DIVDIVWhen two students are found dead in their small Florida hometown, an aging brother and sister are forced to confront their own dark past while on the hunt for a murderer/divDIV As a successful news photographer, Francis Brimm has lived a life of adventure, traveling the world and accumulating little baggage—either material or personal. Now nearing retirement, he has decided to move back to his Florida hometown, where his sister, Muriel, by her own admission, has led a much less fulfilling existence. As children of an alcoholic father and an icy, withholding mother, the siblings have found that the wounds of childhood remain well into adulthood. The scars of their past come into stark relief when Francis and Muriel find the bones of two children, both students of the nearby school for the blind. In the search for the killer, they are both forced to reexamine the long-ago trauma that shaped their lives./divDIV Suspenseful and psychologically astute, School for the Blind is a masterwork of literary fiction by bestselling author Dennis McFarland./divDIV/div/div
“An irresistible tale that ventures into the ghostly realms of psychology, personality and intimacy” from the bestselling author of The Music Room (San Francisco Chronicle). When their daughter leaves for college, newly minted empty nesters Cookson and Ellen Selway decide to escape the eerie quiet of their home and take a trip to London. But not long after arriving, it becomes apparent that the Selways have traded one unsettling locale for another. Like Cookson, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, the Hotel Willerton has a disturbing past. Fifty years ago, a young girl fell to her death from one of the hotel’s windows, and her ghost is haunting Cookson, slowly drawing him back toward the darkness that once consumed him. As Cookson descends into a spiral of self-destruction, he is joined by two more apparitions, each reflecting the worst parts of himself and forcing him to confront the mistakes of his past that have tormented him for years. From the celebrated author of the Washington Post Best Book of the Year Nostalgia and the New York Times–bestselling The Music Room, this is “a gripping, stylish, consistently entertaining novel” that offers a literary spin on the traditional ghost story (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
DIVDIVDennis McFarland’s acclaimed debut novel, hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “a rare pleasure . . . Remarkable from its beginning to its surprising, satisfying end”/divDIV Musician Marty Lambert’s life is already falling apart when he receives the phone call that changes everything. His brother, Perry, has killed himself in New York, and Marty—with his marriage on the rocks and his record company sliding into insolvency—decides to leave San Francisco to investigate exactly what went wrong. His trip sends him headlong into the life his only brother left behind—his pleasures and disappointments, his friends, his lovely girlfriend, Jane—and finally, to the home they shared growing up in Virginia. Along the way, through memories and dreams, Marty relives their complicated upbringing as the children of talented, volatile musicians and alcoholics. Through the tragedy, Marty finally faces the demons of his past, ones he pretended he had buried long ago, to emerge on the other side of grief, toward solace and a more hopeful future./divDIV/div/div
**Winner of the Michael Shaara Prize for Excellence in Civil War Fiction** **Washington Post Best 50 Books of the Year** Set during the Civil War, this stunning novel from bestselling author Dennis McFarland follows a nineteen-year-old private who is struggling to regain his identity in an overturned American landscape. In the winter of 1864, Summerfield Hayes, a pitcher for the famous Eckford Club, enlists in the Union army, leaving his beloved sister alone in their Brooklyn home. After a particularly grim experience on the battlefield—deserted by his comrades and suffering from deafness and disorientation—he attempts to make his way home but instead lands in a Washington military hospital, mute and unable even to write his name. Among the people he encounters in this twilit realm—including a compassionate drug-addicted amputee, the ward matron who only appears to be his enemy, and the captain who is convinced that Hayes is faking his illness—is a gray-bearded eccentric who visits the ward daily and becomes Hayes’s strongest advocate: Walt Whitman.
