I was first introduced to Harold Schechter by a podcast (The Last Podcast On The Left) that I listen to. They have cited a couple of his other books in some of their episodes, and I enjoyed his writing and how well researched the books were. I just got this book a few days ago on Audible, and it was a fairly short one. I think it was around four hours. This book details the town of Bath, Michigan, which I had never heard of until this book, and some of the inhabitants. One of the inhabitants, Andrew Kehoe, was a real character. He eventually orchestrated a plan to blow up the new, modern primary school in hopes to destroy the school and all of the students and faculty. The amount of damage he inflicted was amazing to me. I had never heard of this disaster, and looked up images of the aftermath. This was a very interesting and educational book. I really enjoyed it and would recommend. 

 Charles Manson was born in 1934 to his fifteen year old mother in Ohio. She had filed a paternity suit against Colonel Walker Henderson Scott Sr in Kentucky in 1937, where she received judgment in the affirmative. He was not actually a Colonel in the military, that was just his name, and he was known to be a con artist. He was also entirely too old to be having sex with a fifteen year old girl. He was born in 1910, she in 1919, so he was already nine years older than her from the word go. Charlie stayed with relatives and babysitters while his mother was out drinking or incarcerated. He got into all kinds of shenanagins as a child, including setting fires at school, theft, skipping school, etc. He was sent to a Catholic school for troubled boys, where he was beaten. He ran away, was returned, and ran away again. He was sent to prison, where he also got into shenanagins, before getting out to start his cult. He targeted people who were insecure and felt ostracized. They did a lot of drugs, including LSD, during which time he spewed his principals at them and essentially brainwashed them. He was really into the idea of a race war, and the cult really should be classified as a doomsday cult for that reason. He was sure that this race war would end civil society, though he wasn't really part of civilized society. Of course, most people know about the murders he keyed his cult members up to commit, and the trials and imprisonments afterwards, so I won't mention much about it other than to say that they were really awful and I feel terrible for their families. (Not really so for Roman Polanski who is a creep in his own right.) I've followed his story though the years, and all his shenanagins and girlfriends in prison, as well as his death. I have also been aware of his followers bids for parole. The whole story is crazy.

I read this book a while back, and I have no idea why I didn't mark it as read or review it. I have found several books like this while working on my downsizing project for my move, and I am trying to catch myself up on my comments and ratings. If you happen to follow me or are my friend on here, sorry for flooding your feed with my past due reviews, haha. Anyway, I really like Jeff Guinn and his work, so I assumed that I would like this book as well. I did. I did not learn a lot of new information, because I have read pretty extensively on Charles Manson and The Family. It was nice to refresh my factual knowledge. The book is well researched and comprehensive, so if you are looking for a good, informative book about Charlie and his followers, this is a good selection. 

 This book covers the experience of John Henry Patterson, the author, while he was supervising the construction of a railroad bridge in 1898. The book was published in 1907, so not too far removed from the actual events. There is a film about the events described that feature Val Kilmer, and I think it may be more exciting to watch than this book was to read, which is not something I often say. The book did have pictures, which I always appreciate, of the bridge, area, and lions. It has been suggested by other reviews that there are pretty grim descriptions of some of the victims, and this book downplays what happened to them and is less grim that other accounts. The attacks wound up stopping construction of the railway bridge, which was not acceptable, and more people were sent to resolve the lion issue. Ultimately, the lions were killed by the author, which caused his claim to fame.

The lions themselves were a pair of male lions from the Tsavo region in Kenya. One of the most interesting things about the lions, to me, was that they did not have manes. I never realized that male lions could have skimpy manes or no manes at all, probably because all of the ones I have ever seen in zoos or on television have the large manes that people associate with lions. The lions stalked the railroad workers camp and snatched people and mauled them to death, which went on for nine months. They did also go into other areas nearby to snatch people. At first, they would only hunt alone, but they did wind up snatching people together. One lion was called The Ghost, and was 9 feet long and 3 feet high. It took eight men to carry the body back to camp. The other lion was called The Darkness, and was also 9 feet long and 3 feet high. This lion was shot about six times. The lions killed over 100 people, and that is a low estimate.

I bought this book for twenty five cents a long time ago. This is for the hardback version, but my copy is a paperback. It has fewer pages than what is listed here. I am working through all of my short books so I can downsize. This was not the most interesting book that I have read in a while, and I was slightly disappointed by how boring it was. I thought that the subject matter was interesting, especially since I had never heard of this incident and I usually enjoy a good morbid book...it just didn't do it for me. One thing that I found really interesting is that you can view these lions. The author had used the skins for floor rugs for twenty five years, so they were in poor condition. (I think that is an extremely tacky way to display skins, but whatever.) He sold them to the Field Museum of Natural History for $5,000. They were reconstructed and put on display, along with their skulls. If you happen to be in Chicago, there is a point of interest for you to visit. 

