Book picks similar to
Birmingham Broadcasting by Tim Hollis
alabama
local-history
signed
Mr Smiley: My Last Pill and Testament
Howard Marks - 2015
On his release from one of America's toughest prisons, Howard made a promise to himself to go straight. No more drugs, no more smuggling, no more fake passports. He would retire to a quiet life with his family in the Balearic Islands of Spain. It didn't quite work out that way.This was the mid-nineties, the height of the ecstasy and clubbing boom, and Ibiza was at the very centre of the vortex for the 'E generation'. Pills had taken the place of marijuana, Paul Oakenfold had replaced The Rolling Stones as the music of the masses, but some people are just born for life on the other side of the law.It wasn't long before Howard found himself trying pure ecstasy and rubbing shoulders with some of the king-pins of the pill trade. These included some of Britain's most notorious gangsters, who were laundering millions of pounds of gold stolen from the legendary Brink's-Mat bullion raid. As Britons descended on Ibiza ahead of one of the greatest summers of the nineties, Howard was preparing for his most outrageous operation yet.Incredibly funny, moving and scabrous, Howard Marks' Mr Smiley follows a journey to the heartland of the clubbing and British crime scene. It is also a fitting last word from one of Britain's best loved bad boys.
Captain
Thomas Block - 2012
It is a chilling and all-too-real story about a routine Trans-Atlantic airline flight that suddenly turns absolutely insane. In the doomed airliner's cockpit, inside the passenger cabin and on the ground, a complex array of characters have been propelled at jet speed into a sudden and frantic race for survival."Captain" is about the individual and collective struggles of each of these men and women as they attempt to deal with and ultimately fight against the odds and circumstances that are stacked against them."Captain" is a novel that pits man against man while also pitting man against machine. It is a story about the need for human judgments, hard-learned experiences, gut feelings and unbridled perseverance in an effort to rise up against a world where the strict adherence to written rules, regulations and procedures have been accepted as the norm."Captain" is about the way real airline pilots think, feel and react, especially after those giant airliners that they've strapped themselves to have suddenly turned vicious and unpredictable.Author Nelson DeMille says of "Captain": After a long hiatus from writing, Captain Block rejoins the ranks of legendary pilots-turned-novelists such as Ernest K. Gann ("The High and the Mighty") and brings us "Captain" - one of the best aviation/adventure thrillers you will ever read."Captain" puts you in the cockpit, in the passenger cabin, and at airline headquarters with an intricate and intriguing array of characters. This novel is nothing short of the most frightening and heart-pounding Trans-Atlantic fliight since Charles Lindbergh's solo. Or will it turn out to be Amelia Earhart's tragic Pacific crossing?"Captain" is right up there with the best of the aviation thrillers; an edge of your seat story of what happens when something goes horribly wrong when there is no room for wrong. Captain Block knows his stuff, and it shows on every page. Welcome aboard.
Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski
Ian O'Connor - 2022
Through unprecedented access to Krzyzewski’s best friends, closest advisers, fiercest adversaries, and generations of his players and assistants, three-time New York Times bestselling author Ian O’Connor takes you behind the Blue Devil curtain with a penetrating examination of the great, but flawed leader as he closes out his iconic career. Krzyzewski built a staggering basketball empire that has endured for more than four decades, placing him among the all-time titans of American sport, and yet there has never been a defining portrait of the coach and his program. Until now. O’Connor uses scores of interviews with those who know Krzyzewski best to deliver previously untold stories about the relationships that define the venerable Coach K, including the one with his volcanic mentor, Bob Knight, that died a premature death. Krzyzewski was always driven by an inner rage fueled by his tough Chicago upbringing, and by the blue-collar Polish-American parents who raised him to fight for a better life. As the retiring Coach K makes his final stand, vying for one more ring during the 2021-2022 season before saying goodbye at age 75, O’Connor shows you sides of the man and his methods that will surprise even the most dedicated Duke fan.
Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution
John Archibald - 2021
By the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and columnist for The Birmingham News.My dad was a Methodist preacher and his dad was a Methodist preacher, writes John Archibald. It goes all the way back on both sides of my family. When I am at my best, I think it comes from that sermon place.Everything Archibald knows and believes about life is refracted through the stained glass of the Southern church. It had everything to do with people. And fairness. And compassion.In Shaking the Gates of Hell, Archibald asks: Can a good person remain silent in the face of discrimination and horror, and still be a good person?Archibald had seen his father, the Rev. Robert L. Archibald, Jr., the son and grandson of Methodist preachers, as a moral authority, a moderate and a moderating force during the racial turbulence of the '60s, a loving and dependable parent, a forgiving and attentive minister, a man many Alabamians came to see as a saint. But was that enough? Even though Archibald grew up in Alabama in the heart of the civil rights movement, he could recall few words about racial rights or wrongs from his father's pulpit at a time the South seethed, and this began to haunt him.In this moving and powerful book, Archibald writes of his complex search, and of the conspiracy of silence his father faced in the South, in the Methodist Church and in the greater Christian church. Those who spoke too loudly were punished, or banished, or worse. Archibald's father was warned to guard his words on issues of race to protect his family, and he did. He spoke to his flock in the safety of parable, and trusted in the goodness of others, even when they earned none of it, rising through the ranks of the Methodist Church, and teaching his family lessons in kindness and humanity, and devotion to nature and the Earth.Archibald writes of this difficult, at times uncomfortable, reckoning with his past in this unadorned, affecting book of growth and evolution.
Bobby Rydell: Teen Idol on the Rocks: A Tale of Second Chances
Bobby Rydell - 2016
And there were those hits: “Wild One,” “Volare,” and “Forget Him,” to name a few. He was far more than just a teen idol. Bobby’s voice and boy next door charm earned him a spot singing, acting, and dancing with Ann-Margret in the film adaptation of the hit musical comedy, Bye Bye Birdie. His comedic talents made him a nighttime fixture during the golden age of TV variety shows, and his phrasing and musicianship led to dozens of headlining gigs in the casino showrooms of Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Frank Sinatra anointed him as his favorite pop singer of the early ‘60s. But early success took a toll on his life. Bobby Rydell’s brutally honest street corner narrative evolved during an eighteen-month collaboration with Allan Slutsky, the award-winning author and producer of the widely acclaimed book and documentary film, Standing in the Shadows of Motown. Inspiring, gut-busting, and, at times, heartbreaking, Teen Idol On The Rocks gives you a front row seat to the turbulent, six decade journey of one of rock and roll’s earliest, and most celebrated teen idols.
Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain, and Injustice
Maureen Faulkner - 2007
Mumia Abu-Jamal was unanimously convicted of the crime by a racially mixed jury based on: the testimony of several eyewitnesses, his ownership of the murder weapon, matching ballistics, and Abu-Jamal’s own confession.After his conviction, however, a national anti-death penalty movement was started to “Free Mumia;” Mike Farrell, Ed Asner, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jesse Jackson rallied on his behalf, and led the charge. For his part, while on death row, Abu-Jamal published several books, delivered radio commentaries, was a college commencement speaker, found himself named an Honorary Citizen of France, and had his defense coffers enhanced by ticket sales from a sold out (16,000-person) concert featuring Rage Against the Machine.Here, from Maureen Faulkner and acclaimed talk show host / journalist Michael Smerconish, is the first book to carefully and definitively lay out the case against Abu-Jamal, and those who’ve elevated him to the status of political prisoner. Smerconish, a lawyer, has provided pro bono legal counsel to Faulkner for over a decade and knows both the legal intricacies and personal subtleties of the case like no other person. He’s personally acquainted himself with the more than five thousand pages of trial transcript. “My reading starkly revealed that Abu-Jamal murdered Danny Faulkner in cold blood and that the case tried in Philadelphia in 1982 bore no resemblance to the one being home-cooked by the Abu-Jamal defense team.”As Abu-Jamal’s lawyers contemplate their final appeal, Faulkner and Smerconish weave a compelling, never-before-told account of one fateful night and the 25-year-long rewriting of history.
Tempting Secrets (Tempting Nights Romance #1)
Michelle Windsor - 2018
Or at least, it’s the name my clients call me. I work for the elite escort agency, Temptations, and for a price, I’ll be whatever you want and need me to be. I have the body, I have the looks, and I have a smile that makes any woman swoon. But It’s just a job. A necessary evil to help fund my dreams of becoming a doctor. I’m simply a robot, performing my required tasks. Until the night I’m hired to seduce Charlotte Harvey and remind her how good a man can make her feel. I didn’t expect her beauty to spark a desire in me long buried. I didn’t expect her smile to turn that spark into a flame. And I definitely didn’t expect her passion to ignite that flame into an inferno. I should have walked away without looking back, but she started a fire in me that I can’t seem to tame. Tempting Nights is the first book in the Tempted Nights Romance Series. Each book can be read as a stand-alone and features a happily ever after.
