In the fashionable social circles of 1831, the vogue is to collect one’s own menagerie, and there is soon a demand for exotic animals from the four corners of the world. Musing on how a monkey, a bear, and a turtle came to inhabit the same Parisian drawing room, Dumas introduces Captain Pamphile, a decidedly unorthodox Provençal sea caption with a flair for “liberating” unusual species from their native shores. The narrative soon gives way to the story of Pamphile’s own life—from his early hunting expeditions to his daring naval hijackings and his aberrant involvement in the local slave trade. French novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas who is best remembered for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.

    From her birth (which she liked to tell people was in the Parisian streets, her mother shielded by two gendarmes) to her death (when her husband allegedly drove her corpse from the Cannes hospital where she died to her flat, lest her fans think that she had abandoned Paris) her life story was a rags-to-riches tale like no other. A street singer discovered by the nightclub owner who gave her the stage name Piaf (Sparrow), she rose to become a national heroine. Friends with Charlie Chaplin, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jean Cocteau, Maurice Chevalier, and Marlene Dietrich, she was also at various times chief suspect for the murder of her mentor, an alcoholic and a drug addict. But she always seemed to embody, and still does, something of the spirit of Paris. Following her death in 1963, 40,000 people descended on Pere Lachaise Cemetery for her funeral, and, 40 years on, millions remain fans of her music.

    She was sunk in deep melancholy. Tears gushed from her beautiful eyes. The cause of her grief was known, as well as the fears she entertained lest that grief should displease the king, her father. The old man, Mambres, ancient magician and eunuch of the Pharoahs, was beside her, and seldom left her. He was present at her birth. He had educated her, and taught her all that a fair princess was allowed to know of the sciences of Egypt. The mind of Amasidia equaled her beauty. Her sensibility and tenderness rivaled the charms of her person; and it was this sensibility which cost her so many tears.The princess was twenty-four years old, the magician, Mambres, about thirteen hundred. It was he, as every one knows, who had that famous dispute with Moses, in which the victory was so long doubtful between these two profound philosophers. If Mambres yielded, it was owing to the visible protection of the celestial powers, who favored his rival. It required gods to overcome Mambres!

    Author and historian Albert Buchanan recreates the engagements of the Pacific and Atlantic combat theaters with near clinical detail, from the Pearl Harbor Attack to the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri. Interwoven within these aerial combat narratives is background information on technological innovations, production methods, training programs, and the important players involved. This new edition of The Navy's Air War: A Mission Completed includes annotations and photographs from World War 2. *Annotations. *Images.

    

    Their social and political lives are intricately intertwined within a rigid hierarchy of etiquette.Behind the brilliant facade of lavish festivities lies a shadowy world of intrigue, promiscuity, sorcery, and murder.When human remains and a silver locket are unearthed on the neighboring estate of her husband’s lover, the duchess Elisabeth Charlotte d’Orleans investigates their origin and jeopardizes her own safety when her discoveries lead to the criminal involvement of her most powerful enemies at court.

    This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction. A young artillery lieutenant, strolling through the Palais-Royal, observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. An aristocratic woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map—there were no reliable ones at the time—Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine. Baudelaire, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Bohème, Proust, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt on himself in Notre Dame) —these and many more are Robb’s cast of characters. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel. 16 pages of illustrations.

    From working with a double agent who betrays his friendship and exposes a top secret cross border operation, Terry McIntosh wrestles with his own doubts and fears while protecting the rights of others to live free. He was chosen from the ranks of long range reconnaissance training to serve with Special Forces Detachment A-team 414 in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam 1968-1969. The border camp conducted clandestine operations to observe and engage a growing Viet Cong armed force 15 miles across the line. The top secret mission is exposed after team members are accused of executing the double agent. It is believed that Terry McIntosh is the youngest soldier to serve with the Green Berets on an "A" team and earn the coveted Combat Badge. This is his story about the transition from boy to man in the jungles of Vietnam where he met himself for the first time with a sense of shame and honor.