An Heiress of Holocaust: How my family survived the holocaust and the lasting effects on my life


Sarah Segal - 2020
    

My Father's Prostitute: Story of a Stolen Childhood


Steven Whitacre - 2014
    From his difficulties growing up, to his drug addiction, failed relationships, and struggles with parenthood, the author takes us through the ups and downs of a life spent in the shadows, trying to make sense of the events that formed the basis of his being. Sometimes tragic, sometimes hopeful, but never sugar coated, My Father’s Prostitute – Story of a Stolen Childhood takes the reader on an emotional ride which reminds us that the human spirit is more powerful than the demons that haunt us.

Old Soldiers Never Die


Frank Richards - 1933
    Orphaned at nine years old, he was brought up by his aunt and uncle in the industrial Blaina area, and went on to work as a coal miner throughout the 1890s before joining the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1901. A veteran soldier who served in British India and throughout the Western Front, he wrote his seminal account of the Great War from the standpoint of the common soldier, Old Soldiers Never Die, in 1933. He died in 1961

The Wrong Shade of Yellow


Margaret Eleanor Leigh - 2014
    I couldn’t jack it in and go home, because I didn’t have a home to go to anymore. The bicycle and the tent were now home. Wherever I found myself on any given night was now home. And that meant, for tonight, Genoa Piazza Principe Railway Station was home.I was cycling across Europe in search of Utopia, a place I believed was located somewhere in Greece. When I found it, I would start a new life there. It was my big, fat, Greek midlife crisis. But now I was having a crisis within a crisis. What the hell had I been thinking?

Rising Above: A Green Beret's Story of Childhood Trauma and Ultimate Healing


Sean Rogers - 2021
    His single mother checked into the hospital as a vibrant young woman and checked out as a full-blown opioid addict. From that day forward, Sean's life became a silent nightmare of abuse, neglect, chronic hunger, and slow, helpless withdrawal from everything and everyone he loved.In Rising Above, Green Beret Sean Rogers chronicles the toughest battle of his life: the long, painful fight to confront his darkest fears and reclaim his life. After struggling as a young man to accept the raw trauma of his past, he eventually learned to understand and embrace it, ultimately using it to become an elite Special Forces operator.Through this profoundly honest and inspiring memoir, Rogers explores what it means to make the pain of your past work for you, showing you how to harness the truth of your own reality and take control of your destiny.

The Tiger Man of Vietnam


Frank Walker - 2008
    The CIA wanted to kill him. This is the remarkable true story of Australian war hero Barry Petersen. In 1963, 28-year-old Australian Captain Barry Petersen was sent to Vietnam as part of the 30-man Australian Training Team, two years before the first official Australian troops arrived. Seconded to the CIA, he was sent to the remote Central Highlands to build an anti-communist guerrilla force among the indigenous Montagnard people. He was sent off with bagloads of cash and a vague instruction to 'get to know the natives'. Petersen took over the running of the paramilitary force that had been started by the local police chief and started to earn the Montagnards respect. He lived drank and ate with the Montagnards, learned their language and respected their skills. The Vietcong dubbed Petersen's force 'Tiger Men'. When Petersen he heard this, he had special badges made for their berets and supplied tiger print uniforms. The Montagnards loved Petersen and flocked to join his force but the CIA were worried. They thought he was out of control and too close to the Montagnard people...

Old Maine Woman: Stories from the Coast to the County


Glenna Johnson Smith - 2010
    The book also includes some of her best fiction pieces.

Youth In Asia: 1968. Vietnam. The Central Highlands. Young Men Will Change. Some Will Die.


Allen Tiffany - 2015
     Youth In Asia relives the friendships, loyalties and betrayals of young men in combat. Written by an infantryman who served as both an enlisted man and an officer after the war, Youth In Asia presents a realistic account of five men of the 173rd Airborne Brigade separated from their unit in the darkness of a jungle night. After the furious fight for Hill 875 and the battles around Dak To, this story is set near the border with Cambodia as North Vietnamese Army units and Viet Cong irregulars are massing for the brutal Tet Offensive of 1968 that broke the back of America's war effort.It is a story of determination, triumph and loss. It is a story of furious, close combat in lethal firefights, and it is a story of confusion both on the battlefield and in the minds of young men a million miles from their homes. Those that survive will have changed. Forever.

Tail-End Charley: Stories from an American fighter pilot in World War II


James E. Brown - 2017
    Brown tries to fake to his flight instructor that he has flown before. On his twenty-first birthday, Brown is on his way home after logging eighty-five missions in a P-47 fighter over Italy, France, and Germany. Brown’s stories surrounding his training and combat experiences in World War II reveal brushes with death, continuous peril and, ultimately, a coming of age for a young man whose freshman year in college becomes instead a heroic engagement with one of the fiercest enemies his country has ever encountered. Ever dutiful to the mother who tells him to “write it down, Jamie,” Brown notes his experiences in the journal she provides and adds detail later to deliver a firsthand account of life as a pilot in the final months of combat within the European Theater. Serving as Tail-End Charley – the last man out – in most of the missions he flew, Brown’s job was to record results for the interrogation officers afterward. But Brown offers much more insight in this memoir. Follow his triumphs and travails with colleagues who become lifelong compatriots during an indelible period in American history.

