Download or read book Blind Man s Bluff A Memoir written by James Tate Hill and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Editors' Choice A Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite Book of 2021 A writer’s humorous and often-heartbreaking tale of losing his sight—and how he hid it from the world. At age sixteen, James Tate Hill was diagnosed with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, a condition that left him legally blind. When high-school friends stopped calling and a disability counselor advised him to aim for C’s in his classes, he tried to escape the stigma by pretending he could still see. In this unfailingly candid yet humorous memoir, Hill discloses the tricks he employed to pass for sighted, from displaying shelves of paperbacks he read on tape to arriving early on first dates so women would have to find him. He risked his life every time he crossed a street, doing his best to listen for approaching cars. A good memory and pop culture obsessions like Tom Cruise, Prince, and all things 1980s allowed him to steer conversations toward common experiences. For fifteen years, Hill hid his blindness from friends, colleagues, and lovers, even convincing himself that if he stared long enough, his blurry peripheral vision would bring the world into focus. At thirty, faced with a stalled writing career, a crumbling marriage, and a growing fear of leaving his apartment, he began to wonder if there was a better way.
Download or read book Blind Man s Bluff written by Sherry Sontag and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2008-03-04 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the secret history of America's submarine warfare in this fast-paced and deeply researched chronicle of adventure and intrigue during the Cold War that reads like a spy thriller. Blind Man's Bluff is an exciting, epic story of adventure, ingenuity, courage, and disaster beneath the sea. This New York Times bestseller reveals previously unknown dramas, such as: The mission to send submarines wired with self-destruct charges into the heart of Soviet seas to tap crucial underwater telephone cables. How the Navy's own negligence may have been responsible for the loss of the USS Scorpion, a submarine that disappeared, all hands lost, in 1968. The bitter war between the CIA and the Navy and how it threatened to sabotage one of America's most important undersea missions. The audacious attempt to steal a Soviet submarine with the help of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and how it was doomed from the start. A magnificent achievement in investigative reporting, Blind Man's Bluff reads like a spy thriller, but with one important difference -- everything in it is true.
Download or read book Blind Man s Bluff written by Aidan Higgins and published by Deep Vellum Publishing. This book was released on 2012-08-28 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perversely, but perhaps appropriately, Aidan Higgins—one of the few contemporary writers worthy of comparison with Beckett and Joyce, now celebrating his 85th year—has chosen to wait until his sight has nearly left him to assemble this collection of visual treats. A commonplace book of anecdotes and cartoons—the latter never before published, though familiar to all of Higgins's correspondents from the margins of his letters and postcards—Blind Man's Bluff is a compendium of tart and comic insights into sight itself, as well as other varied indignities: personal, historical, and literary.
Download or read book Academy Gothic written by James Tate Hill and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hard-boiled noir meets academic satire in Academy Gothic. Tate Cowlishaw is late for another faculty meeting when he discovers the body of Scoot Simkins, dean of Parshall College. Cowlishaw might be legally blind but sees that a man with three bullets in his head didn't put them there himself. The police disagree. When Cowlishaw investigates, he is told his teaching contract won't be renewed. Suspects aren't hard to come by at the college annually ranked "Worst Value" by U.S. News & World Report. While the faculty brace for a visit from the accreditation board, Cowlishaw's investigation leads him to another colleague on eternal sabbatical. Before long, his efforts to save his job become efforts to stay alive. A farcical tale of incompetence and corruption, Academy Gothic scathingly redefines higher education as it chronicles the last days of a dying college.
Download or read book Quiet Desperation Savage Delight written by David Gessner and published by Torrey House Press. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A powerful and timely book from one of the most provocative and engaging voices in contemporary environmental writing." —MICHAEL P. BRANCH, author of How to Cuss in Western When the pandemic struck, nature writer David Gessner turned to Henry David Thoreau, the original social distancer, for lessons on how to live. Those lessons—of learning our own backyard, re–wilding, loving nature, self–reliance, and civil disobedience—hold a secret that could help save us as we face the greater crisis of climate. DAVID GESSNER is the author of Leave It As It Is: A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt's American Wilderness and the New York Times–bestselling All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner and the American West. Chair of the Creative Writing Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and founder and editor–in–chief of Ecotone, Gessner lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, with his wife, the novelist Nina de Gramont, and their daughter, Hadley.
