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"Jeff Kuhn survived the unthinkable: burns on over 80 percent of his body and a rare neurological muscular disease. Despite it all, Jeff found the courage to keep moving on. In Blue Sky Lightning, he shares his unbelievable journey through trauma and what those experiences taught him. You are not alone. Your mental fortitude is stronger than you think. Small victories make huge differences. Unconditional love lives in unexpected places (sometimes, even in non-human hearts). And, as long as the odds are not zero, you can win. Blue Sky Lightning is a beacon of hope for the hopeless, a call to share your own inspiring story, and proof that anyone can overcome even the most dire catastrophies." -- back cover.
An instant New York Times bestseller, this prequel to the acclaimed Cork O’Connor series is “a pitch perfect, richly imagined story that is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and an evocative, emotionally charged coming-of-age tale” (Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author) about fathers and sons, small-town conflicts, and the events that shape our lives forever. Aurora is a small town nestled in the ancient forest alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to twelve-year-old Cork O’Connor, its rhythms as familiar as his own heartbeat. But when Cork stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, it is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family, and himself. Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is Aurora’s sheriff and it is his job to confirm that the man’s death was the result of suicide, as all the evidence suggests. In the shadow of his father’s official investigation, Cork begins to look for answers on his own. Together, father and son face the ultimate test of choosing between what their heads tell them is true and what their hearts know is right. In this “brilliant achievement, and one every crime reader and writer needs to celebrate” (Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author), beloved novelist William Kent Krueger shows that some mysteries can be solved even as others surpass our understanding.
This "utterly spectacular" book weighs the impact modern medical technology has had on the author's life against the social and environmental costs inevitably incurred by the mining that makes such innovation possible (Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises). What if a lifesaving medical device causes loss of life along its supply chain? That's the question Katherine E. Standefer finds herself asking one night after being suddenly shocked by her implanted cardiac defibrillator. In this gripping, intimate memoir about health, illness, and the invisible reverberating effects of our medical system, Standefer recounts the astonishing true story of the rare diagnosis that upended her rugged life in the mountains of Wyoming and sent her tumbling into a fraught maze of cardiology units, dramatic surgeries, and slow, painful recoveries. As her life increasingly comes to revolve around the internal defibrillator freshly wired into her heart, she becomes consumed with questions about the supply chain that allows such an ostensibly miraculous device to exist. So she sets out to trace its materials back to their roots. From the sterile labs of a medical device manufacturer in southern California to the tantalum and tin mines seized by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a nickel and cobalt mine carved out of endemic Madagascar jungle, Lightning Flowers takes us on a global reckoning with the social and environmental costs of a technology that promises to be lifesaving but is, in fact, much more complicated. Deeply personal and sharply reported, Lightning Flowers takes a hard look at technological mythos, healthcare, and our cultural relationship to medical technology, raising important questions about our obligations to one another, and the cost of saving one life.
From the author of "A Wall of White," the thrilling account of a spectacular mountain rescue after six climbers are struck by lightning in the Upper Exum Ridge of the Grand Teton near a 13,000-foot elevation.
