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Boy From the Valleys: My unexpected journey
by Luke EvansFrom his humble beginnings in a quaint Welsh mining village to the dazzling lights of Hollywood, much-loved star, Luke Evans takes us on a poignant and inspiring journey that spans from the heart of Wales to behind the scenes of the global stage.Growing up in a small village in the Rhymney Valley, south Wales, Luke Evans’ early life was shaped by his Jehovah's Witness upbringing. While most children of his age spent their Saturday mornings watching Going Live on television, young Luke would dress in a suit and tie and join his parents to knock on doors to spread the word of his religion. From an early age, he felt different. This feeling of displacement was not limited to his faith; as he came to terms with his own sexuality, he also faced a difficult and uncertain path. In his poignant, tender and often humorous account, Luke shares his bold decision to leave home – and the religion – at seventeen to move to London, where the vibrant Soho scene captured his heart, invigorated his creative journey as an actor and opened a whole new world of opportunity.In finding himself, Luke also discovered his passions of singing, acting and performing. Starring first on the West End stages in iconic productions like Miss Saigon, Avenue Q and Rent, he quickly captivated the hearts of audiences and caught the eye of Hollywood's elite, going on to secure roles in blockbuster films such as The Hobbit, Beauty and the Beast, Fast and Furious and Dracula Untold.In this intimate memoir, Luke takes us behind the scenes of his career on the stage and screen. He writes beautifully of the relationship he now has with his family and the respect they all have for one another on their different paths. Luke's story is a powerful tale of resilience, courage, and the pursuit of finding a sense of belonging and identity, but mostly (and hopefully) a story of inspiration.
Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the Architect of George W. Bush's Remarkable Political Triumphs
by Lou Dubose Jan Reid Carl M. CannonGeorge W. Bush calls Karl Rove boy genius and the man with the plan. Insiders call him the man behind the Republican ascendancy. Who is this guy? And what is the plan?
Boy Meets Depression: Or Life Sucks and Then You Live
by Kevin BreelNote to Self: When you feel f&*ed up: Stop. Breathe. Talk to someone. Tell them stuff. Stop being an asshole and thinking you're going to get through it alone. Problems are like broken pipes: they need a person to fix them. Oh, and clean your room, you filthy animal. Kevin Breel burst into the public's awareness when at 19 his TED talk became a worldwide phenomenon. Through the lens of his own near suicide, he shared his profoundly vulnerable story of being young, male and depressed in a culture that has no place for that. BOY MEETS DEPRESSION is a book that explores what it means to struggle and tells an honest, heartfelt story about how a meaningful life isn't found in perfection, it's found in our ability to heal and accept the dark parts of ourselves.From the Hardcover edition.
Boy Nevada Killed, The: Floyd Loveless and the Juvenile Capital Punishment Debate (True Crime)
by Janice OberdingAt seventeen, Floyd Burton Loveless became the youngest person ever executed by the state of Nevada. What led him to that end was just as tragic. Following a series of family catastrophes, Loveless was a petty thief by age twelve and a confessed rapist at fifteen. Sentenced to seven years at an Indiana state boys’ reformatory, he escaped after a month in custody. The ruthless teen robbed his way to Carlin, Nevada, where he shot and killed a constable who spotted the stolen car he was driving and confronted him. After a protracted legal battle, Loveless died in the gas chamber on September 29, 1944. Author Janice Oberding recounts the sordid details that sparked national controversy over the constitutionality of juvenile capital punishment.
Boy Wanted on Savile Row: From Apprentice to Tailoring Icon
by Timothy EverestThe son of restaurateurs, young Timothy Everest wanted nothing more than to be a racing driver. This was not to be, but little did he know that a job he took at age 17 – as a sales assistant at Hepworths in Milford Haven – would set the trajectory for success to come.Boy Wanted on Savile Row is the remarkable story of Everest’s meteoric rise in the British fashion industry. Starting in the 1980s and studying under Tommy Nutter, the rebel of Savile Row, while rubbing shoulders with the likes of Steve Strange and Boy George, he branched out on his own the following decade. Here he initially styled bands and pop stars, before spearheading the ‘Cool Britannia’ generation and becoming the face of the New Bespoke Movement. After earning over 3,500 clients, including Tom Cruise, David Beckham and Jay-Z, to name but a few, Everest turned his hand to tailoring for film, creating some truly iconic pieces for such franchises as James Bond and Mission Impossible.In this revealing memoir, featuring a wealth of famous names and celebrity anecdotes, Timothy Everest details the evolution of British tailoring that has shaped the way we view and buy our clothes.
