
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. Robert Sullivan is the author of Rats, The Meadowlands, A Whale Hunt, and most recently, The Thoreau You Don’t Know. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York magazine, A Public Space, and Vogue, where he is a contributing editor. He was born in Manhattan and now lives in Brooklyn, New York. http://us.macmillan.com/author/robert...
by Robert Sullivan
Rating: 3.7 ⭐
• 2 recommendations ❤️
New York Public Library Book for the TeenagerNew York Public Library Book to RememberPSLA Young Adult Top 40 Nonfiction Titles of the Year"Engaging...a lively, informative compendium of facts, theories, and musings."-Michiko Kakutani, New York TimesBehold the rat, dirty and disgusting! Robert Sullivan turns the lowly rat into the star of this most perversely intriguing, remarkable, and unexpectedly elegant New York Times bestseller.Love them or loathe them, rats are here to stay-they are city dwellers as much as (or more than) we are, surviving on the effluvia of our society. In Rats , the critically acclaimed bestseller, Robert Sullivan spends a year investigating a rat-infested alley just a few blocks away from Wall Street. Sullivan gets to know not just the beast but its friends and foes: the exterminators, the sanitation workers, the agitators and activists who have played their part in the centuries-old war between human city dweller and wild city rat.Sullivan looks deep into the largely unrecorded history of the city and its masses-its herds-of-rats-like mob. Funny, wise, sometimes disgusting but always compulsively readable, Rats earns its unlikely place alongside the great classics of nature writing.With an all-new Afterword by the author
Imagine a grungy north Jersey version of John McPhee's classic The Pine Barrens and you'll get some idea of the idiosyncratic, fact-filled, and highly original work that is Robert Sullivan's The Meadowlands . Just five miles west of New York City, this vilified, half-developed, half-untamed, much dumped-on, and sometimes odiferous tract of swampland is home to rare birds and missing bodies, tranquil marshes and a major sports arena, burning garbage dumps and corporate headquarters, the remains of the original Penn Station--and maybe, just ,maybe, of the late Jimmy Hoffa. Robert Sullivan proves himself to be this fragile yet amazingly resilient region's perfect expolorer, historian, archaeologist, and comic bard.
by Robert Sullivan
Rating: 3.3 ⭐
From the bestselling author of Rats , a personal and national history of one of America 's favorite driving across the country.The cross-country trip is the trip that often whizzes past us on our way to quaint back roads and scenic parks; it's an America of long, looping highways, strip malls, fast-food depots, and road rage, but also one that is wide-open, awe-inspiring, and heartwarmingly lonely. Here, Sullivan, who has driven cross-country more than two dozen times, recounts his family's annual summer migration from Oregon to New York. His story of moving his family back and forth from the East Coast to the West Coast (and various other migrations), is replete with all the minor disasters, humor, and wonderful coincidences that characterize life on the road, not to mention life.As he drives, Sullivan ponders his nation-crossing predecessors, such as legendary duo Lewis and Clark, as well the more improbable heroes of America's unending urge to cross Carl Fisher, an Indianapolis bicycle maker who founded the Indy 500, dropped cars off of buildings and imagined the first cross-country road; Emily Post, who, before her life as an etiquette writer, was one of the first cross-country chroniclers; and the race car drivers who, appalled by the invention of seatbelts and speed limits, ran an underground cross-country car race in the 1970s known as the Cannonball Run. Sullivan meets Beat poets who are devotees of Jack Kerouac, cross-country icon, and plays golf on an abandoned coal mine. And, in his trademark celebration of the mundane, Sullivan investigates everything from the history of the gas pump to the origins of fast food and rest stops. Cross Country tells the tales that come from fifteen years of driving across the country (and all around it) with two kids and everything that two kids and two parents take when driving in a car from one coast to another, over and over, driving to see the way the road made America and America made the road.
by Robert Sullivan
Rating: 3.8 ⭐
Robert Sullivan, the New York Times bestselling author of Rats and Cross Country , delivers a revolutionary reconsideration of Henry David Thoreau for modern readers of the seminal transcendentalist. Dispelling common notions of Thoreau as a lonely eccentric cloistered at Walden Pond, Sullivan (whom the New York Times Book Review calls “an urban Thoreau”) paints a dynamic picture of Thoreau as the naturalist who founded our American ideal of “the Great Outdoors;” the rugged individual who honed friendships with Ralph Waldo Emerson and other writers; and the political activist who inspired Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and other influential leaders of progressive change. You know Thoreau is one of America’s legendary writers…but the Thoreau you don’t know may be one of America’s greatest heroes.
