Akron Public Library

A Detroit sportswriter conveys the wisdom and life lessons of his late mentor, professor Morrie Schwartz.

"A masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer-- the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade-- from Michelle McNamara, the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case. For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding...

"On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold...

"Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, with a highly regarded state university, bucolic surroundings, a lively social scene, and an excellent football team, the Grizzlies, with a rabid fan base. The Department of Justice investigated 350 sexual assaults reported to the Missoula police between January 2008 and May 2012. Few of these assaults were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical....

Who Hasn't Gazed upon the abandoned temples of Angkor Wat or the jungle-choked cities of the Maya and wondered, could the same fate happen to us? In this riveting book, Jared Diamond--whose Guns, Germs, and Steel revolutionized our understanding of history--explores how humankind's use and abuse of the environment reveal the truth behind the world's great collapses, from the Anasazi of North America to the Vikings of Greenland to modern Montana. What...

A compilation of real-life crime stories includes the tales of a counterfeit priest, a serial rapist, a victim burned beyond recognition, and a con artist whose activities lead to murder.

Historian Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius, as the one-term congressman rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals to become president. On May 18, 1860, everyone waited for the results from the Republican National Convention. Lincoln won, Goodwin demonstrates, because of his extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men. It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents...

"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Signal and the Noise, the definitive guide to our era of risk--and the players raising the stakes In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates "The River," or those whose mastery of risk allows them to shape-and dominate-so much of modern life. These professional risk...

Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen murdered his wife and tried to escape London on a ship to America in the early twentieth century. He was caught in part due to the new invention of the wireless by Guglielmo Marconi, which was used on the ship. Larson draws from letters, memoirs, Scotland Yard reports, and other documents in telling the story and filling in its historical context of the Edwardian era.

"In Deep Survival, Laurence Gonzales pulls readers to the boundary region between life and death, where they peer into the hearts, minds, and souls of those who have survived seemingly impossible situations and those who have given in to death. Through careful dissection of case studies, he illuminates the essence of the true survivor - the internal battles that are waged between fear and hope, reason and emotion, despair and correct action." "He...