Search results for ""unknown""

Profoundly moved by the stories of wartime casualties as a child, Dilip Sarkar has since spent a lifetime reconstructing the lives of many of the fallen and is passionate about recording and sharing this very personal hidden history. In Spitfire Down he explores the stories of thirteen pilots who failed to return, all killed, either in action or flying accidents, whilst a fourteenth, Flying Officer Buck Casson, was brought down by a German ace over France and captured. There is, for example, the virtually unknown story of The Baby of the RAF', Sergeant Geoffrey Painting. Posted to fly Spitfires with 118 Squadron at RAF Ibsley in Hampshire, Painting was hit by flak during an attack on enemy shipping off Cherbourg on 30 September 1941. Still listed as missing, at just 17, he is believed to have been the youngest RAF pilot killed during the Second World War. The author has reconstructed Painting's short life with help from his family, and forensically deconstructed that last flight with the help of the now late Wing Commander Peter Howard-Williams DFC, who was flying with the teenage pilot that day. The author also explores the heart-rending story of an American trainee fighter pilot, Pilot Officer Jim Bob' Lee, whose Spitfire collided with a Wellington bomber over Gloucestershire - resulting in the loss of all airmen involved. Two Canadian pilots perished on Pen-y-Fan, the highest peak in South Wales. The multi-national effort that defeated Hitler is further emphasised, in fact, through the stories of both Wing Commander Piotr Laguna and Flying Officer Franek Surma. But perhaps most tragic of all is how lightning struck Joan Welch twice: her first fianc e, Flight Lieutenant Lester Sanders DFC, was killed test-flying Spitfires in 1942, and her second, Pilot Officer Ian Smith, was killed flying in Palestine in 1945. Using correspondence, diaries and other personal papers of the pilots concerned, the author has reconstructed their all-too brief lives and provided a lasting and profusely illustrated record of these sacrifices.

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'I loved this book, as I love any good adventure story sublimely told . . . a gloriously exciting high, followed by a crushing realisation of war's enormous waste' Gerard deGroot, The Times'Absorbing . . . The extraordinary bravery of the participants shines out from the narrative' Patrick Bishop, Sunday Telegraph_________________________________FROM THE AUTHOR OF BRIDGE OF SPIES: A dramatic and colourful new account of the most daring British commando raid of World War TwoIn the darkest months of the Second World War, Churchill approved what seemed to many like a suicide mission. Under orders to attack the St Nazaire U-boat base on the Atlantic seaboard, British commandos undertook "the greatest raid of all", turning an old destroyer into a live bomb and using it to ram the gates of a Nazi stronghold. Five Victoria Crosses were awarded -- more than in any similar operation.Drawing on official documents, interviews, unknown accounts and the astonished reactions of French civilians and German forces, The Greatest Raid recreates in cinematic detail the hours in which the "Charioteers" fought and died, from Lt Gerard Brett, the curator at the V & A, to "Bertie" Burtinshaw, who went into battle humming There'll Always be an England, and from Lt Stuart Chant, who set the fuses with 90 seconds to escape, to the epic solo reconnaissance of the legendary Times journalist Capt Micky Burn.Unearthing the untold human stories of Operation Chariot, Bridge of Spies author Giles Whittell reveals it to be a fundamentally misconceived raid whose impact and legacy was secured by astonishing bravery._________________________________'Enthralling . . . the heroism on display that night was unsurpassed, and Whittell is right to call his book The Greatest Raid' Simon Griffith, Mail on Sunday'A compelling page-turner, the work of a master storyteller. The drama of the March 1942 operation is cinematic in its sweep and detail -- and Whittell's detective work on the real reasons for the raid is extraordinary. Beautifully written' Matthew d'Ancona

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'Pulse-pounding' Sinclair McKay | 'Truly masterful' Damien Lewis | 'Who needs spy fiction, when fact can provide as thrilling a story as this?' Lindsey HilsumThe Spymaster of Baghdad is the gripping story of the top-secret Iraqi intelligence unit that infiltrated the Islamic State. More so than that of any foreign power, the information they gathered turned the tide against the insurgency, paving the way to the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019.Against the backdrop of the most brutal conflict of recent decades, we chart the spymaster's struggle to develop the unit from scratch in challenging circumstances after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, we follow the fraught relationship of two of his agents, the al-Sudani brothers - one undercover in ISIS for sixteen long months, the other his handler - and we track a disillusioned scientist as she turns bomb-maker, threatening the lives of thousands.With unprecedented access to characters on all sides, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Margaret Coker challenges the conventional view that Western coalition forces defeated ISIS and reveals a page-turning story of unlikely heroes, unbelievable courage and good old-fashioned spycraft.'Moving, visceral, utterly revelatory. A stunning tour de force by an author who has lived every word of it on the ground' Damien Lewis, author of Zero Six Bravo'This compelling account of how Iraqi agents infiltrated ISIS takes us deep beneath the lurid headlines and into a sharply focused world of courage, ingenuity, terror and love' Sinclair McKay, author of Dresden'In Margaret Coker's deeply reported, unputdownable account, the previously unknown Iraqi heros of the war against the Islamic State turn out to be braver than Bond and as subtle as Smiley' Lindsey Hilsum, author of In Extremis'We all owe a debt of gratitude to the Falcons Unit for their important role in the fight against the most lethal terrorist group of our time' Anne Speckhard, Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism

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WINNER OF THE CUNDHILL HISTORY PRIZE 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2017, THE PUSHKIN HOUSE RUSSIAN BOOK PRIZE 2017 AND THE LONGMAN-HISTORY TODAY BOOK PRIZE 2017THE TIMES, SPECTATOR, BBC HISTORY and TLS BOOKS OF THE YEAR'Masterful, gripping ... filled with astonishing, vivid and heartbreaking stories of crime and punishment, of redemption, love and terrifying violence. It has an amazing cast of despots, murderers, whores and heroes. It's a wonderful read' Simon Sebag MontefioreIt was known as 'the vast prison without a roof'. From the beginning of the nineteenth century to the Russian Revolution, the tsarist regime exiled more than one million prisoners and their families beyond the Ural Mountains to Siberia. The House of the Dead, brings to life both the brutal realities of an inhuman system and the tragic and inspiring fates of those who endured it. This is the vividly told history of common criminals and political radicals, the victims of serfdom and village politics, the wives and children who followed husbands and fathers, and of fugitives and bounty-hunters. The tsars looked on Siberia as creating the ultimate political quarantine from the contagions of revolution. Generations of rebels - republicans, nationalists and socialists - were condemned to oblivion thousands of kilometres from European Russia. Over the nineteenth century, however, these political exiles transformed Siberia's mines, prisons and remote settlements into an enormous laboratory of revolution.This masterly work of original research taps a mass of almost unknown primary evidence held in Russian and Siberian archives to tell the epic story both of Russia's struggle to govern its monstrous penal colony and Siberia's ultimate, decisive impact on the political forces of the modern world.'An absolutely fascinating book, rich in fact and anecdote.' - David Aaronovitch'A splendid example of academic scholarship for a public audience. Yet even though he is an impressively calm and sober narrator, the injustices and atrocities pile up on every page.' - Dominic Sandbrook'A superb, colourful history of Siberian exile under the tsars' - The Times

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Read this book and the world's most famous image will never look the same again. For the world's greatest cultural icon still has secrets to reveal - not the silly secrets that the 'Leonardo loonies' continue to advance, but previously unknown facts about the lives of Leonardo, his father, Lisa Gherardini, the subject of the portrait, and her husband Francesco del Giocondo. From this factual beginning we see how the painting metamorphosed into a 'universal picture' that became the prime vehicle for Leonardo's prodigious knowledge of the human and natural worlds. We learn about the new money of the ambitious merchant who married into the old gentry of Lisa's family. We discover Lisa's life as a wife and mother, her association with sexual scandals, and her later life in a convent. We meet, for the first time, previously undiscovered members of Leonardo's immediate family and discover new information about his early life. The tiny hill town of Vinci is placed before us, with its widespread poverty. We find out about the career and possessions of his father, a notable lawyer in Florence. The meaning of the portrait that resulted from these human circumstances is vividly illuminated though Renaissance love poetry and verses specifically dedicated to Leonardo. We come to understand how Leonardo's sciences of optics, psychology, anatomy and geology are embraced in his poetic science of art. Recent scientific examinations of the painting disclose how it evolved to assume its present appearance in Leonardo's experimental hands. Above all, we cut through the suppositions and the myths to show that the portrait is a product of real people in a real place at a real time. This is the book that brings back a sense of reality into the creation of the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. And the actual Mona Lisa, it turns out, is even more astonishing and transcendent than the Mona Lisa of legend.

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This accessible and entertaining book explores the fundamental connections between life and information and how they emerged inextricably linked, taking the reader on a journey through all the major evolutionary transitions. It records the entire path of how life's information has evolved, starting from the growing polymers of prelife leading to the first replicators, through RNA and DNA to neural networks and animal brains, continuing through the major transition of human language and writing, into computer clouds, and finally heading towards an unknown future. All currently known life is based on three classes of molecules: proteins - life's main structural and functional building blocks; DNA - life's information molecule; and RNA - a molecule that provides the link between these two. Despite the existence of language and the new means of information recording and processing it enabled, at the current stage of life's evolution, the information stored in the natural repository of our planet's DNA archive remains indispensable. If the DNA on Earth were to become seriously corrupted, all cultural information and life itself would soon disappear. However, does future life have to be reliant on these molecules or could a living organism be made of e.g. steel, rubber, copper, and silicon? What was life like when it first emerged on Earth billions of years ago? What will life be like millions or billions of years from now, if it still exists? Could future civilisations, including the possible heirs of the present one, persist without proteins, DNA, and RNA? The author arms the reader with the knowledge required to speculate about such questions in an informed and reasoned way. Living Computers is aimed at students and scholars in a wide range of disciplines, from physics, computing, and biology to social sciences and philosophy. The fascinating idea of life as a computational phenomenon will also appeal to a more general readership interested in our origins and future existence.

