Books with category 📜 History
Displaying books 145-192 of 307 in total

All the Light We Cannot See

2014

by Anthony Doerr

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See is a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane.

When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure.

Doerr's combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work.

The Ring and the Crown

Magic is power, and power is magic... Once they were inseparable, just two little girls playing games in a formidable castle. Now Princess Marie-Victoria, heir to the mightiest empire in the world, and Aelwyn Myrddyn, a bastard mage, face vastly different futures. Quiet and gentle, Marie has never lived up to the ambitions of her mother, Queen Eleanor the Second. With the help of her Merlin, Eleanor has maintained a stranglehold on the world's only source of magic. While the enchanters faithfully serve the crown, the sun will never set on the Franco-British Empire.

As the annual London Season begins, the great and noble families across the globe flaunt their wealth and magic at parties, teas, and, of course, the lavish Bal du Drap d'Or, the Ball of the Gold Cloth. But the talk of the season is Ronan Astor, a social-climbing American with only her dazzling beauty to recommend her. Ronan is determined to make a good match to save her family's position. But when she falls for a handsome rogue on the voyage over, her lofty plans are imperiled by her desires.

Meanwhile, Isabelle of Orleans, daughter of the displaced French royal family, finds herself cast aside by Leopold, heir to the Prussian crown, in favor of a political marriage to Marie-Victoria. Isabelle arrives in the city bent on reclaiming what is hers. But Marie doesn't even want Leopold-she has lost her heart to a boy the future queen would never be allowed to marry.

When Marie comes to Aelwyn, desperate to escape a life without love, the girls form a perilous plan that endangers not only the entire kingdom but the fate of the monarchy.

The Crazy Life of a Kid from Brooklyn

My dream then was to play baseball for the New York Yankees. I was on the Stuyvesant baseball team, but because of my working hours, my playing time was limited. My first dream to become a corporate president by the time I was 35 years of age was fulfilled.

Experience the ups and downs of a life well lived in Bill Morgenstein's compelling new memoir, The Crazy Life of a Kid from Brooklyn. While first reminiscing upon his childhood in Brooklyn during the depression, Morgenstein traces his life through times of war, peace, and everything in between.

At times funny and heartbreaking, The Crazy Life of a Kid in Brooklyn details Morgenstein's enlistment in the US Army, his days running a $55 million dollar company, his despair at losing it all to a scam, and much more. His chance encounters with such historical figures as Sergeant York, Cordell Hull, Sid Gordon, Jomo Kenyatta, and Vince Camuto provide amusing cultural touchstones that reveal a willingness to embrace everything life has to offer.

Through all the successful, disappointing, dangerous, educational, and enlightening experiences that have shaped his life, Morgenstein remains philosophical as he explores the roles of ethics, honesty, and unfailing determination in shaping the human experience.

Space Invaders

Space Invaders is a dreamlike evocation of a generation that grew up in the shadow of a dictatorship in 1980s Chile. It tells the story of a group of childhood friends who, in adulthood, are preoccupied by uneasy memories and visions of their classmate, Estrella Gonzlez Jepsen. In their dreams, they catch glimpses of Estrella's braids, hear echoes of her voice, and read old letters that eventually, mysteriously, stopped arriving.

They recall regimented school assemblies, nationalistic class performances, and a trip to the beach. Soon it becomes clear that Estrella's father was a ranking government officer implicated in the violent crimes of the Pinochet regime, and the question of what became of her after she left school haunts her erstwhile friends. Growing up, these friendsfrom her pen pal, Maldonado, to her crush, Riquelmewere old enough to sense the danger and tension that surrounded them, but were powerless in the face of it.

They could control only the stories they told one another and the "ghostly green bullets" they fired in the video game they played obsessively. Nona Fernández, one of the leading Latin American writers of her generation, effortlessly builds a choral and constantly shifting image of young life in the waning years of the dictatorship. In her short but intricately layered novel, she summons the collective memory of a generation, rescuing felt truth from the oblivion of official history.

The Living

2013

by Annie Dillard

The Living is a mesmerizing evocation of life in the Pacific Northwest during the last decades of the 19th century, penned by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard.

This novel is a vivid narrative saturated with the themes of violence, hardship, and triumph. It paints a picture of pioneer life navigated by European settlers and Lummi natives, interwoven with tales of gold miners, friendly railroad speculators, doe-eyed sweethearts, and shifty card players.

Set in the rough settlement near Bellingham Bay, which would become the town of Whatcom, the story captures the essence of the era with its rich tapestry of characters and events. From hermits paying debts in sockeye salmon to miners tracking gold-bearing streams, the lives of these vital, ruddy men and women are brought to life.

As settlers pour in to catch the boom the railroads bring, the novel unfolds the intimate, murderous tale of three men: Clare Fishburn, John Ireland Sharp, and Beal Obenchain. Their lives intersect with the dramatic backdrop of social changes, including the expulsion of Chinese workers from the region.

The Living is not just a historical account but a tale full of adventure and timeless human experiences that will stay with you long after you close the book.

Steve Jobs

2013

by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson's worldwide bestselling biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is a compelling account of a man whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized multiple industries, including personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

Isaacson's narrative is based on over forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years, as well as conversations with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues. This biography paints an intricate portrait of a creative entrepreneur known for his intense personality and inventive mind.

Jobs's story offers invaluable lessons on innovation, character, leadership, and values, and serves as a source of inspiration for maintaining America's innovative edge in the digital age. His approach to business and the groundbreaking products that resulted are a testament to his belief in the fusion of creativity with technology.

Throughout the biography, Jobs's colleagues provide a candid view of the qualities that shaped his approach to business and innovation. Despite his complex character, Jobs's impact on the tech world remains unmatched, and his story continues to inspire future generations.

The Feminine Mystique

2013

by Betty Friedan

Released for the first time in paperback, this landmark social and political volume on feminism is credited with being responsible for raising awareness, liberating both sexes, and triggering major advances in the feminist movement. Reprint.

Shadow of Night

Picking up from A Discovery of Witches' cliffhanger ending, Shadow of Night takes reluctant witch Diana Bishop and vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont on a trip through time to Elizabethan London, where they are plunged into a world of spies, magic, and a coterie of Matthew's old friends, the School of Night. As the search for Ashmole 782—the lost and enchanted manuscript whose mystery first pulled Diana and Matthew into one another's orbit—deepens and Diana seeks out a witch to tutor her in magic, the net of Matthew's past tightens around them. Together they find they must embark on a very different—and vastly more dangerous—journey.

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

For readers of Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit and Unbroken, the dramatic story of the American rowing team that stunned the world at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Daniel James Brown's robust book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.

The emotional heart of the story lies with one rower, Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not for glory, but to regain his shattered self-regard and to find a place he can call home. The crew is assembled by an enigmatic coach and mentored by a visionary, eccentric British boat builder, but it is their trust in each other that makes them a victorious team. They remind the country of what can be done when everyone quite literally pulls together—a perfect melding of commitment, determination, and optimism.

Drawing on the boys' own diaries and journals, their photos and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, The Boys in the Boat is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant.

Steal My Sunshine

2013

by Emily Gale

Steal My Sunshine is a poignant tale set against the backdrop of a sweltering Melbourne heatwave. The protagonist, Hannah, finds her family life warping into something unrecognizable, filled with fear and uncertainty. The story delves deep into Hannah's struggle to address the issues plaguing her family, a task that seems monumental for someone who feels invisible and powerless.

Hannah's journey for solace leads her to two people who appear to have a grasp on the true essence of life: her rebellious best friend, Chloe, and her unconventional grandmother, Essie. Hannah's faithfulness to both is put to the test as she grapples with her growing attraction to Chloe's older brother and a harrowing secret from Essie that casts a new light on the family's disarray.

Amidst the personal turmoil, Steal My Sunshine also uncovers a distressing chapter of Australia's history—the enforced adoptions that compelled 'wayward girls' and single mothers to relinquish their babies. This practice, sanctioned by churches and hospitals, continued for many years, and its devastating effects are only now being recognized.

With a narrative that intertwines Hannah's personal conflicts and the broader societal issues, the novel is a testament to resilience and self-belief in the face of adversity and historical injustice.

The Monster of Florence

In the nonfiction tradition of John Berendt and Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston presents a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence, Italy.

In 2000, Douglas Preston fulfilled a dream to move his family to Italy. Then he discovered that the olive grove in front of their 14th century farmhouse had been the scene of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence. Preston, intrigued, meets Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to learn more.

This is the true story of their search for—and identification of—the man they believe committed the crimes, and their chilling interview with him. And then, in a strange twist of fate, Preston and Spezi themselves become targets of the police investigation. Preston has his phone tapped, is interrogated, and told to leave the country. Spezi fares worse: he is thrown into Italy's grim Capanne prison, accused of being the Monster of Florence himself. Like one of Preston's thrillers, The Monster of Florence, tells a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide—and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi, caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.

Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups

Dead Wrong is a study of the scientific and forensic facts of four assassinations of the 1960s (President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black Panther leader Fred Hampton), as well as an examination of new and incriminating evidence indicative of murder, not suicide, in the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, White House Counsel Vincent Foster, U.N. Weapons Inspector Dr. David C. Kelly and bioweapons expert Frank Olson.

It also examines the cases of two murders directly linked to Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States.

For years, the government has put out hits on people that they found “expendable,” or who they felt were “talking too much,” covering up their assassinations with drug overdoses and mysterious suicides. The extensive research shows how our government has taken matters into its own hands, plotting murder whenever it saw fit. “Big Brother” is watching you—through the scope of a sniper rifle.

Dead Wrong will give you the straight facts on some of the most controversial and famous deaths this country has ever seen. The harsh reality is that our government only tells us what we want to hear, as they look out for their own best interests and eliminate anyone who gets in their way.

Mary Coin

2013

by Marisa Silver

Mary Coin takes inspiration from Dorothea Lange’s iconic "Migrant Mother" photograph, weaving a story of two women—one famous and one forgotten—and their remarkable chance encounter.


In 1936, a young mother resting by the side of a road in Central California is spontaneously photographed by a woman documenting the migrant laborers who have taken to America’s farms in search of work. Little personal information is exchanged, and neither woman has any way of knowing that they have produced what will become the most iconic image of the Great Depression.


Three vibrant characters anchor the narrative of Mary Coin. Mary, the migrant mother herself, emerges as a woman with deep reserves of courage and nerve, harboring private passions and carefully-guarded secrets. Vera Dare, the photographer, wrestles with creative ambition and makes the choice to leave her children to pursue her work. Walker Dodge, a present-day professor of cultural history, discovers a family mystery embedded in the picture.


In luminous, exquisitely rendered prose, Silver creates an extraordinary tale from a brief moment in history, reminding us that although a great photograph can capture the essence of a moment, it only scratches the surface of a life.

La ridícula idea de no volver a verte

2013

by Rosa Montero

«Éste es un libro sobre la vida... apasionado y alegre, sentimental y burlón.» ROSA MONTERO.

Cuando Rosa Montero leyó el maravilloso diario que Marie Curie comenzó tras la muerte de su esposo, y que se incluye al final de este libro, sintió que la historia de esa mujer fascinante que se enfrentó a su época le llenaba la cabeza de ideas y emociones. La ridícula idea de no volver a verte nació de ese incendio de palabras, de ese vertiginoso torbellino. Al hilo de la extraordinaria trayectoria de Curie, Rosa Montero construye una narración a medio camino entre el recuerdo personal y la memoria de todos, entre el análisis de nuestra época y la evocación íntima. Son páginas que hablan de la superación del dolor, de las relaciones entre hombres y mujeres, del esplendor del sexo, de la buena muerte y de la bella vida, de la ciencia y de la ignorancia, de la fuerza salvadora de la literatura y de la sabiduría de quienes aprenden a disfrutar de la existencia con plenitud y con ligereza.

Vivo, libérrimo y original, este libro inclasificable incluye fotos, remembranzas, amistades y anécdotas que transmiten el primitivo placer de escuchar buenas historias. Un texto auténtico, emocionante y cómplice que te atrapará desde sus primeras páginas.

The Constitution of the United States of America

The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights presented without commentary.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president.

On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry.

Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.

It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.

We view the long, horrifying struggle from the vantage of the White House as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cabinet. He overcomes these obstacles by winning the respect of his former competitors, and in the case of Seward, finds a loyal and crucial friend to see him through.

This brilliant multiple biography is centered on Lincoln's mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history.

Dracula

2012

by Bram Stoker

A thirst for blood, nocturnal debauchery, hypnotic trances ... this is Dracula. Jonathan Harker is travelling to Castle Dracula to see the Transylvanian noble, Count Dracula. He is begged by locals not to go there, because on the eve of St. George's Day, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will come full sway. But business must be done, so Jonathan makes his way to the Castle - and then his nightmare begins. His beloved wife Meena and other lost souls have fallen under the Count's horrifying spell. Dracula must be destroyed.

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus

Rabid charts the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies, documenting how before its vaccine, the disease caused fatal brain infections and sparked the creations of famous monsters including werewolves, vampires, and zombies. This engrossing, lively history of a fearsome and misunderstood virus binds man and dog.

The most fatal virus known to science, rabies—a disease that spreads avidly from animals to humans—kills nearly one hundred percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. In this critically acclaimed exploration, journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy chart four thousand years of the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment, Rabid is a fresh and often wildly entertaining look at one of humankind’s oldest and most fearsome foes.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Hilarious, terrifying, insightful, and compulsively readable, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 remains a cornerstone of American political journalism and one of the bestselling campaign books of all time. Thompson’s searing account of the battle for the 1972 presidency—from the Democratic primaries to the eventual showdown between George McGovern and Richard Nixon—is infused with the characteristic wit, intensity, and emotional engagement that made Thompson “the flamboyant apostle and avatar of gonzo journalism” (The New York Times).

This epic political adventure captures the feel of the American democratic process better than any other book ever written—and that is just as relevant to the many ills and issues roiling the nation today. As Johnny Knoxville writes in his foreword to this 50th anniversary edition: “Hunter predicted it all.”

The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales is a timeless piece of literature, penned by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. This vibrant collection of stories is presented in the form of a storytelling contest by a group of pilgrims on their journey to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The tales, most of which are in verse with some in prose, showcase Chaucer's unparalleled wit and insight into the human condition.

Each character, from the noble Knight to the bawdy Wife of Bath, is drawn with vivid detail, bringing to life the social spectrum of Chaucer's time. The stories themselves range from romantic adventures to moral allegories, reflecting the rich diversity of medieval society. Chaucer's daring use of the English language, rather than the conventional Latin, marked a pivotal moment in the evolution of English literature.

Although The Canterbury Tales remains an unfinished masterpiece, with some tales left incomplete and others lacking final revision, its legacy endures. The work continues to captivate readers with its complex characters, intricate narratives, and biting social commentary.

Deathless

Deathless is a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death, which will bring Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation. Catherynne M. Valente presents a modernized and transformed take on the legend of Koschei the Deathless, a menacing figure from Russian folklore equivalent to the devils or wicked witches of European culture.

The story unfolds in a mysterious version of St. Petersburg during the first half of the 20th century, following the life of Marya Morevna. She evolves from a clever child of the revolution to becoming Koschei's beautiful bride and ultimately, his undoing. Valente's tale is filled with Stalinist house elves, magical quests, secrecy, bureaucracy, and games of lust and power. Deathless is a fierce story set against the backdrop of the history of Russia in the twentieth century and is, quite simply, unforgettable.

11/22/63

2011

by Stephen King

Stephen King’s #1 bestselling time-travel novel—now a limited series on Hulu starring James Franco! On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back?

In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King—who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer—takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.

It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes. He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away—a gruesome, harrowing story about the night more than fifty years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer. Reading the essay is a watershed moment for Jake, his life—like Harry’s, like America’s in 1963—turning on a dime.

Not much later his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson, in a different world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere. From the dank little city of Derry, Maine (where there’s Dunning business to conduct), to the warmhearted small town of Jodie, Texas, where Jake falls dangerously in love, every turn is leading eventually, of course, to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and to Dallas, where the past becomes heart-stoppingly suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore. Time-travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.

History of the Peloponnesian War

2011

by Thucydides

Written four hundred years before the birth of Christ, this detailed contemporary account of the long life-and-death struggle between Athens and Sparta stands an excellent chance of fulfilling its author's ambitious claim. Thucydides himself (c.460-400 BC) was an Athenian and achieved the rank of general in the earlier stages of the war. He applied thereafter a passion for accuracy and a contempt for myth and romance in compiling this factual record of a disastrous conflict.

