Monster of the Midway

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Author :
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1466853107
Total Pages : 403 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

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Book Synopsis Monster of the Midway by : Jim Dent

Download or read book Monster of the Midway written by Jim Dent and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jim Dent's Monster of the Midway is the story of football's fiercest competitor, the legendary Bronko Nagurski. From his discovery in the middle of a Minnesota field to his 1943 comeback season at Wrigley, from the University of Minnesota to the Hall of Fame, Bronko Nagurksi's life is a story of grit, hard work, passion, and, above all, an unstoppable drive to win. Monster of the Midway recounts Nagurski's unparalleled triumphs during the 1930s and '40s, when the Chicago Bears were the kings of professional football. From 1930, the Bronk's first year, through 1943, his last, the Bears won five NFL titles and played in four other NFL Championship Games. Focusing on Nagurski's 1943 comeback season, and how he miraculously led the Bears to their fourth NFL championship against the backdrop of World War II era Chicago, Jim Dent uncovers the riveting drama of Nagurski's playing days. His efforts were the stuff of legend, and his success in 1943 accomplished in spite of a battered frame, worn-out knees, multiple cracked ribs, and a broken bone in his lower back. While chronicling the drama of the '43 championship chase, Dent also tells of both the Bears' colorful early years and Bronko's improbable rise to fame from the backwoods of northern Minnesota. Woven into the narrative are the sights and smells and sounds of one of the most romantic, flavorful eras of the twentieth century. And laced through it all are stories of legend: Bronko rubbing shoulders with colorful characters like George Halas, Red Grange, Sid Luckman, and Sammy Baugh; Bronko running into (and breaking) the brick wall at Wrigley Field; Bronko winning All-American spots for two positions; Bronko knocking scores of opponents unconscious; and Bronko reaching the heights of football glory and, with rare grace, turning his back on the game after winning his last championship. Rich in unforgettable stories and scenes, this is Jim Dent's account of Bronko Nagurski-arguably the greatest football player who ever lived-and his teammates, the roughest, toughest, rowdiest group of players ever to don leather helmets, and the original Monsters of the Midway.

Ditka

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Publisher : Beyond Words/Atria Books
ISBN 13 : 9780671749996
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (499 download)

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Book Synopsis Ditka by : Armen Keteyian

Download or read book Ditka written by Armen Keteyian and published by Beyond Words/Atria Books. This book was released on 1992 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Millions of Americans see Mike Ditka as the most competitive man on earth. The National Football League's most controversial, intimidating, and charismatic coach, Ditka is an intense monster of a man who embodies not only Chicago and its Bears, but the American Dream." "With the Bears' bizarre 1991 season as a backdrop, award-winning sports journalist Armen Keteyian unearths the Mike Ditka that fans never see - drawing on over two hundred interviews with Ditka's current players (among them Jim Harbaugh, Mike Singletary and Kevin Butler), friends, classmates, former teammates, business associates and family members, including a rare interview with his father. For the first time, Ditka's image is stripped away to reveal the successes - and failures - resulting from his life-long obsession with winning." "Ditka the coach: He's the winningest NFL coach of the 1980s - one hundred and one regular season triumphs in ten years. His crowning achievement was capturing Super Bowl XX with a team led by Jim McMahon, Walter Payton, and William "The Refrigerator" Perry, a team poised to become a dynasty." "Ditka the father: He's a philanthropist and fund-raiser who's raised millions of dollars for disabled children, yet has rarely connected with his own kids." "Ditka the businessman: He's made millions of dollars, yet still suffered staggering losses, leaving a trail of failed enterprises." "Ditka the man: He owns antique cars and collects fine wines. His estimated income is more than five million dollars a year. Despite his wealth, he boasts of being a "common man," but when common men question or criticize his decisions, he dismisses them as "losers in life...$100-a-week guys."" "Keteyian shows how Ditka's personality was forged in a Pennsylvania steel mill town by a doting mother and a distant father who considered praise a poison. Dreading a life in the mills, Ditka used football as his ticket out. He won the Rookie of the Year award with the Bears in 1961, and until this year was the only tight end ever inducted into the Hall of Fame. During his playing career, injuries, drinking, and carousing caught up with him - but nothing could stop Mike Ditka from becoming one of the greatest coaches in football today." "Perhaps the most compelling insight in Ditka: Monster of the Midway is this: Despite his 1988 heart attack and a dramatic moment of self-realization a year later after hearing the born-again testimony of an ex-NFL player - an event that has gone unreported until now - Ditka remains a man tied to one constant in life. It has left him suffering innumerable personal losses." "In Ditka: Monster of the Midway, Armen Keteyian reveals the many sides of the walking, talking contradiction that is "Iron Mike" Ditka. An astute analysis of how a future football dynasty fell apart, Ditka: Monster of the Midway is also the story of the 1991 football season - one of Ditka's finest as a coach, and one that will prove crucial to his future. Ditka: Monster of the Midway is sports reporting at its best, the most comprehensive and hardest-hitting account of the life and times of Mike Ditka and his Chicago Bears."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Nightmare Alley

