Download or read book Old Sparky written by Anthony Galvin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A shocking exploration of America’s preferred method of capital punishment. In early 2013, Robert Gleason became the latest victim of the electric chair, a peculiarly American execution method. Shouting Póg mo thóin (“Kiss my ass” in Gaelic), he grinned as electricity shot through his system. When the current was switched off, his body slumped against the leather restraints, and Gleeson, who had strangled two fellow inmates to ensure his execution was not postponed, was dead. The execution had gone flawlessly—not a guaranteed result with the electric chair, which has gone horrifically wrong on many occasions. Old Sparky covers the history of capital punishment in America and the “current wars” between Edison and Westinghouse that led to the development of the electric chair. It examines how the electric chair became the most popular method of execution in America before being superseded by lethal injection. Famous executions are explored, alongside quirky last meals and poignant last words. The death penalty remains a hot topic of debate in America, and Old Sparky does not shy away from that controversy. Executions have gone spectacularly wrong, with convicts being set alight or needing up to five jolts of electricity before dying. There have been terrible miscarriages of justice, and the death penalty has not been applied even-handedly. Historically, African Americans, the mentally challenged, and poor defendants have been likely to get the chair, an anomaly which led the Supreme Court to briefly suspend the death penalty. Since the resumption of capital punishment in 1976, Texas alone has executed more than five hundred prisoners, and death row is full. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Download or read book The Electric Chair written by Craig Brandon and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a history of the electric chair and analyzes its features, its development, and the manner of its use. Chapters cover the early conceptual stages as a humane alternative to hanging, and the rivalry between Edison and Westinghouse that was one of the main forces in the chair's adoption as a mode of execution. Also presented are an account of the terrible first execution and a number of the subsequent gruesome employments of the chair. The text explores the changing attitudes toward the chair as state after state replaced it with lethal injection.
Download or read book Joe and Sparky Superstars written by Jamie Michalak and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Joe the giraffe and his friend Sparky, a turtle, see a television talent show, Joe tries to find Sparky's talent so that they can compete.
Download or read book Old Sparky written by Willard Gellis and published by . This book was released on 1987-11-01 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Joe and Sparky Go to School written by Jamie Michalak and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A humorous, high-interest package . . . a hit.” — The Horn Book (starred review) The endearing and mismatched pals Sparky the turtle and Joe the giraffe accidentally latch on to a big yellow bus and leave the zoo for their first trip to school. There’s a lot to learn, and the goal of the day seems to be to get a star. But just when Joe fears that he may have to go home starless, Sparky reminds him of all the ways that his loyal friend already shines.
Download or read book The One In A Million Boy written by Monica Wood and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of your life never starts at the beginning. Don't they teach you anything at school? So says 104-year-old Ona to the 11-year-old boy who's been sent to help her out every Saturday morning. As he refills the bird feeders and tidies the garden shed, Ona tells him about her long life, from first love to second chances. Soon she's confessing secrets she has kept hidden for decades. One Saturday, the boy doesn't show up. Ona starts to think he's not so special after all, but then his father arrives on her doorstep, determined to finish his son's good deed. The boy's mother is not so far behind. Ona is set to discover that the world can surprise us at any age, and that sometimes sharing a loss is the only way to find ourselves again. “Readers won’t be able to resist falling for Ona … The conclusion will leave them smiling through their tears.”—Shelf Awareness ?“Poignant … There is much to enjoy in this heartfelt tale of love, loss, and friendship.”—Express “A must-read book … Whimsical and bittersweet.”—Good Housekeeping
Download or read book Schulz and Peanuts written by David Michaelis and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles M. Schulz, the most widely syndicated and beloved cartoonist of all time, is also one of the least understood figures in American culture. Now, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis gives us the first full-length biography of the brilliant, unseen man behind Peanuts: at once a creation story, a portrait of a native genius, and a chronicle contrasting the private man with the central role he played in shaping the national imagination. Schulz and Peanuts is the definitive epic biography of an American icon and the unforgettable characters he created.