Boy With A Knife
by Jean TrounstineNearly a quarter of a million youth are tried, sentenced, or imprisoned as adults every year across the United States. On any given day, ten thousand youth are detained or incarcerated in adult jails and prisons. Putting a human face to these sobering statistics, Boy With A Knife tells the story of Karter Kane Reed, who, at the age of sixteen, was sentenced to life in an adult prison for a murder he committed in 1993 in a high school classroom. Twenty years later, in 2013, he became one of the few men in Massachusetts to sue the Parole Board and win his freedom. The emotional and devastating narrative takes us step by step through Karter's crime, trial, punishment, and survival in prison, as well as his readjustment into regular society. In addition to being a powerful portrayal of one boy trying to come to terms with the consequences of his tragic actions, Boy With A Knife is also a searing critique of the practice of sentencing youth to adult prisons, providing a wake-up call on how we must change the laws in this country that allow children to be sentenced as adults.
Boy Wonders: A memoir
by Cathal Kelly"The most fascinating things about life are the banalities we so rarely discuss amongst ourselves but that we devote most of our energies to navigating. How did that day you've forgotten look? What did it feel like? Were you lonely? Did you have the sense you were progressing anywhere? Probably not. Yet string a few thousand of them together and that’s a life." —From Boy Wonders Cathal Kelly grew up in the seventies and eighties, decades when dressing like Michael Jackson seemed like a good idea and The Beachcombers—"an adventure show about logging"—seemed to make sense. But beyond fashion missteps and baffling TV-show premises, Kelly's youth was a time of wonder, obsession and the thrill of discovery. Navigating an often fraught family life, Kelly sought refuge in books, bands, movies, games and at least one backyard hole. However, looking back he sees that his passion for George Orwell, Star Wars or The Smiths was never just about the book, movie or band. Rather, it was about the promise each new experience offered in helping him to make sense of the world, and how he might find a home within it. By turns funny, elegiac and insightful, Boy Wonders is an unvarnished celebration of growing up and stumbling toward identity. It's about the good and the bad of those brief years when we find purpose without end, obsession without limit and joy in the strangest of places.
Boy from Nowhere: A Life in Ninety-One Countries
by Allan FotheringhamAs one of Canada’s pre-eminent newspaper and magazine journalists, Allan Fotheringham has met everybody from Bobby Kennedy and Pierre Trudeau to The Beatles and Nelson Mandela. Born in Hearne, Saskatchewan, in 1932, Allan Fotheringham has had a distinguished career. Dubbed "Dr. Foth," Fotheringhamgraduated from the University of British Columbia andhas worked for numerous news organizations, including the Vancouver Sun, Southam News, The Financial Post, Sun Media, the Globe and Mail, and most notably as a long-time columnist for Maclean’s.His career hastaken him to many places on almost every continent as a correspondent and allowed him to meet many renowned personalities, from Robert F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan,and Brian Mulroney toThe Beatles, Pierre Trudeau, and Nelson Mandela.Forten years he was apanellist on the popular CBC-TV show Front Page Challenge, and he’s won many awards, includingthe National Magazine Award for Humour, a National Newspaper Award for Column Writing, and the Bruce Hutchinson Life Achievement Award.Time once described Allan Fotheringham as "Canada’s most consistently controversial newspaper columnist … a tangier critic of complacency has rarely appeared in a Canadian newspaper."
Boy in a China Shop: Life, Clay and Everything
by Keith Brymer Jones'During downtime on the pottery throwdown Keith made my hair curl with some of his tales - he's a great raconteur and recounts his story in this book as he does in real life - with joy, charm & mischief.' - Sara CoxBallet dancer. Front man in an almost famous band. Judge on The Great Pottery Throwdown. How did all that happen?By accident mostly. But I always say we make our own luck. What if an art teacher hadn't given me a lump of clay? What if the band had been really successful? What if I hadn't taken a photograph of a bowl to the buyer at Heals in London? What if she'd hated it? Or hadn't seen it... What if I hadn't agreed to dress up as Adele to make a crazy YouTube video? Every chapter of my book is based around an object (usually a pot) that's been significant in my life. It's just at trigger to let me go off in a lot of different directions and tell a few stories. A lot of stories. Dyslexia. The art teacher who changed my life. My Mother. My Father. A life-changing job interview with a man who lay under his car throughout. That video.Sifting through half-forgotten memories, trying to pick out the golden nuggets from the stuff that is definitely dross has been a curious, and at times hilarious, sometimes sad, but definitely enlightening process. So here it is - my pottery life with some very loud music and some pretty good dancing. And a lot of throwing, fettling and firing. Oh ...and a good dose of anxiety.
