Download or read book The Feather Thief written by Kirk Wallace Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As heard on NPR's This American Life “Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.

Download or read book Forever Young written by John W Young and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2012-09-16 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He walked on the Moon. He flew six space missions in three different programs--more than any other human. He served with NASA for more than four decades. His peers called him the "astronaut's astronaut." Enthusiasts of space exploration have long waited for John Young to tell the story of his two Gemini flights, his two Apollo missions, the first-ever Space Shuttle flight, and the first Spacelab mission. Forever Young delivers all that and more: Young's personal journey from engineering graduate to fighter pilot, to test pilot, to astronaut, to high NASA official, to clear-headed predictor of the fate of Planet Earth. Young, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James Hansen, recounts the great episodes of his amazing flying career in fascinating detail and with wry humor. He portrays astronauts as ordinary human beings and NASA as an institution with the same ups and downs as other major bureaucracies. He frankly discusses the risks of space travel, including what went wrong with the Challenger and Columbia shuttles. Forever Young is one of the last memoirs produced by an early American astronaut. It is the first memoir written by a chief of the NASA astronaut corps. Young's experiences and candor make this book indispensable to everyone interested in the U.S. space program.

Download or read book Why Confederates Fought written by Aaron Sheehan-Dean and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-11-05 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first comprehensive study of the experience of Virginia soldiers and their families in the Civil War, Aaron Sheehan-Dean captures the inner world of the rank-and-file. Utilizing new statistical evidence and first-person narratives, Sheehan-Dean explores how Virginia soldiers--even those who were nonslaveholders--adapted their vision of the war's purpose to remain committed Confederates. Sheehan-Dean challenges earlier arguments that middle- and lower-class southerners gradually withdrew their support for the Confederacy because their class interests were not being met. Instead he argues that Virginia soldiers continued to be motivated by the profound emotional connection between military service and the protection of home and family, even as the war dragged on. The experience of fighting, explains Sheehan-Dean, redefined southern manhood and family relations, established the basis for postwar race and class relations, and transformed the shape of Virginia itself. He concludes that Virginians' experience of the Civil War offers important lessons about the reasons we fight wars and the ways that those reasons can change over time.

Download or read book Chasing the Demon written by Dan Hampton and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-07-24 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • At the end of World War II, a band of aces gathered in the Mojave Desert on a Top Secret quest to break the sound barrier–nicknamed "The Demon" by pilots. The true story of what happened in those skies has never been told. Speed. In 1947, it represented the difference between victory and annihilation. After Hiroshima, the ability to deliver a nuclear device to its target faster than one’s enemy became the singular obsession of American war planners. And so, in the earliest days of the Cold War, a highly classified program was conducted on a desolate air base in California’s Mojave Desert. Its aim: to push the envelope of flight to new frontiers. There gathered an extraordinary band of pilots, including Second World War aces Chuck Yeager and George Welch, who risked their lives flying experimental aircraft to reach Mach 1, the so-called sound barrier, which pilots called “the demon.” Shrouding the program in secrecy, the US military reluctantly revealed that the “barrier” had been broken two months later, after the story was leaked to the press. The full truth has never been fully revealed—until now. Chasing the Demon, from decorated fighter pilot and acclaimed aviation historian Dan Hampton, tells, for the first time, the extraordinary true story of mankind’s quest for Mach 1. Here, of course, is twenty-four-year-old Captain Chuck Yeager, who made history flying the futuristic Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound on October 14, 1947. Officially Yeager was the first to achieve supersonic flight, but drawing on new interviews with survivors of the program, including Yeager’s former commander, as well as declassified files, Hampton presents evidence that a fellow American—George Welch, a daring fighter pilot who shot down a remarkable sixteen enemy aircraft during the Pacific War—met the demon first, though he was not favored to wear the laurels, as he was now a civilian test pilot and was not flying the Bell X-1. Chasing the Demon sets the race between Yeager and Welch in the context of aviation history, so that the reader can learn and appreciate their accomplishments as never before.

Download or read book Daughter of the Pirate King written by Tricia Levenseller and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 17-year-old pirate captain INTENTIONALLY allows herself to get captured by enemy pirates in this thrilling YA adventure from debut author Tricia Levenseller.

Download or read book Publishing as Practice written by and published by Inventory Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the work of three contemporary artist's-book publishers who have developed fresh ways of broaching politics in publishing This book documents Publishing as Practice, a residency at Ulises--a curatorial platform based in Philadelphia--that explores publishing as an incubator for new forms of editorial, curatorial and artistic practice. Over the course of two years, three publishers activated Ulises as an exhibition space and public programming hub, engaging the public through workshops, discussions and projects. Residents included Hardworking Goodlooking, the publishing arm of Philippines-based, social-practice platform The Office of Culture and Design; Dominica, an imprint run by Martine Syms dedicated to exploring Blackness as a topic, reference, marker and audience in visual culture; and Bidoun, a non-profit organization focused on art and culture from the Middle East and its diasporas. The book features a preface by David Senior, an essay by Gee Wesley and Ulises Carrión's 1975 publishing manifesto "The New Art of Making Books," alongside documentation of the works produced.

Download or read book Career Rules written by Sonya Dutta Choudhury and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you wince every time someone asks 'What do you plan to do once you graduate?' Perhaps you are thinking of changing careers but need some inspiration? Do you wish you could talk to the people who actually know what it's like to make a choice and make it work? In Career Rules, Sonya Dutta Choudhury gives a flavourful peek into the daily grind of contemporary professions through conversations with some of their most noteworthy practitioners - Sanjeev Kapoor in food and hospitality; Naina Lal Kidwai in banking and finance; Quikr's Pranay Chulet in entrepreneurship; Zia Mody in law; Imtiaz Ali in film-making, and a whole host of others - and also, importantly, to those working in junior and mid-level profiles. Insightful, full of mentorly advice and career 'hacks', this book is the kind of guided tour in the world of careers that every young graduate deserves. It is, in essence, a helpful nudge towards the life you want.

Download or read book Unsolicited Advice 2022 Planner Journal written by Adam J. Kurtz and published by . This book was released on 2021-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unsolicited Advice is an annual planner, calendar, and journal from artist and author Adam J. Kurtz.

Download or read book Lumia written by Keely Orgeman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A long-overdue publication that restores Wilfred to the art-historical canon Lumia presents a long-overdue reevaluation of the groundbreaking artist Thomas Wilfred (1889-1968), whose unprecedented works prefigured light art in America. As early as 1919, many years before the advent of consumer television and video technology, Wilfred began experimenting with light as his primary artistic medium, developing the means to control and project unique compositions of colorful, undulating light forms, which he referred to collectively as lumia. Manifested as both live performances on a cinematic scale and self-contained structures, Wilfred's innovative displays captivated audiences and influenced generations of artists to come. This publication, the first dedicated to Wilfred in over forty years, draws on the artist's personal archives and includes a number of insightful essays that trace the development of his work and its relation to his cultural milieu. Featuring a foreword by the celebrated artist James Turrell, Lumia helps to secure Wilfred's rightful place within the canon of modern art.

Download or read book Out of Easy Reach written by Allison M. Glenn and published by Dapaul Art Museum. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Countering conventional accounts of art history, which have often overlooked the artistic contributions of women of color, the exhibition "Out of Easy Reach" presents the work of twenty-four US-based, female-identifying artists from the black and Latina diasporas. The exhibition proposes myriad ways that artists are employing abstraction as a tool to explore histories both personal and universal, with focuses on mapping, migration, archives, landscape, vernacular culture, language, and the body. This catalog--which accompanies an exhibition opening in April 2018 at the DePaul Art Museum, Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Stony Island Arts Bank--includes full-color plates of the works on view; commissioned essays by exhibition curator Allison Glenn, and Cameron Shaw, executive director and founding editor of Pelican Bomb; and short-form contributions about each artist featured in the exhibition written by invited scholars, curators, writers, and artists.

