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Trekking On: A Boer Journal of World War One
Deneys Reitz - 2016
Now Reitz would join the war in Europe. Following his father’s example, Deneys Reitz refused to accept the terms of the peace treaty and went into exile, on Madagascar. After four years of trials and adventures, Reitz recounts how his former commander, J. C. Smuts, eventually persuaded him to return home to help rebuild their country. A long and troubled process, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War South Africans were further divided by the September 1914 rebellion. Serving alongside Smuts once more, Reitz describes an oft-overlooked theatre of the war as they continued their campaign into Germany’s African Colonies. Continuing immediately from Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War, Reitz’s stirring memoir carries him towards the Western Front and the final years of the war, fighting with the British, but not for them. Deneys Reitz (1882-1944) was a Boer solider, lawyer, author and politician. After commanding the 1st Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front, at the end of the First World War he returned home, later becoming a member of the South African government. Trekking On is the second of three volumes he wrote about his life. Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, 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.
Life on Two Legs
Norman J. Sheffield - 2013
For the next 15 years, Trident Studios, was at the epicentre of the music industry, recording some of the era's greatest artists, from The Beatles and David Bowie to Elton John and Genesis. Trident also developed their own talent, including a raw and demanding four-piece band called Queen. After an acrimonious split with Trident, their volatile leader Freddie Mercury famously dedicated a song to Norman: Death On Two Legs. In Life On Two Legs, this legendary music figure breaks his forty year silence and sets the record straight, not just about Freddie and Queen but also about artists from John Lennon and Marc Bolan to Harry Nilsson and Phil Collins and the recording of such classics as Hey Jude by The Beatles and Space Oddity by David Bowie. Funny, fascinating and occasionally irreverent - and with a foreword by Sir Paul McCartney - this is an unmissable memoir that brings to vivid life some of rock's greatest characters as well as the era and the studio that produced some of its classic music.
Dick Bong: Ace of Aces
George C. Kenney - 1960
Between December 27, 1942, and December 17, 1944, he shot down forty Japanese aircraft. This achievement meant that he was the U.S.A.’s top flying ace through the course of the Second World War. George C. Kenney, commanding officer of the Fourth Air Force, knew Bong well and his biography of the young hero brings Bong’s short career in the air force to life. One of Kenney and Bong’s first encounters had been when Bong had been cited and temporarily grounded for looping the Golden Gate bridge, flying at low level down Market Street in San Francisco, and blowing the clothes off an Oakland woman’s clothesline. Kenney reprimanded him saying ““there is no need for me to tell you again that this is a serious matter. If you didn’t want to loop around that bridge or fly down Market Street I wouldn’t have you in my Air Force, but you are not going to do it any more and I mean what I say.” Yet, Kenney was also aware of Bong’s flying skill and although he might have been a bit of a daredevil he acknowledged that for the U. S. Air Force to pose a serious threat to the Japanese “We needed kids like this lad.” Dick Bong: America's Ace of Aces is a remarkable book that uncovers the short, but fascinating, career of America’s greatest fighter pilot. It is full of brilliant insights provided by Kenney who was able to watch this young man develop before his life was cruelly cut short testing a jet aircraft shortly before the war ended. “Both flight enthusiasts and students of the second world war will read with considerable interest of the events of Dick Bong's life in a book which sticks close to its subject” Kirkus Reviews George C. Kenney was a United States Army Air Forces general during World War II. He is best known as the commander of the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), a position he held from August 1942 until 1945. Kenney wrote three books about the SWPA air campaigns he led during World War II. He also wrote The Saga of Pappy Gunn in 1959 and Dick Bong: Ace of Aces in 1960, which described the careers of Paul Gunn and Richard Bong, two of the most prominent airmen under his command. He passed away in 1977.
A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock & The 1970s
Mike Barnes - 2020
He examines the myths and misconceptions that have grown up around progressive rock and paints a vivid, colourful picture of the Seventies based on hundreds of hours of his own interviews with musicians, music business insiders, journalists and DJs, and from the personal testimonies of those who were fans of the music in that extraordinary decade.
