by Lizzie Johnson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 17, 2021
An urgent, harrowing report on one of the country’s worst wildfires.
A reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle gives a masterly account of the 2018 Camp Fire, which devastated the town of Paradise, California.
In her first book, Johnson does for California’s deadliest wildfire what Sheri Fink did for Hurricane Katrina in Five Days at Memorial. With stellar reporting, she tells the moment-by-moment story of an unfolding disaster, showing its human dramas as well as the broader corporate and governmental missteps that fueled it. The author draws on more than 500 interviews as she follows residents ranging from the Paradise fire chief and town manager to a mother who gave birth to a premature infant the night before her hospital was evacuated—and was then stranded for hours in a car on a gridlocked exit route with a baby who needed a neonatal intensive care unit. A state investigation blamed faulty Pacific Gas & Electric electrical equipment for the blaze—and the utility pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths that resulted—but Johnson evenhandedly shows other factors that contributed to the tragedies. A drought had turned wooded areas into dry, overgrown tinderboxes. Authorities waited too long to issue mandatory evacuation alerts, and with the telecommunications system overloaded, 82% of residents didn’t receive one. The official evacuation routes proved dangerously inadequate. Johnson’s account of the crisis lacks the polish of disaster narratives by authors such as Sebastian Junger and Jon Krakauer. Although she has a jeweler’s eye for gemlike details, some aren’t for the faint of heart; the fire destroyed so many dental records that a coroner hoped “any steel hardware with serial numbers—artificial hips, knees, shoulders” might help to identify bodies. Though the storytelling isn’t flawless, the book is unmatched for the depth, breadth, and quality of its reporting on a major 21st-century wildfire, and it’s likely to become the definitive account of the catastrophe in Paradise.
An urgent, harrowing report on one of the country’s worst wildfires.Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13638-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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Best Books Of 2017
New York Times Bestseller
IndieBound Bestseller
National Book Award Finalist
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
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New York Times Bestseller
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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by Brandon Stanton ; photographed by Brandon Stanton
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