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The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III: Autobiographies
by Douglas Archibald William Butler Yeats William O'DonnellAutobiographies consists of six autobiographical works that William Butler Yeats published together in the mid-1930s to form a single, extraordinary memoir of the first fifty-eight years of his life, from his earliest memories of childhood to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. This volume provides a vivid series of personal accounts of a wide range of figures, and it describes Yeats's work as poet and playwright, as a founder of Dublin's famed Abbey Theatre, his involvement with Irish nationalism, and his fascination with occultism and visions. This book is most compelling as Yeats's own account of the growth of his poetic imagination. Yeats thought that a poet leads a life of allegory, and that his works are comments upon it. Autobiographies enacts his ruling belief in the connections and coherence between the life that he led and the works that he wrote. It is a vision of personal history as art, and so it is the one truly essential companion to his poems and plays. Edited by William H. O'Donnell and Douglas N. Archibald, this volume is available for the first time with invaluable explanatory notes and includes previously unpublished passages from candidly explicit first drafts.
The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III: Autobiographies
by William H. O'Donnell Douglas N. Archibald William Butler YeatsThe Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume III: Autobiographies is part of the fourteen-volume series overseen by eminent Yeats scholars Richard J. Finnerah and George Mills Harper. The series includes virtually all of the Nobel laureate's published work, with authoritative and explanatory notes. Autobiographies consists of six autobiographical works --Reveries Over Childhood and Youth, The Trembling of the Veil, Dramatis Personae, Estrangement, The Death of Synge, and The Bounty of Sweden-- that William Butler Yeats published together in the mid-1930s to form a single, extraordinary memoir of the first fifty-eight years of his life, from his earliest memories of childhood to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. This volume provides a vivid series of personal accounts of a wide range of figures, and it describes Yeats's work as poet and playwright, as a founder of Dublin's famed Abbey Theatre, his involvement with Irish nationalism, and his fascination with occultism and visions. This book is most compelling as Yeats's own account of the growth of his poetic imagination. Yeats thought that a poet leads a life of allegory, and that his works are comments upon it. Autobiographies enacts his ruling belief in the connections and coherence between the life that he led and the works that he wrote. It is a vision of personal history as art, and so it is the one truly essential companion to his poems and plays. Edited by William H. O'Donnell and Douglas N. Archibald, this volume is available for the first time with invaluable explanatory notes and includes previously unpublished passages from candidly explicit first drafts.
The Collected Works Volume Two: Cuts, All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go, and Doctor Criminale
by Malcolm BradburySharp-witted novels and social commentary by the beloved British critic, teacher, and author of the &“outstanding&” comic masterpiece, The History Man (The Guardian). &“A satirist of great assurance and accomplishment,&” Malcolm Bradbury remains one of the sharpest comic minds of the twentieth century (The Observer). Cuts and Doctor Criminale—like &“all Bradbury&’s novels, for all their surface wit and comedy, have serious moral and philosophical subtexts&” (The Guardian), as do his barbed and brilliant observations on 1950s culture shock in Great Britain in All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go. Taken together, these three volumes illustrate the myriad ways &“Bradbury dazzles&” (Kirkus Reviews). Cuts: In Bradbury&’s &“outrageously funny&” satire set in Thatcher-era Great Britain, a media tycoon, looking to strike it rich with television gold, recruits an unassuming novelist and academic to script his small-screen epic, with disastrous—and hilarious—consequences (Publishers Weekly). &“It is funny, exact—and pretty bloody serious.&” —The Observer All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go: In this nonfiction social commentary, Bradbury confronts a curious moment in British history. After teaching abroad for a year in the 1950s, he returned to find that his native country had become nearly as mystifying to him as the American Midwest. As Britain marched toward a new decade, much of the country was changing rapidly, its agrarian past paved over by suburban developer and its quiet traditionalism replaced by beehive hairdos and shiny, glass-walled office buildings. With wry wit, he reacts to this uncomfortable transition to mid-twentieth-century modernism. &“A master not only of language and comedy but of feeling too.&” —The Sunday Times Doctor Criminale: &“Playful, smart and entertaining,&” Bradbury&’s comic novel follows enterprising young reporter Francis Jay as he attempts to navigate the chaotic world of post–Cold War Europe in pursuit of the specter of literary legend Bazlo Criminale, a mysterious novelist and thinker known for his extreme elusiveness (The New York Times Book Review). &“Bradbury writes with splendid energy and a fertile mind.&” —Los Angeles Times Book Review
The Collected Works Volume Two: Always the Sun, Natural History, and Heartland
by Neil CrossTwo taut psychological thrillers and a gripping memoir from the creator of the hit BBC crime series Luther and a “master of suspense” (Daily Mirror). The PEN/Ackerley Prize–shortlisted author and creator of Luther starring Idris Elba, British author Neil Cross is “an astonishing writer—tautly lyrical, and able at a stroke to fill you with cold, dark fear of the malign forces at large in the world” whether writing fiction or memoir (Time Out London). In this collection, Cross unflinchingly explores the dark side of parenting and family drama in ways equally startling and unforgettable. Always the SunLonglisted for the Man Booker Prize Looking for a fresh start after the death of his wife, Sam and his thirteen-year-old son, Jamie, return to Sam’s hometown. But at his new school, a group of kids led by a savage bully target Jamie, and the administration does nothing. When Jamie comes home bearing real, physical scars, Sam is left at a crossroads: How far will he go to protect his child? “Harrowing but gripping.” —Time Out London Natural History: In a last-ditch attempt to save their floundering marriage, Patrick and Jane founded an animal sanctuary called Monkeyland. But following the mysterious death of an ape, Patrick becomes obsessed, while Jane’s in Zaire shooting a nature show—and possibly cheating—and their son gets fired after an altercation. As a predatory cat stalks the periphery of the dilapidated zoo, Jane and Patrick’s search for wild beasts blinds them to the danger in their own backyard. “A masterpiece . . . seductively readable, no matter how much one dreads what may happen next.” —The Daily Telegraph HeartlandShortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley Prize In this “wonderful memoir,” Neil Cross tells the complicated story of his relationship with his stepfather. Derek Cross showers his young stepson with attention and love, teaches him about music and books, and is more reliable than Neil’s emotionally unstable mother. But as Neil grows older, he realizes the stepfather he loves is also a manipulator, adulterer, racist, and con man (The Guardian). “Moving and engrossing . . . Heartland is a tour de force.” —Daily Mail
The Collected Writings of Assia Wevill
by Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick and Peter K. SteinbergThe Collected Writings of Assia Wevill marks a significant development in literary recovery efforts related to Assia Wevill (1927–1969), who remains a critically important figure in the life and work of the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Sylvia Plath and the British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Editors Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick and Peter K. Steinberg located over 150 texts authored by Assia Wevill and curated them into a collected scholarly edition of her letters, journals, poems, and other creative writings. These documents chronicle her personal and professional lives, her experiences as a single working mother in 1960s London, her domestic life with Hughes, and her celebrated translations of poetry by Yehuda Amichai. The Collected Writings of Assia Wevill offers an invaluable documentary resource for understanding a woman whose life continues to captivate readers and scholars.
The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard
by Paul Auster Ron PadgettAn artist associated with the New York School of poets, Joe Brainard (1942-1994) was a wonderful writer whose one-of-a-kind autobiographical work I Remember ("a completely original book" -Edmund White) has had a wide and growing influence. It is joined in this major new retrospective with many other pieces that for the first time present the full range of Brainard's writing in all its deadpan wit, madcap inventiveness, self-revealing frankness, and generosity of spirit. The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard gathers intimate journals, jottings, stories, one-liners, comic strips, mini-essays, and short plays, many of them available until now only as expensive rarities, if at all. "Brainard disarms us with the seemingly tossed- off, spontaneous nature of his writing and his stubborn refusal to accede to the pieties of self-importance," writes Paul Auster in the introduction to this collection. "These little works . . . are not really about anything so much as what it means to be young, that hopeful, anarchic time when all horizons are open to us and the future appears to be without limits." Assembled by the author's longtime friend and biographer Ron Padgett and including fourteen previously unpublished works, here is a fresh and affordable way to rediscover a unique American artist.
Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself
by Michael J. Rosen“Thurber is. . . a landmark in American humor. . . he is the funniest artist who ever lived.” — New RepublicJames Thurber spent most of his career at the New Yorker magazine, drawing cartoons and writing essays and stories. Collecting Himself is a one-of-a-kind compilation of James Thurber's vintage writings, featuring previously unanthologized articles, essays, interviews, reviews, cartoons, parodies, as well as Thurber's reflections on his work in theater and at the New Yorker. An eclectic body of work that offers a glimpse into Thurber the man, the philosopher, and the critic.
Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger
by Stephen H. GrantThe first biography of Henry and Emily Folger, who acquired the largest and finest collection of Shakespeare in the world.In Collecting Shakespeare, Stephen H. Grant recounts the American success story of Henry and Emily Folger of Brooklyn, a couple who were devoted to each other, in love with Shakespeare, and bitten by the collecting bug.Shortly after marrying in 1885, the Folgers started buying, cataloging, and storing all manner of items about Shakespeare and his era. Emily earned a master's degree in Shakespeare studies. The frugal couple worked passionately as a tight-knit team during the Gilded Age, financing their hobby with the fortune Henry earned as president of Standard Oil Company of New York, where he was a trusted associate of John D. Rockefeller Sr.While a number of American universities offered to house the collection, the Folgers wanted to give it to the American people. Afraid the price of antiquarian books would soar if their names were revealed, they secretly acquired prime real estate on Capitol Hill near the Library of Congress. They commissioned the design and construction of an elegant building with a reading room, public exhibition hall, and the Elizabethan Theatre. The Folger Shakespeare Library was dedicated on the Bard's birthday, April 23, 1932.The library houses 82 First Folios, 275,000 books, and 60,000 manuscripts. It welcomes more than 100,000 visitors a year and provides professors, scholars, graduate students, and researchers from around the world with access to the collections. It is also a vibrant center in Washington, D.C., for cultural programs, including theater, concerts, lectures, and poetry readings.The library provided Grant with unprecedented access to the primary sources within the Folger vault. He draws on interviews with surviving Folger relatives and visits to 35 related archives in the United States and in Britain to create a portrait of the remarkable couple who ensured that Shakespeare would have a beautiful home in America.
Collections of Nothing
by William Davies KingNearly everyone collects something, even those who don't think of themselves as collectors. William Davies King, on the other hand, has devoted decades to collecting nothing-- and a lot of it. Captivated by the detritus of everyday life, King has spent a lifetime gathering a monumental mass of miscellany, from cereal boxes to boulders to broken folding chairs. Junk, you might call it--and so might King, at times. With Collections of Nothing, he takes a hard look at this habitual hoarding to see what truths it can reveal about the impulse to accumulate. Part memoir, part reflection on the mania of acquisition, Collections of Nothing begins with the stamp collection that King was given as a boy. Philatelism's long-standing rules governing the care and display of collections soon proved an oppressive burden in the midst of the family chaos generated by his sister's growing mental illness; choosing to ignore the rules, King began to handle and display his collection according to his own desires-- the first step in his search for an unexplored, individual meaning in collecting. In the following years, rather than rarity or pedigree, he found himself searching out the lowly and the lost, the cast-off and the undesired: objects that, merely by gathering and retaining them, he could imbue with meaning, even value. As he relates the story of his burgeoning collections, King also offers a fascinating meditation on the human urge to collect. Whether it's nondescript loops of wire and old food labels or more commonly prized objects like first editions or baseball cards, our collections define us at least as much as we define them. This wry, funny, even touching appreciation and dissection of the collector's art as seen through the life of a most unusual specimen will appeal to anyone who has ever felt the unappeasable power of that acquisitive fever.
The Collector: The Story of Sergei Shchukin and His Lost Masterpieces
by Natalya Semenova André-Marc Delocque-FourcaudA fascinating life of Sergei Shchukin, the great collector who changed the face of Russia’s art world Sergei Shchukin was a highly successful textiles merchant in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but he also had a great eye for beauty. He was one of the first to appreciate the qualities of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists and to acquire works by Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso. A trailblazer in the Russian art world, Shchukin and his collection shocked, provoked, and inspired awe, ridicule, and derision among his contemporaries. This is the first English-language biography of Sergei Shchukin, written by art historian Natalya Semenova and adapted by Shchukin's grandson André Delocque. Featuring personal diary entries, correspondence, interviews, and archival research, it brings to light the life of a man who has hitherto remained in the shadows, and shows how despite his controversial reputation, he opened his collection to the public, inspiring a future generation of artists and changing the face of the Russian art world.
The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari And The Invention Of Art
by Ingrid Rowland Noah CharneyIn the tradition of The Swerve and How to Live, this vivid biography reveals how a Renaissance scholar reshaped the visual world. Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) was a man of many talents—a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, and scholar—but he is best known for Lives of the Artists, the classic account that singlehandedly invented the genre of artistic biography and established the canon of Italian Renaissance art. Before Vasari’s extraordinary book, art was considered a technical skill rather than an intellectual pursuit, and artists were mere decorators and craftsmen. It was through Vasari’s visionary writings that artists like Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo came to be regarded as great masters of life as well as art, their creative genius celebrated as a divine gift. Their enduring reputations testify to Vasari’s profound yet unspoken influence on western culture. An advisor to kings and pontiffs—and a confidant to Titian, Donatello, and more—Vasari enjoyed an exhilarating career amid the thrilling culture of Renaissance Italy. In The Collector of Lives, Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney offer a lively and inviting introduction to this pivotal figure in art history, and immerse readers in the world of the Medici of Florence and the popes of Rome. A narrative of intrigue, scandal, and colorful artistic rivalry, this vivid biography shows the great works of western art taking shape under Vasari’s keen eye—and reveals how one Renaissance scholar completely redefined how we look at art.
The Collector of Worlds: A Novel of Sir Richard Francis Burton
by Iliya Troyanov William HobsonThis fictionalized account imagines the life of Sir Richard Francis Burton--a nineteenth-century British colonial officer with a rare ability to assimilate into indigenous cultures.
College Girl: A Memoir (Excelsior Editions)
by Laura Gray-RosendaleNorthern Arizona's Mountain Living Book of the YearGold Medalist, 2014 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Autobiography/Memoir III (Personal Struggle / Health Issues) categoryFinalist for the 2013 May Sarton Memoir Award presented by the Story Circle NetworkAward-Winning Finalist in the Autobiography/Memoirs category of The 2013 USA Best Book Awards, sponsored by USA Book News2013In College Girl, a university professor revisits the memory of a brutal sexual assault and recounts her long, circuitous route from trauma to recovery. Offering present-day reflections alongside the fresh, hopeful voice of the twenty-year-old student she once was, Laura Gray-Rosendale tells the story of her near destruction and her family's disintegration, but also one of abiding friendships and shining hope. In the end, College Girl is also a story about stories, and a meditation on memoir itself.Gray-Rosendale writes in a tone that is simply unforgettable—gritty, humorous, and raw. Artfully written and devoid of self-pity, College Girl is a rich story of triumph, hope, and survival.
College Knowledge for the Student Athlete
by Schoem David Kovacs ShellyThis book was written to support the academic success of student athletes—whether at a large or small university or college, whether team or individual sport, whether women or men, whether on scholarship or not. While all college students must learn to negotiate the complex transition from high school to college, student athletes face unique challenges, including the complicated set of regulations set out by the NCAA and individual conferences that determine eligibility. The current environment in college athletics makes it even more critical that student athletes understand what they need to do academically and how to avoid potential situations that could jeopardize their athletic careers. College Knowledge for the Student Athlete is a road map and tour guide for a successful career as a student athlete. Tips are based on research and the authors’ experience, as well as the wisdom and advice of hundreds of former student athletes.