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'Hypnotic... raises questions of exploration and wonder, of nature and humanity' New York Times Book Review 'Exquisite and shocking... just as any exploration of the deep should be' Helen Scales, author of The Brilliant Abyss '[A] rich, strange book' China Miéville, author of The City & the City ____________ 11 June, 1930. On a ship floating near the Atlantic island of Nonsuch, a curious steel ball is lowered 3000 feet into the sea. Crumpled up inside, gazing through three-inch thick quartz windows, sits the famed zoologist William Beebe. With uncontrollable excitement, he watches as bizarre, never-before-seen creatures flit out of the inky blackness, illuminated by explosions of bioluminescence. He is the first person to witness this alien world. Beebe's dives take place against the backdrop of a transforming and paradoxical America, home to ground-breaking scientists, eccentric adventurers, and eugenicist billionaires. Yet under the ocean's crushing pressure, scientific expectations disintegrate; the colour spectrum shatters into new dimensions; outlandish organisms thrive where no one expected them. The Bathysphere Book blends research, storytelling, and poetic experiments, traveling through entangled histories of scientific discovery into the bottomless magic of the deep unknown. ____________ Further praise for The Bathysphere Book 'The life work of an explorer-scientist becomes a thing of rich poetry' Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep Time 'A breathtaking book, full of suspense, revelation, and beauty' Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus 'An exhilarating read... shiveringly exciting, important, and new' Martin MacInnes, author of In Ascension 'An impressionistic work of art depicting one of the greatest moments of discovery in human history... tantalizing glimpses of deep-sea life' Edith Widder, author of Below the Edge of Darkness: Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea 'A genre-deying book about oceans that is imbued with intelligence, curiosity and wonder' Joanna Pocock, author of Surrender 'A brilliant work of literary art... a time-bending, gem-laden constellation' Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Ultramarine

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The legendary space opera that kicked off the ground-breaking, universe-spanning series.Nine hundred thousand years ago, something wiped out the Amarantin. For the human colonists now settling the Amarantin homeworld Resurgam, it's of little more than academic interest, even after the discovery of a long-hidden, almost perfect Amarantin city and a colossal statue of a winged Amarantin. For brilliant but ruthless scientist Dan Sylveste, it's more than merelty intellectual curiosity - and he will stop at nothing to get at the truth. Even if the truth costs him everything. But the Amarantin were wiped out for a reason, and that danger is closer and greater than even Syveste imagines ...REVELATION SPACE: a huge, magnificent space opera that ranges across the known and unknown universe ... towards the most terrifying of destinations.Readers are hooked on Revelation Space:'An amazing blend of space opera, hard SF, and gothic horror that reads like a cross between Frank Herbert's "Dune" and Ridley Scott's film "Alien"' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'Marvellous hard space opera. Slowly built, with three story lines which at some point merge together, it depicts a very dark universe, full of technological wonders, both human and alien' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'Revelation Space series is one of the favouritest favourites . . . Reynolds held me in thrall with his vision' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'The setting is a gritty, desolate, and unforgiving universe in which humanity finds itself in imminent danger of extinction . . . I highly recommend it to all adult fans of space opera, cyberpunk, and horror genres' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'A darn good, solid, well executed work of hard sci-fi . . . I really appreciate that Revelation Space ends in a satisfying and self-contained way' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Awesome characters, awesome setting, awesome ideas, awesome awesome awesome . . .' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

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The most famous and influential work of English fantasy ever published, reimagined for a new generation of readers by John Matthews, one of the world’s leading Arthurian experts, and illustrated by internationally acclaimed Tolkien artist, John Howe. The tales of how the boy Arthur drew the Sword from the Stone, or the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, or how the knights of the Round Table rode out in search of the Holy Grail are known and loved the world over. It all began when an obscure Celtic hero named Arthur stepped on to the stage of history, sometime in the sixth century, and oral tales led to a vast body of stories from which, 900 years later, Thomas Malory wrote the famous Morte D’Arthur. THE GREAT BOOK OF KING ARTHUR presents these well-loved stories for a modern reader, for the first time collecting many tales of Arthur and his knights either unknown to Malory or written in other languages. Here, you will read of Avenable, the girl brought up as a boy who becomes a famous knight. You will learn of Gawain's strange birth, his upbringing amongst poor folk and his final rise to the highest possible rank – Emperor of Rome. There is also the story of Morien whose adventures are as fantastic and exciting as any to be found in the pages of Malory. In addition, there are some of the earliest tales of Arthur, deriving from the tradition of Celtic storytelling. Here is the original Arthur, represented in such powerful stories as ‘The Adventures of Eagle-Boy’, and 'The Coming of Merlin', based on the early medieval text Vita Merlini, which gives a completely new version of the great Enchanter's story. These age-old stories, still as popular today as they were from the Middle Ages onwards, are dramatically brought to life by the luminous paintings and drawings of John Howe, whose work on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film trilogies has brought him a world-wide following.

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The answer lies out there. The year is 2072. At the lunar farside radio observatory, an old-school radio broadcast is detected, similar to those broadcast on Earth in the 1940s, but in an unknown language, coming from an impossible source, and originating at an equally impossible location—Proxima Centauri. While the nations of Earth debate making first contact, they learn that the Proximans are facing an extinction-level disaster, forcing a decision: will Earth send a ship on a multiyear trip to provide aid? Interstellar travel is not easy, and by traveling at the speeds required to arrive before disaster strikes at Proxima, humans will learn firsthand the effects of Einstein’s Special Relativity and be forced to ponder the ultimate questions: Are we alone in the universe? What does it mean to be human? About Travis S. Taylor: “. . . explodes with inventive action.”—Publishers Weekly on Travis S. Taylor’s The Quantum Connection “[Warp Speed] reads like Doc Smith writing Robert Ludlum . . . You won’t want to put it down.”—John Ringo About Stellaris: People of the Stars, coedited by Les Johnson: “. . . a thought-provoking look at a selection of real-world challenges and speculative fiction solutions. . . . Readers will enjoy this collection that is as educational as it is entertaining.”—Booklist “This was an enjoyable collection of science fiction dealing with colonizing the stars. In the collection were several gems and the overall quality was high.”—Tangent About Mission to Methone by Les Johnson: “The spirit of Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries is alive and well in Johnson’s old-fashioned first-contact novel, set in 2068. . . . includes plenty of realistic detail and puts fun new spins on familiar alien concepts. . . . There’s a great deal here for fans of early hard SF.”—Publishers Weekly “With equal parts science fiction and international intrigue. . . . an exciting, fast-paced read that you will not want to put down.”—Booklist About Rescue Mode by Ben Bova and Les Johnson: “. . . a suspenseful and compelling narrative of the first human spaceflight to Mars.”—Booklist

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THE ANSWER LIES OUT THERE The year is 2072. At the lunar farside radio observatory, an old-school radio broadcast is detected, similar to those broadcast on Earth in the 1940s, but in an unknown language, coming from an impossible source, and originating at an equally impossible location—Proxima Centauri. While the nations of Earth debate making first contact, they learn that the Proximans are facing an extinction-level disaster, forcing a decision: will Earth send a ship on a multiyear trip to provide aid? Interstellar travel is not easy, and by traveling at the speeds required to arrive before disaster strikes at Proxima, humans will learn firsthand the effects of Einstein’s Special Relativity and be forced to ponder the ultimate of questions of "Are we alone in the universe?” and “What does it mean to be human?” About Travis S. Taylor: “[E]xplodes with inventive action.”—Publishers Weekly on Travis S. Taylor’s The Quantum Connection “[Warp Speed] reads like Doc Smith writing Robert Ludlum. . .You won’t want to put it down.”—John Ringo About Stellaris: People of the Stars, coedited by Les Johnson: “[A] thought-provoking look at a selection of real-world challenges and speculative fiction solutions. . . . Readers will enjoy this collection that is as educational as it is entertaining.”—Booklist “This was an enjoyable collection of science fiction dealing with colonizing the stars. In the collection were several gems and the overall quality was high.”—Tangent About Mission to Methone, by Les Johnson: “The spirit of Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries is alive and well in Johnson’s old-fashioned first-contact novel, set in 2068. . . . includes plenty of realistic detail and puts fun new spins on familiar alien concepts. . . . There’s a great deal here for fans of early hard SF.”—Publishers Weekly “With equal parts science fiction and international intrigue. . . . an exciting, fast-paced read that you will not want to put down.”—Booklist About Rescue Mode, by Ben Bova and Les Johnson: “. . . a suspenseful and compelling narrative of the first human spaceflight to Mars.”—Booklist

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Since World War II, the US 101st Airborne Division has achieved legendary status. But within the ranks of the 101st there existed a rougher, tougher and more ruthless unit whose formidable reputation has persisted over the decades to this day: the Filthy Thirteen.Never ones to salute an officer, or take a bath, the men of this squad became singular within the ‘Screaming Eagles’ for their hard drinking and savage fighting skills . . . and that was only in training. Just prior to the invasion of Normandy, a Stars and Stripes photographer caught US paratroopers with heads shaved into mohawks, applying war paint to their faces. Unknown to the American public at the time, these men were the Filthy Thirteen. After parachuting behind enemy lines in the dark hours before D-Day, the Germans got a taste of the reckless courage of this unit, except now the men were fighting with Tommy guns and explosives, not just bare knuckles.In its spearhead role, the unit suffered heavy casualties, with some men wounded and others blown to bits. By the end of the war thirty men had passed through the squad. However, the heart and soul of the Filthy Thirteen remained in a survivor named Jake McNiece, a half-breed Indian from Oklahoma: the toughest man in the squad and the one who formed its character. McNiece made four combat jumps, was in the forefront of every fight in northern Europe, yet somehow never made the rank of Private First Class. The survivors of the Filthy Thirteen stayed intact as a unit until the Allies conquered Nazi Germany.Hugely popular on first publication, this books tells of a brawling bunch of no-goodniks whose only saving grace was that they inflicted more damage on the Germans than on MPs, the English countryside and their own officers. Still, the Filthy Thirteen remain a legend within the ranks of the 101st Airborne.

