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Burke and Wills: The triumph and tragedy of Australia's most famous explorers
by Peter FitzSimonsThe iconic Australian exploration story - brought to life by Peter FitzSimons, Australia's storyteller. 'They have left here today!' he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left just hours ago. MELBOURNE, 20 AUGUST 1860. In an ambitious quest to be the first Europeans to cross the harsh Australian continent, the Victorian Exploring Expedition sets off, farewelled by 15,000 cheering well-wishers. Led by Robert O'Hara Burke, a brave man totally lacking in the bush skills necessary for his task; surveyor and meteorologist William Wills; and 17 others, the expedition took 20 tons of equipment carried on six wagons, 23 horses and 26 camels. Almost immediately plagued by disputes and sackings, the expeditioners battled the extremes of the Australian landscape and weather: its deserts, the boggy mangrove swamps of the Gulf, the searing heat and flooding rains. Food ran short and, unable to live off the land, the men nevertheless mostly spurned the offers of help from the local Indigenous people. In desperation, leaving the rest of the party at the expedition's depot on Coopers Creek, Burke, Wills, Charley Gray and John King made a dash for the Gulf in December 1860. Bad luck and bad management would see them miss by just hours a rendezvous back at Coopers Creek, leaving them stranded in the wilderness with practically no supplies. Only King survived to tell the tale. Yet, despite their tragic fates, the names of Burke and Wills have become synonymous with perseverance and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. They live on in our nation's history - and their story remains immediate and compelling.
Burke's Law: A Life in Hockey
by Stephen Brunt Brian BurkeThe gruffest man in hockey opens up about the challenges, the feuds, and the tragedies he's fought through.Brian Burke is one of the biggest hockey personalities--no, personalities full-stop--in the media landscape. His brashness makes him a magnet for attention, and he does nothing to shy away from it. Most famous for advocating "pugnacity, truculence, testosterone, and belligerence" during his tenure at the helm of the Maple Leafs, Burke has lived and breathed hockey his whole life. He has been a player, an agent, a league executive, a scout, a Stanley Cup-winning GM, an Olympic GM, and a media analyst. He has worked with Pat Quinn, Gary Bettman, and an array of future Hall of Fame players. No one knows the game better, and no one commands more attention when they open up about it.But there is more to Brian Burke than hockey. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and an accomplished businessman with hard-earned lessons that comefrom highly scrutinized decisions made at the helm of multi-million-dollar companies. And despite his brusque persona on camera and in the boardroom, he is nevertheless a father with a story to tell. He lost his youngest son in a car accident, and has had to grapple with that grief, even in the glare of the spotlight. Many Canadians and hockey fans knew Brendan Burke's name already, because his father had become one of the country's most outspoken gay-rights advocates when Brendan came out in 2009.From someone whose grandmother told him never to start a fight, but never to run from one either, Burke's Law is an unforgettable account of old beefs and old friendships, scores settled and differences forgiven, and many lessons learned the hard way.
Burl: Journalism Giant and Medical Trailblazer
by Jane WolfeBurl is the story of one man&’s unlikely rise from the coal mines of Appalachia to the pinnacle of journalism. After being diagnosed with a fatal kidney disease as a child, Burl Osborne pioneered home dialysis treatment and became the 130th person to undergo a live kidney transplant in 1966—then an unproven, high-risk operation.While managing his challenging illness, Burl distinguished himself early as a writer and reporter with The Associated Press, eventually rising to the top of the wire service&’s executive ranks. Then, against the advice of his colleagues and the newspaper&’s own doctors, he sought an even greater challenge: joining The Dallas Morning News to lead the fight in one of America&’s last great newspaper wars. Throughout his life and career, he garnered respect from business and political leaders, reporters, editors, and publishers around the country. Burl thrusts readers into the improbable and remarkable life of a man at the forefront of both medicine and the golden age of journalism.
