Author: Razor Smith
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613745923
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 503
Book Description
Brutal and violent, this tell-all is a personal account of the life of Razor Smith and the world in which he lived, where ruthlessness, viciousness, and savagery are prized and admired. In prison more than half of his life for assaults and armed robberies, Smith became confined in a peculiar kind of hell from which his only route of escape was to master the art of writing. His book shows us a face of crime not often encountered in run-of-the-mill true-crime books: a face as tender and intimate as a lover's, yet as frightening as a killer's. Powerfully written from beginning to end, this is an extraordinarily vivid account of how a kid from South London became a career criminal, a blistering indictment of a system that brutalized young offenders, and an unsentimental acknowledgment of the adrenaline-fueled thrills of the criminal life. Shocking, fascinating, and horrifying, it also reveals Smith as one of the most talented writers of his generation.
A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun
Author: Razor Smith
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613745923
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 503
Book Description
Brutal and violent, this tell-all is a personal account of the life of Razor Smith and the world in which he lived, where ruthlessness, viciousness, and savagery are prized and admired. In prison more than half of his life for assaults and armed robberies, Smith became confined in a peculiar kind of hell from which his only route of escape was to master the art of writing. His book shows us a face of crime not often encountered in run-of-the-mill true-crime books: a face as tender and intimate as a lover's, yet as frightening as a killer's. Powerfully written from beginning to end, this is an extraordinarily vivid account of how a kid from South London became a career criminal, a blistering indictment of a system that brutalized young offenders, and an unsentimental acknowledgment of the adrenaline-fueled thrills of the criminal life. Shocking, fascinating, and horrifying, it also reveals Smith as one of the most talented writers of his generation.
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613745923
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 503
Book Description
Brutal and violent, this tell-all is a personal account of the life of Razor Smith and the world in which he lived, where ruthlessness, viciousness, and savagery are prized and admired. In prison more than half of his life for assaults and armed robberies, Smith became confined in a peculiar kind of hell from which his only route of escape was to master the art of writing. His book shows us a face of crime not often encountered in run-of-the-mill true-crime books: a face as tender and intimate as a lover's, yet as frightening as a killer's. Powerfully written from beginning to end, this is an extraordinarily vivid account of how a kid from South London became a career criminal, a blistering indictment of a system that brutalized young offenders, and an unsentimental acknowledgment of the adrenaline-fueled thrills of the criminal life. Shocking, fascinating, and horrifying, it also reveals Smith as one of the most talented writers of his generation.
A Rusty Gun
Author: Noel 'Razor' Smith
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141910070
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 520
Book Description
As a gun-wielding bank robber, Noel 'Razor' Smith was top of the criminal tree, enjoying the excitement and benefits of a dangerous and adrenalin-filled career. But he'd also spent the greater part of his adult life in prison, an environment where respect and basic survival were guaranteed only to those prepared to use the most brutal violence. In his new book, Smith takes the story on from his highly acclaimed memoir A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun, and describes how he came to realize that the game wasn't worth the candle. In his mid-forties he applied to enter Grendon, then the only prison in Britain offering intense therapeutic treatment to hardened criminals. He went from a brutal high-security prison, HMP Whitemoor, to an institution where he was encouraged to investigate just why his life had been given over to violence and crime. Smith paints an unforgettable portrait of the hardened and severely damaged inmates of Grendon, many of them guilty of famous crimes, and their attempts to turn round their lives. And in particular his own arduous five-year journey to re-enter society as a straight citizen.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141910070
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 520
Book Description
As a gun-wielding bank robber, Noel 'Razor' Smith was top of the criminal tree, enjoying the excitement and benefits of a dangerous and adrenalin-filled career. But he'd also spent the greater part of his adult life in prison, an environment where respect and basic survival were guaranteed only to those prepared to use the most brutal violence. In his new book, Smith takes the story on from his highly acclaimed memoir A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun, and describes how he came to realize that the game wasn't worth the candle. In his mid-forties he applied to enter Grendon, then the only prison in Britain offering intense therapeutic treatment to hardened criminals. He went from a brutal high-security prison, HMP Whitemoor, to an institution where he was encouraged to investigate just why his life had been given over to violence and crime. Smith paints an unforgettable portrait of the hardened and severely damaged inmates of Grendon, many of them guilty of famous crimes, and their attempts to turn round their lives. And in particular his own arduous five-year journey to re-enter society as a straight citizen.
