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Blood in the Fields: Ten Years Inside California's Nuestra Familia Gang
By Julia Reynolds. 2014
The city of Salinas, California, is the birthplace of John Steinbeck and the setting for his epic masterpiece East of…
Eden, but it is also the home of Nuestra Familia, one of the most violent gangs in the United States. Born in the prisons of California in the late 1960s, Nuestra Familia expanded to control drug trafficking and extortion operations throughout the northern half of the state, and left a trail of bodies in its wake. Award-winning journalist Julia Reynolds tells the gang's story from the inside out, following young men and women as they search for a new kind of family, quests that usually lead to murder and betrayal. Blood in the Fields also documents the history of Operation Black Widow, the FBI's questionable decade-long effort to dismantle the Nuestra Familia, along with its compromised informants and the turf wars it created with local law enforcement agencies. Reynolds uses her unprecedented access to gang members, both in and out of prison, as well as undercover wire taps, depositions, and court documents to weave a gripping, comprehensive history of this brutal criminal organization and the lives it destroyed.Nine Lives of a Black Panther: A Story of Survival
By Wayne Pharr. 2014
In the early morning hours of December 8, 1969, hundreds of SWAT officers engaged in a violent battle with a…
handful of Los Angeles-based members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP). Five hours and 5,000 rounds of ammunition later, three SWAT team members and three Black Panthers lay wounded. For the Panthers and the community that supported them, the shootout symbolized a victory, and a key reason for that victory was the actions of a 19-year-old rank-and-file member of the BPP: Wayne Pharr. Nine Lives of a Black Panther tells Pharr's riveting story of life in the Los Angeles branch of the BPP and gives a blow-by-blow account of how it prepared for and survived the massive attack. He illuminates the history of one of the most dedicated, dynamic, vilified, and targeted chapters of the BPP, filling in a missing piece of Black Panther history and, in the process, creating an engaging and hard-to-put-down memoir about a time and place that holds tremendous fascination for readers interested in African American militancy.During Prohibition, while Al Capone was rising to worldwide prominence as Public Enemy Number One, the townspeople of rural Templeton,…
Iowa--population just 418--were busy with a bootlegging empire of their own. Led by Joe Irlbeck, the whip-smart and gregarious son of a Bavarian immigrant, the outfit of farmers, small merchants, and even the church Monsignor worked together to create a whiskey so excellent it was ordered by name: Templeton Rye. Gentlemen Bootleggers tells a never-before-told tale of ingenuity, bootstrapping, and perseverance in one small town, showcasing a group of immigrants who embraced the American ideals of self-reliance, dynamism, and democratic justice. It relies on previously classified Prohibition Bureau investigation files, federal court case files, extensive newspaper archive research, and a recently disclosed interview with kingpin Joe Irlbeck. Unlike other Prohibition-era tales of big-city gangsters, it provides an important reminder that bootlegging wasn't only about glory and riches, but could be in the service of a higher goal: producing the best whiskey money could buy.Case Files of the NYPD: More than 175 Years of Solved and Unsolved Crimes
By Robert Mladinich, Bernard Whalen, Philip Messing. 2018
"Characters galore, both good guys and gangsters, leap from the pages" (The New York Times) in this irresistible, authentic look…
at 175 years of true crime cases from the NYPD archives, packed with photos, artifacts and expert revelations. From atrocities that occurred before the establishment of New York's police force in 1845 through the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 to the present day, this chronological visual history is an insider's look at more than 80 real-life crimes that shocked the nation, from arson to gangland murders, robberies, serial killers, bombings, and kidnappings, including: Architect Stanford White's fatal shooting at Madison Square Garden over his deflowering of a teenage chorus girl. The anarchist bombing of Wall Street in 1920, which killed 39 people and injured hundreds more with flying shrapnel. Kitty Genovese's 1964 senseless stabbing, famously witnessed by dozen of bystanders who did not intervene. Robert Chambers, the handsome, wealthy ex-Choate student, who murdered Jennifer Levin in Central Park, called "The Preppy Murder Case." Son of Sam, a serial killer who eluded police for months while terrorizing the city, was finally apprehended through a simple parking ticket. Perfect for crime buffs, urban historians, and fans of American Crime Story, this riveting collection details New York's most startling and unsettling crimes through behind-the-scenes analysis of investigations and more than 250 revealing photographs.A Life Lived Outdoors: Reflections Of A Maine Sportsman
