Each story in this book by John Haaren is told in a clear, simple manner, and is well calculated to awaken and stimulate the youthful imagination. Notable characters featured in Famous Men of the Middle Ages include Attila the Hun, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Frederick Barbarossa, Marco Polo, and William Tell. Somewhat surprisingly, Famous Men of the Middle Ages also includes a chapter about one woman: Joan of Arc.

    On the run he encounters Alice, an Irish indentured servant, committing what appears to be an act of murder as she burns down a shack in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina.Faced with the threat of capture, Bledsoe and Alice become reluctant allies. An epic tale unfolds as their quest for freedom pulls them from swamp to city, from North Carolina to Virginia. Somewhere between injustice and loss, they discover a hidden place that seems an Eden, where their bond and love are forged.But the Confederate army is on the march and soon tramples their tenuous freedom. Separated, they are cast into fates they never imagined. Through it all, the hope of deliverance drives them onward and the memory of their Edenland remains, burning bright against the darkness of slavery and the American Civil War.

    On the first day that Chagak’s womanhood is acknowledged within her Aleut tribe, she unexpectedly finds herself betrothed to Seal Stalker, the most promising young hunter in the village. A bright future lies ahead of Chagak—but in one violent moment, she loses her entire way of life. Left with her infant brother, Pup, and only a birdskin parka for warmth, Chagak sets out across the icy waters on a quest for survival and revenge.In My Sister the Moon, Gray Bird wanted only sons. His daughter, Kiin, would have been killed at birth to make way for a male heir if not for the tribal chief, Kayugh, who claimed the infant as a future wife for one of his two young sons. Sixteen years later, Kiin is caught between the two brothers: one to whom she is promised, the other whom she desires. But the evil spawned by her own family takes her far from her people to a place where savage cruelties, love, and fate will strengthen and change her, and lead her to her ultimate destiny.And in Brother Wind, in the tribe of the First Men, courageous, beautiful Kiin, an accomplished ivory carver, is finally content with her hard-won life, which includes twin sons and a loving warrior husband. When she is suddenly pulled back into her nightmarish former existence as slave to the Raven, shaman of the Walrus People, her husband’s brother, Samiq, vows to bring her back to their tribe. Across the land, Kukutux, the wife of a Whale Hunter, finds the loss of her husband and the hostility of her clan too much to bear. The lives of Kiin, Samiq, and Kukutux, and the paths of their tribesmen will converge in a final dramatic confrontation that tests the strength of their hearts and spirits against the cruelty of man, nature, and fate.

    The title story, "Hart & Boot," was chosen by Michael Chabon for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories: 2005.Contents:Hart & Boot (2004)Life in Stone (2004)Cup and Table (2006)In a Glass Casket (2004)Terrible Ones (2004)Romanticore (2003)Living with the Harpy (2003)Komodo (2007)Bottom Feeding (2005)The Tyrant in Love (2007)Impossible Dreams (2006)Lachrymose and the Golden Egg (2005)Dream Engine (2006)

    But do you know the history of the Philadelphia Tea Party (December 1773)? How about the York, Maine, Tea Party (September 1774) or the Wilmington, North Carolina, Tea Party (March 1775)?Ten Tea Parties is the first book to chronicle all these uniquely American protests. Author and historian Joseph Cummins begins with the history of the East India Company (the biggest global corporation in the eighteenth century) and their staggering financial losses during the Boston Tea Party (more than a million dollars in today’s money).From there we travel to Philadelphia, where Captain Samuel Ayres was nearly tarred and feathered by a mob of 8,000 angry patriots. Then we set sail for New York City, where the Sons of Liberty raided the London and heaved 18 chests of tea into the Hudson River. Still later, in Annapolis, Maryland, a brigantine carrying 2,320 pounds of the “wretched weed” was burned to ashes.Together, the stories in Ten Tea Parties illuminate the power of Americans banding together as Americans—for the very first time in the fledgling nation’s history. It’s no wonder these patriots remain an inspiration to so many people today.

    . . but will she take a chance?Bina MacLaine is having a rough time. Still haunted by an ugly breakup that meant walking away from her fiancé and her high-rise apartment, now the dance teacher faces the possibility of losing her job, too, if her performance academy closes. When Maurice Hewett, one of her old ballet students, arrives in town, Bina sees he’s not the goofy boy she once knew—but a very handsome, very sexy grown man. She wonders if he can weave a spell that can help her forget all her woes. But can Bina let her desire take the lead without feeling like she’s robbing the cradle—and making a huge mistake?

    Titanic on April 10 , 1912. one of the most celebrated American mystery writers of his time, Futrelle was the creator of an ingenious detective known as the "Thinking Machine" -- and was an inspiration to the legendary Agatha Christie.He was also one of over 1,500 people who did not survive the sinking of the Titanic.Were Futrelle's crime-solving talents engaged in an onboard investigation? This intriguing question has now sparked one of the greatest mysteries of the Titanic.Our story begins with two deaths that may have occurred before the great ship went down.Two murders that became the mystery writer's final challenge. . . .

    Everyone is preparing for the battle that, as Winston Churchill said, would see the “whole fury and might of the enemy turned upon us.” Everyone including the young Miss Emily Seeton, London art teacher, who finds her strangely prophetic sketches do not go unnoticed by the secret services. At first suspected of being a fifth columnist, she soon finds herself recruited by the dashing Major Gerry Haynes and sent to carry out a very special observance task at a rural Spitfire factory. Faced with bombs, sabotage and murder, Miss Seeton must summon all her courage – it is after all her nature to Keep Calm and Carry On!

    Though their importance has long been acknowledged, the coastwatchers had received relatively little attention until the publication of this book in 1977. The remarkable band of individualists, operating deep behind Japanese lines in the dark days of 1942-43, lived by their wits alone yet gave the Allies their best intelligence and rescued many a man from downed planes and sinking ships-including John f. Kennedy and his PT-109 crew. To piece their story together, Lord traveled 40,000 miles to interview participants, check archives, and examine private letters and diaries. He even made a three-day hike through the Guadalcanal jungle to inspect the coastwatcher hideout on Gold Ridge so he could successfully put readers in their shoes. The book's varied cast of intriguing characters has attracted readers ever since.

    

    The throne has been lost for millennia, but now one man seeks to find it, and harness its secrets to unleash hell upon the world. Jonathan is the most powerful psychic on earth, and in service of his god Lucifer he will tear civilization apart. To combat his dark designs, mankind’s hopes rest on a half-mad alcoholic named Edgar Allan Poe.In the shadows of New York City, Poe drowns his talent in rotgut gin, trying to forget the death of his beloved wife. A bare-knuckle fighter named Pierce James Figg arrives with a letter of introduction from Charles Dickens, to beg Poe’s help chasing down the power-mad devil worshiper. Writer and fighter will stand together, to save humanity from a darkness beyond even Poe’s tortured imagination.

    This golden period only drew to an end with the Republic’s eventual surrender to Napoleon.The Venetians illuminates the character of the Republic during these illustrious years by shining a light on some of the most celebrated personalities of European history—Petrarch, Marco Polo, Galileo, Titian, Vivaldi, Casanova. Frequently, though, these emblems of the city found themselves at odds with the Venetian authorities who prized stability above all else, and were notoriously suspicious of any "cult of personality." Was this very tension perhaps the engine for the Republic’s unprecedented rise?Rich with biographies of some of the most exalted characters who have ever lived, The Venetians is a refreshing and authoritative new look at the history of the most evocative of city states.

    For years, Elise has been donning corsets, sneaking into castles, and lying through her teeth to enforce the Place in Time Travel Agency's ten essential rules of time travel. Someone has to ensure that travel to the past isn't abused, and most days she welcomes the challenge of tracking down and retrieving clients who have run into trouble on their historical vacations.But when a dangerous secret organization kidnaps her and coerces her into jumping to the future on a high-stakes assignment, she's got more to worry about than just the time-space continuum. For the first time ever, she's the one out-of-date, out of place, and quickly running out of time.

    In May 1942, Admiral Jack Fletcher’s Task Force 17 closed in for the war’s first major clash with the Japanese Navy. The Neosho, a vitally important tanker capable of holding more than 140,000 barrels of fuel, was ordered away from the impending battle. Minimally armed, she was escorted by a destroyer, the Sims. As the Battle of the Coral Sea raged two hundred miles away, the ships were attacked by Japanese dive bombers. Both crews fought valiantly, but when the smoke cleared, the Sims had slipped beneath the waves, and the Neosho was ablaze and listing badly, severely damaged from seven direct hits and a suicide crash. Scores of sailors were killed or wounded, while hundreds bobbed in shark-infested waters. Fires on board threatened to spark a fatal explosion, and each passing hour brought the ship closer to sinking. It was the beginning of a hellish four-day ordeal as the crew struggled to stay alive and keep their ship afloat, while almost two hundred men in life rafts drifted away without water, food, or shelter. Only four of them would survive to be rescued after nine days. Working from eyewitness accounts and declassified documents, Keith offers up vivid portraits of Navy heroes: the Neosho’s skipper, Captain John Phillips, whose cool, determined leadership earned him a Silver Star; Lieutenant Commander Wilford Hyman, skipper of the Sims,  who remained on his vessel’s bridge throughout the attack and made the ultimate sacrifice to try to save his ship; Seaman Jack Rolston, who pulled oil-soaked survivors out of the water and endured days adrift in an open life raft; and Chief Watertender Oscar Peterson, whose selflessness saved the lives of innumerable shipmates and earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor. A tale of a ship as tough and resilient as its crew, The Ship That Wouldn’t Die captures the indomitable spirit of the American sailor—and finally brings to the surface one of the great untold sagas of the Pacific War.

     The result is a brightly woven tapestry of which the main thread, Sarah’s own story, is the love which grows naturally from the innocent affection of a child into the all-absorbing passion of a woman. Sarah tells of her happy childhood at the Vicarage. The Morris family is full of life and individuality: Lewis, handsome and brave, Willy, less fortunate, and Lottie with her flaxen curls, who takes what she wants from life regardless of other people’s feelings. Gradually Sarah’s world expands as her brothers grow up and bring back friends from Oxford—among them Charles, the charming yet slightly mysterious Austrian to whom she is strangely drawn. Over the years they fall in love, but suddenly the harmony of their lives is broken by the outbreak of war, and Charles must return to Austria. While she awaits his return, Sarah quietly continues working hard and caring for her family. But she can't stop wondering if she will ever see her sweetheart again...