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From F-4 Phantom to A-10 Warthog: Memoirs of a Cold War Fighter Pilot
By Colonel Steve Ladd. 2020
This behind-the-scenes account of a USAF career is “an absorbing read, written with the classic humor fighter pilots seem to…
have” (Flight Line Book Review). From Baron von Richthofen to Robin Olds, the mystique of the fighter pilot endures. The skill, cunning, and bravery that characterizes this distinctive band of brothers is well known, but there are other dimensions to those who take to the skies to do battle that have not been given the emphasis they deserve—until now.You don’t have to be an aviation aficionado to enjoy Colonel Steve Ladd’s fascinating personal tale, woven around his 28-year career as a fighter pilot. This extremely engaging account follows a young man from basic pilot training to senior command through narratives that define a unique ethos. From the United States to Southeast Asia, Europe to the Middle East, the amusing and tongue-in-cheek to the deadly serious and poignant, this is the lifelong journey of a fighter pilot.The anecdotes are absorbing, providing an insight into life as an Air Force pilot, but, in this book, as Colonel Ladd stresses, the focus is not on fireworks or stirring tales of derring-do. Instead, this is an articulate and absorbing account of what life is really like among a rare breed of arrogant, cocky, boisterous, and fun-loving young men who readily transform into steely professionals at the controls of a fighter aircraft.Twelve Days on the Somme: A Memoir of the Trenches, 1916
By Sidney Rogerson. 1933
This “brilliant and heartrending” memoir recounts one of the bloodiest battles of WWI—with a new introduction and a forward by…
the author’s son (John Keegan).A joint operation between Britain and France, the 1916 Battle of the Somme was an attempt to gain territory and dent Germany’s military strength. By the end of the action, the Allied Forces had made just twelve kilometers. For this slight gain, more than a million lives were lost.In this classic military memoir, Staff Sergeant Sidney Rogerson vividly captures the last spell of frontline duty performed by the 2nd Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. Awarded the George Cross for his service, Rogerson gives a frank and moving account of this notorious battle while demonstrating how he and his fellow soldiers faced the ordeal with resilience and good humor.This edition includes a new introduction by Malcolm Brown and a Foreword by Rogerson’s son Commander Jeremy Rogerson.Monty and the Canadian Army
By John A. English. 2021
General Bernard Law Montgomery, affectionately known as "Monty," exerted an influence on the Canadian Army more lasting than that of…
any other Second World War commander. In 1942 he assumed responsibility for the exercise and training of Canadian formations in England, and by the end of the war Canada’s field army was second to none in the practical exercise of combined arms. In Monty and the Canadian Army, John A. English analyses the way Montgomery’s operational influence continued to permeate the Canadian Army. For years, the Canadian Army remained a highly professional force largely because it was commanded at almost every lower level by "Monty men" steeped in the Montgomery method. The era of the Canadian Army headed by such men ceased with the integration and unification of Canada’s armed forces in 1964. The embrace of Montgomery by Canadian soldiers stands in marked contrast to largely negative perceptions held by Americans. Monty and the Canadian Army aims to correct such perceptions, which are mostly superficial and more often than not wrong, and addresses the anomaly of how this gifted general, one of the greatest field commanders of the Second World War, managed to win over other North American troops.E.R. Nurses: True Stories from America's Greatest Unsung Heroes
By James Patterson, Matt Eversmann. 2021
James Patterson and Matt Eversmann, #1 bestselling coauthors of Walk in My Combat Boots, powerfully present the medical frontline heroes…
who work to save our lives every day: E.R. Nurses. Around the clock, across the country, these highly skilled and compassionate men and women sacrifice and struggle for us and our families. You have never heard their true stories. Not like this. From big-city and small-town hospitals. From behind the scenes. From the heart. This book will make you laugh, make you cry, make you understand. When we’re at our worst, E.R. nurses are at their best.The Years with Ross
By James Thurber. 1957
From iconic American humorist James Thurber, a celebrated and poignant memoir about his years at The New Yorker with the…
