The Franchise: Lebron James and the Remaking of the Cleveland Cavaliers


Terry Pluto - 2007
    . . Take[s] the reader behind the scenes in the Cavaliers' front office, revealing how championship contenders are built" -- Library JournalTwo award-winning sports journalists give an in-depth look at how a team and a city were rebuilt around superstar LeBron James.When the Cleveland Cavaliers drew the top pick in the 2003 NBA draft, an entire city buzzed with excitement. After all, how often does a LeBron James come along? Especially for Cleveland, a midmarket Rust Belt city without a sports championship in forty years. Especially for the Cavaliers, a long-struggling team that had never reached the NBA finals.Soon, everyone had something riding on LeBron--billionaire team owner Dan Gilbert looking for a return on his investment . . . teammates eager for a championship ring . . . the league in need of the next Michael Jordan to promote . . . the shoe company with its multimillion-dollar endorsement deal . . . even popcorn vendors in the stands of Quicken Loans Arena and servers waiting restaurant tables in a downtown that now booms every game night.Terry Pluto and Brian Windhorst tell the converging stories of a struggling franchise that had to get worse in order to get better and a highly touted teenage phenom, the local kid who became their future.This book will fascinate any basketball fan who wants the inside story of how LeBron James became the young superstar shouldering the weight of an entire NBA franchise. Chock full of facts and analysis.

Cades Cove: The Life and Death of a Southern Appalachian Community, 1818-1937


Durwood Dunn - 1988
    McKinney, Western Carolina University.   "This is a fine book. . . . It is mostly about community and interrelationships, and thus it refutes much of the literature that presents Southern Mountaineers as individualistic, irreligious, violent, and unlawful."—Loyal Jones, Appalachian Heritage.  "Dunn . . . has written one of the best books ever produced about the Southern mountains."—Virginia Quarterly Review.  "This study offers the first detailed analysis of a remote southern Appalachian community in the nineteenth century.  It should lay to rest older images of the region as isolated and static, but it raises new questions about the nature of that premodern community."—Ronald D Eller, American Historical ReviewNot only is his book a worthy addition to the growing body of work recognizing the complexities of southern mountain society; it is also a lively testament to the value of local history and the variety of levels at which it can provide significant enlightenment."—John C. Inscoe,LOCUS

England (Lonely Planet Guide)


David Else - 1997
    Includes a new itineraries chapter for easy planning and "weekends to remember" suggestions throughout. of color photos. 128 maps.

R. N. Kao: Gentleman Spymaster


Nitin A. Gokhale - 2019
    Alas, those documents-transcripts of tape-recorded conversations with RN Kao, the legendary spy chief-are not going to be available until 2025, according to instructions left by him, months before he passed away in 2002. So until those tapes and papers are made public, any biography of Rameshwar Nath Kao or 'Ramji' to friends, colleagues and family would have to depend on personal memories of a vast array of individuals who knew him in different capacities and their interpretation of his personality and contribution.

Bring Me Sunshine: A Windswept, Rain-Soaked, Sun-Kissed, Snow-Capped Guide to Our Weather


Charlie Connelly - 2012
    

The Story of Eli Whitney


Jean Lee Latham - 1953
    Eli Whitney transformed the textile industry with his invention of the cotton gin; and he revolutionized the manufacturing process around the world with his creation of standardized parts.

Killing Goldfinger: The Secret, Bullet-Riddled Life and Death of Britain's Gangster Number One


Wensley Clarkson - 2017
    During the late 1990s, Palmer was rated as rich as The Queen by the Sunday Times Rich List.Palmer earned his nickname Goldfinger after smelting (in his back garden) tens of millions of pounds worth of stolen gold bullion from the 20th century's most lucrative heist; the Brink's-Mat robbery. Palmer then used his share of the millions to become the vicious overlord of a vast illegal timeshare property empire in Tenerife. At the same time, Goldfinger financed huge international drugs shipments as well as some of the most notorious UK robberies of the past 30 years, including the £50m Securitas heist in Kent in 2006 and, many believe, the Hatton Garden heist in 2015.Palmer vowed to hunt down all his underworld enemies. But in the end it was those same criminals who decided to bring his life to an end. Murdered in June 2015, with charges of fraud, money laundering and worse pending, this book tells his murky story for the first time.As outrageous and bullet-riddled as the hit Netflix series Narcos, Killing Goldfinger tells the true story of Britain's underworld kingpin, who turned the sunshine holiday island of Tenerife into his very own Crime Incorporated and then paid the ultimate price.

Astronomy


Patrick Moore - 1995
    Filled with data about the Earth, Moon, the planets, the stars, our Galaxy, and the myriad galaxies in deep space, it also reveals the latest scientific discoveries about black holes, quasars, and the origins of the Universe. Written by a premier astronomy expert, this book begins with a discussion of the Sun, from sunspots to solar eclipses. It then features over 100 tables on characteristics of the Moon, and the names, positions, sizes, and other key descriptors of all the planets and their satellites. The book tabulates solar and lunar eclipse, comets, close-approach asteroids, and significant meteor showers dates. Twenty-four maps show the surface features of the planets and their moons. The author then looks to the stars, their distances and movements, and their detailed classification and evolution. Forty-eight star charts cover both northern and southern hemispheres, enabling you to track down and name the main stars in all the constellations. The maps are supported by detailed tables of the names, positions, magnitudes, and spectra of the main stars in each constellation, along with key data on galaxies, nebulae, and clusters. There is a useful catalogue of the world's great telescopes and observatories, a history of astronomy and of space research, and biographies of 250 astronomers who have been most influential in developing the current understanding of the subject.

