|
At age 17, Long took his first flying lesson. The one lesson was all he needed: he flew so much that in September 1989, he broke the world record for flying, having logged 53,290 hours since May 1933. And he kept going after that: his job was to inspect power lines, so "most of that was under 200 feet, in a Piper Cub," said his brother, Danny. But making record books wasn't any kind of goal. "Ed never wanted any kind of accolades," Danny said. "That was not his purpose. He just loved to fly." Long died July 18 in Alabama at age 83. From This is True for 18 July 1999 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Gary Kinder List Price: $15.95 Amazon Price: $10.85 Editorial Review: The facts speak for themselves. In 1857, the Central America, a sidewheel steamer ferrying passengers fresh from the gold rush of California to New York and laden with 21 tons of California gold, encountered a severe storm off the Carolina coast and sank, carrying more than 400 passengers and all her cargo down with her. She then sat for 132 years, 200 miles offshore and almost two miles below the ocean's surface--a depth at which she was assumed to be unrecoverable--until 1989, when a deep-water research vessel sailed into the harbor at Norfolk, Virginia, fat with salvaged gold coins and bullion estimated to be worth one billion dollars. Author Gary Kinder wisely lets the story of the Columbus-America Discovery Group, led by maverick scientist and entrepreneur Tommy Thompson, unfold without hyperbole. Kinder interweaves the tale of the Central America and her passengers and crew with Thompson's own story of growing up landlocked in Ohio, an irrepressible tinkerer and explorer even in his childhood days, and his progress to adulthood as a young man who always had "7 to 14" projects on the table or spinning in his head at any given moment. One of those projects would become the preposterous recovery of the stricken steamer, and the resourcefulness and later urgency with which the project would proceed is contrasted poignantly with the Central America's doomed battle in 1857 to stay afloat. Thompson, who spent nearly a decade planning and organizing his recovery effort, emerges as one of the great unsung adventurers of these times (the technical innovations alone required for such a task produced a windfall for the scientific community and defined a new state of the art for deep-sea explorers and treasure hunters), and the story of the steamer's sinking is compelling enough to make any reader wonder why the Central America sinking isn't synonymous with shipwreck in this Titanic-happy age. --Tjames Madison"White knuckle reading...with generous portions of adventure, intrigue, heroism, and high technology interwoven."  By: William Golding List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $10.17  By: Piers Paul Read List Price: $13.95 Amazon Price: $11.16 Editorial Review: On October 12, 1972, an Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying a team of rugby players crashed in the remote snowy peaks of the Andes. Ten weeks later, only sixteen of the forty-five passengers were found alive. This is the story of those ten weeks spent in the shelter of the plane's fuselage without food and with scarcely any hope of a rescue. The survivors protected and helped one another, and came to the difficult conclusion that to live meant doing the unimaginable. Confronting nature at its most furious, two brave young men risked their lives to hike through the mountains looking for help -- and ultimately found it. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more. By: SparkNotes Editors List Price: $5.95 Amazon Price: $5.95 Editorial Review: No Fear Shakespeare gives you the complete text of The Tempest on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an easy-to-understand translation on the right. Each No Fear Shakespeare contains The complete text of the original playA line-by-line translation that puts Shakespeare into everyday languageA complete list of characters with descriptionsPlenty of helpful commentary  By: Joan Druett List Price: $24.95 Amazon Price: $16.47 Editorial Review: Auckland Island is a godforsaken place in the middle of the Southern Ocean, 285 miles south of New Zealand. With year-round freezing rain and howling winds, it is one of the most forbidding places in the world. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death. In 1864 Captain Thomas Musgrave and his crew of four aboard the schooner Grafton wreck on the southern end of the island. Utterly alone in a dense coastal forest, plagued by stinging blowflies and relentless rain, Captain Musgrave—rather than succumb to this dismal fate—inspires his men to take action. With barely more than their bare hands, they build a cabin and, remarkably, a forge, where they manufacture their tools. Under Musgrave's leadership, they band together and remain civilized through even the darkest and most terrifying days. Incredibly, at the same time on the opposite end of the island—twenty miles of impassable cliffs and chasms away—the Invercauld wrecks during a horrible storm. Nineteen men stagger ashore. Unlike Captain Musgrave, the captain of the Invercauld falls apart given the same dismal circumstances. His men fight and split up; some die of starvation, others turn to cannibalism. Only three survive. Musgrave and all of his men not only endure for nearly two years, they also plan their own astonishing escape, setting off on one of the most courageous sea voyages in history. Using the survivors' journals and historical records, award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett brings this extraordinary untold story to life, a story about leadership and the fine line between order and chaos.In the winter of 1864, five seamen aboard the schooner Grafton wreck on the remote and icy Auckland Island, 285 miles south of New Zealand. An isolated speck in the Southern Ocean, it is a godforsaken place, with winds howling at sixty miles an hour, rain three hundred days a year, and an almost impenetrable coastal forest. Under the leadership of Captain Thomas Musgrave, these men defy their slim chance of survival. With their bare hands they build a cabin and, incredibly, a forge, where they manufacture every single nail as well as most of their tools. Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the same island—twenty miles of impassable cliffs and chasms away—another ship wrecks during a horrible gale. Nineteen men struggle ashore. They succumb to utter anarchy, and only three survive, while all the Grafton men survive for nearly two years before finally building a vessel and setting off on one of the most courageous sea voyages ever. Award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett tells a gripping cautionary tale about leardership, endurance, human ingenuity, and the tenuous line between order and chaos. |
About the HUs
About This is True
Prev: Smoking gun cancer researcher Ernst Wynder Next: Zulu music legend Simon Nkabinde |