Burma Railway Man: Secret Letters from a Japanese Pow
by Charles SteelCharles Steel took part in two military disasters - the Fall of France and the Dunkirk evacuation, and the Fall of Singapore. Shortly before the latter, he married Louise. Within days of being captured by the Japanese, he began writing a weekly letter to his new bride as means of keeping in touch with her in his mind, for the Japanese forbade all writing of letters and diaries. By the time he was liberated 3 1/2 years later, he had written and hidden some 180 letters, to which were added a further 20 post-liberation letters. Part love-letter, part diary these unique letters intended for Louise's eyes only describe the horror of working as a slave on the Burma - Siam Railway and, in particular, the construction of the famous Bridge over the River Kwai. It is also an uplifting account of how man can rise above adversity and even secretly get back at his captors by means of 'creative accounting'!. Now, we can share the appalling and inspiring experiences of this remarkable man.
Burmese Lessons: A True Love Story
by Karen ConnellyWhen Karen Connelly goes to Burma in 1996 to gather information for a series of articles, she discovers a place of unexpected beauty and generosity. She also encounters a country ruled by a brutal military dictatorship that imposes a code of censorship and terror. Carefully seeking out the regime's critics, she witnesses mass demonstrations, attends protests, interviews detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and flees from police. When it gets too risky for her to stay, Connelly flies back to Thailand, but she cannot leave Burma behind. Connelly's interest in the political turns more personal on the Thai-Burmese border, where she falls in love with Maung, the handsome and charismatic leader of one of Burma's many resistance groups. After visiting Maung's military camp in the jungle, she faces an agonizing decision: Maung wants to marry Connelly and have a family with her, but if she marries this man she also weds his world and his lifelong cause. Struggling to weigh the idealism of her convictions against the harsh realities of life on the border, Connelly transports the reader into a world as dangerous as it is enchanting. In radiant prose layered with passion, regret, sensuality and wry humor, Burmese Lessons tells the captivating story of how one woman came to love a wounded, beautiful country and a gifted man who has given his life to the struggle for political change.
Burn Book
by Kara SwisherFrom award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.While tech titans bragged they would 'move fast and break things', Kara Swisher was moving faster and breaking news. Covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, she developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the truth of this new world order. Her consistent scoops drove one CEO to accuse her of "listening in the heating ducts" and for Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg to once say: 'It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, "I hope Kara never sees this."'Burn Book is part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech's most powerful players. This is the inside story we've all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world.While still in college, Swisher got her start at The Washington Post, where she became one of the few people in journalism interested in the emerging field of tech. She was among the first to recognize the potential of the internet, accurately predicting that 'everything that could be digitized, would be digitized.' She went on to work for The Wall Story Journal, joining with Walt Mossberg to start the groundbreaking AllThingsD conference, as well as pioneering online tech sites.It's only a slight exaggeration to say Swisher has interviewed everyone. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few who Swisher made sweat-figuratively and, in one famous case, literally.Despite the damage she chronicles, Swisher remains optimistic about tech's potential to help solve problems and not just create them. She calls upon the industry to make better, more thoughtful choices, even as a new set of powerful AI tools are poised to change the world yet again. At its heart, this book is a love story to, for, and about tech from someone who knows it better than anyone.Burn Book includes soaring tales of innovation and brilliant entrepreneurs, as well as Silicon Valley's much more complex history of striving, success, and failure. The book details how the commercial internet came into being and how, for all it has given the world, it now sits at the center of global power, creating a clear and present danger to humanity.
Burn Book
by Kara SwisherFrom award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.While tech titans bragged they would 'move fast and break things', Kara Swisher was moving faster and breaking news. Covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, she developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the truth of this new world order. Her consistent scoops drove one CEO to accuse her of "listening in the heating ducts" and for Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg to once say: 'It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, "I hope Kara never sees this."'Burn Book is part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech's most powerful players. This is the inside story we've all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world.While still in college, Swisher got her start at The Washington Post, where she became one of the few people in journalism interested in the emerging field of tech. She was among the first to recognize the potential of the internet, accurately predicting that 'everything that could be digitized, would be digitized.' She went on to work for The Wall Story Journal, joining with Walt Mossberg to start the groundbreaking AllThingsD conference, as well as pioneering online tech sites.It's only a slight exaggeration to say Swisher has interviewed everyone. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few who Swisher made sweat-figuratively and, in one famous case, literally.Despite the damage she chronicles, Swisher remains optimistic about tech's potential to help solve problems and not just create them. She calls upon the industry to make better, more thoughtful choices, even as a new set of powerful AI tools are poised to change the world yet again. At its heart, this book is a love story to, for, and about tech from someone who knows it better than anyone.Burn Book includes soaring tales of innovation and brilliant entrepreneurs, as well as Silicon Valley's much more complex history of striving, success, and failure. The book details how the commercial internet came into being and how, for all it has given the world, it now sits at the center of global power, creating a clear and present danger to humanity.
