The incredible untold story of four women who helped win WWII by generating a wave of black propaganda.
Betty MacDonald was a 28-year-old reporter from Hawaii. Zuzka Lauwers grew up in a tiny Czechoslovakian village and knew five languages by the time she was 21. Jane Smith-Hutton was the wife of a naval attaché living in Tokyo. Marlene Dietrich, the German-American actress and singer, was of course one of the biggest stars of the 20th century. These four women, each fascinating in her own right, together contributed to one of the most covert and successful military campaigns in WWII.
As members of the OSS, their task was to create a secret brand of propaganda produced with the sole aim to break the morale of Axis soldiers. Working in the European theater, across enemy lines in occupied China, and in Washington, D.C., Betty, Zuzka, Jane, and Marlene forged letters and “official” military orders, wrote and produced entire newspapers, scripted radio broadcasts and songs, and even developed rumors for undercover spies and double agents to spread to the enemy. And outside of a small group of spies, no one knew they existed. Until now.
In Propaganda Girls, bestselling author Lisa Rogak brings to vivid life the incredible true story of four unsung heroes, whose spellbinding achievements would change the course of history.
From the acclaimed author of The Longest Ride and The Notebook comes an emotional, powerful novel about wondering if we can change—or even make our peace with—the path we’ve taken.
Tanner Hughes was raised by his grandparents, following in his grandfather’s military footsteps to become an Army Ranger. His whole life has been spent abroad, and he is the proverbial rolling stone: happiest when off on his next adventure, zero desire to settle down. But when his grandmother passes away, her last words to him are: find where you belong. She also drops a bombshell, telling him the name of the father he never knew—and where to find him.
Tanner is due at his next posting soon, but his curiosity is piqued, and he sets out for Asheboro, North Carolina, to ask around. He’s been in town less than twenty-four hours when he meets Kaitlyn Cooper, a doctor and single mom. They both feel an immediate connection; Tanner knows Kaitlyn has a story to tell, and he wants to hear it. To Kaitlyn, Tanner is mysterious, exciting—and possibly leaving in just a few weeks.
Meanwhile, nearby, eighty-three-year-old Jasper lives alone in a cabin bordering a national forest. With only his old dog, Arlo, for company, he lives quietly, haunted by a tragic accident that took place decades before. When he hears rumors that a white deer has been spotted in the forest—a creature of legend that inspired his father and grandfather—he becomes obsessed with protecting the deer from poachers.
As these characters’ fates orbit closer together, none of them is expecting a miracle... but that may be exactly what is about to alter their futures forever.
Marking a dramatic new direction for Jones, The Unicorn Woman is a riveting tale set in the Post WWII South, narrated by a Black soldier who returns to Jim Crow and searches for a mythical ideal.
Set in the early 1950s, this latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities.
A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love. As he moves around the south, from his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, primarily, to his second home of Memphis, Tennessee, he recalls his love affairs in post-war France and encounters with a variety of colorful characters and mythical prototypes: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists, and bigots.
The lead among these characters is, of course, The Unicorn Woman, who exists, but mostly lives in Bud's private mythology. Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of Black (and Indigenous) people in a time and place of frustration, disappointment, and spiritual hope.
From bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steve Coll comes The Achilles Trap, the definitive story of the decades-long relationship between the United States and Saddam Hussein. This deeply researched and news-breaking investigation explores how human error, cultural miscommunication, and hubris led to one of the costliest geopolitical conflicts of our time.
When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the justification was clear: Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, allegedly possessed weapons of mass destruction posing a grave danger to the world. The absence of such weapons led to scrutiny of the political and intelligence failures that precipitated the invasion, occupation, and ensuing civil war. A key unresolved question: Why did Saddam give the false impression that he possessed WMDs?
