From Landfill to Hallowed Ground

From Landfill to Hallowed Ground

Author: Frank Marra

Publisher: BrownBooks.ORM

Published: 2015-03-10

Total Pages: 82

ISBN-13: 1612548504

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An NYPD sergeant shares his experiences in the tragic aftermath of 9/11 and the tireless search for remains among the debris of the Twin Towers. The morning of September 11, 2001, began like any other Tuesday for police Sergeant Frank Marra. He woke up early, brewed his coffee, and got his son Anthony ready for kindergarten. Then a shocking image interrupted televised broadcasts nationwide: the South Tower of the World Trade Center was engulfed in flames and smoke. Sergeant Marra stared in shock at what would become the largest crime scene he would ever investigate. Marra spent months at the Staten Island Landfill, where the 1.6 million tons of debris was searched for any form of evidence that could help identify the victims, including the remains of those buried beneath. Officers and volunteers worked tirelessly, often at great cost to themselves, to bring closure for so many grieving families. This heartrending story gives readers a rare and intimate glimpse into the days and months following the attack on September 11, and the stories that echo from “The Hill”—the hallowed ground of those who perished on that fateful day.


American Wasteland

American Wasteland

Author: Jonathan Bloom

Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books

Published: 2011-08-30

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 0738215627

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What Tom Vanderbilt did for traffic and Brian Wansink did for mindless eating, Jonathan Bloom does for food waste. The topic couldn't be timelier: As more people are going hungry while simultaneously more people are morbidly obese, American Wasteland sheds light on the history, culture, and mindset of waste while exploring the parallel eco-friendly and sustainable-food movements. As the era of unprecedented prosperity comes to an end, it's time to reexamine our culture of excess. Working at both a local grocery store and a major fast food chain and volunteering with a food recovery group, Bloom also interviews experts—from Brian Wansink to Alice Waters to Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen—and digs up not only why and how we waste, but, more importantly, what we can do to change our ways.


Alligator Creek

Alligator Creek

Author: Lottie Guttry

Publisher:

Published: 2015-10

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9781612542416

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Based on a true family story, Alligator Creek is Lottie Guttry's tale of a wife struggling to hold her family together in the midst of a war-torn country. When her husband leaves for the front in the middle of the Civil War, Sarah is left alone with just her faith and her love for her family to help guide her through the difficult times ahead.


Hidden America

Hidden America

Author: Jeanne Marie Laskas

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-09-13

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 110160056X

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An Oprah.com “Must-Read Book” Award-winning journalist Jeanne Marie Laskas reveals “enlightening, entertaining, and often poignant”* profiles of America's working class—the forgotten men and women who make our country run. Take the men of Hopedale Mining company in Cadiz, Ohio. Laskas spent several weeks with them, both below and above ground, and by the end, you will know not only about their work, but about Pap and his dying mom, Smitty and the mail-order bride who stood him up at the airport, and Scotty and his thwarted dreams of becoming a boxing champion. That is only one hidden world. Others that she explores: an Alaskan oil rig, a migrant labor camp in Maine, the air traffic control center at LaGuardia Airport in New York, a beef ranch in Texas, a landfill in California, a long-haul trucker in Iowa, a gun shop in Arizona, and the Cincinnati Ben-Gals cheerleaders, mere footnotes in the moneymaking spectacle that is professional football. “Jeanne Marie Laskas is a reporting and writing powerhouse. She doesn’t just interview the people who dig our coal and extract our oil, she goes deep into the mines and tundra with them. With beauty, wit, curiosity, and grace, she finds the hidden soul of America. Hidden America is essential reading.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks


The Humane Gardener

The Humane Gardener

Author: Nancy Lawson

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 2017-04-18

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1616896175

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In this eloquent plea for compassion and respect for all species, journalist and gardener Nancy Lawson describes why and how to welcome wildlife to our backyards. Through engaging anecdotes and inspired advice, profiles of home gardeners throughout the country, and interviews with scientists and horticulturalists, Lawson applies the broader lessons of ecology to our own outdoor spaces. Detailed chapters address planting for wildlife by choosing native species; providing habitats that shelter baby animals, as well as birds, bees, and butterflies; creating safe zones in the garden; cohabiting with creatures often regarded as pests; letting nature be your garden designer; and encouraging natural processes and evolution in the garden. The Humane Gardener fills a unique niche in describing simple principles for both attracting wildlife and peacefully resolving conflicts with all the creatures that share our world.


Who Owns the Dead?

Who Owns the Dead?