By George Smith. 2014
From laugh-out-loud funny to deeply poignant, A Life Lived Outdoors presents a collection of hand-picked essays by George Smith, one…
of Maine's favorite outdoor writers, exploring the way life should be, could be, and sometimes is in the great state of Maine. After writing more than 850,000 words for his newspaper editorial column, over a 22-year period, George Smith had plenty to offer for this, a collection of his favorite columns. In his first book, George writes about home and camp, family and friends, life in rural Maine, hunting and fishing and other outdoor fun. Readers will also find a few columns that previously appeared in Down East magazine, and some that George wrote especially for this book.All of Me: How I Learned to Live with the Many Personalities Sharing My Body
By Kim Noble. 2012
Taking the reader through an extraordinary world where the very nature of reality is different, this personal narrative tells the…
story of one woman's terrifying battle to understand her own mind. From the desperate struggle to win back the child she loves to the courage and commitment needed to make sense of her life, this account recalls Kim Noble's many years in and out of mental institutions and various diagnoses until finally being appropriately diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID). Described as a creative way some minds cope with unbearable pain, DID causes Kim's body to play host to more than 20 different personalities--from a little boy who speaks only Latin and an elective mute to a gay man and an anorexic teenager. Sometimes funny and ultimately uplifting, this brave illumination of the links and intersections between memory, mental illness, and creativity offers a glimpse into the mind of someone with DID and helps readers understand the confusion, frustration, and everyday difficulties in living with this disorder.Hostage: A Year at Gunpoint with Somali Pirates
By Paul Chandler, Sarah Edworthy, Rachel Chandler. 1987
On October 23, 2009, Somali pirates kidnapped Paul and Rachel Chandler from their sailing boat, the Lynn Rival, in the…
Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean. In this remarkable memoir, the Chandlers recount their terrifying ordeal, revealing the inspiring and poignant story behind the dramatic headlines. The book chronicles the aftermath of the attack, and how the Chandlers' captors held them in Somalia for more than a year while trying to extort millions of dollars from their middle-class family. It goes on to describe how despite enduring threats, intimidation, solitary confinement, and even whippings, their unshakable belief in each other and their determination to survive sustained them. With its detailed, day-to-day account of the experience of being held captive by pirates, this unique and inspiring story will resonate with travelers the world over.Science in History: Death in Beijing
By Daniel Asen. 2016
In this innovative and engaging history of homicide investigation in Republican Beijing, Daniel Asen explores the transformation of ideas about…
death in China in the first half of the twentieth century. In this period, those who died violently or under suspicious circumstances constituted a particularly important population of the dead, subject to new claims by police, legal and medical professionals, and a newspaper industry intent on covering urban fatality in sensational detail. Asen examines the process through which imperial China's old tradition of forensic science came to serve the needs of a changing state and society under these dramatically new circumstances. This is a story of the unexpected outcomes and contingencies of modernity, presenting new perspectives on China's transition from empire to modern nation state, competing visions of science and expertise, and the ways in which the meanings of death and dead bodies changed amid China's modern transformation.In Plain Sight: The Startling Truth behind the Elizabeth Smart Investigation
By Lee Benson, Tom Smart. 2005
This riveting inside story of the intense search for the Salt Lake City teenager reveals never-before-told details of the largest…
investigation in Utah state history. The firsthand account of Tom Smart, Elizabeth's uncle and one-time suspect, reveals the details of the flawed police investigation, the media's manipulation of the family, and the eyewitness account of nine-year-old Mary Katherine Smart that went largely ignored by investigators. New research is presented on the family background of disturbed street preacher Brian David Mitchell, who kidnapped Elizabeth as part of a bizarre polygamous plot. Also examined is the critical role of the media, revealing the essential part played by John Walsh and others in facilitating Elizabeth's safe return, and the manipulative influence of Fox News and Bill O'Reilly. Going beyond a mere eyewitness account, the book includes information culled from interviews with more than 150 people involved in the search and investigation, notes from family meetings, and memos from law enforcement officials.Die Nigger Die!: A Political Autobiography of Jamil Abdullah al-Amin
