Beautifully illustrated throughout, this riveting biography includes more than 100 black-and-white photos, as well as exclusive content, "In Conversation," with Laura Hillenbrand and Louie Zamperini.On a May afternoon in 1943, an American military plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary sagas of the Second World War. The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. As a boy, he had been a clever delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and stealing. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a supreme talent that carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when war came, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a sinking raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would respond to desperation with ingenuity, suffering with hope and humor, brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would hang on the fraying wire of his will. In this captivating young adult edition of her award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller, Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of a man’s breathtaking odyssey and the courage, cunning, and fortitude he found to endure and overcome. Lavishly illustrated with more than one hundred photographs and featuring an exclusive interview with Zamperini, Unbroken will introduce a new generation to one of history’s most thrilling survival epics.

    Since winning her first race a little more than a year earlier, the unbeaten, unflappable Ruffian had literally raced her way into the hearts of a nation. One of those hearts belonged to Newsday turf reporter William Nack.As a boy in Illinois, Nack had carried in his pocket a trading card of his hero, Swaps, the winner of the 1955 Kentucky Derby. As a young soldier in Vietnam, Nack tuned out the midnight bomb blasts by listening to racetrack broadcasts from Santa Anita. Now, fresh off the publication of his astonishing biography of Secretariat -- described by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand as "the gold standard of horse books" -- he found himself smitten once again.But tragedy struck that summer's day at Belmont Park. After charging from the gate, Ruffian stumbled and shattered her right foreleg. She had to be put down. Nack's heartbreaking run with thoroughbred racing's most famous filly will soon be immortalized in a made-for-TV movie to be broadcast on ESPN and ABC. In this moving, lyrical memoir, he relives the afternoon that forever changed his love affair with the track.

    The recipient of numerous Dally M and Golden Boot awards, he has starred in the toughest league competition on the planet every season since he made his NRL debut in 2002. Captaining the Melbourne Storm to multiple premierships, Smith played in a staggering seventeen finals campaigns. An integral member of the record-breaking Queensland teams of 2006-2017, he won eleven State of Origin series. As skipper of the Australian national team for over a decade, he led the Kangaroos to two World Cups. Smith is credited with revolutionising the number nine position. He holds the State of Origin records for most appearances and most wins, as well as the NRL records for most games, goals, points scored, wins and appearances as captain.This book maps his unique journey in the game: an extraordinary look into the biggest matches and biggest moments, Smith describes his career with great colour and candour, outlining what it takes to climb to the highest level in sport. Talent aside, it is Smith's intelligence and poise that set him apart, coupled with consistency, durability and longevity that are unlikely to ever be matched. Notoriously private throughout his career, The Storm Within sets the record straight. Finally, the life behind the legend - the man behind the mystery - tells his story.Features a foreword by legendary Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy.

    Over a thousand of these soldiers were Australian. By the end of the war, just one-third of them had survived and Ambon became a place of nightmares, one of the most notorious of all POW camps the war had seen.Many of the men captured were massacred, and of those who initially survived, many later succumbed to the sadistic brutality of the Japanese guards. Starvation also took a fearful toll, and then there were the medical 'experiments'. It was a place almost without hope for those who held on, made worse by the fact that the savagery inflicted on them wasn't limited to their captors but also came from their own. One soldier described their hopelessness towards the end with the bleak words: 'The men knew they were dying.'Yet astoundingly there were survivors and in Ambon they speak of not just the horrors, but the bravery, endurance and mateship that got them through an ordeal almost impossible to imagine.The story of Ambon is one of both the depravity and the triumph of the human spirit; it is also one that's not been widely told. Until now.

    He tells of his life and the game he loves: from his childhood in Lahore, to his student days at Oxford (where he led the University team), his time at Worcester and thence to Sussex, culminating in his captaincy of Pakistan. A self portrait emerges of a man who has spent fifteen years at the top: years which have wrought changes - political, commercial and tactical - in the way cricket is played and promoted; changes too, in the man himself, as he reconciled his Muslim upbringing with the professional and personal pressures of being an international sportsman.

    This is a world where manufacturers invest millions, and where a rider will emerge from a coma with shattered legs and bloody lungs to get back on his bike to save his job.This is the first book to cover the whole of the MotoGP era, at the centre of which is Valentino Rossi. Ring of Fire charts his rise, fall and rebirth, detailing the darker side to his rivalries with Max Biaggi and Sete Gibernau and his battles with the tax man and the media. This is a warts-and-all portrait with tales of vandalised cars and the racer who wants to torch "the whole goddamn valley". It is a breathless behind-the-scenes look at what makes these riders tick, from double World Superbike champion James Toseland to warring Spanish starlets Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa.Rick Broadbent looks back at the sport's tradition of reprobates and debauchery. He introduces us, not just to the stars, but also to the officials, parents, doctors, team owners and fans who make up this white-knuckle sport.By turns funny, sad, shocking and uplifting, Ring of Fire brings us face to face with all those who are bonded by a shared love of risking it all at 200mph.

