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Concorde, A Designer's Life: The Journey to Mach 2
Par Ted Talbot. 2013
Do you remember the time we used to do New York in three hours?Even twenty years after its final flight,…
Concorde remains the pinnacle of aviation design. The aircraft is still unmatched, which has led to a vast swathe of material being written about the aeroplane itself. However, relatively little has been said about the people who designed it.Concorde, A Designer’s Life is an autobiography peppered with anecdotes from the team, humorous life stories and several ‘technibits’, all covering the design period of Concorde. Ted Talbot, who began his career at BAC as an aerodynamicist and later became chief design engineer, has combined the technical narrative with personal and family reminiscences to remind the reader that engineers have lives too.The path to Mach 2 was bumpy, with threats of cancellation and opposition from the Americans and the Russians, but this generally indicated to the Concorde team that they were on the right path! This informative, witty and thoroughly enjoyable peek into an unusual life is a valuable addition to any bookshelf.Very Bad People: The Inside Story of the Fight Against the World’s Network of Corruption
Par Patrick Alley. 2022
*****'Reads like a John le Carré novel but is, in fact, very real.' - The Big Issue'Very Bad People would…
be a hugely enjoyable thriller if it wasn't all true.' - Isabella Tree, author of Wilding'Global Witness are fearless.' - Gordon Roddick, Campaigner and Co-Founder of the Body Shop'Part true crime tale, part investigative procedural, this is the account of the brilliant and necessary superheroes of Global Witness, whose superpower is the truth.' - Edward Zwick, Director of Blood Diamond 'Very Bad People reads like a non-stop high-speed chase as our fighters against corruption hunt down a litany of criminals and con-men, some on the fringes of our society, some embedded high up within it. It's a great story and an important one.' - David Farr, Screenwriter, The Night Manager'The story told in this book of three youthful idealists who go from eating cold baked beans in a drafty London flat to the Thai-Cambodian border where they posed as traders in illegally felled timber is simply riveting. Don't miss it.' - Misha Glenny, author of McMafia'Alley has produced a clear-eyed account of a world poisoned by dark money, and a welcome reminder that resistance is possible. As it turns out, his book is even more timely than he could have hoped.' - Irish Times'This book is inspirational. It shows how young people with sufficient passion and intelligence have the capacity to go after some of the most powerful governments and corporations and shame, humiliate and just push governments to support important reforms that can make this a more decent world.' - Frank Vogl, Co-Founder of Transparency InternationalArms trafficking, offshore accounts and luxury property deals. Super-yachts, private jets and super-car collections. Blood diamonds, suspect oil deals, deforestation and murder. This is the world of Global Witness, the award-winning organisation dedicated to rooting out worldwide corruption. And this is co-founder Patrick Alley's revealing inside track on a breath-taking catalogue of modern super-crimes - and the 'shadow network' that enables them. VERY BAD PEOPLE is about following the money, going undercover in the world's most dangerous places, and bringing down the people behind the crimes. Case by case we see maverick investigators pitched against warlords, grifters and super-villains who bear every resemblance to The Night Manager's Richard Roper. One dictator's son spent $700 million in just four years on his luxury lifestyle.As they unravel crooked deals of labyrinthine complexity, the team encounter well-known corporations whose operations are no less criminal than the Mafia. This network of lawyers, bankers and real estate agents help park dirty money in London, New York, or in offshore accounts, safe from prying eyes.Patrick Alley's book is a brilliant, authoritative and fearless investigation into the darkest workings of our world - and an inspiration to all of us who want to fight back.The Homing Instinct: Meaning & Mystery in Animal Migration
Par Bernd Heinrich. 2014
&“A noted naturalist explores the centrality of home in the lives of humans and other animals . . . A special treat for…
readers of natural history&” (Kirkus Reviews). Every year, many species make the journey from one place to another, following the same paths and ending up in the same places. Every year since boyhood, the acclaimed scientist and author Bernd Heinrich has done the same, returning to a beloved patch of western Maine woods. Which led him to wonder: What is the biology in humans of this primal pull toward a particular place, and how is it related to animal homing? In The Homing Instinct, Heinrich explores the fascinating mysteries of animal migration: how geese imprint true visual landscape memory; how scent trails are used by many creatures to locate their homes with pinpoint accuracy; and how even the tiniest of songbirds are equipped for solar and magnetic orienteering over vast distances. And he reminds us that to discount our human emotions toward home is to ignore biology itself. &“A graceful blend of science and memoir . . . [Heinrich&’s] ability to linger and simply be there for the moment when, for instance, an elderly spider descends from a silken strand to take the insect he offers her is the heart of his appeal.&” —Julie Zickefoose, The Wall Street Journal &“Deep and insightful writing.&” —David Gessner, The Washington PostJane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man
