The Blackest Streets

The Blackest Streets

Author: Sarah Wise

Publisher: Bodley Head Childrens

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13:

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Excavates the Old Nichol from the ruins of history and attempts to lay bare the social and political conditions that created and sustained this black hole. This book explores the real lives behind the statistics - the woodworkers, fish smokers, street hawkers and many more.


Inconvenient People

Inconvenient People

Author: Sarah Wise

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2012-10-04

Total Pages: 531

ISBN-13: 1409027953

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This highly original book brilliantly exposes the phenomenon of false allegations of lunacy and the dark motives behind them in the Victorian period. Gaslight tales of rooftop escapes, men and women snatched in broad daylight, patients shut in coffins, a fanatical cult known as the Abode of Love... The nineteenth century saw repeated panics about sane individuals being locked away in lunatic asylums. With the rise of the ‘mad-doctor’ profession, English liberty seemed to be threatened by a new generation of medical men willing to incarcerate difficult family members in return for the high fees paid by an unscrupulous spouse or friend. Sarah Wise uncovers twelve shocking stories, untold for over a century and reveals the darker side of the Victorian upper and middle classes – their sexuality, fears of inherited madness, financial greed and fraudulence – and chillingly evoke the black motives at the heart of the phenomenon of the ‘inconvenient person.' ‘A fine social history of the people who contested their confinement to madhouses in the 19th century, Wise offers striking arguments, suggesting that the public and juries were more intent on liberty than doctors and families’ Sunday Telegraph


Dirty Old London

Dirty Old London

Author: Lee Jackson

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2014-01-01

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0300192053

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In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them. Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details--from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet--this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.


Killer on the Road

Killer on the Road

Author: James Ellroy

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 1999-06-01

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 038080896X

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Martin Michael Plunkett is a product of his times -- the possessor of a genius intellect, a pitiless soul of brushed steel, and a heart of blackest evil. With criminal tendencies forged in the fires of L.A.'s Charles Manson hysteria, he comes to the bay city of San Francisco -- and submits to savage and terrible impulses that reveal to him his true vocation as a pure and perfect murderer. And so begins his decade of discovery and terror, as he cuts a bloody swath across the full length of a land, ingeniously exploiting and feeding upon a society's obsessions. As he maneuvers deftly through a seamy world of drugs, flesh, and perversions, the media will call him many things -- but Martin Plunkett's real name is Death. His brilliant, twisted mind is a horriying place to explore. His madness reflects a nation's own. The killer is on the road. And there's nowhere in America to hide.


The Gutter Prayer

The Gutter Prayer

Author: Gareth Hanrahan

Publisher: Orbit

Published: 2019-01-22

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13: 0316525308

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"The Gutter Prayer is captivating and complex. Guerdon is a city that seethes with history, horror, and hidden secrets" (Nicholas Eames). A group of three young thieves are pulled into a centuries old magical war between ancient beings, mages, and humanity in this wildly original debut epic fantasy. Enter a city of saints and thieves . . . The city of Guerdon stands eternal. A refuge from the war that rages beyond its borders. But in the ancient tunnels deep beneath its streets, a malevolent power has begun to stir. The fate of the city rests in the hands of three thieves. They alone stand against the coming darkness. As conspiracies unfold and secrets are revealed, their friendship will be tested to the limit. If they fail, all will be lost, and the streets of Guerdon will run with blood. "A groundbreaking and extraordinary novel . . . Hanrahan has an astonishing imagination" (Peter McLean). The Gutter Prayer is an epic tale of sorcerers and thieves, treachery and revenge, from a remarkable new voice in fantasy.


A Child of the Jago

A Child of the Jago

Author: Arthur Morrison

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2012-02-09

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0199605513

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"In the worst of London's East End slums, in an area called the Jago, young Dicky Perrott is used to a life of poverty, crime, and violence. Gang warfare is the order of the day, deaths are commonplace, and thieving the only way to survive." -- Back cover.


Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights

Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights

Author: Gretchen Sorin

Publisher: Liveright Publishing

Published: 2020-02-11

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1631495704

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Bloomberg • Best Nonfiction Books of 2020: "[A] tour de force." The basis of a major PBS documentary by Ric Burns, this “excellent history” (The New Yorker) reveals how the automobile fundamentally changed African American life. Driving While Black demonstrates that the car—the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility—has always held particular importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road. Melding new archival research with her family’s story, Gretchen Sorin recovers a lost history, demonstrating how, when combined with black travel guides—including the famous Green Book—the automobile encouraged a new way of resisting oppression.


Tranquility

Tranquility

Author: Attila Bartis

Publisher: Archipelago

Published: 2008-10-24

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13:

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Andor Weer, a 36-year-old writer, lives in a small apartment with his reclusive mother, Rebeka, who was once among the most celebrated stage actresses in Budapest. Unable to withstand her maniacal tyranny but afraid to leave her alone, he finds himself caught in a web of bitter interdependence which spirals into a Sartrian hell of hatred, lies and appeasement. Tranquility is a living seismograph of the internal quakes and ruptures of a mother and son trapped within an Oedipal nightmare amidst the suffocating totalitarian embrace of Communist Hungary. A masterwork.


The Blackest Sheep

The Blackest Sheep

Author: Joanne L Yeck

Publisher:

Published: 2019-09-03

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 9780983989875

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Depicting sixty years of Chicago's past, The Blackest Sheep weaves together three fascinating biographies: the legacy of Dan Blanco, who introduced European-style cabaret to the city; the untold story of Evelyn Nesbit's tumultuous nightclub career; and Gene Harris' rise to become the owner and personality behind Rush Street's Club Alabam.