As German forces launch a massive surprise attack through the frozen Ardennes Forest, two snipers find themselves aiming for a rematch. Caje Cole is a backwoods hunter from the Appalachian Mountains of the American South, while Kurt Von Stenger is the deadly German “Ghost Sniper.” Having been in each other’s crosshairs before, they fight a final duel during Germany’s desperate attempt to turn the tide of war in what will come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. Can the hunter defeat the marksman? Even in the midst of war, some battles are personal.

    The epic history is narrowed down to the struggle of a single boy nicknamed Leosz to survive the war. From age 7 to age 13, he endures all the horrors that the Holocaust brings upon the Jewish people. Life hangs on split-second timing, decision-making in impossibly cruel circumstances, incredible resourcefulness, luck and the help of others, even Germans.In the Krakow Ghetto, Leosz is saved from three mass deportations to the death camps. He escapes the ghetto, survives for several weeks pretending to be a Polish street child, and then goes into hiding. Although sentenced to die after being caught, he is instead miraculously reunited with his family in the Plaszow labor camp. A year later, father and son become slave laborers in the Gozen 2 camp in Austria, where his father perishes. Close to death himself, Leosz is finally liberated by the American army on May 5th, 1945. Scroll up and grab a copy today.

    Whether flying a cat to Abu Dhabi, dealing with a nervous bassoonist, hunting for a cleverly-hidden lemon or attempting to celebrate Christmas in seven minutes, no job is too small, but many, many jobs are too difficult. Carolyn Knapp-Shappey, MJN Air's formidable boss, has employed two of the very cheapest pilots money can buy: Captain Martin Crieff, who's always wanted to fly and won't let a little thing like lack of ability stop him, and First Officer Douglas Richardson, smooth-voiced old sky-god and eternal schemer. Passenger service is provided by the relentlessly cheery Arthur.Written by John Finnemore, Cabin Pressure stars Stephanie Cole as Carolyn, Benedict Cumberbatch as Martin, Roger Allam as Douglas, and John Finnemore as Arthur.

    Giving voice to the unheard victims of Nazism — the Roma, the disabled, homosexuals, intermarried Jews, and political enemies of the Nazi regime — this historical thriller will change how we think about Holocaust history.Marko screwed up. But he's good at swallowing his fear.By now, the 17-year-old 'Gypsy' should be far from Nazi Germany. By now, he should be with Alex. That's how they planned it. But while Marko has managed to escape the Gestapo, Alex has been arrested in the final round-ups of Berlin's Jews. Even worse, Marko’s little cousin Kizzy is missing. And Marko knows he’s to blame.Yet the tides of war are turning. With hundreds of Christian women gathered in the streets to protest the round-ups, the Nazis have suspended the trains to the camps. But for how long? Marko must act now. Against time, and with British warplanes bombing Berlin, Marko hatches a dangerous plan to rescue Alex and find Kizzy.There are three people who can help: Marko’s sister with her connections to the Resistance, Alex’s Catholic stepsister, and a mysterious Nazi girl with a deadly secret.But will Marko own up to how Kizzy disappeared? And then there’s the truth about Alex — they just wouldn’t understand.

    It’s a completely different from her quiet old world, but she’s determined to do her part. And the back-breaking work is made bearable with the help from her two new friends - bold, outspoken Fay and quiet, guarded Evie - and the letters that arrive from her childhood friend, Sam Carmichael...To Alice, Sam was always more than just a friend, but as the son of her wealthy employer, she never dared dream he could be more… But at least ever letter brings reassurance that he’s still alive and fighting on the frontline... Because it’s when all goes quiet on the letter front that nothing seems certain and it’s a reminder of how life – and hearts – are so fragile. A tale of true courage and the power of sheer determination, this un-put-downable WWII set saga is filled with warmth, humour and heart-wrenching emotion. Perfect for fans of Nadine Dorries, Katie Flynn and Dilly Court.

    In France in 1940, then for two years in North Africa, then finally back in France again, at Normandy in 1944, he proved himself a master of armored warfare, running rings around a succession of Allied generals who never got his measure and could only resort to overwhelming numbers to bring about his defeat.And yet for all his military genius, Rommel was also naive, a man who could admire Adolf Hitler at the same time that he despised the Nazis, dazzled by a Führer whose successes blinded him to the true nature of the Third Reich. Above all, he was the quintessential German patriot, who ultimately would refuse to abandon his moral compass, so that on one pivotal day in June 1944 he came to understand that he had mistakenly served an evil man and evil cause. He would still fight for Germany even as he abandoned his oath of allegiance to the Führer, when he came to realize that Hitler had morphed into nothing more than an agent of death and destruction. In the end Erwin Rommel was forced to die by his own hand, not because, as some would claim, he had dabbled in a tyrannicidal conspiracy, but because he had committed a far greater crime – he dared to tell Adolf Hitler the truth.In Field Marshal historian Daniel Allen Butler not only describes the swirling, innovative campaigns in which Rommel won his military reputation, but assesses the temper of the man who finally fought only for his country, and no dark depths beyond.

    Anna draws the attention of Jolanta—the code name for the real-life Resistance spy Irena Sendler, who smuggled hundreds of children out of the ghetto. Jolanta wants to help Anna escape. Anna's mother drills her day and night, teaching her a new identity, that of Roman Catholic Anna Karwolska. Soon Anna is whisked out of Warsaw to a Catholic orphanage and then to a foster family.Anna's story is a suspenseful and deeply moving account of the sacrifices endured, the dangers faced, and the heroism demonstrated by courageous young victims, their parents and their saviors. It sheds light on yet another tragedy of the Holocaust: rescued children who lost not only their loved ones, but their very identities and Jewish heritage.

