Two Minutes to Glory

Two Minutes to Glory
Author: Pamela K. Brodowsky
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2009-02-17
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 006123656X

Take a front row seat at "the Run for the Roses" with the first comprehensive history of the Kentucky Derby. From mint juleps to the garland of roses, to weeping men and women in the Winner's Circle, Two Minutes to Glory is the official story of the world's greatest horse race—the Kentucky Derby. This book is chockablock with facts, figures, and statistics on all 132 years of this incredible race. It also contains a capsuled yet detailed history of the race and of Churchill Downs, focusing on all the larger-than-life personalities from Col. M. Lewis Clark, who founded the Derby in 1875, to Col. Matt Winn, who saved it when it was in the stretch, out of breath, about to break down, and in need of a miracle—and beyond that to the present day. But perhaps the best parts of this lavishly illustrated book are the stories of the races, from 1875 to 2006. It is not a mere recitation of what happened—though there is that—but the human (and horse) stories behind the races, like that of Conn McCreary, who, astride Count Turf in 1951, looked down the track before the gates opened and knew that he was riding not just to win the Derby, but for his life. Or the 2005 race where a seventy-nine-year-old woman named Alice Chandler burst into tears as she watched her 50-1 shot Giacomo roar down the stretch to win—but also cried because she knew that when just a foal, he had previously beaten an opponent called death. This book looks at all the people and horses who made the Derby what it is over the years: trainer Ben A. Jones with six Derby winners; Eddie "Banana Nose" Arcaro and Secretariat, who broke the two-minute barrier and ran the fastest Derby in history; the great owners, the grooms—and all the rest. It is history, yes, but history with heart and soul. As horsemen say, have a good ride.

Minutes of Glory

Minutes of Glory
Author: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2019-03-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1620974665

A dazzling short story collection from the person Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls "one of the greatest writers of our time" Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, although renowned for his novels, memoirs, and plays, honed his craft as a short story writer. From "The Fig Tree, " written in 1960, his first year as an undergraduate at Makerere University College in Uganda, to the playful "The Ghost of Michael Jackson," written as a professor at the University of California, Irvine, these collected stories reveal a master of the short form. Covering the period of British colonial rule and resistance in Kenya to the bittersweet experience of independence—and including two stories that have never before been published in the United States— Ngũgĩ's collection features women fighting for their space in a patriarchal society, big men in their Bentleys who have inherited power from the British, and rebels who still embody the fighting spirit of the downtrodden. One of Ngũgĩ's most beloved stories, "Minutes of Glory," tells of Beatrice, a sad but ambitious waitress who fantasizes about being feted and lauded over by the middle-class clientele in the city's beer halls. Her dream leads her on a witty and heartbreaking adventure. Published for the first time in America, Minutes of Glory and Other Stories is a major literary event that celebrates the storytelling might of one of Africa's best-loved writers.

Where Men Win Glory

Where Men Win Glory
Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2010-07-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 030738604X

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A "gripping book about this extraordinary man who lived passionately and died unnecessarily" (USA Today) in post-9/11 Afghanistan, from the bestselling author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. In 2002, Pat Tillman walked away from a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the Army and became an icon of American patriotism. When he was killed in Afghanistan two years later, a legend was born. But the real Pat Tillman was much more remarkable, and considerably more complicated than the public knew. Sent first to Iraq—a war he would openly declare was “illegal as hell” —and eventually to Afghanistan, Tillman was driven by emotionally charged, sometimes contradictory notions of duty, honor, justice, and masculine pride, and he was determined to serve his entire three-year commitment. But on April 22, 2004, his life would end in a barrage of bullets fired by his fellow soldiers. Though obvious to most of the two dozen soldiers on the scene that a ranger in Tillman’s own platoon had fired the fatal shots, the Army aggressively maneuvered to keep this information from Tillman’s family and the American public for five weeks following his death. During this time, President Bush used Tillman’s name to promote his administration’ s foreign policy. Long after Tillman’s nationally televised memorial service, the Army grudgingly notified his closest relatives that he had “probably” been killed by friendly fire while it continued to dissemble about the details of his death and who was responsible. Drawing on Tillman’s journals and letters and countless interviews with those who knew him and extensive research in Afghanistan, Jon Krakauer chronicles Tillman’s riveting, tragic odyssey in engrossing detail highlighting his remarkable character and personality while closely examining the murky, heartbreaking circumstances of his death. Infused with the power and authenticity readers have come to expect from Krakauer’s storytelling, Where Men Win Glory exposes shattering truths about men and war. This edition has been updated to reflect new developments and includes new material obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Two Steps from Glory

