Book picks similar to
Rituals of Power & Rebellion: The Carnival Tradition in Trinidad & Tobago 1763-1962 by Hollis Chalkdust Liverpool
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The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
Daniel J. Boorstin - 1961
Boorstin’s prophetic vision of an America inundated by its own illusions has become an essential resource for any reader who wants to distinguish the manifold deceptions of our culture from its few enduring truths.Cover design by Matt Dorfman.
The Last of the Tribe: The Epic Quest to Save a Lone Man in the Amazon
Monte Reel - 2010
In 1996 experts got their first glimpse of one: a lone Indian, a tribe of one, hidden in the forests of southwestern Brazil. Previously uncontacted tribes are extremely rare, but a one-man tribe was unprecedented. And like all of the isolated tribes in the Amazonian frontier, he was in danger. Resentment of Indians can run high among settlers, and the consequences can be fatal. The discovery of the Indian prevented local ranchers from seizing his land, and led a small group of men who believed that he was the last of a murdered tribe to dedicate themselves to protecting him. These men worked for the government, overseeing indigenous interests in an odd job that was part Indiana Jones, part social worker, and were among the most experienced adventurers in the Amazon. They were a motley crew that included a rebel who spent more than a decade living with a tribe, a young man who left home to work in the forest at age fourteen, and an old-school sertanista with a collection of tall tales amassed over five decades of jungle exploration. Their quest would prove far more difficult than any of them could imagine. Over the course of a decade, the struggle to save the Indian and his land would pit them against businessmen, politicians, and even the Indian himself, a man resolved to keep the outside world at bay at any cost. It would take them into the furthest reaches of the forest and to the halls of Brazil’s Congress, threatening their jobs and even their lives. Ensuring the future of the Indian and his land would lead straight to the heart of the conflict over the Amazon itself. A heart-pounding modern-day adventure set in one of the world’s last truly wild places, The Last of the Tribe is a riveting, brilliantly told tale of encountering the unknown and the unfathomable, and the value of preserving it.
Art for God's Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts
Philip Graham Ryken - 2006
But what of man-made art? Much of it is devoid of sacred beauty and is often rejected by Christians. Christian artists struggle to find acceptance within the church.Encourages Christian artists in the pursuit of their calling and provides artists and non-artists alike a short introduction to thinking Christianly about the arts.
Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation
Tom Bissell - 2012
He takes us from the set of The Big Bang Theory to the first novel of Ernest Hemingway to the final work of David Foster Wallace; from the films of Werner Herzog to the film of Tommy Wiseau to the editorial meeting in which Paula Fox's work was relaunched into the world. Originally published in magazines such as The Believer, The New Yorker, and Harper's, these essays represent ten years of Bissell's best writing on every aspect of creation—be it Iraq War documentaries or video-game character voices—and will provoke as much thought as they do laughter.What are sitcoms for exactly? Can art be both bad and genius? Why do some books survive and others vanish? Bissell's exploration of these questions make for gripping, unforgettable reading.
All Souls' Rising
Madison Smartt Bell - 1995
The slave uprising in Haiti was a momentous contribution to the tide of revolution that swept over the Western world at the end of the 1700s. A brutal rebellion that strove to overturn a vicious system of slavery, the uprising successfully transformed Haiti from a European colony to the world’s first Black republic. From the center of this horrific maelstrom, the heroic figure of Toussaint Louverture–a loyal, literate slave and both a devout Catholic and Vodouisant–emerges as the man who will take the merciless fires of violence and vengeance and forge a revolutionary war fueled by liberty and equality. Bell assembles a kaleidoscopic portrait of this seminal movement through a tableau of characters that encompass black, white, male, female, rich, poor, free and enslaved. Pulsing with brilliant detail, All Soul’s Rising provides a visceral sense of the pain, terror, confusion, and triumph of revolution.
Waiting on Zapote Street: Love and Loss in Castro's Cuba
Betty Viamontes - 2015
It is a highly-rated novel that marked the introduction to the literary world of its independent author, Betty Viamontes, and continues to expand its international reach. Rio and Laura, two people from opposite backgrounds, meet in Havana, Cuba in January, 1961. A single, unselfish decision to help a stranger shatters their lives. The revolution they unwittingly helped solidify creates a powerful and myopic socialist government that tears them apart. Neither one of them is prepared to face the roller-coaster ride their lives become. Neither one of them could have imagined how much their love for each other would be tested, or for how long, or the impact their choices would have on their families. Also check the author's second book: "Candela's Secrets and Other Havana Stories," an anthology of vivid and engaging stories that is captivating readers in the United States and abroad.