The Achilles Trap masterfully untangles the complex web of individuals, power plays, and geopolitics that culminated in America's war with Iraq. Coll traces Saddam's rise to power in 1979 and the birth of Iraq's secret nuclear weapons program, delving into the dictator's inner circle. He vividly portrays diplomats, scientists, family members, and generals—all beholden to a leader responsible for widespread suffering.
CIA and presidential administrations repeatedly failed to understand Saddam's paranoia, resentments, and inconsistencies. Utilizing unpublished sources, interviews with participants, and Saddam's own transcripts and audio files, Coll provides an unparalleled portrait of a man who believed the world was against him.
The Achilles Trap is a work of great historical significance, offering a definitive account of the corruptions of power, diplomatic deceptions, and personal vanities that led to avoidable statecraft errors, resulting in immeasurable human suffering and a permanently altered political landscape.
Since his death in 1961 at the age of thirty-six, Frantz Fanon has loomed ever larger. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power have inspired radical movements across the world. But who was Frantz Fanon? In this searching biography, Adam Shatz tells the story of Fanon's stunning journey--from a civil servant's modest home in Martinique to fighting in the French Army during World War II, practicing psychiatry in rural France and Algeria, and joining the Algerian independence struggle, where he became a spokesman, diplomat, and clandestine strategist before his death at a military hospital in Maryland.
Shatz situates Fanon's writings in the context of his close and contested relations with the French intellectuals of his era, as well as his encounters with psychiatric patients, guerrilla fighters, and the early leaders of independent African states. Today, Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth have become canonical texts of the Black and global radical imagination, comparable to James Baldwin's essays in their influence. And yet they are little understood. In The Rebel's Clinic, Shatz offers a dramatic reconstruction of Fanon's extraordinary life--and a guide to the books that underlie Black Lives Matter and other groups attempting to challenge white supremacy and racial capitalism.
In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend.
But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. In Macintyre’s telling, Colditz’s most famous names—like the indomitable Pat Reid—share glory with lesser known but equally remarkable characters like Indian doctor Birendranath Mazumdar whose ill treatment, hunger strike, and eventual escape read like fiction; Florimond Duke, America’s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; and Christopher Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture covert escape aids for POWs.
Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told.
TAKING AMERICA BACK ... ONE POLITICIAN AT A TIME
In one bloody night, three of Washington's most powerful politicians are executed with surgical precision. Their assassins then deliver a shocking ultimatum to the American government: set aside partisan politics and restore power to the people. No one, they warn, is out of their reach—not even the president.
A joint FBI-CIA task force reveals the killers are elite military commandos, but no one knows exactly who they are or when they will strike next. Only Michael O'Rourke, a former U.S. Marine and freshman congressman, holds a clue to the violence: a haunting incident in his own past with explosive implications for his country's future...
THEY SAY THE BEST WAY TO KILL A GOD IS TO STOP BELIEVING. WHAT IF THE GODS DON'T WANT TO DIE? It is a troubled time. The old gods are returning and they want the universe back. The Conclave has ruled the 700 known worlds since the fall of the gods. It is an empire built upon a lie. Together with the Inquisition and the mighty Prekhauten Guard, they preserve peace and justice for all, while stamping out heresy when it arises.
Senior Inquisitor Tolde Breed is sent to the planet Crimeat to investigate the escape of one of the deadliest beings in the history of the universe: Amongeratix, one of the fabled THREE, sons of the god-king. He arrives on a world where heresy breeds insurrection, and war is only a matter of time. Aided by Sister Abigail of the Order of Blood Witches, and a company of Prekhauten Guards, Tolde hurries to find Amongeratix and return him to Conclave custody before he can restart his reign of terror.
Perfect for fans of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, the Safehold series, and the Horus Heresy, Dreams of Winter is the first book in the exciting new military science fiction series the Forgotten Gods.
A vengeful family hides an army deserter for eight years after the end of World War II, cocooning him in a false reality where the war never ended. A pair of girls look alike, but they’re not twins. And a boy's nightmare threatens to spill out into the real world...
This hauntingly strange story collection showcases a dozen of Junji Ito's earliest works from when he burst onto the horror scene, sowing fresh seeds of terror.
Welcome to the Scattered Pearls Belt, a collection of ring habitats and orbitals ruled by exiled human scholars and powerful families, and held together by living mindships who carry people and freight between the stars. In this fluid society, human and mindship avatars mingle in corridors and in function rooms, and physical and virtual realities overlap, with the appearance of environments easily modified and adapted to interlocutors or current mood.
A transport ship discharged from military service after a traumatic injury, The Shadow's Child now ekes out a precarious living as a brewer of mind-altering drugs for the comfort of space-travellers. Meanwhile, abrasive and eccentric scholar Long Chau wants to find a corpse for a scientific study. When Long Chau walks into her office, The Shadow's Child expects an unpleasant but easy assignment. When the corpse turns out to have been murdered, Long Chau feels compelled to investigate, dragging The Shadow's Child with her.
As they dig deep into the victim's past, The Shadow's Child realises that the investigation points to Long Chau's own murky past--and, ultimately, to the dark and unbearable void that lies between the stars...
The Republic of False Truths offers an intense and gripping narrative that takes us into the heart of the Egyptian revolution. This globally-acclaimed novel provides an intimate look at the struggle for freedom in a country under the grip of a repressive regime.
In the bustling streets of Cairo in 2011, tensions mount as a revolution brews. Characters from all walks of life are drawn into the chaos: General Alwany, a high-ranking government official entrenched in the security apparatus, balances his piety and love for his family with his role in torturing state enemies; Asma, a young teacher, fights against the rampant corruption at her school; Ashraf, an unemployed actor, is swept into the heart of Tahrir Square through a fortuitous encounter; and Nourhan, a television personality, staunchly defends those in power.
Their lives intertwine as a new generation raises its voice, love crosses social divides, and the revolution gains momentum. Even as the old regime clings to power, individuals like General Alwany face pivotal moments when their own kin join the protests. Alaa Al Aswany crafts a deeply human portrait of the Egyptian Revolution, offering a compelling and passionate recount of his country's recent history.
Best-selling author Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war. Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, and noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them.
Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds.
At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks?
Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.
IS GOAT BEEF? is a labor of love. It is a book that combines the author's love of humor, food, and his military service. IS GOAT BEEF? shows the humorous side of the military and how service members relax during times of conflict.
This unique book serves up tales from the front with dishes from the rear, offering a delightful blend of laughter and gastronomy. Discover the lighter side of military life through these entertaining stories.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom is an unusual and rich work. It encompasses an account of the Arab Revolt against the Turks during the First World War alongside general Middle Eastern and military history, politics, adventure, and drama. It is also a memoir of the soldier known as 'Lawrence of Arabia'.
Lawrence is a fascinating and controversial figure and his talent as a vivid and imaginative writer shines through on every page of this, his masterpiece. Seven Pillars of Wisdom provides a unique portrait of this extraordinary man and an insight into the birth of the Arab nation.
En 1962, La ciudad y los perros recibĂa el Premio Biblioteca Breve. AsĂ comenzaba la andadura literaria de esta obra considerada una de las mejores novelas en español del siglo XX.
Los personajes de La ciudad y los perros, un grupo de jóvenes que se «educan» en una disciplina militar implacable y violenta, aprenden a sobrevivir en un ambiente en el que están muy arraigados los prejuicios raciales y las diferencias entre clases sociales y económicas; donde todos se muestran como no son en realidad y la transgresión de las normas establecidas parece ser la única salida.
Jocko Willink and Leif Babin served together in SEAL Task Unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated Special Operations unit from the war in Iraq. Through difficult months of sustained combat, Jocko, Leif, and their SEAL brothers learned that leadership—at every level—is the most important thing on the battlefield.
