Verlag: BookRix
The Manchester Canal Pusher is what you might describe as modern day folklore in Manchester. Devon has big cats on the moors. Scotland has the Loch Ness Monster. Manchester has a maniac canal pusher. But is this merely an urban legend or could this phantom waterway serial killer actually exist?
In this original production, the real John Lennon is revealed through the insightful narration of Beatles historian Jagannatha Dasa. Lennon was a complex man whose incredible body of work often obscured the sensitive, fragile man behind the music. Since his violent death in 1980, Lennon has become an almost fictional character; a hippie prince of peace, an idealized icon, a romanticized caricature. Along the way, the authentic John Lennon has been all but lost. Join the author in an in-depth, no holds barred look at the phenomenon of the Beatles and the often troubled Liverpool man behind it.Zum Buch
Kim is a fabulous adventure story set in India during the former British Empire. It tells the story of a street-wise but (in typical Kipling fashion) highly moral Anglo-Indian boy who becomes enmeshed the "the Great Game" - the competition between Britain and Russia for control over Asia. Taking time off from his role as the traveling companion of an aged Tibetan lama, the boy is trained as a spy, matches wits with various evildoers, and wins out in the end. So much more than just a spy story, Kim is one of the most enjoyable books that you will ever read - or have read to you.Zum Buch
Since its publication nearly 70 years ago, George Orwell’s 1984 has been regarded as one of the most influential novels of the modern age. Politicians have testified to its influence on their intellectual identities, rock musicians have made records about it, TV viewers watch a reality show named for it, and a White House spokesperson tells of “alternative facts”. The world we live in is often described as an Orwellian one, awash in inescapable surveillance and invasions of privacy. On 1984 dives deep into Orwell’s life to chart his earlier writings and key moments in his youth, such as his years at a boarding school that’s strict and charismatic headmaster shaped the idea of Big Brother. Taylor tells the story of the writing of the book, taking listeners to the Scottish island of Jura, where Orwell, newly famous thanks to Animal Farm but coping with personal tragedy and rapidly declining health, struggled to finish 1984. Published during the cold war — a term Orwell coined — Taylor elucidates the environmental influences on the book. Then he examines 1984’s post-publication life, including its role as a tool to understand our language, politics, and government.Zum Buch
During the 1950s, Michael Randle helped pioneer a new form of direct action against nuclear war, based on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. At the forefront of the British campaign, he worked closely with Peace News editor Hugh Brock (1914–1985) and other distinguished ‘anti-nuclear pacifists’ such as Pat Arrowsmith, April Carter, and Ian Dixon, serving as chairman of the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War (1958-1961) and secretary of the Committee of 100 (1960-1961). In 1966, he helped ‘spring’ the Russian spy George Blake from Wormwood Scrubs Prison. Thereafter, he campaigned vigorously on behalf of the Greek democratic opposition, conscientious objectors, and Soviet dissidents. He has always been a man of rare candor and singular energy and principles, even enduring imprisonment for his beliefs. Nowadays, Michael lives in Shipley near Bradford, where he continues to write as a respected expert on ‘people power’. Martin Levy’s interviews with Michael Randle introduce the reader to a tumultuous life that is nothing short of extraordinary.Zum Buch
“Does an admirable job of examining Capote as a writer whose work reflects America of the late 1940s and 1950s more deeply than previously thought.” —Ralph F. Voss, author of Truman Capote and the Legacy of “In Cold Blood” Truman Capote—and his most famous works, In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s—continue to have a powerful hold over the American popular imagination, along with his glamorous lifestyle, which included hobnobbing with the rich and famous and frequenting the most elite nightclubs in Manhattan. In Understanding Truman Capote, Thomas Fahy offers a way to reconsider the author’s place in literary criticism, the canon, and the classroom. By reading Capote’s work in its historical context, Fahy reveals the politics shaping his writing and refutes any notion of Capote as disconnected from the political. Instead this study positions him as a writer deeply engaged with the social anxieties of the postwar years. It also applies a highly interdisciplinary framework to the author’s writing that includes discussions of McCarthyism, the Lavender Scare, automobile culture, juvenile delinquency, suburbia, Beat culture, the early civil rights movement, female sexuality as embodied by celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, and atomic age anxieties. This new approach to studying Capote will be of interest in the fields of literature, history, film, suburban studies, sociology, gender/sexuality studies, African American literary studies, and American and cultural studies. Capote’s writing captures the isolation, marginalization, and persecution of those who deviated from or failed to achieve white middle-class ideals and highlights the artificiality of mainstream idealizations about American culture. His work reveals the deleterious consequences of nostalgia, the insidious impact of suppression, the dangers of Cold War propaganda, and the importance of equal rights. Ultimately, Capote’s writing reflects a critical engagement with American culture that challenges us to rethink our understanding of the 1940s and 1950s.Zum Buch
A Minnesota journalist breaks down the cold case that has beguiled a community and haunted his family for generations. At 3:30 a.m. on April 11, 1933, neighbors and firefighters arrived at the farmhouse of Albin and Alvira Johnson to find a smoldering heap where a seemingly happy home once stood. Beneath the ruins, investigators found the bodies of Alvira and her seven children, but Albin's remains were nowhere to be seen. The authorities determined that Alvira and the children were dead before the fire, and fingers immediately pointed to Albin. Hundreds of searchers, including the illustrious Pinkerton Agency, combed the area and even crossed into Canada in pursuit of Johnson, who was indicted in absentia for murder. But he was never found, dead or alive. What happened to the Johnson family and what part, if any, Albin played in the tragedy remain a mystery . . .Zum Buch
