Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers


Filip Müller - 1979
    He was still alive when the gassings ceased in November 1944. He saw millions come and disappear; by sheer luck he survived. Muller is neither a historian nor a psychologist; he is a source--one of the few prisoners who saw the Jewish people die and lived to tell about it. Eyewitness Auschwitz is one of the key documents of the Holocaust.

The Last Gangster: My Final Confession


Charlie Richardson - 2013
    Boss of the Richardson Gang and rival of the Krays, to cross him would result in brutal repercussions. Famously arrested on the day England won the World Cup in 1966, his trial heard he allegedly used iron bars, bolt cutters and electric shocks on his enemies.The Last Gangster is Richardson’s frank account of his largely untold life story, finished just before his death in September 2012. He shares the truth behind the rumours and tells of his feuds with the Krays for supremacy, undercover missions involving politicians, many lost years banged up in prison and reveals shocking secrets about royalty, phone hacking, bent coppers and the infamous black box.Straight up, shocking and downright gripping, this is the ultimate exposé on this legendary gangster and his extraordinary life.

As Good as She Imagined: The Redeeming Story of the Angel of Tucson, Christina-Taylor Green


Roxanna Green - 2012
    Born on 9/11/2001, it was perhaps no surprise that she harbored aspirations of becoming a politician—thus her presence at the political rally that fateful day in Tucson last January. Congressman Gabrielle Giffords was severely wounded in the gunman’s splay of bullets; six others were killed, including Christina, the youngest of the victims.But this inspirational book recounts far more than the events of “the tragedy of Tucson.” Written by Christina’s mother (with New York Times best-selling biographer Jerry Jenkins), As Good As She Imagined celebrates this little girl’s life, along with the hope that has been born out of a nation’s loss and a family’s grief.

The Dentist of Auschwitz: A Memoir


Benjamin Jacobs - 1994
    His possession of a few dental tools and rudimentary skills saved his life. Jacobs helped assemble V1 and V2 rockets in Buchenwald and Dora-Mittelbau; spent a year and a half in Auschwitz, where he was forced to remove gold teeth from corpses; and survived the RAF attack on three ocean liners turned prison camps in the Bay of Lubeck. This is

Life as a Battle of Britain Pilot


Jonathan Falconer - 2010
    

A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy


Thomas Buergenthal - 2007
    Separated first from his mother and then his father, Buergenthal managed by his wits and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive on his own. Almost two years after his liberation, Buergenthal was miraculously reunited with his mother and in 1951 arrived in the U.S. to start a new life. Now dedicated to helping those subjected to tyranny throughout the world, Buergenthal writes his story with a simple clarity that highlights the stark details of unimaginable hardship. A Lucky Child is a book that demands to be read by all.

Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter


Kazik (Simha Rotem) - 1994
    After their attempts to penetrate the Ghetto had failed, they decided to spare themselves casualties by destroying it from outside with cannon and aerial bombings. A few days later the Ghetto was totally destroyed. . . . The 'streets' were nothing but rows of smoldering ruins. It was hard to cross them without stepping on charred bodies."—Kazik When the Nazis decided to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, five hundred young Jewish fighters within the Ghetto rose up to defy them. With no weapons, no influence, and no experience in warfare, they managed to resist the Germans for almost a month. In the end, when the battle was lost, the surviving Jews were led out of the ruins through the sewers by a nineteen-year-old fighter known as Kazik. As head courier of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), which had planned and executed the uprising, Kazik spent the rest of the war helping to care for the several thousand Jews who still remained in Warsaw. This book—an extraordinary story of courage and perseverance—is Kazik's wartime memoir. In stark, spare detail, Kazik reports on the efforts to prepare for the defense of the Warsaw Ghetto, the calamitous battle with the Germans, and the rescue of the few Jews who were still alive after the Ghetto was destroyed. He describes how he assumed a false Aryan identity in order to pass through the city as he collected money and found hiding places for the survivors. Constantly on guard, fearful of informers, his life always in danger, he nevertheless plotted resourcefully to aid his fellow Jews. He tells how he joined the Poles during their ill-fated uprising against the Nazis in Warsaw in 1944, had further brushes with death assisting the Polish underground, and returned to Warsaw to watch its liberation by the Russian army. Suspenseful, moving, and remarkably heroic, Kazik's memoir is only the second source to be published on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It will help demolish the image of Jews as submissive victims in the Holocaust.

Dead Giveaway: The Rescue, Hamburgers, White Folks, and Instant Celebrity... What You Saw on TV Doesn't Begin to Tell the Story...