Two Steps from Glory
Author: Welton I. Taylor
Publisher:
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2012-07-23
Genre: African Americans
ISBN: 9780983867715

When 2nd Lieutenant Welton I. Taylor, a lanky kid from the South Side of Chicago with a genius-level I.Q. and a passion for flying, deployed to the South Pacific with the all-black 93rd Infantry Division in 1943, he expected to utilize his flying skills and Field Artillery training in the service of the country he loved. Little did he know that the army that had painstakingly trained him really didn't want him to fight, or that the Jim Crow laws that had haunted his life at home would follow him all the way to Guadalcanal. Two Steps from Glory is the eye-opening and inspiring story of how a young black pilot outsmarted the racist machinations of the segregated U.S. Army, out-maneuvered the Japanese Army, and dodged the Grim Reaper on no less than eight occasions during World War II -- all while flying a tiny, fabric-covered airplane with not even a radio, much less a gun, on board. Professors and students of 20th Century American History, African-American Studies, Military History, and Civil Rights will find Two Steps from Glory to be much more than a good story, well told, however. A veritable history lesson in a box, Two Steps from Glory uses it Foreword and Afterword to provide a succinct overview of two hundred years of African American military history, chronicling Blacks' participation in every war from the War of Independence to the war in Afghanistan and proving that the civil rights movement started long before Rosa Parks sat down on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus. Lieutenant Taylor's saga falls neatly into this wider historical context, bringing a rich but forgotten part of American history alive in entertaining personal detail. Two Steps from Glory will be a valuable addition to any high school or college library and curriculum and an engaging read for adults of all ages.

And Then There Were Twelve

And Then There Were Twelve
Author: Paul Cain
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 134
Release: 2009-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 144901223X

Tales of Beatnik Glory

Tales of Beatnik Glory
Author: Ed Sanders
Publisher: Stonehill Publishers
Total Pages: 296
Release: 1975
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

A sincere young poet seeks fame and fortune amid the coffee houses, sex orgies, political and social protests, and freakish characters of Greenwich Village during the late fifties and early sixties.

Glory's Window

Glory's Window
Author: Mitchell Cobb
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2007-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 059544928X

Clayton Howard has stopped experiencing life. A troubled childhood has left him "going through the motions". One day, he happens upon a terrible accident and he's the first to discover the youngest victim. Immediately after, Clayton's dreams lead him to the location of buried wealth. Clayton's life changes instantly as he becomes rich beyond his wildest expectations. While he considers himself extremely lucky at first, he begins to realize that the opportunity to experience life's real treasures are threatened by his greed.

Burning Words

Burning Words
Author: Thomas De Witt Talmage
Publisher:
Total Pages: 396
Release: 1874
Genre: Devotional literature
ISBN:

Glory

Glory
Author: NoViolet Bulawayo
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2022-03-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0525561145

2022 BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST “Manifoldly clever…brilliant… ‘Glory’ is its own vivid world, drawn from its own folklore. This is a satire with sharper teeth, angrier, and also very, very funny.” —Violet Kupersmith, The New York Times Book Review "Genius."—#1 New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds From the award-winning author of the Booker-prize finalist We Need New Names, an exhilarating novel about the fall of an oppressive regime, and the chaos and opportunity that rise in its wake. NoViolet Bulawayo’s bold new novel follows the fall of the Old Horse, the long-serving leader of a fictional country, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the path to true liberation. Inspired by the unexpected fall by coup in November 2017 of Robert G. Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president of nearly four decades, Glory shows a country's imploding, narrated by a chorus of animal voices that unveil the ruthlessness required to uphold the illusion of absolute power and the imagination and bulletproof optimism to overthrow it completely. By immersing readers in the daily lives of a population in upheaval, Bulawayo reveals the dazzling life force and irresistible wit that lie barely concealed beneath the surface of seemingly bleak circumstances. And at the center of this tumult is Destiny, a young goat who returns to Jidada to bear witness to revolution—and to recount the unofficial history and the potential legacy of the females who have quietly pulled the strings here. The animal kingdom—its connection to our primal responses and its resonance in the mythology, folktales, and fairy tales that define cultures the world over—unmasks the surreality of contemporary global politics to help us understand our world more clearly, even as Bulawayo plucks us right out of it. Although Zimbabwe is the immediate inspiration for this thrilling story, Glory was written in a time of global clamor, with resistance movements across the world challenging different forms of oppression. Thus it often feels like Bulawayo captures several places in one blockbuster allegory, crystallizing a turning point in history with the texture and nuance that only the greatest fiction can.