Searching for a sense of his past, Ron Powers is drawn back to his hometown, sleepy Hannibal, MO, on the banks of the Mississippi River. When he returns to the town he left 25 years earlier, Powers finds Hannibal on a cultural collision course between its own modest, traditional past and the modern entrepreneurial schemes of the stylish young mayor. As it prepares for a sesquicentennial celebration for another former resident - Mark Twain - will Hannibal become a them-park parody of its remembered self?WHITE TOWN DROWSING is a warm, personal book about the conflict between our hometown reveries and the reality of modern Main Street.

White Town Drowsing

Powers, Ron

Literature & Fiction

Penguin??Books

A television critic offers, in twenty essays of current television criticism, his views on contemporary television consumption, remarking on such popular programs as "Thirtysomething"

The Beast, the Eunuch and the Glass-eyed Child: Television in the 80's

Humor & Entertainment

Television

Harcourt

Dangerous Water: A Biography Of The Boy Who Became Mark Twain

While Mark Twain remains one of our most quintessentially American writers, the actual boyhood experiences that fueled his most enduring literature remained largely unexplored—until now. Twain's early years were a decidedly un-innocent time, marked by deaths of friends and family and his father's bankruptcy. Twain dealt with those personal tragedies through humor and the tall tale. From the time that a ten-year-old Samuel Clemens lit out on his own and boarded his first Mississippi steamer to his first encounter with a traveling "mesmerizer" (which ignited his lifelong penchant for acting and spectacle), from the brooding sense of guilt and fear of eternal damnation inculcated into him at church to the superstitions and stories of witchcraft he learned from the blacks on his farm, Powers unforgettably shows how Mark Twain was shaped by the distinctly American landscape, culture, and people of Hannibal, Missouri. Jay Parini, the celebrated biographer of Robert Frost, called Dangerous Water "a long-needed evocation of the boyhood of the man who invented boyhood for all time. . . . An immensely shrewd and deeply engaging book, a great gift to all of us who love Twain."

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Da Capo

As the Confederacy felt itself slipping beneath the Union juggernaut in late 1864, the South launched a desperate counteroffensive to shatter the U.S. economy and force a standoff. Its secret weapon? A state-of-the-art raiding ship whose mission was to prowl the world’s oceans and sink the U.S. merchant fleet. The raider’s name was Shenandoah, and her executive officer was Conway Whittle, a twenty-four-year-old warrior who might have stepped from the pages of Arthurian legend. Whittle would share command with a dark and brooding veteran of the seas, Capt. James Waddell, and together with a crew of strays, misfits, and strangers, they would spend nearly a year sailing two-thirds of the way around the globe, destroying dozens of Union ships and taking more than a thousand prisoners, all while continually dodging the enemy. Then, in August of 1865, a British ship revealed the shocking truth to the men of Shenandoah: The war had been over for months, and they were now being hunted as pirates. What ensued was an incredible 15,000-mile journey to the one place the crew hoped to find sanctuary, only to discover that their fate would depend on how they answered a single question. Wondrously evocative and filled with drama and poignancy, Last Flag Down is a riveting story of courage, nobility, and rare comradeship forged in the quest to achieve the impossible.

Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship

Baldwin, John

Professionals & Academics

Crown

As the Confederacy felt itself slipping beneath the Union juggernaut in late 1864, the South launched a desperate counteroffensive to shatter the U.S. economy and force a standoff. Its secret weapon? A state-of-the-art raiding ship whose mission was to prowl the world’s oceans and sink the U.S. merchant fleet. The raider’s name was Shenandoah, and her executive officer was Conway Whittle, a twenty-four-year-old warrior who might have stepped from the pages of Arthurian legend. Whittle would share command with a dark and brooding veteran of the seas, Capt. James Waddell, and together with a crew of strays, misfits, and strangers, they would spend nearly a year sailing two-thirds of the way around the globe, destroying dozens of Union ships and taking more than a thousand prisoners, all while continually dodging the enemy.Then, in August of 1865, a British ship revealed the shocking truth to the men of Shenandoah: The war had been over for months, and they were now being hunted as pirates. What ensued was an incredible 15,000-mile journey to the one place the crew hoped to find sanctuary, only to discover that their fate would depend on how they answered a single question. Wondrously evocative and filled with drama and poignancy, Last Flag Down is a riveting story of courage, nobility, and rare comradeship forged in the quest to achieve the impossible.

Historical

Three Rivers Press

Ron Powers' hometown is Hannibal, Missouri, home of Mark Twain, and therefore birthplace of our image of boyhood itself. Powers returns to Hannibal to chronicle the horrific story of two killings, both committed by minors, and the trials that followed. Seamlessly weaving the narrative of the events in Hannibal with the national withering of the very concept of childhood, Powers exposes a fragmented adult society where children are left adrift, transforming isolation into violence. From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore is a powerful, disturbing, and eye-opening dispatch from the homefront that will take its place alongside the works of Antony Lucas, Robert Coles, and Tracy Kidder.

Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

St.Martin's Press

Ron Powers' hometown is Hannibal, Missouri, home of Mark Twain, and therefore birthplace of our image of boyhood itself. Powers returns to Hannibal to chronicle the horrific story of two killings, both committed by minors, and the trials that followed. Seamlessly weaving the narrative of the events in Hannibal with the national withering of the very concept of childhood, Powers exposes a fragmented adult society where children are left adrift, transforming isolation into violence. From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore is a powerful, disturbing, and eye-opening dispatch from the homefront that will take its place alongside the works of Antony Lucas, Robert Coles, and Tracy Kidder.

Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore: Childhood and Murder in the Heart of America

St. Martin's: Griffin

Network and local news was once considered by its purveyors to be a public service, and necessarily unprofitable. When it was discovered that the news center was actually a profit center of vast proportions, the nature of newscasting began to change. Ron Powers' brilliant and biting account details the decline and fall of American newscasting.

Newscasters

Reference

St Martin's, 1977

Newscasters: The News Business As Show Business

St Martins Pr

* Finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award * Washington Post Notable Book of the Year * People Magazine Best Book of the Year * Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year * "Extraordinary and courageous . . . No doubt if everyone were to read this book, the world would change."---New York Times Book Review New York Times-bestselling author Ron Powers offers a searching, richly researched narrative of the social history of mental illness in America paired with the deeply personal story of his two sons' battles with schizophrenia. From the centuries of torture of "lunatiks" at Bedlam Asylum to the infamous eugenics era to the follies of the anti-psychiatry movement to the current landscape in which too many families struggle alone to manage afflicted love ones, Powers limns our fears and myths about mental illness and the fractured public policies that have resulted. Braided with that history is the moving story of Powers's beloved son Kevin--spirited, endearing, and gifted--who triumphed even while suffering from schizophrenia until finally he did not, and the story of his courageous surviving son Dean, who is also schizophrenic. A blend of history, biography, memoir, and current affairs ending with a consideration of where we might go from here, this is a thought-provoking look at a dreaded illness that has long been misunderstood.

No One Cares About Crazy People

Self-Help

Death & Grief

Grand Central Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Powers, Ron. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Powers, Ron

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Powers, Ron. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

White Town Drowsing

The Beast, the Eunuch and the Glass-eyed Child: Television in the 80's

Dangerous Water: A Biography Of The Boy Who Became Mark Twain

Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship

Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship

Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore

Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore: Childhood and Murder in the Heart of America

Newscasters

Newscasters: The News Business As Show Business

No One Cares About Crazy People