Download or read book Red November written by W. Craig Reed and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-05-04 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Red November delivers the real life feel and fears of submariners who risked their lives to keep the peace.” —Steve Berry, author of The Paris Vendetta W. Craig Reed, a former navy diver and fast-attack submariner, provides a riveting portrayal of the secret underwater struggle between the US and the USSR in Red November. A spellbinding true-life adventure in the bestselling tradition of Blind Man’s Bluff, it reveals previously undisclosed details about the most dangerous, daring, and decorated missions of the Cold War, earning raves from New York Times bestselling authors David Morrell, who calls it, “palpably gripping,” and James Rollins, who says, “If Tom Clancy had turned The Hunt for Red October into a nonfiction thriller, Red November might be the result.”
Download or read book There Plant Eyes written by M. Leona Godin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Homer to Helen Keller, from Dune to Stevie Wonder, from the invention of braille to the science of echolocation, M. Leona Godin explores the fascinating history of blindness, interweaving it with her own story of gradually losing her sight. “[A] thought-provoking mixture of criticism, memoir, and advocacy." —The New Yorker There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be “blind.” For millennia, blindness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality (“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil). Godin—who began losing her vision at age ten—illuminates the often-surprising history of both the condition of blindness and the myths and ideas that have grown up around it over the course of generations. She combines an analysis of blindness in art and culture (from King Lear to Star Wars) with a study of the science of blindness and key developments in accessibility (the white cane, embossed printing, digital technology) to paint a vivid personal and cultural history. A genre-defying work, There Plant Eyes reveals just how essential blindness and vision are to humanity’s understanding of itself and the world.
Download or read book Blind Man s Bluff written by James Tate Hill and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Editors' Choice A Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite Book of 2021 A writer’s humorous and often-heartbreaking tale of losing his sight—and how he hid it from the world. At age sixteen, James Tate Hill was diagnosed with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, a condition that left him legally blind. When high-school friends stopped calling and a disability counselor advised him to aim for C’s in his classes, he tried to escape the stigma by pretending he could still see. In this unfailingly candid yet humorous memoir, Hill discloses the tricks he employed to pass for sighted, from displaying shelves of paperbacks he read on tape to arriving early on first dates so women would have to find him. He risked his life every time he crossed a street, doing his best to listen for approaching cars. A good memory and pop culture obsessions like Tom Cruise, Prince, and all things 1980s allowed him to steer conversations toward common experiences. For fifteen years, Hill hid his blindness from friends, colleagues, and lovers, even convincing himself that if he stared long enough, his blurry peripheral vision would bring the world into focus. At thirty, faced with a stalled writing career, a crumbling marriage, and a growing fear of leaving his apartment, he began to wonder if there was a better way.
Download or read book The Silent War written by John Piña Craven and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-06-02 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cold War was the first major conflict between superpowers in which victory and defeat were unambiguously determined without the firing of a shot. Without the shield of a strong, silent deterrent or the intellectual sword of espionage beneath the sea, that war could not have been won. John P. Craven was a key figure in the Cold War beneath the sea. As chief scientist of the Navy's Special Projects Office, which supervised the Polaris missile system, then later as head of the Deep Submergence Systems Project (DSSP) and the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle program (DSRV), both of which engaged in a variety of clandestine undersea projects, he was intimately involved with planning and executing America's submarine-based nuclear deterrence and submarine-based espionage activities during the height of the Cold War. Craven was considered so important by the Soviets that they assigned a full-time KGB agent to spy on him. Some of Craven's highly classified activities have been mentioned in such books as Blind Man's Bluff, but now he gives us his own insights into the deadly cat-and-mouse game that U.S. and Soviet forces played deep in the world's oceans. Craven tells riveting stories about the most treacherous years of the Cold War. In 1956 Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine and the backbone of the Polaris ballistic missile system, was only days or even hours from sinking due to structural damage of unknown origin. Craven led a team of experts to diagnose the structural flaw that could have sent the sub to the bottom of the ocean, taking the Navy's missile program with it. Craven offers insight into the rivalry between the advocates of deterrence (with whom he sided) and those military men and scientists, such as Edward Teller, who believed that the United States had to prepare to fight and win a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union. He describes the argument that raged in the Navy over the reasons for the tragic loss of the submarine Thresher, and tells the astonishing story of the hunt for the rogue Soviet sub that became the model for The Hunt for Red October -- including the amazing discovery the Navy made when it eventually found the sunken sub. Craven takes readers inside the highly secret DSSP and DSRV programs, both of which offered crucial cover for sophisticated intelligence operations. Both programs performed important salvage operations in addition to their secret espionage activities, notably the recovery of a nuclear bomb off Palomares, Spain. He describes how the Navy's success at deep-sea recovery operations led to the takeover of the entire program by the CIA during the Nixon administration. A compelling tale of intrigue, both within our own government and between the U.S. and Soviet navies, The Silent War is an enthralling insider's account of how the submarine service kept the peace during the dangerous days of the Cold War.
