The Great Escape


Anton Gill - 2002
     It was the biggest British-led break-out of the Second World War. But the men paid a high price for their bravery: of the 73 POWs re-captured, 30 were brutally executed on Hitler’s direct orders. The tireless RAF investigation into the atrocity affords us an extraordinary insight into the last hours of many of the victims and the actions of the killers. Drawing together the meticulous research carried out for the war-crimes trial, interviews with the families and friends of the murdered men and with surviving veterans of the camp, Anton Gill provides us with a definitive account of this unique event and its shocking aftermath. The sheer determination and wit involved in the lead up to the design of the greatest tunnel ever built is captured thoroughly. The tenacity of the prisoners has become the stuff of legend, as they saw through their plan to dig the longest and most sophisticated tunnel ever conceived. 'Resounds with authenticity ... a wonderful tale' - Charles Spencer, Mail on Sunday Anton Gill, only child of an English mother and a German father, worked for the English Stage Company, the Arts Council and the BBC before becoming a full-time writer in 1984. He has published over twenty books, mainly in the field of contemporary history, including The Journey Back from Hell: Conversations with Concentration Camp Survivors (winner of the H. H. Wingate Award), A Dance between Flames: Berlin between the Wars; and An Honourable Defeat: A History of the German Resistance to Hitler. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

Drinking with George: A Barstool Professional's Guide to Beer


George Wendt - 2009
    A homage to beer by Cheers actor and beer connoisseur George Wendt, better known as Norm Peterson.

Precious Lives


Margaret Forster - 1998
    Margaret Forster's father was not a man to answer questions - least of all questions about life and death, so she attempts to answer them for herself. As Forster looks back at Arthur's life and indomitable character, she evokes incidents from her childhood, his working life and stubborn old age, trying to make sense of their largely unspoken relationship, and of his tenacious hold on life, and on his family. Arthur and Marion's lives were ordinary, and apparently unremarkable, but, when faced with death, lives like these become strangely precious.

Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir. . . of Sorts


Ian Morgan Cron - 2011
    The boy was beckoning me to join him on a voyage through the harrowing straits of memory. He was gambling that if we survived the passage, we might discover an ocean where the past would become the wind at our back rather than a driving gale to the nose of our boat. This book is the record of that voyage."When he was sixteen years old, Ian Morgan Cron was told about his father's clandestine work with the CIA. This astonishing revelation, coupled with his father's dark struggles with chronic alcoholism and depression, upended the world of a boy struggling to become a man. Decades later, as he faces his own personal demons, Ian realizes the only way to find peace is to voyage back through a painful childhood marked by extremes--privilege and poverty, violence and tenderness, truth and deceit--that he's spent years trying to escape.In this surprisingly funny and forgiving memoir, Ian reminds us that no matter how different the pieces may be, in the end we are all cut from the same cloth, stitched by faith into an exquisite quilt of grace.

Double Deal: The Inside Story of Murder, Unbridled Corruption, and the Cop Who Was a Mobster


Michael Corbitt - 2003
    By the time Corbitt was appointed chief of police, he'd also moved up the Outfit's ranks and was living the high life of a respected mobster.Corbitt's luck turned when he was indicted on charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder. Although there was a mob contract on his life and he was facing a 20–year jail sentence, he refused to testify against organised crime figures under the witness protection programme, maintaining instead the Mafioso's code of silence – until his release from prison.Now Corbitt breaks that silence, holding back nothing–including the account of his personal involvement in the brutal murder of the wife of Chicago mob attorney Alan Masters.Corbitt bares his soul, confessing in graphic – sometimes horrific – detail a life lived as both saint and sinner, a life that moved back and forth between the conflicting worlds of the police officer and the gangster with ease.

The Ground Kisser


Lisa Worthey Smith - 2019
    Her survival and perseverance through unimaginable circumstances, to arrive in the USA caused legendary talk show host, Barry Farber to dub her "The Ground Kisser."Awards - Reader-voted into the top 50 Books of 2019, Georgia Peach Award, and finalist in the SCWC Notable Book Awards.

