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Chasing The Light: How I Fought My Way into Hollywood - THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
by Oliver Stone*** "A rip-roaring read. It left me breathless." - Chris Evans, Virgin Radio Breakfast Show "Riveting." - The New York Times "... a Hollywood movie in itself." - Spike Lee "Raw, savagely honest, as dramatic as any of his movies." - Mail on Sunday "A tremendous book - readable, funny and harrowing." - The Sunday Times In this powerful and evocative memoir, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter, Oliver Stone, takes us right to the heart of what it's like to make movies on the edge. In Chasing The Light he writes about his rarefied New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs making such films as Platoon, Midnight Express, and Scarface. Before the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while taking miscellaneous jobs and driving taxis in New York, finally venturing westward to Los Angeles and a new life. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with vivid details of the high and low moments: we sit at the table in meetings with Al Pacino over Stone's scripts for Scarface, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July; relive the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction following the failure of his first feature, The Hand (starring Michael Caine); experience his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; and see his stormy relationship with The Deer Hunter director Michael Cimino. We also learn of the breathless hustles to finance the acclaimed and divisive Salvador; and witness tensions behind the scenes of his first Academy Award-winning film, Midnight Express.The culmination of the book is the extraordinarily vivid recreation of filming Platoon in the depths of the Philippine jungle with Kevin Dillon, Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp et al, pushing himself, the crew and the young cast almost beyond breaking point. Written fearlessly, with intense detail and colour, Chasing the Light is a true insider's story of Hollywood's years of upheaval in the 1970s and '80s, and Stone brings this period alive as only someone at the centre of the action truly can.(P)2020 Octopus Publishing Group
Chasing The Light: How I Fought My Way into Hollywood - THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
by Oliver Stone*** "A rip-roaring read. It left me breathless." - Chris Evans, Virgin Radio Breakfast Show "Riveting." - The New York Times "... a Hollywood movie in itself." - Spike Lee "Raw, savagely honest, as dramatic as any of his movies." - Mail on Sunday "A tremendous book - readable, funny and harrowing." - The Sunday Times In this powerful and evocative memoir, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter, Oliver Stone, takes us right to the heart of what it's like to make movies on the edge. In Chasing The Light he writes about his rarefied New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs making such films as Platoon, Midnight Express, and Scarface. Before the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while taking miscellaneous jobs and driving taxis in New York, finally venturing westward to Los Angeles and a new life. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with vivid details of the high and low moments: we sit at the table in meetings with Al Pacino over Stone's scripts for Scarface, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July; relive the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction following the failure of his first feature, The Hand (starring Michael Caine); experience his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; and see his stormy relationship with The Deer Hunter director Michael Cimino. We also learn of the breathless hustles to finance the acclaimed and divisive Salvador; and witness tensions behind the scenes of his first Academy Award-winning film, Midnight Express.The culmination of the book is the extraordinarily vivid recreation of filming Platoon in the depths of the Philippine jungle with Kevin Dillon, Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp et al, pushing himself, the crew and the young cast almost beyond breaking point. Written fearlessly, with intense detail and colour, Chasing the Light is a true insider's story of Hollywood's years of upheaval in the 1970s and '80s, and Stone brings this period alive as only someone at the centre of the action truly can.
Chasing The Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game
by Oliver StoneAn intimate memoir by the controversial, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Oliver Stone Before moving to Los Angeles and the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while working odd jobs in Manhattan. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with in-the-moment details of the highs and lows: meetings with Al Pacino over Stone&’s early scripts; the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction; the failure of his first feature; his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; and much more. Chasing the Light is a true insider&’s guide to Hollywood&’s razor-edged years of upheaval in the 1970s and &’80s with untold stories of decade-defining films from the man behind the camera.
Chasing Lincoln's Killer: The Search For John Wilkes Booth
by James L. SwansonNEW YORK TIMES bestselling author James Swanson delivers a riveting account of the chase for Abraham Lincoln's assassin. Based on rare archival material, obscure trial manuscripts, and interviews with relatives of the conspirators and the manhunters, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER is a fast-paced thriller about the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth: a wild twelve-day chase through the streets of Washington, D. C. , across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia.
Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C. K. Scott Moncrieff
by Jean FindlayThe thrilling first-ever biography of Proust translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff, penned by his great-great-niece"And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before church-time), when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me . . ." With these words, Marcel Proust's narrator is plunged back into the past. Since 1922, English-language readers have been able to take this leap with him thanks to translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff, who wrestled with Proust's seven-volume masterpiece—published as Remembrance of Things Past—until his death in 1930. While Scott Moncrieff's work has shaped our understanding of one of the finest novels of the twentieth century, he has remained hidden behind the genius of the man whose reputation he helped build. Now, in this biography—the first ever of the celebrated translator—Scott Moncrieff's great-great-niece, Jean Findlay, reveals a fascinating, tangled life. Catholic and homosexual; a partygoer who was lonely deep down; secretly a spy in Mussolini's Italy and publicly a debonair man of letters; a war hero described as "offensively brave," whose letters from the front are remarkably cheerful—Scott Moncrieff was a man of his moment, thriving on paradoxes and extremes. In Chasing Lost Time, Findlay gives us a vibrant, moving portrait of the brilliant Scott Moncrieff, and of the era—changing fast and forever—in which he shone.
Chasing Lost Times: A Father and Son Reconciled Through Running
by Geoffrey Beattie Ben BeattieGeoffrey Beattie is an extremely successful academic and celebrity psychologist. He was perhaps a less successful father. His obsession with his career and his driving passion for running when he was at home almost destroyed his relationship with his son, but, ironically, it is running that has brought them back together.Chasing Lost Times is the emotional story of a father and son trying to repair a relationship through a shared activity that depends on sheer physical effort, the kind of physical effort that may once have been the source of commonality between father and son in all previous generations but which seems to be absent in the modern world.
Chasing Matisse: A Year in France Living My Dream
by James MorganWho hasn't had the fanthasy of leaving his or her old life behind to start over? What would happen if you gave up your job, city, state, and routine to move to another part of the world? Critically acclaimed writer and aspiring painter James Morgan does just that. Risking everything, he and his wife shed their old, settled life in a lovingly restored house in Little Rock, Arkansas, to travel in the footsteps of Morgan's hero, the painter Henri Matisse, and to find inspiration in Matisse's fierce struggle to live the life he knew he had to live. Part memoir, part travelogue, and part biography of Matisse,Chasing Matisseproves that you don't have to be wealthy to live the life you want; you just have to want it enough. Morgan's riveting journey of self-discovery takes him, and us, from the earthy, brooding Picardy of Matisse's youth all the way to the luminous Nice of the painter's final years. In between, Morgan confronts, with the notebook of a journalist and the sketchpad of an artist, the places that Matisse himself saw and painted: bustling, romantic Paris; windswept Belle-île off the Brittany coast; Corsica, with its blazing southern light; the Pyrénees village of Collouire, where color became explosive in Matisse's hands; exotic Morocco, land of the secret interior life; and across the sybaritic French Riviera to spiritual Vence and the hillside Villa Le Rêve -- the Dream -- where the mature artist created so many of his masterpieces. A journey from darkness to light,Chasing Matisseshows us how we can learn to see ourselves, others, and the world with fresh eyes. We look with Morgan out of some of the same windows through which Matisse himself found his subjects and take great heart from Matisse's indomitable, life-affirming spirit. For Matisse, living was an art, and he never stopped striving, never stopped creating, never stopped growing, never stopped reinventing himself. "The artist," he said, "must look at everything as though he were seeing it for the first time. " That's the inspiring message of renewal that comes through on every page ofChasing Matisse. Funny, sad, and defiantly hopeful, this is a book that restores our faith in the possibility of dreams.
Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South
by Winfred Rembert Erin I. KellyWinfred Rembert grew up in a family of Georgia field laborers and joined the Civil Rights Movement as a teenager. He was arrested after fleeing a demonstration, survived a near-lynching at the hands of law enforcement, and spent seven years on chain gangs. <p><p>During that time he met the undaunted Patsy, who would become his wife. Years later, at the age of fifty-one and with Patsy's encouragement, he started drawing and painting scenes from his youth using leather tooling skills he learned in prison. <p><p>Chasing Me to My Grave presents Rembert's breathtaking body of work alongside his story, as told to Tufts Philosopher Erin I. Kelly. Rembert, calls forth vibrant scenes of Black life on Cuthbert, Georgia's Hamilton Avenue, where he first glimpsed the possibility of a life outside the cotton field. As he pays tribute, exuberant and heartfelt, to Cuthbert's Black community and the people, including Patsy, who helped him to find the courage to revisit a traumatic past, Rembert brings to life the promise and the danger of Civil Rights protest, the brutalities of incarceration, his search for his mother's love, and the epic bond he found with Patsy. <p><p>Vivid, confrontational, revelatory, and complex, Chasing Me to My Grave is a searing memoir in prose and painted leather that celebrates Black life and summons readers to confront painful and urgent realities at the heart of American history and society.
