In his first collection of short fiction, Bill Barich gives us cause to celebrate a prose stylist who can gracefully cross the boundaries of genre. As stated by Anne Tyler, Hard to Be Good is so large and complete that you tend to look up at the end and find yourself surprised that it’s still the same day. Set in the American West, as are three other of the seven stories in this book, it is about the unselfconscious struggle for wholeness in a divided family. Its adolescent protagonist moves from innocence to experience in the course of a summer vacation with his mother and her third husband, and the result is satisfying, rather than harrowing. The attempt to make signification relationships cohere, to weather the transformation of innocence, informs all the stories in this book, and in Barich’s worlds the outcome is often good—knowledge does not always lead to hopelessness. Highly disparate mothers covering on a couple in Idaho Falls (“Where the Mountains Are”) have much to teach and learn, a nineteen-year-old American studying in Florence accepts the surprising human complications of an outsider’s great pensione adventure (“Caravaggio”) . . . and that’s just a few of Barich’s brilliant stories. Hard to Be Good is a book of real feeling, breadth, and narrative movement. As Frederick Exley wrote, “Barich is a splendidly gifted writer.” Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Sports talk in America has evolved from small-time barroom banter into a major media smorgasbord that runs 24/7 on TV and radio. With hundreds of billions of dollars generated annually by pro and college teams in major markets nationwide, sports fans across the country are more dedicated than ever to their teams. And when it comes to sports talk -- especially all-sports radio -- it's all about entertainment, information, prognostication, analysis, rankings, and endless discussion. Prominent sports-media figures in each of the three target cities -- Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. -- engage in this phenomenon with a compilation of sports lists sure to delight as well as stir up debate within these already-buzzing sports communities. List topics include: What were the most lopsided trades in local sports history? Who were the most overrated athletes to play in our town? What local athlete had the best appearance in TV or film? What was the most heartbreaking loss in local sports history? What was the greatest single play in local sports history? Who are our team's most hated rivals? Plus dozens of "guest" lists contributed by famous local sports and entertainment celebrities. With franchises in three of the four major pro sports -- the Browns (NFL), the Indians (MLB), and the Cavaliers (NBA) -- plus a dedicated following of the Ohio State University athletics, Cleveland's fans are some of the most rabid and knowledgeable in the country, and Bill Livingston and Greg Brinda are the acknowledged authorities on Cleveland-area sports.
On the morning of May 9, 1980, harbor pilot John Lerro was guiding a 600-foot freighter, the Summit Venture, into Tampa Bay. Directly in the ship’s path was the Sunshine Skyway Bridge--two ribbons of concrete, steel, and asphalt that crossed fifteen miles of open bay. Suddenly, a violent weather cell reduced visibility to zero at the precise moment when Lerro attempted to direct the 20,000-ton vessel underneath the bridge. Unable to stop or see where he was going, Lerro drove the ship into a support pier; the main span splintered and collapsed 150 feet into the bay. Seven cars and a Greyhound bus fell over the broken edge and into the churning water below. Thirty-five people died. Skyway tells the entire story of this horrific event, from the circumstances that led up to it through the years-long legal proceedings that followed. Through personal interviews and extensive research, Bill DeYoung pieces together the harrowing moments of the collision, including the first-person stories of the survivors, and remembers those whose lives were cut short by the events of that fateful day. Similarly, DeYoung details the downward spiral of Lerro’s life, his vilification in the days and weeks that followed the accident, and his obsession with the tragedy well into his painful last years. DeYoung also offers a history of the ill-fated bridge, from its construction in 1954, through the addition of a second parallel span in 1971, to its eventual replacement. He discusses the sinking of a Coast Guard cutter a mere three months before Skyway collapsed and the Department of Transportation’s dire warnings about the bridge’s condition. The result is a vividly detailed portrait of the rise and fall of a Tampa Bay landmark.