 Harold Schechter was an author that I got interested in because a couple of his books were on The Last Podcast On The Left reading list. I really enjoy his work, and this one was no exception. The only complaint that I have is that is was a little tedious in comparison to the others I have read. I am not sure why I feel this way, but I do. This book featured the crimes of Alfred Packer, who went into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to do some prospecting with five other men. He was the only one who made his way back to town alive. His story was that they had ran out of food, and began eating each other, with him ultimately killing the last surviving man in self defense and eating him. There have been many instances where this type of cannibalism has occurred, but there was something about his tale that seemed off to many people. It was interesting to see how they finally brought him to trial and the outcome of it. I would recommend this book, though I do like other works by this author better. 

 This is the story of Denis Avey, a prisoner of war in a British prisoner of war camp. The camp was located near Auschwitz III (Buna-Monowitz). He and a Jewish inmate at Auschwitz III made a plan to switch places so that he could experience what Auschwitz III was really like. He had heard about the brutality and conditions in the camp, and wanted to experience it for himself so he could let people know. I thought this was a book that showed incredible bravery. This was a very good book, and I highly recommend it. 

 This book is about Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno. Bonanno was born in Sicily, came to the United States illegally, and made a fortune with whiskey during Prohibition. He became a Don in the Organized Crime syndicate at the age of twenty six. He was involved in a lot of bloody dealings, and gave a lot of details about how the Five Families did business. I thought this book was very interesting, and I enjoyed it tremendously. 

 This book is about a victim of the attacks on 9/11, his widow, and her new husband. I want to start by saying that I cannot imagine how hard it was for surviving significant others to move on with their lives and think about being in another relationship. I can also not imagine how hard it must be to love someone who has lost someone they love, especially in such a tragic way as that. I honestly hope their relationship is a lasting one and that they remain happy together. Aside from that, I wasn't terribly crazy about this book. It was so drawn out. It seemed like one of those two or three page stories you would read in the People magazine, but stretched as thin as it would go to make a small book. I felt like that was really unnecessary. 

 I was looking forward to this book so much, and I was not disappointed at all. This was a really informative look at what life was like working aboard the massive ocean liners of yesteryear. This wasn't easy, and I wonder how it compares to modern day cruise ship work. Women of all walks of life found themselves crossing the sea for various reasons. All kinds of people would be thrown in together, and they would never know who they may wind up meeting. The ocean liners were magnificent. I have been to the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and that small glimpse of what the ship was like was breathtaking. I would have loved to travel on one of those great liners. Anyone interested in women's history or oceanic material would like and benefit from this book. 

 Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was born in 1819 in Germany. He married his first cousin, Victoria. Victoria became Queen of Ireland and Great Britain in 1837. Together, they had nine children. He struggled with the role of consort, because he did not have political power or run his household. He got involved in a lot of public things. He was President of the Society for the Extinction of Slavery. He managed to modernize the finances of the royal family, designed their home and landscaping, and had a great deal to do with their children. He also supported raising the working age to end child labor. Despite his lack of political power, he had a lot of influence with Queen Victoria. She valued his opinions and absolutely adored him. He had been complaining of stomach pain for at least two years before his death. It is very likely that he had some manner of cancer, Crohn's Disease, or something similar, though he was diagnosed as having typhoid fever and dying from that.

Queen Victoria never got over his death. She blamed it on her son, who Albert had last went to see to tell him to cut the shenanagins and stop having illicit romances, as though she had never noticed he was ill before then. She wore black mourning clothes for the rest of her life. She kept his rooms exactly as he left them. She insisted that his sheets were changed, hot water and fresh towels were brought in daily, and his clothes were sorted. She absolutely adored Albert, and her personality changed so much once he died. She withdrew from public life and began comfort eating, gaining quite a lot of weight. Because she stopped doing public appearances unless absolutely vital, public opinion of the royal family started to decrease.

Both Albert and Victoria had really interesting wives, and their children certainly did as well. I think everyone can see how much she adored him and how disturbed she was by his death. This book paints a detailed picture of their marriage and her feelings about his death. I never really thought about how his death impacted public opinion or her actions and policies for the remainder of her reign. Helen Rappaport is a great historian of the Victorian Era, and I also really enjoy her work about the Russian monarchy. Pick this book up, it is worth the read. 

 Magda Goebbels, the wife of Joseph Goebbels, was a very interesting character. She is certainly the most interesting out of the Nazi wives. She was known as the First Lady of the Reich, and it was amazing to learn about her past...especially the past in which she was in love with a leader of the Zionist movement. I never knew a lot about her until I read this book, and I was very pleased with the amount of information that it included.