New York-based freelance writer Sullivan ( Meadowlands ) chronicles two years he spent at the center of a controversy that pitted two cherished ideals against each other protecting whales and preserving ancestral practice. The Makah, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, resumed hunting the gray whale in the traditional manner when it was taken off the endangered species list in 1995; animal rights advocates arrived to protest. There is no index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Americans tend to think of the Revolution as a Massachusetts-based event orchestrated by Virginians, but in fact the war took place mostly in the Middle Colonies—in New York and New Jersey and the parts of Pennsylvania that on a clear day you can almost see from the Empire State Building. In My American Revolution, Robert Sullivan delves into this first Middle America, digging for a glorious, heroic part of the past in the urban, suburban, and sometimes even rural landscape of today. And there are great adventures along the way: Sullivan investigates the true history of the crossing of the Delaware, its down-home reenactment each year for the past half a century, and—toward the end of a personal odyssey that involves camping in New Jersey backyards, hiking through lost “mountains,” and eventually some physical therapy—he evacuates illegally from Brooklyn to Manhattan by handmade boat. He recounts a Brooklyn historian’s failed attempt to memorialize a colonial Maryland regiment; a tattoo artist’s more successful use of a colonial submarine, which resulted in his 2007 arrest by the New York City police and the FBI; and the life of Philip Freneau, the first (and not great) poet of American independence, who died in a swamp in the snow. Last but not least, along New York harbor, Sullivan re-creates an ancient signal beacon.Like an almanac, My American Revolution moves through the calendar of American independence, considering the weather and the tides, the harbor and the estuary and the yearly return of the stars as salient factors in the war for independence. In this fiercely individual and often hilarious journey to make our revolution his, he shows us how alive our own history is, right under our noses.
by Robert Sullivan
Rating: 3.8 ⭐
A personal exploration of the American West and the work of one of America’s greatest photographers.Timothy O’Sullivan is America’s most famous war photographer. You know his work even if you don’t know his A Harvest of Death , taken at Gettysburg, is an icon of the Civil War. He was also among the first photographers to elevate what was then a trade to the status of fine art. The images of the American West he made after the war, while traveling with the surveys led by Clarence King and George Wheeler, display a prescient awareness of what photography would become; years later, Ansel Adams would declare his work “surrealistic and disturbing.”At the same time, we know very little about O’Sullivan himself. Nor do we know―really know―much more about the landscapes he captured. Robert Sullivan’s Double Exposure sets off in pursuit of these two enigmas. This book documents the author’s own road trip across the West in search of the places, many long forgotten or paved over, that O’Sullivan pictured. It also stages a reckoning with how the changes wrought on the land were already under way in the 1860s and '70s, and how these changes were a continuation of the Civil War by other means. Sullivan, known for his probing investigations of place in the pages of The New Yorker and books like Rats and My American Revolution , has produced a work that, like O’Sullivan’s magisterial photos of geysers and hot springs, exposes a fissure in the American landscape itself.
Hardcover Goodbye Lizzie Borden [Hardcover] by Robert Sullivan
In the tradition of James Thurber and E.B. White, How Not to Get Rich is a timely spoof filled with witty instructions on how to avoid the perilous path toward millionaire-dom."Large numbers of Americans are becoming rich every day, and by rich I mean loaded, as in loaded to the gills. You could soon be one of them. On the other hand, you might not be one of them, for a number of reasons, including the odds, which are weighted heavily against you. Because while large numbers of Americans are becoming rich every day, even larger numbers of Americans are not. How does not getting rich happen? At what point in your life do you become rich or not rich? Is it fate or hard work that decides whether you go onto a life with several homes and a yacht or several credit cards and a second mortgage?"In this book, Robert Sullivan, an expert in the art of not getting rich and staying that way, shows us some simple, quick ways to cultivate a basic day-to-day attitude that will lead to not getting rich, as well as a few long-term strategies that will help you stay that way. For instance, a good well-rounded education is a must if you are planning on working your entire life and ending up with little or nothing. Choose a field of study that will be personally rewarding but has no apparent application in the real world, such as medieval literature or traditional music. And by all means choose an investment strategy that will definitely not get you rich, such as following the herd. Along the way, spend your money unwisely, read novels and books, marry for love, and waste otherwise money-making hours throwing a Frisbee in the park and playing with your kids, becoming the kind of role model that will never be featured on Forbes 's list of the wealthiest people in the world. Sharp, funny, and ultimately comforting, How Not to Get Rich is a guide to happiness without wealth―probably not worth the price, but what is?
