Sir James George Scott was born in Scotland in 1851. He attended King's College School and Lincoln College, though he did not complete his education due to insufficient funds. He worked as a journalist, covering the goings on in Colonial Burma. He also worked as a teacher in Burma during this period. When the British officially annexed Upper Burma, he was invited to join the Burma Commission. He was also knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE) in November 1901. He also hacked his way through the jungle in order to bring outlying Shan States under British control. In his conquest and travels, he did wind up teaching the local inhabitants about soccer, which is where the cover image comes from.

I am trying so hard to go through my shelves and review things I have read while I am on my library downsizing project. If you are following my reviews, I am sorry for flooding your timeline with reviews. =/ Anyway, I bought this book at the library sale, simply because I had never heard of this subject. The author did a great job researching Scott's activities and personal papers. He even went to Burma and retraced some of his routes. I thought the research was wonderfully done. The way the author told Scott's story, mixed with the history of British Colonialism in Burma, was really well done. 

 I used to watch Leah on King of Queens. I was really excited when this book came out, because I was just curious. I didn't really know very much about Scientology, and this was the first book that I got on the subject. Reading about her mom getting her into Scientology was interesting. I wonder how many kids get brought up in cults thanks to the membership of their parents. It amazes me that people buy into things like this and spend so much money. They just really get brainwashed, though I dislike using that term. I looked up how many other celebrities are publicly involved in Scientology and was shocked by some of the familiar names. I thought this book was eye opening, and Leah is a very outspoken critic of the Church of Scientology now. Her show was very, very good. 

 The first book by Carolyn Jessop, Escape, was very good. I had high hopes for this book. I was not disappointed. In this book, Carolyn explains what really happened during the 2008 raid. There was a lot of information floating around in the media, but you can't really buy into everything that you see in the news when it is such a sensational case. To see how much she has grown and changed since leaving the FLDS and her ex-husband, Merrill Jessop, was amazing. I am so proud of her for coming into her own and finding herself. I hope she continues to be an advocate for all those who are abused by the FLDS. 

 Gavrilo Princip was born in 1894 in Bosnia. He was Serbian, which is a Southern Slavic ethnic group. His parents had nine children, he was number two, but six died in infancy. In 1908, the Austro-Hungarian empire annexed the slavic states. A lot of student groups were formed in the wake of that in these states, including Bosnia, that promoted nationalism and anti-imperialism. Princip was exposed to these groups and ideals, as well as communist and anarchist writings. He joined the group Young Bosnia. He attended a demonstration against Hungary in 1912 that ended up with him getting roughed up. He threatened other students at school who were unwilling to participate in the demonstrations against Hungary, and all those shenanagins caused him to get expelled from school. He traveled around a little bit, landing in Belgrade, where he discovered that Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Duchess Sophie, would be in Bosnia. He made the decision to lead a group to assassinate them. Princip shot the Duchess in the abdomen and the Archduke in the neck. He then swallowed some cyanide pills, but they did not kill him. He was arrested and tried for his crimes, but was too young to be executed. Instead, he was chained to the wall of the prison, where he suffered from tuberculosis and generally horrible conditions.

I can understand why people in countries that are invaded and taken over have negative feelings. Most of the time, it is a negative experience. I think it is a shame that they tried to bury him an an undisclosed, unmarked grave because they were worried his bones would be made into a shrine for those who were anti-imperialist. There are several historical markers and monuments, and his body was recovered and properly buried. Of course, the impact of his assassinations were felt all over the world and involved more aspects than just the annexation of slavic states. This is a good book for those interested in the start of World War I. I really enjoyed it. 

 This book covers the deadly fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York. On March 25, 1911. At the end of the work day, as people were getting ready to leave, a fire was discovered to have broken out on the 8th Floor of the Asche Building. (This building is still standing, and has since been renamed the Brown Building.) The fire consumed the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building, where the factory was located. There were about 500 people employed with this company, though not all were present at the time of the fire. A lot of the employees were women, and a lot of those women were Jewish and Italian immigrants. The fire marshal determined the fire was caused by someone smoking inside the cutting room, and throwing a still lit cigarette into a bin of scrap fabric. (There is some speculation that it was deliberate for insurance purposes, as shirtwaists were going out of style. There is also speculation that it could have been caused by the hot motors of the sewing machines.)

