Fatal North: Murder and Survival on the First North Pole Expedition


Bruce Henderson - 2001
    Grant's bid for international glory after the Civil War—America's first attempt to reach the North Pole. It ended with Captain Charles Hall's death under suspicious circumstances, dissension among sailors, scientists, and explorers, the ship's evacuation and eventual sinking. Then came a brutal struggle for survival by thirty-three men, women and children, stranded on the polar ice—and two dramatic rescues by whaling ships. When news of the disastrous expedition and accusations of murder reached Washington D.C., it led to a nationwide scandal, an official investigation, and a government cover-up.The mystery of the captain's death remained unsolved for nearly 100 years. But when Charles Hall's frozen grave in northern Greenland was opened, and hair and fingernail samples were retrieved, forensic scientists were finally able to reach a shocking conclusion.Now, telling the complete story for the first time, acclaimed researcher and bestselling writer Bruce Henderson—whose works have been praised as "compelling" (LOS ANGELES TIMES Book Review) and "compulsively readable" (SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER)—has researched original transcripts of the U.S. Navy inquests, personal papers of Captain Hall, autopsy and forensic reports relating to the century-old crime, the ship's original log, personal journals kept by crewmen, and hero-survivor George Tyson's diary and family papers to bring to life one of the most mysterious tragedies of American exploration.

Captives among the Indians: Firsthand Narratives of Indian Wars, Customs, Tortures, and Habits of Life in Colonial Times


Horace Kephart - 2015
    This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Oil and Ice: A Story of Arctic Disaster and the Rise and Fall of America's Last Whaling Dynasty


Peter Nichols - 2010
    Miraculously, 1,218 men, women and children survived, but the disaster was catastrophic at home. "Oil and Ice" is the story of one fateful whaling season that illuminates the unprecedented rise and devastating fall of America's first oil economy, and the fate of today's petroleum industry.

Reefer Madness: A History of Marijuana


Larry Sloman - 1998
    Beginning with the hemp farming if George Washington, author Larry "Ratso" Sloman traces the fascinating story of our nation's love-hate relationship with the resilient weed we know as marijuana.Herein we find antiheroes such as Allen Ginsberg, Robert Mitchum (the first Hollywood actor busted for pot), Louis Armstrong (who smoked pot every day), the Beatles, and more rapscallions standing up for, supporting, smoking, and politicizing the bounties of marijuana.With a new afterword by Michael Simmons, who has written for Rolling Stone, LA Weekly, and High Times, on the progress of the hemp movement and the importance of medical marijuana, Reefer Madness is a classic that goes on.

Minnesota Mayhem: A History of Calamitous Events, Horrific Accidents, Dastardly Crime & Dreadful Behavior in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes


Ben Welter - 2012
    These stories and photos, culled from the Star Tribune's microfilm archive by author Ben Welter, range from the catastrophic to the merely curious. From a fire that destroyed the State Capitol in 1881, to a wordless fistfight that broke out on a Minneapolis street in 1898, a flu outbreak that killed more than 10,000 Minnesotans in 1918 and the arrest of Frank Lloyd Wright at a Lake Minnetonka cottage in 1926.

INCONVENIENCE GONE: The Short Tragic Life Of Brandon Sims


Diane Marger Moore - 2018
    Jones was employed, confident, talented, smart, assertive and involved in many community activities in Indianapolis, Indiana. In contrast, when he was last seen, Brandon Sims, an only child, was a serious, quiet, thin boy who rarely maintained eye contact with his mother. After that night, he was never seen again. His body has never been found. For years Jones lied to her friends about Brandon, telling some that he was living with his father and others that he was staying with his grandmother in another state. When Brandon's father, who had been in jail, came looking for Brandon, Michelle's shocked friends confronted her. She confessed that Brandon was dead. She repeated her story of how Brandon died to a detective, after she admitted herself to the local psych unit. Days later she checked out of the unit and refused to reveal where he had hidden Brandon's body. She was sure she had gotten away with murder. And she would have except the detective didn't believe her story. He enlisted the help of a novice prosecutor because no experienced prosecutor would take the case. In Indiana, no one had ever been convicted of murder without a body. That prosecutor has written a book that reads like a mystery novel instead of the real murder prosecution. Truth is stranger than fiction where Santeria curses, the law and politics are only a few of obstacles to justice.