In 1849, a Dr. George Parkman, eccentric if not unhinged and certainly most unpleasant, disappeared. Dr. Webster, a professor of chemistry at Harvard was accused of his murder. Sullivan has exhumed the old and little-known story with care, remounted it in its period frame, and enhanced it with his own humor, sympathetic insight and persuasiveness.
by Robert Sullivan
Rating: 3.0 ⭐
The perfect reference for the entrepreneur and small business owner, or anyone contemplating starting a business The entire process of launching a business is brought into perspective with ready to use information on a host of important business topics such selecting the right business, partners, marketing, planning, protection, insurance, computers, and the Internet. Real life vignettes drive home essential lessons. The new and larger (by 20%) second edition improves on an already successful and useful guide for the entrepreneur and new business owner. * Expanded Internet chapter now includes marketing information * New chapter on Financing your Business * Updates throughout - especially in the technology chapters * Specific small business contact information for every state * Doing business with the United States Government * New small business glossary
Book 2 in a series of 4 - The Long Journey of Agymah Chahine continues. Agymah and his comrades begin their long return to their homeland of Egypt. North across seas of bronze to the land of the Q’in and on to the court of the Khan. They travel endless seas of grass and flowers and see many wonders - the great wall in the clouds, where battlements spun with mist curl across distant peaks unto the far horizon; the mighty city of Chongqinq, its heart thundering with the roar of a great host of voices; the Mongol, his horn bellowing, his arrow darkening the skies, his sword sharp and swift; and the mighty Yellow River, its swirling waters dark and filled with malice. There is much yet to tell of Agymah’s story, and much hardship and danger still must he face - the evil intent of Dong Yun, the icy wastes of the Tien Shan and the beasts beneath; and the seas of Sand and Blood. All must be vanquished if he is to return safely to his homeland.“Far to our left we saw a wave of horsemen stream over the top of the hill, banners red and gold in the light of the evening sun. It was the Golden Peony and her band, their horns sounding as they raced to join the caravan. But the thunder of hooves that came behind was greater than that of the Golden Peony and her warriors, and we watched as the top of the hill filled with horses and men, clothed in furs, long spears held aloft, tipped with ribbons streaming in the wind. I felt a stab of fear at my throat for I knew, as did every man of our caravan, that I looked upon a Mongol horde, greater than two score, mayhap even three score, the peak of the hill a churning mass of horses and men and waving lances. Even from a great distance we heard Mongol horns, not sweet as is the bell of the horns of the Q’in, but as if the bellow of a mighty oxen. A finger of ice caressed my body.”“All but five score of warriors now rode against the Mongol on two fronts, short bows to hand, sharp arrows showering upon the furred horsemen of the west. But the Mongol also loosed many arrows. I saw Q’in warriors fall, struck in the eye or at the throat, or falling as their horses fell, with arrows striking at their legs and shoulders. But many Mongol also fell, sharp arrows piercing tunics of fur and leather and striking horses in throat and body. The air was filled with the thunder of the hooves of many horses and the screams of the Mongols, the screams of wounded horses, the shouts of Bo Mingyu and Dong Yun and those of the Q’in warriors and the roaring of the horns. I heard also the screams of my comrades and that of my own throat, though, truth be known, I screamed in fear.”“I leapt forward and struck my sword against that of the pale fox, seeking that I might halt his attack, such that I might then turn and throw myself against he of the long body. But the pale fox struck with a greater speed than I, his blade crashing upon my right arm in a cold blaze of pain, and my sword was thrown unto the mud beneath. The Mongol of the long body leapt forward, and I knew in that moment, even as I sought again for my sword, that the Gods now called upon me. Above me the Mongol rose, sword high…”
Book 1 in a series of 4 - The Long Journey of Agymah A story that spans the ancient globe, filled with danger, adventure, hope and endurance. It tells of Agymah Chahine, a simple carpenter from the city of Abydos in Ancient Egypt, of his adventures in the Army of the Pharaoh, and of battles with the ferocious Lion of the Sands. The series chronicles the journey of Agymah and his friends from the souqs of Egypt to the far side of the world. It tells of the perils they faced, the dangers they shared, the tragedies they endured and, finally, of their journey home, through a Land of Golden Peonies, beneath Pavilions of Ice, across Seas of Sand and Blood, and so unto their homeland. This is Agymah’s story."The cohorts ran ten wide, each with twenty men across its front. We moved quickly to the head of the valley and turned as one onto the flat ground between the hillsides. Ahead we could see the boiling clouds of the battle and glimpse strange shapes, enormous shapes, that seemed to fly through the dust. We saw the flash of weapons in the sun, and heard the roars of the men and their screams as they were destroyed. And for the first time, we heard, louder and more terrible than before, the howl of the Beast. The Centurions shouted and for a moment the line slowed, then the drums began to beat more quickly, until, with a roar of pride and anger, the line surged forward, and in that final moment as the dust cleared, before us opened the maw of hell."