Chasing Monarchs
by Lincoln P. Brower Robert Michael PyleAlthough no one had ever followed North American monarch butterflies on their annual southward journey to Mexico and California, in the 1990s there were well-accepted assumptions about the nature and form of the migration. But to Robert Michael Pyle, a naturalist with long experience in monarch conservation, the received wisdom about the butterflies' long journey just didn't make sense. In the autumn of 1996 he set out to uncover the facts, to pursue the tide of "cinnamon sailors" on their long, mysterious flight. Chasing Monarchs chronicles Pyle's 9,000-mile journey to discover firsthand the secrets of the monarchs' annual migration. Part road trip, part outdoor adventure, and part natural history study, Pyle's book overturns old theories and provides insights both large and small regarding monarch butterflies, their biology, and their spectacular migratory travels. Since the book's first publication, its controversial conclusions have been fully confirmed, and monarchs are better understood than ever before. The Afterword for this volume includes not only updated information on the myriad threats to monarch butterflies, but also various efforts under way to ensure the future of the world's most amazing butterfly migration.
Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope into Action; A Memoir
by David FajgenbaumThe powerful memoir of a young doctor and former college athlete diagnosed with a rare disease who spearheaded the search for a cure—and became a champion for a new approach to medical research.“An extraordinary memoir . . . It belongs with Atul Gawande’s writings and When Breath Becomes Air.”—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of OriginalsDavid Fajgenbaum was a former Georgetown quarterback nicknamed the Beast in medical school, where he was also known for his unmatched mental stamina. But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from inexplicable fatigue. In a matter of weeks, his organs were failing and he was read his last rites. Doctors were baffled by his condition, which they had yet to even diagnose. Floating in and out of consciousness, Fajgenbaum prayed for the equivalent of a game day overtime: a second chance. Miraculously, Fajgenbaum survived—only to endure repeated near-death relapses from what would eventually be identified as a form of Castleman disease, an extremely deadly and rare condition that acts like a cross between cancer and an autoimmune disorder. When he relapsed while on the only drug in development and realized that the medical community was unlikely to make progress in time to save his life, Fajgenbaum turned his desperate hope for a cure into concrete action: Between hospitalizations he studied his own charts and tested his own blood samples, looking for clues that could unlock a new treatment. With the help of family, friends, and mentors, he also reached out to other Castleman disease patients and physicians, and eventually came up with an ambitious plan to crowdsource the most promising research questions and recruit world-class researchers to tackle them. Instead of waiting for the scientific stars to align, he would attempt to align them himself. More than five years later and now married to his college sweetheart, Fajgenbaum has seen his hard work pay off: A treatment that he identified has induced a tentative remission and his novel approach to collaborative scientific inquiry has become a blueprint for advancing rare disease research. His incredible story demonstrates the potency of hope, and what can happen when the forces of determination, love, family, faith, and serendipity collide.“A page-turning chronicle of living, nearly dying, and discovering what it really means to be invincible in hope.”—Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit
Chasing Oliver Hazard Perry
by Craig HeimbuchChasing Oliver Hazard Perry chronicles Craig Heimbuch's journey through time and place in hopes of bringing to life a history that has haunted him since he was young - the story of Oliver Perry and the War of 1812. In the spirit of Tony Horwitz, Heimbuch travels to the battlefields, talks to historians, re-enactors, and fellow travelers to create a book that is funny, moving, and very informative. Perry's story and legacy have stuck with Heimbuch through his entire life. He was just a boy when he first stood at the base of the Perry Monument at Put-in-Bay and listened to his father tell the story of how Perry scribbled on a scrap of paper a report to the American general laying siege to Fort Detroit his famous line, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours."