Usability testing and user experience research typically take place in a controlled lab with small groups. While this type of testing is essential to user experience design, more companies are also looking to test large sample sizes to be able compare data according to specific user populations and see how their experiences differ across user groups. But few usability professionals have experience in setting up these studies, analyzing the data, and presenting it in effective ways. Online usability testing offers the solution by allowing testers to elicit feedback simultaneously from 1,000s of users. Beyond the Usability Lab offers tried and tested methodologies for conducting online usability studies. It gives practitioners the guidance they need to collect a wealth of data through cost-effective, efficient, and reliable practices. The reader will develop a solid understanding of the capabilities of online usability testing, when it's appropriate to use and not use, and will learn about the various types of online usability testing techniques. - The first guide for conducting large-scale user experience research using the internet - Presents how-to conduct online tests with 1000s of participants – from start to finish - Outlines essential tips for online studies to ensure cost-efficient and reliable results
BATMAN ARKHAM: CLAYFACE collects some of the villain's greatest stories by some of the industry's greatest creators, including Ed Brubaker (Captain America), Len Wein (SWAMP THING), Mike W. Barr (BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS), Darwyn Cooke (DC: THE NEW FRONTIER), J.H. Williams III (BATWOMAN), Mike Mignola (Hellboy) and many more! Washed-up actor Basil Karlo. Matt Hagen, a common crook. Preston Payne, tragic scientist. These are just a few of the many people who have claimed the name Clayface! Some of them have incredible shape-changing abilities, while others have a deadly touch that can melt a person into a puddle of protoplasm. All of them have tormented the citizens of Gotham City and been defeated by the Dark Knight and his allies. Now witness the origins of their transformations and learn their ultimate fate! Collects DETECTIVE COMICS #40, #298, #478-479, OUTSIDERS #21, SECRET ORIGINS #44, BATMAN #550, CATWOMAN #4, BATMAN GOTHAM KNIGHTS #69, 70, 71, and BATMAN SECRET FILES AND ORIGINS VILLAIN #1.
Measuring the User Experience was the first book that focused on how to quantify the user experience. Now in the second edition, the authors include new material on how recent technologies have made it easier and more effective to collect a broader range of data about the user experience. As more UX and web professionals need to justify their design decisions with solid, reliable data, Measuring the User Experience provides the quantitative analysis training that these professionals need. The second edition presents new metrics such as emotional engagement, personas, keystroke analysis, and net promoter score. It also examines how new technologies coming from neuro-marketing and online market research can refine user experience measurement, helping usability and user experience practitioners make business cases to stakeholders. The book also contains new research and updated examples, including tips on writing online survey questions, six new case studies, and examples using the most recent version of Excel. - Learn which metrics to select for every case, including behavioral, physiological, emotional, aesthetic, gestural, verbal, and physical, as well as more specialized metrics such as eye-tracking and clickstream data - Find a vendor-neutral examination of how to measure the user experience with web sites, digital products, and virtually any other type of product or system - Discover in-depth global case studies showing how organizations have successfully used metrics and the information they revealed - Companion site, www.measuringux.com, includes articles, tools, spreadsheets, presentations, and other resources to help you effectively measure the user experience
Many of baseball¿s most memorable moments come from endings, otherwise known as ¿last licks.¿ But even the most celebrated last licks have aspects fans are not aware of. Indeed, there is no end to the anecdotes, humor and trivia associated with last licks. Some of the final acts described in this book include:Summary and analysis of some of the great postseason finishes, including:¿Bobby Thompson¿s ¿Shot Heard `Round the World¿ in the 1951 playoffs¿Dave Roberts steal of second base in Game Four of the 2004 ALCSA comprehensive list of every perfect game thrown in Major League History and analysis of the most impressive streaks, including:¿Joe DiMaggio¿s 56-game hitting streak¿Darren Lewis¿ streak of 369 errorless gamesGreat last moments in some of the most famous stadiums in history, including Old Comiskey, Crosley Field and the Polo Grounds. Eulogies and career statistics for ballplayers who passed before their time, including Urban Shocker, Roberto Clemente and the recent tragedy of Josh Hancock.Heroic, and not-so-heroic endings to Hall of Fame careers, including:¿Rogers Hornsby¿s career-ending, walk-off grand slam in 1922¿Ted Williams¿ scandalous final at-bat in 1960, a towering home run to center field that ended when Williams refused a curtain call for the 11,000 fans in attendanceContains box scores, line scores, career statistics and photos for some of the greatest games and players in MLB history. A must-have for any baseball library.
