Book picks similar to
Belfast in the Thirties: An Oral History by Ronnie Munck
history
ireland
northern-ireland
sociology
A Belfast Child
John Chambers - 2020
From an early age he witnessed violence, hatred and horror as Northern Ireland tore itself apart in civil strife. Kneecapping, brutal murders, and even public tarring-and-feathering were simply a fact of life for the children on the estate. He thought he knew which side he was on, but although raised as a Loyalist, he was hiding a troubling secret: that his disappeared mother - whom he'd always been told was dead - was a Roman Catholic, 'the enemy'.In a memoir of rare power, John explores the dark heart of Northern Irish sectarianism in the 70s and 80s. With searing honesty and native Belfast wit, he describes the light and darkness of his unique childhood, and his teenage journey through mod culture and ultra-Loyalism, before an escape from Belfast to London - where, still haunted by the shadow of his fractured family history - he began a turbulent and hedonistic adulthood.'A BELFAST CHILD' is a tale of divided loyalties, dark secrets and the scars left by hatred and violence on a proud city - but also a story of hope, healing and ultimate redemption for a family caught in the rising tide of the Troubles.©2020 John Chambers (P)2020 Bonnier Publishing
"Stagecoach" Mary Fields: Montana's Legendary Pioneer
Julie McDonald - 2016
Little is known of her during her 30 plus years as a slave in Tennessee, or her life shortly thereafter. Her arrival and subsequent life in Cascade, Montana would make her a legend. Enjoy this great, inspiring and very humorous story of one amazing woman!
The Existential Worries of Mags Munroe
Jean Grainger - 2022
My twelve-year-old daughter frequently moans that Ballycarrick is the most boring town in Ireland.Nothing ever happens here.She’s right.And as the local police sergeant, this is something I’m delighted about.I’ve enough to worry about - the polar ice-caps, the evil monster that’s shrinking my trousers, not to mention the hot flushes - without having to be like one of those gritty Netflix cops, chasing criminals down alleyways and busting drug deals.So, life is calm and fairly predictable.Until something unthinkable happens in our sleepy backwater.A crime, but not like anything I've ever seen before.It's a complete mystery.And it's up to me to solve it.
The Promise of Light: A Novel
Paul Watkins - 1992
Determined to learn the truth about his family's cloudy past, he sets sail for Ireland, and quickly becomes involved in a struggle between soldiers of the newly formed Irish Republican Army and the brutal British troops. Amidst the lush and rugged Irish countryside, and the horrible violence unfolding across it, Ben must search for the truth of his identity, and the ties of his family's blood.
World History in an Asian Setting
Gregorio F. Zaide
Most books on world history overly emphasize the role of Western nations in the vast saga of mankind - the author of this book rectifies the gaps in books by Western historians by beginning the narration of world history with East Asia, and progresses from there through the rest of Asia to the Middle East.
A Short History of Western Thought
Stephen Trombley - 2011
- help is finally at hand. That help comes in the comfortingly accessible form of Stephen Trombley's Short History of Western Thought, which outlines the 2,500-year history of European ideas from the philosophers of Classical Antiquity to the thinkers of today, No major representative of any significant strand of Western thought escapes Trombley's attention: the Christian Scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages, the great philosophers of the Enlightenment, the German idealists from Kant to Hegel; the utilitarians Bentham and Mill; the transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau; Kierkegaard and the existentialists; the analytic philosophers Russell, Moore, Whitehead and Wittgenstein; and - last but not least - the four shapers-in-chief of our modern world: the philosopher, historian and political theorist Karl Marx; the naturalist Charles Darwin, proposer of the theory of evolution; Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis; and the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, begetter of the special and general theories of relativity and founder of post-Newtonian physics.
