended beyond even his resources, and his business model worked only in a rising market. When coal prices slumped in 2012, Tinkler had no cash flow to service his massive borrowings and no allies to help him recover. Within months he was trying desperately to stave off his creditors, large and small, and fighting to save his businesses and his fortune.In this impressive biography, leading business writer Paddy Manning tells the story of Tinkler’s meteoric rise to wealth, and captures the drama of his equally rapid downfall.‘Some might see it as a handbook on how to go from broke to billionaire in a matter of years … Others might see it as a morality tale about the canker at the heart of the consumerist, aspirational politics peddled by our leaders for the past few decades.’ —Sydney Morning Herald‘Paddy Manning’s Boganaire: The Rise and Fall of Nathan Tinkler is a rollicking tale, which works on our sense of schadenfreude.’ —Chloe Hooper, the Monthly‘Boganaire is much more than a book for readers of business literature. It provides an insight into a bigger and more important subject than Nathan Tinkler: it shows how the easy prosperity from resource riches might be changing our culture and values for the worse.’ — the Australian‘The richly detailed book lays Tinkler’s life bare, from his early days working in Newcastle’s coal mines through to his triumphant deals with Macarthur Coal and Whitehaven, and his spectacular fall from grace.’ —BRWPaddy Manning is one of Australia’s most respected journalists, with fifteen years’ experience including a decade on the business desks of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Australian – a period in which he was highly commended in the business category of the Walkley Awards and was a three-time category winner in the prestigious Citigroup Journalism Awards for Excellence. His first book, What the Frack: everything you need to know about coal seam gas, was published in 2012.
Overwhelming Odds
Susan O'Leary - 2004
The book unveils a truth of universal importance, namely, by helping others in need we can become their miracles.
Gary Speed: Unspoken: The Family's Untold Story
John Richardson - 2018
Aged just 42, he was found hanged in the garage of his home. As a long-standing legend of the game and manager of Wales, he appeared to have everything to live for. Now, as he would have approached his 50th birthday, family and friends come together to speak honestly and emotionally about the man they knew and loved. Wife Louise opens her heart for the first time and talks in depth about her life with Gary and her own personal journey since his death. Mum Carol and dad Roger recall their beloved son. And a multitude of famous names from the game remember their friend and speak emotionally about how the tragedy has touched their own lives. Author John Richardson was a close friend of the man he knew as ‘Speedo’ and was entrusted to write his autobiography. Gary completed two chapters of his life story before putting the project on hold because he thought he had not achieved enough in the game to merit a book. For the first time, these revealing chapters are published in the original form they were written, with insights from Richardson on the personal story that would remain so sadly untold. Gary Speed: Unspoken is a unique celebration of one of the football heroes of our generation. A tribute to a role model, leader and a much-loved husband, father and son gone too soon.
George Harrison: Reconsidered
Timothy White - 2013
There was no need to be nervous—Cloud Nine would be considered his greatest achievement since the seminal, All Things Must Pass.In George Harrison: Reconsidered, the process of getting to that pressing is presented—as well as remembrance of those things past.Timothy White honed his journalistic skills the old-fashioned way, working first as a copyboy for the Associated Press, then moving on to cover sports and entertainment. White was managing editor, then senior editor, of the music magazine Crawdaddy. He joined Rolling Stone as an associate editor, and rose through the ranks to become senior editor. In the last eleven years of his life, he served as editor-in-chief of Billboard. A prolific, award-winning writer, Timothy White interviewed hundreds of musicians, and became known as a champion of unknown artists.
If You Ain't a Pilot...
Ray Wright - 2016
Though competing against one another for the flying assignments of their dreams, like the fearsome F-15 and F-16 fighters, a good mission sometimes takes a backseat to a good party or punch line in this classroom of cut-ups. The high stakes, however, loom over Lt. Wright. In a program where one out of three students fails, not everybody who starts UPT will finish it. And not everybody who does finish will get a desirable flying assignment. Some won’t even escape the Columbus Air Force Base. Will Lt. Wright get his dream assignment flying a C-141 cargo plane based out of beachside Charleston, South Carolina? Or be forced to perpetuate the If you ain’t a pilot… system as the dreaded FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot) in Columbus, Mississippi? Though a military memoir, IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT… is a story of youthful innocence, a happy tale of the best of friends. Beneath the story’s surface layer of how an Air Force officer’s aeronautical rating determines his worth, similar thematic layers unfold around gender, race, and other ways people define each other. At its core, this story is about people, our relationships, and how we choose to treat each other. While 30 years have passed since the memoir’s events—and our aircraft, our enemy, and our pop-culture ties have changed—we still struggle with our differences. IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT taps into the mystic of Top Gun, the satirical wryness of Candide and Catch-22, and the allure of the air-travel genre captured by Mark Vanhoenacker’s recent Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot (2015), Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, and James Salter’s The Hunters. Set at the end of the Cold War in the heart of Dixie, IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT…crosses Top Gun adrenaline with Pee-Wee’s Playhouse antics at a flight training base where Air Force idealism collides with Deep South heritage. Complete at 142,000 words, this comedic memoir written for a general audience charts the year when a newly commissioned officer is challenged not only by flight school but also by the Air Force dictum If you ain’t a pilot, you ain’t $#!+. That said, the primary mission for IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT...is to make readers laugh. While the story is written for a non-military audience, military pilots, civilian pilots, and any person who ever dreamed about flying as a kid will love IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT….
Kisses From Nimbus: From SAS to MI6 An Autobiography
P.J. 'Red' Riley - 2017
His is the story the establishment doesn’t want you to read.br>Captain P. J. “Red” Riley is an ex-SAS soldier who served for eighteen years as an MI6 agent. Riley escaped internment in Chile during the Falklands war during an audacious top-secret attempt to attack the Argentinian mainland. He was imprisoned in the darkness of the Sierra Leonean jungle, and withstood heavy fire in war-torn Beirut and Syria. In 2015, he was arrested for murder but all charges were later dropped. In this searing memoir, Riley reveals the brutal realities of his service, and the truth behind the newspaper headlines featuring some of the most significant events in recent British history. His account provides startling new evidence on the Iraq war, what Tony Blair really knew about Saddam Hussain’s weapons of mass destruction before the allied invasion, and questions the British government’s alleged involvement in the death of Princess Diana. Chaotic, darkly humorous and at times heart-wrenchingly sad, Kisses From Nimbus charts the harrowing real-life experiences of a soldier and spy in the name of Queen and country.
Dude, Where's My Stethoscope?
5 Grays Publishing - 2013
Donovan Gray answers that question in Dude, Where's My Stethoscope? - a laugh-out-loud funny, heartbreaking and sometimes poignant collection of true-life medical short stories. We follow Dr. Gray through medical school and two decades of unforgettable ER and family practice. Humorously written in an engaging mash-up of formal prose and informal medical slang with a nod to pop culture and ancient mythology, Dude is a powerful book that captures the essence of what it is to be an emergency room doctor.
Squeaky Wheels: the Non-friction Adventure from Sea to Shining Sea
Scott Hippe - 2012
As the voyage steams (sweats, rather) eastward from Seattle to New York, he meets a diverse, humorous, and motley bunch of individuals in full support of his spirit of adventure, evidence that one's wildest dreams are in fact worth pursuing. The story is a testament to the power of welcoming the stranger and the good that resides in us all. Read it to laugh, read it to learn, or read it simply to remember that you are human.They say once you start pedaling you can't stop. So buckle your helmet, don spandex if you dare, and get ready for the ride of a lifetime.