Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1409044602
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 498
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Book Description
'An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction' TIME OUT One was an architect. The other a serial killer. This is the incredible story of these two men and their realization of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, and its amazing 'White City'; one of the wonders of the world. The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the driving force behind the White City, the massive, visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals and gardens. The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair - and his own devilish charms - to lure scores of young women to their deaths. While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes and Chicago's infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earth, Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground. He called it the World's Fair Hotel. In reality it was a torture palace, a gas chamber, a crematorium. These two disparate but driven men are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America and set it on course for the twentieth century . . .
Author: Robert Walser
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819575151
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
“A solid, scholarly analysis of the power, meaning, musical structure, and sociopolitical contexts of the most popular examples of heavy metal.” —Library Journal Dismissed by critics and academics, condemned by parents and politicians, and fervently embraced by legions of fans, heavy metal music continues to attract and embody cultural conflicts that are central to society. In Running with the Devil, Robert Walser explores how and why heavy metal works, both musically and socially, and at the same time uses metal to investigate contemporary formations of identity, community, gender, and power. This edition includes a new foreword by Harris M. Berger contextualizing the work and a new afterword by the author. Ebook Edition Note: all photographs (sixteen) have been redacted. “Walser belongs to a small but influential group of academics trying to reconcile ‘high theory’ with a streetwise sense of culture . . . an excellent book.” —Rolling Stone “Takes musicology where it has never gone before; I once saw the chapter on metal guitarists and the classical tradition performed live in a lecture hall, but even on paper it smokes.” —SF Weekly “Walser is truly gifted at doing what few critics before him have done: analyzing the music . . . In virtuoso readings of metal music that forge persuasive links between metal and particular classical music traditions, Walser reveals the ways that musical structures themselves are social texts.” —The Nation “Making surprising connections to classical forms and debunking stereotypes of metal’s musical crudity, Walser delves enthusiastically into guitar conventions and rituals.” —The Washington Post
Author: David Grann
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307275906
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 417
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Book Description
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager—and one of the most gifted reporters and storytellers of his generation—comes a “horrifying, hilarious, and outlandish” (Entertainment Weekly) collection of gripping true crime mysteries about people whose obsessions propel them into unfathomable and often deadly circumstances. "[Grann is] one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine Whether David Grann is investigating a mysterious murder, tracking a chameleon-like con artist, or hunting an elusive giant squid, he has proven to be a superb storyteller. In The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, Grann takes the reader around the world, revealing a gallery of rogues and heroes with their own particular fixations who show that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!
Author: Dominique Wilson
Publisher: Transit Lounge
ISBN: 0994395701
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
In 1896 Louis and his father, seduced by the allure of North Africa, travel to Algeria in search of a better life. There, Louis befriends Imez, a Berber boy, and the two become firm friends. They grow and prosper, and become like brothers. Years later, Nicolette, an Australian photojournalist, is drawn to cover the illness and eventual death of Algerian President Boumedienne. She sees it as an opportunity to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps, make her mark, and restore the bonds of the past. But the rules have changed – will the bonds that once existed be sufficient for her to survive? That Devil’s Madness tells of the often heart-rending tensions that exist between idealism and duty, between friendship and loyalty to one’s country – of the struggle for freedom, dignity and respect. Dramatic, honest and shockingly relevant to today’s world situation, the novel is driven by finely crafted characters, exquisite prose and razor-sharp drama and mystery.
Author: Patricia Mackintosh
Publisher: Publish America
ISBN: 9781592864713
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
The Devil's Madness has as much relevance today as it has to the turbulent time of history it explores. It is the story of four boys and their friendship, confronting the timeless themes of violence, politics and survival through a dark period. It will also have resonance with parents of today who, having lived through the Vietnam War, have fears about the effects of a war with Iraq on their children. Disturbingly, the timing of this book coincides with current world instability and difficult realities facing us all. Headlines of terrorism, war, scandal in the Catholic Church, violence in schools and the loss of children's innocence make this story of the past hauntingly reflective of the present. Its humor, quirky inventiveness and Australian setting with strong, antipodean imagery gives a surreal tangent to the novel. Against this backdrop, a search for the human values of friendship and camaraderie despite adversity, will strike a chord with many readers.