magazine’s unforgettable founder and longtime editor, Harold Ross“Extremely entertaining. . . . life at The New Yorker emerges as a lovely sort of pageant of lunacy, of practical jokes, of feuds and foibles. It is an affectionate picture of scamps playing their games around a man who, for all his brusqueness, loved them, took care of them, pampered and scolded them like an irascible mother hen.” —New York TimesWith a foreword by Adam Gopnik and illustrations by James ThurberAt the helm of America’s most influential literary magazine from 1925 to 1951, Harold Ross introduced the country to a host of exciting talent, including Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Ogden Nash, Peter Arno, Charles Addams, and Dorothy Parker. But no one could have written about this irascible, eccentric genius more affectionately or more critically than James Thurber, whose portrait of Ross captures not only a complex literary giant but a historic friendship and a glorious era as well. "If you get Ross down on paper," warned Wolcott Gibbs to Thurber," nobody will ever believe it." But readers of this unforgettable memoir will find that they do. Offering a peek into the lives of two American literary giants and the New York literary scene at its heyday, The Years with Ross is a true classic, and a testament to the enduring influence of their genius.Il salone degli artisti esiliati in California
By Núria Añó. 2021
Il salone degli artisti esiliati in California è una biografia di Salka Viertel, un’attrice ebrea che emigrò a Hollywood e fu popolarmente conosciuta come…
la sceneggiatrice dell’attrice svedese Greta Garbo. Inoltre, era proprietaria di un salone a Santa Monica (California), frequentato da molti intellettuali europei in esilio. Salka Viertel fu una donna molto moderna e singolare che si merita un riconoscimento. Nel libro affiorano temi come la presunta bisessualità di Salka Viertel e la quantità di amici rinomati che aveva, per citarne qualcuno Albert Einstein, Charles Chaplin, Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, Max Reinhardt, Arnold Schönberg, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Greta Garbo, Montgomery Clift... Come Gertrude Stein e altre donne celebri, possedeva un salone letterario per il quale passarono molti scrittori, tra cui Truman Capote, Christopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal e molti altri. Altri temi che troviamo sono la Berlino degli anni’20; il passaggio dal cinema muto a quello parlato visto dalla mecca di Hollywood; l’ascesa di Hitler e le conseguenze che ebbe per il popolo ebraico; l’esilio di intellettuali che non potevano tornare ai loro paesi a causa della Seconda guerra mondiale; la Guerra fredda e la caccia alle streghe contro il comunismo. Lo sfondo della vita di Salka Viertel e della sua cerchia di amici comprende i grandi eventi del XX secolo. Grazie a questo progetto, l’autrice ha ottenuto le borse di soggiorno SWP (Cina, 2016) e BCWT (Svezia, 2017). "Lo considero un racconto molto interessante e ancora molto attuale ai giorni nostri, dato che ai miei occhi non abbiamo fatto molti progressi nella questione di accettazione dei “sentimenti interpersonali” in generale. Un grande libro, estremamente interessante, sull’Hollywood degli anni’30 e’40 e l’influenza di artisti da paesi europei come Germania, AustWar by Other Means: A General in the Trump White House
By Keith Kellogg. 2021
General Keith Kellogg saw it all. The only national security advisor to work side by side with both President Trump…
and Vice President Pence, he was their confidant as they made their most momentous decisions. No one knows better than he that the hysterical accusations of the administration&’s partisan detractors were unconnected to reality. Demolishing baseless caricatures of Donald Trump, General Kellogg provides one of the few reliable accounts of the administration from the earliest days of the 2016 campaign to the end of the president&’s term. Kellogg reveals: How Trump&’s &“America First&” policies strengthened the nation after Obama&’s eight-year apology tour Why the president&’s tough approach to China worked—and why future administrations must continue to take the China threat seriously How withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the strike on General Soleimani slowed the spread of radical Islamist terror Why Democrats&’ appeasement policies are courting disaster for America and the world The radicals attacking President Trump&’s legacy are sacrificing sound policy to politics. Kellogg&’s account is an urgently needed reminder that politics is &“war by other means.&” Our enemies never forget that, and Americans forget it to their peril.The tiger man of Vietnam