Par Dale Peterson. 2007
A biography of the primatologist that “vividly and significantly enriches our understanding of Goodall”—includes photographs (Booklist, starred review).This essential biography…
of one of the most influential women of the past century shows how truly remarkable Jane Goodall’s accomplishments have been. Goodall was a secretarial school graduate when Louis Leakey, unable to find someone with more fitting credentials, first sent her to Gombe to study chimpanzees. In this acclaimed work, Dale Peterson details how this young woman of uncommon resourcefulness and pluck would go on to set radically new standards in the study of animal behavior. He vividly captures the triumphs and setbacks of her dramatic life, including the private quest that led to her now-famous activism.Peterson, a longtime Goodall collaborator, has a unique knowledge of his subject. Candid and illuminating, this work will be a revelation even to readers who are familiar with the public Goodall as presented in her own writing.“Peterson provides colorful descriptions of day-to-day life at Gombe and Goodall’s interaction with the chimps, and ably portrays her relationship with Leakey, the National Geographic Society (which sponsored much of her work), her two marriages, her reaction to her celebrity and her ventures as an activist for the well-being of chimpanzees.” —Publishers Weekly“Captures the spirit of a remarkable woman in science.” —Library Journal (starred review)Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Bks.)
Par William Styron. 1990
The New York Times–bestselling memoir of crippling depression and the struggle for recovery by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Sophie&’s…
Choice.In the summer of 1985, William Styron became numbed by disaffection, apathy, and despair, unable to speak or walk while caught in the grip of advanced depression. His struggle with the disease culminated in a wave of obsession that nearly drove him to suicide, leading him to seek hospitalization before the dark tide engulfed him. Darkness Visible tells the story of Styron&’s recovery, laying bare the harrowing realities of clinical depression and chronicling his triumph over the disease that had claimed so many great writers before him. His final words are a call for hope to all who suffer from mental illness that it is possible to emerge from even the deepest abyss of despair and &“once again behold the stars.&” This ebook features a new illustrated biography of William Styron, including original letters, rare photos, and never-before-seen documents from the Styron family and the Duke University Archives.Anything for My Child: Making Impossible Decisions for Medically Complex Children
Par Stephanie Nimmo. 2024
Every parent wants the same thing: for their child to enjoy a long and fulfilling life. But what happens when…
things don't go according to plan? What happens when parents have to become advocates for their child's healthcare needs? Who decides what is in a child's 'best interests'?Stephanie Nimmo faced these questions first-hand when her daughter, Daisy, was diagnosed with a life-limiting condition as a baby. Seen through the lens of Stephanie's own experiences, this sensitive book delves into the complex world of medical ethics and paediatric palliative care. From recognising tipping points to the importance of building relationships with palliative care teams well before crisis, this book explores how medical professionals can better support families throughout their child's care.Interviews with clinicians and snapshots from the lives of patients' families provide insight into the realities of life on both sides of the hospital bed. Compassionate explanations of the conflicting pressures in the hospital system foster understanding and help medical professionals and families work together.Elephants: Birth, Life, and Death in the World of the Giants
Par Hannah Mumby. 2020
What Jane Goodall did for chimpanzees, international ecologist and conservation scientist Hannah Mumby now does for elephants in this compelling,…