Download or read book Little Falls written by Elizabeth Lewes and published by Crooked Lane Books. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She tried to forget the horrors of war--but her quiet hometown conceals a litany of new evils. Sergeant Camille Waresch did everything she could to forget Iraq. She went home to Eastern Washington and got a quiet job. She connected with her daughter, Sophie, whom she had left as a baby. She got sober. But the ghosts of her past were never far behind. While conducting a routine property tax inspection on an isolated ranch, Camille discovers a teenager's tortured corpse hanging in a dilapidated outbuilding. In a flash, her combat-related PTSD resurges--and in her dreams, the hanging boy merges with a young soldier whose eerily similar death still haunts her. The case hits home when Sophie reveals that the victim was her ex-boyfriend--and as Camille investigates, she uncovers a tangled trail that leads to his jealous younger brother and her own daughter, wild, defiant, and ensnared. The closer Camille gets to the truth, the closer she is driven to the edge. Her home is broken into. Her truck is blown up. Evidence and witnesses she remembers clearly are erased. And when Sophie disappears, Camille's hunt for justice becomes a hunt for her child. At a remote compound where the terrifying truth is finally revealed, Camille has one last chance to save her daughter--and redeem her own shattered soul.
Download or read book Into the Deep written by Robert D. Ballard and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-10 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legendary explorer of Titanic and Lusitania reveals the secret military missions behind his famous exploits and unveils a major new discovery on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Titanic find. Best known for finding the wreck of the Titanic, celebrated adventurer Robert Ballard has a lifetime of stories about exploring the ocean depths. From discovering new extremophile life-forms thriving at 750°F hydrothermal vents in 1977 to finding famous shipwrecks including the Bismarck and PT 109, Ballard has made history. Now the captain of E/V Nautilus, a state-of-the-art scientific exploration vessel rigged for research in oceanography, geology, biology, and archaeology, he leads young scientists as they map the ocean floor, collect artifacts from ancient shipwrecks, and relay live-time adventures from remote-controlled submersibles to reveal amazing sea life. Now, for the first time, Robert Ballard gets personal, telling the inside stories of his adventures and challenges as a midwestern kid with dyslexia who became an internationally renowned ocean explorer. Here is the definitive story of the danger and discovery, conflict and triumph that make up his remarkable life.
Download or read book The Candy Bombers written by Andrei Cherny and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-04-17 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “What an exciting, inspiring, and wonderfully-written book this is....Each page has lessons for today, and it is also a thrilling narrative to read.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Steve Jobs The masterfully told story of the unlikely men who came together to make the Berlin Airlift one of the great military and humanitarian successes of American history. On the sixtieth anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, Andrei Cherny tells a remarkable story with profound implications for the world today. In the tradition of the best narrative storytellers, he brings together newly unclassified documents, unpublished letters and diaries, and fresh primary interviews to tell the story of the ill-assorted group of castoffs and second-stringers who not only saved millions of desperate people from a dire threat but changed how the world viewed the United States, and set in motion the chain of events that would ultimately lead to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and to America’s victory in the Cold War. On June 24, 1948, intent on furthering its domination of Europe, the Soviet Union cut off all access to West Berlin, prepared to starve the city into submission unless the Americans abandoned it. Soviet forces hugely outnumbered the Allies’, and most of America’s top officials considered the situation hopeless. But not all of them. Harry Truman, an accidental president, derided by his own party; Lucius Clay, a frustrated general, denied a combat command and relegated to the home front; Bill Tunner, a logistics expert downsized to a desk job in a corner of the Pentagon; James Forrestal, a secretary of defense beginning to mentally unravel; Hal Halvorsen, a lovesick pilot who had served far from the conflict, flying transport missions in the backwater of a global war—together these unlikely men improvised and stumbled their way into a uniquely American combination of military and moral force unprecedented in its time. This is the forgotten foundation tale of America in the modern world, the story of when Americans learned, for the first time, how to act at the summit of world power—a masterful and exciting work of historical narrative, and one with strong resonance for our time.