My Brilliant Friend

Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its protagonists, the fiery and unforgettable Lila, and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflictual friendship. Book one in the series follows Lila and Elena from their first fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence.

Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists.

Ferrante is one of the world’s great storytellers. With My Brilliant Friend she has given her readers an abundant, generous, and masterfully plotted page-turner that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight readers for many generations to come.

Seattle in Black and White

Seattle was a very different city in 1960 than it is today. There were no black bus drivers, sales clerks, or bank tellers. Black children rarely attended the same schools as white children. And few black people lived outside of the Central District. In 1960, Seattle was effectively a segregated town.


Energized by the national civil rights movement, an interracial group of Seattle residents joined together to form the Seattle chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Operational from 1961 through 1968, CORE had a brief but powerful effect on Seattle. The chapter began by challenging one of the more blatant forms of discrimination in the city, local supermarkets. Located within the black community and dependent on black customers, these supermarkets refused to hire black employees. CORE took the supermarkets to task by organizing hundreds of volunteers into shifts of continuous picketers until stores desegregated their staffs.


From this initial effort, CORE, in partnership with the NAACP and other groups, launched campaigns to increase employment and housing opportunities for black Seattleites, and to address racial inequalities in Seattle public schools. The members of Seattle CORE were committed to transforming Seattle into a more integrated and just society.


Seattle was one of more than one hundred cities to support an active CORE chapter. Seattle in Black and White tells the local, Seattle story about this national movement. Authored by four active members of Seattle CORE, this book not only recounts the actions of Seattle CORE but, through their memories, also captures the emotion and intensity of this pivotal and highly charged time in America’s history.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

Hitler boasted that The Third Reich would last a thousand years. It lasted only 12. But those 12 years contained some of the most catastrophic events Western civilization has ever known.

No other powerful empire ever bequeathed such mountains of evidence about its birth and destruction as the Third Reich. When the bitter war was over, and before the Nazis could destroy their files, the Allied demand for unconditional surrender produced an almost hour-by-hour record of the nightmare empire built by Adolph Hitler. This record included the testimony of Nazi leaders and of concentration camp inmates, the diaries of officials, transcripts of secret conferences, army orders, private letters—all the vast paperwork behind Hitler's drive to conquer the world.

The famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer, who had watched and reported on the Nazis since 1925, spent five and a half years sifting through this massive documentation. The result is a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind.

This worldwide bestseller has been acclaimed as the definitive book on Nazi Germany; it is a classic work.

The accounts of how the United States got involved and how Hitler used Mussolini and Japan are astonishing, and the coverage of the war-from Germany's early successes to her eventual defeat-is must reading.

Destiny of the Republic

2011

by Candice Millard

James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back.

But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his con­dition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet.

Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside as a classic of narrative history.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane biography of cancer - from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence.


Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with - and perished from - for more than five thousand years.


The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.”


The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave cut off her malignant breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease.


Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

2011

by Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.

Doc

The year is 1878, peak of the Texas cattle trade. The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up adolescent cowboys and young Irish hookers. Violence is random and routine, but when the burned body of a mixed-blood boy named Johnnie Sanders is discovered, his death shocks a part-time policeman named Wyatt Earp. And it is a matter of strangely personal importance to Doc Holliday, the frail twenty-six-year-old dentist who has just opened an office at No. 24 Dodge House.

Beautifully educated, born to the life of a Southern gentleman, Dr. John Henry Holliday is given an awful choice at the age of twenty-two: die within months in Atlanta or leave everyone and everything he loves in the hope that the dry air and sunshine of the West will restore him to health. Young, scared, lonely, and sick, he arrives on the Texas frontier just as an economic crash wrecks the dreams of a nation. Soon, with few alternatives open to him, Doc Holliday is gambling professionally; he is also living with Mária Katarina Harony, a high-strung Hungarian whore with dazzling turquoise eyes, who can quote Latin classics right back at him. Kate makes it her business to find Doc the high-stakes poker games that will support them both in high style. It is Kate who insists that the couple travel to Dodge City, because “that’s where the money is.”

And that is where the unlikely friendship of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp really begins—before Wyatt Earp is the prototype of the square-jawed, fearless lawman; before Doc Holliday is the quintessential frontier gambler; before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral links their names forever in American frontier mythology—when neither man wanted fame or deserved notoriety.

Authentic, moving, and witty, Maria Doria Russell’s fifth novel redefines these two towering figures of the American West and brings to life an extraordinary cast of historical characters, including Holliday’s unforgettable companion, Kate. First and last, however, Doc is John Henry Holliday’s story, written with compassion, humor, and respect by one of our greatest contemporary storytellers.

Hidden History of Mississippi Blues

Although many bluesmen began leaving the Magnolia State in the early twentieth century to pursue fortune and fame up north, many others stayed home. These musicians remained rooted to the traditions of their land, which came to define a distinctive playing style unique to Mississippi. They didn't simply play the blues, they lived it.

Travel through the hallowed juke joints and cotton fields with author Roger Stolle as he recounts the history of Mississippi blues and the musicians who have kept it alive. Some of these bluesmen remain to carry on this proud legacy, while others have passed on, but Hidden History of Mississippi Blues ensures none will be forgotten.

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

2011

by Michael Lewis

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine is a #1 New York Times bestseller and a major motion picture from Paramount Pictures. Michael Lewis, the author of The Blind Side and Moneyball, tells the compelling story of four outsiders in the high-finance world who predicted the credit and housing bubble collapse before anyone else.

The narrative starts with the silent crash that took place in the obscure markets of bonds and real estate derivatives. These are the places where complex securities are created to profit from the financial struggles of lower- and middle-class Americans. Lewis provides a character-driven narrative filled with indignation and dark humor, presenting a group of unlikely heroes whose stories are as compelling as they are improbable, establishing him yet again as an exceptional and witty chronicler of our times.

The Hustle

2010

by Doug Merlino

The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White chronicles a fascinating social experiment where wealthy white and disadvantaged African-American basketball athletes were brought together to form a successful youth team. This team also provided the black players an opportunity to attend private school, unveiling their journeys years later.

The experiment was conceived by two fathers, one white and one black. They pondered the outcome of mixing white players from an elite Seattle private school, known for alumni like Microsoft's Bill Gates, with black kids from the inner city. Would exposure to privilege offer the black kids better opportunities? Would it open the white kids' eyes to a different side of life?

The 1986 season became the experimental stage. Hip-hop was going mainstream, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson dominated the NBA, and Ronald Reagan was president. In Seattle, this team's season unfolded like a classic sports movie: the diverse group of boys bonded and won the league championship.

But was the experiment truly successful? How did crossing lines of class, race, and wealth affect the lives of these ten boys? Two decades later, Doug Merlino, a former team member, embarked on a journey to reconnect with his teammates. His search ranged from a prison cell to a hedge fund office, street corners to a shack in rural Oregon, a Pentecostal church to brutal murder records.

The result is a complex, gripping, and unsettling story. Set against a backdrop of sweeping social and economic change, The Hustle captures the intricate ways race, money, and opportunity shape our lives. It is a tale both personal and public, exploring how a disparate group of men found—or didn't find—a place in America.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Written initially to guide his son, Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography is a lively, spellbinding account of his unique and eventful life, now a classic of world literature that is sure to inspire and delight readers everywhere. Few men could compare to Benjamin Franklin. Virtually self-taught, he excelled as an athlete, a man of letters, a printer, a scientist, a wit, an inventor, an editor, and a writer, and he was probably the most successful diplomat in American history. David Hume hailed him as the first great philosopher and great man of letters in the New World.

Black Like Me

In the Deep South of the 1950’s, a color line was etched in blood across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross that line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man. What happened to John Howard Griffin—from the outside and within himself—as he made his way through the segregated Deep South is recorded in this searing work of nonfiction. His audacious, still chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity every American must read.

Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. But his success was a surprise to the racing establishment, which had written off the crooked-legged racehorse with the sad tail.