Burn Book: A Tech Love Story
by Kara SwisherNow including a new afterword! An instant New York Times bestseller from award-winning journalist Kara Swisher, Burn Book is a &“highly readable…bawdy, brash, and compulsively thought-provoking&” (Booklist, starred review) account of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.Part memoir, part history, Burn Book is a necessary chronicle of tech&’s most powerful players. From &“the queen of all media&” (Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal), this is the inside story we&’ve all been waiting for about modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world. When tech titans crowed that they would &“move fast and break things,&” Kara Swisher was moving faster and breaking news. While covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, she developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the facts about this new world order. Her consistent scoops drove one CEO to accuse her of &“listening in the heating ducts&” and prompted Facebook&’s Sheryl Sandberg to once observe: &“It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, &‘I hope Kara never sees this.&’&” While still in college, Swisher got her start at The Washington Post, where she became one of the few people in journalism interested in covering the nascent internet. She went on to work for The Wall Street Journal, joining with Walt Mossberg to start the groundbreaking D: All Things Digital conference, as well as pioneering tech news sites. Swisher has interviewed everyone who matters in tech over three decades, right when they presided over an explosion of world-changing innovations that has both helped and hurt our world. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Sheryl Sandberg, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few of whom Swisher made sweat—figuratively and, in Zuckerberg&’s case, literally. Despite the damage she chronicles, Swisher remains optimistic about tech&’s potential to help solve problems and not just create them. She calls upon the industry to make better, more thoughtful choices, even as a new set of powerful AI tools are poised to change the world yet again. At its heart, this book is a love story to, for, and about tech from someone who knows it better than anyone.
Burn Down the Ground: A Memoir
by Kambri Crews<P>In this powerful, affecting, and unflinching memoir, a daughter looks back on her unconventional childhood with deaf parents in rural Texas while trying to reconcile it to her present life--one in which her father is serving a twenty-year sentence in a maximum-security prison. <P>As a child, Kambri Crews wished that she'd been born deaf so that she, too, could fully belong to the tight-knit Deaf community that embraced her parents. Her beautiful mother was a saint who would swiftly correct anyone's notion that deaf equaled dumb. Her handsome father, on the other hand, was more likely to be found hanging out with the sinners. Strong, gregarious, and hardworking, he managed to turn a wild plot of land into a family homestead complete with running water and electricity. To Kambri, he was Daniel Boone, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ben Franklin, and Elvis Presley all rolled into one. But if Kambri's dad was Superman, then the hearing world was his kryptonite. The isolation that accompanied his deafness unlocked a fierce temper--a rage that a teenage Kambri witnessed when he attacked her mother, and that culminated fourteen years later in his conviction for another violent crime. <P>With a smart mix of brutal honesty and blunt humor, Kambri Crews explores her complicated bond with her father--which begins with adoration, moves to fear, and finally arrives at understanding--as she tries to forge a new connection between them while he lives behind bars. Burn Down the Ground is a brilliant portrait of living in two worlds--one hearing, the other deaf; one under the laid-back Texas sun, the other within the energetic pulse of New York City; one mired in violence, the other rife with possibility--and heralds the arrival of a captivating new voice.
Burn It Down: Women Writing about Anger
by Lilly Dancygerp.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; min-height: 15.0px} A rich, nuanced exploration of women's anger from a diverse group of writers Women are furious, and we're not keeping it to ourselves any longer. We're expected to be composed and compliant, but in a world that would strip us of our rights, disparage our contributions, and deny us a seat at the table of authority, we're no longer willing to quietly seethe behind tight smiles. We're ready to burn it all down. In this ferocious collection of essays, twenty-two writers explore how anger has shaped their lives: author of the New York Times bestseller The Empathy Exams Leslie Jamison confesses that she used to insist she wasn't angry-until she learned that she was; Melissa Febos, author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning memoir Abandon Me, writes about how she discovered that anger can be an instrument of power; editor-in-chief of Bitch Media Evette Dionne dismantles the "angry Black woman" stereotype; and more. Broad-ranging and cathartic, Burn It Down is essential reading for any woman who has scorched with rage-and is ready to claim her right to express it.
Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet
by Michael WolffFrom the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fire and Fury and Siege: Trump Under Fire—Michael Wolff's wickedly funny chronicle of his rags-to-riches-to-rags adventure as a fledgling Internet entrepreneur exposes an industry powered by hype, celebrity, and billions of investment dollars, and notably devoid of profit-making enterprises.As he describes his efforts to control his company's burn rate—the amount of money the company consumes in excess of its income—Wolff offers a no-holds-barred portrait of unaccountable successes and major disasters, including the story behind Wired magazine and its fanatical founder, Louis Rossetto; the rise of America Online, perhaps the most dysfunctional successful company in history, and the humiliating inability of people such as Bill Gates to untangle the intricacies of the Web.
Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind
by Andy DunnThe co-founder of the menswear startup Bonobos opens up about the struggle with bipolar disorder that nearly cost him everything in this gripping, radically honest memoir of mental illness and entrepreneurship.&“Arrestingly candid . . . the most powerful book I&’ve read on manic depression since An Unquiet Mind.&”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of WorkLifeONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—ForbesAt twenty-eight, fresh from Stanford&’s MBA program and steeped in the move-fast-and-break-things ethos of Silicon Valley, Andy Dunn was on top of the world. He was building a new kind of startup—a digitally native, direct-to-consumer brand—out of his Manhattan apartment. Bonobos was a new-school approach to selling an old-school product: men&’s pants. Against all odds, business was booming.Hustling to scale the fledgling venture, Dunn raised tens of millions of dollars while boundaries between work and life evaporated. As he struggled to keep the startup afloat, Dunn was haunted by a ghost: a diagnosis of bipolar disorder he received after a frightening manic episode in college, one that had punctured the idyllic veneer of his midwestern upbringing. He had understood his diagnosis as an unspeakable shame that—according to the taciturn codes of his fraternity, the business world, and even his family—should be locked away.As Dunn&’s business began to take off, however, some of the very traits that powered his success as a founder—relentless drive, confidence bordering on hubris, and ambition verging on delusion—were now threatening to undo him. A collision course was set in motion, and it would culminate in a night of mayhem—one poised to unravel all that he had built.Burn Rate is an unconventional entrepreneurial memoir, a parable for the twenty-first-century economy, and a revelatory look at the prevalence of mental illness in the startup community. With intimate prose, Andy Dunn fearlessly shines a light on the dark side of success and challenges us all to take part in the deepening conversation around creativity, performance, and disorder.
Burn the Page: A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change
by Danica RoemAn inspirational memoir-meets-manifesto by Danica Roem, the nation's first openly trans person elected to US state legislatureDanica Roem made national headlines when--as a transgender former frontwoman for a metal band and a political newcomer--she unseated Virginia's most notoriously anti-LGBTQ 26-year incumbent Bob Marshall as state delegate. But before Danica made history, she had to change her vision of what was possible in her own life. Doing so was a matter of storytelling: during her campaign, Danica hired an opposition researcher to dredge up every story from her past that her opponent might seize on to paint her negatively. In wildly entertaining prose, Danica dismantles all the stories her opponents tried to hedge against her, showing how through brutal honesty and loving authenticity, it's possible to embrace the low points, and even transform them into her greatest strengths. Burn the Page takes readers from Danica's lonely, closeted, and at times operatically tragic childhood to her position as a rising star in a party she's helped forever change. Burn the Page is so much more than a stump speech: it's an extremely inspiring manifesto about how it's possible to set fire to the stories you don't want to be in anymore, whether written by you or about you by someone else--and rewrite your own future, whether that's running for politics, in your work, or your personal life. This book will not just encourage people who think they have to be spotless to run for office, but inspire all of us to own our personal narratives as Danica does.
