To do nothing is unacceptable.” Sharon Leslie Morgan, a black woman from Chicago’s South Side avoids white people; they scare her. Despite her trepidation, Morgan, a descendent of slaves on both sides of her family, began a journey toward racial reconciliation with Thomas Norman DeWolf, a white man from rural Oregon who descends from the largest slave-trading dynasty in US history. Over a three-year period, the pair traveled thousands of miles, both overseas and through twenty-seven states, visiting ancestral towns, courthouses, cemeteries, plantations, antebellum mansions, and historic sites. They spent time with one another’s families and friends and engaged in deep conversations about how the lingering trauma of slavery shaped their lives.Gather at the Table is the chronicle of DeWolf and Morgan’s journey. Arduous and at times uncomfortable, it lays bare the unhealed wounds of slavery. As DeWolf and Morgan demonstrate, before we can overcome racism we must first acknowledge and understand the damage inherited from the past—which invariably involves confronting painful truths. The result is a revelatory testament to the possibilities that open up when people commit to truth, justice, and reconciliation. DeWolf and Morgan offer readers an inspiring vision and a powerful model for healing individuals and communities.

    The other vanished forever into an endless jungle. Had he shed civilization—or lost his mind? Global headlines suspected murder. Lured by these mysteries, New York Times bestselling author Carl Hoffman journeyed to find the truth, discovering that nothing is as it seems in the world’s last Eden, where the lines between sinner and saint blur into one.In 1984, Swiss traveler Bruno Manser joined an expedition to the Mulu caves on Borneo, the planet’s third largest island. There he slipped into the forest interior to make contact with the Penan, an indigenous tribe of peace-loving nomads living among the Dayak people, the fabled “Headhunters of Borneo.” Bruno lived for years with the Penan, gaining acceptance as a member of the tribe. However, when commercial logging began devouring the Penan’s homeland, Bruno led the tribe against these outside forces, earning him status as an enemy of the state, but also worldwide fame as an environmental hero. He escaped captivity under gunfire twice, but the strain took a psychological toll. Then, in 2000, Bruno disappeared without a trace. Had he become a madman, a hermit, or a martyr?American Michael Palmieri is, in many ways, Bruno’s opposite. Evading the Vietnam War, the Californian wandered the world, finally settling in Bali in the 1970s. From there, he staged expeditions into the Bornean jungle to acquire astonishing art and artifacts from the Dayaks. He would become one of the world’s most successful tribal-art field collectors, supplying sacred works to prestigious museums and wealthy private collectors. And yet suspicion shadowed this self-styled buccaneer who made his living extracting the treasure of the Dayak: Was he preserving or exploiting native culture?As Carl Hoffman unravels the deepening riddle of Bruno’s disappearance and seeks answers to the questions surrounding both men, it becomes clear saint and sinner are not so easily defined and Michael and Bruno are, in a sense, two parts of one whole: each spent his life in pursuit of the sacred fire of indigenous people. The Last Wild Men of Borneo is the product of Hoffman’s extensive travels to the region, guided by Penan through jungle paths traveled by Bruno and by Palmieri himself up rivers to remote villages. Hoffman also draws on exclusive interviews with Manser’s family and colleagues, and rare access to his letters and journals. Here is a peerless adventure propelled by the entwined lives of two singular, enigmatic men whose stories reveal both the grandeur and the precarious fate of the wildest place on earth.

    The action takes place in the Welsh Marches during the latter part of the reign of Henry II, after 1187. Eveline, the 16-year-old daughter of Sir Raymond Berenger, is rescued from a Welsh siege by the forces of Damian Lacy. She is betrothed to his uncle, Sir Hugo, who leaves on a crusade. Rebels led by Ranald Lacy attempt to kidnap her, and Damian fights them off, but a confused sequence of events convinces the King that she and her beloved are in league against him.

    In the space of what is now known as the Hundred Days, the deposed French emperor was to demonstrate that nothing had changed. Only forty-six, he still possessed the ambition that made Europe quake at the news of his return to France, the magnetism that made men offering undying devotion swarm to his side, and the military genius that could plan, execute, and very nearly win a brilliant campaign against vastly superior odds. The battle that ended the career of the greatest conqueror of modern times was Waterloo. National Book Award winner J. Christopher Herold, a lifelong Napoleon scholar, tells the story of Waterloo with special emphasis on the emperor's role. But it is also the story of the Duke of Wellington, who led a mixed force of British, Belgian, Dutch, and Hanoverian troops in a masterly defensive operation. Like all military contests, Waterloo was a series of blunders and misunderstandings mixed with acts of heroism, timidity, and endurance. But because it permanently shattered Napoleon's dreams of conquest, Waterloo has a special place as one of the decisive battles in world history.

    The particle—a Higgs boson—is the key to verifying and understanding the Higgs mechanism that underlies elementary particle masses. Harvard University Professor Lisa Randall, one of the world's most cited and influential theoretical physicists, and author of the bestselling Knocking on Heaven's Door and Warped Passages, deftly explains both this epochal discovery and its startlingly beautiful implications.

    Revised with a new introduction by the author and recently discovered photos, this book served as invaluable source material both for James Bradley’s bestseller Flags of Our Fathers as well as Clint Eastwood’s acclaimed film of the same name.

    

    Such has been the fate of Johanna Spyri, the Swiss authoress, whose reputation is mistakenly supposed to rest on her story of Heidi. To be sure, Heidi is a book that in its field can hardly be overpraised. But the present story is possessed of a deeper treatment of character, combined with equal spirit and humor of a different kind. Cornelli, the heroine, suffers temporarily from the unjust suspicion of her elders, a misfortune which, it is to be feared, still occurs frequently in the case of sensitive children. . . .

    In 527 CE he was made legal adviser and secretary of Belisarius, commander against the Persians, and went with Belisarius again in 533 against the Vandals and in 535 against the Ostrogoths. Sometime after 540 he returned to Constantinople. He may have been that Procopius who was prefect of Constantinople in 562, but the date of his death (after 558) is unknown.Procopius's History of the Wars in 8 books recounts the Persian Wars of emperors Justinus and Justinian down to 550 (2 books); the Vandalic War and after-events in Africa 532-546 (2 books); the Gothic War against the Ostrogoths in Sicily and Italy 536-552 (3 books); and a sketch of events to 554 (1 book). The whole consists largely of military history, with much information about peoples and places as well, and about special events. He was a diligent, careful, judicious narrator of facts and developments and shows good powers of description. He is just to the empire's enemies and boldly criticises emperor Justinian. Other works by Procopius are the Anecdota or Secret History--vehement attacks on Justinian, Theodora, and others; and The Buildings of Justinian (down to 558 CE) including roads and bridges as well as churches, forts, hospitals, and so on in various parts of the empire.The Loeb Classical Library edition of Procopius is in seven volumes.

    I, your Emperor, order it.'The Emperor: Nero, Emperor of Rome and all her provinces, feared by his subjects for his temper and cruelty, is in possession of an ancient document predicting that Rome will burn.The Spy: Sebastos Pantera, assassin and spy for the Roman Legions, is ordered to stop the impending cataclysm. He knows that if he does not, his life - and those of thousands of others - are in terrible danger.The Chariot Boy: Math, a young charioteer, is a pawn drawn into the deadly game between the Emperor and the Spy, where death stalks the drivers - on the track and off it.From the author of the bestselling Boudica series, The Emperor's Spy begins a compelling new series of novels featuring Sebastos Pantera. Rich characterisation and spine tingling adventure combine in a vividly realised novel set amid the bloodshed and the chaos, the heroism and murderous betrayal of ancient Rome.

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

    She's a sharp and funny speaker who is much in demand.

    Sent away at thirteen to live with relatives, hired out at fifteen to pay off a family debt, desperate for an education at any cost, this is the story of a young girl who never gave up on herself, no matter what her circumstances, no matter how bleak her life seemed to be.It is the story of my Obachan, or grandmother, as told to me by her, an amazing story which begins in the countryside of Japan and ends in the war torn streets of Kawasaki. I wrote it down as I heard it, believing it sounded more like a movie than her life; only the names have been changed out of respect for her living family. This is the journey she took as she exchanged one set of dreams for another, as she grew from a wide-eyed, hopeful teenager to a young mother in wartime Japan.

    American adventurer Sam Carter boards the Orient Express, departing France in style after an impulsive decision to desert the Foreign Legion. British diplomat Lucas Avery is already nursing a drink in the smoking car, resenting his assignment to the distant Ottoman Empire. Neither man expects anything more from the next three days and three thousand miles than rich food, expensive champagne and fine cigars. But something dangerous is lurking aboard the train, hiding in plain sight among French aristocrats and German businessmen. Through fire and darkness, through blood and ice, the Orient Express is bearing an ancient evil across the continent - and not all its passengers will live to see Constantinople...

    Cox comes this insightful new history of the critical Guadalcanal and Solomons campaign at the height of World War II. His previous book, Morning Star, Rising Sun, had found the US Navy at its absolute nadir and the fate of the Enterprise, the last operational US aircraft carrier at this point in the war, unknown. This new volume completes the history of this crucial campaign, combining detailed research with a novelist's flair for the dramatic to reveal exactly how, despite missteps and misfortunes, the tide of war finally turned. By the end of February 1944, thanks to hard-fought and costly American victories in the first and second naval battles of Guadalcanal, the battle of Empress Augusta Bay, and the battle of Cape St George, the Japanese would no longer hold the materiel or skilled manpower advantage. From this point on, although the war was still a long way from being won, the American star was unquestionably on the ascendant, slowly, but surely, edging Japanese imperialism towards its sunset.Jeffrey Cox's analysis and attention to detail of even the smallest events are second to none. But what truly sets this book apart is how he combines this microscopic attention to detail, often unearthing new facts along the way, with an engaging style that transports the reader to the heart of the story, bringing the events on the deep blue of the Pacific vividly to life.