Download or read book Sparky written by Jenny Offill and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-11-13 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A little girl wants a pet. She's not fussy, any will do. Her mother said no to a bird and bunny and trained seal. Then she agrees to the sloth, Sparky! Sloths don't know how to fetch. Or roll over. But they sure know how to play dead. What's an eager pet owner to do?
Download or read book Hidden Treasures written by Harriet Baskas and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there are more than 15,000 museums in our country, visitors get to see only about five percent of any institution’s collections. Most museums simply don’t have room to display everything they’ve got. However, there are a wide variety of surprising and intriguing reasons that, for example, the Smithsonian Institution doesn’t display its collection of condoms, Florida's Lightner Museum locks up all but one of its shrunken heads, and a world-class stash of Japanese erotica (shunga) art was kept in the Honolulu Museum of Art's storage until only recently. Each item or collection included in this volume is described and placed in context with stories and interviews that explore the historical, social, cultural, political, environmental, or other circumstances that led to keeping that object or group of objects out of public view--the ultimate museum buff's voyeuristic experience. Color photographs of the artifacts are included.
Download or read book The Disappearing written by Lori Roy and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two-time Edgar Award-winning author Lori Roy spins a twisted, atmospheric tale about a small Southern town where girls disappear and boys run away. When Lane Fielding fled her isolated Florida hometown after high school for the anonymity of New York City, she swore she'd never return. But twenty years later, newly divorced and with two daughters in tow, she finds herself tending bar at the local dive and living with her parents on the historic Fielding Plantation. Here, the past haunts her and the sinister crimes of her father--the former director of an infamous boys' school--make her as unwelcome in town as she was the day she left. Ostracized by the people she was taught to trust, Lane's unsteady truce with the town is rattled when her older daughter suddenly vanishes. Ten days earlier, a college student went missing, and the two disappearances at first ignite fears that a serial killer who once preyed upon the town has returned. But when Lane's younger daughter admits to having made a new and unseemly friend, a desperate Lane attacks her hometown's façade to discover whether her daughter's disappearance is payback for her father's crimes--or for her own. With reporters descending upon the town, police combing through the swamp, and events taking increasingly disturbing turns, Lane fears she faces too many enemies and too little time to bring her daughter safely home. Powerful and heart-pounding, The Disappearing questions the endurance of family bonds, the dangers of dark rumors and small-town gossip, and how sometimes home is the scariest place of all.
Download or read book Joe and Sparky Get New Wheels written by Jamie Michalak and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When they see a car sitting unoccupied at the cageless zoo where they live, adventurous Joe the giraffe convinces shy Sparky the turtle to go for a ride and soon the two are tearing up the town--visiting a burger joint, going through a car wash, and having the wildest time of the lives!
Download or read book The Stand written by Stephen King and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2008-06-24 with total page 1388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 BESTSELLER • The apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting—and eerily plausible—as when it was first published. • The tie-in edition of the nine-part CBS All Access series starring Whoopi Goldberg, Alexander Skarsgard, and James Marsden. A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world’s population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge—Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them—and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.
Download or read book They Call Me Bubbins written by Bobby O'Roark and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2011-06-29 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever danced on a dead mans chest or peeked into a crypt at a dead mans face? Have you ever soared over a valley like an eagle, only without wings; or watched an Indian Chief in full warriors dress thunder towards you on a great white stallion? How about proving without a doubt that Santa Claus is real, or maybe you have played with a live pacific coast rattle snake with your bare hands? Everyone has their own adventures and experiences to remember as they grow older, and most probably look back upon those memories with fondness. Bubbins was blessed with being born at a time and place in the world where his freedom of movement was virtually wide open, and with parents and a society who allowed such freedom with very few restrictions. When you peer into a mirror-smooth pond, you discover someone there looking back at you. Is it you? Is it who you were-or is it who you are now? Perhaps it might be who you will become. Take this journey with me; let us peer into the Reflections of Time and discover for ourselves the answers to those questions.
