Dracula Chronicles, Son of the Dragon


Victor T. Foia - 2012
    While other stories have been told about the real Dracula, Foia's account benefits from the unique perspective of a Transylvanian native and neighbor of the dark prince. Under Foia’s pen, the “Dracula Chronicles” finally pierces the veil of mystery that has shrouded Dracula for over 500 years. The multivolume historical novel unfolds in vivid detail Dracula’s metamorphosis from a naïve and trusting prince to the ruthless law-and-order king whose deeds have spawned the enduring vampire legend. The series takes place on the backdrop of the dying Middle Ages and the blossoming of the Renaissance. It is replete with towering passions, unbridled ambitions, vile betrayals, and righteous revenge. And, as one would expect, blood. "Son of the Dragon", Book One of the series, provides a first ever origin story of the mysterious character whose fame has survived for half a millenium. It begins Dracula's epic journey that will ultimately see the young prince become the famed strongman, warrior, and object of women's desire who has conquered the imagination of millions. Skilled at arms and often reckless, young Dracula seeks out danger to prove his readiness to be a man. An avid reader of history and lover of languages, he uses wit to overcome impossible odds facing him. Then, with a single impulsive step he launches himself into a hostile world capable of devouring even the strongest men. The book resembles a chess game in the intricacy of its historical context lurking beneath the surface. Yet, written with an economy of words that belies its hidden complexity, it reads with the ease of a game of checkers, making it hard for the reader to put down.

Pro Bono The 18year defense of Caril Ann Fugate


Jeff McArthur - 2012
    With him when he was captured was his 14-year-old ex-girlfriend Caril Fugate. The question soon arose, was Caril a kidnapped victim, or a heartless accomplice?Appointed to her case, attorney John McArthur initially accepted the assignment out of a sense of constitutional duty. But as he delved deeper, he found that the truth was far more complicated than anyone was letting on. Up against incredible odds, and with a strong conviction of her innocence, McArthur remained with Caril and fought for her freedom for 18 years. For this service, he took no pay, accepting the case pro bono.This book follows the long struggle of McArthur, his partner Merril Reller, and John's son James as they took on the Nebraska legal system and a public that had already determined Caril's guilt before ever hearing a word of testimony. The story continues through all it influenced, such as Stephen King, who became a horror writer because of it, Bruce Springsteen, who wrote a whole album about it, Terrence Malick, Oliver Stone, Martin Sheen, and Peter Jackson, who wrote his first major movie based on the Starkweather-Fugate incident.Pro Bono explores aspects of this incredible story that have never been revealed before, and sheds new light on these terrifying and complex events.

Very Naughty Boys: The Amazing True Story of Handmade Films


Robert Sellers - 2003
    His company, HandMade films, went on to make some of the best British films of the 80s (Withnail and I, Time Bandits and Mona Lisa among them), but then things started to go wrong... This is the incredible and often hilarious insiders’ story of what happened...

CIA & JFK: The Secret Assassination Files


Jefferson Morley - 2016
    Kennedy, Jefferson Morley is asked, “So who killed JFK? What’s your theory?” Morley, a former reporter for the Washington Post and author of Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA, invariably disappoints. “I don’t know. It’s too early to tell.” Fifty-plus years after JFK’s death, this answer is laughable but serious. The JFK story remains unsettled well into the 21st century, no matter what the various conspiracy and anti-conspiracy theorists may proclaim. Indeed, the complex reality of how a president of the United States came to be gunned down on a sunny day, and no one lost his liberty — or his job — continues to live and grow in popular memory. This is a book that reveals deceit and deception on the part of the CIA relating to the Kennedy assassination and why the CIA should reveal to the American people what it is still keeping secret. Employing his investigative reporting skills through interviews and examination of long-secret records, Morley reveals that the CIA was closely monitoring the movements of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the months preceding the assassination of President Kennedy. Questions naturally arise: Did the CIA suspect that Oswald was up to no good? Or was its surveillance part of a CIA scheme to frame Oswald for the assassination of President Kennedy? Why did the CIA keep its surveillance secret from the Warren Commission?Morley also reveals a close relationship between the CIA and an American anti-Castro group that began advertising Oswald’s connections to communism and the Soviet Union immediately after the assassination? That raises questions: Why didn’t the CIA reveal that relationship to official agencies investigating the assassination of President Kennedy? Why did a federal judge and the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations accuse the CIA of deceit and deception?The U.S. government retains almost 3,600 assassination-related records, consisting of tens of thousands of pages that have never been seen by the public. More than 1,100 of these records are held by the CIA.What is in those secret files? What do they reveal about JFK’s death? Why has the CIA been so reluctant to release them? And when will they finally be revealed to the public? Will they answer the disturbing questions that the revelations in this book raise?

