Out of the Blue: The Sometimes Scary and Often Funny World of Flying in the Royal Air Force, as Told by Some of Those Who Were There


Ian Cowie - 2011
    It's a perfect example of the wry humour that permeates the mind-set of Service personnel, and it resonates throughout this book. Whether the tale is set in the air or on the ground, it offers a glimpse of what life was, and probably still is, really like in the RAF.Over a period of two years, three ex-military pilots, who joined the RAF on the same day and have been life-long friends, collected the stories. Sometimes terrifying, occasionally outrageous, and frequently funny, they show that the business of flying military aircraft sporadically throws up challenges that even the most capable of aviators struggle to meet. Without exception, the stories are related with a refreshing candour that acknowledges the failures as well as the triumphs on each author's part. Equally importantly, they are presented in a way that anyone can enjoy, regardless of whether or not they have any knowledge of flying or military life.Many of the events recounted here happened during the Cold War, when the surreal world of potential nuclear conflict was the backdrop to day-to-day operations, and nearly all the stories appear in print for the first time. Indeed, it is true to say that, from an aviation perspective, they are frequently more remarkable for the fact that the protagonist got away with it rather than demonstrated great flying skill.Amount going to charity £3.32/$5.43 (at current rate)

Passage Across the Mersey


Robert Bhatia - 2017
    Later in life, Helen wrote a ground-breaking series of memoirs, starting with Twopence to Cross the Mersey, which told the harrowing account of her family’s struggles in Depression-era Liverpool. It was a story filled with tragedy and small triumphs but many readers wondered what happened to Helen when she grew up; what became of the fragile young girl who had so much responsibility heaped on her shoulders?Now for the first time, her son Robert recounts the unexpected life that Helen went on to live; of the remarkable love story with a young man from a background a million miles away from everything a Lancashire Lass like Helen would have known and of the astonishing lengths she went to in order to achieve happiness. Full of new revelations and fascinating detail never before revealed, Passage Across the Mersey is a story of an extraordinary woman, and of the journey that took her thousands of miles from the place she called home…

A Brief History of Khubilai Khan


Jonathan Clements - 2010
    This book explores Khan's control over Mongolia, his attempts to invade Japan, his imperialistic foreign policy, his relationship with Marco Polo during Polo's extraordinary journey to Xanadu, and his overall impact on world history.The book will be released in time for Xanadu to Dadu--The World of Khubilai Khan, a stunning exhibit of artwork that will be featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 2010 until January 2011.

The Literature Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained


James Canton - 2016
    Around 100 crystal-clear articles explore landmark novels, short stories, plays, and poetry that reinvented the art of writing in their time, whether Ancient Greece, post-classical Europe, or modern-day Korea.As part of DK's award-winning Big Ideas Simply Explained series, The Literature Book uses infographics and images to explain key ideas and themes. Biographies of important authors offer insight into their lives and other writings, and a section on Further Reading details more than 150 additional works to explore.Discover masterpieces from the world's greatest authors, and explore the context, creative history, and literary traditions that influenced each major work of fiction with The Literature Book.Series Overview: Big Ideas Simply Explained series uses creative design and innovative graphics, along with straightforward and engaging writing, to make complex subjects easier to understand. These award-winning books provide just the information needed for students, families, or anyone interested in concise, thought-provoking refreshers on a single subject.

