The Hiltons is a sweeping saga of the success-and excess-of an iconic American family. Demanding and enigmatic, patriarch Conrad Hilton's visionary ideas and unyielding will established the model for the modern luxury hotel industry. But outside the boardroom, Conrad struggled with emotional detachment, failed marriages, and conflicted Catholicism. Then there were his children: Playboy Nicky Hilton's tragic alcoholism and marriage to Elizabeth Taylor was the stuff of tabloid legend. Barron Hilton, on the other hand, deftly handled his father's legacy, carrying the Hilton brand triumphantly into the new millennium. Eric, raised apart from his older brothers, accepted his supporting role in the Hilton dynasty with calm and quiet-a stark contrast to the boys' much younger half-sister Francesca, whose battle for recognition led her into courtrooms and conflict. The cast of supporting players includes the inimitable Zsa Zsa Gabor, who was married to Conrad briefly and remained a thorn in his side for decades, and a host of other Hollywood and business luminaries with whom the Hiltons crossed paths and swords over the years.

Hiltons is located in the southwest corner of Virginia and was named for the Reverend Samuel Hilton, who moved to the region from North Carolina in 1795. In the 1880s, Hiltons became a vital link for goods being transported both to and from the region when the railroad was constructed from Bristol to Appalachia. U.S. Highway 58 winds through Hiltons to Virginia Beach, providing many miles of scenic travel on what was, for many years, an important transportation route. The Hiltons area is blessed with natural beauty, including the scenic Clinch Mountains, a part of the Appalachian chain, and the lazy flowing north fork of the Holston River. Hiltons is home to the world-renowned Carter family of country music fame and is the location of the Carter Family Museum and Fold, which continues to provide old-time country music entertainment.

Author Dwayne W. Pickett details the life of William Hilton, his exploration of the Carolina coast and the founding of an iconic island. Behind the pristine beaches and world renown of Hilton Head Island lies a history that dates back to the early exploration of the nation. In 1663, William Hilton, a mariner born in England, was hired by a group in Barbados to find new lands for them to settle. Hilton led an exploration of the Port Royal Sound area, where he named a high bluff of land Hiltons Head as a navigational marker for future sailors. The island began as a sparsely populated area on the fringe of English settlement in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when it was called Trench's Island on some maps.

Conjoined twins have long been a subject of fantasy, fascination, and freak shows. In this first collection of its kind, Millie-Christine McKoy, African American twins born in 1851, and Daisy and Violet Hilton, English twins born in 1908, speak for themselves through memoirs that help us understand what it is like to live physically joined to someone else. Conjoined Twins in Black and White provides contemporary readers with the twins’ autobiographies, the first two “show histories” to be republished since their original appearance, a previously unpublished novella, and a nineteenth-century medical examination, each of which attempts to define these women and reveal the issues of race, gender, and the body prompted by the twins themselves. The McKoys, born slaves, were kidnapped and taken to Britain, where they worked as entertainers until they were reunited with their mother in an emotional chance encounter. The Hiltons, cast away by their horrified mother at birth, worked the carnival circuit as vaudeville performers until the WWII economy forced them to the burlesque stage. The hardships, along with the triumphs, experienced by these very different sister sets lend insight into our fascination with conjoined twins.

This revealing portrait of the real Paris Hilton gets underneath the hype and hate, the glamour and greed. Unlike other biographies that range from the exposé to the gushing, Paris Hilton: A Biography is both detailed and objective. It covers Paris's checkered family history, her privileged yet surprisingly unassuming upbringing, and her explosion with sister Nicky as "It Girls" on the international social scene. Readers will learn how her family influenced her, why she made the decision to step into the limelight, and why she continues today, despite her many critics and setbacks. Each chapter of the biography provides an in-depth view of a specific aspect of Paris's life: her relationship with men and the media, how she turned herself around emotionally and projected a new image, and what makes her such a smart businesswoman. The book also looks at darker moments, including the sex tape, her jail time, and her publicity faux pas. In the end, readers will understand what makes this complex young woman tick—and have a better sense of what it is like to walk a mile in her Manolo Blahniks.

The lives and loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton follows the poignant life story of twin sisters who were literally joined at the hip, set against the tumultuous backdrop of America during the first half of the 20th century. Daisy and Violet and an unforgettable cast of show-business characters come alive on the pages of this carefully researched and sensitively written biography. Reviews "Jensen's book is a testament to the fickleness of the entertainment world." -Tampa Bay Tribune "It is an affecting story, gently and honestly told without frills, without sensation. In Jensen's hands, the twins are always human, individuals, never freaks joined at the hips as the world saw them after their birth in 1908. . . Here, their story is pure." -Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

You may never again think of Canadians as law-abiding Respected crime reporters Peter Edwards and Michel Auger have pooled their research and expertise to create The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime. Sometimes grim, sometimes amusing, and always entertaining, this book is filled with 300 entries and more than 150 illustrations, covering centuries of organized crime. From pirates such as “Black Bart,” who sheltered in isolated Newfoundland coves to strike at the shipping lanes between Europe and the North American colonies, all the way to the most recent influx of Russianmobsters, who arrived after the end of the Cold War in 1989 and are now honing their sophisticated technological skills on the Western public, Edwards and Auger enumerate the personalities and the crimes that have kept Canadian law enforcement busy. Here too are the Sicilian and Calabrian gangs, the American and Colombian drug connections, the bikers whose internal struggles have left innocent bystanders dead (and who tried to murder Auger), as well as many unexpected figures, such as the Sundance Kid, who spent years in Canada. Arranged in alphabetical entries for easy browsing, and illustratedthroughout with photographs and drawings, this is a book that will both entertain and inform.

The "Gentleman's magazine" section is a digest of selections from the weekly press; the "(Trader's) monthly intelligencer" section consists of news (foreign and domestic), vital statistics, a register of the month's new publications, and a calendar of forthcoming trade fairs.