They Died Too Young

The 21 stories in this book trace the brief lives and untimely deaths of some of the most remarkable talents that ever lived.

Chelsea James and Katie O'Roark met at Jenny House and spent a wonderful summer together. Now Chelsea and her mother are staying with Katie as Chelsea awaits news concerning a heart transplant. While waiting for a compatible donor, Chelsea meets Jillian, a girl who's funny and kind. Jillian is also waiting. She needs a heart-lung transplant. The two girls become fast friends. When Chelsea meets Jillian's brother, he awakens feelings in Chelsea she's never known before. However, as her medical situation grows desperate, Chelsea finds herself in a contest for her life against her very best friend. Is it fair that there's only a chance for one of them to survive?

A look at the life and work of the award-winning Texas singer who had begun to popularize Tejano music when she was shot and killed.

'Bryan’s writing pops and zings like a Basquiat painting' – NOEL FIELDING In Bright Stars, Kate Bryan examines the lives and legacies of 30 great artists who died too young, celebrating their inspirational stories and extraordinary talent. Some of the world’s greatest and most-loved artists died under the age of forty. But how did they turn relatively short careers into such long legacies? What drove them to create, against all the odds? And how can we use these stories to re-evaluate artists lost to the shadows, or whose legacies are not yet secured? Most artists have decades to hone their craft, win over the critics and forge their reputation, but that’s not the case for the artists in this book. Art heavyweights Vincent van Gogh and Jean-Michel Basquiat have been mythologised, with their early deaths playing a key role in their posthumous fame. Others, such as Aubrey Beardsley and Noah Davis, were driven to create, knowing their time was limited. For some, premature death, compounded by gender and racial injustice, meant being left out of the history books – as was the case with Amrita Sher-Gil, Charlotte Salomon and Pauline Boty, now championed by Kate Bryan in this important re-appraisal. And, as Caravaggio and Vermeer’s stories show us, it can take centuries for forgotten artists to be given the recognition they truly deserve. With each artist comes a unique and often surprising story about how lives full of talent and tragedy were turned into brilliant legacies that still influence and inspire us today. This is a celebration of talent so great it shines on. Beautifully illustrated with portraits of the artists, as well as reproductions of some of their most famous works, this important and timely work makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of the lives of some of the most talented artists throughout history. **************** 'Bryan’s writing pops and zings like a Basquiat painting – and reminds us why truly great artists are immortal.' –NOEL FIELDING 'Bright Stars is a compelling reflection on the concept of legacy. Bryan’s wide ranging assessment of artists we lost too soon proves that longevity in art is rewarded to the stars that burn the brightest, however fleeting their lives and careers.' – MARIA BALSHAW, DIRECTOR OF TATE 'Kate Bryan marshalls a wealth of fascinating detail about artists’s lives cut sadly short … and in sprightly prose brings their work vividly to life.' – JOAN BAKEWELL **************** The Artists Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Caravaggio, Dash Snow, Vincent van Gogh, Amedeo Modigliani, Francesca Woodman, Ana Mendieta, Félix González-Torres, Raphael, Yves Klein, Gordon Matta-Clark, Robert Mapplethorpe, Egon Schiele, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Amrita Sher-Gil, Johannes Vermeer, Robert Smithson, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Aubrey Beardsley, Noah Davis, Eva Hesse, Charlotte Salomon, Umberto Boccioni, Gerda Taro, Joanna Mary Boyce, Pauline Boty, Helen Chadwick, Khadija Saye, Bartholomew Beal.

Examines the life, career, and death of the actor who began performing very young and succumbed to a drug overdose at the age of twenty-three.

Presents the life of the celebrated member of the famous political family who died in a plane crash in 1999.

John Boileau and Dan Black tell the stories of some of the 30,000 underage youths -- some as young as fourteen -- who joined the Canadian Armed Forces in the Second World War. This is the companion volume to the authors' popular 2013 book Old Enough to Fight about boy soldiers in the First World War. Like their predecessors a generation before, these boys managed to enlist despite their youth. Most went on to face action overseas in what would become the deadliest military conflict in human history. They enlisted for a myriad of personal reasons -- ranging from the appeal of earning regular pay after the unemployment and poverty of the Depression to the desire to avenge the death of a brother or father killed overseas. Canada's boy soldiers, sailors and airmen saw themselves contributing to the war effort in a visible, meaningful way, even when that meant taking on very adult risks and dangers of combat. Meticulously researched and extensively illustrated with photographs, personal documents and specially commissioned maps, Too Young to Die provides a touching and fascinating perspective on the Canadian experience in the Second World War. Among the individuals whose stories are told: Ken Ewing, at age sixteen taken prisoner at Hong Kong and then a teenager in a Japanese prisoner of war camp Ralph Frayne, so determined to fight that he enlisted in the army, navy and Merchant Navy all before the age of seventeen Robert Boulanger, at age eighteen the youngest Canadian to die on the Dieppe beaches