Chasing Perfect
by Bob HurleyThe inspiring story of the most famous high school basketball coach in America.In 40 seasons as the head coach of St. Anthony High School, a private parochial school in Jersey City, New Jersey, Bob Hurley has established a standard of excellence and achievement without peer, and remarkably, he has done this at a high school with a total student body enrollment of about 230, with no gymnasium, and with an operating deficit that threatens to shut the place down each year. Hurley himself sweeps the floor before each home game. Despite the long odds against them, Hurley's teams have captured 26 state titles and four consensus national championships, all behind an astonishing career winning percentage of .905. In Chasing Perfect, Hurley opens up his tool box and shares some of the championship strategies he's developed to help lift his players up and out of Jersey City. The narrative centerpiece will be each of St. Anthony's seven undefeated seasons, with sketch profiles of some of the most memorable players, making some of the most memorable plays in St. Anthony history. Along the way, he'll offer empowering insights to help coaches and players to elevate their games, while empowering the rest of us to walk a more purposeful path. Part memoir, part coach's notebook and part reflection on the St. Anthony players it has been Hurley's privilege to coach, Chasing Perfect will stand as a compelling barometer of life in and around the hardscrabble streets of Jersey City, set against the backdrop of one of the most enduringly competitive high school basketball programs in the country.
Chasing Portraits: A Great-Granddaughter's Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy
by Elizabeth RyneckiThe memoir of one woman's emotional quest to find the art of her Polish-Jewish great-grandfather, lost during World War II. Moshe Rynecki's body of work reached close to eight hundred paintings and sculptures before his life came to a tragic end. It was his great-granddaughter Elizabeth who sought to rediscover his legacy, setting upon a journey to seek out what had been lost but never forgotten... The everyday lives of the Polish-Jewish community depicted in Moshe Rynecki's paintings simply blended into the background of Elizabeth Rynecki's life when she was growing up. But the art transformed from familiar to extraordinary in her eyes after her grandfather, Moshe's son George, left behind journals detailing the loss her ancestors had endured during World War II, including Moshe's art. Knowing that her family had only found a small portion of Moshe's art, and that many more pieces remained to be found, Elizabeth set out to find them. Before Moshe was deported to the ghetto, he entrusted his work to friends who would keep it safe. After he was killed in the Majdanek concentration camp, the art was dispersed all over the world. With the help of historians, curators, and admirers of Moshe's work, Elizabeth began the incredible and difficult task of rebuilding his collection. Spanning three decades of Elizabeth's life and three generations of her family, this touching memoir is a compelling narrative of the richness of one man's art, the devastation of war, and one woman's unexpected path to healing.From the Hardcover edition.
Chasing Shackleton: Re-creating the World's Greatest Journey of Survival
by Tim Jarvis“Mr. Jarvis’s tribute to Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition has had a danger and heroism that are worthy of the original.” —The GuardianIn this extraordinary adventure memoir and tie-in to the PBS documentary, Tim Jarvis, one of the world's leading explorers, describes his modern-day journey to retrace, for the first time ever—and in period clothing and gear—the legendary 1914 expedition of Sir Ernest Shackleton.In early 1914, British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his team sailed for Antarctica, attempting to be the first to reach the South Pole. Instead of glory, Shackleton and his crew found themselves in an epic struggle for survival: a three-year odyssey on the ice and oceans of the Antarctic that endures as one of the world’s most famous tales of adventure, endurance, and leadership ever recorded.In the winter of 2013, celebrated explorer Tim Jarvis, a veteran of multiple polar expeditions, set out to recreate Sir Ernest Shackleton’s treacherous voyage over sea and mountain, outfitted solely with authentic equipment—clothing, boots, food, and tools—from Shackleton’s time, a feat that has never been successfully accomplished.Chasing Shackleton is the remarkable record of Jarvis and his team’s epic journey. Beautifully designed and illustrated with dozens of photographs from the original voyage and its modern reenactment, it is a visual feast for readers and historians alike, and an essential new chapter in the story that has inspired adventurers across every continent for a century.
Chasing Shadows: A Special Agent's Lifelong Hunt To Bring A Cold War Assassin To Justice
by Fred Burton John BruningIn July 1973, a gunman stepped from behind a tree and fired five shots, point blank, into Josef Alon, a kind, unassuming Israeli Air Force pilot. Sixteen-year-old Fred Burton was deeply shocked by this crime that rocked his sleepy suburban neighborhood. As it turned out, Alon wasn’t just a pilot and family man—he was a high-ranking intelligence agent with the Mossad. The assassin was never found and the case was closed. In 2007, Fred Burton, now a State Department counterterrorism special agent, reopened the case and successfully pursued the killer, bringing closure to a traumatized family. From swirling dogfights over Egypt and Hanoi to gun battles on the streets of Beirut, this action-packed history spans several fraught decades and ultimately sheds new light on how the United States and Israel have tested their loyalties in a relentlessly hostile world. In its portrait of how power is used, misused, and sold to the most convenient bidder, Chasing Shadows spins a gripping tale of agents, double agents, terrorists, and heroes as Burton chases leads around the globe in an effort to solve this decades-old murder.
Chasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark
by Greg Skomal Ret Talbot“At last: the story of tracking the ocean’s most charismatic and controversial predator, compellingly told by the man who has learned more about the Atlantic great white shark than any other person alive. You must not miss this fantastic book!” —Sy Montgomery, New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of an OctopusDr. Greg Skomal, one of the leading great white shark experts in the country, reveals the true nature of these mysterious apex predators, as well as the fascinating story behind their history and startling resurgence With its quaint villages, local restaurants serving up lobster rolls, and miles and miles of warm, sandy beaches, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is famous for being America’s carefree seaside getaway. But in August 2012, the first confirmed white shark attack in almost eighty years occurred in the region. As shark sightings quickly began to increase on Cape Cod and elsewhere, and large beachside billboards warning about the growing shark population became a common sight, a boogie boarder died after being attacked by a great white shark in Cape Cod’s shallow waters. What had changed to cause news of human-shark interactions to go from being a rarity to being the new normal? As some citizens called for shark culls, nets, drone surveillance, and other extreme solutions, interactions between local residents and scientists, politicians, and those responsible for public safety became tense and frantic. Dr. Greg Skomal, a shark biologist whose lifelong passion has been to gain a more refined understanding of great white sharks, was at the center of it all. This is the story of the great white shark’s return to the eastern seaboard, told through the life of the scientist who found himself in the oftentimes thankless position of having to balance conservation efforts and the drive to do important science with panic and fear in the court of public opinion. Greg has spent decades on a quest to tag, track, and demystify this animal, using every high- and low-tech method at his disposal, including those he invented, and he frequently comes face-to-face with these shadows of the deep. He leaves no stone unturned in his pursuit of the secrets behind the largely unknown lives of these charismatic creatures and in his duty to solve the intricate puzzle of how humans can coexist alongside them. Chasing Shadows is a too-rare conservation success story about restoring an apex predator to an ecosystem that provides a profound, new understanding of a beast so notoriously fierce that it’s nearly impossible to imagine how vulnerable it truly is.
Chasing Shadows: Memoirs of a Sixties Survivor
by Fred WilcoxCHASING SHADOWS tells the story of a young man who pays a heavy price for pursuing his own dream. When he announces that he intends to be a poet instead of a doctor, his working class family thinks he&’s gone crazy. They send him to psychiatrists who shoot electricity though his brain, warn him that he&’ll never hold a job, and confide that he will suffer from nervous breakdowns all his life. After a stint in a state mental hospital, he spends the &‘60's on the mean streets of New York City, not as a fair-weather hippie with a room of his own in Scarsdale whenever he tires of the hard life, but as a fugitive from everyone, and everything, he once loved.
Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path
by Erin LoechnerChasing Slow models HGTV star Erin Loechner's journey to help you break out of the faster-better-stronger trap and make small changes to refresh your perspective, renew your priorities, and shift your focus to what matters most. You're here, but you want to be there. So you spend your life narrowing this divide, and you call this your race, your journey, your path. You live your days tightening your boot straps, wiping the sweat from your brow, chasing undiscovered happiness just around the bend. And on and on you run. Viral sensation and HGTV.com star Erin Loechner knows about the chase. Before turning 30, she'd earned the title "The Nicest Girl Online" as she was praised for her authentic voice and effortless style. Her HGTV web show garnered over one million fans worldwide, and her client list includes Walt Disney World, IKEA, Martha Stewart and Home Depot. The New York Times applauded her, her friends and church admired her, and her husband and baby adored her. She had arrived at the ultimate destination. So why did she feel so lost? Through a series of steep climbs--her husband's brain tumor, bankruptcy, family loss, and public criticism--Erin learns just how much strength it takes to surrender it all, and to veer right into grace. In Chasing Slow, Erin upgrades her life through downsizing--her stuff, her obligations, her fears, her personal metric of "perfect." And ultimately, her invitation becomes yours: to turn away from the fast and frenzy, and find freedom in a new-fashioned lifestyle defined by grace.Life's answers are not always hidden where they seem. It's time to venture off the beaten path to see that we&’ve already been given everything we need. We've already arrived. You see?You'll see.
Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances
by Leland MelvinIn this revelatory and moving memoir, a former NASA astronaut and NFL wide receiver shares his personal journey from the gridiron to the stars, examining the intersecting roles of community, perseverance and grace that align to create the opportunities for success. <p><p> Leland Melvin is the only person in human history to catch a pass in the National Football League and in space. Though his path to the heavens was riddled with setbacks and injury, Leland persevered to reach the stars. <p><p> While training with NASA, Melvin suffered a severe injury that left him deaf. Leland was relegated to earthbound assignments, but chose to remain and support his astronaut family. His loyalty paid off. Recovering partial hearing, he earned his eligibility for space travel. He served as mission specialist for two flights aboard the shuttle Atlantis, working on the International Space Station. <p><p> In this uplifting memoir, the former NASA astronaut and professional athlete offers an examination of the intersecting role of community, determination, and grace that align to shape our opportunities and outcomes. Chasing Space is not the story of one man, but the story of many men, women, scientists, and mentors who helped him defy the odds and live out an uncommon destiny. <p><p> As a chemist, athlete, engineer and space traveler, Leland’s life story is a study in the science of achievement. His personal insights illuminate how grit and grace, are the keys to overcoming adversity and rising to success.
Chasing Space: Young Readers' Edition
by Leland Melvin"In Chasing Space, Leland Melvin tackles stupendous obstacles with dogged determination, showing you what is indeed possible in life—if you belive." —Neil deGrasse Tyson, author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Welcome to the Universe. Winner of the 2019 Grand Canyon Reader Award for Tween Non-FictionMeet Leland Melvin—football star, NASA astronaut, and professional dream chaser. In this inspiring memoir, adapted from the simultaneous version for adults, young readers will get to learn about Leland Melvin’s remarkable life story, from being drafted by the Detroit Lions to bravely orbiting our planet in the International Space Station to writing songs with will.i.am, working with Serena Williams, and starring in top-rated television shows like The Dog Whisperer, Top Chef, and Child Genius.With do-it-yourself experiments in the back of the book and sixteen pages of striking full-color photographs, this is the perfect book to inspire young readers.When the former Detroit Lion’s football career was cut short by an injury, Leland didn’t waste time mourning his broken dream. Instead, he found a new one—something that was completely out of this world.He joined NASA, braved an injury that nearly left him permanently deaf, and still managed to muster the courage and resolve to travel to space on the shuttle Atlantis to help build the International Space Station. Leland’s problem-solving methods and can-do attitude turned his impossible-seeming dream into reality.Leland’s story introduces readers to the fascinating creative and scientific challenges he had to deal with in space and will encourage the next generation of can-do scientists to dare to follow their dreams.Bill Nye the Science Guy says: “Leland’s story moves fast; once you get started you’ll want to join the chase.”
Chasing the Bear: How Bear Bryant and Nick Saban Made Alabama the Greatest College Football Program of All Time
by Lars AndersonA dual biography of two coaching legends -- Bear Bryant and Nick Saban -- who built the Alabama Crimson Tide into a true football dynasty. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px} Both Bear Bryant and Nick Saban are undeniable kings of college football, two coaches at Alabama who have each won more national championships-six apiece-than anyone else in the history of the game. Chasing the Bear examines how they did it, revealing along the way their similarities in style, background, football philosophy, and recruiting methods, while providing readers a rare inside look at two of the greatest leaders in the history of sports. Bear Bryant and Nick Saban never met, but they have more in common than either of them realize. Both grew up in small towns-Bryant in Moro Bottom, Arkansas, a dot on the map, and Saban from Monongah, West Virginia, population five hundred. As a child, Saban pumped gas at his father's service station, washing and waxing cars and doing anything he could to help the business. Bryant's father suffered from multiple physical ailments, which forced Bryant to work to keep the family farm going. Both men knew the value of hard work from the time they were young boys, and both understood that there were no shortcuts to success. But both dreamed of escaping their hometowns, and both used football as the means to do so. Separated by two generations, Bear Bryant and Nick Saban are mythic figures linked by a school, a town, and a barroom debate centering on one question: Which is the greatest college coach of all time?
