The leading narrative history that students love to read, now made more relevant and accessible.

    To those who didn’t know, the biscuit factory that towered over Carlisle might look like just another slice of the industrial North, a noisy and chaotic place with workers trooping in and out at all hours. For the biscuit girls it was a place where they worked hard, but also where they gossiped, got into scrapes and made lifelong friends. Outside the factory walls there might be difficult husbands or demanding kids, and sometimes even heartbreak and tragedy, but they knew there would always be an escape from their troubles at Carr's. Some, like Barbara, only applied because she needed the extra cash, until things got a bit easier at home. Her supervisor cross examined her about who would be looking after the kids while she was at work, but let her have the job. Like many of the women who joined up ‘temporary’ Barbara went on to stay at Carrs for 32 years.Beginning in the 1940s, these heartwarming and vividly-remembered stories have all been told by the women themselves to Hunter Davies.

    A bestselling author explains how on September 11th an ancient fight-to-the-death conflict exploded on the shores of the United States.

    But for the people of Laramie–both the friends of Matthew and those who hated him without knowing him–the tragedy was personal. In a chorus of voices that brings to mind Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, The Laramie Project allows those most deeply affected to speak, and the result is a brilliantly moving theatrical creation.

    Following the war, Younger continued his celebrated career as a desperado, robbing banks and trains with Jesse James and other members of the James-Younger gang. A fateful attempt in 1876 on the Northfield, Minnesota, bank sent Cole to the state prison in Stillwater, Minnesota for decades. There he became a model resident, helping both to protect women convicts during a fire and found the Prison Mirror, a newspaper intended to shed "a ray of light upon the lives of those behind the bars." Paroled in 1901, Younger successfully sought a pardon, operated a Wild West show with his old comrade Frank James, and lectured on "What My Life Has Taught Me." Always known for intelligence and coolness under pressure, he published this autobiography in 1903, reflecting on the colorful and sometimes violent experiences of "the gentleman, the soldier, the outlaw, and the convict."

    He volunteered for the job well aware that hanging out of slow-moving choppers over hot LZs blazing with enemy fire was not conducive to a long life. But that wasn’t going to stop Specialist Sever.From Da Nang to Cu Chi and the Mekong Delta, Sever spent thirty-one months in Vietnam, fighting in eleven of the war’s sixteen campaigns. Every morning when his gunship lifted off, often to the clacking and muzzle flashes of AK-47s hidden in the dawn fog, Sever knew he might not return. This raw, gritty, gut-wrenching firsthand account of American boys fighting and dying in Vietnam captures all the hell, horror, and heroism of that tragic war.From the Paperback edition.

    This is the moving and powerful account of two remarkable boys struggling to survive in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes, a public housing complex disfigured by crime and neglect.

    John and Sunday's was a remarkable partnership that affected all those who crossed the threshold into Heide and which altered the course of art in Australia.

    They missed the liquidation of their ghetto by mere hours, hiding in a shed all night listening to the screams of their fellow Jews. Then went into Germany and took up work in a hotel housing Gestapo officers. Many close escapes and daring moments make this book chilling.

    The book contains the crazy, funny and sometimes horrifying anecdotes musicians have told about a lifestyle both invigorating and at times self-destructive. The metal genre has always been populated by colorful individuals who have thwarted convention and lived by their own rules. For many, vice has been virtue, and the opportunity to record albums and tour has been an invitation to push boundaries and open a Pandora ’s Box of wild experiences. Even before they joined bands, the urge for metalheads to rebel and a seemingly contradictory need to belong was ingrained in their DNA. Whether they were oddballs who didn’t fit in or angry kids from troubled backgrounds, metal gave them a sense of identity and became more than a form of music. From the author of the classic collection of Metal music-making tales Louder Than Hell comes a collection that goes behind the music with the lead singers, guitarists, bassists, drummers, stage hands, roadies, groupies, fans, and more. These are the stories of the parties, the tours, the rage, the joy, . . . the Heavy Metal life!

    Her journey takes readers from the great cities of Europe and America to Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, as these countries face down the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. She also introduces a cast of determined and implacable characters whose battles may strip these museums of some of their most cherished treasures.For readers who are fascinated by antiquity, who love to frequent museums, and who believe in the value of cultural exchange, Loot opens a new window on an enduring conflict.

    A good read.” -- Dusty Richards, Spur and Wrangler Award winning author “Author Phil Truman captured a slice of Indian Territory history and has woven it into an interesting period novel. Anyone who loves the history of the West will enjoy Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr.” -- Tammy Hinton, author and winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award for Unbridled "Truman’s storytelling shines throughout..." -- Kathleen Rice Adams, Western Fictioneers In the last years of the tough and woolly land called Indian Territory, and the first of the new state of Oklahoma, the outlaw Henry Starr rides roughshod through its midst. A native son of “The Nations” he’s more Scotch-Irish than Cherokee, but scorned by both. Never really wanted to journey west of the law, yet fate seems to insist. He’s falsely accused of horse-thieving at sixteen, sentenced to hang for murder at nineteen by Judge Isaac Parker, but escapes the gallows on a technicality. Given that opportunity, the charming, handsome, mild-mannered Henry Starr spends the rest of his life becoming the most prolific bank robber the West has ever known.