By H. Rap Brown. 1969
More than any other black leader, H. Rap Brown, chairman of the radical Black Power organization Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee…
(SNCC), came to symbolize the ideology of black revolution. This autobiography--which was first published in 1969, went through seven printings and has long been unavailable--chronicles the making of a revolutionary. It is much more than a personal history, however; it is a call to arms, an urgent message to the black community to be the vanguard force in the struggle of oppressed people. Forthright, sardonic, and shocking, this book is not only illuminating and dynamic but also a vitally important document that is essential to understanding the upheavals of the late 1960s. University of Massachusetts professor Ekwueme Michael Thelwell has updated this edition, covering Brown's decades of harassment by law enforcement agencies, his extraordinary transformation into an important Muslim leader, and his sensational trial.Knocking at the Open Door: My Years with J. Krishnamurti
By R. E. Lee. 2015
An insightful revelatory and heartfelt narrative that bring out various unknown facets of the world teacher…
J Krishnamurti and highlights his distinctive vision for education worldwide This volume presents an eyewitness account of the practical and everyday relations of the Mark Lee with Krishnamurti 1895 1986 who was a prolific author as well as a renowned and respected educator and speaker Such relations reveal warmth and closeness leading to a deep understanding of some of the unexplained mysteries surrounding the man and his teachings Mark Lee was first introduced to Krishnamurti s teachings as a teenager in 1955 and to Krishnamurti himself in 1965 For the next 45 years he worked in the Krishnamurti foundations as teacher principal director and trustee in succession It was Krishnamurti s compelling and engaging admonition to be a light unto yourself that kept Lee associated with the work of the foundations a serious challenge that called for inner discipline austerity in thinking and living and rigorous self-awareness Krishnamurti was associated with several schools in India England and the USA from the late 1920s onwards Five nonprofit foundations were established by him and continue to preserve and disseminate his teachings globally For students of Krishnamurti s teachings Lee s experiences can serve an informative and useful source of further learning and education E39I Love My Computer Because My Friends Live in It: Stories from an Online Life
By Jess Kimball Leslie. 2017
I Love My Computer Because My Friends Live in It is tech analyst Jess Kimball Leslie's hilarious, frank homage to…
the technology that contributed so significantly to the person she is today. From accounts of the lawless chat rooms of early AOL to the perpetual high school reunions that are modern-day Facebook and Instagram, her essays paint a clear picture: That all of us have a much more twisted, meaningful, emotional relationship with the online world than we realize or let on. Coming of age in suburban Connecticut in the late '80s and early '90s, Jess looked to the nascent Internet to find the tribes she couldn't find IRL: fellow Bette Midler fans; women who seemed impossibly sure of their sexuality; people who worked with computers every day as part of their actual jobs without being ridiculed as nerds. It's in large part because of her embrace of an online life that Jess is where she is now, happily married, with a wife, son, and dog, and making a living of analyzing Internet trends and forecasting the future of tech. She bets most people would credit technology for many of their successes, too, if they could only shed the notion that it's as a mind-numbing drug on which we're all overdosing.On Thursday, December 15, 1994, Joann Katrinak and her three-month-old son, Alex, went missing from their Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, home. Four…
months later, when their bodies were found in a lonely patch of woods, the police would launch a three-year investigation leading to the arrest of Patricia Lynne Rorrer—a young mother who had never met either victim—as the monster responsible. In Pennsylvania's first use of mitochondrial DNA in a criminal case, Patricia Rorrer was quickly tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. But did the jury make the right decision? Is Patricia Rorrer truly guilty? As new evidence continues to surface, including allegations of evidence tampering, that question requires an answer even more.With a subject matter and storytelling style reminiscent of the hit podcast Serial, Convenient Suspect will keep readers on the edge of their seats. The book reveals information never before made public—information gathered directly from more than 10,000 official documents, including Pennsylvania State Police reports, FBI files, forensic lab results, and the 6,500-page trial transcript. After four years of intensive research, countless interviews with those involved, and hundreds of letters, phone calls, and personal visits with Patricia Rorrer, the truth about the evidence used to convict her can finally be revealed.Detroit Hustle: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Home