eye-opening account that brings into focus this species remarkably similar to humans—and makes a persuasive argument for saving them.From early childhood, Dr. Hannah Mumby has loved wildlife, especially elephants. Her first wild elephant sighting at twenty-four changed the course of her life. Since then, she has devoted herself to studying these incredible animals and educating humanity about them. Hannahs field work has taken her around the world, where she has studied many elephant groups, including both orphaned elephants and the solitary elephant males.These remarkable animals have so much to teach us, Mumby argues, and Elephants takes readers into their world as never before, revealing a society as complex as the chimpanzees, maybe even humans. Mumby's exploration of elephant culture provides an empathetic, humanistic portrait of these majestic animals, illuminating their personalities, memories, and rich emotional lives. Mumby explains how elephants communicate with one another and demonstrates the connection between memory and trauma—how it affects individual elephants and their interactions with others in their herd. Elephants and humans, Mumby makes clear, are not very different. From emotional bonding to communication, human and elephant experience similarly nuanced lives, and the commonalities she uncovers are both surprising and heartwarming.Featuring a 16-page color insert of original photography, Elephants is a captivating, deeply moving exploration that offers a new way to look at these pachyderms and ourselves and a persuasive, passionate argument for rethinking our approach to animals and their conservation.Chasing Space: Young Readers' Edition
Par Leland Melvin. 2017
"In Chasing Space, Leland Melvin tackles stupendous obstacles with dogged determination, showing you what is indeed possible in life—if you…
belive." —Neil deGrasse Tyson, author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Welcome to the Universe. Winner of the 2019 Grand Canyon Reader Award for Tween Non-FictionMeet Leland Melvin—football star, NASA astronaut, and professional dream chaser. In this inspiring memoir, adapted from the simultaneous version for adults, young readers will get to learn about Leland Melvin’s remarkable life story, from being drafted by the Detroit Lions to bravely orbiting our planet in the International Space Station to writing songs with will.i.am, working with Serena Williams, and starring in top-rated television shows like The Dog Whisperer, Top Chef, and Child Genius.With do-it-yourself experiments in the back of the book and sixteen pages of striking full-color photographs, this is the perfect book to inspire young readers.When the former Detroit Lion’s football career was cut short by an injury, Leland didn’t waste time mourning his broken dream. Instead, he found a new one—something that was completely out of this world.He joined NASA, braved an injury that nearly left him permanently deaf, and still managed to muster the courage and resolve to travel to space on the shuttle Atlantis to help build the International Space Station. Leland’s problem-solving methods and can-do attitude turned his impossible-seeming dream into reality.Leland’s story introduces readers to the fascinating creative and scientific challenges he had to deal with in space and will encourage the next generation of can-do scientists to dare to follow their dreams.Bill Nye the Science Guy says: “Leland’s story moves fast; once you get started you’ll want to join the chase.”A Body, Undone: Living On After Great Pain (Political Economy of the Austrian #8)
Par Christina Crosby. 2016
A woman's fight to reclaim her body after a paralysis-inducing cycling accidentIn the early evening on October 1, 2003, Christina…
Crosby was three miles into a seventeen mile bicycle ride, intent on reaching her goal of 1,000 miles for the riding season. She was a respected senior professor of English who had celebrated her fiftieth birthday a month before. As she crested a hill, she caught a branch in the spokes of her bicycle, which instantly pitched her to the pavement. Her chin took the full force of the blow, and her head snapped back. In that instant, she was paralyzed.In A Body, Undone, Crosby puts into words a broken body that seems beyond the reach of language and understanding. She writes about a body shot through with neurological pain, disoriented in time and space, incapacitated by paralysis and deadened sensation. To address this foreign body, she calls upon the readerly pleasures of narrative, critical feminist and queer thinking, and the concentrated language of lyric poetry. Working with these resources, she recalls her 1950s tomboy ways in small-town, rural Pennsylvania, and records growing into the 1970s through radical feminism and the affirmations of gay liberation.Deeply unsentimental, Crosby communicates in unflinching prose the experience of "diving into the wreck" of her body to acknowledge grief, and loss, but also to recognize the beauty, fragility, and dependencies of all human bodies. A memoir that is a meditation on disability, metaphor, gender, sex, and love, A Body, Undone is a compelling account of living on, as Crosby rebuilds her body and fashions a life through writing, memory, and desire.Because We Are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought
Par Lily Bailey. 2016
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year“One of the best [books] I have read on the phenomenology of OCD.”…
—Scott Stossel, the Washington Post Written with the indelible power of Girl, Interrupted, Brain on Fire, and Reasons to Stay Alive, a lyrical, poignant memoir by a young woman about her childhood battle with debilitating obsessive compulsive disorder, and her hard-won journey to recovery.By the age of thirteen, Lily Bailey was convinced she was bad. She had killed someone with a thought, spread untold disease, and ogled the bodies of other children. Only by performing an exhausting series of secret routines could she make up for what she’d done. But no matter how intricate or repetitive, no act of penance was ever enough.Beautifully written and astonishingly intimate, Because We Are Bad recounts a childhood consumed by obsessive compulsive disorder. As a child, Bailey created a second personality inside herself—"I" became "we"—to help manifest compulsions that drove every minute of every day of her young life. Now she writes about the forces beneath her skin, and how they ordered, organized, and urged her forward. Lily charts her journey, from checking on her younger sister dozens of times a night, to "normalizing" herself at school among new friends as she grew older, and finally to her young adult years, learning—indeed, breaking through—to make a way for herself in a big, wide world that refuses to stay in check.Charming and raw, harrowing and redemptive, Because We Are Bad is an illuminating and uplifting look into the mind and soul of an extraordinary young woman, and a startling portrait of OCD that allows us to see and understand this condition as never before.Missions to Mars: A New Era of Rover and Spacecraft Discovery on the Red Planet
Par Larry Crumpler. 2021
From a long-term planning lead for the Mars Exploration Rover Project comes this vivid insider account of some of NASA’s…
most vital and exciting missions to the Red Planet, illustrated with full-color photographs—a wondrous chronicle of unprecedented scientific discovery and the search for evidence of life on Mars. “There are probably just a few of moments in human history when a small group of humans stood on the margins of a vast new world, and it is no stretch of the romantic imagination that the arrival of two rovers on the surface of another planet was surely one of them.”Human exploration of Mars is the most ambitious and exciting scientific goal of the twenty-first century. Few people know as much about this fascinating planet as Dr. Larry Crumpler. As one of the long-term planning leads for the Mars Exploration Rover Project, he helped control the daily communications between NASA and the rovers roaming the planet to gather scientific data. Thanks to the Rover Project, we now know that the dry, red dust of the planet’s surface hides a wet, possibly living history, and that conditions were present for the evolution of complex, organic life. In this magnificent compendium, Dr. Crumpler recounts the history of the Red Planet, from the earliest days when ancient astronomers turned their eyes to the heavens to the breakthrough discoveries being unearthed by modern technology today, including some of the first images from the latest rover, Perseverance. Paired with stunning, full-color photographs taken by rovers and NASA satellites images, this magnificent “biography” of the red planet allows us to understand and experience it as never before. When the Spirit and Opportunity Rovers landed on Mars in January 2004, scientists expected them to function for 90 days. But those three months turned into fifteen years. With data gathered by the rovers, Dr. Crumpler and his fellow team members were able to reconstruct the planet’s stunning geological past, when it was once inundated with water, and perhaps could have supported microbial life. Dr Crumpler also reveals the joys and demands of life as a scientist taking part in these historic missions. Exploring fundamental questions about this remarkable planet that have intrigued us earthlings for years, Missions to Mars illuminates Mars’ significance in the solar system—and the human imagination.The Raven's Nest: An Icelandic Journey Through Light and Darkness
Par Sarah Thomas. 2022
Visiting Iceland as an anthropologist and film-maker in 2008, Sarah Thomas is spellbound by its otherworldly landscape. An immediate love…
for this country and for Bjarni, a man she meets there, turns a week-long stay into a transformative half-decade, one which radically alters Sarah's understanding of herself and of the living world.She embarks on a relationship not only with Bjarni, but with the light, the language, and the old wooden house they make their home. She finds a place where the light of the midwinter full moon reflected by snow can be brighter than daylight, where the earth can tremor at any time, and where the word for echo - bergmá l - translates as 'the language of the mountain'. In the midst of crisis both personal and planetary, as her marriage falls apart, Sarah finds inspiration in the artistry of a raven's nest: a home which persists through breaking and reweaving - over and over.Written in beautifully vivid prose The Raven's Nest is a profoundly moving meditation on place, identity and how we might live in an era of environmental disruption.Practical advice and information from the world's foremost experts on autism -- and a mother's own hard-won lessons from helping…
