The Dream King is the astonishing true story of two men whose lives are woven together by history and the hidden hand of God. - Learn about the nation's hidden history and the unknown heroes who overcame injustice. - Discover how your life is an important part of a much bigger story. - Be equipped to be a countercultural dreamer and change the world around you.

The most intimate look yet into the life and mind of the bestselling author and creator of The Sandman. Neil Gaiman is one of the most successful and versatile writers working today. He has become renowned not only for the consistently high quality of his writing but for his mastery of many media. He is an award-winning comic book writer (Sandman), novelist (American Gods), children's book author (The Wolves in the Walls), and television screenwriter (Neverwhere). Yet with all the fans hungry to know more about his work, there has not yet been a single major nonfiction book covering Gaiman's entire creative output. Until now. Hanging Out With the Dream King: Conversations With Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators presents a thorough look at Gaiman's work not only through his eyes, but through the eyes of his many collaborators. Artists, writers, editors, musicians—over two-dozen creators share their thoughts on working with Gaiman and present a unique mosaic portrait of the writer whose name has become synonymous with modern fantasy. Although the book's scope is not limited to Gaiman's best-selling comic book creationThe Sandman, Hanging Out With the Dream King features comprehensive interviews with all of the major Sandman artists, including Charles Vess, P. Craig Russell, Bryan Talbot, and Jill Thompson, as well as well as rare and exclusive interviews with Sandman co-creators Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg. And, much as Gaiman has done throughout his career, Hanging Out With the Dream King breaks down the walls of media and genre, presenting those who may have discovered the writer's work through one storytelling medium with doors through which they may find his other prodigious creations. Thus, admirers of Gaiman's children's books with Dave McKean will discover his adult work with Gene Wolfe and Terry Pratchett; fans of his novels will discover his comics; and everyone will have the chance to meet Gaiman's folk-rock bands—the Flash Girls and Folk Underground. Musicians Alice Cooper and Tori Amos are also interviewed.

“Sundquist’s careful, thoughtful study unearths new and fascinating evidence of the rhetorical traditions in King’s speech.”—Drew D. Hansen, author of The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech That Inspired a Nation “I have a dream”—no words are more widely recognized, or more often repeated, than those called out from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1963. King’s speech, elegantly structured and commanding in tone, has become shorthand not only for his own life but for the entire civil rights movement. In this new exploration of the “I Have a Dream” speech, Eric J. Sundquist places it in the history of American debates about racial justice—debates as old as the nation itself—and demonstrates how the speech, an exultant blend of grand poetry and powerful elocution, perfectly expressed the story of African American freedom. This book is the first to set King’s speech within the cultural and rhetorical traditions on which the civil rights leader drew in crafting his oratory, as well as its essential historical contexts, from the early days of the republic through present-day Supreme Court rulings. At a time when the meaning of the speech has been obscured by its appropriation for every conceivable cause, Sundquist clarifies the transformative power of King’s “Second Emancipation Proclamation” and its continuing relevance for contemporary arguments about equality. “The [‘I Have a Dream’] speech and all that surrounds it—background and consequences—are brought magnificently to life . . . In this book he gives us drama and emotion, a powerful sense of history combined with illuminating scholarship.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice)

Living the Dream tells the history behind the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the battle over King's legacy that continued through the decades that followed. Creating the first national holiday to honor an African American was a formidable achievement and an act of resistance against conservative and segregationist opposition. Congressional efforts to commemorate King began shortly after his assassination. The ensuing political battles slowed the progress of granting him a namesake holiday and crucially defined how his legacy would be received. Though Coretta Scott King's mission to honor her husband's commitment to nonviolence was upheld, conservative politicians sought to use the holiday to advance a whitewashed, nationalistic, and even reactionary vision of King's life and thought. This book reveals the lengths that activists had to go to elevate an African American man to the pantheon of national heroes, how conservatives took advantage of the commemoration to bend the arc of King's legacy toward something he never would have expected, and how grassroots causes, unions, and antiwar demonstrators continued to try to claim this sanctified day as their own.

A deep dive into James Earl Ray’s role in the national tragedy: “Superb . . . a model of investigation . . . as gripping as a first-class detective story” (The New York Times). On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tennessee, by a single assassin’s bullet. A career criminal named James Earl Ray was seen fleeing from a rooming house that overlooked the hotel balcony from where King was cut down. An international manhunt ended two months later with Ray’s capture. Though Ray initially pled guilty, he quickly recanted and for the rest of his life insisted he was an unwitting pawn in a grand conspiracy. In Killing the Dream, expert investigative reporter Gerald Posner reexamines Ray and the evidence, even tracking down the mystery man Ray claimed was the conspiracy’s mastermind. Beginning with an authoritative biography of Ray’s life, and continuing with a gripping account of the assassination and its aftermath, Posner cuts through phony witnesses, false claims, and a web of misinformation surrounding that tragic spring day in 1968. He puts Ray’s conspiracy theory to rest and ultimately manages to disclose what really happened the day King was murdered.

"I have a dream." When those words were spoken on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, the crowd stood, electrified, as Martin Luther King, Jr. brought the plight of African Americans to the public consciousness and firmly established himself as one of the greatest orators of all time. Behind the Dream is a thrilling, behind-the-scenes account of the weeks leading up to the great event, as told by Clarence Jones, co-writer of the speech and close confidant to King. Jones was there, on the road, collaborating with the great minds of the time, and hammering out the ideas and the speech that would shape the civil rights movement and inspire Americans for years to come.

"Forty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. electrified the nation when he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. King's prophetic utterances started the long overdue process of changing America's idea of itself. His words would enter the American lexicon, galvanizing the civil rights movement, becoming a touchstone for all that the country might someday achieve." "The Dream is the first book about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legendary "I Have a Dream" speech. Opening with an enthralling account of the August day in 1963 that saw 250,000 Americans converge at the March on Washington, The Dream delves into the fascinating and little-known history of King's speech. Hansen explores King's compositional strategies and techniques, and proceeds to a brilliant analysis of the "I Have a Dream" speech itself, examining it on various levels: as a political treatise, a work of poetry, and as a masterfully delivered and improvised sermon bursting with biblical language and imagery." "In tracing the legacy of "I Have a Dream" since 1963, The Dream insightfully considers how King's incomparable speech "has slowly remade the American imagination," and led us closer to King's visionary goal of a redeemed America."--BOOK JACKET.