With an array of stunning performances in blockbusters as diverse as Big, The Da Vinci Code, Forrest Gump, Philadelphia, and Saving Private Ryan to his name, he has an outstanding reputation as one of the world's greatest leading men. Yet behind the many roles lies an intensely complex figure. This wonderful portrait of a dedicated family man and professional explores Tom Hanks' fractured childhood, the breakdown of his first marriage, his friendship with Princess Diana, his relationship with Bill Clinton, his moral and political stances, his family life, and the highs and lows of his stellar career.

    Recounts the life and accomplishments of the Croatian-born engineer who developed alternating-current technology and invented the radio.

    Schultz was a noted author, explorer, Glacier National Park guide, fur trader and historian of the Blackfoot Indians. While operating a fur trading post at Carroll, Montana and living amongst the Pikuni tribe during the period 1880-82, he was given the name "Apikuni" by the Pikuni chief, Running Crane. Schultz is most noted for his prolific stories about Blackfoot life and his contributions to the naming of prominent features in Glacier National Park. Mr. Schultz is one of the last of the old-time frontiersmen, who was with a tribe of Blackfeet for years; and his books, into which he puts his rich store of memories of bygone days, have been called “the best of their kind ever written. The dreadful river cave tells the story of a young, brave, black Elk, and his exciting adventures centering about a mysterious cave behind a water-fall. This book originally published by Houghton Mifflin in 1920 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the reformatting.

    Robert Oppenheimer and Leo Szilard, whose lives offer a cautionary tale about the uneasy alliance between the military, the government, and the beginnings of "big science."

    It is a book of wilderness adventure, it is an education in the ingenuities of wilderness housekeeping, filled with practical details about making do, building and rebuilding, gardening for fun and for food, even advice about getting away from getting-away-from-it-all.

    . . . Jardine takes a complex view, according Hooke with the respect and dignity that eluded him for so long. . . [and] with this compelling and empathetic portrait, she succeeds in making a convincing case for his place in history. . . [as] a founding father in Europe’s scientific revolution.”   — Los Angeles TimesThe brilliant, largely forgotten maverick Robert Hooke was an engineer, surveyor, architect, and inventor who worked tirelessly with his intimate friend Christopher Wren to rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666. He was the first Curator of Experiments at the Royal Society, and his engravings of natural phenomena seen under the new microscope appeared in his masterpiece, the acclaimed Micrographia, one of the most influential volumes of the day.But Hooke's irascible temper and his passionate idealism proved fatal for his relationships with important political figures, most notably Sir Isaac Newton: their quarrel is legendary. As a result, historical greatness eluded Robert Hooke. Eminent historian Lisa Jardine does this original thinker of indefatigable curiosity and imagination justice and allows him to take his place as a major figure in the seventeenth century intellectual and scientific revolution.

    David Klatzow was the only independent forensic investigator in South Africa. During the apartheid years, a time of police brutality and state cover-ups, he was the man human rights lawyers called when they needed independent forensic evidence to uncover the truth. Although some cases are still unsolved, for him a case is never closed. The truth is out there, and he will find it.Klatzow's investigations into countless notorious cases, such as the Guguletu Seven, the Trojan Horse, the murders of human rights lawyer Bheki Mlangeni and activist Dr. David Webster, and the bombing of Khotso House and Cosatu House, made him a controversial public figure. Hampered by the apartheid police and the legal system, he was always fearless and earned a reputation of being an 'ANC supporter', even though he always remained impartial. On a non-political level, he was instrumental in changing the testing mechanism for drunk driving in the 1980s and became an expert in fire investigations.One of his most enduring interests is uncovering the truth behind the Helderberg airplane crash. Through a detailed analysis of the findings of the Margo Commission of Inquiry and having sifted through all available evidence, he is convinced that the official version of the story is far from the truth. More recently, Klatzow investigated the Paarl Press fire, the assassination of Brett Kebble and the murder of Inge Lotz. Fascinating reading for anyone interested in crime and current affairs; puts into perspective much of the information one hears about in the news.

    Yes have been on the rock circuit for almost 35 years and Chris Welch was there for the whole crazy journey, interviewing the changing band members many times over the years. Now he tells their complex and often hilarious story with the help of interviews with the band members past and present.

    Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr. Walter Freeman performed his barbaric transorbital—or ice pick—lobotomy.Abandoned by his family within a year of the surgery, Howard spent his teen years in mental institutions, his twenties in jail, and his thirties in a bottle. It wasn’t until he was in his forties that Howard began to pull his life together. But even as he began to live the “normal” life he had been denied, Howard struggled with one question: Why?“October 8, 1960. I gather that Mrs. Dully is perpetually talking, admonishing, correcting, and getting worked up into a spasm, whereas her husband is impatient, explosive, rather brutal, won’t let the boy speak for himself, and calls him numbskull, dimwit, and other uncomplimentary names.”There were only three people who would know the truth: Freeman, the man who performed the procedure; Lou, his cold and demanding stepmother who brought Howard to the doctor’s attention; and his father, Rodney. Of the three, only Rodney, the man who hadn’t intervened on his son’s behalf, was still living. Time was running out. Stable and happy for the first time in decades, Howard began to search for answers. “December 3, 1960. Mr. and Mrs. Dully have apparently decided to have Howard operated on. I suggested [they] not tell Howard anything about it.”Through his research, Howard met other lobotomy patients and their families, talked with one of Freeman’s sons about his father’s controversial life’s work, and confronted Rodney about his complicity. And, in the archive where the doctor’s files are stored, he finally came face to face with the truth.Revealing what happened to a child no one—not his father, not the medical community, not the state—was willing to protect, My Lobotomy exposes a shameful chapter in the history of the treatment of mental illness. Yet, ultimately, this is a powerful and moving chronicle of the life of one man. Without reticence, Howard Dully shares the story of a painfully dysfunctional childhood, a misspent youth, his struggle to claim the life that was taken from him, and his redemption.