    As the world changes around her, Kläre is forced to make a number of seemingly impossible choices in order to protect the people she loves—and to save herself.Based on a true story, Even in Darkness highlights the intimate experience of Kläre’s reinvention as she faces the destruction of life as she knew it, and traces her path beyond survival to wisdom, meaning, and—most unexpectedly—love.

    All over the country, people are on the move- concentration camp survivors, Allied PoWs, escaping Nazis- and the civilian population is running out of food. The man who orchestrated this nightmare is in his bunker beneath the capital, saying his farewells. This is the gripping story of Hitler's final hours, as seen through the eyes of those who were with him in the bunker; those fighting in the streets of Germany; and those pacing the corridors of power in Washington, London and Moscow.30th April 1945 was a day that millions had dreamed of, and millions had died for.

    John and their charismatic Grand Master, Jean de Valette. The Knights had been expelled from Rhodes by the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, and now stood as the last bastion against a Muslim invasion of Sicily, southern Italy, and beyond. The siege force of Turks, Arabs, and Barbary corsairs from across the Muslim world outnumbered the defenders of Malta many times over, and its arrival began a long hot summer of bloody combat, often hand to hand, embroiling knights and mercenaries, civilians and slaves, in a desperate struggle for this pivotal point in the Mediterranean.Bruce Ware Allen's The Great Siege of Malta describes the siege's geopolitical context, explains its strategies and tactics, and reveals how the all-too-human personalities of both Muslim and Christian leaders shaped the course of events. The siege of Malta was the Ottoman empire's high-water mark in the war between the Christian West and the Muslim East for control of the Mediterranean. Drawing on copious research and new source material, Allen stirringly recreates the two factions' heroism and chivalry, while simultaneously tracing the barbarism, severity, and indifference to suffering of sixteenth-century warfare.The Great Siege of Malta is a fresh, vivid retelling of one of the most famous battles of the early modern world--a battle whose echoes are still felt today.

    T.D. is the only book to be published that recounts the events that led up to the British Army’s uncovering of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp and its 60,000 prisoners, how the Army dealt with the unprecedented horror that existed in the camp, how the surviving prisoners were rescued, how the inmates were evacuated, how the Royal Army Medical Corps established the world’s largest hospital to care for the many thousands of sick and emaciated ex-inmates, how the survivors were rehabilitated and cared for, how they were repatriated to their own countries, why many thousand refused to return ‘home’ and the eventual establishment of the Belsen Displaced Persons camp, the largest DP camp in Germany. The author of this book was a senior British Army officer who participated in the liberation of the Camp, who was in charge of evacuating the ex-prisoners to the vast Rehabilitation Camp that the Army set up, and who was then appointed as the Commandant of that Camp until its management was handed over to the United Nations, and who gave evidence against the SS guards at the Belsen War Crimes Trial. Forewords by Nanette Blitz Konig, Belsen survivor and former classmate of Anne Frank, and Major-General Nicholas Eeles CBE, with the introduction by the Oscar®-nominated film director, Joshua Oppenheimer.

    Suffering under her strict mother, she ran away from home and never turned back. Iris leads us on an enchanted journey around the world and through the Far East to what were then remote colonies of European empires during the 1930’s. Reaching Hong Kong, she falls in love, but soon after, the Japanese invade the island and bomb her new home with her and her young family inside it. Opting to escape prison camp, they flee across China, over the “Hump” of the Himalayas, to India, Kashmir and beyond. Her outgoing and positive personality captivates the reader, and her old photos and postcards add an extra dimension of interest to this historical account of her extraordinary life as a rebellious, independent woman in a bygone era of colonial powers and decadence, of the brutal war in the Pacific, and of the growth of the Far East into the powerhouse that Asia is today.

    These men were leaders of the Gestapo, the secret police during the times of the Nazis. This book outlines who the Gestapo were, how they operated, what their numbers were, the terrible crimes they committed and how they paid for these in the end when they were hunted down after the war.

    However, few can match Hans Sturm in his astonishing rise from a mere private in an infantry regiment, thrown into the bloody maelstrom of the Eastern Front, to a highly decorated war hero. A young man who had displayed fearless heroism in combat, earning him some of Germany's highest military awards, Sturm hated bullies and injustice, and reacted in his normal pugnacious and outspoken manner when confronted with wrongdoing. From striking a member of the feared Sicherheitsdienst for his treatment of a Jewish woman, to refusing to wear a decoration he felt was tainted because of the treatment of enemy partisans, Sturm repeatedly stuck to his moral values no matter what the risk. Even with the war finally over, Sturm's travails would not end for another eight years as he languished in a number of Soviet labour camps until he was finally released in 1953. ** This electronic edition includes 60 black-and-white photographs **

    I told him that I had not been able to tell my story. He said that it was my obligation to speak out and to tell the world about the Holocaust. He told me that I had survived for a reason-to tell the world what had happened to my family and to me. Suddenly I remembered that my mother had once told me the same thing-that it was beshert, or meant to be, that I survive to tell the story of my family.” -Eliezer Ayalon For ten-year-old Lazorek Hershenfis in Radom, Poland, life with his family is joyful. Lazorek’s father, Israel (known as “Srul”) operates a leather-cutting business from the front of the family’s sparsely furnished, one0romm apartment, and the family spends idyllic summers harvesting fruit from orchards in the nearby countryside. His brothers Mayer and Abush work as tailors to supplement the family’s income, slipping Lazorek occasional pocket money for the movies with friends. Lazorek’s sister Chaya is a kindergarten teacher and a playmate especially cherished, whether the game is catch the homemade balls of the challenging “strulkies” with stones. A deeply respected healer in the community, Lazorek’s beautiful mother Rivka shows him the meaning of caring unselfishly for others, from the breastfeeding the child of an ill friend as if it were her own and preparing special food for Lazorek himself to making middle-of-the-night visits to help sick neighbor. But what is given does not always appear to be returned in kind, as Lazorek discovers on his journey into the ghetto and the concentration camps. Although Lazorek’s father and mother sell much of their jewelry and silver for cash to pay for a visa to Palestine the British mandatory government denies the application. It is then that they lose hope of a better life, and according to Lazorek, events begin to happen so quickly that he runs out of time to be afraid. Lazorek survives and journeys to Palestine, taking the name Eliezer Ayalon. A new life begins.. . but can memories be forgotten? With “A Cup of Hone,” Neile Sue Friedman and Eliezer Ayalon impart the richness and endurance of the family love that inspires the Holocaust survivor to perpetuate the lives of those he lost by telling their story. “Neile played an essential role in bringing my part of this history to lights,” notes Mr. Ayalon. “I hope that by reading my story, as well as others like it, the next generation will learn the lessons of the Holocaust—that hate and intolerance were defeated by hope and courage.”

