This Proud Heart


Pearl S. Buck - 1937
    Susan Gaylord is talented, loving, equipped with a strong moral sense, and adept at anything she puts her hand to, from housework to playing the piano to working with marble and clay. But the intensity of her artistic calling comes at a price, isolating her from other people—at times, even from her own family. When her husband dies and she remarries, she finds herself once again comparing the sacrifice of solitude to that of commitment. With a heroine who is naturalistic yet compellingly larger than life, This Proud Heart is incomparable in its sympathetic study of character. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Extreme Edition: Extreme Edition


Joshua Piven - 2000
    Here are all new scenarios for living life on the very edge. Imperiled readers will learn immediate, hands-on strategies for surviving an elephant stampede, a 16-car pile-up, a mine collapse, and a nuclear attack. Discover how to take a bullet, control a runaway hot air balloon, break a gorilla's grip, endure a Turkish prison, and free a limb from a beartrap. Whether stranded on an iceberg, being chased by a pack of wolves, spinning out on a motorcycle, or being buried alive, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Extreme Edition has all the right stuff for those times when everything goes wrong.

Memoirs of Gen. William T. Sherman - Volume 1


William T. Sherman - 1886
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

The Waverly Novels: The Betrothed


Walter Scott - 1825
    The action takes place in the Welsh Marches during the latter part of the reign of Henry II, after 1187. Eveline, the 16-year-old daughter of Sir Raymond Berenger, is rescued from a Welsh siege by the forces of Damian Lacy. She is betrothed to his uncle, Sir Hugo, who leaves on a crusade. Rebels led by Ranald Lacy attempt to kidnap her, and Damian fights them off, but a confused sequence of events convinces the King that she and her beloved are in league against him.

Marked by Sin


Debbie Cassidy - 2021
    Better pay and a swanky flat in Soho are all part of the deal. All I need to do to achieve my goal is take out one more scumbag.No big deal.Until it is.When a man with golden eyes and epic wings interrupts my ascension ceremony, everything I knew to be true is turned on its head.I’m a weapon.A key.And I’m one kill away from unlocking the gates to the underworld and unleashing a legion of demons.It’s time to atone and fast.But atonement comes with its own price. Problem is, I’m not sure I’m up to paying it.

Savannah Purchase


Jane Aiken Hodge - 1970
    They were cousins, but they looked enough alike to be twins.Life and war separated them, but the years didn't dim the astonishing resemblance.Now Fate suddenly threw them together again -- two beautiful, desirable women playing out a deadly masquerade.Set against the elegance, splendor and gentility of the early 19th-century South, this is a suspenseful tale of high intrigue and dangerous deception.

Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification


David Waldstreicher - 2009
    Constitution. Famously, the Constitution never mentions slavery. And yet, of its eighty-four clauses, six were directly concerned with slaves and the interests of their owners. Five other clauses had implications for slavery that were considered and debated by the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the citizens of the states during ratification. This “peculiar institution” was not a moral blind spot for America’s otherwise enlightened framers, nor was it the expression of a mere economic interest. Slavery was as important to the making of the Constitution as the Constitution was to the survival of slavery. By tracing slavery from before the revolution, through the Constitution’s framing, and into the public debate that followed, Waldstreicher rigorously shows that slavery was not only actively discussed behind the closed and locked doors of the Constitutional Convention, but that it was also deftly woven into the Constitution itself. For one thing, slavery was central to the American economy, and since the document set the stage for a national economy, the Constitution could not avoid having implications for slavery. Even more, since the government defined sovereignty over individuals, as well as property in them, discussion of sovereignty led directly to debate over slavery’s place in the new republic. Finding meaning in silences that have long been ignored, Slavery’s Constitution is a vital and sorely needed contribution to the conversation about the origins, impact, and meaning of our nation’s founding document.

Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade


Thomas Norman DeWolf - 2012
    To do nothing is unacceptable.” Sharon Leslie Morgan, a black woman from Chicago’s South Side avoids white people; they scare her. Despite her trepidation, Morgan, a descendent of slaves on both sides of her family, began a journey toward racial reconciliation with Thomas Norman DeWolf, a white man from rural Oregon who descends from the largest slave-trading dynasty in US history. Over a three-year period, the pair traveled thousands of miles, both overseas and through twenty-seven states, visiting ancestral towns, courthouses, cemeteries, plantations, antebellum mansions, and historic sites. They spent time with one another’s families and friends and engaged in deep conversations about how the lingering trauma of slavery shaped their lives.Gather at the Table is the chronicle of DeWolf and Morgan’s journey. Arduous and at times uncomfortable, it lays bare the unhealed wounds of slavery. As DeWolf and Morgan demonstrate, before we can overcome racism we must first acknowledge and understand the damage inherited from the past—which invariably involves confronting painful truths. The result is a revelatory testament to the possibilities that open up when people commit to truth, justice, and reconciliation. DeWolf and Morgan offer readers an inspiring vision and a powerful model for healing individuals and communities.

The Vineyard of Liberty (The American Experiment)


James MacGregor Burns - 1982
    The first of a three-volume history of the United States of America, The Vineyard of Liberty covers the period from the framing of the Constitutions in 1787 to Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 & offers a brilliant interpretation of the American attempt to preserve liberty.