College of One: The Story of How F. Scott Fitzgerald Educated the Woman He Loved (Neversink)
by Sheilah Graham Wendy W. FaireyThe moving story of how F. Scott Fitzgerald--washed up, alcoholic and ill--dedicated himself to devising a heartfelt course in literature for the woman he loved.In 1937, on the night of her engagement to the Marquess of Donegall, Sheilah Graham met F. Scott Fitzgerald at a party in Hollywood. Graham, a British-born journalist, broke off her engagement, and until Fitzgerald had a fatal heart attack in her apartment in 1940, the two writers lived the fervid, sometimes violent affair that is memorialized here with unprecedented intimacy. When they met, Fitzgerald's fame had waned. He battled crippling alcoholism while writing screenplays to support his daughter and institutionalized wife. Graham's star, however, was rising, to the point where she became Hollywood's highest-paid, best-read gossip columnist. But if Fitzgerald had lived out his "crack-up" in public, Graham kept her demons secret--such as that she believed herself to be "a fascinating fake who pulled the wool over Hollywood's eyes.'' Most poignantly, she keenly felt her lack of education, and Fitzgerald rose to the occasion. He became her passionate tutor, guiding her through a curriculum of his own design: a college of one. Graham loved him the more for it, writing the book as a tribute. As she explained, "An unusual man's ideas on what constituted an education had to be preserved. It is a new chapter to add to what is already known about an author who has been microscopically investigated in all the other areas of his life."From the Trade Paperback edition.
Collingwood: A Love Story
by Paul DaleyA multi-generational saga of football, love, war, forgiveness and, most critically, identityEvery year when Collingwood plays Essendon in the AFL's annual Anzac Day match, Collingwood president Eddie McGuire carries an old horseshoe into the team's changing rooms and passes it around. The players examine it as he relates the great footy club story behind it. It's early in the twentieth century and Doc Seddon, a Collingwood player, introduces his childhood sweetheart, Louie, to his dashing team mate, Paddy Rowan. Paddy sweeps Louie off her feet and they marry. But war intervenes. Doc and Paddy go off to fight, leaving Louie to raise Paddy's baby. When Paddy is killed, Doc promises that he will always look after Paddy's wife and child. Just before the 1917 Grand Final, he sends a horseshoe back from the Somme, where he continued to serve. It brings the Magpies luck-they win.It is a lovely story. Except, of course, that fairytales didn't come true in Collingwood, the biggest slum of Melbourne. What really happened to them is a much grittier tale.
Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America
by Joseph MccartinIn August 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) called an illegal strike. The new president, Ronald Reagan, fired the strikers, establishing a reputation for both decisiveness and hostility to organized labor. As Joseph A. McCartin writes, the strike was the culmination of two decades of escalating conflict between controllers and the government that stemmed from the high-pressure nature of the job and the controllers' inability to negotiate with their employer over vital issues. PATCO's fall not only ushered in a long period of labor decline; it also served as a harbinger of the campaign against public sector unions that now roils American politics. Collision Course sets the strike within a vivid panorama of the rise of the world's busiest air-traffic control system. It begins with an arresting account of the 1960 midair collision over New York that cost 134 lives and exposed the weaknesses of an overburdened system. Through the stories of controllers like Mike Rock and Jack Maher, who were galvanized into action by that disaster and went on to found PATCO, it describes the efforts of those who sought to make the airways safer and fought to win a secure place in the American middle class. It climaxes with the story of Reagan and the controllers, who surprisingly endorsed the Republican on the promise that he would address their grievances. That brief, fateful alliance triggered devastating miscalculations that changed America, forging patterns that still govern the nation's labor politics. Written with an eye for detail and a grasp of the vast consequences of the PATCO conflict for both air travel and America's working class, Collision Course is a stunning achievement.
Collusion
by Evan ZimrothFrom the vantage point of "real life" (as dancers say), Collusion tells the story of a young girl's initiation into the disciplined, exalting world of classical ballet and into a secret love relationship with F., the ballet master whom she adored. "Do you want to be a great dancer?" F. had asked her when she was twelve. She did. And so Collusion tells of how she gave up ordinary life--family, boyfriends, hamburgers, homework, and pop music--for a life dedicated to the promise of artistry. At the center of that new life was always the figure of F.--ironic, moody, demanding, quixotically generous or withholding--who could control her with a sarcastic comment or the flash of his cane across her thigh, but also with the lyrical beauty of his classes and the vision of herself in a perfect arabesque. F. was the first man to partner her, and the first to teach her that love can come in strange forms: in the airborne lifts of Les Sylphides, in brilliant pirouettes, and in measured violence. Collusion describes the secret life of ballet. It is a life in which "normal" values are reversed. Brutality is seen as a gift, fear as devotion, sadism (rightly, in this case) as love. Free of conventional moral judgments, Collusion tells of possession and surrender, of power and submission, of the bond between a young girl and an older man. In spare, emotionally resonant prose, award-winning poet and novelist Evan Zimroth unfolds a mesmerizing story of artistic ambition, power, and love in an unforgettable memoir of adolescence. Collusion portrays a real relationship, one that society dares not speak of, and it does so with admirable honesty and sensitivity.
