Download or read book Great Uncle Harry written by Michael Palin and published by Random House. This book was released on 2024-09-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Palin recreates the extraordinary life and tragic death of a First World War soldier—his great-uncle Harry. Some years ago a stash of family records was handed down to Michael Palin, among which were photos of an enigmatic young man in army uniform, as well as photos of the same young man as a teenager looking uncomfortable at family gatherings. This, Michael learned, was his Great-Uncle Harry, born in 1884, died in 1916. He had previously had no idea that he had a Great-Uncle Harry, much less that his life was cut short at the age of 32 when he was killed in the Battle of the Somme. The discovery both shocked him and made him want to know much more. The quest that followed involved hundreds of hours of painstaking detective work. Michael dug out every bit of family gossip and correspondence he could. He studied every relevant official document. He tracked down what remained of his great-uncle Harry's diaries and letters, and pored over photographs of First World War battle scenes to see whether Harry appeared in any of them. He walked the route Harry took on that fatal, final day of his life amid the mud of northern France. And as he did so, a life that had previously existed in the shadows was revealed to him. Great-Uncle Harry is an utterly compelling account of an ordinary man who led an extraordinary life. A blend of biography, history, travelogue and personal memoir, this is Michael Palin at his very finest.

Download or read book Uncle Harry at the Woodpile Great East Lake 1948 written by Donald Junkins and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Great Son written by Edna Ferber and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1945, the triumphant novel of a great American family dynasty in the Pacific Northwest, by Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Ferber. Great Son tells the story of four generations of the Melendys, a family grown rich and ill at ease, who watched Seattle grow from a village to a skyscraper town, who felt the rhythm and sweep of America in the building, and the call of the Alaskan gold fields. There is Madam Exact Melendy, who saw Seattle grow from an Indian camp to the wonder city of the Northwest, and Vaughan, her son, who wrested three fortunes from the wilderness, but yielded to the domination of three women. Finally, there is Mike Melendy, a clear-eyed representative of the new generation, who, feeling there was no place to go but up, took to flying. With her signature colorful prose, Edna Ferber brings to life the triumphant story of the magnificent Melendy men and women.

Download or read book Around the World in 80 Days written by Michael Palin and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin sets out from the Reform Club to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier.

Download or read book The Man in the Crooked Hat written by Harry Dolan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A new master mystery writer emerges."--Forbes Magazine One cryptic clue leads a desperate man into a labyrinthine puzzle of murder in the electrifying new novel from national bestselling author Harry Dolan. There's a killer, and he wears a crooked hat. Private investigator Jack Pellum has spent two years searching for the man who he believes murdered his wife--a man he last saw wearing a peacoat and a fedora. Months of posting fliers and combing through crime records yield no leads. Then a local writer commits suicide, and he leaves a bewildering message that may be the first breadcrumb in a winding trail of unsolved murders . . . Michael Underhill is a philosophical man preoccupied by what-ifs and could-have-beens, but his life is finally coming together. He has a sweet and beautiful girlfriend, and together they're building their future home. Nothing will go wrong, not if Underhill has anything to say about it. The problem is, Underhill has a dark and secret past, and it's coming back to haunt him. These two men are inexorably drawn together in a mystery where there is far more than meets the eye, and nothing can be taken for granted. Filled with devious reversals and razor-sharp tension, The Man in the Crooked Hat is a masterwork from "one of America's best new crime writers" (Lansing State Journal).

Download or read book Harry Houdini written by Janice Weaver and published by Harry N. Abrams. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life of Harry Houdini and his less famous partner, his brother Dash, includes details of his well-known career as a magician, as well as his interest in exposing fake mediums and other frauds. Sidebars highlight topics related to the early 20th century, such as child labor, the dime museums, and early aviation, an interest of Houdini's.

Download or read book North Korea Journal written by Michael Palin and published by Random House Canada. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this beautifully illustrated journal based on a TV documentary, writer, comedian and world traveller Michael Palin journeys to North Korea, offering a glimpse of life inside the world's most secretive country, uncovering surprises and making friends along the way. In May 2018, former Monty Python stalwart and intrepid globetrotter Michael Palin ventured into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, camera crew in tow, to gain a glimpse of life in the most notoriously secretive and cut-off nation on earth. His resulting two-part documentary for Channel 5 fascinated millions and won universal plaudits. Now he shares the journal he meticulously kept during his trip, in which he describes his experiences in a country wholly unlike any other he has ever visited: a country where you will find the Tallest Unoccupied Building in the World; where the residents of Pyongyang awake every morning to the strains of 'Where Are You, Dear General?', broadcast from speakers across the city; and where there are fifteen approved styles of haircut. He chronicles a journey of stark contrasts that takes in a gleamingly modern capital complete with triumphal statues and arches one day, and a countryside that has barely changed in decades on another. He travels to the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, to a centuries-old Confucian academy, and to the heart of North Korea's exquisitely beautiful mountains and lakes. He recounts conversations with official guides, teachers, propaganda artists, farmers and soldiers in which mutual incomprehension and shared humanity are constantly intermingled. And he muses on what makes people tick under a regime that to outsiders seems so utterly alien and so grimly authoritarian. Written with Palin's trademark warmth and wit, and illustrated with beautiful colour photographs throughout, Palin's journal offers a rare insight into the North Korea behind the headlines.

Download or read book Erebus written by Michael Palin and published by Greystone Books Ltd. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Driven by a passion for travel and history and a love of ships and the sea, former Monty Python stalwart and beloved television globe-trotter Michael Palin explores the world of HMS Erebus, last seen on an ill-fated voyage to chart the Northwest Passage. Michael Palin brings the fascinating story of the Erebus and its occupants to life, from its construction as a bomb vessel in 1826 through the flagship years of James Clark Ross’s Antarctic expedition and finally to Sir John Franklin’s quest for the holy grail of navigation—a route through the Northwest Passage, where the ship disappeared into the depths of the sea for more than 150 years. It was rediscovered under the arctic waters in 2014. Palin travels across the world—from Tasmania to the Falkland Islands and the Canadian Arctic—to offer a firsthand account of the terrain and conditions that would have confronted the Erebus and her doomed final crew. Delving into the research, he describes the intertwined careers of the two men who shared the ship’s journeys: Ross, the organizational genius who mapped much of the Antarctic coastline and oversaw some of the earliest scientific experiments to be conducted there; and Franklin, who, at the age of sixty and after a checkered career, commanded the ship on its last disastrous venture. Expertly researched and illustrated with maps, photographs, paintings, and engravings, Erebus is an evocative account of two journeys: one successful and forgotten, the other tragic yet unforgettable.

Download or read book Black Sun written by Geoffrey Wolff and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2012-04-18 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes an afterword by the author. Harry Crosby was the godson of J. P. Morgan and a friend of Ernest Hemingway. Living in Paris in the twenties and directing the Black Sun Press, which published James Joyce among others, Crosby was at the center of the wild life of the lost generation. Drugs, drink, sex, gambling, the deliberate derangement of the senses in the pursuit of transcendent revelation: these were Crosby’s pastimes until 1929, when he shot his girlfriend, the recent bride of another man, and then himself. Black Sun is novelist and master biographer Geoffrey Wolff’s subtle and striking picture of a man who killed himself to make his life a work of art.

Download or read book Book Uncle and Me written by Uma Krishnaswami and published by Groundwood Books Ltd. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the International Literacy Association Social Justice Literature Award An award-winning middle-grade novel about the power of grassroots activism and how kids can make a difference. Every day, nine-year-old Yasmin borrows a book from Book Uncle, a retired teacher who has set up a free lending library on the street corner. But when the mayor tries to shut down the rickety bookstand, Yasmin has to take her nose out of her book and do something. What can she do? The local elections are coming up, but she’s just a kid. She can’t even vote! Still, Yasmin has friends — her best friend, Reeni, and Anil, who even has a blue belt in karate. And she has family and neighbors. What’s more, she has an idea that came right out of the last book she borrowed from Book Uncle. So Yasmin and her friends get to work. Ideas grow like cracks in the sidewalk, and soon the whole effort is breezing along nicely... Or is it spinning right out of control? An energetic, funny and quirky story about community activism, friendship, and the love of books. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.2 Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.6 Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.