Loving the Hendersons
Synithia Williams - 2016
You'll fall in love, too!Love's Replay: David Henderson is so desperate to stop his father from selling their family's auto dealership, he'll even marry to prove he's serious about the future. Enter ex-lover Sandra Miller, who is back in town to help her successful business career. Too bad those prospects hang on partnering with David, the man who once crushed her heart. Will the mistrust and jealousy that tore them apart before prevent a replay of their rekindled love?Just My Type: Janiyah Henderson enjoys her stress-free post-college life, but when her dad insists she can't handle a "real job," she's determined to prove him wrong. Her high-spirited ways clash with the conservative instincts of her new boss, accountant Fredrick Jenkins, yet attraction brews between them. When Fredrick shows Janiyah the man behind the numbers, she realizes she could be just the type of woman he needs.Making It Real: After five years in prison, Kareem Henderson is on the right track as a barber, with a goal to open a high-end salon. But he needs society connections to make his dream a reality. Patrice "Neecie" Baldwin, needs a shield to return home, so she offers Kareem a deal: Pretend to be her fiance, and she'll introduce him to her well-healed relatives. But as they grow closer, this fake relationship might become something very real.From One Night to Forever: When trucker Aaron Henderson rolls into Reliant, Tennessee, for business, a singing beauty at a bar stirs feelings he's long forgotten. Then his one-night stand turns out to be his new partner's baby sister. When Kacey Randal learns that Aaron's working with her brother and has a list of conquests as high as his big rig's mileage, she's ready to pretend their night together never happened. But the fire burns hot between these two--can Kacey tame Aaron's roaming ways to go from one night to forever?Sensuality Level: Sensual
Strange Are The Ways
Teresa Crane - 1993
Petersburg, Russia: The Shalakov family are moving from Moscow to start new lives. A family of musicians and violin makers in the traumatic early years of the 20th century, they’re faced with war and revolution, gruelling hardship and the breakdown of relationships and values caused by these most harrowing of events.A tale of unlikely loves and of unforgiving hatreds. Of bravery and cowardice, of innocence betrayed and of courage that will outface the harshest of adversity and the ever-present threat and shadow of death.
A compelling family saga of the valour of the human spirit and of the magic of music that can do so much to sustain and support it. Perfect for fans of Josephine Cox, Lily Graham and Natasha Lester.
Red Dragon (Winds of War Book 3)
William Dietz - 2020
Dietz, the New York Times bestselling author of the America Rising novels, comes RED DRAGON, the third book in the Winds of War series following RED FLOOD. World War III is a few months month old. After attacking, and sinking the Destroyer USS Stacy Heath, the Chinese seize control of Nepal and Bhutan and push into India where the Allies manage to stop them. But for how long? Pakistan is attacking from the north--and China is preparing for the "big push” from the east. Worse yet, China’s Ministry of State Security has orders to assassinate the Dalai Lama, rather than run the risk that he will inspire a Buddhist rebellion in Tibet. As a team of assassins close in on the Dalai Lama, Green Beret Captain Jon Lee and his men are behind Chinese lines in Nepal, battling to rescue a downed fighter pilot before enemy troops can capture him. The entire subcontinent is at risk if the assassins succeed… And, if the region falls, hundreds of thousands of people will die--even as millions more are lost to the Axis. Together with a self-centered army doctor named Wendy Kwan, and a team consisting of both green berets and Gurkhas, it will be Lee's responsibility to navigate treacherous terrain--and prevent Chinese Agent Fan Tong and his special ops team from changing the course of the war.
Torpedo 8: The Story of Swede Larsen’s Bomber Squadron
Ira Wolfert - 1943
VT-8 rose from the ashes of the Battle of Midway to become an indispensable air arm in the series of engagements for the Solomon Islands and beyond. In three months, the crack squadron carried out thirty-nine attack missions, sixteen against ships, twenty-three against ground targets. Their motto following the tragedy at Midway was "Attack and Revenge." Herman Wouk paid homage to the squadron in his 1971 novel War and Remembrance, referring to the pilots as, "The soul of America in action." *Includes annotations and images.
Castle Breach (Sgt. Dunn Novels Book 7)
Ronn Munsterman - 2017
He’s impersonating an SS major assigned as a staff officer at the exclusive Hohenstein Castle, located south of Salzburg, Austria. The castle is known for elegantly hosting high level SS meetings throughout the war. He learns of a dinner meeting with no less than the Führer himself, who is making a rare appearance outside Germany. He advises England, and waits. U.S. Army Ranger Sergeant Tom Dunn’s new assignment takes him and his men to Greece. The plan is to work with the Greek Resistance to destroy a German supply depot because the Germans are preparing to leave western Greece to face off against the Red Army steamrolling through the Balkans. Marston’s request is approved and British Commando Sergeant Malcolm Saunders, recently married, earns the task of breaching the castle. His orders: kill the top Nazis who will be attending. Saunders and his squad rush to rehearse the attack and are then on their way to Austria. At the castle, Hitler reveals surprising and exciting news. Another guest, a member of the Abwehr, Military Intelligence, presents the Führer with an intelligence coup that delights the dictator. Marston immediately recognizes the extreme danger it poses to the U.S. Army. He prays that Saunders arrives on time and can be flexible in his attack. Saunders suddenly faces an impossible situation when things go deadly awry. He has no choice but to call for help from the one man who always delivers, Tom Dunn. But Dunn has serious problems of his own in Greece. Munsterman raises the stakes in book seven of the Sgt. Dunn WWII Action Thriller series. He takes the reader to the mountains of Austria and the coastline of Greece, blending history with an action-packed plot.
3,001 Arabian Days: Growing Up in an American Oil Camp in Saudi Arabia (1953-1962) A Memoir
Rick Snedeker - 2018
On a steamy August day in 1953, Rick Snedeker, then just three years old, stepped off an Arabian American Oil Co. (Aramco) company airliner with his family into a life as different from what they left behind as sandpaper is to silk. It was to prove fabulously exotic and at the same time just like “home” in many ways. In his charming memoir — 3,001 Arabian Days: Growing up in an American Oil Camp in Saudi Arabia (1953-1962) — author Snedeker describes via a series of vignettes his fond and strange remembrances of living for nearly a decade in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Aramco, then the fledgling national oil company, was in those years run by several American oil giants including Standard Oil, and was hastily hiring American experts to develop the far-flung Saudi oil fields. To ease life for the new residents, Aramco built comfortable communities, some aspects of which were reminiscent of how families lived in the States. While a child, Snedeker considered the camels, endless sand dunes and kindly Saudis that filled his childhood in the desert as nothing unusual. Kids enjoyed the live Nativity pageants at King’s Road baseball field; Santa’s arrival on a camel or by helicopter at Christmas; the crowded, boisterous annual tri-camp desert fairs; Pep Flakes cereal, powdered whole milk, and chocolate milkshakes churned in his dad’s new-fangled Waring blender; the Dining Hall’s culinary delights. Then, too, Aramcons occasionally had to confront dangerous diseases, some unknown in America (polio, for example, ravaged Dhahran children in the fifties). But everywhere, watchful eyes looked out for the kids, creating an enveloping sense of safety and security and, Snedeker recalls, a great deal of happiness. Aramco provided generous biannual “long vacations,” allowing round-the-world travel to visit the planet’s most glittering metropolises, unusual getaways and remote hideaways. London. Hong Kong. Zurich. Honolulu. Asmara. Bangkok. Venice. Hofuf. Bahrain. New York City. Being raised in the unique, exotic environment of oil-camp Dhahran made the kids who grew up there different from other American children. When the expatriate Aramco dependents returned to the U.S., they were often seen as “other” by their untraveled peers. But it all turned out fine, as the entertaining read of 3,001 Arabian Days makes clear.
B-29 Superfortress (Annotated): The Plane that Won the War
Gene Gurney - 2015
Author Gene Gurney takes the reader from the superplane’s inception, test flights and production to its combat deployments and its ultimate purpose of dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Gunner Officer on the Western Front: The Story of a Prime Minister's Son at War
Herbert Asquith - 2018
The author witnessed the mud-soaked agony of the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, and the rapidly moving events of the following year. The book contains one of the most extraordinary accounts of the German spring offensive in 1918, from the point of view of a gunner officer with a grandstand view of the ruthless German advance.The author's father was Prime Minister at the outbreak of the first world war. The author's three brothers also served during the war; his eldest brother died during the Battle of the Somme.
Unexpected Love For The Reclusive Rancher: A Clean Western Historical Romance Book
Ember Pierce - 2021