Be happy.....

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washington DC. He holds an MFA in writing from Lindenwood University.

He is the author of No Time to Say Goodbye: Memoirs of a Life in Foster Care and Short Stories from a Small Town. He is also the author of numerous non-fiction on the history of organized crime including the ground break biography of bootlegger Roger Tuohy "When Capone's Mob Murdered Touhy" and "Guns and Glamour: A History of Organized Crime in Chicago."

His non-fiction crime short stories have appeared in The New Criminologist, American Mafia and other publications. John won the City of Chicago's Celtic Playfest for his work The Hannigan's of Beverly, and his short story fiction work, Karma Finds Franny Glass, appeared in AdmitTwo Magazine in October of 2008.

His play, Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a public performance at the Actors Chapel in Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the groups Reading Series for New York project. In June of 2008, the play won the Virginia Theater of The First Amendment Award for best new play.

Contact John:

MYWRITERSSITE.BLOGSPOT.COM

JWTUOHY95@GMAIL.COM

Mary and I bought a new puppy. We still have Bart the Dog of course, but he's ill and getting older and needs some company, which we're told will liven him up a bit. So the puppy (No name yet) arrives October 16.

Paddy walks into a bar in Dublin, orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. When he finishes them, he comes back to the bar and orders three more.

The bartender asks him, "You know, a pint goes flat after I draw it; it would taste better if you bought one at a time."

Paddy replies, "Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in America, the other in Australia, and I'm here in Dublin. When we all left home, we promised that we'd drink this way to remember the days when we drank together." The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there.

Paddy becomes a regular in the bar, and always drinks the same way: ordering three pints and drinking them in turn. One day, he comes in and orders two pints. All the other regulars notice and fall silent.

When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, "I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your great loss." Paddy looks confused for a moment, then a light dawns in his eye and he laughs.

"Oh, no," he says, "Everyone's fine. I've just quit drinking!"

What love is……………….

True love stories never have endings. ~Richard Bach  

THE BEAT POETS

Beat poetry evolved during the 1940s in both New York City and on the west coast, although San Francisco became the heart of the movement in the early 1950s. The end of World War II left poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso questioning mainstream politics and culture. A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets | Academy of American Poets https://www.poets.org/poetsorg

MISH MOSH..........................................

Mish Mash: noun \ˈmish-ˌmash, -ˌmäsh\ A : hodgepodge, jumble “The painting was just a mishmash of colors and abstract shapes as far as we could tell”. Origin Middle English & Yiddish; Middle English mysse masche, perhaps reduplication of mash mash; Yiddish mish-mash, perhaps reduplication of mishn to mix. First Known Use: 15th century

A girl with two graves: The past haunts a city that evicted its dead

Joseph Serna

They found her buried under a garage earlier this year, her small body perfectly preserved in an airless, metal casket.

She wore a white christening dress with hand-stitched lace that would have dragged along the ground when she walked. Her blond hair had been laced with sprigs of lavender and a rosary of eucalyptus seeds lay on her chest.

She is believed to have died around 1870, when pinewood coffins sold for $2. Her elaborate glass and cast-iron vessel would have cost 10 times that much.

We need to know this little girl’s name. Someone needs to say this girl’s name again.— Steven Sederwall, a retired LAPD detective

But neither the girl’s name nor details of her demise were anywhere to be found.

Her coffin was unearthed when construction workers broke through the concrete floor of a home under renovation in San Francisco’s Richmond district. The grim discovery this spring riveted the city, sparking an outpouring of posthumous grief and an intensive effort to identify her. How was it possible, people wondered, that a 3-year old who was so lovingly interred could be so thoroughly forgotten?

 “We need to know this little girl’s name,” said Steven Sederwall, a retired Los Angeles police detective who is among those  who have been moved by her sudden celebrity.  “Someone needs to say this girl’s name again.”

Finding that out, however, has proved harder than anyone could imagine.

The clump of hair was plucked from the girl’s bangs carefully, but not professionally, and the follicles that Jelmer Eerkens hoped would be in abundance were scarce.

The follicle tissue can provide decent samples of nuclear DNA, which contains genetic information from both parents. To date, experts have only been able to sequence the girl’s mitochondrial DNA, which shows the genetic background of her mother.

But within those thin shafts of hair lies a trove of useful information, said Eerkens, an archeology professor at UC Davis.

“She has a pretty rare type of maternal ancestry,” he wrote in an email. “We don’t know a lot about it, but everyone living today, so far, who has this DNA signature is from the British Isles.”

The delicate locks also may provide clues as to how the mystery girl lived.

An analysis of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in her hair showed that in the last two or three months of life, the girl endured dramatic weight loss consistent “with some type of drawn-out disease,” as opposed to a sudden accident or fast-killing virus like smallpox or measles, he said.

Further tests could reveal the region she grew up in and traces of heavy metals could offer clues to what medicines doctors used to treat her.

“As an archaeologist, I’m interested in things we can learn from the past,” Eerkens said. “These lives we live … it’s important we record these things.”

According to historians, when San Francisco was in its infancy, residents and businesses coalesced around San Francisco Bay. The dead were buried in what is now the financial district.

But then came the Gold Rush of 1849, which flooded the city with new residents, new illnesses and death. Bodies in the financial district were exhumed and relocated west, closer to the ocean, to make way for the mass migration.

By the late 1880s, there were dozens of cemeteries in San Francisco, and most were full. Officials and developers deemed the burial grounds as more valuable to the living, and launched a decades-long campaign to evict the dead.

City crews and cemetery workers hauled hundreds of thousands of corpses south to what is now Colma. Today the city has about 1,500 living residents and more than 1.5 million bodies underground, including such historic figures as Wyatt Earp and William Randolph Hearst.

But Sederwall, a self-described cowboy from Texas who spends his post-law enforcement career solving centuries-old homicide cases, doubts all of the dead ever made it to Colma.

His research has found that workers simply dug straight trenches through the cemeteries and pulled out whatever bodies they hit along the way without minding maps or blueprints of the grounds to locate them all.

During a massive retrofitting project for San Francisco’s Legion of Honor fine arts museum in 1993, the remains of more than 700 people were unearthed.

“What that tells me is you’ve got a playground that’s probably got children under it. Houses with bodies,” Sederwall said.

He believes the mystery girl was one of those left behind.

Less than 100 yards from where the girl in the casket was found, a headstone for another man from roughly the same era was discovered, Sederwall said.

As he and his staff would come to learn, the area where the headstone and casket were found used to be part of the Odd Fellows Cemetery.

“We have thought that there was a presence in the house. It didn’t really have any explanation for thinking we heard little footsteps,” said Ericka Karner, who with her husband and two daughters lived in the home where the girl was found. “I don’t know. I wasn’t necessarily spooked.”

Karner’s family has owned the home on Rossi Avenue since 1976. Growing up, the morbid history of the area was common knowledge, as was the possibility of unseen neighbors just below their feet.

“I had heard that during renovations that this does happen on occasion. But it’s not something as a homeowner you’re prepared to deal with,” Karner said.

She and the family were vacationing in Idaho when workers tearing out the garage floor to build a new living room happened upon the casket.

They sent her photos and contacted the San Francisco medical examiner, who came, unsealed the casket, verified it was a real body, then left without taking on the case because officials decided it had been properly, legally interred 140 or so years ago.

 The medical examiner’s office did not return repeated requests for comment on this story.

“From a common sense standpoint, the city was the one that relocated bodies. They missed some. To many it seems like the city would still be responsible,” Karner said.

Unsealed and exposed to the elements, the body began to rapidly decay.

Suddenly, time was of the essence.

“For me, it always goes back to being a parent and I can’t imagine losing a child … it’s no different today than it was in the 1880s,” Karner said. “What was important for me was making sure the next steps were respectful to this individual …. The way she was buried and preserved – it’s an indication she was well-loved and cherished.”

Karner spoke with the city administrator’s office, which said it couldn’t help, but pointed her to Elissa Davey. The founder of the Garden of Innocence, an organization that buries abandoned and unidentified children, was just as adamant that the girl receive a proper burial as Karner was.

Davey tapped her network of genealogists and grave hunters to join the effort.

An email in late June from a member of the network in Billings, Mont., explained why so many bodies were missed during the mass transport of graves to Colma a century ago.

“Bulldozers weren’t involved in the removal process,” he wrote. “The surface land was stripped bare at least seven years before actual digging began. The removal contractors placed string lines in an east-west orientation, spaced where experience told them the most graves would be intersected. Experts moved along those string lines, probing with hardened brass rods at set intervals. They could literally predict by feel and experience whether there was a casket, a collapsed grave, ashes or no grave at all below. Workers dug only where they marked and as deep as they marked. Everything was done by hand.”

Using a cemetery map from 1900 and the headstone found near Karner’s home as sign posts, the group concluded that the girl was likely buried in the Cosmopolitan section of the Odd Fellows Cemetery — though there’s no way to know for sure.

Thousands of burial records have turned up dozens of candidates for the girl’s identity, but they eventually lead to dead ends. A relative of one of the candidates will have her DNA tested to see if it matches the girl in the casket, but no one is optimistic.

Davey and her team identified another family that appeared to have been buried in that area of the cemetery and the name of a girl who would have been buried and then removed in the 1870s.

But without more specific records or maps from that era, there’s no way to know for sure if the names and locations correspond to where the casket was found.

“So it’s become a quest, a mission,” Davey said. “We need to know who she is … so she can be complete.”

Nine people, including Sederwall in Arizona, a man in Seattle, a librarian in Ohio and an anthropologist in Berkeley, are involved in the hunt, Davey said.

Four psychics have called her and said they knew the girl’s name. All four were different.

“I have a whole file,” Davey said. “One called and said ‘She whispered in my ear her name was Victoria, that she had a really high fever and she just faded away.’”

Amid the endless searching, the girl’s decomposition accelerated because the casket was unsealed. In the end, Davey’s and Karner’s two young daughters decided to give the mystery girl a name, if for no other reason than to give her a proper burial.

On a gray Saturday morning, weeks after the casket was discovered, dozens of Bay Area residents, members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Davey’s colleagues gathered at Greenlawn Memorial Park in Colma.

“She shouldn’t be forgotten a second time,” said Jennifer Haug, 49, a San Bruno resident who attended the service.

The group watched in silence as a new cherry wood coffin with the original casket enclosed within was lowered into the ground before a large, heart-shaped headstone made of granite.

One side of the monument had been etched with the name Miranda Eve and the partial epitaph, “If no one grieves, no one will remember.”

The other side of the headstone bears no words however.

It was kept smooth and ready for engraving. Just in case the mystery girl’s true identity is ever discovered.

THE ART AND BEAUTY OF BALLET

I'm a big big Fan of Bukowski

MUSIC FOR THE SOUL

Roy Hargrove, Lionel Hampton, David Sanchez and Joe Lovano, photo by Frank Jackson

AND NOW, A BEATLES BREAK

DON'T YOU WANT TO SEE THE ENTIRE WORLD? I DO

Street Art, New York City

 

 

TODAY'S ALLEGED MOB GUY

Sculpture this and Sculpture that

DON'T YOU JUST LOVE POP ART?

HERE'S PLEASANT POEM FOR YOU TO ENJOY................

The Yellow Slicker

By

Stuart Dischell

On this fourth day in a row of rain

There is a sameness to the streets broken only by the odd

Brightly painted house—the way those who pass by

In tan or black trench coats look back at the girl

Wearing a yellow slicker. The yellow slicker,

A gift from her aunt who knew London would be wet,

Having lived there herself just after The War,

The Europe she had known transformed to a state

Of the mind, no longer Central but Eastern, far away,

Bombed-out, depopulated, at least of her kind.

But for a girl of nineteen with American thoughts,

Traveler’s cheques, a boy at home, a university

Address, the decline of the West compels less

Than each step she takes through the London rain.

Even these British so accustomed to their weather

Admire the girl in the yellow slicker, as if she

With her uncovered streaming blond hair might shine

As the only sun they will see all wee. Now,

That’s the kind of history she likes to hear.

HERE'S SOME NICE ART FOR YOU TO LOOK AT....ENJOY!

I LOVE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS FROM FILM

Leonard Freed - Vatican, 1958

WHY THE WORLD NEEDS EDITORS..........

THE ART OF PULP

THE ART OF WAR............

Photographs I’ve taken

We were walking around Manhattan one day last year and came across the home/office (Now a soup kitchen for the poor) of Dorothy Day, the Catholic social activist. The staff was kind enough to let me in and take some photos.

Here’s an article about her form Wikipedia.

Dorothy Day, Obl.S.B., (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was a journalist, social activist, and Catholic convert.

Dorothy Day became famous after her conversion. She initially lived abohemian lifestyle before becoming Catholic. This conversion is described in her autobiography, The Long Loneliness.

Day's social activism is also described in her autobiography. In 1917 she was imprisoned as a member of suffragist Alice Paul's nonviolent Silent Sentinels. In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker Movement, a pacifist movement that combines direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf. She practiced civil disobedience, which led to additional arrests in 1955, 1957, and in 1973 at the age of seventy-five.

Day was also an active journalist, and described her social activism in her writings. As part of the Catholic Worker Movement, Day co-founded theCatholic Worker newspaper in 1933, and served as its editor from 1933 until her death in 1980. In this newspaper, Day advocated the Catholic economic theory of distributism, which she considered a third way between capitalism and socialism. Her activism and writing gave her a national reputation as apolitical radical, perhaps the most famous radical in American Catholic Church history.

AND HERE'S SOME ANIMALS FOR YOU...................

The Observation and Appreciation of Architecture

We drove into Washington DC over the weekend just to eat at our favorite, a Japanese place near Tysons Corner. 

Earth Sermon - Beauty, Love And Peace" 1971

“The use of color in my paintings is of paramount importance to me. Through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness, rather than on man’s inhumanity to man."~Alma Thomas

  

Look at the size of this butterfly! Mt God, they grow big stuff here in West Virginia. I'm amazed every time I go out in my yard, I find something new.

Ever hear of the Holly Grey Line? Its a lot like Black listings 

Screenwriter, 91, accuses Academy Awards of discriminating against him for being 'old and white'

David Lawler, WASHINGTON

The effort to diversify the Academy of Motion Pictures has encountered an obstacle in the form of a 91-year-old screenwriter who says he is being discriminated against because he is "old and white".

Robert Bassing, a member of the Academy since 1958, received a letter saying that his voting privileges for the Oscars may be revoked.

Lorenza Munoz, the Academy's managing director of membership and awards, wrote in the letter that the potential change was due to his lack of recent activity.

But Mr Bassing responded by saying the Academy is "trying to reduce the number of old white men so they can meet their numbers". The row follows last year's uproar over the lack of racial diversity among Oscar-winners.

Scoffing at Ms Munoz's suggestion that he might be able to become an emeritus Academy member - which would allow him to view film screenings but not vote - Mr Bassing told Hollywood Reporter the offer was like saying "we're going to put you in a very nice cattle car."

He has threatened to sue the Academy if his voting privileges are taken away. “There’s a lot of old people in the Academy that have very little left in their lives,” he told CBS Los Angeles. “The one thing they have is that they can go to the academy, they can evaluate films and they can cast their vote. To have that taken away, I think is cruel.”

It is unclear how many members have been advised that they may lose their votes, but the move has ruffled some feathers in Hollywood.

"It's a thinly veiled ploy to kick out older white contributors, the backbone of the industry," according to Tab Hunter, the 85-year-old actor who starred in Battle Cry and That Kind of Woman among other films.

The Academy was severely criticised earlier this year when, for the second year in a row, all 20 nominees for the four major acting awards were white.

The "Oscars so white" controversy loomed over the 2016 Academy Awards, with the likes of Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee boycotting the show.

The Academy pledged sweeping reforms to bring more minorities into the fold, one of which was diversifying the group which votes for the awards.

Mr Bassing resents the idea that removing him would help rectify the situation.

"The old white men my age, we are the people who fought for civil rights," he told Fox Los Angeles. "That was that generation. We were the people fighting for civil rights and diversity long before these people ever heard of it."

He added: “Don’t throw the members under the bus, or put the old people out to pasture."

The Academy responded to Mr Bassing with a statement saying that it was "proud to lead the change we must see across the industry", adding that its membership "represents filmmakers and artists ranging in age from 24 to 91".

Two views of the Potomac River

I took a ride recently down to the tidewater area of Virginia and noticed the enormous differences in the Potomac, the same river that runs through Washington DC. In the first photo below you see the river where I live in West Virginia. Up here its generally slow moving and shallow. The other two photos are taken 80 miles east near Fredericksburg Va. where the river is very wide and somewhat deep. 

 

Meanwhile, at the Shepherdstown West Virginia Farmer Market

7 LIFE-CHANGING LESSONS WE LEARN FROM MOTHER TERESA

by Cheri Peacock  

BY CHERI PEACOCK, FAITHCOUNTS.COM CONTRIBUTOR

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

Mother Teresa was a woman of intense faith who fervently believed the world could be a better place, drop by drop, person by person. She dedicated her life to succoring and empowering the disenfranchised, and taught us, through her actions, to cultivate and live an attitude of faith.

MAKE OTHER PEOPLE HAPPY

“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”

Poverty, taught Mother Teresa, is not exclusive to being hungry or homeless; it includes feeling unwanted, uncared for, and unloved. Much of the world spends a great amount of time concerned with themselves—even Time magazine labeled millennials as the “Me Me Me” generation. Have the faith to care more for other people—to truly look outward.

BE FAITHFUL IN SMALL THINGS

“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”

Growing up, the phrase “faith can move mountains” was often heard at home and church. While that is motivating, I have discovered that mountains are sometimes moved piece by piece, rather than as a whole. Perhaps my mountain is moved by lifting one shovelful of dirt over and over and over again. Having faith to do the BIG things is important but it’s as necessary to be faithful in small things, those little scoops of dirt. One day, you’ll look and see how far you’ve come and how much stronger you are because of those mounds you’ve been moving.

BUILD IT ANYWAY

“What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build it anyway.”

Looking at my life, I have, more than once, been paralyzed by fear—whether it be with career choices, relationship or other big decisions. The fear that it might not work out. When seeds of doubt enter the mind, a choice must be made—whether to fight the battle or give in to doubt. Mother Teresa teaches a poignant lesson—it might be destroyed in the end, but the lessons you learn building it will not. Build it anyway.

GO HOME AND LOVE YOUR FAMILY

“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”

We aren’t in this journey of life alone. Family members and friends are there to support us, and lift us up. Have faith in them. Don’t rely on your own strength. We need each other.

BE THE LEADER

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”

Be courageous and reach out of your comfort zone. Don’t wait for the “right time” or for someone else to take charge. You don’t need someone to tell you they need help; just go forward with faith that you can and will change lives through small means and simple acts of kindness, person to person.

FAITHFUL IS SUCCESSFUL

“God had not called me to be successful. He has called me to be faithful.”

Wealth, fame, a big house, designer clothes. To the world, this could seem like evidence of a successful life. But, success doesn’t make you who you are. What do you do when the trial mounts and the road is steep? Be faithful in the highs and lows of life.

FAITH IN ACTION

“Faith in action is love—and love in action is service.”

Faith is more than a belief—it’s an action. As we actively develop our faith, we will feel greater love for others. That love leads to service. Take a look at your life. Are you showing love in action?

There are many examples of faithful people throughout history. As we look to them and learn from them, we can live a more fulfilling life.

Cheri Peacock is a graduate of SUU and hiking fanatic. Email her at cheripeacock@gmail.com.

Where in the World to Eat

Conde Nast Traveler

Where in the World to Eat

September 20, 2016

Courtesy Alden & Harlow

Two hundred and seven of the greatest restaurants around the globe, according to those who eat, cook, and travel for a living.

There’s no shortage of food-focused Instagram feeds that will direct you to the tastiest avocado toast in cities like Paris, London, New York, L.A.—hell, even Charleston. But when you’re faced with the make-or-break travel dilemma of where to eat in Hong Kong, Mendoza, Dakar—destinations where trustworthy recommendations are harder to come by but all the more vital—you have one shot to get it right. (Who knows when you’ll be back in Chengdu...) That’s why we enlisted and cross-referenced the impassioned guidance from the real experts, our network of chefs, food writers, and most-in-the-know travelers. What follows is a print-it-out, laminate-it, take-a-screenshot-of-it, globe-spanning hit list so you will never waste a meal again.

AUSTRIA

Gut Purbach, Purbach

“This elegant country inn in eastern Austria, close to the Hungarian border, specializes in Austrian game dishes like sandpiper and red-legged partridge.” Georges Desrues, food writer

CROATIA

Toklarija, Sovinjsko Polje

“The most memorable dish is in the hills of Istria: a tangle of homemadetagliolini piled high with a bounty of truffles shaved tableside.” Fiorella Valdesolo, editor in chief of Gather Journal

DENMARK

Kadeau, Bornholm

“Precise and delicious cooking in one of the most beautiful locations on the planet.” Matt Duckor, senior editor at Epicurious

Amass, Copenhagen

“One simply cannot live without Matt Orlando’s fermented potato bread.”Seen Lippert, former Chez Panisse chef and world traveler

Manfreds, Copenhagen

“The kind of place you can while away an afternoon, drinking natural and biodynamic wines paired with edible haiku like spring onions with pistachio cream and elderflower.” Bill Addison, restaurant editor at Eater.com

Noma, Copenhagen

“Name a restaurant trend of the past ten years and it is likely to have originated from the mad mind of chef René Redzepi. There are plenty of imitators, but there’s only one master.” David Prior, contributing editor

Relæ, Copenhagen

“Any restaurant that opens these days promising affordable tasting menus and creative cooking probably owes chef Christian Puglisi a great debt. Six years in, and now overseen by executive chef Jonathan Tam, Relæ remains one of the most influential and thoughtful in the world.”Gabe Ulla, food writer

ENGLAND

Market Bistro, King’s Lynn

“This place is a revelation—unpretentiously locavore-ish, welcoming, and personal. The house-made breads are brilliant.” Kate Sekules, food and travel expert

The Clove Club, London

“This is where young British chefs take aspects of gourmet pub fare and good local ingredients and bring them to a whole new innovative level. I had super-tender fried chicken with pine salt that was excellent.”Dominique Ansel, baker

Gymkhana, London

“The city’s most ambitious and luxurious Indian restaurant, right in the heart of elegant Mayfair.” Peter Jon Lindberg, contributing editor

Kitchen Table, London

“James Knappett harvests his own samphire from the Cornish coast, collects verbena from his mom’s backyard in Cambridgeshire, and makes biscuits with pine. He’s a freaking savant.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Kitty Fisher’s, London

“A devilishly cozy restaurant hidden away in Shepherd Market, with wood-paneled walls, dusty-pink velvet banquettes, and raffish, informal service. The aged Galician beef is a must.” Skye McAlpine, food writer andInstagrammer

The Ledbury, London

“Sophisticated tweezer food that’s never cloying, just exactly precious enough.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Lyle’s, London

“Chef James Lowe’s food—like his springy salad of pea shoots, podded peas, and Ticklemore cheese—represents an evolution of British cuisine from sturdy nose-to-tail cooking to an elegant celebration of the delicacy of the English seasons.” David Prior

 Lyle's represents an "elegant celebration of the delicacy of the English seasons."

Nopi, London

“Amazing and surprising use of Mediterranean herbs. Sit at the communal table downstairs, right by the kitchen pass, with a view of all the action.” Steve Wilson, co-founder/CEO of the 21c Museum Hotels

Ognisko, London

“Like being invited to the most fabulous dinner party. I love the blini with herring, the goose confit, smoked eel salad, golonka, and steak tartare.”Kate Sekules

The Quality Chop House, London

“Warm, unpretentious, and just plain delicious—with food and wine to match.” Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group and founder of Shake Shack

The River Café, London

“Quite possibly my favorite Italian restaurant in the world.” Danny Meyer

Rochelle Canteen, London

“Everything works for me inside the walls of Margot Henderson and Melanie Arnold’s art-world lunch spot.” Andrew Tarlow, owner of Wythe Hotel, Diner, and Marlow & Sons in New York City

Spring, London

“By far the prettiest dining room in London—and the food is exquisite.”Skye McAlpine

St. John, London

“Buttery Eccles cakes with Lancashire cheese, meat pies, and tongue with pickled walnuts—all cooked to perfection. You’ll wonder how Britain ever came to suffer from a poor culinary reputation.” Skye McAlpine

FRANCE

La Ferme de la Ruchotte, Bligny-sur-Ouche

“Frédéric Menager trained in some of Paris’s best kitchens before turning his hand to rearing poultry. Every weekend he cooks lunch beneath his family home, serving the best local produce from the area.” James Henry, chef at Belon in Hong Kong

Brasserie Georges Lyon

“An Art Deco jewel serving traditional local cuisine like tablier de sapeur,or pan-fried tripe, and wonderfully fresh seafood. It’s also one of the few brasseries to brew its own beer.” Georges Desrues

Paul Bocuse, Lyon

“Everything on the menu is classic and delicious. Eat it all, if you can.”Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, chefs/co-owners of Frankies Spuntino andPrime Meats in New York City

Restaurant Chez Michel, Marseille

“The best bouillabaisse I’ve ever had in my life.” Daniel Humm, chef and co-owner of Eleven Madison Park and The NoMad in New York City

Le Bistrot du Paradou, Paradou

“Stone floors and walls, family tables, pastis, and beautifully executed recipes that Grandmother would have cooked. Go for Friday lunch.” Libby Travers, food writer

42: The number of countries our sources nominated restaurants in.

Au Vieux Comptoir, Paris

“It would be a shame to miss the magret de canard, but you can never go wrong with the specials. I plan layovers in Paris just so I can devour their mind-bending sweetbreads.” Dawn Hagin, chief inspiration officer at Lark Hotels

Chez L’Ami Jean, Paris

“Still a top contender for best traditional bistro in town, albeit more Basque-inflected than your typical place.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Clamato, Paris

“I go for a glass of wine and wonderful-quality oysters. It reminds me of how the city was when I first lived there.” Alice Waters of Chez Panisse

Clown Bar, Paris “Where you’ll find all the best chefs on a Sunday night after their own restaurants close. There’s insanely good offal dishes and a natural-wine list.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Frenchie, Paris

“I usually secure a reservation before our flights are even booked. Chef Grégory Marchand’s technique blows me away.” Ford Fry, chef/owner of The Optimist, BeetleCat, and others in Atlanta

L’Ambroisie, Paris

“Everything here is special, from the gorgeous 18th-century decor to the chocolate tart, which is the absolute best.” Daniel Humm

 L’Arpège, Paris

“Chef Alain Passard is a vegetable virtuoso.” Tim Ryan, president of The Culinary Institute of America

L’Astrance, Paris

“The most balanced and joyfully bright tasting menu. Always inspired and perfectly executed.” Seen Lippert

Le Baratin, Paris

“The lovely veal brains with lemon butter sauce, chives, and soft baby potatoes are simple and perfect.” Dominique Ansel

Le Chateaubriand, Paris

“The tasting menu is executed at just the right rhythm, and the wine pairings are phenomenal. Call exactly three weeks ahead for a reservation.” Deana Saukam, food writer

Le Comptoir du Relais, Paris

“It’s always crowded. Go for lunch and order the oeufs mayonnaise, terrine of pâté, and whatever seems seasonal.” Mitchell Davis, executive vice president of the James Beard Foundation

Le Servan, Paris

“The super-talented Levha sisters have updated the classic bistro.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Miznon, Paris

“Probably the best lunch spot in Paris. Get the whole roasted head of cauliflower, legendary in the inner circles of Paris.” Ken Oringer, chef/co-owner of Uni, Toro, and Coppa in Boston

Septime, Paris

“Thoughtful food that lets the produce tell its story, alongside a delightful wine list and an ambience that feels like home.” Libby Travers

Le Club 55, Ramatuelle

“This place near St-Tropez has some of the best beachfront dining anywhere. Crudités with anchovy dipping sauce and whole grilled fish are my go-tos.” Ken Oringer

GERMANY

Shiso Burger, Berlin

“I’d fly back for the bulgogi cheeseburger alone.” Sarah Khan, food and travel writer

ITALY

Ristorante da Cesare, Albaretto della Torre

“I have fever dreams about Giaccone’s local wild mushroom and peach salad.” Fiorella Valdesolo

Ristorante Battaglino, Bra

“A traditional Piedmontese restaurant with dishes like the mythicalfinanziera, a stew of offal and cock’s crests.” Georges Desrues

Buca dell’Orafo, Florence

“I long for the tortino, a simple omelet made with artichokes or porcini, depending on the season. It’s so delicious it defies science.” Mitchell Davis

Lo Scoglio, Marina del Cantone

“You could try to reproduce the three-ingredient zucchini-garlic spaghetti. But even with the addition of the secret ingredient—a bit of starchy pasta water, which gives it an ineffable creaminess—the whole experience is the very definition of gestalt.” Pilar Guzmán, editor in chief

L’Alchimista on the Piazza, Montefalco

“This is Umbria on a plate. Rabbit worth crossing the globe for.” Julie Gibbs, cookbook publisher

 Cesare al Casaletto, Rome

“Thoughtfully rendered classics like cacio e pepe and pasta alla gricia, and so many dishes that have virtually vanished from Roman menus: skate and romanesco soup, brisket meatballs, and roasted liver.” Katie Parla, co-author of Tasting Rome

Trust us, Da Laura in San Fruttuoso, Italy is worth the trek. It’s likely that the food would taste just as incredible even if you didn’t have to hike over a mountain or take a ferry to get there. But the simple food is worth crawling here for: fat sheets of fresh pasta napped in Ligurian pesto; spaghetti with chopped mussels; grilled fish filleted tableside. All enjoyed with bottles of house wine, of course. —Christine Muhlke, editor at large for Bon Appétit

Roscioli, Rome

“If you love French wine and Italian food like we do, you’re in the right place.” Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli

Dal Pescatore, Runate

“The cooking emphasizes excellence and comfort over gimmicks: chestnut gnocchi with bottarga, saffron risotto in a pool of aged balsamico,and grilled eel from the Po River.” Alan Sytsma, food editor of NYMag.com/Grub Street

Ardigna, Sicily

“Deep in the Trapani hills, you’ll find a never-ending parade of old-school Sicilian hits prepared by Italian grandmothers— literally.” Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli

Da Vittorio, Sicily

“The spaghetti with sea urchin is the best in the world.” Deana Saukam

Viri Ku Cè, Sicily

“Seafood served straight from the boat—raw, marinated, fried, grilled. There’s no menu, they just bring you whatever is fresh that day until you tell them to stop.” Deana Saukam

Da Celeste, Venice “A family-run restaurant on one of Venice’s fishing islands. You sit out on the pier, with lagoon views and not a soul in sight. The whole oven-baked turbot is exquisite.” Skye McAlpine

THE NETHERLANDS

Rijks, Amsterdam

“Great people, stunning food and concept—I go here to be inspired.”Margot Janse, executive chef of Le Quartier Français in Franschhoek, South Africa

NORWAY

Maaemo, Oslo

“Chef Esben Holmboe Bang may be Danish, but he’s redefining Norwegian cuisine at this innovative eight-table spot by turning ingredients like salted mutton and pine butter into craveable tasting menu staples.” Matt Duckor

PORTUGAL

Zé Bota, Porto

“Big multi-ingredient platters blend the flavors of sea and land. Standouts include the veal in Madeira sauce, the miraculous cod, and the leite cremefor dessert.” Dawn Hagin

RUSSIA

White Rabbit, Moscow

“Vladimir Mukhin gives a futuristic twist to obsessively researched 16th-century Russian recipes and archaic Slavic ingredients most Russians know only from fairy tales. Get the Forward to the Past tasting menu, which might include moose milk or the caviar of an albino sturgeon.”Anya von Bremzen, food critic and memoirist

SPAIN

Asador Etxebarri, Apatamonasterio

“There’s a considered approach to every dish—house-salted, house-churned, house-made—and then there’s that ice cream. Incredible.” Libby Travers

La Paradeta, Barcelona

“Queue outside until they let you in, choose the raw seafood and the way you want it cooked, then pay and collect it from the kitchen. Super-simple, canteen-style." Margot Janse

Paco Meralgo, Barcelona

“A breezy tapas bar doing the classics right. Order cuttlefish fritters, grilled fish, Iberian sausage, and lots of wine.” Matt Rodbard, food editor/writer

4 to 6 months: That’s how far in advance you should book a table atAsador Etxebarri, in Apatamonasterio, Spain—the most recommended restaurant in the world, according to our experts.

Quimet & Quimet, Barcelona

“An always-packed, always-fun wine bar where everything comes out of a can or a jar, conservas-style.” Ken Oringer

Elkano, Getaria

“Most of the seafood is prepared on a large outdoor grill, which you can smell as you approach the restaurant.” Daniel Kessler, co-owner of Bergen Hillin New York City

Ca Na Toneta, Mallorca

“The owners source everything from the island, even some of the clay for the plates.” Andrew Tarlow

Rafa’s, Roses

“The sweetest percebes (goose barnacles), briny house-cured anchovies, and John Dory on the bone almost brought tears to my eyes.” Luke Burgess former chef at Garagistes in Hobart, Australia

SWEDEN

Fäviken, Järpen

“The breakfast is outrageously good: porridge served with cloudberry compote, fresh whey cheese, and black currant juice.” Matt Duckor

Ekstedt, Stockholm

“Niklas Ekstedt took all the electricity out of the kitchen and cooks purely with live fire.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Matbaren, Stockholm

“The beauty, tradition, and craftsmanship of Scandinavian food. The best seat is at the bar.” Marcus Samuelsson, chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author

SWITZERLAND

Kronenhalle, Zurich

“The food is delicious, the champagne and wine list extensive, and it has a museum-quality collection of art from the likes of Miró, Chagall, Picasso, and Matisse.” Daniel Humm

TURKEY

Kantin, Istanbul

“Chef Semsa Denizsel’s Black Sea anchovies with spiced rice alone are worth the trip.” Katie Parla

UNITED STATES

CALIFORNIA

Chez Panisse, Berkeley

“The cradle of the American food revolution continues to be as relevant as it was when its now legendary chef, Alice Waters, co-founded it in 1971.”David Prior

Glen Ellen Star, Glen Ellen

“Chef Ari Weiswasser seems to work the line every single night. The roasted baby carrots with harissa and crispy chickpeas, served in a cast-iron skillet, was a standout. The menu is simple, so the ingredients really shine. Sit at the bar for a direct view of the kitchen and brick oven.” Rob Blood, founder and CEO of Lark Hotels

Animal, Los Angeles

“The room is nothing special, and the service is almost comically casual ('Let me tell you about the pig’s ears, bro'). But the food is way more ambitious and refined than the setting implies. And for all the talk about pig’s ears, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo’s secret weapon is their amazing produce, which is so very Los Angeles.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Chi Spacca, Los Angeles

“Large-format meats (like a 48-ounce bistecca fiorentina) roasted or grilled over fire. Simple and perfect.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Guisados, Los Angeles

“Freshly pressed tortillas and stewed meat make this L.A.'s best taco spot.” Matt Rodbard

Sqirl, Los Angeles

“Believe the hype. I’m happy to wait in line to get my hands on my favorite Sqirl triumvirate: sorrel pesto rice bowl, brioche toast with ricotta and Blenheim apricot jam, with a turmeric tonic.” Fiorella Valdesolo

 “I find the cooking here incredibly seductive. I love its integrity, its bold, thoughtful flavors, and its ethos, plus the wood-fired oven and communal tables.” Skye Gyngell, chef at Spring in London

Bar Tartine, San Francisco

“Cortney Burns and Nick Balla make every ingredient in every dish at Bar Tartine; nothing leaves their kitchen that wasn't grown or made by hand, in-house. You can taste that next-level care in every bite: like the mind-blowing dry-aged beef tartare with radish on house-sprouted bread.”Michael Solomonov, chef/co-owner of Zahav and Dizengoff in Philadelphia

Benu, San Francisco

“Corey Lee's menu commands attention, from some sort of voodoo with an unlaid hen's egg that pops you in the kisser as a sweet hit of cholesterol, to a handwoven nori net that has ensnared a collection of miniature pickled vegetables.” Myffy Rigby, editor of Fairfax Media’s Good Food Guides

Saison, San Francisco

“While chef Joshua Skenes’s food is beautiful, it is also intriguing. I recall wondering what type of vinegar was used in a dish, expecting wine. It turned out to be fermented sea cucumber guts. Doesn’t sound great, but it was so subtle and delicious.” Mitchell Davis

Swan Oyster Depot, San Francisco

“My happiest place in America to eat crab backs filled with fat, juicy oysters and enjoy a cold draft beer.” Anthony Bourdain, chef, writer, and TV personality

Zuni Café, San Francisco

“One of the most beautiful spaces ever, with the most delicious food—especially if you go there straight from the airport.” Ignacio Mattos, chef/co-owner of Estela and Café Altro Paradiso in New York City

Gjelina, Venice

“I was so taken by my first visit to Gjelina that I went back twice more in the same week. The best seat in the house is a round table just inside the courtyard, giving a unique vantage point on happenings both inside and out.” Steve Wilson

 Gjelina is the kind of place you'll visit twice in the same week.

Gjusta, Venice

“Travis Lett’s team understands how people will want to eat in the future. Their original restaurant, Gjelina, is an L.A. classic, but its upstart younger sibling, a café/bakery cum deli counter in a sprawling Venice warehouse, channels a certain brand of breezy California sophistication. Come for coffee and a croissant, a healthy salad, or a porchetta sandwich. It’s not fine dining. It’s about a rules-be-damned freedom of choice. How Californian is that?” David Prior

FLORIDA

Alter, Miami

“Super-creative chef Brad Kilgore is crushing it at this buzzy spot, which so perfectly fits the arty, vibrant Wynwood vibe.” Peter Jon Lindberg

GEORGIA

Seabear Oyster Bar, Athens

“I still can’t get over chef Patrick Stubbers’s pillowy Parker House rolls drenched in brown butter and sprinkled with raw sugar and sea salt. Or his crispy, briny, deep-fried clam strips. Or the icy Negroni slushies that go down just a little too easy.” Ashlea Halpern, contributing editor

Two Urban Licks, Atlanta

“This is the restaurant that kicked off the New American trend in Atlanta. Favorites include the salmon chips, topped with fresh smoked salmon, capers, red onions, and a dab of chipotle cream cheese; the brisket-filled empanadas; the scallops and grits; and the rotisserie chicken with mac ’n’ cheese. Sit outside for a view of the downtown Atlanta skyline.” Cherae Robinson, founder/CEO of Tastemakers Africa

HAWAII

Town, Honolulu

“Chef Ed Kenney, son of a famed hula dancer is like Michael Pollan if Michael Pollan could surf, hunt wild boar, and cook circles around any mainland chef.” Peter Jon Lindberg

ILLINOIS

Alinea, Chicago

“Relaunched in spring 2016 after a top-to-bottom renovation, with a warmer and softer interior (a huge improvement on the ascetic, hard-edged original) and more tasting menu options for diners.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Au Cheval, Chicago

“I’ve only had 0.01 percent of America’s burgers, but this is by far the best I’ve ever tasted.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Could Au Cheval have the best burger in America?

Next, Chicago

“Because the concept and menu changes several times a year, this is definitely one to visit over and over. Use their ticketing system, Tock, to secure a reservation. And follow them on social media, because if there ever are last-minute cancellations, they offer them up to their followers.”Sean Brock, chef/co-owner of Husk and McCrady’s in Charleston

INDIANA

Milktooth, Indianapolis

“This breakfast-, brunch-, and lunch-only restaurant in an airy converted garage wouldn’t touch eggs Benedict with a 50-foot pole. And that’s what makes it so genius. Chef Jonathan Brooks does wild things with Dutch baby pancakes; he puts egg salad and fried Lebanon bologna on toast. Because why not?” Ashlea Halpern

LOUISIANA

Brennan’s, New Orleans

“The restaurant has been firmly entrenched in the French Quarter since 1942, a maze of opulent dining rooms surrounding a sun-drenched courtyard famous for an adorable family of turtles that can often be found dozing on the fountain rocks. A recent renovation has updated the decor, and Slade Rushing, their award-winning new chef, has gently reimagined the timeless menu, keeping its Creole soul firmly intact.” Gail Simmons, author, special projects director for Food & Wine, and judge on Bravo’s Top Chef

Shaya, New Orleans

“A beautifully designed space with tables close enough to feel the community but far enough apart for a private dinner. I am British and never talk to the people at the table next to me, but here you just want to share the joy of the food, ambience, and service.” David Bowd, co-owner ofSalt House Inn and Eben House in Provincetown, Mass.

MAINE

Eventide Oyster Co., Portland

“The oyster bar of your dreams: briny half-shells most likely harvested that morning, note-perfect lobster rolls, a killer wine list, and all sorts of unexpected treats on the daily menu.” Peter Jon Lindberg

MARYLAND

Woodberry Kitchen, Baltimore

“Spike Gjerde’s restaurant represents a recent phenomenon that I am very excited about in the United States: small regional restaurants in unlikely places reinventing American regional flavors and building a community around them.” Alice Waters

MASSACHUSETTS

Alden & Harlow, Boston

“The quickly sold-out burger is the thing to get.” Sarah Khan

Oleana, Cambridge

“Long before Zahav in Philly, chef Ana Sortun was introducing North African, Middle Eastern, and Turkish spices, herbs, and techniques to American fine dining, and she’s stayed at the forefront of Boston’s food scene ever since. Bonus points for the setting: a gorgeous old Victorian house near Kendall Square with a backyard patio and garden.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Proprietors, Nantucket

“This is the type of place where you should go with a group of six or more and order as many items on the menu as possible. Dishes come out as they’re ready, which makes for great flow. The cocktails are top-notch, as are the pig-ear fries.” Rob Blood

NEVADA

Raku, Las Vegas

“When people say ‘No, really, Vegas has amazing local restaurants if you know where to look,’ they invariably mention Raku, a fantastically authentic Japanese restaurant/izakaya out on Spring Mountain Road (Vegas’s Chinatown). This is where all the great chefs on the Strip go after their shift—they serve until 3 or 4 a.m.” Peter Jon Lindberg

NEW YORK

Table on Ten, Bloomville

“The best artisanal pizza I've ever ever had, and herby salads so fresh you can hear them growing. Yes, owner Inez Valk was a model, and everyone is beautiful and funny, and there are movie nights downstairs and guitar playing all summer long and, and, and...” Kate Sekules

Brushland Eating House, Bovina

“Ex-Frankies/Prime Meats people. Always impressive, delicious, friendly—and just a three-and-a-half-hour drive from New York City.” Kate Sekules

Diner, Brooklyn

“It's in our own backyard and, yeah, the burger's great, but Andrew Tarlow quietly invented a food movement that's been pretty special here for more than 15 years.” Matt Duckor

Marlow & Sons, Brooklyn

“With Diner, Tarlow helped transform what was once a desolate patch of Williamsburg into one of the coolest neighborhoods in the city. But it's Diner's next-door neighbor and sister restaurant, Marlow & Sons, that might be Tarlow's masterpiece. There's a great tortilla Española and reliably wonderful brick chicken, a clever list of natural wines, and probably the best playlist of any restaurant in New York (well, if you like disco).” Gabe Ulla

Roberta’s, Brooklyn

“Wood-fired pizzas, in-house charcuterie, an excellent wine list, a vegetable garden, and punk music in the heart of Brooklyn, all of which comes together in the most natural way.” James Henry

 In a city that bleeds pizza, Roberta's is the best.

Betony, Manhattan

“Caviar, buttery foie gras, fluke carpaccio, velvety leek ravioli—all of the fine-dining elite can be found in a restaurant that somehow manages to be unpretentious. The four-course menu or chef's tasting menu are your best bets. All of the ingredients are superbly fresh, and many of them come from farms upstate.” Cherae Robinson

Casellula, Manhattan

“One of the best cheese-centric wine bars in the city. I usually order a bottle or two of wine, a large cheese board, and the must-have Pig’s Ass Sandwich: a panino with brined ham and roasted pork, cheddar, Fol Epi cheese, sweet pickles, and chipotle aioli.” Edouardo Jordan, chef/owner ofSalare in Seattle

Eleven Madison Park, Manhattan

“If you’re going to spend $600 and four-plus hours on dinner for two, best that it feel light and breezy and fluid and, above all, fun. Eleven Madison Park discards the weight and pretense of the typical Michelin-three-star restaurant and replaces it with constant surprises. Bonus points for the ‘dreamweaver’ team who can make an occasion feel genuinely special and personalized.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Emilio’s Ballato, Manhattan

“One of the last restaurants that clearly references the past of Nolita/SoHo—where rock stars, actors, and old-school Italianos gathered for linguine Vongole and veal Milanese.” Matt Rodbard

Estela, Manhattan

“The little New York restaurant that could. Estela proves that a great night in the city needn’t be confined to an overly stylized theme restaurant. Rather, the best meal in town could be found at a marble bar just steps from noisy Houston Street. And chef Ignacio Mattos's kohlrabi salad was an instant classic.” David Prior

Jean-Georges, Manhattan

“Jean-Georges Vongerichten is, simply put, one of the greatest chefs of the modern era. His flagship restaurant maintains the vitality and innovative spirit of an up-and-comer while executing flawless cuisine like the savvy mainstay that it is.” Tim Ryan, president of The Culinary Institute of America

Le Bernardin, Manhattan

“Le Bernardin proves every day that fine dining can still be relevant and enjoyable. There is no better food, service, or wine program.” Anthony Bourdain

 Anthony Bourdain: "There is no better food, service, or wine program than Le Bernardin."

Locanda Verde, Manhattan

“Andrew Carmellini’s Italian restaurant at the Greenwich Hotel in TriBeCa is consistently great. The masculine interior lends itself to ordering warming pasta dishes and a hearty bottle of red. The white veal Bolognese alone is worth the cab fare.” Adam Hyman of CODE Hospitality

Maharlika Filipino Moderno, Manhattan

“Maharlika executes some of the best Filipino cuisine outside Manila. Go for brunch and try the Filipino-style fried chicken with purple yam waffles or one of the Silog options with longganisa pork sausage and amazing garlic rice.” Cherae Robinson

Masa, Manhattan

“Masa has the best sushi rice—the true determinant of great sushi—in the world. And the most impeccable fish, too. Masa Takayama, if preparing the food himself, is one of the few world masters you can still watch, eye to eye, make your dinner.” Anthony Bourdain

Per Se, Manhattan

“Thomas Keller's elegant Manhattan jewel has never been better. His Oysters and Pearls is one of the greatest dishes of all time, and a trip to Per Se without it is like a Paul McCartney concert without ‘Yesterday.’”Tim Ryan

Superiority Burger, Manhattan

“Because Superiority Burger is vegetarian, it’s on-trend, except it does it in a way that's cheeky and appeals to non-vegetarians. Pete Wells gave it two stars in the Times, which was a total upset because it's tiny and has only six desk-sized seats and blares punk rock. The energy is totally contagious and I've caught the bug.” Charlotte Druckman, food writer, co-founder of The Piglet, and author of Skirt Steak: Women Chefs on Standing the Heat and Staying in the Kitchen

Wildair, Manhattan

“I love the fine choice of great minimal-intervention wines, the staff knowledge and passion, the focus and attention to detail, and the exceptional cooking skills of owners Jeremiah Stone and Fabián von Hauske. They’re putting their heart and soul on the plate—and in the glass—with quiet confidence and humility.” Kylie Kwong, chef/co-owner of Billy Kwong in Sydney

Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Pocantico Hills

“Dan Barber is among America’s top three most influential chefs, and this restaurant is his showcase. Beyond the farm-to-table movement, he’s constantly pushing the conversation forward on things like whole-farm cooking, custom vegetable breeding, and food waste. A meal at Blue Hill is like a conversation with Barber, where he shows you just how stunning food can be while still adhering to environmental and moral concerns. A noble cause doesn’t mean much if the restaurant is a bummer, but Blue Hill is totally transporting.” Alan Sytsma

OREGON

Nong’s Khao Man Gai, Portland

“The downtown food cart is branded into my memory for its chicken and rice. It's perfectly prepared and comes with some of the best spicy chili sauce I've ever had. The best way to enjoy the dish is to eat it while walking around Portland.” Ford Fry

PENNSYLVANIA

Zahav, Philadelphia

“Michael Solomonov channels the Middle East, North Africa, and his native Israel with his light, bright, intensely flavorful cooking. The hummus and house-made laffa alone are worth the dinner price, as are the amazing salatim vegetable salads.” Peter Jon Lindberg

SOUTH CAROLINA

The Wreck of the Richard & Charlene, Mount Pleasant

“Named for a trawler impaled on its site by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, The Wreck makes some of the best Low Country–style seafood imaginable. Its menu of fried shrimp, scallops, and oysters; hush puppies; and stone crab may sound similar to other seafood shacks in the area, but the quality and care that goes into every one of their perfectly golden seafood platters is unsurpassed.” Gail Simmons

TENNESSEE

Blackberry Farm, Walland

“Dining in The Barn at Blackberry Farm, nestled deep in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, is Southern hospitality at its finest. The tasting menu changes almost daily to showcase produce, meat, and handmade cheeses from the surrounding area, a good portion of which is grown or raised on-site. Guest chefs like Thomas Keller and David Chang have been known to visit the property for culinary retreats, so it’s worth checking the calendar to see who may be in the kitchen.” Gail Simmons

TEXAS

Uchi, Austin

“Tyson Cole is the patriarch of the Austin food scene, and 13 years in, Uchi is still one of the great Japanese restaurants in the country.” Peter Jon Lindberg

 Some 13 years on, Uchi is still one of the best Japanese restaurants in America.

Kim Phat Hu Tieu Nam Vang, Houston

“The namesake hu tieu nam vang, or Phnom Penh noodle soup, is even better than in Cambodia.” Deana Saukam

Oxheart, Houston

“Some of the best vegetable-focused food in a city known for its meat.”Matt Duckor

VIRGINIA

Peter Chang, Glen Allen

“Peter Chang is a Szechuan god and a legend in Virginia, where he operates many namesake restaurants. But this location in a strip mall near Short Pump, just outside Richmond, is the best. The dry-fried eggplant, tingly tofu-skin salad, and crispy pork belly are the must-orders.” Matt Rodbard

VERMONT

Hen of the Wood, Waterbury

“I love this restaurant for chef Eric Warnstedt's thoughtfulness toward ingredients and seasons, and his strong ties to farmers and foragers. He serves up food that is straightforward and delicious. My favorites are the house charcuterie plates, the braised pork, and the perfect steak with awesome smoky potatoes.” Ford Fry

WASHINGTON

Canlis, Seattle

“The spectacular location of this third-generation family-owned restaurant is bested only by its creative cuisine and gracious hospitality. It is the only restaurant in America that has this much history, yet continues to push, create, and maintain its relevancy. I always return from a meal here feeling inspired—and with my passion for our industry completely on fire.” Will Guidara, co-owner of Eleven Madison Park and The NoMad in New York City

The Walrus and the Carpenter, Seattle

“Experiencing Renee Erickson's menu is like reliving her life as it relates to the food of the Northwest. The menu changes daily, but a big plate of regional oysters is a must.” Ford Fry

CANADA + MEXICO

QUEBEC

Liverpool House, Montreal

“Exactly the kind of offal-y, hearty cooking you crave on a winter’s night in Quebec.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Au Pied de Cochon Sugar Shack, St. Benoît de Mirabel

“Chef Martin Picard is a demigod of French-Canadian decadence. There’s no telling what he’ll prepare. Reservations are taken via the website and usually fill up long before the season even opens. Be flexible with your travel dates if you can.” Gail Simmons

MEXICO CITY

Contramar

“Gabriela Cámara’s ex¬traordinary restaurant is always my first stop. It feels like the city’s dining room.” Alice Waters

 Contramar "feels like the city's dining room."

