Great American War Stories is a magnificent collection of gripping accounts of battles great and small throughout history. Capturing all the elements of ancient and powerful tragedy, this book is chock-full of thrilling tales of war--as well as a frightful examination of man's darkest impulses--allowing the reader a gruesome glimpse behind the veil of honor and bravery that history often ascribes to soldiers and their leaders. These are all stories that have endured the test of time and have attracted discerning readers for generations.

Snow Leopards, Second Edition provides a foundational, comprehensive overview of the biology, ecology and conservation of this iconic species. This updated edition incorporates all the recent information from range-wide surveys and conservation projects, the results of technical and advances particularly in genetics, camera trapping and satellite tracking, and evaluates emerging threats. New chapters synthesize the novel scientific methods and statistical analyses used to develop density and population estimates and how they inform conservation and management estimates. Sections cover historical information, the main biogeographic patterns, evolutionary trends, conservational efforts, and cultural significance. Status and distribution are fully updated for all 12 countries where snow leopards occur. Other sections describe established and emerging threats, including human-wildlife conflict, illegal trade, infrastructure development, and climate change along with conservation solutions used to address these threats. The book concludes with a final section on global snow leopard initiatives and future potentials.

Guilty as charged. If reading true crime is a guilty pleasure, this collection of stunning heists and unspeakable murders from the front pages of history will leave no doubt about the verdict. Three unsuspecting men's lives cut short at the hands of their lovers in Gangland Chicago, a mysterious and murderous trapper chased across unforgiving Arctic mountains in sub-zero temperatures, a notorious band of outlaws' ill-fated bank robbery, a little-known but starkly detailed look at Lizzie Borden's handiwork with her famous ax, a body in a trunk and a suspect halfway across the world thinking he's pulled it off are among the enticing and unsettling tales in this arresting collection. Here are stories sure to intrigue and shock readers and put them on the edges of their seats. That's the point after all, and The Greatest Crime Stories Ever Told will not disappoint. From a first-person account of the infamous Lufthansa robbery that netted millions, to the beguiling society bank robber so confident he broke into the same New York City bank twice to pull off the biggest haul in history, to the mysterious and brutal murders of a quiet farm family in a close-knit but suspicious community that offered an unusual number of suspects, The Greatest Crime Stories Ever Told is a fascinating and darkly enticing contribution to the wildly popular true crime genre. Here are not only the suspects, obvious or not, but the detectives who wanted them in prison and were willing to put their own lives at risk to do so. Did the perpetrators get away with their perfidies? Did the rule of law prevail in the end? Were the right people caught and prosecuted? Readers will have to decide for themselves.

Set in a Central Europe rapidly fragmenting after the fall of Communism, "Men in Space" follows a cast of dissolute Bohemians, political refugees, football referees, deaf police agents, assassins and stranded astronauts as they chase a stolen icon painting from Sofia to Prague and beyond. The icon's melancholy orbit is reflected in the various characters' ellipses and near misses as they career vertiginously through all kinds of space: physical, political, emotional and metaphysical. What emerges is a vision a world in a state of disintegration.

The most ambition and exciting novel yet from the Booker shortlisted author of C and Satin Island. Bodies in motion. Birds, bees and bobsleighs. What is the force that moves the sun and other stars? Where's our fucking airplane? What's inside Box 808, and why does everybody want it? Deep within the archives of time-and-motion pioneer Lillian Gilbreth lies a secret. Gilbreth helped birth the era of mass observation and big data but did she also discover a 'perfect' movement that would 'change everything'? An international hunt begins for the one box missing from her records, and we follow contemporary motion-capture consultant Mark Phocan across geo-political fault lines and experimental zones in his search for it. And all the while, work is underway on the blockbuster film Incarnation, an epic space tragedy... 'Dazzling... The Making of Incarnation feels utterly original, utterly new, utterly magical' Neel Mukherjee, author of The Lives of Others 'Hugely interesting, energetic, wise and well written' GQ 'A rich and fascinating exercise in observation' Independent