Lombardi and Landry: How Two of Pro Football's Greatest Coaches Launched Their Legends and Changed the Game Forever
Ernie Palladino - 2011
Yet, while working for the New York Giants in the mid-1950s under head coach Jim Lee Howell, the pair formed what still stands as the greatest set of coordinators on one team. Given their personalities, one might have likened Howell’s job to that of Dwight Eisenhower’s as the general struggled to control the egos and politics of his allied subordinates during WWII. But for some reason, Lombardi and Landry worked almost seamlessly, leading the Giants to the top of the NFL. In the five seasons the two men coached together between 1956 and 1959, the Giants appeared in three championship games, winning the NFL title in ‘56.Both coaches would go on to NFL stardom, Lombardi with the Green Bay Packers and Landry with the Dallas Cowboys. But it was during their years as Giants coordinators that they developed the coaching philosophies they would employ later in their careers. For Lombardi, it was the reliance on the running game that started with Frank Gifford and would continue in the “Packers Sweep” days of Paul Hornung. For Landry, it was his own invention of the 4-3 defense that led to the “Flex” defense of his Super Bowl winners in Dallas. How they developed their ideas, and how they were allowed to implement them, was a testament not only to their genius, but Howell’s willingness to let them handle the strategic matters while he looked after the big picture.In Lombardi and Landry, veteran sportswriter Ernie Palladino takes an in-depth look at these two legends’ formative years in New York, offering up a vivid, revealing portrait of two brilliant coaches just coming into an understanding of their formidable powers.
Appomattox: The Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain - 1906
Lee rallies his exhausted, injured troops against General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union Army. In close coordination with Grant, Major General Philip Sheridan sends orders to the Cavalry Corps to guide the troops up to Appomattox Station, confident that victory is imminent. As Sheridan and Grant’s troops square across the enemy’s front, the hour has come that will determine whether each soldier lives or dies. Until a messenger arrives from General Lee with a single white towel, shaped into a flag, that has the potential to change everything. Having agreed on a brief truce, soldiers from both sides who previously had only one order – to destroy their opponents – are conversing amicably. As the truce comes to an end and Lee is nowhere to be seen, the soldiers prepare to put aside their new found friendships and resume the destruction they are, by now, so accustomed to.However, Lee and Grant soon arrive; after some discussion, Lee’s decision is made – his one chosen word will determine the course of this crucial moment in American history – surrender. As the troops unite with their opponents to laugh, share food and discuss the destruction that has dictated their existence for so long, they reflect on the lives of those who did not survive long enough to experience this miraculous moment. Finally, all troops lay down their weapons and face one another no longer as combatants, but as humans.Filled with vivid imagery, expert-storytelling and profound thoughts on war and surrender, Chamberlain’s historical narrative will stay with you long after you have turned the final page. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828-1914) was a college professor from Maine who volunteered for the Union Army in 1862. Awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg, he ended the war a Brevet Major General. A Republican, after the war he entered politics, serving four consecutive terms of office as the Governor of Maine. Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, 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.
Danger Stalks the Land: Alaskan Tales of Death and Survival
Larry Kaniut - 1999
This one-of-a-kind anthology captures the spine tingling adventures of daring men and women who venture into Alaska's vast wilderness and look death in the eye. Danger Stalks the Land relates gripping episodes of animal attacks, avalanches, aircraft disasters, fishing, hunting, and skiing accidents, and chronicles risky climbs and reckless mountaineering amid Alaska's fantastic peaks. Through exhaustive research and interviews, author Larry Kaniut has captured in one volume, the terror and beauty of man's attempt to explore a vast and unforgiving land.
