Dr. Halsey's Journal (Halo: Reach Special Edition Exclusive)


Eric S. Nylund - 2010
    Halsey's personal journal is a booklet co-written by Eric Nylund and is included with the Halo: Reach Limited and Legendary editions. It covers various elements from the Halo universe and is written through the eyes of Catherine Elizabeth Halsey herself.

The Rifleman


Oliver North - 2019
     This is a war story. It’s about real people and events before and during the American Revolution. The central characters in this work—Daniel Morgan, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Charles Mynn Thruston, and Generals Arnold, Knox, Greene, Lee, Gates, and a host of others—actually did the deeds at the places and times described herein. So too did their accurately identified foreign and native adversaries. Though this is a work of fiction, readers may be surprised to discover the American Revolution was also one of the most ‘un-civil’ of Civil Wars. If Daniel Morgan were alive today, he would be my near neighbor in Virginia’s beautiful Shenandoah Valley. While visiting a nearby gristmill, Daniel Morgan and Nathaniel Burwell, a fellow Revolutionary War veteran, built in the late 1700s [now restored and operated by the Clarke County Historical Association], I became fascinated by this unsung American hero. “My good friend Oliver North has spent his life in the company of heroes. In this great read, he tells the stories of some of my personal heroes—the Riflemen you will meet in this book!” —LTG William G. “Jerry” Boykin, former commander, U.S. Army Special Forces and author of six books including his autobiography, Never Surrender

The Rothschilds: The Dynasty And The Legacy


Michael W. Simmons - 2017
    There, one man and his five brilliant sons made their fortune as court agents to a royal prince. It would take Napoleon’s earth-shattering quest to conquer Europe to scatter the five brothers to the four winds, but when the dust of war settled, there was a Rothschild brother and a Rothschild bank in five cities: London, Paris, Frankfurt, Naples, and Vienna. The era of haute finance had begun, and the legend of a banking dynasty more powerful than any royal family in history was established. In this book, you will follow the progress of the Rothschild family through the centuries. Their ranks included not only bankers and financiers but doctors, scientists, bomb experts, and collectors who amassed not only some of the finest art collections in Europe, but also one of the finest bug collections. Find out for yourself how the Rothschilds prevented wars, crowned and uncrowned kings, helped win the battle of Waterloo, looked down their noses at Nazis, and established a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

The 40s: The Story of a Decade


The New Yorker - 2014
    This is the era of Fat Man and Little Boy, of FDR and Stalin, but also of Casablanca and Citizen Kane, zoot suits and Christian Dior, Duke Ellington and Edith Piaf. The 1940s were when The New Yorker came of age. A magazine that was best known for its humor and wry social observation would extend itself, offering the first in-depth reporting from Hiroshima and introducing American readers to the fiction of Vladimir Nabokov and the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. In this enthralling book, masterly contributions from the pantheon of great writers who graced The New Yorker’s pages throughout the decade are placed in history by the magazine’s current writers. Included in this volume are seminal profiles of the decade’s most fascinating figures: Albert Einstein, Marshal Pétain, Thomas Mann, Le Corbusier, Walt Disney, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Here are classics in reporting: John Hersey’s account of the heroism of a young naval lieutenant named John F. Kennedy; A. J. Liebling’s unforgettable depictions of the Fall of France and D Day; Rebecca West’s harrowing visit to a lynching trial in South Carolina; Lillian Ross’s sly, funny dispatch on the Miss America Pageant; and Joseph Mitchell’s imperishable portrait of New York’s foremost dive bar, McSorley’s. This volume also provides vital, seldom-reprinted criticism. Once again, we are able to witness the era’s major figures wrestling with one another’s work as it appeared—George Orwell on Graham Greene, W. H. Auden on T. S. Eliot, Lionel Trilling on Orwell. Here are The New Yorker’s original takes on The Great Dictator and The Grapes of Wrath, and opening-night reviews of Death of a Salesman and South Pacific. Perhaps no contribution the magazine made to 1940s American culture was more lasting than its fiction and poetry. Included here is an extraordinary selection of short stories by such writers as Shirley Jackson (whose masterpiece “The Lottery” stirred outrage when it appeared in the magazine in 1948) and John Cheever (of whose now-classic story “The Enormous Radio” New Yorker editor Harold Ross said: “It will turn out to be a memorable one, or I am a fish.”) Also represented are the great poets of the decade, from Louise Bogan and William Carlos Williams to Theodore Roethke and Langston Hughes. To complete the panorama, today’s New Yorker staff, including David Remnick, George Packer, and Alex Ross, look back on the decade through contemporary eyes. Whether it’s Louis Menand on postwar cosmopolitanism or Zadie Smith on the decade’s breakthroughs in fiction, these new contributions are illuminating, learned, and, above all, entertaining.Including contributions by W. H. Auden • Elizabeth Bishop • John Cheever • Janet Flanner • John Hersey • Langston Hughes • Shirley Jackson • A. J. Liebling • William Maxwell • Carson McCullers • Joseph Mitchell • Vladimir Nabokov • Ogden Nash • John O’Hara • George Orwell • V. S. Pritchett • Lillian Ross • Stephen Spender • Lionel Trilling • Rebecca West • E. B. White • Williams Carlos Williams • Edmund Wilson And featuring new perspectives by Joan Acocella • Hilton Als • Dan Chiasson • David Denby • Jill Lepore • Louis Menand • Susan Orlean • George Packer • David Remnick • Alex Ross • Peter Schjeldahl • Zadie Smith • Judith Thurman