By Frank Walker. 2009
In 1963, 28-year-old Australian Captain Barry Petersen was sent to Vietnam as part of the 30-man Australian Training Team, two…
years before the first official Australian troops arrived. Seconded to the CIA, he was sent to the remote Central Highlands to build an anti-communist guerrilla force among the indigenous Montagnard people.Gustavus Vasa Fox of the Union Navy: A Biography
By Ari Hoogenboom. 2008
This magisterial biography recounts the life and career of one of the U.S. Navy’s most influential officers, Gustavus Vasa Fox.…
Ari Hoogenboom's examination of Fox's incredible life and distinguished career creates a vivid portrait of the man most responsible for the U.S. Navy's stellar performance in the Civil War. Fox’s naval service began in 1838 when he went to sea as a midshipman. He sailed in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Africa, in the Gulf of Mexico, and with the East India Squadron in the Pacific. By participating in the Coast Survey and by navigating the lower Mississippi River in the 1850s, as captain of a steamer that ran from New York to Havana to New Orleans and back, Fox gained valuable experience that would serve him well in the Civil War.During the war, Fox was instrumental in mounting the blockade of the southern coast, from the Chesapeake Bay to the Rio Grande. After the battle between the Monitor and the Virginia, Fox championed ironclad technology despite having to contend with an officer corps wedded to wooden ships. In planning and coordinating expeditions, Fox deserves much of the credit for the navy's successes at Hatteras, Port Royal, New Orleans, Mobile Bay, and Fort Fisher.Initially neither proslavery nor antislavery, Fox was passionately committed to the preservation of the Union and, as black sailors made a crucial contribution toward that end, became an advocate of freedom and voting rights for African Americans. A skilled administrator who understood both the demands of politicians and the needs of line officers, he was able to communicate effectively with each group. Fox developed a close and collegial working relationship with Abraham Lincoln and was related by marriage to the postmaster general. Along with officers like Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs and coordinator of military railroads Herman Haupt, Fox played a critical but underappreciated role in the Union victory.A Paris Life, A Baltimore Treasure: The Remarkable Lives of George A. Lucas and His Art Collection
By Stanley Mazaroff. 2018
The gripping biography of a man and his passion for art.In 1857, George A. Lucas, a young Baltimorean who was…
fluent in French and enamored of French art, arrived in Paris. There, he established an extensive personal network of celebrated artists and art dealers, becoming the quintessential French connection for American collectors. The most remarkable thing about Lucas was not the art that he acquired for his clients (who included William and Henry Walters, the founders of the Walters Art Museum, and John Taylor Johnston, the founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) but the massive collection of 18,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and etchings, as well as 1,500 books, journals, and other sources about French artists, that he acquired for himself. Paintings by Cabanel, Corot, and Daubigny, prints by Whistler, Manet, and Cassatt, and portfolios of information about hundreds of French artists filled his apartment and spilled into the adjacent flat of his mistress.Based primarily on Lucas’s notes and diaries, as well as thousands of other archival documents, Stanley Mazaroff’s A Paris Life, A Baltimore Treasure tells the fascinating story of how Lucas brought together the most celebrated French artists with the most prominent and wealthy American collectors of the time. It also details how, nearing the end of his life, Lucas struggled to find a future home for his collection, eventually giving it to Baltimore’s Maryland Institute. Without the means to care for the collection, the Institute loaned it to the Baltimore Museum of Art, where most of the art was placed in storage and disappeared from public view. But in 1990, when the Institute proposed to auction or otherwise sell the collection, it rose from obscurity, reached new glory as an irreplaceable cultural treasure, and became the subject of an epic battle fought in and out of court that captivated public attention and enflamed the passions of art lovers and museum officials across the nation.A Paris Life, A Baltimore Treasure is a richly illustrated portrayal of Lucas's fascinating life as an agent, connoisseur, and collector of French mid-nineteenth-century art. And, as revealed in the book, following Lucas's death, his enormous collection continued to have a vibrant life of its own, presenting new challenges to museum officials in studying, conserving, displaying, and ultimately saving the collection as an important and intrinsic part of the culture of our time.Arquitectos del terror: Franco y los artífices del odio
