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Enchanted Islands tells the true story of Laura Coffey's epic journey around the mystical archipelagos of the Mediterranean. Blending memoir,…
travel and nature writing with tales from The Odyssey, and infused with sharply comic wit, this is a celebration of the redemptive powers of cold-water swimming and luminous star-lit skies.Winston Churchill: Portrait of an Unique Mind
By Andrew Norman. 2012
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill is known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War Two. He served…
as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, writer and artist. To date, he is the only British Prime Minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the second person to be recognized as an Honorary Citizen of the United States. During his army career, Churchill saw military action in India, the Sudan and the Second Boer War. He gained fame and notoriety as a war correspondent and through contemporary books he wrote describing the campaigns. He also served briefly in the British Army on the Western Front in World War One, commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. At the forefront of the political scene for almost fifty years, he held many political and cabinet positions. After losing the 1945 election, he became Leader of the Opposition. In 1951 he again became Prime Minister, before finally retiring in 1955. Upon his death, the Queen granted him the honor of a state funeral, which saw one of the largest assemblies of statesmen in the world.This unique images title contains many rare and unpublished photographs of Churchill throughout his military and political career.I Was Hitler's Chauffeur: The Memoir of Erich Kempka
By Erich Kempka. 2012
&“An insider view of Hitler&’s closest circles, providing an invaluable account of the final months of the war&” (History of…
War). Erich Kempka served as Adolf Hitler&’s personal driver from 1934 through to the Führer&’s dramatic suicide in 1945. His candid memoirs offer a unique eyewitness account of events leading up to and during the war, culminating in those dark final days in the Führer&’s headquarters, deep under the shattered city of Berlin. He begins by describing his duties as a member of Hitler&’s personal staff in the years preceding the war, driving the Führer throughout Germany and abroad, and accompanying him to rallies. The crux of his memoir, however, covers his life with Hitler in the Berlin Führerbunker. Crucially, Kempka witnessed Hitler&’s marriage to Eva Braun and his last dinner and personal farewell to all those present, before he and his wife committed suicide. Hitler&’s final order to Kempka was that he have ready enough petrol to burn him and his wife. Under constant Soviet artillery fire, Kempka, Linge, and others poured petrol over the bodies and burnt them. The account concludes with Kempka&’s hazardous escape out of a burning Berlin more than 800 kilometers through Allied-occupied Germany, his arrest, and interrogation before being sent to serve as a witness at Nuremburg.Abigail Adams: A Biography
By Phyllis Lee Levin. 2001
Wife of one president and mother of another, Abigail Adams was an extraordinary woman living at an extraordinary time in…
American history. A tireless letter writer and diarist, her penetrating and often caustic impressions of most of the major persons of her day--including Ben Franklin, George and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and King George III, among others--provide one of the best first-hand accounts of the American Revolution. This biography, researched and written over a fourteen-year period, is a fascinating portrait of a brilliant woman at the center of the founding of the American republic.The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe
By Paula Fox. 2005
In this elegant and affecting companion to her "extraordinary" memoir, Borrowed Finery, a young writer flings herself into a Europe…
ravaged by the Second World War (The Boston Globe) In 1946, Paula Fox walked up the gangplank of a partly reconverted Liberty with the classic American hope of finding experience—or perhaps salvation—in Europe. She was twenty-two years old, and would spend the next year moving among the ruins of London, Warsaw, Paris, Prague, Madrid, and other cities as a stringer for a small British news service. In this lucid, affecting memoir, Fox describes her movements across Europe's scrambled borders: unplanned trips to empty castles and ruined cathedrals, a stint in bombed-out Warsaw in the midst of the Communist election takeovers, and nights spent in apartments here and there with distant relatives, friends of friends, and in shabby pensions with little heat, each place echoing with the horrors of the war. A young woman alone, with neither a plan nor a reliable paycheck, Fox made her way with the rest of Europe as the continent rebuilt and rediscovered itself among the ruins. Long revered as a novelist, Fox won over a new generation of readers with her previous memoir, Borrowed Finery. Now, with The Coldest Winter, she recounts another chapter of a life seemingly filled with stories—a rare, unsentimental glimpse of the world as seen by a writer at the beginning of an illustrious career.Royalty, revolution, and scientific mystery---the dramatic true account of the fate of Louis XVII, son of Marie Antoinette, and an…
extraordinary detective story that spans more than two hundred years.Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie, enjoyed a charmed early childhood in the gilded palace of Versailles. At the age of four, he became the dauphin, heir to the most powerful throne in Europe. Yet within five years he was to lose everything. Drawn into the horror of the French Revolution, his family was incarcerated and their fate thrust into the hands of the revolutionaries who wished to destroy the monarchy.In 1793, when Marie Antoinette was beheaded at the guillotine, she left her adored eight-year-old son imprisoned in the Temple Tower. Far from inheriting a throne, the orphaned boy-king had to endure the hostility and abuse of a nation. Two years later, the revolutionary leaders declared Louis XVII dead. No grave was dug, no monument built to mark his passing.Immediately, rumors spread that the prince had, in fact, escaped from prison and was still alive. Others believed that he had been murdered, his heart cut out and preserved as a relic. As with the tragedies of England's princes in the Tower and the Romanov archduchess Anastasia, countless "brothers" soon approached Louis-Charles's older sister, Marie-Therese, who survived the revolution. They claimed not only the dauphin's name, but also his inheritance. Several "princes" were plausible, but which, if any, was the real heir to the French throne?The Lost King of France is a moving and dramatic tale that interweaves a pivotal moment in France's history with a compelling detective story that involves pretenders to the crown, royalist plots and palace intrigue, bizarre legal battles, and modern science. The quest for the truth continued into the twenty-first century, when, thanks to DNA testing, the strange odyssey of a stolen heart found within the royal tombs brought an exciting conclusion to the two-hundred-year-old mystery of the lost king of France.Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People
By Elizabeth A. Fenn. 2014
Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for HistoryEncounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains…
people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. Her boldly original interpretation of these diverse research findings offers us a new perspective on early American history, a new interpretation of the American past. By 1500, more than twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern Plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skills, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Recent archaeological discoveries show how these Native American people thrived, and then how they collapsed. The damage wrought by imported diseases like smallpox and the havoc caused by the arrival of horses and steamboats were tragic for the Mandans, yet, as Fenn makes clear, their sense of themselves as a people with distinctive traditions endured. A riveting account of Mandan history, landscapes, and people, Fenn's narrative is enriched and enlivened not only by science and research but by her own encounters at the heart of the world.The Great Abolitionist: Charles Sumner and the Fight for a More Perfect Union
By Stephen Puleo. 2024
The groundbreaking biography of a forgotten civil rights hero.In the tempestuous mid-19th century, as slavery consumed Congressional debate and America…
careened toward civil war and split apart–when the very future of the nation hung in the balance–Charles Sumner’s voice rang strongest, bravest, and most unwavering. Where others preached compromise and moderation, he denounced slavery’s evils to all who would listen and demanded that it be wiped out of existence. More than any other person of his era, he blazed the trail on the country’s long, uneven, and ongoing journey toward realizing its full promise to become a more perfect union.Before and during the Civil War, at great personal sacrifice, Sumner was the conscience of the North and the most influential politician fighting for abolition. Throughout Reconstruction, no one championed the rights of emancipated people more than he did. Through the force of his words and his will, he moved America toward the twin goals of abolitionism and equal rights, which he fought for literally until the day he died. He laid the cornerstone arguments that civil rights advocates would build upon over the next century as the country strove to achieve equality among the races.The Great Abolitionist is the first major biography of Charles Sumner to be published in over 50 years. Acclaimed historian Stephen Puleo relates the story of one of the most influential political figures in American history with evocative and accessible prose, transporting readers back to an era when our leaders exhibited true courage and authenticity in the face of unprecedented challenges.Three Summers: A Memoir of Sisterhood, Summer Crushes, and Growing Up on the Eve of War
By Amra Sabic-El-Rayess, Laura L. Sullivan. 2024
An epic middle-grade memoir about sisterhood and coming-of-age in the three years leading up to the Bosnian Genocide. Three Summers…
is the story of five young cousins who grow closer than sisters as ethnic tensions escalate over three summers in 1980s Bosnia. They navigate the joys and pitfalls of adolescence on their family’s little island in the middle of the Una River. When finally confronted with the harsh truths of the adult world around them, their bond gives them the resilience to discover and hold fast to their true selves.Written with incredible warmth and tenderness, Amra Sabic-El-Rayess takes readers on a journey that will break their hearts and put them back together again.Conspiracy to Riot: The Life and Times of One of the Chicago 7
By Lee Weiner. 2020
A memoir of a life in activism by one of the original defendants in the Trial of the Chicago 7,…
subject of the 2020 Oscar-nominated Aaron Sorkin film of the same name. In March 1969, eight young men were indicted by the federalWho We Lost: A Portable Covid Memorial
By Martha Greenwald. 2023
Who We Lost is the first book that directly acknowledges the free-floating grief of the COVID-bereaved, affirms that it must…
be addressed, and offers a purposeful activity that respects mourners as well as the mourned.  In 2020,Betsy Ross and the Making of America
By Marla R. Miller. 2010
A richly woven biography of the beloved patriot Betsy Ross, and an enthralling portrait of everyday life in Revolutionary War-era…
PhiladelphiaBetsy Ross and the Making of America is the first comprehensively researched and elegantly written biography of one of America's most captivating figures of the Revolutionary War. Drawing on new sources and bringing a fresh, keen eye to the fabled creation of "the first flag," Marla R. Miller thoroughly reconstructs the life behind the legend. This authoritative work provides a close look at the famous seamstress while shedding new light on the lives of the artisan families who peopled the young nation and crafted its tools, ships, and homes.Betsy Ross occupies a sacred place in the American consciousness, and Miller's winning narrative finally does her justice. This history of the ordinary craftspeople of the Revolutionary War and their most famous representative will be the definitive volume for years to come.Tecumseh: A Life
By John Sugden. 1997
If Sitting Bull is the most famous Indian, Tecumseh is the most revered. Although Tecumseh literature exceeds that devoted to…
any other Native American, this is the first reliable biography--thirty years in the making--of the shadowy figure who created a loose confederacy of diverse Indian tribes that exted from the Ohio territory northeast to New York, south into the Florida peninsula, westward to Nebraska, and north into Canada.A warrior as well as a diplomat, the great Shawnee chief was a man of passionate ambitions. Spurred by commitment and served by a formidable battery of personal qualities that made him the principal organizer and the driving force of confederacy, Tecumseh kept the embers of resistence alive against a federal government that talked cooperation but practiced genocide following the Revolutionary War.Tecumseh does not stand for one tribe or nation, but for all Native Americans. Despite his failed attempt at solidarity, he remains the ultimate symbol of eavor and courage, unity and fraternity.Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond
By Jane Maas. 2012
"Breezy and salty." -The New York Times"Hilarious! Honest, intimate, this book tells it as it was." -Mary Wells Lawrence, author…
of A Big Life (In Advertising) and founding president of Wells Rich Greene "Breezy and engaging [though] ...The chief value of Mad Women is the witness it bears for younger women about the snobbery and sexism their mothers and grandmothers endured as the price of entry into mid-century American professional life." -The Boston Globe"A real-life Peggy Olson, right out of Mad Men." -Shelly Lazarus, Chairman, Ogilvy & MatherWhat was it like to be an advertising woman on Madison Avenue in the 60s and 70s - that Mad Men era of casual sex and professional serfdom? A real-life Peggy Olson reveals it all in this immensely entertaining and bittersweet memoir.Mad Women is a tell-all account of life in the New York advertising world by Jane Maas, a copywriter who succeeded in the primarily male jungle depicted in the hit show Mad Men. Fans of the show are dying to know how accurate it is: was there really that much sex at the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally "yes." Her book, based on her own experiences and countless interviews with her peers, gives the full stories, from the junior account man whose wife almost left him when she found the copy of Screw magazine he'd used to find "a date" for a client, to the Ogilvy & Mather's annual Boat Ride, a sex-and-booze filled orgy, from which it was said no virgin ever returned intact. Wickedly funny and full of juicy inside information, Mad Women also tackles some of the tougher issues of the era, such as unequal pay, rampant, jaw-dropping sexism, and the difficult choice many women faced between motherhood and their careers.Churchill's First War: Young Winston at War with the Afghans
By Con Coughlin. 2013
Churchill's First War by Con Coughlin is a fascinating account of Winston Churchill's early military career fighting in the 1890…