Kissed by a Fat Waitress
Dan Fante - 2008
In the not-so-gentle hands of Dan Fante, this book of new poetry is more akin to surgery or the body shop than to the techniques of music and painting. Fante excises whole slices of life and lays them bare for us in inspect. Pain and self-mocking humor are the writer's tools here. He pries open and exposes his heart with the kindness of a hammer or crowbar. Indeed, what could be more ego-sizing than to have all pretense flattened, laying bare the raw self underneath? "Dan Fante allows us a glimpse of the Southern California demimonde that surely escaped his father's attention"--Los Angeles Times Book Review.
Triple Cross Killer
Rosemarie Aquilina - 2017
Nick responds, leaving a trail of devastation in the two cities.In Detroit, co-ed partners and wise-cracking lovers, detectives Jaq McSween and David Maxwell, team up with Sarasota detectives Abel Mendoza and his partner, Rabbit, to find this daunting killer.When Jaq’s friend, the lovely nurse, Rita Rose, takes a chance on love again, she gets caught in Nick’s web. Working with the ME, she joins in, adding her perspective when events take a sinister turn. Can this diverse team of characters pool their insights, barbs, and taste for bad food to save Rita when she discovers the final clues or will she become the next victim?
Forever Sunshine
Collette Scott - 2011
Cher's carefully ordered life quickly comes to an end. Trapped in an abusive marriage, Shelly is terrified and has nowhere else to go but to her overworked and oblivious sister. Though Cher is not prepared to handle the effects of a controlling and violent husband, fate delivers help via police sergeant Brandon Nicholson. With his strength and guidance, he shows Cherisse and Shelly how to survive and how to live life to the fullest. As both women find their inner strength, Cher and Brandon fall in love and build a future together. However, life is full of ups and downs, and through it all Cher and her family must continue to face every day with a feeling of hope and optimism, even when it seems as though all hope is gone.
War Ready: In My Father's Shadow
Mary Lou Darst - 2011
Her father served in the military, and she traveled the world with him and her family. His assignments took them to Alaska, Virginia, Japan, Texas, and Germany, as part of the US Army's responsibilities in policing the world. This candid memoir recounts her family's life in new places and cultures following World War II. What was it like to be a child living in Japan seven years after the war? What was it like to be a thirteen-year-old living in Germany twelve years after the war? What was it like to grow up moving between cultures? This is the story of one family bound to service in the military at a time when the world was being redefined. For a young girl, it was the adventure of a lifetime as she learned the secrets of finding her own way in that new world. The author's story was informed by reading her father's diary, which offers up intimate and candid insight into the life of a typical soldier in a time of war. His entries describe his time serving aboard a battleship built for 800 soldiers--but carrying 6,000 to war. His tales--told from the perspective of a young soldier in southern England, Wales, and Scotland from 1943 to 1945--are glimpses into a life many will never know firsthand.
غلاف تمام فلزی
Stanley Kubrick - 1999
Movie stills accompany the screenplay of Kubric's film about a young marine's basic training and experiences in Vietnam.
40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania
Matthew Chapman - 2007
Dover Board of Education, decided in late 2005, a Republican judge rendered a surprising verdict in a case that pitted the teaching of intelligent design (sometimes known as "creationism in a lab coat") against the teaching of evolution. Taking place in a small Pennsylvania school district, the case had national repercussions, all the way up to President Bush, who said he believed intelligent design should be taught as "an alternative theory" to evolution.Matthew Chapman, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, spent several months covering the trial from beginning to end. Through his in-depth encounters with the participants—creationists, preachers, teachers, scientists on both sides of the issue, lawyers, theologians, the judge, and the eleven parents who resisted the fundamentalist proponents of intelligent design—Chapman tells a sometimes terrifying, often hilarious, and above all moving story of ordinary people doing battle in America over the place of religion and science in modern life.Written with a filmaker's eye for character and detail, and including insights only a descendent of Darwin could bring forth, Chapman paints an entertaining, yet disturbing picture of America today.
Your Baby in Pictures: The New Parents' Guide to Photographing Your Baby's First Year
Me Ra Koh - 2011
Why entrust your memories to hastily taken snapshots--or worse yet, none at all? Let professional photographer (and mom) Me Ra Koh help you capture the moments with 40 beautiful "photo recipes" anyone can do, with any camera. Telling your baby's story in pictures has never been easier!