Carradine, the son of a Shakespearean actor, traces his life from a disrupted childhood, through the Beat generation and the sixties to the television show "Kung Fu."

Starting in the 1950s, Americans eagerly built the planet’s largest public work: the 42,795-mile National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Before the concrete was dry on the new roads, however, a specter began haunting them—the highway killer. He went by many names: the “Hitcher,” the “Freeway Killer,” the “Killer on the Road,” the “I-5 Strangler,” and the “Beltway Sniper.” Some of these criminals were imagined, but many were real. The nation’s murder rate shot up as its expressways were built. America became more violent and more mobile at the same time. Killer on the Road tells the entwined stories of America’s highways and its highway killers. There’s the hot-rodding juvenile delinquent who led the National Guard on a multistate manhunt; the wannabe highway patrolman who murdered hitchhiking coeds; the record promoter who preyed on “ghetto kids” in a city reshaped by freeways; the nondescript married man who stalked the interstates seeking women with car trouble; and the trucker who delivered death with his cargo. Thudding away behind these grisly crime sprees is the story of the interstates—how they were sold, how they were built, how they reshaped the nation, and how we came to equate them with violence. Through the stories of highway killers, we see how the “killer on the road,” like the train robber, the gangster, and the mobster, entered the cast of American outlaws, and how the freeway—conceived as a road to utopia—came to be feared as a highway to hell.

The growth of highways in the U.S. during the early 20th century marked the beginning of an unprecedented American mobility. The democratic, open nature of the road redefined the American way of life and forever changed the way the average American perceives this country. This collection of original full-color photos and historical essays examines the landscape and roadside culture of America's great highways. 137 photos, 100 in color.

Take one man traveling down the highway. Imagine him without mercy. Call him the Traveler and fear him. Take five girls who open the door to chaos and watch them run. Put five kilos of heroin and a gun in their luggage. Call them the Sweet Nightmares and fear them. Take a father haunted by his past who never forgets a grudge. Call him the Kingpin and don’t go near him. All hurtle toward each other. Full of revenge, they have no idea that YOU are watching them. It’s a late-summer night in Berlin and notorious criminal Ragnar Desche isn’t too happy. He’s just found his brother, Oskar, dead, frozen stiff and sitting in his home next to a swimming pool full of marijuana plants. Someone’s flooded the pool and stolen a Range Rover, but what’s worse is that Ragnar’s huge cache of drugs is missing—and he’s going to want it back. Meanwhile, nearby, a group of teenage girls are out at the movies. Thinking about boys and worrying about acne, they notice that the prettiest member of their clique is missing. She hasn’t been seen for days, and the trouble she’s found herself in is about to set all of the girls on a collision course with the Desche gang and drag them into a fight for their lives—a fight that might turn out to be more evenly matched than it first appears. A gritty, pulsating, psychological thriller told through the eyes of an enormous cast of characters, You is an audacious and unpredictable combination of pulp, pluck, and revenge.

"Anyone who has ever driven on a U.S. interstate highway or eaten at an exit-ramp McDonald’s will come away from this book with a better understanding of what makes modern America what it is." – Chicago Tribune "A fascinating work... with a subject central to contemporary life but to which few, if any, have devoted so much thoughtful analysis and good humor." – Minneapolis Star-Tribune "Divided Highways is the best and most important book yet published about how asphalt and concrete have changed the United States. Quite simply, the Interstate Highway System is the longest and largest engineered structure in the history of the world, and it has enormously influenced every aspect of American life. Tom Lewis is an engaging prose stylist with a gift for the telling anecdote and appropriate example."—Kenneth T. Jackson, Harvard Design Magazine "Lewis provides a comprehensive and balanced examination of America’s century-long infatuation with the automobile and the insatiable demands for more and better road systems. He has written a sprightly and richly documented book on a vital subject."—Richard O. Davies, Journal of American History "Lewis describes in a convincing, lively, and well-documented narrative the evolution of America’s roadway system from one of the world’s worst road networks to its best."—John Pucher, Journal of the American Planning Association "This brightly written history of the U.S. federal highway program is like the annual report of a successful company that has had grim second thoughts. The first half recounts progress made, while the second suggests that the good news is not quite what it seems."—Publishers Weekly "Lewis is a very talented and engaging writer, and the tale he tells—the vision for the Interstates, Congressional battles, construction, and the impact of new highways on American life—is important to understanding the shape of the contemporary American landscape."—David Schuyler, Arthur and Katherine Shadek Professor of the Humanities and American Studies at Franklin & Marshall College, author of Sanctified Landscape: Writers, Artists, and the Hudson River Valley, 1820–1909 In Divided Highways, Tom Lewis offers an encompassing account of highway development in the United States. In the early twentieth century Congress created the Bureau of Public Roads to improve roads and the lives of rural Americans. The Bureau was the forerunner of the Interstate Highway System of 1956, which promoted a technocratic approach to modern road building sometimes at the expense of individual lives, regional characteristics, and the landscape. With thoughtful analysis and engaging prose Lewis charts the development of the Interstate system, including the demographic and economic pressures that influenced its planning and construction and the disputes that pitted individuals and local communities against engineers and federal administrators. This is a story of America’s hopes for its future life and the realities of its present condition. Originally published in 1997, this book is an engaging history of the people and policies that profoundly transformed the American landscape—and the daily lives of Americans. In this updated edition of Divided Highways, Lewis brings his story of the Interstate system up to date, concluding with Boston’s troubled and yet triumphant Big Dig project, the growing antipathy for big federal infrastructure projects, and the uncertain economics of highway projects both present and future.

In the sleepy suburb of Burbank, California, 15-year-old Jonathan Smith fights a lonely battle against the humiliation of his classmates. When his parents take in a quiet exchange student from Sweden in the summer, he has no idea that this will change his life forever. Jonathan discovers that Kira is not only intelligent, but also has unusual knowledge. The introverted Swede becomes his salvation and makes him the most popular student in the class. But their friendship is put to the test when Kira reveals that she is not human, but an artificial intelligence. Despite her initial mission, Kira develops emotional bonds with Jonathan... A gripping fantasy novel written by Elias J. Connor, set in near-futuristic America in the mid-21st century.