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81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness
by Brian MurphyShortly before Christmas in 1943, five Army aviators left Alaska’s Ladd Field on a test flight. Only one ever returned: Leon Crane, a city kid from Philadelphia with little more than a parachute on his back when he bailed from his B-24 Liberator before it crashed into the Arctic. Alone in subzero temperatures, Crane managed to stay alive in the dead of the Yukon winter for nearly twelve weeks and, amazingly, walked out of the ordeal intact. 81 Days Below Zero recounts, for the first time, the full story of Crane’s remarkable saga. In a drama of staggering resolve with moments of phenomenal luck, Crane learned to survive in the Yukon’s unforgiving landscape. His is a tale of the human capacity to endure extreme conditions and intense lonelinessand emerge stronger than before.
82 Days on Okinawa: One American's Unforgettable Firsthand Account of the Pacific War's Greatest Battle
by Robert L. Wise"A gritty, first-person account. ... One can hear Shaw’s voice as if he were sitting beside you." —Wall Street JournalAn unforgettable soldier’s-eye view of the Pacific War’s bloodiest battle, by the first American officer ashore Okinawa. On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, 1.5 million men gathered aboard 1,500 Allied ships off the coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa. The men were there to launch the largest amphibious assault on the Pacific Theater. War planners expected an 80 percent casualty rate.The first American officer ashore was then-Major Art Shaw (1920-2020), a unit commander in the U.S. Army’s 361st Field Artillery Battalion of the 96th Infantry Division, nicknamed the Deadeyes. For the next three months, Shaw and his men served near the front lines of the Pacific’s costliest battle, their artillery proving decisive against a phantom enemy who had entrenched itself in the rugged, craggy island. Over eighty-two days, the Allies fought the Japanese army in a campaign that would claim more than 150,000 human lives. When the final calculations were made, the Deadeyes were estimated to have killed 37,763 of the enemy. The 361st Field Artillery Battalion had played a crucial role in the victory. The campaign would be the last major battle of World War II and a key pivot point leading to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to the Japanese surrender in August, two months after the siege’s end.Filled with extraordinary details, Shaw’s gripping account gives lasting testimony to the courage and bravery displayed by so many on the hills of Okinawa.
82nd Airborne: Normandy 1944 (Past & Present Series)
by Stephen Smith Simon Forty<p>An account of the heroic D-Day actions of the US Army’s first airborne division in the series that brings World War II battles to life.<p> <p>Since its formation on August 15, 1942, the 82nd Airborne, commanded by Major General Matthew B. Ridgway, trained exhaustively for their new role, which involved parachuting from C-47s and insertion by Waco CG-4A gliders. After participating in the invasion of Sicily and performing night parachute drops onto the Salerno beachhead in September 1943, the bulk of the division left for the United Kingdom and training for D-Day.<p> <p>Reorganized with two new parachute infantry regiments, the 507th and the 508th, joining the 505th, the division dropped onto the Cotentin peninsula between Ste-Mère-Église and Carentan on the night of June 5–6, in a mission codenamed Boston. Their glider-borne component, the 325th GIR, arrived the next day. Widely dispersed on landing, the division overcame its problems and strong German defenses to take the important town of Ste-Mère-Église. Further intense action along the Merderet River ensured that the Utah beachhead wasn’t compromised, and subsequently, the division fought on losing 5,245 troopers killed, wounded, or missing. When withdrawn after 33 days of action, the division could be satisfied it had performed heroically and helped establish the Allied forces’ foothold in France.<p> <p>The Past & Present Series reconstructs historical battles by using photography, juxtaposing modern views with those of the past together with concise explanatory text. It shows how much infrastructure has remained and how much such as outfits, uniforms, and ephemera has changed, providing a coherent link between now and then.<p>
88 Days to Kandahar
by Robert L. GrenierThe First American-Afghan War, a CIA war, was approved by President George W. Bush and directed by the author, Robert Grenier, the CIA station chief in Islamabad. Forging separate alliances with warlords, Taliban dissidents, and Pakistani intelligence, Grenier launched the "southern campaign," orchestrating the final defeat of the Taliban and Hamid Karzai's rise to power in eighty-eight chaotic days.In his gripping narrative, we meet: General Tommy Franks, who bridled at CIA control of "his" war; General "Jafar Amin," a gruff Pakistani intelligence officer who saved Grenier from committing career suicide; Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan's brilliant ambassador to the US, who tried to warn her government of the al-Qa'ida threat; "Mark," the CIA operator who guided Gul Agha Shirzai to bloody victory over the Taliban; General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani, a cautious man who became the most powerful man in Pakistan, struggling with Grenier's demands while trying to protect his country; and Hamid Karzai, the puzzling anti-Taliban insurgent, a man of courage, petulance, and vacillating moods. Grenier's enemies out in front prove only slightly more lethal than the ones behind his own lines. This first war is won despite Washington bureaucrats who divert resources, deny military support, and try to undermine the only Afghan allies capable of winning. Later, as he directed the CIA's role in the Iraq War, Grenier watched the initial victory squandered. His last command was of CIA's CounterTerrorism Center (CTC), as Bush-era terrorism policies were being repudiated, as the Taliban re-emerged in Afghanistan, and as Pakistan descended into fratricidal violence.
8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer (Images of War)
by Ian BaxterCovers the operations of a leading SS Calvary Regiment and describes fighting under desperate conditions on the Eastern Front.Formed in 1942 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer was soon deployed to the Eastern Front where Hitler’s ambition to conquer Russia was stalling badly. In common with other SS units the Division was responsible for razing towns and villages, poisoning wells and genocide often against unarmed civilians. This scorched earth policy was aimed at hindering the Red Army’s advance. After moving South, the Division took part in the retreat from the Dnieper River before operating in Hungary and Croatia. The end came when trapped in Budapest by Soviet and Romanian forces, the Division was destroyed in December 1944. By the end of the siege only 800 of the 30,000 men in the SS Corps reached German lines. Using many startling contemporary images, this latest book in the Author’s Images of War series vividly illustrates the horror of warfare on the Eastern Front.
9 April 1940 German Invasion Of Norway - The Dawn Of Decisive Airpower During Joint Military Operations
by Major Brian T. BaxleyOperation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway during the Second World War, is considered by many military historians to be the first joint military operation involving the combined planning and execution of air, land, and sea forces. After a brief introduction and an explanation of the significance of Norway, Chapter Three will analyze the planning process and strategy used by the Germans in late 1939 and early 1940 for devising this joint operation. Chapter Four examines, primarily from an airpower perspective, the plan itself and its execution during the first day of the operation by the Germans, and the British response. Chapter Five determines how German airpower was used, and in particular, what effect the Luftwaffe attack on 9 April against the British Home Fleet had against Britain's campaign strategy to control the North Sea. The final chapter examines three important lessons United States military planners should extract from Operation Weserübung and apply to operations in the 21st century. They are: 1) the joint operation of air, land, and sea assets produce a synergetic effect greater than the sum of their parts; 2) a difficult part of joint operations is the air command and control; and 3) airpower can decisively deny the enemy use of the land or the sea.
9 Rules of Engagement: A Military Brat’s Guide to Life and Success
by Harris FaulknerThe Emmy award-winning news anchor of Outnumbered Overtime with Harris Faulkner and co-host of the talk show Outnumbered shares the lessons she learned growing up in a military family paying homage to the military ideals that shaped her and showing how everyone can benefit from bringing the wisdom of military service into their lives.Born into a military family, Harris Faulkner revered her father, a decorated career officer who served three tours of duty in Vietnam and raised his children with the values and ideals of the U.S. military. Accompanying him from posting to posting, young Harris experienced firsthand how success in life was rooted in the knowledge, integrity, and leadership that came from her military surroundings. Indeed, these formative lessons in leadership and work ethic became the guiding principles for her career as a journalist, lessons she credits with her rise to become one of the top hosts on Fox News.Now, she shares the advice, wisdom, and tools that she absorbed through her military upbringing, examining how these ideals have shaped her professional and personal outlook and how everyone can incorporate them into their own lives. Using her father’s career as the backdrop to her experience, she explores the lessons in courage, duty, patriotism, and responsibility that helped her succeed, demonstrating the truth to the axiom that in military families everyone serves—together. Along the way she also interviews current and former military families, generals and other officers, and tells stories from her father’s career to illuminate how and why the message and mission of the military is so effective at changing lives both on and off the battlefield.Illustrated with sixteen pages of never-before-seen photos of her early life and career, this instructive book, part memoir, part motivational life guide, reminds us of our most important values—the keys to a successful life.
9/11 And Canadian Special Operations Forces: How ‘40 Selected Men’ Indelibly Influenced The Future Of The Force
by Lt.-Col Stephen J. DayIn less than two decades, Canadian Special Operations Forces (CANSOF) grew from a 100-man hostage-rescue unit to a 2,500-person Command capable of prosecuting missions across the special operations spectrum. The seminal event causing this transformation is examined within this monograph. The common narrative explaining the rise of Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) states that 9/11 is the seminal event. Herein, a new narrative is proposed. One that posits the 2001-02 deployment of a 40-man CANSOF Task Force to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) is the seminal event. This Task Force's disproportionately positive impact on the Canadian national scene caused key national actors to take note of the strategic utility of special operations forces. Twenty-four interviews with defence and security subject matter experts from the political, federal public service, military and academic domains, as well as two leading Canadian national journalists provide unique insights into CANSOF's ascendancy. Analyzing published defence policy since World War II and Canada's 20-year experience with her national counter-terrorism task force prove two key points. First, defence policy is extant, consistently expressing the requirement for an irregular capability for the conduct of operations in asymmetrical environments. Therefore, 9/11 did not change Government of Canada (GoC) expectations per se. Second, the one-year CANSOF OEF commitment produces a highly positive national strategic effect for the GoC. As a result, in less than a decade CANSOF transitions from a single, domestically focused, national counter-terrorism task force to where today CANSOFCOM is employed as a distinct element of national military power. This transformation from a single strategic resource to a strategically relevant, 'hard power' option currently provides the GoC with greater strategic choice when she looks to deploy military forces alongside her allies.
90 Seconds to Midnight: A Hiroshima Survivor's Nuclear Odyssey
by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs90 Seconds to Midnight tells the gripping and thought-provoking story of Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow, a thirteen-year-old girl living in Hiroshima in 1945, when the city was annihilated by an atomic bomb. Struggling with grief and anger, Thurlow set out to warn the world about the horrors of a nuclear attack in a crusade that has lasted seven decades. In 2015 Thurlow sparked a rallying cry for activists when she proclaimed at the United Nations, &“Humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.&” With that, she shifted the global discussion from nuclear deterrence to humanitarian consequences, the key in crafting the landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Regarded as the conscience of the antinuclear movement, Thurlow accepted the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. With the fate of humanity at stake and with the resolve of her samurai ancestors, Thurlow challenged leaders of the nuclear-armed states. On January 22, 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons went into effect, banning nuclear weapons under international law. Critical historical events need a personal narrative, and Thurlow is such a storyteller for Hiroshima. 90 Seconds to Midnight recounts Thurlow&’s ascent from the netherworld where she saw, heard, and smelled death and her relentless efforts to protect the world from an unspeakable fate. Knowing she would have to live with those nightmares, Thurlow turned them into a force to impel people across the globe to learn from Hiroshima, to admit that yes, it could happen again—and then to take action.
91st Infantry In World War I--Analysis Of An AEF Division's Efforts To Achieve Battlefield Success [Illustrated Edition]
by Major Bryan L. WoodcockIncludes The Americans in the First World War Illustration Pack - 57 photos/illustrations and 10 mapsThe 91st Infantry Division was a National Army Division created prior to World War I. Based at Camp Lewis, Washington, it was composed of draftees from the northwestern United States. Following a train up that lasted less than one year, this division departed for Europe in June 1918.In France, the 91st Division conducted additional training, but the AEF pushed it to the front lines before it was completed. In its first combat experience, the 91st Division fought on the front lines of the Meuse-Argonne. In the first days of this battle, the 91st Division, although inexperienced, gained more ground than any other American division. However, it paid a heavy price in terms of American lives. The AEF subsequently assigned the division to work under French command in the battle of Ypres-Lys in Belgium.This thesis examines the division leadership's ability to execute necessary warfighting functions and combined arms operations in the challenging environment of 1917-1918. The division was tested and accomplished a significant amount, but it also suffered many deficiencies and was forced to learn hard lessons in combat.
999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
by Heather Dune MacadamA Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee An Amazon Best of the Year SelectionThe untold story of some of WW2&’s most hidden figures and the heartbreaking tragedy that unites them all. Readers of Born Survivors and A Train Near Magdeburg will devour the tragic tale of the first 999 women in Auschwitz concentration camp. This is the hauntingly resonant true story that everyone should know. On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents&’ homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women—many of them teenagers—were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece for the Nazis to take them as slave labor. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few would survive. The facts of the first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz are little known, yet profoundly relevant today. These were not resistance fighters or prisoners of war. There were no men among them. Sent to almost certain death, the young women were powerless and insignificant not only because they were Jewish—but also because they were female. Now acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their poignant stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women&’s history. Includes a foreword by Caroline Moorehead, NYT bestselling author of A Train in Winter! &“A fresh, remarkable story of Auschwitz on the 75th anniversary of its liberation. An uplifting story of the herculean strength of young girls in a staggeringly harrowing situation.&” —Kirkus &“Intimate, harrowing… This careful, sympathetic history illuminates an incomprehensible human tragedy.&” —Publishers Weekly
@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex
by Shane HarrisAn informative study of how corporations, governments, and individuals are perfecting the ability to monitor and sabotage Internet infrastructure.The wars of the future are already being fought today. The United States military currently views cyberspace as the “fifth domain” of warfare (alongside land, air, sea, and space), and the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, and the CIA all field teams of hackers who can, and do, launch computer virus strikes against enemy targets. As recent revelations have shown, government agencies are joining with tech giants like Google and Facebook to collect vast amounts of information, and the military has also formed a new alliance with tech and finance companies to patrol cyberspace. Shane Harris offers a deeper glimpse into this partnership than we have ever seen before, and he explains what the new cyber security regime means for all of us who spend our daily lives bound to the Internet—and are vulnerable to its dangers.
A Bakery in Paris: A Novel
by Aimie K. RunyanFrom the author of The School for German Brides, this captivating historical novel set in nineteenth-century and post–World War II Paris follows two fierce women of the same family, generations apart, who find that their futures lie in the four walls of a simple bakery in a tiny corner of Montmartre. 1870: The Prussians are at the city gates, intent to starve Paris into submission. Lisette Vigneau—headstrong, willful, and often ignored by her wealthy parents—awaits the outcome of the war from her parents’ grand home in the Place Royale in the very heart of the city. When an excursion throws her into the path of a revolutionary National Guardsman, Théodore Fournier, her destiny is forever changed. She gives up her life of luxury to join in the fight for a Paris of the People. She opens a small bakery with the hopes of being a vital boon to the impoverished neighborhood in its hour of need. When the city falls into famine, and then rebellion, her resolve to give up the comforts of her past life is sorely tested. 1946: Nineteen-year-old Micheline Chartier is coping with the loss of her father and the disappearance of her mother during the war. In their absence, she is charged with the raising of her two younger sisters. At the hand of a well-meaning neighbor, Micheline finds herself enrolled in a prestigious baking academy with her entire life mapped out for her. Feeling trapped and desperately unequal to the task of raising two young girls, she becomes obsessed with finding her mother. Her classmate at the academy, Laurent Tanet, may be the only one capable of helping Micheline move on from the past and begin creating a future for herself. Both women must grapple with loss, learn to accept love, and face impossible choices armed with little more than their courage and a belief that a bit of flour, yeast, sugar, and love can bring about a revolution of their own.
A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey
by Michael D'AntonioA Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey tells the remarkable story of America's first efforts to succeed in space, a time of exploding rockets, national space mania, Florida boomtowns, and interservice rivalries so fierce that President Dwight Eisenhower had to referee them. When the Soviet Union launched the first orbital satellite, Sputnik I, Americans panicked. The Soviets had nuclear weapons, the Cold War was underway, and now the USSR had taken the lead in the space race. Members of Congress and the press called for an all-out effort to launch a satellite into orbit. With dire warnings about national security in the news almost every day, the armed services saw space as the new military frontier. But President Eisenhower insisted that the space effort, which relied on military technology, be supervised by civilians so that the space race would be peaceful. The Navy's Vanguard program flopped, and the Army, led by ex-Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and a martinet general named J. Bruce Medaris (whom Eisenhower disliked), took over. Meanwhile, the Soviets put a dog inside the next Sputnik, and Americans grew more worried as the first animal in space whirled around the Earth. Throughout 1958 America went space crazy. UFO sightings spiked. Boys from Brooklyn to Burbank shot model rockets into the air. Space-themed beauty pageants became a national phenomenon. The news media flocked to the launchpads on the swampy Florida coast, and reporters reinvented themselves as space correspondents. And finally the Army's rocket program succeeded. Determined not to be outdone by the Russians, America's space scientists launched the first primate into space, a small monkey they nicknamed Old Reliable for his calm demeanor. And then at Christmastime, Eisenhower authorized the launch of a secret satellite with a surprise aboard. A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey memorably recalls the infancy of the space race, a time when new technologies brought ominous danger but also gave us the ability to realize our dreams and reach for the stars.
A Battle Too Far: The True Story of Rifleman Henry Taylor
by Carole McEntee-TaylorA British Army veteran’s harrowing experiences in Europe and Africa during World War II are recounted in this gripping biography.A Battle Too Far is the true story of Rifleman Henry Taylor 6923581, late 7th Battalion The Rifle Brigade (1st Battalion London Rifle Brigade) and is based on his diaries and recollections as told to his son Lawrence. The Foreword is by Lt-Gen Sir Christopher Wallace Chairman of The Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Museum in Winchester.Henry’s war began in October 1942 as the 2nd Battle of El Alamein commenced and continued almost non-stop for the next three years. From El Alamein to Tunisia, he fought with the 8th Army as they finally pushed Rommel back to the sea. Although they expected to return to Britain in preparation for D Day, plans were changed at the last minute, and they were ordered to Italy instead. Here they found themselves fighting for every inch of land against determined, well dug-in defenders, in conditions often resembling the trenches of World War I. Their reward? Their campaigns forgotten as the world concentrated on the D Day invasion, and to be called “D Day Dodgers” despite enduring some of the heaviest fighting of the war.As Europe celebrated VE Day, Henry’s war continued as they raced to Austria to prevent Yugoslav forces annexing Carinthia in the opening shots of the Cold War. Then, as the men around him were de-mobbed, Henry and the rest of the Battalion were sent back to Egypt to protect British interests in the continuing civil unrest. They felt dejected and fed up, so it only took one incident to spark a mutiny . . .
A Battle Won
by S. Thomas Russell"[A] thrilling story of nautical warfare" (Kirkus Reviews) from the author of Under Enemy Colors. Winter 1793. Master and Commander Charles Hayden is given orders to return to the ill-fated HMS Themis as the British fight the French for control of the strategically located island of Corsica, where his captaincy and military skill are stretched to their utmost as he finds himself at the vanguard of this brutal clash of empires.
A Battle of Britain Spitfire Squadron: The Men and Machines of 152 Squadron in the Summer of 1940
by Danny BurtFormed at Rochford on 1 October 1918, just weeks before the Armistice that ended the First World War, 152 (Hyderabad) Squadron was originally a night fighter unit equipped with the Sopwith Camel. Its existence was short-lived, for the squadron was disbanded on 30 June 1919.With war clouds looming over Europe once more, 152 Squadron reformed at Arklington on 1 October 1939, becoming operational just over four weeks later. In January 1940, conversion to Spitfires began and after a period of defensive patrols in the North East, the squadron moved to Warmwell in Dorset to help defend southern England against attacks from the Luftwaffe forces now based in northern France. Throughout the Battle of Britain, the men and machines of 152 Squadron, call sign Maida, defended the Warmwell sector, which included the vital Royal Navy base at Portland, as part of 10 Group. It is the period from 12 July to 28 November 1940 that the author examines in great depth and detail in this definitive account. This, then, is the story of one squadrons part in the struggle to defend Britain during those dark days in the summer of 1940.
A Beachcomber in the Orient
by Harry L. FosterJournalist, storyteller, and ragtime piano player Harry L. Foster is back!From a mugging in a Vietnamese opium den to hopping a freight train down the Malay Peninsula to a waterfront bar in Singapore to a sing-song theater in China, Foster never fails to show the squalid side of life in a glorious adventure to the wild countries of Southeast Asia during the Roaring 1920s.
A Beacon in the Night (The Secret Churchill Files)
by David LewisLike a female James Bond but with better one-liners, an unflappable British spy works alongside her aristocratic partner to root out homegrown Nazi collaborators in this riveting, action-packed WWII caper for fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Susan Elia Macneal, and Charles Todd.London, 1941. Britain has endured the relentless bombing campaign of the Blitz and emerged, scarred but unbroken. Caitrin, too, strives to weather each challenge that comes her way, though her ever-ready banter belies deep heartbreak and loss.But now the war has entered another phase. Instead of indiscriminate bombing, the Luftwaffe is pinpointing historic targets, including cathedrals and ancestral homes, with the help of homing beacons placed by the enemy. It&’s as if Germany plans to erase Britain&’s very essence and culture, destroying morale as it does so. Caitrin is no fan of the landed gentry, even if her fellow operative and friend, Lord Hector Neville-Percy, is one of them. But soon it is not just historical targets under attack, but hospitals and nursing homes too. Tasked with rooting out the saboteurs placing the beacons, she finds that all roads lead to Daniel &“Teddy&” Baer, a charismatic Whitechapel crook with high aspirations and zero scruples. He will crush anyone who interferes with his dreams—Caitrin included.As a member of the female-driven 512 counterespionage unit, Caitrin understands how often women are underestimated and overlooked—and how to use it to her advantage. But she is not the only one who knows how to hide in plain sight, how to outwit and effortlessly manipulate. And sometimes, as with a beacon hidden deep within a building, danger only becomes apparent when it flares to life, right before the moment of impact . . .
A Beautiful Lie
by Irfan Master"Everybody lies. We all do it. Many years ago I told one lie that has taken on a life of its own."??In India in 1947 the country is coming apart--and so is thirteen-year-old Bilal's life. He is determined to protect his dying father from the news of Partition, news that he knows will break his father's heart. With spirit and determination, and with the help of his good friends, Bilal builds an elaborate deception, even printing false pages of the local newspaper to hide the signs of national unrest. All Bilal wants is for his father to die in peace. But that means Bilal has a very complicated relationship with the truth. This extraordinarily rich debut novel brings to live a key moment in history and touches on the importance of tolerance, love, and family.
A Beautiful Rival: A Novel of Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden
by Gill PaulIn this stunning new novel, bestselling author Gill Paul reveals the unknown history of cosmetic titans Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein and their infamous rivalry that spanned not only decades, but also broken marriages, personal tragedies, and a world that was changing dramatically for women—perfect for fans of Fiona Davis, Marie Benedict, and Beatriz Williams.Who would have guessed that the business of making women beautiful was so cutthroat?They could have been allies: two self-made millionaires who invented a global industry, in an era when wife and mother were supposed to be the highest goals for their sex. Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein each founded empires built on grit and determination…and yet they became locked in a feud spanning three continents, two world wars, and the Great Depression.Brought up in poverty, Canadian-born Elizabeth Arden changed popular opinion, persuading women from all walks of life to buy skincare products that promised them youth and beauty. Helena Rubinstein left her native Poland, and launched her company with scientific claims about her miracle creams made with anti-ageing herbs.And when it came to business, nothing was off-limits: poaching each other’s employees, copying each other’s products, planting spies, hiring ex-husbands, and one-upping each other every chance they had. This was a rivalry from which there was no surrender! And through it all were two women, bold, brazen, and determined to succeed—no matter the personal cost.In this sweeping novel from the bestselling author of Jackie and Maria and The Manhattan Girls, two larger-than life fashion icons come alive with all their passion, bitterness, and ambition as they each try to live the American dream.
A Beirut Heart
by Cathy SultanA Beirut Heart is the unforgettable story of an American woman who lived amidst the Lebanese Civil War for eight years and through it all attempted to sustain a life with her Lebanese husband and two small children. It is a memoir that offers a unique illustration of the unsung heroes of war-the women who assume the awesome task of keeping the family united during wartime.The book tells the story of how Cathy Sultan moved with her family to Lebanon in 1969. For six years they led an ideal life experiencing the rich culture, exotic food and breathtaking landscape of the city located along the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.After the war began in 1975, their lives changed forever. Sultan recounts how she held the family together by comforting her children after bomb blasts and consoling her physician husband who spent his days treating wounded civilians. To keep sane, she used cooking as her tranquilizer.The unique narrative places us uncomfortably inside something we seldom consider-the domestic element of civil war-and leaves on the reader a permanent impression of the destroyed city and its resilient people.
A Bell for Adano
by John HerseyAn Italian-American major in World War II wins the love and admiration of the local townspeople when he searches for a replacement for the 700 year-old town bell that had been melted down for bullets by the fascists.<P><P> Winner of a 1945 Pulitzer Prize.
A Bell for Adano (Harlequin Romance)
by John HerseyThis classic novel and winner of the Pulitzer Prize tells the story of an Italian-American major in World War II who wins the love and admiration of the local townspeople when he searches for a replacement for the 700-year-old town bell that had been melted down for bullets by the fascists. Although stituated during one of the most devastating experiences in human history, John Hersey's story speaks with unflinching patriotism and humanity.
A Bend in the Stars
by Rachel BarenbaumFor fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Women in the Castle comes a riveting literary novel that is at once an epic love story and a heart-pounding journey across WWI-era Russia, about an ambitious young doctor and her scientist brother in a race against Einstein to solve one of the greatest mysteries of the universe.In Russia, in the summer of 1914, as war with Germany looms and the Czar's army tightens its grip on the local Jewish community, Miri Abramov and her brilliant physicist brother, Vanya, are facing an impossible decision. Since their parents drowned fleeing to America, Miri and Vanya have been raised by their babushka, a famous matchmaker who has taught them to protect themselves at all costs: to fight, to kill if necessary, and always to have an escape plan. But now, with fierce, headstrong Miri on the verge of becoming one of Russia's only female surgeons, and Vanya hoping to solve the final puzzles of Einstein's elusive theory of relativity, can they bear to leave the homeland that has given them so much? Before they have time to make their choice, war is declared and Vanya goes missing, along with Miri's fiancé. Miri braves the firing squad to go looking for them both. As the eclipse that will change history darkens skies across Russia, not only the safety of Miri's own family but the future of science itself hangs in the balance. Grounded in real history -- and inspired by the solar eclipse of 1914 -- A Bend in the Stars offers a heartstopping account of modern science's greatest race amidst the chaos of World War I, and a love story as epic as the railways crossing Russia.