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Book Last Words of the Executed

Download or read book Last Words of the Executed written by Robert K. Elder and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-05-15 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some beg for forgiveness. Others claim innocence. At least three cheer for their favorite football teams. Death waits for us all, but only those sentenced to death know the day and the hour—and only they can be sure that their last words will be recorded for posterity. Last Words of the Executed presents an oral history of American capital punishment, as heard from the gallows, the chair, and the gurney. The product of seven years of extensive research by journalist Robert K. Elder, the book explores the cultural value of these final statements and asks what we can learn from them. We hear from both the famous—such as Nathan Hale, Joe Hill, Ted Bundy, and John Brown—and the forgotten, and their words give us unprecedented glimpses into their lives, their crimes, and the world they inhabited. Organized by era and method of execution, these final statements range from heartfelt to horrific. Some are calls for peace or cries against injustice; others are accepting, confessional, or consoling; still others are venomous, rage-fueled diatribes. Even the chills evoked by some of these last words are brought on in part by the shared humanity we can’t ignore, their reminder that we all come to the same end, regardless of how we arrive there. Last Words of the Executed is not a political book. Rather, Elder simply asks readers to listen closely to these voices that echo history. The result is a riveting, moving testament from the darkest corners of society.

Book Last Words

    Book Details:
  • Author : Karl S. Guthke
  • Publisher : Princeton University Press
  • Release : 1992-10-30
  • ISBN : 1400820715
  • Pages : 264 pages

Download or read book Last Words written by Karl S. Guthke and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1992-10-30 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether Goethe actually cried "More light!" on his deathbed, or whether Conrad Hilton checked out of this world after uttering "Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub," last words, regardless of authenticity, have long captured the imagination of Western society. In this playfully serious investigation based on factual accounts, anecdotes, literary works, and films, Karl Guthke explores the cultural importance of those words spoken at the border between this world and the next. The exit lines of both famous and ordinary people embody for us a sense of drama and truthfulness and reveal much about our thoughts on living and dying. Why this interest in last words? Presenting statements from such figures as Socrates, Nathan Hale, Marie Antoinette, and Oscar Wilde ("I am dying as I have lived, beyond my means"), Guthke examines our fascination in terms of our need for closure, our desire for immortality, and our attraction to the mystique of death scenes. The author considers both authentic and invented final statements as he looks at the formation of symbols and legends and their function in our culture. Last words, handed down from generation to generation like cultural heirlooms, have a good chance of surviving in our collective memory. They are shown to epitomize a life, convey a sense of irony, or play to an audience, as in the case of the assassinated Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, who is said to have died imploring journalists: "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Book His Last Words

    Book Details:
  • Author : Kim Erickson
  • Publisher : Moody Publishers
  • Release : 2017-01-03
  • ISBN : 0802494641
  • Pages : 224 pages

Download or read book His Last Words written by Kim Erickson and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine knowing you only have several more hours to live. Picture the faces of your loved ones gathered around you. Allow the emotions to rise up in your heart. What would you say? John 13–17 records Jesus’ last words to the disciples before His death, revealing what was most important to Him. When we study those words and prayers today, we enter deep into the heart of Jesus and come away changed: overwhelmed by the love of God, inspired to follow Him, and empowered to spread the gospel. His Last Words is an 7-week Bible study that plumbs the depths of Jesus’ final teachings to the disciples. It features: A verse-by-verse study of John 13–17 and portions of John 18–21 Five lessons each week, one set aside for reflection and prayer Discussion questions for small groups Two weeks for review, reflection, and application and more Jesus’ last words are words of eternal life—powerful and full of love. If you’ve been longing for more intimacy in your relationship with God, more meaning in your life, and more boldness in your witness, His Last Words will draw you into just what you need: the Word of God.

Book Last Words from Montmartre

    Book Details:
  • Author : Qiu Miaojin
  • Publisher : New York Review of Books
  • Release : 2014-06-03
  • ISBN : 1590177258
  • Pages : 177 pages

Download or read book Last Words from Montmartre written by Qiu Miaojin and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NYRB Classics Original When the pioneering Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in 1995 at age twenty-six, she left behind her unpublished masterpiece, Last Words from Montmartre. Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young women—their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability, Qiu’s genre-bending novel is at once a psychological thriller, a sublime romance, and the author’s own suicide note. The letters (which, Qiu tells us, can be read in any order) leap between Paris, Taipei, and Tokyo. They display wrenching insights into what it means to live between cultures, languages, and genders—until the genderless character Zoë appears, and the narrator’s spiritual and physical identity is transformed. As powerfully raw and transcendent as Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Theresa Cha’s Dictée, to name but a few, Last Words from Montmartre proves Qiu Miaojin to be one of the finest experimentalists and modernist Chinese-language writers of our generation.

