Pioneer life; or, Thirty Years a Hunter, Being Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Philip Tome (1854)


Philip Tome - 2006
    Tome was born in 1782 near present-day Harrisburg and lived on the upper Susquehanna for much of his life. He tells colorful (and mostly true) tales about his hunting exploits in the Pennsylvania wilderness, as he tracked elk, wolves, bears, panthers, foxes, and other large animals through the state’s north-central mountains, earning wide renown among his contemporaries. His stories contain suspenseful chase scenes, accidents, and narrow escapes, inviting the reader to view a still-wild Pennsylvania through the eyes of one who “was never conquered by man or animal.” Pioneer Life, originally published in 1854, has since been reprinted several times. This classic hunting memoir includes the following chapters: I. Birth and Early Life II. Hunting the Elk III. Capturing a Live Elk IV. Face of the Country V. Face of the Country — Continued VI. Danger From Rattlesnakes VII. Wolf and Bear Hunting VIII. Another Elk Hunt IX. Elk-Hunting on the Susquehannah X. Elk-Hunting — Continued XI. Nature, Habits, and Manner of Hunting the Elk XII. Elk and Bear Hunting in Winter XIII. Hunting on the Clarion River XIV. Hunting and Trapping XV. The Bear, Its Nature and Habits XVI. Hunting Deer at Different Seasons XVII. Nature and Habits of the Panther, Wolf and Fox XVIII. Rattlesnakes and Their Habits XIX. Distinguished Lumbermen, Etc. XX.. Reminiscences of Cornplanter XXI. Indian Eloquence This book originally published in 1854 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the reformatting

Inside the Firm: The Untold Story of the Krays' Reign of Terror


Tony Lambrianou - 1991
    He had a unique insight into the workings of a criminal organization whose reputation in the underworld remains to this day. But he was not just an observer and his role in the Kray story ultimately led to him serving 15 years in prison. Inside the Firm tells, with searing honesty, his violent history with the Krays, and the horrors of his subsequent imprisonment in top security institutions. In exorcising his ghosts, he reveals an account that is more impartial and more terrifying than Ronnie and Reggie ever could have written. From the murder of Jack "The Hat" McVitie—and the mystery of his undiscovered body—to the role of the Kray legacy in Britain’s prisons today, here is the last confession of a gangster determined to turn his back on his brutal past.

The Boy With Only One Shoe: An Illustrated memoir of wartime life with Bomber Command


John Henry Meller - 2020
    is the number of Royal Air Force Bomber Command aircrew who lost their lives during World War 2. That's more than the total who serve in Britain's RAF today. With a terrifying 46% combat attrition rate, an Avro Lancaster Bomber was one of the most dangerous places to be during the conflict. Yet no one was enlisted to become aircrew: all were volunteers. So, at a time when Britain stood resolute in its fight against tyranny and oppression, young men from across the globe did just that. At just 18 years old, John Henry Meller was one such man.The ordeals and sacrifices endured by John and his generation were crucial to the success of the Allied nations. In the words of Winston Churchill, Great Britain's wartime leader:"Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands ...... Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and the Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."As few remain to bear witness to that time, John - together with daughter Caroline Brownbill - have chosen to document his vivid recollections of wartime life. Join him as he shares what it was like to crew a Lancaster over Europe, during the darkest days of the War.

After the Voyage: An Irish American Story


Brenda Murphy - 2016
    From different counties in Ireland, Maggie Qualter and Richard Terrett both sail to America as young adults in 1870 after surviving Ireland’s Great Hunger as children. Maggie works as a maid for a wealthy family. Richard finds work in a tannery. After the death of the young wife he loves passionately, Richard marries Maggie with the help of a deceptive go-between who brews trouble in their marriage that never goes away. They raise three children in the midst of Irish American culture, the Catholic Church, and Richard’s battles for the workingman in the Knights of Labor. Their daughter Mary dreams of being a nun, while Josie seeks the freedom of big-city life in Boston. Neither reckons on the future she will face, Mary as a wife and mother of nine children and Josie as a single working woman. Tom escapes factory life by joining the Navy, manages to see the world in the midst of two wars, and comes home to marry his sweetheart and start a new life. Their stories are both remarkable and familiar to everyone whose ancestors made their way to and in America.The events in the Terretts’ lives are as they emerge from the public record. But their inner lives, their thoughts, their relationships, their words are imagined as a route to understanding these five complicated and fascinating people