Colombia Es Pasion!: The Generation of Racing Cyclists Who Changed Their Nation and the Tour de France
by Matt RendellBy winning the 2019 Tour de France, Egan Bernal became the race's youngest champion in 110 years, and the first from the South American nation of Colombia. His victory brought decades of national yearning to fruition, and capped the achievements of a golden generation of Colombian cyclists.For, in the years before Egan's victory, Nairo Quintana won the Tours of Italy and Spain, even coming within 72 seconds of winning the Tour. Rigoberto Urán, Esteban Chaves, Miguel Ángel López and Fernando Gaviria took stage wins, donned leader's jerseys and made final podiums at cycling's greatest events. They, and other world-class Colombian talents, made their nation a cycling superpower. Yet its cycling sons are not the products of a rigorous sports system that nurtures them through the ranks to the pinnacle of globalised sport. They come from harder backgrounds, that surprise, shock - even, at times, enchant. The visibility they have secured their homeland has helped open it to international tourism and trade. After decades of violence, corruption and civil unrest, a new, revitalised Colombia has re-entered the community of nation, thanks to its cyclists.This book is about their lives and dreams: it tells inspiring stories of overcoming poverty and violence, sickness and corruption. It explores the unique sporting microcosm that lies behind Colombia's world-beating riders, and how their achievements spurred a nation to prosperity and peace.
Colombia Es Pasion!: The Generation of Racing Cyclists Who Changed Their Nation and the Tour de France
by Matt RendellBy winning the 2019 Tour de France, Egan Bernal became the race's youngest champion in 110 years, and the first from the South American nation of Colombia. His victory brought decades of national yearning to fruition, and capped the achievements of a golden generation of Colombian cyclists.For, in the years before Egan's victory, Nairo Quintana won the Tours of Italy and Spain, even coming within 72 seconds of winning the Tour. Rigoberto Urán, Esteban Chaves, Miguel Ángel López and Fernando Gaviria took stage wins, donned leader's jerseys and made final podiums at cycling's greatest events. They, and other world-class Colombian talents, made their nation a cycling superpower. Yet its cycling sons are not the products of a rigorous sports system that nurtures them through the ranks to the pinnacle of globalised sport. They come from harder backgrounds, that surprise, shock - even, at times, enchant. The visibility they have secured their homeland has helped open it to international tourism and trade. After decades of violence, corruption and civil unrest, a new, revitalised Colombia has re-entered the community of nation, thanks to its cyclists.This book is about their lives and dreams: it tells inspiring stories of overcoming poverty and violence, sickness and corruption. It explores the unique sporting microcosm that lies behind Colombia's world-beating riders, and how their achievements spurred a nation to prosperity and peace.
