Comstock Phantoms

Comstock Phantoms PDF

Author: Brian David Bruns

Publisher:

Published: 2003-10-06

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780974521718

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America's Largest Historical Monument is also its most haunted. The Old West lives on in Virginia City, NV. Literally. This collection of ghostly encounters contains detailed histories to amplify the setting, as well as facts and trivia. Also included are the author's hilarious ghost-hunting mishaps.

Monumental Lies

Monumental Lies PDF

Author: Ronald M. James

Publisher: University of Nevada Press

Published: 2023-09-19

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1647791170

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A playful embrace of tall tales and exaggeration, Monumental Lies explores the evolution of folklore in the Wild West. Monumental Lies: Early Nevada Folklore of the Wild West invites readers to explore how legends and traditions emerged during the first decades following the “Rush to Washoe,” which transformed the Nevada Territory after in 1859. During this Wild West period, there was widespread celebration of deceit, manifesting in tall tales, burlesque lies, practical jokes, and journalistic hoaxes. Humor was central, and practitioners easily found themselves scorned if they failed to be adequately funny. The tens of thousands of people who came to the West, attracted by gold and silver mining, brought distinct cultural legacies. The interaction of diverse perspectives, even while new stories and traditions coalesced, was a complex process. Author Ronald M. James addresses how the fluidity of the region affected new expressions of folklore as they took root. The wildly popular Mark Twain is often a go-to source for collections of early tall tales of this region, but his interaction with local traditions was specific and narrow. More importantly, William Wright—publishing as Dan De Quille—arose as a key collector of legends, a counterpart of early European folklorists. With a bedrock understanding of what unfolded in the nineteenth century, James considers how these early stories helped shaped the culture of the Wild West.

Nevada Curiosities

Nevada Curiosities PDF

Author: Richard Moreno

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2008-12-22

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1461747376

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The definitive collection of Nevada's odd, wacky, and most offbeat people, places, and things, for Nevada residents and anyone else who enjoys local humor and trivia with a twist.

Ghosts of Futures Past

Ghosts of Futures Past PDF

Author: Molly McGarry

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2012-09-30

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 0520274539

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"Simpson, imprint in humanities"--Page opposite title page.

Ghost Towns of the American West

Ghost Towns of the American West PDF

Author: Robert Silverberg

Publisher: Ohio University Press

Published: 2020-12-04

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 0821441094

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The story of the American mining frontier can be traced through the ghost towns that dot the western landscape to this day, from the camps of California’s forty-niners to the twentieth-century ruins in the Nevada desert. These abandoned towns mark an epoch of high adventure, of quick wealth and quicker poverty, of gambling and gunslinging and hell-raising. Those who have seen the Old West movies sometimes think that the legends of the Wild West were invented by screenwriters. The ghost towns remain, and their battered ruins testify that the legends are true. Behind the tall tales is a history where a fortune could be made in a week and lost over the course of an evening. With a historian’s attention to fact and a novelist’s gift for dramatic storytelling, celebrated science fiction author Robert Silverberg brings these adventures back to life in the rowdy splendor of their heyday in Ghost Towns of the American West. History and travelers’ tales are woven together with clarity and wit to create a lively account of a fascinating era in our history. Lorence Bjorklund’s illustrations, rich in detail, portray the ghost towns in their glory and in their dusty decline.

Cruise Confidential

Cruise Confidential PDF

Author: Brian David Bruns

Publisher: Travelers' Tales

Published: 2009-03-01

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1932361707

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In Cruise Confidential, Brian David Bruns spills the dirt — or in this case, the dirty water — on those romantic, fun-filled vacations at sea. His hilarious chronicle of the year he spent working for Carnival Cruise Lines takes readers down into the areas where the crew works and lives, leaving readers gasping with laughter as they’re assaulted nonstop with events that range from the absurd to the utterly bizarre. Stewards fighting over food. Cutlery allowances and other nonsensical rules. What the crew calls those onboard (no, it’s not “passengers”). And of course, the sex. An abundance of ready, willing, and able bodies eager for action on a vessel replete with nooks and crannies leads to love in some mighty strange, and seemingly impossible, places. Breezy, entertaining, and informative, Cruise Confidential is essential reading for those planning a cruise or for anyone who just needs a good laugh.

Bogeyman

Bogeyman PDF

Author: Gayle Wilson

Publisher: MIRA

Published: 2006-12-01

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 1552547302

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A year after the death of her husband, Blythe Wyndham moves with her four-year-old daughter, Maddie, back to the small town where she grew up. But soon after they move in to their new home, strange things begin to happen. Maddie has disturbingly intense nightmares—so intense that Blythe fears one night she may not be able to awaken her daughter. A psychologist explains that Maddie's dreams are simply the result of her father's death, but Blythe knows something else is wrong. Because she's also heard the ghostly tapping at her daughter's window…. Convinced the house is haunted, Blythe researches the town's history and discovers that a little girl had been brutally murdered in the area twenty-five years ago. Could there be some connection between this dead child and Maddie? With the help of Sheriff Cade Jackson, Blythe tries to separate past horrors from present dangers and struggles to distinguish the real from the imagined. But someone is clearly determined to keep a secret—and will kill again to do so.

Phantom Warriors

Phantom Warriors PDF

Author: Gary Linderer

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2008-12-10

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0307489493

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Here are some of the most courageous missions executed by six-man teams on their own deep behind enemy lines. Ranging from the Central Highlands to the Mekong Delta to excursions— authorized and unauthorized—into Cambodia, these gripping accounts begin when the call first went out for covert U.S. long-range reconnaissance patrols in late 1965, continue through the battles of Tet, and go all the way up to the final, tortured pullout. These are LRRP, LRP, and Ranger units at their finest, under the most desperate circumstances: one team surrounded by the enemy with no choice but to break out of the trap—or die, another caught in an ambush of horrific proportions. When recon missions suddenly became contact missions, when grenades started flying and AK-47s were smoking, each man’s life was instantly on the line—and only his skills and the grit of his teammates could prevent certain death. These highly trained warriors were among the best America had to offer, and they gave their best, no matter how high the price. . . .