Truman Fires MacArthur: (ebook excerpt of Truman)


David McCullough - 2010
    An unpopular war. A military and diplomatic team in disarray. Those are the challenges President Obama has faced as he attempts to make a success of U.S involvement in Afghanistan. They are also the challenges President Truman surmounted in the winter of 1950 as he began managing a war in Korea that risked becoming bigger and more costly. It was the first significant armed conflict of the Cold War: United States troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur came to the aid of the South Koreans after North Korea invaded. When Communist China entered the conflict on the side of the North Koreans, the crisis seemed on the verge of flaring into a world war. Truman was determined not to let that happen. MacArthur kept urging a widening of the war into China itself and ignoring his Commander in Chief. On April 11, 1951, after MacArthur had “shot his mouth off,” as one diplomat put it, one too many times, Truman fired him. The story of their showdown—one of the most dramatic in U.S. history between a Commander in Chief and his top soldier in the field—is captured in all its detail by David McCullough in his biography Truman, and presented here in a e-book called Truman Fires MacArthur (an excerpt of Truman, McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography), which was the headline carried in many newspapers around the country the next day. Truman Fires MacArthur will continue to ride the headlines. It will go on sale as an ebook just as the Rolling Stone profile that exposed General Stanley McChrystal’s insurrection and forced his resignation hits newsstands, and media coverage of the showdown continues to draw historical analogies between Truman and Obama.

Hunters of the Great North (1922) (Interactive Table of Contents)


Vilhjálmur Stefánsson - 1922
    Because of his studies of the Eskimos, his discoveries of land, the application of new ideas and new methods of exploration, Stefansson was considered the foremost polar explorer of his day, and one of the few great explorers of all time. During a period of three or four years Mr. Stefansson has produced a creditable list of books about the Arctic. In some respects his service in publishing the results of his Northern studies has differed from that of earlier explorers. He has challenged our preconceptions about the Arctic. “Hunters of the Great North” gives details of Northern life such as have doubtless come within the experience of all Arctic explorers, but which are new to the average American reader. In short, it is an elementary text-book of the Arctic. Stefansson lived among the Eskimos of the Mackenzie River, studying their language and adopting their mode of life, and spending ten winters and thirteen summers in the polar regions. Among Stefannson's most famous discovery was that of a race of blond Eskimo on Coronation Gulf. Stefansson writes: "In the present book I have tried by means of diaries and memory to go back to the vivid impressions of my first year among the Eskimos for the story of what I saw and heard." In describing his confrontation with a polar bear, Stefansson writes: “I heard behind me a noise like the spitting of a cat or the hiss of a goose. I looked back and saw, about twenty feet away and almost above me, a polar bear. I had overestimated the bear's distance from shore, and had passed the spot where he lay. From his eye and attitude, as well as the story his trail told afterward there was no doubting his intentions: the hiss was merely his way of saying, "Watch me do it!" Or at least that is how I interpreted it; possibly the motive was chivalry, and the hiss was his way of saying Garde!” Contents I. PREPARATIONS FOR A LIFEWORK OF EXPLORATION II. DOWN THE MACKENZIE RIVER THROUGH 2000 MILES OF INDIAN COUNTRY III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ESKIMOS IV. CAPTAIN KLINKENBERG—SEA WOLF AND DISCOVERER V. THE WHALING FLEET SAILS AWAY VI. LEARNING TO LIVE AS AN ESKIMO—ON A DIET OF FISH WITHOUT SALT VII. HOW AN ESKIMO SAILED THROUGH THE STORM VIII. AN AUTUMN JOURNEY THROUGH ARCTIC MOUNTAINS IX. THE SUN GOES AWAY FOR THE WINTER X. LOST IN THE MACKENZIE DELTA XI. AN ARCTIC CHRISTMAS WITH AN ENGLISH COUNTRY GENTLEMAN XII. THE LIFE AT TUKTUYAKTOK XIII. LEARNING TO BUILD A SNOWHOUSE AND TO BE COMFORTABLE IN ONE XIV. TRAVELS AFTER THE SUN CAME BACK XV. WE GO IN SEARCH OF OUR OWN EXPEDITION XVI. A SPRING JOURNEY IN AN ESKIMO SKIN BOAT XVII. A RACE OVER THE ARCTIC MOUNTAINS IN SUMMER XVIII. ON A RAFT DOWN THE PORCUPINE RIVER SHORT STORIES OF ADVENTURE I. HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT CARIBOU II. HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT SEALS III. HOW WE HUNT POLAR BEARS

A Dangerous Place: The Story of the Railway Murders


Simon Farquhar - 2016
    In September 1970, two boys met in the playground on their first day at secondary school in North London. They formed what would be described at the Old Bailey thirty years later as ‘a unique and wicked bond’. Between 1982 and 1986, striking near lonely railway stations in London and the Home Counties, their partnership took them from rape to murder. Three police forces pooled their resources to catch them in the biggest criminal manhunt since the Yorkshire Ripper Enquiry.A Dangerous Place is the first full-length account of the crimes of John Duffy and David Mulcahy. Told by the son of one of the police officers who led the enquiry, exhaustively researched and with unprecedented access, this is the story of two of the most notorious serial killers of the twentieth century and the times they operated in. It is the story of the women who died at their hands. It is the story of the women who survived them, and who had the courage to ensure justice was done. And it is the story of a father, told by a son.

Mad Frank and Sons


David Fraser - 2016
    It includes the story of Frank's beloved sister, Eva, who was a top-class West End shoplifter, and his sons David and Patrick, who reveal in shocking detail the full extent of the family's network and the influences that shaped them.With sawn-off shotguns as toys, the Kray twins as family friends and a mother who urged them as teenagers to 'get out of bed and rob a bleedin' bank', it is little wonder that the Fraser boys were heavily involved in organized crime by the time they were in their twenties. Packed with new information, and featuring some of the most famous names in the London underworld, this is a fascinating slice of gangland history seen through the eyes of Frank Fraser and his two renegade sons.

Mozart: Requiem of Genius (The True Story of Wolfgang Mozart) (Historical Biographies of Famous People)


Alexander Kennedy - 2016
    In this highly readable short biography, Alexander Kennedy brings Mozart and his times vividly to life. Here we see the sweeping grandeur of the courts Mozart visited as a child prodigy, and the grasping desperation of his scheming father. We follow the composer through the flush of his first love up through his marriage to Constanze Weber, and from his first, half-plagiarized concertos to masterpieces like The Magic Flute. We watch Mozart clash with family and friends, with archbishops and emperors, and we feel again the tragedy of his mysterious early death. And above all, we hear his eternal music: music that captivated a continent, defined a genre, and changed the world. “I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings” - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Buy Now to Discover: A layperson’s explanation of the devices that made Mozart’s music unique. The complicated relationship between Mozart and his demanding father. Mozart’s love affair with his cousin Maria Anna Thekla. The surprising story behind the premiere of La nozze di Figaro. Mozart’s friendship with fellow master Joseph Haydn. The most likely cause of Mozart’s young death. Mozart’s influence on Rossini, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and more. Read Your Book Now Your book will be instantly and automatically delivered to your Kindle device, smartphone, tablet, and computer. FREE Bonus Book Buy this book now and receive instant access to your free Kindle ebook. Money Back Guarantee If you start reading our book and are not completely satisfied with your purchase, simply return it to Amazon within 7 days for a full refund. Go to Your Account -> Manage Your Content and Devices -> Find the Book -> Return for Full Refund. Buy Now and Read The True Story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart... Thank you in advance for buying our book. We know you'll love it!

Ben and Irene: A Love Story


Terri Edmund White - 2016
    The story of a couple who meet quite by chance and cross paths later, to the fall in love and live a Camelot-like life, sadly interrupted by tragedy.