At the Point of a Cutlass: The Pirate Capture, Bold Escape, and Lonely Exile of Philip Ashton
Gregory N. Flemming - 2014
...In Ashton’s story, Flemming struck it rich.”--
Boston Globe
Based on a rare manuscript from 1725, At the Point of a Cutlass uncovers the amazing voyage of Philip Ashton -- a nineteen-year old fisherman who was captured by pirates, escaped on an uninhabited Caribbean island, and then miraculously arrived back home three years later to tell his incredible story.Taken in a surprise attack near Nova Scotia in June 1722, Ashton was forced to sail across the Atlantic and back with a crew under the command of Edward Low, a man so vicious he tortured victims by slicing off an ear or nose and roasting them over a fire. “A greater monster,” one colonial official wrote, “never infested the seas.” Ashton barely survived the nine months he sailed with Low’s crew -- he was nearly shot in the head at gunpoint, came close to drowning when a ship sank near the coast of Brazil, and was almost hanged for secretly plotting a revolt against the pirates.Like many forced men, Ashton thought constantly about escaping. In March of 1723, he saw his chance when Low’s crew anchored at the secluded island of Roatan, at the western edge of the Caribbean. Ashton fled into the thick, overgrown woods and, for more than a year, had to claw out a living on the remote strip of land, completely alone and with practically nothing to sustain him. The opportunity to escape came so unexpectedly that Ashton ran off without a gun, a knife, or even a pair of shoes on his feet. Yet the resilient young castaway -- who has been called America’s real-life Robinson Crusoe -- was able to find food, build a crude shelter, and even survive a debilitating fever brought on by the cool winter rains before he was rescued by a band of men sailing near the island. Based on Ashton’s own first-hand account, as well trial records, logbooks, and a wealth of other archival evidence, At the Point of a Cutlass pieces together the unforgettable story of a man thrust into the violent world of a pirate ship and his daring survival and escape.“A dark and fascinating tale. At the Point of a Cutlass takes us into corners of the pirate life we haven’t been before. …one of the most harrowing survival stories of the colonial era.”-- Stephan Talty, author of Empire of Blue Water, The Illustrious Dead, and Escape from the Land of Snows.“Flemming’s dramatic history of real pirates is vastly better than the Hollywood version!”-- Markus Rediker, author of Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age, and The Slave Ship: A Human History.
The Replacement Bridesmaid
Laurie Ralston - 2012
But she has no purpose, nothing to do. She is resigned to this safe and boring existence when she gets a chance to chuck it all for just a little while and run off to Ireland to be a replacement bridesmaid.Once in Ireland, her old dreams and aspirations come back to her, and so does love. Jill rediscovers herself and ends up finding herself having do choose between her old safe life, or her new risky life and the possibility of heartbreak - or love and fame.Authors note: The first edition of this book had a multitude of mistakes, but this version has been professionally proofread. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did dreaming it up.
A Need to Kill: The True-Crime Account of John Joubert, Nebraska's Most Notorious Serial Child Killer
Mark Pettit - 1990
Now, dramatic and chilling new evidence comes to light exposing the sinister thoughts running through the mind of John Joubert--the man behind the Nebraska killings. Former TV news anchorman, investigative reporter and three time Emmy winner Mark Pettit returns to the case to write the final chapter in his best-selling, and now newly updated book: A Need to Kill: The True-Crime Account of John Joubert, Nebraska’s Most Notorious Serial Child Killer. In the spirit of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” Pettit delves into the Joubert case to tell the dramatic story from all angles as a non-fiction novel. In a series of exclusive, face-to-face interviews with Pettit, Joubert admits to a string of violent crimes and another killing that sends investigators into a frenzy ending with Joubert being convicted for a third murder and ultimately executed in Nebraska’s electric chair. Now, 30 years after the murders in Nebraska, Pettit uncovers shocking new evidence from Joubert’s prison records that proves the killer was fantasizing about committing more violent crimes. Never-before-seen death row drawings made by Joubert while he waited to be executed once again send a chill through Nebraska and those touched by Joubert’s horrific crimes. In the updated version of his book, Pettit opens his investigative files to the public and for the first time, shares handwritten letters Joubert wrote to the journalist while in prison. Pettit also reveals aspects of Joubert’s personality gleaned during the exclusive interviews and details from the death row discussions that have never been shared publicly.
About Looking
John Berger - 1992
In About Looking he explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see. How do the animals we look at in zoos remind us of a relationship between man and beast all but lost in the twentieth century? What is it about looking at war photographs that doubles their already potent violence? How do the nudes of Rodin betray the threats to his authority and potency posed by clay and flesh? And how does solitude inform the art of Giacometti? In asking these and other questions, Berger quietly -- but fundamentally -- alters the vision of anyone who reads his work.
The Last Voyage of Columbus: Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain's Fourth Expedition, Including Accounts of Mutiny, Shipwreck, and Discovery
Martin Dugard - 2005
Christopher Columbus, stripped of his title Admiral of the Ocean Seas, waits in chains in a Caribbean prison built under his orders, looking out at the colony that he founded, nurtured, and ruled for eight years. Less than a decade after discovering the New World, he has fallen into disgrace, accused by the royal court of being a liar, a secret Jew, and a foreigner who sought to steal the riches of the New World for himself. The tall, freckled explorer with the aquiline nose, whose flaming red hair long ago turned gray, passes his days in prayer and rumination, trying to ignore the waterfront gallows that are all too visible from his cell. And he plots for one great escape, one last voyage to the ends of the earth, one final chance to prove himself. What follows is one of history's most epic -- and forgotten -- adventures. Columbus himself would later claim that his fourth voyage was his greatest. It was without doubt his most treacherous. Of the four ships he led into the unknown, none returned. Columbus would face the worst storms a European explorer had ever encountered. He would battle to survive amid mutiny, war, and a shipwreck that left him stranded on a desert isle for almost a year. On his tail were his enemies, sent from Europe to track him down. In front of him: the unknown. Martin Dugard's thrilling account of this final voyage brings Columbus to life as never before-adventurer, businessman, father, lover, tyrant, and hero.