Charles Ramsey - 2014
    . . Charles Ramsey gives a roller coaster account of his life before, during, and after the dramatic rescue of three kidnapped women in Cleveland . . .Global news media declared him a hero. Well-wishers mobbed him. The Internet made him a viral sensation. It couldn't have happened to a less likely guy. Now, read how it all went down.Ramsey was in the wrong place at the right time when he answered a young woman's cry for help, kicked in his neighbor's locked front door, and got her the hell out of there--leading to the astonishing rescue of three young women--Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight--who had been missing for a decade.Reporters and TV cameras flocked to a neighborhood--and a man--they otherwise would have ignored. Ramsey was ready, with plenty to say."Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms . . . Dead giveaway." It was a quote that launched a thousand Internet memes . . .In this book Ramsey walks us step-by-step through the day of the rescue and talks about living right next door to Ariel Castro--outwardly charming, secretly a monster.He tells about life before the rescue--growing up a privileged black kid in a white suburb, seeking out trouble over and over, getting kicked out of school, selling drugs, going to prison, and ultimately finding work as a dishwasher and landing by chance on gritty Seymour Avenue.And he shares what it's like to become an instant celebrity, when suddenly everybody wants a piece of you. (For example, he learned the hard way that when a big TV network flies you to New York City for an interview, that doesn't mean they also bought you a ticket back home to Cleveland!)This is a wild, eye-opening tale told with a sharp sense of humor.

Living With Miss G


Mearene Jordan - 2012
    While some biographers had to rely on second-hand knowledge and newspaper and magazine articles that were often unreliable or deliberately inaccurate, Jordan (whose nickname is pronounced "Reenie") was on the scene for countless real-life Gardner episodes that rivaled any fiction. It is a must-read for classic movie enthusiasts and also for those who need a reminder of what true friendship is.

The Vikings: Raiders, Explorers And Seafaring Warriors


Lance Hightower - 2016
    Their achievements, rich culture and craftsmanship contributed greatly to our world today, and their explorations helped make up the boundaries of nations. The Vikings: Raiders, Explorers, and Seafaring Warriors by author Lance Hightower will give you a glimpse of the battles that raged for more than 300 years, sparked by the cultural and religious differences that were the trigger for warring with the Franks, England and Ireland, and for trade and exploration into the Muslim empire, the Byzantine Empire, as far as Russia, Spain and North America.They came from Sweden, Norway and Denmark, not as one army, but as separate tribes who assaulted their way through Christendom as retaliation for the destruction of their holy icon. They came from the sea in a way that ingeniously allowed them to go where no conventional ship dared, and they were able to navigate waters without benefit of the sun to guide them. They used boats that made ship-building history – light, fast, and equally efficient in shallow rivers and mighty oceans.They terrorized, traded, bartered, took slaves, colonized, fought and died all in the name of Odin, god of the battle-slain. Perhaps in the end, they fought more for territory and riches than principle, but the history of the Vikings will always remain as one of the most enthralling of all Ages, where honor was crucial, death on the battlefield was preferred to idleness, and the stormy pantheon of their gods still held the greatest influence in their lives.The brilliant sagas come to life with snippets of modern translations, told like tales of old should be told, with dread, heroics and excitement. Lance Hightower combines his own expertise with the latest archeological findings and information given to us from ancient text to present a first-rate portrayal of the Vikings in an easy-to-read format that is a refreshing change from the usual dry delivery of history.

Backwoods Genius


Julia Scully - 2012
    After his death, the contents of his studio, including thousands of glass negatives, were sold off for five dollars. For years the fragile negatives sat forgotten and deteriorating in cardboard boxes in an open carport. How did it happen, then, that the most implausible of events took place? That Disfarmer’s haunting portraits were retrieved from oblivion, that today they sell for upwards of $12,000 each at posh New York art galleries; his photographs proclaimed works of art by prestigious critics and journals and exhibited around the world? The story of Disfarmer’s rise to fame is a colorful, improbable, and ultimately fascinating one that involves an unlikely assortment of individuals. Would any of this have happened if a young New York photographer hadn't been so in love with a pretty model that he was willing to give up his career for her; if a preacher’s son from Arkansas hadn't spent 30 years in the Army Corps of Engineers mapping the U.S. from an airplane; if a magazine editor hadn't felt a strange and powerful connection to the work? The cast of characters includes these, plus a restless and wealthy young Chicago aristocrat and even a grandson of FDR. It’s a compelling story which reveals how these diverse people were part of a chain of events whose far-reaching consequences none of them could have foreseen, least of all the strange and reclusive genius of Heber Springs. Until now, the whole story has not been told.