Afghan campaign, offering fresh and revealing parallels into today's war in AfghanistanJust over a century ago British troops were fighting a vicious frontier war against Pashtun tribeman on the North West Frontier—the great-great-grandfathers of the Taliban and tribal insurgents in modern-day Afghanistan. Winston Churchill, then a young cavalry lieutenant, wrote a vivid account of what he saw during his first major campaign. The Story of the Malakand Field Force, published in 1898, was Churchill's first book and, a hundred years later, is required reading for military commanders on the ground, both British and American.In Churchill's First War, acclaimed author and foreign correspondent, Con Coughlin tells the story of that campaign, a story of high adventure and imperial success, which contains many lessons and warnings for today. Combining historical narrative, interviews with contemporary key players, and the journalist's eye for great color and analysis, Churchill's First War affords us a rare insight into both the nineteenth-century "Great Game" and the twenty-first-century conflict that has raged longer than World War II.In a narrative both panoramic and intimate, Tom Chaffin captures the four-decade friendship of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de…
Lafayette.Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette shared a singularly extraordinary friendship, one involved in the making of two revolutions—and two nations. Jefferson first met Lafayette in 1781, when the young French-born general was dispatched to Virginia to assist Jefferson, then the state’s governor, in fighting off the British. The charismatic Lafayette, hungry for glory, could not have seemed more different from Jefferson, the reserved statesman. But when Jefferson, a newly-appointed diplomat, moved to Paris three years later, speaking little French and in need of a partner, their friendship began in earnest. As Lafayette opened doors in Paris and Versailles for Jefferson, so too did the Virginian stand by Lafayette as the Frenchman became inexorably drawn into the maelstrom of his country's revolution. Jefferson counseled Lafayette as he drafted TheDeclaration of the Rights of Man and remained a firm supporter of the French Revolution, even after he returned to America in 1789. By 1792, however, the upheaval had rendered Lafayette a man without a country, locked away in a succession of Austrian and Prussian prisons. The burden fell on Jefferson, along with Lafayette's other friends, to win his release. The two would not see each other again until 1824, in a powerful and emotional reunion at Jefferson’s Monticello. Steeped in primary sources, Revolutionary Brothers casts fresh light on this remarkable, often complicated, friendship of two extraordinary men.To Hell and Back: The Classic Memoir of World War II by America's Most Decorated Soldier
By Audie Murphy. 1949
The classic bestselling war memoir by the most decorated American soldier in World War II. Originally published in 1949, To…
Hell and Back was a smash bestseller for fourteen weeks and later became a major motion picture starring Audie Murphy as himself. Many decades later, this classic wartime memoir is just as gripping as it was then. Desperate to see action but rejected by both the marines and paratroopers because he was too short, Murphy eventually found a home with the infantry. He fought through campaigns in Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. Although still under twenty-one years old on V-E Day, he was credited with having killed, captured, or wounded 240 Germans. He emerged from the war as America's most decorated soldier, having received twenty-one medals, including our highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. To Hell and Back is a powerfully real portrayal of American GI's at war.In Bribed with Our Own Money David R. M. Beck analyzes the successes and failures of Indigenous nations&’ opposition to…
federal policy in the 1950s and 1960s. Focusing on case studies from six Native nations, Beck recounts how the U.S. government coerced American Indian nations to accept termination of their political relationship with the United States by threatening to withhold money that belonged to the tribes. Termination was the continuation—and, federal officials hoped, the culmination—of more than a century of policy initiatives intended to end the political relationship between Indian tribal nations and the federal government. Termination was also intended to assimilate American Indian individuals into the country&’s social and economic culture and to remove the remainder of reservation lands from federal trust. American Indians hoped to gain greater opportunities of self-governance and self-determination, but they wanted to do so under the protection of the federal trust relationship.Bribed with Our Own Money analyzes both successful and unsuccessful efforts of Native nations to oppose this policy within the larger context of long-standing federal abuse of tribal funds. It is the first book to view federal termination efforts grounded in bribery for what they were: a form of coercion.Gives readers more of what they love from the queen of southern cooking, Paula Deen. Offers flavorful recipes for sharing…
with family and friends, along with access to Paula's life and her family traditions. Showcases down-home recipes and cooking tips, entertaining inspiration, travel suggestions, home decorating ideas, and much more.At Cook's Illustrated, our test cooks are dedicated to testing and retesting recipes 20, 30, sometimes 50 times until we…
come up with a recipe that will come out right the first time -- and every time -- you make it.