    After the war. The words blended into the clang of the wheels. Would there ever be an end to the war?"Nate Leipciger, a thoughtful, shy eleven-year-old boy, is plunged into an incomprehensible web of ghettos, concentration and death camps during the German occupation of Poland. As he struggles to survive, he forges a new, unbreakable bond with his father and yearns for a free future. But when he is finally liberated, the weight of his pain will not ease, and his memories remain etched in tragedy. Introspective, complicated and raw, The Weight of Freedom is Nate's journey through a past that he can never leave behind.

    The story of these men is unrecognized, submerged in the overall history of the concentration camps.From all countries and of all ages, the priests were gathered behind the barbed wire of Dachau according to an agreement wrested from the Reich by Vatican diplomacy. For eight years, both tragedies and magnificent gestures punctuated the journey of the clergy at Dachau, from the terrifying forced march of -Holy Week- in 1942 to the heroic voluntary confinement of priests in the barracks of those dying of typhoid, to the moving clandestine ordination of a young German deacon by a French bishop. Never in the course of history have so many priests, monks and seminarians been murdered in such a small area: 1,034 lost their lives.Beyond the personal journeys of which it is composed, the history of the priests at Dachau sheds new light on Hitler's system of concentration camps, on the intrinsic anti-Christian animus of Nazism and, beyond the strictly historical perspective, on faith and spiritual commitment. This book deals with many questions about the priest barracks, including:How does the experience of the priests at Dachau compare to those who were laymen? What were their privileges and what were their particular sufferings? Did the Nazi persecution against the clergy have ideological or political underpinnings? Did the faith and religious commitment of the priests reinforce them against the methodical dehumanization in the camps? Were their moral convictions, forged by the Gospel and the tradition of the Church, able to resist the perversion of values imposed by the SS? Did the sufferings endured by the priests at Dachau bear fruit within the ecclesiastical institution and also outside, at the peripheries of the Church?In Guillaume Zeller's recounting of this strange story, this fragment of the tragedy of the concentration camps allows us to learn answers to these and other intriguing questions.

    Dalya is the daughter of a cobbler in 1930s Berlin, and though she is only fifteen, she knows she will follow in her father’s footsteps. When she is forced into a concentration camp one violent November night, she must leave behind everything she knew and loved. Ray is a modern-day orphan, jagged around the edges in every possible way. She sees an impulsive escape to New York as her only chance at happiness; there, she knows she’ll be able to convert her sorrows into songs. Pinny is an unwavering optimist and Ray’s unintended travel companion on her passage to a new life. She inherited from her eccentric mother a fascination with shoes as a means of transformation and expression. A single pair of shoes entwines these lives. How these women connect across different times and places is an unforgettable story of strength, love, bravery, memory, and the serendipity that binds us all together.

    Winner of 13 book awards.2017 Independent Press Award - Winner - Historical Fiction 2017 Independent Press Award - Winner - General Fiction 2016 IndieReader Discovery Award - 1st Place - Fiction2015 Nautilus Book Award Winner - Fiction - Silver medal2016 Readers' Favorite Book Award - Gold Medal - Fiction -Social Issues2016 Finalist - Grand Prize (Eric Hoffer Award) - Fiction2016 Honorable Mention (Eric Hoffer Award) - Commercial Fiction 2016 Finalist - First Horizon Award (Eric Hoffer Award) - Fiction 2015 Finalist - Foreword Reviews INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award -Historical              Fiction2015 Mom's Choice Award - Gold Medal - Historical Fiction2015 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award - Best Novel Fall 20152015 Beverly Hills Book Awards - Finalist- "Faction" - fiction based on true stories.A Best Indie Book of 2015 - IndieReader (5-stars) Shelf Unbound - Notable Indie -2015 Best Indie Books.Germany, after World War I.  Ernst Techow, son of a magistrate, a child of privilege, joins the violent right-wing response to Germany's defeat. As a member of the para-military Free Corps and the murderous Organization C, he is recruited into a clandestine assassination network trying to bring down Germany's fledgling Weimar democracy.  These are the seeds of the Third Reich.  Ernst participates in the murder of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, the highest-ranking Jew in the Weimar Republic.While on trial for his life, Ernst receives an unfathomable offer of forgiveness that jolts his surety in the fascist cause and sets him on a complex and harrowing journey of redemption.  Throughout, he pursues his childhood sweetheart, Lisa.  They are star-crossed lovers, their passion inextinguishable, buffeted by the rising storm of Nazi ascendance.Before the Court of Heaven, though fiction, is populated by historical figures and accurately depicts events as they unfolded in Germany and beyond.  Animated as historical fiction, Before the Court of Heaven is an immunization against recurrence.

    Bea has grown up part of a large, boisterous East End family. But her sweetheart is missing in action, and her mother is controlling her life. She needs to escape. Edie inhabits a world of wealth and privilege, but knows only too well that money can't buy happiness. She wants to be like Mary Churchill, to make a difference. Joan can't remember much of her past or her family, and her home has been bombed in the Blitz. Desperate, she needs a refuge. Each one is a Gunner Girl: three very different women, one remarkable wartime friendship of shared hopes, lost loves and terrible danger.

    In September 1939, when the Nazis began their reign of terror in Europe and invaded Poland, Aliza was eleven years old. In her diaries—furtively written on scraps of precious paper that she kept throughout the war—she described the history of her family, struggling to survive in the occupied Warsaw Ghetto. Those diaries and later writings formed the basis for this memoir. Becoming a member of Hashomer Hatzair, the noted youth movement in the Warsaw Ghetto, gave Aliza hope and encouraged her to fight for survival. As a result of an extraordinary series of “miracles,” Aliza managed to survive after being sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She was among those liberated by American troops, and she has continued to tell the story throughout her life. Aliza is among the last of the Warsaw Ghetto survivors. She has been passionately lecturing around the world about the revolt, and she has escorted numerous youth groups on their visits to Poland. This book has been previously translated and published in Hungarian, Polish, and Hebrew.

    On a cold November morning in 1938, Herman watches in horror as his cousin is arrested. As a Jew, he realizes it is past time to flee Germany, a decision that catapults him from one adventure to another, his life changed forever by the gathering storm of world events. Gradually, Herman evolves from a frustrated teenager, looking for a place to belong, into a confident U.S. Army Intelligence officer who struggles with hate and forgiveness. Immigrant Soldier tells a true story using the craft and style of a novel, totally drawing the reader into an extraordinary adventure.

    It was not until 1942 that widely dispersed underground organizations would band together to form a united opposition to the occupying Germans. It was not until then that resistance would become the Resistance - a disciplined multi-national movement that would play a significant part in the outcome of World War II. In each occupied nation, resistance groups would grow, gathering and sending information to London, planning increasingly complex sabotage operations, and assisting thousands of people, particularly Jews, in fleeing Nazi-occupied territories. Their actions would eventually become a focused counteroffensive against the German army in 1944, when Allied troops gathered in Great Britain to prepare for the invasion of France. As their widespread activity weakened German outposts in France and other occupied countries, the Allies would gain the foothold they needed to win the war. This is their story.

    His story, inflated by time and celebrity, has come to personify the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.Less well known, however, is the incredible but often forgotten tale of the Mount Hope Party (also known as the Ross Sea party)—six men who worked in the shadow of Shackleton’s greater cause. Sent to the opposite side of the Polar continent, these men dropped life-saving food and fuel depots across the Great Ice Barrier, ensuring that Shackleton had the supplies necessary to complete his mission. Unaware of Shackleton’s own failed task, the party persevered in their mission, facing insurmountable obstacles of life on the ice—exhaustion, starvation, and crippling frostbite—risking their lives for the safety of his.Stitching together the previously unpublished diaries of these unsung heroes, McOrist documents their pain and suffering, as well as the humor and camaraderie necessary for their survival. An incomparable record of sheer heroism and tragedy, Shackleton’s Heroes tells a story that history ought to remember—one of the indomitable human spirit in the most extreme conditions.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    The building at Krausenstrasse 17/18 in Berlin was seized by a German businessman with direct ties to the very top of the Nazi Party hierarchy and German Railways - the state-owned organization that participated in the logistics of sending millions of Jews across Europe to the death camps—and was the head of the Victoria Insurance Company, then and now one of Germany’s top insurance companies which, according to the book, played a role in insuring the Auschwitz death camp during World War Two.The book, written by the daughter of one of the original owners of the building, details the history of the Wolff family’s ownership of the building, its confiscation by the Nazis, and the family’s 50 year legal fight to reclaim ownership of the building, which was finally awarded to them in 2010. There has been no previous written account of a successful claim of a property seized by the Nazis in Germany. Former US Ambassador to the European Union, Stuart E. Eizenstat, has written the book’s foreword.

    In the weeks that followed, as more camps were discovered, thousands of soldiers came face to face with the monstrous reality of Hitler’s Germany.These men discovered the very depths of human-imposed cruelty and depravity: railroad cars stacked with emaciated, lifeless bodies; ovens full of incinerated human remains; warehouses filled with stolen shoes, clothes, luggage, and even eyeglasses; prison yards littered with implements of torture and dead bodies; and―perhaps most disturbing of all―the half-dead survivors of the camps. For the American soldiers of all ranks who witnessed such powerful evidence of Nazi crimes, the experience was life altering. Almost all were haunted for the rest of their lives by what they had seen, horrified that humans from ostensibly civilized societies were capable of such crimes.Military historian John C. McManus sheds new light on this often-overlooked aspect of the Holocaust. Drawing on a rich blend of archival sources and thousands of firsthand accounts―including unit journals, interviews, oral histories, memoirs, diaries, letters, and published recollections― Hell Before Their Very Eyes focuses on the experiences of the soldiers who liberated Ohrdruf, Buchenwald, and Dachau and their determination to bear witness to this horrific history.

    Tunstall was an infamous tormentor of his German captors. Dubbed the “cooler king” on account of his long spells in solitary, he once dropped a water “bomb” directly in the lap of a high-ranking German officer. He also devised an ingenious method for smuggling coded messages back to London. But above all he was a highly skilled pilot, loyal friend, and trusted colleague. Without false pride or bitterness, Tunstall recounts the hijinks of training to be a pilot, terrifying bombing raids, and elaborate escape attempts at once hilarious and deadly serious—all part of a poignant and human war story superbly told by a natural raconteur. The Last Escaper is a captivating final testament by the “last man standing” from the Greatest Generation.