Play Hungry: The Making of a Baseball Player


Pete Rose - 2019
    As baseball's Hit King, he shattered records that were thought to be unbreakable. And during the 1970s, he was the leader of the Big Red Machine, the Cincinnati Reds team that dominated the game. But he's also the greatest player who may never enter the Hall of Fame because of his lifetime ban from the sport. Perhaps no other ballplayer's story is so representative of the triumphs and tragedies of our national pastime.In Play Hungry, Rose tells us the story of how, through hard work and sheer will, he became one of the unlikeliest stars of the game. Guided by the dad he idolized, a local sports hero, Pete learned to play hard and always focus on winning. But even with his dad's guidance, Pete was cut from his team as a teenager--he wasn't a natural. Rose was determined, though, and never would be satisfied with anything less than success. His relentless hustle and headfirst style would help him overcome his limitations, leading him to one of the most exciting and brash careers in the history of the sport.Play Hungry is Pete Rose's love letter to the game, and an unvarnished story of life on the diamond. One of the icons of a golden age in baseball, he describes just what it was like to hit (or try to hit) a Bob Gibson fastball or a Gaylord Perry spitball, what happened in that infamous collision at home plate during the 1970 All-Star Game, and what it felt like to topple Ty Cobb's hit record. And he speaks to how he let down his fans, his teammates, and the memory of his dad when he gambled on baseball, breaking the rules of a sport that he loved more than anything else. Told with candor and wry humor--including tales he's never told before--Rose's memoir is his final word on the glories and controversies of his life, and, ultimately, a master class in how to succeed when the odds are stacked against you.

Don't Eat the Puffin: Tales From a Travel Writer's Life


Jules Brown - 2018
    Get paid to travel and write about it.Only no one told Jules that it would mean eating oily seabirds, repeatedly falling off a husky sled, getting stranded on a Mediterranean island, and crash-landing in Iran.The exotic destinations come thick and fast – Hong Kong, Hawaii, Huddersfield – as Jules navigates what it means to be a travel writer in a world with endless surprises up its sleeve.Add in a cast of larger-than-life characters – Elvis, Captain Cook, his own travel-mad Dad – and an eye for the ridiculous, and this journey with Jules is one you won’t want to miss.

Jennie: The Mother of Winston Churchill


Anita Leslie - 1969
    From his father, Winston Churchill surely inherited the gift of oratory. But from his mother he drew greater gifts of inestimable value to the nation he led in the dark days of 1940-1. She gave him her ache for action, her formidable stamina, her courage and, above all, the will to stand fast in adversity and to endure whatever fate threw at her. Jennie was an extraordinary beauty whose zest, courage, intelligence and conversational ease made her, in her own right, one of the international figures of her day. When she married Lord Randolph Churchill, a fascinating young man who was violently in love with her, she had no idea he would become the most brilliant and controversial politician in England at the time. But she was eminently suited to be the wife of a politician and, although her role would be `to applaud not to advise,' she brought to it her whole heart and her lively intelligence. Yet her marriage to Randolph was a struggle which she had to learn to endure, and after his death she went on marry twice more, to men much younger than herself. She adored Winston and went to great lengths to satisfy his whims as a young man, and she was hugely influential in shaping the great figure he would become. Anita Leslie has used personal memories and family papers to create a fascinating look at one of the most powerful of Churchill women, mother of Winston.

Children of Terror


Inge Auerbacher - 2009
    These are their unforgettable true stories. "War does not spare the innocent. Two young girls, one a Catholic from Poland, the other a Jew from Germany, were witnesses to the horror of the Nazi occupation and Hitler's terror in Germany. As children they saw their homes and communities destroyed and loved ones killed. They survived deportation, labor camps, concentration camps, starvation, disease and isolation."This is a moving personal account of history. Urbanowicz and Auerbacher's painful pasts and similar experiences should guide us to make correct decisions for the future."Aldona Wos, M.D. Ambassador of the United States of America, Retired, to the Republic of Estonia Daughter of Paul Wos, Flossenburg Concentration Camp, Prisoner Number 23504"Most Holocaust survivors are no longer with us, and that is why this volume is so important. It is a moving testimony by two courageous women, one Catholic and one Jewish, about their youthful ordeals at the hands of the Nazis. They succeed in ways even the most astute historian cannot - they literally capture history and bring it to life. It is sure to touch all those who read it."William A. Donohue President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights"Such an original book, written jointly by both a Jewish survivor and a Polish-Christian survivor of the Holocaust, Children of Terror points the way toward fresh insight, hope and redemption. If "Never again" is to be more than a slogan, tomorrow's adults must be nourished and informed by books such as this. A fabulous piece of work, perfect for the young people who are our future."Rabbi Dr. Hirsch Joseph Simckes, St. John's University, Department of Theology"The authors were born in the same year but into different worlds: one a Polish Catholic and the other a German Jew. Despite their dramatically different traditions and circumstances, they shared a common trauma - the confusion and fear of being a child in wartime. Auerbacher and Urbanowicz vividly describe the saving power of family, place, and tradition. Young readers of Children of Terror will come away with a deeper understanding of the Second World War and a profound admiration for the book's authors."David G. Marwell, Ph.D., Director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust