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  Wanted - The Outlaw Lives of...

  Robert M. Utley

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  The oft-told exploits of Billy the Kid and Ned Kelly survive vividly in the public imaginations of their respective countries, the United States and Australia. But the outlaws' reputations are so weighted with legend and myth that the truth of their lives has become obscure. In this adventure-filled double biography, Robert M. Utley reveals the true stories and parallel courses of the two notorious contemporaries who lived by the gun, were executed while still in their twenties, and remain compelling figures in the folklore of their homelands.Billy was a fun-loving, expert sharpshooter who excelled at escape and lived on the run after indictment for his role in the Lincoln Country War. Bush-raised Ned, the son of an Irish convict father and Irish mother, was a man whose outrage against British colonial authority inspired him to steal cattle and sheep, kill three policemen, and rob banks for the benefit of impoverished Irish sympathizers. Utley recounts the exploits of these notorious young men with accuracy and appeal. He discovers their profound differences, despite their shared fates, and illuminates the worlds in which they lived on opposite sides of the globe.

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  Adult Drama - And Other Essays

  Natalie Beach

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  From the writer whose New York Magazine piece "I Was Caroline Calloway" broke the internet comes a fresh, incisive, laugh-out-loud funny memoir-in-essays about the frenzied journey to adulthood.Natalie Beach became an internet sensation when her essay on her toxic friendship with Instagram influencer Caroline Calloway went viral. Now, for the first time, and in her own indelible voice, Beach offers a revelatory glimpse into her own life alongside a broader cultural criticism of the world today. Through stories of heartbreak, odd jobs, political activism, existential crises and low-rise jeans, Natalie Beach explores the high stakes and absurdist comedy of coming of age in a world gone mad.Effervescent, hilarious and unflinchingly self-aware, Adult Drama marks the arrival of an electrifying new literary voice.

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  Shirley - The Life of a...

  Shirley Sherwood

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  Shirley, The Life of a Botanical Adventurer is the remarkable story of Dr Shirley Sherwood, scientist, author, travel writer, gardener as well as mother and grandmother. Following the tragic death of her brilliant scientist husband, Michael Cross, in a freak air crash in 1964, she was left as a 30-year-old widow with two young boys aged four and three. For the next twelve years she worked as a key member of the Nobel Prize-winning team which developed Tagamet, the first block-buster drug (sales of over $1 billion a year). After her marriage to Jim Sherwood in 1977, she left science to concentrate full-time on the huge task of restoring the fabled Orient-Express train, probably the most luxurious and exotic form of travel ever devised. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, running between London and Venice, was relaunched in 1982, ninety-nine years after its first journey. Sherwood's history of the project sold more than 400,000 copies. The Orient-Express train was just the beginning. The Sherwoods went on to create the five-star Orient-Express Hotels company (now Belmond), which owned some of the finest hotels in the world, including the Cipriani in Venice, the Mount Nelson in Cape Town and the Copacabana Palace in Rio. They pioneered new train routes across the Alps, started the Eastern & Oriental Express running between Singapore and Bangkok- crossing over the Bridge on the River Kwai- opened up tourism in Myanmar with the first cruise ship to operate on the Irrawaddy, and took over the railways of Peru, which run all the way to Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca. Her most lasting achievement, the one of which she is proudest, is the Shirley Sherwood Collection of contemporary botanical art, which she started in 1990 and now includes over 1,000 paintings and drawings representing the work of more than 300 contemporary botanical artists from 36 countries. She has mounted exhibitions in many prestigious locations including the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Kirstenbosch in Cape Town and the Real Jardin Botanico, Madrid. The Shirley Sherwood Gallery in Kew Gardens is the first museum to be dedicated to modern botanical art and her books, which often accompanied her exhibitions, have been largely responsible for re-establishing botanical art in its rightful place as an important art form. These are just some of the many achievements in a long and rich life, vividly described in this book.

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  The Carpenters

  Wink Martindale

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  In a time when hard rock was all the rage, The Carpenters were bringing a softer sound to the airwaves of the 1970s.  While many artists churned out new music constantly, they took a different approach. They waited for a great song with a great sound to come together, only putting out a new song when they were sure they were putting out a hit. Siblings Karen and Richard Carpenter sat down with Wink Martindale in 1970 during the success of Close To You. The duo shared an intimate look at what went into the process of creating music and discuss their security in creating easy listening songs.

