Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 11637 items
Quirky British author of The Missing of the Somme (DB 76938) and Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (DB 74532)…
details his residency aboard the American aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush. Describes the people he met and the experiences in which he engaged. 2014
Rescued from oblivion by an impulse eBay purchase, the letters of Eileen Alexander are one of the great literary discoveries…
of the 21st century: an extraordinary woman writing to show what it meant to be a woman, and in love, during the Second World War. In summer 1939, Eileen was an exceptionally bright young graduate leaving Cambridge with a First. She was tentatively in love, and war was brewing. She would spend the next years of her life in London, writing the most intimate, brilliant love letters of the Second World War. Eileen's letters to Gershon Ellenbogen tell an incredible story. Her writing gives dazzling displays of intelligence and devotion, by turn generous, erudite, angry, scurrilous, and very, very funny. Eileen can find a biting or ironic quotation for every eventuality. She can skewer a pompous colleague in two lines of airmail. She writes frankly about sex, about ambition as an intelligent woman, about the terrible things that happened to her fiercest friends, and about the painful uncertainty of loving a man away at war. Told by an unknown master letter writer of the twentieth century, this is a unique story of war as it was lived by women – and an unforgettable account of ardent, real love as it unfolds
The true story of the extraordinary life and brutal death of Mildred Harnack, the American leader of one of the…
largest underground resistance groups in Germany, who was executed on Hitler's direct order—uncovered by her great-great-niece in this riveting, deeply researched account. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment—a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hitler's regime and called for revolution. Her coconspirators circulated through Berlin under the cover of night, slipping the leaflets into mailboxes, public restrooms, phone booths. When the first shots of the Second World War were fired she became a spy, couriering top-secret intelligence to the Allies. On the eve of her escape to Sweden, she was ambushed by the Gestapo. At a Nazi military court, a panel of five judges sentenced her to six years at a prison camp, but Hitler overruled the decision and ordered her execution. On February 16, 1943, she was strapped to a guillotine and beheaded.Historians identify Mildred Harnack as the only American in the leadership of the German resistance, yet her remarkable story has remained almost unknown until now.Fusing elements of biography, political thriller, and scholarly detective story, Harnack's great-great-niece Rebecca Donner brilliantly interweaves letters, diary entries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, testimony of survivors, and a trove of declassified intelligence documents into a powerful, enthralling story, reconstructing the moral courage of an enigmatic woman nearly erased by history
Author of Ship of Ghosts (DB 63121) chronicles the seven sea battles to secure the South Pacific island of Guadalcanal…
that began in August 1942. Official documents and day-by-day accounts drawn from survivors portray an underfunded campaign, nascent use of radar, tremendous losses, and a determined Japanese opponent. 2011
Discusses human flight before the invention of the airplane. Recounts the balloon-based travels of daring men and women from 1783…
to the early 1900s, including two children who went up by accident. Describes the dangers posed by high winds, lightning, lack of oxygen, and extreme cold. For grades 4-7. 2010
Analyzes The Diary of a Young Girl (DB 57022) as a literary work, a Holocaust narrative, and a cultural artifact.…
Examines the evidence that Anne rewrote her memoir to increase its appeal. Discusses the published book's use in classroom instruction and its adaptation for stage and film. 2009
Author of Religious Literacy (DB 64243) posits that religion is more than a private matter and affects the world socially,…
economically, politically, and militarily--as a force for both good and evil. Discusses the major religions, their traditions, and the importance of the differences among them. 2010
American diplomat and foreign correspondent uses overseas archives to document French fashion designer Coco Chanel's collaboration with the Nazis during…
World War II. Discusses Chanel's childhood; emergence on the social scene as a couture, perfume maker, and mistress of titled men; anti-Semitism; and involvement with the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS). 2011
Newspaperman examines his unique relationship with his hiking partner, miniature schnauzer Atticus M. Finch. Explains how a fund-raising effort after…
a friend's death started man and dog's years of climbing in New Hampshire's White Mountains--188 peaks over three winters. Some strong language. 2011
Author recounts her experiences as a young Jewish girl during Hitler's rise to power. Recalls being trapped in Ukraine while…
visiting her grandmother, returning to her family in Hungary, and being forcibly moved to an Auschwitz ghetto. Describes the many wartime restrictions. For grades 6-9. Newbery Honor Book. 1981
Emmy Award-winning journalist relates discovering her father's hidden past, years after her mother's death. Recounts learning that Richard Cosby, born…
Ryszard Kossobudzki in Poland, endured life as a World War II freedom fighter, a POW, an escapee, and a refugee. 2010
Author retraces the travels of English adventurer Sir John Mandeville, who left for the Holy Land in 1322 and returned…
in 1356 with tales of countries throughout Asia that he claimed to have visited. Discusses the influence Mandeville had on explorers and writers in his day. 1996
Chronicles the sixteenth- and seventeenth- century sea voyages of English adventurers to North America, beginning with Richard Hore's 1536 expedition…
that ended when starvation drove his men to cannibalism. Discusses the court of Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Ralegh's Roanoke enterprises, and the settlement of Jamestown. Some violence. 2000
Describes a future trip that a child might take to Mars: taking a space elevator to a space station, traveling…
in a rocket, wearing a space suit, and learning about the scientific search for Martian life. Discusses the Mars environment and a habitat created for humans. For grades 2-4. 2009
The author of See No Evil (DB 53770), the basis for the movie Syriana, and his wife Dayna share their…
anecdotes of working for the CIA. They describe their first meeting while on assignment in the Balkans and recount falling in love years later. Some strong language. 2011
Follows the lives of U.S. ambassador William E. Dodd and his family, who moved to Berlin, Germany, in 1933. Discusses…
their attitudes toward the Nazi Party, obliviousness to Hitler's true character, and naive reactions to the persecution of Jews and Americans and the enforcement of stringent laws. Bestseller. 2011
Framed by an account of housewife and mother Greta Kuckhoff, this chronicle of resistance to the Nazis by a group…
of artists, intellectuals, and German government workers in Berlin details the actions and risks these ordinary citizens took to protest anti-Semitism--and relates the consequences. 2009
Franklin, an American reporter stationed in South America for fifteen years, investigates the August 5, 2010, copper-mine explosion in northern…
Chile that trapped thirty-three men underground for ten weeks. Describes the miners' ordeal and highlights the rescue attempt that brought them to the surface. 2011
Author recounts the three-month, 1,100-mile solo hike she took on a whim in 1995, after years of devastating personal losses.…
Describes her encounters with rattlesnakes, locals, fellow hikers, and her own thoughts during her trek from Los Angeles to Washington State on the Pacific Crest Trail. Strong language. Bestseller. 2012
Portrays the WWII special army unit--composed of architects, museum directors, curators, and archivists--formed in 1943 to recover cultural treasures that…
had been plundered by the Nazis. Describes the bombed historical buildings the group preserved and works of art it salvaged. 2009