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Author: Phil Williams Publisher: iUniverse ISBN: 1450268331 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 417
Book Description
Birdmen is a story about our wars. More specifically, it is the story of two young men caught in the middle of the conflict in Iraq, and their attempts to carve out meaning and purpose in the midst of a war they do not fully understand. As an old veteran in the book says, Something inside all of us dies in a war. Hope innocence maybe just navet? In a sense, we are all struggling in some form or other for a victory that seems to constantly elude us. Suddenly we find ourselves fighting a battle that may provide no real sense of absolution in the end. War is truly ugly. Truth becomes abstracted. Redemption reveals itself as an often unpleasant and complicated process. Soldiers come home from a war expecting to be free and clear of the thing, only too often to find they are still carrying it around inside them. For those who live through it, the war is never really over, and there may be no such thing as a happy ending.
Author: Phil Williams Publisher: iUniverse ISBN: 1450268331 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 417
Book Description
Birdmen is a story about our wars. More specifically, it is the story of two young men caught in the middle of the conflict in Iraq, and their attempts to carve out meaning and purpose in the midst of a war they do not fully understand. As an old veteran in the book says, Something inside all of us dies in a war. Hope innocence maybe just navet? In a sense, we are all struggling in some form or other for a victory that seems to constantly elude us. Suddenly we find ourselves fighting a battle that may provide no real sense of absolution in the end. War is truly ugly. Truth becomes abstracted. Redemption reveals itself as an often unpleasant and complicated process. Soldiers come home from a war expecting to be free and clear of the thing, only too often to find they are still carrying it around inside them. For those who live through it, the war is never really over, and there may be no such thing as a happy ending.
Author: Michael Abrams Publisher: Crown ISBN: 0307419908 Category : Transportation Languages : en Pages : 262
Book Description
The Wright Brothers were wimps. Or so you might think after reading this account of their unsung but even more daring rivals—the men and women who strapped wings to their backs and took to the sky. If only for a few seconds. People have been dying to fly, quite literally, since the dawn of history. They’ve made wings of feather and bone, leather and wood, canvas and taffeta, and thrown themselves off the highest places they could find. Theirs is the world’s first and still most dangerous extreme sport, and its full history has never been told. Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers is a thrilling, hilarious, and often touching chronicle of these obsessive inventors and eccentric daredevils. It traces the story of winged flight from its doomed early pioneers to their glorious high-tech descendants, who’ve at last conquered gravity (sometimes, anyway). Michael Abrams gives us a brilliant bird’s-eye view of what it’s like to fly with wings. And then, inevitably, to fall. In the Immortal Words of Great Birdmen... “Someday I think that everyone will have wings and be able to soar from the housetops. But there must be a lot more experimenting before that can happen.” —Clem Sohn, the world’s first batman, who plummeted to his death at the Paris Air Show in 1937 “The trouble was that he went only halfway up the radio tower. If he had gone clear to the top it would have been different.” —Amadeo Catao Lopes in 1946, explaining the broken legs of the man who tried his wings “One day, a jump will be the last. The jump of death. But that idea does not hold me back.” —Rudolf Richard Boehlen, who died of jump-related injuries in 1953 “It turned out that almost everyone from the thirties and forties had died. That just made me want to do it more.” —Garth Taggart, stunt jumper for The Gypsy Moths, filmed in 1968 “You have to be the first one. The second one is the first loser.” —Felix Baumgartner, who in 2003 became the first birdman to cross the English Channel
Author: Lawrence Goldstone Publisher: Ballantine Books ISBN: 0345538056 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 450
Book Description
From acclaimed historian Lawrence Goldstone comes a thrilling narrative of courage, determination, and competition: the story of the intense rivalry that fueled the rise of American aviation. The feud between this nation’s great air pioneers, the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss, was a collision of unyielding and profoundly American personalities. On one side, a pair of tenacious siblings who together had solved the centuries-old riddle of powered, heavier-than-air flight. On the other, an audacious motorcycle racer whose innovative aircraft became synonymous in the public mind with death-defying stunts. For more than a decade, they battled each other in court, at air shows, and in the newspapers. The outcome of this contest of wills would shape the course of aviation history—and take a fearsome toll on the men involved. Birdmen sets the engrossing story of the Wrights’ war with Curtiss against the thrilling backdrop of the early years of manned flight, and is rich with period detail and larger-than-life personalities: Thomas Scott Baldwin, or “Cap’t Tom” as he styled himself, who invented the parachute and almost convinced the world that balloons were the future of aviation; John Moisant, the dapper daredevil who took to the skies after three failed attempts to overthrow the government of El Salvador, then quickly emerged as a celebrity flyer; and Harriet Quimby, the statuesque silent-film beauty who became the first woman to fly across the English Channel. And then there is Lincoln Beachey, perhaps the greatest aviator who ever lived, who dazzled crowds with an array of trademark twists and dives—and best embodied the romance with death that fueled so many of aviation’s earliest heroes. A dramatic story of unimaginable bravery in the air and brutal competition on the ground, Birdmen is at once a thrill ride through flight’s wild early years and a surprising look at the personal clash that fueled America’s race to the skies. Praise for Birdmen “A meticulously researched account of the first few hectic, tangled years of aviation and the curious characters who pursued it . . . a worthy companion to Richard Holmes’s marvelous history of ballooning, Falling Upwards.”—Time “The daredevil scientists and engineers who forged the field of aeronautics spring vividly to life in Lawrence Goldstone’s history.”—Nature “The history of the development of an integral part of the modern world and a fascinating portrayal of how a group of men and women achieved a dream that had captivated humanity for centuries.”—The Christian Science Monitor “Captivating and wonderfully presented . . . a fine book about these rival pioneers.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] vivid story of invention, vendettas, derring-do, media hype and patent fights [with] modern resonance.”—Financial Times “A powerful story that contrasts soaring hopes with the anchors of ego and courtroom.”—Kirkus Reviews “A riveting narrative about the pioneering era of aeronautics in America and beyond . . . Goldstone raises questions of enduring importance regarding innovation and the indefinite exertion of control over ideas that go public.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Author: Louis Shalako Publisher: Long Cool One Books ISBN: 1927957532 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 10
Book Description
The bird men of Kor live in a brutal world that is very different in spite of its savage beauty. Whether it's hunting, mating or just soaring in the clouds, a strict hierarchy of status and merit is observed at all times. As for the females, they are a prized commodity. It's open season at all times. A short science-fiction fantasy.