by Robert Sullivan
Rating: 5.0 ⭐
The Irish are the world's greatest talkers......Get in on the conversation!Every Goose Thinks His Wife Is A Duck , with it's title taken from an old Irish proverb, is a treasure trove of witty comments from writers, politicians, entertainers and average Irish and Irish-American people with an interest in Irish culture. It's a great little book to keep on your coffee table or to leaf through on your morning train ride when you want a little inspiration or a good laugh.Author Robert Sullivan, the publisher of Ireland-Fun-Facts.com , has a sharp eye for makes the Irish unique and interesting, along with a great sense of humor. For this book he has looked beyond the familiar Irish websites and books to find less well-known quotes in centuries-old books and modern news reports. A great little book that mixes Irish philosophy, humor and ****Get It Now At A Special 30% Discount. During your purchase process, type in the discount code A9ZQ4XXB and save!From book's "How is it that Ireland, a small fleck in the Atlantic with fewer people in it than Belgium, has created a voice that all the world seems to hear?Lacking armies, it has dispatched legions of high-octane conversationalists who have managed to conquer a part of the global imagination. Whether it’s Blarney, gab, craic or some less tasteful contribution, the Irish always seem to reserve their highest honors for those who can turn the clever phrase."
by Robert Sullivan
Rating: 4.0 ⭐
You just got an email from your boss saying that your company is redesigning its website, and you’ll be asked for input on the project. Or maybe you’ve finally decided that the website you built for your own business six years ago has to be upgraded, so you can stop looking like you’re operating in the Stone Age.Welcome to one of the most interesting and aggravating processes on earth.Nowadays, everyone from the entrepreneur to the senior business manager gets called on to play a role in the design and creation of a new company website at some point. If you’re building your own business, it can involve thousands of dollars. If you’re at a Fortune 500 company, it can cost hundreds of thousands.How effectively you contribute to this process can affect not just how much money your company earns online, but it can impact you're viewed in a career perspective. Increasingly, those who lack digital smarts are seen as “old school,” while people who are “in the know” consistently get assigned to the newest and most exciting business projects.“FATAL MISTAKES TO AVOID IN DESIGNING A NEW WEBSITE” provides a quick, easy to read overview of the key issues in web development. It's written for business people who want get a solid, workable plan in place before they put their digital future in the hands of a developer.Author Robert Sullivan provides valuable tips to help you avoid making the same mistakes he’s seen made at large and small companies, whom he’s advised for over a decade as a business analyst and online project manager.You’ll get up to date quickly, not just on how to work through the tech aspects of website design, but on how to map out a profit-making digital business. Quick, understandable overviews are given on affiliate marketing, brand and cost per click advertising, paid content, data sales and on how to save money when working with developers. Before you go into your next meeting about creating a new website, use this quick read to learn the basic concepts of executing a site that can make your company – and you – more successful in the digital world.[image]
by Robert Sullivan
Rating: 3.0 ⭐
New expanded edition for 2013! An entertaining collection of facts, trivia and stories about Ireland and Celtic culture. With unusual Irish quotations, proverbs, a guide to Irish baby names and stories about Craic, Celtic Knots, Strawboys and other Celtic traditions.