Burn the Place: A Memoir
by Iliana ReganLONGLISTED for the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD A &“blistering yet tender&” (Publishers Weekly) memoir that chronicles one chef&’s journey from foraging on her family&’s Midwestern farm to running her own Michelin-starred restaurant and finding her place in the world.Iliana Regan grew up the youngest of four headstrong girls on a small farm in Indiana. While gathering raspberries as a toddler, Regan learned to only pick the ripe fruit. In the nearby fields, the orange flutes of chanterelle mushrooms beckoned her while they eluded others. Regan&’s profound connection with food and the earth began in childhood, but connecting with people was more difficult. She grew up gay in an intolerant community, was an alcoholic before she turned twenty, and struggled to find her voice as a woman working in an industry dominated by men. But food helped her navigate the world around her—learning to cook in her childhood home, getting her first restaurant job at age fifteen, teaching herself cutting-edge cuisine while hosting an underground supper club, and working her way from front-of-house staff to running her own kitchen. Regan&’s culinary talent is based on instinct, memory, and an almost otherworldly connection to ingredients, and her writing comes from the same place. Raw, filled with startling imagery and told with uncommon emotional power, Burn the Place takes us from Regan&’s childhood farmhouse kitchen to the country&’s most elite restaurants in a galvanizing tale that is entirely original, and unforgettable.
Burn: A Story of Fire, Woods and Healing
by Ben Short'Lyrical, moving and never self-pitying... a lovely book' THE TIMESI came to the woods over a decade ago. I came to the woods because there was a fire in my head.On the outside, Ben Short looks like he has it all - a successful career in advertising, a flat in a trendy area of London, an expensive motorbike ... But inside, he's a wreck. Years of suffering with an anxiety disorder and depression have broken him, and his 'creative' career has become sterile and suffocating. A drastic change is needed.Like his neighbour's rescue hawk, he acts on instinct and escapes the city. For a time, he takes on odd jobs - gardening, hedge-laying and labouring in the Cambridgeshire Fens and in the Devon countryside, trying to find somewhere he belongs. That is until he feels the call of the furnace: a glowing charcoal kiln in the West Dorset woods, where he can re-forge his thoughts, put the years of suffering behind him and start afresh by immersing himself in the ancient ways of woods and fire. He lives in huts and old wagons in the woods, hauling water from wells and foraging for his supper. But this is no idyll - the road is hard, the work back-breaking, the woods dark and brimming with powerful energies. Exquisitely written and laced with folklore and the history of burning, the right way to lay a hedge and the age-old wisdom of the woods, Burn is a hopeful story of transformation, a celebration of manual work and craft, and a love letter to the English landscape.'Beautifully written, Burn is melancholy and hopeful in equal measure. Like taking a forest ramble in changeable weather, reading it leaves you feeling ruffled but alive.' MAIL ON SUNDAY
Burn: A Story of Fire, Woods and Healing
by Ben ShortFrom advertising exec in the city to charcoal burner in the woods: a frank and inspiring memoir about letting go of what we're told to want, risking everything to find happiness and the brutal salve of nature.I came to the woods over a decade ago. I came to the woods because there was a fire in my head.On the outside, Ben Short looks like he has it all - a successful career in advertising, a flat in a trendy area of London, an expensive motorbike ... But inside, he's a wreck. Years of suffering with an anxiety disorder and depression have broken him, and his 'creative' career has become sterile and suffocating. A drastic change is needed.Like his neighbour's rescue hawk, he acts on instinct and escapes the city. For a time, he takes on odd jobs - gardening, hedge-laying and labouring in the Cambridgeshire Fens and in the Devon countryside, trying to find somewhere he belongs. That is until he feels the call of the furnace: a glowing charcoal kiln in the West Dorset woods, where he can re-forge his thoughts, put the years of suffering behind him and start afresh by immersing himself in the ancient ways of woods and fire. He lives in huts and old wagons in the woods, hauling water from wells and foraging for his supper. But this is no idyll - the road is hard, the work back-breaking, the woods dark and brimming with powerful energies. Exquisitely written and laced with folklore and the history of burning, the right way to lay a hedge and the age-old wisdom of the woods, Burn is a hopeful story of transformation, a celebration of manual work and craft, and a love letter to the English landscape.(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Burn: A Story of Fire, Woods and Healing