Download or read book Red Star Rogue written by Kenneth Sewell and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-09-26 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Hunt for Red October" meets "Blind Man's Bluff" in this chilling, true story of a rogue Soviet submarine that sank while trying to provoke a war between the U.S. and China.
Download or read book Dark Waters written by Lee Vyborny and published by NAL. This book was released on 2004-02-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After nearly 40 years, the most closely guarded secret of the Cold War is revealed. Here is the full story of the NR-1 told for the first time through eyewitness accounts by the original crew--including co-author Vyborny--who dared go where no men had gone before.
Download or read book Deadman s Bluff written by James Swain and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2006-05-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In this series about gambling, the main character is a big winner.” –Janet Maslin, The New York Times “Bask in Swain’s Las Vegas without having to set foot in the place and risk being skinned alive.” –The Washington Post Book World A blind poker player named Skip DeMarco is scamming the world’s largest poker tournament in Las Vegas, and cheating-expert Tony Valentine and his son, Gerry, have been hired to find out how. DeMarco is tied to some dangerously desperate characters who will go to extremes–even cold-blooded murder–to ensure that the obnoxious DeMarco wins big. While Gerry flies to Atlantic City to suss out DeMarco’s secret, Valentine stays in Vegas and teams up with an aging grifter named Rufus Steele, who has his own score to settle with DeMarco. On opposite sides of a deadly game, father and son work their way through a colorful landscape of conmen and hitmen. Together, they will have to prove there’s more to any game of chance than meets the eye. Featuring insider tips for catching poker cheats, as well as a glossary of card hustler terms!
Download or read book The Adventures of the Infallible Godahl written by Frederick Irving Anderson and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Adventures of the Infallible Godahl Frederick Irving Anderson While his writing is nearly as cryptic as Chesterton the author's stories have more down to earth subjects. Result is a collection of master thief shorts set in 1910's New York that each give you food for imagination and some thought afterwards. Six short stories featuring a roguish master thief. The Infallible Godahl -- Blind Man's Buff -- The Night of a Thousand Thieves -- Counterpoint -- The Fifth Tube -- An All-Star Cast Notice.
Download or read book Year of Plagues written by Fred D'Aguiar and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this piercing and unforgettable memoir, the award-winning poet reflects on a year of turbulence, fear, and hope. For acclaimed British-Guyanese writer Fred D’Aguiar, 2020 was a year of personal and global crisis. The world around him was shattered by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the United States, California burned, and D’Aguiar was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Year of Plagues is an intimate, multifaceted exploration of these seismic events. Combining personal reminiscence and philosophy, D’Aguiar confronts profound questions about the purpose of pursuing a life of writing and teaching in the face of overwhelming upheavals; the imaginative and artistic strategies a writer can bring to bear as his sense of self and community are severely tested; and the quest for strength and solace necessary to help forge a better future. Drawn from two cultural perspectives—his Caribbean upbringing and his American lifestyle—D’Aguiar’s beautiful and challenging memoir is a paean of resistance to despotic authority and life-threatening disease. In his first work of nonfiction, D’Aguiar subverts the traditional memoir with highly charged language that shifts from the lyrical to the quotidian, from the metaphysical to the personal. While his experience could not be darker, its rendering is tinged with light and joy, captured in prose that unfolds in wonderful, unexpected ways. Both tender and ferocious, Year of Plagues is a harrowing yet uplifting genre-bending memoir of existence, protest, and survival.
