Other books that might interest you

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  Folktales of England

  Katharine M. Briggs, Ruth L. Tongue

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  “The most satisfactory general collection of folktales to come out of England since the advent of modern collection and classification techniques.”—Journal of American Folklore   Tales of unnatural beings, curses, and ghosts, tall tales, shaggy dog stories—this collection from a renowned British folklorist offers a wide historical range, as well as commentaries. If wonder tales are not as abundant in England as elsewhere, other kinds of folktales thrive: local traditions, historical legends, humorous anecdotes. Many of the favorite tales which English-speaking peoples carry with them from childhood come from a long tradition—stories as familiar to Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Spenser, and their many contemporaries as they are to us. This volume is a “fine, homely feast” for anyone interested in the folklore of the world (Times Educational Supplement). “Should be of special concern to Americans since many of the tales are parallel to or the source of our own folk stories.”—Choice “This is entertainment, to be sure, but is also part of man’s attempts to comprehend his world.”—Quartet

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  J Robert Oppenheimer: The Life...

  Charles River Editors

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  Tens of millions died during World War II as the warring powers raced to create the best fighter planes, tanks, and guns, and eventually that race extended to bombs which carried enough power to destroy civilization itself. While the war raged in Europe and the Pacific, a dream team of Nobel Laureates was working on the Manhattan Project in America, a program kept so secret that Vice President Harry Truman didn’t know about it until he took the presidency after FDR’s death in April 1945.  
  The pursuit of nuclear weapons moved the scientist nearer to the role of combatant, placing special responsibilities on the scientific community to make critical moral decisions. However, as they developed atomic weapons, they could at the same time only warn military powers of their use. Advocates for nuclear power as a civilian energy resource but expressing misgivings about nuclear war put them at odds with uninformed branches of the military. The American government and the population at large, who possessed little understanding of the perilous science behind the technology, brought about charges of unpatriotic behavior for such misgivings. Scientists, meanwhile, were caught between the excitement of creating a new paradigm, and the dread of their eventual use.  
  The American war effort against the Japanese and Germans also included denying either one the use of a practical nuclear weapon. Physics was in its highest stage of advancement in Europe during this time, while J. Robert Oppenheimer emerged as an extraordinary scientific mind in the United States. Despite requiring the work of thousands of scientists and assistants in fashioning the weapon that eventually came to pass, Oppenheimer alone has been become renowned as the “father of the atomic bomb” due to his leadership of the Manhattan Project.

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  Benedict Arnold in the Company...

  Arthur S. Lefkowitz

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  This “gripping” history recounts the lives of American patriots who were a part of Arnold’s failed Canadian invasion during the Revolutionary War (Thomas Fleming, author of Liberty! The American Revolution).   Hundreds of men followed Col. Benedict Arnold in an expedition to capture Quebec in 1775. After Arnold was wounded, his troops found themselves outnumbered and trapped inside the city. Award-winning author and Revolutionary-era historian, Arthur S. Lefkowitz takes a close look at some of the brave veterans who fought in Arnold’s failed campaign and explores the extraordinary lives they led afterward.   In Benedict Arnold in the Company of Heroes, Lefkowitz paints vividly detailed portraits of early American patriots who continued their fight for independence after Arnold’s campaign. Some of the men portrayed include Charles Porterfield (who led troops at Brandwine); Daniel Morgan (the hero of Cowpens); Henry Dearborn and Timothy Bigelow (who fought alongside Arnold at Saratoga); Christian Febiger and Return Jonathan Meigs (who were at the forefront of the attack on Stony Point); Simeon Thayer (who refused to surrender at Fort Mifflin); and Col. Aaron Burr (whose wartime record was overshadowed by his later political career and duel with Alexander Hamilton). Benedict Arnold in the Company of Heroes “will delight readers who are looking for something new about the War of Independence” (John Ferling, author of Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence).

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  Stealing Manhattan - The Untold...

  Burl Barer, Punch Stanimirovic

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  The true crime story of a family of altruistic jewel thieves and four decades of daring capers and sweet escapes, including a 1992 New York mega-heist. 
   
  Punch Stanimirovic insists: “My father, known as Mr. Stan, is the greatest gentleman thief who ever lived—a true genius.” 
   