By Paul Preston. 2021
Vuelve Paul Preston con otro libro imprescindible para entender nuestra historia reciente. La Guerra Civil se libró para anular las…
reformas educativas y sociales de la Segunda República y para combatir su cuestionamiento del orden establecido. Los rebeldes lucharon a favor de los terratenientes, industriales, banqueros, clérigos y oficiales del Ejército, cuyos intereses se habían visto amenazados, y en contra de los liberales e izquierdistas que impulsaban las reformas. Sin embargo, en los años de república, de 1931 a 1936, a lo largo de la guerra y durante muchas décadas después, se siguió fomentando en España el mito de que el enemigo derrotado en la contienda era el contubernio judeomasónico y bolchevique. No obstante, el presente libro no es una historia del contubernio, del antisemitismo ni de la antimasonería en España, sino que adopta la forma de pequeñas biografías de las principales figurasantisemitas y antimasónicas que propagaron ese mito, y de los personajes centrales que pusieron en práctica los horrores que este justificaba. Desmontar sus falsedades es uno de los objetivos fundamentales de esta obra.How three white, non-elite American sailors turned their experiences of captivity into diverse career opportunities—and influenced America's physical, commercial, ideological,…
and diplomatic development.Winner of the John Lyman Book Award by the North American Society for Oceanic HistoryFrom 1784 to 1815, hundreds of American sailors were held as "white slaves" in the North African Barbary States. In From Captives to Consuls, Brett Goodin vividly traces the lives of three of these men—Richard O'Brien, James Cathcart, and James Riley—from the Atlantic coast during the American Revolution to North Africa, from Philadelphia to the Louisiana Territories, and finally to the western frontier. This first scholarly biography of American captives in Barbary sifts through their highly curated writings to reveal how ordinary individuals in extraordinary circumstances could maneuver through and contribute to nation building in early America, all the while advancing their own interests. The three subjects of this collective biography both reflected and helped refine evolving American concepts of liberty, identity, race, masculinity, and nationhood. Time and again, Goodin reveals, O'Brien, Cathcart, and Riley uncovered opportunities in their adversity. They variously found advantage first in the Revolution as privateers, then in captivity by writing bestselling captivity narratives and successfully framing their ordeal as a qualification for coveted government employment. They even used their modest fame as ex-captives to become diplomats, get elected to state legislatures, and survey the nation's territorial expansions in the South and West. Their successful self-interested pursuit of opportunities offered by the expanding American empire, Goodin argues, constitutes what he calls "the invisible hand of American nation building."Goodin shows how these ordinary men, lacking the genius of a Benjamin Franklin or Alexander Hamilton, depended on sheer luck and adaptability in their quest for financial independence and public recognition. Drawing on archival collections, newspapers, private correspondence, and government documents, From Captives to Consuls sheds new light on the significance of ordinary individuals in guiding early American ideas of science, international relations, and what it meant to be a self-made man.De niñas, disfraces y un soneto: La infancia de sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
By Mario Iván Martínez. 2021
Seguro que has escuchado hablar de sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, pero ¿sabes cómo se convirtió en la Décima…
Musa? En una hacienda a la falda de los volcanes, Juana Inés vive con su entrañable abuelo, su madre y su querida hermana Josefa, rodeada de libros y siempre acompañada por su perro xoloitzcuintle. Pronto Juana Inés se enamora del maravilloso mundo que se esconde detrás de las letras y, al pie de la pintura de la virreina, escribe los más hermosos poemas. Descubre cómo fue la niñez de sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, ¡la poeta más destacada que dejó Nueva España!Chickenhawk