They started Echelon Front to teach these same leadership principles to companies across industries throughout the business world that want to build their own high-performance, winning teams. This book explains the SEAL leadership concepts crucial to accomplishing the most difficult missions in combat and how to apply them to any group, team, or organization. It provides the reader with Jocko and Leif's formula for success: the mindset and guiding principles that enable SEAL combat units to achieve extraordinary results.
It demonstrates how to apply these directly to business and life to likewise achieve victory. The book covers various topics such as Cover and Move, Decentralized Command, and Leading Up the Chain, explaining what they are, why they are important, and how to implement them in any leadership environment.
A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership revolutionizes business management and challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.
Sven Hassel's iconic war novel about the Russian Front. Convicted of deserting the German army, Sven Hassel is sent to a penal regiment on the Russian Front. He and his comrades are regarded as expendable, cannon fodder in the battle against the implacable Red Army. Outnumbered and outgunned, they fight their way across the frozen steppe...
This iconic anti-war novel is a testament to the atrocities suffered by the lone soldier in the fight for survival. Sven Hassel's unflinching narrative is based on his own experiences in the German Army. He began writing his first novel, Legion of the Damned in a prisoner of war camp at the end of World War Two.
Once in a Blue Year is a rich, multilayered coming-of-age story that delves into the emotional cost of military life on the families and friends left behind. It follows the lives of Dan and Trevor, two Navy barracks roommates, as they navigate their romantic relationships and come to terms with a dramatic event at sea that forever altered their lives.
Dan is receiving a medical discharge from the Navy and, with nowhere else to go, heads to the home of his good friends Nathan and Heather. Trevor, a true submariner, finds himself stunned as he watches the girlfriends and wives wipe away their tears, left behind as his ship glides down the river.
This lyrical debut novel explores the afflicted mindsets of its Navy men, offering a psychological study that is both thrilling and deeply moving. The narrative captures the essence of their struggles as they search for identity and meaning after being cut from a submarine mission during the Gulf War.
Ido Barnea, an Israeli combat pilot, is flying a routine night flight over the Negev desert when suddenly his reliable Skyhawk jet fighter starts to vibrate uncontrollably and finally crashes, forcing Ido to eject at the last possible second.
At that exact moment, in the heart of Brussels, a young girl is kidnapped. What is the connection between those two incidents? Who is behind them?
Accused of betrayal, Ido is forced into a fast-paced dizzying chase in order to clear his name. Naama Sharon, a beautiful Mossad agent, is sent after him, and the two encounter powerful arms dealers, cynical terrorists, and corrupt army officers.
In their struggle, they discover that the two mysterious incidents hide a deplorable crime.
The Eagle's Secret is an original, thrilling novel, full of jet-fighter-like twists and turns. Its fast pace will leave you breathless... yet wishing for more.
Ryan Kendall is broken. He understands pain. He knows the hand of violence and the ache of loss. He knows what it means to fail those who need you. Being broken doesn’t stop him wanting the one thing he can’t have; Finlay Tanner. Her smile is sweet and her future bright. She’s the girl he grew up with, the girl he loves, the girl he protects from the world, and from himself.
At nineteen, Ryan leaves to join the Australian Army. After years of training, he becomes an elite SAS soldier and deploys to the Afghanistan war. His patrol undertakes the most dangerous missions a soldier can face. But no matter how far he runs, or how hard he fights, his need for Finlay won’t let go.
Returning home after six years, one look is all it takes to know he can’t live without her. But sometimes love isn’t enough to heal what hurts. Sometimes people like him can’t be fixed, and sometimes people like Finlay deserve more than what’s left.
This is a story about war and the cost of sacrifice. Where bonds are formed, and friendships found. Where those who are strong, fall hard. Where love is let go, heartache is born, and heroes are made. Where one man learns that the hardest fight of all, is the fight to save himself.
On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less then twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs remained alive.