The newspaper advertisement for volunteers to accompany Ernest Shackleton on his planned traverse of Antarctica in 1914 was frank in its offering. "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success." Still, hundreds applied. There were few chances left to be the first to reach the last challenge on Earth. As the 20th Century came of age, explorers had uncovered most of the world's mysteries, sailing to the far corners of the globe, ascending many of its most forbidding peaks, crossing its greatest deserts and penetrating its thickest jungles. Frozen, alien, inhospitable, dangerous, and close to impossible to reach, there were only two tiny dots on the globe that human beings had not yet set foot on--the North and South Poles. The Greatest Polar Exploration Stories Ever Told is a visceral, exciting and stunning collection of twelve stories recounting the bravery, resoluteness, and strength of the men who willingly traversed frozen hells to be the first to reach the North or South Pole. It is a collection that will both inspire and inform--and answer questions about the limits of human endurance. Many men would die during their challenging, frozen journeys, and their deaths were not pleasant. Yet they continued to try again. Here are stories, wrought by the challenging landscape and weather, that made these explorers household names and heroes: Peary, Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton, Franklin, Cherry-Garrard, Scott, Kane, Cook--and others lost to history whose bravery was nonetheless as admirable. Each of these men knew success would bring glory for their countries and financial security and fame and eminent places in history for themselves. Each knew also the odds of success were slim and the chance of dying great. Nations held their collective breaths for news of each expedition and those years later were termed the Heroic Age of Exploration--there were simply no other endeavors that captured the world's attention the various races to the poles. The Greatest Polar Exploration Stories Ever Told recaptures the spirit, drama, and tragedy of a time in history that will never come again.

Bodies in motion. Birds, bees and bobsleighs. What is the force that moves the sun and other stars? Where's our fucking airplane? What's inside Box 808, and why does everybody want it? Deep within the archives of time-and-motion pioneer Lillian Gilbreth lies a secret. Famous for producing solid light-tracks that captured the path of workers' movements, Gilbreth helped birth the era of mass observation and big data. Did she also, as her broken correspondence with a young Soviet physicist suggests, discover in her final days a 'perfect' movement, one that would 'change everything'? An international hunt begins for the one box missing from her records, and we follow contemporary motion-capture consultant Mark Phocan across geo-political fault lines and experimental zones: places where the frontiers of potential - to cure, kill, understand or entertain - are constantly tested and refined. And all the while, work is underway on the blockbuster film Incarnation, an epic space tragedy. Audacious and mesmeric, The Making of Incarnation weaves a set of stories one inside the other, rings within rings, a perpetual-motion machine. Tom McCarthy peers through the screen, or veil, of technological modernity to reveal the underlying historical and symbolic structures of human experience.

Snow Leopards: Biodiversity of the World: Conservation from Genes to Landscapes is the only comprehensive work on the biology, behavior, and conservation status of the snow leopard, a species that has long been one of the least studied, and hence poorly understood, of the large cats. Breakthroughs in technologies and methodologies to study this elusive cat have come rapidly, including non-invasive genetics, camera traps, and GPS-satellite collaring. The book begins with chapters on the genetic standing and taxonomy of the snow leopard, followed by chapters on their behavior and ecology. Additional contributions follow on the current and emerging threats to the species, which include longstanding concerns, such as poaching and conflicts with livestock, and new and emerging threats such as mining and climate change. A section on conservation solutions, backed by valuable case studies, starts with an overview of the important role mountain communities play in assuring the snow leopard's long-term persistence. In addition, chapters on the role of captive snow leopards for the conservation of the species, state-of-the-art techniques and technologies for studying and monitoring snow leopards, status reports from around the region, and future perspectives, such as transboundary conservation initiatives, international conventions (CITES, CMS, etc.), the role of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group and the Snow Leopard Network, and undertakings such as the Global Snow Leopard Forum facilitated by the World Bank are also included.