By Robert Mason. 1983
This straight-from-the-shoulder account tells the truth about the helicopter war in Vietnam, and a personal story of men under fire.…
Robert Mason, a veteran of more than one thousand combat missions, gives descriptions that cut to the heart of the combat experience: the fear and belligerence, the quiet insights and raging madness, the lasting friendships and sudden death -- the extreme emotions of a "chickenhawk" in constant danger.Painting the sand: one man's fight against the Taliban bomb-makers of Helmand
By Kim Hughes. 2017
Kim Hughes is the most highly decorated bomb disposal operator serving in the British Army. He was awarded the George…
Cross in 2009 following a grueling six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan during which he defused 119 improvised explosive devices, survived numerous Taliban ambushes and endured a close encounter with the Secretary of State for Defence. The back drop to Painting the Sand will be the Afghan War, the conflict where the cold courage of the bomb disposal operator rose to national prominence. No other field of warfare offers the chance of a single individual to come so close to his enemy and fight out a battle of wits where losing can means death. This is one of the best memoirs that will come out of a ten-year struggle to defeat a hidden, and enduring, enemy.Golem Girl: A Memoir - 'A hymn to life, love, family, and spirit' DAVID MITCHELL
By Riva Lehrer. 2020
'A hymn to life, love, family, and spirit' DAVID MITCHELL, author of Cloud AtlasThe vividly told, gloriously illustrated memoir of…
an artist born with disabilities who searches for freedom and connection in a society afraid of strange bodies.***WINNER OF THE BARBELLION PRIZE***In 1958, amongst the children born with spina bifida is Riva Lehrer. She endures endless medical procedures and is told she will never have a job, a romantic relationship or an independent life. But everything changes when as an adult Riva is invited to join a group of artists, writers, and performers who are building Disability Culture. Their work is daring, edgy, funny, and dark, and it rejects tropes that define disabled people as pathetic, frightening or worthless, instead insisting that disability is an opportunity for creativity and resistance. Riva begins to paint their portraits - and her art begins to transform the myths she's been told her whole life about her body, her sexuality, and other measures of normal.'A brilliant book, full of strangeness, beauty, and wonder' Audrey Niffenegger'Wonderful. An ode to art and the beauty of disability' Cerrie Burnell'Stunning' Alison Bechdel***SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD***The Enemy: A Biography of Wyndham Lewis (Routledge Library Editions: Wyndham Lewis #1)
By Jeffrey Meyers. 1980
Originally published in 1980 and nominated for the Duff Cooper Prize, this was the first biography of Wyndham Lewis and…
was based on extensive archival research and interviews. It narrates Lewis’ years at Rugby and the Slade, his bohemian life on the Continent, the creation of Vorticism and publication of Blast, and his experiences at Passchendaele, as well as his many love affairs, his bitter quarrels with Bloomsbury and the Sitwells, the suppressed books of the thirties, the evolution of his political ideas, his self-imposed exile in North America and creative resurgence during his final blindness. Jeffrey Meyers also describes Lewis’ relationships with Roy Campbell, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, T. E Lawrence, Hemingway, Huxley, Yeats, Auden, Spender, Orwell and McLuhan. As the self-styled Enemy emerges from the shadows, he is seen as an independent and courageous artist and one of the most controversial and stimulating figures in modern English art and literature.The Education of Corporal John Musgrave: Vietnam and Its Aftermath
By John Musgrave. 2021
A Marine's searing and intimate story—"A passionate, fascinating, and deeply humane memoir of both war and of the hard work…