Colombia Es Pasion!: The Generation of Racing Cyclists Who Changed Their Nation and the Tour de France
by Matt RendellBy winning the 2019 Tour de France, Egan Bernal became the race's youngest champion in 110 years, and the first from the South American nation of Colombia. His victory brought decades of national yearning to fruition. Colombia has long been the only developing nation contending at cycling's highest level. Yet its cycling sons are not the products of a rigorous sports system that spots them in childhood and nurtures them through the ranks to the pinnacle of globalised sport. They come from harder backgrounds, that surprise, shock - even, at times, enchant.Colombia Es Pasión! explores the lives and dreams of each of the nation's leading cyclists. Theirs are inspiring stories of overcoming poverty and violence, sickness and corruption, and achieving global sporting glory.'Takes you into the heart of both a sport and a country. The journey is well worth the effort' Sunday Times'Wonderful' Observer'Remarkable, a masterpiece' Never Strays Far podcast
The Colombo Bay
by Richard PollakIn the face of killer storms, fires, piracy, and terrorism, container ships the length of city blocks and more than a dozen stories high carry 90 percent of the worlds trade. This is an account of one ship's voyage and of the sailors who daily risk their lives to deliver six million containers a year to United States ports alone. Inside these twenty-foot and forty-foot steel boxes are the thousands of imports -- from chinos and Game Boys to garlic and frozen shrimp -- without which North America's consumer society would collapse.To explore this little-known and dangerous universe of modern seafaring, Richard Pollak joined the Colombo Bay in Hong Kong and over the next five weeks sailed with her and her 3,500 containers across the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. En route, this mammoth vessel called at Singapore and Colombo, passed through the Suez Canal (toll: $250,000), then put in at Malta and Halifax before tangling with Hurricane Karen on the two-day run to New York. Here is the story of the ship's unheralded twenty-four-man company; of the unflappable British captain, Peter Davies, a veteran of four decades at sea; of Federico Castrojas, who like the rest of the hard-working Filipino crew must daily confront the loneliness of being away from his family for nine months at a stretch; of Simon Westall, the twenty-one-year-old third mate, who reveals what it is like to be gay in the broad-shouldered world of the merchant service.It is a world where pirates in the Malacca Strait sneak up behind ships at night in fast power boats, then clamber aboard and either rob the unarmed sailors at gunpoint and escape into the dark or throw the crew into the sea and hijack the ship, plundering her cargo and sometimes repainting her and setting out to do business under another name and flag. It is a world where families desperate to get to the United States or Europe pay thousands of dollars to the Chinese Snakeheads and other criminal gangs, who secrete these wretched migrants in stifling containers; after a week or more at sea these stowaways arrive in the Promised Land either starving or dead.Pollak sailed on September 13, 2001, into a changed world, on one of 7,000 container ships whose millions of uninspected boxes suddenly had become potential Trojan horses in which terrorists could transport weapons of mass destruction into the heart of the United States.Throughout his riveting narrative, Pollak interweaves the insights of Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad, whose masterful portrayals of seafaring make the voyage of the Colombo Bay a dramatic reminder of what a hard and rarely reported life merchant seamen have always led out on the "unhooped oceans of this planet."
The Colombo Bay
by Richard PollakIn the face of killer storms, fires, piracy, and terrorism, container ships the length of city blocks and more than a dozen stories high carry 90 percent of the worlds trade. This is an account of one ship's voyage and of the sailors who daily risk their lives to deliver six million containers a year to United States ports alone. Inside these twenty-foot and forty-foot steel boxes are the thousands of imports -- from chinos and Game Boys to garlic and frozen shrimp -- without which North America's consumer society would collapse. To explore this little-known and dangerous universe of modern seafaring, Richard Pollak joined the Colombo Bay in Hong Kong and over the next five weeks sailed with her and her 3,500 containers across the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. En route, this mammoth vessel called at Singapore and Colombo, passed through the Suez Canal (toll: $250,000), then put in at Malta and Halifax before tangling with Hurricane Karen on the two-day run to New York. Here is the story of the ship's unheralded twenty-four-man company; of the unflappable British captain, Peter Davies, a veteran of four decades at sea; of Federico Castrojas, who like the rest of the hard-working Filipino crew must daily confront the loneliness of being away from his family for nine months at a stretch; of Simon Westall, the twenty-one-year-old third mate, who reveals what it is like to be gay in the broad-shouldered world of the merchant service. It is a world where pirates in the Malacca Strait sneak up behind ships at night in fast power boats, then clamber aboard and either rob the unarmed sailors at gunpoint and escape into the dark or throw the crew into the sea and hijack the ship, plundering her cargo and sometimes repainting her and setting out to do business under another name and flag. It is a world where