Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation


Marc Fisher - 2007
    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.

Super Nuke!: A Memoir About Life as a Nuclear Submariner and the Contributions of a "Super Nuke" - the USS RAY (SSN653) Toward Winning the Cold War


Charles Cranston Jett - 2016
    He has succeeded in telling the unclassified story of the journey taken by an extraordinary group of men who built the first operational “Super Nuke” and effectively shared what they developed with others in the entire US nuclear submarine force. He created the SSN Pre Deployment training program, consolidated developments made on the Ray to create the highly useful Geographic Plot (Geo Plot) and wrote the tactical doctrine for the SSN based electronic intelligence collection system, AN/WLR-6. Well done, Charlie. I am proud to have had you as a shipmate.” Albert L. Kelln Rear Admiral, United States Navy (Ret.) Former Commanding Officer and Plank Owner USS RAY (SSN 653) - The original “Super Nuke” “Charlie Jett succeeds in providing an unclassified account of what it was like to be a nuclear qualified submariner who had the unique experience of building and serving aboard the first operational “Super Nuke” - the most modern fast attack nuclear submarine designed specifically to face the Soviet Navy during the Cold War. He describes the contributions of the commissioning crew in developing sonar techniques and operational tactics and how these lessons were ultimately and effectively communicated to later “Super Nukes.” Charlie provided the initial idea and was instrumental in establishing and implementing a new concept of training which significantly improved the operational readiness of the nuclear attack submarine force. He created the “Geographic Plot” to improve operational safety and wrote the tactical doctrine for a new and sophisticated nuclear attack submarine electronic intelligence gathering system. “Super Nuke” is a good read for those who have an interest in life as a submarine officer and how these marvelous machines and their crews contributed to winning the Cold War.” The Honorable John H. Dalton Former Nuclear Submarine Officer and 70th Secretary of the Navy “This is a most interesting work on the U.S. Navy’s program to combat the Soviet submarine threat during the long Cold War. Charlie was in at the beginning and accurately describes the significant efforts, both in individual sacrifice and technical development that led to U.S. undersea superiority. As a junior officer his individual accomplishments were most significant. The submarine efforts were probably the most important U.S. competitive strategy that drove the Soviets to the poor house and led to the demise of the Soviet Union.” Bruce DeMars Admiral, United States Navy (Ret.) Former Commanding Officer, USS CAVALLA (SSN 684) - a subsequent “Super Nuke” Former Director of Naval Reactors

Rome: A History in Seven Sackings


Matthew Kneale - 2017
    Visitors stand on bridges that were crossed by Julius Caesar and Cicero, walk around temples visited by Roman emperors, and step into churches that have hardly changed since popes celebrated mass in them sixteen centuries ago.These architectural survivals are all the more remarkable considering the violent disasters that have struck the city. Afflicted by earthquakes, floods, fires and plagues, it has most of all been repeatedly ravaged by roving armies. Rome: A History in Seven Sackings examines the most important of these attacks and reveals, with fascinating insight, how they transformed the city - and not always for the worse. From the Gauls to the Nazis, Kneale vividly recounts those threatening the city, while drawing an intense and vibrant portrait of the city and its inhabitants, both before and after being attacked. In these troubled times when our cities can seem fragile, Rome's history offers a picture that is both shocking and also reassuring. Like the Neapolitans from Norman Lewis's Naples 44, Romans have repeatedly shrugged off catastrophes and made their city anew.A meticulously researched, magical and novel blend of travelogue, social and cultural history, Rome: A History in Seven Sackings is part celebration of the fierce courage, panache and vitality of the Roman people, and part passionate love letter to Rome. This is a popular history of the famous, incomparable city like no other.

The Ascent of Man


Jacob Bronowski - 1973
    Bronowski's exciting, illustrated investigation offers a perspective not just on science, but on civilization itself. Lower than the angelsForewordThe harvest of the seasons The grain in the stoneThe hidden structure The music of the spheresThe starry messanger The majestic clockworkThe drive for power The ladder of creation World within world Knowledge or certainty Generation upon generationThe long childhoodBibliographyIndex

Once Upon Atari: How I made history by killing an industry


Howard Scott Warshaw - 2020
    

The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself


Cole Younger - 1903
    Following the war, Younger continued his celebrated career as a desperado, robbing banks and trains with Jesse James and other members of the James-Younger gang. A fateful attempt in 1876 on the Northfield, Minnesota, bank sent Cole to the state prison in Stillwater, Minnesota for decades. There he became a model resident, helping both to protect women convicts during a fire and found the Prison Mirror, a newspaper intended to shed "a ray of light upon the lives of those behind the bars." Paroled in 1901, Younger successfully sought a pardon, operated a Wild West show with his old comrade Frank James, and lectured on "What My Life Has Taught Me." Always known for intelligence and coolness under pressure, he published this autobiography in 1903, reflecting on the colorful and sometimes violent experiences of "the gentleman, the soldier, the outlaw, and the convict."