Into Egypt Again With Ships: A Message To The Forgotten Israelites


Elisha J. Israel - 2009
    This book also reveals the biblical solution that will lead to the complete liberation of a people. All those who have descended from slaves, and consider themselves to be "Negro", "Black", or "African American" should have the audacity to read this book.

The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks


Joe Kloc - 2012
    Decades ago, astronauts brought back 850 pounds of rocks from their lunar journeys; the U.S. gave some away as “goodwill” gifts to the world’s nations. Over time, many of them disappeared, stolen or lost in the aftermath of political turmoil, and offered for millions on the black market. Gutheinz, first as a NASA investigator and then the leader of a intrepid group of students, has dedicated his life to getting them back. Author Joe Kloc tells a wild story of geopolitics, crime, science, and one man’s obsession with keeping the moon out of the wrong hands.

Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather


Mike Smith - 2010
    Science and politics collide in this thrilling account of America's struggle for protection against the deadly threat of violent weather. Warnings tells the dramatic true stories of the unsung weather warriors who save innocent lives, often by risking their own.

Landing Eagle: Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing


Michael Engle - 2019
    It was a sea in name only. It was actually a bone dry, ancient dusty basin pockmarked with craters and littered with rocks and boulders. Somewhere in that 500 mile diameter basin, the astronauts would attempt to make Mankind’s first landing on the Moon. Neil Armstrong would pilot the Lunar Module “Eagle” during its twelve minute descent from orbit down to a landing. Col. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin would assist him. On the way down they would encounter a host of problems, any one of which could have potentially caused them to have to call off the landing, or, even worse, die making the attempt. The problems were all technical-communications problems, computer problems, guidance problems, sensor problems. Armstrong and Aldrin faced the very real risk of dying by the very same technical sword that they had to live by in order to accomplish the enormous task of landing on the Moon for the first time. Yet the human skills Armstrong and Aldrin employed would be more than equal to the task. Armstrong’s formidable skills as an aviator, honed from the time he was a young boy, would serve him well as he piloted Eagle down amidst a continuing series of systems problems that might have fatally distracted a lesser aviator. Armstrong’s brilliant piloting was complemented by Aldrin’s equally remarkable discipline and calmness as he stoically provided a running commentary on altitude and descent rate while handling systems problems that threatened the landing. Finally, after a harrowing twelve and a half minutes, Armstrong gently landed Eagle at “Tranquility Base”, a name he had personally chosen to denote the location of the first Moon landing. In “Landing Eagle-Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing”, author Mike Engle gives a minute by minute account of the events that occurred throughout Eagle’s descent and landing on the Moon. Engle, a retired NASA engineer and Mission Control flight controller, uses NASA audio files of actual voice recordings made inside Eagle’s cockpit during landing to give the reader an “inside the cockpit” perspective on the first Moon landing. Engle’s transcripts of these recordings, along with background material on the history and technical details behind the enormous effort to accomplish the first Moon landing, give a new and fascinating insight into the events that occurred on that remarkable day fifty years ago.

Gangland Britain


Tony Thompson - 1995
    It is an insight into their initiation ceremonies, their methods, their money-raising tactics; a timely portrayal of Britain's worst criminal problem.

Fossils Tell of Long Ago


Aliki - 1972
    Explains how fossils are formed and what they tell us about the past.

Tornado Hunter: Getting Inside the Most Violent Storms on Earth


Stefan Bechtel - 2009
    The Weather Channel, now America's most watched programming, has in recent years shown us a relentless series of hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and eruptions killing thousands, turning millions into refugees, and leaving whole cities in shocked, shattered ruins.Of nature's weapons, tornadoes are among the most unforgiving, and here's an unforgettable portrait of these storms and one extraordinary man who challenged them—and produced the first-ever photographs snatched from a rampaging twister's black heart. Tornado chaser Tim Samaras, working with master storyteller Stefan Bechtel, author of Roar of the Heavens, has created a page-turner with narrative force and scientific substance.In the first of five you-are-there accounts, Tornado Hunter opens with a moment-by-moment description of the 2003 catastrophe that engulfed Manchester, South Dakota. The authors evoke the doomed town and its people; the dark menacing funnel; and Samaras's fearless advance into the whirlwind’s core to deploy the ingenious equipment he devised. They interweave the tornado chaser's passion, the fascinating science of the storms themselves, and six decades of progress in predicting and recording their onslaught—an art beholden to Samaras's own groundbreaking inventions.Tim Samaras's 2004 article in National Geographic became one of the most widely read in the magazine’s history. This powerful book is destined to blast its way onto bestseller lists everywhere.