    Readers will relive the fearful exodus from the city as the German army neared the capital, the relief and disgust felt when the armistice was signed, and the hardships and deprivations under Occupation. David Drake contrasts the plight of working-class Parisians with the comparative comfort of the rich, exposes the activities of collaborationists, and traces the growth of the Resistance from producing leaflets to gunning down German soldiers. He details the intrigues and brutality of the occupying forces, and life in the notorious transit camp at nearby Drancy, along with three other less well known Jewish work camps within the city.The book gains its vitality from the diaries and reminiscences of people who endured these tumultuous years. Drake’s cast of characters comes from all walks of life and represents a diversity of political views and social attitudes. We hear from a retired schoolteacher, a celebrated economist, a Catholic teenager who wears a yellow star in solidarity with Parisian Jews, as well as Resistance fighters, collaborators, and many other witnesses.Drake enriches his account with details from police records, newspapers, radio broadcasts, and newsreels. From his chronology emerge the broad rhythms and shifting moods of the city. Above all, he explores the contingent lives of the people of Paris, who, unlike us, co­uld not know how the story would end.

    Violently attacked, tormented and trapped, she sifts through the truths and deceits of her marriage to self-made industrialist, Jean Kinck. Why had he lied? France, snug in the prosperity of Napoleon III’s Second Empire, is shocked by the vicious destruction of the bourgeois Kinck family. Under pressure from his superiors, the Chief of Police, Monsieur Claude, must unravel the baffling connections between the family and a mysterious young man, Jean-Baptiste Troppmann, a cold case, a famous palmist and France’s rising tide of dissatisfaction with the Emperor Napoleon III. The Cast of a Hand is an unforgettable love story and a murder mystery based on one of the most shocking crimes of 19th century Paris. GS Johnston’s razor sharp prose interweaves and cross-pollinates the two narratives, both desperately trying to arrive at the truth.

    From the overtly political ‘Go Home’ to the deeply personal ‘Full-time’; the narrative poems that offer vivid and unapologetic snapshots of inner-city life, such as ‘His Mistakes’, ‘Believer’ and the anthemic ‘My City’; to the provocative social commentary in ‘Lazy Dog’ and ‘YOLO’; to the inspiring, idea-driven pieces such as ‘The Power of Collaboration’ and ‘School Blues’, George takes poetry into new territories and to new audiences, offering a different way to talk about the things that matter, to explore his own experience and ideas, and encourage others explore theirs.George The Poet’s mesmerising and unforgettable live performances have earned him critical acclaim. From sell-out headline gigs and YouTube hits, to recording his own music, and now his first collection of poetry, George uses his work to speak truth to power and challenge our preconceived ideas about the society we’re living in.Whether you’re searching for yourself, for answers, for change – join the search party.

    Every day Karl Niemann commutes to work, a business manager in charge of various factories. In the evenings he returns home to life as a normal family man.For many years this was all Derek Niemann had known about his grandfather – until he made the chilling discovery that Karl had actually been an officer in the SS; and that his “business” used thousands of slave labourers in concentration camps. Suddenly, a lifetime of unsettling hints and clues fell into place.With the help of surviving relatives and hundreds of previously unknown photographs, Derek reconstructs the lives of his German forebears and uncovers the true story of what Karl did. A Nazi in the Family is an illuminating portrayal of how ordinary people can fall into the service of a monstrous regime."All families have secrets, but few are as shocking as Derek Niemann's." Culture Trip"Extraordinary." Glasgow Evening Times"Vividly captures the complex life of an ordinary man." Andrew Bomford, BBC Radio 4

    Only after eleven hours of continual bombardment by the German Luftwaffe could its people emerge from their half-sunk Anderson shelters and their cellars, from under their stairs or kitchen tables, to venture up into their wounded city. That long night of destruction marked a critical moment in the Second World War. It heralded a new kind of air warfare, one which abandoned the pursuit of immediate military goals and instead focused on obliterating all aspects of city life. It also provided the push America needed to join Britain in the war. But while the Coventry raid was furiously condemned publically, such effective enemy tactics provided Britain's politicians and military establishment with a 'blueprint for obliteration', to be adapted and turned against Germany. A merciless four-year war of attrition had begun. In this important work of history Frederick Taylor draws upon numerous sources, including eye witness interviews from the archives of the BBC which are published here for the first time, to reveal the true repercussions of the bombing of Coventry in 1940. He teases out the truth behind the persistent rumours and conspiracy theories that Churchill knew the raid was coming, assesses this significant turning point in modern warfare, looks at how it affected Britain's status in the war, and considers finally whether this attack really could provide justification for the horror of Dresden, 1945.

    His plan—his own Viae Crucis—was to meet with as many former prisoners of Nazi-fascist concentration camps as he could. He wanted not only to learn their stories, but to learn from their stories.He met with dozens of survivors from Auschwitz, Terezín, Mauthausen-Gusen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Gonars, Monigo, Renicci, Banjica, Ravensbrück, Jasenovac, Belsen, and Gurs. Many of these men and women shared their memories with Benvenuti along with artwork they’d created during their internment with pencil, ink, and charcoal.After four decades of research, Benvenuti presented these original black-and-white pieces in Imprisoned. This stunning collection provides visuals that oftentimes even the most eloquent words and sentences cannot convey.In his foreword, chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi highlighted the importance of these reproductions, stating, “some have the immediate power of art; all have the raw power of the eye that has seen and that transmits its indignation.”

    In the last hours of the 1916 Easter Rising, 20-year old Charlie Saurin came face to face with his Commander-in-Chief, Patrick Pearse.In a final gamble, Pearse had a desperate plan to save the collapsing rebellion.It required the sacrifice of Saurin and his comrades.The Scrap is the true story of the rising, from first-hand evidence, as seen by one rebel unit - F Company, 2nd Battalion - following them from the first skirmish in Fairview to the inferno of the GPO.Told in the context of some of the major events of that week, the story of F Company brings alive the excitement, the humour, the horror and the contradictions of that decisive moment in the creation of the Irish state.

