Senior Birdman: The Guy Who Just Had to Fly is the autobiography of one man's improbable rise from a humble farming community to the glamour and glitz of southern California, the epicenter of aviation development. Starting with an awe-inspiring moment in a desolate field in western Nebraska, the book will wing you-in Forrest Gump-like fashion-through a series of vignettes that bump into the lives of prominent historical figures like General Omar Bradley, Howard Hughes, even Hugh Heffner. Unedited and as raw as a diary, Senior Birdman jumps like a crop duster from naval pre-flight training to McDonnell Douglas to the launch of the DC-8 Jetliner to numerous fly-by commentaries about people, places, big government and life. If you loved the movie The Aviator, you'll want to climb into the cockpit with Eldon Price-pilot, aeronautical engineer, aerospace executive, and family man-and take this short, literary flight through some of aviation history's defining moments.

A serial killer stalks the streets of London in this “top-notch debut thriller”—the first Jack Caffery novel from the acclaimed author of Gone (Kirkus Reviews). In his first case as lead investigator with London’s murder squad, Det. Inspector Jack Caffery is called on to investigate the murder of a young woman whose body has been discovered near the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, southeast London. Mutilated beyond recognition, the victim is soon joined by four others discovered in the same area—all female and all ritualistically murdered. And when the postmortem examination reveals a gruesome signature connecting the victims, Caffery realizes exactly what he’s dealing with—a dangerous serial killer. A finalist for the Edgar Award, Birdman explores the darkest reaches of the human mind and introduces a fascinating detective to the world of British crime fiction. “Treading the grisly path blazed by Thomas Harris in 1981 with Red Dragon, promising newcomer Hayder crafts a blood-curdlingly creepy debut thriller.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “A deftly plotted assault on the nerves . . . Birdman preys on the reader’s expectations expertly, and Hayder handles her story’s complicated time scheme with enviable assurance. Graphic, disturbing, splendidly readable.” —Kirkus Reviews

A woman overshadowed by history steps back into the light . . . Artist Elizabeth Gould spent her life capturing the sublime beauty of birds the world had never seen before. But her legacy was eclipsed by the fame of her husband, John Gould. The Birdman’s Wife at last gives voice to a passionate and adventurous spirit who was so much more than the woman behind the man. Elizabeth was a woman ahead of her time, juggling the demands of her artistic life with her roles as wife, lover, helpmate, and mother to an ever-growing brood of children. In a golden age of discovery, her artistry breathed wondrous life into hundreds of exotic new species, including Charles Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches. In The Birdman’s Wife, the naïve young girl who falls in love with a demanding and ambitious genius comes into her own as a woman, an artist and a bold adventurer who defies convention by embarking on a trailblazing expedition to collect and illustrate Australia’s ‘curious’ birdlife. In this indelible portrait, an extraordinary woman overshadowed by history steps back into the light where she belongs.

Practicing law in a large partnership, Sydney Jones was primed for making partner. Then her life turned upside down after a disagreement with her boss at Birdman & Birdman. Leaving the office, she was swiftly kidnapped and taken to her assailants hideaway, beaten, and raped. With no memory of whom she was put her at a disadvantage with her captors. Through gritted teeth, she promised a day of repercussions for their actions while mentally visualizing her revenge. Warned by her assailants to keep her mouth shut or else, she was delivered to her home. Not recognizing her former living quarters, she was careful in exploring her options for regaining her memory. Piecing together the reasons for her kidnapping brought her into contact with people, some she could trust and others risky. The problem was the amnesia prevented her from recognizing the difference. Tapped for crime once nudged her toward caution for something afoul was going on at Birdman & Birdman. She prepared for a fight. With a vision of fury she made a chilling decision - never to be a victim again.

A tribute to the heroism shown by military pilots and aircrew from rural California towns who risked their lives and made their mark on American history. During World War II, thousands of volunteer combat aviators trained at places like Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and Hancock Field in Santa Maria. Some air cadets and WASPs—young women pilots—lost their lives in training accidents. The graduates would go on to fight in both the Pacific and European theaters. They faced flak bursts and collisions that resulted in horrifying explosions and were sent on strafing runs that made them targets in a lethal shooting gallery. Downed airmen encountered both unexpected kindness and cruel deprivation as prisoners of war. Through interviews and official records, Jim Gregory tells the stories of heroic Central Coast veterans who fought a war that stretched from New Guinea to North Africa.

King of the Cold War crisis film, Dr. Strangelove became a cultural touchstone from the moment of its release in 1964. The duck-and-cover generation saw it as a satire on nuclear issues and Cold War thinking. Subsequent generations, removed from the film’s historical moment, came to view it as a quasi-documentary about an unfathomable secret world. Sean M. Maloney uses Dr. Strangelove and other genre classics like Fail Safe and The Bedford Incident to investigate a curious pop cultural contradiction. Nuclear crisis films repeatedly portrayed the failures of the Cold War’s deterrent system. Yet the system worked. What does this inconsistency tell us about the genre? What does it tell us about the deterrent system, for that matter? Blending film analysis with Cold War history, Maloney looks at how the celluloid crises stack up against reality—or at least as much of reality as we can reconstruct from these films with confidence. The result is a daring intellectual foray that casts new light on Dr. Strangelove, one of the Cold War era’s defining films.