families desperate to get to the United States or Europe pay thousands of dollars to the Chinese Snakeheads and other criminal gangs, who secrete these wretched migrants in stifling containers; after a week or more at sea these stowaways arrive in the Promised Land either starving or dead. Pollak sailed on September 13, 2001, into a changed world, on one of 7,000 container ships whose millions of uninspected boxes suddenly had become potential Trojan horses in which terrorists could transport weapons of mass destruction into the heart of the United States. Throughout his riveting narrative, Pollak interweaves the insights of Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad, whose masterful portrayals of seafaring make the voyage of the Colombo Bay a dramatic reminder of what a hard and rarely reported life merchant seamen have always led out on the "unhooped oceans of this planet. "
The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley
by Alanna NashIn The Colonel, Alanna Nash, the author of Golden Girl: The Story of Jessica Savitch, explores in depth the amazing story of Colonel Tom Parker, the man behind the legend and the myth of Elvis Presley. The result is a book that reads like the most riveting of real-life detective stories -- one that will completely change your view of Presley's life, success, and death. While scores of books have been written about Elvis Presley, this is the first meticulously researched biography of Tom Parker written by someone who knew him personally. And for anyone truly interested in the performer many consider the greatest and most influential of the twentieth century, it is impossible to understand how Elvis came to be such a phenomenon without examining the life and mind of Parker, the man who virtually controlled Elvis's every move. Alanna Nash has been covering the story of Elvis Presley and Colonel Tom Parker since the day of Presley's funeral in Memphis, Tennessee. She was the first journalist allowed to view Presley's body, a compelling and surprising sight. But the profile of Parker attending the funeral in a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap was even stranger, and led her to investigate the man behind the myth. It has been known for twenty years that Thomas Andrew Parker was, in fact, born in Holland as Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk. But Nash has dug much deeper and, in a masterpiece of reporting, unearthed never-before-seen documents, including Parker's army records and psychiatric evaluations, and the original police report of an unsolved murder case in Holland that lies at the heart of the Parker mystery. In the process of weighing the evidence, she answers the biggest riddle in the history of the music industry, as it becomes clear that every move Parker made in the handling of Elvis Presley -- from why he never allowed Elvis to perform in Europe, to why he didn't halt Elvis's drug use, to why he put him in so many mediocre movies, and even the Colonel's direction of Presley's army career -- was designed to protect Parker's own secrets. Filled with startling new material, her book challenges even the most familiar precepts of the Presley saga -- everything we presumed about Parker's handling of the world's most famous entertainer must now be reevaluated in the light of information Nash reveals about Parker, who cared little for Presley beyond what the singer could do to bolster the Colonel's precarious position as an illegal alien. Elvis Presley, as one of Parker's unwitting victims, paid a major price for the Colonel's past and his overwhelming need to be more important than his client. As a result, Presley was never allowed to reach his potential and died in drug-induced frustration over his stunted and mismanaged career. In this astonishing, impeccably written, and vastly entertaining book, Nash proves that the only figure in American popular culture as fascinating as Elvis Presley is Colonel Tom Parker, the man who shaped Elvis, who in turn helped shape us.
The Colonel and I: My Life with Gaddafi
by Daad SharabAn insider&’s view of Libya&’s fallen dictator by the woman who served as his longtime troubleshooter and confidante. For almost half of Muammar Gaddafi&’s forty-two-year reign, Daad Sharab was his trusted confidante—the only outsider to be admitted to his inner circle. Down the years many have written about Gaddafi, but none have been so close. Now, years after the violent death of &“the Colonel,&” she gives a unique insight into the character of a man of many contradictions: tyrant, hero, terrorist, freedom fighter, womanizer, father figure. Her account is packed with fascinating anecdotes and revelations that show Gaddafi in a surprising new light. Daad witnessed the ruthlessness of a flawed leader who is blamed for ordering the Lockerbie bombing, and she became the go-between for the only man convicted of the atrocity. She does not seek to sugar-coat Gaddafi&’s legacy, preferring readers to judge for themselves, but also observed a hidden, more humane side. The leader was a troubled father and compassionate statesman who kept sight of his humble Bedouin roots, and was capable of great acts of generosity. The author also pulls no punches about how Western politicians such as Tony Blair, George Bush, and Hillary Clinton shamelessly wooed his oil-rich regime. Despite her warnings the dictator was ultimately consumed by megalomania, and Daad was caught up in his dramatic fall. Falsely accused by Gaddafi&’s notorious secret service of being both the Colonel&’s mistress and a spy, she faced betrayal and imprisonment—and, caught up in the Arab Spring uprising, she also faced a fight for her life as bombs rained down on Libya.