Contents Should we tell you the whole story? Of course, there is an inevitable tension in trying to work like this. For example, in Chapter 16 we talk about referential integrity. There are - sentially six different flavors of referential integrity but Access only s- ports four of them (they are the most important ones however, so you aren’t missing out on too much). The problem is this. Should we tell you about the other two? If we do, as an Access user you have every right to be annoyed that we are telling you about a feature you can’t use. On the other hand, the six different types that we describe are part of the re- tional world and this book is about that world – we are not trying to teach you how to use Access, we are simply using Access to illustrate the relational model. Ultimately we decided to risk your ire and to describe all of the features of the relational model as we see it, even if Access doesn’t support all of them. One advantage of this approach is that if you need to use a different database engine you will almost certainly find the extra information useful. Incidentally, this is not meant to imply that Access is somehow lacking as a relational database engine. The reason we chose it for the first book is that it is such a good example of a relational database tool.
The mystery man threw off his disguise and started to run. Furious stewards gave chase. The crowd roared. A legend was born. Soon the world would know him as 'the ghost runner'. John Tarrant. The extraordinary man whom nobody could stop. As a hapless teenage boxer in the 1950s, he'd been paid £17 expenses. When he wanted to run, he was banned for life. His amateur status had been compromised. Forever. Now he was fighting back, gatecrashing races all over Britain. No number on his shirt. No friends in high places. Soon he would be a record-breaker, one of the greatest long-distance runners the world has ever seen. This is his true story: The Ghost Runner.
Discover the secret method used to build the world... For millennia, humans have used one simple method to solve problems. Whether it's planting crops, building skyscrapers, developing photographs, or designing the first microchip, all creators follow the same steps to engineer progress. But this powerful method, the "engineering method", is an all but hidden process that few of us have heard of—let alone understand—but that influences every aspect of our lives. Bill Hammack, a Carl Sagan award-winning professor of engineering and viral "The Engineer Guy" on Youtube, has a lifelong passion for the things we make, and how we make them. Now, for the first time, he reveals the invisible method behind every invention and takes us on a whirlwind tour of how humans built the world we know today. From the grand stone arches of medieval cathedrals to the mundane modern soda can, Hammack explains the golden rule of thumb that underlies every new building technique, every technological advancement, and every creative solution that leads us one step closer to a better, more functional world. Spanning centuries and cultures, Hammack offers a fascinating perspective on how humans engineer solutions in a world full of problems. Perfect for readers of Adam Grant and Simon Winchester, The Things We Make is a captivating examination of the method that keeps pushing humanity forward, a spotlight on the achievements of the past, and a celebration of the potential of our future that will change the way we see the world around us.
America's Missouri River may be the nation's longest and most historically significant river, encompassing many of America's natural wonders between Missouri and Montana, draining almost 600,000 square miles in ten states and part of Canada, and, after Lewis and Clark's expedition 200 years ago, opening the West to a frenzied rush of expansion. But the Missouri is also the site of a vast, politically driven drama. It tops a list of emerging big-stakes river wars around the country that pit conservation, development, farm, barge, American Indian, and government interests against one another in clashes made even more complicated by the scarcity of water in many river basin states. In Big Muddy Blues, veteran journalist Bill Lambrecht uses the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark's epic adventure west as a lens to show the other side of the story: what's been lost over 200 years. And the losses, on top of the 120 miles cut off the river by Army Corps stabilization efforts, aren't slight. Dependent on every word uttered in courtrooms and legislatures for their futures are more than 80 rare and endangered species, the family farms that require a stabilized river, the barges of shippers that require a heavier flow, and dozens if not hundreds of sacred Native American burial grounds. Running through it all is the water--more than 2,300 miles of it--that slakes the thirst of people in one-sixth of the nation and has, in the last few hundred years, been home to Native Americans, explorers, and settlers; river pirates, shipwrecks, and steamboats; and farmers, conservationists, and the Army. This is the story of "Big Muddy," of its influence on the formation and stability of our nation and of its place in the center of an escalating river war that will set the stage for water wars in the decades to come.
