This book is about what went right in the Iraq War: The untold acts of valor by some of America’s most highly decorated combat veterans, the brotherhood they shared, and the fighting spirit that kept them alive through the war’s darkest hours. Every word is true, composed from striking and detailed firsthand accounts by elite paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions, a Green Beret, an Army Ranger, infantrymen, combat medics, and Marines. You’ll discover their remarkable heroism as the war’s most significant operations are vividly described, including the invasion, the Battle of Nasiriyah, the taking of Baghdad, the hunt for the infamous Deck of Cards, the fight against al-Sadr’s Mahdi Militia in Najaf, the Second Battle of Fallujah, the Battle of Ramadi, the al-Qaeda insurgency throughout the al-Anbar Province, the surge, and the long withdrawal. Gripping and intimate, American Warfighter is guaranteed to take readers on an unforgettable journey of brotherhood, survival, and courage.

    Roxanna has left no farewell, no explanation. Her family's subsequent search for her reveals no body. no sign of a fall, no trace of an escape. The only witness to Roxanna's disappearance, Lili will spend the next thirteen years looking for her mother, wondering if she is alive, wondering why she left. This is the remarkable tale that follows Roxanna, born as a "bad-luck child" in the Jewish ghetto of Tehran, through the opulent world of Iran's aristocracy, into the whorehouses of Turkey and at last, to Los Angeles -- the city of exiles -- where she and Lili arc reunited. Gina B. Nahai tells the story of a courageous circle of women standing on the edge of the past, reshaping their lives in America, the land of chances and choices.

    In 2006, she had just signed her first record deal and, after placing as first runner-up for Miss World, was a sought-after fashion model and icon within the Iranian dissident community. But one afternoon, she received an email that would change the course of her life. The subject of that email—a Kurdish girl named Nazanin Fatehi—was facing execution in Iran, as punishment for stabbing a man who had tried to rape her. Afshin-Jam quickly came to Fatehi's defence, striding into the world of international diplomacy and confronting the dark side of the country of her birth, with its honour killings, violence against women and state-sanctioned executions of children. While Fatehi languished in prison, experiencing conditions so deplorable she attempted to end her own life, Afshin-Jam worked desperately on the campaign to save her. The Tale of Two Nazanins weaves together the lives of two women—one leading a life of opportunity, the other living in abject poverty—and a fight for justice that, if only for a moment, brought the Iranian regime to its knees. An inspiring story about the bonds of sisterhood, this extraordinary book speaks to the power of every individual to foster positive change in the world.

    Max is a little jealous of Carlos and Carlos's wife is certainly not happy to see Stephany. It becomes clear that there is more between Stephany and Carlos than just friendship and the tension rises between the two couples. As Max discovers more about Stephany's past, he begins to wonder if he really knows her at all.

    Entertaining, informative, filled with wit and wonder, this day-by-day sightseeing memoir is an easy and enjoyable read. When Al and Sunny Lockwood registered for a 12-day Mediterranean cruise, they envisioned wandering narrow stone streets in Venice, standing on the Acropolis watching morning sun paint its marble columns gold, listening to the Muslim call to prayer chanted from Turkish minarets. Their travel experience surpassed by far their expectations. Climb aboard Amsterdam canal boats to explore the city from its historic waterways. Gaze across the red roofs of Venice from the city's tallest structure: St. Mark's Bell Tower. Check out the the oldest neighborhood in Athens, and the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, and stunning Greek islands. Sink your teeth into mouthwatering meals, and hold your breath while riding the rickety cliffside Acropolis lift. Immerse yourself in the book's beautiful photographs. Although not a guide book, readers will find a banquet of digestible details on history and culture within this warm and personal travel tale. Grab your reading glasses and come along for a trip you won't forget.

    The Mediterranean Diet from best-selling nutrition author John Chatham will introduce you to the famed diet that has garnered endorsements from the Mayo Clinic, The New England Journal of Medicine, and U.S. News & World Report. With healthy Mediterranean diet recipes and easy-to-follow meal plans, you can lose weight permanently, and prevent or reverse deadly health issues from obesity, to diabetes and cardiovascular issues. The Mediterranean diet focuses on healthy ingredients and preparation, rather than reducing what you eat or counting calories. With hearty legumes, heart-healthy fats from foods like olive oil and seafood, and delicious, fresh ingredients, a Mediterranean diet will make weight loss easy and enjoyable.The Mediterranean Diet will show you how to improve your health and reverse disease with:60 flavorful Mediterranean diet recipes packed full of nutrients and flavorful ingredientsStep-by-step instructions for integrating Mediterranean diet foods into your everyday lifeSimple guide to losing weight with the Mediterranean dietTop tips for for cooking with healthy fats and getting the most out of your ingredientsWith The Mediterranean Diet, you can finally lose weight permanently while eating foods you actually enjoy.

      No less significant than the collapse of the Roman Republic or the Persian invasion of Greece, the evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement.  Just like the Romans, the Arabs came from nowhere to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion—except that they achieved their conquests not over the course of centuries as the Romans did but in a matter of decades. Just like the Greeks during the Persian wars, they overcame seemingly insuperable odds to emerge triumphant against the greatest empire of the day—not by standing on the defensive, however, but by hurling themselves against all who lay in their path.