Constellation of Genius: 1922: Modernism Year One


Kevin Jackson - 2011
    It was the year that began with the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses and ended with the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land: respectively, the most influential English-language novel and poem of the century. To this day, these two works remain the titanic figures of modern literature—some would say, of modernity itself. And it was the indefatigable Pound who played a significant part in the launch of both writers’ careers. In Constellation of Genius, Kevin Jackson puts the accomplishments of Joyce and Eliot in the context of the world in which their works first appeared. We see the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the end of Dada, and the death of Proust. Meanwhile, Hollywood transformed the nature of fame, making Charlie Chaplin the most recognizable man on the planet. Hitchcock directed his first feature, Kandinsky and Klee joined the Bauhaus, and Louis Armstrong took the train from New Orleans to Chicago, heralding the start of modern jazz. Gloriously entertaining, erudite, and idiosyncratic, this is a biography of a year, a journey through the diaries of the anthropologists, actors, artists, dancers, designers, filmmakers, philosophers, playwrights, politicians, and scientists whose lives and works collided over twelve months, creating a frenzy of innovation that split the world in two.Some of the people discussed are: Charlie Chaplin, Jean Cocteau, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Coco Chanel, Winston Churchill, Sigmund Freud, E. M. Forster, George Gershwin, Albert Einstein, Adolf Hitler, Carl Jung, James Joyce, Sergei Prokofiev, Luis Buñuel, Bertolt Brecht, Wyndham Lewis, Fritz Lang, D. H. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, Katherine Mansfield, Aleister Crowley, Bronisław Malinowski, Eugene O’Neill, George Orwell, Nikola Tesla, Alfred Hitchcock, Pablo Picasso, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Bertrand Russell, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hermann Hesse, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Walt Disney, Lois Armstrong, Franz Kafka, Rudolph Valentino, Buster Keaton, Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, W. B. Yeats, Benito Mussolini, Salvador Dalí, Federico García Lorca, T. S. Eliot, Anna Akhmatova, Le Corbusier, John Maynard Keynes, F. W. Murnau, Sergei Diaghilev, Ernest Hemingway, Frank Lloyd Wright, Wassily Kandinsky, André Breton, Rudyard Kipling, Ronald Firbank, Marcel Duchamp, Dashiell Hammett, Georges Bataille, Aldous Huxley, Andrei Bely, Henri Matisse, Marcel Proust, Ludwig Wittgenstein

Medical Monsters: 20 Scary Medical Serial Killers


Robert Keller - 2016
    Michael Swango: a deadly doctor who took genuine pleasure in poisoning his patients and colleagues. Killed at least 60 in an intercontinental murder spree.The Lainz Angels of Death: four lethal nurses who turned the geriatric ward at an Austrian hospital into their private killing field. Gwendolyn Graham & Cathy Wood: lesbian lovers who got their kicks by suffocating the elderly patients under their care. Teet Haerm: police pathologist who spent his nights hunting prostitutes in Stockholm, Sweden. Haerm actually performed autopsies on many of the women he’d killed.Orville Lynn Majors: an ICU nurse with a deep-seated hatred for his elderly patients, Majors is suspected of over 100 murders.Kimberly Saenz: addicted to prescription drugs and with her life falling apart around her, Saenz struck out at helpless patients, injecting them with bleach.Donald Harvey: dubbed the “Angel of Death,” Harvey killed at least seventy hospital patients by suffocation, poisoning, drug overdoses and other methods.Thomas Neill Cream: London's East End had barely recovered from Jack the Ripper when Dr. Cream arrived on the scene, dispensing agonizing death with his special little pills.˃˃˃ Plus 10 more sensational true crime cases….Scroll up and grab a copy today. Book Series by Robert Keller Most of my works cover serial killers, while the “Murder Most Vile” series covers individual true crime stories. These are the main collections; American Monsters 50 American Serial Killers You’ve Probably Never Heard Of Murder Most Vile Human Monsters British Monsters Australian Monsters Canadian Monsters German Monsters Cannibal Killers Plus various other standalone books, including the The Deadly Dozen, which is available as a free download on Amazon, and Serial Killers Unsolved, which you can get for free when signing up to my mailing list. Robert Keller’s True Crime eBook Categories: Serial Killers True Crime Serial Killer Biographies Murder and Mayhem True Murder Cases Serial Killer Case Files True Crime Short Stories

Why Poetry


Matthew Zapruder - 2017
    Zapruder argues that the way we have been taught to read poetry is the very thing that prevents us from enjoying it. In lively, lilting prose, he shows us how that misunderstanding interferes with our direct experience of poetry and creates the sense of confusion or inadequacy that many of us feel when faced with it.   Zapruder explores what poems are, and how we can read them, so that we can, as Whitman wrote, “possess the origin of all poems,” without the aid of any teacher or expert. Most important, he asks how reading poetry can help us to lead our lives with greater meaning and purpose. Anchored in poetic analysis and steered through Zapruder’s personal experience of coming to the form, Why Poetry is engaging and conversational, even as it makes a passionate argument for the necessity of poetry in an age when information is constantly being mistaken for knowledge. While he provides a simple reading method for approaching poems and illuminates concepts like associative movement, metaphor, and negative capability, Zapruder explicitly confronts the obstacles that readers face when they encounter poetry to show us that poetry can be read, and enjoyed, by anyone.