By Amy Haimerl. 2016
Journalist Amy Haimerl and her husband had been priced out of their Brooklyn neighborhood. Seeing this as a great opportunity…
to start over again, they decide to cash in their savings and buy an abandoned house for 35,000 in Detroit, the largest city in the United States to declare bankruptcy.As she and her husband restore the 1914 Georgian Revival, a stately brick house with no plumbing, no heat, and no electricity, Amy finds a community of Detroiters who, like herself, aren't afraid of a little hard work or things that are a little rough around the edges. Filled with amusing and touching anecdotes about navigating a real-estate market that is rife with scams, finding a contractor who is a lover of C.S. Lewis and willing to quote him liberally, and neighbors who either get teary-eyed at the sight of newcomers or urge Amy and her husband to get out while they can, Amy writes evocatively about the charms and challenges of finding her footing in a city whose future is in question. Detroit Hustle is a memoir that is both a meditation on what it takes to make a house a home, and a love letter to a much-derided city.Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland
By Randy L. Schmidt, Sid Luft. 2017
The third of Judy Garland's five husbands, Sid Luft was the one man in her life who stuck around. He…
was chiefly responsible for the final act of Judy's meteoric comeback after she was unceremoniously booted off the MGM lot: he produced her iconic, Oscar-nominated vehicle A Star Is Born and expertly shaped her concert career. Previously unpublished, Sid Luft's intimate autobiography tells his and Judy's story in hard-boiled yet elegant prose. It begins on a fateful night in New York City when the not quite divorced Judy Garland and the not quite divorced Sid Luft meet at Billy Reed's Little Club and fall for each other. The romance lasted Judy's lifetime, despite the separations, the reconciliations, and the divorce. Under Luft's management, Judy came back bigger than ever, building a singing career that rivaled Sinatra's. However, her drug dependencies and suicidal tendencies put a tremendous strain on the relationship. Sid did not complete his memoir; it ended in 1960 after Judy hired David Begelman and Freddie Fields to manage her career. But Randy L. Schmidt, acclaimed editor of Judy Garland on Judy Garland and author of Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter, seamlessly pieced together the final section of the book from extensive interviews with Sid, most previously unpublished. Despite everything, Sid never stopped loving Judy and never forgave himself for not being able to ultimately save her from the demons that drove her to an early death at age forty-seven in 1969. Sid served as chief conservator of the Garland legacy until his death at the age of eighty-nine in 2005. This is his testament to the love of his life.No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale Of Love And Wandering
By Clara Bensen. 2016
One Dress, Three Weeks, Eight Countries--Zero Baggage Newly recovered from a quarter-life meltdown, Clara Bensen decided to test her comeback…
by signing up for an online dating account. She never expected to meet Jeff, a wildly energetic university professor with a reputation for bucking convention. They barely know each other’s last names when they agree to set out on a risky travel experiment spanning eight countries and three weeks. The catch? No hotel reservations, no plans, and best of all, no baggage. Clara’s story will resonate with adventurers and homebodies alike--it’s at once a romance, a travelogue, and a bright modern take on the age-old questions: How do you find the courage to explore beyond your comfort zone? Can you love someone without the need for labels and commitment? Is it possible to truly leave your baggage behind?Alex: The Fathering of a Preemie
By Jeff Stimpson. 2004
Nearly half a million preemies are born in the U.S. every year. But like most people, Jeff Stimpson, the father…
