Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son


John Jeremiah Sullivan - 2004
    The answer came as a surprise. "I was at Secretariat's Derby, in '73. That was . . . just beauty, you know?" Sullivan didn't know, not really: the track had always been a place his father disappeared to once a year on business, a source of souvenir glasses and inscrutable passions in his Kentucky relatives. But in 2000, Sullivan, an editor and essayist for Harper's, decided to educate himself. He spent two years following the horse-both across the country, as he watched one season's juvenile crop prepare for the Triple Crown, and through time, as he tracked the animal's constant evolution in literature and art, from the ponies that appeared on the walls of European caves 30,000 years ago, to the mounts that carried the Indo-European language to the edges of the Old World, to the finely tuned but fragile yearlings that are auctioned off for millions of dollars apiece every spring and fall. The result is a witty, encyclopedic, and in the end profound meditation on what Edwin Muir called our "long-lost archaic companionship" with the horse. Incorporating elements of memoir and reportage, the Wunderkammer and the picture gallery, "Blood Horses "lets us see--as we have never seen before--the animal that, more than any other, made us who we are.

Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s


Jason Turbow - 2017
    Never before had an entire organization so collectively traumatized baseball's establishment with its outlandish behavior and business decisions, let alone an indisputably winning record: five consecutive division titles and three straight championships. The drama that played out on the field was exceeded only by the drama in the clubhouse and front office. But those A's, with their garish uniforms and outlandish facial hair, redefined the game for coming generations. Under the visionary leadership of owner Charles O. Finley, the team assembled such luminaries as Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Vida Blue. Finley acted as his own general manager, his insatiable need for control dictating everything from the playlist of the ballpark organist to the menu for the media lounge. So pervasive was his meddling that one of his managers, Dick Williams, quit in the middle of the championship celebration following Oakland's Game 7 victory over the Mets in the 1973 World Series. The advent of free agency spelled the end of Finley's reign; within two years, his dynasty was lost. A sprawling, brawling history of one of baseball’s unforgettable teams, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic is a paean to a turbulent, magical time.

No Strings Attached: The Inside Story of Jim Henson's Creature Shop


Matt Bacon - 1997
    300+ color photos & illustrations.

Recording The Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used To Record Their Classic Albums


Kevin Ryan - 2006
    It addresses the technical side of The Beatles' sessions and was written with the assistance of many of the group's former engineers and technicians [1]. The book looks at every piece of recording equipment used at Abbey Road Studios during the Beatles' sessions, including all microphones, outboard gear, mixing consoles, speakers, and tape machines. Each piece is examined in great detail, and the book is illustrated with hundreds of full color photographs, charts, drawings and illustrations. How the equipment was implemented during the group's sessions is also covered. The effects used on the Beatles' records are addressed in great detail, with full explanations of concepts such as ADT and flanging. The Production section of the book looks at the group's recording processes chronologically, starting with their "artist test" in 1962 and progressing through to their final session in 1970. The book contains several rare and unseen photos of the Beatles in the studio. The studio personnel and the studio itself is examined.The authors spent over a decade researching the subject matter and offer up their findings in exhaustive detail. The 540-page hardcover book has been highly praised not only for its massive scope, but also for its presentation. The "Deluxe" version, released in September of 2006, was housed in a replica EMI multi-track tape-box, complete with faux time-worn edges. Rather than a listing of the tape's contents, the back of the box featured the book's contents, hand-written by former Beatles tape-op and engineer, Ken Scott. The book was also accompanied by several "bonus items", including reproductions of never-seen photos of the Beatles. The first printing of 3,000 books sold out in November of 2006, and a second printing was released in February of 2007. The book is currently in its fourth printing.The book has been critically praised by recognized Beatles authority Mark Lewisohn (who also contributed the book's Foreword), The New York Times[2][3], Mojo (magazine) (which gave it 5 stars), Beatles engineers Norman Smith, Ken Scott, and Alan Parsons, Yoko Ono, and many other individuals directly involved with the Beatles' work. The release of the book was celebrated in November 2006 with a party in Studio Two at Abbey Road [4]. In attendance were most of the Beatles' former engineers and technicians.

With A Little Help From My Friends: The Making of Sgt. Pepper


George Martin - 1994
    In this book the band's producer George Martin tells his story of the nine months it took to make the recording, featuring songs such as "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" to "A Day in the Life" and "She's Leaving Home". 1966 had seen a crossroads in the Beatles career, with the band under strain from the pressures of live performances. They decided to make an album that was like a show. Martin follows through the creation of the album's songs and offers an insight into the recording process itself.