    New York City newspapers reported his death on their front pages. ("Crimson Tears," read the headline in the New York Post, "Nation weeps over death of legendary Bear Bryant, 69.") Three days later, America watched in awe as an estimated quarter of a million mourners lined the fifty-five mile stretch from Tuscaloosa to a Birmingham cemetery to pay their respects as his three-mile long funeral cortege drove by.President Reagan and the three former American presidents sent flowers, as did people as diverse as Bob Hope, ABC's Roone Arledge, advice columnist Ann Landers and the Reverend Billy Graham. Scores of Bryant's former players, including Joe Namath, Lee Roy Jordan, Ken Stabler and Ozzie Newsome, were in attendance. So were Bryant's most distinguished colleagues, the greatest living football coaches, including Southern Cal's John McKay, who said, "It was like a presidential funeral procession. No coach in America could have gotten that. No coach but him. But then, he wasn't just a coach. He was the coach."Bryant's passing was noted with the kind of reverence our country reserved for statesmen or military leaders, though Paul "Bear" Bryant had insisted for much of his life that he was "just a football coach." For millions he was much more, he was the greatest coach the game ever saw, the heir to the tradition established by Knute Rockne. He took his Alabama Crimson Tide teams to an unmatched six national championships. But to the players, journalists and fans whose lives he touched in his more than half a century as a player and coach, he was the last symbol of values that transcended football—courage, discipline, loyalty, and hard work.To his critics, Bryant represented the dark side of big-time college football—brutality, fanaticism and blind adherence to authority. The real Bear Bryant was far more complex than either his admirers or detractors knew. While maintaining a public friendship with Alabama governor George Wallace, he continually sought ways to undermine the governor's segregationist policies, finally forcing a legendary football game in Birmingham with the University of Southern California that opened the floodgates to the integration of football at the University of Alabama, including its coaching staff. Old fashioned in his politics, he was nonetheless an admirer of Robert Kennedy, whom he planning to vote for in 1968.Allen Barra's The Last Coach traces Paul Bryant's rise from a family of truck farmers to recognition as the most successful and influential coach in the game's history. The eleventh of thirteen children, Bryant was born in tiny Moro Bottom, Arkansas in 1913 and grew up in nearby Fordyce—where his legend was born when he wrestled a live bear on the stage of a local theater. Paul was raised by his mother, who barely managed to keep him out of trouble and on the Fordyce High School Redbugs long enough to get a football scholarship at Alabama, where he would meet and marry the love of his life, campus beauty queen Mary Harmon Black.At the height of the Depression, football took Bryant to the Rose Bowl with Alabama's 1934 national champions and on to a career as an assistant and, finally, a head football coach, where he matched wit and grit with the greatest coaches of two generations, men like Tennessee's General Robert Neyland, Oklahoma's Bud Wilkinson, Notre Dame's Ara Parseghian, Ohio State's Woody Hayes, and Penn State's Joe Paterno. Along the way, he stirred controversy with his infamous "Junction Boys" training camp in 1954, during which almost two-thirds of the Texas A football team quit; his legal battle with The Saturday Evening Post over the accusation that he had conspired to fix a college football game, a trial which rocked the sports world; and his pursuit of Amos Alonzo Stagg's all-time record for college coaching victories.Through it all, Bryant's influence has not only endured but prevailed as his former players and assistants continue to define the best in not only college but professional football. A USA Today and Washington Post Best Sports Book.

    From there he joined the ever-popular Move, then helped form the groundbreaking Electric Light Orchestra. After co-founder Roy Wood left in 1972, Lynne turned what had been a struggling rock and classical fusion into one of Britain s most consistently successful and popular acts. Following a run of hit singles, albums, and sell-out concerts throughout the world, he laid the group to rest in 1986 and combined a solo career as an artist and producer with membership of the ultimate supergroup, the Traveling Wilburys. His production credits include Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Del Shannon, George Harrison, and even the Beatles on their two final singles in the mid- 90s. Jeff Lynne: The Electric Light Orchestra, Before and After is the first-ever biography of one of the most prolific and highly regarded performers of the last fifty years. Rich in backstage anecdotes of overheated orchestras, frontmen rivalries, tour mishaps, cross-group partnerships, unlikely collaborations, and self-imposed exile from the stage in the quest for inspiration, this book will leave fans and general readers delighted and inspired by a career at the epicentre of twentieth-century rock. ** This electronic edition contains 35 photographs **

    Cullen is a retired business executive and veteran of The Battle of The Bulge. During the second world war, as an army staff sergeant, he trained infantrymen for battle, then volunteered to go to Europe and enter the trenches himself. He was awarded four battle stars—Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes, and Germany, Bronze Star, Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster, Combat Infantry Badge, and the Belgian fourragère of 1940. Once the war ended, he returned to life as a civilian. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University on the GI Bill. Mr. Cullen has been married to the love of his life for over fifty years. He has two children, and five grandchildren. He is active in veterans' groups, including the Battle of the Bulge Group, and has participated in a reenactment of the Battle of The Bulge with a group of WWII re-enactors in Washington state. James K. Cullen is 95 years old. Band Of Strangers is his first book.

    Alex Ferguson labelled him 'bargain of the century' when he reflected on the £505,000 Manchester United paid to sign him in 1991. Schmeichel became a key figure in the club's successes during the decade ahead, culminating when he captained United in the incredible, last-gasp Treble-clinching win over Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final.A complex character, Schmeichel's story is no mere litany of triumphs. In the book, he recalls how he nearly died at the age of 15. The son of a Danish nurse and Polish musician, his own son Kasper has followed him to the sport's summit, winning the Premier League with Leicester and taking over in Denmark's goal.

    But what he has in spades is a genuine love for The Beautiful Game that few of his peers can match. One of the last graduates from football's old school, Jimmy actually worked in the real world - including as a painter and decorator - before turning pro. Maybe that's why he played football with a smile on his face, always says what's on his mind, and is no stranger to a spot of mischief.Having played under the likes of Barry Fry, Harry Redknapp and Phil Brown, appeared alongside names as diverse as Neil Ruddock and Paolo di Canio, and as long as Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Jimmy has racked up an amazing collection of tales and pranks both on and off the football front-line. Told with candour, Bend It Like Bullard is the extraordinary story of his journey from cable TV fitter to cult hero. It will make you smile, chuckle and, occasionally, ROFL.

    In researching the first book to cover the complete history of Liverpool FC using a linear narrative, the author was given access to the club's original minute books John Williams explores the origins and divisive politics of soccer in the city of Liverpool and profiles the key men behind the emergence of the club and its early successes in this unique and exhaustively researched history of Liverpool Football Club. This is the definitive history of a remarkable club from its formation in 1892 to the present day, told in the wider context of the social and cultural development of the city of Liverpool and its people.

    She had a successful radio career with Joe Loss and Charlie Kunz in the 1920s and ‘30s, but it was with World War II that she became the iconic figure that captured the imagination of the national public.Her spirit and verve, along with her ability to connect with the men fighting for their country and those left behind praying for their loved ones, made her the ‘Forces’ sweetheart’. Performing the songs that she will always be associated with, such as ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and ‘Yours’, Vera toured Egypt, India and Burma to entertain the troops and bring them a sense of ‘back home’.Her career after the war flourished, with hits in the US and the UK, but Vera was never able to leave behind her wartime role and was deeply affected by what she had seen. Still heavily involved with veteran and other charities, this is Dame Vera’s vivid story of her life and her war - from bombs and rations to dance halls and the searing heat of her appearances abroad. Epitomising British fortitude and hope, Dame Vera gives a vivid portrait of Britain at war, and a unique story of one woman who came to symbolize a nation.

    So how was it possible that Hitler became such an attractive figure to millions of people? That is the important question at the core of Laurence Rees' new book.The Holocaust, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the outbreak of the Second World War - all these cataclysmic events and more can be laid at Hitler's door. Hitler was a war criminal arguably without precedent in the history of the world. Yet, as many who knew him confirm, Hitler was still able to exert a powerful influence over the people who encountered him. In this fascinating book to accompany his new BBC series, the acclaimed historian and documentary maker Laurence Rees examines the nature of Hitler's appeal, and reveals the role Hitler's supposed 'charisma' played in his success. Rees' previous work has explored the inner workings of the Nazi state in The Nazis: A Warning from History and the crimes they committed in Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution. The Charisma of Adolf Hitler is a natural culmination of twenty years of writing and research on the Third Reich, and a remarkable examination of the man and the mind at the heart of it all.

    In the aftermath of the Second Word War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. As Kommandant of Auschwitz, Höss not only oversaw the murder of more than one million men, women, and children; he was the man who perfected Hitler’s program of mass extermination. Höss is on the run across a continent in ruins, the one man whose testimony can ensure justice at Nuremberg. Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss’s capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day. Moving from the Middle Eastern campaigns of the First World War to bohemian Berlin in the 1920s to the horror of the concentration camps and the trials in Belsen and Nuremberg, it tells the story of two German men- one Jewish, one Catholic- whose lives diverged, and intersected, in an astonishing way.