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Author :
Publisher : New York Review of Books
ISBN 13 : 1590174283
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Nightmare Alley by : William Lindsay Gresham

Download or read book Nightmare Alley written by William Lindsay Gresham and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2011-04-06 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soon to be a major motion picture from Academy Award–winning director Guillermo del Toro and starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, and Toni Collette. Nightmare Alley begins with an extraordinary description of a carnival-show geek—alcoholic and abject and the object of the voyeuristic crowd’s gleeful disgust and derision—going about his work at a county fair. Young Stan Carlisle is working as a carny, and he wonders how a man could fall so low. There’s no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him. And since Stan is clever and ambitious and not without a useful streak of ruthlessness, soon enough he’s going places. Onstage he plays the mentalist with a cute assistant (before long his harried wife), then he graduates to full-blown spiritualist, catering to the needs of the rich and gullible in their well-upholstered homes. It looks like the world is Stan’s for the taking. At least for now.

Grindshow

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781613471111
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (711 download)

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Book Synopsis Grindshow by : William Lindsay Gresham

Download or read book Grindshow written by William Lindsay Gresham and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Only collection of William Lindsay Gresham's fiction and essays ever published. Profusely illustrated with a stimulating biographical introduction.

Monsters

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Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 0374708959
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis Monsters by : Rich Cohen

Download or read book Monsters written by Rich Cohen and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football is the New York Times bestselling gripping account of a once-in-a-lifetime team and their lone Super Bowl season. For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team: they were the greatest football team ever—a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city. It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won, but how they did it. On offense, there was high-stepping running back Walter Payton and Punky QB Jim McMahon, who had a knack for pissing off Coach Mike Ditka as he made his way to the end zone. On defense, there was the 46: a revolutionary, quarterback-concussing scheme cooked up by Buddy Ryan and ruthlessly implemented by Hall of Famers such as Dan "Danimal" Hampton and "Samurai" Mike Singletary. On the sidelines, in the locker rooms, and in bars, there was the never-ending soap opera: the coach and the quarterback bickering on TV, Ditka and Ryan nearly coming to blows in the Orange Bowl, the players recording the "Super Bowl Shuffle" video the morning after the season's only loss. Cohen tracked down the coaches and players from this iconic team and asked them everything he has always wanted to know: What's it like to win? What's it like to lose? Do you really hate the guys on the other side? Were you ever scared? What do you think as you lie broken on the field? How do you go on after you have lived your dream but life has not ended? The result is Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football, a portrait not merely of a team but of a city and a game: its history, its future, its fallen men, its immortal heroes. But mostly it's about being a fan—about loving too much. This is a book about America at its most nonsensical, delirious, and joyful.

Secrets of the Sideshows

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Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 9780813123585
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (235 download)

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Book Synopsis Secrets of the Sideshows by : Joe Nickell

Download or read book Secrets of the Sideshows written by Joe Nickell and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2005-09-09 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Joe Nickell - once a carnival pitchman, then a magician, private detective, and investigative writer - has pursued sideshow secrets for years and has worked the famous carnival midway at the Canadian National Exhibition. For this book, he interviewed showmen and performers, collected carnival memorabilia, researched published accounts of sideshows and their lore, and even performed some classic sideshow feats, such as eating fire and lying on a bed of nails as a cinderblock was broken on his chest. The result of these varied efforts, Secrets of the Sideshows tells the captivating story of the magic, tricks - real or illusory - and performers of the world's midway shows."--BOOK JACKET.