  Punch was raised to be an exceptional diamond thief. He could work magic on a safe that would have sent Mandrake the Magician back to the novelty store, and Dr. Strange back to medical school. He and his family risked it all to make the patriarch, Mr. Stan, proud. 
   
  Punch’s pop culture sensibilities, his father’s proven skills, and his mother’s artistic input merged to create cinema-style capers—elaborately planned and executed, including a spectacular 1992 New York mega-heist of over one billion dollars in diamonds, gold, and precious gems—and they got away with it. 
   
  Many of the crew members went on to invest in real estate, helping to “build the New York skyline”, while others moved to Europe and became the Pink Panthers. 
   
  They had one rule: No One Gets Hurt. From daring heists to the ultimate escape, discover the true story of Punch, his extraordinary crew, and his high-society family . . . 
   
  Edgar Award winner and New York Times–bestselling author Burl Barer brings to light the remarkable story of four decades and two generations of America’s First Family of kind and generous “altruistic outlaws” in Stealing Manhattan: The Untold Story of America’s Billion Dollar Gem Heist Masterminds. 
   
  Praise for Stealing Manhattan 
   
  “Barer has that all-important knack for seeking and finding hidden truth. In Stealing Manhattan, those who pulled off this caper were professionals who knew how to keep their mouths shut. And lucky for us, some of these mouths have recently opened to Barer . . . now the world can know the truth. You will not want to miss this “gem” of a book!” —Kevin Sullivan, author of The Bundy Murders: The Yearly Journal

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  The Adventures of a Victorian...

  David Lassman, Mick Davis

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  The true crime story of a master swindler and charming con-artist who became one of the most notorious female criminals of the Victorian Age. 
   
  ‘The story of Mrs. Gordon Baillie is stranger than anything to be met with in the field of fiction.’ 
   
  Mrs. Gordon Baillie, known throughout her life as Annie, was born in the direst poverty in the small Scottish fishing town of Peterhead in 1848. Illegitimate and illiterate, her beauty and intelligence nevertheless enabled her to overcome her circumstances and become a charming and wealthy socialite living a life of luxury while raising money for worthy causes and charitable works. 
   
  Behind her supposed perfect and contented life, however, lay one of the most notorious and compulsive swindlers of the Victorian Age. Her fraudulent fundraising and larger-than-life schemes played out across four decades and three continents, and involved land owners, crofters, aristocrats, politicians, bankers, socialist revolutionaries, operatic stars, and the cultural icons of the day. 
   
  She became mistress to a rich aristocrat, married a world-renowned male opera singer and later took as a lover a vicar’s son with anarchist tendencies. For most of her ‘career’ she kept one step ahead of the law and her nemesis, Inspector Henry Marshall of Scotland Yard, but finally becoming undone through her own compulsion for petty theft, despite her amassed fortune. 
   
  During her life she used more than forty aliases, produced four children and spent her way through millions in ill-gotten wealth. But at the turn of the twentieth century, her notoriety was such that she took refuge in America and disappeared from history. 
   
  “If you want to read about a Victorian woman who was able to hide her humble origins in Scotland to become one of the most notorious con-women in well-to-do society—an audacious figure who tried to live the life she felt she deserved rather than the one society wanted her to lead—then this book is highly recommended.” —Criminal Historian, Dr Nell Darby

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  American on Purpose

  Craig Ferguson

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  In American on Purpose, Craig Ferguson delivers a moving and achingly funny memoir of living the American dream as he journeys from the mean streets of Glasgow, Scotland, to the comedic promised land of Hollywood. Along the way he stumbles through several attempts to make his mark—as a punk rock musician, a construction worker, a bouncer, and, tragically, a modern dancer.  
  To numb the pain of failure, Ferguson found comfort in drugs and alcohol, addictions that eventually led to an aborted suicide attempt. (He forgot to do it when someone offered him a glass of sherry.) But his story has a happy ending: in 1993, the washed-up Ferguson washed up in the United States. Finally sober, Ferguson landed a breakthrough part on the hit sitcom The Drew Carey Show, a success that eventually led to his role as the host of CBS's The Late Late Show. By far Ferguson's greatest triumph was his decision to become a U.S. citizen, a milestone he achieved in early 2008, just before his command performance for the president at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. In American on Purpose, Craig Ferguson talks a red, white, and blue streak about everything our Founding Fathers feared.

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