"In the end," writes Tori McClure, "I know I rowed across the Atlantic to find my heart, but in the beginning, I wasn't aware that it was missing." During June 1998, Tori McClure set out to row across the Atlantic Ocean by herself in a twenty-three-foot plywood boat with no motor or sail. Within days she lost all communication with shore, but nevertheless she decided to keep going. Not only did she lose the sound of a friendly voice, she lost updates on the location of the Gulf Stream and on the weather. Unfortunately for Tori, 1998 is still on record as the worst hurricane season in the North Atlantic. In deep solitude and perilous conditions, she was nonetheless determined to prove what one person with a mission can do. When she was finally brought to her knees by a series of violent storms that nearly killed her, she had to signal for help and go home in what felt like complete disgrace.Back in Kentucky, however, Tori's life began to change in unexpected ways. She fell in love. At the age of thirty-five, she embarked on a serious relationship for the first time, making her feel even more vulnerable than sitting alone in a tiny boat in the middle of the Atlantic. She went to work for Muhammad Ali, who told her that she did not want to be known as the woman who "almost" rowed across the Atlantic Ocean. And she knew that he was right.In this thrilling story of high adventure and romantic quest, Tori McClure discovers through her favorite way the hard way that the most important thing in life is not to prove you are superhuman but to fully to embrace your own humanity. With a wry sense of humor and a strong voice, she gives us a true memoir of an explorer who maps her world with rare emotional honesty.

Here is the shocking true saga of the Irish American mob. In Paddy Whacked, bestselling author and organized crime expert T. J. English brings to life nearly two centuries of Irish American gangsterism, which spawned such unforgettable characters as Mike "King Mike" McDonald, Chicago's subterranean godfather; Big Bill Dwyer, New York's most notorious rumrunner during Prohibition; Mickey Featherstone, troubled Vietnam vet turned Westies gang leader; and James "Whitey" Bulger, the ruthless and untouchable Southie legend. Stretching from the earliest New York and New Orleans street wars through decades of bootlegging scams, union strikes, gang wars, and FBI investigations, Paddy Whacked is a riveting tour de force that restores the Irish American gangster to his rightful preeminent place in our criminal history -- and penetrates to the heart of the American experience.

A Perfect Red recounts the colorful history of cochineal, a legendary red dye that was once one of the world's most precious commodities. Treasured by the ancient Mexicans, cochineal was sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519. Shipped to Europe, the dye created a sensation, producing the brightest, strongest red the world had ever seen. Soon Spain's cochineal monopoly was worth a fortune. Desperate to find their own sources of the elusive dye, the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans tried to crack the enigma of cochineal. Did it come from a worm, a berry, a seedCould it be stolen from Mexico and transplanted to their own coloniesPirates, explorers, alchemists, scientists, and spies -- all joined the chase for cochineal, a chase that lasted more than three centuries. A Perfect Red tells their stories -- true-life tales of mystery, empire, and adventure, in pursuit of the most desirable color on earth.

The boss of New York's infamous Lucchese crime family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso's life in the Mafia was preordained from birth. His rare talent for "earning" concocting ingenious schemes to hijack trucks, rob banks, and bring vast quantities of drugs into New York fueled his unstoppable rise up the ladder of organized crime. A mafioso responsible for at least fifty murders, Casso lived large, with a beautiful wife and money to burn. When the law finally caught up with him in 1994, Casso became the thing he hated most an informer.From his blood feud with John Gotti to his dealings with the "Mafia cops," decorated NYPD officers Lou Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, to the Windows case, which marked the beginning of the end for the New York Mob, Gaspipe is Anthony Casso's shocking story a roller-coaster ride into an exclusive netherworld that reveals the true inner workings of the Mafia, from its inception to the present time.