Lives Like Loaded Guns
Author: Lyndall Gordon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101190191
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 650
Book Description
In 1882, Emily Dickinson's brother Austin began a passionate love affair with Mabel Todd, a young Amherst faculty wife, setting in motion a series of events that would forever change the lives of the Dickinson family. The feud that erupted as a result has continued for over a century. Lyndall Gordon, an award-winning biographer, tells the riveting story of the Dickinsons, and reveals Emily as a very different woman from the pale, lovelorn recluse that exists in the popular imagination. Thanks to unprecedented use of letters, diaries, and legal documents, Gordon digs deep into the life and work of Emily Dickinson, to reveal the secret behind the poet's insistent seclusion, and presents a woman beyond her time who found love, spiritual sustenance, and immortality all on her own terms. An enthralling story of creative genius, filled with illicit passion and betrayal, Lives Like Loaded Guns is sure to cause a stir among Dickinson's many devoted readers and scholars.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101190191
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 650
Book Description
In 1882, Emily Dickinson's brother Austin began a passionate love affair with Mabel Todd, a young Amherst faculty wife, setting in motion a series of events that would forever change the lives of the Dickinson family. The feud that erupted as a result has continued for over a century. Lyndall Gordon, an award-winning biographer, tells the riveting story of the Dickinsons, and reveals Emily as a very different woman from the pale, lovelorn recluse that exists in the popular imagination. Thanks to unprecedented use of letters, diaries, and legal documents, Gordon digs deep into the life and work of Emily Dickinson, to reveal the secret behind the poet's insistent seclusion, and presents a woman beyond her time who found love, spiritual sustenance, and immortality all on her own terms. An enthralling story of creative genius, filled with illicit passion and betrayal, Lives Like Loaded Guns is sure to cause a stir among Dickinson's many devoted readers and scholars.
They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded
Author: James Alan Gardner
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 0765398788
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Award-winning author James Alan Gardner returns to the superheroic fantasy world of All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault with They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded. Only days have passed since a freak accident granted four college students superhuman powers. Now Jools and her friends (who haven’t even picked out a name for their superhero team yet) get caught up in the hunt for a Mad Genius’s misplaced super-weapon. But when Jools falls in with a modern-day Robin Hood and his band of super-powered Merry Men, she finds it hard to sort out the Good Guys from the Bad Guys—and to figure out which side she truly belongs on. Especially since nobody knows exactly what the Gun does . . . .
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 0765398788
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Award-winning author James Alan Gardner returns to the superheroic fantasy world of All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault with They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded. Only days have passed since a freak accident granted four college students superhuman powers. Now Jools and her friends (who haven’t even picked out a name for their superhero team yet) get caught up in the hunt for a Mad Genius’s misplaced super-weapon. But when Jools falls in with a modern-day Robin Hood and his band of super-powered Merry Men, she finds it hard to sort out the Good Guys from the Bad Guys—and to figure out which side she truly belongs on. Especially since nobody knows exactly what the Gun does . . . .
Son of a Gun
Author: Justin St. Germain
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0345538749
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY In the tradition of Tobias Wolff, James Ellroy, and Mary Karr, a stunning memoir of a mother-son relationship that is also the searing, unflinching account of a murder and its aftermath Tombstone, Arizona, September 2001. Debbie St. Germain’s death, apparently at the hands of her fifth husband, is a passing curiosity. “A real-life old West murder mystery,” the local TV announcers intone, while barroom gossips snicker cruelly. But for her twenty-year-old son, Justin St. Germain, the tragedy marks the line that separates his world into before and after. Distancing himself from the legendary town of his childhood, Justin makes another life a world away in San Francisco and achieves all the surface successes that would have filled his mother with pride. Yet years later he’s still sleeping with a loaded rifle under his bed. Ultimately, he is pulled back to the desert landscape of his childhood on a search to make sense of the unfathomable. What made his mother, a onetime army paratrooper, the type of woman who would stand up to any man except the men she was in love with? What led her to move from place to place, man to man, job to job, until finally she found herself in a desperate and deteriorating situation, living on an isolated patch of desert with an unstable ex-cop? Justin’s journey takes him back to the ghost town of Wyatt Earp, to the trailers he and Debbie shared, to the string of stepfathers who were a constant, sometimes threatening presence in his life, to a harsh world on the margins full of men and women all struggling to define what family means. He decides to confront people from his past and delve into the police records in an attempt to make sense of his mother’s life and death. All the while he tries to be the type of man she would have wanted him to be. Praise for Son of a Gun “[A] spectacular memoir . . . calls to mind two others of the past decade: J. R. Moehringer’s Tender Bar and Nick Flynn’s Another Bull____ Night in Suck City. All three are about boys becoming men in a broken world. . . . [What] might have been . . . in the hands of a lesser writer, the book’s main point . . . [is] amplified from a tale of personal loss and grief into a parable for our time and our nation. . . . If the brilliance of Son of a Gun lies in its restraint, its importance lies in the generosity of the author’s insights.”