Three men changed Seabiscuit’s fortunes: Charles Howard was a onetime bicycle repairman who introduced the automobile to the western United States and became an overnight millionaire. When he needed a trainer for his new racehorses, he hired Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from the Colorado plains. Smith urged Howard to buy Seabiscuit for a bargain-basement price, then hired as his jockey Red Pollard, a failed boxer who was blind in one eye, half-crippled, and prone to quoting passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Over four years, these unlikely partners survived a phenomenal run of bad fortune, conspiracy, and severe injury to transform Seabiscuit from a neurotic, pathologically indolent also-ran into an American sports icon.

Author Laura Hillenbrand brilliantly re-creates a universal underdog story, one that proves life is a horse race.

Travels in Siberia

2010

by Ian Frazier

In his astonishing new work, Ian Frazier, one of our greatest and most entertaining storytellers, trains his perceptive, generous eye on Siberia, the storied expanse of Asiatic Russia whose grim renown is but one explanation among hundreds for the region's fascinating, enduring appeal.

In Travels in Siberia, Frazier reveals Siberia's role in history—its science, economics, and politics—with great passion and enthusiasm, ensuring that we’ll never think about it in the same way again.

With great empathy and epic sweep, Frazier tells the stories of Siberia's most famous exiles, from the well-known—Dostoyevsky, Lenin (twice), Stalin (numerous times)—to the lesser known (like Natalie Lopukhin, banished by the empress for copying her dresses) to those who experienced unimaginable suffering in Siberian camps under the Soviet regime, forever immortalized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago.

Travels in Siberia is also a unique chronicle of Russia since the end of the Soviet Union, a personal account of adventures among Russian friends and acquaintances, and, above all, a unique, captivating, totally Frazierian take on what he calls the "amazingness" of Russia—a country that, for all its tragic history, somehow still manages to be funny.

Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter

2010

by Adeline Yen Mah

A riveting memoir of a girl's painful coming-of-age in a wealthy Chinese family during the 1940s.

A Chinese proverb says, "Falling leaves return to their roots." In Chinese Cinderella, Adeline Yen Mah returns to her roots to tell the story of her painful childhood and her ultimate triumph and courage in the face of despair. Adeline's affluent, powerful family considers her bad luck after her mother dies giving birth to her. Life does not get any easier when her father remarries. She and her siblings are subjected to the disdain of her stepmother, while her stepbrother and stepsister are spoiled. Although Adeline wins prizes at school, they are not enough to compensate for what she really yearns for -- the love and understanding of her family.

Following the success of the critically acclaimed adult bestseller Falling Leaves, this memoir is a moving telling of the classic Cinderella story, with Adeline Yen Mah providing her own courageous voice.

The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil.

What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

The Disappearing Spoon

2010

by Sam Kean

Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters?

The periodic table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, conflict, the arts, medicine, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. "The Disappearing Spoon" masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, discovery, and alchemy, from the big bang through the end of time.

Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام‎) is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and numbering about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyám (1048–1131), a Persian poet, mathematician, and astronomer. A ruba'i is a two-line stanza with two parts (or hemistichs) per line, hence the word rubáiyát (derived from the Arabic language root for "four"), meaning "quatrains".

Omar Khayyám was an eleventh-century Persian poet, mathematician, and astronomer. Renowned in his own time for his scientific achievements, his fame was reborn in the nineteenth century when Edward Fitzgerald published a translation of his rubáiyát (quatrains in a style popular among Persian intellectuals of his day). Fitzgerald's first translation was first published anonymously in 1859. (His revised editions were published in 1868, 1872, and 1879). FitzGerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is perhaps the most frequently read Victorian poem of all time.

Seattle Vice

2010

by Rick Anderson

Seattle Vice delves into the murky underworld of the Emerald City, where strippers, prostitution, dirty money, and crooked cops paint a vivid picture of corruption.

This no-holds-barred account chronicles the exploits of Frank Colacurcio, Sr. and his crime family, dominating Seattle's power and politics much like the notorious Mafia dons of New York and Chicago. Known as the Pacific Northwest's most successful strip club owner, Colacurcio's life is a tale of excess and crime, having amassed wealth while facing multiple felony charges.

At the age of 92, Colacurcio still stands at the center of Seattle's historic narrative of vice and corruption, smiling into the camera as a symbol of the city's complicated past.