Life Is Short and So Am I: My Life in and Out of the Wrestling Ring


Dylan Postl - 2019
    Born with achondroplasia, a condition that causes disproportionate dwarfism, Dylan Postl had endured multiple surgeries by the age of 12. And yet, he held on to the dream that he would one day become a professional wrestler. Ignoring the naysayers and against doctors' recommendations, Dylan began training in his teens, and he soon began appearing on local independent shows. Before he turned 20, he was signed by the world leader in sports-entertainment, WWE, to play the role of Irish grappler Finlay's feisty sidekick, Hornswoggle, and remained a firm fixture in the company for a full decade.While most of Dylan's adult life has been spent in the wild world of the wrestling industry, Life Is Short is more than a story of a little person's journey through a world of giants; it's a memoir of elation and anguish, triumph and disappointment, and of how an endlessly positive outlook combined with the unwavering support of family and friends helped him become a success in his industry and a loving, responsible father. It's a story about a man who still loves wrestling -- but loves his family above all else.

Home Sweet Road: Finding Love, Making Music & Building a Life One City at a Time


Johnnyswim - 2021
    Foreword by Chip and Joanna GainesWork and life partners Amanda Sudano Ramirez and Abner Ramirez are known for translating the memories and milestones of their journey, as well as the honest realities of marriage, into their spirited and soulful songs. With this beautifully designed, visually stunning book, the duo shares never-before-told stories, beautiful photos, recipes, poetry, and more from their life in a deeply engaging experience as they travel on tour around the country with their three young kids, capturing the family's raw, intimate, and behind-the-scenes life on the road and embracing home no matter where they are.

Farming Grace: A Memoir of Life, Love, and a Harvest of Faith


Paula Scott - 2019
     Nineteen-year-old Paula Scott leaves California when the almonds are in bloom for college in Reno, Nevada where cocaine, casinos, and her first honest-to-goodness boyfriend will break her farmgirl heart, but her story doesn’t end in the desert with a broken heart. When life knocks us down, we get back up, we try again, we marry and maybe divorce, but in the midst of our down and dirty, raw and real, painfully ordinary lives, sometimes the extraordinary breaks through, and we see God. Because God sees us.

Hiding from Myself


Bryan Christopher - 2014
    This book will stay with me the rest of my life. ...I wish this book could be distributed to every church and made required reading." Amazon Reviewer AndreamsCan a gay person change--with the help of Hugh Hefner and Jesus Christ? Few social issues ignite such passion from all sides. For those who see homosexuality as immoral and a sin, the notion of "gay marriage" is intolerable. For those who are gay, being demonized and shamed is simply intolerant. Bryan Christopher's life has been spent straddling this great divide.As a boy raised under the blinding Friday Night Lights of the Bible belt of Texas--from the playground to the pulpit--one message was clear: "queers" deserved to be smeared. And at the dawn of puberty, Bryan knew he was in trouble: he was staring limply at the pages of his dad's Playboy. That's when the hiding began. And in his neck of the woods, it left him with one option: change! "Hiding from Myself: A Memoir" chronicles the author's zealous crusade: from ringing doorbells for Jesus in the Castro of San Francisco to sorting through Hugh Hefner's dirty laundry as a butler at the Playboy Mansion; from the beer-soaked trenches of his UCLA fraternity house to wholehearted immersion into "ex-gay" conversion therapy.With this raw and moving testimony, the author offers healing and a fresh perspective on perhaps the most divisive cultural issue of our time. Bryan's story is not a "gay" story or even an "ex-gay" story; his is a human story--a testament to the innate universal need for love. And the things that can sometimes get in the way...

Catch a Fire: The Autobiography


Melanie B. - 2002
    Not bad for the rebellious, mixed-up girl from Leeds who is still only in her 20s. Born to a working-class mixed-race family from Leeds, Melanie B grew up feeling different from her schoolfriends. Her hyperactive energy was channelled into drama school, and in 1994 the Spice Girls were formed. The rest is history.