Artwork from 30 of the industry's top photographers is used to highlight both clearcut shooting strategies and colorful, cutting edge approaches to family portraiture in this handbook intended for idea gathering and inspiration. Advice on focal length, perspective, and maximizing the potential of digital equipment highlights the technical aspects of family portraiture while group posing strategies demonstrate how best to flatter each subject and convey a sense of family unity. A lengthy discussion of lighting—the backbone of portraiture—and the manipulation of shadows and highlights instructs photographers on how to create mood and interest in a variety of lighting scenarios, both indoors and out. Specifics on adjusting body lines, colors, and shapes, working with young children, and creating a comfortable atmosphere ensure that the photographer captures the unique personality of each family with dynamic and attractive images.
Louisiana Fiddlers shines light on sixty-two of the bayou state's most accomplished fiddlers of the twentieth century. Author Ron Yule outlines the lives and times of these performers, who represent a multitude of fiddling styles including Cajun, country, western swing, zydeco, bluegrass, Irish, contest fiddling, and blues.Featuring over 150 photographs, this volume provides insight into the fiddlin' grounds of Louisiana. Yule chronicles the musicians' varied appearances from the stage of the Louisiana Hayride, honky tonks, dancehalls, house dances, radio and television, and festivals, to the front porch and other more casual venues. The brief sketches include observations on musical travels, recordings, and family history.Nationally acclaimed fiddlers Harry Choates, Dewey Balfa, Dennis McGee, Michael Doucet, Rufus Thibodeaux, and Hadley Castille share space with relatively unknown masters such as Mastern Brack, Cheese Read, John W. Daniel, and Fred Beavers. Each player has helped shape the region's rich musical tradition.
Thomas Clayton is a City trader working the markets in London's Square Mile and living, financially, on borrowed time. But when he returns home to New York for his father's funeral to discover he has been left nearly $50 million in a numbered Swiss bank account, he's at a complete loss to explain how his professor father could have come by such a sum. Whatever the explanation, the mysterious windfall has come at exactly the right time. So he travels to Zurich, secures the funds, and tells his wife to make an offer on her dream country mansion. What Tom doesn't know yet is that his father was being used as a 'ghost' to clean up dirty money by a New York laundry operation: really the money belongs to Carlos Morales, Medellin's biggest cocaine baron. Tom's actions in Europe spark a murderous turf war in the Americas between the cartels of Medellin and Cali, involving a cast of bent lawyers, cops, undercover DEA - and transatlantic assassins who'll stop at nothing or no one to make Tom pay his debt...
Harpur and Iles juggle a new drug kingpin and a new chief in this hilarious police procedural from “the Elmore Leonard of Britain’s underworld” (Kirkus Reviews). After his wife and son are gunned down in what appears to be a hit gone wrong, Local drug boss Mansel Shale turns to religion, leaving his drug business up for grabs. His second-in-command, a weirdo who believes he is Generalissimo Franco, is the wrong man to lead the organization, especially with rival Ralph Ember eager to gain control of Shale’s territory. Neither Assistant Chief Desmond Iles nor DCS Colin Harpur wants a drug war. Both believe in the motto “No blood on the pavement.” But their new chief has a different motto—“Lock ’em up and toss away the key”—and is pushing matters in the wrong direction. “The qualities that make James’s books stand out from the crowd are his masterful ability with words and his howlingly funny, darkly brutal humor. . . . Despite the seriousness of the plot, it’s impossible not to laugh aloud at the fierce ripostes, subtle digs, and overt insults peppered across every page. A true delight from a genre master.” —Booklist (starred review) “Not only the most stylishly adventurous books in British crime fiction today but also the funniest.” —The Telegraph