Author: Eldon N. Price Publisher: iUniverse ISBN: 0595364225 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 301
Book Description
Senior Birdman: The Guy Who Just Had to Fly is the autobiography of one man's improbable rise from a humble farming community to the glamour and glitz of southern California, the epicenter of aviation development. Starting with an awe-inspiring moment in a desolate field in western Nebraska, the book will wing you-in Forrest Gump-like fashion-through a series of vignettes that bump into the lives of prominent historical figures like General Omar Bradley, Howard Hughes, even Hugh Heffner. Unedited and as raw as a diary, Senior Birdman jumps like a crop duster from naval pre-flight training to McDonnell Douglas to the launch of the DC-8 Jetliner to numerous fly-by commentaries about people, places, big government and life. If you loved the movie The Aviator, you'll want to climb into the cockpit with Eldon Price-pilot, aeronautical engineer, aerospace executive, and family man-and take this short, literary flight through some of aviation history's defining moments.
Author: Valentí Rull Publisher: Springer Nature ISBN: 3030911276 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 623
Book Description
This book addresses the main enigmas of Easter Island’s (Rapa Nui, in the Polynesian language) prehistory from the time of initial settlement to European contact with a multidisciplinary perspective. The main topics include: (i) the time of first settlement and the origin of the first settlers; (ii) the main features of prehistoric Rapanui culture and their changes; (iii) the deforestation of the island and its timing and causes; (iv) the extinction of the indigenous biota, (v) the occurrence of climatic shifts and their potential effects on socioecological trends; (vi) the evidence for a cultural and demographic collapse before European contact; and (vii) the influence of Europeans on prehistoric Rapanui society. The book is subdivided into thematic sections and each chapter is written by renowned specialists in disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology, paleoecology, ethnography, linguistics, ethnobotany, phylogenetics/phylogeography and history. Contributors have been invited to provide an open and objective vision that includes as many views as possible on the topics considered. In this way, the readers may be able to compare different of points of view and make their own interpretations on each of the subjects considered. The book is intended for a wide audience including graduate students, advanced undergraduate students, university teachers and researchers interested in the subject. Given its multidisciplinary character and the topics included, the book is suitable for students and researchers from a wide range of disciplines and interests.
Author: Richard Branson Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1101514213 Category : Transportation Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
One of the world's most famous business leaders (and a well-known avian fanatic) explores the pioneers of flight. Bestselling author and billionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson has always been obsessed with the skies. To promote a new Virgin Airlines route, he became the first man to water ski behind a blimp. His Virgin Galactic venture will soon offer ordinary people the opportunity to experience spaceflight aboard the first commercial spaceliner, SpaceShipTwo. In Reach for the Skies, Branson examines the history of aviation over the last two hundred years, putting the spotlight on trailblazers such as: *Tony Jannus, who made the first ever commercial flight over Tampa Bay, Florida, in 1914. *Leo Valentin, the "bird man" who jumped from 9,000 feet wearing a pair of wooden wings in the 1950s. *Steve Fossett, who broke 130 world records in planes, balloons, and airships. The pioneers of flight-not just the world-famous Wright Brothers, but also lesser known visionaries and dreamers-made it possible for any of us with the desire and the commitment to reach for the skies ourselves.
Author: Ian Hamilton Publisher: Xlibris Corporation ISBN: 1499006195 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 171
Book Description
Will Traverse is a war baby, a Brisbane boy, and in later life a taciturn and solitary retired engineer. But there is another side to Will romantic, lyrical, and deeply sensitive to the culture of the original inhabitants of this part of South-East Queensland. His work on a novel about the impact of the arrival of the Europeans coincides with the unexpected re-kindling of a lost love. As he and Mary Wright hesitantly rediscover their mutual affection the long arc of their own story becomes interwoven with Wills emerging novel. Together, the two stories reveal layers of history of the Brisbane region a metropolis radically transformed again within Wills lifetime. Meanjin Crossing ends enigmatically, a mix of sadness and hope, and certainty that the story is not over.
Author: David K. Vaughan Publisher: McFarland ISBN: 1476648778 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 340
Book Description
Aviation books were a unique and prolific subgenre of American juvenile literature from the early to mid-20th century, drawing upon the nation's intensifying interest. The first books of this type, Harry L. Sayler's series Airship Boys, appeared shortly after the Wright brothers' first successful flight in 1909. Following Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic, popular series like Ted Scott and Andy Lane established the "golden age" of juvenile aviation literature. This work examines the 375 juvenile aviation series titles published between 1909 and 1964. It weaves together several thematic threads, including the placement of aviation narratives within the context of major historical events, the technical accuracy in depictions of flying machines and the ways in which characters reflected the culture of their eras. Three appendices provide publication data for each series, a list of referenced aircraft and an annotated bibliography; there is a full index.