The World Crisis, Volume IV: The Aftermath


Winston S. Churchill - 1929
    It was originally the fourth volume of five.The fourth volume of Churchill's personal memoir of The Great War. Includes the challenges of demobilization, moving Britain to a non-war footing, The Troubles in Ireland, and England's response to the Russian Revolution.

The Travels of Sherlock Holmes (A Sherlock Mystery Book 1)


John Hall - 1999
     While mourning and memorialising Sherlock, the best and the wisest man he has ever known, Watson suffers an additional bereavement - the death of his wife. Alone in the world, Watson’s only choice is to move forwards with his life and also move out of London, a place where he knows the past will haunt him. While working in a convalescent hospital in Surrey, Watson meets a patient who claims to know the truth and can answer his painstaking questions. The patient, delirious with pain, says he witnessed Sherlock in Tibet, Persia and other exotic locations. Thus begins Watson's hunt for the truth which leads him from the darkest alleys of London all the way to the upper echelons of the British Empire. The Travels of Sherlock Holmes is the First of John Hall's Sherlockian pastiches and a brilliant addition to the Holmes and Watson casebooks. John Hall spent many years in the civil service before becoming a professional writer specialising in crime fiction. His book Death of a Collector won the Sherlock Magazine’s competition for the best new fictional detective. He is also the author of several other Sherlock mysteries.

The Origin and Deeds of the Goths


Jordanes
    Though he wrote a history of Rome (Romana), the book most of interest to us now are the manuscripts the source of De origine actibusque Getarum (The Origin and Deeds of the Goths), or Getica, written in Latin (probably Jordanes' third language) at Constantinople about 551 CE. He was asked by a friend to write this book by the church as a summary of a lost multi-volume history of the Goths by the statesman, Cassiodorus. The major factors in the selection of Jordanes for this task were his interest in history (he was working on a history of Rome), his ability to write succinctly and his own Gothic background. He had been a high-level notarius, or secretary, of a small client state on the Roman frontier in Moesia, modern northern Bulgaria.

Obachan: A Young Girl's Struggle for Freedom in Twentieth Century Japan


Tani Hanes - 2020
    Sent away at thirteen to live with relatives, hired out at fifteen to pay off a family debt, desperate for an education at any cost, this is the story of a young girl who never gave up on herself, no matter what her circumstances, no matter how bleak her life seemed to be.It is the story of my Obachan, or grandmother, as told to me by her, an amazing story which begins in the countryside of Japan and ends in the war torn streets of Kawasaki. I wrote it down as I heard it, believing it sounded more like a movie than her life; only the names have been changed out of respect for her living family. This is the journey she took as she exchanged one set of dreams for another, as she grew from a wide-eyed, hopeful teenager to a young mother in wartime Japan.

A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States


Frederick Law Olmsted - 2007
     His dispatches to The New York Times form the basis of this fascinating account of slavery before the American Civil War. This first-person account of the pre-war South presents a stark depiction of those states which relied upon a slave economy. He provides a vivid description of how both the slave-owning elites and the African-American populations lived and worked, supporting his observations with critical analysis. “A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States remains a classic on a par with Alexis de Tocqueville’s endlessly cited critique of a generation earlier.” The New York Review of Books “As an argument against slavery, his book seems to us worth any number of Uncle Tom’s Cabins; for he writes upon the subject without noise or passion, and contents himself with stating in a simple manner what he has observed, and what conclusions he has founded upon his observations.” The Saturday Review “No one can ever understand rightly the industrial and economic history of the southern states without a definite conception of the practical workings of slavery itself. These are the considerations which make Mr. Olmstead’s book of permanent value.” Francis W. Shepardson, Journal of Political Economy “Some of the most interesting works that have been written on America … are the production of a native, Mr. F. L. Olmsted.” The British Quarterly Review A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States is essential reading for anyone interested in nineteenth century American history and the development of the abolition movement before the American Civil War. Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator and landscape architect. He was particularly famous for assisting in the design of many of America’s most loved parks, including Central Park in New York City, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and Elm Park in Worcester, Massachusetts. He wrote three different accounts of his travels across America. A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States is his most famous and was published in 1856. Olmsted died in 1903.

Five Windows


D.E. Stevenson - 1953
     In the background of the story are the hills of home and the noise and bustle of London; in the foreground are the people, alive, vigorous and full of personality, who play their parts in the shaping of David’s life. The canvas is broad and there is space for gaiety and sorrow, for light and shade and for the quiet humour of a man who can laugh at himself. There are five windows in his life—five phases of experience—and the pattern which is begun at Haines, amongst the border hills, is completed when he looks at the view from the fifth window in his life and sees in the distance, veiled in mist, the city of enchantment... Praise for Five Windows: 'In conception it is a bigger book than this writer has yet given us. Once again Miss Stevenson excels in character drawing' - Glasgow Herald 'Here again is a woman novelist gifted with a shrewd temperament capable of enjoyment over the antics of men and women who are somewhat too conscious of their efforts to turn life the way they want it. A long and fully developed tale' - John O'London's D. E. Stevenson was born in Edinburgh. Her father was a first cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson. She was educated privately and travelled widely in France and Italy with her parents. She married a major in the Highland Light Infantry and moved with the regiment from place to place gaining valuable experience of life and people.