Sad Monsters

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 110155116X
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis Sad Monsters by : Frank Lesser

Download or read book Sad Monsters written by Frank Lesser and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-09-27 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Emmy Award-winning writer for The Colbert Report follows in the (big) footsteps of Bigfoot: I Not Dead. Monsters have it tough. Besides being deeply misunderstood, they suffer from very real problems: Mummies have body image issues, Godzilla is going through an existential crisis, and creatures from the black lagoon face discrimination from creatures from the white lagoon. At heart, these monsters are human; after all, you are what you eat. Quirkily illustrated, Sad Monsters hilariously documents the trials and tribulations of all the undead creatures monster-mad readers have grown to love, from vampires and werewolves, to chupacabras and sphinxes, and even claw-footed bathtubs.

Midway Relics and Dying Breeds

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Author :
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1466881844
Total Pages : 49 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

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Book Synopsis Midway Relics and Dying Breeds by : Seanan McGuire

Download or read book Midway Relics and Dying Breeds written by Seanan McGuire and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-09-24 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The trouble with wanting to do the right thing is that frequently the right thing today is the wrong thing for tomorrow, or the wrong thing for the people who are standing between you and your perfect, platonic future. The wild was the wrong place for our elephant, just like the recycler was the wrong place for Billie, and the cities were the wrong place for me." A tale of bioengineering, a carnival, and the cost of finding one's right place. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Can't Knock the Hustle

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Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0063036827
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (63 download)

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Book Synopsis Can't Knock the Hustle by : Matt Sullivan

Download or read book Can't Knock the Hustle written by Matt Sullivan and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Sportswriter Sullivan takes readers on a propulsive ride in his tour-de-force debut. . . . Sullivan’s detailed account will intrigue anyone who cares about sports and the role it plays in social justice today.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) "More than a basketball book, this helps explain race relations, celebrity power, and personal choice in a changed world." — Kirkus Reviews "A must-read for its in-depth look at the mental, economic, and political tribulations of NBA players." — Library Journal (starred review) "Only a brilliantly audacious book could begin to make sense of the weirdly brilliant audacity of the new Brooklyn Nets. One writer on Earth could have written this book this way — with the profundity of a sage baller and acuity of a seasoned journalist — and that writer is Matt Sullivan." — Kiese Laymon, New York Times best-selling author of Heavy “With Can't Knock The Hustle, Matt Sullivan correctly positions the basketball games we love as both a prism through which to understand our culture, and a battlefield on which to fight for the better angels of that culture. On the surface, it's a story about the unending march of 2020. But once you finish it, you understand that it's also an essential document about the decades that led us to this moment, and about the future decades yet unspooled." — Wright Thompson, ESPN senior writer and New York Times bestselling author of Pappyland and The Cost of These Dreams “In the dueling eras of unprecedented athlete empowerment and the coarse ugliness of 'shut up and dribble,' Matt Sullivan's Can't Knock the Hustle offers a can't-look-away sampling of not merely the NBA's most fascinating franchise, but a frozen period in time that will leave historians both horrified and riveted." — Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of Three-Ring Circus and Showtime “Matt Sullivan is one helluva social anthropologist, and as a result, his Can't Knock the Hustle amounts to way more than a journey with the Brooklyn Nets, or an examination of the modern-day athlete. This is an astute, ambitious book about the glory and torment of talent itself. Basketball? That's just the starting point, and what a trip Sullivan's remarkable odyssey turns out to be.” — James Andrew Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Those Guys Have All the Fun, Live From New York, and Powerhouse “Can't Knock the Hustle is a terrific book because it gives us something in woefully short supply: real journalism. Matt Sullivan has discovered the ground zero of a player revolution—and it's in Brooklyn. Is anybody ready for it?" — Howard Bryant, ESPN senior writer and author of Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field “The superstar-studded Brooklyn Nets are basketball's most captivating team, and Can't Knock the Hustle delivers a fascinating secret history of their journey to the pantheon of player activism and empowerment. With brilliant reporting and breakneck prose, this is our generation's Moneyball.” — Don Van Natta Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning ESPN investigative reporter and New York Times bestselling author of First Off the Tee and Wonder Girl “No narrative has captured the dynamics of the ‘player empowerment’ movement quite like Can’t Knock the Hustle. Sullivan has written about as revealing a basketball book as there's been in a long time: an insider’s account with an outsider’s moxie.” — Dave Zirin, The Nation sports editor and author of The Kaepernick Effect

