Publisher: The Penguin Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/16/2013
ISBN-13: 9781594204593
ISBN-10: 1594204594

Before award-winning journalist Emma Brockes was born in England, her mother had left South Africa and started a whole new life. Paula Brockes had offered small bits of information about her life before emigration, but only on her deathbed did she explain enough to propel her daughter to investigate Paula's past. In She Left me the Gun, Emma gradually reveals the shocking truth about her grandfather's abuses, which she learns from official documents and interviews with her mother's siblings -- whose warm and loving memories of Paula balance out their bitter memories of their father. Emma paints this family portrait against the background of beautiful southern Africa, making her account "even more poignant and unforgettable," says Kirkus Reviews.

Publisher: National Geographic Society
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/07/2013
ISBN-13: 9781426210198
ISBN-10: 1426210191

During World War II, young journalist Walter Cronkite, Jr. reported for UP, the newspaper wire service, from England and other places. In this collection edited by Cronkite's grandson Walter Cronkite IV and historian Maurice Isserman, Cronkite reports in letters to his wife, recounting his experiences in personal, rather than journalistic, terms. He mentions the challenges (though not the dangers) of being a neophyte reporter in a war zone, describes the journalist's daily routine, and -- most of all -- expresses his love for his wife Betsy. This volume will captivate those who remember Cronkite's later years as CBS' evening news anchor as well as those who are generally interested in war correspondents and World War II.

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Publisher: Riverhead Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/16/2013
ISBN-13: 9781594487200
ISBN-10: 1594487200

After her daughter left for college, author Sue Halpern realized that her Labradoodle, Pransky, was bored, so she enrolled Pransky (and herself) in a therapy dog course. Though Halpern was uncertain about being around old people, she volunteered for a regular visitation with Pransky at a local nursing home. Immediately it became clear that Pransky knew exactly how to relate to people, no matter what their age or physical condition, and Halpern learned from him. Her heartwarming (but not sentimental) memoir paints engaging portraits of the nursing home's residents while revealing in practical terms the meaning of the seven virtues she places as her chapter headings: restraint, prudence, faith, fortitude, hope, love, and charity.

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/11/2013
ISBN-13: 9781455503254
ISBN-10: 1455503258

Beginning in 1959 with the selection of the first crew members of the Mercury space program, a small group of women who had been ordinary military wives became celebrities. These astronauts' wives had to be perfect representatives of the space program. Everything, down to their clothing and the food they served their families, was scrutinized by NASA. In response, they formed a support group that grew to include the wives of the Gemini and Apollo astronauts and became an essential resource during the stresses of waiting on the ground while their husbands orbited in space -- or after spacecraft mishaps. This group portrait offers an intimate and informative view behind the scenes of the space program's early years.

Publisher: Crown Archetype
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/07/2013
ISBN-13: 9780770436209
ISBN-10: 077043620X

Believe it or not, there was a real person behind the newspaper column and television series, Ripley's Believe It or Not! Robert Ripley was a man with wide-ranging interests who initially wanted to be a pro baseball player but wound up creating a popular informational cartoon series that made him very wealthy. He traveled the world in search of unusual facts and artifacts, and though he was socially awkward and rather eccentric, his personal life was as fascinating as the unusual facts he collected. Author Neal Thompson illustrates A Curious Man with curiosities from Ripley's extraordinary career, bringing to life an irresistibly outlandish character.

First Chapter  

Here are some books that offer insight into the phenomenon of serial murderers; some are biographies of the killers, while others portray the investigators.

Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/28/2007
ISBN-13: 9780787984847
ISBN-10: 0787984841

Serial murderer BTK, whose real name was Dennis Rader, terrorized Wichita, Kansas for three decades with horrendous killing sprees interrupted by years of inactivity. When he was finally identified and arrested -- in part due to author John Douglas' work as a profiler -- he turned out to be an apparently ordinary middle-class man with a huge, megalomaniacal ego. Inside the Mind of BTK is based on Douglas' interviews with Rader in prison in addition to records covering years of investigative work. There are other books about BTK, including Roy Wenzl's Blind, Torture, Kill, but Douglas' exclusive access to Rader makes this biography especially thorough and insightful.

First Chapter  Table of Contents  

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/10/2012
ISBN-13: 9781439199022
ISBN-10: 1439199027

After 15-year-old Tony Ciaglia recovered from a severe head injury, he exhibited odd behavior and a tendency to develop obsessions, including a strong interest in serial killers. He began corresponding with several murderers who were in prison, and the killers seemed pleased to send him details about their crimes. Ciaglia began sharing some of these letters with victims' families, offering them closure after the deaths of loved ones, and later with police, who reopened some cold cases as a result. The book includes unedited descriptions of many of these crimes, so it's not for sensitive readers, but it offers fascinating insight into the criminals' minds as well as the investigations.

First Chapter  

Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/07/2006
ISBN-13: 9780393059809
ISBN-10: 0393059804

When he was just a year old, Sebastian Junger (author of The Perfect Storm) lived in Belmont, Massachusetts, close to where a 1963 murder occurred during the Boston Strangler's reign of terror. African-American cleaning man Roy Smith was convicted of the killing, though he claimed he was innocent. At the time, Italian-American Albert DeSalvo was working on a renovation project at the Junger house -- and he later confessed to all of the Boston Strangler murders except the one in Belmont. Junger painstakingly reexamines the lives of DeSalvo and Smith, considering the possibilities that DeSalvo might not have been the Strangler and that Smith was both a victim of racism and in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 08/01/2003
ISBN-13: 9780312983840
ISBN-10: 0312983840

Author Jack Olsen gained an unusual level of access to serial murderer Keith Hunter Jesperson, the "Happy Face Killer" who was imprisoned for killing eight women in Oregon during the 1990s. Drawing on interviews with Jesperson and his diaries as well as court records, I uniquely presents the killer's own perspective on his life and crimes, alternating with third-person accounts of the crimes themselves. Olsen recounts Jesperson's childhood, his career as a truck driver that allowed him to roam across the countryside looking for women to assault and kill, and his decision to allow himself to be caught. Though focusing on the killer's point of view may detract from the book's objectivity, it offers an unusual up-close glimpse into Jesperson's thought processes.

Publisher: CFI
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/08/2009
ISBN-13: 9781599552385
ISBN-10: 1599552388

The story of the early life of Melissa G. Moore, daughter of convicted serial killer Keith Jesperson.  From her secret life as "the daughter of The Happy Face Serial Murderer" to a woman that bared her soul and inspired millions, Melissa leads the reader on the vulnerable, compelling, and sometimes very raw journey of what it took to shatter the silence, and claim her own life.

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