Chasing the Demon: A Secret History of the Quest for the Sound Barrier, and the Band of American Aces Who Conquered It
by Dan HamptonNEW FROM THE BESTSELLING AVIATION HISTORIANAt the end of World War II, a band of aces gathered in the Mojave Desert on a Top Secret quest to break the sound barrier–nicknamed "The Demon" by pilots. The true story of what happened in those skies has never been told. Speed. In 1947, it represented the difference between victory and annihilation. After Hiroshima, the ability to deliver a nuclear device to its target faster than one’s enemy became the singular obsession of American war planners. And so, in the earliest days of the Cold War, a highly classified program was conducted on a desolate air base in California’s Mojave Desert. Its aim: to push the envelope of flight to new frontiers. There gathered an extraordinary band of pilots, including Second World War aces Chuck Yeager and George Welch, who risked their lives flying experimental aircraft to reach Mach 1, the so-called sound barrier, which pilots called “the demon.” Shrouding the program in secrecy, the US military reluctantly revealed that the “barrier” had been broken two months later, after the story was leaked to the press. The full truth has never been fully revealed—until now. Chasing the Demon, from decorated fighter pilot and acclaimed aviation historian Dan Hampton, tells, for the first time, the extraordinary true story of mankind’s quest for Mach 1. Here, of course, is twenty-four-year-old Captain Chuck Yeager, who made history flying the futuristic Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound on October 14, 1947. Officially Yeager was the first to achieve supersonic flight, but drawing on new interviews with survivors of the program, including Yeager’s former commander, as well as declassified files, Hampton presents evidence that a fellow American—George Welch, a daring fighter pilot who shot down a remarkable sixteen enemy aircraft during the Pacific War—met the demon first, though he was not favored to wear the laurels, as he was now a civilian test pilot and was not flying the Bell X-1.Chasing the Demon sets the race between Yeager and Welch in the context of aviation history, so that the reader can learn and appreciate their accomplishments as never before.
Chasing the Devil at Foggy Bottom: The Future of Religion in American Diplomacy
by Shaun A. CaseyUnderstanding the role of religion in global politics is crucial for effective diplomacy. Many American policy makers are squeamish about religion&’s role in diplomacy. Nevertheless, religion plays a crucial and complex part in global affairs, such as in sustainable development, various human rights issues, and fomenting and mitigating conflict. Shaun A. Casey, the founding director of the US Department of State&’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs, makes a compelling case for the necessity of understanding global religion in Chasing the Devil at Foggy Bottom. In this fresh and provocative narrative, Casey writes frankly about his work integrating sophisticated, research-driven policy into the State Department under Secretary of State John Kerry. Their new strategy went beyond older paradigms that focused myopically on religious freedom or countering violent extremism. Such reductive approaches, Casey insists, cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars in the US&’s ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003. Witty and astute, Casey recounts his team&’s challenges in DC politics as well as in the major global events of his tenure, including climate change, the rise of ISIL, and the refugee crisis. On a global stage with higher stakes than ever, effective diplomacy is imperative. Yet in this critical moment, the United States&’s reputation has faltered. Chasing the Devil at Foggy Bottom offers a path forward to better foreign policy.
Chasing the Flame: One Man's Fight to Save the World
by Samantha PowerIn this perfect match of author and subject, Pulitzer Prize-winner Samantha Power tackles the life of Sergio Vieira de Mello, whose work for the U.N. before his 2003 death in Iraq was emblematic of moral struggle on the global stage. Power has drawn on a staggering breadth of research (including 400 interviews) to show us a heroic figure and the conflicts he waded into, from Cambodia's Khmer Rouge to the slaughter in Bosnia to the war-torn Middle East. The result is a peerless portrait of humanity and pragmatism, as well as a history of our convulsive age.
Chasing the Frontier: Scots-Irish in Early America
by Larry HoeflingFrom the book's back cover: The story of the Scots-Irish is one of the struggles and achievements of an American immigrant group that existed for only a short period, whose descendants continued to make their marks on the young country for generations. From the North of Ireland to the backwoods of the American frontier, the tale of the Scots-Irish includes a massive exodus to the New World, where they founded communities in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and the Irish Tract of North Carolina during the Revolutionary War era. Containing nearly six thousand names of documented settlers of the primarily Scots-Irish settlements of Virginia and North Carolina, "Chasing The Frontier" includes materials from church records, military records, early wills and deeds, and newspapers of the time. For the frontier families, life was a daily test of endurance and hardship, but the Scots-Irish also found time for horseracing, gambling, and socializing, and the migration of this hardy race and the lure of the frontiers of Kentucky and Tennessee led to the founding of churches and state charters, and elections to some of the highest offices in the country.