ESPN College Football Encyclopedia: The Complete History of the Game


Michael MacCambridge - 2005
    On any given Saturday, in dozens of stadiums across America, you will find crowds in excess of 75,000 gathered to root on their teams. This book is their Bible???a rich and comprehensive reference guide to the game??'s history, tradition and lore. Based on three years of research by the nation??'s foremost football experts, the book features: ???? ???? ??Capsule histories for each of the 119 Division 1-A programs, the Ivy League schools and teams from the SWAC, MEAC and historically black colleges ??????????????Year-by-year schedules and records ??????????????Statistical leaders from every school ??????????????Fightsong lyrics ??????????????Box scores for every bowl game ever played ??????????????4-color insert illustrating the evolution of each school??'s helmet design ??????????????Weekly polls dating back to 1936 ??????????????Essays by the game??'s top wordsmiths (Dan Jenkins, Beano Cook, Chris Fowler, Gene Wojciechowski) ??????????????Plus a lively round table discussion with ESPN??'s popular Game Day Team (Fowler, LeeCorso and Kirk Herbstreit) Packed with tables and charts and designed in an easy-to-read style, the updated ESPN College Football Encyclopedia will continue to dazzle even the most knowledgeable fan.

The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast


Douglas Brinkley - 2006
    Yet those wind-torn hours represented only the first stage of the relentless triple tragedy that Katrina brought to the entire Gulf Coast, from Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama.First came the hurricane, one of the three strongest ever to make landfall in the United States -- 150-mile-per-hour winds, with gusts measuring more than 180 miles per hour ripping buildings to pieces.Second, the storm-surge flooding, which submerged a half million homes, creating the largest domestic refugee crisis since the Civil War. Eighty percent of New Orleans was under water, as debris and sewage coursed through the streets, and whole towns in south-eastern Louisiana ceased to exist.And third, the human tragedy of government mis-management, which proved as cruel as the natural disaster itself. Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, implemented an evacuation plan that favored the rich and healthy. Kathleen Blanco, governor of Louisiana, dithered in the most important aspect of her job: providing leadership in a time of fear and confusion. Michael C. Brown, the FEMA director, seemed more concerned with his sartorial splendor than the specter of death and horror that was taking New Orleans into its grip.In The Great Deluge, bestselling author Douglas Brinkley, a New Orleans resident and professor of history at Tulane University, rips the story of Katrina apart and relates what the Category 3 hurricane was like from every point of view. The book finds the true heroes -- such as Coast Guard officer Jimmy Duckworth and hurricane jock Tony Zumbado.Throughout the book, Brinkley lets the Katrina survivors tell their own stories, masterly allowing them to record the nightmare that was Katrina. The Great Deluge investigates the failure of government at every level and breaks important new stories. Packed with interviews and original research, it traces the character flaws, inexperience, and ulterior motives that allowed the Katrina disaster to devastate the Gulf Coast.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald


Frederick Stonehouse - 1977
    Waters has just finished his first year of law school at the University of Michigan. With the help of Jamie, Peter's bride-to-be, he lands a great summer job aboard the Great Lakes freighter the Edmund Fitzgerald. Determined to give his future bride the wedding of her dreams, Peter decides to skip the fall semester at law school to work aboard the ship. If all goes well, the bonus he'll earn will pay for their wedding and launch their new life in style. The decision will cost him his life. Based on the actual sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which occurred on November 10, 1975, the last days and hours of the crew members-including the captain, first mate, cook, a father-and-son engine room team, a lawyer-hating deckhand, and Peter-are imagined in this work of contemporary fiction based on a tragic reality in Michigan's history. The Edmund Fitzgerald slipped below the waves that fateful November night in 1975, and her story remains one of great sorrow and mystery.