    Her bestselling memoir, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968 has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her crime novel Innocence; or Murder on Steep Street—based on her own experiences living under Stalinist oppression—was named an NPR Best Book in 2015.In the tradition of Studs Terkel, Hitler, Stalin and I is based on interviews between Kovály and award-winning filmmaker Helena Treštíková. In it, Kovály recounts her family history in Czechoslovakia, starving in the deprivations of the Lodz Ghetto, her escape from a death march out of Auschwitz, failing to find sanctuary amongst former friends in Prague as concentration camp escapee, participation in the liberation of Prague, and trying to live in a Stalinist country after her first husband was framed and executed for treason. Remarkably, Kovály, exiled in the United States after the brutal crushing of the Prague Spring, only had love for her country and continued to believe in its people. She returned to Prague in 1996.Heda had an enormous talent for expressing herself. She spoke with precision and was descriptive and witty in places. I admired her attitude and composure, even after she had such extremely difficult experiences. Nazism and Communism afflicted Heda's life directly with maximum intensity. Nevertheless, she remained an optimist.Helena Treštíková has made over fifty documentary films. Hitler, Stalin and I has garnered several awards in the Czech Republic and Japan.

    Nazi soldiers and civilians emptied Jewish communal libraries, confiscated volumes from government collections, and stole from Jewish individuals, schools, and synagogues. Early in their regime the Nazis burned some books in spectacular bonfires, but most they saved, stashing the literary loot in castles, abandoned mine shafts, and warehouses throughout Europe. It was the largest and most extensive book-looting campaign in history. After the war, Allied forces discovered these troves of stolen books but quickly found themselves facing a barrage of questions. How could the books be identified? Where should they go? Who had the authority to make such decisions? Eventually the military turned the books over to an organization of leading Jewish scholars called Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc.—whose chairman was the acclaimed historian Salo Baron and whose on-the-ground director was the philosopher Hannah Arendt—with the charge of establishing restitution protocols. Stolen Words is the story of how a free civilization decides what to do with the material remains of a world torn asunder, and how those remains connect survivors with their past. It is the story of Jews struggling to understand the new realities of their post-Holocaust world and of Western society’s gradual realization of the magnitude of devastation wrought by World War II. Most of all, it is the story of people —of Nazi leaders, ideologues, and Judaica experts; of Allied soldiers, scholars, and scoundrels; and of Jewish communities, librarians, and readers around the world.

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    A source of inspiration; a method of organization; a peek inside the chaos and creativity of our own minds. An ideabook can be any one of these, or all of them, or something else entirely: a collection of memories, a way to store recipes or patterns, a genealogical journal, a planner for a wedding or renovation or garden ... The sky is the limit! With Arne and Carlos's wit, style, and trademark handcrafting genius to guide you, learn how you can make and enjoy your own ideabooks--to celebrate, remember, or reach out for all that lies ahead.

    It's likely that Du Noyer has spent more hours in formal, recorded conversation with McCartney than any other writer."Conversations with McCartney" is the culmination of Du Noyer's long association with McCartney and his music. It draws from their interview sessions across 35 years, coupling McCartney's own, candid thoughts with his observations and analysis.

    Late one night while her family slept, Neumark discovered her hidden Jewish heritage—and uncovered hundreds of questions: Did her grandfather really die in a concentration camp? How did she never know her grandmother was a death-camp survivor? Why had the family history and faith been rejected and hidden? Heidi’s search for the truth quickly became more than a personal journey; it also became spiritual. It caused profound ponderings on her thirty-year vocation as a Lutheran pastor. It was a shocking revelation that her Jewish roots and successive family loss and trauma now suddenly and inherently connected her to the multi-ethnic, marginalized community she had been ministering to for three decades. Hidden Inheritance takes the reader on a journey that seamlessly weaves personal narrative, social history, and biblical reflection to challenge readers to explore their own identity, vocation, and theology. Neumark boldly calls readers to explore the harsh places of the past, uncover the possible buried secrets, ask new questions, forge new understanding, and discover new hope for transformation that is only possible when what has been hidden is finally brought to light.

    For Rex Whistler, a nineteen-year-old art student, life was just beginning. Together, they embarked on an intimate and unlikely friendship that would transform their lives. Gradually Edith's world opened up and she became a writer. Her home, the Daye House, in a wooded corner of the Wilton estate, became a sanctuary for Whistler and the other brilliant and beautiful younger men of her circle: among them Siegfried Sassoon, Stephen Tennant, William Walton, John Betjeman, the Sitwells and Cecil Beaton - for whom she was 'all the muses'. Set against a backdrop of the madcap parties of the 1920s, the sophistication of the 1930s and the drama and austerity of the Second World War and with an extraordinary cast of friends and acquaintances, Anna Thomasson brings to life, for the first time, the fascinating, and curious, friendship of a bluestocking and a bright young thing.

    The SOE, similar to the American OSS (predecessor of the CIA) was formed to conduct espionage and sabotage in occupied Europe, and to aid local resistance movements. The book describes Churchill's training in England and his four missions into occupied France, including two harrowing night-time parachute drops and two submarine landings. Notable too is the underlying love story with Odette Sansom, another Allied agent (code-named Lise), who along with Churchill were captured, imprisoned, and tortured for two years until the war's end. Churchill's narrative ends with their capture by the Germans; his prison experiences are related in The Spirit in the Cage, published in 1954.

    The texts presented here have been selected by translator Genese Grill from Musil's 'Nachlass' and collected for the first time under the title 'Thought Flights'. They include material originally published in journals, newspapers, and magazines--but not included in Musil's Posthumous Papers of a Living Author--as well as literary fragments and heretofore unpublished texts. Despite the temporal, geographical, and cultural distance between Musil's world and ours, our own time and troubles are all too recognizable in Musil's portrayals of the ' age of money,' of simulation, and of standardization. Thought Flights is a lament of contemporary complacency, optimism, and homogenization as well as a celebration of living words and original thought by one of the great Modernists if the 20th century.As an astonishing master of metaphor and self-described 'monsieur le vivisecteur', Musil explores the psyches and lives of himself and his contemporaries with illuminating insight. The lucid, striking prose of his stories and vignettes, and the wise and witty commentary of his glosses, show Musil's response to innovations in technology, art and politics, and his efforts to enact a strategy for both illuminating and ameliorating the crisis of language that haunted his contemporaries. Moving effortlessly from discussions of fashion to Kant's categorical imperative, 'le vivisecteur' writes with humor, lyricism, and fervor in an open genre availing itself of poetic prose, philosophical essay, fictional narrative, and feuilletonistic lightness. Through unlikely combinations and metaphoric syntheses, Musil brings " beauty and excitement" into the world, and when things that are usually separate unite, thoughts "fly". With this publication, the now growing English-language corpus of the author of 'The Confusions of Young Toerless', 'Five Women', and 'The Man without Qualities' is expanded further. Other volumes of Musil's writings will be forthcoming from Contra Mundum Press over the next decade.

    When the horror of the atrocities came fully to light, it was easy for others to imagine the joyful relief of freed prisoners. Yet for those who had survived the unimaginable, the experience of liberation was a slow, grueling journey back to life. In this unprecedented inquiry into the days, months, and years following the arrival of Allied forces at the Nazi camps, a foremost historian of the Holocaust draws on archival sources and especially on eyewitness testimonies to reveal the complex challenges liberated victims faced and the daunting tasks their liberators undertook to help them reclaim their shattered lives.Historian Dan Stone focuses on the survivors—their feelings of guilt, exhaustion, fear, shame for having survived, and devastating grief for lost family members; their immense medical problems; and their later demands to be released from Displaced Persons camps and resettled in countries of their own choosing. Stone also tracks the efforts of British, American, Canadian, and Russian liberators as they contended with survivors’ immediate needs, then grappled with longer-term issues that shaped the postwar world and ushered in the first chill of the Cold War years ahead.

    Endre and Ilonka's lives are on a collision course and will soon become intertwined through their shared jeopardy as they struggle to find ways to survive not only the war, but also the brutally oppressive Soviet occupation.

    Entrenched in a terrible war with the Turks and caught in a political struggle between power-hungry Pope Alexander VI and the newly elected Doge Loredan, the people of Venice fear that a demon has come to exact divine punishment for their sins.Doge Loredan is determined to find the real culprit before the Pope can turn the people against him. To do so, he hires unorthodox German monk Mathias to investigate the murders. Soon Lorenzo Scarpa, a young printer and nephew to one of the victims, joins in the search. The mystery leads them into Venice’s underground printing industry, where they learn of a dangerous book hidden somewhere in the city, a book whose secrets could determine the destiny of the Republic—a book that others are more than willing to kill for.

    Numerous biographies that have dealt with Einstein have contributed little to a deeper understanding of Mileva Marić and her role in Albert Einstein’s life. This is the first in-depth study of Mileva Marić Einstein and her complex life-long relationship with Einstein. It attempts to explain why she failed to realize her potential in her own right. It offers new insights into Einstein’s private life and character, and brings to light Mileva’s role in Einstein’s personal and scientific development. This book is based on the correspondence between Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein. While Mileva Marić preserved most of Einstein’s letters to her, most of her letters to him have been lost or destroyed, along with evidence of her contributions to Einstein’s scientific achievements. Those letters that have survived resonate with a compelling voice. Consequently, the author has chosen to let Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein tell the story of their lives together in their own words as much as possible. It reveals a detailed dramatic picture of Einstein and Mileva, until now unknown to the world.Mileva Marić was the only woman to enter the Section of Mathematics and Physics at the elite Polytechnic in Zurich in 1896. She was a person of extraordinary intelligence and talent. However, when Mileva met Albert Einstein that year, her fate became bound to his life and ambition. Raised in a patriarchal Serbian family, she was willing to sacrifice her own academic career and even her visibility to the dream of achieving something greater, together. Mileva’s decision to put her exceptional talents in the service of Einstein’s career led to her invaluable contributions to his scientific achievements. Einstein wrote about her as an “equal” referring to “our new studies,” “our investigations,” “our views,” “our theory,” “our paper,” ”our work on relative motion.” He also relied heavily on Mileva for emotional support at a critical time in his life. “Without you I lack self-confidence, pleasure in work . . . without you my life is no life.” Before their marriage, she bore Einstein a daughter, whom she gave up for adoption to protect Einstein’s career, an act that cast a heavy shadow over the remainder of her life. Einstein married Mileva in defiance of strong opposition from his parents. She wasn't beautiful, she was older, she walked with a limp and she wasn't Jewish. “You are ruining your future and blocking your path through life . . . That woman cannot gain entrance to a decent family,” his mother wrote to him. Yet, Einstein was magnetically drawn to her independence, strength and formidable intellect during the most creative period of his entire life.As Einstein’s reputation and adulation surged so did his womanizing. Einstein’s conduct in ending their marriage was so brutal that it dismayed even their closest friends and came perilously close to destroying Mileva. Although Einstein resisted, the divorce decree awarded all future Nobel Prize money to Mileva as her property. This was poetic justice, for it represented a symbolic measure of recognition for her contributions to Einstein’s scientific achievements.Despite their bitter divorce, they shared concern for their two sons, and maintained a steady, if often troubled, relationship until Mileva’s death. Einstein sought the comfort of her company, stayed at her Zurich apartment numerous times, and tried to provide help in his own way when she needed it. While sometimes touchingly considerate, Einstein was vindictive and brutal when challenged or hurt.A true understanding of Einstein as both a man and a genius, is impossible without a detailed study of the woman who loved Einstein so deeply with an emotional and intellectual bond that bore a very rare fruit. It changed our view of the universe.