Pershing: Commander of the Great War


John Perry - 2011
    Pershing. He led an army of more than a million men in France, defeating the seemingly invincible German war machine with only six months of offensive action. He was an American hero, and yet, today, General Pershing has faded away to the second or third tier of America's historical consciousness. His accomplishments rightly place him in the company of great generals such as MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Patton, all of whom he commanded and inspired, and all of whom he outranked. He shaped world events in Europe as surely as Woodrow Wilson or David Lloyd George, so why has America forgotten him? John Perry chronicles the life of a strong, inflexible leader who was an insufferable nit-picker on the job, but a faithful friend, tender husband, and devoted father. To the small group fortunate enough to know him, Pershing was a great and wonderful man. To the rest, he was stiff, cold, impersonal, and best avoided.

Chasing Kites: One Mother's Unexpected Journey Through Infertility, Adoption, and Foster Care


Rachel McCracken - 2017
     Rachel McCracken gets the heartache and the sorrow of the desolate valley called Infertility. She gets the dedication and work that it takes to blend a family. She gets the commitment and purpose needed to help children rise from the ashes of abandonment and fear. For anyone who wonders: What is an orphanage really like? Can you really bond with an adopted or foster child? What is it like to lose a child who is reunified with their birth parent? Can you love an adopted or foster child as much as a biological child? How about fertility treatments, are they actually that bad? Why don’t people just adopt? What’s the big deal?​ Chasing Kites answers all of these questions and more. Going from zero to four adopted children through a Colombian orphanage and then from four to seven through the US Foster Care System, Rachel writes a masterful memoir of the good, the bad, and the beautiful with purpose-driven life lessons learned from each. If you have ever experienced loss, grief, or heartache this book is for you. If you are struggling to create a family or to blend a family this book is for you. If you are trying to support someone you love through any of these things, this book is for you. Lose yourself in this delicious tale of love both lost and found.

Clarity: A Memoir


Diana Estill - 2021
    Her father is too busy chasing skirts and throwing fits to notice what she does. And her mom is too mentally absent to properly parent. While Diana’s narcissistic dad terrorizes and exploits her, she works harder to please him. Estill, an award-winning humor author, shares an honest and comedic look at her dysfunctional childhood. As an adult, she struggles to reclaim her power while caring for her dementia-impaired dad. In this thought-provoking tale of resilience, the author pierces the fog of emotional abuse.

You Can Drum But You Can't Hide


Simon Wolstencroft - 2014
    You'd expect a drummer to have better timing. Yes, he parted ways before The Patrol became the Stone Roses. Yes, he turned down The Smiths because he didn't like Morrissey's voice. Right place, right time, wrong choices. Timing is everything.But the beat goes on and while Simon Wolstencroft can see what might have been, cultivating bitterness bears no fruit. And 'Funky Si' has tasted the nectar. Spending an unlikely 11 years in The Fall and hooking up with his old mate Ian Brown during his solo days, 'You Can Drum But You Can't Hide' reflects on a life driven by a passion for playing. Taking you from the warehouses of Manchester and the beaches of Rio de Janeiro to the high rises of Tokyo, this book hands you a backstage pass to an evocative age that restored pride to the city of Manchester. With humour and detail, Si recounts a fascinating tale of drumming and drugs, friendships and fall outs, but, above all, a love of music.

A Hundred Feet Over Hell: Flying With the Men of the 220th Recon Airplane Company Over I Corps and the DMZ, Vietnam 1968-1969


Jim Hooper - 2009
    Flying over Vietnam in two-seater Cessnas, they often made the difference between a soldier returning alive to his family or having the lonely sound of “Taps” played over his grave. Based on extensive interviews, and often in the men’s own words, A Hundred Feet Over Hell puts the reader in the plane as this intrepid band of U.S. Army aviators calls in fire support for the soldiers and marines of I Corps.

Long Promised Road: Carl Wilson, Soul of the Beach Boys: The Biography


Kent Crowley - 2015
    While he is often unjustly overlooked as a mere adjunct to his more famous brothers Brian and Dennis, Carl was a major international rock star from his early teens.The proud owner of one of the greatest voices in popular music--one that graced some of the most important records of the pop era, including 'God Only Knows' and 'Good Vibrations'--Wilson was also one of the first musicians to bring the electric guitar to the forefront of rock'n'roll. His musical skills provided The Beach Boys' entree into the music business, from which he then stewarded their onstage journey through the ups and downs of the 60s to their comeback in the 70s and into the role of 'America's band' in the 80s. Along the way, Carl quietly endured his own battles with obesity, divorce, substance abuse, and ultimately terminal cancer, all the while working to protect his family's business and legacy. This major new biography reveals the true story of modern rock'n'roll, lived from the center of the most important decades of popular music.