Download or read book The Wicked Boy written by Kate Summerscale and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Book! From the internationally bestselling author, a deeply researched and atmospheric murder mystery of late Victorian-era London In the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age 13) and his brother Nattie (age 12) were seen spending lavishly around the docklands of East London -- for ten days in July, they ate out at coffee houses and took trips to the seaside and the theater. The boys told neighbors they had been left home alone while their mother visited family in Liverpool, but their aunt was suspicious. When she eventually forced the brothers to open the house to her, she found the badly decomposed body of their mother in a bedroom upstairs. Robert and Nattie were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey. Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. Nattie struck a plea and gave evidence against his brother. The court heard testimony about Robert's severe headaches, his fascination with violent criminals and his passion for 'penny dreadfuls', the pulp fiction of the day. He seemed to feel no remorse for what he had done, and neither the prosecution nor the defense could find a motive for the murder. The judge sentenced the thirteen-year-old to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Yet Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert--one that would have profoundly shocked anyone who thought they understood the Wicked Boy. At a time of great tumult and uncertainty, Robert Coombes's case crystallized contemporary anxieties about the education of the working classes, the dangers of pulp fiction, and evolving theories of criminality, childhood, and insanity. With riveting detail and rich atmosphere, Kate Summerscale recreates this terrible crime and its aftermath, uncovering an extraordinary story of man's capacity to overcome the past.

Download or read book Mrs Robinson s Disgrace written by Kate Summerscale and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the married Isabella Robinson was introduced to the dashing Edward Lane at a party in 1850, she was utterly enchanted. He was 'fascinating', she told her diary, before chastising herself for being so susceptible to a man's charms. But a wish had taken hold of her, and she was to find it hard to shake...In one of the most notorious divorce cases of the nineteenth century, Isabella Robinson's scandalous secrets were exposed to the world. Kate Summerscale brings vividly to life a frustrated Victorian wife's longing for passion and learning, companionship and love, in a society clinging to rigid ideas about marriage and female sexuality.

Download or read book The Book of Phobias and Manias written by Kate Summerscale and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2022-10-06 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE PERFECT GIFT FOR ALL BIBLIOMANIACS A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, SPECTATOR AND DAILY MAIL A WATERSTONES BEST POPULAR SCIENCE BOOK Plunge into this rich and thought-provoking A-Z compendium to discover how our fixations have taken shape, from the Middle Ages to the present day, as bestselling author Kate Summerscale deftly traces the threads between the past and present, the psychological and social, the personal and the political. 'Fascinating' Malcolm Gaskill, author of the No. 1 bestseller The Ruin of All Witches 'Fascinating' Observer 'An endlessly intriguing book ... All the bibliomanes (book nutters) I know will love it' Daily Mail

Download or read book The Queen of Whale Cay written by Kate Summerscale and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-05-10 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: _______________ 'A biography that sparkles with enthusiastic research and empathetic writing' - Sunday Times 'A small jewel of a biography' - The New Yorker 'A fascinating, hilarious and deliciously subversive book' - Literary Review _______________ THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Born in 1900 to a promiscuous American oil heiress and a British army captain, Marion Barbara Carstairs realised very early on that she was not like most little girls. Liberated by war work in WWI, Marion reinvented herself as Joe, and quickly went on to establish herself as a leading light of the fashionable lesbian demi-monde. She dressed in men's clothes, smoked cigars and cheroots, tattooed her arms, and became Britain's most celebrated female speed-boat racer - the 'fastest woman on water'. Yet Joe tired of the limelight in 1934, and retired to the Bahamian Island of Whale Cay. There she fashioned her own self-sufficient kingdom, where she hosted riotous parties which boasted Hollywood actresses and British royalty among their guests. Although her lovers included screen sirens such as Marlene Dietrich, the real love of Joe's life was a small boy-doll named Lord Tod Wadley, to whom she remained devoted throughout her remarkable life. She died, aged 93, in 1993.