Download or read book The Spark is You written by Ziba Ardalan and published by Parasol Unit. This book was released on 2019-08 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Spark Is You documents the parallel exhibitions THE SPARK IS YOU: Parasol unit in Venice (9 May - 23 November 2019) at Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello in Venice, and Nine Iranian Artists in London: THE SPARK IS YOU (22 May - 8 September 2019) at Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art in London.Curated by Ziba Ardalan (Founder, Artistic and Executive Director of Parasol unit), the two exhibitions include works by Morteza Ahmadvand, Nazgol Ansarinia, Siah Armajani, Mitra Farahani, Ghazaleh Hedayat, Sahand Hesamiyan, Y.Z. Kami, Farideh Lashai, Koushna Navabi, Navid Nuur, Sam Samiee, Hadi Tabatabai, and Hossein Valamanesh.This publication includes beautiful full-page colour reproductions of the exhibited works in Venice and London, accompanied by insightful thematic essays by Ziba Ardalan and Narguess Farzad as well as short essays on the individual artists by Oliver Basciano, Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, Mahan Moalemi, Maria Porges, Sarah Thomas, and John Yau.

Download or read book Howardena Pindell written by Naomi Beckwith and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This retrospective volume celebrates five decades of Howardena Pindell's art, including works on paper, collage, photography, film, and video. Born in middle-class Philadelphia in the 1940s, Howardena Pindell came of age during the Civil Rights movement. As an African-American woman artist, making her way in the world provided Pindell with source material to inspire her work. This book examines every facet of Pindell's impressive career to date. Since the 1960s, she has used materials such as glitter, talcum powder, and perfume to stretch the boundaries of traditional canvas painting. She has also infused her work with traces of her labor, such as obsessively affixing dots of pigment and circles made with an ordinary hole punch tool. After a car crash in 1979 left her with short-term amnesia, Pindell's work looked beyond the painting studio to explore a wide range of subjects, including the personal and diaristic as well as the social and political. This monograph also highlights Pindell's work with photography, film, and performance. Excerpts from the artist's writing, in particular her critique of the art world and her responses to feminism and racial politics, provide prescient commentary in light of conversations around equality and inclusion today. Published in association with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Download or read book Jean Michel Basquiat and the Art of Storytelling written by Eleanor Nairne and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Get up close to the bold brushwork and scribbled words of Jean-Michel Basquiat, one of the most successful artists of his time. This XXL-sized monograph gathers Basquiat's major works in pristine reproduction. Texts by editor Hans Werner Holzwarth and curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne introduce us to a legend synonymous with 1980s New York.

Download or read book The International Year of Indigenous Languages written by UNESCO and published by UNESCO Publishing. This book was released on 2021-11-11 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Bodies of War written by Lisa M. Budreau and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War I marked the first war in which the United States government and military took full responsibility for the identification, burial, and memorialization of those killed in battle, and as a result, the process of burying and remembering the dead became intensely political. The government and military attempted to create a patriotic consensus on the historical memory of World War I in which war dead were not only honored but used as a symbol to legitimize America's participation in a war not fully supported by all citizens. In this book, the author unpacks the politics and processes of the competing interest groups involved in the three core components of commemoration: repatriation, remembrance, and return. This book emphasizes the inherent tensions in the politics of memorialization and explores how those interests often conflicted with the needs of veterans and relatives.

Download or read book Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus written by Dusti Bowling and published by Union Square & Co.. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Aven is a perky, hilarious, and inspiring protagonist whose attitude and humor will linger even after the last page has turned.” —School Library Journal (Starred review) Aven Green loves to tell people that she lost her arms in an alligator wrestling match, or a wildfire in Tanzania, but the truth is she was born without them. And when her parents take a job running Stagecoach Pass, a rundown western theme park in Arizona, Aven moves with them across the country knowing that she’ll have to answer the question over and over again. Her new life takes an unexpected turn when she bonds with Connor, a classmate who also feels isolated because of his own disability, and they discover a room at Stagecoach Pass that holds bigger secrets than Aven ever could have imagined. It’s hard to solve a mystery, help a friend, and face your worst fears. But Aven’s about to discover she can do it all . . . even without arms. Autumn 2017 Kids’ Indie Next Pick Junior Library Guild Selection Library of Congress's 52 Great Reads List 2018

Download or read book Mexico written by Michael D. Coe and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masterly....The complexities of Mexico's ancient cultures are perceptively presented and interpreted.--Library Journal