Download or read book Vengeance Road written by Rick Mofina and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2021-09-13 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Vengeance Road is a thriller with no speed limit! It's a great read!”—Michael Connelly,#1 New York Times bestselling author The body of Bernice Hogan, a troubled young former nursing student with a tragic past, is found in a shallow grave near a forest creek. Jolene Peller, a single mom struggling to build a new life with her little boy, vanishes the night she tries to find Bernice. Hero cop Karl Styebeck is beloved by his community, but privately police are uneasy with the answers he gives to protect the life—and the lie—he's lived. The case haunts Jack Gannon, a gritty, blue-collar reporter whose own sister ran away from their family years ago. Gannon risks more than his job to pursue the story behind Styebeck's dark secret, his link to the women and the mysterious big rig roaming America's loneliest highways on its descent into eternal darkness. “Gripping, no-holds-barred…lightning paced…with enough twists to keep you turning pages well into the wee hours. Vengeance Road is masterful suspense.”—Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author Originally published in 2009. Don’t miss Her Last Goodbye, the newest thrill-ride from Rick Mofina!
Download or read book Oh Yikes written by Joy Masoff and published by Workman Publishing. This book was released on 2006-08-24 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gross is back and viler than ever! From the author of Oh, Yuck! the perennial bestseller about science with over 610,000 copies in print, comes OH, YIKES!, an illustrated encyclopedia of history’s messiest, dumbest, grossest, wackiest, and weirdest moments. If kids think pus and gas are fun, wait until they hear the lowdown on the real Dracula, samurai, gladiators, guillotines and vomitoriums, pirates, Vikings, witch trials, and the world’s poxiest plagues. Impeccably researched, deliciously wry, and subversively educational (check out the toilet-paper timeline), OH, YIKES! covers people, events, institutions, and really bad ideas, alphabetically from April Fool’s Day to zany Zoos. Here are the Aztecs, sacrificing 250,000 people a year for the gods—and for food. Fearsome Attila the Hun, scourge of the steppes whose spinning eyes terrified his friends and whose mastery of horses terrorized his enemies (how does someone so evil die? Nosebleed!). Saur, the 11th-century dog-king of Norway (and not too bad as kings go). Henry VIII and his marital problems, the story of the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster, why sailors in the old days preferred eating in the dark (hint: you can’t see what’s crawling in your food), and the answer to the question, “How did knights in armor go to the bathroom?” Topped off with hundreds of illustrations and photographs along with hands-on activities that bring the past to life, OH, YIKES! puts the juice in history in a way that makes it irresistible.
Download or read book America s Condemned written by Dan Malone and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With virtually every poll in America citing crime as one of the public's biggest concerns, in late 1994 and early 1995, the Dallas Morning News sent a questionnaire to every man and woman in the country on Death Row, asking some 75 questions about their crimes, their experiences, their attitudes, etc. The survey was drafted by the News with input from a veteran capital murder prosecutor, a Death Row appeals lawyer, a criminologist, a forensic psychiatrist, a Death Row warden and a former Death Row inmate. The paper received received more than 700 responses.The result is the first in-depth, comprehensive national survey of Death Row inmates. This book is an expansion of the paper's four-installment series that appeared in 1997.
Download or read book Mattie written by John Roberts and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joey McClane, a precocious twelve year old south Texas boy, has lived with his grandfather ever since he was orphaned as an infant. Paw Paw, an avid classic car and race car enthusiast, has discovered the 1934 Buick coupe that he had fallen in love with as a childit had been his grandfathers car, and he had called her Mattie. And now Joey sets out on a restoration project that will drastically change the direction of his life. He finds himself thrust into the cars history by way of apparitions and dreams. Over the next few years, as he and Paw Paw work on Mattie, Joey embarks on a mental journey through Matties past and soon finds that history creeping in to his present-day existence. His mind is torn between two very different times, and Mattie begins to take control of Joeys life. Meanwhile, he meets his first girlfriend, develops a friendship with a ghost, and receives visions and understanding of his grandfathers lifelong secrets. But when he becomes a fugitive engaged in a high-speed chase with the police, he knows he must make a decision in order to prevent his two worlds from colliding. This novel tells the story of a boys strange experience with his first car, one that will change his life forever.