Download or read book Let the Trumpet Sound written by Stephen B. Oates and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-06-23 with total page 746 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The most comprehensive, the most thoroughly researched and documented, the most scholarly of the biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr.” —Henry Steele Commanger, Philadelphia Inquirer Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award * A New York Times Notable Book of the Year By the acclaimed biographer of Abraham Lincoln, Nat Turner, and John Brown, Stephen B. Oates's prizewinning Let the Trumpet Sound is the definitive one-volume life of Martin Luther King, Jr. This brilliant examination of the great civil rights icon and the movement he led provides a lasting portrait of a man whose dream shaped American history. “Drawing on interviews with those who knew King, previously unutilized material at Presidential libraries, and the holdings of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta, Mr. Oates has written the most comprehensive account of King’s life yet published. . . . He displays a remarkable understanding of King’s individual role in the civil rights movement. . . . Oates’s biography helps us appreciate how sorely King is missed.” —Eric Foner, New York Times Book Review

Download or read book War How Conflict Shaped Us written by Margaret MacMillan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is peace an aberration? The New York Times bestselling author of Paris 1919 offers a provocative view of war as an essential component of humanity. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW “Margaret MacMillan has produced another seminal work. . . . She is right that we must, more than ever, think about war. And she has shown us how in this brilliant, elegantly written book.”—H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty and Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World The instinct to fight may be innate in human nature, but war—organized violence—comes with organized society. War has shaped humanity’s history, its social and political institutions, its values and ideas. Our very language, our public spaces, our private memories, and some of our greatest cultural treasures reflect the glory and the misery of war. War is an uncomfortable and challenging subject not least because it brings out both the vilest and the noblest aspects of humanity. Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control? Drawing on lessons from wars throughout the past, from classical history to the present day, MacMillan reveals the many faces of war—the way it has determined our past, our future, our views of the world, and our very conception of ourselves.

Download or read book The Secret Prince written by Violet Haberdasher and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fourteen-year-old orphan Henry Grim's schooling at the prestigious Knightley Academy continues, as he and some friends discover an old classroom filled with forgotten weapons which lead them into a dangerous adventure.

Download or read book Mickey Thompson written by Tom Madigan and published by Motorbooks. This book was released on 2019-12-10 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mickey Thompson offers a now-impossible (Thompson and his wife were murdered in 1988) first-person telling of the legendary racer and motorsport impresario’s high-speed life, from his earliest days through the height of his competition exploits on drag strips, at Bonneville, the Indy 500, Baja, and more—complemented by some 100 rare images culled from family archives, the NHRA museum, and the collections of friends and fellow racers. Four decades after his tragic death, Mickey Thompson’s name and accomplishments remain legendary among motorsports and automotive enthusiasts. Thompson did it all on four wheels: land-speed racing, drag racing, off-road, NASCAR, Indianapolis…anything involving speed. Armed with a restless mind and a keen business sense, Thompson moved from success to success. In the early 1970s, motorsports writer (and former drag racer) Tom Madigan and Thompson embarked on a project to write the latter’s autobiography. After two years, extensive interviews, and a near-finished manuscript the whole enterprise fell apart for a number of reasons. Type-written sheets, neatly stacked, were boxed, stored, and mostly forgotten. Mickey Thompson: The Lost Story of the Original Speed King in His Own Words is that never-published work—an amazing biographical artifact from what many consider the golden age of automotive racing.

Download or read book Diaries 1969 1979 The Python Years written by Michael Palin and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-11-11 with total page 700 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A perceptive and funny chronicle, these diaries are a rich portrait of how Monty Python emerged and triumphed.

Download or read book Honor in the Dust written by Gregg Jones and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-01-23 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Fascinating.”—New York Times Book Review • “Well-written.”—The Boston Globe • “Extraordinary.”—The Christian Science Monitor • “A compelling page-turner.”—Adam Hochschild On the eve of a new century, an up-and-coming Theodore Roosevelt set out to transform the U.S. into a major world power. The Spanish-American War would forever change America's standing in global affairs, and drive the young nation into its own imperial showdown in the Philippines. From Admiral George Dewey's legendary naval victory in Manila Bay to the Rough Riders' heroic charge up San Juan Hill, from Roosevelt's rise to the presidency to charges of U.S. military misconduct in the Philippines, Honor in the Dust brilliantly captures an era brimming with American optimism and confidence as the nation expanded its influence abroad.

Download or read book Maudie and Me and the Dirty Book written by Betty Miles and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 1994-09-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eleven-year-old Kate's ordinary life in a small Massachusetts town becomes quite extraordinary when she becomes involved with Maudie Schmidt and an inter-school reading project.