    Not a master mason or carpenter, Filippo Brunelleschi was a goldsmith and clock maker. Over twenty-eight years, he would dedicate himself to solving puzzles of the dome's construction. In the process, he did nothing less than reinvent the field of architecture. He engineered the perfect placement of brick and stone (some among the most renowned machines of the Renaissance) to carry an estimated seventy million pounds hundreds of feet into the air, and designed the workers' platforms and routines so carefully that only one man died during the decades of construction. This drama was played out amid plagues, wars, political feuds, and the intellectual ferments of Renaissance Florence - events Ross King weaves into a story to great effect. An American Library Association Best Book of the Year Boston Globe: "An absorbing tale." Los Angeles Times: "Ross King has a knack for explaining complicated processes in a manner that is not only lucid but downright intriguing... Fascinating."

    This book puts the reader in the pilot's seat for a "day at the office" unlike any other. It recounts the tragic 1966 mid-air collision with the XB-70; describes flights of the lifting body and YF-12 blackbird, and details work with the Apollo Lunar Landing Research Vehicle.The Smell of Kerosene tells the dramatic story of a NASA research pilot who logged over 11,000 flight hours in more than 125 types of aircraft. Donald Mallick gives the reader fascinating firsthand descriptions of his early naval flight training, carrier operations, and his research flying career with NASA and its predecessor agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).Mallick joined the NACA as a research pilot at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory at Hampton, Virginia, where he flew modified helicopters and jets, and witnessed the NACA's evolution into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.After transferring to the NASA Flight Research Center (now NASA Dryden Flight Research Center) at Edwards, California, he became involved with projects that further pushed the boundaries of aerospace technology. These included the giant delta-winged XB-70 supersonic research airplane, the wingless M2-F1 lifting body vehicle, and the triple-sonic YF-12 Blackbird. Mallick also test flew the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) and helped develop techniques used in training astronauts to land on the Moon.Excerpt: " I was onboard an airliner, on 28 January 1986, when I heard the news that the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded 73 seconds after launch that morning. Even knowing the complexity and risk involved in Shuttle operations, I was shocked by the news. The shuttle commander, Dick Scobee, had been an Air Force test pilot at Edwards and flown a number of research missions at NASA Dryden. I grieved for all the crew, but especially Dick, who I knew best. I can still recall his broad grin when he visited the Dryden pilot's office following the announcement of his selection as an astronaut. He showed great pride in his selection, and I congratulated him heartily. The results of the accident review board were hard to accept. The commission that investigated the accident blamed the Shuttle loss on poor management decisions. Challenger had been launched against the recommendations of knowledgeable technical personnel who insisted that low temperatures that day increased the chance of hot gas leakage around the seals of the solid rocket boosters. The commission found that the decision making process leading to the launch was flawed and that launch temperature constraints were waived at the expense of flight safety. It was a black day for NASA. I could sense a change in people's attitude concerning the space program. After the Challenger accident report was released, the public's pride in and respect for NASA diminished. At Dryden, we had always striven not to allow the desire to "get a flight off" to interfere with good judgment on flight safety. It was a cardinal rule. There were occasions when visiting Headquarters personnel and other VIPs were on hand to witness a test flight and we had to cancel the event due to some technical problem. We forced ourselves to avoid the desire to "press on" just to meet a schedule or impress a visiting VIP."

    Twelve-year-old David Karmi, a master of the art, is about to be put to the ultimate test.War has consumed the world and David finds himself in the middle of a human slaughter on a planetary scale. Whole towns are vaporized. Cities obliterated in firestorms. More than fifty million people will die—twelve million either gassed, shot, hanged, worked to death or subjected to biological experiments. And now David’s luck has finally run out. Having already endured one horrifying deportation, he and his family are rounded up for the second time and forced onto a train that will bring them all to the very heart of the Nazi extermination machine.Separated from his parents and siblings, the teenager is hurled into a nightmare of death camps, forced marches, sickness, violence and depravity. On his own, through the torturous months that follow, David endures Auschwitz, Dachau, and the Warsaw ghetto. Though he’s just a kid, David will try to stay alive by his wits and instincts, taking terrifying chances, making split-second decisions, and learning the tricks and techniques of survival. But time is running out. His only hope is that the Nazis will be defeated and the American soldiers will free him—and his family—before it’s too late. “[Karmi’s debut forgoes] the despair employed by Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, instead echoing the optimism of Anne Frank…Eminently readable and largely remarkable.”—Kirkus Reviews"‘Some people have a knack for survival, for getting out of jams.’ Karmi is one of those, and he faces the ultimate test as a young teen in Nazi-occupied Europe as he and his family are deported to Auschwitz."—Publishers Weekly"Survivor’s Game reads not so much like a memoir but a novel, replete with tension, drama, and twists and turns. Recommended."—Midwest Book Review"This is a story we all need to know…the cost of forgetting is too high."—New York Times best-selling author Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff