Historical Survival

Evan McMurphy is the son of a US Navy SEAL. The same as his three best buddies. Their fathers are often called away at short notice and are absent for long periods, which makes life kinda tough. They have something else in common. Outside school, a bunch of sneering bullies doing their best to make their lives miserable. They usually succeed. Inside school, dumbhead teachers who seem to compete with each other to make their monotonous lessons as boring as possible. Things should be better for Evan when he gets home. They aren’t. His mom is on a mission to drink the local liquor store dry....

In this gripping tale, legendary aviator Amelia Earhart survives her 1937 plane crash and washes up on a remote Pacific island. Stranded and presumed dead by the world, Amelia must summon all her courage, ingenuity and determination to endure on the mysterious island. As she explores her new surroundings, Amelia uncovers tantalizing hints of the island's hidden past — ancient ruins, ghostly whispers, and a secret community of castaways. Forging an unbreakable bond with her fellow survivors, Amelia finds a new sense of purpose and belonging amidst the island's many challenges.

The embodiment of the American hero, the man of action, the pathfinder, Daniel Boone represents the great adventure of his age - the westward movement of the American people. Daniel Boone: An American Life brings together over 30 years of research in an extraordinary biography of the quintessential pioneer. Based on primary sources, the book depicts Boone through the eyes of those who knew him and within the historical contexts of his 86 years.

In 1810, Matthew Flinders made his final voyage home to his beloved wife, Ann, his body ravaged by the deprivations of years of imprisonment by the French. Four years later, at the age of just 40, he would be dead – a premature, tragic end to one of the world’s greatest maritime adventurers who circumnavigated and mapped the famed Great Southern Land, and whose naming of the vast continent would become its modern title: Australia.

Saint? Missionary? Scientist? Explorer? The titles given to David Livingstone since his death are varied enough to seem dubious—and with good reason. In view of the confessions in his own journals, saint is out of the question. Even missionary is tenuous, considering he made only one convert. And despite his fame as a scientist and explorer, Livingstone left his most indelible mark on Africa in an arena few have previously examined: slavery. His impact on abolishing what he called “this awful slave-trade” has been shockingly overlooked as the centerpiece of his African mission. Until now.

Millie (Meike) Mosbach and her brother, David, manage to escape to the States just before Kristallnacht, leaving their parents and little sister in Berlin. Millie attends Bryn Mawr on a special scholarship for non-Aryan German girls and graduates to a magazine job in Philadelphia. David enlists in the army and is eventually posted to the top-secret Camp Ritchie in Maryland, which trains German-speaking men for intelligence work. Now they are both back in their former hometown, haunted by ghosts and hoping against hope to find their family.

Britain has been battling the Second World War for three discouraging years. Nazi Germany is at the pinnacle of its power. But now, with the Americans drawn into the monumental conflict, a critical turning point has been reached. First Lieutenant Michael Carlyle is being transferred from captaining a motor torpedo boat close to home in the English Channel to fighting against the Germans and Italians in North Africa. As Michael fights on the unforgiving Mediterranean shores of North Africa and the rugged countryside of Italy and Southern France, his father, Lord Philip Carlyle, undertakes a ...

In the summer of 1942, 22-year-old Franci Rabinek - designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws - arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto 40 miles north of her home in Prague. It would be the beginning of her three-year journey from Terezin to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the slave labor camps in Hamburg, and Bergen Belsen. After liberation by the British in April 1945, she finally returned to Prague. Franci was known in her group as the Prague dress designer who lied to Dr. Mengele at an Auschwitz selection, saying she was an electrician.

Spring, 1846: Douglas Allen Deeds dreams of starting a new life out West. When the opportunity to join the Donner Party Expedition arises, he leaves the life he's known behind to set out on the nearly 2,000-mile trek from Independence, Missouri to sunny California. But progress is slow. Brutal heat, poisoned water, and rough terrain slows the expedition down. Soon they have a choice: continue on the known but grueling trail, or take a shortcut that would cut 350 miles from their journey-but take them through unknown territory.

Of all the books about 9/11 one has been missing until now - a panoramic narrative from the men and women caught up in the unprecedented human drama of that terrible day. The Only Plane in the Sky is nothing less than the first comprehensive oral history of 9/11, deftly woven and told in the voices of ordinary people grappling with extraordinary events. Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, recently declassified documents and new and archived interviews from nearly 500 people, historian Garrett Graff skillfully tells the story of the day as it was lived.

Toto Koopman - beautiful, mixed-race, bisexual Vogue cover girl in 1930s Paris and lover of the all-powerful press baron and wartime cabinet minister Lord Beaverbrook. Coco Chanel, brilliant couturier and parfumier, rich beyond dreams and friend of Winston Churchill, the greatest-ever Briton. Both the toast of Parisian and London high society.

In the current wave of seafaring literature, no fictional sailor's story can match this true real-life adventure. With Charles Tyng's Before the Wind we roam the world of the early 19th century: visit Lord Byron in Italy, King Tamehameha in Hawaii, and skirt Napoleon's prison isle of St. Helena. We learn to siphon rum from the captain's cask, relive the historic battle of The Bulwark and The Chesapeake, and witness an encounter with a mermaid.

A maritime adventure novel set in the unforgiving seas around Kerguelen predominantly during the late 19th century. To Hell from the Sea is a visceral narrative plumbing the depths of a dangerous nautical journey, the gritty life of sailors, and the machinations of high society. Following the lives of worldly seamen and aristocrats alike, this novel delivers hard-hitting truths about survival, human resilience, and enduring love, no matter the odds or societal norms. The heart of the story revolves around the lives onboard the Albatross, a vessel on a treacherous voyage. Axel, a grizzled ...

One of the earliest known autobiographies by a woman, this is the extraordinary tale of Catalina de Erauso, who in 1599 escaped from a Basque convent dressed as a man and went on to live one of the most wildly fantastic lives of any woman in history. A soldier in the Spanish army, she traveled to Peru and Chile, became a gambler, and even mistakenly killed her own brother in a duel. During her lifetime she emerged as the adored folkloric hero of the Spanish-speaking world. This delightful translation of Catalina's own work introduces a new audience to her audacious escapades.

A Historical Novel Set in Wapping, London, During the Late 19th Century"Along the Thames" is a historical novel set in Wapping, London, during the intriguing era of the late 19th century. This riveting narrative expertly weaves history with fictional characters to paint an engaging picture of the challenging life and times experienced by the ordinary folk of London's East End. The StorylineNarrated through the eyes of young Stephen, the plot centers around his life with his grandfather Nat Huber, a pub owner in Wapping. The story begins with Stephen recalling his idyllic past, the premature...

A moving story, wrapped in humor, about love, loss, and hope in one of history’s darkest hours. 1933. Hitler’s rise to power in Germany marks the beginning of the end for the Jews of Europe. For little newborn Yaakov, this is only the beginning. Hungary, 1944. 11-year-old Yaakov and his parents and younger sister are forced out of their home into the unknown. They find themselves in the ghetto, living under impossible conditions, until they are banished by the Nazis to Bergen Belsen concentration camp through Austria, what might be their final destination.

Shorty is a Haitian boy trapped in the rubble of a hospital when an earthquake shatters the world around him. Surrounded by lifeless bodies and growing desperately weak from lack of food and water, death seems imminent. Yet as Shorty waits for a rescue that may never come, he becomes aware of another presence, one reaching out to him across two hundred years of history.

In 1856 Paul Du Chaillu marched into the equatorial wilderness of West Africa determined to bag an animal that, according to legend, was nothing short of a monster. When he emerged three years later, the summation of his efforts only hinted at what he'd experienced in one of the most dangerous regions on earth. Armed with an astonishing collection of zoological specimens, Du Chaillu leapt from the physical challenges of the jungle straight into the center of the biggest issues of the time.

It doesn't matter if you are a history buff or if you love human interest stories, I've found this book to be the most unexpected page turner that I've read in a very long time. It's the story of Charles Pierce who lived through six, terrifying years of being a slave to the Nazis facing death most virtually one minute after the next and...miraculously surviving. Then, having the courage to build a lasting, loving and happy marriage with a woman he would call his bride for over a half century.

Amelia Earhart flew solo over the Atlantic, afterward receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross, and began championing the efforts of women to explore careers traditionally held by men. Tragically, just days before her 40th birthday, her plane vanished en route to a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean as she neared the end of her round-the-world journey. After an exhaustive search, no trace of the plane or Amelia was ever found.