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Born in New York in 1975, Taryn Simon is at the forefront of contemporary photography practice. Her artistic medium is based around three equal elements: photography, text, and graphic design, which combined investigate the limitations of absolute understanding, examining the gaps between each element and how this can lead to disorientation and ambiguity. In the last ten years she has created a suite of projects which deal with a number of theoretical and visual concerns. Her formal interest in arrangement and cataloguing has seen her experiment with different methods of presentation and display, particularly in A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters (2008-11) in which she travelled around the world researching bloodlines: splitting each work in the final piece up into three segments, she presented large portrait sequences of related individuals on the left, a text panel containing details and narratives in the centre, and 'footnote images' on the right of fragmented pieces of established narratives and other photographic evidence. Simon has also skilfully and poetically tackled aspects of the underbelly of American life.Her 2009 project, Contraband, saw her systematically photograph thousands of items received through customs and the international postal service at JFK airport, categorising them into often grotesque and bizarre groupings. In An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, Taryn Simon documents spaces that are integral to America's foundation, mythology and daily functioning, but remain inaccessible or unknown to a public audience. Taryn Simon has been the subject of a number of monographic exhibitions, including MoMA, New York (2012), Tate Modern, London (2011), Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2011) and the Whitney Museum, New York (2007). Taryn's work was recently featured in the 2013 Carnegie International. Published in close collaboration with the artist, this brand new book will provide a complete overview of her practice to date. With new and re-published essays by amongst others Salman Rushdie, Homi Bhabha, Daniel Baumann, Tim Griffin, Tina Kuklieski, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Elisabeth Sussman. With an introduction by Simon Baker, Curator of Photography at Tate Modern.

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Available for the first time in trade paperback, the third of five volumes collecting the complete fiction of William Hope Hodgson, an influential early twentieth-century author of science fiction, horror, and the fantastic. William Hope Hodgson was, like his contemporaries Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, one of the most important, prolific, and influential fantasists of the early twentieth century. His dark and unsettling short stories and novels were shaped in large part by personal experience (a professional merchant mariner for much of his life, many of Hodgson’s tales are set at sea), and his work evokes a disturbing sense of the amorphous and horrific unknown. While his nautical adventure fiction was very popular during his lifetime, the supernatural and cosmic horror he is most remembered for only became well known after his death, mainly due to the efforts of writers like H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, who often praised his work and cited it as an influence on their own. By the latter half of the twentieth century, it was only his weird fiction that remained in print, and his vast catalog of non-supernatural stories was extremely hard to find. Night Shade Books’s five-volume series presents all of Hodgson’s unique and timeless fiction. Each volume contains one of Hodgson's novels, along with a selection of thematically-linked short fiction, including a number of works reprinted for the first time since their original publication. The third book of the five-volume set, The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea, collects more of Hodgson’s nautical fiction, including his 1909 novel The Ghost Pirates. The Complete Fiction of William Hope Hodgson is published by Night Shade Books in the following volumes:The Boats of the “Glen Carrig” and Other Nautical AdventuresThe House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious PlacesThe Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the SeaThe Night Land and Other RomancesThe Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions

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A visual tour de force showcasing Toronto’s vast concert history.“Not sure there’s ever been anything like this...The graphics are fascinating, the script is comprehensive. It’s staggering what’s been unleashed from the Vault.” — Gary Topp, promoter, half of the legendary duo the Garys“These pages will take you on a musical magical mystery tour of Toronto’s important place in concert history. Reading The Flyer Vault gives you a rush, just like the one you get when the house lights go down!” — Dan Kanter, multi-platinum-selling songwriter/producer“The Flyer Vault book helps bottle the lore, bringing me a little bit closer to my Toronto and its shows that have only grown in renown.” —Danko Jones, lead singer/guitarist of the rock trio Danko Jones Duke Ellington. Johnny Cash. David Bowie. Nirvana. Bob Marley. Wu-Tang Clan. Daft Punk. These are just some of the legendary names that played Toronto over the last century. Drawing from Daniel Tate’s extensive flyer collection, first archived on his Flyer Vault Instagram account, Tate and Rob Bowman have assembled a time capsule that captures a mesmerizing history of Toronto concert and club life, ?running the gamut of genres from vaudeville to rock, jazz to hip-hop, blues to electronica, and punk to country.The Flyer Vault: 150 Years of Toronto Concert History traces seminal live music moments in the city, including James Brown’s debut performance in the middle of a city-wide blackout, a then-unknown Jimi Hendrix backing up Wilson Pickett in 1966 — the year a new band from London named Led Zeppelin performed in Toronto six times — and the one and only show by the Notorious B.I.G., which almost caused a riot in the winter of 1995.Complementing the book’s flyers is the story of the music, highlighting such iconic venues as Massey Hall, the Concert Hall/Rock Pile/Club 888, and the BamBoo, alongside lesser-known but equally important clubs such as Industry Nightclub and the Edge.

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The story of Roman Catholicism has never followed a singular path. In no time period has this been more true than over the last two centuries. Beginning with the French Revolution, extending to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and concluding with present-day crises, John T. McGreevy chronicles the dramatic upheavals and internal divisions shaping the most multicultural, multilingual, and global institution in the world. Through powerful individual stories and sweeping birds-eye views, Catholicism provides a mesmerising assessment of the Church’s complex role in modern history: both shaper and follower of the politics of nation states, both conservator of hierarchies and evangeliser of egalitarianism. McGreevy documents the hopes and ambitions of European missionaries building churches and schools in all corners of the world, African Catholics fighting for political (and religious) independence, Latin American Catholics attracted to a theology of liberation, and Polish and South Korean Catholics demanding democratic governments. He includes a vast cast of riveting characters, known and unknown, including the Mexican revolutionary Fr. Servando Teresa de Mier; Daniel O’Connell, hero of Irish emancipation; Sr. Josephine Bakhita, a formerly enslaved Sudanese nun; Chinese statesman Ma Xiaobang; French philosopher and reformer Jacques Maritain; German Jewish philosopher and convert, Edith Stein; John Paul II, Polish pope and opponent of communism; Gustavo Gutiérrez, Peruvian founder of liberation theology; and French American patron of modern art, Dominique de Menil. Throughout this essential volume, McGreevy details currents of reform within the Church as well as movements protective of traditional customs and beliefs. Conflicts with political leaders and a devotional revival in the nineteenth century, the experiences of decolonisation after World War II and the Second Vatican Council in the twentieth century and the trauma of clerical sexual abuse in the twenty-first all demonstrate how religion shapes our modern world. Finally, McGreevy addresses the challenges faced by Pope Francis as he struggles to unite the over one billion members of the world’s largest religious community.

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From acclaimed author and Professor Emerita of Pediatrics and Epidemiology Janet Gilsdorf comes a captivating and timely novel about a young doctor’s quest to uncover the cause of a mysterious disease killing young children, and the race to find a cure.In 1984, in the small Brazilian village of PromissÃo, a young child begins to fuss, her eyes turning pink and her skin flushed with heat. Four days later, she’s dead.Sidonie Royal, an accomplished physician and scientist, arrives in the small Brazilian village of PromissÃo to investigate and hopefully cure this insidious new disease. With several young children already dead, and more getting sick by the day, the stakes cannot get any higher. But Sid’s personal life is also in flux, as she struggles to balance a complicated relationship with her boyfriend, Paul, pressure to start a family from her well-meaning mother, conflict with her surly but brilliant coworker named Eliot, and a budding romantic attraction to her doctoral student’s twin brother.As Sid relentlessly pursues an explanation for the disease, the village’s physician calls in the Global Health Agency, triggering a scientific race that spans two continents and becomes increasingly defined by personal stakes. In a desperate attempt to determine a diagnosis for the disease, Sid sneaks a vial of an infected child’s blood back to her lab in Michigan. As her personal life and romantic relationships fall apart, she becomes consumed by her desire to win the medical race against the GHA. However, her volatile (and sometimes emotional) relationship with Eliot will hinder her as much as it will help her on her journey for discovery.Set against the backdrop of the early days of the AIDS epidemic, Fever is about finding courage in the face of the unknown, the lasting power of community, and one woman’s challenge to prove herself as she aims to make a life-saving—and career-defining—discovery.

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In the autumn of 2002 in southern China, a previously unknown virus jumped the species barrier from animal to man and sparked the first global epidemic of the new century. The disease sped along the air routes of a globalized world, spreading within months to thirty-one countries on every continent. Before it was reined in by a remarkable international scientific effort, the SARS virus demonstrated human society's vulnerability to disease. New infectious diseases like SARS have been emerging at an alarming rate over the past few decades. There is every indication the world will continue to face new viral diseases, some of them much more lethal and contagious than SARS. This book traces the emergence of SARS, in the process examining the global politics and economics of disease. It provides the first behind-the-scenes account of how the global battle against SARS was fought and the incredible research efforts that finally led to identification of the virus. Drawing on unprecedented access to scientists, doctors, and recovered patients, Thomas Abraham recounts the pressures and heartbreaks suffered by brave researchers who battled the clock to solve the SARS puzzle-even as colleagues and friends succumbed to the disease. "The caller at the other end of the phone was from the Manila office of the World Health Organization (WHO), and his message was alarming. Flying over the Atlantic Ocean on a Singapore Airlines flight was a critically ill man who had to be hospitalized in an isolation ward as soon as possible...There were over 300 passengers on the jet, which was bound for Singapore via Frankfurt, and unless the man was taken off the plane, they were all in danger." "On March 15, while David Heymann and his team were toiling away on their global travel alert in Geneva, a 72-year-old man boarded Air China flight 112 from Hong Kong to Beijing...Not only was he sick, he also happened to be a super-spreader of the disease. From his seat, 14E, he infected 21 other passengers and crew members."

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By avoiding risk, are you also avoiding your life's full potential? Join acclaimed neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson as he explores the life-changing power of taking the risk, even if you're afraid. In our risk-avoidant culture, we place a high premium on safety. We insure our vacations. We check crash tests on cars. We extend the warranties on our appliances. But by insulating ourselves from the unknown--the natural risks of life--we miss the great adventure of living our lives to their fullest potential.Dr. Ben Carson spent his childhood as an at-risk child on the streets of Detroit, and he took big risks in performing complex surgeries on the brain and the spinal cord. Now, offering inspiring personal examples, Dr. Carson invites us to embrace risk in our own lives.In Take the Risk, Dr. Carson examines our safety-at-all-costs culture and the meaning of risk and security in our lives. Take the Risk guides you through an extensive examination of risk, including: Risk-taking in history An assessment of the real costs and rewards of risk Learning how to assess and accept risks Understanding how risk reveals the purpose of your life From a man whose life dramatically portrays the connection between great risks and greater successes, the insights Dr. Carson shares in Take the Risk will help you dispel your fear of risk in order to dream big, aim high, move with confidence, and reap the rewards of wise risk-taking.Praise for Take the Risk:"Whether you are a world-renowned neurosurgeon, a CEO, or a teacher, this book applies to anyone who ever wondered about the difference between the pacesetters and those who struggle to keep up. It is the pacesetters who Take the Risk, and this book explains when and why to take risks to empower everyone to become a trailblazer rather than a mere spectator. For anyone who wants to rise above mediocrity, this book is a must-read."--Armstrong Williams, author and radio host, The Armstrong Williams Show

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The 9-volume set LNAI 14267-14275 constitutes the proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2023, which took place in Hangzhou, China, during July 5–7, 2023.The 413 papers included in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 630 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows:Part I: Human-Centric Technologies for Seamless Human-Robot Collaboration; Multimodal Collaborative Perception and Fusion; Intelligent Robot Perception in Unknown Environments; Vision-Based Human Robot Interaction and Application.Part II: Vision-Based Human Robot Interaction and Application; Reliable AI on Machine Human Reactions; Wearable Sensors and Robots; Wearable Robots for Assistance, Augmentation and Rehabilitation of Human Movements; Perception and Manipulation of Dexterous Hand for Humanoid Robot.Part III: Perception and Manipulation of Dexterous Hand for Humanoid Robot; Medical Imaging for Biomedical Robotics; Advanced Underwater Robot Technologies; Innovative Design and Performance Evaluation of Robot Mechanisms; Evaluation of Wearable Robots for Assistance and Rehabilitation; 3D Printing Soft Robots.Part IV: 3D Printing Soft Robots; Dielectric Elastomer Actuators for Soft Robotics; Human-like Locomotion and Manipulation; Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning for Smart Robots.Part V: Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning for Smart Robots; Robotic Tactile Sensation, Perception, and Applications; Advanced Sensing and Control Technology for Human-Robot Interaction; Knowledge-Based Robot Decision-Making and Manipulation; Design and Control of Legged Robots.Part VI: Design and Control of Legged Robots; Robots in Tunnelling and Underground Space; Robotic Machining of Complex Components; Clinically Oriented Design in Robotic Surgery and Rehabilitation; Visual and Visual-Tactile Perception for Robotics.Part VII: Visual and Visual-Tactile Perception for Robotics; Perception, Interaction, and Control of Wearable Robots; Marine Robotics and Applications; Multi-Robot Systems for Real World Applications; Physical and Neurological Human-Robot Interaction.Part VIII: Physical and Neurological Human-Robot Interaction; Advanced Motion Control Technologies for Mobile Robots; Intelligent Inspection Robotics; Robotics in Sustainable Manufacturing for Carbon Neutrality; Innovative Design and Performance Evaluation of Robot Mechanisms.Part IX: Innovative Design and Performance Evaluation of Robot Mechanisms; Cutting-Edge Research in Robotics.

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The 9-volume set LNAI 14267-14275 constitutes the proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2023, which took place in Hangzhou, China, during July 5–7, 2023.The 413 papers included in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 630 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows:Part I: Human-Centric Technologies for Seamless Human-Robot Collaboration; Multimodal Collaborative Perception and Fusion; Intelligent Robot Perception in Unknown Environments; Vision-Based Human Robot Interaction and Application.Part II: Vision-Based Human Robot Interaction and Application; Reliable AI on Machine Human Reactions; Wearable Sensors and Robots; Wearable Robots for Assistance, Augmentation and Rehabilitation of Human Movements; Perception and Manipulation of Dexterous Hand for Humanoid Robot.Part III: Perception and Manipulation of Dexterous Hand for Humanoid Robot; Medical Imaging for Biomedical Robotics; Advanced Underwater Robot Technologies; Innovative Design and Performance Evaluation of Robot Mechanisms; Evaluation of Wearable Robots for Assistance and Rehabilitation; 3D Printing Soft Robots.Part IV: 3D Printing Soft Robots; Dielectric Elastomer Actuators for Soft Robotics; Human-like Locomotion and Manipulation; Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning for Smart Robots.Part V: Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning for Smart Robots; Robotic Tactile Sensation, Perception, and Applications; Advanced Sensing and Control Technology for Human-Robot Interaction; Knowledge-Based Robot Decision-Making and Manipulation; Design and Control of Legged Robots.Part VI: Design and Control of Legged Robots; Robots in Tunnelling and Underground Space; Robotic Machining of Complex Components; Clinically Oriented Design in Robotic Surgery and Rehabilitation; Visual and Visual-Tactile Perception for Robotics.Part VII: Visual and Visual-Tactile Perception for Robotics; Perception, Interaction, and Control of Wearable Robots; Marine Robotics and Applications; Multi-Robot Systems for Real World Applications; Physical and Neurological Human-Robot Interaction.Part VIII: Physical and Neurological Human-Robot Interaction; Advanced Motion Control Technologies for Mobile Robots; Intelligent Inspection Robotics; Robotics in Sustainable Manufacturing for Carbon Neutrality; Innovative Design and Performance Evaluation of Robot Mechanisms.Part IX: Innovative Design and Performance Evaluation of Robot Mechanisms; Cutting-Edge Research in Robotics.

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In this innovative series of public lectures at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, leading contemporary poets speak about the craft and practice of poetry to audiences drawn from both the city and the university. The lectures are then published in book form by "Bloodaxe", giving readers everywhere the opportunity to learn what the poets themselves think about their own subject. Jane Hirshfield examines the roles of hiddenness, uncertainty and surprise as they appear in poetry and other works of literature, in the life and psyche of the writer, and in the broader life of the culture as a whole. "Poetry and Hiddenness: Thoreau's Hound Explorations of Hiddenness" go back to the beginning of literature. There is no paradise, no place of true completion, that does not include within its walls the unknown. In this lecture, Hirshfield explores the centrality and necessity of hiddenness in our lives, and elucidates both the uses of hiddenness and hidden meanings in the work of writers ranging from Homer to Cavafy, from Auden to Jack Gilbert.Poetry and Uncertainty - To be human is to be unsure, and if the purpose of poetry is to deepen the humanness in us, poetry will be unsure as well. This lecture illuminates the ways uncertainty - in poems, and in life - allows both broadened feeling and enlarged knowledge. Translations are central to this talk, which includes poems by Izumi Shikibu, Anna Swir, Fernando Pessoa and Paul Celan. "Poetry and the Constellation of Surprise Poems" preserve their inaugural newness in part because they are like the emotions - not object, but experience, event. Poems that last are those that do not lose the power to astonish. This lecture examines surprise as a central, unrecognised fulcrum of great poems. Three poems are then looked at in detail by Hirshfield as test-cases: "Ithaka" by C.P. Cavafy, "Oysters" by Seamus Heaney and "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost.

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The touchstones of Gothic monumental art in France - the abbey church of Saint-Denis and the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, and Bourges - form the core of this collection dedicated to the memory of Anne Prache. The essays reflect the impact of Prache’s career, both as a scholar of wide-ranging interests and as a builder of bridges between the French and American academic communities. Thus the authors include scholars in France and the United States, both academics and museum professionals, while the thematic matrix of the book, divided into architecture, stained glass, and sculpture, reflects the multiple media explored by Prache during her long career. The essays employ a varied range of methodologies to explore Gothic monuments. The chapters in the architectural section include an intensive archeological analysis of the foundations of Reims Cathedral, the close reading of a late medieval literary text for a symbolic understanding of Paris, and essays that explore the medieval use of practical geometry in designing entire buildings and their components. Saint-Denis, Reims, and Chartres, all monuments studied by Prache, are discussed in the next part, on stained glass. These chapters demonstrate how old problems can be clarified by new evidence, whether from the accessibility of previously unknown archival information, for Reims, or through revelations that arise from restoration, at Chartres. These essays also include a study showing the complexity of making attributions for the storied glass of Saint-Denis. The final set of essays likewise takes different approaches to sculpture, whether constructing links to the liturgy at Reims, or discussing the meaning of a sculptural ensemble studied by Prache early in her career, the cloister of Notre-Dame-en-Vaux in Châlons-en-Champagne, or scrupulously examining the façade sculpture at Bourges Cathedral for insights into the design process. As a whole, the volume provides a window onto key directions in the study of

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Constance Lindsay Skinner made a living as a writer at a time when few men, and fewer women, managed the feat. Born in 1877 on the British Columbia frontier, she worked as a journalist in Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Chicago, before moving to New York City in 1912, where she supported herself by her pen until her death in 1939. Despite a prolific output - poetry, plays, short stories, histories, reviews, adult and children's novels - and in contrast to her reputation in the United States, she remains virtually unknown in the country of her birth. Reconstructing Constance Lindsay Skinner's writing life from her papers in the New York Public Library and from her publications, Jean Barman argues for three bases to her success. As well as a capacity to respond to market forces by moving between genres, she possessed an aura of authenticity by virtue of her Canadian frontier heritage. As a literary device, the frontier gave a freedom to tackle contentious issues of Aboriginal and hybrid identities, gender and sexuality, that might otherwise have been far more difficult to get into print. Third, and very important, was her willingness to subordinate a private self to the life of the imagination. Barman ponders Constance Lindsay Skinner's absence from the Canadian literary canon. She mixed with such twentieth-century personalities as Jack London, Harriet Monroe, Frederick Jackson Turner, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Cornelia Meigs, Long Lance, and Margaret Mitchell, yet was unrecognized in her own country. Her sex mattered, just as it did for fellow Canadian women writers. So did her facility at multiple genres, a talent that, even as it made possible a writing life, prevented her from achieving a major breakthrough in any one of them. Perhaps most responsible was her identification with the frontier of a nation whose centre long shaped literary matters in its own image. Constance Lindsay Skinner makes a significant contribution to Canadian and American history and to literary and gender studies.