In January 2003, Kenya seen as the most stable country in Africa was hailed as a model of democracy after the peaceful election of its new president, Mwai Kibaki. By appointing respected longtime reformer John Githongo as anticorruption czar, the new Kikuyu government signaled its determination to end the corrupt practices that had tainted the previous regime. Yet only two years later, Githongo himself was on the run, having discovered that the new administration was ruthlessly pillaging public funds."Under former President Moi, his Kalenjin tribesmen ate. Now it's our turn to eat," politicians and civil servants close to the president told Githongo. As a member of the government and the president's own Kikuyu tribe, Githongo was expected to cooperate. But he refused to be bound by ethnic loyalty. Githongo had secretly compiled evidence of official malfeasance and, at great personal risk, made the painful choice to go public. The result was Kenya's version of Watergate.Michela Wrong's account of how a pillar of the establishment turned whistle-blower, becoming simultaneously one of the most hated and admired men in Kenya, grips like a political thriller. At the same time, by exploring the factors that continue to blight Africa ethnic favoritism, government corruption, and the smug complacency of Western donor nations It's Our Turn to Eat probes the very roots of the continent's predicament. It is a story that no one concerned with our global future can afford to miss.

A lively and intriguing tale of the competition between two artists culminating in the construction of the Duomo in Florence this is also the story of a city on the verge of greatness and the dawn of the Renaissance when everything artistic would change. Florence's Duomo the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral is one of the most enduring symbols of the Italian Renaissance an equal in influence and fame to Leonardo and Michaelangelo's works. It was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi the temperamental architect who rediscovered the techniques of mathematical perspective. He was the dome's 'inventor' whose secret methods for building remain a mystery as compelling to architects as Fermat's Last Theorem once was to mathematicians. Yet Brunelleschi didn't direct the construction of the dome alone. He was forced to share the commission with his arch rival the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti whose 'Paradise Doors' are also masterworks. This is the story of these two men a tale of artistic genius and individual triumph.

Breaking nearly eight decades of silence, Essie Mae Washington Williams comes forward with a story of unique historical magnitude and incredible human drama. Her father, the late Strom Thurmond, was once the nation's leading voice for racial segregation (one of his signature political achievements was his 24 hour filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, done in the name of saving the South from "mongrelization"). Her mother, however, was a black teenager named Carrie Butler who worked as a maid on the Thurmond family's South Carolina plantation. Set against the explosively changing times of the civil rights movement, this poignant memoir recalls how she struggled with the discrepancy between the father she knew one who was financially generous, supportive of her education, even affectionate and the Old Southern politician, railing against greater racial equality, who refused to acknowledge her publicly. From her richly told narrative, as well as the letters she and Thurmond wrote to each other over the years, emerges a nuanced, fascinating portrait of a father who counseled his daughter about her dreams and goals, and supported her in reaching them but who was unwilling to break with the values of his Dixiecrat constituents. With elegance, dignity, and candor, Washington Williams gives us a chapter of American history as it has never been written before told in a voice that will be heard and cherished by future generations.

A provocative exploration of justice in our time through fresh readings of Shakespeare's greatest plays Celebrated legal scholar Kenji Yoshino's first book, Covering, was acclaimed from the New York Times Book Review to O, The Oprah Magazine to the American Lawyer for its elegant prose, its good humor, and its brilliant insights into civil rights and discrimination law. Now, in A Thousand Times More Fair, Yoshino turns his attention to the broad question of what makes a fair and just society, and he delves deep into a surprising source to answer it: Shakespeare's greatest plays.An enormously creative and provocative book, A Thousand Times More Fair addresses fundamental questions we ask about our world today: Why is the rule of law better than revengeHow much mercy should we show a wrongdoerWhat does it mean to "prove" guilt or innocenceAs Yoshino argues, a searching examination of Shakespeare's plays and the many advocates, judges, criminals, and vigilantes who populate them can elucidate some of the most troubling issues in contemporary life.With a great ear for Shakespeare and an eye trained steadily on current affairs, Yoshino considers how competing models of judging presented in Measure for Measure resurfaced around the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor; how the revenge cycle of Titus Andronicus illuminates the "war on terror" and our military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq; how the white handkerchief in Othello and the black glove in the O. J. Simpson trial reflect forms of proof that overwhelm all other evidence; and how the spectacle of an omnipotent ruler voluntarily surrendering power in The Tempest, as Cincinnatus did before him and George Washington did after him, informs regime change in our own time.A Thousand Times More Fair is an altogether original book about Shakespeare and the law, and an ideal starting point to explore the nature of a just society and our own.