El Bajío

“Their empanadas, made with plantain dough and filled with black beans and cheese, are phenomenal. So are the carnitas and crab with black salsa.” Ken Oringer

Pujol

“Chef Enrique Olvera’s ‘living’ mole has been stewing for hundreds of days—ingredients are added daily, so it’s different every time you try it. This place is elegant but not stuffy. And it won’t break the bank.” Gabe Ulla

TULUM

Cetli

“It serves authentic Yucatán dishes in a dreamy setting, run out of a family home. You simply cannot go wrong with the delicious white mole with fish and a spicy margarita.” Deana Saukam

Hartwood

“I could eat here every night for the rest of my life. The ceviches are otherworldly, and the whole grouper in the wood oven is a must.” Ken Oringer

VERACRUZ

El Negro del Estero

“The focus is on the mariscos, prepared as simply as possible. Crab claws, shrimp, and lobster are all served platter-style with lime and salt. Try thepulque, made from agave, that tastes like a sweet tequila.” Cherae Robinson

AFRICA + THE MIDDLE EAST

GHANA

Chez Clarisse, Accra

“Ivorian cuisine that’s heavy on seafood. Get the wild tilapia with attiéké(cassava couscous) and alloco (sautéed sweet plantains).” Cherae Robinson

Gold Coast Restaurant & Cocktail Bar, Accra

“Sundays are for soup. The nkatenkwan, or groundnut soup, is best eaten with your hands.” Cherae Robinson

SENEGAL

Chez Loutcha, Dakar

“Massive flavor. The best thiéboudienne, or Senegalese fish and rice, you’ll find outside a local’s home.” Cherae Robinson

SOUTH AFRICA

The Pot Luck Club, Cape Town

“My favorites: the chickpea fries, pig’s head, and carrots with goat cheese ricotta. There’s also sweeping views of Table Mountain. Make reservations months in advance.” Cherae Robinson

 You won't forget your first meal at the Pot Luck Club. And it won't be your last.

East Head Café, Knysna

“It’s touristy because it overlooks the Knysna Heads, but I had two utterly memorable breakfasts here.” Sarah Khan

Max’s Lifestyle, Umlazi

“The best place to get braai, amazing South African–style grilled meat. Go on a Friday or Saturday night to hear local Kwaito music.” Cherae Robinson

ISRAEL

Machneyuda, Jerusalem

“A joyfully chaotic spot just off the Machane Yehuda market using fresh Israeli-grown ingredients.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Studio Arcadia by Chef Ezra Kedem, Jerusalem

“It’s a glass-enclosed dining room atop an olive tree–covered hill outside the city. The food is simple but extraordinary.” Anita Lo, chef/owner ofAnnisa

 Simple but extraordinary: Studio Arcadia by Chef Ezra Kedem.

Muscat Restaurant, Rosh Pina

“It’s the kind of place that raises its own lamb and picks fresh produce at 2 p.m., then serves it at 7 p.m.” Michael Solomonov

Tzfon Abraxas, Tel Aviv

“Sit at the counter and eat whatever the chef is preparing that day. If they have the baked hraime with tomato and tahini, order it.” Alon Shaya, chef/partner of Shaya, Domenica, and Pizza Domenica in New Orleans

Elbabor, Umm al-Fahm

“Outstanding Palestinian food, and the Kebab Elbabor brings me to tears every time.” Michael Solomonov

LEBANON

Tawlet, Beirut

“It began as a development project, bringing together female home cooks from various religious sects. It’s since become a living catalog of Lebanon’s food tradition.” David Prior

ASIA

CHINA

Duck de Chine, Beijing

“My go-to place for Beijing duck. They’re crisped in ovens using date wood to enhance the flavor.” Justin Bergman, Shanghai correspondent for Monocle

Yu Zhi Lan, Chengdu

“Try the free-range duck egg-yolk noodles, hand cut and served in a soup with two slices of truffle and baby bok choy. Reservations are a must.”Justin Bergman

The Chairman, Hong Kong

“Call ahead to reserve the steamed crab set atop fresh, wide rice noodles in a sauce of aged Shaoxing wine and chicken oil.” Bill Addison

Lung King Heen, Hong Kong

“The best dim sum in the world. Get a double order of the BBQ pork buns.” Deana Saukam

At Rōnin in Hong Kong, the menu changes daily—but you know dishes will always be "raw," "smaller," or "bigger."

Rōnin, Hong Kong

“From Matt Abergel and Lindsay Jang, the duo behind Yardbird, comes the nearly-impossible-to-find 24-seater. Your reward is some of the most inventive Japanese-inspired seafood menus around: flower crab with a sliver of uni, sea bream karaage (deep fried) with pickled jalapeño tosazu, saba (mackerel) sashimi uncommonly paired with persimmons, and the super-tender Kagoshima beef with mushroom that’s served with egg yolk, to name a few. While the menu changes daily, the organizing principle—‘raw,’ ‘smaller,’ and ‘bigger’—remains the same.” Pilar Guzmán

Tim Ho Wan, Hong Kong

“The baked buns with barbecued pork and steamed egg cake are to die for.” Justin Bergman

INDIA

Bombay Canteen, Mumbai

“Amazing vibe, some of the best Indian/fusion food I’ve ever had.” Sarah Khan

Bukhara, New Delhi

“We love that nothing about this place—the decor, the yogurt and cane-vinegar marinated barrah kebab (leg of lamb)—has changed in 30 years. The result is the most masterful North-West Frontier tandoor-style cooking imaginable. Best of all, you eat everything with your hands.” Pilar Guzmán

Indian Accent, New Delhi

“Unquestionably the best restaurant in New Delhi, thanks to the baingan bharta, a classic Punjabi eggplant dish served inside a cornetto cone made with sun-dried tomato. Dinner reservations are tough—go for a weekday lunch.” Justin Bergman

JAPAN

Takotsubo, Hiroshima

“The freshest seafood from the Seto Inland Sea. My order is different every time, depending on what the chef recommends. Trust him.”Masaharu Morimoto, chef and TV personality

Otomezushi, Kanazawa

“You’ll get a tour of Toyama Bay and beyond: four species of ebi; deep-sea bream, crunchy and sweet; raw firefly squid; plus a duo of anago and unagi. It’s a meal you’ll never forget.” Luke Burgess

Where Obama eats sushi:Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo.

It's the best sushi in the world. Come hungry—Jiro serves his nigiri one right after the other, so each piece is super fresh and the perfect temperature. To get a reservation, have a friend who speaks Japanese call months in advance. —Deana Saukam, food writer

Aronia de Takazawa, Tokyo

“This four-table tasting-menu restaurant pushes the boundaries of Japanese cooking. You’re at the mercy of the chef, but that is a great thing. Book far in advance.” Grant Achatz, chef/co-owner of Alinea in Chicago

Eatrip, Tokyo

“This place is an island of warmth in Tokyo.” Sam White, co-owner of Ramen Shop in Oakland, California

Ishikawa, Tokyo

“The kaiseki meals are perfectly assembled, multi-course progressions that rarely hit a false note.” Gabe Ulla

Jimbocho Den, Tokyo

"To sit at Den’s eight-seat counter is to dive headlong into an eight- to ten-course improv comedy show, as 38-year-old chef Zaiyu Hasegawa and his crew trot out surprise after kooky surprise. There’s the grinning bobblehead of Zaiyu-san on the counter, the carrots carved into smiley faces hiding in the salad greens, and the goofy homage to KFC (delivered in a box marked “Den-tucky Fried Chicken”): Inside, what looks like a normal fried chicken wing is stuffed with a mix of sticky rice, potatoes, or beans and with seasonal ingredients such as mushrooms and ume plum."Peter Jon Lindberg

 To sit at Jimbocho Den’s eight-seat counter is to dive headlong into an eight- to ten-course improv comedy show.

Kadowaki, Tokyo

“I loved the abalone with fish-liver soy sauce—the ideal combination of briny-fresh seafood and umami.” Dominique Ansel

Katsukura, Tokyo

“Get the tonkatsu, or fried pork cutlet. The panko crust is light and crisp, the pork juicy and rich.” Mitchell Davis

Kyubey, Tokyo

“The fish is insanely fresh, and the attention to detail is remarkable. Theomakase is downright perfect.” Jose Garces, chef/owner of Amada, Distrito,Tinto, and others in Philadelphia

L’Effervescence, Tokyo

“A feeling of calm washes over you the moment you walk into this beautiful dining room. Don’t miss the tableside tea service. It’s exquisite.”Sean Brock, chef/co-owner of Husk and McCrady’s in Charleston

Mikawa Zezankyo, Tokyo

“I remember eating battered and fried uni wrapped in shiso leaf and never wanting it to end.” Gabe Ulla

Sushi Saito, Tokyo

“One of the greatest sushi omakases in the world.” Ken Oringer

Sushi Sho Tokyo

“The most extraordinary omakase sushi meal no one can find.” Gail Simmons, author, special projects director for Food & Wine, and judge on Bravo’s Top Chef

SushiYa, Tokyo

"Hidden in an alley off another alley in Ginza, SushiYa (literally “Sushi Shop”) looks like your typical sushi den but the fish—good God, the fish!Otoro tuna as fatty and luscious as a slab of pancetta. Bonito smoked over straw. Hokkaido ikura, perked up with yuzu zest. Right now, this is the best in town." Peter Jon Lindberg

THE PHILIPPINES

Your Local, Makati

“I still dream of the pomelo salad with shrimp, winged beans, wild rocket, yuzu, nam jim, pickled quail eggs, and Thai coconut ‘ice cream.’ ” Ashlea Halpern

SINGAPORE

Burnt Ends

“Sit at the bar and watch them break down a whole side of beef, then roast it in a 1,000-degree wood-fired oven or grill it over coals.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Restaurant André

“French technique, Asian influences, and seamless service.” Tim Ryan

Sin Huat Eating House

“A sweltering dump open to the street and the prostitutes of Geylang. The chef wears shorts, a grotty T-shirt, and rubber wellies. It’s also delicious. Get the crab bee hoon on rice vermicelli.” Anthony Bourdain

SOUTH KOREA

Mingles, Seoul

“The modern restaurant movement has arrived in Seoul, and Mingoo Kang is its leader.” Matt Rodbard

TAIWAN

Din Tai Fung, Taipei

“The best soup dumplings in the world.” Deana Saukam

THAILAND

Nahm, Bangkok

“Eye-rolling deliciousness.” Myffy Rigby

“Powerful, pungent, and mouth-scorchingly hot.” David Prior

“Stratospheric.” Andy Ricker, chef/owner of Pok Pok Restaurants

“Impressively complex.” Mitchell Davis, executive vice president of the James Beard Foundation

VIETNAM

Cuc Gach Quán, Ho Chi Minh City

“Traditional Vietnamese served in an elegant setting—a rarity here, since the best authentic food is usually dished out in dives with plastic tables.”Peter Jon Lindberg

AUSTRALIA

Brae, Birregurra

“Faultless service and delicious food that’s seamlessly paired with killer beverages. Simple as that.” Luke Burgess

Franklin, Hobart

“Impeccable ultra-locavore cooking from one of Australia’s top youngish chefs, who’s doing justice to the incredible bounty of Tasmania.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Attica, Melbourne

“Ben Shewry’s cuisine is thought-provoking and unusual... in a good way.” Simon Rogan, chef/owner of L’Enclume in Cartmel, England

 Ben Shewry's Attica in Melbourne is "thought-provoking and unusual... in a good way."

Chin Chin, Melbourne

“One of the few places I’ve been that really lives up to the hype. I went there twice on a three-day visit.” Sarah Khan

Sean’s Panaroma, North Bondi

“Down-to-earth fresh seasonal cooking that oozes with the endless warmth and charm of chef/owner Sean Moran.” Kylie Kwong

Where every meal is absolutely delicious: Cumulus Inc. in Melbourne. It's open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. Have a full English breakfast, foie gras parfait, sparklingly fresh oysters, or the famous whole roast lamb shoulder. Order two lemon curd–filled madeleines, baked to order, to take back to your hotel. —Julie Gibbs, cookbook publisher

Bennelong, Sydney

“Reclaimed its spot in Sydney’s top tier when Peter Gilmore took over the kitchen and made the tourist landmark the Opera House smart and respectable again.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Bills, Sydney

“Pretty much invented Aussie breakfast culture, then exported it worldwide.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Billy Kwong, Sydney

“Delicious Chinese food with intriguing Australian notes.” Joanna Savill, food writer

Golden Century Seafood, Sydney

“Dave Chang called the pipis with XO sauce and vermicelli his favorite dish on earth. Nobody goes here before midnight.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Rockpool Bar & Grill, Sydney

“Try the live South Australian clams steamed with serrano ham, white wine, and flageolet beans.” Kylie Kwong

Spice I Am, Sydney

“Still the best down-and-dirty Thai food in town, and that’s saying something in Sydney.” Peter Jon Lindberg

CENTRAL + SOUTH AMERICA

ARGENTINA

La Cabrera, Buenos Aires

“Unbelievable steaks and grilled sweetbreads and great Argentine wines. It’s B.A.’s most assured parrilla.” Peter Jon Lindberg

Miramar, Buenos Aires

“This off-the-beaten-path cantina porteña is the perfect lunch spot.” Ignacio Mattos, chef/co-owner of Estela and Café Altro Paradiso in New York City

1884 Restaurante, Mendoza

“Francis Mallmann’s lavish steak house inside the Escorihuela Gascón winery isn’t in a hurry—and you shouldn’t be either. Have a Fernet and soda at the bar. Switch to a Malbec, something made close by. Eventually, that perfectly wood-fired ojo de bife will arrive, and you’re capping dinner with a brandy. Or two.” Paul Brady, senior editor

BOLIVIA

Gustu, La Paz

“Every glass of wine and beer is produced in Bolivia. The caiman sashimi is caught by indigenous Tacana hunters within a quota system that allows populations to stay healthy. When you’re there, you have the feeling that you’re part of something important.” Nicholas Gill, food writer

 When you're at Gustu, "you have the feeling that you’re part of something important."

BRAZIL

Bira de Guaratiba, Rio de Janeiro

“The authentic moqueca, Brazilian fish stew, is amazing, as are the large prawns topped with crispy garlic crumbs.” Margot Janse

Irajá, Rio de Janeiro

“Wildly creative Brazilian dishes served inside (and outside) a beautiful old mansion.” Peter Jon Lindberg

D.O.M., São Paulo

“An amazing culinary celebration of Brazil.” Margot Janse

CHILE

Boragó, Santiago

“They’ve been creating a database of Chilean ingredients for years. So when an Atacama Desert herb is at its peak, which may be only a few days per year, a foraging community collects it for the restaurant. They put out around 500 dishes annually, some of which might only appear during a single service.” Nicholas Gill

PERU

Central, Lima

“Chef Virgilio Martínez’s menu is based on the altitudes of Peru, and while it might sound like a pretentious conceit, it’s actually the clearest way to taste and understand the country’s endemic ingredients. It’s an adventure into a food frontier, and Martínez is a keen guide.” David Prior

La Mar, Lima

“The definition of ceviche in Peru, and therefore the world. Pro tip: Don’t eat the black scallop unless you have a stomach of steel.” Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli

URUGUAY

La Huella, Maldonado

“Pretty much your fantasy of a beachside grill, albeit a haunt of the ultra-wealthy.” Peter Jon Lindberg

One day in New York City
(Sorry for the double photos, I'm still learning how to do this)

What a fantastic thing to do:  This Rio Restaurant Is Using Surplus Food From the Olympic Village to Feed the Homeless

At Refettorio Gastromotiva, top chefs from around the world are cooking five-star cuisine for the poor

By Andrew Jenner, Modern Farmer

It’s coming up on 1 p.m. on Saturday, and the kitchen staff is hard at work. On one end, they’re chopping cabbage, onions, chayote, and a chicken. On the other, another pair of cooks preps a tangerine and carrot sorbet. Massimo Bottura—a dude with owlish glasses whose establishment in Italy was just named the world’s best by the British magazine, Restaurant—peeks over their shoulders with encouragement and a caution: easy on the sugar, OK?

In the front of the house, volunteers wander to and fro, harried people jab their phones, and a Telemundo TV crew jockeys for a few minutes with Bottura and David Hertz, the Brazilian chef and social entrepreneur who represents the other half of the brains behind the place. Outside, a generator outside throws off diesel fumes and a hellish racket, while construction workers tear apart the sidewalk to—Bottura and Hertz desperately hope—fix some issue with the kitchen’s gas supply. It’s one of a million little problems this little restaurant has faced, but Refettorio Gastromotiva is the little restaurant that could.

“This place is a miracle,” says Cristina Reni, who works for Bottura’s Italian nonprofit, Food for Soul, which—along with Hertz’s organization,Gastromotiva and journalist Alexandra Forbes—is the force behind the restaurant. “Everyone said ‘No’ to us in the beginning.”

The basic concept behind Refettorio Gastromotiva during the 2016 Olympics is simple: feed Rio de Janeiro’s homeless population—which is estimated at 5,500—with surplus food. We’re not talking about leftovers. This is food that would otherwise be wasted; stuff that’s ugly or bruised or approaching expiration, from sources including one of the main caterers at the Olympic Village. It’s a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of solution: There are the hungry among us, yet somewhere around one-third of the world’s food gets trashed.

Actually pulling the restaurant off, however—in the eight short months from conceptualization to grand opening on August 9—was definitely not simple. Construction, in what was a decaying square in Rio’s Lapa neighborhood, happened in just 55 days (not counting ongoing tweaks). The frazzled vibe is understandable. Don’t even get the organizers started on the logistical wrangling—food suppliers, city hall, legal technicalities, the Rio 2016 marketing apparatus—that preceded the opening of what looks like a plain old high-concept restaurant but is actually a whole lot more. 

“We want to rebuild dignity,” says Bottura, who credits the influence of Pope Francis with his foray in to social justice. 

That means the patrons—up to 108 of them each night, who live in Rio’s streets and shelters—are treated with table service instead of plastic trays and a chow line, there’s art hanging on the walls, and the food is prepared by a different name-brand chef each night as if they were in their own restaurants. For tonight’s main course, Jorge Vallejo from Mexico City’s Quintonil is working up a light molé. The kitchen staff working under the guest chefs are students in the vocational training program offered by Gastromotiva. In 2015 during the World’s Fair, Bottura ran a similar project, Refettorio Ambrosiano, in an abandoned theater on the outskirts of Milan where a rotating cast of chefs turned surplus food from an expo grocery store into meals for the needy. One of the participating chefs was Hertz, who called Bottura up last December and talked him into partnering on something similar in Rio.

Hertz’s ambitions for Refettorio Gastromotiva stretch well beyond the Olympics’ closing ceremony on August 21. After the world moves on to other things, the communal kitchen and school (Hertz’s mouthful of a term) get drawn into Gastromotiva’s larger “social-gastronomic movement.” Its core is the program’s four-month training program, offered for free to students from poor communities in several Brazilian cities, and it’s designed to develop new technical kitchen skills, self-esteem, and general life prospects that may otherwise have seemed out of reach. About 2,500 people have graduated since Hertz founded the program in 2007.

After the Olympics, Gastromotiva will keep the Rio restaurant open, using it as a new training facility for its students. They’ll serve lunch to paying customers at lunchtime; they’ll use that money to underwrite free dinners—made with surplus food—for the same needy patrons who are eating there during the Olympics.

“This is social change through food,” says Hertz, whose ideas have landed him recognitions like a TED fellowship and a Young Global Leader nod from the World Economic Forum.

When people talk about Olympic legacy projects, it’s usually about subway lines and stadiums and bobsled chutes and other things unlikely to deliver much material benefit to the neediest residents of the Olympic cities. If all goes as planned, Refettorio Gastromotiva will be Rio 2016’s salt of the earth legacy, where the hungry find food and the young staff discover new horizons.

There is precedent. The restaurant that Bottura et. al  set up in Milan is still open, managed by a new community organization that hosts events and puts out free food for those who need it with surplus from a grocery store.

The afternoon is wearing on. Hertz looks at his phone in despair. New problems are flaring up. Pulling off a visionary, innovative concept like Refettorio Gastormotiva isn’t all that glamorous down in the trenches. Hertz says he is exhausted, but he loves what he does.

The generator outside kicks it up a notch. The gas-repair project does not appear to be finished. Tonight’s guests arrive in a few short hours. Hertz fades off into the bustle. There is much yet to be done.

Books on Organized Crime From LLR Books

The Quotable series from LLR Books

Books on Prayer and Religion from LLR Books

Books about the 1960's from LLR Books

Did the Ancient Greeks Engage in Human Sacrifice?

The remains uncovered at an altar to Zeus on Mount Lykaion may confirm legends about human sacrifice at the shrine

By Jason Daley

The ancient Greeks are associated with music, philosophy, logic and storytelling. So tales of human sacrifice in the works of ancient writers including Plato are often chalked up as myths. But the discovery of the remains of a male teenager at Mount Lykaion, the spot where some Greeks made animal sacrifices to Zeus, may lend credence to those tall tales.

Mizin Sidahmed at The Guardian reports that the 3,000-year-old remains were discovered in an ash altar on the mountain that is the earliest known site of worship for the god Zeus. The area of the altar has been under excavation since 2006, and finds indicate it was used by humans early as 5,000 years ago, even before the “birth” of Zeus in the Greek world. Archaeologists have discovered lots of animals bones, as well as pottery shards, metal objects and tripods in the area.

But until this summer, no hint of human remains were found at Lykaion. “Several ancient literary sources mention rumors that human sacrifice took place at the altar [of Zeus, located on the mountain’s southern peak] but up until a few weeks ago there has been no trace whatsoever of human bones discovered at the site,” David Gilman Romano, professor of Greek archaeology at the University of Arizona who has worked at the site tells Nicholas Paphitis at the AP. “Whether it’s a sacrifice or not, this is a sacrificial altar ... so it’s not a place where you would bury an individual. It’s not a cemetery.”

One of the more prominent stories about human sacrifice on the mountain comes from the early Greek geographer Pausanias in his Description of Greece. He tells the tale of Lycaon, the first King of Arcadia, who according to one version of the story sacrificed one of his sons and served him to the god Zeus at a dinner party. Zeus was enraged, and he turned Lycaon and his other sons into wolves. Supposedly this led to an annual tradition at the altar of Lykaion in which a boy would be slaughtered along with animals. The meat would be cooked all together, and whoever ate the human flesh would be turned into a wolf for nine years. If they did not eat human flesh in that time, they were allowed to return to their original form. If they did, they would remain a wolf forever.

The remains on Lykaion were found deep in the ash pit, Sidahmed reports. They were laid in an east-west direction with two lines of stones along the sides and other stone slabs on the pelvis. Part of the upper skull was missing.

Jan Bremmer, professor emeritus of religious studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands tells Sidahmed he is skeptical that the remains are from a human sacrifice. He said the idea of Greeks conducting human sacrifice is intriguing because it contradicts widely held notions about the ancient society. “On the one hand there’s this picture of Greece as the cradle of civilization, the birthplace of democracy, of philosophy, of rational thinking,” he says. “But on the other hand we have these cruel cruel myths.”

The researchers have not speculated publicly on why, if the body is not a sacrifice, it was buried in the ash pit. Future excavations at the site will show whether the skeleton is an anomaly or if the area around the altar contains other human remains.

This is how novels are written.................

Dig to Find Fabled Nazi Gold Train Begins

Explorers believe the Nazis stashed an armored train full of gold and weapons in tunnels in Poland's Owl Mountains

By Jason Daley

There are lots of myths and legends surrounding the final months of the Nazi regime. Some say high ranking officials fled to a secret base built in the ice of Antarctica. Others claim Adolf Hitler survived his Berlin bunker and made it to South America. But one of the most enduring—and at least mildly plausible—stories is that at the end of the war, the Nazis hid an entire train full of guns, gems, gold and valuable art in a series of tunnels in a Polish mountain. Now, a pair of amateur researchers have begun digging at the site where they believe that treasure train is buried, the BBC reports, despite the fact that a team of geologists and engineers failed last year to find any trace of train in the location they're excavating.

As Danny Lewis reported for Smithsonian.com, locals near the town of Walbryzych in the southwest of Poland have a legend that an armored train full of Nazi loot was traveling out of the nearby city of Wroclaw in 1945 when the Red Army began closing in. The train disappeared near Książ Castle two miles outside of Walbrzych, and many believe it was sequestered in a series of tunnels in the Owl Mountains, with at least one German miner claiming that he saw soldiers wheeling the loot into the tunnel.

A year ago, Piotr Koper, a builder from Walbrzych, and Andreas Richter, a German genealogist, announced to the world that they had discovered a bill of lading (a receipt of shipment) detailing the train’s location. They even produced ground-penetrating radar images that appear to show tanks sitting on train cars in a tunnel beneath the ground. But imaging experts doubted the authenticity of the images. At the time, the Polish culture minister said he was “99 percent sure” the train has been found, Lewis reported in September.  Researchers from the Krakow University of Science and Technology, however, spent a month using radar on the mountain, but failed to find anything like the purported train, and by last December, the story was reported as officially debunked.

But the doubt has not deterred Koper and Richter, who are continuing on with the privately funded effort, Rick Noack at The Washington Post. The duo along with a team of 33 others began excavating the area where they believe the train lies yesterday. The team is drilling three holes in the ground to probe for the train and hopes to have answers by Thursday.

“The train is not a needle in the haystack; if there is one, we will find it,” Andrzej Gaik, a spokesman for the search committee tells Agence France-Presse. “If we find a tunnel, then that is also a success. Maybe the train is hidden inside that tunnel.”

While academics and government officials doubt anything will show up, there are some reasons to believe Nazi loot and weapons may be stashed in the area. Hitler did order a vast system of underground tunnels to be built in the Owl Mountains. Thousands of prisoners of war constructed seven huge tunnels in the area as part ofProject Riese (Giant), though the purpose for them remains unclear. The Nazis were also known to hide stolen art and treasure in underground salt mines and tunnels. So, while the story of the gold train remains unlikely, the treasure hunt chugs ahead.

This is just plain wrong and indecent 

Love Truman Capote? Buy His Ashes

Is the sale of Capote’s earthy remains a gauche publicity stunt or an act worthy of the audacious author?

Is it disrespectful to sell a literary great’s remains—or is the stunt worthy of Capote himself?

By Erin Blakemore

From autographs to first editions, letters to personal effects, it’s common to want to get closer to your favorite author with a piece of literary memorabilia. But an upcoming auction will take that concept to the next level when one lucky buyer gets up-close and personal to Truman Capote—by purchasing his human remains.