Boy in a China Shop: Life, Clay and Everything
by Keith Brymer Jones'During downtime on the pottery throwdown Keith made my hair curl with some of his tales - he's a great raconteur and recounts his story in this book as he does in real life - with joy, charm & mischief.' - Sara CoxBallet dancer. Front man in an almost famous band. Judge on The Great Pottery Throwdown. How did all that happen?By accident mostly. But I always say we make our own luck. What if an art teacher hadn't given me a lump of clay? What if the band had been really successful? What if I hadn't taken a photograph of a bowl to the buyer at Heals in London? What if she'd hated it? Or hadn't seen it... What if I hadn't agreed to dress up as Adele to make a crazy YouTube video? Every chapter of my book is based around an object (usually a pot) that's been significant in my life. It's just at trigger to let me go off in a lot of different directions and tell a few stories. A lot of stories. Dyslexia. The art teacher who changed my life. My Mother. My Father. A life-changing job interview with a man who lay under his car throughout. That video.Sifting through half-forgotten memories, trying to pick out the golden nuggets from the stuff that is definitely dross has been a curious, and at times hilarious, sometimes sad, but definitely enlightening process. So here it is - my pottery life with some very loud music and some pretty good dancing. And a lot of throwing, fettling and firing. Oh ...and a good dose of anxiety.
Boy in a China Shop: Life, Clay and Everything
by Keith Brymer JonesThe star presenter and judge of Channel 4's The Great Pottery Throw Down looks back on his life and career - and the passion for ceramics that started it all.Keith Brymer Jones is the star presenter and judge of Channel 4's The Great Pottery Throw Down famous for his emotional responses to the heartfelt and personal pieces made by contestants on the show. He is also the ultimate professional craftsman who's done the hard yards to get where he is today, working his way up from being a skivvy in an industrial pottery to running his own hugely successful international ceramics business. Here, in his first ever memoir, Keith tells the story of his life and inspiring rise to success through the objects and images that have been meaningful to him every step of the way, as he recounts key moments and events as well as the people and places that have shaped him. From his childhood and early devotion to dance to discovering clay at the age of eleven, to his tough apprenticeship at Harefield Pottery and struggles to establish his own business, this memoir goes beyond the TV show to offer us a rare insight into Keith's own philosophy and outlook on life.(P)2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Boy in the Cupboard
by Shane DunphyPetru and Elvira Tomescu and their young son, Litovoi, are a Romanian family, desperate to start afresh in a new country. Yet their past has already caught up with them, and three-year-old Litovoi is about to pay a terrible price ...
Boy in the Well: A Scottish murder mystery with a twist you won't see coming (DI Westphall 2) (DI Westphall #2)
by Douglas LindsayBook 2 in the DI Westphall series.'The Boy in the Well is a dark and satisfying mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the company of DI Ben Westphall, a compelling personality . . . This one comes thoroughly recommended' James OswaldThe body of a young boy is discovered at the bottom of a well that has been sealed for two hundred years.Yet the corpse is only days old . . .Soon, similarities from an old crime emerge and DI Ben Westphall must look to the past to piece together the dark and twisted events taking place in the present.(P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Boy on Fire: The Young Nick Cave
by Mark MordueThe first volume of the long-awaited, near-mythical biography of Nick Cave, by award-winning writer Mark Mordue. An intensely beautiful, profound, and poetic biography of the formative years of the dark prince of rock 'n' roll, Boy on Fire is Nick Cave's creation story, a portrait of the artist first as a boy, then as a young man. A deeply insightful work that charts his family, friends, influences, milieu, and, most of all, his music, the book reveals how Nick Cave shaped himself into the extraordinary artist he would become. A powerful account of a singular, uncompromising artist, Boy on Fire is also a vivid and evocative rendering of a time and place, from the fast-running dark rivers and ghost gums of country-town Australia to the torn wallpaper, sticky carpet, and manic energy of the nascent punk scene which hit staid 1970s Melbourne like an atom bomb. Boy on Fire is a stunning biographical achievement.