At the dawn of the 1990s, a new crew of leading men Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, and Brad Pitt was rocketing toward stardom. River Phoenix, however, stood in front of the pack. But behind Phoenix's talent and beautiful public face was a young man who had been raised in a cult by nonconformist parents, who was burdened with supporting his family from a young age, and who eventually succumbed to addiction, dying of an overdose in front of the Viper Room, West Hollywood's storied club, at twenty-three.Last Night at the Viper Room is part biography, part cultural history of the 1990s, and part celebration of a Hollywood icon gone too soon. Full of interviews from his fellow actors, directors, friends, and family, Last Night at the Viper Room shows the role River Phoenix played in creating the place of the actor in our modern culture and the impact his work still makes today.

The author of the acclaimed Sala's Gift delivers a definitive biography of Josephine Marcus Earp, a Jewish woman from New York who became the common-law wife of famed lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp. For nearly fifty years, Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp lived with the most famous lawman of the Old West. How did this aspiring actress and dancer—a Jewish girl from New York—land in Tombstone, Arizona, and steal the heart of Wyatt EarpIn this fascinating biography, Ann Kirschner brings Josephine out of the shadows of history to tell her full story—a spirited and colorful tale of ambition, adventure, self-invention, and romance. Kirschner offers a rare look at a woman's life on the frontier and sheds new light on the iconic gunfight that made Wyatt Earp a legend, revealing Josephine's place at its center. Lady at the O.K. Corral introduces a vivacious woman with a magnetic personality who was equally at home in the deserts of the American Southwest and the boomtowns of the Alaskan Gold Rush; in the opulent hotels of San Francisco; in mining camps, casinos, racetracks, and boxing arenas; and on Hollywood back lots visiting Cecil B. DeMille and Samuel Goldwyn. Spanning more than half a century, this engaging narrative biography brings Josephine to the forefront of her own story and offers a fresh look at a remarkable era in American history.

The extraordinary World War II story of shipwreck and survival that paved John F. Kennedy's path to power – hailed as a “breathtaking account” by James Patterson, “masterfully written” by historian Douglas Brinkley, and “the finest book” ever written on the subject by Lt. Commander William Liebenow, the man who rescued JFK and the PT 109 crew in August 1943. In the early morning darkness of August 2, 1943, during a chaotic nighttime skirmish amid the Solomon Islands, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri barreled through thick fog and struck the U.S. Navy's motor torpedo boat PT 109, splitting the craft nearly in half and killing two American sailors instantly. The sea erupted in flames as the 109's skipper, John F. Kennedy, and the ten surviving crewmen under his command desperately clung to the sinking wreckage; 1,200 feet of ink-black, shark-infested water loomed beneath. "All hands lost," came the reports back to the Americans' base: no rescue was coming for the men of PT 109. Their desperate ordeal was just beginning—so too was one of the most remarkable tales of World War II, one whose astonishing afterlife would culminate two decades later in the White House. Drawing on original interviews with the last living links to the events, previously untapped Japanese wartime archives, and a wealth of archival documents from the Kennedy Library, including a lost first-hand account by JFK himself, bestselling author William Doyle has crafted a thrilling and definitive account of the sinking of PT 109 and its shipwrecked crew's heroics. Equally fascinating is the story's second act, in which Doyle explores in new detail how this extraordinary episode shaped Kennedy's character and fate, proving instrumental to achieving his presidential ambitions: "Without PT 109, there never would have been a President John F. Kennedy," declared JFK aide David Powers. Featuring castaways on a deserted island, a spy network of Solomon Island natives, an Australian coast watcher hidden on the side of a volcano, an S.O.S. note carved into a coconut, and a daring rescue attempt led by Kennedy's fellow American PT boats, PT 109 is an unforgettable American epic of war and destiny.

