To Slip the Bonds of Earth


Book Description

While not as famous as her older siblings Wilbur and Orville, the celebrated inventors of flight, Katharine Wright is equally inventive – especially when it comes to solving crimes – in USA Today bestselling author Amanda Flower’s radiant new historical mystery series inspired by the real sister of the Wright Brothers. December 1903: While Wilbur and Orville Wright’s flying machine is quite literally taking off in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina with its historic fifty-seven second flight, their sister Katharine is back home in Dayton, Ohio, running the bicycle shop, teaching Latin, and looking after the family. A Latin teacher and suffragette, Katharine is fiercely independent, intellectual, and the only Wright sibling to finish college. But at twenty-nine, she’s frustrated by the gender inequality in academia and is looking for a new challenge. She never suspects it will be sleuthing… Returning home to Dayton, Wilbur and Orville accept an invitation to a friend’s party. Nervous about leaving their as-yet-unpatented flyer plans unattended, Wilbur decides to bring them to the festivities . . . where they are stolen right out from under his nose. As always, it’s Katharine’s job to problem solve—and in this case, crime-solve. As she sets out to uncover the thief among their circle of friends, Katharine soon gets more than she bargained for: She finds her number one suspect dead with a letter opener lodged in his chest. It seems the patent is the least of her brothers’ worries. They have a far more earthbound concern—prison. Now Katharine will have to keep her feet on the ground and put all her skills to work to make sure Wilbur and Orville are free to fly another day.




To Slip the Bonds of Earth: Sneak Peek


Book Description

Be one of the first to read this sneak preview sample edition before the full length novel comes out! While not as famous as her older siblings Wilbur and Orville, the celebrated inventors of flight, Katharine Wright is equally inventive—especially when it comes to solving crimes—in USA Today bestselling author Amanda Flower’s radiant new historical mystery series inspired by the real sister of the Wright Brothers. December 1903: While Wilbur and Orville Wright’s flying machine is quite literally taking off in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina with its historic fifty-seven second flight, their sister Katharine is back home in Dayton, Ohio, running the bicycle shop, teaching Latin, and looking after the family. A Latin teacher and suffragette, Katharine is fiercely independent, intellectual, and the only Wright sibling to finish college. But at twenty-nine, she’s frustrated by the gender inequality in academia and is looking for a new challenge. She never suspects it will be sleuthing… Returning home to Dayton, Wilbur and Orville accept an invitation to a friend’s party. Nervous about leaving their as-yet-unpatented flyer plans unattended, Wilbur decides to bring them to the festivities . . . where they are stolen right out from under his nose. As always, it’s Katharine’s job to problem solve—and in this case, crime-solve. As she sets out to uncover the thief among their circle of friends, Katharine soon gets more than she bargained for: She finds her number one suspect dead with a letter opener lodged in his chest. It seems the patent is the least of her brothers’ worries. They have a far more earthbound concern—prison. Now Katharine will have to keep her feet on the ground and put all her skills to work to make sure Wilbur and Orville are free to fly another day.




To Slip the Surly Bonds of Earth


Book Description

The West is entering its final phase, like the fall of Rome or the Late Merchant Phase of the various Chinese empires. It is slowly grinding to a halt as the inevitable problems multiply, with no obvious will to counter the decline. One man dreams of humanity becoming a multiplanet species in the hope of preserving the basics of human knowledge through the coming dark ages. The Great Powers have turned inward, and there is little political will for further space exploration. Funding is minimal, and technological innovation has slowed dramatically. He uses his skills as a fighter to fund his dreams and is, for a time, the heavyweight champion. Using his notoriety, he slowly gathers friends, seeking to find those who can make the dream a reality. Manon, who claws her way up from nothing to wealth; Elizabeth, the miner turned politician; and others help fund the space project. They set up a foundation to search for scientific geniuses in the most unlikely places, looking for children who perhaps can make the journey into space possible, but it is not clear that Earth has any interest in returning to the high frontier. Against a background of indifference, competing interests, and active discouragement, they do manage to establish small independent colonies on the moon and Mars; but the odds are great, protection is difficult, and long-term success is by no means assured. And there are malevolent forces moving in the world.




To Slip the Surly Bonds of Earth


Book Description

The development of fusion power in the small colony established on Mars leads to an explosive outward emigration from Earth to the moons of the solar system. On Earth, increasing civil unrest in Europe has led to the election to positions of authority of three strong women: Leda in Germany, Madeleine in France, and La Marquesa in Spain. With the assistance of others—including Tomiko from Japan and Hinchcliffe, with her paramilitary organization, the Legion—order is restored, at least temporarily. The lives, loves, and deaths of these women are set against a world of conflict, hope, and despair, as they struggle to maintain civilization and allow further immigration to the high frontier in the face of malevolent opposition forces.




Falling Upwards


Book Description

**Kirkus Best Books of the Year (2013)** **Time Magazine 10 Top Nonfiction Books of 2013** **The New Republic Best Books of 2013** In this heart-lifting chronicle, Richard Holmes, author of the best-selling The Age of Wonder, follows the pioneer generation of balloon aeronauts, the daring and enigmatic men and women who risked their lives to take to the air (or fall into the sky). Why they did it, what their contemporaries thought of them, and how their flights revealed the secrets of our planet is a compelling adventure that only Holmes could tell. His accounts of the early Anglo-French balloon rivalries, the crazy firework flights of the beautiful Sophie Blanchard, the long-distance voyages of the American entrepreneur John Wise and French photographer Felix Nadar are dramatic and exhilarating. Holmes documents as well the balloons used to observe the horrors of modern battle during the Civil War (including a flight taken by George Armstrong Custer); the legendary tale of at least sixty-seven manned balloons that escaped from Paris (the first successful civilian airlift in history) during the Prussian siege of 1870-71; the high-altitude exploits of James Glaisher (who rose) seven miles above the earth without oxygen, helping to establish the new science of meteorology); and how Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jules Verne felt the imaginative impact of flight and allowed it to soar in their work. A seamless fusion of history, art, science, biography, and the metaphysics of flights, Falling Upwards explores the interplay between technology and imagination. And through the strange allure of these great balloonists, it offers a masterly portrait of human endeavor, recklessness, and vision. (With 24 pages of color illustrations, and black-and-white illustrations throughout.)




Touching the Face of God


Book Description

"Touching the Face of God" is the fascinating true story of John Gillespie Magee, Jr., author of the poem "High Flight." Magee composed his famous poem while serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force in England during World War II. Magee's "High Flight" gathered world-wide notice from such luminaries as Winston Churchill, King George IV, Helen Keller, Orson Welles, Tyrone Power, and Katherine Hepburn. The poem has been used countless times in music, books, movies and speeches. The history of John Magee and his famous poem have been told several times, but this book seeks to tell his complete and compelling story. From his birth in China to his entrance into WWII as a combat pilot, "Touching the Face of God" is a story of true love, courage, compassion and commitment.




High Flight


Book Description




Unacknowledged Legislation


Book Description

Hitchens provides rich evidence that his own sallies as a political journalist are nourished by a close engagement with a broad sweep of novelists.




The Airplane


Book Description

A history of the technical development of the aeroplane, commissioned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of powered flight. In each chronological period covered, the various aspects of the synthesis of aerodynamics, propulsion, flight dynamics, and structure is described and evaluated.




The Ordeal of Robert Frost


Book Description

Through close readings of Frost's poetry and often ignored prose, Mark Richardson argues that Frost's debates with Van Wyck Brooks, Malcolm Cowley, and H. L. Mencken informed his poetics and his poetic style just as much as did his deep identification with earlier writers like Emerson and William James.




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