This is the story of fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing, and the desperate battle in the mountains that led, ultimately, to the largest loss of life in Navy SEAL history. But it is also, more than anything, the story of his teammates, who fought ferociously beside him until he was the last one left-blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing. Over the next four days, badly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell fought off six al Qaeda assassins who were sent to finish him, then crawled for seven miles through the mountains before he was taken in by a Pashtun tribe, who risked everything to protect him from the encircling Taliban killers.
A six-foot-five-inch Texan, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell takes us, blow-by-blow, through the brutal training of America's warrior elite and the relentless rites of passage required by the Navy SEALs. He transports us to a monstrous battle fought in the desolate peaks of Afghanistan, where the beleaguered American team plummeted headlong a thousand feet down a mountain as they fought back through flying shale and rocks.
In this rich, moving chronicle of courage, honor, and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers one of the most powerful narratives ever written about modern warfare -- and a tribute to his teammates, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly precision from rooftops and stealth positions during the Iraq War, called him “The Legend”; meanwhile, the enemy feared him so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed a bounty on his head.
Kyle, who was tragically killed in 2013, writes honestly about the pain of war—including the deaths of two close SEAL teammates—and in moving first-person passages throughout, his wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their family, as well as on Chris.
Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle’s masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time.
The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk's boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining novel of life--and mutiny--on a Navy warship in the Pacific theater, was immediately embraced, upon its original publication in 1951, as one of the first serious works of American fiction to grapple with the moral complexities and the human consequences of World War II. In the intervening half century, The Caine Mutiny has sold millions of copies throughout the world, and has achieved the status of a modern classic.
When Travis returns home from Afghanistan, he discovers that his life has fallen apart. His parents are on the brink of divorce, his brother has appropriated his girlfriend and car, and the haunting nightmares of his best friend's death persist.
Travis's world begins to brighten when he encounters Harper, a girl who has loathed him since middle school. As they spend more time together, Travis falls deeper in love and starts navigating through the chaos of family issues, post-traumatic stress, and the glimpse of a potentially normal future.
His sharp wit, profound sense of honor, and the journey towards healing make Travis an irresistibly compelling protagonist in this touching story.
One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.
Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.
New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth's much-anticipated second book of the dystopian DIVERGENT series is another intoxicating thrill ride of a story, rich with hallmark twists, heartbreaks, romance, and powerful insights about human nature.
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.
It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. “Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences,” he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them.
Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Baghdad, and almost every grueling step of the way. What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines.
Combining the action of Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale—not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.
Private William Mandella is a hero in spite of himself. He never wanted to go to war, but the leaders on Earth have drawn a line in the interstellar sand. Despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away, a reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries...
El Arte de la Guerra, traducido por primera vez por un jesuita en 1772 con el tĂtulo de Los Trece CapĂtulos, que lo dio a conocer en Europa, se convirtiĂł 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 filosofĂa de la guerra y la polĂtica 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 polĂtica. La formulaciĂłn precisa y pictĂłrica de Sun Tzu añade al interĂ©s del texto un toque de sabidurĂa milenaria.
When U.S. Marine Logan Thibault finds a photograph of a smiling young woman half-buried in the dirt during his third tour of duty in Iraq, his first instinct is to toss it aside. Instead, he brings it back to the base for someone to claim, but when no one does, he finds himself always carrying the photo in his pocket. Soon Thibault experiences a sudden streak of luck—winning poker games and even surviving deadly combat that kills two of his closest buddies. Only his best friend, Victor, seems to have an explanation for his good fortune: the photograph—his lucky charm.
Back home in Colorado, Thibault can’t seem to get the photo—and the woman in it—out of his mind. Believing that she somehow holds the key to his destiny, he sets out on a journey across the country to find her, never expecting the strong but vulnerable woman he encounters in Hampton, North Carolina—Elizabeth, a divorced mother with a young son—to be the girl he’s been waiting his whole life to meet. Caught off guard by the attraction he feels, Thibault keeps the story of the photo, and his luck, a secret. As he and Elizabeth embark upon a passionate and all-consuming love affair, the secret he is keeping will soon threaten to tear them apart—destroying not only their love, but also their lives.
Filled with tender romance and terrific suspense, The Lucky One is Nicholas Sparks at his best—an unforgettable story about the surprising paths our lives often take and the power of fate to guide us to true and everlasting love.
There’s one thing worse than dying: It’s coming back to do it again and again…
When the alien Gitai invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again.
On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out of place: the female soldier known as the Bitch of War. Is she the key to Keiji’s escape, or to his final death?
The Gates to Love and War is an emotionally charged romance suspense novel that offers a breathtaking story of three courageous American soldiers and their heroic service to their country. Their dedication leaves them each haunted by the ghost of war, as they carry top government secrets that must not fall into the wrong hands.
One soldier is determined to retrieve what the government owes him, regardless of the cost. As their lives collide in the treacherous Montana wilderness, they embark on a journey to find peace within themselves. Along the way, they discover hope and true love, which throws them intimately together amidst danger.
This gripping tale will test their survival skills and growing desires. Can Lt Col. Jade Pickard find love, or will she remain alone on her Montana ranch forever?
Genghis unites the Mongol tribes to cross the vast Gobi Desert and confront the mighty Chin. Their land is dotted with gleaming cities, soaring walls, and intricate canals.
As Genghis lays siege to one fortress after another, he cunningly crushes each enemy differently, overcoming moats, barriers, deceptions, and superior firepower. His strategic brilliance brings his army to the gates of the Emperor in Yenking, demanding him to kneel.
Often likened to Kafka's The Castle, The Tartar Steppe is both a scathing critique of military life and a meditation on the human thirst for glory. It tells of young Giovanni Drogo, who is posted to a distant fort overlooking the vast Tartar steppe. Although not intending to stay, Giovanni suddenly finds that years have passed, as, almost without his noticing, he has come to share the others' wait for a foreign invasion that never happens. Over time the fort is downgraded and Giovanni's ambitions fade--until the day the enemy begins massing on the desolate steppe...
From a helicopter high above the empty California desert, a man is sent free-falling into the night. In Chicago, a woman learns that an elite team of ex–army investigators is being hunted down one by one. And on the streets of Portland, Jack Reacher—soldier, cop, hero—is pulled out of his wandering life by a code that few other people could understand.
From the first shocking scenes in Lee Child’s explosive novel, Jack Reacher is plunged like a knife into the heart of a conspiracy that is killing old friends…and is on its way to something even worse.
A decade post-military, Reacher has an ATM card and the clothes on his back—no phone, no ties, and no address. But now a woman from his old unit has done the impossible. From Chicago, Frances Neagley finds Reacher, using a signal only the eight members of their elite team of army investigators would know. She tells him a terrifying story—about the brutal death of a man they both served with.
Soon Reacher is reuniting with the survivors of his old team, scrambling to raise the living, bury the dead, and connect the dots in a mystery that is growing darker by the day. The deeper they dig, the more they don’t know: about two other comrades who have suddenly gone missing—and a trail that leads into the neon of Vegas and the darkness of international terrorism.
For now, Reacher can only react. To every sound. Every suspicion. Every scent and every moment. Then Reacher will trust the people he once trusted with his life—and take this thing all the way to the end. Because in a world of bad luck and trouble, when someone targets Jack Reacher and his team, they’d better be ready for what comes right back at them…
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First, he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.
Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.
John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.
An angry rebel, John dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army, not knowing what else to do with his life--until he meets the girl of his dreams, Savannah. Their mutual attraction quickly grows into the kind of love that leaves Savannah waiting for John to finish his tour of duty, and John wanting to settle down with the woman who has captured his heart.
But 9/11 changes everything. John feels it is his duty to re-enlist. And sadly, the long separation finds Savannah falling in love with someone else. "Dear John," the letter read... and with those two words, a heart was broken and two lives were changed forever. Returning home, John must come to grips with the fact that Savannah, now married, is still his true love—and face the hardest decision of his life.