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Jane Leade (1624-1704) is probably the most prolific woman writer and most important female religious leader in late seventeenth-century England, yet, she still remains relatively unknown. By exploring her life and works as a prophetess and mystic, this books opens a fascinating window into the world of a remarkable woman living in a remarkable age. Born in Norfolk into a gentry family, Jane Leade enjoyed a comfortable childhood, married a distant cousin, who was a merchant, and had four children. However, she found herself totally destitute in London when he died, his fortune having been lost abroad. As a widow, she proclaimed herself to be a `Bride of Christ', and eventually became a prolific author and a respected blind, elderly leader of a religious group of well-educated men and women, known as the Philadelphian Society. The structure of this book is informed by the chronological events that happened during her life and is complemented by examining some of the material she published, including her visions of the Virgin Wisdom, or Sophia. She started writing in 1670, but published prolifically in the 1680s and 1690s, and this material offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an extraordinary woman. Believing herself to be living in the `End Times' she expected Sophia would return with the second coming of Christ. The Philadelphian Society grew under her charge, until they were buffeted by mobs in London. Jane Leade died in her eighty-first year and is buried in the non-conformist cemetery, Bunhill Fields, in London. By contextualising her and drawing out the nature of her devotions this new book draws attention to her as a figure in her own right. Previous studies have tended to reduce her to one example within a certain tradition, but as this work clearly demonstrates she was in fact a much more complicated character who did not conform to any one particular tradition.

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For readers of Elizabeth Strout and Kent Haruf, an accomplished debut about a new widower, his fractured relationship with his daughter, and the decades-long friendship he and his late wife enjoyed with another couple whose companionship keeps him afloat after her deathThe Dependents is the story of the Ashe family, and of Gene Ashe's relationship with his daughter, Dary, in the wake of his wife Maida's death. It is also the story of the decades-long friendship Gene and Maida shared with the Donnellys, Ed and Gayle, a couple whom they met in college and remained close with over the years. Gene and Maida were married for almost fifty years, and after Maida's death, Gene, feeling unmoored and adrift, is haunted by the prospect that their marriage was not all it appeared to be and by a question he never asked Maida: "Is it, on the whole, a happy life?" As his memories of Maida diverge from Dary's, a rift between father and daughter grows from this sorrow and misunderstanding. Dion's assured debut novel moves seamlessly between the history of Gene and Maida's long marriage, including the true north of their friendship with Ed and Gayle, and the present-day grief Gene experiences after losing his wife, as Ed and Gayle buoy his spirits. With their friendship as ballast, he at last begins to understand how deeply unknown his own daughter is to him. Even as he is grateful for the memory of joy, he must also confront lingering questions about secrets held through the years, and about the wounds and betrayals in both his marriage and his friendship with Ed and Gayle.The Dependents is the best and most moving kind of drama, one that drops us intimately into the expanse of another family and thereby reflects back our own. We are reminded again of the ways in which we deceive ourselves into believing we fully know the people we love, and must eventually reckon with what we want to be true versus what we know to be true

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On July 4, 1939, Gehrig delivered what has been called "baseball's Gettysburg Address" at Yankee Stadium. There is, for now, no known, intact film of Gehrig's speech, but instead, just a swatch of the newsreel footage has survived, incorporating his opening and closing remarks: "For the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth," the last line, of course, having become one of the most famous, invoked, and inspiring, ever, anywhere. The New York Times account, the following day, called it "one of the most touching scenes ever witnessed on a ball field", that made even hard-boiled reporters "swallow hard." The scene and the story would likely have been largely lost to history, altogether, were it not for the film, Pride of the Yankees, best known for Gary Cooper, as the dying Lou Gehrig, movingly describing himself as "the luckiest man on the face of the earth," even as his body was being ravaged by the disease that was soon named after him. Here, now, in Pride of the Yankees and the Legend of Lou Gehrig by Richard Sandomir, New York Times sports columnist, is, for the first time, the full story behind the pioneering, seminal movie. Filled with larger than life characters and unexpected facts, Pride of the Yankees shows us how Samuel Goldwyn had no desire to making a baseball film but he was persuaded to make a quick deal with Lou's widow, Eleanor, not long after Gehrig had passed; Hollywood icon Cooper had zero knowledge of baseball and had to be taught to play; unknown parts of the screen treatment and screenplay that will be written about for the first time; and dishy letters to Eleanor from Christy Walsh, the pioneering business manager who represented the Gehrigs, from the Los Angeles set. Nostalgic, breezy and fun, Pride of the Yankees captures a lost time in film and sports history.

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At the beginning of the last century, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian and other acclaimed and unknown artists moved to Paris, the art capital of the world. They learnt to survive in a society that was becoming increasingly polarised, nationalistic, xenophobic and anti-Semitic. This exhibition and accompanying publication tells the story of artists in a foreign country who, despite adverse conditions, had the courage to take art to new heights. The show is an incredible chance to see the work of the great modern masters in a new light, and to discover new artists. Today, Chagall, Picasso and Mondrian are known as Masters of Modern Art, but behind their role as artistic pioneers lay struggle - all three, from different backgrounds, were migrants. In spite of their success and achievement, they faced the same insurmountable obstacle: they were not French. Picasso, born in Spain, arrived in Paris penniless, where he flourished as a creative genius. And yet he remained loyal to his Spanish roots, and often identified with being 'different', a sentiment he frequently explored in his work. As a Jewish-Russian in exile, Chagall faced loneliness, exclusion and outright anti-Semitism. Often packed with Jewish-Russian imagery like rabbis and synagogues, his paintings convey a sense of deep nostalgia. In his early years, the Dutchman Kees van Dongen also encounterd difficulties. He eventually became one of Paris' celebrated society painters, but in 1906 he complained that the newspapers consistently portrayed him as the sale étranger, or 'the dirty foreigner'. The exhibition Chagall, Picasso, Mondrian and Others: Migrant Artists in Paris shows work of, amongst others: Emmy Andriesse, Karel Appel, Eva Besnyö, Marc Chagall, Sonia Delaunay, Kees van Dongen, Gisèle Freund, Natalia Goncharova, Wassily Kandinsky, Germaine Krull, Wifredo Lam, Jacques Lipchitz, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Piet Mondriaan, Marlow Moss, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Diego Rivera, Gino Severini, Jan Sluijters, Chaim Soutine, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Nicolaas Warb (Sophia Warburg), and Ossip Zadkine.

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Discover the "fascinating and outrageously readable" account of the roguish acts of the first pirates to raid the Pacific in a crusade that ended in a sensational trial back in England-perfect for readers of Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough (Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God)The year is 1680, in the heart of the Golden Age of Piracy, and more than three hundred daring, hardened pirates-a potent mix of low-life scallywags and a rare breed of gentlemen buccaneers-gather on a remote Caribbean island. The plan: to wreak havoc on the Pacific coastline, raiding cities, mines, and merchant ships. The booty: the bright gleam of Spanish gold and the chance to become legends. So begins one of the greatest piratical adventures of the era-a story not given its full due until now.Inspired by the intrepid forays of pirate turned Jamaican governor Captain Henry Morgan-yes, that Captain Morgan-the company crosses Panama on foot, slashing its way through the Darien Isthmus, one of the thickest jungles on the planet, and liberating a native princess along the way. After reaching the South Sea, the buccaneers, primarily Englishmen, plunder the Spanish Main in a series of historic assaults, often prevailing against staggering odds and superior firepower. A collective shudder racks the western coastline of South America as the English pirates, waging a kind of proxy war against the Spaniards, gleefully undertake a brief reign over Pacific waters, marauding up and down the continent.With novelistic prose and a rip-roaring sense of adventure, Keith Thomson guides us through the pirates' legendary two-year odyssey. We witness the buccaneers evading Indigenous tribes, Spanish conquistadors, and sometimes even their own English countrymen, all with the ever-present threat of the gallows for anyone captured. By fusing contemporaneous accounts with intensive research and previously unknown primary sources, Born to Be Hanged offers a rollicking account of one of the most astonishing pirate expeditions of all time.

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Käthe Buchler (1876–1930) was a pioneering woman photographer whose exceptional photographs offer very personal insights into Germany during World War One, with a particular focus on the home front and the lives of women and children. Born Katharina von Rhamm in Braunschweig, Germany, and from a wealthy and privileged background, she was taught painting as a girl; many of her photographs have a notably painterly quality. She went on to study photography at Berlin’s Lette Academy which, unusually for the time, admitted women. Like many women of the upper middle class, family life with her husband and children was Käthe Buchler’s focus and became the central theme of her photography in the years before the First World War. During the war itself, in the most public phase of her career, her leading role in local institutions, including the Red Cross, gave her largely unrestricted access to the city’s war effort and she produced unexpectedly intimate photographs of daily life in Braunschweig, in the city’s military hospitals, as well as in the revealing series `Women in Men’s Jobs’. As a result, she offers us a distinctive vision, raising the intriguing possibility of presenting the conflict from the perspective of women and children.Surprisingly, Buchler’s work remained unknown outside its immediate locality, but it was exhibited in the United Kingdom for the first time between October 2017 and May 2018, allowing the process of placing it within its proper international context to begin. This catalogue, marking the exhibition Beyond the Battlefields, contains a wide selection of Buchler’s work, including some of her exquisite Autochromes (using the world’s first commercially available colour photographic process). The accompanying essays introduce the artist and address, amongst other things, the role of amateur photography in documenting war. In depicting the minutiae of daily life against the backdrop of war and its aftermath, Buchler’s remarkable photographs speak to us across the intervening century, disrupting national stereotypes and opening up fresh perspectives on the Great War.

