Cover image for Don't die in bed : the brief, intense life of Richard Halliburton
Don't die in bed : the brief, intense life of Richard Halliburton
Title:
Don't die in bed : the brief, intense life of Richard Halliburton
Author:
Alt, John H.
Personal Author:
Edition:
1st ed.
Publication Information:
Atlanta, GA : Quincunx Press, 2013.
Physical Description:
xxiv, 377 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm
Summary:
"He knew many people who would not fit in the handy boxes society offered them. Paul Mooney sailed across the Pacific with him in a Chinese junk. Moye Stephens flew as a stunt pilot in Howard Hughes's silent movies. Elly Beinhorn was Germany's Amelia Earhart. Pancho Barnes founded the Happy Bottom Riding Club. He met history-makers like Lenin's widow and the man who shot the Czar and many others. Richard Halliburton was a maverick, a rebel, in an America coming of age in the world. He couldn't see himself fitting into that America, although he was very much its product with his can-do attitude and his things-will-get-better belief. For all that, he was a round peg with nothing but square holes awaiting him as he reached adulthood. He could not see things the way most people saw them. His parents wanted him to play by the rules, to live an even tenor, and he scorned the rules, especially the phrase "even tenor." He said no to their even tenor and in doing so he turned his back on an America that held those values. Despite having little respect for the rules, he became wildly successful because his life was wildly improbable as a travel-adventure writer. Because he dared, he became an icon of his era, more famous in his day than Amelia Earhart, with farmers' wives in Topeka, factory workers in Detroit, and newspaper boys in Cleveland buying his books." -- Book cover.
General Note:
"Chapters on Paul Mooney, Moye Stephens, Elly Beinhorn, & Pancho Barnes." -- t.p.
Language:
English
Contents:
Book one. The times & his family -- School days & the Battle Creek San -- Escaped -- Choosing a career -- Europe, 1921 -- The Rock of Gibralter -- The temptress moon -- What is it all about? -- Pirates -- In search of success -- Hollywood speaks -- Book two. Over the Himalayas -- And the locks opened -- Prelude to the Flying Carpet -- The Flying Carpet -- Elly Beinhorn meets Richard & Moye -- Lenin's widow & the man who shot the Romanovs -- Hangover house -- The seeds of a new adventure -- Sea Dragon -- Final voyage -- Epilogue -- Miscellany.
ISBN:
9780988623200
Format :
Book