Caroline Fraser - Böcker

Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls - the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains where 'as far as a man could go to the north in a day, or a week, or a whole month, there was nothing but woods. There were no houses'. Her books are beloved around the world. But the true story of her life has never been fully told. The Little House books were not only fictionalized but brilliantly edited, a profound act of myth-making and self-transformation. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser, the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series, masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder's biography, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books and uncovering the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life.Set against nearly a century of epochal change, from the Homestead Act and the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, Wilder's dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. Settling on the frontier amidst land-rush speculation, Wilder's family encountered Biblical tribulations of locusts and drought, fire and ruin. Deep in debt after a series of personal tragedies, including the loss of a child and her husband's stroke, Wilder uprooted herself again, crisscrossing the country and turning to menial work to support her family. In middle age, she began writing a farm advice column, prodded by her self-taught journalist daughter. And at the age of sixty, after losing nearly everything in the Depression, she turned to children's books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a triumphal vision of homesteading - and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches stories in American letters.Offering fresh insight and new discoveries about Wilder's life and times, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman who defined the American pioneer character, and whose artful blend of fact and fiction grips us to this day.

'Murderland reads like a true crime thriller' SUNDAY TIMES'Haunting, elegant and fiercely intelligent' OBSERVER'Lyrically luminescent' NEW YORK TIMESA terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond - from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Prairie FiresCaroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and 80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing?As Murderland indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem - the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson - Fraser's Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy's Tacoma, stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was only one among many that dotted the area. As Fraser's investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of western smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives, but also warped young minds, spawning a generation of serial killers. A propulsive non-fiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk.'I highly recommend it' R. F. KUANG, author of KATABASIS, OBSERVER'Compelling' LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS'Breathlessly propulsive . . . Fraser's prose is lyrical, elegiac' JOYCE CAROL OATES, NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS'Extraordinarily well-written and genre-defying . . . a moody masterpiece' NEW YORKER 'A powerful plea' FINANCIAL TIMES'Compelling, beautifully written . . . at heart, a cry of outrage' WASHINGTON POST'Wonderfully propulsive and hard to put down' ATLANTIC'Brooding and often brave' BOSTON GLOBE'Not to be missed' CHICAGO TRIBUNE'Sharp, incandescent' SEATTLE TIMES'A great writer can make art of the most grotesque material, and Fraser does' WALL STREET JOURNAL

'Murderland reads like a true crime thriller' SUNDAY TIMES'I highly recommend it' R. F. KUANG, author of YELLOWFACE, OBSERVERCaroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial killer in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and 80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise of an epidemic of serial murderers?As Murderland maps the lives of Bundy and his infamous peers - the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, Charles Manson - Fraser begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy's hometown stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper and arsenic smelters in the world. And it was only one among many that dotted the area.Gradually, evidence mounts that the plumes of western smelters not only sickened millions but also warped young minds - potentially spawning a generation of serial killers.'Haunting, elegant and fiercely intelligent' OBSERVER'Lyrically luminescent' NEW YORK TIMES'Breathlessly propulsive . . . Fraser's prose is lyrical, elegiac' JOYCE CAROL OATES, NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

'Murderland reads like a true crime thriller' SUNDAY TIMES'Haunting, elegant and fiercely intelligent' OBSERVER'Lyrically luminescent' NEW YORK TIMESA terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond - from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Prairie FiresCaroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and 80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing?As Murderland indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem - the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson - Fraser's Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy's Tacoma, stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was only one among many that dotted the area. As Fraser's investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of western smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives, but also warped young minds, spawning a generation of serial killers. A propulsive non-fiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk.'I highly recommend it' R. F. KUANG, author of KATABASIS, OBSERVER'Compelling' LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS'Breathlessly propulsive . . . Fraser's prose is lyrical, elegiac' JOYCE CAROL OATES, NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS'Extraordinarily well-written and genre-defying . . . a moody masterpiece' NEW YORKER 'A powerful plea' FINANCIAL TIMES'Compelling, beautifully written . . . at heart, a cry of outrage' WASHINGTON POST'Wonderfully propulsive and hard to put down' ATLANTIC'Brooding and often brave' BOSTON GLOBE'Not to be missed' CHICAGO TRIBUNE'Sharp, incandescent' SEATTLE TIMES'A great writer can make art of the most grotesque material, and Fraser does' WALL STREET JOURNAL

The mass media in different countries reflects dominant concerns of contemporary societies. Ideas of `environmentalism' are often broad and imprecise, holding neither meaning nor currency.Environmentalism and Mass Media sheds new light on the diverse ideas of `environmentalism', the way environmental ideas circulate, and public reaction to environmental concerns conveyed by the media. Drawing on unique interviews with journalists, media pictures, and public opinion surveys in both UK and India, the authors outline the differing cultural, religious and political contexts against which `world views' form present a fascinating picture between North and South.Mass media and communication technology is in danger of locking Northern countries into a ghetto of environmental self-deception, thereby perpetuating poverty in the South. The South's goal remains the attainment of development; the North sees `environmental' problems occuring `elsewhere' - in Eastern Europe and developing countries. Whether or not `environmentalism' becomes a universal cause depends on how and to what extent such sharply contrasting world views can converge.

The mass media in different countries reflects dominant concerns of contemporary societies. Ideas of `environmentalism' are often broad and imprecise, holding neither meaning nor currency.Environmentalism and Mass Media sheds new light on the diverse ideas of `environmentalism', the way environmental ideas circulate, and public reaction to environmental concerns conveyed by the media. Drawing on unique interviews with journalists, media pictures, and public opinion surveys in both UK and India, the authors outline the differing cultural, religious and political contexts against which `world views' form present a fascinating picture between North and South.Mass media and communication technology is in danger of locking Northern countries into a ghetto of environmental self-deception, thereby perpetuating poverty in the South. The South's goal remains the attainment of development; the North sees `environmental' problems occuring `elsewhere' - in Eastern Europe and developing countries. Whether or not `environmentalism' becomes a universal cause depends on how and to what extent such sharply contrasting world views can converge.