Bestselling author Dennis McFarland’s masterful novel about three people’s struggles to reclaim their lives in the wake of unfathomable tragedy In a moment of senseless violence, Malcolm Vaughn’s life is ripped away from him, leaving his wife and child to make sense of the shattered existence that remains. Sarah, a lab scientist and Malcolm’s widow, retreats into herself, refusing to return to work when even the most mundane activities require enormous effort. Malcolm’s son, Harry, just eight years old, goes cold, detaching from the grief that is rippling around him. Meanwhile, Vietnam vet Deckard Jones, Malcolm’s best friend, is forced to come to terms with yet another loss. Sarah, Harry, and Deckard must each find a way to go on while everything around them appears to be crumbling. Stunning and elegant, Singing Boy is a richly drawn novel of mourning, remembrance, and recovery, and a nuanced look at three individuals’ slow march toward healing.
Siblings return to their Southern hometown to rescue their younger sister from her marriage to an evangelical preacher, only to find their expectations turned completely upside down in this novel that reveals the common ground shared by these flawed yet captivating characters.
DIVDIVThe profound coming-of-age story of a young boy growing up in rural Virginia, and the historic summer that would change his life forever/divDIV During the summer of 1959, Virginia’s Prince Edward County is entirely consumed by passionate resistance against, and in other corners, support for, the desegregation of schools as mandated by Brown v. Board of Education. Benjamin Rome, the ten-year-old son of a chicken farmer in one of the county’s small townships, struggles to comprehend the furor that surrounds him, even as he understands the immorality of racial prejudice. Within his own family, opinions are sharply divided, and it is against this charged backdrop that Ben spends the summer working with his friend Burghardt, a black farmhand, under the predatory gaze of Ben’s grandfather./divDIV While the elders of Prince Edward focus on closing the schools, life ambles on, and Ben grows closer to his pregnant sister, Lainie, and his troubled older brother, Al, while also coming to recognize the painful and inherent limitations of his friendship with Burghardt./divDIV Evocative and written with lush historical detail, Prince Edward is a refreshing bildungsroman by bestselling author Dennis McFarland, and a striking portrait of the social upheaval in the American South on the eve of the civil rights movement./divDIV/div/div
This stunning Civil War novel from best-selling author Dennis McFarland brings us the journey of a nineteen-year-old private, abandoned by his comrades in the Wilderness, who is struggling to regain his voice, his identity, and his place in a world utterly changed by what he has experienced on the battlefield. In the winter of 1864, Summerfield Hayes, a pitcher for the famous Eckford Club, enlists in the Union army, leaving his sister, a schoolteacher, devastated and alone in their Brooklyn home. The siblings, who have lost both their parents, are unusually attached, and Hayes fears his untoward secret feelings for his sister. This rich backstory is intercut with scenes of his soul-altering hours on the march and at the front—the slaughter of barely grown young men who only days before whooped it up with him in a regimental ball game; his temporary deafness and disorientation after a shell blast; his fevered attempt to find safe haven after he has been deserted by his own comrades—and, later, in a Washington military hospital, where he finds himself mute and unable even to write his name. In this twilit realm, among the people he encounters—including a compassionate drug-addicted amputee, the ward matron who only appears to be his enemy, and the captain who is convinced that Hayes is faking his illness—is a gray-bearded eccentric who visits the ward daily and becomes Hayes’s strongest advocate: Walt Whitman. This timeless story, whose outcome hinges on friendships forged in crisis, reminds us that the injuries of war are manifold, and the healing goodness in the human soul runs deep and strong.
In late 1901, a number of baseball owners decided to break away from the Western League and form a new league called the American Association. This "outlaw league" refused to recognize organized baseball's reserve clause, but vowed to respect contracts. Unfortunately, organized baseball did not reciprocate. Over the next two years, the leagues battled each other for players, fans, and financial superiority. This narrative of that struggle details the business operations of the different clubs, the difficulties of securing property for ball parks, and the problem of players jumping contracts. It also chronicles the two playing seasons during the conflict and describes the rowdy behavior of both players and umpires that characterized baseball at the time. Although the American Association would go on to a longer and more successful life, this study shows that outcome was by no means certain in the early 20th century.