Boy on Ice: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard
by John BranchWinner of the 2015 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing The much-anticipated debut from the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, Boy on Ice is a moving human story and behind-the-scenes account of a life lived in the glare of sporting fame. The tragic death of hockey star Derek Boogaard at twenty-eight was front-page news across the country in 2011 and helped shatter the silence about violence and concussions in professional sports. Now, in a gripping work of narrative nonfiction, acclaimed reporter John Branch tells the shocking story of Boogaard's life and heartbreaking death. Boy on Ice is the richly told story of a mountain of a man who made it to the absolute pinnacle of his sport. Widely regarded as the toughest man in the NHL, Boogaard was a gentle man off the ice but a merciless fighter on it. With great narrative drive, Branch recounts Boogaard's unlikely journey from lumbering kid playing pond-hockey on the prairies of Saskatchewan, so big his skates would routinely break beneath his feet; to his teenaged junior hockey days, when one brutal outburst of violence brought Boogaard to the attention of professional scouts; to his days and nights as a star enforcer with the Minnesota Wild and the storied New York Rangers, capable of delivering career-ending punches and intimidating entire teams. But, as Branch reveals, behind the scenes Boogaard's injuries and concussions were mounting and his mental state was deteriorating, culminating in his early death from an overdose of alcohol and painkillers. Based on months of investigation and hundreds of interviews with Boogaard's family, friends, teammates, and coaches, Boy on Ice is a brilliant work for fans of Michael Lewis's The Blind Side or Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights. This is a book that raises deep and disturbing questions about the systemic brutality of contact sports--from peewees to professionals--and the damage that reaches far beyond the game. * A 2014 Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
Boy on a Wire
by Jon DoustDepicting the full spectrum of adolescent alienation, this engaging, coming-of-age narrative is a humorous blend of novel and memoir. A sensitive, quick-witted boy from a small town, Jack Muir adores his mother, yearns for affection from his father, and lives in the shadow of his accomplished brother. Sent to a boarding school at a young age, Jack must quickly decide what sort of person he will be—the type that succumbs to the pressure of bullies and the school system or the type that fights back, using clever banter and intellect to get by. With a unique and authentic voice, this darkly humorous tale portrays the road to depression as seen through the naiveté of youth.
Boy on the Bridge: The Story of John Shalikashvili's American Success (American Warriors Series)
by Andrew Marble&“This isn&’t just a must-read for military buffs—it&’s a source of inspiration for every American and anyone who aspires to be one.&” —John Kerry, former US Secretary of State Born in Poland, John Shalikashvili (1936-2011) emigrated to the United States in 1952 and was drafted into the army as a private in 1958. He rose steadily through the ranks, serving in every level of unit command from platoon to division. In 1993, Shalikashvili was tapped by President Bill Clinton to replace General Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, becoming the first immigrant, first draftee, and first Officer Candidate School graduate to hold the position. This first-ever biography of Shalikashvili&’s riches-to-rags-and-back-to-riches story reveals how his distinctive background helped him become one of the United States&’s greatest military leaders. He exhibited a unique and unconventional leadership style—employing expertise, humility, straightforwardness, and empathy—that he adroitly used to resolve or prevent destructive conflict. His distinctive leadership style greatly benefited the United States, Europe, and beyond: as when he led the rescue of 500,000 Kurdish refugees in the first Gulf War&’s aftermath; when he represented Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell in helping secure loose nukes in the former Soviet republics; as he joined forces with fellow immigrant Madeleine Albright on the Partnership for Peace initiative and NATO enlargement program in the 1990s; and in retirement, when he helped end the military&’s &“Don&’t Ask, Don&’t Tell&” policy, thereby finally allowing gay servicemembers to serve openly without fear of dishonorable discharge. &“An engaging story of a remarkable man whose life story would be fascinating even without regard to his military career.&” —Foot Notes Blog
Boy with Loaded Gun: A Memoir
by Lewis NordanLewis Nordan is famous for his special vision of the Mississippi Delta. His characters, for whom the closest-though hopelessly inadequate-description might be "eccentrics," share the stage with swamp elves and midgets living in the backyard. His fiction is unlike anybody else's and is as dark, hilarious, and affecting as any ever written. It's also writing that lays bare the agony of adolescence and plows, as the Cleveland Plain Dealer once put it, "the fields of puzzling wonder that precede the responsibilities and disappointments of adulthood." What bred and fed Nordan's imagination, his originality, his indefatigable sense of humor? The answers aren't obvious. But now that Lewis Nordan produces, directs, and stars in his own story, we just might find out. Nordan's mother was widowed when he was a baby, and she went back to her home town to remarry and raise her only son "Buddy." Itta Bena, Mississippi, was a prototypical fifties Delta town, so drowsy that even before puberty, Nordan had made his escape plans. What happened next was pretty typical-a stint in the Navy, college in Mississippi, very early marriage, young fatherhood, alcoholism, infidelities, broken hearts. But in Nordan's hands, the typical turns into the transcendent and, at the heart of things, there is always the irrepressible laughter. Horrible things and horribly funny things happen in Boy with Loaded Gun, but it's that heart that leads us through Lewis Nordan's dark tunnel and back into the light.