The '85 Bears

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Author :
Publisher : Triumph Books
ISBN 13 : 1633193217
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (331 download)

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Book Synopsis The '85 Bears by : Mike Ditka

Download or read book The '85 Bears written by Mike Ditka and published by Triumph Books. This book was released on 2015-09-14 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ultimate record of a great franchise's greatest season as told by none other than Da Coach himself In Ditka's own words, this 30th anniversary volume of The '85 Bears is packed with special features that make it the ultimate must-have treasure for every Bears fan. This updated edition features the authors' reflections on the incredible championship season as well as recaps and statistics for every regular- and post-season game bring the entire 1985 campaign to life. Interviews with fan favorites—from the Fridge to Buddy Ryan—as well as special commentary from Gary Fencik offer extra insight into the team's Super Bowl run. Capping off a truly memorable volume is a bonus audio CD that features an exclusive interview with Mike Ditka, providing even more memories from a truly golden era of Chicago football.

Heir to the Sky

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Publisher : Harlequin
ISBN 13 : 0373211910
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (732 download)

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Book Synopsis Heir to the Sky by : Amanda Sun

Download or read book Heir to the Sky written by Amanda Sun and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2016 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As heir to a kingdom of floating continents, Kali has spent her life bound by limits: by her duties as a member of the royal family, by a forced betrothal to the son of a nobleman, and by the edge of the only world she's ever knowna small island hovering above a monster-ridden earth, long since uninhabited by humans. When Kali falls off the edge of her kingdom and miraculously survives, she is shocked to discover there are still humans on the earth. Determined to get home, Kali entrusts a rugged monster-hunter named Griffin to guide her across a world overrun by chimera, storm dragons, basilisks and other terrifying creatures. But the more time she spends on earth, the more dark truths she begins to uncover about her home in the sky, and the more resolute she is to start burning for herself."--Page [4] of cover.

Cloyce Box, 6'4" and Bulletproof

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Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 1623495768
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (234 download)

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Book Synopsis Cloyce Box, 6'4" and Bulletproof by : Michael Barr

Download or read book Cloyce Box, 6'4" and Bulletproof written by Michael Barr and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cloyce Box was an American original. He was handsome, athletic, intelligent, and ambitious, and his life was the stuff of which dreams and miniseries are made. Starting out as a dirt-poor farm boy from the Texas backcountry, he used his great talents to become a star in the National Football League, a corporate CEO, and a very wealthy man. He was fearless, flamboyant, and controversial. His story is an epic Texas tale of football, cattle, horses, oil, money, power, incredible success, and spectacular failure. The ranch he owned near Frisco, Texas, became famous as the fictional Southfork Ranch on the hit television show Dallas. Financial over-reaching eventually cost him his fortune, just before his death in 1993. With access to Cloyce Box’s personal files and photographs as well as the assistance of his subject’s family and friends, Michael Barr has crafted a biography that is at once clear-eyed and sensitive, allowing the complex character of Cloyce Box to engage and challenge the reader.

Houdini

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781387890026
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Houdini by : William Lindsay Gresham

Download or read book Houdini written by William Lindsay Gresham and published by . This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No magician has captured the imagination of the world as did Harry Houdini, his very name a byword for stunning, amazing escapes. In this authoritative biography, acclaimed author and noted psychic skeptic, William Lindsay Gresham details the life of the great man. The strands of Houdini's life are chronicled in rich detail; the stage illusions and their invention, his private life as he traveled the world, and Houdini's passion for exposing the frauds and scams of the 'psychic' world. Houdini's legendary illusions are explained and give a fascinating insight into their construction, created with simplicity that is the essence of true genius.