by Ben Short'An extraordinary and powerful book, full of vitality. Every page celebrates the way traditional skills can shape who we are' Tristan Gooley'Lyrical, moving and never self-pitying . . . a lovely book' The TimesBen Short has a successful career in advertising, a flat in a trendy part of London, a flashy motorbike. But after years of suffering with anxiety, he's a wreck. A drastic change is needed.For a time, he finds solace working with a forester, then as an apprentice to a Gypsy woodman, setting up home in a dilapidated wagon with just a rescue dog for company. However, it is not until he feels the call of the furnace, a glowing charcoal kiln in the Dorset woods, that he can truly re-forge his thoughts, put the years of suffering behind him, and start afresh by immersing himself in the old ways of woods and fire.Exquisitely written and deeply honest, Burn is a hopeful story of transformation, a celebration of manual work and craft, and a love letter to the English countryside.'Beautifully written . . . reading it leaves you feeling ruffled but alive' Mail on Sunday
Burned Alive: A Victim of the Law of Men (A Sharon McCone Mystery #25)
by SouadWhen Souad was seventeen she fell in love. In her West Bank village, as in so many other villages, sex before marriage is considered a grave dishonor to one's family and is punishable by death. This was her crime. Her brother-in-law was given the task of meting out her punishment. One morning while Souad was washing the family's clothes, he poured gasoline over her and set her on fire." "In the eyes of the community he was a hero. An execution for a "crime of honor" is a duty, and Souad's brother-in-law had the full support of her parents." "Miraculously she survived, rescued by women of her village, who put out the flames and took her to a local hospital. Horribly burned over ninety percent of her body and still denounced by her family - who strived to "finish the job" even as she lay suffering in the clinic - Souad was able to receive the care she needed only after the intervention of a European aid worker. Now in permanent exile from her homeland, she has decided to tell her story and reveal the barbarity of a practice that continues to this day." "More than five thousand honor killings are reported every year; many more go unreported. Burned Alive is both the testimony of one young woman's resolve to survive and build a new life - and a call to action to end a heinous tradition.
Burned at the Stake: The Life and Death of Mary Channing
by Summer StrevensA true story of crime and punishment in eighteenth-century England, and the first trial in recorded history to employ forensic evidence. In 1706, nineteen-year-old Mary Channing was convicted of poisoning her husband and became the last woman to be burned at the stake in Dorset. Despite the likely culpability of her lover, and her impressive attempts to defend herself, the jury took only half an hour to find her guilty, having accepted the groundbreaking toxicological evidence by prosecutors. When the day finally arrived, Mary&’s execution was made into something of a county fair, with ten thousand spectators gathering to see the young mother consigned to the flames upon the floor of Dorchester&’s ancient Roman amphitheater, Maumbury Rings. More than three hundred years after her barbaric demise, Mary&’s fate still holds a macabre fascination, as it did then for author Thomas Hardy, for whom it became an obsession. Hardy recorded the details of Mary&’s execution in his notebooks, expressed doubt of her guilt, and used her as the inspiration for his poem, &“The Mock Wife&”. Yet while Mary Channing has been granted a kind of grim celebrity, as well as an established place in the annals of female murderers, a measure of compelling sympathy for her case is another lasting aspect of her legacy is this &“dramatic and fascinating&” chronicle of a woman accused (Ripperologist Magazine).