Hoover Dam: An American Adventure


Joseph E. Stevens - 1988
    Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.Construction of the giant dam was a triumph of human ingenuity, yet the full story of this monumental endeavor has never been told. Now, in an engrossing, fast-paced narrative, Joseph E. Stevens recounts the gripping saga of Hoover Dam. Drawing on a wealth of material, including manuscript collections, government documents, contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts, and personal interviews and correspondence with men and women who were involved with the construction, he brings the Hoover Dam adventure to life.Described here in dramatic detail are the deadly hazards the work crews faced as they hacked and blasted the dam’s foundation out of solid rock; the bitter political battles and violent labor unrest that threatened to shut the job down; the deprivation and grinding hardship endured by the workers’ families; the dam builders’ gambling, drinking, and whoring sprees in nearby Las Vegas; and the stirring triumphs and searing moments of terror as the massive concrete wedge rose inexorably from the canyon floor.Here, too, is an unforgettable cast of characters: Henry Kaiser, Warren Bechtel, and Harry Morrison, the ambitious, headstrong construction executives who gambled fortune and fame on the Hoover Dam contract; Frank Crowe, the brilliant, obsessed field engineer who relentlessly drove the work force to finish the dam two and a half years ahead of schedule; Sims Ely, the irascible, teetotaling eccentric who ruled Boulder City, the straightlaced company town created for the dam workers by the federal government; and many more men and women whose courage and sacrifice, greed and frailty, made the dam’s construction a great human, as well as technological, adventure.Hoover Dam is a compelling, irresistible account of an extraordinary American epic.

Nothing of Importance: A Record of Eight Months at the Front with a Welsh Battalion, October 1915 to June 1916


John Bernard Pye Adams - 1916
     Nothing could have prepared him for the reality he ended up facing. Placing his focus on the day to day existence of the soldiers in the trenches, Adams presents a grim picture of mud-coated billets, relentless artillery barrages, working parties, training and the art of military sniping. Just as it would have been for the soldiers’ lives, Adams heightens his work with an emotive account of his first night patrol, the detonation of mines, battlefield duels and being wounded whilst out wiring in No Man’s Land. Understated and striving for truth over melodrama, Nothing of Importance is the original memoir of the First World War — the only record published while the conflict was still being fought — and the definitive account of trench warfare. Bernard Adams (1890-1917) was a British Army officer, joining 1 Royal Welsh Fusiliers as a Lieutenant in November 1914. He was the first of a triumvirate of authors who, for a time, served simultaneously in the same battalion: the second was Siegfried Sassoon, the third Robert Graves. Written whilst convalescing in 1916, he did not live to see it published.

The Memoirs of Cleopatra


Margaret George - 1997
    Told in Cleopatra's own voice, this is a mesmerizing tale of ambition, passion, and betrayal, which begins when the twenty-year-old queen seeks out the most powerful man in the world, Julius Caesar, and does not end until, having survived the assassination of Caesar and the defeat of the second man she loves, Marc Antony, she plots her own death rather than be paraded in triumph through the streets of Rome. Most of all, in its richness and authenticity, it is an irresistible story that reveals why Margaret George's work has been widely acclaimed as "the best kind of historical novel, one the reader can't wait to get lost in."

Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!: 2000AD & Judge Dredd: The Secret History


Pat Mills - 2017
    It once appeared on the Berlin Wall, and symbolizes the subversive nature of 2000AD that changed so many readers’ lives and influenced generations of film directors, actors, rock bands, novelists and even school headmasters.Everything you’ve always wanted to know about Judge Dredd, Slaine, Nemesis, ABC Warriors, Flesh, Bill Savage and more, is in this book. Plus the writers and artists who created them and the real-life people and events they drew on for inspiration. The scandals, the back-stabbing and the shocking story that was regarded as “too sensitive” to ever see the light of day is finally told.Pat relates the dark story of the maths teacher who inspired his version of Judge Dredd, the creators’ angry battles with the censors and each other, why certain writers, stories and even readers have been banished from the comic, a step-by-step account of how Judge Dredd was created, and how to write or draw for 2000AD too.There are new insights on the 2000AD creators' invasion of American comics, their failed French invasion, the Judge Dredd films, the forthcoming Judge Dredd TV series, other possible films featuring 2000AD heroes, the unusual secret of the comic’s current success, the tough challenges it faces today, and its exciting future.From the hilarious origins when Judge Dredd writer-creator John Wagner and Pat began their careers writing together in a garden shed by paraffin lamp, to the tragic stories of legendary comic artists who have passed, and the challenges as 2000AD fought for survival against The Suits determined to destroy it, this is a unique, personal, and passionate account by the man who made 2000AD happen.Funny, sad, angry, defiant, and outrageous: it’s the Comic Book memoir of the year!

Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum


Jason Felch - 2011
    The monetary value is estimated at over half a billion dollars. Why would they be moved to such unheard-of generosity? The answer lies at the Getty, one of the world’s richest and most troubled museums, and scandalous revelations that it had been buying looted antiquities for decades. Drawing on a trove of confidential museum records and frank interviews, Felch and Frammolino give us a fly-on-the-wall account of the inner workings of a world-class museum and tell the story of the Getty’s dealings in the illegal antiquities trade. The outlandish characters and bad behavior could come straight from the pages of a thriller—the wealthy recluse founder, the cagey Italian art investigator, the playboy curator, the narcissist CEO—but their chilling effects on the rest of the art world have been all too real, as the authors show in novelistic detail. Fast-paced and compelling, Chasing Aphrodite exposes the layer of dirt beneath the polished façade of the museum business.

The Radio Operator: Robert Ford's Last Stand in the Fight to Save Tibet (Kindle Single)


James McGrath Morris - 2015
    Ford put together a radio communications network for a nation that had up to this time relied on messages carried by foot over the highest mountains on the globe. More important, his radio connected the secluded nation to the outside world. When in October 1950 the Communist Chinese army began its march to subjugate Tibet, Ford risked his life by staying behind to send out reports over his radio to let the world know of the attack. The Radio Operator is an overdue and gripping recounting of Ford’s valiant effort to save Tibet from Chinese domination and his subsequent capture and imprisonment.James McGrath Morris is the author of the New York Times bestselling Eye on the Struggle as well as two other acclaimed biographies. His previous Kindle Single, Revolution by Murder, was selected as one of the Best Kindle Singles of 2014. His next book, The Ambulance Drivers, will be published in 2017.Cover design by Kerry Ellis.

OFF THE MAP: 25 True Stories to Inspire Your Next Adventure


Chelsea Fagan - 2014
    But it’s never too late to write your next story, and to go on your next adventure. In partnership with Cayman Jack, Thought Catalog presents a collection of 25 travel stories to inspire you to leave behind the predictable and take to the open road in search of the unforgettable. Your next great memory is waiting for you, whether you realize it or not. And these exceptional stories will help you find it.

Endurance: Shackleton's Extraordinary Voyage


Daniel Bryce - 2015
    Sir Ernest Shackleton had carefully picked crew and a stout, well-outfitted ship, the Endurance. But he had no radio, the world was at war, and at the edge of the Antarctic continent, the ship froze in the sea ice. After months of immobility, it was crushed. Then began an impossible journey. With three tiny boats, the crew worked their way across frozen the Antarctic Sea. This vivid book recounts the story of Shackleton's heroic voyage from South Georgia Island to Antarctica then back to South Georgia. It is a tribute to Shackleton and his crew's ability to fight for survival and one of the most harrowing adventures in history.

Family Secrets: The scandalous history of an extraordinary family


Derek Malcolm - 2017
    The secret, though, that surrounded my parents’ unhappy life together, was divulged to me by accident . . .’ Hidden under some papers in his father’s bureau, the sixteen-year-old Derek Malcolm finds a book by the famous criminologist Edgar Lustgarten called The Judges and the Damned. Browsing through the Contents pages Derek reads, ‘Mr Justice McCardie tries Lieutenant Malcolm – page 33.’ But there is no page 33. The whole chapter has been ripped out of the book. Slowly but surely, the shocking truth emerges: that Derek’s father, shot his wife’s lover and was acquitted at a famous trial at the Old Bailey. The trial was unique in British legal history as the first case of a crime passionel, where a guilty man is set free, on the grounds of self-defence. Husband and wife lived together unhappily ever after, raising Derek in their wake. Then, in a dramatic twist, following his father’s death, Derek receives an open postcard from his Aunt Phyllis, informing him that his real father is the Italian Ambassador to London . . . By turns laconic and affectionate, Derek Malcolm has written a richly evocative memoir of a family sinking into hopeless disrepair. Derek Malcolm was chief film critic of the Guardian for thirty years and still writes for the paper. Educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, he became first a steeplechase rider and then an actor after leaving university. He worked as a journalist in the sixties, first in Cheltenham and then with the Guardian where he was a features sub-editor and writer, racing correspondent and finally film critic. He directed the London Film Festival for a spell in the 80s and is now President of both the International Film Critics Association and the British Federation of Film Societies. He lives with his wife Sarah Gristwood in London and Kent and has published two books – one on Robert Mitchum and another on his favourite 100 films. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television and a veteran of film festival juries all over the world.