There are some striking things that stood out to me. The first is that someone on the street pulled a fire alarm box to alert the fire department. I keep forgetting that fire boxes were a thing, because I was born in the 911 era and I take that for granted, I suppose. The owners of the building had many of the doors locked, so that workers could be herded through a small exit to be searched for stolen fabric scraps. I understand that people steal from work, but in hindsight that was such an unsafe and horrible thing to do. High rise building were a thing, but ladders on fire trucks couldn't reach higher than the 7th floor, which is not where the fire was. It seems like that would be a thing that fire departments and building owners would have thought about? The fact that the builders were allowed to throw up a cheap, rickety, tiny fire escape that was essentially useless instead of a third stairwell exit was gross.

123 women and girls and 23 men died in this fire. Many were suffocated. Many were burned, charred beyond recognition. Some died as a result of jumping out of the windows in an attempt to escape the flames. I cannot imagine having to make the decision to jump from 8-10 floors up or die in the flames. What a horrible way to die. Two of the girls were only 14 years old. Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, the owners of the company, were brought up on manslaughter charges, to no avail. (Eventually, they were held responsible in a civil suit.) In fact, they cashed in pretty big on the insurance payoff. (Later on, Max was arrested and fined for locking the doors during work hours at another company.) Other people should have been held responsible- the building owner, for one. The politicians who allowed stuff like this to go on because people slid money into their hands. The whole thing was just gross and could have been avoided, or at least cost way less lives.

Another thing this book covered was the working conditions for people, especially women, during this time. It talks about strikes and the creation of labor unions, which was very interesting to me. It also mentioned the conditions of the tenement buildings that these people often lived in, and that is a whole other disgusting issue. Overall, this was a very good book. 

 This book is an insightful look into the crimes of passion in the late 1800s, early 1900s era. It features an interesting look into what was considered insanity. There are cases featured from France, America, and Britain, and it is very interesting to see how the same types of situations were handled by different justice systems. I have heard pretty good things about this author, and, based on this book, I hope to read more by her. 

 This book is about the Ski Mask Rapist, Gilbert Escobedo, who was active in the 1980's in the state of Texas. Howard Swindle did a fair amount of research and presented the facts of the case in a manner that was engaging and easy to follow. Escobedo was involved in plenty of crimes as a young person, and gradually kept up with a series of them. This book examines his life as well as his mindset. It is really interesting to try to figure out what motivates people to commit something like 100 rapes. It is especially interesting to me to note that he was fairly successful in business and in his long term relationships, yet managed to be this terrible person. Just vile. 

 This book features broad overviews of the wild activities of some notable historical figures. It was a very entertaining book. 

 I thought this book would be awesome. It had been to my to buy list for a long time, but I found it on Audible included for free with my subscription. I am glad I didn't buy this. I did not like this book at all. Maybe it would be a better read from a physical book. The story seemed like it would be a very interesting one, but I was bored out of my mind. I thought I would never get through with it. I am glad that I finally finished it, but I wouldn't recommend this one. Other people seemed to have liked it much more than I did though. 

 This book discusses the case of Dr. Bart Corbin, a successful dentist in Georgia, and the murder of his wife. Bart and Jennifer had a pretty quick romance, marrying when Jennifer discovered she was pregnant with Bart's child. They wound up having another child and moving into a bigger house. Jennifer was very active in her children's school lives and their extracurricular activities. Bart's success allowed her to stay home and care for her children, while also being able to live in a nice home in a nice neighborhood. Home life with Bart wasn't ideal. He was verbally abusive to the children, and behaved oddly with Jennifer. He was also involved in an affair with his receptionist. Jennifer began spending a lot of time online, which threw gasoline on the fire of their marriage.

This book had an extraordinary amount of twists and turns. We have affairs, online games, catfishing, murder. There was an insane amount of stuff going on in this household. It's pretty bad when the nonsense spills over into the children. When the children go to school and tell people they are afraid for their mothers lives, it is unreal. As far as the book goes, the case was detailed to extreme detail. It was a lot of information to take in, and it was not one that I sat down and read all at one time. Despite all the wild turns this book took, I had to pace myself. I would highly recommend this one...this case was something else.