Burned: Pyromania, Murder, and a Daughter's Nightmare
by Frank C. Girardot Jr. Lori Orr KovachA daughter&’s account of the &“Pillowcase Pyro,&” hero firefighter turned killer arsonist John Orr. &“A red-hot true crime masterpiece.&” —Burl Barer, Edgar Award–winning author of Betrayal in Blue and Murder in the Family For years, Lori Orr believed her Los Angeles firefighter dad was a selfless hero. When Lori&’s dad was arrested and charged with four murders and countless arson fires, it was her testimony that helped keep him from being sent to Death Row. Eventually, Lori&’s search for the truth lead her to the dark secrets lurking in her family&’s past—and to an inescapable conclusion about the remorseless killer and arsonist known as the &“Pillowcase Pyro&” and his reign of terror in sunny Southern California. Together with award-winning journalist Frank C. Girardot, Jr., Orr looks back on the journey that took her from love to fear and the search for answers about how the father she loved could also be a thrill-seeking predator. A predator brought to justice by a dogged investigator no one wanted to believe. A master manipulator who participated in the writing of this memoir in hopes that it would redeem him in the eyes of his family and others who trusted and believed in him. &“A fiery tale . . . The text itself collates Girardot&’s tying together of the investigative timeline with entries from Horvack Orr&’s diaries.&” —Pasadena Now
Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane
by Paul AusterFrom Booker Prize–shortlisted and New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster, a landmark biography of the great American writer Stephen Crane.With Burning Boy, celebrated novelist Paul Auster tells the extraordinary story of Stephen Crane, best known as the author of The Red Badge of Courage, who transformed American literature through an avalanche of original short stories, novellas, poems, journalism, and war reportage before his life was cut short by tuberculosis at age twenty-eight. Auster&’s probing account of this singular life tracks Crane as he rebounds from one perilous situation to the next: A controversial article written at twenty disrupts the course of the 1892 presidential campaign, a public battle with the New York police department over the false arrest of a prostitute effectively exiles him from the city, a star-crossed love affair with an unhappily married uptown girl tortures him, a common-law marriage to the proprietress of Jacksonville&’s most elegant bawdyhouse endures, a shipwreck results in his near drowning, he withstands enemy fire to send dispatches from the Spanish-American War, and then he relocates to England, where Joseph Conrad becomes his closest friend and Henry James weeps over his tragic, early death. In Burning Boy, Auster not only puts forth an immersive read about an unforgettable life but also, casting a dazzled eye on Crane&’s astonishing originality and productivity, provides uniquely knowing insight into Crane&’s creative processes to produce the rarest of reading experiences—the dramatic biography of a brilliant writer as only another literary master could tell it.
Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane
by Paul AusterBooker Prize-shortlisted and New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster's comprehensive, landmark biography of the great American writer Stephen Crane.With Burning Boy, celebrated novelist Paul Auster tells the extraordinary story of Stephen Crane, best known as the author of The Red Badge of Courage, who transformed American literature through an avalanche of original short stories, novellas, poems, journalism, and war reportage before his life was cut short by tuberculosis at age twenty-eight.Auster’s probing account of this singular life tracks Crane as he rebounds from one perilous situation to the next: A controversial article written at twenty disrupts the course of the 1892 presidential campaign, a public battle with the New York police department over the false arrest of a prostitute effectively exiles him from the city, a star-crossed love affair with an unhappily married uptown girl tortures him, a common-law marriage to the proprietress of Jacksonville’s most elegant bawdyhouse endures, a shipwreck results in his near drowning, he withstands enemy fire to send dispatches from the Spanish-American War, and then he relocates to England, where Joseph Conrad becomes his closest friend and Henry James weeps over his tragic, early death.In Burning Boy, Auster not only puts forth an immersive read about an unforgettable life but also, casting a dazzled eye on Crane’s astonishing originality and productivity, provides uniquely knowing insight into Crane’s creative processes to produce the rarest of reading experiences—the dramatic biography of a brilliant writer as only another literary master could tell it.
Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself
by Russell WangerskyWinner of the 2009 British Columbia’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, short-listed for the 2008 Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize Thousands of boys dream of becoming firefighters. Some get the chance, and for some of those, the dream becomes a nightmare.Burning Down the House is the story of Wangersky’s eight-year career as a volunteer firefighter, an experience that wound up reaching into every facet of his life and changed the way he saw the world forever. Written in vibrant, luminous prose, the book traces his years from rookie to veteran firefighter and the toll it took on his personal life. Offering a rare glimpse into physical dangers and psychological costs of trying to save strangers’ lives, Wangersky paints a harrowing and sometimes heartbreakingly vivid portrait of the fires, medical calls, and automobile accidents that are the standard fare of the profession. Visceral and affecting, Burning Down the House is an insightful insider’s account of the perilous world of firefighting and an unforgettable memoir of how, in finding his passion, Wangersky lost himself.
Burning Down the House: Talking Heads and the New York Scene That Transformed Rock
by Jonathan Gould"Definitive...Not just for Talking Heads fans—it’s a masterful dive into downtown New York in the 70s, and the changing face of rock music.”—Town & Country"Riveting"—New York Post"A masterful achievement." —Booklist (starred review)On the 50th anniversary of Talking Heads, acclaimed music biographer Jonathan Gould presents the long-overdue, definitive story of this singular band, capturing the gritty energy of 1970s New York City and showing how a group of art students brought fringe culture to rock’s mainstream, forever changing the look and sound of popular music. “Psycho Killer.” “Take Me to the River.” “Road to Nowhere.” Few musical artists have had the lasting impact and relevance of Talking Heads. One of the foundational bands of New York’s downtown 1970s music scene, Talking Heads have endured as a musical and cultural force for decades. Their unique brand of transcendent, experimental rock remains a lingering influence on popular music—despite their having disbanded over thirty years ago.Now New Yorker contributor Jonathan Gould offers an authoritative, deeply researched account of a band whose sound, fame, and legacy forever connected rock music to the cultural avant-garde. From their art school origins to the enigmatic charisma of David Byrne and the internal tensions that ultimately broke them apart, Gould tells the story of a group that emerged when rock music was still young and went on to redefine the prevailing expectations of how a band could sound, look, and act. At a time when guitar solos, lead-singer swagger, and sweaty stadium tours reigned supreme, Talking Heads were precocious, awkward, quirky, and utterly distinctive when they first appeared on the ragged stages of the East Village. Yet they would soon mature into one of the most accomplished and uncompromising recording and performing acts of their era.More than just a biography of a band, Gould masterfully captures the singular time and place that incubated and nurtured this original music: downtown New York in the 1970s, that much romanticized, little understood milieu where art, music, and commerce collided in the urban dystopia of Lower Manhattan. What emerges is an expansive portrait of a unique cultural moment and an iconoclastic band that shifted the paradigm of popular music by burning down the house of mainstream rock.
Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence
by Frances WilsonShortlisted for the James Tait Black PrizeAn electrifying, revelatory new biography of D. H. Lawrence, with a focus on his difficult middle years“Never trust the teller,” wrote D. H. Lawrence, “trust the tale.” Everyone who knew him told stories about Lawrence, and Lawrence told stories about everyone he knew. He also told stories about himself, again and again: a pioneer of autofiction, no writer before Lawrence had made so permeable the border between life and literature. In Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence, acclaimed biographer Frances Wilson tells a new story about the author, focusing on his decade of superhuman writing and travel between 1915, when The Rainbow was suppressed following an obscenity trial, and 1925, when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.Taking after Lawrence’s own literary model, Dante, and adopting the structure of The Divine Comedy, Burning Man is a distinctly Lawrentian book, one that pursues Lawrence around the globe and reflects his life of wild allegory. Eschewing the confines of traditional biography, it offers a triptych of lesser-known episodes drawn from lesser-known sources, including tales of Lawrence as told by his friends in letters, memoirs, and diaries. Focusing on three turning points in Lawrence’s pilgrimage (his crises in Cornwall, Italy, and New Mexico) and three central adversaries—his wife, Frieda; the writer Maurice Magnus; and his patron, Mabel Dodge Luhan—Wilson uncovers a lesser-known Lawrence, both as a writer and as a man.Strikingly original, superbly researched, and always revelatory, Burning Man is a marvel of iconoclastic biography. With flair and focus, Wilson unleashes a distinct perspective on one of history’s most beloved and infamous writers.