The acclaimed historian Helen Castor bestselling author and BBC broadcaster of She-Wolves, the story of England's queens before Elizabeth I returns with the incredible story of Joan of Arc, as only a biographer of Castor's enormous talents can tell it.Helen Castor brings us afresh a gripping life of Joan of Arc. Instead of the icon, she gives us a living, breathing young woman, a roaring girl fighting the English and taking sides in a bloody civil war that was tearing apart fifteenth-century France.Here is a portrait of a nineteen-year-old peasant who hears voices from God; a teenager transformed into a warrior, leading an army to victory in an age that believed women should not fight. And it is also the story behind the myth we all know, a myth that began to take hold at her trial: that of the Maid of Orleans, the savior of France, a young woman burned at the stake as a heretic, a woman who, five hundred years later, would be declared a saint.Joan and her world are brought vividly to life in this startling new take on the medieval world.Castor brings us to the heart of the action, to a woman and a country in turmoil, a world where no one, not Joan herself or the people around her princes, bishops, soldiers, or peasants knew what would happen next.Adding complexity, depth, and fresh insight into Joan's life, showing her confronting the challenges of faith and doubt in a superstitious age, Castor's Joan of Arc is a rich history and biography that allows us to better understand this remarkable woman and her world.

When you lose your whole world in a moment, where do you turn?On a cold November morning, Joseph Luzzi, a Dante scholar and professor at Bard College, found himself racing to the hospital his wife, Katherine, eight-and-a-half months pregnant, had been in a horrible car accident. In one terrible instant, Luzzi became both a widower and a first-time father. In the aftermath of unthinkable tragedy, Luzzi relied on the support of his Italian immigrant family, returning to his childhood home to grieve and care for his infant daughter. But it wasn't until he turned to The Divine Comedy a poem he had devoted his life to studying and teaching that he learned how to resurrect his life. Following the same structure as Dante's epic poem, Luzzi is shepherded out of his own "dark wood," passing through the grief-stricken Inferno, the Purgatory of healing, and ultimately stepping into the Paradise of rediscovered love. Beautifully written, poignant, insightful, and unflinchingly honest, In a Dark Wood is a hybrid of heartrending memoir and a meditation on the power of great art to give us strength in our darkest moments. Drawing us into hell and back, it is Dante's journey, Joseph Luzzi's, and our very own.

Randy Owen, the front man and lead vocalist for one of the biggest music groups of all time, was raised in rural Alabama, grew up working on a small sharecropper farm, and today lives on this same land that his family worked for generations. Born Country weaves together never-before-shared stories about life on the road with the legendary band Alabama, Randy's family, his experiences with temptation in the face of superstardom, and how he held on to his traditional Christian values through it all. Born Country is an inspiring story about how a poor country boy came to touch the lives of millions of fans.

The author of Population: 485 returns, delivering a truckload of humor, heart, and . . . gardening tipsThink Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, complete with stock cars, sexy vegetables, and a laugh track."All I wanted to do was fix my old pickup truck," says Michael Perry. "That, and plant my garden. Then I met this woman. . . ." Truck: A Love Story recounts a year in which Perry struggles to grow his own food ("Seed catalogs are responsible for more unfulfilled fantasies than Enron and Penthouse combined"), live peaceably with his neighbors (one test-fires his black powder rifle in the alley; another's best Sunday shirt reads 100 PERCENT WHUP-ASS), and sort out his love life. But along the way, he sets his hair on fire, is attacked by wild turkeys, takes a date to the fire department chicken dinner, and proposes marriage to a woman in New Orleans. As with Population: 485, much of the spirit of Truck: A Love Story may be found in the characters Perry meets: a one-eyed land surveyor, a paraplegic biker who rigs a sidecar so that his quadriplegic pal can ride along, a bartender who refuses to sell light beer, an enchanting woman who never existed, and half the staff of National Public Radio.By turns hilarious and heartfelt, a tale that begins on a pile of sheep manure, detours to the Whitney Museum of American Art, and returns to the deer-hunting swamps of northern Wisconsin, Truck: A Love Story becomes a testament to the surprising and unintended consequences of love.1006

In 1884, Providence Grays pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn won an astounding fifty-nine games more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or has since. He then went on to win all three games of baseball's first World Series.Fifty-nine in '84 tells the dramatic story not only of that amazing feat of grit but also of big-league baseball two decades after the Civil War a brutal, bloody sport played barehanded, the profession of uneducated, hard-drinking men who thought little of cheating outrageously or maiming an opponent to win.It is the tale, too, of the woman Radbourn loved, Carrie Stanhope, the alluring proprietress of a boarding-house with shady overtones, a married lady who was said to have personally known every man in the National League.Wonderfully entertaining, Fifty-nine in '84 is an indelible portrait of a legendary player and a fascinating, little-known era of the national pastime.

Set against the backdrop of the witchcraft trial of his mother, this lively biography of Johannes Kepler the Protestant Galileo' and 16th century mathematician and astronomer reveals the surprisingly spiritual nature of the quest of early modern science. In the style of Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter, Connor's book brings to life the tidal forces of Reformation, Counter Reformation, and social upheaval. Johannes Kepler, who discovered the three basic laws of planetary motion, was persecuted for his support of the Copernican system. After a neighbour accused his mother of witchcraft, Kepler quit his post as the Imperial mathematician to defend her. James Connor tells Kepler's story as a pilgrimage, a spiritual journey into the modern world through war and disease and terrible injustice, a journey reflected in the evolution of Kepler's geometrical model of the cosmos into a musical model, harmony into greater harmony. The leitmotif of the witch trial adds a third dimension to Kepler's biography by setting his personal life within his own times. The acts of this trial, including Kepler's letters and the accounts of the witnesses, although published in their original German dialects, had never before been translated into English. Echoing some of Dava Sobel's work for Galileo's Daughter, Connor has translated the witch trial documents into English. With a great respect for the history of these times and the life of this man, Connor's accessible story illuminates the life of Kepler, the man of science, but also Kepler, a man of uncommon faith and vision.

I dreamed of New York, I am going there.On May 31, 1953, twenty-year-old Sylvia Plath arrived in New York City for a one-month stint at the intellectual fashion magazine Mademoiselle to be a guest editor for its prestigious annual college issue. Over the next twenty-six days, the bright, blond New England collegian lived at the Barbizon Hotel, attended Balanchine ballets, watched a game at Yankee Stadium, and danced at the West Side Tennis Club. She typed rejection letters to writers from The New Yorker and ate an entire bowl of caviar at an advertising luncheon. She stalked Dylan Thomas and fought off an aggressive diamond-wielding delegate from the United Nations. She took hot baths, had her hair done, and discovered her signature drink (vodka, no ice). Young, beautiful, and on the cusp of an advantageous career, she was supposed to be having the time of her life.Drawing on in-depth interviews with fellow guest editors whose memories infuse these pages, Elizabeth Winder reveals how these twenty-six days indelibly altered how Plath saw herself, her mother, her friendships, and her romantic relationships, and how this period shaped her emerging identity as a woman and as a writer. Pain, Parties, Work the three words Plath used to describe that time shows how Manhattan's alien atmosphere unleashed an anxiety that would stay with her for the rest of her all-too-short life.Thoughtful and illuminating, this captivating portrait invites us to see Sylvia Plath before The Bell Jar, before she became an icon a young woman with everything to live for.