The Gospel of Power: Egoist Essays by Dora Marsden: Egoist Essays by

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781944651206
Total Pages : 390 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (512 download)

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Book Synopsis The Gospel of Power: Egoist Essays by Dora Marsden: Egoist Essays by by : Dora Marsden

Download or read book The Gospel of Power: Egoist Essays by Dora Marsden: Egoist Essays by written by Dora Marsden and published by . This book was released on 2021-03-05 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays by Dora Marsden (1882 - 1960) from her journal "The Egoist." Introduction, annotations, glossary and index by Trevor Blake, author of "Dora Marsden Bibliography." Read the Gospel of Power... "What a blight it is on life, to be sure, that honest speech is almost non-existent. Lo and behold, all are alike: the secret sin against the spirit of peace is universal, and can be proclaimed from the housetops. The 'poor' man is the one who lacks the power to get what he wants. If he had had the 'might, ' the 'competence' to cover the wide expanse of these 'rights, ' he would not be in the position of a beggar asking for the favour of a job from a master: he would have set about being his own master: the one thing which to this day the ordinary wage earner steadily refuses to be. 'Reformers' have tried to get a comprehensive view of the 'world's work'-which does not exist save in their own imagination-and they have come to neglect and hold lightly work viewed from its only real aspect-the personal satisfying of needs and wants as they rise up spontaneously from each varying individual. Social rebels will get no way until they acquiesce willingly in men and women being what they are: accept their oddities and wayward differences and then make the best and most of them to serve their individual ends."

Billboard

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 196 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Billboard by :

Download or read book Billboard written by and published by . This book was released on 1948-03-27 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.

The Mystery Chronicles

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Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813126754
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mystery Chronicles by : Joe Nickell

Download or read book The Mystery Chronicles written by Joe Nickell and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2010-09-12 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a foreword by James Randi Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell has spent more than thirty years solving the world's most perplexing mysteries. This new casebook reveals the secrets of the Winchester Mystery House, the giant Nazca drawings of Peru, the Shroud of Turin, the "Mothman" enigma, the Amityville Horror house, the vicious goatsucking El Chupacabras, and numerous other "unexplainable" paranormal phenomena. Nickell has traveled far and wide to solve cases, which include a weeping icon in Russia, the elusive Bigfoot-like "yowie" in Australia, the reputed power of a headless saint in Spain, and an "alien hybrid" in Germany. He has gone undercover—often in disguise—to reveal the tricks of those who pretend to talk to the dead, accompanied a Cajun guide into a Louisiana swamp in search of a fabled monster, and gained an audience with a voodoo queen. Superstar psychic medium John Edward, pet psychic Sonya Fitzpatrick, evangelist and healer Benny Hinn, and many other well-known figures have found themselves under Nickell's careful scrutiny. The Mystery Chronicles examines more than three dozen intriguing mysteries. Nickell uses a hands-on approach and the scientific method to steer between the extremes of mystery mongering and debunking. His investigative skills have won him both acclaim and controversy during his long career as one of the world's foremost paranormal investigators.

Freak Show

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022622743X
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis Freak Show by : Robert Bogdan

Download or read book Freak Show written by Robert Bogdan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-12-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This cultural history of the travelling freak show in America chronicles the rise and fall of the industry as attitudes about disability evolved. From 1840 until 1940, hundreds of freak shows crisscrossed the United States, from the smallest towns to the largest cities, exhibiting their casts of dwarfs, giants, Siamese twins, bearded ladies, savages, snake charmers, fire eaters, and other oddities. By today’s standards such displays would be considered cruel and exploitative—the pornography of disability. Yet for one hundred years the freak show was widely accepted as one of America’s most popular forms of entertainment. Robert Bogdan’s fascinating social history brings to life the world of the freak show and explores the culture that nurtured and, later, abandoned it. In uncovering this neglected chapter of show business, he describes in detail the flimflam artistry behind the shows, the promoters and the audiences, and the gradual evolution of public opinion from awe to embarrassment. Freaks were not born, Bogdan reveals; they were manufactured by the amusement world, usually with the active participation of the freaks themselves. Many of the "human curiosities" found fame and fortune, until the ascent of professional medicine transformed them from marvels into pathological specimens.