In this engrossing follow-up to The True Intrepid, author Bill Macdonald explores secrets only hinted at in that book. The WW II Macdonald explores secrets only hinted at in that book. The WW II Canadian spymaster William Stephenson - known widely as "Intrepid" Canadian spymaster William Stephenson - known widely as “Intrepid" was not only tasked to get help for anti-Nazi Europe and assist setting up was not only tasked to get help for anti-Nazi Europe and assist setting up an American intelligence agency.Stephenson faced a secret Anglophile an American intelligence agency.Stephenson faced a secret Anglophile group covertly seeking a quick peace with Adolf Hitler. Often referred to group covertly seeking a quick peace with Adolf Hitler. Often referred to as "The Milner Group;' the organization reportedly swayed major events as "The Milner Group;' the organization reportedly swayed major events of the twentieth century and likely has major influence today. of the twentieth century and likely has major influence today. Intrepid's Last Secrets: Then and Now Intrepid's Last Secrets: Then and Now explores The Milner Group's history explores The Milner Group's history in Canada, from its relationship to in Canada, from its relationship to Canadian prime ministers of the first half Canadian prime ministers of the first half of the twentieth century - to its probable of the twentieth century - to its probable impact on modern cultural policy and impact on modern cultural policy and government. Both British and American government. Both British and American strands of the group are explored with strands of the group are explored with a study of some of the prominent early members, their philosophies, and their members, their philosophies, and their strategic influence on events and our lives. This book includes the final interview with the late Svetlana Gouzenko, who, along with her husband Igor, fled to Canada from the soviet Union in 1945. The information they brought with them revealed massive Soviet espionage in the West and helped trigger the Cold War. A few of Stephenson’s former British Security Coordination (BSC) agents tell their story for the first time and the organization’s major area of accomplishment - World War II communications (the genesis of the so-called "Five Eyes" agreement) - is explained. Meticulously researched and engagingly written, Intrepid's Last Secrets presents a unique, fascinating, and ultimately deeply chilling take on modern history.
“Dr. Relf turns a breadth of knowledge into an intricate novel.” (DP Review) “Brisk and entertaining, Thoughts of Empire brings to life a high stakes world filled with lethal threats, geopolitical conspiracies, and boardroom scheming.” (Foreward Reviews) As a public speaker, Cameron Ash, “Cash,” advocates a controversial foreign policy that should be read by the American President. Angered by the speech, a Middle Eastern government sends an assassin after Cash. After the recent loss of his wife and children in a mysterious plane crash, Cash takes over as president of Lone Pine Technologies in Colorado. He cleans house, uncovers accounting fraud, and grows the company through acquisitions. Cash encounters an Iranian industrial espionage effort within his company, run by the ‘Ghostman,’ who is known for his elimination of Iranian dissidents in Europe. Haunted by the failure to protect his family, he emerges from despair and rebuilds his life. He finds love with a beautiful Israeli scientist. Cash faces constant peril. His quest for truth through a tangled geopolitical web makes him a target, to the point where Cash buys a hotel and builds a rooftop fortress to protect himself. To Cash’s great surprise, clues surface which hint that his ex-father-in-law may be organizing an effort to take over the White House. He also discovers a world-shaking move in the Middle East that could bring war and political realignments. Wondering what tragedies will hit him next, Cash bulldozes into the unknown. Experiences can entertain and inspire. I want to provide unforgettable characters, and actions that challenge the mind and tug the heart. Hidden truths travel openly in fiction. Years of living and travelling in Southeast Asia, China, Iran, and Europe provide a backdrop for Cash, as he struggles with the interplay of geopolitics, business, and religion on the global stage. My active participation in politics, including managing a Congressional campaign, supports Cash’s political instincts. Twenty-five years of owning manufacturing and consulting businesses bring realism to Cash’s business adventures. University degrees in international politics, business, and theology, plus years of university teaching, support Cash’s strategies. Cash’s involvement in today’s political turmoil leads to a surprising story. Some unsettling realities and forecasts are a part of this novel. Dr. Relf also wrote “The Iranian Connection,” another novel starring Cash. He and his wife, Virginia, live somewhere in California.