Eleven high school friends in idyllic North Adams, Massachusetts, enlisted to serve in Vietnam, and one stayed behind to protest the war. All were from patriotic, working-class families, all members of the class of 1965 at Saint Joseph's School. Dennis Pregent was one of them. He and his classmates joined up--most right out of school, some before graduating--and endured the war's most vicious years. Seven served in the Army, three in the Marine Corps, and one in the Navy. After fighting in a faraway place, they saw the trajectories of their lives dramatically altered. One died in combat, another became paralyzed, and several still suffer from debilitating conditions five decades later. Inspired by his 50th high school reunion, Pregent located his classmates, rekindled friendships, and--together, over hours of interviews--they remembered the war years.
Faced with a 1-A draft classification after graduation from college in the spring of 1968, the author decided to control his own destiny by volunteering for the draft. Soon he was given the one job he most wanted to avoid--infantryman. This is a foot soldier's story of twelve long months in Vietnam. Assigned to the 25th Infantry Division, much of his time was spent fighting a guerrilla war along the Cambodian border during the "Vietnamization" program. Day-to-day platoon operations produced dread, fear, bafflement, loyalty, disillusionment and ecstasy among the men fighting and dying in the jungle. The lack of leadership, both military and political, exacerbated the conditions.
Immigrant American soldiers played an important, often underrated role in World War I. Those who were non-citizens had no obligation to participate in the war, though many volunteered. Due to language barriers that prevented them from receiving proper training, they were often given the most dangerous and dirty jobs. The impetus for this book was the story of Matthew Guerra (the author's great-uncle). He immigrated to America from Italy around age 12. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1918 and shipped to France, where he joined the 58th Infantry Regiment of the 4th "Ivy" Division and participated in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives. Wounded in the Bois de Fays, the 22-year-old Guerra died in a field hospital.
For more than a century Johnny Evers has been conjoined with Chicago Cubs teammates Frank Chance and Joe Tinker, thanks to eight lines of verse by a New York columnist. Caricatured as a scrawny, sour man who couldn't hit and who owed his fame to that poem, in truth he was the heartbeat of one of the greatest teams of the 20th century and the fiercest competitor this side of Ty Cobb. Evers was at the center of one of baseball's greatest controversies, a chance event that sealed his stardom and stole a pennant from John McGraw and the New York Giants in 1908. Six years later, following reversals and tragedies that resulted in a nervous breakdown, he made a comeback with the Boston Braves and led that team to the most improbable of championships. Spanning the time from his birth in Troy, New York, to his death less than a year after his election to the Hall of Fame, this is the biography of a man who literally wrote the book about playing second base.
Part how-to, part personal narrative, this book provides a practical guide for creating native-species ecogardens. It chronicles the author's 20-year journey of environmental awakening. With the help of the greater community, a neglected five-acre condominium landscape is transformed into a stunning range of multi-seasonal prairie, woodland and wetland micro-habitats. This illustrated account describes the process of ecological reconciliation and traces his discovery of the higher self along the way.
Intelligence services, businesses and governments use a sinister methodology called an influence campaign to sway the core values of their own countries and others around the globe. This method is used by many different types of world governments (including the U.S.) and can pervade many different sectors of public life. Even seemingly powerful politicians are impacted by influence campaigns. While influence campaigns differ from political campaigns or corporate advertising, they share similar characteristics. Both influence behavior by manipulating beliefs to produce an outcome favorable to the campaign goal. This book explains the mechanisms of influence campaigns and how they affect policy making, often in surprising ways. Chapters detail examples of influence campaigns waged by various governments throughout the years and suggest how the public consciousness should deal with these strategies. As targets of these campaigns, citizens must understand how our leaders use them for their own benefit.
Nearly every year since 1939, baseball's most outstanding players, umpires, pioneers and executives have been enshrined at Cooperstown in a public ceremony attracting thousands of fans from across (and sometimes beyond) the United States. Whether conferred by the Baseball Writers Association of America, the Veterans Committee, or in the case of 17 Negro League greats in 2006, an ad hoc committee of historians, Hall of Fame membership is the game's highest honor. This book covers the origins and history of the Hall of Fame museum and its election process, provides general information on each year's class and induction ceremony, and includes concise biographical and career discussion for every Hall of Famer, as well as commentary on his (Effa Manley is the lone female) path to election, and highlights of his speech.
