Book picks similar to
Twelve Secrets in the Caucasus by Essad Bey
caucasus
the-caucasus
history
books-i-ve-reviewed
The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed
Sara Gay Forden - 2000
In 1998, his ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani Martinelli--nicknamed "The Black Widow" by the press--was sentenced to 29 years in prison, for arranging his murder. Did Patrizia murder her ex-husband because his spending was wildly out of control? Did she do it because her glamorous ex was preparing to marry his mistress, Paola Franchi? Or is there a possibility she didn't do it at all?The Gucci story is one of glitz, glamour, intrigue, the rise, near fall and subsequent resurgence of a fashion dynasty. Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and widely acclaimed, The House of Gucci will captivate readers with its page-turning account of high fashion, high finance, and heart-rending personal tragedy.
Whatever It Took: An American Paratrooper's Extraordinary Memoir of Escape, Survival, and Heroism in the Last Days of World War II
Henry Langrehr - 2020
Diplomatic Incidents
Cherry Denman - 2010
This is Cherry Denman's witty take on her life trailing husband Charlie round some of the most godforsaken outposts of the world. Illustrated by brilliantly funny cartoons of diplomatic life, this is a collection of clever and very funny tales of global misunderstanding.
Journey
Robert K. Massie - 1975
Journey is Robert and Suzanne Massie's memoir of raising their hemophiliac son in the 1950's, and the significant differences they found between the American and French healthcare systems.
The Angel of Auschwitz: [Extended Version]
S.A. Falconi - 2014
I vow to you and to the leaders that you set for me, absolute allegiance until death. So help me God!”The SS Oath of Loyalty – words that became the very death sentence for millions of Jews and Germans alike. Six decades later, we still ask ourselves why and how did it happen? "The Angel of Auschwitz", a tragic epic of historical fiction, explores these inquiries through the eyes of an unlikely antagonist-turned-protagonist – the Nazi soldier."The Angel of Auschwitz" chronicles the life of Wolfgang Bremmer, an adolescent boy from the hills of Hamburg during the Nazi occupation of Germany. As a Hitler Youth, Wolfgang is captivated by the prowess of the Nazis and thrust into the ideologies of Adolf Hitler. With an adoration for the new Fűhrer and the Third Reich, Wolfgang enlists as a young man in the SS-Death’s Head Division, the gatekeepers of the regime’s most lethal concentration camp, Dachau. It is here he is introduced to Theodor Eicke’s “School of Violence” and becomes one of the most ruthless guards the SS has ever seen. After joining Hitler’s Mobile Killing Units, he participates in the invasion of Poland and the evacuation and extermination of its Jewish inhabitants. Wolfgang is the ideal Nazi warrior: vicious, ruthless, and entirely intolerant.But evil erodes even the hardest of hearts and Wolfgang grows weary in the midst of all the death and destruction. His conscience begins to return and with that a gnawing guilt for what he and his fellow Germans have done and are about to do. But with the fear of punishment for treason, Wolfgang is trapped in the cyclone of violence. That is, until he is promoted as a guard at the Reich’s most sophisticated concentration camp, Auschwitz. In the belly of such a beast as Auschwitz, Wolfgang discovers a secret that will not only save his own life and salvation, but the lives of so many prisoners as well.
Trouble in Paradise
Pip Granger - 2004
The end to hostilities will bring her violent husband Charlie home. It also sets off a chain of events that brings more strife and destruction to the people of Paradise Gardens, Hackney - including Zeldas squabbling family and the mysterious local healer, Zinnia Makepeace - than did the Blitz.That's not all. A new boss is making Zelda's life difficult. Zelda's nephew, Tony, is hanging around Brian Hole, a one-boy crime wave and only child of Ma Hole, leader of the local spivs.But Tony can sing - he has, in fact, the voice of an angel - and Miss Makepeace knows a voice coach in Soho. The people Zelda meets there change her life. Bert and Maggie Featherby offer her a way out of Hackney and her failed marriage, while the local hood, Maltese Joe, decides to take on Ma Hole.
Crockett of Tennessee: A Novel Based on the Life and Times of David Crockett
Cameron Judd - 1994
Even during his lifetime, tales of the sharpshooting, skilled woodsman were—to his delight—told, retold, and elaborated on. As a US congressman, the former Creek War militiaman steadfastly opposed President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act. As a soldier, he made the ultimate sacrifice fighting for an independent Texas. Nearly two centuries after his untimely demise, he remains a legendary figure in American lore. In this fictional account of Crockett’s life, author Cameron Judd offers a nuanced portrait of the man behind the myth. He depicts Crockett’s triumphs as a hunter, cattle drover, warrior, and legislator in riveting detail and poignantly illustrates his subject’s hardscrabble youth and complicated relationship with his father. Meticulously researched and rich in vibrant action, Crockett of Tennessee captures the charisma, ambition, and bravery of the man known as the “King of the Wild Frontier.”
A Call to Arms: The Civil War Adventures of Sarah Emma Edmonds, alias Private Frank Thompson
P.G. Nagle - 2014
Raised on a farm by a father who would have preferred a son, Emma can ride, shoot, and hunt as well as any man. She defies convention to become a soldier, an army nurse, even a spy. Dangers surround her, from enemy fire in battle to the risk of discovery by her friends, which would end in court-martial and disgrace. Always she seeks to reconcile the necessity of deception with her deeply-held values, but her greatest challenge arises when her friendship with a fellow-soldier becomes so close that she is tempted to confess the truth and risk everything for a chance at love. Based on the true adventures of Sarah Emma Edmonds, who served for two years in the 2nd Michigan Volunteers as Private Frank Thompson.
The Maid of Buttermere
Melvyn Bragg - 1987
The story of an imposter and bigamist, who travels to the North where he marries the maid of Buttermere, a young woman whose natural beauty inspired the dreams and confirmed the theories of a=early 19th century writers.
Benaiah
Cliff Graham - 2012
They were the men who came to your father in his hour of need. They were the men who fought with him. They were men, and that is the highest that can be written of them..."Before he came to David at the caves of Adullam, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was a mercenary in Egypt. In the exotic kingdom of the Nile, where Pharaoh is the reflection of the sun and moon, Benaiah will be tested. Peril and heartache are all around him, and to make things worse, he does not yet know the "covering."A companion piece to the Lion of War series about the wars of King David, "Benaiah" is the first short story in The Hall of the Mighty Men. Narrated by Jehoshaphat, the historian of King Solomon, this collection of origin tales expands the Lion of War literary universe, and contains epic battles and feats of bravery unable to be included in the novels and upcoming movies. Thrilling and passionate, The Hall of the Mighty Men is another chapter in the epic Lion of War series that fans will enjoy for years to come.
Defiance: The Bielski Partisans
Nechama Tec - 1993
Winner of the 1990 Christopher Award. 11 halftones; 2 line drawings.
The Carroll Shelby Story
Carroll Shelby - 2019
He was born to
race
—some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway.
Carroll Shelby wasn’t born to run. He was born to race—some of the fastest cars ever to tear up a speedway. The exciting new feature film Ford v Ferrari--starring Matt Damon as Shelby and Christian Bale as fellow racer Ken Miles--immortalizes the small-town Texas boy who won the notorious Le Mans 24-hour endurance challenge, and changed the face of auto racing with the legendary Shelby Cobra. But there’s much more to his high-velocity, history-making story.A wizard behind the wheel, he was also a visionary designer of speed machines that ruled the racetrack and the road. While his GT40s racked up victories in the world’s most prestigious professional racing showdowns, his masterpiece, the Ford Cobra, gave Europe’s formidable Ferrari an American--style run for its money. If you’ve got a need for speed, strap in next to the man who put his foot down on the pedal, kept his eyes on the prize, and never looked back.
The Officer's Daughter
Zina Rohan - 2007
It is suitable for anyone who has ever missed a tube-stop while reading "Cold Mountain" or Captain Corelli's "Manddin"; those wanting something to tide them over until the next Sebastian Faulks; lastminute.com-ers in search of a book that will have them secretly hoping for a delayed flight...Sixteen-year-old Marta has always longed to follow her father and lead armies into battle. Instead, she finds herself leading her fellow girl-guides on a camping trip on the border between Poland and Germany on the very day in September 1939 that the Nazis invade. Immediately the girls are spirited across their Polish motherland to take refuge in a remote nunnery, but their safety is soon under threat...So begins a perilous adventure across thousands of miles - from the logging camps of frozen Siberia to the British field hospitals of Persia - during which Marta is forced to draw on reserves of courage she didn't think she had and make choices she never imagined she'd face, as her heart is torn between a fiery young Polish patriot and a charismatic Iranian doctor.
The Dust Diaries
Owen Sheers - 2004
Compelled by the description of Cripps' extraordinary life in Africa, Sheers embarks on a journey through contemporary Zimbabwe in an attempt to better understand his ancestor's devotion to the country and its people and the dramatic, often bloody, differences that echo across the years.
Notorious: The Immortal Legend of the Kray Twins
John George Pearson - 2010
After they were jailed in 1969 for thirty years for murder, Pearson's biography The Profession of Violence enjoyed a cult following among the young and was said to be the most popular book in H.M.'s prisons, after the Bible.
Ron died in 1995. Reg followed him five years later, and both of their funerals drew crowds on a scale unknown for film stars, let alone for two departed murderers. Since then, far from fading with their death, public fascination with the twins has never flagged. Their clothes and memorabilia are sold at auction like religious relics. Ron's childlike prison paintings fetch more money than those of many well-known artists. And people still refer to them like popular celebrities. Why?
This is the question Pearson asked himself, and over the past three years he has been re-examining their history, unearthing much previously unknown material, and has come to some fascinating conclusions. The Immortal Murderers reveals new facts about the Krays' tortured relationship as identical twins; a relationship which helped predestine them to a life of crime; a relationship that made them utterly unlike any other major criminals. Pearson has discovered two new and unsuspected murders, along with fresh light on the killings of George Cornell and Jack 'the Hat' McVitie. There are facts about the twins' obsession with publicity, and how far this made them 'actor criminals' murdering for notoriety. Most riveting of all are the chapters which reveal how Ron Kray caused a major sexual scandal in which a prime minister, together with other leading politicians, condoned the most outrageous establishment cover-up in British politics since the war.
The Immortal Murderers contains many more surprises, but the one thing that emerges is that the Kray twins were not only stranger but also far more important than anyone ever suspected. Fascination with them will forever remain; they will never lose their role as the immortal murderers.