—Alexandra Fuller, The New York Times Book Review “[A] gritty, enthralling new memoir . . . St. Germain has created a work of austere, luminous beauty. . . . In his understated, eloquent way, St. Germain makes you feel the heat, taste the dust, see those shimmering streets. By the end of the book, you know his mother, even though you never met her. And like the author, you will mourn her forever.”—NPR “If St. Germain had stopped at examining his mother’s psycho-social risk factors and how her murder affected him, this would still be a fine, moving memoir. But it’s his further probing—into the culture of guns, violence, and manhood that informed their lives in his hometown, Tombstone, Ariz.—that transforms the book, elevating the stakes from personal pain to larger, important questions of what ails our society.”—The Boston Globe “A visceral, compelling portrait of [St. Germain’s] mother and the violent culture that claimed her.”—Entertainment Weekly
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0345538749
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY In the tradition of Tobias Wolff, James Ellroy, and Mary Karr, a stunning memoir of a mother-son relationship that is also the searing, unflinching account of a murder and its aftermath Tombstone, Arizona, September 2001. Debbie St. Germain’s death, apparently at the hands of her fifth husband, is a passing curiosity. “A real-life old West murder mystery,” the local TV announcers intone, while barroom gossips snicker cruelly. But for her twenty-year-old son, Justin St. Germain, the tragedy marks the line that separates his world into before and after. Distancing himself from the legendary town of his childhood, Justin makes another life a world away in San Francisco and achieves all the surface successes that would have filled his mother with pride. Yet years later he’s still sleeping with a loaded rifle under his bed. Ultimately, he is pulled back to the desert landscape of his childhood on a search to make sense of the unfathomable. What made his mother, a onetime army paratrooper, the type of woman who would stand up to any man except the men she was in love with? What led her to move from place to place, man to man, job to job, until finally she found herself in a desperate and deteriorating situation, living on an isolated patch of desert with an unstable ex-cop? Justin’s journey takes him back to the ghost town of Wyatt Earp, to the trailers he and Debbie shared, to the string of stepfathers who were a constant, sometimes threatening presence in his life, to a harsh world on the margins full of men and women all struggling to define what family means. He decides to confront people from his past and delve into the police records in an attempt to make sense of his mother’s life and death. All the while he tries to be the type of man she would have wanted him to be. Praise for Son of a Gun “[A] spectacular memoir . . . calls to mind two others of the past decade: J. R. Moehringer’s Tender Bar and Nick Flynn’s Another Bull____ Night in Suck City. All three are about boys becoming men in a broken world. . . . [What] might have been . . . in the hands of a lesser writer, the book’s main point . . . [is] amplified from a tale of personal loss and grief into a parable for our time and our nation. . . . If the brilliance of Son of a Gun lies in its restraint, its importance lies in the generosity of the author’s insights.”—Alexandra Fuller, The New York Times Book Review “[A] gritty, enthralling new memoir . . . St. Germain has created a work of austere, luminous beauty. . . . In his understated, eloquent way, St. Germain makes you feel the heat, taste the dust, see those shimmering streets. By the end of the book, you know his mother, even though you never met her. And like the author, you will mourn her forever.”—NPR “If St. Germain had stopped at examining his mother’s psycho-social risk factors and how her murder affected him, this would still be a fine, moving memoir. But it’s his further probing—into the culture of guns, violence, and manhood that informed their lives in his hometown, Tombstone, Ariz.—that transforms the book, elevating the stakes from personal pain to larger, important questions of what ails our society.”—The Boston Globe “A visceral, compelling portrait of [St. Germain’s] mother and the violent culture that claimed her.”—Entertainment Weekly
Loaded
Author: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Publisher: City Lights Books
ISBN: 0872867242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
A provocative, timely, and deeply-researched history of gun culture and how it reflects race and power in the United States
Publisher: City Lights Books
ISBN: 0872867242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
A provocative, timely, and deeply-researched history of gun culture and how it reflects race and power in the United States
The Lost Boyz
Author: Justin Rollins
Publisher: Waterside Press
ISBN: 1908162015
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 179
Book Description
At age 14, author Justin Rollins went from being a bullied child to the leader of The Warriorz, a group of London street kids involved in graffiti tagging and other crimes, including a series of violent encounters. Eventually given a substantial custodial sentence for an attack with a meat cleaver in the London Underground, Rollins became determined to steer other young people away from such a life. The Lost Boyz tells the story of Rollins' descent into a form of madness, in which self-destruction, anger, wanton behavior, and fear reside at the core. Never has a book taken the reader so far inside the minds of troubled youths who gradually realize that there is no easy escape from their chaotic lifestyle. Their need - to gain respect from and stay credible with each other - stems from offending, alienation, living on the margins of society, and crazy behavior, all of which serve as barriers to rejoining the normal world and going straight. The book contains countless lessons for young
Publisher: Waterside Press
ISBN: 1908162015
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 179
Book Description
At age 14, author Justin Rollins went from being a bullied child to the leader of The Warriorz, a group of London street kids involved in graffiti tagging and other crimes, including a series of violent encounters. Eventually given a substantial custodial sentence for an attack with a meat cleaver in the London Underground, Rollins became determined to steer other young people away from such a life. The Lost Boyz tells the story of Rollins' descent into a form of madness, in which self-destruction, anger, wanton behavior, and fear reside at the core. Never has a book taken the reader so far inside the minds of troubled youths who gradually realize that there is no easy escape from their chaotic lifestyle. Their need - to gain respect from and stay credible with each other - stems from offending, alienation, living on the margins of society, and crazy behavior, all of which serve as barriers to rejoining the normal world and going straight. The book contains countless lessons for young
Unlocking the Prison Muse
Author: Julian Broadhead
Publisher: Liverpool Academic Press
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
"Unlocking The Prison Muse examines the history of prisoners' writing in the UK, from Oscar Wilde to the present day. It details the inspirations and motivations for prison writers, the facilitating and disabling factors involved in writing for publication while in prison and the effects on the writers, on the victims of their offending, on wider society and on penal reform." "The book covers autobiography and memoir, fiction, drama, poetry and journalism and considers whether writing success can assist rehabilitation. It covers the inconsistency of censorship in the prison system and the moral and practical implications of criminals profiting by writing about their offences."--BOOK JACKET.
Publisher: Liverpool Academic Press
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
"Unlocking The Prison Muse examines the history of prisoners' writing in the UK, from Oscar Wilde to the present day. It details the inspirations and motivations for prison writers, the facilitating and disabling factors involved in writing for publication while in prison and the effects on the writers, on the victims of their offending, on wider society and on penal reform." "The book covers autobiography and memoir, fiction, drama, poetry and journalism and considers whether writing success can assist rehabilitation. It covers the inconsistency of censorship in the prison system and the moral and practical implications of criminals profiting by writing about their offences."--BOOK JACKET.
Underworld
Author: Mike Stop Continues
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781944099015
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Sex, drugs, and a loaded gun... What could go wrong? It's the last day of high school and Hero Banner's last chance to step out of his brother's shadow, win the heart of the magical Gilly Jung, and show his friends he's more than meets the eye.Hero's plan? Go to the Graduation Eve rave, point a gun at the school bully's head, and force him to apologize in front of everyone. If only Hero knew his actions would set in motion a series of events so disastrous and so inescapable that by dawn, nothing would be the same.Underworld is a groundbreaking coming-of-age story featuring fast-paced action, fresh teen romance, and bone-chilling small-town secrets that will stay with you long after you finish the book. Not for the faint of heart!
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781944099015
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Sex, drugs, and a loaded gun... What could go wrong? It's the last day of high school and Hero Banner's last chance to step out of his brother's shadow, win the heart of the magical Gilly Jung, and show his friends he's more than meets the eye.Hero's plan? Go to the Graduation Eve rave, point a gun at the school bully's head, and force him to apologize in front of everyone. If only Hero knew his actions would set in motion a series of events so disastrous and so inescapable that by dawn, nothing would be the same.Underworld is a groundbreaking coming-of-age story featuring fast-paced action, fresh teen romance, and bone-chilling small-town secrets that will stay with you long after you finish the book. Not for the faint of heart!
My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun
Author: Emily Dickinson
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241251427
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Book Description
'It's coming - the postponeless Creature' Electrifying poems of isolation, beauty, death and eternity from a reclusive genius and one of America's greatest writers. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241251427
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Book Description
'It's coming - the postponeless Creature' Electrifying poems of isolation, beauty, death and eternity from a reclusive genius and one of America's greatest writers. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.