From the early days of minstrelsy to Black Broadway, this book is the story of African American entertainment as seen through the eyes of some of its most famous as well as others of its practitioners. The book moves from the beginning of African American participation in show business up through the present age. Will Marion Cook and Billy McClain are discovered in action at the very dawn of black parity in the entertainment field; six chapters later, the young Sammy Davis, Jr., breaks through the invisible ceiling that has kept those before him "in their place." In between, the likes of Valaida Snow, Nora Holt, Billy Strayhorn, Hazel Scott, Dinah Washington, and others are found making contributions to the fight against racism both in and out of "the business.
A truly alternative look at music lists, not one that merely includes the obvious but shows the connections of popular music to the avant garde, the obscure, the experimental, the quirky, and the adventurous, this edition leads the curious reader towards new musical experiences hitherto unknown to them.
Long before there was the Super Bowl, the NBA Championship, the Final Four, or the World Cup, there was the World Series. In the beginning, men in derbies sat in the outfield and marveled at Mathewson and McGraw. Today, fans congregate in sports bars, staring at screens big enough to see which players have shaved that day. For a century, the World Series has captured the nation’s imagination. The drama has included Willie Mays’s catch, of course, and Reggie Jackson’s home runs, and the gratifying day when Walter Johnson finally won. But the plot lines have also featured the audacious fixing of the 1919 Series and the unlikely heroics of various journeymen never much heard of before the span of a few brilliant autumn days, and never much heard of since. There has been one perfect game. There have been any number of perfectly inexplicable managerial decisions, not all of them made by managers of the Red Sox. There has been drama, comedy, and pathos. Fall Classics is a collection of the best writing about the World Series in its first hundred years. Certainly it is a kind of history of the event. It is also a catalog of the work of some of the most accomplished and entertaining writers of the past century, since the World Series has drawn to itself not only our best sports scribblers, but many writers who wouldn’t have dreamed of writing about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Final Four, or even the Super Bowl. Here you’ll find Jimmy Breslin telling Damon Runyon’s fantastic story of how he got the scoop on where Grover Cleveland Alexander spent the first innings of a seventh game he eventually won. (Hint: It wasn’t the bullpen.) Satchel Paige recalls his experience of finally getting to pitch in the Series in 1948. Red Smith writes about Willie Mays’s last hurrah with the Mets in 1973 against the A’s. And Peter Gammons and Roger Angell give their takes on the two most famous game sixes of all, Gammons on 1975 and Angell on 1986. The games and the memories go on. For every fan whose heart yearns for a bleacher seat, a ballpark frank, and a slice of October Americana, Fall Classics is a treasure.
#1 New York Times Bestseller President Bill Clinton’s My Life is the strikingly candid portrait of a global leader who decided early in life to devote his intellectual and political gifts, and his extraordinary capacity for hard work, to serving the public. My Life: The Early Years (Volume I) shows us the progress of a remarkable American, who, through his own enormous energies and efforts - fueled by an impassioned interest int he political process - made the unlikely journey from his birth in hope Arkansas, to his election as the 42nd President of the United States. Also available - My Life: The Presential Years (Volume II)
Truth is stranger than fiction. If you've imagined famous writers to be desk-bound drudges, think again. Writers Gone Wild rips back the (book) covers and reveals the seamy underside of the writing life. Insightful, intriguing, and irresistibly addictive, Writers Gone Wild reveals such fascinating stories as: * The night Dashiell Hammett hired a Chinese prostitute to break up S. J. Perelman's marriage (and ran off with his wife). * Why Sylvia Plath bit Ted Hughes on the cheek. * Why Ernest Hemingway fought a book critic, a modernist poet, and his war correspondent/wife Martha Gellhorn (but not at the same time). * The near-fatal trip Katherine Anne Porter took while high on marijuana in Mexico. * Why women's breasts sent Percy Bysshe Shelley screaming from the room. * The day Virginia Woolf snuck onto a Royal Navy ship disguised as an Abyssinian prince. Pull up a chair, turn on good reading light, and discover what your favorite writers were up to while away from their desks. Sometimes, they make the wildest characters of all.
Helping others to make occupational choices requires a combination of skill and a deep understanding of the world of work as it is today and will be in the future. Unlike texts that focus only on skill, Careers Guidance in Context is designed to develop understanding of the factors that shape both the labour market, and careers guidance as an occupation in itself. Careers Guidance in Context re-evaluates the concept of `a career′ in the light of economic restructuring, globalization and the growth of information technology. It draws together up-to-date theories about guidance work and debates the importance of integrating theory and practice. Examining the processes in which practitioners engage when working with individual clients, the book also explores careers guidance within a group setting - an area that has previously been neglected in the literature. The book will be invaluable to students on courses in careers guidance, counselling and education. It will also be of great interest to professionals who need to keep up-to-date with current thinking and practice.
Nantucket is an island approximately thirty miles off the Massachusetts coast. Along with Tuckernuck and Muskeget Islands, they compose Nantucket County. The island was discovered by the Englishman Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602, and was first settled in 1659 by Quakers from Salisbury, Massachusetts, originally from West Country in England. Though Nantuckets days of glory are long gone, it is still remembered in mainstream culture as the initial setting of the fictional tale Moby Dick, as well as a handful of limericks that begin with, There once was a man from Nantucket Author Bill Hoadley is a son of Nantucket, and in his autobiographical book, Please Walk Your Horses Up This Hill, he shares with readers the rich history and notable personalities that have walked through or lived in this island since the first Western settlers arrived. Emphasis is placed during the years of his life and the places and people that he lived with. It also contains a genealogy of the authors family, with notable members of his ancestry given special mention. The vivid descriptions and narrations contained within this book are supplemented by authentic photographs of people and places close to the authors heart.
With contributions from Cheryl Strayed, Mark Cuban, Ta-Nahesi Coates, Melinda Gates, Joss Whedon, James Patterson, and many more -- this fascinating collection gives us a peek into 150 personal treasures and the secret histories behind them. All of us have that one object that holds deep meaning--something that speaks to our past, that carries a remarkable story. Bestselling author Bill Shapiro collected this sweeping range of stories--he talked to everyone from renowned writers to Shark Tank hosts, from blackjack dealers to teachers, truckers, and nuns, even a reformed counterfeiter--to reveal the often hidden, always surprising lives of objects.
The 24th novel in the Harpur & Iles series follows DCI Harpur into an illicit narcotics ring. There’s intrigue right from the start of this new entry in Bill James’s Harpur and Iles series: A houseful of paintings is stolen and the body of a finely dressed stranger is discovered. Villainous drug dealers fight for dominance on Constable Iles and Detective Harpur’s turf. While the kingpins maneuver and scheme, Harpur is helped-or hindered?-by his very persistent daughters and by Iles’s irregular and perhaps illicit methods. In this fast-paced thriller, there’s no telling who will catch the next bullet.
The twenty-seventh title in the popular Harpur and Iles series. A street shooting leaves a mother and child dead on the school run. But was this a random attack? Unlikely, when it transpires that the victims were the wife and son of well-known drug baron Mansel Shale. Having committed this atrocity, the gunman flees to a nearby shop where a hostage situation quickly develops. Detective Chief Inspector Harpur and Assistant Chief Constable Iles are brought in to oversee the siege - which ends in sudden tragedy. But as subsequent events unfold, it appears that the gunman wasn't tracking Shale after all, but his wife . . .
The biography of Bob Harper, a B-17 ball turret gunner with the 8th Air Force who survived 35 combat missions over Germany in WWII, and was shot down twice. At 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighing just 110 pounds, Bob Harper was below the minimum size requirements for US military service. As the demand for manpower increased, rules were bent, Harper’s deferment was retracted, and he was drafted into the Army. Harper was deployed to the European front and survived 35 combat missions as a B-17 ball turret gunner. Based at airfields in England, Bob and the 381st Bomb Group flew brutal missions over heavily defended industrial centers in Germany. Harper was shot down twice and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Through his letters home, combat reports, and extensive interviews with author Bill Cullen, Harper describes his harrowing experiences on board the Flying Fortresses of the Eighth Air Force. Cullen’s interviews with Harper took place over a period of years, and it is the anecdotes from the interviews that drive the majority of the narrative. The ball turret was located underneath the aircraft and was a confined, intense, and unique environment from which to experience combat during the Second World War. Readers will find Harper, who went on to a successful business career after the war, to be an insightful, witty, and engaging storyteller.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Janet Maslin, The New York Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch When Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money? Dedman has collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her. Dedman and Newell tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world. Huguette was the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, nearly as rich as Rockefeller in his day, a controversial senator, railroad builder, and founder of Las Vegas. She grew up in the largest house in New York City, a remarkable dwelling with 121 rooms for a family of four. She owned paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls. But wanting more than treasures, she devoted her wealth to buying gifts for friends and strangers alike, to quietly pursuing her own work as an artist, and to guarding the privacy she valued above all else. The Clark family story spans nearly all of American history in three generations, from a log cabin in Pennsylvania to mining camps in the Montana gold rush, from backdoor politics in Washington to a distress call from an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. The same Huguette who was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11 held a ticket nine decades earlier for a first-class stateroom on the second voyage of the Titanic. Empty Mansions reveals a complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms.