Death in the Jungle: Diary of a Navy Seal


Gary R. Smith - 1994
    He worked with some of the toughest and most highly motivated men in the world, executing missions in the murderous terrain of Rung Sat Special Zone and Dung Island. The key to their success: go where no ordinary soldier would go and no VC would expect them.Though death reigned as king in the jungles of Vietnam, Gary Smith considered it a privilege and an honor to serve under the officers and with the men of Underwater Demolition Team Twelve and SEAL Team 1. Because he and his teammates, trained to the max, gave each other the courage to attain the unattainable . . . .

Everything Scrabble


John D. Williams Jr. - 1995
    A guide for improving Scrabble skills discusses how to maximize scores with bonus squares, make more seven-letter plays, and increase scoring average using two-letter words, and includes a step-by-step guide to board strategy.

Invasion


David Pilling - 2014
    Due to the incompetence of Edward II's government, the north is virtually overrun by the Scots, while an invasion fleet is massing across the channel, led by Edward's estranged queen, Isabella, the 'She-Wolf of France'. The first book in the Folville's Law series follows the adventures of Sir John Swale, knight of Cumberland, as he investigates a murder that threatens to bring disaster to Edward's failing kingdom. Along the way he clashes with Eustace Folville and James Coterel, two of the most notorious and brutal outlaws in England. As the death toll mounts, it remains to be seen who will survive and who will perish in the savage game of war and politics. 'Folville's Law (I): Invasion' is a new edition of the first part of the John Swale Chronicles.

Napoleon: A Life


Andrew Roberts - 2014
    Like George Washington and his own hero Julius Caesar, he was one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times. Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon’s thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine. Like Churchill, he understood the strategic importance of telling his own story, and his memoirs, dictated from exile on St. Helena, became the single bestselling book of the nineteenth century. An award-winning historian, Roberts traveled to fifty-three of Napoleon’s sixty battle sites, discovered crucial new documents in archives, and even made the long trip by boat to St. Helena. He is as acute in his understanding of politics as he is of military history. Here at last is a biography worthy of its subject: magisterial, insightful, beautifully written, by one of our foremost historians.

Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History


Michael Witwer - 2018
    It is a seminal RPG (role-playing game) and the inspiration for video games like World of Warcraft and Zelda, fantasy art, and countless other facets of "geek culture." This officially licensed illustrated history provides an unprecedented look at the visual evolution of the game, showing its continued influence on the worlds of pop culture and fantasy. It features more than 700 pieces of artwork--from each edition of the game's core books, supplements, and modules; decades of Dragon and Dungeon magazines; classic advertisements and merchandise; and never-before-seen sketches, large-format canvases, rare photographs, one-of-a-kind drafts, and more from the now-famous designers and artists associated with the game. The superstar author team gained unparalleled access to the archives of Wizards of the Coast and the personal collections of top collectors, as well as the designers and illustrators who created the distinctive characters, concepts, and visuals that have defined fantasy art and gameplay for generations. This is the most comprehensive collection of D&D imagery ever assembled, making this the ultimate collectible for the game's millions of fans around the world.

The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of Anglo-America


Kevin Phillips - 1998
    These wars between cousins functioned as crucial anvils on which various religious, ethnic, and political alliances were hammered out between the English-speaking cousin-nations, setting them on a unique two-track path toward world leadership - one aristocratic and aloof to dominate the imperial nineteenth century and the other more egalitarian and democratic to take over in the twentieth century. They also functioned as unfortunate and deadly cultural crucibles for African Americans, Native Americans, and the Irish. Phillips's analysis shows exactly how these conflicts are inextricably linked and how they seeded each other. He offers often surprising interpretations that cut across the political spectrum - for instance, that the Constitution of the United States, while brilliant in many respects, was also a fatally flawed political compromise that contributed mightily in setting the stage for the final - and the bloodiest - cousins' war: the American Civil War. With the new millennium upon us and triggering widespread assessment of our nation's place in world history, The Cousins' Wars provides just the kind of magisterial sweep and revisionist spark to ignite widespread interest and debate. This grand religious, military, and political epic is the multi-dimensional story of the triumph of Anglo-America.

The Complete Paladin's Handbook


Rick Swan - 1994
    Create or enhance your paladin with new proficiencies and equipment, new rules for bonded mounts, and paladin kits like the divinate, envoy, ghosthunter, skyrider, and the indomitable wyrmslayer.

Nothing of Importance: A Record of Eight Months at the Front with a Welsh Battalion, October 1915 to June 1916


John Bernard Pye Adams - 1916
     Nothing could have prepared him for the reality he ended up facing. Placing his focus on the day to day existence of the soldiers in the trenches, Adams presents a grim picture of mud-coated billets, relentless artillery barrages, working parties, training and the art of military sniping. Just as it would have been for the soldiers’ lives, Adams heightens his work with an emotive account of his first night patrol, the detonation of mines, battlefield duels and being wounded whilst out wiring in No Man’s Land. Understated and striving for truth over melodrama, Nothing of Importance is the original memoir of the First World War — the only record published while the conflict was still being fought — and the definitive account of trench warfare. Bernard Adams (1890-1917) was a British Army officer, joining 1 Royal Welsh Fusiliers as a Lieutenant in November 1914. He was the first of a triumvirate of authors who, for a time, served simultaneously in the same battalion: the second was Siegfried Sassoon, the third Robert Graves. Written whilst convalescing in 1916, he did not live to see it published.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Official Strategy Guide


Jennifer Sims - 2008
    BradyGames’ World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Official Strategy Guide includes the following: Complete coverage of each race, with strengths, weaknesses, and more.WEAPONS: Discover the awesome battery of weapons and armor, with detailed equipment listsNORTHREND EXPLORED: In-depth information on quests, bosses, and treasuresNEW DUNGEONS: Instances and Raid roles explained plus locations and strategyCOMPLETE CRAFTING COVERAGE: Every recipe for every crafting professionPlatform: PCGenre: Role-Playing Game

Twilight at Little Round Top: July 2, 1863--The Tide Turns at Gettysburg


Glenn W. LaFantasie - 2005
    A vivid and eloquent book." --Stephen W. Sears, author of Gettysburg"Little Round Top has become iconic in Civil War literature and American memory. In the emotional recollection of our great war, if there was one speck on the landscape that decided a battle and the future of a nation, then surely this was it. The story of the July 2, 1863 struggle for that hill outside Gettysburg goes deeper into our consciousness than that, however. The men who fought for it then and there believed it to be decisive, and that is why they died for it. Glenn W. LaFantasie's Twilight at Little Round Top addresses that epic struggle, how those warriors felt then and later, and their physical and emotional attachment to a piece of ground that linked them forever with their nation's fate. This is military and social history at its finest." --W.C. Davis, author of Lincoln's Men and An Honorable Defeat"Few military episodes of the Civil War have attracted as much attention as the struggle for Little Round Top on the second day of Gettysburg. This judicious and engaging book navigates confidently through a welter of contradictory testimony to present a splendid account of the action. It also places events on Little Round Top, which often are exaggerated, within the broader sweep of the battle. All readers interested in the battle of Gettysburg will read this book with enjoyment and profit." --Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War"In his beautifully written narrative, Glenn LaFantasie tells the story of the battle for Little Round Top from the perspective of the soldiers who fought and died in July 1863. Using well-chosen quotes from a wide variety of battle participants, TWILIGHT puts the reader in the midst of the fight--firing from behind boulders with members of the 4th Alabama, running up the hillside into battle with the men of the 140th New York, and watching in horror as far too many men die. This book offers an elegy to the courage of those men, a meditation on the meaning of war, and a cautionary tale about the sacrifices nations ask of their soldiers and the causes for which those sacrifices are needed." --Amy Kinsel, Winnrer of the 1993 Allan Nevins Prize for From These Honored Dead: Gettysburg in American Culture

Thirty-six Years in the White House (1902)


Thomas Franses Pendel - 2016
    Pendel's attention. It is very interesting and throws many sidelights on the life of the White House. Pendel writes: "In 1861, or 1862, the Metropolitan Police was established by Congress at the Capital, and I made application for and received an appointment on the force. I made the first arrest, with the assistance of "Buck" Essex. The case was that of a fellow named Grady, one of the English Hill toughs. A roundsman said to us, "Boys, you take a walk down Seventh Street, and if you see anything going on, take a hand in it." Just as we got opposite the Patent Office, this Grady had assaulted, or rather was assaulting, a young fellow with a whip. I went up and grabbed him and put him under arrest, then took him to Squire Dunn's court and preferred charges against him. The Squire was busy writing for some time. When he got through he handed me the paper he was writing, and I was so green at the business I did not know what it was, so said: "What is this, Squire?" He replied, "Why, that is the paper of commitment for this fellow. Take him to jail." "On November 3, 1864, Sergeant John Cronin, Alfonso Dunn, Andrew Smith, and myself were ordered to report at the First Precinct, in the old City Hall, at one o'clock in the afternoon. We supposed we were to be detailed for detective work in New York City on account of the great riot then on there, especially as we were ordered to report in citizens' clothes, to conceal our revolvers, and to be sure to have them all clean and in good order. We arrived at the City Hall, and then were told where we were to go, which was to the President's Mansion, there to report to Marshal Lanham, at that time United States Marshal of the District of Columbia, and a bosom friend of Abraham Lincoln. "These were days that tried men's hearts, and women's, too. Men were falling at the front by hundreds, both in the Union and in the Confederate armies. There was weeping and mourning all over the land. Our nation was trembling with anxiety; we were all hoping that the great strife was over or soon to be. "Marshal Lanham took us upstairs and into the President's office, where we were introduced to him and to his two secretaries, Mr. Nicolay and Mr. Hay, the latter now being Secretary of State. We were then instructed to keep a sharp lookout in the different parts of the house, more particularly in the East Room and at the door of the President's office. " CONTENTS I — Under President Lincoln II — Under President Johnson III — Under President Grant IV — Under President Hayes V — Under President Garfield VI — Under President Arthur VII — Under President Cleveland VIII — Under President Harrison IX — Cleveland's Second Administration X— Under President McKinley XI — Furniture in Executive Mansion Originally published in 1902; reformatted for the Kindle; may contain an occasional imperfections; original spellings have been kept in place.