When Marines enter an abandoned house in Fallujah, Iraq, they hear a suspicious noise. Clenching their weapons, edging around the corner, they prepare to open fire. What they find during the U.S-led attack on the "most dangerous city on Earth," however, is not an insurgent bent on revenge, but a tiny puppy left behind when most of the city’s population fled before the bombing.
Despite military law that forbids the keeping of pets, the Marines de-flea the pup with kerosene, de-worm him with chewing tobacco, and fill him up on Meals Ready to Eat. Thus begins the dramatic rescue attempt of a dog named Lava and Lava’s rescue of at least one Marine, Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman, from the emotional ravages of war.
From hardened Marines to war-time journalists to endangered Iraqi citizens, From Baghdad, With Love tells an unforgettable true story of an unlikely band of heroes who learn unexpected lessons about life, death, and war from a mangy little flea-ridden refugee.
The Alliance has been battling the Syndics for a century—and losing badly. Now its fleet is crippled and stranded in enemy territory. Their only hope is a man who has emerged from a century-long hibernation to find he has been heroically idealized beyond belief...
Captain John "Black Jack" Geary's legendary exploits are known to every schoolchild. Revered for his heroic "last stand" in the early days of the war, he was presumed dead. But a century later, Geary miraculously returns from survival hibernation and reluctantly takes command of the Alliance fleet as it faces annihilation by the Syndics.
Appalled by the hero-worship around him, Geary is nevertheless a man who will do his duty. And he knows that bringing the stolen Syndic hypernet key safely home is the Alliance's one chance to win the war. But to do that, Geary will have to live up to the impossibly heroic "Black Jack" legend...
In Lee Child’s astonishing new thriller, ex–military cop Reacher sees more than most people would...and because of that, he’s thrust into an explosive situation that’s about to blow up in his face. For the only way to find the truth—and save two innocent lives—is to do it the way Jack Reacher does it best: the hard way.
Jack Reacher was alone, the way he liked it, soaking up the hot, electric New York City night, watching a man cross the street to a parked Mercedes and drive it away. The car contained one million dollars in ransom money. And Edward Lane, the man who paid it, will pay even more to get his family back. Lane runs a highly illegal soldiers-for-hire operation. He will use any amount of money and any tool to find his beautiful wife and child. And then he’ll turn Jack Reacher loose with a vengeance—because Reacher is the best man hunter in the world.
On the trail of a vicious kidnapper, Reacher is learning the chilling secrets of his employer’s past…and of a horrific drama in the heart of a nasty little war. He’s beginning to realize that Edward Lane is hiding something. Something dirty. Something big. But Reacher also knows this: he’s already in way too deep to stop now.
Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first appeared on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else. He knew he could not survive through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain acceptance into a children's gang and then to help make that gang a template for success for all the others. He civilized them and lived to grow older. Then he was discovered by the recruiters for the Battle School.
Bean was the smallest student at the Battle School but he became Ender Wiggins' right hand. Since then, he has grown to be a power on Earth. He served the Hegemon as strategist and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's defeat of the alien empire attacking Earth. Now he and his wife Petra yearn for a safe place to build a family—something he has never known—but there is nowhere on Earth that does not harbor his enemies—old enemies from the days in Ender's Jeesh, new enemies from the wars on Earth.
To find security, Bean and Petra must once again follow in Ender's footsteps. They must leave Earth behind, in the control of the Hegemon, and look to the stars.
The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting and bloody confrontations with the formidable Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, ancient and implacable sorcerers. Even the imperial legions, long inured to the bloodshed, yearn for some respite. Yet Empress Laseen's rule remains absolute, enforced by her dread Claw assassins.
For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad of Bridgeburners, and for Tattersail, surviving cadre mage of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the many dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, yet holds out. It is to this ancient citadel that Laseen turns her predatory gaze.
