survival
Lived through things that should have killed them, and kept notes.
The Queen of the Mist
What kind of woman test-drives a Niagara Falls barrel by sending a cat over first?
The Cartwheel Brims
A loom took half her scalp at thirteen; she spent the next eighty-seven years deciding what the world was allowed to see.
The Same Bone, Twice
What does it take for a state to kill the same man twice, nearly thirty years apart, using the same injury?
The Carpetbag Method
She told her relatives she was going on a pilgrimage, packed one carpetbag, and did not come back for sixteen years.
The Helmet His Wife Made
Who packs a pre-mixed glob of Vaseline and cotton into his pocket before climbing into a balloon, and what exactly does he expect to happen up there?
The Drum Generally Heals Up
What kind of man asks his colleagues to poke him awake if he stops breathing, and considers a perforated eardrum a social asset?
The Woman Who Wouldn't Look Up
She rode on crusade, got hauled out of Antioch in the dead of night, was caught fleeing in men's clothes at fifty, ran England at sixty-seven — and then she designed her own tomb.
The Blessing of a Good Thick Skirt
She fought a crocodile with a paddle, wore leeches like a fur collar, and insisted to her dying day that trousers were beneath her — so what, exactly, did the skirt save her from?
The Autobiography No One Has Read
If you sealed your life story in an ancient jar, hid it with a chest of gold, and someone paid $48,000 for it six years ago — would you want to know why they never cracked the wax?
The Chevalier Who Wouldn't Lie Down
What kind of person enters a fencing tournament against an entire garrison while their brain is swelling inside their skull?
The Man Who Kept the Schedule
What do you find when you open a grave that belonged to a man who never stopped walking?
The Man Who Played You Back
If he memorized 7,000 pieces but only 100 words, what exactly was he listening for?