From the early years of Western Expansion to the present day, our history is marked by the heroic exploits of the rescuer and the rescued in some of the most daunting geographic, meteorological, and otherwise life-threatening challenges. "First responders" have variously been members of law enforcement to ordinary good samaritans who couldn't look the other way in the face of their brethren in peril. This book collects the most compelling search-and-rescue accounts of the last two hundred years, from William Lewis Manly bringing relief to '49ers lost in Death Valley, to modern-day SAR teams working with the National Park and Forest Services to locate missing hikers or carry out the injured from a wilderness mishap. Of course, many search-and-rescues turn into a body recovery effort, or even a criminal investigation if foul play is suspected. Regardless of the outcome, this book honors those who put others' lives before their own in the face of peril.

Herge's Tintin cartoon adventures have been translated into more than fifty languages and read by tens of millions of children aged, as their publishers like to say, 'from 7 to 77'. Arguing that their characters are as strong and their plots as complex as any dreamt up by the great novelists, Tom McCarthy asks a simple question: is Tintin literature? McCarthy takes a cue from Tintin himself, who spends much of his time tracking down illicit radio signals, entering crypts and decoding puzzles and suggests that we too need to 'tune in' and decode if we want to capture what's going on in Herge's work. What emerges is a remarkable story of hushed-up royal descent in both Herge's work and his own family history. McCarthy shows how the themes this story generates - expulsion from home, violation of the sacred, the host-guest relationship turned sour and anxieties around questions of forgery and fakeness - are the same that have fuelled and troubled writers from the classical era to the present day. His startling conclusion is that Tintin's ultimate 'secret' is that of literature itself. Appearing on the eve of the release of a major Steven Spielberg Tintin film, Tintin and the Secret of Literature should be avidly devoured by not only Tintin lovers but also by anyone with an interest in literature, philosophy or art.

Crime does pay. At least for a while. You'll see that quickly in these the ten compelling and true stories of brilliant plans, guile, and nerves of steel. The thieves awaiting you seem to have it all. They are clever, cool, and set at their goals with icy resolve. It takes a lot of guts and nerves of steel to do what they did and not fold under the pressure. After all, if those hard-wrought plans fail, they'll have plenty of time to think about what went wrong in prison. Break into the poshest hotel in New York City and roust guests and security guards for the jewels and cash hidden in front-office deposit boxes under the tightest security? Hijack an airplane, demand a ransom and two parachutes, then disappear? Invent a device that allows you to record the combination of any bank vault, then break into bank vaults twice? Steal from a secret mob depository run by a boss known for his brutality? Why not? The Greatest Heists Stories Ever Told will allow readers to appreciate the efforts that go into a truly magnificent heist. It is a celebration of stunning, well-planned and audacious capers that left police and armies of investigators looking for answers and scratching their heads. Maybe that's what assures us that there will always be more heists. There is always that golden chance of getting away with it. Among the stories included are: The Lufthansa Heist The Oddball Crew and the $17 Million Heist The Last Good Heist The Pierre Hotel Heist Hijack! DB Cooper's Great Escape

Bodies in motion. Birds, bees and bobsleighs. What is the force that moves the sun and other stars? Where's our fucking airplane? What's inside Box 808, and why does everybody want it? Deep within the archives of time-and-motion pioneer Lillian Gilbreth lies a secret. Famous for producing solid light-tracks that captured the path of workers' movements, Gilbreth helped birth the era of mass observation and big data. Did she also, as her broken correspondence with a young Soviet physicist suggests, discover in her final days a 'perfect' movement, one that would 'change everything'? An international hunt begins for the one box missing from her records, and we follow contemporary motion-capture consultant Mark Phocan, as well as his collaborators and shadowy antagonists, across geo-political fault lines and experimental zones: medical labs, CGI studios, military research centres . . . Places where the frontiers of potential - to cure, kill, understand or entertain - are constantly tested and refined. And all the while, work is underway on the blockbuster film Incarnation, an epic space tragedy. Commercial box-office fodder? Or a sublimely mythical exploration of the animation, contemplation and possession of flesh - ours and others' - traumatised, erotic, beautiful, obscene... Audacious and mesmeric, The Making of Incarnation weaves a set of stories one inside the other, rings within rings, a perpetual-motion machine. Tom McCarthy peers through the screen, or veil, of technological modernity to reveal the underlying historical and symbolic structures of human experience.