    Not until the nineteenth century would three men, armed with the best telescopes of their age, race to conquer this astronomical Everest. Parallax tells the fast-moving story of their contest, which ended in a dead heat. Against a sweeping backdrop filled with kidnappings, dramatic rescue, swordplay, madness, and bitter rivalry, Alan W. Hirshfeld brings to life the heroes -- and heroines -- of this remarkable chapter in history. Characters include the destitute boy plucked from a collapsed building who grew up to become the world's greatest telescope maker; the hot-tempered Dane whose nose was lopped off in a duel over mathematics; a merchant's apprentice forced to choose between the lure of money and his passion for astronomy; and the musician who astounded the world by discovering a new planet from his own backyard.Generously illustrated with period engravings and paintings, Parallax is an unforgettable ride through time and space.

    In The Gentle Subversive, Mark Hamilton Lytle offers a compact life of Carson, illuminating the road that led to this vastly influential book. Lytle explores the evolution of Carson's ideas about nature, her love for the sea, her career as a biologist, and above all her emergence as a writer of extraordinary moral and ecological vision. We follow Carson from her childhood on a farm outside Pittsburgh, where she first developed her love of nature (and where, at age eleven, she published her first piece in a children's magazine), to her graduate work at Johns Hopkins and her career with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Lytle describes the genesis of her first book, Under a Sea Wind, the incredible success of The Sea Around Us (a New York Times Bestseller for over a year), and her determination to risk her fame in order to write her poison book: Silent Spring. The author contends that despite Carson's demure, lady-like demeanor, she was subversive in her thinking and aggressive in her campaign against pesticides. Carson became the spokeswoman for a network of conservationists, scientists, and concerned citizens who had come to fear the mounting dangers of the human assault on nature. What makes this story particularly compelling is that Carson took up this cause at the very moment when she herself faced a losing battle against cancer. Succinct and engaging, The Gentle Subversive is a story of success, celebrity, controversy, and vindication. It will inspire anyone interested in protecting the natural world or in women's struggle to find a voice in society.

    In this masterly synthesis, Arthur Koestler cuts through the sterile distinction between 'sciences' and 'humanities' to bring to life the whole history of cosmology from the Babylonians to Newton. He shows how the tragic split between science and religion arose and how, in particular, the modern world-view replaced the medieval world-view in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. He also provides vivid and judicious pen-portraits of a string of great scientists and makes clear the role that political bias and unconscious prejudice played in their creativity.

    Two of the enemy soldiers, which we often referred to as gooks, quickly came after me. As I quickly mowed them down with my automatic rifle, I crawled backwards away from the enemy gunfire, using my helmet to push sand in front of me as I went, which made it possible to look behind me. But as I looked back, I realized that my safety net was no longer safe. I saw my entire company falling like dominoes. Medics were running left and right, risking their lives to help others with bravery that even the most amazing soldier couldn’t hope to match. Some of the events I witnessed during that moment were beyond comprehension. I watched a young, courageous black medic take an 81-millimeter round to his head, and his whole body instantly turned to smoke. Young nineteen and twenty year old kids were crying like children, but fighting like someone had raped their sisters. So many things were going through my head at that moment, and in one single heartbeat I was overwhelmed with a flashback of my entire life. This is my story, from point A to B, of my life and times in the midst of hell on Earth.”

    The lens he invented was a brilliant feat of engineering that made lighthouses blaze many times brighter, farther, and more efficiently. Battling the establishment, his own poor health, and the limited technology of the time, Fresnel was able to achieve his goal of illuminating the entire French coast. At first, the British sought to outdo the new Fresnel-equipped lighthouses as a matter of national pride. Americans, too, resisted abandoning their primitive lamps, but the superiority of the Fresnel lens could not be denied for long. Soon, from Dunkirk to Saigon, shores were brightened with it.  The Fresnel legacy played an important role in geopolitical events, including the American Civil War. No sooner were Fresnel lenses finally installed along U.S. shores than they were drafted: the Union blockaded the Confederate coast; the Confederacy set about thwarting it by dismantling and hiding or destroying the powerful new lights.Levitt’s scientific and historical account, rich in anecdote and personality, brings to life the fascinating untold story of Augustin Fresnel and his powerful invention.

    prison system, tracking down a chameleon con artist in Europe, or riding in a cyclone-tossed skiff with a scientist hunting the elusive giant squid, David Grann revels in telling stories that explore the nature of obsession and that piece together true and unforgettable mysteries.Each of the dozen stories in this collection reveals a hidden and often dangerous world and, like Into Thin Air and The Orchid Thief, pivots around the gravitational pull of obsession and the captivating personalities of those caught in its grip. There is the world's foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes who is found dead in mysterious circumstances; an arson sleuth trying to prove that a man about to be executed is innocent, and sandhogs racing to complete the brutally dangerous job of building New York City's water tunnels before the old system collapses. Throughout, Grann's hypnotic accounts display the power-and often the willful perversity-of the human spirit.Compulsively readable, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant mosaic of ambition, madness, passion, and folly.