    The Glance taps a major, yet little explored theme in Rumi's poetry-the mystical experience that occurs in the meeting of the eyes of the lover and the beloved, parent and child, friend and soul mate.Coleman Barks's new translations of these powerful and complex poems capture Rumi's range from the ethereal to the everyday. They reveal the unique place of human desire, love, and ecstasy, where there exists not just the union of two souls, but the crux of the universe.Here is a new kind of love lyric for our time-one of longing, connection, and wholeness.

    An investigation ensues and as each of the victim's neighbors is questioned, the reader is offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. Each character takes his or her turn center-stage, giving evidence, recounting his or her story the dramas of racial identity, the anxieties and misunderstandings born of a life spent on society's margins, the daily humiliations provoked by mainstream culture's fears and indifference, preconceptions and insensitivity. What emerges is a moving story that is common to us all, whether we live in Italy or Los Angeles. This novel is animated by a style that is as colorful as the neighborhood it describes and is characterized by seemingly effortless equipoise that borrows from the cinematic tradition of the Commedia all Italiana as exemplified by directors such as Federico Fellini. At the heart of this bittersweet comedy told with affection and sensitivity is a social reality that we often tend to ignore and an anthropological analysis, refreshing in its generosity, that cannot fail to fascinate.

    Arthur is dead. As Britannia burns a small tribe clings to its colony of Anglia. Across the German Sea powerful enemies covet Engeln itself. But the English are not easily cowed. As Spear-Danes threaten the homeland a hero returns, leading the fightback with ferocity and guile...

    The Roman empire in the west was splitting into separate Germanic kingdoms, while the Near East, still under Roman rule from Constantinople, maintained a dense population and flourishing urban culture until the Persian and Arab invasions of the early seventh century. Averil Cameron places her emphasis on the material and literary evidence for cultural change and offers a new and original challenge to traditional assumptions of 'decline and fall' and 'the end of antiquity'. The book draws on the recent spate of scholarship on this period to discuss in detail such controversial issues as the effectiveness of the late Roman army, the late antique city and the nature of economic exchange and cultural life. With its extensive annotation, it provides a lively and often critical introduction to earlier approaches to the period, from Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to the present day. No existing book in English provides so detailed or up-to-date an introduction to the history of both halves of the empire in this crucial period, or discusses existing views in such a challenging way. Averil Cameron is a leading specialist on late antiquity, having written about the period and taught it for many years. This book has much to say to historians of all periods. It will be particularly welcomed by teachers and students of both ancient and medieval history.

    Rose Hemmings has just finished her general surgery residency when a haunted stranger is shot in front of her in a New York City bar, and their lives become forever intertwined. And when, having been given the blessing of her adoptive father on his deathbed, Rose travels to prerevolutionary Iran to discover the past her American family kept secret from her, she finds a true Pandora's box. It is a world both foreign and familiar, in which her primary place is as the heiress to a great tribe. In Iran, Rose will find family she never dreamed of, her own people, and a man who loves her as passionately as he does the rare black roses of his garden. She will return to the United States carrying a new secret and torn between two men: the one she loves helplessly, and the one who loves her unconditionally. Woven throughout with Persian poetry ancient and modern, On Loving is the story of one woman's lifetime of love and loss, of societal change in a nomadic people, and of overcoming personal challenges, including mental and physical health, to find true contentment. Above all, it is a story of love: its physiology, psychology and philosophy; the many forms it takes; its myths and truths; its challenges, its joys and its gifts.

    Their armies threatened states as far flung as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang Empire in China. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time. How this collection of Arabian tribes was able to engulf so many empires, states, and armies in such a short period has perplexed historians for centuries. Most accounts of the Arab invasions have been based almost solely on the early Muslim sources, which were composed centuries later to illustrate the divinely chosen status of the Arabs. Robert Hoyland's groundbreaking new history assimilates not only the rich biographical information of the early Muslim sources but also the many non-Arabic sources, contemporaneous or near- contemporaneous with the conquests.In God's Path begins with a broad picture of the Late Antique world prior to the Prophet's arrival, a world dominated by two superpowers: Byzantium and Sasanian Persia. In between these empires, emerged a distinct Arabian identity, which helped forge the inhabitants of western Arabia into a formidable fighting force. The Arabs are the principal actors in this drama yet, as Hoyland shows, the peoples along the edges of Byzantium and Persia--the Khazars, Bulgars, Avars, and Turks--all played critical roles in the remaking of the old world order. The new faith propagated by Muhammad and his successors made it possible for many of the conquered peoples to join the Arabs in creating the first Islamic Empire. Well-paced, comprehensive, and eminently readable, In God's Path presents a sweeping narrative of a transformational period in world history.

    In this meticulously researched study, historian Paul Rahe argues that Sparta was responsible for the initial establishment of the Hellenic defensive coalition and was, in fact, the most essential player in its ultimate victory. Drawing from an impressive range of ancient sources, including Herodotus and Plutarch, the author veers from the traditional Atheno-centric view of the Greco-Persian Wars to examine from a Spartan perspective the grand strategy that halted the Persian juggernaut. Rahe provides a fascinating, detailed picture of life in Sparta circa 480 B.C., revealing how the Spartans’ form of government and the regimen to which they subjected themselves instilled within them the pride, confidence, discipline, and discernment necessary to forge an alliance that would stand firm against a great empire, driven by religious fervor, that held sway over two-fifths of the human race.

    Using new sources, Touraj Daryaee provides a portrait of the empire's often negelcted social history, exploring the development of political and administrative institutions from foundation by Ardashir I to the last king, Yasdegerd III, and the attempts of his descendants to re-estabish a second state for almost a century after.