by Robert Sullivan
Rating: 3.0 ⭐
Charlie Mularczyk liked his job. He liked living on the island. And he liked working for the Parks Service. Life on the island had a little bit of indoors, outdoors, water, sun, sand. In a one-man office, he was his own boss – at least when the suits and pencil-necks weren’t on the prowl – he set his own timetable, and the weather was terrific. It was all upside. Or was it?For years Uncle Cec and Uncle Eck had been trying to convince him that there were dangers in paradise. They told Charlie, time and time again, that it’s not all myth, that there’s truth, a lot of truth, in the ancient fables.“Ya remember what Ecka told us? Ya know, from when he was down the Lachlan? He seen it one night. He told me at the pub in Condo. It was dinkum mate.”“Seriously Uncle Cec, we had this discussion years ago.”“I’m not kiddin’ ya know. Ya gotta watch out. ‘Specially at night. Don’t go near no waterholes at night, I tell ya. It’ll grab ya.”But Charlie ignored Uncle Cec and Uncle Eck. He usually had too much to do, and while he didn’t entirely dismiss what they said – that would be disrespectful after all – he thought it was more than a little bit ‘out there’. There was always a simple explanation. Until the tourists began to disappear.‘Ronnie swept the beam in a circle around the truck. The light flickered over low dunes and small shrubs, the sand a blinding white, the shadows black and impenetrable. There was nothing there. He flicked the torch off and turned back to Shana.“There’s nothing out here” he said, the relief evident in his voice. “Must have been the wind.” Then he saw Shana’s eyes. They were wide with horror.“There…there…there’s something…something behind you.” Her voice cracked as she spoke. Ronnie turned around fearfully. There was something there, a deeper shadow in the darkness, a presence more felt than seen. He thumbed the switch of his torch.Shana screamed.’With three tourists missing and another a gibbering mess in the intensive care unit, the island is suddenly awash with police and emergency services personnel. It’s a hothouse of competing tensions, and Charlie feels like he’s completely swamped. Then the weather closes in.A huge storm front settles on the island. It’s pouring rain, the visibility is all but zero, and they have only ninety personnel to search an area bigger than Ipswich. Who’s kidding who here? And then, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Charlie’s least favourite cop, Roger Bulmer, turns up with the team from Cleveland. Aye yai yai!For three days mixed teams of CIB, local police, Park Services and SES personnel quarter the island, searching the overgrown terrain for the lost tourists. Everyone’s exhausted, the forensics crowd is stumped, the politicians are baying for blood, and Roger’s being his usual repulsive self.Charlie and his colleagues, Graham, Kenny and Dao, struggle through a streaming landscape bathed in water and fog. They wade through raging creeks and across tortured hillsides, they scale impossible dunes and search the inky canyons beneath. Each day they move deeper into the heart of darkness. Each day they move closer to the point of no return.
by Robert Sullivan
by Robert Sullivan
Andy is a young motivated pastor in a city church. He just finished preaching a sermon on new beginnings, when he overheard members critiquing his message. The church is in for a complete over-haul in the word of God, going, deep down, into mythology, and astrology. Andy is taken away into the spirit, and God reveals deep hidden truths, that the church is unable to hear. During this vision, Andy faces issues within the church, with a teenage boy named Andrew, and a rude elderly lady, named "Sassy Sally." This book is full of truth about you, hidden in the symbols of mythology. This writing will be very engaging to the one who enjoys seeking out the message in mythical stories finding the manna throughout. Learn that the bible is full of allegoric stories, Galatians 4:24. Speaking of fictional characters like Abraham and Sarah. Robert Sullivan was born, in northeast Ohio. Robert realized he was different, found alone speaking to God, much of the time. God taught truths to Robert that others reject, things very contrary to the norm of church traditions. The inner Robert is found in the allegory story of this book.
by Robert Sullivan
Get-rich-quick books are invariably scams. This is not a book that promises you instant riches, or even any. What it offers is a realistic breakdown of those select few online earning opportunities that actually do exist. Separating scams from legitimate websites will become much simpler once the reader has a list of legitimate online earning methods to judge against.
by Robert Sullivan
The world's greatest conversationalists - the Irish - hold forth on life, love, art, drinking, politics, golf, death, the movies, religion and everything in between. A very in-depth and unusual collection of fun and informative commentary from Ireland's history and it's present.
by Robert Sullivan
In the year 2040, the American experiment in democracy is close to falling apart. Internal strife and boundless corruption are tearing the government of the United States apart. The Globalists are looking to take advantage of the weakened state of the country and remake the United States as they want to. Enter Greg Carlton. When his family is killed by the Globalists, he goes out for revenge against them. He soon forms his own militia to seriously resist the Globalists. It may be too late to stop them though. 2040 is an election and the Globalists have plans for it.
by Robert Sullivan
This is the most extensive account of Moore's fiction to date that considers his many works from the early stories to the recent novel, No Other Life . Moore, who was born in Ireland but is a Canadian citizen and resides predominantly in the United States, has earned an international reputation as an important novelist. This book sets out to demonstrate a discernible pattern of concerns that cut across Moore's fictive output over the last 40 years. It argues that the concerns of love and faith (and the interplay between them) form the backbone of Moore's oeuvre. Sullivan draws from interviews with Moore and presents a study that convincingly demonstrates how Moore's fictions, from first to last, take their place in a larger thematic and formal masternarrative.