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'A glorious jaunt around Italy with characters I didn't want to leave' CLARE MACKINTOSHA compelling novel about friendship, family secrets and second chances, set against the backdrop of southern Italy.Sandy is in her fifties, and at a crossroads in her life: she's a teacher and respected by her pupils, but she feels she is being sidelined in favour of younger colleagues. So when her mother dies, leaving her a sealed envelope addressed to an unknown woman living in Naples, Sandy decides to head to Italy to resolve the mystery by delivering the letter herself. She books herself on to a small sightseeing trip from Rome to Naples and the Amalfi Coast, hoping to meet some like-minded people along the way. Who is the mysterious woman she is searching for? And will Sandy find friendship, or even love, along the way...?Your favourite authors love An Italian Summer:'I adored An Italian Summer... Fanny not only writes beautifully about relationships, but the descriptions of Rome and Naples are so ravishing, that you not only marvel at the scenery but also taste the delectable food and feel the hot sun on your back. A most beguiling read' JILLY COOPER 'Intelligent, grown-up and cheering, Fanny has cornered the market in "real" stories told well' FERN BRITTON'A lovely, absorbing read, gently told, but with a intriguingly dark edge' HILARY BOYD'Likeable and realistic characters in a glorious Italian setting, this is the perfect summer read' MAEVE HARAN'I loved this book. Fanny Blake excels at exploring the intricate detail of relationships' SARAH MORGAN'As themes of friendship and love intertwine with mystery, the plot reels you in until you have no choice but to devour every word. 5 stars' Heat'Fanny Blake's writing is absorbing, intelligent and an absolute joy to read... Building to an unexpected and clever twist, this heart-warming and compelling novel is the perfect summer read' Daily Express

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As the face of the NBA's new world order, Giannis Antetokounmpo has overcome unfathomable obstacles to become a symbol of hope for people all over the world; the personification of the American Dream. But his backstory remains largely untold. Fader unearths new information about the childhood that shaped "The Greek Freak"-from sleeping side by side with his brothers to selling trinkets on the street with his family to the racism he experienced. Antetokounmpo grew up in an era when Golden Dawn, Greece's far-right, anti-immigrant party, patrolled his neighborhood, and his status as an illegal immigrant largely prevented him from playing for the country's top clubs, making his NBA rise all the more improbable. Fader tells a deeply human story of how an unknown, skinny, Black Greek teen, who played in the country's lowest pro division and was seen as a draft gamble, transformed his body and his game into MVP material.Antetokounmpo's story has been framed as a feel-good narrative in which everyone has embraced him-watching him grow up, sign a five-year supermax contract extension worth $228 million, and lead the underdog Bucks to the NBA Championship in 2021. Giannis reveals a more nuanced story: how lonely and isolated he felt, adjusting to America and the NBA early in his career; the complexity of grappling with his Black and Greek identities; how he is so hard on himself and his shortcomings-a drive that fuels him every day; and the responsibility he feels to be a nurturing role model for his younger brothers. Fader illustrates a more vulnerable star than most people know, a person who has evolved triumphantly into all of his roles: father, brother, son, teammate, and global icon.**Instant New York Times Bestseller, Los Angeles Times Bestseller, Wall Street Journal Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller, Publishers Weekly Bestseller****Mirin Fader Selected as the 2021 Sports Media Author of the Year by The Big Lead**

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Crazy Rich Asians meets Gossip Girl by way of Jenny Han in this knock-out debut about a Korean American teen who is thrust into the competitive, technicolor world of K-pop, from Jessica Jung, K-pop legend and former lead singer of one of the most influential K-pop girl groups of all time, Girls Generation. From internationally renowned K-pop legend Jessica Jung comes a fresh YA novel that peels back the curtain on the intense world of K-pop from the perspective of a Korean American girl, like Jessica, who is scouted off the street and thrust into an unknown world of competition, strict training and wild fame. What would you give for a chance to live your dreams? For eighteen-year-old Korean American Rachel Kim, the answer is almost everything. Six years ago, she was recruited by DB Entertainment – one of Seoul’s largest K-pop labels, known for churning out some of the world’s most popular stars. The rules are simple: Train 24/7. Be perfect. Don’t date. Easy right? Not so much. As the dark scandals of an industry bent on controlling and commodifying beautiful girls begin to bubble up, Rachel wonders if she’s strong enough to be a winner, or if she’ll end up crushed … Especially when she begins to develop feelings for K-pop star and DB golden boy Jason Lee. It’s not just that he’s charming, sexy and ridiculously talented. He’s also the first person who really understands how badly she wants her star to rise. Get ready as Jessica Jung, K-pop legend and former lead singer of Korea’s most famous girl group, Girls Generation, takes us inside the luxe, hyper-colour world of K-pop, where the stakes are high, but for one girl, the cost of success – and love – might be even higher. It’s time for the world to see: this is what it takes to SHINE.

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Seismic reservoir characterization aims to build 3-dimensional models of rock and fluid properties, including elastic and petrophysical variables, to describe and monitor the state of the subsurface for hydrocarbon exploration and production and for CO₂ sequestration. Rock physics modeling and seismic wave propagation theory provide a set of physical equations to predict the seismic response of subsurface rocks based on their elastic and petrophysical properties. However, the rock and fluid properties are generally unknown and surface geophysical measurements are often the only available data to constrain reservoir models far away from well control. Therefore, reservoir properties are generally estimated from geophysical data as a solution of an inverse problem, by combining rock physics and seismic models with inverse theory and geostatistical methods, in the context of the geological modeling of the subsurface. A probabilistic approach to the inverse problem provides the probability distribution of rock and fluid properties given the measured geophysical data and allows quantifying the uncertainty of the predicted results. The reservoir characterization problem includes both discrete properties, such as facies or rock types, and continuous properties, such as porosity, mineral volumes, fluid saturations, seismic velocities and density. Seismic Reservoir Modeling: Theory, Examples and Algorithms presents the main concepts and methods of seismic reservoir characterization. The book presents an overview of rock physics models that link the petrophysical properties to the elastic properties in porous rocks and a review of the most common geostatistical methods to interpolate and simulate multiple realizations of subsurface properties conditioned on a limited number of direct and indirect measurements based on spatial correlation models. The core of the book focuses on Bayesian inverse methods for the prediction of elastic petrophysical properties from seismic data using analytical and numerical statistical methods. The authors present basic and advanced methodologies of the current state of the art in seismic reservoir characterization and illustrate them through expository examples as well as real data applications to hydrocarbon reservoirs and CO₂ sequestration studies.

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The paramount historian of the early Roman empire. Tacitus (Cornelius), famous Roman historian, was born in AD 55, 56 or 57 and lived to about 120. He became an orator, married in 77 a daughter of Julius Agricola before Agricola went to Britain, was quaestor in 81 or 82, a senator under the Flavian emperors, and a praetor in 88. After four years' absence he experienced the terrors of Emperor Domitian's last years and turned to historical writing. He was a consul in 97. Close friend of the younger Pliny, with him he successfully prosecuted Marius Priscus. Works: (i) Life and Character of Agricola, written in 97–98, specially interesting because of Agricola's career in Britain. (ii) Germania (98–99), an equally important description of the geography, anthropology, products, institutions, and social life and the tribes of the Germans as known to the Romans. (iii) Dialogue on Oratory (Dialogus), of unknown date; a lively conversation about the decline of oratory and education. (iv) Histories (probably issued in parts from 105 onwards), a great work originally consisting of at least twelve books covering the period AD 69–96, but only Books 1–4 and part of Book 5 survive, dealing in detail with the dramatic years 69–70. (v) Annals, Tacitus's other great work, originally covering the period AD 14–68 (Emperors Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero) and published between 115 and about 120. Of sixteen books at least, there survive Books 1–4 (covering the years 14–28); a bit of Book 5 and all Book 6 (31–37); part of Book 11 (from 47); Books 12–15 and part of Book 16 (to 66). Tacitus is renowned for his development of a pregnant concise style, character study, and psychological analysis, and for the often terrible story which he brilliantly tells. As a historian of the early Roman empire he is paramount. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Tacitus is in five volumes.

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The paramount historian of the early Roman empire.Tacitus (Cornelius), famous Roman historian, was born in AD 55, 56 or 57 and lived to about 120. He became an orator, married in 77 a daughter of Julius Agricola before Agricola went to Britain, was quaestor in 81 or 82, a senator under the Flavian emperors, and a praetor in 88. After four years' absence he experienced the terrors of Emperor Domitian's last years and turned to historical writing. He was a consul in 97. Close friend of the younger Pliny, with him he successfully prosecuted Marius Priscus. Works: (i) Life and Character of Agricola, written in 97–98, specially interesting because of Agricola's career in Britain. (ii) Germania (98–99), an equally important description of the geography, anthropology, products, institutions, and social life and the tribes of the Germans as known to the Romans. (iii) Dialogue on Oratory (Dialogus), of unknown date; a lively conversation about the decline of oratory and education. (iv) Histories (probably issued in parts from 105 onwards), a great work originally consisting of at least twelve books covering the period AD 69–96, but only Books 1–4 and part of Book 5 survive, dealing in detail with the dramatic years 69–70. (v) Annals, Tacitus's other great work, originally covering the period AD 14–68 (Emperors Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero) and published between 115 and about 120. Of sixteen books at least, there survive Books 1–4 (covering the years 14–28); a bit of Book 5 and all Book 6 (31–37); part of Book 11 (from 47); Books 12–15 and part of Book 16 (to 66). Tacitus is renowned for his development of a pregnant concise style, character study, and psychological analysis, and for the often terrible story which he brilliantly tells. As a historian of the early Roman empire he is paramount. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Tacitus is in five volumes.

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The island nation of Iceland is known for many things majestic landscapes, volcanic eruptions, distinctive seafood but racial diversity is not one of them. So the little-known story of Hans Jonathan, a free black man who lived and raised a family in early nineteenth-century Iceland, is improbable and compelling, the stuff of novels. In The Man Who Stole Himself, Gisli Palsson lays out Jonathan's story in stunning detail. Born into slavery in St. Croix in 1784, Jonathan was brought as a slave to Denmark, where he eventually enlisted in the navy and fought on behalf of the country in the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen. After the war, he declared himself a free man, believing that not only was he due freedom because of his patriotic service, but because while slavery remained legal in the colonies, it was outlawed in Denmark itself. Jonathan was the subject of one of the most notorious slavery cases in European history, which he lost. Then, he ran away never to be heard from in Denmark again, his fate unknown for more than two hundred years. It's now known that Jonathan fled to Iceland, where he became a merchant and peasant farmer, married, and raised two children. Today, he has become something of an Icelandic icon, claimed as a proud and daring ancestor both there and among his descendants in America. The Man Who Stole Himself brilliantly intertwines Jonathan's adventurous travels with a portrait of the Danish slave trade, legal arguments over slavery, and the state of nineteenth-century race relations in the Northern Atlantic world. Throughout the book, Palsson traces themes of imperial dreams, colonialism, human rights, and globalization, which all come together in the life of a single, remarkable man. Jonathan literally led a life like no other. His is the story of a man who had the temerity the courage to steal himself.

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On the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s successful navigation to the coast of Australia, this is Alistair MacLean’s absorbing story of one of Britain’s great national heroes, from his obscure beginnings to his sudden and violent death at the age of fifty-one. When James Cook was hacked to death by Hawaiian islanders on 14 February 1779, he was already considered the greatest explorer of his age. Born in obscurity but gripped by a boundless passion for new horizons, he became the greatest combination of seaman, explorer, navigator, and cartographer that the world had ever known. He still is. He had driven himself mercilessly, and his men likewise, and yet the surgeon’s mate on the Resolution was able to write: ‘In every situation he stood unrivalled and alone; on him all eyes were turned; he was our leading star, which at its setting left us involved in darkness and despair’. Between 1768 and 1779, Captain Cook circumnavigated the globe three times in voyages of discovery that broke record after record of exploration, endurance, and personal achievement. He explored and charted the coasts of New Zealand, landed in Botany Bay, explored the Pacific, mapped its islands, and travelled further south than any man before him; he explored the Great Barrier Reef and travelled thousands of miles north to tackle the North-West Passage. He excelled in all aspects of his craft and inspired in his men an affection for him and an enthusiasm for his undertakings that provoked constant loyalty and unfailing endeavour in frequently savage conditions. Alistair MacLean presents a graphic and lively account of this great explorer, his three amazing voyages and the adventures that befell him, his crews, and his ships in lands that until he sailed were in many cases unknown. Cook’s life was a resounding success and the story of it is a thrilling exemplification of his own description of himself as a man ‘who had ambition not only to go farther than anyone had done before, but as far as it was possible for man to go’.

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Shortlisted in the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2020. Travel writer and journalist Gail Simmons follows in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson as she walks from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire to Tring in Hertfordshire via Great Missenden and Wendover, tracing not only the changes in the landscape of the last 150 years but also those yet to come with the imminent arrival of the controversial HS2, the high-speed railway from London to Birmingham. Just as Stevenson spoke to people he met along the way, Simmons encounters those whose lives will be affected by HS2: a tenant farmer, a retired businessman-turned-campaigner, a landscape historian and a conservationist. In the autumn of 1874 a young, unknown travel writer called Robert Louis Stevenson walked from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire to Tring in Hertfordshire. He wrote up his three-day journey across the Chiltern Hills in an essay titled In the Beechwoods, penned a decade before he found fame as the author of Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson observed the natural world, reflecting on the experience of walking across this landscape at a time when England was still largely agrarian and when most people still earned their living from working the land. During his walk he was accompanied by a 'carolling of larks' that was so integral to his journey he 'could have baptized it "The Country of Larks" '. Almost 150 years later Simmons walks across the same landscape, observing the loss of flora, fauna and the whole rural way of life, replaced by commuters and dormitory villages, a trend portrayed by John Betjeman in Metro-land (1973), which described suburban life alongside the Metropolitan Railway. Divided into three parts to parallel Stevenson's journey the book offers a detailed, almost forensic, examination of this distinctive landscape of English chalk downland interwoven with recollections from Simmons of growing up in a Chilterns commuter village. 'I might have left long ago' she says, 'but this place still matters to me'.

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The ninja is a well-known phenomenon in Japanese military culture, a fighter who is widely regarded as the world's greatest exponent of secret warfare. He infiltrates castles, gathers vital intelligence and wields a deadly knife in the dark. His easily recognisable image is that of a secret agent or assassin who dresses all in black, possesses almost magical martial powers, and is capable of extraordinary feats of daring. He sells his skills on a mercenary basis and when in action his unique abilities include confusing his enemies by making mystical hand gestures or by sending sharp iron stars spinning towards them. That is the popular view, but it is much exaggerated, as this exciting new book explains. _Ninja: Unmasking The Myth_ is a revealing, fascinating and authoritative study of Japan's famous secret warriors. Unlike all previous books on the subject the author, who is an expert in the subject, does not take the ninja for granted. Instead he examines the entire phenomenon in a critical manner, ranging from accounts of undercover operations during the age of Japan's civil wars to the modern emergence of the superman ninja as a comic book character. The popular ninja image is shown to be the result of several influences that were combined to create the world's greatest secret warrior. Many well-known features of the ninja tradition such as the black clothes and the iron stars are shown to be complete inventions. One important feature of the book is the use of original Japanese sources, many of which have never been translated before. As well as unknown accounts of castle attacks, assassinations and espionage they include the last great ninja manual, which reveals the spiritual and religious ideals that were believed to lie behind the ninja's arts. The book concludes with a detailed investigation of the ninja in popular culture up to the present-day including movies, cartoons and theme parks.

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A rich and unforgettable tragic-comic novel of sexual intrigue and political scheming, The House of Ulloa is one of the greatest works of nineteenth-century Spanish literature.The House of Ulloa follows pure and pious Father Julián Alvarez, who is sent to a remote country estate to put the affairs of the marquis, an irresponsible libertine, in order. When he discovers moral decadence, cruelty and corruption at his new home, Julián's well-meaning but ineffectual attempts to prevent the fall of the House of Ulloa end in tragedy. Combining gothic elements with humour and social satire, The House of Ulloa is the finest achievement of Emilia Pardo Bazán, a prolific writer, feminist, traveller and intellectual, and one of the most dynamic figures of her time.Brilliantly balancing biting satire and gothic undertones, and evoking a rich sense of place, this is a wonderful novel that deserves to be ranked with the other great books of the period. The Countess Emilia Pardo Bazán was born in 1851 and married at sixteen. After separating from her husband, she embarked on an affair with novelist Benito Pérez Galdós. The House of Ulloa (1886) is generally considered as her masterpiece among her many literary works. Professor Paul O'Prey is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Roehampton, London. Lucia Graves has translated works by Robert Graves, Anaïs Nin, Katherine Mansfield and Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and is the author of a memoir, A Woman Unknown, and a novel, The Memory House.'An absolutely first-rate novelist [...] Bazán's genius lies in the way she mixes comedy, farce, realism and heightened-pitch hysteria with a dash of gothic [...] People may travel by donkey in this book, but it could have been written yesterday' - Nick Lezard, Guardian'Pardo Bazán's mastery of social types and of the political currents that swirled around the liberal revolution are unsurpassed in Spanish literature ... O'Prey and Graves ... avoid awkward literalisms while nonetheless remaining true to the spirit of the original' New Criterion

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'Great characters, fine writing, totally engrossing' STEPHEN KING It might have been the end of days. Instead it was the beginning of something shockingly new. They called the comet Cain, after the astronomer who discovered it. It passed 500,000 miles from Earth. We were spared planetary destruction and granted a light show like no other. But, one year later, Earth span into the debris field left by the comet and a meteor storm struck. Roads, buildings and even a small town were annihilated.The meteors impacted heavily around the dying mining town of Northfall, Minnesota. It was the night of a mysterious double murder, the deed overshadowed by the discovery that the burning remains of the rock contained an unknown substance more precious than gold: the Ninth Metal. And with that discovery, everything changed.Benjamin Percy is an award-winning novelist, celebrated comic books writer and author of the Wolverine podcast. The Ninth Metal is the first of a cycle of novels set in a shared universe.Praise for The Ninth Metal:'Whether you choose to think of him as the Elmore Leonard of rural Minnesota or the Stephen King of Science Fiction, Percy - with his extraordinary and unrelenting eye - dishes up humanity like some kind of otherworldly blue plate special, at once deeply familiar and wildly new' Margaret Stohl, No. 1 New York Times Bestselling Author'Take one part dystopia, one part sci-fi, two parts apocalypse, then ride them roughshod through a bleak and bloody western, and it still wouldn't get close to what Ben Percy does here, which is blow open the core of humanity's dark heart' Marlon James, Booker Prize winning author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf'The Ninth Metal continues his streak of thrilling, incisive genre bending goodness. It's a sci-fi novel, a crime novel and a super-hero novel, too. Audacious and intelligent and exactly what I was dying to read' Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling

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Classic crime fiction's 'Indiana Jones' Tony Medawar unearths more unpublished and uncollected stories from the Golden Age of suspense, including John Bude, John Dickson Carr, Dorothy L. Sayers and Julian Symons. ‘Five books in, and the selection here might well be the strongest yet. This series continues to delight with the high standard of forgotten gems that Medawar uncovers, and there’s sufficient range to ensure that all fans of the genre will find something to enjoy. Book 6 can’t come soon enough.’ Jim Noy, author of The Red Death Murders The end of the First World War saw the rise of an insatiable public appetite for clever and thrilling mystery fiction and a new kind of hero – the modern crime writer. As the genre soared in popularity, so did the inventiveness of its best authors, ushering in a “Golden Age” of detective fiction – two decades of exemplary mystery writing: the era of the whodunit, the impossible crime and the locked-room mystery, with stories that have thrilled and baffled generations of readers. The Golden Age still casts a long shadow, with many of the authors who were published at that time still hugely popular today. Aside from novels, they all wrote short fiction – stories, serials and plays – and although many have been republished in books over the last 100 years, Bodies from the Library collects the ones that are impossible to find: stories that appeared in a newspaper, magazine or an anthology that has long been out of print; ephemeral works such as plays not aired, staged or screened for decades; and unpublished stories that were absorbed into an author’s archive when they died . . . Complete with fascinating biographies by Tony Medawar of all the featured authors, this latest volume in the annual Bodies from the Library series once again brings into the daylight the forgotten, the lost and the unknown, and is an indispensable collection for any bookshelf.

