Showing results by narrator "Malcolm Hillgartner" in All Categories

By 1977 the University of Evansville’s Purple Aces basketball team had won five small-college national championships. With a charismatic young coach and a freshman phenom, this small Indiana city hoped to see its team shine in the national spotlight. Then, on a foggy night, after just four games, the plane carrying the team and its coach crashed after takeoff, killing everyone on board.

This book offers a major reassessment of classical music in the 20th century. John Mauceri argues that the history of music during this span was shaped by three major wars of that century: World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

Long before there was VHS versus Betamax, Windows versus Macintosh, or Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD, the first and nastiest standards war was fought over how electricity would be transmitted around the world: alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC). The savage showdown between AC and DC changed the lives of billions of people, shaped the modern technological age, and set the stage for all standards wars to follow.

Sheriff Zeb Hanks has his hands full when sociopath Jimmie Joe Walker, recently released from an Arizona state prison, masterminds a devious plan to make himself filthy rich. His plan involves Ángel Gomez, a down-on-his-luck half Mescalero Apache/half Mexican. Ángel's alcoholism and far-fetched dreams make him an unwitting dupe in Jimmie Joe's plans, which end up endangering Ángel's own life, as well as the lives of those he loves.

Welcome, foolish mortals, to Disney Press’ spookiest series yet: Tales from the Haunted Mansion! Based on the attractions from the Disney Parks, each book tells the terrifying tales of some of the Haunted Mansion’s 999 ghosts. Tales from the Haunted Mansion: Volume III: Grim Grinning Ghosts...

This extraordinary book is the result of Saul Bellow’s sojourn in Israel in 1975. A personal record of his stay—his experiences and impressions—as well as a meditation, it crackles with wit and controversy on America’s relationship with this embattled country.

One of America's most beloved sportscasters turns the spotlight on his own life, chronicling his incredible life covering Southeastern Conference football and some of the most iconic moments in sports history over the last five decades. Verne Lundquist's remarkable broadcasting career has placed...

Palace of Deception uncovers the complicated legacy of three iconic figures of the American Museum: the preeminent explorer Roy Chapman Andrews; Carl Akeley, the pioneering taxidermist; and Osborn, the museum's president. Darrin Lunde tells the story of the American's Museum foundational years. Lunde also shows how the achievements of the museum's adventurers were used to introduce residents of New York to a version of the natural world endorsed by the museum's leader.

On May 16, 1922, a young man's body was found on a desolate road in Westchester County. The victim was penniless ex-sailor Clarence Peters. Walter Ward, the handsome scion of the family that owned the largest chain of bread factories in the country, confessed to the crime as an act of self-defense against a violent gang of "shadow men," blackmailers who extorted their victims' moral weaknesses. From the start, one question defined the investigation: What scandalous secret could lead Ward to murder?

Christmas 1941 came little more than two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The shock - in some cases overseas, elation - was worldwide. While Americans attempted to go about celebrating as usual, the reality of the just-declared war was on everybody’s mind. United States troops on Wake Island were battling a Japanese landing force and, in the Philippines, losing the fight to save Luzon. In Japan, the Pearl Harbor strike force returned to Hiroshima Bay and toasted its sweeping success.

A Manhattan gumshoe pursues a convict to St. Louis, where he gets mixed up in a cop killing and nearly loses his own life at the hands of a B girl.

Oscar Ogilvie is living with his dad in a house at the end of Lucifer Street, in Cairo, Illinois, when world events change his life forever. The great stock market crash has rippled across the country, and the bank takes over their home - along with all their cherished model trains. Oscar’s dad is forced to head west in search of work, and Oscar must move in with his no-nonsense aunt Carmen. Only a mysterious drifter helps alleviate Oscar’s loneliness.

Most Evil II is Steve Hodel's follow-up investigation (2009-2015) into his father's potential murders and introduces new evidence and additional linkage obtained by him over the past six years. Included in that evidence is the solving of the Zodiac's 45-year-cryptic cipher, which gives us the answer to the question asked in Most Evil: Were Black Dahlia Avenger and Zodiac the same serial killer?

"Friday Night Lights meets Unbroken." —Tony Reali | "One of the most profound stories you will ever read." —Ian O'Connor | "Plaschke delivers a masterpiece." —Jeff Pearlman From L.A. Times columnist and ESPN Around the Horn panelist Bill Plaschke, a story of tragedy, triumph, and the...

In this thought-provoking exploration, Matthew May defines elegance as the elusive combination of unusual simplicity and surprising power, and pinpoints the four key elements that characterize it: seduction, subtraction, symmetry, and sustainability. In a story-driven narrative that sheds light on the need for elegance in design, engineering, physics, art, urban planning, sports, and work, May offers a surprising array of stories that illustrate why what's "not there" often matters more than what is.

It's 1918. The war in Europe grinds on, and the Spanish flu seems to be on an insatiable killing spree. But in the small fishing village of Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, a more confined drama-harrowing and provocative-slowly unfolds. It begins when Elizabeth Frame murders her husband hours after their wedding and thrusts the revolver into the blowhole of a beached whale.

The Vietnam War is largely recalled as a mistake, either in the decision to engage there or in the nature of the engagement. Or both. Veterans of the war remain largely anonymous figures, accomplices in the mistake. Critically recounting the steps that led to the war, this book does not excuse the mistakes, but it brings those who served out of the shadows. Enduring Vietnam recounts the experiences of the young Americans who fought in Vietnam and of families who grieved those who did not return.

Arthur Parkinson is 14 during the dreary winter of 1974, experiencing the confusing pangs of adolescence and the pain of his parents' divorce. His world is shattered further by the sudden and violent death of Annie Marchand, his beloved former babysitter.

In The Invisible Promise, Harry Beckwith, New York Times bestselling author of the iconic marketing classic, Selling the Invisible, applies his forty-plus years of advising businesses on every continent and his research in the last ten years to impart the proven guidance that businesses of all sizes desperately need. In this new age in marketing, he details how to build digital and nondigital messages that enhance your reputation for integrity; that stand out from the clutter; and that can produce exponential growth while saving you both time and money.

Personal and professional networks shape everything we do. A chance meeting leads to a swanky new job; two businessmen collaborate online and cofound a successful start-up; a friend introduces a promising entrepreneur to a millionaire looking to invest. In this practical guide to discovering the rules of our superconnected world, the authors show that success is less about who you are than how you connect. With an eye toward business applications, Superconnect outlines the new rules of our densely linked society.