Duel of Eagles: The Classic Pilot's Account of the Battle of Britain


Peter Townsend - 2021
    

Bushwhacker: Autobiography of Samuel S. Hildebrand


Samuel S. Hildebrand - 1871
    Like William Clarke Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, Samuel Hildebrand was a proud Missouri bushwhacker. In this long out of print book, Hildebrand describes raids and executions his band of men carried out. He remained at the end of the war and unreconstructed rebel and fervent racist. Like many of his southern brethren who fought, he never owned slaves but kept a captured black man with him after the war. This self-serving but fascinating account is a valuable addition to the canon of Civil War literature. In it, Hildebrand claims that others have tried to tell his story but have gotten it wrong, so he has a notarized statement by prominent men included as verification of authenticity. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time ever, this long-out-of-print book is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE or download a sample.

One Green Beret: Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and beyond: 15 Extraordinary years in the life - 1996-2011


Mark Giaconia - 2018
    These special missions were called “Advanced Force Operations.” Subsequently, these special teams brought in the rest of the Green Berets during an operation called "the Ugly Baby." Then, one of the most significant battles in Special Forces history occurred: "Operation Viking Hammer," where six Green Beret teams along with a handful of CIA and Air Force Special Ops personnel, combined with approximately 8000 Peshmerga, took back hundreds of square kilometers from almost 1000 Ansar Al Islam extremists, and secured a poison production facility of national level significance. This book is the only firsthand account of these essential Unconventional Warfare operations, written by an operator who was there. In addition to describing these historically significant Special Operations missions, "One Green Beret" also details a 15-year career in the Green Berets that includes many unique experiences, such as joint operations alongside Russian Spetznaz on the northern border of Kosovo, and postwar operations in Bosnia embedded deeply with the locals. Mark Giaconia questions everything, and provides a VERY humble, sobering, and human perspective on war, military service, and strategic considerations. One Green Beret is very inspiring, and conveys the author’s personal evolution from gunslinger to educated computer scientist; a true tale of “post traumatic success.”

BUNKER 1945 - The Last Ten Days of ADOLF HITLER


Christian Shakespeare - 2019
    Twenty-two years later, he did. April 1945 – Berlin. The world had been at war for more than five-and-a-half years – approximately seventy million people were dead across the globe. The epicentre of the twelve-year-old Third Reich was now surrounded, enveloped by bitter Soviet forces hardened by Nazi barbarity in the east over the last four years. As the buildings were blasted into rubble, pounded by Russian guns and bombs, before their troops and tanks, Hitler was hunkered down in his last headquarters – the dark and damp bunker under the Reich Chancellery. As the Third Reich began to crumble as fast as the city’s buildings, what was the state of mind of the tyrant? Only his closest and fanatical allies saw the collapse, none more so than Hitler’s servants, Otto Gunsche and Heinz Linge – two individuals which witnessed the final act of their regime. An act tinged over the last ten days in late April with selfish betrayal, increasingly forlorn hope, pleas, desperation and eventually suicide. As the Soviets closed in with impending vigour, in the concrete tomb below ground and under the thunderous booms of the petrifying battle for Berlin, the mind of the dictator disintegrated into drugs, delusion and a determination to die. Not by the enemy bullet but one of his own. This is the story of the people who held a unique place in world history – the ones who were there when the nightmare of Nazism and the horrors which accompanied it was finally banished as a dark chapter in the story of the human race.

Wrestling With Madness: John E. Du Pont and the Foxcatcher Farm Murder


Tim Huddleston - 2013
    Part of one of the most prominent and richest families in America: The du Pont Family. Then, strangely, he started losing his mind. This is what is known: du Pont was a fan of amateur sports and established a wrestling facility at his Foxcatcher Farm. He befriended several Olympic champions--including Dave Schultz, who he murdered. It was a never a question of if he did it; the question is why. What turns an otherwise sane man into a psychotic killer? This page-turning true crime story will take you into the mind of a man who had everything and let it all fall away due to madness and paranoia.