who wrote Alex, never gave premature babies a thought beyond the cliché of medical miracles. Many of these children grow up with special needs, necessitating an increasing and ever-controversial burden on society. Medicine is creating not only a new population of individuals, but a special and growing population of parents and families. Alex was born in June of 1998. He weighed 21 ounces. He spent the first year of his life in the hospital. This is the story of his first years. It's a story of doctors, hospitals, conferences, hate, love, gratitude, envy, frustration, joy, and worry. It's the story of a preemie.Stimpson saw his son get a spinal tap without anesthesia (it isn't given to micro-preemies) and three times witnessed Alex stop breathing-once on his lap. Stimpson and his wife were at the hospital every day, and there they encountered not only how far the science of saving preemies has advanced but how far it hasn't, and how far healthcare and other professionals need to go to understand what parents go through when their infant lives in a hospital. The Stimpsons got a crash course in life behind the billboard of medical miracle, and learned how care of preemies can greatly differ, and, perhaps most important, how patients' families must learn to be consumers when trying to find that care. What keeps a family going when a child spends a year in the hospital? In compelling prose, Stimpson traces the life of his child from birth to kindergarten: four wings in two hospitals; coming home with a roomful of medical gear and round-the-clock drugs and nursing; the gains and downturns of home therapy through Early Intervention; finding and prospering in a special-needs preschool; a diagnosis of autism; and the ongoing battle to give Alex a fair shot at childhood, and at life.Mob Cop: My Life of Crime in the Chicago Police Department
By Fred Pascente, Sam Reaves. 2015
Former Chicago police officer and mafia associate Fred Pascente is the man who links Tony Spilotro, the protagonist of Nicholas…
Pileggi's Casino and one of Chicago's most notorious mob figures, to William Hanhardt, chief of detectives of the Chicago Police Department. Pascente and Spilotro grew up together on Chicago's near West Side, and as young toughs they were rousted and shaken down by Hanhardt. While Spilotro became the youngest made man in Chicago Outfit history, Pascente was drafted into the army and then joined the police department. Soon taken under Hanhardt's wing because of his connections, Pascente served as Hanhardt's fixer and bagman on the department for more than a decade. At the same time, Pascente remained close to Spilotro, making frequent trips to Las Vegas to party with his old friend while helping to rob the casinos blind. Mob Cop tells about the decline of traditional organized crime in the United States, and it reveals information about the inner workings of the Outfit that have never been publicly released. Fred Pascente's positions as an insider on both the criminal and law enforcement fronts makes this story a matchless tell-all.The Encounter: Amazon Beaming
By Petru Popescu, Simon Mcburney. 1991
The Braodway stage adaptation of The Encounter will run from September 20, 2016 through January 8, 2017 at The Golden…
Theatre.1969: Loren McIntyre makes contact with the elusive Mayoruna 'cat people' of the Amazon's Javari Valley. He follows them - into the wild depths of the rainforest. When he realises he is lost, it is already too late.Stranded and helpless, McIntyre must adjust to an alien way of life. Gradually, he finds his perception of the world beginning to change, and a strange relationship starts to develop with the Mayoruna chief - is McIntyre really able to communicate with the headman in a way that goes beyond words, beyond language?Petru Popescu's gripping account of McIntyre's adventures with the Mayoruna tribe, and his quest to find the source of the Amazon, is reissued here to coincide with Complicite's acclaimed new stage production, The Encounter, inspired by McIntyre's incredible story.From the Trade Paperback edition.Bermuda Shorts
By James Patterson. 2010
In clothing, Bermuda Shorts are a kind of casual formal wear - and in this collection of essays, Bermuda Shorts…
is the perfect metaphor for James J. Patterson's fundamentally serious but playful literary style. Patterson writes like the love child of Henry Miller and Mary Karr, with all the contradictions that implies -- a philosopher who thinks best over a glass of fine wine; an ex-Catholic still haunted by the image of the Crucifixion; an irreverent political satirist whose patriotism flies the flag of another iconoclast, Thomas Paine. Patterson grew up with a foot planted in each of two worlds -- one in Washington DC, the Capital of the Empire as he calls it, where the wheels of power spin, and one in rural Ontario, where his Canadian mother insisted the family spend their summers. His father, one of the wizards of twentieth century newspaper publishing, introduced him to the city's wheels of money and power, which he would later navigate as an entrepreneur, starting his first business at 20. But those Canadian summers introduced him to a different world - one where a cedar strip boat was better than any car, and where the ghosts of those who'd previously inhabited the family's island house floated out over the water of Lovesick Lake. It is those two worlds that blend in this collection, in reflections both serious and playful, on what it means to be a man, an artist, an iconoclast, a patriot, a lover, as the 20th century rolls over into the 21st.