Download or read book The Haunting of Alma Fielding written by Kate Summerscale and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR • The Sunday Times • The New Statesman • The Times • The Spectator • The Telegraph Shortlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * A New York Times Book Review Paperback Row Selection “Prepare not to see much broad daylight, literal or metaphorical, for days if you read this.... The atmosphere evoked is something I will never forget.”—The Times (London) London, 1938. In the suburbs of the city, a young housewife has become the eye in a storm of chaos. In Alma Fielding’s modest home, china flies off the shelves and eggs fly through the air; stolen jewelry appears on her fingers, white mice crawl out of her handbag, beetles appear from under her gloves; in the middle of a car journey, a turtle materializes on her lap. The culprit is incorporeal. As Alma cannot call the police, she calls the papers instead. After the sensational story headlines the news, Nandor Fodor, a Hungarian ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research, arrives to investigate the poltergeist. But when he embarks on his scrupulous investigation, he discovers that the case is even stranger than it seems. By unravelling Alma’s peculiar history, Fodor finds a different and darker type of haunting, a tale of trauma, alienation, loss and revenge. He comes to believe that Alma’s past has bled into her present, her mind into her body. There are no words for processing her experience, so it comes to possess her. As the threat of a world war looms, and as Fodor’s obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed. With characteristic rigor and insight, Kate Summerscale brilliantly captures the rich atmosphere of a haunting that transforms into a very modern battle between the supernatural and the subconscious.

Download or read book The Wicked Boy written by Kate Summerscale and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-07-04 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Book! From the internationally bestselling author, a deeply researched and atmospheric murder mystery of late Victorian-era London In the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age 13) and his brother Nattie (age 12) were seen spending lavishly around the docklands of East London -- for ten days in July, they ate out at coffee houses and took trips to the seaside and the theater. The boys told neighbors they had been left home alone while their mother visited family in Liverpool, but their aunt was suspicious. When she eventually forced the brothers to open the house to her, she found the badly decomposed body of their mother in a bedroom upstairs. Robert and Nattie were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey. Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. Nattie struck a plea and gave evidence against his brother. The court heard testimony about Robert's severe headaches, his fascination with violent criminals and his passion for 'penny dreadfuls', the pulp fiction of the day. He seemed to feel no remorse for what he had done, and neither the prosecution nor the defense could find a motive for the murder. The judge sentenced the thirteen-year-old to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Yet Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert--one that would have profoundly shocked anyone who thought they understood the Wicked Boy. At a time of great tumult and uncertainty, Robert Coombes's case crystallized contemporary anxieties about the education of the working classes, the dangers of pulp fiction, and evolving theories of criminality, childhood, and insanity. With riveting detail and rich atmosphere, Kate Summerscale recreates this terrible crime and its aftermath, uncovering an extraordinary story of man's capacity to overcome the past.

Download or read book The Virago Book of Ghost Stories written by Richard Dalby and published by Virago Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty four spooky stories by classic storytellers of the twentieth century - many from the 1920s and 30s - chill and excite in this classic collection. All of them demonstrate a subtle power to delight and chill at the same time as they explore those ghostly margins of the supernatural which are part of private experience as well as of popular tradition. Authors include Elizabeth Bowen, Angela Carter, Elizabeth Jane Howard, E Nesbit, Fay Weldon, Edith Wharton and Lisa St Aubin de Teran.

Download or read book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher written by Kate Summerscale and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2008-04-07 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic story of the real-life murder that inspired the birth of modern detective fiction.

Download or read book Secrets of Happiness written by Joan Silber and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR When a man discovers his father in New York has long had another, secret, family—a wife and two kids—the interlocking fates of both families lead to surprise loyalties, love triangles, and a reservoir of inner strength in this "expansive and elegantly crafted novel" (Fresh Air, NPR). "Rich with the complexities of life . . . the stories create a world made fully dimensional through changes of perspective—major characters appear and reappear as part of one or another’s experience and testimony . . . Pull any life’s thread and you discover a mesh of involvement that soon takes in all the others. It is a fine thing, subtly done, and truly exhilarating." —The Wall Street Journal Ethan, a young lawyer in New York, learns that his father has long kept a second family—a Thai wife and two kids living in Queens. In the aftermath of this revelation, Ethan's mother spends a year working abroad, returning much changed, as events introduce her to the other wife. Across town, Ethan's half brothers are caught in their own complicated journeys: one brother's penchant for minor delinquency has escalated, and the other must travel to Bangkok to bail him out, while the bargains their mother has struck about love and money continue to shape their lives. As Ethan finds himself caught in a love triangle of his own, the interwoven fates of these two households elegantly unfurl to encompass a woman rallying to help an ill brother with an unreliable lover and a filmmaker with a girlhood spent in Nepal. Evoking a generous and humane spirit, and a story that ranges over three continents, Secrets of Happiness elucidates the ways people marshal the resources at hand to forge their own forms of joy.

Download or read book The Poltergeist Prince of London written by James Clark and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It began with a key. One afternoon in 1956, in the home of the Hitchings family in Battersea, south London, a small silver key appeared on Shirley Hitchings' bed. This seemingly insignificant event heralded the beginning of one of the most terrifying, incredible and mysterious hauntings in British history. The spirit, who quickly became known as 'Donald', began to communicate, initially via tapping sounds, but over time - and with the encouragement of psychical researcher Harold Chibbett, whose case-files appear here – by learning to write. Soon, the spirit had begun to make simply incredible claims about his identity, insisting that he was one of the most famous figures in world history – but what was the truth? Here, for the first time, is the full story, told by the woman right at the heart of it all – Shirley herself.

Download or read book Stranger in the Shogun s City written by Amy Stanley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography* *Winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award* *Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography* A “captivating” (The Washington Post) work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman during the first half of the 19th century in Edo—the city that would become Tokyo—and a portrait of a city on the brink of a momentous encounter with the West. The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother’s. But after three divorces—and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family’s approval—she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak. With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno’s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture—and a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions. “A compelling story, traced with meticulous detail and told with exquisite sympathy” (The Wall Street Journal), Stranger in the Shogun’s City is “a vivid, polyphonic portrait of life in 19th-century Japan [that] evokes the Shogun era with panache and insight” (National Review of Books).

Download or read book The Idea of the Brain written by Matthew Cobb and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An "elegant", "engrossing" (Carol Tavris, Wall Street Journal) examination of what we think we know about the brain and why -- despite technological advances -- the workings of our most essential organ remain a mystery. "I cannot recommend this book strongly enough."--Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm For thousands of years, thinkers and scientists have tried to understand what the brain does. Yet, despite the astonishing discoveries of science, we still have only the vaguest idea of how the brain works. In The Idea of the Brain, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb traces how our conception of the brain has evolved over the centuries. Although it might seem to be a story of ever-increasing knowledge of biology, Cobb shows how our ideas about the brain have been shaped by each era's most significant technologies. Today we might think the brain is like a supercomputer. In the past, it has been compared to a telegraph, a telephone exchange, or some kind of hydraulic system. What will we think the brain is like tomorrow, when new technology arises? The result is an essential read for anyone interested in the complex processes that drive science and the forces that have shaped our marvelous brains.

Download or read book The Wild Laughter written by Caoilinn Hughes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-06-18 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A grand feat of comic ingenuity, mischievous and insightful, and full of resonance for the way we live now... So original and vibrant.' Encore Award Judges FINALIST FOR THE AN POST IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2020, THE RTÉ RADIO 1 LISTENERS' CHOICE AWARD 2020 & THE DALKEY EMERGING WRITER AWARD 2021 LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE & THE i COMEDY WOMEN IN PRINT PRIZE, 2021 AN IRISH TIMES, IRISH SUNDAY TIMES, IRISH INDEPENDENT & SUNDAY INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR, 2020 It's 2008, and the Celtic Tiger has left devastation in its wake. Brothers Hart and Cormac Black are waking up to a very different Ireland – one that widens the chasm between them and brings their beloved father to his knees. Facing a devastating choice that will put their livelihood, even their lives, on the line, the brothers soon learn that their biggest danger comes when there is nothing to lose. A sharp snapshot of a family and a nation suddenly unmoored, this epic-in-miniature explores cowardice and sacrifice, faith rewarded and abandoned, the stories we tell ourselves and the ones we resist. Hilarious, poignant and utterly fresh, The Wild Laughter cements Caoilinn Hughes' position as one of Ireland's most audacious, nuanced and insightful young writers.

Download or read book Sea State written by Tabitha Lasley and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Recommended Read from: Vogue * USA Today * The Los Angeles Times * Publishers Weekly * The Week * Alma * Lit Hub A stunning and brutally honest memoir that shines a light on what happens when female desire conflicts with a culture of masculinity in crisis In her midthirties and newly free from a terrible relationship, Tabitha Lasley quit her job at a London magazine, packed her bags, and poured her savings into a six-month lease on an apartment in Aberdeen, Scotland. She decided to make good on a long-deferred idea for a book about oil rigs and the men who work on them. Why oil rigs? She wanted to see what men were like with no women around. In Aberdeen, Tabitha became deeply entrenched in the world of roughnecks, a teeming subculture rich with brawls, hard labor, and competition. The longer she stayed, the more she found her presence had a destabilizing effect on the men—and her. Sea State is on the one hand a portrait of an overlooked industry: “offshore” is a way of life for generations of primarily working-class men and also a potent metaphor for those parts of life we keep at bay—class, masculinity, the transactions of desire, and the awful slipperiness of a ladder that could, if we tried hard enough, lead us to security. Sea State is on the other hand the story of a journalist whose professional distance from her subject becomes perilously thin. In Aberdeen, Tabitha gets high and dances with abandon, reliving her youth, when the music was good and the boys were bad. Twenty years on, there is Caden: a married rig worker who spends three weeks on and three weeks off. Alone and in an increasingly precarious state, Tabitha dives into their growing attraction. The relationship, reckless and explosive, will lay them both bare.

Download or read book Hostage written by Clare Mackintosh and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Feels like a blockbuster movie."—Lisa Jewell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone "Mackintosh is a pro...the final scene in the book almost made me sick as I read it. I mean that as a compliment of the highest order."—The New York Times You can save hundreds of lives. Or the one that matters most... From New York Times bestselling author Clare Mackintosh comes a claustrophobic thriller set over 20 hours on-board the inaugural nonstop flight from London to Sydney. Mina is trying to focus on her job as a flight attendant, not the problems with her five-year-old daughter back home, or the fissures in her marriage. But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination: "The following instructions will save your daughter's life..." Someone needs Mina's assistance and knows exactly how to make her comply. When one passenger is killed and then another, Mina knows she must act. But which lives does she save: Her passengers...or her own daughter and husband who are in grave distress back at home? It's twenty hours to landing. A lot can happen in twenty hours. For fans of the locked-room mystery of One by One and the heart-stopping tension The Last Flight, Hostage is an explosively addictive thriller about one flight attendant and the agonizing decision that will change her life—and the lives of everyone on-board—forever. Praise for Hostage: "A banger of a book with a truly agonizing 'what would you do?'" —Ruth Ware, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One by One "Hypnotically good. Should be a hit, could be a classic..." —Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series "Fiendishly clever." —Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before She Disappeared "A propulsive read." —Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Wife "A nail-biter of a thriller." —Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door

Download or read book Truevine written by Beth Macy and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER The true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a 28-year struggle to get them back. The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever. Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even "Ambassadors from Mars." Back home, their mother never accepted that they were "gone" and spent 28 years trying to get them back. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? TRUEVINE is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.

Download or read book Elric The Stealer of Souls written by Michael Moorcock and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2008-02-19 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The stories here are the raw heart of Michael Moorcock. They are the spells that first drew me and all the numerous admirers of his work with whom I am acquainted into Moorcock’s luminous and captivating web.” –from the Foreword by Alan Moore, creator of V for Vendetta When Michael Moorcock began chronicling the adventures of the albino sorcerer Elric, last king of decadent Melniboné, and his sentient vampiric sword, Stormbringer, he set out to create a new kind of fantasy adventure, one that broke with tradition and reflected a more up-to-date sophistication of theme and style. The result was a bold and unique hero–weak in body, subtle in mind, dependent on drugs for the vitality to sustain himself–with great crimes behind him and a greater destiny ahead: a rock-and-roll antihero who would channel all the violent excesses of the sixties into one enduring archetype. Now, with a major film in development, here is the first volume of a dazzling collection of stories containing the seminal appearances of Elric and lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist John Picacio–plus essays, letters, maps, and other material. Adventures include “The Dreaming City,” “While the Gods Laugh,” “Kings in Darkness,” “Dead God’s Homecoming,” “Black Sword’s Brothers,” and “Sad Giant’s Shield.” An indispensable addition to any fantasy collection, Elric: The Stealer of Souls is an unmatched introduction to a brilliant writer and his most famous–or infamous–creation. “The most significant UK author of sword and sorcery, a form he has both borrowed from and transformed.” –The Encyclopedia of Fantasy From the Trade Paperback edition.