In a press release publicizing its 2016 “Icons and Idols: Hollywood” auction, Julien’s Auctions announced that it will offer Truman Capote’s ashes for sale on its auction starting September 23. Contained in a Japanese carved wooden box, the ashes are expected to sell for between $4,000 and $6,000.

Capote’s literary legacy is a fraught subject, and the story of his death and cremation is just as complicated. Capote’s good friend, Joanne Carson (wife of late-night king Johnny Carson) who owned the ashes before her death in 2015, famously said that her friend “crashed and burned because of the bitchiness of New York.”

She would know—after all, he died in her home in 1984 from a likely overdose of pills. In death, Carson and Capote remained as inseparable as they did during life when Carson apparently split his cremated remains with novelist Jack Dunphy, and kept her portion in the room in her home where he died. Over the years, the ashes lived a checkered life of their own, from being stolen and replaced to being partially interred at Los Angeles’ Westwood Memorial Park.

During his lifetime, Capote gained a reputation as outsized as that of his most famous books, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood. Immortalized as Dill in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (rumors that he wrote it are unfounded), Capote went from precocious child to bona fide enfant terribleduring his career. He gained fame for his society connections, his embrace of his homosexuality at a time when gay men were closeted and silenced, and his over-the-top antics, as when he electrified New York with his sumptuous Black and White Ball and enraged his friends with his roman à clef thatexposed the dark side of celebrity.

Capote’s self-pronounced obsession with fame meant that his work—and his life—were under constant scrutiny. To this day, people continue to fact-checkIn Cold Blood, a book that launched the narrative non-fiction genre, anddissect his legacy.

Perhaps it’s appropriate, then, that the sale of Capote’s ashes is as controversial as his ostentatious life. Darren Julien, the CEO of Julien’s, tellsVanity Fair’s Julie Miller that “Truman Capote loved the element of shock. He loved publicity. And I’m sure he’s looking down laughing, and saying ‘That’s something I would have done.’”

Is it disrespectful to sell a literary great’s remains—or is the stunt worthy of Capote himself? You be the judge—that is, if you’re not rooting around for your wallet and $4,000 or so.

Science Officially Debunks Chemtrails, But the Conspiracy Will Likely Live On

By Jason Daley

These days it's a common sight: hazy streaks crisscrossing the sky left from passing aircrafts. But many people believe there’s something more going on. Dubbing the contrails “chemtrails,” conspiracy theorists have claimed that these trails of condensed water are part of a secret program to control the weather, change the climate or control our minds.

Conspiracy theorists have amassed huge dossiers of “evidence” claiming that chemtrails are longer, brighter and do not dissipate as quickly as normal aircraft contrails. They have photos, anecdotes and samples collected from the air and water. Though scientists have long battled against these unfounded claims, they haven't made much headway. But with a recent study, researchers from the Carnegie Institution for Science hope to put these rumors to rest.

The researchers provided the available chemtrail evidence to 77 atmospheric scientists and geochemists for evaluation. “I felt it was important to definitively show what real experts in contrails and aerosols think,” Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientists and author on the study, says in a press release. “We might not convince die-hard believers that their beloved secret spraying program is just a paranoid fantasy, but hopefully their friends will accept the facts.”

In the study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the scientists were asked if they had ever uncovered possible evidence of a government chemtrail program in their research. Of the 77 scientists, 76 said no.

They were also shown photos supposedly containing chemtrails, writes Sara Emerson at Motherboard. Upon inspection, none of the researchers saw any evidence that the contrails in the photos were any different than normal contrails.

Finally, they were presented with the analysis of samples from pond sediment, snow and air that the collectors claim were contaminated with traces of barium, aluminum, copper and strontium from chemtrails. The researchers said that 80 to 89 percent of the samples could be explained by phenomena much more simple than chemtrails.

The chemtrails craze likely originated with a 1996 report from the Air Force called “Weather as a Force Multiplier,” which speculates how the military could develop weather modification technology by 2025, report Annalee Newitz and Adam Steiner at i09. A patent filed in 1991 for a technique of seeding the upper atmosphere with particles that could reflect sunlight and slow global warming also intrigued theorists. Combined with anecdotal tales of plants dying and people getting sick after planesleft contrails above their homes, the conspiracy theory coalesced and took off on the internet in the late 1990s.

Since then, the issue periodically pops up in the media. According to Public Policy Polling, about five percent of Americans believe in chemtrails. That’s more than the four percent who believe lizard people are taking over our politics but much less than the number who believe in bigfoot or that global warming is a hoax.

So, if it’s not a government program, why do many people claim to see more and more contrails? Emerson says airplane contrails are likely lasting longer than they used to due to changes in jet engine technology. In addition, an increase in air travel over the last couple decades could also be fueling the belief in chemtrails, says Caldeira, and atmospheric changes from global warming may cause the artificial clouds to linger longer than they used to.

Harvard Just Launched a Fascinating Resource All About Bauhaus

The newly digitized collection is as ambitious as the art school it documents

By Erin Blakemore

How much do you know about Bauhaus? Okay, it’s fun to say, and the word draws up visions of artsy Germans, blocky buildings or perhaps post-punk bands. But if your knowledge stops there, never fear: Harvard just launched a digital resource that brings the artistic movement to life.

The Bauhaus is Harvard’s new portal into its hefty collections related to the art and design school. It features more than 32,000 documents and images related to Bauhaus, from architectural drawings to sketches, textile details and games. You can search by artist, location, date or subject, or just browse around for what adds up to a visual feast for design junkies.

There’s a reason Harvard has collected so much Bauhaus memorabilia: The school, which existed between 1919 and 1933 in the German cities of Weimar, Dessau and Berlin, involved some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th century. The physical Bauhaus (“construction house”) was populated by architects, craftsmen and visual artists with a lofty goal calledGesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”) that students hoped could some day integrate all forms of art. That utopic vision—popularized by composer Richard Wagner years before—made it possible for all kinds of artists to come together in what morphed from a location to a European modernist movement that believed that form should follow function.

The Bauhaus was founded by Walter Gropius, a utilitarian architect who believed that students should master all forms of art and all media no matter what their ambitions. His teaching style turned Bau, or building, into the center of everything with the goal of making students masters of both form and construction. This thoroughly modern concept attracted and shaped other great artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Despite the freewheeling decadence of Germany’sWeimar Republic years, Bauhaus became a touchstone for spare, geometric and blocky design.

But as National Socialism rose in Germany, it became clear that Bauhaus was doomed. Condemned as “Bolshevik” by modern-art-hating Nazis, the Bauhaus was shuttered. Gropius fled to America, and other Bauhaus artists went into voluntary exile, were kicked out of Germany, or died in concentration camps as political dissidents. Despite its abrupt end, the idea of Bauhaus served as a foundation for the art that was to come—and a symbol of the creative flourishing of Europe between World Wars.

Harvard’s Bauhaus collection was partially created by Gropius himself, as the university explains in a press release: After World War II, the architect worked with the university to collect art and archival material. His gift—and the creative explosion he helped facilitate—has outlived war, social change and shifting artistic tastes. Did the Bauhaus really achieve their goal of integrating all of the arts? There’s only one way to find out: Dip into Harvard’s fascinating collection and decide for yourself.

What Books Would You Recommend Someone Read to Improve their General Knowledge of the World?

Inspired by a reader’s question to me, I thought I’d ask our followers onFacebook and Twitter for an answer to the question: What books would you recommend someone read to improve their general knowledge of the world.

I must say the number and quality of the responses overwhelmed me. The box Amazon just delivered reminds me that I ordered 9 books off this list.

Here is the list of what 55,000 of the smartest readers on the internet came up with, and what a list it is!

The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder

International strategist Peter Zeihan examines how the hard rules of geography are eroding the American commitment to free trade; how much of the planet is aging into a mass retirement that will enervate markets and capital supplies; and how, against all odds, it is the ever-ravenous American economy that-alone among the developed nations-is rapidly approaching energy independence. Combined, these factors are doing nothing less than overturning the global system and ushering in a new (dis)order.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a fun, engaging look at early human history…you’ll have a hard time putting it down.”— Bill Gates

How to Read a Book

This book impacted us so much we created an entire course, The Art of Reading, around it.

A World History

William McNeill’s widely acclaimed one-volume history emphasizes the four Old World civilizations of the Middle East, India, China, and Europe, paying particular attention to their interaction across time as well as the impact on historical scholarship in light of the most recent archaeological discoveries. The engaging and informative narrative touches on all aspects of civilization, including geography, communication, and technological and artistic developments, and provides extensive coverage of the modern era.

The intelligent man’s guide to science

An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn’t

Here’s your chance to brush up on all those subjects you slept through in school, reacquaint yourself with all the facts you once knew (then promptly forgot), catch up on major developments in the world today, and become the Renaissance man or woman you always knew you could be!

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.

Slaughterhouse Five

Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buend; a family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women — brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul — this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.

A History of the World in 100 Objects

Neil MacGregor has blazed an unusual path to international renown. As director of the British Museum, he organized an exhibit that aimed to tell the history of humanity through the stories of one hundred objects made, used, venerated, or discarded by man. The exhibit and its accompanying BBC radio series broke broadcasting records and MacGregor’s book became a bestselling sensation on both sides of the Atlantic and a huge Christmas hit, with more than 100,000 copies in print in the United States alone.

23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism

23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism uses twenty-three short essays (a few great examples: “There Is No Such Thing as a Free Market,” “The Washing Machine Has Changed the World More than the Internet Has”) to equip readers with an understanding of how global capitalism works, and doesn’t, while offering a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were—and still are. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. Fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (a.d. 121–180) succeeded his adoptive father as emperor of Rome in a.d. 161—and Meditations remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written. With a profound understanding of human behavior, Marcus provides insights, wisdom, and practical guidance on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity to interacting with others. Consequently, the Meditations have become required reading for statesmen and philosophers alike, while generations of ordinary readers have responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style. In Gregory Hays’s new translation—the first in a generation—Marcus’s thoughts speak with a new immediacy: never before have they been so directly and powerfully presented.

War and Peace

… broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men. As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.

Crime and Punishment

One of the supreme masterpieces of world literature, Crime and Punishment catapulted Dostoyevsky to the forefront of Russian writers and into the ranks of the world’s greatest novelists. Drawing upon experiences from his own prison days, the author recounts in feverish, compelling tones the story of Raskolnikov, an impoverished student tormented by his own nihilism, and the struggle between good and evil. Believing that he is above the law, and convinced that humanitarian ends justify vile means, he brutally murders an old woman — a pawnbroker whom he regards as “stupid, ailing, greedy…good for nothing.” Overwhelmed afterwards by feelings of guilt and terror, Raskolnikov confesses to the crime and goes to prison. There he realizes that happiness and redemption can only be achieved through suffering. Infused with forceful religious, social, and philosophical elements, the novel was an immediate success. This extraordinary, unforgettable work is reprinted here in the authoritative Constance Garnett translation.

The Prince

The Prince shocked Europe on publication with its advocacy of ruthless tactics for gaining absolute power and its abandonment of conventional morality. Niccoló Machiavelli drew on his own experience of office under the turbulent Florentine republic, rejecting traditional values of political theory and recognizing the complicated, transient nature of political life. Concerned not with lofty ideal but with a regime that would last, The Prince has become the bible of realpolitik, and it still retains its power to alarm and to instruct. In this edition, Machiavelli’s tough-minded and pragmatic Italian is preserved in George Bull’s clear, unambiguous translation.

The Art of War: The Essential Translation of the Classic Book of Life

For more than two thousand years, Sun-tzu’s The Art of War has provided leaders with essential advice on battlefield tactics and management strategies. An elemental part of Chinese culture, it has also become a touchstone for the Western struggle for survival and success, whether in battle, in business, or in relationships. Now, in this crisp, accessible new translation, eminent scholar John Minford brings this seminal work to life for today’s readers. Capturing the literary quality of the work, Minford presents the core text in two formats: first, the unadorned ancient words of wisdom ascribed to Sun-tzu; then, the same text with extensive running commentary from the canon of traditional Chinese commentators. A lively, learned introduction and other valuable apparatus round out this authoritative volume.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish.

The Denial of Death

Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life’s work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker’s brilliant and impassioned answer to the “why” of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie — man’s refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.

Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny

(Robert) Wright asserts that, ever since the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern. Organisms and human societies alike have grown more complex by mastering the challenges of internal cooperation. Wright’s narrative ranges from fossilized bacteria to vampire bats, from stone-age villages to the World Trade Organization, uncovering such surprises as the benefits of barbarian hordes and the useful stability of feudalism. Here is history endowed with moral significance–a way of looking at our biological and cultural evolution that suggests, refreshingly, that human morality has improved over time, and that our instinct to discover meaning may itself serve a higher purpose. Insightful, witty, profound, Nonzero offers breathtaking implications for what we believe and how we adapt to technology’s ongoing transformation of the world.

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

[O]ne of the most talked-about climate change books of recent years, for reasons easy to understand: It tells the controversial story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. The same individuals who claim the science of global warming is “not settled” have also denied the truth about studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one tobacco executive. These “experts” supplied it.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

From the U.S. military in Iraq to infrastructure development in Indonesia, from Peace Corps volunteers in Africa to jackals in Venezuela, Perkins exposes a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe, with consequences reflected in our daily headlines. Having raised the alarm, Perkins passionately addresses how Americans can work to create a more peaceful and stable world for future generations.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

Americans have lost touch with their history, and in Lies My Teacher Told Me Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past.

The Art of Worldly Wisdom

The remarkable best-seller — a long-lost, 300-year-old book of wisdom on how to live successfully yet responsibly in a society governed by self-interest — as acute as Machiavelli yet as humanistic and scrupulously moral as Marcus Aurelius.

The 48 Laws of Power

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, The 48 Laws of Power is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control.

Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger, 3rd Edition

My most gifted book.

Negotiating Your Salary: How To Make $1000 a Minute

In addition to the basic rules of negotiation, $1000 a Minute tells readers when to apply them. The book is reorganized to tell: What to do at the start of the job search, how to “dodge” the salary issue during the job search, what to prepare before a job interview, when to enter into negotiations, and what order to ask for things. Special training is provided in how NOT to jeapordize the offer you have and still negotiate for the offer you want.

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

In this unique exploration of the role of risk in our society, Peter Bernstein argues that the notion of bringing risk under control is one of the central ideas that distinguishes modern times from the distant past. Against the Gods chronicles the remarkable intellectual adventure that liberated humanity from oracles and soothsayers by means of the powerful tools of risk management that are available to us today.

The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination

By piecing the lives of selected individuals into a grand mosaic, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin explores the development of artistic innovation over 3,000 years. A hugely ambitious chronicle of the arts that Boorstin delivers with the scope that made his Discoverers a national bestseller.

The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size

As John Casti wrote, “Finally, a book that really does explain consciousness.” This groundbreaking work by Denmark’s leading science writer draws on psychology, evolutionary biology, information theory, and other disciplines to argue its revolutionary point: that consciousness represents only an infinitesimal fraction of our ability to process information. Although we are unaware of it, our brains sift through and discard billions of pieces of data in order to allow us to understand the world around us. In fact, most of what we call thought is actually the unconscious discarding of information. What our consciousness rejects constitutes the most valuable part of ourselves, the “Me” that the “I” draws on for most of our actions–fluent speech, riding a bicycle, anything involving expertise. No wonder that, in this age of information, so many of us feel empty and dissatisfied. As engaging as it is insightful, this important book encourages us to rely more on what our instincts and our senses tell us so that we can better appreciate the richness of human life.

The Grapes of Wrath

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

A contemporary classic, Please Kill Me is the definitive oral history of the most nihilistic of all pop movements. Iggy Pop, Richard Hell, the Ramones, and scores of other punk figures lend their voices to this decisive account of that explosive era. This 20th anniversary edition features new photos and an afterword by the authors.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

One of the most acclaimed books of our time, winner of both the Pulitzer and the Francis Parkman prizes, The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York (city and state) and makes public what few have known: that Robert Moses was, for almost half a century, the single most powerful man of our time in New York, the shaper not only of the city’s politics but of its physical structure and the problems of urban decline that plague us today.

Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other

“All stories are love stories,” begins Eureka Street, Robert McLiam Wilson’s big-hearted and achingly funny novel. Set in Belfast during the Troubles, Eureka Street takes us into the lives and families of Chuckie Lurgan and Jake Jackson, a Protestant and a Catholic—unlikely pals and staunch allies in an uneasy time. When a new work of graffiti begins to show up throughout the city—“OTG”—the locals are stumped. The harder they try to decipher it, the more it reflects the passions and paranoias that govern and divide them. Chuckie and Jake are as mystified as everyone else. In the meantime, they try to carve out lives for themselves in the battlefield they call home. Chuckie falls in love with an American who is living in Belfast to escape the violence in her own land; the best Jake can do is to get into a hilarious and remorseless war of insults with a beautiful but spitfire Republican whose Irish name, properly pronounced, sounds to him like someone choking. The real love story in Eureka Street involves Belfast—the city’s soul and spirit, and its will to survive the worst it can do to itself.

The Razor’s Edge

Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of his spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham’s most brilliant characters – his fiancée Isabel whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliott Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. Maugham himself wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.

IDEAS: A HISTORY, From Wittgenstein to the World Wide Web, Two Volumes in Slipcase

Letters From A Stoic

For several years of his turbulent life, Seneca was the guiding hand of the Roman Empire. His inspired reasoning derived mainly from the Stoic principles, which had originally been developed some centuries earlier in Athens. This selection of Seneca’s letters shows him upholding the austere ethical ideals of Stoicism—the wisdom of the self-possessed person immune to overmastering emotions and life’s setbacks—while valuing friendship and the courage of ordinary men, and criticizing the harsh treatment of slaves and the cruelties in the gladiatorial arena. The humanity and wit revealed in Seneca’s interpretation of Stoicism is a moving and inspiring declaration of the dignity of the individual mind.

The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King

The fascinating, untold tale of Samuel Zemurray, the self-made banana mogul who went from penniless roadside banana peddler to kingmaker and capitalist revolutionary When Samuel Zemurray arrived in America in 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. Working his way up from a roadside fruit peddler to conquering the United Fruit Company, Zemurray became a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof that America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures. Zemurray lived one of the great untold stories of the last hundred years. Starting with nothing but a cart of freckled bananas, he built a sprawling empire of banana cowboys, mercenary soldiers, Honduran peasants, CIA agents, and American statesmen. From hustling on the docks of New Orleans to overthrowing Central American governments and precipitating the bloody thirty-six-year Guatemalan civil war, the Banana Man lived a monumental and sometimes dastardly life. Rich Cohen’s brilliant historical profile The Fish That Ate the Whale unveils Zemurray as a hidden power broker, driven by an indomitable will to succeed.

The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

In a book of unprecedented scope–now available in a larger format—Iain McGilchrist presents a fascinating exploration of the differences between the brain’s left and right hemispheres, and how those differences have affected society, history, and culture. McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent research in neuroscience and psychology to reveal that the difference is profound: the left hemisphere is detail oriented, while the right has greater breadth, flexibility, and generosity. McGilchrist then takes the reader on a journey through the history of Western culture, illustrating the tension between these two worlds as revealed in the thought and belief of thinkers and artists from Aeschylus to Magritte.

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart tells two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a powerful fable of the immemorial conflict between the individual and society, traces Okonkwo’s fall from grace with the tribal world. The second, as modern as the first is ancient, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo’s world with the arrival of aggressive European missionaries. These perfectly harmonized twin dramas are informed by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul.

Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature

Ngugi describes this book as ‘a summary of some of the issues in which I have been passionately involved for the last twenty years of my practice in fiction, theatre, criticism and in teaching of literature’.

The Origin of Wealth: The Radical Remaking of Economics and What it Means for Business and Society

Over 6.4 billion people participate in a $36.5 trillion global economy, designed and overseen by no one. How did this marvel of self-organized complexity evolve? How is wealth created within this system? And how can wealth be increased for the benefit of individuals, businesses, and society? In The Origin of Wealth, Eric D. Beinhocker argues that modern science provides a radical perspective on these age-old questions, with far-reaching implications. According to Beinhocker, wealth creation is the product of a simple but profoundly powerful evolutionary formula: differentiate, select, and amplify. In this view, the economy is a “complex adaptive system” in which physical technologies, social technologies, and business designs continuously interact to create novel products, new ideas, and increasing wealth. Taking readers on an entertaining journey through economic history, from the Stone Age to modern economy, Beinhocker explores how “complexity economics” provides provocative insights on issues ranging from creating adaptive organizations to the evolutionary workings of stock markets to new perspectives on government policies. A landmark book that shatters conventional economic theory, The Origin of Wealth will rewire our thinking about how we came to be here—and where we are going.

The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life

The Company of Strangers shows us the remarkable strangeness, and fragility, of our everyday lives. This completely revised and updated edition includes a new chapter analyzing how the rise and fall of social trust explain the unsustainable boom in the global economy over the past decade and the financial crisis that succeeded it. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, history, psychology, and literature, Paul Seabright explores how our evolved ability of abstract reasoning has allowed institutions like money, markets, cities, and the banking system to provide the foundations of social trust that we need in our everyday lives. Even the simple acts of buying food and clothing depend on an astonishing web of interaction that spans the globe. How did humans develop the ability to trust total strangers with providing our most basic needs?

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

When first published, Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media made history with its radical view of the effects of electronic communications upon man and life in the twentieth century. This edition of McLuhan’s best-known book both enhances its accessibility to a general audience and provides the full critical apparatus necessary for scholars. In Terrence Gordon’s own words, “McLuhan is in full flight already in the introduction, challenging us to plunge with him into what he calls ‘the creative process of knowing.'” Much to the chagrin of his contemporary critics McLuhan’s preference was for a prose style that explored rather than explained. Probes, or aphorisms, were an indispensable tool with which he sought to prompt and prod the reader into an “understanding of how media operates” and to provoke reflection. In the 1960s McLuhan s theories aroused both wrath and admiration. It is intriguing to speculate what he might have to say 40 years later on subjects to which he devoted whole chapters such as Television, The Telephone, Weapons, Housing and Money. Today few would dispute that mass media have indeed decentralized modern living and turned the world into a global village.

Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, Expanded Third Edition

Letters From A Self-made Merchant To His Son

Lorimer’s Letters From A Self-Made Merchant To His Son is a timeless collection of Gilded Age aphorisms from a rich man – a prosperous pork-packer in Chicago to his son, Pierrepont, whom he ‘affectionately’ calls ‘Piggy.’ The writing is subtle and brilliant.

The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction

David Quammen’s book, The Song of the Dodo, is a brilliant, stirring work, breathtaking in its scope, far-reaching in its message — a crucial book in precarious times, which radically alters the way in which we understand the natural world and our place in that world. It’s also a book full of entertainment and wonders. In The Song of the Dodo, we follow Quammen’s keen intellect through the ideas, theories, and experiments of prominent naturalists of the last two centuries. We trail after him as he travels the world, tracking the subject of island biogeography, which encompasses nothing less than the study of the origin and extinction of all species. Why is this island idea so important? Because islands are where species most commonly go extinct — and because, as Quammen points out, we live in an age when all of Earth’s landscapes are being chopped into island-like fragments by human activity. Through his eyes, we glimpse the nature of evolution and extinction, and in so doing come to understand the monumental diversity of our planet, and the importance of preserving its wild landscapes, animals, and plants. We also meet some fascinating human characters. By the book’s end we are wiser, and more deeply concerned, but Quammen leaves us with a message of excitement and hope.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

In this “artful, informative, and delightful” (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion –as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war –and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California’s Gold Medal.

World Order

Henry Kissinger offers in World Order a deep meditation on the roots of international harmony and global disorder. Drawing on his experience as one of the foremost statesmen of the modern era—advising presidents, traveling the world, observing and shaping the central foreign policy events of recent decades—Kissinger now reveals his analysis of the ultimate challenge for the twenty-first century: how to build a shared international order in a world of divergent historical perspectives, violent conflict, proliferating technology, and ideological extremism.

What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East

For centuries, the world of Islam was in the forefront of human achievement — the foremost military and economic power in the world, the leader in the arts and sciences of civilization. Christian Europe was seen as an outer darkness of barbarism and unbelief from which there was nothing to learn or to fear. And then everything changed. The West won victory after victory, first on the battlefield and then in the marketplace. In this elegantly written volume, Bernard Lewis, a renowned authority an Islamic affairs, examines the anguished reaction of the Islamic world as it tried to make sense of how it had been overtaken, overshadowed, and dominated by the West. In a fascinating portrait of a culture in turmoil, Lewis shows how the Middle East turned its attention to understanding European weaponry, industry, government, education, and culture. He also describes how some Middle Easterners fastened blame on a series of scapegoats, while others asked not “Who did this to us?” but rather “Where did we go wrong?”

Thinking, Fast and Slow

In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives―and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.

Pride and Prejudice

When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships,gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life.

Living within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos

In Living Within Limits, Hardin focuses on the neglected problem of overpopulation, making a forceful case for dramatically changing the way we live in and manage our world. Our world itself, he writes, is in the dilemma of the lifeboat: it can only hold a certain number of people before it sinks–not everyone can be saved. The old idea of progress and limitless growth misses the point that the earth (and each part of it) has a limited carrying capacity; sentimentality should not cloud our ability to take necessary steps to limit population. But Hardin refutes the notion that goodwill and voluntary restraints will be enough. Instead, nations where population is growing must suffer the consequences alone. Too often, he writes, we operate on the faulty principle of shared costs matched with private profits. In Hardin’s famous essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” he showed how a village common pasture suffers from overgrazing because each villager puts as many cattle on it as possible–since the costs of grazing are shared by everyone, but the profits go to the individual. The metaphor applies to global ecology, he argues, making a powerful case for closed borders and an end to immigration from poor nations to rich ones. “The production of human beings is the result of very localized human actions; corrective action must be local….Globalizing the ‘population problem’ would only ensure that it would never be solved.” Hardin does not shrink from the startling implications of his argument, as he criticizes the shipment of food to overpopulated regions and asserts that coercion in population control is inevitable. But he also proposes a free flow of information across boundaries, to allow each state to help itself.

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

At the root of human conflict is our fundamental misunderstanding of who we are. The illusion that we are isolated beings, unconnected to the rest of the universe, has led us to view the “outside” world with hostility, and has fueled our misuse of technology and our violent and hostile subjugation of the natural world. In The Book, philosopher Alan Watts provides us with a much-needed answer to the problem of personal identity, distilling and adapting the ancient Hindu philosophy of Vedanta to help us understand that the self is in fact the root and ground of the universe. In this mind-opening and revelatory work, Watts has crafted a primer on what it means to be human—and a manual of initiation into the central mystery of existence.

The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization

Accessible, riveting, and eloquently written, The Cave and the Light provides a stunning new perspective on the Western world, certain to open eyes and stir debate.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Dale Carnegie’s time-tested advice has carried millions upon millions of readers for more than seventy-five years up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. Now the first and best book of its kind has been rebooted to tame the complexities of modern times and will teach you how to communicate with diplomacy and tact, capitalize on a solid network, make people like you, project your message widely and clearly, be a more effective leader, increase your ability to get things done, and optimize the power of digital tools.

Learn or Die: Using Science to Build a Leading-Edge Learning Organization

Learn or Die examines the process of learning from an individual and an organizational standpoint. From an individual perspective, the book discusses the cognitive, emotional, motivational, attitudinal, and behavioral factors that promote better learning. Organizationally, Learn or Die focuses on the kinds of structures, culture, leadership, employee learning behaviors, and human resource policies that are necessary to create an environment that enables critical and innovative thinking, learning conversations, and collaboration. The volume also provides strategies to mitigate the reality that humans can be reflexive, lazy thinkers who seek confirmation of what they believe to be true and affirmation of their self-image. Exemplar learning organizations discussed include the secretive 

Bridgewater Associates, LP; Intuit, Inc.; United Parcel Service (UPS); W. L. Gore & Associates; and IDEO.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

As America descends deeper into polarization and paralysis, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has done the seemingly impossible—challenged conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to everyone on the political spectrum. Drawing on his twenty five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, he shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and he shows why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns. In this subtle yet accessible book, Haidt gives you the key to understanding the miracle of human cooperation, as well as the curse of our eternal divisions and conflicts. If you’re ready to trade in anger for understanding, read The Righteous Mind.

The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind

The Future of the Mind brings a topic that once belonged solely to the province of science fiction into a startling new reality. This scientific tour de force unveils the astonishing research being done in top laboratories around the world—all based on the latest advancements in neuroscience and physics—including recent experiments in telepathy, mind control, avatars, telekinesis, and recording memories and dreams. The Future of the Mind is an extraordinary, mind-boggling exploration of the frontiers of neuroscience. Dr. Kaku looks toward the day when we may achieve the ability to upload the human brain to a computer, neuron for neuron; project thoughts and emotions around the world on a brain-net; take a “smart pill” to enhance cognition; send our consciousness across the universe; and push the very limits of immortality.

The Lessons of History

With their accessible compendium of philosophy and social progress, the Durants take us on a journey through history, exploring the possibilities and limitations of humanity over time. Juxtaposing the great lives, ideas, and accomplishments with cycles of war and conquest, the Durants reveal the towering themes of history and give meaning to our own.

How To Lie With Statistics

Darrell Huff runs the gamut of every popularly used type of statistic, probes such things as the sample study, the tabulation method, the interview technique, or the way the results are derived from the figures, and points up the countless number of dodges which are used to full rather than to inform.

1984

1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell’s narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions—a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

Acclaimed by readers and critics around the globe, A Splendid Exchange is a sweeping narrative history of world trade—from Mesopotamia in 3000 B.C. to the firestorm over globalization today—that brilliantly explores trade’s colorful and contentious past and provides new insights into its future.

Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Translated into 100 languages, winner of the National Book Award, and named one of the 100 Most Influential Books since World War II by the Times Literary Supplement, Anarchy, State and Utopia remains one of the most theoretically trenchant and philosophically rich defenses of economic liberalism to date, as well as a foundational text in classical libertarian thought. With a new introduction by the philosopher Thomas Nagel, this revised edition will introduce Nozick and his work to a new generation of readers.

A Theory of Justice

Since it appeared in 1971, John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice has become a classic. The author has now revised the original edition to clear up a number of difficulties he and others have found in the original book. Rawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition–justice as fairness–and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century. Rawls substitutes the ideal of the social contract as a more satisfactory account of the basic rights and liberties of citizens as free and equal persons. “Each person,” writes Rawls, “possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.” Advancing the ideas of Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, and Lincoln, Rawls’s theory is as powerful today as it was when first published.

The Arthashastra

Kautilya: The Arthashastra, published in 2000 by Penguin Classics is the English edition of the classic treatise on classical economics and political science by the ancient Indian philosopher Kautilya. The text of this great book includes 15 books, each addressing one topic pertaining to the state and its economy. The books include topics like the law, the king, foreign policy, discipline, capturing a fortress, and the duties of the government rulers. Kautilya explains in detail the duties and virtues of an ideal king. The descriptions include a break up of what the ideal king should do during the course of the day and how the king should behave in typical situations. The Arthashashtra also includes detailed strategies like gift, bribery, illusion, and strength to deal with the neighbouring countries. The other important sections of the book include maintenance of law and order in the state, forests and wildlife, and economic ideas. The book discusses how the Mauryans protected forest wealth, including trees and animals. The importance of maintaining law and order for smooth functioning of the state is also given importance.

Godel, Esher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Douglas Hofstadter’s book is concerned directly with the nature of “maps” or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

This classic survey of crowd psychology offers an illuminating and entertaining look at three grand-scale swindles. Originally published in England in 1841, its remarkable tales of human folly reveal that the hysteria of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the junk-bonds frenzy of the 1980s were far from uniquely twentieth-century phenomena. The first of the financial scandals discussed, “The Mississippi Scheme,” concerns a disastrous eighteenth-century plan for the commercial exploitation of the Mississippi valley, where investors were lured by Louisiana’s repute as a region of gold and silver mountains. During the same era, thousands of English investors were ruined by “The South-Sea Bubble,” a stock exchange based on British trade with the islands of the South Seas and South America. The third episode involves Holland’s seventeenth-century “Tulipomania,” when people went into debt collecting tulip bulbs — until a sudden depreciation in the bulbs’ value rendered them worthless (except as flowers). Fired by greed and fed by naiveté, these historic investment strategies gone awry retain an irrefutable relevance for modern times. Extraordinary Popular Delusions is essential and enthralling reading for investors as well as students of history, psychology, and human nature.

Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life

Thinking Strategically is a crash course in outmaneuvering any rival. This entertaining guide builds on scores of case studies taken from business, sports, the movies, politics, and gambling. It outlines the basics of good strategy making and then shows how you can apply them in any area of your life.

The Einstein Factor: A Proven New Method for Increasing Your Intelligence

New research suggests that the superior achievements of famous thinkers may have been more the result of mental conditioning than genetic superiority. Now you can learn to condition your mind in the same way and improve your performance in virtually all aspects of mental ability, including memory, quickness, IQ, and learning capacity.

MILWAUKEE NOTEBOOK: WILKIE JAMES AND THE MEASURE OF GREATNESS

Posted by Carl Swanson

 Garth “Wilkie” James, brother of the famed novelist Henry James, is buried in Milwaukee’s Forest Home Cemetery.

The five children of Henry James Sr. include some of America’s greatest thinkers. Henry’s oldest son and namesake, Henry James Jr., wrote 22 novels, hundreds of short stories, and many volumes of biographies, travel writing, art criticism, and memoirs.

A second son, William James, became an eminent philosopher and educator and is considered the father of American psychology. A third son, Robert, a promising artist and writer, was plagued by alcoholism throughout his adult life. Sister Alice taught history but suffered from psychological and physical illness much of her life. Alice’s sharply observed and insightful diaries, published after her death, are still widely read and admired.

Then there is the fourth son, Garth Wilkinson “Wilkie” James. Born in New York City in 1845, Wilkie was an undistinguished student, experienced many failures and died young and penniless.

Of all the James family siblings, guess who ended up in Milwaukee.

There is much more to Wilkie. He was an idealist. A war hero. A devoted friend to many and a loving family man.

The five James children had an unusual upbringing. On inheriting a vast fortune, the patriarch of the clan devoted most of his time to intellectual pursuits. (His circle of friends included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.) James provided an informal education for his children consisting of lessons taught by a succession of sometimes eccentric tutors, interrupted by frequent trips to the museums, art galleries, and cultural centers of Europe.

Shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, Henry James Sr. enrolled his two youngest sons, Wilkie and Robert, in Franklyn Sanborn’s Concord Academy. Henry James Sr. approved of Sanborn’s educational ideas and admired his opposition to slavery. A close friend of radical abolitionist John Brown, the schoolmaster was one of six people having advance knowledge of Brown’s 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry. The unsuccessful attempt to instigate a slave uprising ended in Brown’s capture by a U.S. Army officer named Robert E. Lee. Brown was tried, found guilty, and executed by hanging. Two of John Brown’s daughters were students at Concord Academy when Wilkie and Bob arrived in 1860.

A surviving letter describes Wilkie in his boarding school days, “Wilkie was incomparable: Besides being the best-dressed boy in school, and in manner and talk the most engaging, his good humor was inexhaustible.”

War broke out in 1861. Fired by the fervent anti-slavery climate of Concord Academy, both Wilkie and Bob enlisted in the Union Army.

“When I went to war I was a boy of 17 years of age, the son of parents devoted to the cause of the Union and the abolition of slavery,” Wilkie recalled in a speech to Union veterans years later. “I had been brought up in the belief that slavery was a monstrous wrong, its destruction worthy of a man’s best efforts, even unto the laying down of life.”

Wilkie enlisted in 1862, the same year the North reluctantly allowed black Americans to join the military – on the condition they served under white officers. Both Wilkie and Bob volunteered to serve as officers in black regiments. This did not make the boys universally popular. Racism was common on both sides of the Civil War. White officers assigned to lead black regiments faced ridicule, even outright hatred from civilians and fellow soldiers. It was also a decision that carried added risk, for white officers of black regiments were, by order of the Confederate Congress, to be executed on the spot if captured.

Wilkie’s regiment – the 54th Massachusetts Infantry – was one of the first formed. In his letters home, Wilkie protested the unfair treatment of the men under his command (black soldiers earned $7 a month in cash while white soldiers received $13) but added proudly, “They are cut out for soldiers in every way.”

On July 16, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts first encountered Confederate troops and succeeded in driving off a squadron of rebel cavalry after a sharp fight near Charleston, S.C. The clash was significant because the much-despised black soldiers saved an all-white regiment, the 10th Connecticut, from near-certain annihilation.

A newspaper reporter of the time wrote, “The boys of the 10th Connecticut could not help loving the men who saved them from destruction … the dark-skinned heroes fought the good fight and covered with their own brave hearts the retreat of the brothers, sons, and fathers of Connecticut.”

Later, in a speech delivered in Milwaukee, Wilkie recalled, “It had become a living, breathing suspicion with us … that all white troops abhorred our presence in the army. Can you not readily share with me that indescribable sensation which a youthful soldier feels, who placed in a like situation, leading heroic negro soldiers on to victorious battle?”

Days later, in one of the inexplicable and bloody blunders that mark the actions of both sides in the Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts under the command of its Harvard-educated colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, was ordered to lead the assault on Fort Wagner on Morris Island, a heavily defended rebel earthworks guarding Charleston harbor. (The regiment’s attack was the subject of the 1989 movie Glory.)

Historian Jane Maher describes the battle this way: “The initial attack on Fort Wagner was one of the worst debacles of the Civil War. It was poorly planned and even more poorly executed.”

The terrain funneled the advancing 54th into a narrow, concentrated target for the fort’s massed rifles and artillery. It was more a slaughter than a battle. In the aftermath, a Confederate officer wrote, “The dead and wounded were piled up in a ditch together, sometimes fifty in a heap, and they were strewn all over the plain for a distance of three-fourths of a mile … The negroes fought gallantly and were headed by as brave a colonel who ever lived.”

Wilkie, a few steps behind when Col. Shaw died, recalled the battle in his Milwaukee speech, “Gathering together a knot of men after the suspense of a few seconds, I waved my sword for a further charge toward the living line of fire above us. We had gone then some thirty yards, groping, but determinedly onwards … the ranks mowed down at almost every step. Suddenly a shell tore my side. In the frenzy of excitement, it seemed a painless visitation … A still further advance brought us to the second obstruction … in front of the ditch. The enemy’s fire did not abate for this crossing, and here it was I received my second wound, a canister ball in my foot.”

Canister rounds were one of the most feared weapons of the Civil War. As troops approached, artillery gunners would fire canisters packed with .69-caliber lead shot, effectively turning their cannons in gigantic shotguns.

“As I stood faltering with the shock of this wound,” Wilkie said, “the advancing column, passing by me and over me, with deafening shouts and deafening curses, filled the alternating spaces of deathly missiles in the atmosphere.”

Badly wounded, Wilkie managed to drag himself behind a ridge of sand. Here, two medical orderlies, retreating from the now-lost battle, loaded him on a stretcher. As they started carrying him to the rear, “A round shot blew off the head of one of the stretcher bearers, producing a horrible and instant death,” Wilkie said. “We all fell down together, except the companion stretcher bearer, who betook himself in a lively manner to the fastness of some secluded sand hole.”

The last thing Wilkie recalled before losing consciousness was a fellow soldier, his lower jaw shot completely away, who dragged himself to Wilkie and hovered over him with his blood pouring down on Wilkie’s face.

Wilkie woke up the next morning, three miles away, lying on the ground among hundreds of wounded and dying soldiers in an improvised field hospital, where a handful of medical professionals and civilian volunteers struggled to save who they could.

Harriet Tubman was among the volunteers at Morris Island. An escaped slave who returned south time and again to lead more than 300 slaves to freedom, Tubman served the Union Army as a cook, nurse – and spy. On June 2, 1863, she guided 150 soldiers and two gunboats on a route she had scouted up the Combahee River. The raid freed 727 slaves, burned several plantations, and captured Confederate supplies.

It was the first time in American history a woman – and a civilian at that – planned and carried out a military operation.

Tubman watched the assault at Fort Wagner. She later recalled, “And then we saw the lightning, and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder, and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling, and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.”

Clarissa “Clara” Harlowe Barton also served at Morris Island. A young patent office clerk in Washington, D.C. when war broke out, she was one of the Union’s first civilian volunteers. She organized donations of supplies, prepared food for the soldiers, and tended to the wounded – often rushing in while the fight was still raging. At the Battle of Antietam, a bullet passed between her arm and her body, tearing a hole in her sleeve and killing the soldier she was tending. She made a point of never mending the bullet hole in her garment. Another time a shell blew in the door of the room she in which she worked. She carried on as though nothing happened.

Barton organized the field hospitals after the unsuccessful assault on Fort Wagner. After Union forces finally captured Morris Island, Barton wrote, “We have captured one fort – Gregg – and one charnel house – Wagner – and we have built one cemetery, Morris Island. The thousand little sand hills that in the pale moonlight are a thousand headstones, and the restless ocean waves that roll and breakup on the whitened beach sing an eternal requiem to the toll-worn gallant dead who sleep beside.”

Harriet Tubman spent most of her time carrying for the wounded. She vividly recalled the scene, “I would go to the hospital early every morning. I would get a big chunk of ice and put it in a basin, and fill it with water; then I would take a sponge and begin. The first man I would come to, I would thrash away the flies, and they would rise like bees around a hive. Then I would begin to bathe their wounds, and by the time I had bathed three or four, the heat would have melted the ice and made the water warm, and it would be was red as blood. Then I would go and get more ice, and by the time I got to the next ones, the flies would be around the first ones, black and thick as ever.”

In 2016, it was announced former slave Harriet Tubman’s image would replace that of Andrew Jackson – himself a slaveholder – on the U.S. $20 bill.

Clara Barton went on to establish the American Red Cross.

Just one more of the endless wounded on the sands of Morris Island, Wilkie was oblivious to all this. A massive infection had set in and he probably would have died there had it not been for a family friend, Cabot Russell, who came across Wilkie while searching the hospital for his own missing son. When his search proved unsuccessful (his son, he later learned, had died in the initial assault), Russell returned to Massachusetts with Wilkie in his care. On the trip home, a naval surgeon finally removed the canister shot embedded in Wilkie’s shattered foot. The injury would cause him lifelong pain.

Wilkie had a prolonged and slow recovery. Although he could have resigned his commission honorably, he insisted on rejoining his troops in the field. After re-injuring his foot in a fall, and after another lengthy recovery, he was appointed aide de camp to General Gillmore and promoted to the rank of Captain.

When Charleston surrendered, in February 1865, Wilkie was there to witness the event. He was recognized by a reporter from the Boston Journal who wrote, “I saw a young officer, looking musingly and long toward Morris Island – sitting there, the old flag floating over his head, apparently unconscious of everything around him. He walked away at last – rather haltingly, for he was lame and wounded – still gazing toward [Fort] Wagner.”

After the surrender ceremony, Wilkie escorted the Confederate governor of South Carolina back home. As they rode together, the governor complained to Wilkie of the hardships Southern civilians were experiencing. Wilkie wrote, “Just think of this immense slaveholder telling me … the pants he had on were the only ones he possessed.” The irrepressible Wilkie promptly offered to give the governor his own pants, “which he refused, however.”

Wilkie and brother Bob suffered greatly in the war (Bob had nearly died of sunstroke while campaigning in Florida). The physically disabled Wilkie and his emotionally scarred brother had trouble finding jobs in Massachusetts when the war ended in 1865. Bob, through a family friend, eventually landed a position with a railroad in Iowa. With Wilkie in need of an occupation, Henry James Sr. offered to bankroll the purchase of land in Florida and place Wilkie in charge. The idea was to establish a large farming operation to provide employment for newly freed slaves. It wasn’t entirely altruistic. The Jameses, like many Northerners of the time, snapped up cheap land in the devastated south in the expectation of vast profit.

But crops were poor. Wilkie knew little of farming and was unprepared for the hatred he encountered from the region’s long-time white residents. Finally, land values plummeted and the James’ family investment ended in ruin.

Bob, troubled and restless, had joined Wilkie in the Florida venture for a time, then moved on again, ending up in Milwaukee working for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul RR. Wilkie, at loose ends, joined his brother in Milwaukee and went to work for the same railroad.

In Milwaukee, both men fell in love and married woman of prominent local families.

Bob married Mary Lucinda Holton, daughter of Milwaukee businessman Edward Holton, in 1872. Wilkie married Caroline “Carrie” Cary, daughter of prominent early settler Joseph Cary, in 1873. They had two children: Joseph and Alice.

Wilkie quit his job and started his own business supplying railroad construction materials. He and a partner had close ties to influential people in the Milwaukee Road and the company’s success seemed guaranteed. However, a nationwide financial panic wiped out the fledgling company and with it Wilkie’s savings. He had even borrowed against his life insurance policy.

About this time, his novelist brother Henry James described Wilkie in a letter to a friend, “He is not particularly successful, as success is measured in this country; but he is always rotund and good-natured and delightful.”

He was also, although his brother was unaware of it at the time, increasingly ill. His wartime injury continued to trouble him and he seriously considered having his leg amputated. Other aches and pains developed and worsened, followed by a heart condition. Finally, a doctor diagnosed Bright’s disease, a then-untreatable and fatal kidney ailment.

Two months before his death, Wilkie wrote to his older brother William, “I am trying to gain strength if I can to bridge over the increasing demands on any vitality, This I do very slowly, having lost nearly all my appetite – so that it looks as if it would not be long before I shall peg out.”

Wilkie died on November 15, 1883. His passing did not go unnoticed. The New York Times ran an obituary, as did the Boston Evening Transcript.

The Milwaukee Sentinel devoted an entire column to Wilkie’s passing, “He possessed rare conversational powers, and was eminently social in his nature. He was a delightful companion, genial, unpretending, genuine. Everybody that knew him loved him, and his death will cause unaffected sorrow through the wide circle of his friends.”

Wilkie was 38 when he died. He left behind a wife and two children, aged 7 and 9, and a staggering amount of debt from his failed businesses. As his brother noted, Wilkie was not a success, as success is measured in this country.

But there are other ways to gauge a man’s worth.

Publisher Set to Release Exact Replicas of the World's Most Mysterious Manuscript

There will be 898 copies made of the coded Voynich Manuscript, which has stumped scholars for over a century

By Jason Daley

There are plenty of challenging reads out there, like Finnegans Wake orGravity’s Rainbow. But those are nursery rhymes compared to the Voynich Manuscript, a mysterious text full of strange botanical drawings and an unknown script that has put scholars and code breakers in a frenzy since it was last discovered by Polish-American book dealer Wilfrid Voynich in 1912.

While interested readers have, for some time, had access to photos of the pages, the manuscript itself is locked away in Yale University’s rare books collection. But that will soon change. As Ben Guarino reports at The Washington Post, Spanish publisherSiloé has been granted permission to make copies of the book, and will produce 898 “clones” of the manuscript, reproducing each water stain, worm hole and strange illustration. So far, about 300 pre-orders of the reproductions have been purchased at around $8,000 each.

The idea is to get the manuscript into the hands of more libraries and more scholars in the hopes of cracking the code. “Touching the Voynich is an experience,” Juan Jose Garcia, editor at Siloé, which spent 10 years trying to get permission from Yale to reproduce the manuscript tells Agence France-Presse. “It’s a book that has such an aura of mystery that when you see it for the first time ... it fills you with an emotion that is very hard to describe.”

The origin of the manuscript is not completely known. Radio carbon dating places the paper in the 15th century, though the writing may have taken place in the 16th century as well, according to Yale University. It is thought that the book may be the work of English scientist and philosopher Roger Bacon, and that the manuscript was once in the possession of John Dee, an astrologer, mathematician and polymath that advised both Mary I and Elizabeth I. The book eventually made it into the hands of Emperor Rudolph II of Germany before being passed along, fading out of history until Voynich found it in a Jesuit college near Rome.

Since then, scholars have attempted to figure out the meaning of the strange 240-page text. The first part includes 113 drawings of botanical specimens that don’t seem to correspond with any known plants, Yale University writes. The second section contains astral charts and drawings. Other sections contain drawings of female nudes near strange tubes, descriptions of medicinal herbs and long stretches of indecipherable writing in an unknown alphabet.

“The Voynich Manuscript has led some of the smartest people down rabbit holes for centuries,” Bill Sherman of the Folger Shakespeare Library, who curated an exhibit on the book told Sadie Dingfelder at The Washington Post. “I think we need a little disclaimer form you need to sign before you look at the manuscript, that says, ‘Do not blame us if you go crazy.’ ”

Some people claim the whole thing is an elaborate hoax or that the language is complete nonsense. But a 2013 paper examining the strange language determined that the distribution of the unique alphabet and words is consistent with a real language. Then, in 2014, a professor from England claimed he’d deciphered 14 words in the text, including the names of the plants hellebore, juniper and coriander.

According to the AFP, the Yale library gets thousands of emails per month from codebreakers who think they have figured out the text. Rene Zandbergen who runs a blog dedicated to the manuscript claims that 90 percent of the rare book library’s online users are accessing digital images of the manuscript.

It will take Siloé about 18 months to begin producing the facsimile editions. But for those who cannot wait that long or don't want to pony up thousands of dollars for an unreadable book, Yale University Press is releasing its own version of the Voynich Manuscript in November, which includes critical essays and fold-out sections of the text for $50.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Last Unpublished Works to Be Released Next Year

I'd Die For You is slated to come out in April of 2017.

by CAROLINE HALLEMANN

More than 75 years after the Great Gatsby author's death, Simon & Schuster's Scribner imprint will publish "the last remaining unpublished and uncollected short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald."

The collection includes works that were "submitted to major magazines and accepted for publication during Fitzgerald's lifetime but were never printed."

It will also feature stories "that could not be sold because their subject matter or style departed from what editors expected of Fitzgerald in the 1930s," according to a statement from the publisher.

The author preferred to keep the writing unpublished rather than have it be censored, so readers should expect I'd Die For You to be a bit more controversial than the Fitzgerald tomes taught in high school English classes across the country. For example, the title story of the collection was inspired by the time Fitzgerald spent in North Carolina, when he and his wife Zelda were suffering from severe health issues.

The book, which was edited by F. Scott Fitzgerald scholar Anne Margaret Daniel, isn't out until April 11, 2017, but super fans can go ahead and pre-order it onamazon.com.

If music be the food of love, play on.

Visit our Shakespeare Blog at the address below

http://shakespeareinamericanenglish.blogspot.com/

  

TRUE CRIME 
BY JOHN WILLIAM TUOHY

ROGER TOUHY, CHICAGO GANGSTER, NOW IN PAPERBACK 

ROGER TOUHY, THE LAST GANGSTER

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

JFK's pardons and the mob; Prohibition, Chicago's crime cadres and the staged kidnapping of "`Jake the Barber'" Factor, "the black sheep brother of the cosmetics king, Max Factor"; lifetime sentences, attempted jail busts and the perseverance of "a rumpled private detective and an eccentric lawyer" John W. Tuohy showcases all these and more sensational and shady happenings in When Capone's Mob Murdered Roger Touhy: The Strange Case of Touhy, Jake the Barber and the Kidnapping that Never Happened. The author started investigating Touhy's 1959 murder by Capone's gang in 1975 for an undergrad assignment. He traces the frame-job whereby Touhy was accused of the kidnapping, his decades in jail, his memoirs, his retrial and release and, finally, his murder, 28 days after regaining his freedom. Sixteen pages of photos.

From Library Journal

Roger Touhy, one of the "terrible Touhys" and leader of a bootlegging racket that challenged Capone's mob in Prohibition Chicago, had a lot to answer for, but the crime that put him behind bars was, ironically, one he didn't commit: the alleged kidnapping of Jake Factor, half-brother of Max Factor and international swindler. Author Tuohy (apparently no relation), a former staff investigator for the National Center for the Study of Organized Crime, briefly traces the history of the Touhys and the Capone mob, then describes Factor's plan to have himself kidnapped, putting Touhy behind bars and keeping himself from being deported. This miscarriage of justice lasted 17 years and ended in Touhy's parole and murder by the Capone mob 28 days later. Factor was never deported. The author spent 26 years researching this story, and he can't bear to waste a word of it. Though slim, the book still seems padded, with irrelevant detail muddying the main story. Touhy is a hard man to feel sorry for, but the author does his best. Sure to be popular in the Chicago area and with the many fans of mob history, this is suitable for larger public libraries and regional collections. Deirdre Bray Root, Middletown P.L., OH

BOOK REVIEW

     John William Tuohy, one of the most prolific crime writers in America, has penned a tragic, but fascinating story of Roger Touhy and John Factor. It's a tale born out of poverty and violence, a story of ambition gone wrong and deception on an enormous, almost unfathomable, scale. However, this is also a story of triumph of determination to survive, of a lifelong struggle for dignity and redemption of the spirit.

     The story starts with John "Jake the Barber" Factor. The product of the turn of the century European ethnic slums of Chicago's west side, Jake's brother, Max Factor, would go on to create an international cosmetic empire.

     In 1926, Factor, grubstaked in a partnership with the great New York criminal genius, Arnold Rothstien, and Chicago's Al Capone, John Factor set up a stock scam in England that fleeced thousands of investors, including members of the royal family, out of $8 million dollars, an incredible sum of money in 1926.

     After the scam fell apart, Factor fled to France, where he formed another syndicate of con artists, who broke the bank at Monte Carlo by rigging the tables.

     Eventually, Factor fled to the safety of Capone's Chicago but the highest powers in the Empire demanded his arrest. However, Factor fought extradition all the way to the United States Supreme Court, but he had a weak case and deportation was inevitable. Just 24 hours before the court was to decide his fate, Factor paid to have himself kidnapped and his case was postponed. He reappeared in Chicago several days later, and, at the syndicates' urging, accused gangster Roger Touhy of the kidnapping.

     Roger "The Terrible" Touhy was the youngest son of an honest Chicago cop. Although born in the Valley, a teeming Irish slum, the family moved to rural Des Plains, Illinois while Roger was still a boy. Touhy's five older brothers stayed behind in the valley and soon flew under the leadership of "Terrible Tommy" O'Connor. By 1933, three of them would be shot dead in various disputes with the mob and one, Tommy, would lose the use of his legs by syndicate machine guns. Secure in the still rural suburbs of Cook County, Roger Touhy graduated as class valedictorian of his Catholic school. Afterwards, he briefly worked as an organizer for the Telegraph and Telecommunications Workers Union after being blacklisted by Western Union for his minor pro-labor activities.

     Touhy entered the Navy in the first world war and served two years, teaching Morse code to Officers at Harvard University.

     After the war, he rode the rails out west where he earned a living as a railroad telegraph operator and eventually made a small but respectable fortune as an oil well speculator.

     Returning to Chicago in 1924, Touhy married his childhood sweetheart, regrouped with his brothers and formed a partnership with a corrupt ward heeler named Matt Kolb, and, in 1925, he started a suburban bootlegging and slot machine operation in northwestern Cook County. Left out of the endless beer wars that plagued the gangs inside Chicago, Touhy's operation flourished. By 1926, his slot machine operations alone grossed over $1,000,000.00 a year, at a time when a gallon of gas cost eight cents.

     They were unusual gangsters. When the Klu Klux Klan, then at the height of its power, threatened the life of a priest who had befriended the gang, Tommy Touhy, Roger's older brother, the real "Terrible Touhy," broke into the Klan's national headquarters, stole its membership roles, and, despite an offer of $25,000 to return them, delivered the list to the priest who published the names in several Catholic newspapers the following day.

     Once, Touhy unthinkingly released several thousand gallons of putrid sour mash in to the Des Plains River one day before the city was to reenact its discovery by canoe-riding Jesuits a hundred years before. After a dressing down by the towns people Touhy spent $10,000.00 on perfume and doused the river with it, saving the day.

     They were inventive too. When the Chicago police levied a 50% protection tax on Touhy's beer, Touhy bought a fleet of Esso gasoline delivery trucks, kept the Esso logo on the vehicles, and delivered his booze to his speakeasies that way.

     In 1930, when Capone invaded the labor rackets, the union bosses, mostly Irish and completely corrupt, turned to the Touhy organization for protection. The intermittent gun battles between the Tuohy’s and the Capone mob over control of beer routes which had been fought on the empty, back roads of rural Cook County, was now brought into the city where street battles extracted an awesome toll on both sides. The Chicago Tribune estimated the casualties to be one hundred dead in less than 12 months.

     By the winter of 1933, remarkably, Touhy was winning the war in large part because joining him in the struggle against the mob was Chicago's very corrupt, newly elected mayor Anthony "Ten percent Tony" Cermak, who was as much a gangster as he was an elected official.

     Cermak threw the entire weight of his office and the whole Chicago police force behind Touhy's forces. Eventually, two of Cermak's police bodyguards arrested Frank Nitti, the syndicate's boss, and, for a price, shot him six times. Nitti lived. As a result, two months later Nitti's gunmen caught up with Cermak at a political rally in Florida.

     Using previously overlooked Secret Service reports, this book proves, for the first time, that the mob stalked Cermak and used a hardened felon to kill him. The true story behind the mob's 1933 murder of Anton Cermak, will changes histories understanding of organized crimes forever. The fascinating thing about this killing is its eerie similarity to the Kennedy assassination in Dallas thirty years later, made even more macabre by the fact that several of the names associated with the Cermak killing were later aligned with the Kennedy killing.

     For many decades, it was whispered that the mob had executed Cermak for his role in the Touhy-syndicate war of 1931-33, but there was never proof. The official story is that a loner named Giuseppe Zangara, an out-of-work, Sicilian born drifter with communist leanings, traveled to Florida in the winter of 1933 and fired several shots at President Franklin Roosevelt. He missed the President, but killed Chicago's Mayor Anton Cermak instead. However, using long lost documents, Tuohy is able to prove that Zangara was a convicted felon with long ties to mob Mafia and that he very much intended to murder Anton Cermak.

     With Cermak dead, Touhy was on his own against the mob. At the same time, the United States Postal Service was closing in on his gang for pulling off the largest mail heists in US history at that time. The cash was used to fund Touhy's war with the Capone’s. Then in June of 1933, John Factor en he reappeared, Factor accused Roger Touhy of kidnapping him. After two sensational trials, Touhy was convicted of kidnapping John Factor and sentenced to 99 years in prison and Factor, after a series of complicated legal maneuvers, and using the mob's influence, was allowed to remain in the United States as a witness for the prosecution, however, he was still a wanted felon in England.

     By 1942 Roger Touhy had been in prison for nine years, his once vast fortune was gone. Roger's family was gone as well. At his request, his wife Clara had moved to Florida with their two sons in 1934. However, with the help of Touhy's remaining sister, the family retained a rumpled private detective, actually a down-and-out, a very shady and disbarred mob lawyer named Morrie Green.

     Disheveled of not, Green was a highly competent investigator and was able to piece together and prove the conspiracy that landed Touhy in jail. However, no court would hear the case, and by the fall of 1942, Touhy had exhausted every legal avenue open to him. Desperate, Touhy hatched a daring daylight breakout over the thirty foot walls of Stateville Prison. The sensational escape ended three months later in a dramatic and bloody shootout between the convicts and the FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover.

     Less than three months after Touhy was captured, Fox Studios hired producer Brian Foy to churn out a mob financed docudrama film on the escape entitled, "Roger Touhy, The Last Gangster." The executive producer on the film was Johnny Roselli, the hood who later introduced Judy Campbell to Frank Sinatra. Touhy sued Fox and eventually won his case and the film was withdrawn from circulation. In 1962, Columbia pictures and John Houston tried to produce a remake of the film, but were scared off the project.

     While Touhy was on the run from prison, John Factor was convicted for m ail fraud and was sentenced and served ten years at hard labor. Factor's take from the scam was $10,000,000.00 in cash.

     Released in 1949, Factor took control of the Stardust Hotel Casino in 1955, then the largest operation on the Vegas strip. The casino's true owners, of course, were Chicago mob bosses Paul Ricca, Tony Accardo, Murray Humpreys and Sam Giancana. From 1955 to 1963, the length of Factor's tenure at the casino, the US Justice Department estimated that the Chicago outfit skimmed between forty-eight to 200 million dollars from the Stardust alone.

     In 1956, while Factor and the outfit were growing rich off the Stardust, Roger Touhy hired a quirky, high strung, but highly effective lawyer named Robert B. Johnstone to take his case. A brilliant legal tactician, who worked incessantly on Touhy's freedom, Robert Johnstone managed to get Touhy's case heard before federal judge John P. Barnes, a refined magistrate filled with his own eccentricities. After two years of hearings, Barnes released a 1,500-page decision on Touhy's case, finding that Touhy was railroaded to prison in a conspiracy between the mob and the state attorney's office and that John Factor had kidnapped himself as a means to avoid extradition to England.

     Released from prison in 1959, Touhy wrote his life story "The Stolen Years" with legendary Chicago crime reporter, Ray Brennan. It was Brennan, as a young cub reporter, who broke the story of John Dillenger's sensational escape from Crown Point prison, supposedly with a bar of soap whittled to look like a pistol. It was also Brennan who brought about the end of Roger Touhy's mortal enemy, "Tubbo" Gilbert, the mob owned chief investigator for the Cook County state attorney's office, and who designed the frame-up that placed Touhy behind bars.

     Factor entered a suit against Roger Touhy, his book publishers and Ray Brennan, claiming it damaged his reputation as a "leading citizen of Nevada and a philanthropist."

     The teamsters, Factor's partners in the Stardust Casino, refused to ship the book and Chicago's bookstore owners were warned by Tony Accardo, in person, not to carry the book.

     Touhy and Johnstone fought back by drawing up the papers to enter a $300,000,000 lawsuit against John Factor, mob leaders Paul Ricca, Tony Accardo and Murray Humpreys as well as former Cook County state attorney Thomas Courtney and Tubbo Gilbert, his chief investigator, for wrongful imprisonment.

     The mob couldn't allow the suit to reach court, and considering Touhy's determination, Ray Brennan's nose for a good story and Bob Johnstone's legal talents, there was no doubt the case would make it to court. If the case went to court, John Factor, the outfit's figurehead at the lucrative Stardust Casino, could easily be tied in to illegal teamster loans. At the same time, the McClellan committee was looking into the ties between the teamsters, Las Vegas and organized crime and the raid at the mob conclave in New York State had awakened the FBI and brought them into the fight. So, Touhy's lawsuit was, in effect, his death sentence.

     Twenty-five days after his release from twenty-five years in prison, Roger Touhy was gunned down on a frigid December night on his sister's front door.

     Two years after Touhy's murder, in 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered his Justice Department to look into the highly suspect dealings of the Stardust Casino. Factor was still the owner on record, but had sold his interest in the casino portion of the hotel for a mere 7 million dollars. Then, in December of that year, the INS, working with the FBI on Bobby Kennedy's orders, informed Jake Factor that he was to be deported from the United States before the end of the month. Factor would be returned to England where he was still a wanted felon as a result of his 1928 stock scam. Just 48 hours before the deportation, Factor, John Kennedy's largest single personal political contributor, was granted a full and complete Presidential pardon which allowed him to stay in the United States.

     The story hints that Factor was more than probably an informant for the Internal Revenue Service, it also investigates the murky world of Presidential pardons, the last imperial power of the Executive branch. It's a sordid tale of abuse of privilege, the mob's best friend and perhaps it is time the American people reconsider the entire notion.

     The mob wasn't finished with Factor. Right after his pardon, Factor was involved in a vague, questionable financial plot to try and bail teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa out of his seemingly endless financial problems in Florida real estate. He was also involved with a questionable stock transaction with mobster Murray Humpreys. Factor spent the remaining twenty years of his life as a benefactor to California's Black ghettos. He tried, truly, to make amends for all of the suffering he had caused in his life. He spent millions of dollars building churches, gyms, parks and low cost housing in the poverty stricken ghettos. When he died, three United States Senators, the Mayor of Los Angles and several hundred poor Black waited in the rain to pay their last respects at Jake the Barber's funeral.

Interesting Information on A Little Known Case

By Bill Emblom

Author John Tuohy, who has a similar spelling of the last name to his subject Roger, but apparently no relation, has provided us with an interesting story of northwest Chicago beer baron Roger Touhy who was in competition with Al Capone during Capone's heyday. Touhy appeared to be winning the battle since Mayor Anton Cermak was deporting a number of Capone's cronies. However, the mob hit, according to the author, on Mayor Cermak in Miami, Florida, by Giuseppe Zangara following a speech by President-elect Roosevelt, put an end to the harrassment of Capone's cronies. The author details the staged "kidnapping" of Jake "the Barber" Factor who did this to avoid being deported to England and facing a prison sentence there for stock swindling, with Touhy having his rights violated and sent to prison for 25 years for the kidnapping that never happened. Factor and other Chicago mobsters were making a lot of money with the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas when they got word that Touhy was to be parolled and planned to write his life story. The mob, not wanting this, decided Touhy had to be eliminated. Touhy was murdered by hit men in 1959, 28 days after gaining his freedom. Jake Factor had also spent time in prison in the United States for a whiskey swindle involving 300 victims in 12 states. Two days before Factor was to be deported to England to face prison for the stock swindle President Kennedy granted Factor a full Presidential Pardon after Factor's contribution to the Bay of Pigs fund. President Kennedy, the author notes, issued 472 pardons (about half questionable) more than any president before or since.

There are a number of books on Capone and the Chicago mob. This book takes a look at an overlooked beer baron from that time period, Roger Touhy. It is a very worthwhile read and one that will hold your interest.

GREAT BOOK FROM CHICAGO AND ERA WAS MY DAD'S,TRUE TO STORY

Very good book. Hard to put down

Bymistakesweremadeon

Eight long years locked up for a kidnapping that was in fact a hoax, in autumn 1942, Roger Touhy & his gang of cons busted out of Stateville, the infamous "roundhouse" prison, southwest of Chicago Illinois. On the lam 2 months he was, when J Edgar & his agents sniffed him out in a run down 6-flat tenement on the city's far north lakefront. "Terrible Roger" had celebrated Christmas morning on the outside - just like all square Johns & Janes - but by New Year's Eve, was back in the bighouse.

Touhy's arrest hideout holds special interest to me because I grew up less than a mile away from it. Though I never knew so til 1975 when his bio was included in hard-boiled crime chronicler Jay Robert Nash's, Badmen & Bloodletters, a phone book sized encyclopedia of crooks & killers. Touhy's hard scrabble charisma stood out among 200 years' worth of sociopathic Americana Nash had alphabetized, and gotten a pulphouse publisher to print up for him.

I read Nash's outlaw dictionary as a teen, and found Touhy's Prohibition era David vs Goliath battles with ultimate gangster kingpin, Al Capone quite alluring, in an anti-hero sorta way. Years later I learned Touhy had written a memoir, and reading his The Stolen Years only reinforced my image of an underdog speakeasy beer baron - slash suburban family man - outwitting the stone cold killer who masterminded the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Like most autobiographies tho, Touhy's book painted him the good guy. Just an everyday gent caught up in events, and he sold his story well. Had I been a saloonkeeper back then I could picture myself buying his sales pitch - and liking the guy too. I sure bought into his tale, which in hindsight criminal scribe Nash had too, because both writers portray Touhy - though admittedly a crook - as never "really" hurting anybody. Only doing what any down-to-earth bootlegger running a million dollar/year criminal enterprise would have.

What Capone's Mob Murdered Roger Touhy author John Tuohy does tho is, provide a more objective version of events, balancing out Touhy's white wash ... 'er ... make that subjectively ... remembered telling of his life & times. Author Tuohy's account of gangster Touhy's account forced me - grown up now - to re-account for my own original take on the story.

As a kid back then, Touhy seemed almost a Robin Hood- ish hood - if you'll pardon a very lame pun. Forty years on tho re-considering the evidence, I think a persuasive - if not iron-clad convincing - case can be made for his conviction in the kidnapping of swindler scumbag Jake the Barber Factor. At least as far as conspiracy to do so goes, anyways. (Please excuse the crude redundancy there but Factor's stench truly was that of the dog s*** one steps in on those unfortunate occasions one does.)

Touhy's memoir painted himself as almost an innocent bystander at his own life's events. But he was a very smart & savvy guy - no dummy by a long shot. And I kinda do believe now, to not have known his own henchmen were in on Factor's ploy to stave off deportation and imprisonment, Touhy would have had to be as naive a Prohibition crime boss - and make no mistake he was one - as I was as a teenage kid reading Nash's thug-opedia,

On the other hand, the guy was the father of two sons and it's repulsive to consider he would have taken part in loathsomeness the crime of kidnapping was - even if the abducted victim was an adult and as repulsively loathsome as widows & orphans conman, Jake Factor.

This book's target audience is crime buffs no doubt, but it's an interesting read just the same; and includes anecdotes and insights I had not known of before. Unfortunately too, one that knocks a hero of mine down a peg or two - or more like ten.

Circa 1960, President Kennedy pardoned Jake the Barber, a fact that reading of almost made me puke. Then again JFK and the Chicago Mob did make for some strange bedfellowery every now & again. I'll always admire WWII US Navy commander Kennedy's astonishing (word chosen carefully) bravery following his PT boat's sinking, but him signing that document - effectively wiping Factor's s*** stain clean - as payback for campaign contributions Factor made to him, was REALLY nauseating to read.

Come to think of it tho, the terms "criminal douchedog" & "any political candidate" are pretty much interchangeable.

Anyways tho ... rest in peace Rog, & I raise a toast - of virtual bootleg ale - in your honor: "Turns out you weren't the hard-luck mug I'd thought you were, but what the hell, at least you had style." And guts to meet your inevitable end with more grace than a gangster should.

Post Note: Author Tuohy's re-examination of the evidence in the Roger Touhy case does include some heroes - guys & women - who attempted to find the truth of what did happen. Reading about people like that IS rewarding. They showed true courage - and decency - in a world reeking of corruption & deceit. So, here's to the lawyer who took on a lost cause; the private detective who dug up buried facts; and most of all, Touhy's wife & sister who stood by his side all those years.

Crime don't pay, kids

Very good organized crime book. A rather obscure gangster story which makes it fresh to read. I do not like these minimum word requirements for a review. (There, I have met my minimum)

Chicago Gangster History At It's Best

ByJ. CROSBYon

As a 4th generation Chicagoan, I just loved this book. Growing up in the 1950's and 60's I heard the name "Terrible Touhy's" mentioned many times. Roger was thought of as a great man, and seems to have been held in high esteem among the old timer Chicagoans.

That said, I thought this book to be nothing but interesting and well written. (It inspired me to find a copy of Roger's "Stolen Years" bio.) I do recommend this book to other folks interested in prohibition/depression era Chicago crime research. It is a must have for your library of Gangsters literature from that era. Chock full of information and the reader is transported back in time.

I'd like to know just what is "The Valley" area today in Chicago. I still live in the Windy City and would like to see if anything remains from the early days of the 20th century.

A good writer and a good book! I will buy some more of Mr. Tuohy's work.

Great story, great read

ByBookreaderon

A complex tale of gangsters, political kickback, mob wars and
 corrupt politicians told with wit and humor at a good pace. Highly recommend this book.

One of the best books I've read in a long time....

If you're into mafioso, read this! I loved it. Bought a copy for my brother to read for his birthday--good stuff.

GUNS AND GLAMOUR

Capone. Torrio. Ricca. Giancana and Accardo. The giant legends of organized crime that led the largest, wealthiest, most powerful, and near completely documented organized crime syndicate in the world. At the height of its power, the Chicago mobs influence extended from Lake Shore Drive to the beaches of Havana, the neon lights of Vegas and the heroin drenched back alleys of Hanoi. The years 1900 through 1959 are largely considered the Golden Age for the Chicago mob. The end came with the accession of Sam “Momo” Giancana to the criminal throne that Big Jim Colosimo had founded. Flashy, arrogant and dangerous, Giancana’s rise to the leadership of the Chicago Mob was paralleled by the federal government’s assault on organized crime. By 1980, the Chicago mob has lost control of the organized labor on a national basis and given up Las Vegas Las Vegas. Virtually every significant Mafia Boss in the country was in jail or under indictment and Sam Giancana was shot dead by his own men. The so-called Golden Age of Chicago Mob had ended. Between 1900 and 1959, fifty-nine years, only seven Bosses led the Chicago Mob. Between 1963 and 2000, thirty-seven years, there were more than nine Bosses in rapid succession. All except one of them…the indomitable Tony Accardo…died in jail or under federal and state indictment. While the Chicago Mob still wields considerable criminal, financial, and political influence, it is a mere shadow of what it once was. With increased pressure from far reaching RICO laws, the constant surveillance of a well-informed and effective federal organized crime task force and increased competition from equally ruthless and ambitious new ethnic mobs, there is little chance it will ever reemerge as the awesome power it once was.

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: I heard a lot about Chicago mafia and I think it very interesting theme and I read few books but those books were so hard to read (!): small font, a lot of slangs, hard spelling words! But John Tuohy's book not like that!!! It's easy to read(and I'm not saying it written poor or anything), what I mean is for the person who doesn't know much about the mafia world this book is really helps to understand all the details, I would say to see the whole picture!!! This book is really interesting and helpful!

It also has a lot of photographs which makes the book even better!

I wish there would be more writers like John Tuohy who makes the books more interesting and cognitive!

Amazon review: Mr. Tuohy, has out done himself with this prized piece of literary work! Since I'm a Chicagoan, born and raised for 40 years, some of them on the very same streets where some of the Outfit's associates and higher-ups lived, and after the first few pages I'm hooked. His writing style to me is very easy to digest, and his photos are spectacular, either due to it's rarity or the person being photo, alot of these Outfit bosses/hitman didn't like to be photographed, and believe me, they made sure that you knew it. To take the Chicago Outfit and write about the ups and downs the Organization went through during this 100 year time frame is an amazing feat. You get some real good stories, written without an agenda, just to get the information out to the public. A brilliant topic which was handled with care and dignity by Mr.Tuohy, as I'm finding out is the case in ALL OF HIS BOOKS, be they organized crime or based on something else. Get if a try, you'll end up buying more than the one book, betcha you can't read just one!!!

An interesting book about the history of the Chicago mob. It highlights the legends of the Chicago mob in the 1900s. Any fan of the Chicago mob should add this to their collection.

The Mob and the Kennedy Assassination: Jack Ruby. Testimony by Mobsters Lewis McWillie, Joseph Campisi and Irwin Weiner (The Mob Files) Kindle Edition

From the Inside Flap

The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was established in 1976 to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. and the shooting of Alabama Governor George Wallace. The Committee investigated until 1978 and issued its final report, and ruled that Kennedy was very likely assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. However, the Committee noted that it believed that the conspiracy did not include the governments of the Soviet Union or Cuba.

 The Committee also stated it did not believe the conspiracy was organized by any organized crime group, nor any anti-Castro group, but that it could not rule out individual members of any of those groups acting together.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations suffered from being conducted mostly in secret, and then issued a public report with much of its evidence sealed for 50 years under Congressional rules.

In 1992, Congress passed legislation to collect and open up all the evidence relating to Kennedy's death, and created the Assassination Records Review Board to further that goal.

General conclusions

In particular, the various investigations performed by the U.S. government were faulted for insufficient consideration of the possibility of a conspiracy in each case. The Committee in its report also made recommendations for legislative and administrative improvements, including making some assassinations Federal crimes.

The Chief Counsel of the Committee later changed his views that the CIA was being cooperative and forthcoming with the investigation when he learned that the CIA's special liaison to the Committee researchers, George Joannides, was actually involved with some of the organizations that Lee Harvey Oswald was involved with in the months leading up to the assassination, including an anti-Castro group, the DRE, which was linked to the CIA, where the liaison, Joannides, worked in 1963.

 Chief Counsel Blakey later stated that Joannides, instead, should have been interviewed by the Committee, rather than serving as a gatekeeper to the CIA's evidence and files regarding the assassination. He further disregarded and suspected all the CIA's statements and representations to the Committee, accusing it of obstruction of justice.

Conclusions regarding the Kennedy assassination

The HSCA concluded in its 1979 report that:

 1.Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at Kennedy. The second and third shots he fired struck the President. The third shot Oswald fired successfully killed the President.

 2.Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that at least two gunmen fired at the President. Other scientific evidence does not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at the President. Scientific evidence negates some specific conspiracy allegations.

 3.The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy. The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.

The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.

 The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

4. Agencies and departments of the U.S. Government performed with varying degrees of competency in the fulfilment of their duties. President John F. Kennedy did not receive adequate protection. A thorough and reliable investigation into the responsibility of Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination was conducted. The investigation into the possibility of conspiracy in the assassination was inadequate. The conclusions of the investigations were arrived at in good faith, but presented in a fashion that was too definitive.

 

The Committee further concluded that it was probable that:

 Four shots were fired. The third shot came from a second assassin located on the grassy knoll, but missed. They concluded that it missed due to the lack of physical evidence of an actual bullet, of course this investigation took place almost sixteen years after the crime.

 The HSCA agreed with the single bullet theory, but concluded that it occurred at a time point during the assassination that differed from any of the several time points the Warren Commission theorized it occurred.

The Department of Justice, FBI, CIA, and the Warren Commission were all criticized for not revealing to the Warren Commission information available in 1964, and the Secret Service was deemed deficient in their protection of the President.

The HSCA made several accusations of deficiency against the FBI and CIA.

The accusations encompassed organizational failures, miscommunication, and a desire to keep certain parts of their operations secret. Furthermore, the Warren Commission expected these agencies to be forthcoming with any information that would aid their investigation. But the FBI and CIA only saw it as their duty to respond to specific requests for information from the commission. However, the HSCA found the FBI and CIA were deficient in performing even that limited role.

In 2003, Robert Blakey, staff director and chief counsel for the Committee, issued a statement on the Central Intelligence Agency:

...I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the [Central Intelligence] Agency and its relationship to Oswald.... We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known. Significantly, the Warren Commission's conclusion that the agencies of the government co-operated with it is, in retrospect, not the truth. We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency. Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story. I am now in that camp.

The Kefauver Organized Crime Hearings. Abridged.

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Amazon review: Senator Kefauver is a great person! The committee did a amazingly great job investigating organized crime in different cities, the same as the author did putting it all together in one book!!It was really interesting to read this record! I felt like I was there in a court room! Seriously, very impressive!

Amazon review: It's great that we have such a great historical document in print! Senator Kefauver and the committee investigate Organized Crime all over the country: Miami, NY, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Kansas city, etc. This record 
has many interviews with mafia leaders. Rare and great photographs! It's one of the best criminal books I ever read! I would highly recommend it to anyone!

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: "Shooting the Mob: Organized Crime in photos, Crime Boss Tony Accardo" was a welcomed addition to my book collection. For one thing, not much is written about ,"the Big Tuna", Tony Accardo; the Chicago Outfit's "man of many talents", let alone any photos. This book gives the reader a chance to gain some knowledge on the amazing Outfit boss/consigliere, that might not otherwise be available.

For me, it was a must for my collection; not to give too much away, but there are photos and personal information about the life and times of Anthony "JB" Accardo; from his days hanging around the "Circus Cafe" with "Tough" Tony Capezio, John "Screwey" Moore and "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn, to catching "the Big Guy's",attention, "Snorky" who then had him sitting in the lobby of his hotels with a Thompson Sub-Machine Gun on guard duty!

Things just kept getting better for the capable "Joe Batters"!!

Mob Testimony: Joe Pistone, Michael Scars DiLeonardo, Angelo Lonardo and others: The court testimony of FBI New York Undercover Agent Joe Pistone

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: What I loved about this book is that even though its mostly testimony before government investigative inquires, you can sense the hood attitudes and their arrogance. This is the real mob talking about everyday life as a gangster. Good stuff

Amazon review: This is the story of gangland told in the federal testimony of the hoodlum who decided to talk about life in the underworld. Although some Chicago gangsters are included in the text and photos (Lots of photos here) the concentration is on the New York mob.

An Illustrated Chronological History of the Chicago Mob. Time Line. 1837-2000 

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: Love the pictures in the book, some of them I've not seen before. This is a good outline for what one needs to know about the rise and fall of what was once a mighty underworld mob.

Amazon review: Pretty good outline in photos and text of the Chicago Outfit from start to what is basically its finish, the last year of the 20th century.

The New England Mafia.

Amazon review: Good book about the New England mafia with some nice rare pictures

Amazon review: Coming from RI - The book was great

Amazon review: This held my interest, read it in two sittings, quite late at night. Most of the main characters were familiar to me, being a born and bred New Englander, got a kick out of some of the descriptions. A good easy read with lots of history and Mafia insight.

Mob Recipes to Die For. Meals and Mobsters in Photos Paperback – December 20, 2011

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: This is a funny book, okay a little bloody in places but believe it or not, the recipes are actually pretty good and there are several good stories about mobsters and meals. The mob stories are mixed with authentic Italian recipes and other Outfit anecdotes and all of it makes for fun reading and actually some pretty good cooking.(Including the meat sauce recipe from the prison scene in "Gooodfellas") Most of the recipes are very simple fare, quick to make and include classic dishes like Shrimp Scampi, a simple Tomato Sauce, Veal Piccata, Asparagus with Prosciutto, Baked Stuffed Clams, Veal Chops Milanese, Caponata and Lobster. The book has about 50 something photos of dead mobsters followed by a recipe. The bloody scenes aside, this book would make compliment most cooking libraries and will works especially well for the novice cook.

Shooting the Mob: Organized Crime in Photos: The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Paperback – December 7, 2011

by Shadrach Bond

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: A detailed photographic account of the murders that shocked the underworld, the St. Valentine's Day massacre. The author tells the story of what happened and how it happened on that fateful day for the Northside gang and demonstrates with photos. Good book.

Shooting the Mob: Organized Crime in Photographs. Dutch Schultz. Paperback – May 4, 2012

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: Dutch Schultz continues to capture and fascinate and his story, including his last words, are detailed here with dozens of photographs from Schultz early days in crime until the bitter end.

Amazon review: Dutch Schultz (Arthur Flegenheimer) was the problem child of organized crime in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s who made his fortune in bootlegging alcohol and the numbers racket. The book gives a quick but accurate account of the Dutchman's rise and his battle in two tax evasions trials led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey. It covers his murder, probably on the orders of fellow mobster Lucky Luciano. In an effort to avert his conviction, Schultz asked the Commission for permission to kill Dewey, which they declined. After Schultz disobeyed the Commission and attempted to carry out the hit, they ordered his assassination in 1935. The book has a very fine series of photographs. Good reading at a fair price.

Shooting the mob. Organized crime in photos. Dead Mobsters, Gangsters and Hoods.

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: This book covers the full gamut of gangsters with many excellent photos. The story accompanying each slain hoodlum varies from a few pages to one or two lines. The book suffers from atrocious editing of the text. Words are frequently mispelled or missing, sentences often end half way through only to resume as a new sentence and paragraphs sometimes end midsentence. There are also no sources for anything. If not for this, the book would have received five stars.

Amazon review: There is no shortage of corpses in this book. Its page after page of dead hoodlums from the underworld with a passage on how they got that way and by whom. Gory but I must say, fascinating as the violence of the underworld so often is. The book is a guilty pleasure.

The Salerno Report. The Mafia and the Murder of President John F. Kennedy: The report by Mafia expert Ralph Salerno Consultant to the Select Committee on Assassinations

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: A must read for anyone studying the Kennedy assassination. Among the many conspiracy theories is the possible involvement of Mafia. As we all know there are no definite conclusions, and history may never resolve the issue, but this report is engaging and captive reading.

Amazon review: The Salerno Report is far more accurate than the Warren Report

Amazon review: Evidence mounted in a certain direction. The truth is still discoverable, and this ghastly event in our history deserves still more examination. This book contributes to the eventual revelation of what really happened.

Rosenthal murder case

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

"The old Metropole. The old Metropole," brooded Mr. Wolfshiem gloomily. "Filled with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever. I can't forget so long as I live the night they shot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table, and Rosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost morning the waiter came up to him with a funny look and says somebody wants to speak to him

outside. 'all right,' says Rosy, and begins to get up, and I pulled him down in his chair. "'Let the bastards in here if they want you, Rosy, but don't you, so help me, move outside this room.' "It was four o'clock in the morning then, and if we'd of raised the blinds we'd of seen daylight."

"Did he go?" I asked innocently.

'Sure he went." Mr. Wolfshiem's nose flashed at me indignantly. "He turned around in the door and says: 'Don't let that waiter take away my coffee!' Then he went out on the sidewalk, and they shot him three times in his full belly and drove away."

"Four of them were electrocuted,"

I said, remembering. "Five, with Becker"

The Great Gatsby

Amazon review: The Becker-Rosenthal trial was a 1912 trial for the murder of Herman Rosenthal by Charles Becker and members of the Lenox Avenue Gang. The trial ran from October 7, 1912 to October 30, 1912 and restarted on May 2, 1914 to May 22, 1914. Other procedural events took place in 1915.

 In July 1912, Lieutenant Charles Becker was named in the New York World as one of three senior police officials involved in the case of Herman Rosenthal, a small time bookmaker who had complained to the press that his illegal casinos had been badly damaged by the greed of Becker and his associates. On July 16, two days after the story appeared, Rosenthal walked out of the Hotel Metropole at 147 West 43rd Street, just off Times Square. He was gunned down by a crew of Jewish gangsters from the Lower East Side, Manhattan. In the aftermath, Manhattan District Attorney Charles S. Whitman, who had made an appointment with Rosenthal before his death, made no secret of his belief that the gangsters had committed the murder at Charles Becker's behest.

 At first, John J. Reisler, also known as "John the barber," told the police that he'd seen "Bridgey" Webber running away from the crime scene directly following the killing. He recanted under duress from gangsters the next week, and was charged with perjury.

 The investigation was covered on the front page of the New York Times for months. It was so complex that the NYPD recalled thirty retired detectives to help investigate; they were said "to know most of the gangsters."

One of these old-timers, Detective Upton, formerly of the NYPD "Italian Squad," was instrumental in the July 25, 1912, arrest of "Dago" Frank Cirofici, one of the suspected killers. He and his companion, Regina Gorden (formerly known as "Rose Harris"), were "so stupefied by opium that they offered no objection to their arrests," according to the New York Times.

Joe Petrosino

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Review: Any book about Joe Petrosino can't be all bad. Far too little attention is paid to Petrosino these days. The foolish Public remembers names of scumbags like Capone, Gotti, Valachi, Tony Soprano, etc. Far too few people remember New York Cop Joe Petrosino. In a time when Italians were segregated, harassed by Cops and treated as second class citizens, Petrosino arose as the first Italian anti-gangster Cop. Then, as now, gangsters claimed they were the victims of prejudice, discrimination and profiling. Petrosino rose above his times to become a Pioneer in anti-Mafia police work. Tough as nails, un-corruptible, and utterly fearless, Petrosino was assassinated by the Mafia in their usual cowardly style.

Review: This book is a welcome bit of scholarship on the great Petrosino. Tuohy's book does contain an, apparent, misprint. There is a lone word, without authority, regarding Petrosino being "corrupt," perhaps a reference to his tough police tactics. Corruption, however, implies a personal power or profit motive. Tuohy provides no evidence or argument of any such motive or activity on Petrosino's part. On the contrary, the only evidence is that Petrosino was a good, honest Cop. Petrosino is a role model for young and old alike, oppressed immigrants, and even whining minority gangsters and their sympathizers, such as Sharpton, Obama, Jackson, and Holder.

Review: I have several books from The Mob Files Series and I have really enjoyed reading them. The Joe Petrosino story is definitely one worth reading. He had an interesting life working against the mafia. I enjoyed seeing the pictures in the book and they helped bring the story to life.

HERE'S MY LATEST BOOKS.....

This is a book of short stories taken from the things I saw and heard in my childhood in the factory town of Ansonia in southwestern Connecticut.

Most of these stories, or as true as I recall them because I witnessed these events many years ago through the eyes of child and are retold to you now with the pen and hindsight of an older man. The only exception is the story Beat Time which is based on the disappearance of Beat poet Lew Welch. Decades before I knew who Welch was, I was told that he had made his from California to New Haven, Connecticut, where was an alcoholic living in a mission. The notion fascinated me and I filed it away but never forgot it.     

The collected stories are loosely modeled around Joyce’s novel, Dubliners (I also borrowed from the novels character and place names. Ivy Day, my character in “Local Orphan is Hero” is also the name of chapter in Dubliners, etc.) and like Joyce I wanted to write about my people, the people I knew as a child, the working class in small town America and I wanted to give a complete view of them as well. As a result the stories are about the divorced, Gays, black people, the working poor, the middle class, the lost and the found, the contented and the discontented.

Conversely many of the stories in this book are about starting life over again as a result of suicide (The Hanging Party, Small Town Tragedy, Beat Time) or from a near death experience (Anna Bell Lee and the Charge of the Light Brigade, A Brief Summer) and natural occurring death. (The Best Laid Plans, The Winter Years, Balanced and Serene)

With the exception of Jesus Loves Shaqunda, in each story there is a rebirth from the death. (Shaqunda is reported as having died of pneumonia in The Winter Years)

Sal, the desperate and depressed divorcee in Things Change, changes his life in Lunch Hour when asks the waitress for a date and she accepts. (Which we learn in Closing Time, the last story in the book) In The Arranged Time, Thisby is given the option of change and whether she takes it or, we don’t know. The death of Greta’s husband in A Matter of Time has led her to the diner and into the waiting arms of the outgoing and loveable Gabe.

Although the book is based on three sets of time (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and the diner is opened in the early morning and closed at night, time stands still inside the Diner. The hour on the big clock on the wall never changes time and much like my memories of that place, everything remains the same.

http://www.amazon.com/Short-Stories-Small-William-Tuohy/dp/1517270456/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444164878&sr=1-1&keywords=short+stories+from+a+small+town

REVIEWS FOR "SHORT STORIES FROM A SMALL TOWN"

The Valley Lives

By Marion Marchetto, author of The Bridgewater Chronicles on October 15, 2015

Short Stores from a Small Town is set in The Valley (known to outsiders as The Lower Naugatuck Valley) in Connecticut. While the short stories are contemporary they provide insight into the timeless qualities of an Industrial Era community and the values and morals of the people who live there. Some are first or second generation Americans, some are transplants, yet each takes on the mantle of Valleyite and wears it proudly. It isn't easy for an author to take the reader on a journey down memory lane and involve the reader in the life stories of a group of seemingly unrelated characters. I say seemingly because by book's end the reader will realize that he/she has done more than meet a group of loosely related characters.

We meet all of the characters during a one-day time period as each of them finds their way to the Valley Diner on a rainy autumn day. From our first meeting with Angel, the educationally challenged man who opens and closes the diner, to our farewell for the day to the young waitress whose smile hides her despair we meet a cross section of the Valley population. Rich, poor, ambitious, and not so ambitious, each life proves that there is more to it beneath the surface. And the one thing that binds these lives together is The Valley itself. Not so much a place (or a memory) but an almost palpable living thing that becomes a part of its inhabitants.

Let me be the first the congratulate author John William Tuohy on a job well done. He has evoked the heart of The Valley and in doing so brought to life the fabric that Valleyites wear as a mantle of pride. While set in a specific region of the country, the stories that unfold within the pages of this slim volume are similar to those that live in many a small town from coast to coast.

By Sandra Mendyk

Just read "Short Stories from a Small Town," and couldn't put it down! Like Mr. Tuohy's other books I read, they keep your interest, especially if you're from a small town and can relate to the lives of the people he writes about. I recommend this book for anyone interested in human interest stories. His characters all have a central place where the stories take place--a diner--and come from different walks of life and wrestle with different problems of everyday life. Enjoyable and thoughtful.

I loved how the author wrote about "his people"

By kathee

A touching thoughtful book. I loved how the author wrote about "his people", the people he knew as a child from his town. It is based on sets of time in the local diner, breakfast , lunch and dinner, but time stands still ... Highly recommend !

WONDERFUL book, I loved it!

By John M. Cribbins

What wonderful stories...I just loved this book.... It is great how it is written following, breakfast, lunch, dinner, at a diner. Great characters.... I just loved it....

EMERSON

Amazon review: I purchased this book for my daughter who loves Emerson. The quotes are organized in categories and are easy to find and read. The book includes the most memorable quotes of Emerson and my daughter loves it.

Amazon review: This is really enjoyable to read and I like how it is done and you can look up all sorts of things. I have shared some of Emerson's quotes from this book on my website right from this book, giving him credit.

Amazon review: Made me hungry for more!!

Amazon review: It's a keeper!

CYBERDATE

An award winning full length play.

"Cyberdate.Com is the story of six ordinary people in search of romance, friendship and love and find it in very extraordinary ways. Based on the real life experiences of the authors misadventures with on line dating, Cyber date is a bittersweet story that will make you laugh, cry and want to fall in love again."   Ellis McKay  

Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a public at the Actors Chapel in Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the groups Reading Series for New York project. In June of 2008, the play won the Virginia Theater of The First Amendment Award for best new play. The play was also given a full reading at The Frederick Playhouse in Maryland in March of 2007.

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY AVAILABLE NOW

AMAZON REVIEWS

In 1962, six year old John Tuohy, his two brothers and two sisters entered Connecticut’s foster care system and were promptly split apart. Over the next ten years, John would live in more than ten foster homes, group homes and state schools, from his native Waterbury to Ansonia, New Haven, West Haven, Deep River and Hartford. In the end, a decade later, the state returned him to the same home and the same parents they had taken him from. As tragic as is funny compelling story will make you cry and laugh as you journey with this child to overcome the obstacles of the foster care system and find his dreams.

http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/0692361294/

http://amemoirofalifeinfostercare.blogspot.com/

http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/

By Dr. Wm. Anthony Connolly

This incredible memoir, No Time to Say Goodbye, tells of entertaining angels, dancing with devils, and of the abandoned children many viewed simply as raining manna from some lesser god.

The young and unfortunate lives of the Tuohy bruins—sometimes Irish, sometimes Jewish, often Catholic, rambunctious, but all imbued with Lion’s hearts—told here with brutal honesty leavened with humor and laudable introspective forgiveness. The memoir will have you falling to your knees thanking that benevolent Irish cop in the sky, your lucky stars, or hugging the oxygen out of your own kids the fate foisted upon Johnny and his siblings does not and did not befall your own brood. John William Tuohy, a nationally-recognized authority on organized crime and Irish levity, is your trusted guide through the weeds the decades of neglect ensnared he and his brothers and sisters, all suffering for the impersonal and often mercenary taint of the foster care system. Theirs, and Tuohy’s, story is not at all figures of speech as this review might suggest, but all too real and all too sad, and maddening. I wanted to scream. I wanted to get into a time machine, go back and adopt every last one of them. I was angry. I was captivated. The requisite damning verities of foster care are all here, regretfully, but what sets this story above others is its beating heart, even a bruised and broken one, still willing to forgive and understand, and continue to aid its walking wounded. I cannot recommend this book enough.

By jackieh on October 13, 2015

After reading about John's deeply personal and painful past, I just wanted to hug the child within him......and hug all the children who were thrown into the state's foster system....it is an amazing read.......

By Jane Pogoda on October 9, 2015

I truly enjoyed reading his memoir. I also grew up in Ansonia and had no idea conditions such as these existed. The saving grace is knowing the author made it out and survived the system. Just knowing he was able to have a family of his own made me happy. I attended the same grammar school and was happy that his experience there was not negative. I had a wonderful experience in that school. I wish that I could have been there for him when he was at the school since we were there at probably at the same time.

By Sue on September 27, 2015

Hi - just finished your novel "No time to say goodbye" - what a powerful read!!! - I bought it for my 90 year old mom who is an avid reader and lived in the valley all her life-she loved it also along with my sister- we are all born and raised in the valley- i.e. Derby and Ansonia

By David A. Wright on September 7, 2015

I enjoyed this book. I grew up in Ansonia CT and went to the Assumption School. Also reconized all the places he was talking about and some of the families.

By Robert G Manley on September 7, 2015

This is a wonderfully written book. It is heart wrenchingly sad at times and the next minute hilariously funny. I attribute that to the intelligence and wit of the author who combines the humor and pathos of his Irish catholic background and horrendous "foster kid" experience. He captures each character perfectly and the reader can easily visualize the individuals the author has to deal with on daily basis. Having lived part of my life in the parochial school system and having lived as a child in the same neighborhood as the author, I was vividly brought back to my childhood .Most importantly, it shows the strength of the soul and how just a little compassion can be so important to a lost child.

By LNA on July 9, 2015

John Tuohy writes with compelling honesty, and warmth. I grew up in Ansonia, CT myself, so it makes it even more real. He brings me immediately back there with his narrative, while he wounds my soul, as I realize I had no idea of the suffering of some of the children around me. His story is a must read, of courage and great spirit in the face of impoverishment, sorrow, and adult neglect. I could go on and on, but just get the book. If you're like me, you'll soon be reading it out loud to any person in the room who will listen. Many can suffer and overcome as they go through it, but few can find the words that take us through the story. John is a gifted writer to be able to do that.

By Barbara Pietruszka on June 29, 2015

I am from Connecticut so I was very familiar with many locations described in the book especially Ansonia where I lived. I totally enjoyed the book and would like to know more about the author. I recommend the book to everyone

By Joanne B. on June 28, 2015

What an emotional rollercoaster. I laughed. I cried. Once you start reading it's hard to stop. I was torn between wanting to gulp it up and read over and over each quote that started the chapter. I couldn't help but feel part of the Tuohy clan. I wanted to scream in their defense. It's truly hard to believe the challenges that foster children face. I can only pray that this story may touch even one person facing this life. It's an inspiring read. That will linger long after you finish it. This is a wonderfully written memoir that immediately pulls you in to the lives of the Tuohy family.

By Paul Day on June 15, 2015

Great reading. Life in foster care told from a very rare point of view.

By Jackie Malkes on June 5, 2015

This book is definitely a must for social workers working with children specifically. This is an excellent memoir which identifies the trails of foster children in the 1960s in the United States. The memoir captures stories of joy as well as nail biting terror, as the family is at times torn apart but finds each other later and finds solace in the experiences of one another. The stories capture the love siblings have for one another as well as the protection they have for one another in even the worst of circumstances. On the flip side, one of the most touching stories to me was when a Nun at the school helped him to read-- truly an example of how a positive person really helped to shape the author in times when circumstances at home were challenging and treacherous. I found the book to be a page turner and at times show how even in the hardest of circumstances there was a need to live and survive and make the best of any moment. The memoir is eye-opening and helped to shed light and make me feel proud of the volunteer work I take part in with disadvantaged children. Riveting....Must read....memory lane on steroids....Catholic school banter, blue color towns...Lawrence Welk on Sundays night's.

By Eileen on June 4, 2015

From ' No time to say Goodbye 'and authors John W. Touhys Gangster novels, his style never waivers...humorous to sadness to candidly realistic situations all his writings leaves the reader in awe......longing for more.

By karen pojakene on June 1, 2015

This book is a must-read for anyone who administers to the foster care program in any state. This is not a "fell through the cracks" life story, but rather a memoir of a life guided by strength and faith and a hard determination to survive. it is heartening to know that the "sewer" that life can become to steal our personal peace can be fought and our peace can be restored, scarred, but restored.

By Michelle Black on

A captivating, shocking, and deeply moving memoir, No Time to Say Goodbye is a true page turner. John shares the story of his childhood, from the struggles of living in poverty to being in the foster care system and simply trying to survive. You will be cheering for him all the way, as he never loses his will to thrive even in the darkest and bleakest of circumstances. This memoir is a very truthful and unapologetic glimpse into the way in which some of our most vulnerable citizens have been treated in the past and are still being treated today. It is truly eye-opening, and hopefully will inspire many people to take action in protection of vulnerable children.

By Kimberly on May 24, 2015

I found myself in tears while reading this book. John William Tuohy writes quite movingly about the world he grew up in; a world in which I had hoped did not exist within the foster care system. This book is at times funny, raw, compelling, heartbreaking and disturbing. I found myself rooting for John as he tries to escape from an incredibly difficult life. You will too!

By Geoffrey A. Childs on May 20, 2015

I found this book to be a compelling story of life in the Ct foster care system. at times disturbing and at others inspirational ,The author goes into great detail in this gritty memoir of His early life being abandoned into the states system and his subsequent escape from it. Every once in a while a book or even an article in a newspaper comes along that bears witness to an injustice or even something that's just plain wrong. This chronicle of the foster care system is such a book and should be required reading for any aspiring social workers.

Baby Boomers Guide to the Beatles Songs of the Sixties

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: There are more intense books that go into supposed motivation and recording techniques and equipment, but this is a lovely work that illuminates the songs and the stories behind them without being overbearing in doing so. I really enjoyed it - bought several copies to give as gifts. Well done!

The Connecticut Irish

READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS

Amazon review: This book is not a history of the Irish in Connecticut so much as it is a history of people of Irish decent of the great State of Connecticut, but in that, it does a very good job reporting the facts and being wholly inclusive. It has presents dome very wonderful photographs and fives a brief but disturbing picture of the Anti-Irish movement in the New England states.

BLOGLAPEDIA’S BLOGS

ARCHITECTURE

Architecture for the blog of it

http://architecturefortheblogofit.blogspot.com/

THE ARTS

Art for the Blog of It

http://artfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/

Art for the Pop of it

http://artforthepopofit.blogspot.com/

Photography for the blog of it

http://photographyfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/

Music for the Blog of it

http://musicfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/

Sculpture this and Sculpture that

http://sculpturethisandsculpturethat.blogspot.com/

The art of War (Propaganda art through the ages)

http://theartofwarcleverhuh.blogspot.com/

Album Art (Photographic arts)

http://albumartsocheesyitsgood.blogspot.com/

Pulp Fiction Trash (The art of Pulp Fiction covers)

http://pulpfictiontrash.blogspot.com/

Admit it, you want to Read this Book (The art of Pulp Fiction covers)

http://goaheadadmitityouwanttoread.blogspot.com/

FILM

The Godfather Trilogy BlogSpot

http://thegodfathertrilogyblogspot.blogspot.com/

On the Waterfront: The Making of a great American Film

http://onthewaterfrontthefilm.blogspot.com/

FOOD

Absolutely blogalicious

http://absolutelyblogalicious.blogspot.com/

The Wee Book of Irish Recipes (Book support site)

http://theweeblogofirishrecipes.blogspot.com/

Good chowda (New England foods)

http://goodchowda.blogspot.com/

Old New England Recipes (Book support site)

http://oldnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com/

And I Love Clams (New England foods)

http://andiloveclams.blogspot.com/

In Praise of the Rhode Island Wiener (New England foods)

http://inpraiseoftherhodeislandwiener.blogspot.com/

Wicked Cool New England Recipes (New England foods)

http://whickedcoolnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com

Old New England Recipes (New England foods)

http://oldnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com

FOSTER CARE

Foster Care new and Updates

http://www.facebook.com/FosterCareNews

Aging out of the system

http://agingoutofthesystem.blogspot.com/

Murder, Death and Abuse in the Foster Care system

http://murderdeathandabuseinfostercare.blogspot.com/

Angel and Saints in the Foster Care System

http://angelsandsaintsinthefostercare.blogspot.com/

The Foster Children’s Blogs

http://fosterchildrensblog.blogspot.com/

Foster Care Legislation

http://fostercarelegislation.blogspot.com/

The Foster Children’s Bill of Right

http://thefosterchildrensbillofrights.blogspot.com/

Foster Kids own Story

http://fosterkidsownstory.blogspot.com/

The Adventures of Foster Kid.

http://theadventuresoffosterkid.blogspot.com/

HEALTH

Me vs. Diabetes (Diabetes education site)

http://mevsdiabetes-bloglapedia.blogspot.com/

HISTORY

The Quotable Helen Keller

http://thequotablehelenkeller.blogspot.com/

Teddy Roosevelt's Letters to his children (Book support site)

http://teddyrooseveltsletterstohischildren.blogspot.com/

The Quotable Machiavelli (Book support site)

http://thequotablemachiavelli.blogspot.com/

HUMOR

Whatever you do, don't laugh

http://whateveryoudodontlaugh.blogspot.com/

The Quotable Grouch Marx

http://thequotablegrouchmarx.blogspot.com/

IRISH-AMERICANA

A Big Blog of Irish Literature

http://abigblogofirishliterature.blogspot.com/

The Wee Blog of Irish Jokes (Book support blog)

http://theweeblogofirishjokes.blogspot.com/

The Wee Blog of Irish Recipes

http://theweeblogofirishrecipes.blogspot.com/

The Irish American Gangster

http://irishamericangangsters.blogspot.com

The Irish in their Own Words

http://theirishintheirownwords.blogspot.com/

When Washington Was Irish

http://whenwashingtonwasirish.blogspot.com/

The Wee Book of Irish Recipes (Book support site)

http://theweeblogofirishrecipes.blogspot.com/

LITERATURE

Following Fitzgerald

http://followingfitzgerald.blogspot.com/

Shakespeare

http://shakespeareinamericanenglish.blogspot.com/

The Blogable Robert Frost

http://theblogablerobertfrost.blogspot.com/

Charles Dickens

http://charlesdickensfan.blogspot.com/

The Beat Poets of the Forever Generation

http://thebeatspoetsoftheforevergenera.blogspot.com/

Holden Caulfield Blog Spot

http://holdencaulfieldblogspot.blogspot.com/

The Quotable Oscar Wilde

http://thequotableoscarwilde.blogspot.com/

NEW ENGLAND BLOGS

The Quotable Thoreau

http://thequotablethenrydavidthoreau.blogspot.com/

Old New England Recipes

http://oldnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com

Wicked Cool New England Recipes

http://whickedcoolnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com

Emerson

http://emersonsaidit.blogspot.com/

The New England Mafia

http://thenewenglandmafia.blogspot.com/

And I Love Clams

http://andiloveclams.blogspot.com/

In Praise of the Rhode Island Wiener

http://inpraiseoftherhodeislandwiener.blogspot.com/

Watch Hill

http://watchhillwesterly.blogspot.com/

York Beach

http://yorkbeachfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/

The Connecticut History Blog

http://connecticuthistory.blogspot.com/

The Connecticut Irish

http://theconnecticutirish.blogspot.com/

Good chowda

http://goodchowda.blogspot.com/

NOSTALGIA

God, How I hated the 70s

http://godhowihatedthe70s.blogspot.com/

Child of the Sixties Forever

http://childofthesixtiesforeverandever.blogspot.com/

The Kennedy’s in the 60’s

http://thekennedysinthe60s.blogspot.com/

Music of the Sixties Forever

http://musicofthesixtiesforever.blogspot.com/

Elvis and Nixon at the White House (Book support site)

http://elvisandnixonatthewhitehouse.blogspot.com/

Beatles Fan Forever

http://beatlesfanforever.blogspot.com/

Year One, 1955

http://yearone1955.blogspot.com/

Robert Kennedy in His Own Words

http://rfkinhisownwords.blogspot.com/

The 1980s were fun

http://the1980swereokayactually.blogspot.com/

The 1990s. The last decade.

http://1990sthelastdecade.blogspot.com/

ORGANIZED CRIME

The Russian Mafia

http://russianmafiagangster.blogspot.com/

The American Jewish Gangster

http://theamericanjewishgangster.blogspot.com/

The Mob in Hollywood

http://themobinhollywood.blogspot.com/

We Only Kill Each Other

http://weonlykilleachother.blogspot.com/

Early Gangsters of New York City

http://earlygangstersofnewyorkcity.blogspot.com/

Al Capone: Biography of a self-made Man

http://alcaponethebiographyofaselfmademan.blogspot.com/

The Life and World of Al Capone

http://thelifeandworldofalcapone.blogspot.com/

The Salerno Report

http://salernoreportmafiaandurderjohnkennedy.blogspot.com/

Guns and Glamour

http://gunsandglamourthechicagomobahistory.blogspot.com/

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

http://thesaintvalentinesdaymassacre.blogspot.com/

Mob Testimony

http://mobtestimony.blogspot.com/

Recipes we would Die For

http://recipeswewoulddiefor.blogspot.com/

The Prohibition in Pictures

http://theprohibitioninpictures.blogspot.com/

The Mob in Pictures

http://themobinpictures.blogspot.com/

The Mob in Vegas

http://themobinvegasinpictures.blogspot.com/

The Irish American Gangster

http://irishamericangangsters.blogspot.com

Roger Touhy Gangster

http://rogertouhygangsters.blogspot.com/

Chicago’s Mob Bosses

http://chicagosmobbossesfromaccardoto.blogspot.com/

Chicago Gang Land: It Happened Here

http://chicagoganglandithappenedhere.blogspot.com/

Whacked: One Hundred years of Murder in Gangland

http://whackedonehundredyearsmurderand.blogspot.com/

The Mob Across America

http://themobacrossamerica.blogspot.com/

Mob Cops, Lawyers and Front Men

http://mobcopslawyersandinformantsand.blogspot.com/

Shooting the Mob: Dutch Schultz

http://shootingthemobdutchschultz.blogspot.com/

Bugsy& His Flamingo: The Testimony of Virginia Hill

http://bugsyandvirginiahill.blogspot.com/

After Valachi. Hearings before the US Senate on Organized Crime

http://aftervalachi.blogspot.com/

Mob Buster: Report of Special Agent Virgil Peterson to the Kefauver Committee (Book support site)

http://virgilpetersonmobbuster.blogspot.com/

The US Government’s Timeline of Organized Crime (Book support site)

http://timelineoforganizedcrime.blogspot.com/

The Kefauver Organized Crime Hearings (Book support site)

http://thekefauverorganizedcrimehearings.blogspot.com/

Joe Valachi's testimony on the Mafia (Book support site)

http://joevalachistestimonyonthemafia.blogspot.com/

Mobsters in the News

http://mobstersinthenews.blogspot.com/

Shooting the Mob: Dead Mobsters (Book support site)

http://deadmobsters.blogspot.com/

The Stolen Years Full Text (Roger Touhy)

http://thestolenyearsfulltext.blogspot.com/

Mobsters in Black and White

http://mobstersinblackandwhite.blogspot.com/

Mafia Gangsters, Wiseguys and Goodfellas

http://mafiagangsterswiseguysandgoodfellas.blogspot.com/

Whacked: One Hundred Years of Murder and Mayhem in the Chicago Mob (Book support site)

http://whackedonehundredyearsmurderand.blogspot.com/

Gangland Gaslight: The Killing of Rosy Rosenthal (Book support site)

http://ganglandgaslightrosyrosenthal.blogspot.com/

The Best of the Mob Files Series (Book support site)

http://thebestofthemobfilesseries.blogspot.com/

PHILOSOPHY

It’s All Greek Mythology to me

http://itsallgreekmythologytome.blogspot.com/

PSYCHOLOGY

Psychologically Relevant

http://psychologicallyrelevant.blogspot.com/

SNOBBERY

The Rarifieid Tribe

http://therarifiedtribe.blogspot.com/

Perfect Behavior

http://perfectbehavior.blogspot.com/

TRAVEL

The Upscale Traveler

http://theupscaletraveler.blogspot.com/

TRIVIA

The Mish Mosh Blog

http://theupscaletraveler.blogspot.com/

WASHINGTON DC

DC Behind the Monuments

http://dcbehindthemonuments.blogspot.com/

Washington Oddities

http://washingtonoddities.blogspot.com/

When Washington Was Irish

http://whenwashingtonwasirish.blogspot.com/

FROM LLR BOOKS. COM

Litchfield Literary Books. A really small company run by writers.

AMERICAN HISTORY

The Day Nixon Met Elvis

Paperback 46 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Day-Nixon-Met-elvis/

Theodore Roosevelt: Letters to his Children. 1903-1918

Paperback 194 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Theodore-Roosevelt-Letters-Children-1903-1918/dp/

THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND CIVILIZATIONS

The Works of Horace

Paperback 174 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Works-Horace-Richard-Willoughby/

The Quotable Greeks

Paperback 234 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Greeks-Richard-W-Willoughby

The Quotable Epictetus

Paperback 142 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Epictetus-Golden-Sayings

Quo Vadis: A narrative of the time of Nero

Paperback 420 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quo-Vadis-Narrative-Time-Nero

CHILDRENS BOOKS

The Porchless Pumpkin: A Halloween Story for Children

A Halloween play for young children. By consent of the author, this play may be performed, at no charge, by educational institutions, neighborhood organizations and other not-for-profit-organizations.

A fun story with a moral

“I believe that Denny O'Day is an American treasure and this little book proves it. Jack is a pumpkin who happens to be very small, by pumpkins standards and as a result he goes unbought in the pumpkin patch on Halloween eve, but at the last moment he is given his chance to prove that just because you're small doesn't mean you can't be brave. Here is the point that I found so wonderful, the book stresses that while size doesn't matter when it comes to courage...ITS OKAY TO BE SCARED....as well. I think children need to hear that, that's its okay to be unsure because life is a ongoing lesson isn't it?”

Paperback: 42 pages

http://www.amazon.com/OLANTERN-PORCHLESS-PUMPKIN-Halloween-Children

It's Not All Right to be a Foster Kid....no matter what they tell you: Tweet the books contents

Paperback 94 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Right-Foster-Kid-no-matter-what

From the Author

I spent my childhood, from age seven through seventeen, in foster care.  Over the course of those ten years, many decent, well-meaning, and concerned people told me, "It's okay to be foster kid."

In saying that, those very good people meant to encourage me, and I appreciated their kindness then, and all these many decades later, I still appreciate their good intentions. But as I was tossed around the foster care system, it began to dawn on me that they were wrong.  It was not all right to be a foster kid.

During my time in the system, I was bounced every eighteen months from three foster homes to an orphanage to a boy's school and to a group home before I left on my own accord at age seventeen.

In the course of my stay in foster care, I was severely beaten in two homes by my "care givers" and separated from my four siblings who were also in care, sometimes only blocks away from where I was living.

I left the system rather than to wait to age out, although the effects of leaving the system without any family, means, or safety net of any kind, were the same as if I had aged out. I lived in poverty for the first part of my life, dropped out of high school, and had continuous problems with the law.

 Today, almost nothing about foster care has changed.  Exactly what happened to me is happening to some other child, somewhere in America, right now.  The system, corrupt, bloated, and inefficient, goes on, unchanging and secretive.

Something has gone wrong in a system that was originally a compassionate social policy built to improve lives but is now a definitive cause in ruining lives.  Due to gross negligence, mismanagement, apathy, and greed, mostly what the foster care system builds are dangerous consequences. Truly, foster care has become our epic national disgrace and a nightmare for those of us who have lived through it.

Yet there is a suspicion among some Americans that foster care costs too much, undermines the work ethic, and is at odds with a satisfying life.  Others see foster care as a part of the welfare system, as legal plunder of the public treasuries.

 None of that is true; in fact, all that sort of thinking does is to blame the victims.  There is not a single child in the system who wants to be there or asked to be there.  Foster kids are in foster care because they had nowhere else to go.  It's that simple.  And believe me, if those kids could get out of the system and be reunited with their parents and lead normal, healthy lives, they would. And if foster care is a sort of legal plunder of the public treasuries, it's not the kids in the system who are doing the plundering.

 We need to end this needless suffering.  We need to end it because it is morally and ethically wrong and because the generations to come will not judge us on the might of our armed forces or our technological advancements or on our fabulous wealth.

 Rather, they will judge us, I am certain, on our compassion for those who are friendless, on our decency to those who have nothing and on our efforts, successful or not, to make our nation and our world a better place.  And if we cannot accomplish those things in the short time allotted to us, then let them say of us "at least they tried."

You can change the tragedy of foster care and here's how to do it.  We have created this book so that almost all of it can be tweeted out by you to the world.  You have the power to improve the lives of those in our society who are least able to defend themselves.  All you need is the will to do it.

 If the American people, as good, decent and generous as they are, knew what was going on in foster care, in their name and with their money, they would stop it.  But, generally speaking, although the public has a vague notion that foster care is a mess, they don't have the complete picture. They are not aware of the human, economic and social cost that the mismanagement of the foster care system puts on our nation.

By tweeting the facts laid out in this work, you can help to change all of that.  You can make a difference.  You can change things for the better.

We can always change the future for a foster kid; to make it better ...you have the power to do that. Speak up (or tweet out) because it's your country.  Don't depend on the "The other guy" to speak up for these kids, because you are the other guy.

We cannot build a future for foster children, but we can build foster children for the future and the time to start that change is today.

No time to say Goodbye: Memoirs of a life in foster 

Paperbook 440 Books

http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir

 

BOOKS ABOUT FILM

On the Waterfront: The Making of a Great American Film

Paperback: 416 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Waterfront-Making-Great-American-Film/

BOOKS ABOUT GHOSTS AND THE SUPERNATUAL

Scotish Ghost Stories

Paperback 186 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Scottish-Ghost-Stories-Elliott-ODonell

HUMOR BOOKS

The Book of funny odd and interesting things people say

Paperback: 278 pages

http://www.amazon.com/book-funny-interesting-things-people

The Wee Book of Irish Jokes

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Series-Irish-Jokes-ebook

Perfect Behavior: A guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises

http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Behavior-Ladies-Gentlemen-Social

BOOKS ABOUT THE 1960s

You Don’t Need a Weatherman. Underground 1969

Paperback 122 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Weatherman-Notes-Weatherman-Underground-1969

Baby Boomers Guide to the Beatles Songs of the Sixties

Paperback

http://www.amazon.com/Boomers-Guide-Beatles-Songs-Sixties/

Baby Boomers Guide to Songs of the 1960s

http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Boomers-Guide-Songs-1960s

IRISH- AMERICANA

The Connecticut Irish

Paper back 140 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Connecticut-Irish-Catherine-F-Connolly

 The Wee Book of Irish Jokes

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Series-Irish-Jokes-ebook/

The Wee Book of Irish Recipes 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Wee-Book-Irish-Recipes/

 

 The Wee Book of the American-Irish Gangsters

  http://www.amazon.com/The-Wee-Book-Irish-American-Gangsters/

 The Wee book of Irish Blessings... 

http://www.amazon.com/Series-Blessing-Proverbs-Toasts-ebook/

The Wee Book of the American Irish in Their Own Words

http://www.amazon.com/Book-American-Irish-Their-Words/

Everything you need to know about St. Patrick

Paperback 26 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Need-About-Saint-Patrick

A Reading Book in Ancient Irish History

Paperback 147pages

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Book-Ancient-Irish-History

The Book of Things Irish

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Things-Irish-William-Tuohy/

Poets and Dreamer; Stories translated from the Irish

Paperback 158 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Poets-Dreamers-Stories-Translated-Irish/

The History of the Great Irish Famine: Abridged and Illustrated

Paperback 356 pages

http://www.amazon.com/History-Great-Irish-Famine-Illustrated/

BOOKS ABOUT NEW ENGLAND

The New England Mafia

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-England-Mafia-ebook/

Wicked Good New England Recipes

http://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Good-New-England-Recipes/

The Connecticut Irish

Paper back 140 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Connecticut-Irish-Catherine-F-Connolly

The Twenty-Fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers

Paperback 64 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Fifth-Regiment-Connecticut-Volunteers-Rebellion

The Life of James Mars

Paperback 54 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Life-James-Mars-Slave-Connecticut

Stories of Colonial Connecticut

Paperback 116 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Colonial-Connnecticut-Caroline-Clifford

What they Say in Old New England

Paperback 194 pages

http://www.amazon.com/What-they-say-New-England/

BOOK ABOUT ORGANIZED CRIME

Chicago Organized Crime

Chicago-Mob-Bosses

http://www.amazon.com/Chicagos-Mob-Bosses-Accardo-ebook

The Mob Files: It Happened Here: Places of Note in Chicago gangland 1900-2000

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mob-Files-1900-2000-ebook

An Illustrated Chronological History of the Chicago Mob. Time Line 1837-2000

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Chronological-History-Chicago-1837-2000/

Mob Buster: Report of Special Agent Virgil Peterson to the Kefauver Committee

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Buster-Peterson-Committee-ebook/

The Mob Files. Guns and Glamour: The Chicago Mob. A History. 1900-2000

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Files-Guns-Glamour-ebook/

Shooting the Mob: Organized crime in photos. Crime Boss Tony Accardo

http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Mob-Organized-photos-Accardo/

Shooting the Mob: Organized Crime in Photos: The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.

http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Mob-Organized-Valentines-Massacre

The Life and World of Al Capone in Photos

http://www.amazon.com/Life-World-Al-Capone

AL CAPONE: The Biography of a Self-Made Man.: Revised from the 0riginal 1930 edition.Over 200 new photographs

Paperback: 340 pages

http://www.amazon.com/CAPONE-Biography-Self-Made-Over-photographs

Whacked. One Hundred Years Murder and Mayhem in the Chicago Outfit

Paperback: 172 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Whacked-Hundred-Murder-Mayhem-Chicago/

Las Vegas Organized Crime

The Mob in Vegas

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Files-Vegas-ebook

Bugsy & His Flamingo: The Testimony of Virginia Hill

http://www.amazon.com/Bugsy-His-Flamingo-Testimony-Virginia/

Testimony by Mobsters Lewis McWillie, Joseph Campisi and Irwin Weiner (The Mob Files Series)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Kennedy-Assassination-Ruby-Testimony-ebook

Rattling the Cup on Chicago Crime.

Paperback 264 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Rattling-Cup-Chicago-Crime-Abridged

The Life and Times of Terrible Tommy O’Connor.

Paperback 94 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Terrible-Tommy-OConnor

The Mob, Sam Giancana and the overthrow of the Black Policy Racket in Chicago

Paperback 200 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Giancana-ovethrow-Policy-Rackets-Chicago

When Capone’s Mob Murdered Roger Touhy. In Photos

Paperback 234 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Capones-Murdered-Roger-Touhy-photos

Organized Crime in Hollywood

The Mob in Hollywood

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Files-Hollywood-ebook/

The Bioff Scandal

Paperback 54 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Bioff-Scandal-Shakedown-Hollywood-Studios

Organized Crime in New York

Joe Pistone’s war on the mafia

http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Petrosinos-War-Mafia-Files/

Mob Testimony: Joe Pistone, Michael Scars DiLeonardo, Angelo Lonardo and others

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Testimony-DiLeonardo-testimony-Undercover/

The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-York-Mafia-Origins

The New York Mob: The Bosses

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-York-Mob-Bosses/

Organized Crime 25 Years after Valachi. Hearings before the US Senate

http://www.amazon.com/Organized-Crime-Valachi-Hearings-ebook

Shooting the mob: Dutch Schultz

http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Mob-Organized-Photographs-Schultz

Gangland Gaslight: The Killing of Rosy Rosenthal. (Illustrated)

http://www.amazon.com/Gangland-Gaslight-Killing-Rosenthal-Illustrated/

Early Street Gangs and Gangsters of New York City

Paperback 382 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Early-Street-Gangs-Gangsters-York

THE RUSSIAN MOBS

The Russian Mafia in America

http://www.amazon.com/The-Russian-Mafia-America-ebook/

The Threat of Russian Organzied Crime

Paperback 192 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Threat-Russian-Organized-Crime-photographs-ebook

Organized Crime/General

Best of Mob Stories

http://www.amazon.com/Files-Series-Illustrated-Articles-Organized-Crime/

Best of Mob Stories Part 2

http://www.amazon.com/Series-Illustrated-Articles-Organized-ebook/

Illustrated-Book-Prohibition-Gangsters

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Prohibition-Gangsters-ebook

Mob Recipes to Die For. Meals and Mobsters in Photos

http://www.amazon.com/Recipes-For-Meals-Mobsters-Photos

More Mob Recipes to Die For. Meals and Mobs

http://www.amazon.com/More-Recipes-Meals-Mobsters-Photos

The New England Mafia

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-England-Mafia-ebook

Shooting the mob. Organized crime in photos. Dead Mobsters, Gangsters and Hoods.

http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-mob-Organized-photos-Mobsters-Gangsters/

The Salerno Report: The Mafia and the Murder of President John F. Kennedy

http://www.amazon.com/The-Salerno-Report-President-ebook/

The Mob Files: Mob Wars. "We only kill each other"

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mob-Files-Wars-other/

The Mob across America

http://www.amazon.com/The-Files-Across-America-ebook/

The US Government’s Time Line of Organzied Crime 1920-1987

http://www.amazon.com/GOVERNMENTS-ORGANIZED-1920-1987-Illustrated-ebook/

Early Street Gangs and Gangsters of New York City: 1800-1919. Illustrated

http://www.amazon.com/Gangsters-1800-1919-Illustrated-Street-ebook/

The Mob Files: Mob Cops, Lawyers and Informants and Fronts

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mob-Files-Informants-ebook/

Gangster Quotes: Mobsters in their own words. Illustrated

Paperback: 128 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Gangsters-Quotes-Mobsters-words-Illustrated/

The Book of American-Jewish Gangsters: A Pictorial History.

Paperback: 436 pages

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-American-Jewish-Gangsters-Pictorial/

The Mob and the Kennedy Assassination

Paperback 414 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Kennedy-Assassination-Ruby-Testimony-Mobsters

BOOKS ABOUT THE OLD WEST

The Last Outlaw: The story of Cole Younger, by Himself

Paperback 152 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Outlaw-Story-Younger-Himself

BOOKS ON PHOTOGRAPHY

Chicago: A photographic essay.

 Paperback: 200 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Photographic-Essay-William-Thomas

STAGE PLAYS

Boomers on a train: A ten minute play

Paperback 22 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Boomers-train-ten-minute-Play-ebook

Four Short Plays

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Short-Plays-William-Tuohy

Four More Short Plays

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Short-Plays-William-Tuohy/

High and Goodbye: Everybody gets the Timothy Leary they deserve. A full length play

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/High-Goodbye-Everybody-Timothy-deserve

Cyberdate. An Everyday Love Story about Everyday People

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/Cyberdate-Everyday-Story-People-ebook/

The Dutchman's Soliloquy: A one Act Play based on the factual last words of Gangster Dutch Schultz.

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/Dutchmans-Soliloquy-factual-Gangster-Schultz/

Fishbowling on The Last Words of Dutch Schultz: Or William S. Burroughs intersects with Dutch Schultz

Print Length: 57 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Fishbowling-Last-Words-Dutch-Schultz-ebook/

American Shakespeare: August Wilson in his own words. A One Act Play

By John William Tuohy

http://www.amazon.com/American-Shakespeare-August-Wilson-ebook

She Stoops to Conquer

http://www.amazon.com/She-Stoops-Conquer-Oliver-Goldsmith/

The Seven Deadly Sins of Gilligan’s Island: A ten minute play

Print Length: 14 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Deadly-Gilligans-Island-minute-ebook/

BOOKS ABOUT VIRGINIA

OUT OF CONTROL: An Informal History of the Fairfax County Police

http://www.amazon.com/Control-Informal-History-Fairfax-Police/

McLean Virginia. A short informal history

http://www.amazon.com/McLean-Virginia-Short-Informal-History/

The Quotable Emerson: Life lessons from the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Over 300 quotes

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Emerson-lessons-quotes

  

The Quotable John F. Kennedy

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-John-F-Kennedy/

The Quotable Oscar Wilde

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Oscar-Wilde-lessons/

The Quotable Machiavelli

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Machiavelli-Richard-Thayer/

The Quotable Confucius: Life Lesson from the Chinese Master

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Confucius-Lesson-Chinese/

The Quotable Henry David Thoreau

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Henry-Thoreau-Quotables-ebook

The Quotable Robert F. Kennedy

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Robert-F-Kennedy-Illustrated/

The Quotable Writer: Writers on the Writers Life

http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Writer-Quotables-ebook

The words of Walt Whitman: An American Poet

Paperback: 162 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Words-Walt-Whitman-American-Poet

Gangster Quotes: Mobsters in their own words. Illustrated

Paperback: 128 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Gangsters-Quotes-Mobsters-words-Illustrated/

The Quotable Popes

Paperback 66 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Popes-Maria-Conasenti

The Quotable Kahlil Gibran with Artwork from Kahlil Gibran

Paperback 52 pages

Kahlil Gibran, an artist, poet, and writer was born on January 6, 1883 n the north of modern-day Lebanon and in what was then part of Ottoman Empire. He had no formal schooling in Lebanon. In 1895, the family immigrated to the United States when Kahlil was a young man and settled in South Boston. Gibran enrolled in an art school and was soon a member of the avant-garde community and became especially close to Boston artist, photographer, and publisher Fred Holland Day who encouraged and supported Gibran’s creative projects. An accomplished artist in drawing and watercolor, Kahlil attended art school in Paris from 1908 to 1910, pursuing a symbolist and romantic style. He held his first art exhibition of his drawings in 1904 in Boston, at Day's studio. It was at this exhibition, that Gibran met Mary Elizabeth Haskell, who ten years his senior. The two formed an important friendship and love affair that lasted the rest of Gibran’s short life. Haskell influenced every aspect of Gibran’s personal life and career. She became his editor when he began to write and ushered his first book into publication in 1918, The Madman, a slim volume of aphorisms and parables written in biblical cadence somewhere between poetry and prose. Gibran died in New York City on April 10, 1931, at the age of 48 from cirrhosis of the liver and tuberculosis.

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Kahlil-Gibran-artwork/

The Quotable Dorothy Parker

Paperback 86 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Dorothy-Parker-Proxy-Algan/

The Quotable Machiavelli

Paperback 36 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Machiavelli-Richard-L-Thayer

The Quotable Greeks

Paperback 230 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Greeks-Richard-W-Willoughby

The Quotabe Oscar Wilde

Paperback 24 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Oscar-Wilde-lessons-words/

The Quotable Helen Keller

Paperback 66 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Helen-Keller-Richard-Willoughby

The Art of War: Sun Tzu

Paperback 60 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Confucius-Lesson-Chinese-Quotables-ebook

The Quotable Shakespeare

Paperback 54 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Shakespeare-Richard-W-Willoughby

The Quotable Gorucho Marx

Paperback 46 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Groucho-Marx-Devon-Alexander