Traumatized by an accident which 'involved something falling from the sky' and leaves him eight and a half million pounds richer but hopelessly estranged from the world around him, Remainder's hero spends his time and money obsessively reconstructing and re-enacting vaguely remembered scenes and situations from his past: a large building with piano music in the distance, the familiar smells and sounds of liver frying and spluttering, lethargic cats lounging on roofs until they tumble off them... But when this fails to quench his thirst for authenticity, he starts re-enacting more and more violent events, as his repetition addiction spirals out of control. A darkly comic meditation on memory, identity and history, Remainder is a parable for modern times.

The orders to proceed were nothing more than an invitation to die, and usually in unpleasant ways. But the soldiers proceeded nonetheless, because a higher cause was at stake. This stunning collection of stories is a tribute to the courage, steely resolve, and discipline of men who accomplished daunting missions in the face of almost certain death. Nonetheless, they stepped into the breach and performed heroically. That was their duty and they did not question. They had a mission and they accepted. Here are ten powerful stories of American soldiers and sailors that span more than 200 years of action with one common theme, summed up succinctly a participant who took control of Omaha Beach on D-Day, 1944. "We were doing the very thing that we had trained so long to do, and we were fascinated, and eagerly excited about it. We realized that any number of things might happen to us and knew too that some things we'd never dreamed of might very well be waiting for us on the beach."' From Marines taking Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi or defending Khe San, Navy pilots taking to the air to defend Pearl Harbor, or an outnumbered American regiment in Korea defeating the Chinese at the Battle of Chipyong-ni, courage was the common watchword, death the common consequence. Such is the lot of soldiers everywhere. Here is a not-so-gentle reminder of the price of freedom--paid by American men for more than 200 years of struggle, from the Revolutionary War, the Spanish-American War, Civil War, World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam.

Rich in domestic history and detail, Cat Tales entertains, enlightens, and amuses. These are enduring stories that have passed the test of time and have attracted generations of readers. They are custom-made for the imaginative reader who seeks feline adventure ensconced in his or her favorite reading chair by the fire, curled up with a purring cat.

This publication explores the work of the acclaimed Swiss-American artist Christian Marclay (1955), presenting a selection of works focusing on his sound compositions, from graphic scores to video installations. In this artist's book, he shows the relationship between sound and vision, exploring the ways that sound can be made visually manifest. As the artist himself has said: 'music runs through almost everything I do'. It includes essays by the critic Erika Balsom, the curator Tanya Barson and the writer Tom McCarthy. Trilingual edition (Catalan, Spanish, English).

Being aboard a sinking ship is perhaps the most terrifying experience a human being can endure. Imagine those last peaceful moments as the vessel beneath you slides quickly into the dark waters that only moments before you had so confidently glided across. It is as one survivor you will read about in this stunning collection recalled, "a sudden sickening sense of disaster." Awaiting you are starvation, thirst and unimagined weather--perhaps blistering sun or soul-crushing cold. Outside your leaking and fragile craft are circling sharks waiting to tear you to shreds. Hope will fade quickly. Utterly absorbing and eminently entertaining, here is a collection of inspirational stories of life and death and hope-and of resilience and unimagined strength. These stories show more than anything the indomitable spirit of sailors who scoffed at death and moved on-doing what they had to do to live. Among the tales in this terrifying yet absorbing collection are the recollections of sailors from the USS Indianapolis who floated hopelessly as their companions were torn apart by sharks; of the crew whaleship Essex, who did the unthinkable; of small boat adventurers like Dougal Robertson, who survived for weeks on little but faith. The Greatest Sea Survival Stories Ever Told is a tribute to incredible men and women. It is a testament to the remarkable fortitude that made them quiet heroes.