However, it would appear that the Empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister, shadowbound forces are gathering as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand... Conceived and written on a panoramic scale, Gardens of the Moon is epic fantasy of the highest order--an enthralling adventure by an outstanding new voice.
Flyboys is a gripping narrative of war, friendship, and honor set against the backdrop of the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima. Nine American flyers, Navy and Marine pilots tasked with bombing Japanese communications towers, were shot down. This is their story.
One of these men was miraculously rescued by a U.S. Navy submarine, while the others faced capture by Japanese soldiers. The fate of these eight captured men was shrouded in secrecy, buried by both American and Japanese governments.
James D. Bradley takes readers on a journey to uncover the truth, navigating through dusty attics in American towns, classified government archives, and the heart of Japan, ultimately reaching Chichi Jima itself. His findings reveal a mystery stretching back 150 years, to America's westward expansion and Japan's initial encounters with the Western world.
With vivid descriptions, Bradley brings to life the courage and sacrifice of these young men, while also exploring the complex history of two nations at war. He delves into the Japanese warrior mentality and the U.S. military strategies that justified devastating attacks on civilians.
Ultimately, Flyboys is about how we live and die, epitomized by the tale of the one Flyboy who escaped capture—a young Navy pilot named George H. W. Bush, who would later become President of the United States.
This masterpiece of historical narrative will forever change our understanding of the Pacific war and the very principles we fight for.
Storm of Steel is a memoir of astonishing power, savagery, and ashen lyricism. It illuminates not only the horrors but also the fascination of total war, seen through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier.
Young, tough, patriotic, but also disturbingly self-aware, JĂĽnger exulted in the Great War, which he saw not just as a great national conflict, but more importantly as a unique personal struggle. Leading raiding parties, defending trenches against murderous British incursions, simply enduring as shells tore his comrades apart, JĂĽnger kept testing himself, braced for the death that would mark his failure.
Published shortly after the war's end, Storm of Steel was a worldwide bestseller and can now be rediscovered through Michael Hofmann's brilliant new translation.
Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman has brought to life again the people and events that led up to World War I. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledge of her subject and its characters, Ms. Tuchman reveals, for the first time, just how the war started, why, and how it could have been stopped but wasn't. A classic historical survey of a time and a people we all need to know more about, THE GUNS OF AUGUST will not be forgotten.
Jack Reacher. The ultimate loner. An elite ex-military cop who left the service years ago, he's moved from place to place...without family...without possessions...without commitments. And without fear. Which is good, because trouble—big, violent, complicated trouble—finds Reacher wherever he goes. And when trouble finds him, Reacher does not quit, not once...not ever.
But some unfinished business has now found Reacher. And Reacher is a man who hates unfinished business. Ten years ago, a key investigation went sour and someone got away with murder. Now a chance encounter brings it all back. Now Reacher sees his one last shot. Some would call it vengeance. Some would call it redemption. Reacher would call it...justice.
Banished to the Empire's farthest outpost, veteran warrior Paulinus Maximus defends The Wall of Britannia from the constant onslaught of belligerent barbarian tribes. Bravery, loyalty, experience, and success lead to Maximus' appointment as "General of the West" by the Roman emperor, the ambition of a lifetime.
But with the title comes a caveat: Maximus needs to muster and command a single legion to defend the perilous Rhine frontier. On the opposite side of the Rhine River, tribal nations are uniting; hundreds of thousands mass in preparation for the conquest of Gaul, and from there, a sweep down into Rome itself. Only a wide river and a wily general keep them in check.
With discipline, deception, persuasion, and surprise, Maximus holds the line against an increasingly desperate and innumerable foe. Friends, allies, and even enemies urge Maximus to proclaim himself emperor. He refuses, bound by an oath of duty, honor, and sacrifice to Rome, a city he has never seen. But then circumstance intervenes. Now, Maximus will accept the purple robe of emperor, if his scrappy legion can deliver this last crucial victory against insurmountable odds. The very fate of Rome hangs in the balance.