of citizenship and healing in war&’s aftermath. A superb addition to our understanding of the Vietnam War, and of its lessons&” (Phil Klay, author of Redeployment).John Musgrave had a small-town midwestern childhood that embodied the idealized postwar America. Service, patriotism, faith, and civic pride were the values that guided his family and community, and like nearly all the boys he knew, Musgrave grew up looking forward to the day when he could enlist to serve his country as his father had done. There was no question in Musgrave&’s mind: He was going to join the legendary Marine Corps as soon as he was eligible. In February of 1966, at age seventeen, during his senior year in high school, and with the Vietnam War already raging, he walked down to the local recruiting station, signed up, and set off for three years that would permanently reshape his life.In this electrifying memoir, he renders his wartime experience with a powerful intimacy and immediacy: from the rude awakening of boot camp, to daily life in the Vietnam jungle, to a chest injury that very nearly killed him. Musgrave also vividly describes the difficulty of returning home to a society rife with antiwar sentiment, his own survivor's guilt, and the slow realization that he and his fellow veterans had been betrayed by the government they served. And he recounts how, ultimately, he found peace among his fellow veterans working to end the war. Musgrave writes honestly about his struggle to balance his deep love for the Marine Corps against his responsibility as a citizen to protect the very troops asked to protect America at all costs. Fiercely perceptive and candid, The Education of Corporal John Musgrave is one of the most powerful memoirs to emerge from the war.On Assignment: Memoir of a National Geographic Filmmaker
By James R. Larison. 2022
An exciting adventure story with personal drama and high stakes, as well as a glimpse behind the scenes of the…
highly regarded National Geographic brand Jim and Elaine Larison spent years studying, exploring, and living in wild places, making more than thirty environmental films, most for the National Geographic Society. These films won more than forty international awards from leading environmental and broadcast organizations. This memoir tells the story behind the adventure and describes the rather substantial personal costs of this career. While shooting film in Alaska, Jim Larison narrowly survived a devastating airplane crash in the Bering Sea. Later, while filming on the Great Barrier Reef, the Larisons fought off an aggressive twelve-foot tiger shark. Midway through their careers, the Larisons were nearly swept to their deaths by an icefall while filming on Mount Robson. A thrilling adventure story, full of risk and personal conflict, On Assignment is also a touching look at the tender bonds that held the married couple together while they struggled to complete their many film assignments. The Larisons were changed by what they saw and what they captured on film: the destruction of forests, the death of coral reefs, and global warming.In the beginning, the Larisons wanted nothing more than to spend time in the wilderness. By the end, they were fighting for its very survival.Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved
By Steven Naifeh. 2021
The compelling story of how Vincent van Gogh developed his audacious, iconic style by immersing himself in the work of…
others, featuring hundreds of paintings by Van Gogh as well as the artists who inspired him—from the New York Times bestselling co-author of Van Gogh: The Life&“Important . . . inspires us to look at Van Gogh and his art afresh.&”—Dr. Chris Stolwijk, general director, RKD–Netherlands Institute for Art History Vincent van Gogh&’s paintings look utterly unique—his vivid palette and boldly interpretive portraits are unmistakably his. Yet however revolutionary his style may have been, it was actually built on a strong foundation of paintings by other artists, both his contemporaries and those who came before him. Now, drawing on Van Gogh&’s own thoughtful and often profound comments about the painters he venerated, Steven Naifeh gives a gripping account of the artist&’s deep engagement with their work. We see Van Gogh&’s gradual discovery of the subjects he would make famous, from wheat fields to sunflowers. We watch him experimenting with the loose brushwork and bright colors used by Édouard Manet, studying the Pointillist dots used by Georges Seurat, and emulating the powerful depictions of the peasant farmers painted by Jean-François Millet, all vividly illustrated in nearly three hundred full-color images of works by Van Gogh and a variety of other major artists, including Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, positioned side by side. Thanks to the vast correspondence from Van Gogh to his beloved brother, Theo, Naifeh, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is able to reconstruct Van Gogh&’s artistic world from within. Observed in eloquent prose that is as compelling as it is authoritative, Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved enables us to share the artist&’s journey as he created his own daring, influential, and widely beloved body of work.