The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi Study Guide: Come to the Land Where It All Began


Kathie Lee Gifford - 2018
    As she shares her story, coauthor Rabbi Jason Sobel, a messianic Jewish rabbi, provides fascinating background details that make the story of the New Testament come alive. Kathie Lee and Rabbi Sobel will take you and your group beyond the typical "Sunday school" teaching to examine the true texts of the Bible.Something profound happens when we follow along the ancient paths in the actual places where Jesus taught, healed, lived, died, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven. As Kathie Lee and Rabbi Sobel reveal in this study, Jesus is indeed the Rock and the Rabbi whom we follow along this Road in life. And when we are introduced to the mysteries of the Word by teachers who are trained in the ancient rabbinical way, radical transformation begins to renew our hearts and minds.The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi Study Guide includes video discussion questions, Bible exploration, and personal study and reflection materials for in-between sessions.Sessions include:Bethlehem: Where It All BeganNazareth: The Early YearsCapernaum: Ministry HeadquartersGalilee: Ministry GroundsMount of Olives: The Triumphal EntryJerusalem: Crucifixion and ResurrectionDesigned for use with The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi Video Study 9780310095033 (sold separately).

The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a 50 Year Search


Martin Sixsmith - 2009
    Fifty years later, Philomena decided to find him.Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Philomena’s son was trying to find her. Renamed Michael Hess, he had become a leading lawyer in the first Bush administration, and he struggled to hide secrets that would jeopardize his career in the Republican Party and endanger his quest to find his mother.A gripping exposé told with novelistic intrigue, Philomena pulls back the curtain on the role of the Catholic Church in forced adoptions and on the love between a mother and son who endured a lifelong separation.

Rachel's Tears: The Spiritual Journey of Columbine Martyr Rachel Scott


Beth Nimmo - 1999
    In December 1999, we learned that the teenage killers specifically targeted Rachel Scott and mocked her Christian faith on their chilling, homemade videotapes. Rachel Scott died for her faith. Now her parents talk about Rachel's life and how they have found meaning in their daughter's martyrdom in the aftermath of the school shooting. "Rachel's Tears" comes from a heartfelt need to celebrate this young girl's life, to work through the grief and the questions of a nation, and to comfort those who have been touched by violence in our schools today. Using excerpts and drawings from Rachel's own journals, her parents offer a spiritual perspective on the Columbine tragedy and provide a vision of hope for preventing youth violence across the nation.

Twenty-Two on Peleliu: Four Pacific Campaigns with the Corps: The Memoirs of an Old Breed Marine


George Peto - 2017
    Marines landed on a small island in the Central Pacific called Peleliu, as a prelude to the liberation of the Philippines. Among the first wave of Marines that hit the beach that day was 22-year-old George Peto. Growing up in on a farm in Ohio, George had always preferred exploring to being indoors. This made school a challenge, but his hunting, fishing and trapping skills helped put food on the family’s table. As a teenager living in a rough area he got into regular brawls, and he found holding down a job hard because of his wanderlust. After a succession of jobs he decided that joining the Marines offered him the opportunity for adventure plus three square meals a day, so he and his brother joined the Corps in 1941, just a few months before Pearl Harbor.Following boot camp and training, he was initially assigned to a guard unit. Found not guilty of misconduct after falling asleep on duty while very sick, he was then shipped out to a combat unit. His first experience of combat was during the landings at Finschhaven and Cape Gloucester. He was a Forward Observer in one of the lead amtracs of the 1st Marines for the Peleliu landing, and saw fierce fighting for a week before the unit was relieved due to massive casualties. The unit was then the immediate reserve for the initial landing on Okinawa. They encountered no resistance on landing on D+1, but would then fight on Okinawa for over six months. This is the wild and remarkable story of an "Old Breed" Marine, from his youth in the Great Depression, his training and combat in the Pacific during WWII, to his life after the war, told in his own words.