her son recover from the disorderWhen Karen Siff Exkorn's son, Jake, was diagnosed with autism, she struggled to pull together comprehensive information about the disorder. Fortunately, she was able to educate herself quickly, and her extensive at-home treatment of her son led to his amazing full recovery. But the journey wasn't easy, and now, in The Autism Sourcebook, Siff Exkorn offers parents the wisdom she wishes she'd had at the beginning.Recent studies show that there is a worldwide epidemic of autism. More than 1.5 million people are affected in the United States alone, with one in every 166 children diagnosed. Early detection and early intervention are two of the key factors in improving prognosis -- but too often, writes Siff Exkorn, parents get bogged down in denial or confusion about the still mysterious disorder, and are unable to take the necessary steps. Providing accessible medical information gleaned from the world's foremost experts, Siff Exkorn offers an inside look at families with children who have autism, and ties in her own firsthand experience as a parent. The author shares valuable knowledge about the following:What the diagnosis really meansUnderstanding and accessing treatment optionsKnowing your child's rights in the school systemCoping with common marital and familial stressMaking the stigma of autism a thing of the pastWith extensive appendices, including the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, Diagnostic Criteria for the Five Pervasive Developmental Disorders, and carefully selected lists of Internet resources, recommended readings, and top autism organizations worldwide, The Autism Sourcebook is the single most comprehensive, practical resource available to parents and loved ones of children with autism.My Life, Deleted: A Memoir
Par Caitlin Rother, Scott Bolzan, Joan Bolzan. 2011
My Life, Deleted—part love story, part medical mystery, and part inspirational memoir—is the true story of Scott Bolzan, the 46-year-old…
former pro football offensive lineman for the Cleveland Browns who suffered permanent amnesia after a tragic accident.Co-written with his wife Joan Bolzan, this riveting account details Scott's courageous fight to build a new life after losing all memories of his past, his wife and children, his likes and dislikes, and even how to navigate the fast pace and technology of the 21st century.Readers of In an Instant by Bob and Lee Woodruff, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, and Richard M. Cohen's Blindsided will be profoundly moved by My Life, Deleted, a remarkable story of tragedy, hope, love, and perseverance.My Life, Deleted: A Memoir
Par Caitlin Rother, Scott Bolzan, Joan Bolzan. 2011
My Life, Deleted—part love story, part medical mystery, and part inspirational memoir—is the true story of Scott Bolzan, the 46-year-old…
former pro football offensive lineman for the Cleveland Browns who suffered permanent amnesia after a tragic accident.Co-written with his wife Joan Bolzan, this riveting account details Scott's courageous fight to build a new life after losing all memories of his past, his wife and children, his likes and dislikes, and even how to navigate the fast pace and technology of the 21st century.Readers of In an Instant by Bob and Lee Woodruff, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, and Richard M. Cohen's Blindsided will be profoundly moved by My Life, Deleted, a remarkable story of tragedy, hope, love, and perseverance.This is the story of the man without whom the name Charles Darwin might be unknown to us today. That…
man was Captain Robert FitzRoy, who invited the 22-year-old Darwin to be his companion on board the Beagle .This is the remarkable story of how a misguided decision by Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle , precipitated his employment of a young naturalist named Charles Darwin, and how the clash between FitzRoy’s fundamentalist views and Darwin’s discoveries led to FitzRoy’s descent into the abyss.One of the great ironies of history is that the famous journey—wherein Charles Darwin consolidated the earth-rattling ‘origin of the species’ discoveries—was conceived by another man: Robert FitzRoy. It was FitzRoy who chose Darwin for the journey—not because of Darwin’s scientific expertise, but because he seemed a suitable companion to help FitzRoy fight back the mental illness that had plagued his family for generations. Darwin did not give FitzRoy solace; indeed, the clash between the two men’s opposing views, together with the ramifications of Darwin’s revelations, provided FitzRoy with the final unendurable torment that forced him to end his own life.Strong at the Broken Places: Voices of Illness, a Chorus of Hope
Par Richard Cohen. 2008
The bestselling author of Blindsided, Richard M. Cohen spent three years chronicling the lives of five diverse "citizens of sickness":…
Denise, who suffers from ALS; Buzz, whose Christian faith helps him deal with his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; Sarah, a determined young woman with Crohn's disease; Ben, a college student with muscular dystrophy; and Larry, whose bipolar disorder is hidden within. Differing in age and gender, race and economic status, all five are determined to live life on their own terms. In Strong at the Broken Places, Cohen shares these inspirational and revealing stories, which offer lessons for us all—–on self-determination, on courage in the face of adversity and public ignorance, on keeping hope alive.We are all strong at the broken places—stronger than we think.Madness: A Bipolar Life