Author: Dominique Wilson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 532
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Book Description
Author: Michael Blyth
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1911325418
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 159
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Book Description
Neglected upon its initial release in 1995, John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness has since developed a healthy cult reputation. It now appears as one of his most thematically complex and stylistically audacious pieces of work, prescient and more essential than ever. This book seeks to position this overlooked masterpiece as essential Carpenter.
Author: K. Hodgkin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230626424
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
What did it mean to be mad in seventeenth-century England? This book uses vivid autobiographical accounts of mental disorder to explore the ways madness was identified and experienced from the inside, asking how certain people came to be defined as insane, and what we can learn from the accounts they wrote.
Author: H. C. Erik Midelfort
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804741699
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 460
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Book Description
This magisterial work explores how Renaissance Germans understood and experienced madness. It focuses on the insanity of the world in general but also on specific disorders; examines the thinking on madness of theologians, jurists, and physicians; and analyzes the vernacular ideas that propelled sufferers to seek help in pilgrimage or newly founded hospitals for the helplessly disordered. In the process, the author uses the history of madness as a lens to illuminate the history of the Renaissance, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the history of poverty and social welfare, and the history of princely courts, state building, and the civilizing process. Rather than try to fit historical experience into modern psychiatric categories, this book reconstructs the images and metaphors through which Renaissance Germans themselves understood and experienced mental illness and deviance, ranging from such bizarre conditions as St. Vituss dance and demonic possession to such medical crises as melancholy and mania. By examining the records of shrines and hospitals, where the mad went for relief, we hear the voices of the mad themselves. For many religious Germans, sin was a form of madness and the sinful world was thoroughly insane. This book compares the thought of Martin Luther and the medical-religious reformer Paracelsus, who both believed that madness was a basic category of human experience. For them and others, the sixteenth century was an age of increasing demonic presence; the demon-possessed seemed to be everywhere. For Renaissance physicians, however, the problem was finding the correct ancient Greek concepts to describe mental illness. In medical terms, the late sixteenth century was the age of melancholy. For jurists, the customary insanity defense did not clarify whether melancholy persons were responsible for their actions, and they frequently solicited the advice of physicians. Sixteenth-century Germany was also an age of folly, with fools filling a major role in German art and literature and present at every prince and princelings court. The author analyzes what Renaissance Germans meant by folly and examines the lives and social contexts of several court fools.
Author: Craig Russell
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0525564780
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 433
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Book Description
Steeped in the folklore of Eastern Europe, and set in the shadow of Nazi darkness erupting just beyond the Czech border, this bone-chilling, richly imagined novel is propulsively entertaining, and impossible to put down. "A wildly entertaining story...Russell has created a truly frightening story." —The New York Times Book Review Czechoslovakia, 1935: Viktor Kosárek, a newly trained psychiatrist who studied under Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The facility is located in a medieval mountaintop castle surrounded by forests, on a site that is well known for concealing dark secrets going back many centuries. The asylum houses six inmates--the country's most treacherous killers--known to the terrified public as the Devil's Six. Viktor intends to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon he calls The Devil Aspect. Yet as he begins to learn the stunning secrets of these patients, he must face the unnerving possibility that these six may share a darker truth. Meanwhile, in Prague, fear grips the city as a phantom serial killer emerges in the dark alleys. Police investigator Lukas Smolak, desperate to locate the culprit (a copycat of Jack the Ripper), turns to Viktor and the doctors at Hrad Orlu for their expertise with the psychotic criminal mind. And Viktor finds himself wrapped up in a case more terrifying than he could have ever imagined.
