Legendary Locals of Ambler


Book Description

One of the few towns in America named after a woman, Ambler derives its driving spirit of selflessness and community from the heroine of the Great Train Wreck of 1856. Mary Ambler, a humble Quaker mill owner who came to the aid of dozens of disaster victims, may have been the first of countless Ambler personalities who have devoted themselves to the greater good of the thriving little borough located just outside Philadelphia. Legendary Locals of Ambler celebrates the lives of the sung and unsung heroes--political and civil servants, businessmen and builders, restaurateurs and devotees of the arts, and founders of charitable institutions, such as Henry G. Keasbey and Richard V. Mattison, William E. Strasburg, George E. Saurman, "Bud" Wahl, Mattie Dixon, and Peggy Dolan--whose contributions have made a significant difference in the lives of so many.




Legendary Locals of St. Charles


Book Description

Today's citizens of St. Charles will recognize the names of many early settlers and residents, such as Louis Blanchette, who founded the settlement that would later become St. Charles; St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, who helped found the first school of the Society of the Sacred Heart in America; and Lewis and Clark, who began their expedition here to explore the Louisiana Purchase territory. Later came photographer Rudolph Goebel, who chronicled St. Charles's history for more than 50 years; Jane Crider, advocate for adults with disabilities and cofounder of Boone Center Inc.; and Archie Scott, known as "Mr. Main Street" for his years of dedication to the preservation of the historic district. Included in Legendary Locals of St. Charles are businesspeople, local personalities, authors, and entertainers, and while some of them may not yet be legendary, all of them are notable for their contributions to the St. Charles community and beyond.




Legendary Locals of Center City Philadelphia


Book Description

Philadelphia is a hard mistress when it comes to honoring native talent, and the city has more than its fair share of notable figures. Consider colorful politicians like Frank Rizzo and Richardson Dilworth, international celebrities like Grace Kelly, sports legends like Connie Mack, Philadelphia Museum of Art icons like Anne dHarnoncourt, or national radio personalities like Terry Gross. Business tycoons such as John Wanamaker and Russell Conwell, founder of Temple University, made many contributions to the city. Pearl Buck, author of The Good Earth, and Christopher Morley, Americas G.K. Chesterton, created legacies of their own. Other legends like the nearly forgotten Agnes Repplier, a world-famous essayist and contemporary of Henry James, and poet Daniel Hoffman, the designated US poet laureate in 19731974, have helped enrich the citys literary reputation. There are Marian Anderson, Mario Lanza, and Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon, whose fame is equaled by his city planner father, Edmund. Architects like Frank Furness, Louis Kahn, and Vincent Kling helped transform the city into an international destination. And there are many notables looming outside the margins of this book, waiting for their day of discovery.




Ambler


Book Description

Ambler, a working-class town located fifteen miles north of Philadelphia, boasts some of the grandest homes in Montgomery County. Its evolution is rooted in the mills that sprang up along the Wissahickon Creek in the 1680s. Ambler entered the industrial age when the North Penn Railway pushed through in the 1850s. In 1856, a catastrophic head-on train collision killing fifty-nine created the heroine Mary Ambler, whose generous ministrations to the wounded caused the railroad in 1869 to rename its Wissahickon station in her honor. But it was Philadelphia manufacturers Henry G. Keasbey and Richard V. Mattison who changed Ambler's character forever. When they relocated their business to Ambler in 1881, it became the asbestos capital of the world. Ambler captures the lasting legacy of Mattison's thriving company town, with its array of fanciful and simple homes, churches, shops, and cultural institutions.




The Ambler Warning


Book Description

Imprisoned and drugged in a restricted island psychiatric facility for government intelligence employees, former Consular Operations agent Hal Ambler manages a daring escape and sets out to discover why he was placed there.




The Mask of Dimitrios


Book Description

Discover the new Penguin Crime and Espionage series A crime novelist has found the perfect subject - but it may cost him his life English writer Charles Latimer is travelling in Istanbul when a police inspector tells him about the infamous master criminal Dimitrios, long wanted by the law, whose body has just been fished out of the Bosphorus. Immediately fascinated, Latimer decides to retrace Dimitrios' steps across Europe to gather material for a new book, but instead finds himself descending into a terrifying underworld of international espionage, Balkan drug dealers, unscrupulous businessmen and fatal treachery - one he may not be able to escape.




Walking the Great North Line


Book Description

Robert Twigger, poet and travel author, was in search of a new way up England when he stumbled across the Great North Line. From Christchurch on the South Coast to Old Sarum to Stonehenge, to Avebury, to Notgrove barrow, to Meon Hill in the midlands, to Thor's Cave, to Arbor Low stone circle, to Mam Tor, to Ilkley in Yorkshire and its three stone circles and the Swastika Stone, to several forts and camps in Northumberland to Lindisfarne (plus about thirty more sites en route). A single dead straight line following 1 degree 50 West up Britain. No other north-south straight line goes through so many ancient sites of such significance. Was it just a suggestive coincidence or were they built intentionally? Twigger walks the line, which takes him through Birmingham, Halifax and Consett as well as Salisbury Plain, the Peak district, and the Yorkshire moors. With a planning schedule that focused more on reading about shamanism and beat poetry than hardening his feet up, he sets off ever hopeful. He wild-camps along the way, living like a homeless bum, with a heart that starts stifled but ends up soaring with the beauty of life. He sleeps in a prehistoric cave, falls into a river, crosses a 'suicide viaduct' and gets told off by a farmer's wife for trespassing; but in this simple life he finds woven gold. He walks with others and he walks alone, ever alert to the incongruities of the edgelands he is journeying through.




Eric Ambler


Book Description




Above Suspicion


Book Description

The first instalment in the bestselling Anna Travis series from the BAFTA-winning writer Lynda La Plante, author of Widows, now a major motion picture Young Anna Travis has been assigned to her first murder case - a series of killings that has shocked even the most hardened of detectives. They started eight years ago - now the body count is up to six. The method of killing is identical, the backgrounds of the girls identical - all drug-users and prostitutes. Then a seventh body is found. The modus operandi is the same - but the victim is a young student with the 'face of an angel'. The profile of the murderer has changed dramatically. Determined to earn the respect of her male colleagues, Anna stumbles on a vital piece of information which links one man to the killings, a much-loved actor on the brink of international stardom. His arrest would create a media frenzy. But if he were foundinnocent, his wouldn't be the only career over - Anna's hard fought for reputation would be destroyed once and for all … 'Lynda La Plante practically invented the thriller. Above Suspicion blew me away - it grabs you and doesn't let go until the last page' KARIN SLAUGHTER 'La Plante is building up an interesting body of writing that is underrated… Anna proves a resourceful and believable heroine and heralds the launch of a major new character' GUARDIAN 'The prime suspect here is an adored actor, poised to hit the big time. Could he really be behind a string of grisly murders? It's up to Anna Travis, La Plante's gutsy new heroine, to find out' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Like Jane Tennison, Anna Travis has to work a world which is still rampantly chauvinistic… it is a novel to read about the complexity of relationships, as well as for its compelling plot' DAILY EXPRESS




Out Of Control


Book Description

Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.