McFarland

Once described as "the best crime writer you've never heard of," James Sallis is a largely underexplored figure in contemporary American literature. Best known for his thriller novel Drive--later...

Jane Austen's creative process has been largely unexamined. This book explores her development as a writer: what she adapted from tradition for her needs; what she learned novel to novel; how she...

The history of the phrase "pride and prejudice" before it became the title of Jane Austen's most famous novel is largely forgotten today. In particular, most of the reading public is unaware that...

On May 25th, 1946, after 22 years as a congressional secretary, Jane Pratt was elected as North Carolina's first congresswoman. The press reported with great interest how "Miss Jane" won by a...

From March 26, 1985, until April 4, 2003, Jerry Krause was responsible for shaping the Chicago Bulls' roster as vice president of basketball operations. He called the shots and yet, even after six...

Joan Crawford's contribution to film noir during the 1940s and 1950s, though rarely discussed in its totality, is one of her most impressive and far-reaching career achievements. Several of her noir...

He became a star overnight as surly, sexy, usually shirtless Kovac in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944). Handsome and personable, John Hodiak (1914-1955) embraced his heritage as the son of...

Holding the world featherweight boxing championship for more than 11 years, Johnny Kilbane's name became synonymous with the title. His accepted record of 51-4-7, with 78 no decisions and two no...

This groundbreaking film study begins with a survey of American print humorists from eras leading up to and overlapping the advent of film--including some who worked both on the page and on the...

Our universe is characterized by constant motion. From electrons to galaxies, all things are on the move. This resonates within the human condition; we are born to move. From the earliest hunters,...

King Vidor (1894-1982) had the longest career of any Hollywood director, and his works include some of the most dramatic, sublime moments in the history of American cinema. Regarded by many film...

A sequel to the author's autobiographical trilogy--Shush! Growing up Jewish under Stalin, In the Jaws of the Crocodile, and Farewell, Mama Odessa--this book is part memoir and part cultural study...

For many years, the FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover, ignored organized crime, as the Bureau regarded local law enforcement as best equipped to handle it. That changed when Attorney General Robert F...

Holding the small island of Malta, the British Empire's strategic centerpiece in the Mediterranean Sea, was critical to the Allied cause in World War II--and taking it was essential for Axis victory...

Saxophonist Carlos Garnett, despite being blind in his later years, was an integral part of Miles Davis' nonet. His pivotal roles extended beyond live performances to studio work during the "On the...

There was once a Tennessee whiskey that dwarfed Jack Daniel's, and a powerful man was behind it: V.E. "Manny" Shwab. Until now, virtually nothing has been written about either. Their story is one of...

Marco Ferreri (1928-1997) was one of Italian cinema's boldest auteurs. A maverick personality, he worked with some of the most popular actors of the time (Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli,...

This book recalls masking efforts in response to the Spanish flu epidemic. Masking the population as an ineffective response to disease by public health officials and political bureaucrats at various...

In 1861, Union Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon marched through the divided slave state Missouri en route to St. Louis. Lyon was to arrest a state militia unit at Camp Jackson that planned to raid a...

Senator Charles "Mac" Mathias was a lifelong Republican who won every election in a 26-year congressional career in heavily Democratic Maryland. A courageous risk-taker, Mathias led efforts to...

This book explores the techniques, themes, and subtexts in the fictional works of one of America's best-known and most-loved storytellers, Stephen King. Each of King's novels are analyzed in...

This book delves into four interconnected murders, each of them unsolved, in which the common denominator is the underground world of sex trafficking. Using police and FBI records never before made...

Unlike the vast majority of Peace Corps volunteers in the 1960s, John Fleming was a young Black man who was assigned to an all-white agricultural project in Malawi, an emerging African country...

Three men's lives, told through the story of one song. Jerry Jeff Walker, the singer and writer behind the classic hit "Mr. Bojangles," never would have expected that his song, inspired by an...

In 1932, The Mummy, starring Boris Karloff, introduced another icon to the classic monster pantheon, beginning a journey down the cinematic Nile that has yet to reach its end. Over the past century,...

Sandy Kubillus faced a dilemma: whose needs should come first, those of her paralyzed dog or her healthy husband? After a tragic accident killed her first dog, her new puppy died from distemper ten...

In 1976, while studying at Queens University in Ontario, Les Short began to experience the first of five paranoid schizophrenic episodes that took place over a span of 19 years. This autobiography...

Films and television programs about nuns (women in a religious order) are among the most successful and popular we watch, from old favorites like The Sound of Music to recent smash hits like Call the...

Disillusioned with business at age 50, the author found himself irresistibly drawn to the joy and sense of community that music had first brought to his youth. Inspired by this rediscovered passion,...

Harry E. Rieseberg's autobiographical writings include stories like being attacked by a giant octopus while recovering sunken treasure, defending himself from an attack by a 15-foot shark with only a...