Hollywood Divas: The Good, the Bad, and the Fabulous


James Robert Parish - 2015
    This volume delivers an eye-popping backstage peek into the lusty private lives and cutthroat careers of Hollywood’s most memorable bad girls over the decades. The iconoclastic Hollywood Divas presented are: Jean Arthur, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Theda Bara, Drew Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Kim Basinger, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Brett Butler, Mariah Carey, Cher, Joan Collins, Joan Crawford, Dorothy Dandridge, Bette Davis, Dolores Del Rio, Marlene Dietrich, Shannen Doherty, Patty Duke, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda, Kay Francis, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Greta Garbo, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, Paulette Goddard, Melanie Griffith, Jean Harlow, Susan Hayward, Rita Hayworth, Sonja Henie, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, Whitney Houston, Betty Hutton, Janet Jackson, Grace Kelly, Veronica Lake, Hedy Lamarr, Jennifer Lopez, Jeanette MacDonald, Madonna, Jayne Mansfield, Liza Minnelli, Marilyn Monroe, Maria Montez, Demi Moore, Mae Murray, Vera Ralston, Joan Rivers, Julia Roberts, Roseanne, Diane Ross, Meg Ryan, Norma Shearer, Cybill Shepherd, Britney Spears, Sharon Stone, Barbra Streisand, Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner, Lupe Velez, Mae West, Shelley Winters, Natalie Wood, and Loretta Young.A must-have volume for every pop-culture fanatic, Hollywood Divas promises to tantalize you with juicy tidbits and saucy scandals that earned each of these devilish darlings the title of diva.

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson | Chapter Compilation


Ethan Thomas - 2016
     The ship was called “magnificent”, consuming as much as one hundred forty tons of coal every day even if it just stands still on the dock, and standing seven stories tall from dock to bridge. She was considered by engineers and shipbuilders as one of the finest examples of man’s ingenuity and creativity. In addition, out of all the ships that were converted for use in the war, the Lusitania was the only one that was exempted and continued on as a cruise ship. However, its job of carrying passengers across the Atlantic Ocean was not the thing that made her famous today. Read more.... Download your copy today! for a limited time discount of only $2.99! Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. © 2015 All Rights Reserved by Unlimited Press Works, LLC

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans


Don Brown - 2015
    Eighty percent of the city flooded, in some places under twenty feet of water. Property damages across the Gulf Coast topped $100 billion. One thousand eight hundred and thirty-three people lost their lives. The riveting tale of this historic storm and the drowning of an American city is one of selflessness, heroism, and courage—and also of incompetence, racism, and criminality. Don Brown’s kinetic art and as-it-happens narrative capture both the tragedy and triumph of one of the worst natural disasters in American history. A portion of the proceeds from this book has been donated to Habitat for Humanity New Orleans.

What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?: A Remembrance


Richard Ben Cramer - 2002
    Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer Prize winner and acclaimed biographer of Joe DiMaggio, decodes this oversized icon who dominated the game and finds not just a great player, but also a great man. In 1986, Richard Ben Cramer spent months on a profile of Ted Williams, and the result was the Esquire article that has been acclaimed ever since as one of the finest pieces of sports reporting ever written. Given special acknowledgment in The Best American Sportswriting of the Century and adapted for a coffee-table book called Ted Williams: The Seasons of the Kid, the original piece is now available in this special edition, with new material about Williams' later years. While his decades after Fenway Park were out of the spotlight -- the way Ted preferred it -- they were arguably his richest, as he loved and inspired his family, his fans, the players, and the game itself. This is a remembrance for the ages.

Surviving Galeras


Stanley Williams - 2001
    As Williams tried to escape the blast, he was pelted with white-hot projectiles traveling faster than bullets. Within seconds he was cut down, his skull fractured, his right leg almost severed, his backpack aflame. Williams lay helpless and near death on Galeras's flank until two brave women -- friends and fellow volcanologists -- mounted an astonishing rescue effort to carry him safely off the mountain.The tale of how Williams survived Galeras is the framework for a groundbreaking book about volcanoes, their physical and cultural impact, and the tiny cadre of scientists who risk their own lives to gain knowledge that might one day save many others' lives.--BOOK JACKET

Reading Laurell K. Hamilton


Candace R. Benefiel - 2011
    Hamilton was reshaping the image of the vampire with her own take on the vampire mythos in her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter fantasy novel series. While Hamilton's work draws on traditional vampire and fairy lore, her interpretation of these subjects brought new dimensions to the genres, influencing the direction of urban fantasy over the past two decades.Reading Laurell K. Hamilton focuses upon Hamilton's two bestselling series, the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series and the Merry Gentry series. The volume is intended as a resource for leaders of book clubs or discussion groups, containing chapters that examine Hamilton's role in the current vampire literature craze, the themes and characters in her work, and responses to Hamilton on the Internet. The book also provides a brief overview of Hamilton's life.