Search:

Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers : the Texas victory that changed American history / by Kilmeade, Brian,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In his now trademark fashion, Brian Kilmeade explores hidden aspects of Sam Houston, the first president of Texas, and brings the reader to the scenes of one of the most pivotal moments in American history. Thanks to Kilmeade's storytelling, a new generation of readers will remember the Alamo"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Houston, Sam, 1793-1863.; Governors; Legislators;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

A savage order : how the world's deadliest countries can forge a path to security / by Kleinfeld, Rachel,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The most violent places in the world today are not at war. More people have died in Mexico in recent years than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. These parts of the world are instead buckling under a maelstrom of gangs, organized crime, political conflict, corruption, and state brutality. Such devastating violence can feel hopeless, yet some places-from Colombia to the Republic of Georgia-have been able to recover. In this powerfully argued and urgent book, Rachel Kleinfeld examines why some democracies, including our own, are crippled by extreme violence and how they can regain security. Drawing on fifteen years of study and firsthand field research-interviewing generals, former guerrillas, activists, politicians, mobsters, and law enforcement in countries around the world-Kleinfeld tells the stories of societies that successfully fought seemingly ingrained violence and offers penetrating conclusions about what must be done to build governments that are able to protect the lives of their citizens"--
Subjects: Human security; Internal security; National security; Violence; Violence;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Clark and Division / by Hirahara, Naomi,1962-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Chicago, 1944: twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, the California concentration camp where they have been "interned" by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled in Chicago, where Aki's older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier as a forerunner of the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family's reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train. Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose's death a suicide, in part because the coroner's examination revealed Rose had recently had an abortion. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished, and optimistic sister would end her life-nor can she imagine Rose carelessly getting pregnant. Her instinct tells her there is much more to the story, and she knows she is the only person who could ever learn the truth. Based on a true crime that terrorized the resettled Japanese American community in Chicago, and inspired by historical events, Clark and Division infuses an atmospheric and heartbreakingly real crime fiction plot with rich period details and delicately wrought personal stories Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from thirty years of research and archival work in Japanese American history"--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Japanese Americans; Murder;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The Lincoln conspiracy : the secret plot to kill America's 16th president--and why it failed / by Meltzer, Brad,author.; Mensch, Josh,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The bestselling authors of The First Conspiracy, which covers the secret plot against George Washington, now turn their attention to a little-known, but true story about a failed assassination attempt on President Lincoln. Everyone knows the story of Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, but few are aware of the original conspiracy to kill him four years earlier in 1861, literally on his way to Washington, D.C., for his first inauguration. The conspirators were part of a pro-Southern secret society that didn't want an antislavery President in the White House. They planned an elaborate scheme to assassinate the brand new President in Baltimore as Lincoln's inauguration train passed through en route to the Capitol. The plot was investigated by famed detective Allan Pinkerton, who infiltrated the group with undercover agents, including one of the first female private detectives in America. Had the assassination succeeded, there would have been no Lincoln Presidency, and the course of the Civil War and American history would have forever been altered"--
Subjects: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865; Presidents;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Soundings : journeys in the company of whales : a memoir / by Cunningham, Doreen,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."In this memoir of motherhood, love, and resilience, a woman and her toddler son follow the grey whale migration from Mexico to northernmost Alaska. In this striking blend of nature writing, whale science, and memoir, Doreen Cunningham interweaves two stories: tracking the extraordinary northward migration of the grey whales with a mischievous toddler in tow and living with an Iñupiaq family in Alaska seven years earlier. Throughout the journey she explores the stories of the whales and their young calves-their history, their habits, and their attempts to survive the changes humans have brought to the ocean. Cunningham's voice is powerful: sharp, profound, sensitive, and unflinching. A story of courage and resilience, Soundings is about the migrating whales and all we can learn from them as they mother, adapt, and endure, their lives interrupted and threatened by global warming. It is also a riveting journey onto the Arctic Sea ice and into the changing world of Indigenous whale hunters, where Doreen becomes immersed in the ancient values of the Iñupiaq whale hunt and falls in love. For this is Doreen's story, too-a fierce, feminist tale, touching on her childhood and her time living in a Women's Refuge with her baby, becoming a mother, just like the whales. Lyrical, brave, and fearlessly honest, Soundings is an unforgettable journey"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Cunningham, Doreen; Cunningham, Doreen.; Inupiat; Nature; Single mothers; Whales; Women journalists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Return to solitude : more Desolation Sound adventures with the Cougar Lady, Russell the Hermit, the Spaghetti Bandit and others / by Lawrence, Grant,1971-author.;
