Ray Childs

In the Deep South of the 1950s, a color line was etched in blood across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross that line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man. What happened to John Howard Griffin, from the outside and within himself, as he made his way through the...

Every kid knows that pirates talk funny, swing a big sword, and seek buried treasure-don't they? What do we really know about Blackbeard, Madame Cheng, Sir Francis Drake, and other men and women of pirate history? What drove them to sail the high seas? What were their bad habits, favorite foods, and silly quirks? And did they actually talk like that? A lively style, lots of surprises, and solid research have made the Lives of... series of collective...