Par Marya Hornbacher. 2009
In the vein of An Unquiet Mind comes a storm of a memoir that will take you deep inside bipolar…
disorder and change everything you know. When Marya Hornbacher published her first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, she did not yet have the piece of shattering knowledge that would finally make sense of the chaos of her life. At age twenty-four, Hornbacher was diagnosed with Type I rapid-cycle bipolar, the most severe form of bipolar disorder. In Madness, in her trademark wry and utterly self-revealing voice, Hornbacher tells her new story. Through scenes of astonishing visceral and emotional power, she takes us inside her own desperate attempts to counteract violently careening mood swings by self-starvation, substance abuse, numbing sex, and self-mutilation. How Hornbacher fights her way up from a madness that all but destroys her, and what it is like to live in a difficult and sometimes beautiful life and marriage—where bipolar always beckons—is at the center of this brave and heart-stopping memoir.Madness delivers the revelation that Hornbacher is not alone: millions of people in America today are struggling with a variety of disorders that may disguise their bipolar disease. And Hornbacher's fiercely self-aware portrait of her own bipolar as early as age four will powerfully change, too, the current debate on whether bipolar in children actually exists. New York Times&“Humorous, articulate, and self-aware…A story that is almost impossible to put down.&”— &“With the same intimately revelatory and shocking emotional power that marked [Wasted], Hornbacher guides us through her labyrinth of psychological demons.&”—ElleThe Truth About Tesla: The Myth of the Lone Genius in the History of Innovation
Par Christopher Cooper. 2015
A myth-busting biography of Nikola Tesla, the “enigmatic figure whose life and achievements appeal to historians, engineers, scientists, and many…
others” (Library Journal).Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest electrical inventors who ever lived, was rescued from obscurity in recent years, restored to his rightful place among historical luminaries. We’ve been told that his contributions to humanity were obscured by a number of nineteenth-century inventors and industrialists who took credit for his work or stole his patents outright. Most biographies repeat this familiar account of Tesla’s life, including his invention of alternating current, his falling out with Thomas Edison, how he lost billions in patent royalties to George Westinghouse, and his fight to prove that Guglielmo Marconi stole thirteen of his patents to “invent” radio. But what really happened?Newly uncovered information, however, proves that the popular account of Tesla’s life is itself very flawed. In The Truth About Tesla, Christopher Cooper sets out to prove that the conventional story not only oversimplifies history, it denies credit to some of the true inventors behind many of the groundbreaking technologies now attributed to Tesla, and perpetuates a misunderstanding about the process of innovation itself.Are you positive that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone? Are you sure the Wright Brothers were the first in flight? Think again! With a provocative foreword by Tesla biographer Marc J. Seifer, The Truth About Tesla is one of the first books to set the record straight, tracing the origin of some of the greatest electrical inventions to a coterie of colorful characters that conventional history has all but forgotten.Includes photographsStrange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons
Par George Pendle. 2005
Now a CBS All Access series: &“A riveting tale of rocketry, the occult, and boom-and-bust 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles&”…
(Booklist). The Los Angeles Times headline screamed: ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN PASADENA EXPLOSION. The man known as Jack Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform a derided sci-fi plotline into actuality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a devotee of the city&’s occult scene. Fueled by childhood dreams of space flight, Parsons was a leader of the motley band of enthusiastic young men who founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a cornerstone of the American space program. But Parsons&’s wild imagination also led him into a world of incantations and orgiastic rituals—if he could make rocketry a reality, why not black magic? George Pendle re-creates the world of John Parsons in this dazzling portrait of prewar superstition, cold war paranoia, and futuristic possibility. Peopled with such formidable real-life figures as Howard Hughes, Aleister Crowley, L. Ron Hubbard, and Robert Heinlein, Strange Angel explores the unruly consequences of genius. The basis for a new miniseries created by Mark Heyman and produced by Ridley Scott, this biography &“vividly tells the story of a mysterious and forgotten man who embodied the contradictions of his time . . . when science fiction crashed into science fact. . . . [It] would make a compelling work of fiction if it weren&’t so astonishingly true&” (Publishers Weekly).