"The long-awaited sequel to Grant Lawrence's bestselling memoir Adventures in Solitude. It's been over a decade since renowned broadcaster and indie rock musician Grant Lawrence launched his writing career with the award-winning Adventures in Solitude, yet some things never change--including the winding Sunshine Coast Highway, close calls at the BC Ferries ticket office and carsick children. But this time, Lawrence returns as a husband and father, not as the vomiting and nerdy kid dragged along by his athletic and unflappable parents. In his inimitable, high-voltage style Lawrence interweaves the rich and harrowing history of the Desolation Sound area with his own experiences of life on the coast. This lively book recounts the life and times of the legendary Cougar Lady, tracks a phantom-like squatter known as the Spaghetti Bandit, and details the bizarre exit and even more bizarre death of Bernard the German. Here too are many of the beloved personalities introduced in Lawrence's first book, including hippie recluse Russell the Hermit, plus the continued voyages of Big Buck$, the decrepit family boat, and the incredible return of large ocean mammals to Desolation Sound. From a hilarious, heartfelt and slightly wiser voice comes a momentous story of time, family and place whirling around one increasingly ramshackle cabin on a beautiful and not-at-all-desolate coast."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Anecdotes.; Personal narratives.; Lawrence, Grant, 1971-; Radio broadcasters; Rock musicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The evolution of Charles Darwin : the epic voyage of the Beagle that forever changed our view of life on earth / by Preston, Diana,1952-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."When twenty-two-year-old aspiring geologist Charles Darwin boarded the HMS Beagle in 1831 with his microscopes and specimen bottles-invited by ship's captain Robert FitzRoy who wanted a travel companion at least as much as a ship's naturalist-he hardly thought he was embarking on what would become perhaps the most important and epoch-changing voyage in scientific history. Nonetheless, over the course of the five-year journey around the globe in often hard and hazardous conditions, Darwin would make observations and gather samples that would form the basis of his revolutionary theories about the origin of species and natural selection. Drawing on a rich range of revealing letters, diary entries, recollections of those who encountered him, and Darwin's and FitzRoy's own accounts of what transpired, Diana Preston chronicles the epic voyage as it unfolded, tracing Darwin's growth from untested young man to accomplished adventurer and natural scientist in his own right. Darwin often left the ship to climb mountains or ride hundreds of miles, accompanied by local guides whose languages he barely understood, across pampas and through rainforests in search of further unique specimens. From the wilds of Patagonia to the Galápagos and other Atlantic and Pacific islands, as Preston vibrantly relates, he collected and contrasted giant fossils and volcanic rocks, observed the Argentinian rhea, Falklands fox, and Galápagos finch, through which he began to discern connections between deep past and present. Darwin never left Britain again after his return in 1836, though his mind journeyed far and wide to develop the theories that were first revealed, after great delay and with trepidation about their reception, in 1859 with the publication of his epochal book On the Origin of Species. Offering a unique portrait of one of history's most consequential figures, The Evolution of Charles Darwin is a vital contribution to our understanding of life on Earth"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882.; Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Evolution (Biology); Natural history.; Naturalists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The Wager : a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder / by Grann, David,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z, a mesmerizing story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they had a very different story to tell. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes--they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang. The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound. Most powerfully, he unearths the deeper meaning of the events, showing that it was not only the Wager's captain and crew who were on trial--it was the very idea of empire"--
Subjects: Wager (Ship); Mutiny; Shipwreck victims; Shipwreck victims; Shipwrecks;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
unAPI

The medieval world : an illustrated atlas / by Hitchcock, Susan Tyler.; National Geographic Society (U.S.);
Includes bibliographical references (p. 366), Internet addresses (p. 367) and index.LSC
Subjects: Civilization, Medieval.; Civilization, Medieval;
© c2009., National Geographic,
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Prisoners of geography : ten maps that explain everything about the world / by Marshall, Tim,1959-author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-272) and index.A journalist uses ten maps of crucial regions to explain the geopolitical strategies of the world powers.
Subjects: Geopolitics.; Maps; World politics.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI