An enraged man abducts his estranged wife and child, holes upin a secluded mountain cabin, threatening to kill them both. Aright wing survivalist amasses a cache of weapons and resists callsto surrender. A drug trafficker barricades himself and his familyin a railroad car, and begins shooting. A cult leader in Waco,Texas faces the FBI in an armed stand-off that leaves many dead ina fiery blaze. A sniper, claiming to be God, terrorizes the DCmetropolitan area. For most of us, these are events we hear abouton the news. For Gary Noesner, head of the FBI’s groundbreakingCrisis Negotiation Unit, it was just another day on the job. In Stalling for Time, Noesner takes readers on a heart-poundingtour through many of the most famous hostage crises of the pastthirty years. Specially trained in non-violent confrontation andcommunication techniques, Noesner’s unit successfully defused manypotentially volatile standoffs, but perhaps their most hard-wonvictory was earning the recognition and respect of the
As he magnificently combines meticulous scholarship withirresistible narrative appeal, Richardson draws on his closefriendship with Picasso, his own diaries, the collaboration ofPicasso's widow Jacqueline, and unprecedented access to Picasso'sstudio and papers to arrive at a profound understanding of theartist and his work. 800 photos.
There is a superstition that if an emptied theater is ever leftcompletely dark, a ghost will take up residence. To prevent this, asingle "ghost light" is left burning at center stage after theaudience and all of the actors and musicians have gone home. FrankRich's eloquent and moving boyhood memoir reveals how theateritself became a ghost light and a beacon of security for a childfinding his way in a tumultuous world. Rich grew up in the small-townish Washington,D.C., of the 1950s and early '60s, a place where conformity seemedthe key to happiness for a young boy who always felt different.When Rich was seven years old, his parents separated--at a timewhen divorce was still tantamount to scandal--and thereafter he andhis younger sister were labeled "children from a broken home."Bouncing from school to school and increasingly lonely, Rich becameterrified of the dark and the uncertainty of his future. But therewas one thing in his life that made him sublimely happy: theBroadway theater. Rich's parents w