Deputy U.S. Marshal: How often did you draw your gun?Retiring FBI Agent: Never. You?Deputy U.S. Marshal: Seven times before lunch.123,006 FugitivesThat's how many wanted men and women, each with an average of four felony convictions to his or her name, the U.S. Marshals Service tracked down and arrested in 2012. Of that number, 3,962 were charged with murder, most were violent career criminals, and all were on the run from the authorities. If you are a fugitive in America, your worst nightmare is a deputy U.S. marshal on your trail: each year the Marshals Service takes more criminals off the streets than every other federal law enforcement agency combined.From Mike Earp, the former associate director of operations for the Marshals Service, and New York Times bestselling author David Fisher, this book tells the thrilling inside story of today's U.S. marshals in their own words. Based on interviews with more than fifty current and former deputies, as well as Earp's personal case notes, here are the greatest cases, hairiest arrests, and most unforgettable moments, all revealed for the first time. Here also is a history of how the marshals of legend have evolved into the country's frontline law enforcement agency, charged with apprehending the most notorious and dangerous suspects. The U.S. Marshals Service is America's oldest law enforcement agency, established in 1789 by George Washington, who called for "the selection of the fittest characters to expound the law and dispense justice." It has had a long and colorful history, famously interwoven into the mythology of the Wild West, with notable real-life marshals like Wyatt Earp and Bass Reeves and legendary fictional characters like Matt Dillon, Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens, and Rooster Cogburn, played by John Wayne in the 1969 film True Grit.However, what few people realize is that in the past three decades the marshals have been at the heart of a transformation of the entire structure of law enforcement in America. The Marshals Service has become the most effective U.S. law enforcement agency, responsible for tracking down the nation's most wanted fugitives. Organized under the Department of Justice, the marshals serve as the apprehension arm for most federal agencies, including the FBI and the DEA, and across the nation U.S. Marshals regional task forces aid state and local law enforcement authorities to catch the most dangerous fugitives. All told, the Marshals Service processes more than 150,000 warrants each year, and deputies make an average of 337 arrests per day. They are also charged with transporting federal prisoners, protecting judges, and operating the Witness Security Program.This is the untold story of the new U.S. Marshals Service, as seen through the eyes of the men and women who were pivotal in solving many of the most high-profile and dangerous cases in recent history.

The Classic Guide, Updated for Our Contemporary World A modern classic of Jungian psychology, The Hero Within has helped hundreds of thousands of people enrich their lives by revealing how to tap the power of the archetypes that exist within. Drawing from literature, anthropology, and psychology, author Carol S. Pearson clearly defines six heroic archetypes the Innocent, the Orphan, the Wanderer, the Warrior, the Altruist, and the Magician and shows how we can use these powerful guides to discover our own hidden gifts, solve difficult problems, and transform our lives with rich sources of inner strength.This book will speak deeply to the evolving hero in all of us and reverberate through every part of our lives. With poignant wisdom and prolific examples, it gives us enduring tools to help us develop our own innate heroic gifts the Orphan's resilience, the Wanderer's independence, the Warrior's courage, the Altruist's compassion, the Innocent's faith, and the Magician's abiding power.

Two harrowing crashes . . . A vanished rescue plane . . . A desperate fight for life in a frozen, hostile land . . . The quest to solve a seventy-year-old mysteryThe author of the smash New York Times bestseller Lost in Shangri-La delivers a gripping true story of endurance, bravery, ingenuity, and honor set in the vast Arctic wilderness of World War II and today.On November 5, 1942, a U.S. cargo plane on a routine flight slammed into the Greenland ice cap. Four days later, a B-17 on the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on the B-17 survived. The U.S. military launched a second daring rescue operation, but the Grumman Duck amphibious plane sent to find the men flew into a severe storm and vanished.In this thrilling adventure, Mitchell Zuckoff offers a spellbinding account of these harrowing disasters and the fate of the survivors and their would-be saviors. Frozen in Time places us at the center of a group of valiant airmen fighting to stay alive through 148 days of a brutal Arctic winter by sheltering from subzero temperatures and vicious blizzards in the tail section of the broken B-17 until an expedition headed by famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen attempts to bring them to safety.But that is only part of the story that unfolds in Frozen in Time. In present-day Greenland, Zuckoff joins the U.S. Coast Guard and North South Polar a company led by the indefatigable dreamer Lou Sapienza, who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck's last flight on a dangerous expedition to recover the remains of the lost plane's crew.Drawing on intensive research and Zuckoff's firsthand account of the dramatic 2012 expedition, Frozen in Time is a breathtaking blend of mystery, adventure, heroism, and survival. It is also a poignant reminder of the sacrifices of our military personnel and their families and a tribute to the important, perilous, and often-overlooked work of the U.S. Coast Guard.