Book Last Words

    Book Details:
  • Author : Margot Schwass
  • Publisher : Bridget Williams Books
  • Release : 2005
  • ISBN : 1877242349
  • Pages : 201 pages

Download or read book Last Words written by Margot Schwass and published by Bridget Williams Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A short book about different practices for acknowledging death in the different cultures and religions currently in New Zealand. While it is designed for use by nurses and doctors, chaplains, funeral directors, police, hospice workers and community workers, the book is also intended for general readers.

Book Last Words

    Book Details:
  • Author : William S. Burroughs
  • Publisher : Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
  • Release : 2007-12-01
  • ISBN : 080219723X
  • Pages : 304 pages

Download or read book Last Words written by William S. Burroughs and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs is the most intimate book ever written by William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and one of the most celebrated literary outlaws of our time. Laid out as diary entries of the last nine months of Burroughs's life, Last Words spans the realms of cultural criticism, personal memoir, and fiction. Classic Burroughs concerns -- literature, U.S. drug policy, the state of humanity, his love for his cats -- permeate the book. Most significantly, Last Words contains some of the most personal work Burroughs has ever written, a final reckoning with his life and regrets, and his reflections on the deaths of his friends Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary. It is a poignant portrait of the man, his life, and his creative process -- one that never quit, not even in the shadow of death.

Book Famous Last Words

Download or read book Famous Last Words written by Timothy Findley and published by London : Faber, Faber. This book was released on 2001 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the final days of the Second World War, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley scrawls his desperate account on the walls and ceilings of his ice-cold prison high in the Austrian Alps. Officers of the liberating army discover his frozen, disfigured corpse and his astonishing testament - the sordid truth that he alone possessed. Fascinated but horrified, they learn of a dazzling array of characters caught up in a scandal and political corruption.Famous Last Words is part-thriller, part-horror story; it is also a meditation on history and the human soul and it is Findley's fine achievement that he has combined these elements into a web that constantly surprises and astounds the reader.

Book Last Words of Saints and Sinners

Download or read book Last Words of Saints and Sinners written by Herbert Lockyer and published by Kregel Publications. This book was released on with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of 700 quotes includes the last words of commoners, atheists, poets, and politicians along with noted Christians and martyrs. Ready reference source for the pastor or public speaker.

Book Last Words

    Book Details:
  • Author : Michael Koryta
  • Publisher : Hachette UK
  • Release : 2015-08-27
  • ISBN : 1444742620
  • Pages : 448 pages

Download or read book Last Words written by Michael Koryta and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2015-08-27 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Private investigator Mark Novak is still mourning the death of his wife, and it's affecting his work. With his future on the line, Mark is sent to check out a case in the Midwest town of Garrison, home to a famous but perilous cave system. A girl has died in the caves, and the man who brought her out is still believed by many to be her killer. He begs Novak to uncover what really happened. But Garrison is the kind of place where cold cases stay cold. Mark tries to delve into the town's secrets, but in the end, he will have to match his wits against the man who knows the caverns better than anyone. A man who seems to have lost his mind. A man who seems to know Mark Novak all too well.

Book The Last Words We Said

Download or read book The Last Words We Said written by Leah Scheier and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nine months after Danny disappeared, his closest friends, Ellie, Rae, and Deenie, deal with their loss very differently but will have to share secrets about the night he disappeared to uncover the truth. Chapters alternate between past and present.

Book Famous Last Words

Download or read book Famous Last Words written by Alison Booth and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Famous Last Words traces a broad historical transition- from the 1840s to the 1980s- from the more rigid dichotomy of the Victorian novel, in which good women must marry and fallen women die, to the more open alternatives of twentieth-century fiction, which sometimes permit the independent female protagonist to survive and occasionally allow alternative constructions of gender as well as plot. Each essay treats a narrative- novel, novella, or novel poem- by a single author in light of conventions of closure and of gender in historical context. The contributors recover forgotten texts, revise our understanding of women writers once successful, but now somewhat marginalized, and give voice to cultural "others." Works by the already canonized George Eliot are reassessed, and the representation of women in the canonical novels of male writers William Thackeray and Henry James is explored.

Book Any Last Words

    Book Details:
  • Author : Joseph Hayden
  • Publisher : Mango Media Inc.
  • Release : 2019-07-15
  • ISBN : 1633539911
  • Pages : 178 pages

Download or read book Any Last Words written by Joseph Hayden and published by Mango Media Inc.. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lighthearted look at the stories behind legendary last words—from heartwarming tales of final moments to hilarious last laughs. Last words are never easy—since, let’s face it, they’re mostly spoken by people in the worst health of their lives. But even if they aren’t eloquent, they can offer a glimpse into the speaker’s true self. Some are clever, others are loving, heartbreaking, or occasionally shocking. In Any Last Words?, Joseph Hayden explores the last words of more than two hundred actors, athletes, writers, musicians, politicians, intellectuals, criminals, and more. What was the last thing Bogart said to Bacall? What did Marie Antoinette say to her executioner? What were the final thoughts of great thinkers like Charles Darwin and Marie Curie? Or baseball legends like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle? Joseph Hayden reveals all these stories and much more in a book that you’ll wish would never end.

Book Last Words of Notable People

    Book Details:
  • Author : William B. Brahms
  • Publisher : Reference Desk Press, Incorporated
  • Release : 2012-10
  • ISBN : 9780976532583
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book Last Words of Notable People written by William B. Brahms and published by Reference Desk Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2012-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Last Words of Notable People is a comprehensive reference work on "last words," "dying words" or "famous last words". A work of unprecedented scope and study...Covering the final utterances of noted people over the span of thousands of years and the entire globe; each person is presented with a relevant biographical treatment. Each entry is meticulously documented, citing best sources available. Connection or relation of cited sources to entries are presented. Accuracy or veracity of reputed "last words" is often questioned. Conflicting variations of reported "last words" for many entries are presented for the purpose of further research. Contains a detailed selected annotated bibliography of significant "last word" sources. Well indexed.The conclusion of more than a dozen years work and consultation of tens of thousands of sources, Last Words of Notable People is far and away the definitive compilation and treatment of recorded "last words" compiled to date. This is the soft cover book edition of the last words tome featured in John Green's "Dying Declarations" video. Last Words of Notable People was an Amazon Top 100 Bestseller in December 2011. For: Trivia Lovers, Biography and History Buffs, Nerdfighters, Academic and Public Library Reference Collections and Library Circulating collections

Book Famous Last Words

    Book Details:
  • Author : Laura Ward
  • Publisher : Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
  • Release : 2004
  • ISBN : 9781856487085
  • Pages : 264 pages

Download or read book Famous Last Words written by Laura Ward and published by Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.. This book was released on 2004 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains an anthology of famous last words, quotes, deathbed scenes, epitaphs, and obituaries from a number of notable individuals including Bob Hope, Alexander Blackwell, and Roman Emperor Vespasian.

Book Famous Last Words

Download or read book Famous Last Words written by Claire Cock-Starkey and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who said 'I should have drunk more champagne'? Did Nelson really utter 'Kiss me Hardy' from his deathbed? Which statesman was, at the end, 'bored with it all'? Which king begged, 'Let not poor Nelly starve ...'An extraordinary number of deathbed sayings have been recorded over the years, some proving irresistible to embellishment, others displaying wry humour, still more showing remarkable lucidity in the final hours of life.The last words of politicians, kings, queens, actors, philosophers, scientists and writers are sometimes profound, sometimes prescient, often strange, funny and usually poignant. They can reveal the essence of an extraordinary life or tell us something about a celebrated person's final hours.In our ultimate moments, it seems, we are not averse to cracking a joke, losing our temper or begging for help from those we are leaving behind. The most interesting, controversial and insightful of these exit lines are collected here, from deathbed desperation to the fondest of farewells.

Book Famous Last Words

Download or read book Famous Last Words written by Harvey Daniels and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daniels refutes the contention that a literary crisis is raging through the United States and that the English language is deteriorating. By showing that panics concerning the state of language have occured at regular intervals since 2400 B.C., he asserts that language cannot die, that it changes constantly and that attitudes toward language are social attitudes. He identifies several classes of language critics including journalistic critics like Edwin Newman, William Safire and John Simon; educational critics who employ techniques that preclude a student from communicating effectively; and a group of critics he identifies as "the higher authorities" - authors of English handbooks and usage panelists of dictionaries. Also demonstrates the futility of "back-to-basics" literacy programs that drill grammar but ignore actual writing and offers a program for teacher training in writing instruction. ISBN 0-8093-8093-7 (pbk.) : $10.95.

Book Last Words on Earth

    Book Details:
  • Author : Javier Serena
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2021-09-21
  • ISBN : 9781948830324
  • Pages : 120 pages

Download or read book Last Words on Earth written by Javier Serena and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the excruciating travails and sudden, immeasurable success of a Roberto Bolaño-esque writer.