The Nation's Favourite
Simon Garfield - 1999
Matthew Bannister said he was going to reinvent the station, the most popular in Europe. But things didn't go exactly to plan. The station lost millions of listeners. Its most famous DJs left, and their replacements proved to be disasters. Radio 1's commercial rivals regarded the internal turmoil with glee. For a while a saviour arrived, in the shape of Chris Evans. But his behaviour caused further upheavals, and his eventual departure provoked another mass desertion by listeners. What was to be done? In the middle of this crisis, Radio 1 bravely (or foolishly) allowed the writer Simon Garfield to observe its workings from the inside. For a year he was allowed unprecedented access to management meetings and to DJs in their studios, to research briefings and playlist conferences. Everyone interviewed spoke in passionate detail about their struggle to make their station credible and successful once more. The result is a gripping and often hilarious portrait a much loved national institution as it battles back from the brink of calamity.
The Journey: My Story, from Backyard Cricket to Australian Captain
Steve Smith - 2017
From childhood backyard cricket with mates and family, and net sessions with his dad that laid the foundations for his later success, Steve traces the influences and events that started him on his cricket journey.He takes us inside his quest to play cricket at the highest level, from formative club and grade games, to his first overseas experiences, and finally to state cricket and the Australian squad. It's a journey with both ups and downs, where valuable and lasting lessons were learned from the successes and, more importantly, the failures.And Steve compellingly describes the key moments that shaped him into the cricketer and leader he is today, from his definitive hundred at Centurion in South Africa, to the soul-searching and resolve that accompanied the Australian team's lowest point in the 2016 Hobart Test, to the epic 2017 series in India.The Journey is a revealing and fascinating insight into Steve Smith-the cricketer and the man.
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.
My Watch Volume 2: Political and Public Affairs
Olusegun Obasanjo - 2015
It is a memoir of a lifetime spent in service to country, of a man who has been destined with the watch, with the vigilance, with the responsibility to his people to speak up and speak out.My Watch spans large expanses of time, from the pre-colonial Owu history, to early Abeokuta and the last throes of an independent city state at turn-of-the-century colonial Nigeria, to the early life of its author, his civil war experience, his stewardship of the transitional government of 1976-1979, the interregnum, his second appearance on the national scene as a civilian president on Nigeria's return to democracy in 1999, the completion of the first civilian-civilian transfer of government in Nigeria's history that inaugurated the Yar'Adua presidency and signalled the end of Obasanjo's tenure in office, and the years hence.Presented in three volumes, this exquisitely narrated memoir, in turns intensely personal and broadly nationalistic and international, completes a trilogy of autobiographies—My Command, Not My Will, and My Watch—told by this sojourner of Nigerian and world history.
The Queen's Marriage
Lady Colin Campbell - 2018
In this new book royal historian Lady Colin Campbell covers The Queen’s Marriage in intimate detail. Using her connections and impeccable sources she recounts details of the inside story of the monarch’s relationship with the Duke of Edinburgh and her close family.
A Conspiracy of Crowns: The True Story of the Duke of Windsor and the Murder of Sir Harry Oakes
Alfred de Marigny - 1990
Its portrayal of the Duke of Windsor as a Nazi sympathizer--who would stop at nothing to hide it--is sure to make headlines. Black-and-white photographs.
Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence
Charles Augustus Goodrich - 1832
But Charles Goodrich does not just focus upon the more famous of the fifty-signers as he draws evidence from a wide variety of sources to shine light upon even the most obscure of the Declaration’s signatories. Indeed some of the most fascinating of the lives within this work are those that have more frequently been forgotten. Goodrich begins the work with a short history of why the Declaration of Independence came into being. It provides an excellent grounding for his biographies of all fifty-six signers and lives that they led, both before and after they had added their names to this famous document. “The same intrepidity and genius which had raised them to be leaders of the nation at that crisis, carried them forward in the career of glory through a long period of public life. … we are convinced these biographies will be read with pleasure.” The North American Review This book is worthy reading for anyone interested in how the United States was founded and for people wishing to learn more about the figures that shaped its history in those early years. Charles Augustus Goodrich was an American author and Congregational minister, who popularized the motto "a place for everything and everything in its place". His book Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of independence was first published in 1829 and he passed away in 1862.