Author: Jay D. Aronson

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2016-09-06

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 0674971493

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After September 11, with New Yorkers reeling from the World Trade Center attack, Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch proclaimed that his staff would do more than confirm the identity of the individuals who were killed. They would attempt to identify and return to families every human body part recovered from the site that was larger than a thumbnail. As Jay D. Aronson shows, delivering on that promise proved to be a monumentally difficult task. Only 293 bodies were found intact. The rest would be painstakingly collected in 21,900 bits and pieces scattered throughout the skyscrapers’ debris. This massive effort—the most costly forensic investigation in U.S. history—was intended to provide families conclusive knowledge about the deaths of loved ones. But it was also undertaken to demonstrate that Americans were dramatically different from the terrorists who so callously disregarded the value of human life. Bringing a new perspective to the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, Who Owns the Dead? tells the story of the recovery, identification, and memorialization of the 2,753 people killed in Manhattan on 9/11. For a host of cultural and political reasons that Aronson unpacks, this process has generated endless debate, from contestation of the commercial redevelopment of the site to lingering controversies over the storage of unclaimed remains at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The memory of the victims has also been used to justify military activities in the Middle East that have led to the deaths of an untold number of innocent civilians.


The Onion Book of Known Knowledge

The Onion Book of Known Knowledge

Author: The Onion

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2012-10-23

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 031613323X

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Are you a witless cretin with no reason to live? Would you like to know more about every piece of knowledge ever? Do you have cash? Then congratulations, because just in time for the death of the print industry as we know it comes the final book ever published, and the only one you will ever need: The Onion's compendium of all things known. Replete with an astonishing assemblage of facts, illustrations, maps, charts, threats, blood, and additional fees to edify even the most simple-minded book-buyer, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge is packed with valuable information -- such as the life stages of an Aunt; places to kill one's self in Utica, New York; and the dimensions of a female bucket, or "pail." With hundreds of entries for all 27 letters of the alphabet, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge must be purchased immediately to avoid the sting of eternal ignorance.


The Everything Store

The Everything Store

Author: Brad Stone

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 0316219258

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The authoritative account of the rise of Amazon and its intensely driven founder, Jeff Bezos, praised by the Seattle Times as "the definitive account of how a tech icon came to life." Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now. Brad Stone enjoyed unprecedented access to current and former Amazon employees and Bezos family members, giving readers the first in-depth, fly-on-the-wall account of life at Amazon. Compared to tech's other elite innovators -- Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg -- Bezos is a private man. But he stands out for his restless pursuit of new markets, leading Amazon into risky new ventures like the Kindle and cloud computing, and transforming retail in the same way Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing. The Everything Store is the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.


Shaky Man

Shaky Man

Author: Mark S. Parker

Publisher:

Published: 2019-05-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781612548623

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In the small town of Tonkaway, Texas, everyone knows to stay away from Shaky Man - he eats little kids, murdered his wife, and mistreats his dogs. At least, that's what they all say. When Top moves to Tonkaway, he ignores these rumors, until a shocking murder turns the town upside down and Shaky Man's secrets are revealed. A tale of childhood ...


National Parks Conservation Association

National Parks Conservation Association

Author: Tom McCarthy

Publisher:

Published: 2019-07-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781733930406

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A Century of Impact celebrates the first 100 years of the National Parks Conservation Association, tracing its history and vision through stunning photography and tales of victory in a beautifully designed keepsake book. From its founding by the same visionaries who helped to create the National Park Service to present-day battles to protect our public lands, the National Parks Conservation Association has been the independent, non-partisan protector of America's favorite places. A Century of Impact presents this admirable legacy through richly illustrated tales of an impassioned organization in action - fighting off threats to park lands, water, air and wildlife, and advocating for a park system that tells a more complete American story. Readers will enjoy fascinating and often untold tales of park protection - such as saving Olympic's old-growth forests from WWII lumber production; restoring the endangered Florida panther in the greater Everglades ecosystem; keeping the nation's largest landfill from the doorstep of Joshua Tree; defeating a proposed casino sited within cannon range of the hallowed ground of Gettysburg - and an inside look at how persistent advocacy led to the creation of parks from Great Basin and Tallgrass Prairie to Pullman, Stonewall and Birmingham. With A Century of Impact, readers are invited to join NPCA's centennial celebration and discover how this humble organization has helped to shape the National Park System as we know it. More than that, it is a compelling reminder that the future of this nation's most sacred spaces lies in the hands of ordinary citizens, united to ensure that America's best idea endures for generations to come.