In May 1942, the Japanese were poised to take Port Moresby in New Guinea. At all costs the Americans had to stop them. Admiral Frank Fletcher was dispatched with two aircraft carriers - Yorktown and Lexington - with orders to destroy the Japanese invasion force. The fate of the Pacific was in the balance. 'Coral Sea 1942' tells the dramatic story of that conflict. The battle spread over five days as each side desperately searched for the other. At first, all Fletcher could find were side shows. He smashed a secondary invasion at Tulagi. He sank the light carrier Shōhō protecting the invasion fleet. But only on the fifth day did he find his real prey: the carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku. The Zuikaku fled to hide under thick cloud, while the Shōkaku was pounded by American bombers and torpedo planes. Crippled, she too fled. Meanwhile the Japanese carrier planes mounted attack after attack on the Yorktown and Lexington. The latter was mortally damaged by volcanic-sized explosions in her fuel tanks. But the great Coral Sea victory came at a price. Pilots died in dog-fights; crippled planes fell into the sea; damaged planes crashed onto carrier flight decks; and pilots found themselves stranded on remote islands. But the battle was an American triumph. Japan entered it as an aggressor at the peak of her imperial power. She left the battle with her dominance shattered. The tide had turned. 'Coral Sea 1942' is a brilliantly concise and insightful guide to one of the greatest naval battles of the 20th-century. Richard Freeman graduated in mathematics before following a career in distance education. He now writes on naval history. His other books include ‘Britain’s Greatest Naval Battle’ and ‘A Close Run Thing: The Navy and the Falkland War’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

    A terrorist attack on Australian soil. For seventeen hours Islamic State-inspired gunman Man Haron Monis held his captives in a terrifying drama that paralysed Sydney and kept a nation glued to its television screens. Two hostages were killed and three seriously wounded. The others would have their lives changed for ever.Despite the police leadership declaring it was well prepared for a terrorist attack, many shortcomings on the night revealed a response that fell seriously short of that promise. Deborah Snow lays bare what happened behind the scenes in the cafe as the hostages tried to keep themselves alive while waiting for a police response that didn't come. She also takes us into the police command posts as communications, equipment and decision-making structures broke down. Hurtling towards its inevitable and tragic conclusion, Siege draws us into a vortex of police missteps, extraordinary bravery and profound grief to reveal what happened during that awful day. Shocking, compelling and revealing Siege will take its place as the classic account of these events.

    You'll hear Mike Richter talk about seeing the ice, tag along with Peter Gzowski as he tries to decode the magic that was Wayne Gretzky, follow Red Fisher on a last visit to the legendary Toe Blake, and hear from the players who made the Miracle on Ice happen at the 1980 Olympics.

    Spurred by the startling discovery of a letter written by a Scotland Yard inspector, two veteran police investigators have traced the shadowy movements of a self-styled "doctor" from St. Louis who had a criminal record spanning both sides of the Atlantic. Two decades after the Ripper's murderous spree, Inspector John George Littlechild, then retired, laments in his fateful letter: "to my mind a very likely [suspect] . . . was an American quack named Francis Tumblety. . . his feelings toward women were remarkable and bitter in the extreme." Littlechild expresses dismay that Tumblety, who was in custody only briefly, was ever granted bail, enabling him to flee London-just as the murders ended. The Littlechild letter, printed in this book, provides crucial details either overlooked by police officials at the time of the investigation or later suppressed because they would reveal the same officials had allowed their prime suspect to slip through their fingers.Sifting through the entire historical record and their own surprising discoveries, Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey have created a true-life detective story that will fascinate all readers of Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, and Charles Dickens. Vividly evoking the mean streets of Victorian London and the wave of terror that swept the city with the Ripper's grisly crimes, they convincingly paint a portrait of history's most infamous serial killer.

    But had this bold and spirited beauty really descended into prostitution, drunkenness, and early death--or did her life, hidden from history, take a different course altogether? Eunice Lipton's search for the answer combines the suspense of a detective story with the revelatory power of art, peeling off layers of lies to reveal startling truths about Victorine Meurent--and about Lipton herself.

    Included are accounts of Ferry's affair with supermodel Jerry Hall and its public end when she left him for Mick Jagger, the band's various splits and regroupings, and the recent reunion in 2001 for a sold-out greatest hits tour. Years of research and interviews with all the major participants, including Ferry himself, have resulted in a definitive history of a band that changed popular music forever.

    Architecture and Disjunction, which brings together Tschumi's essays from 1975 to 1990, is a lucid and provocative analysis of many of the key issues that have engaged architectural discourse over the past two decades--from deconstructive theory to recent concerns with the notions of event and program. The essays develop different themes in contemporary theory as they relate to the actual making of architecture, attempting to realign the discipline with a new world culture characterized by both discontinuity and heterogeneity. Included are a number of seminal essays that incited broad attention when they first appeared in magazines and journals, as well as more recent and topical texts.Tschumi's discourse has always been considered radical and disturbing. He opposes modernist ideology and postmodern nostalgia since both impose restrictive criteria on what may be deemed legitimate cultural conditions. He argues for focusing on our immediate cultural situation, which is distinguished by a new postindustrial unhomeliness reflected in the ad hoc erection of buildings with multipurpose programs. The condition of New York and the chaos of Tokyo are thus perceived as legitimate urban forms.

