As "animal factories" go, the Ohio Penitentiary was one of the worst. For 150 years, it housed some of the most dangerous criminals in the United States, including murderers, madmen and mobsters. Peer in on America's first vampire, accused of sucking his victims' blood five years before Bram Stoker's fictional villain was even born; peek into the cage of the original Prison Demon; and witness the daring escape of John Hunt Morgan's band of Confederate prisoners. Uncover the full extent of mayhem and madness locked away in one of history's most notorious maximum-security prisons.

In Historic Columbus Crimes, the father-daughter team of David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker looks back at sixteen tales of murder, mystery and mayhem culled from city history. Take the rock star slain by a troubled fan or the drag queen slashed to death by a would-be ninja. Then there's the writer who died acting out the plot of his next book, the minister's wife incinerated in the parsonage furnace and a couple of serial killers who outdid the Son of Sam. Not to mention a gunfight at Broad and High, grave-robbing medical students, the bloodiest day in FBI history and other fascinating stories of crime and tragedy. They're all here, and they're all true

The first narrative biography of the Bee Gees, the phenomenally popular vocal group that has sold more than 200 million records worldwide--sales in the company of the Beatles and Michael Jackson. "The Bee Gees" is the epic family saga of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, and it's riddled with astonishing highs--especially as they became the definitive band of the disco era, fueled by "Saturday Night Fever" and crashing lows, including the tragic drug-fueled downfall of youngest brother, Andy. In recent years, a whole new generation of fans has rediscovered the undeniable grooves and harmonies that made the Bee Gees and songs like "Stayin' Alive," "How Deep is Your Love," "To Love Somebody," and "I Started a Joke" timeless.

During the late nineteenth century, Ohio was reeling from a wave of lynchings and most reasonable people felt something had to be done. But it wasn't just lynchings, there were organized floggings, tar and featherings, and even large scale riots. They were acts born of anger, frustration, distrust of law enforcement, and, of course, racial and ethnic intolerance. In 1892, Ohio-born Benjamin Harrison was the first U.S. President to call for an anti-lynching legislation. Four years later, his home state responded with the Smith Act - "an Act for the Suppression of Mob Violence." It was a major step forward and the most severe anti-lynching law in the country, but it did nothing to address the underlying causes. During the period 1771-1938, hundreds of acts of mob violence took place within the bounds of Ohio. Cities burned and innocent people died. Many of these acts were attributed to well-known and respected men-and women-in the community, but few were ever prosecuted. And some were even lauded for taking the law into their own hands. While times have changed, many hearts have not. This is the first book to take a detailed look at mob violence in Ohio.

Modern videography provides an ever-widening window into subsea echinoderm life with vast potential for new knowledge. Supported by video evidence throughout, this Element begins with time-lapse video made in 1983 on film, using an off-the-shelf camera, flash, and underwater housings. Although quality has now been significantly improved by digital imagery, films from over thirty years ago captured crinoid feeding behavior previously unknown and demonstrated a great potential to learn about many other aspects of their biology. This sequence is followed by several examples of recent digital videography from submersibles of deep-sea crinoids and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) (stalked and unstalked), as well as close-up video of crinoids in aquaria. These recent studies enabled a new classification of crinoid arm postures, provided detailed views of food particle capture, and revealed a wide range of behaviors in taxa never before seen in life.

An Applied Treatment of Modern Graphical Methods for Analyzing Categorical Data Discrete Data Analysis with R: Visualization and Modeling Techniques for Categorical and Count Data presents an applied treatment of modern methods for the analysis of categorical data, both discrete response data and frequency data. It explains how to use graphical methods for exploring data, spotting unusual features, visualizing fitted models, and presenting results. The book is designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the social and health sciences, epidemiology, economics, business, statistics, and biostatistics as well as researchers, methodologists, and consultants who can use the methods with their own data and analyses. Along with describing the necessary statistical theory, the authors illustrate the practical application of the techniques to a large number of substantive problems, including how to organize data, conduct an analysis, produce informative graphs, and evaluate what the graphs reveal about the data. The first part of the book contains introductory material on graphical methods for discrete data, basic R skills, and methods for fitting and visualizing one-way discrete distributions. The second part focuses on simple, traditional nonparametric tests and exploratory methods for visualizing patterns of association in two-way and larger frequency tables. The final part of the text discusses model-based methods for the analysis of discrete data. Web ResourceThe data sets and R software used, including the authors' own vcd and vcdExtra packages, are available at http://cran.r-project.org.

As a singer and songwriter, Gram Parsons stood at the nexus of countless musical crossroads, and he sold his soul to the devil at every one. His intimates and collaborators included Keith Richards, William Burroughs, Marianne Faithfull, Peter Fonda, Roger McGuinn, and Clarence White. Parsons led the Byrds to create the seminal country rock masterpiece "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," helped to guide the Rolling Stones beyond the blues in their appreciation of American roots music, and found his musical soul mate in Emmylou Harris. Parsons' solo albums, "GP" and "Grievous Angel," are now recognized as visionary masterpieces of the transcendental jambalaya of rock, soul, country, gospel, and blues Parsons named "Cosmic American Music." Parsons had everything-looks, charisma, money, style, the best drugs, the most heartbreaking voice-and threw it all away with both hands, dying of a drug and alcohol overdose at age twenty-six.
In this beautifully written, raucous, meticulously researched biography, David N. Meyer gives Parsons' mythic life its due. From interviews with hundreds of the famous and obscure who knew and worked closely with Parsons-many who have never spoken publicly about him before-Meyer conjures a dazzling panorama of the artist and his era.
Praise for Twenty Thousand Roads
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES"
NAMED ONE OF THE FIVE BEST ROCK BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY "ROLLING STONE"
"Far and away the most thorough biography of Parsons . . . skewers any number of myths surrounding this endlessly mythologized performer."
"-Los Angeles Times"
"A terrific biography of a rock innovator that hums with juicy detail and wincing truth. . . . Page after page groans with the folly of the '60s drug culture, the tragedy of talent toasted before its time, the curse of wealth and the madness of wasted opportunity."
"-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution"
"The definitive account of Gram Parsons' life-and early death. From the country-rock pioneer's wealthy, wildly dysfunctional family through his symbiotic friendship with Keith Richards, Meyer deftly illuminates one of rock's most elusive figures."
"-Rolling Stone"
"Meticulously researched . . . Though Meyer answers a lot of long-burning questions, he preserves Parsons' legend as a man of mystery."
"-Entertainment Weekly"
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""Meyer gives Parsons a thorough, Peter Guralnick-like treatment."
-"New York Post"

Visit the official website: www.twentythousandroads.com