Ninja Foodi: The Pressure Cooker that Crisps: Complete Cookbook for Beginners: Your Expert Guide to Pressure Cook, Air Fry, Dehydrate, and More


Kenzie Swanhart - 2018
    Here, in the official Ninja® Foodi™ Complete Cookbook for Beginners, you’ll find easy, flavorful recipes specifically designed for the innovative technology of the Ninja® Foodi™.No matter what you’re in the mood for, there’s a wide range of versatile recipes in Ninja® Foodi™ Complete Cookbook for Beginners. From wholesome “360 Meals” that allow you to fully cook grains, crisp vegetables, and tender proteins all in the same pot, to time-saving “Frozen to Crispy” recipes that allow you to cook frozen food without defrosting it first, the Ninja® Foodi™ Complete Cookbook for Beginners puts tasty, nourishing meals on the table in no time.The ultimate beginner’s guide for using this one-of-a-kind appliance, the Ninja® Foodi™ Complete Cookbook for Beginners includes: 75 quick, tasty, good-for-you recipes that include options not only for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but also appetizers, breads, desserts, and more Quick-start guidance for using your Ninja® Foodi™ and understanding all of its unique features such as how to pressure cook, air fry, TenderCrisp™, dehydrate, and more Expert tips and tricks that will eliminate the learning curve regardless of your prior culinary experience There is no dinner dilemma that the Ninja® Foodi™ can’t handle. And with the official Ninja® Foodi™ Complete Cookbook for Beginners, there’s no recipe that you can’t cook.

The People of the Abyss


Jack London - 1903
    I went down into the underworld of London with an attitude of mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer. I was open to be convinced by the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the teachings of those who had not seen, or by the words of those who had seen and gone before. Further, I took with me certain simple criteria with which to measure the life of the underworld. That which made for more life, for physical and spiritual health, was good; that which made for less life, which hurt, and dwarfed, and distorted life, was bad."

James Herbert: Devil in the Dark


Craig Cabell - 2001
    His books sell in their hundreds of thousands across the world, are often made into films, and have turned him into arguably the most successful writer of the horror genre. Yet despite his worldwide fan base, surprisingly little is known about the man himself. In this work, Craig Cabell has written an in-depth biography of the man with his full cooperation. Herbert has granted the author a number of rare interviews, and the result is a frank and revealing portrait of one of the giants of contemporary popular fiction. In addition to this, Herbert has granted the author full access to his photographic archives and provided unreleased material to publish in this book.

The Halifax Slasher


NOT A BOOK
    

Sicily, It's Not Quite Tuscany


Shamus Sillar - 2012
    There, any romantic visions they'd had of restoring a villa or stamping their entwined feet in vats of Chianti grapes disappeared faster than the chief witness in a Cosa Nostra trial. Shamus and Gill's tiny apartment in Catania was located in a grim neighborhood opposite a triple-X cinema and a shop selling coffins, nearby Mount Etna erupted soon after their arrival, a mystery ailment left Shamus in a neck brace, they crashed a Vespa, and they had regular dealings with at least one Mafioso. This, then, is an Italian sea change with grit. But it's also a story of optimism, endurance, and acceptance; an exploration of the minutiae of Sicilian culture, history, food, and religion; and an example of how to find beauty—and humor—in the most unexpected of places.

Dream: The Words And Inspiration Of Martin Luther King, Jr.


Martin Luther King Jr. - 2007
    Peace, Dream, and Love feature an introduction by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Heroic Mormon Women: True Stories from the Lives of Sixteen Amazing Women in Church History


Ivan J. Barrett - 2012
    "As he has recorded the events of history, man has often forgotten to mention the hand that rocked the cradle." These remarkable Mormon women gave their all for the gospel of Christ. With drama and emotion stronger than that found in any work of fiction, the inspirational stories in Heroic Mormon Women will bring to light the incredible strength, virtue, and faith of the heroic women of the restoration. Some women included in this book are: Rachel Ivins Grant Jane Grover Jane Elizabeth Manning James Sarah Melissa Granger Kimball Heroic Marys Elizabeth Claridge McCune Sarah Pea Rich Aurelia Spencer Rogers Amanda Barnes Smith Eliza Roxey Snow Amanda Barnes Smith Lucy Mack Smith Emma Hale Smith

Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art


Julian Barnes - 2011
    Braque thought the ideal state would be reached when we said nothing at all in front of a painting. But we are very far from reaching that state. We remain incorrigibly verbal creatures who love to explain things, to form opinions, to argue... It is a rare picture which stuns, or argues, us into silence. And if one does, it is only a short time before we want to explain and understand the very silence into which we have been plunged.'Julian Barnes began writing about art with a chapter on Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa in his 1989 novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters. Since then he has written a series of remarkable essays , chiefly about French artists, for a variety of journals and magazines. Gathering them for this book, he realised that he had unwittingly been retracing the story of how art made its way from Romanticism to Realism and into Modernism.