    First, her favourite maid Eva disappears, then her friend Oskar. Worse is to come – her brother is murdered and her mother is taken away, leaving Annabel to fend for herself. Almost 70 years later, Annabel's son Max uncovers his mother's long-buried past, and unlocks the secrets preserved by Annabel's missing friends. But as Max is to discover, some children can never be completely silenced. Is he haunted by ghosts or by guilt, and will he ever escape?The Silent Children is a gripping tale of tragedy and revenge, a modern-day ghost story that will stay with you long after you turn the final page.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    This book collects five of Donoghue's plays: Kissing the Witch, Don't Die Wondering, Trespasses, Ladies and Gentlemen, and I Know My Own Heart.

    Addie is ordered to remain in Paris as a material witness to the murder, threat of war or no. The fragile balance of the occupation's first well-mannered year could careen into violent oppression if it turns out the French engineered Ritter's death. And nothing would benefit the SS more in their desire to wrest control of France from the army. Charged with uncovering the truth, Abwehr major Rolf von Gerz begins to tally the suspects: Was it the spiteful chanteuse at the Club l'Heure Blue? Or the club's crafty Alsatian manager, with well-known ties to the Paris underworld? Ritter's estranged business partner? Or could the recent murder of a French stockbroker somehow be connected? And most troubling of all: Can the beautiful young American be trusted? A riveting murder mystery, spy thriller, and love story, with uniquely colorful characters and a surprise ending, Fall Irmgard is a true page-turner that draws the reader into the high-brow, seductive world of 1940s Paris, a city on the cusp of unraveling. EDITOR'S CHOICE. HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETYHNS REVIEWFALL IRMGARD"An American woman, Addie Bridges, accidentally finds herself in the center of a tense power-struggle in Rand Charles’ gripping and tremendously effective debut novel Fall Irmgard.The year is 1941, and Addie Bridges is in Paris when she witnesses the murder of a popular German businessman, Konni Ritter. The authorities order her to remain in Paris, and Charles complicates things greatly by introducing the fascinating character of Abwehr major Rolf von Gerz and putting him in charge of investigating Ritter’s death.In classic whodunit fashion, it quickly turns out there are many equally possible suspects, many of them connected with Paris demimonde. Charles does an extremely skillful job of deploying one plot-twist and unforeseen revelation after another, all while filling out his book with atmospheric and well-researched details of life in Paris as it passed into the dark days of Nazi occupation. His characters are well-drawn, and his dramatic pacing maintains an absorbing momentum throughout.An extremely satisfying (and beautifully designed) book.Strongly Recommended"Steve Donaghue. US Editor Historical Novel Society"I love this story, the characters, the way the characters interact, the way the subplots intertwine, the author's sense of Paris and Germany at the time, and his overall commentary on the historical and political issues of the day. Fall Irmgard brings occupied Paris to life, and exposes the rich tapestry of people that lived there."

    Pieter Schoorl listened to the heavy iron doors of a basement cell in the Gestapo's Amsterdam headquarters close behind him.  It had been easy for him to hide the first Jew—a blonde-haired, blue-eyed three-year-old.  And had Dr. Schoorl and his wife Anne helped only the one child, this would be a far simpler story.  But the pleas for help never ended.  Dutch commandoes met at the Schoorls' kitchen table, and shot-down Allied pilots shared breakfast with their five children.  Jews continually arrived at the Schoorls' farm unannounced in the dark of night.  The couple eventually filled their two homes with “guests.”  When there was no room left, they searched the countryside for more hiding places.   Nearly seven decades later their American grandson, Nicholas Briejer, travels to Europe in search of the grandparents he did not know.  Through the memories of Piet and Anne’s elderly children, he discovers not only their secluded farm, but the qualities of the heart that drove the couple to—in the words of his grandfather—do “what any man should.”

     From the middle of December 1944 to January 25, 1945, more than a million Allied and German troops fought for control of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. The bitter conflict ended with more than 200,000 dead and wounded on both sides. The German counteroffensive was Adolf Hitler's last gasp, born out of desperation as he came to grips with reports that the Third Reich was losing ground in battlefields across Europe. Even in its weakened state, Germany's assault took Allied leaders by surprise. Hitler had correctly calculated that the Allied armies had moved too rapidly: The troops were not only undersupplied but unprepared for a surprise attack. Hitler was betting that a victory would allow Germany to negotiate for peace on its terms. He was almost right. If not for the bravery of American troops, who against all odds held up the German attack – and quick decisions made by General Dwight B. Eisenhower - history may have taken a much different turn. This is the story of World War II's final showdown.

    Nina, a drifter from southern Spain comes to London in search of experience, only to find that the strangest of stories is hiding in her father's loft in Almería...A playfully concocted, fast-paced novel committed to the irresistible pleasure of reading, both a celebration and a critique of our relationship to objects (from fetishes, to curios, to commodities, to objectum sexuality, to our becoming cyborgs through our addiction to technology), Philosophical Toys travels through different times, countries and experiences as chance leads Nina to encounter time and again the enigmatic nature of things, which end up transforming her into that most rare of species: a female philosopher.Witty and elegiac, Philosophical Toys takes the reader on a tour of fetishism, late capitalist culture, Buñuel´s films, psychoanalysis, Alzheimer's disease, as well as the avatars of belonging to two cultures, an experience increasingly shared by a myriad of expatriates.