The sensational, forgotten true story of a woman who murdered her married lover in Gilded Age San Francisco and the trial that epitomized the city's transformation from raucous frontier town into modern metropolis—from the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of SinShortly before dusk on November 3, 1870, just as the ferryboat El Capitan was pulling away from its slip into San Francisco Bay, a woman clad in black emerged from the s...

From bestselling author Gary Krist, the story of the metropolis that never should have been and the visionaries who dreamed it into realityLittle more than a century ago, the southern coast of California—bone-dry, harbor-less, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges—seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world’s iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles’ meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland,...

William Tobias Merrick, an energetic young man from the provinces, travels to the big city in a time of great optimism and ferment, hoping to make his mark on a frenzied, money-crazed society obsessed with the promise of new technologies.The city in question is London in the 1690s; but it is also New York in the 1990s. The new technologies are diving bells, pneumatic winches, and "sucking-worm" drainage engines; but they are also wireless telecommunication devices, patented biotech...

From bestselling author Gary Krist, the story of the metropolis that never should have been and the visionaries who dreamed it into realityLittle more than a century ago, the southern coast of California—bone-dry, harbor-less, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges—seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world’s iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles’ meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland,...

When 1919 began, the city of Chicago seemed on the verge of transformation. Modernizers had an audacious, expensive plan to turn the city from a brawling, unglamorous place into “the Metropolis of the World.” But just as the dream seemed within reach, pandemonium broke loose and the city’s highest ambitions were suddenly under attack by the same unbridled energies that had given birth to them in the first place.It began on a balmy Monday afternoon when a blimp in flames crashed thr...

From renowned writer and travel journalist Gary Krist comes the never-before-told story of one of the worst rail disasters in U.S. history in which two trains full of people, trapped high in the Cascade Mountains, are hit by a devastating avalanche.In February 1910, a monstrous blizzard centered on Washington State hit the Northwest, breaking records. The world stopped—but nowhere was the danger more terrifying than near a tiny town called Wellington, perched high ...

Men Seeking Women: Love and Sex On-line is an exciting and original collection of new short fiction by men about men seeking women, and women seeking men in the digital age.The Internet revolution has altered the look of the traditional relationship. Through e-mail correspondence, chat room chats, and message board postings, the manner in which we meet and mate has drastically changed. While the search for love is a timeless one, how and where we look has never been more a...

Fast-paced, suspenseful, and utterly satisfying, The Demon Under the Microscope is a sweeping history of the discovery of the first antibiotic and its dramatic effect on the world of medicine and beyond.The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic medication. In The Demon Under the Microscope Thomas Hager c...

“HEAVEN HELP THE SAILOR ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS.”–old folk prayerIn late December 1951, laden with passengers and nearly forty metric tons of cargo, the freighter S.S. Flying Enterprise steamed westward from Europe toward America. A few days into the voyage, she hit the eye of a ferocious storm. Force 12 winds tossed men about like playthings and turned drops of freezing Atlantic foam into icy missiles. When, in the space of twenty-eight hours, the ship was slammed by two rogue...

During the height of the blizzard of 1978, a tanker foundered on the shoals off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard dispatched a patrol boat that was soon in trouble, too.A pilot-boat captain, Frank Quirk, heard of the Coast Guard’s plight on his radio. He gathered his crew of four, readied his forty-nine-foot steel boat, the Can Do, and entered the maelstrom of the blizzard soon to be known as the Storm of the Century.Encountering one of the ...

Who formed the first literate society? Who invented our modern ideas of democracy and free market capitalism? The Scots. As historian and author Arthur Herman reveals, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Scotland made crucial contributions to science, philosophy, literature, education, medicine, commerce, and politics-contributions that have formed and nurtured the modern West ever since. This book is not just about Scotland: it is an exciting account of the origins of the modern wo...

The landmark New York Times bestselling biography of Richard M. Nixon, a political savant whose gaping character flaws would drive him from the presidency and forever taint his legacy.“A biography of eloquence and breadth . . . No single volume about Nixon’s long and interesting life could be so comprehensive.”—Chicago TribuneOne of Time’s Top 10 Nonfiction Books of the YearIn this revelat...