Town Histories

Step back in time to the tiny farm community of Osage Bend, Missouri, circa 1930-1945… Part memoir, part how-to manual, The Bumpy Road paints a vivid picture of life on the farm during the Great Depression. The author, recounting stories from his boyhood, brings to life the everyday trials and tribulations of his family and neighbors as they struggle to survive under daunting economic conditions. The hard work they put in was a given (to them), and their solutions to everyday problems were ingenious by necessity. And yet, they still found time to socialize and make the church the center ...

In Going Back to T-Town, Ernie’s daughter, Carmen Fields, tells a story of success, disappointment, and perseverance, extending from the early jazz era to the 1960s. This is an enlightening account of how this talented musician and businessman navigated the hurdles of racial segregation during the Jim Crow era.

The ruins of Pompeii, buried by an explosion of Vesuvius in 79 CE, offer the best evidence we have of everyday life in the Roman empire. This remarkable book rises to the challenge of making sense of those remains, as well as exploding many myths: the very date of the eruption, probably a few months later than usually thought, or the hygiene of the baths that must have been hotbeds of germs, or the legendary number of brothels, most likely only one, or the massive death count, maybe less than 10 per cent of the population.

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania is famous for two things: the Jones and Laughlin Steel mill, an industrial behemoth that helped win World War II; and football, with a high school team that has produced numerous NFL stars, including Mike Ditka and Darrelle Revis. But the mill, once the fourth largest producer in America, closed for good in 2000. What happens to a town when a dream dies? Does it just disappear?

On Saturday, September 22, 1928, Barbara Griffiths, aged four, strayed into the woods surrounding the upstate village of Massena, New York. Hundreds of people looked everywhere for the child but could not find her. At one point, someone suggested that Barbara had been kidnapped and killed by Jews, and as the search continued, policemen and townspeople alike gave credence to the quickly-spreading rumors. The allegation of ritual murder, known to Jews as "blood libel", took hold.

She needs a man. He needs a new life. How bad could it be? A widow alone in the Wild West with children to raise and protect. Or maybe they understand more than she realizes. Escaping from a prison in Australia where he was sentenced to life for a crime he didn't commit wasn't easy. Neither was his flight for freedom to the United States. But just in time, a letter suggesting marriage. Land of his own. A new name. But who is this stranger who lands on their door, introduced by letters alone, and calling himself King? Could this offer of royalty be worth marrying for money this time? After ...

A Chilling True Story of Love, Wealth, and the Descent into Madness Sterling Braswell had it all—a sprawling ranch, stock options, and millions in the bank. His life was the epitome of success. But when he rekindled a romance with his high school sweetheart after a decade apart, he could never have imagined the darkness she would bring into his life. This riveting, brutally honest memoir chronicles Sterling’s devastating journey as the woman he loved descended into the sinister underworld of methamphetamine addiction. With vivid intensity and heartbreaking candor, Crazy Town takes you ...

It’s the summer of 1919, and Ellen O’Brien has her whole life ahead of her. Young, in love and leaving home for her first job, the future seems full of shining possibility. But war is brewing, and before long, Ellen and everyone around her are swept up by it. As Ireland is torn apart by the turmoil, Ellen finds herself facing the ultimate test of love and loyalty. A hundred years later and Clare Farrell has inherited a dilapidated old farmhouse in County Meath.

A historic western that opens in 1873, a time when recession is forcing thousands westwards to recoup their fortunes. The West is tough, brutal and the Indian is the enemy. But when a white woman is raped, it is a half-breed Cheyenne who comes to the rescue. From the author of Jake and Upland Passage.

The Anchor Hocking Glass Company, once the world's largest maker of glass tableware, was the base on which Lancaster's society was built. As Glass House unfolds, bankruptcy looms. With access to the company and its leaders, and Lancaster's citizens, Alexander shows how financial engineering took hold in the 1980s, accelerated in the 21st century, and wrecked the company.

Based on true facts and characters, Woolf Barnato inherited a fortune when his father, Barney Barnato, the diamond millionaire, died mysteriously in 1897 when Woolf was two years old. Woolf left university to serve in the Royal Field Artillery in France, Belgium and Egypt during the First World War, rising to the rank of Captain. Obsessed with racing fast cars, he saved Bentley Motor Cars from bankruptcy in 1926 taking over the company. Woolf became well-known as one of the Bentley Boys, a cadre of young wealthy men who raced Bentley cars. He won the Le Mans 24 Hour Endurance Race, three ...

Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the cornfields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, a baseball whisperer who specialized in second chances and lost causes. The statue was a gift from one of Merl's original long-shot projects, a skinny kid from the ghetto in Los Angeles who would one day become a beloved Hall of Fame shortstop: Ozzie Smith.

The New Year brings challenges and changes to the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. The Christmas holidays have barely passed before a fire engulfs the humble thatched cottage housing of Donal Donnally and his family. Although the family escapes the blaze more or less unsinged, Donal, his wife, their three small children, and their beloved dog find themselves with nothing left but the clothes on their back.

After covering racial unrest in the remote northwest corner of his home state of Nebraska in 1999, journalist Stew Magnuson returned four years later to consider the larger questions of its peoples, their paths, and the forces that separate them. Examining Raymond Yellow Thunder’s death at the hands of four White men in 1972, Magnuson looks deep into the past that gave rise to the tragedy. Situating long-ranging repercussions within 130 years of context, he also recounts the largely forgotten struggles of American Indian Movement activist Bob Yellow Bird.

The story of the American mining frontier can be traced in the ghost towns - from the camps of California's forty-niners to the 20th-century ruins in the Nevada desert. They mark an epoch of high adventure, of quick wealth and quicker poverty, of gambling and gun-slinging and hell-raising. We who have seen too many Western movies sometimes think that the legends of the Wild West were invented by scriptwriters - but the ghost towns remain.

Before Doctor Barry Laverty joined Doctor Fingal O’Reilly's practice in the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, he was an intern, working long hours, practicing new medical techniques, falling in love, and learning what is most important in the medical field for a family physician - the bonds of family, friendships, and human kindness.

Mining Towns in the Wild West: The History of the Construction and Abandonment of the Frontier’s Most Famous Sites profiles some of the most important events and camps that popped up in response to mineral discoveries. The audiobook also describes their history and how they were often left behind nearly as quickly as they peaked.

Sex scandals have rocked Hollywood since the industry began, but Once More With Feeling: You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again, Again is a brand new collection of stories that this town will never recover from - again.

In its youth, Portland, Oregon, was a bit like a rough-and-ready logging camp with a gritty, hard-punching deep-water port. Lusty lads dallied with hard-eyed beauties in dark alleys, and captains forked over “blood money” to buy men for their crews from shanghai operators. From the seedy waterfront to the notorious North End, Portland's sin sector offered vices packaged in pint glasses and perfumed corsets.

One of the bestselling novelists of the American West brings us a gripping tale of gold, greed, and vengeance.