    Today, the more than 17,000 libraries in America also function as de facto community centers offering free access to the internet, job-hunting assistance, or a warm place to take shelter. And yet, across the country, cities large and small are closing public libraries or curtailing their hours of operation. Over the last eighteen years, photographer Robert Dawson has crisscrossed the country documenting hundreds of these endangered institutions. The Public Library presents a wide selection of Dawson's photographs— from the majestic reading room at the New York Public Library to Allensworth, California's one-room Tulare County Free Library built by former slaves. Accompanying Dawson's revealing photographs are essays, letters, and poetry by some of America's most celebrated writers. A foreword by Bill Moyers and an afterword by Ann Patchett bookend this important survey of a treasured American institution.

    This new and expanded third edition continues to offer students and readers the best one-volume introduction to the field.The bewildering variety of approaches, theorists and technical language is lucidly and expertly unraveled. Unlike many books which assume certain positions about the critics and the theories they represent, Peter Barry allows readers to develop their own ideas once first principles and concepts have been grasped.

    His authoritative & comprehensive history is masterly in its detail & judicious analysis. A classic in its field, this is essential reading for anyone attempting to understand the complex historical forces that have shaped Ireland.Preface1. Who were Irishmen?2 The first Irish republicans3. The union4 The tragedy of home rule5. Outselves aloneReferencesSelect BibliographyIndex

    Tools include hand tools, maps, how-to books, vehicles, software, specialized devices, gizmos, websites — and anything useful.Tools are selected and presented in the book if they are the best of kind, the cheapest, or the only thing available that will do the job. This is an oversized book which reviews over 1,500 different tools, explaining why each one is great, and what its benefits are. Indirectly the book illuminates the possibilities contained in such tools and the whole catalog serves an education outside the classroom. The content in this book was derived from ten years of user reviews published at the Cool Tools website, cool-tools.org.

    With over ninety illustrations, this book traces the history of the chair as we know it from its crudest beginnings up through the modern office variety. Drawing on anecdotes, literary references, and famous designs, Galen Cranz documents our ongoing love affair with the chair and how its evolution has been governed not by a quest for comfort or practicality, but by the designation of status.Relating much of the modern era's rampant back pain to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle spent in traditional seating, Cranz goes beyond traditional ergonomic theory to formulate new design principles that challenge the way we think and live. A farsighted and innovative approach to our most intimate habitat, this book offers guidelines that will assist readers in choosing a chair-and designing a lifestyle-that truly suits our bodies. Praise for The Chair:  "[A] concise, multidisciplinary gem."—Publishers Weekly "Cranz is no sedentary historian. The Chair is a call to action."—Jonathan Levi, Los Angeles Times "Galen Cranz has written a provocative book. Pull up a comfortable chair-if you can find one-and read it."—Witold Rybczynski

    It left the business of rock stardom to rock stars. But by 1992 alternative rock had spawned a revolution in music and style that transformed youth culture and revived a moribund music industry. Five years later, alternative rock was over, leaving behind a handful of dead heroes, a few dozen masterpieces, and a lot more questions than answers. What, if anything, had the alternative revolution meant? And had it been possible - as so many of its heroes had insisted - for it to be both on MtV and under the radar? Had it used the machinery of corporate rock to destroy corporate rock? In ENtERtAIN US! Craig Schuftan takes you on a journey through the nineties - from Sonic Youth's 'Kool thing' to Radiohead's 'Kid A', NEVERMIND to ODELAY, Madchester to Nu-Metal, Lollapalooza to Woodstock '99 - narrated in the voices of the decade's most important artists. this is the story of alternative rock - the people who made it, the people who loved it, the industry that bought and sold it, and the culture that grew up in its wake - in the last decade of the twentieth century.

    But maps need not just show continents and oceans: there are maps to heaven and hell; to happiness and despair; maps of moods, matrimony, and mythological places. There are maps to popular culture, from Gulliver's Island to Gilligan's Island. There are speculative maps of the world before it was known, and maps to secret places known only to the mapmaker. Artists' maps show another kind of uncharted realm: the imagination. What all these maps have in common is their creators' willingness to venture beyond the boundaries of geography or convention.You Are Here is a wide-ranging collection of such superbly inventive maps. These are charts of places you're not expected to find, but a voyage you take in your mind: an exploration of the ideal country estate from a dog's perspective; a guide to buried treasure on Skeleton Island; a trip down the road to success; or the world as imagined by an inmate of a mental institution. With over 100 maps from artists, cartographers, and explorers, You are Here gives the reader a breath-taking view of worlds, both real and imaginary.

    Every building contains clues embedded in its design that identify not only its architectural style but also the story of who designed it, who it was built for, and why. Organized by architectural element (roofs, doors, windows, columns, domes, towers, arches, etc.), the book is roughly chronological within each section, examining the elements across history, through different architectural styles, and by geographical distribution. Additional chapters offer overviews of how architecture has been affected by geography, history, and religion, along with an illustrated timeline of architectural elements. Also included is a chapter on applied ornament and a handy introduction to naming each part of a building. All entries are accompanied by examples in the forms of period engravings, line drawings, and pictures. The extended captions make the book invaluable for anyone who has ever pondered the meaning or importance of a hipped roof, rounded doorway, or classical pediment.