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In 1934, at the age of fourteen, Colette Brull-Ulmann knew that she wanted to become a pediatrician. By the age of twenty-one, she was in her second year of studying medicine. By 1942, Brull-Ulman and her family had become registered Jews under the ever-increasing statutes against them enacted by Petain’s government. Her father had been arrested and interned at the Drancy detention camp and Brull-Ulman had become an intern at the Rothschild Hospital, the only hospital in Paris where Jewish physicians were allowed to practice and Jewish patients could go for treatment. Under Claire Heyman, a charismatic social worker who was a leader of the hospital’s secret escape network, Brull-Ulmann began working tirelessly to rescue Jewish children treated at the Rothschild. Her devotion to the protection of children, her bravery, and her imperviousness in the face of the deadly injustices of the Holocaust were always evident—whether smuggling children to safety through the Paris streets in the dead of night or defying officers and doctors who frighteningly held her fate in their hands. Ultimately, Brull-Ulmann was forced to flee the Rothschild in 1943, when she joined her father’s resistance network, gathering and delivering information for De Gaulle’s secret intelligence agency until the Liberation in 1945. In 1970, Brull-Ulmann finally became a licensed pediatrician. But after the war, like so many others, she sought to bury her memories. It wasn’t until decades later when she finally started to speak publicly—not only about her own work and survival, but about the one child who affected her most deeply. Originally published in French in 2017, Brull-Ulmann’s memoir fearlessly illustrates the horrors of Jewish life under the German Occupation and casts light on the heretofore unknown story of the Rothschild Hospital during this period. But most of all, it chronicles the life of a truly exceptional and courageous woman for whom not acting was never an option.

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The summer of 1958 was a nerve-racking time. Ever since the Soviet Union proved that it possessed an operational intercontinental ballistic missile with the launch of Sputnik, the world watched anxiously as the two superpowers engaged in a game of nuclear one-upmanship. Tensions escalated between the United States and the Soviet Union over their respective nuclear weapons reserves, both sides desperate for a solution to the threat of the massive, instant destruction the one could cause on the other. In the midst of this rising tension, Nicholas Christofilos, an eccentric Greek-American physicist, brought forth an outlandish, albeit ingenious, idea to defend the US from a Soviet attack: launching atomic bombs from the South Atlantic Ocean, about 1,100 miles from Cape Town, to detonate in outer space to fry incoming Soviet ICBMs with an artificial radiation belt. Known as Project Argus, this plan is the biggest, most secret, and riskiest scientific experiment in history, and classified details of this operation have been long obscured. In Burning the Sky, Mark Wolverton tells the unknown and controversial story of this scheme to reveal a fascinating narrative almost completely forgotten by history—one that still has powerful resonances today. Drawing from recently declassified sources, Burning the Sky chronicles Christofilos’s unconventional idea from its inception to execution—when the so-called mad scientist persuaded the military to carry out the most grandiose scientific experiment ever conceived, using the entire Earth’s atmosphere as a laboratory. With over a decade of experience researching and writing about the sociological and political impacts of the scie nce of the Cold War, Wolverton is the ideal authority on this risky experiment. Meticulously researched, with the pacing of a thriller and the language of science fiction, Burning the Sky will intrigue any lover of scientific or military history and will remind readers why Project Argus remains frighteningly relevant nearly sixty years later.

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New York Times Bestseller "What, What? is a welcome-and joyful-reminder that true wisdom comes from asking the right questions. Should you read this book? Absolutely." -Clayton Christensen, bestselling author of How Will You Measure Your Life? Based on the wildly popular commencement address, the art of asking (and answering) good questions by the Dean of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Whether we're in the boardroom or the classroom, we spend far too much time and energy looking for the right answer. But the truth is that questions are just as important as answers, often more so. If you ask the wrong question, for instance, you're guaranteed to get the wrong answer. A good question, on the other hand, inspires a good answer and, in the process, invites deeper understanding and more meaningful connections between people. Asking a good question requires us to move beyond what we think we know about an issue or a person to explore the difficult and the unknown, the awkward, and even the unpleasant. In Wait, What?, Jim Ryan, dean of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, celebrates the art of asking-and answering-good questions. Five questions in particular: Wait, what?; I wonder...? Couldn't we at least...?; How can I help?; and What truly matters? Using examples from politics, history, popular culture, and social movements, as well as his own personal life, Ryan demonstrates how these essential inquiries generate understanding, spark curiosity, initiate progress, fortify relationships, and draw our attention to the important things in life-from the Supreme Court to Fenway Park. By regularly asking these five essential questions, Ryan promises, we will be better able to answer life's most important question: "And did you get what you wanted out of life, even so?" At once hilarious and illuminating, poignant and surprising, Wait, What? is an inspiring book of wisdom that will forever change the way you think about questions.

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The 9-volume set LNAI 14267-14275 constitutes the proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2023, which took place in Hangzhou, China, during July 5–7, 2023.The 413 papers included in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 630 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows:Part I: Human-Centric Technologies for Seamless Human-Robot Collaboration; Multimodal Collaborative Perception and Fusion; Intelligent Robot Perception in Unknown Environments; Vision-Based Human Robot Interaction and Application.Part II: Vision-Based Human Robot Interaction and Application; Reliable AI on Machine Human Reactions; Wearable Sensors and Robots; Wearable Robots for Assistance, Augmentation and Rehabilitation of Human Movements; Perception and Manipulation of Dexterous Hand for Humanoid Robot.Part III: Perception and Manipulation of Dexterous Hand for Humanoid Robot; Medical Imaging for Biomedical Robotics; Advanced Underwater Robot Technologies; Innovative Design and Performance Evaluation of Robot Mechanisms; Evaluation of Wearable Robots for Assistance and Rehabilitation; 3D Printing Soft Robots.Part IV: 3D Printing Soft Robots; Dielectric Elastomer Actuators for Soft Robotics; Human-like Locomotion and Manipulation; Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning for Smart Robots.Part V: Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning for Smart Robots; Robotic Tactile Sensation, Perception, and Applications; Advanced Sensing and Control Technology for Human-Robot Interaction; Knowledge-Based Robot Decision-Making and Manipulation; Design and Control of Legged Robots.Part VI: Design and Control of Legged Robots; Robots in Tunnelling and Underground Space; Robotic Machining of Complex Components; Clinically Oriented Design in Robotic Surgery and Rehabilitation; Visual and Visual-Tactile Perception for Robotics.Part VII: Visual and Visual-Tactile Perception for Robotics; Perception, Interaction, and Control of Wearable Robots; Marine Robotics and Applications; Multi-Robot Systems for Real World Applications; Physical and Neurological Human-Robot Interaction.Part VIII: Physical and Neurological Human-Robot Interaction; Advanced Motion Control Technologies for Mobile Robots; Intelligent Inspection Robotics; Robotics in Sustainable Manufacturing for Carbon Neutrality; Innovative Design and Performance Evaluation of Robot Mechanisms.Part IX: Innovative Design and Performance Evaluation of Robot Mechanisms; Cutting-Edge Research in Robotics.

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Co-winner, Ray & Pat Browne Award for Best Edited Collection in Popular Culture and American Culture Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the American author of “weird tales” who died in 1937 impoverished and relatively unknown, has become a twenty-first-century star, cropping up in places both anticipated and unexpected. Authors, filmmakers, and shapers of popular culture like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Guillermo del Toro acknowledge his influence; his fiction is key to the work of posthuman philosophers and cultural critics such as Graham Harman and Eugene Thacker; and Lovecraft’s creations have achieved unprecedented cultural ubiquity, even showing up on the animated program South Park.The Age of Lovecraft is the first sustained analysis of Lovecraft in relation to twenty-first-century critical theory and culture, delving into troubling aspects of his thought and writings. With contributions from scholars including Gothic expert David Punter, historian W. Scott Poole, musicologist Isabella van Elferen, and philosopher of the posthuman Patricia MacCormack, this wide-ranging volume brings together thinkers from an array of disciplines to consider Lovecraft’s contemporary cultural presence and its implications. Bookended by a preface from horror fiction luminary Ramsey Campbell and an extended interview with the central author of the New Weird, China Miéville, the collection addresses the question of “why Lovecraft, why now?” through a variety of approaches and angles. A must for scholars, students, and theoretically inclined readers interested in Lovecraft, popular culture, and intellectual trends, The Age of Lovecraft offers the most thorough examination of Lovecraft’s place in contemporary philosophy and critical theory to date as it seeks to shed light on the larger phenomenon of the dominance of weird fiction in the twenty-first century.Contributors: Jessica George; Brian Johnson, Carleton U; James Kneale, U College London; Patricia MacCormack, Anglia Ruskin U, Cambridge; Jed Mayer, SUNY New Paltz; China Miéville, Warwick U; W. Scott Poole, College of Charleston; David Punter, U of Bristol; David Simmons, Northampton U; Isabella van Elferen, Kingston U London.

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