Download or read book Flight of the Diamond Smugglers A Tale of Pigeons Obsession and Greed Along Coastal South Africa written by Matthew Gavin Frank and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Unforgettable. . . . An outstanding adventure in its lyrical, utterly compelling, and heartbreaking investigations of the world of diamond smuggling.” —Aimee Nezhukumatathil For nearly eighty years, a huge portion of coastal South Africa was closed off to the public. With many of its pits now deemed “overmined” and abandoned, American journalist Matthew Gavin Frank sets out across the infamous Diamond Coast to investigate an illicit trade that supplies a global market. Immediately, he became intrigued by the ingenious methods used in facilitating smuggling particularly, the illegal act of sneaking carrier pigeons onto mine property, affixing diamonds to their feet, and sending them into the air. Entering Die Sperrgebiet (“The Forbidden Zone”) is like entering an eerie ghost town, but Frank is surprised by the number of people willing—even eager—to talk with him. Soon he meets Msizi, a young diamond digger, and his pigeon, Bartholomew, who helps him steal diamonds. It’s a deadly game: pigeons are shot on sight by mine security, and Msizi knows of smugglers who have disappeared because of their crimes. For this, Msizi blames “Mr. Lester,” an evil tall-tale figure of mythic proportions. From the mining towns of Alexander Bay and Port Nolloth, through the “halfway” desert, to Kleinzee’s shores littered with shipwrecks, Frank investigates a long overlooked story. Weaving interviews with local diamond miners who raise pigeons in secret with harrowing anecdotes from former heads of security, environmental managers, and vigilante pigeon hunters, Frank reveals how these feathered bandits became outlaws in every mining town. Interwoven throughout this obsessive quest are epic legends in which pigeons and diamonds intersect, such as that of Krishna’s famed diamond Koh-i-Noor, the Mountain of Light, and that of the Cherokee serpent Uktena. In these strange connections, where truth forever tangles with the lore of centuries past, Frank is able to contextualize the personal grief that sent him, with his wife Louisa in the passenger seat, on this enlightening journey across parched lands. Blending elements of reportage, memoir, and incantation, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers is a rare and remarkable portrait of exploitation and greed in one of the most dangerous areas of coastal South Africa. With his sovereign prose and insatiable curiosity, Matthew Gavin Frank “reminds us that the world is a place of wonder if only we look” (Toby Muse).
Download or read book The Diamond Smugglers written by Ian Fleming and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE TRUE STORY OF AN INTERNATIONAL CRIME RING AND ITS DOWNFALL In 1957, as the Cold War raged, Ian Fleming took a respite from writing James Bond to craft a work of nonfiction every bit as tense as a Bond adventure. Aided by an ex-MI5 agent and International Diamond Security Organization operative going by the alias “John Blaize,” Fleming chronicled the IDSO’s infiltration of the “million-carat network”―the world’s most notorious diamond smuggling ring. Every year, a shadowy band of racketeers pirated a fortune in diamonds out of Africa, and the majority of the stolen gems wound up in the hands of Communist nations. In response, the IDSO commissioned a private army, led by legendary British spymaster Sir Percy Sillitoe, to penetrate and topple the ring. When the operation was complete, the Sunday Times gave the story to Fleming, who had impressed Sillitoe with his earlier Bond adventure Diamonds Are Forever. A remarkable feat of investigative journalism, The Diamond Smugglers is the thrilling true story behind one of the greatest spy operations in history.
Download or read book Pot Farm written by Matthew Gavin Frank and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After eight months in his childhood home helping his mother through her bout with cancer, Matthew Frank and his wife were themselves desperate for comfort. They found sanctuary in the most unlikely place—amid a collection of outcasts and eccentrics on a plot of land miles outside their comfort zone: a “mostly medical” marijuana farm in California. Pot Farm details the strange, sublime, and sometimes dangerous goings-on at Weckman Farm, a place with hidden politics and social hierarchies, populated by recovering drug addicts, alternative healers, pseudo-hippie kids, and medical marijuana users looking to give back. There is also Lady Wanda, the massive, elusive, wealthy, and heavily armed businesswoman who owns the farm and runs it from beneath a housedress and a hat of peacock feathers. Frank explores the various roles that allow this industry to work—from field pickers to tractor drivers, cooks to yoga instructors, managers to snipers, illegal immigrants to legal revisionists, and the delivery crew to the hospice workers on the other end. His book also looks at the blurry legislation regulating the marijuana industry as well as the day-to-day logistics of running such an operation and all the relationships that brings into play. Through firsthand observations and experiences (some influenced by the farm’s cash crop), interviews, and research, Pot Farm exposes a thriving but unsung faction of contemporary American culture.
Download or read book Diamonds are Forever written by Ian Fleming and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Diamonds are Forever" by Ian Fleming. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
Download or read book Barolo written by Matthew Gavin Frank and published by At Table. This book was released on 2012-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the worlds most esteemed wines Barolo summons up images of steeply terraced vineyards and all the elegance and sophistication of Italys Piedmont. Chicago raised Frank became obsessed with food early in life and eventually embarked on a restaurant career. But his first trip to Italy transformed his palate, and he plotted an immediate return, apparently as much attracted by the lovely Raffaella as by the opportunity to immerse himself in life in the tiny hamlet of Barolo, which lends its name to the local wine. Living in a tent in her garden, he took on a job harvesting grapes at one of the regions most notable vineyards. Frank developed a deep appreciation for the Piedmontese, their careful attention to their wines and to their foods, especially that culinary crown jewel, the highly prized Alba truffle. Besides conveying the sensuality of the place, Frank offers insight into the regions history.
Download or read book South of Somewhere written by Robert V. Camuto and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2021-10 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert V. Camuto sets out across modern Southern Italy in search of the "South-ness" that defined his youthful experience and views the world through wine, food, and families.
Download or read book The Mad Feast An Ecstatic Tour through America s Food written by Matthew Gavin Frank and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-11-09 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the Art of Eating Prize A richly illustrated culinary tour of the United States through fifty signature dishes, and a radical exploration of our gastronomic heritage. Following his critically acclaimed Preparing the Ghost, renowned essayist Matthew Gavin Frank takes on America’s food. In a surprising style reminiscent of Maggie Nelson or Mark Doty, Frank examines a quintessential dish in each state, interweaving the culinary with personal and cultural associations of each region. From key lime pie (Florida) to elk stew (Montana), The Mad Feast commemorates the unexpected origins of the familiar. Brazenly dissecting the myriad intersections between history and food, Frank, in this gorgeously designed volume, considers politics, sexuality, violence, grief, and pleasure: the cool, creamy whoopie pie evokes toughness in the face of New England winters, while the stewlike perloo serves up an exploration of food and race in the South. Tracing an unpredictable map of our collective appetites, The Mad Feast presents a beguiling flavor profile of the American spirit.
Download or read book Paper Concert written by Amy Wright and published by Sarabande Books. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to capture Amy Wright’s Paper Concert: A Conversation in the Round, a one-of-a-kind book-length essay containing a multitude of individual voices? Wright, conductor extraordinaire, has managed to piece apart, then fold together conversations from a bevy of thinkers like Dorothy Allison, Rae Armantrout, Gerald Stern, Lia Purpura, Raven Jackson, Wendy Walters, Kimiko Hahn, Philanese Slaughter, and others, blended into one harmonious whole. Wright opens the book: “This essay anchors a central thread of dialogue over a dizzying divide. It weaves a decades worth of questions and answers from a range of discussions I’ve had with artists, activists, scientists, philosophers, physicians, priests, musicians, and other representatives of the human population. Some of them are famous, some will be, some should be—but all of them refract the light of the unknowable mystery of the self.” The subjects range from the interconnected (inspiration and craft) to the seemingly disparate (colonialism and entomophagy), all with the hope of finding what truly matters to us. If this book is a paper concert, it is a symphony. Just pull up a chair and listen.
Download or read book Preparing the Ghost An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer written by Matthew Gavin Frank and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-07-07 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Shelf Awareness Memory, mythology, and obsession collide in this “slyly charming” (New York Times Book Review) account of the giant squid. In 1874, Moses Harvey—eccentric Newfoundland reverend and amateur naturalist—was the first person to photograph the near-mythic giant squid, draping it over his shower curtain rod to display its magnitude. In Preparing the Ghost, what begins as Harvey’s story becomes spectacularly “slippery and many-armed” (NewYorker.com) as Matthew Gavin Frank winds his narrative tentacles around history, creative nonfiction, science, memoir, and meditations about the interrelated nature of them all. In his full-hearted, lyrical style, Frank weaves in playful forays about his trip to Harvey’s Newfoundland home, his own childhood and family history, and a catalog of peculiar facts that recall Melville ’s story of obsession with another deep-sea dwelling leviathan. “Totally original and haunting” (Flavorwire), Preparing the Ghost is a delightfully unpredictable inquiry into the big, beautiful human impulse to obsess.
Download or read book Pigeons written by Andrew D. Blechman and published by Univ. of Queensland Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They have been worshipped as fertility goddesses and revered as symbols of peace. Domesticated since the dawn of humankind, they have been crucial to wartime communications for every major historical superpower from ancient Egypt to the United States and are credited with saving thousands of lives. One delivered the results of the first Olympics in 776 BC and another brought the news of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo more than 2500 years later. Charles Darwin relied heavily upon them to help formulate and support his theory of evolution. Yet today the pigeon is reviled as a rat with wings. How did we come to misunderstand one of humanity's most steadfast companions?In Pigeons, Andrew D. Blechman travels across the United States and Europe in a quest to chronicle the bird's transformation from beloved friend to feathered outlaw.
Download or read book Open Cockpit Over Africa written by Victor Smith and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Wild Cards XI Dealer s Choice written by George R. R. Martin and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soon to be a TV show! Rights to develop Wild Cards for TV have been acquired by Universal Cable Productions, the team that brought you The Magicians and Mr. Robot, with the co-editor of Wild Cards, Melinda Snodgrass as executive producer. After too many disastrous raids and military embarrassments, the Nats order a full-out, no-holds-barred blitzkrieg against Bloat and his genetic outcasts. The mission is clear: destroy Ellis Island, no survivors. As the final battle rages, the Turtle throws in the towel, Modular Man switches sides, Reflector faces defeat, Legion “dies”—and assassins reach Bloat’s chamber. This is it, folks. The final days of the Rox. The Wild Cards series explodes into apocalyptic battle action, edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass, featuring the writing talents of Edward W. Bryant, Stephen Leigh, John Jos. Miller, George R. R. Martin and Walter Jon Williams. The Wild Cards Universe The Original Triad #1 Wild Cards #2 Aces High #3 Jokers Wild The Puppetman Quartet #4: Aces Abroad #5: Down and Dirty #6: Ace in the Hole #7: Dead Man’s Hand The Rox Triad #8: One-Eyed Jacks #9: Jokertown Shuffle #10: Double Solitaire #11: Dealer's Choice #12: Turn of the Cards The Card Sharks Triad #13: Card Sharks #14: Marked Cards #15: Black Trump #16: Deuces Down #17: Death Draws Five The Committee Triad #18: Inside Straight #19: Busted Flush #20: Suicide Kings American Hero (ebook original) The Fort Freak Triad #21: Fort Freak #22: Lowball #23: High Stakes The American Triad #24: Mississippi Roll #25: Low Chicago #26: Texas Hold 'Em #27: Knaves Over Queens At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book Moonfleet Illustrated written by J Meade Falkner and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-17 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moonfleet is a 1898 novel written by English writer J. Meade Falkner. The plot is an adventure tale of smuggling, treasure, and shipwreck set in 18th century England
Download or read book Profound River written by John Gubbins and published by Cedar Fort. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Dame Juliana Berners, an accomplished sportswoman and devout Catholic nun. Dame Juliana was the first to document the habits of fish and other wildlife, and is also credited as the inventor of fly fishing.
Download or read book Goldfinger written by Ian Fleming and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Goldfinger" by Ian Fleming. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
Download or read book The Boy Detective Fails written by Joe Meno and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2006-09-01 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this “charming” and melancholic novel, a former child sleuth “investigates the hard-to-crack case of Lost Innocence” (Entertainment Weekly). A Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist Book of the Year In the twilight of a mysterious childhood full of wonder, Billy Argo, boy detective, is brokenhearted to find that his younger sister and crime-solving partner, Caroline, has committed suicide. Ten years later, Billy, age thirty, returns from an extended stay at St. Vitus’ Hospital for the Mentally Ill to discover the world full of unimaginable strangeness: office buildings vanish without reason, small animals turn up without their heads, and cruel villains ride city buses to complete their evil schemes. Lost within this unwelcoming place, Billy befriends two lonely, extraordinary children—one a science fair genius, the other a charming, silent bully. With a nearly forgotten bravery, he experiences the unendurable boredom of a telemarketing job; encounters a beautiful, desperate pickpocket; and confronts the nearly impossible solution to his sister’s case. Along a path laden with hidden clues and codes, the boy detective may learn the greatest secret of all: the necessity of the unknown. “Haunted by the mystery of his sister’s death and feeling that a lapse in his sleuthing may be to blame, Billy is determined to find out the reason for her suicide and to punish those responsible . . . The story of Billy’s search for truth, love and redemption is surprising and absorbing. Swaddled in melancholy and gentle humor, it builds in power as the clues pile up.” —Publishers Weekly “The author gives Billy a gallery of rogues to combat and even sends him to investigate the Convocation of Evil at a local hotel (‘Featured Panel: To Wear a Mask?’). Meno sets himself a complicated task, marooning his straight-arrow, pulp-fiction protagonist in a world uglier than the Bobbsey Twins ever faced but refusing to go for satire. Instead, the author takes his compulsive investigator at face value.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Comedic, imaginative, empathic . . . investigates the precincts of grief [and] our longing to combat chaos with reason.” —Booklist
Download or read book Memoirs of a Smuggler written by John Rattenbury and published by Franklin Classics. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