Boy with a Violin: A Story of Survival
by Yochanan FeinOn June 22, 1941, the German invasion of the Soviet Union began. In a matter of days, the war reached the suburbs of Kaunas, Lithuania, where a young Jewish violinist, Yochanan Fein, led a happy childhood. On June 22, 1941, that childhood ended.In Boy with a Violin, Fein recounts his early life under Nazi occupation—his survival in the Kaunas Ghetto, the separation from his parents, his narrow escapes from death at the hands of Nazi officers, the harrowing stories of those he knew who did not survive, and the abhorrent conditions he endured while in hiding. He tells the tale of his rescuer, Jonas Paulavičius, the Lithuanian carpenter who sought to save the Jewish spirit. Paulavičius rescued those he believed could rebuild in the wake of the Holocaust, hiding engineers and doctors in his underground Noah's Ark. Among the sixteen he saved stood one fourteen-year-old violinist.Following liberation, Fein describes the aftermath of the war as survivors returned to what was left of their homes and attempted to piece together the fragmented remains of their lives. He recounts the difficulties of returning to some semblance of normal life in the midst of a complex political climate, culminating in his daring escape from Soviet Lithuania.In one of the darkest eras of human history, there were those who proved that the goodness of the human spirit survives against all odds. Boy with a Violin pays tribute to those who risked everything to save a life, and whose altruism crossed the boundaries of race and religion. In this first English translation of Boy with a Violin, Fein continues to offer his testimony to the strength of the human spirit.
Boy with the Bullhorn: A Memoir and History of ACT UP New York
by Ron GoldbergWinner, "Gold" Independent Publishing Award (IPPY) for LGBTQ+ NonfictionWinner, The Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, 34th Annual Triangle Awards2023 Lammy Finalist, Gay Memoir/BiographyA coming-of-age memoir of life on the front lines of the AIDS crisis with ACT UP New York.From the moment Ron Goldberg stumbled into his first ACT UP meeting in June 1987, the AIDS activist organization became his life. For the next eight years, he chaired committees, planned protests, led teach-ins, and facilitated their Monday night meetings. He cruised and celebrated at ACT UP parties, attended far too many AIDS memorials, and participated in more than a hundred zaps and demonstrations, becoming the group’s unofficial “Chant Queen,” writing and leading chants for many of their major actions. Boy with the Bullhorn is both a memoir and an immersive history of the original New York chapter of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, from 1987 to 1995, told with great humor, heart, and insight.Using the author’s own story, “the activist education of a well-intentioned, if somewhat naïve nice gay Jewish theater queen,” Boy with the Bullhorn intertwines Goldberg’s experiences with the larger chronological history of ACT UP, the grassroots AIDS activist organization that confronted politicians, scientists, drug companies, religious leaders, the media, and an often uncaring public to successfully change the course of the AIDS epidemic.Diligently sourced and researched, Boy with the Bullhorn provides both an intimate look into how activist strategies are developed and deployed and a snapshot of life in New York City during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic. On the occasions where Goldberg writes outside his personal experience, he relies on his extensive archive of original ACT UP documents, news articles, and other published material, as well as activist videos and oral histories, to help flesh out actions, events, and the background stories of key activists. Writing with great candor, Goldberg examines the group’s triumphs and failures, as well as the pressures and bad behaviors that eventually tore ACT UP apart.A story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, from engaging in outrageous, media-savvy demonstrations, to navigating the intricacies of drug research and the byzantine bureaucracies of the FDA, NIH, and CDC, Boy with the Bullhorn captures the passion, smarts, and evanescent spirit of ACT UP—the anger, grief, and desperation, but also the joy, camaraderie, and sexy, campy playfulness—and the exhilarating adrenaline rush of activism.
BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity
by Ruth WhippmanCombining painfully honest memoir, cultural analysis, and reporting, BoyMom is a humorous and heartbreaking deep dive into the complexities of raising boys in our fraught political moment.&“Rapist, school-shooter, incel, man-child, interrupter, mansplainer, boob-starer, birthday forgetter, frat boy, dude-bro, homophobe, self-important stoner, emotional-labor abstainer, non-wiper of kitchen counters. Trying to raise good sons suddenly felt like a hopeless task.&” As the culture wars rage, and masculinity has been politicized from all sides, feminist writer and mother of three boys Ruth Whippman finds herself conflicted and scared. While the right pushes a dangerous vision of fantasy manhood, her feminist peers often dismiss boys as little more than entitled predators-in-waiting. Meanwhile her home life feels like a daily confrontation with the triumph of nature over nurture. With young men in the grip of a loneliness epidemic and dying by suicide at a rate of nearly four times their female peers, Whippman asks: How do we raise our sons to have a healthy sense of self without turning them into privileged assholes? How can we find a feminism that holds boys to a higher standard but still treats them with empathy? And what do we do when our boys won&’t cooperate with our plans? Whippman digs into the impossibly contradictory pressures boys now face; and the harmful blind spots of male socialization that are leaving boys isolated, emotionally repressed, and adrift. Feminist gonzo-style, she spends months interviewing incels, reports on a conference for boys accused of sexual assault; crashes at a residential therapy center for young men in Utah, talks to a wide range of psychologists and other experts, and gets boys of all backgrounds to open up about sex, consent, porn, body image, mental health, cancel culture, screens, friendship and loneliness. Along the way, she finds her simple certainties about male privilege seriously challenged. With wit, honesty, and a refusal to settle for easy answers, BoyMom charts a new path to give boys a healthier, more expansive, and fulfilling story about their own lives.
Boyan Slat: Pioneering the Ocean Cleanup (Movers, Shakers, and History Makers)
by Isaac KerryDutch student Boyan Slat always loved inventing. A visit to the oceans of Greece inspired his greatest invention ever. Why were there more plastic bags than fish? How could he save the sea? Learn more about Boyan’s Great Pacific Garbage Patch project; The Ocean Cleanup and his plastic cleanup invention, System 001; and the challenges behind removing trash from our oceans and rivers.
Boycott Blues: How Rosa Parks Inspired A Nation
by Andrea Davis Pinkney Brian PinkneyRosa Parks took a stand by keeping her seat on the bus. When she was arrested for it, her supporters protested by refusing to ride. Soon a community of thousands was coming together to help one another get where they needed to go. Some started taxis, some rode bikes, but they all walked and walked. <p><p> With dogged feet. With dog-tired feet. With boycott feet. With boycott blues. <p> And, after 382 days of walking, they walked Jim Crow right out of town. . . . <p> Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney present a poignant, blues-infused tribute to the men and women of the Montgomery bus boycott, who refused to give up until they got justice.
Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
by Robert CoramJohn Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest U.S. fighter pilot ever -- the man who, in simulated air-to-air combat, defeated every challenger in less than forty seconds. Some recall him as the father of our country's most legendary fighter aircraft -- the F-15 and F-16. Still others think of Boyd as the most influential military theorist since Sun Tzu. They know only half the story. Boyd, more than any other person, saved fighter aviation from the predations of the Strategic Air Command. His manual of fighter tactics changed the way every air force in the world flies and fights. He discovered a physical theory that forever altered the way fighter planes were designed. Later in life, he developed a theory of military strategy that has been adopted throughout the world and even applied to business models for maximizing efficiency. And in one of the most startling and unknown stories of modern military history, the Air Force fighter pilot taught the U.S. Marine Corps how to fight war on the ground. His ideas led to America's swift and decisive victory in the Gulf War and foretold the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. On a personal level, Boyd rarely met a general he couldn't offend. He was loud, abrasive, and profane. A man of daring, ferocious passion and intractable stubbornness, he was that most American of heroes -- a rebel who cared not for his reputation or fortune but for his country. He was a true patriot, a man who made a career of challenging the shortsighted and self-serving Pentagon bureaucracy. America owes Boyd and his disciples -- the six men known as the "Acolytes" -- a great debt. Robert Coram finally brings to light the remarkable story of a man who polarized all who knew him, but who left a legacy that will influence the military -- and all of America -- for decades to come. ..