The odds of being hit by lightning each year are only about 1 in 750,000 in the U.S. And yet this rare phenomenon has inspired both fear and fascination for thousands of years. In this groundbreaking, brilliantly researched book, journalist John S. Friedman probes lightning’s scientific, spiritual, and cultural roots. Blending vibrant history with riveting first-hand accounts of those who have clashed with lightning and lived to tell about it, Out of the Blue charts an extraordinary journey across the ages that explores our awe and dread in the face of one of nature’s most fearsome spectacles. Herman Melville called it “God’s burning finger.” The ancient Romans feared it as the wrath of God. Today we have a more scientific understanding, so why our eternal fascination with lightning? Out of the Blue attempts to understand this towering force of nature, exploring the changing perceptions of lightning from the earliest civilizations through Ben Franklin’s revolutionary experiments to the hair-raising adventures of storm chasers like David Hoadley, who’s been chronicling extreme weather for half a century. And Friedman describes one of the most treacherous rescues ever attempted in American mountain climbing. Friedman profiles a Virginia ranger who was struck by lightning seven times—and dubbed the human lightning rod—along with scores of others who tell astonishing tales of rescue and survival. And he charts lightning’s profound, life-altering effects on the emotional and spiritual lives of its victims. Combining captivating fact with thrilling personal stories, Out of the Blue tells a remarkable true tale of fate and coincidence, discovery and divine retribution, science and superstition. As entertaining as it is informative, it is a book for outdoor adventurers, sports enthusiasts, science and weather buffs, nature lovers, and anyone who has ever been awed or frightened by the sight of lightning. From the Hardcover edition.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz’s brilliantly thrilling novel of suspense. In the midst of a raging blizzard, lightning struck on the night Laura Shane was born. And a mysterious blond-haired stranger showed up just in time to save her from dying. Years later, in the wake of another storm, Laura will be saved again. For someone is watching over her. Is he the guardian angel he seems? The devil in disguise? Or the master of a haunting destiny beyond all time and space? “A gripping novel…fast-paced and satisfying.”—People
Lighting for Animation is designed with one goal in mind - to make you a better artist. Over the course of the book, Jasmine Katatikarn and Michael Tanzillo (Senior Lighting TDs, Blue Sky Studios) will train your eye to analyze your work more critically, and teach you approaches and techniques to improve your craft. Focusing on the main philosophies and core concepts utilized by industry professionals, this book builds the foundation for a successful career as a lighting artist in visual effects and computer animation. Inside you’ll find in-depth instruction on: • Creating mood and storytelling through lighting • Using light to create visual shaping • Directing the viewer’s eye with light and color • Gathering and utilizing reference images • Successfully lighting and rendering workflows • Render layers and how they can be used most effectively • Specific lighting scenarios, including character lighting, environment lighting, and lighting an animated sequence • Material properties and their work with lighting • Compositing techniques essential for a lighter • A guide on how to start your career and achieve success as a lighting artist This book is not designed to teach software packages—there are websites, instructional manuals, online demos, and traditional courses available to teach you how to operate specific computer programs. That type of training will teach you how to create an image; this book will teach you the technical skills you need to make that image beautiful. Key Features Stunning examples from a variety of films serve to inspire and inform your creative choices. Unique approach focuses on using lighting as a storytelling tool, rather than just telling you which buttons to press. Comprehensive companion website contains lighting exercises, assets, challenges, and further resources to help you expand your skillset.
It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air. When at last the wreckage had been sifted and the hospital triage units consulted, twenty-one people were declared dead and dozens more injured. But as it turned out, this was just a prelude to the devastation that was to come. In American Lightning, acclaimed author Howard Blum masterfully evokes the incredible circumstances that led to the original “crime of the century”—and an aftermath more dramatic than even the crime itself. With smoke still wafting up from the charred ruins, the city’s mayor reacts with undisguised excitement when he learns of the arrival, only that morning, of America’s greatest detective, William J. Burns, a former Secret Service man who has been likened to Sherlock Holmes. Surely Burns, already world famous for cracking unsolvable crimes and for his elaborate disguises, can run the perpetrators to ground. Through the work of many months, snowbound stakeouts, and brilliant forensic sleuthing, the great investigator finally identifies the men he believes are responsible for so much destruction. Stunningly, Burns accuses the men—labor activists with an apparent grudge against the Los Angeles Times’s fiercely anti-union owner—of not just one heinous deed but of being part of a terror wave involving hundreds of bombings. While preparation is laid for America’s highest profile trial ever—and the forces of labor and capital wage hand-to-hand combat in the streets—two other notable figures are swept into the drama: industry-shaping filmmaker D.W. Griffith, who perceives in these events the possibility of great art and who will go on to alchemize his observations into the landmark film The Birth of a Nation; and crusading lawyer Clarence Darrow, committed to lend his eloquence to the defendants, though he will be driven to thoughts of suicide before events have fully played out. Simultaneously offering the absorbing reading experience of a can’t-put-it-down thriller and the perception-altering resonance of a story whose reverberations continue even today, American Lightning is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction.
Ben Franklin was the most famous American in the entire world during colonial times. No wonder! After all, the man could do just about anything. Why, he was an author and an athlete and a patriot and a scientist and an inventor to boot. He even found a way to steal the lightning right out of the sky. Is such a thing possible? Is it. Take a look inside and find Ben busy at work on every spread. Then find out how he used his discovery about lightning to make people's lives safer. In an inventive way, Rosalyn Schanzer brings us a brilliant and ever-curious American original.