Now a CBS All Access series: "A riveting tale of rocketry, the occult, and boom-and-bust 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles" ( Booklist).The Los Angeles Times headline screamed: ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN PASADENA EXPLOSION. The man known as Jack Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform a derided sci-fi plotline into actuality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a de...

The shocking new memoir from Death--this long-awaited autobiography finally reveals the inner story of one of the most troubling, and troubled, figures in historyAt last, the mysterious, feared, and misunderstood being known only as “Death” talks frankly and unforgettably about his infinitely awful existence, chronicling his abusive childhood, his near-fatal addiction to Life, his excruciating time in rehab, and the ultimate triumph of his true nature. For the firs...

Millard Fillmore has been mocked, maligned, or, most cruelly of all, ignored by generations of historians--but no more! This unbelievable new biography finally rescues the unlucky thirteenth U.S. president from the dustbin of history and shows why a man known as a blundering, arrogant, shallow, miserable failure was really our greatest leader.In the first fully researched portrait of Fillmore ever written, the reader can finally come face-to-face with a misunderstood genius. By met...

Now a CBS All Access series: “A riveting tale of rocketry, the occult, and boom-and-bust 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles” (Booklist).The Los Angeles Times headline screamed: ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN PASADENA EXPLOSION. The man known as Jack Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform a derided sci-fi plotline into actuality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a de...

Latin America, an area of great economic potential, has long been in need of an authoritative and concise introduction. This history has been written by a specialist who was closely connected with Latin America for over forty years. His text emphasizes how many races and classes have contributed to the civilization of this great landmass, with its vast mountain ranges, rivers, prairies, forests, and deserts: Indians, European conquistadores, priests, planters, African slaves, caudillos...

The true story of America's first superstar evangelist that "fills a significant gap in the history of revivalism" (The New York Times Book Review).Once she answered the divine calling, Aimee Semple McPherson rose fast from unfulfilled housewife in Rhode Island to "miracle woman"—the most enigmatic, pioneering, media-savvy Christian evangelist in the country. She preached up and down the United States, traveling in a 1912 Packard with her mother and her ch...

A journalist who “illuminates the human drama behind the headlines” writes about today’s dramatic events, from terrorist attacks to tsunamis (Publishers Weekly).“An uncannily honest writer,” Amitav Ghosh has published firsthand accounts of pivotal world events in publications including the New York Times, Granta, and the New Yorker (The New York Times Book Review). This volume brings together the finest of these...

The journeys of Paul Theroux take place not only in exotic, unexpected places of the world but in the thoughts, reading, and emotions of the writer himself. A gathering of people, places, and ideas in fifty glittering pieces of gold.

The first full biography of Joy Davidman brings her out from C. S. Lewis’ shadow, where she has long been hidden, to reveal a powerful writer and thinker.Joy Davidman is known, if she is known at all, as the wife of C. S. Lewis. Their marriage was immortalized in the film Shadowlands and Lewis’ memoir A Grief Observed. Now, through extraordinary new documents as well as years of research and interviews, Abigail Santamaria brings Joy Davidman Gresham Lewis to the p...

In The N Word, a renowned cultural critic untangles the twisted history and future of racism through its most volatile word.In 2003, the book Nigger started an intense conversation about the use and implications of that epithet. The N Word moves beyond that short, provocative book by revealing how the word has both reflected and spread the scourge of bigotry in America.Asim claims that, even when uttered by hipsters and hip-hop icons, the slur hel...

Jack the Ripper is the ultimate cold case. The Whitechapel Murders of 1888 have remained unsolved for over 130 years and hundreds of theories have been suggested as to the killer's identity. Despite numerous books claiming to unmask the infamous Victorian villain, none have come close…until now.The authors of this book are all members of H Division Crime Club, the world's largest body of experts on the Jack the Ripper murders. They have all come together for the first time in histo...

When Tom Paine arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1774, the city was America's largest port. Unfortunately, the seasonal dangers of the rivers dividing the region were becoming an obstacle to the city's continued growth. Philadelphia needed a practical connection between the rich grain of Pennsylvania's backcountry farms and its port on the Delaware. The iron bridge was his solution.The bridge was part of Paine's answer to the central political challenge of the new nation: how...