During the Chickamauga Campaign, General Stanley's two Union cavalry divisions battled Forrest's and Wheeler's cavalry corps in some of the most difficult terrain for mounted operations. The Federal troopers, commanded by Crook and McCook, guarded the flanks of the advance on Chattanooga, secured the crossing of the Tennessee River, then pushed into enemy territory. The battle exploded on September 18 as Col. Minty and Col. Wilder held off a determined attack by Confederate infantry. The fighting along Chickamauga Creek included notable actions at Glass Mill and Cooper's Gap. Union cavalry dogged Wheeler's forces throughout Tennessee. The Union troopers fought under conditions so dusty they could hardly see, leading the infantry through the second costliest battle of the war.
During its two-year history, the cavalry of the Army of the Cumberland fought the Confederates in some of the most important actions of the Civil War, including Stones River, Chickamauga, the Tullahoma Campaign, the pursuit of Joseph Wheeler in October 1863 and the East Tennessee Campaign. They battled with legendary Confederate cavalry units commanded by Nathan Bedford Forrest, John Hunt Morgan, Wheeler and others. By October 1864, the cavalry grew from eight regiments to four divisions--composed of units from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and Tennessee--before participating in Sherman's Atlanta Campaign, where the Union cavalry suffered 30 percent casualties. This history of the Army of the Cumberland's cavalry units analyzes their success and failures and re-evaluates their alleged poor service during the Atlanta Campaign.
The Nashville Campaign, culminating with the last major battle of the Civil War, is one of the most compelling and controversial campaigns of the conflict. The campaign pitted the young and energetic James Harrison Wilson and his Union cavalry against the cunning and experienced Nathan Bedford Forrest with his Confederate cavalry. This book is an analysis of contributions made by the two opposing cavalry forces and provides new insights and details into the actions of the cavalry during the battle. This campaign highlighted important changes in cavalry tactics and never in the Civil War was there closer support by the cavalry for infantry actions than for the Union forces in the Battle of Nashville. The retreat by Cheatham's corps and the Battle of the Barricade receive a more in-depth discussion than in previous works on this battle. The importance of this campaign cannot be overstated as a different outcome of this battle could have altered history. The Nashville Campaign reflected the stark realities of the war across the country in December 1864 and would mark an important part of the death knell for the Confederacy.
In 1887, Tip O'Neill, left fielder for the St. Louis Browns, won the American Association batting championship with a .492 average--the highest ever for a single season in the Major Leagues. Yet his record was set during a season when a base on balls counted as a hit and a time at bat. Over the next 130 years, the debate about O'Neill's "correct" average diverted attention from the other batting feats of his record-breaking season, including numerous multi-hit games, streaks and long hits, as well as two cycles and the triple crown. The Browns entered 1887 as the champions of St. Louis, the American Association and the world. Following the lead set by their manager, Charles Comiskey, the Browns did "anything to win," combining skill with an aggressive style of play that included noisy coaching, incessant kicking, trickery and rough play. O'Neill did "everything to win" at the plate, leaving the no-holds-barred tactics to his rowdier teammates.
Medical student turned professional soldier David S. Stanley offered forty years of service to his country on the western frontier and during the Civil War. He participated in some of most important Civil War battles, including the Battle of Iuka, the Battle of Corinth, the Battle of Stones Rivers, the Battle of Resaca, the Battle of Spring Hill, and the Battle of Franklin. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Franklin where he was shot while rallying his troops. Stanley was a complex individual who showed concern for his soldiers and ferocity in battle. As Rosecrans' chief of cavalry, he deserves much credit for making the Union cavalry an important and daunting power in the Western Theater. He also commanded the IV Army Corps at the end of the war. Stanley was a formidable adversary of his enemies and he clashed with William T. Sherman, Jacob Cox and William B. Hazen. This biography covers not only his military career but also his personal life, including his conversion to Roman Catholicism and problem with alcohol.
Within hours of the strike against Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military sprang into action to implement a "contingency plan" previously drawn up to protect the coast against a full-scale German invasion or incursions by Nazi espionage agents and saboteurs. The War Department placed the 26th "Yankee" Division (YD) under the jurisdiction of the 1st Coast Artillery District, a subdivision of the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps. Military leaders charged the division with securing the coast of New England and Long Island, later expanding its area to include the entire eastern seaboard. Focusing primarily on the unit's work in "home defense" from January 1942 through November 1943, this history begins with prewar activation and training and recounts in detail the two highly publicized incidents of saboteurs coming ashore in June 1942. Also included are reports of U-boat sightings and encounters with subversive agents by veterans of the YD while on patrol. Firsthand accounts by members of the division provide a look at day-to-day operations. Appendices contain a number of previously unpublished historical documents. Many period photographs complete this history of a previously undocumented chapter of World War II history.
In this heartfelt memoir, Dennis Blessing, Sr., shares his experiences as a grunt in the First Cavalry Division in 1966 and 1967. Blessing's story is drawn from his own remembrance and from the 212 letters that he wrote to his wife while deployed. Among his many combat experiences was the battle of Bong Son in May 1966, in which his platoon was nearly wiped out, going from 36 to only 6 troopers in just a few hours. Told with honesty and vulnerability, the book combines gripping combat with personal reflection, and the author hopes that his story will help other veterans escape the shadow of the war.
Ron Necciai once struck out 27 hitters in a nine-inning minor league game. Floyd Giebell beat Bob Feller to clinch the 1940 American League pennant for the Detroit Tigers. John Paciorek had three hits in three at bats in his big league debut—and never played another game in the majors. These three players and twelve other talented men (Bill Koski, Ed Sanicki, Joe Stanka, Bill Rohr, Al Autry, Joe Brovia, John Leovich, Bert Shepard, Doug Clarey, Marshall Mauldin, Bernie Williams, and Frank Leja) reached the top of their profession only to sink back into obscurity. Through interviews with all the players and extensive research, their stories are told. Major and minor league year-by-year statistics for each player are included.
Ernest Hemingway spent about one-third of his life in Cuba and grew to love the country and its people. This travel narrative follows a journey across the island in search of Hemingway's Cuba and how it influenced some of his writings. The author seeks out Hemingway's haunts in Old Havana and his home in Finca Vigia and explores the north coast fishing village of Cojimar, his setting for The Old Man and the Sea. Along the way there are glimpses of Cuban geography and history, as well as the lives of modern Cubans.
Born in Surrey in 1918, Dennis David had a very distinguished war record, both during the Battle for France and the Battle of Britain. This is his autobiography of his flying career until he retired in 1967.
At the Battle of Stones River, General David Stanley's Union cavalry repeatedly fought General Joseph Wheeler's Confederate cavalry. The campaign saw some of the most desperately fought mounted engagements in the Civil War's Western Theater and marked the end of the Southern cavalry's dominance in Tennessee. This history describes the events leading up to the battle and the key actions, including the December 31 attack by Wheeler's cavalry, the Union counterattack, the repulse of General John Wharton by the 1st Michigan Engineers and Wheeler's daring raid on the rear of Williams Rosecrans' army. The author reassesses the actions of General John Pegram's cavalry brigade.
In July 1862, the directors of the Chicago Board of Trade used their significant influence to organize perhaps the most prominent Union artillery unit in the Western Theater. Enlistees were Chicagoans, mainly clerks. During the Civil War, the battery was involved in 11 major battles, 26 minor battles and 42 skirmishes. They held the center at Stones River, repulsing a furious Confederate attack. A few days later, they joined 50 other Union guns in stopping one of the most dramatic offensives in the Western Theater. With Colonel Robert Minty's cavalry, they resisted an overwhelming assault along Chickamauga Creek. This history chronicles the actions of the Chicago Board of Trade Independent Light Artillery at the battles of Farmington, Dallas, Noonday Creek, Atlanta, in Kilpatrick's Raid, and at Nashville, and Selma.
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