The Green Mile

2010

by Stephen King

Welcome to Cold Mountain Penitentiary, home to the Depression-worn men of E Block. Convicted killers all, each awaits his turn to walk "the Green Mile," the lime-colored linoleum corridor leading to a final meeting with Old Sparky, Cold Mountain's electric chair. Prison guard Paul Edgecombe has seen his share of oddities over the years working the Mile, but he's never seen anyone like John Coffey—a man with the body of a giant and the mind of a child, condemned for a crime terrifying in its violence and shocking in its depravity.

In this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecombe is about to discover the terrible, wondrous truth about Coffey, a truth that will challenge his most cherished beliefs... and yours. Masterfully told and as suspenseful as it is haunting, The Green Mile is Stephen King’s classic #1 New York Times bestselling dramatic serial novel and inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film starring Tom Hanks.

The Things They Carried

2010

by Tim O'Brien

The Things They Carried presents an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of Vietnam, and back home in America two decades later. Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it uniquely intertwines elements of both, with a clear artistic vision.

The book depicts the men of Alpha Company—Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O'Brien. As they face the enemy, and sometimes each other, their experiences reveal their isolation, loneliness, rage, fear, and their need for camaraderie. They carry not only physical burdens but also the weight of memory and the longing for a life left behind.

With dramatic force, emotional precision, and intimate detail, The Things They Carried is a testament to the men who risked their lives in America's most controversial war and a narrative that addresses the fragility of humanity.

The Poisoner's Handbook

2010

by Deborah Blum

The Poisoner's Handbook is a fascinating tale of chemistry and detection, poison and murder, set in Jazz Age New York City. In the early twentieth century, poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Science had no place in the Tammany Hall-controlled coroner's office, and corruption ran rampant. However, with the appointment of chief medical examiner Charles Norris in 1918, the poison game changed forever.

Together with toxicologist Alexander Gettler, Norris set the justice system on fire with their trailblazing scientific detective work. They triumphed over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice.

Drama unfolds case by case as Norris and Gettler investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, Barnum and Bailey's Famous Blue Man, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner serving poisoned pies, and many others. Each case presents a deadly new puzzle, and the duo works with a creativity that rivals that of the most imaginative murderer.

From the vantage of Norris and Gettler's laboratory in the infamous Bellevue Hospital, it becomes clear that killers aren't the only toxic threat to New Yorkers. Modern life has created a kind of poison playground, and danger lurks around every corner. Automobiles choke the city streets with carbon monoxide; potent compounds, such as morphine, can be found on store shelves in products ranging from pesticides to cosmetics.

Prohibition incites a chemist's war between bootleggers and government chemists, while in Gotham's crowded speakeasies, each round of cocktails becomes a game of Russian roulette. This beguiling concoction of true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller is a page-turning account of a forgotten New York.

El Arte de la Guerra

2010

by Sun Tzu

El Arte de la Guerra, traducido por primera vez por un jesuita en 1772 con el título de Los Trece Capítulos, que lo dio a conocer en Europa, se convirtió rápidamente en un texto fundacional de estrategia militar para las distintas cortes y estados mayores europeos.

Pocas veces un libro antiguo (escrito entre los siglos VI y III a.C.) se ha mantenido tan moderno, porque esta filosofía de la guerra y la política basada en la astucia y el fingimiento, más que en la fuerza bruta, que describe, sigue siendo actual. Incluso fuera de lo "militar", Sun Tzu sigue siendo una gran referencia para descifrar la estrategia de empresa y la política. La formulación precisa y pictórica de Sun Tzu añade al interés del texto un toque de sabiduría milenaria.

Black Butler, Vol. 1

2010

by Yana Toboso

In the Victorian ages of London, The Earl of the Phantomhive house, Ciel Phantomhive, needs to get his revenge on those who had humiliated him and destroyed what he loved. Not being able to do it alone, he sells his soul to a demon he names Sebastian Michaelis. Now working as his butler, Sebastian must help the Earl Phantomhive in this suspenseful, exciting, thriller manga.

Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer

The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history—the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin led Union cavalry troops on a wild, 12-day chase from the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia.

While the nation, still reeling from the just-ended Civil War, watched in horror and sadness, this gripping hour-by-hour account is history as it’s never been read before. Based on rare archival materials, obscure trial transcripts, and Lincoln’s own blood relics, Manhunt is a fully documented, fascinating tale of murder, intrigue, and betrayal.

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