Haunted Ohio V: 200 Years of Ghosts (Buckeye Haunts)


Chris Woodyard - 2003
    You ll meet the ghosts of the Indian martyrs of Gnadenhutten, a spectral soldier from the siege of Ft. Meigs, the phantom Phoebe, keeping an eye on the canal boats at Roscoe Village, the African American ghosts of Prospect Place, a stop on the Underground Railroad, and many other tales that reflect the history as well as the ghostly lore of the Buckeye State. You'll also meet a real-life Hatchet Man, possibly Ohio s first serial killer, the sad ghost of a wife slaughtered by her husband at what is now a Victorian tea room, and the spirit of a mad murderess in a remote farmhouse. Stories from the following counties:Adams, Ashtabula, Athens, Belmont, Clark, Clermont, Clinton, Coshocton, Crawford, Cuyahoga, Darke, Erie, Fairfield, Franklin, Fulton, Greene, Guernsey, Hamilton, Hardin, Henry, Highland, Jefferosn, Lake, Lawrence, Logan, Lorain, Lucas, Madison, Marion, Montgomery, Morgan, Muskingum, Paulding, Pickaway, Pike, Portage, Putnam, Richland, Ross, Shelby, Stark, Summit, Tuscarawas, Union, Van Wert, Warren, Wood

Michigan's Strychnine Saint: The Curious Case of Mrs. Mary McKnight


Tobin T. Buhk - 2014
      The spring of 1903 proved disastrous for the Murphy family. On April 22, the infant Ruth Murphy died in her crib. Within an hour, her mother, Gertrude, experienced a violent spasm before she, too, died. Ten days later, John Murphy followed his wife and child to the grave after suffering from a crippling convulsion. While neighbors whispered about a curse and physicians feared a contagious disease, Kalkaska County sheriff John W. Creighton and prosecuting attorney Ernest C. Smith searched for answers. As they probed deeper into the suspicious deaths, they uncovered a wicked web of intrigue. And at the center stood a widow in a black taffeta dress.   Includes photos

Cane Mutiny: How the Miami Hurricanes Overturned the Football Establishment


Bruce Feldman - 2004
    Feldman has penned the inside story of the Miami Hurricanes--the college football dynasty they call the Miami Vice.

Adventures of a Mountain Man: The Narrative of Zenas Leonard


Zenas Leonard - 1839
     One misfortune after another happening to the company, he was deprived of all in the fall of 1835—after an absence of 5 years and 6 months. Written in response to popular demand, Leonard's account of these years, based in large part on ‘a minute journal of every incident that occurred,’ is recognized as one of the fundamental sources on the exploration of the American West. A free trapper until the summer of 1833, when he entered the employ of Captain B. L. E. Bonneville, Leonard was part of the group sent under command of Captain Joseph Walker to explore the Great Salt Lake region—an expedition that resulted in Walker's finding the overland route to California. The Narrative ends in August 1835, with Leonard's return to Independence. Zenas Leonard (March 19, 1809 – July 14, 1857) was an American mountain man, explorer and trader, best known for his journal Narrative of the Adventures of Zenas Leonard.Leonard worked for his uncle in Pittsburgh before moving to St. Louis and working as a clerk for the fur company, Gannt and Blackwell. In 1831 he went with Gant and Blackwell's company of about 70 men on a trapping and trading expedition. Living off the land (Leonard reported that "The flesh of the Buffaloe is the wholesomest and most palatable of meat kind"), Leonard and his associates endured great privation while amassing a fortune in furs; the horses died in the harsh winter and the party was at times near starvation. They survived, in part, by trading with Native Americans. Among the more helpful tribal members he reported encountering was a negro who claimed to have been on Lewis & Clark's expedition, and who may have been the explorer-slave York. In 1835 Leonard returned to Independence, Missouri with enough wealth in furs to establish a store and trading post at Fort Osage. He continued to trade along the river for the rest of his life. Leonard's journal was published in book form by D.W. Moore of Clearfield, Pennsylvania in 1839, after being serialized in the Clearfield Republican. It includes many details of the different tribes with which his parties interacted. As it is in the public domain, there are numerous reprints.

The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine


Robert Conquest - 1986
    Between 1929 and 1932 the Soviet Communist Party struck a double blow at the Russian peasantry: dekulakization, the dispossession and deportation of millions of peasant families, and collectivization, the abolition of private ownership of land and the concentration of the remaining peasants in party-controlled "collective" farms. This was followed in 1932-33 by a "terror-famine," inflicted by the State on the collectivized peasants of the Ukraine and certain other areas by setting impossibly high grain quotas, removing every other source of food, and preventing help from outside--even from other areas of the Soviet Union--from reaching the starving populace. The death toll resulting from the actions described in this book was an estimated 14.5 million--more than the total number of deaths for all countries in World War I.Ambitious, meticulously researched, and lucidly written, The Harvest of Sorrow is a deeply moving testament to those who died, and will register in the Western consciousness a sense of the dark side of this century's history.

The Patriots


Sana Krasikov - 2017
    But once in Russia, she quickly becomes entangled in a country she can’t escape. Many years later, Florence’s son, Julian, will make the opposite journey, immigrating back to the United States. His work in the oil industry takes him on frequent visits to Moscow, and when he learns that Florence’s KGB file has been opened, he arranges a business trip to uncover the truth about his mother, and to convince his son, Lenny, who is trying to make his fortune in the new Russia, to return home. What he discovers is both chilling and heartbreaking: an untold story of what happened to a generation of Americans abandoned by their country.The Patriots is a riveting evocation of the Cold War years, told with brilliant insight and extraordinary skill. Alternating between Florence’s and Julian’s perspectives, it is at once a mother-son story and a tale of two countries bound in a dialectic dance; a love story and a spy story; both a grand, old-fashioned epic and a contemporary novel of ideas. Through the history of one family moving back and forth between continents over three generations, The Patriots is a poignant tale of the power of love, the rewards and risks of friendship, and the secrets parents and children keep from one another.

Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War: Selected Writings and Speeches


Abraham Lincoln - 2000
    Classics like the Kansas-Nebraska speech, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and the Gettysburg Address, along with less familiar writings — poignant letters to individual voters, notes to generals on military strategy, and stirring public speeches — show the development of Lincoln's thought on free labor, slavery, secession, the Civil War, and emancipation. Johnson provides historical context by weaving an engaging narrative around Lincoln’s own words, making this volume the most accessible collection of Lincoln’s writings available. Also included are 14 illustrations, relevant Civil War maps, a Lincoln chronology, reading questions, a bibliography, and an index.

The Lewis and Clark Journals (Abridged Edition): An American Epic of Discovery


Meriwether Lewis - 2003
    In this riveting account, editor Gary E. Moulton blends the narrative highlights of the Lewis and Clark journals so that the voices of the enlisted men and of Native peoples are heard alongside the words of the captains. All their triumphs and terrors are here—the thrill of seeing the vast herds of bison on the plains; the tensions and admiration in the first meetings with Indian peoples; Lewis's rapture at the stunning beauty of the Great Falls; the fear the captains felt when a devastating illness befell their Shoshone interpreter, Sacagawea; the ordeal of crossing the Continental Divide; the kidnapping and rescuing of Lewis’s dog, Seaman; miserable days of cold and hunger; and Clark's joy at seeing the Pacific. The cultural differences between the corps and Native Americans make for living drama that at times provokes laughter but more often is poignant and, at least once, tragic.

BETTY The Story of Betty MacDonald, Author of The Egg and I


Anne Wellman - 2016
    The book was an immediate success, selling a million copies in less than a year, and was eventually translated into over thirty languages. It has never been out of print. This is Betty's true story.

Thatcher’s Spy: My Life as an MI5 Agent Inside Sinn Féin


Willie Carlin - 2019
     So began the dramatic extraction of Margaret Thatcher’s key undercover agent in Sinn Féin – Willie Carlin, aka Agent 3007. For 11 years the former British soldier worked alongside former IRA commander Martin McGuinness in the republican movement’s political wing in Derry. He was MI5’s man at McGuinness’ side and gave the British State unprecedented insight into the IRA leader’s strategic thinking. Carlin worked with McGuinness to develop Sinn Féin’s election strategy after the 1981 hunger strike, and the MI5 and later FRU agent’s reports on McGuinness, Adams and other republicans were read by the British Cabinet, including Margaret Thatcher herself. When Carlin’s cover was blown in mid-1985 thanks to one of his old MI5 handlers being jailed as a Soviet spy, Thatcher authorised the use of her jet to whisk him to safety. Incredibly, it was another British ‘super spy’ inside the IRA’s secretive counter-intelligence unit, the ‘nuttin’ squad’, who saved Carlin’s life. The Derry man is perhaps the only person alive thanks to the information provided by the ‘jewel in the crown’ of British military intelligence – Freddie Scappaticci, aka Stakeknife. In Thatcher’s Spy, the Cold War meets Northern Ireland’s Dirty War in the remarkable real-life story of a deep under-cover British intelligence agent, a man now doomed forever to look over his shoulder. . .

The Great Depression: A Captivating Guide to the Worldwide Economic Depression that Began in the United States, Including the Wall Street Crash, FDR's New deal, Hitler’s Rise and More


Captivating History - 2018
    On that dark day in October 1929, fortunes were lost and fear of financial insecurity rose throughout the United States and the world. In 1932, the low point of the Depression, as much as a third of Americans were out of work and even more people were unemployed in other countries. The stock market reached its lowest point ever and wouldn’t rise to its pre-Depression levels for almost twenty years. The scale of the crisis demanded new ways of coping and new ideas about the role of government. The ideas that had dominated American thought about the relationship between the economy and government were now viewed to be outdated at best, dangerous at worst. This captivating history book aims to give you a better understanding of a period that contains many tragic stories yet powerful lessons. In The Great Depression: A Captivating Guide to the Worldwide Economic Depression that Began in the United States, Including the Wall Street Crash, FDR's New deal, Hitler’s Rise and More, you will discover topics such as Causes of the Great Depression 1918-1929 Herbert Hoover and the Early Years of the Depression The Election of 1932 The 100 Days and FDR’s First Term, 1933-1937 FDR’s Second Term—Challenges and Critics The Culture of the Depression Sports and the Great Depression The Outlaw Celebrity in the Great Depression Population Shifts and the Culture of the Great Depression International Issues and Concerns During the Depression The Coming Storm and the End of the Depression And much, much more! So if you want to learn more about the Great Depression, click "buy now"!