This book makes the case for Bertolt Brecht’s continued importance at a time when events of the 21st century cry out for a studied means of producing theatre for social change. Here is a unique step-by-step process for realizing Brecht’s ways of working onstage using the 2015 Texas Tech University production of Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children as a model for exploration. Particular Brecht concepts—the epic, Verfremdung, the Fabel, gestus, historicization, literarization, the “Not...but,” Arrangement, and the Separation of the Elements—are explained and applied to scenes and plays. Brecht’s complicated relationship with Konstantin Stanislavsky is also explored in relation to their separate views on acting. For theatrical practitioners and educators, this volume is a record of pedagogical engagement, an empirical study of Brecht’s work in performance at a higher institution of learning using graduate and undergraduate students.
At the time of the Civil War, roughly three out of every four southern whites did not own slaves. Most of the rest owned only a few. Until recently, these "common whites" have been largely forgotten. In the past few years, several important studies have examined common whites in individual counties or groups of counties, but they have focused on family life, the economy, or other specific features of the common-white life. Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina is the first comprehensive examination of these non-slaveholders and small slaveholders in over forty years. Using North Carolina as a case in point, Bill Cecil-Fronsman has sketched a broad portrait of the world made by this group. Drawing on travelers' accounts, newspapers, folksongs and folktales, quantitative analysis of census reports, and, above all, the common whites' own words, he has woven the individual threads of the culture into an in-depth analysis of their world and their responses to it. This work focuses on the issues of class and culture. Here, Cecil-Fronsman explores why the common whites accepted the slave system even though it worked to their disadvantage. He demonstrates how the market economy of the outside world played a negligible role in their lives and how their unique traditional attitudes toward family and community evolved. Finally, he recounts how, though most common whites supported the Confederate cause during the Civil War, many of the old loyalties broke down during the war years. The common whites, though they outnumbered the slaves and the elites, make up the least studied group in the Old South. This book takes us beyond the stereotypes and misconceptions to a betterunderstanding of a group of people virtually ignored by traditional history.
Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody were considered heroes and the greatest plainsmen of their time. They were larger than life, legendary characters. They knew where to locate water, good grass for livestock, sheltered campsites, and game for hunting. They knew how to survive the blistering heat and terrific thunderstorms of summer and the subzero blizzards of winter. They could avoid Indians or act as trackers following the trails of Indians as well as desperados. They were expert marksmen and did not back down from a fight. They rushed in where others held back. Hickok, a frontier wagon and stagecoach driver, became a Union spy during the Civil War, furthering his reputation after the war as a frontier Army scout, gunfighter, and lawman. Cody, who claimed to ride for the Pony Express, served in the Union Army, and became legendary as an expert buffalo hunter and Army scout. Hickok and Cody were good friends and experienced a series of adventures together. Hickok traveled to Deadwood, Dakota Territory, during the 1876 Black Hills goldrush where he was assassinated by Jack McCall. Cody continued scouting for the Army and after the Battle of the Little Big Horn, won a one-on-one duel with a Cheyenne warrior, Yellow Hair. Cody went on to become one of the most well-known showmen in the world with his Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody: Plainsmen, the fourth book in the Legendary West series, explores the lives of these two well-known characters.
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