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  Benny Goodman: The Life and...

  Charles River Editors

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    “After you've done all the work and prepared as much as you can, what the hell, you might as well go out and have a good time.” – Benny Goodman 
  	Sprightly swing music spills across the dimly lit club. The grayish curtains of cigarette smoke part every once in a while to reveal a sparkling stage and tables upon tables of patrons, some incurably inebriated and others high on the fast-paced nightlife. Fabulous flappers in shimmery cocktail dresses and stylish feather headbands throw their hands up and stomp their feet to the addictive beat on the dance floor. Smartly dressed men, their hair neatly parted and slicked back, toss fistfuls of dice onto the plush green baize of the craps tables. Some hover over roulette wheels, staring intently at the spinning flashes of silver, while others finger their playing cards as they sip on tumblers of whiskey, eyeing both the river and the tower of tokens next to them.  
  	Frisky tunes, chic fashion, and American gambling are nostalgic, rose-tinted images most choose to project when visualizing the Roaring Twenties, but the other side of the coin brought an uninviting, much harsher reality that most would prefer to sweep under the rug. The first real estate bubble was on the brink of bursting, and progress was evident, but painfully slow, which gave way to yet another era of violent riots, lynchings, and other forms of oppression imposed on minorities.  
  	When the phrase “the King” is used in the context of American music, most people think of Elvis Presley, but Presley was just a baby when the title was first conferred upon Benny Goodman as the King of Swing in 1935. The Swing Era was a magical period in American history between the hedonism of the Roaring Twenties and the rebelliousness sparked by rock music beginning in the 1950s. Swing music was rooted in ragtime, blues, and jazz music that had long been popular in African American enclaves in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and New Orleans. Swing took the entire nation by storm thanks in large part to Benny Goodman and his bands, earning Goodman the nearly undisputed title of the King of Swing.  
  	Goodman's life was a genuine rags-to-riches story. The son of nearly destitute Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Goodman was a musical prodigy who began playing professionally at the tender age of 13, and he was also among the first mainstream bandleaders to hire black musicians. Referring to music as “a great escape for me from the poverty," Goodman’s lifelong focus was on good music, no matter who it came from. As he put it, “If a guy's got it, let him give it. I'm selling music, not prejudice.” Goodman’s popularity was so instrumental that Lionel Hampton went so far as to claim, "As far as I'm concerned, what he did in those days—and they were hard days, in 1937—made it possible for Negroes to have their chance in baseball and other fields." 
   
  	Apart from a few hiatuses to tend his health and his growing family, Goodman remained a consistently active musician literally right up until his death in 1986 at the age of 77. Somewhat fittingly, he died in his study with his clarinet next to him and a Brahms sonata on a music stand nearby. 
  	Benny Goodman: The Life and Legacy of the King of Swing profiles how Goodman rose from obscure beginnings to become one of 20th century music’s most influential figures. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the King of Swing like never before.

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  Tyrone Power: The Life and...

  Charles River Editors

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  Hollywood has never lacked leading men who could captivate viewers with dramatic performances that depict them as suave romantics or dashing heroes, especially during the Golden Age of Hollywood, when stars like Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, and Cary Grant graced screens. But in the mid-20th century, one of the most popular stars was a man who’s been frequently overlooked.   
  Some actors were recruited based on their appearance alone, signing contracts before taking screen tests or ever having been on a stage or set. Others became overnight sensations, darlings of the public for decades. Only a few of these turned out to be excellent actors, but one of them was certainly Tyrone Power, one of Hollywood’s leading men from the 1930s into the 1950s. With a career spanning over 50 films, Power did not have to work through the system, rising to the top almost immediately at the age of 22.  
  Power was named “King of the Movies” for three straight years (1939 -1941) by fans, and while critics claimed that his success came from his good looks, today he is acknowledged as a good actor, among the most underestimated of this era. Power starred in a variety of film genres, and at least some contemporaries made note of his “remarkable acting range.” This included several musicals such as Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Second Fiddle, Rose of Washington Square, and The Eddy Duchin Story. He also made appearances in several dramas, including Johnny Apollo, Witness for the Prosecution, Crash Drive, and The Razor’s Edge. Power was even known for a good comedic sense in films like The Luck of the Irish, That Wonderful Urge, and Love is News.

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