Tales Behind the Tombstones tells the stories behind the deaths (or supposed deaths) and burials of the Old West's most nefarious outlaws, notorious women, and celebrated lawmen. Readers will learn the story behind Calamity Jane's wish to be buried next to Wild Bill Hickok, discover how and where the Earp brothers came to be buried, and visit the sites of tombs long forgotten while legends have lived on.

This book relates the stories and describes the memorials of the people buried in Shelby, North Carolina's historic Sunset Cemetery, a microcosm of the Southeastern United States. The authors, an academic and a journalist, detail the lives and memories of people who are buried here, from Civil War soldiers to those who created the Jim Crow South and promoted the narrative of the Lost Cause. Featured are authors W.J. Cash and Thomas Dixon, whose racist novel was the basis for The Birth of a Nation. Drawn from historical research and local memory, it includes the tales of musicians Don Gibson and Bobby "Pepper Head" London, as well as a paratrooper who died in the Battle of the Bulge and other ordinary folks who rest in the cemetery. A bigger responsibility is to give a voice to the silenced, enslaved people of color buried in unmarked graves. Cemeteries are sacred places where artistry and memory meet--to understand, we need both the tales and the tombstones.

In Wall Street lingo, tombstones are the black-bordered newspaper notices of corporate mergers. Lederman, who created the recapitalization technique while a partner at Wachtell Lipton, presents richly detailed stories from the takeover wars of the 1980's, informed by his intimate knowledge of the strategies and personalities involved.

The Speaking Stone: Stories Cemeteries Tell is a literary love letter to the joys of wandering graveyards and the discoveries such wanderings can yield. Here, Michael Griffith roams Spring Grove (founded 1844), the nation's third-largest cemetery, following curiosity and accident wherever they lead. The result is this fascinating collection, which narrates the lives of those he encountered on the way. Griffith lingers amidst the traces left behind--these are stories of race, feminism, art, and death, uncovered through obituaries, archival documents, and family legacies. Some essays focus on well-known figures like the feminist icon and freethinker Fanny Wright, but most chronicle the lives of lesser-known figures (a spiritual medium, a temperance advocate, the designers of caskets and hearses, the inventor of the glass-door oven) or of nearly unknown ones (a young heiress who died under mysterious circumstances, the daring sign-painters known as walldogs). The Speaking Stone examines what endures and what doesn't, reflecting on the vanity and poignancy of our attempts to leave monuments that last. Archival photos grace the pages of these thirteen essays that explore a larger, deeply tangled complex of ideas about place, history, self, and art.

Sherry Monahan is an authority on "the city that wouldn't die" and its history. In Tombstone's Treasure, she focuses on the silver mines, one reason for the city's founding, and the saloons, the other reason the city grew so quickly. When the discovery of silver at Tombstone first became known in mid-1880, there were about twenty-six saloons and breweries. By July of the following year, the number of saloons in Tombstone had doubled. The most popular saloon games of the time were faro, monte, and poker, with some offering keno, roulette, and twenty-one. Monahan shares true tales about Tombstone's mining and gambling history and describes a different time and locale where wealthy businesspeople and rugged miners rubbed elbows at the bar and gambled side by side. It is both shocking and enlightening to learn just how sophisticated Tombstone really was when the Earps, Doc Holliday, Johnny Ringo, and Curly Bill strode the boardwalks. Tombstone actually had telephones, ice cream parlors, coffee shops, a bowling alley, and a swimming pool. Wow! It is so contrary to the Hollywood version of the town . . . but it's absolutely true."--from the Foreword by Bob Boze Bell Read Sherry Monahan's interview on AMC on the Wild West and the film Wild Bill