Center of Attention: A True Crime Memoir


Jami D. Brown Martin - 2020
    The photo looks completely out of place on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list where it’s been since December, 8, 2007. For eight of those years, Jason appeared directly beside Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is long gone, but Jason is still wanted for armed robbery and murder.For years, his sister, Jami D. Brown Martin has watched the true crime programs and read the amateur investigative blogs devoted to Jason, his crime, and the efforts to apprehend him knowing the story wasn’t as simple, nor was it just Jason’s. To be the sister, brother, or relative of one of the world’s most wanted men is to live every day with the horrible truth and many consequences of his brutal act.CENTER OF ATTENTION is the story of a former Mormon missionary turned murderer. It is also a riveting look behind the facade of the genetically blessed, seemingly prominent and pious Brown family of Laguna Beach, California. It is a tale of the family patriarch, John Brown, who disappeared without a trace ten years before his son. More important, it is the gripping and ultimately hopeful story of the sister of one of the world’s most wanted fugitives and her journey to accept that despite being a product of the same crazy environment as her brother, her life and path are her own.

A History of Women Photographers


Naomi Rosenblum - 1994
    In every aspect of the medium -- portraiture, social and scientific documentation, advertising, photo-journalism, personal expression -- women have been highly active creators. Yet their achievements have often been overlooked and occasionally even credited to their male spouses or colleagues.With A History of Women Photographers, Dr. Naomi Rosenblum -- author of A World History of Photography -- helps set the record straight. She explores the work of some 250 women photographers, from Julia Margaret Cameron to Tina Modetti, Margaret Bourke-White, and Cindy Sherman. Her ground-breaking work provides an invitingly readable chronicle both of the women's creativity and of the challenging contexts within which they worked. In addition to the illuminating text and striking photographs are densely detailed individual biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography. All of this has made A History of Women Photographers an invaluable resource.The new edition has 2 new color images (replacing two earlier choices) and 15 additional black-and-white images; the final three chapters have been revised and updated, as have the copious bibliography and biographies.

National Geographic Complete Photography


National Geographic Society - 2011
    Not just a how-to book, it is a how-does-it-work book, focusing on cameras, photographs, and photographers. Throughout, voices and photographs from the greatest of National Geographic photographers add authority to these pages. Chapters build from camera basics—like how a digital camera works, what different lenses do, and the definition of exposure—to advanced and specific techniques—such as taking the best family candids, underwater photography, or techniques for capturing fireworks on film. Every chapter includes a feature called "My Perspective," highlighting a National Geographic photographer and his or her work with a personal note on photography. Every chapter ends with a feature called "What Makes This Photograph Great?"—twelve different iconic National Geographic photographs are analyzed thoroughly for their subject matter, composition, lighting and exposure—by James P. Blair, longtime National Geographic photographer. A fascinating illustrated timeline of photography places milestone moments in the developing technology and art of photography into historic context. With something for everyone, novice and experienced amateur alike, designed in such a way that a reader can dip in and out of page after page, this complete reference will become a family favorite, to which young and old will refer over and over for years to come.

The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began


Stuart Clark - 2007
    Around the world, telegraph systems crashed, machines burst into flames, and electric shocks rendered operators unconscious. Compasses and other sensitive instruments reeled as if struck by a massive magnetic fist. For the first time, people began to suspect that the Earth was not isolated from the rest of the universe. However, nobody knew what could have released such strange forces upon the Earth--nobody, that is, except the amateur English astronomer Richard Carrington.In this riveting account, Stuart Clark tells for the first time the full story behind Carrington's observations of a mysterious explosion on the surface of the Sun and how his brilliant insight--that the Sun's magnetism directly influences the Earth--helped to usher in the modern era of astronomy. Clark vividly brings to life the scientists who roundly rejected the significance of Carrington's discovery of solar flares, as well as those who took up his struggle to prove the notion that the Earth could be touched by influences from space. Clark also reveals new details about the sordid scandal that destroyed Carrington's reputation and led him from the highest echelons of science to the very lowest reaches of love, villainy, and revenge. The Sun Kings transports us back to Victorian England, into the very heart of the great nineteenth-century scientific controversy about the Sun's hidden influence over our planet.

Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime


Mark Frost - 2009
    The Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds have endured an excruciating three-day rain delay. Tonight, at last, they will play Game Six of the World Series. Leading three games to two, Cincinnati hopes to win it all; Boston is desperate to stay alive. But for all the anticipation, nobody could have predicted what a classic it would turn out to be: an extra-innings thriller, created by one of the Big Red Machine's patented comebacks and the Red Sox's improbable late-inning rally; clutch hitting, heart-stopping defensive plays, and more twists and turns than a Grand Prix circuit, climaxed by one of the most famous home runs in baseball history that ended it in the twelfth. Here are all the inside stories of some of that era's biggest names in sports: Johnny Bench, Luis Tiant, Sparky Anderson, Pete Rose, Carl Yastrzemski--eight Hall of Famers in all--as well as sportscasters and network execs, cameramen, umpires, groundskeepers, politicians, and fans who gathered in Fenway that extraordinary night.Game Six is an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at what is considered by many to be the greatest baseball game ever played--remarkable also because it was about so much more than just balls and strikes. This World Series marked the end of an era; baseball's reserve clause was about to be struck down, giving way to the birth of free agency, a watershed moment that changed American sports forever. In bestselling author Mark Frost's talented hands, the historical significance of Game Six becomes every bit as engrossing as its compelling human drama.

Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy


Joseph Balkoski - 1989
    Using interviews, official records and unit histories, this book follows the 29th from bloody landings at Omaha through the hedgerows of Normandy, illustrating the brutal realities of life on the front line.

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World: A Retrospective


Henri Cartier-BressonPhilippe Arbaizar - 2003
    Born in 1908, he studied painting before embarking on a career in photography in the 1930s. In 1940 he was captured by the Germans and spent three years in prisoner-of-war camps before escaping to join the Paris underground. With Robert Capa, David Seymour and others, he founded the photographic agency Magnum in 1947. Since then his work has taken him all over the world - from Europe to India, Burma, Pakistan, China, Japan, Indonesia, Bali, Russia, the Middle East, Cuba, Mexico, the United States and Canada. This new collection of work by Cartier-Bresson, created on the occasion of his ninety-fifth birthday, provides the ultimate retrospective look at a lifetime's achievement. It includes the first photographs taken by him, a significant number of which have never been published, rarely seen work from all periods of his life, classic photographs that have become icons of the medium, and a generous selection of drawings, paintings and film stills. The book also features personal souvenirs of Cartier-Bresson's youth, his family and the founding of Magnum. Cartier-Bresson's extraordinary images are shaped by an eye a

Into the Mirror: The Life of Master Spy, Robert P. Hanssen


Lawrence Schiller - 2002
    Into the Mirror is the story of FBI Special Agent Robert P. Hanssen, the master spy who singlehandedly created the greatest breach of security in the country's history. Written in novelistic prose, Schiller creates a gripping portrait of Hanssen, who for 22 years was a loving husband, devoted father of six, devout Catholic & member of Opus Dei, passionate anticommunist, dedicated FBI agent & a traitor. On 2/18/01, the FBI arrested Hanssen & charged him with selling to the Russians--over a period of more than 20 years--top-secret, classified information. Nothing reported to date about this ordinary-looking but tormented man has revealed the facts that Schiller & Norman Mailer--collaborators on the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Executioner's Song & Oswald's Tale--uncovered during their 9-month investigation into the life of this man. Seeking to solve this mystery, they spent hundreds of hours interviewing members of his family as well as his closest friends, colleagues & fellow church members. They traveled to Moscow to interview a key member of the KGB who had handled the spy they knew only as "Ramon Garcia." Into the Mirror gets inside the mind of a devious & dangerously brilliant man & creates a portrait of someone so caught up in the struggle with his own personal demons that he would betray everything he held sacred: his wife, family, religion & country.

Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye


Gilles Mora - 1989
    Evans documented the look and feel of much of his native country in a notably distinct way throughout the majority of the twentieth century. This definitive retrospective of Evans's career, which received France's Prix de Nadar and England's Krasna-Kraus Award when first published in hardcover, is now available for the first time as a reduced-format paperback." "Prepared by John T. Hill in cooperation with Gilles Mora, Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye begins with the artist's early abstractions and his project on the Brooklyn Bridge done in collaboration with American poet Hart Crane, and continues through Evans's photographic studies of New England and New York Victorian buildings; his travels to Tahiti and Cuba; his work in Florida and New Orleans; and his three-year involvement with the Farm Security Administration. A highlight of this volume is the material from Evans's highly influential show American Photographs at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, re-created in exactly the sequence that Evans established for the original exhibition." No broader or more comprehensive view of this important, innovative, and distinguished photographer exists to date. With all of the images superbly reproduced from negatives prepared by Thomas Palmer, this volume will long stand as a tribute to an American original.

Performance


Richard Avedon - 2008
    It's what we do for each other all the time, deliberately or unintentionally. It's a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognized as what we'd like to be."--Richard Avedon, 1974The preeminent stars and artists of the performing arts from the second half of the 20th century offered their greatest gifts—and, sometimes, their inner lives—to Richard Avedon. More than 200 are portrayed in Performance, many in photographs that have been rarely or never seen before. Of course, the great stars light the way: Hepburn and Chaplin, Monroe and Garland, Brando and Sinatra. But here too are the actors and comedians, pop stars and divas, musicians and dancers, artists in all mediums with public lives that were essentially performances, who stand at the pinnacle of our cultural achievement. The celebrated author and critic John Lahr offers an elegant assessment of Avedon’s achievement. Four supremely talented artists from the performing arts—Mike Nichols, André Gregory, Mitsuko Uchida, and Twyla Tharp—contribute lively and moving memoirs about their collaborations with Avedon.