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.

     Franz von Heiden, son of a Nazi official and an English mother, comes to England early in 1938 to visit his English cousins – and to study them. He is both accepted and entertained by Wynne Braithwaite’s family and friends. But the peace and abundance which he finds about him are not what he had been taught to expect. These people are not the decadent enemy; their casual talk and happy lives betray no weakness. Franz is disturbed – his reports to his father at home are not what had been expected there. Finding himself in love with Wynne, he is further troubled at the thought of his mother’s broken life in Germany. Would Wynne suffer the same slow death? As tremendous events succeed each other – Munich, Czechoslovakia and war itself – Franz’s dilemma grows increasingly acute. His final devastating choice is a thrilling climax to a moving book. Written in 1940, this book is a fascinating insight into the interwar years. Praise for The English Air: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This book was pure wisdom mixed with British charm and wit' - Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Her descriptive imagery brings the British countryside to life' - Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'has a lovely, graceful-while-yet-down-to-earth style' - Goodreads Reviewer 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.

    Agnes Blakiston did not want to rent the old parsonage and soon came to regret it. At night the phone would ring and there would be unseen visitors. Was the house haunted? And did Miss Emily have a secret to terrible she would rather die than reveal it?

    Cox comes this insightful new history of the critical Guadalcanal and Solomons campaign at the height of World War II. His previous book, Morning Star, Rising Sun, had found the US Navy at its absolute nadir and the fate of the Enterprise, the last operational US aircraft carrier at this point in the war, unknown. This new volume completes the history of this crucial campaign, combining detailed research with a novelist's flair for the dramatic to reveal exactly how, despite missteps and misfortunes, the tide of war finally turned. By the end of February 1944, thanks to hard-fought and costly American victories in the first and second naval battles of Guadalcanal, the battle of Empress Augusta Bay, and the battle of Cape St George, the Japanese would no longer hold the materiel or skilled manpower advantage. From this point on, although the war was still a long way from being won, the American star was unquestionably on the ascendant, slowly, but surely, edging Japanese imperialism towards its sunset.Jeffrey Cox's analysis and attention to detail of even the smallest events are second to none. But what truly sets this book apart is how he combines this microscopic attention to detail, often unearthing new facts along the way, with an engaging style that transports the reader to the heart of the story, bringing the events on the deep blue of the Pacific vividly to life.

    Barnum embodied all that was grand and fraudulent in American mass culture. Over the course of a life that spanned the nineteenth century (1810-91), he inflicted himself upon a surprisingly willing public in a variety of guises, from newspaper editor (or libeler) to traveling showman (or charlatan) and distinguished public benefactor (or shameless hypocrite).   Barnum deliberately cultivated his ambiguous public image through a lifelong advertising campaign, shrewdly exploiting the cultural and technological capabilities of the new publishing industry. While running his numerous shows and exhibitions, Barnum managed to publish newspaper articles, exposés of fraud (not his own), self-help tracts, and a series of best-selling autobiographies, each promising to give "the true history of my many adventures."   Updated editions of The Life of P. T. Barnum appeared regularly, allowing Barnum to keep up with demand and prune the narrative of details that might offend posterity. The present volume is the first modern edition of Barnum's original and outrageous autobiography, published in 1855 and unavailable for more than a century. Brazen, confessional, and immensely entertaining, it immortalizes the showman who hoodwinked customers into paying to hear the reminiscences of a woman presented as George Washington's 161-year-old nurse, the impresario who brought Jenny Lind to America and toured Europe with General Tom Thumb, and the grand entrepreneur of the American Museum of New York. Above all, it ensures that Barnum would be properly remembered . . . exactly as he created himself.

    He and his family fled to London on the Dutch Coast Guard cutter "Seaman's Hope" and then sailed to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) where he joined the Dutch army. In March 1942, the Japanese invaded the archipelago and made prisoners of the Dutch soldiers. For the next three and a half years Velmans and his fellow POWs toiled in slave labor camps, building a railroad through the dense jungle on the Burmese-Thailand border so the Japanese could invade India. Some 200,000 POWs and slave laborers died building this Death Railway. Velmans, though suffering from malaria, dysentery, malnutrition, and unspeakable mistreatment, never gave up hope. Fifty-seven years later he returned to revisit the place where he should have died and where he had buried his closest friend. From that emotional visit sprung this stunning memoir."Long Way Back to the River Kwai" is a simply told but searing memoir of World War II, a testimonial to one man's indomitable will to live that will take its place beside the "Diary of Ann Frank," "Bridge over the River Kwai," and "Edith's Story.""

    Top of his to-do list? A trip to Disneyland and an introduction to sexual icon Marilyn Monroe.Thanks to the impossible security requirements, Disneyland is out of the question. Marilyn, on the other hand, jumps at the chance to put on a show for the Russian official. During her appearance, she overhears the details of an assassination plot designed to spark an atomic holocaust and devastate both superpowers. When the Secret Service refuses to believe her, Marilyn risks everything to whisk Khrushchev away to safety—in the happiest place on earth.With US agents and the KGB hot on their trail, Marilyn and Khrushchev enjoy the thrills of the amusement park while fighting to stay one step ahead of the assassins and prevent the horrors of an unprecedented war that would annihilate millions.

    All this is torn apart with the arrival of the Holocaust, beginning a crucible fraught with twists and turns so unpredictable and surprising that they defy any attempt to find reason within them. From work camps to the partisans of the Nowogrudek forests, from the Mauthausen concentration camp to life as a displaced person in Italy, and from fighting the Egyptian army in a tiny Israeli kibbutz in 1948 to starting a new life in a new world in New York, this book encompasses the mythical “hero’s journey” in very real historical events. Through the eyes of 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Martin Small, we learn that these priceless memories that are too painful to remember are also too painful to forget.

    She’d been too successful forgetting. The last vestiges of her family hung by a thread in her transformed brain and drove her to be reckless. Ten years later, Eleanor hides in plain sight. She is an average girl getting average grades in a small Wyoming town: poor but happy, lonely but loved. Her mother, Tabitha, is there for her and that’s all she’s ever needed. But now her mother is sick and David has returned. The only friend she’d ever had, the only other person who knows her secret, is back. And Eleanor again becomes reckless. Eleanor is a modest girl, unremarkable but extraordinary, young but old, malleable but fixed. She is scared and confused. She is a liar and a thief. Eleanor is not what she appears to be.

    They were life's fruitfulness and all the generations of mankind, both those who are to come and those already born.The Hawaiian gods were like great chiefs from far lands who visited among the people, entering their daily lives sometimes as humans or animals, sometimes taking residence in a stone or wooden idol. As years passed, the families of gods grew and included the trickster Maui, who snared the sun, and fiery Pele of the volcano.Ancient Hawaiian lived by the animistic philosophy that assigned living souls to animals, trees, stones, stars, and clouds, as well as to humans. Religion and mythology were interwoven in Hawaiian culture; and local legends and genealogies were preserved in song, chant, and narrative.Martha Beckwith was the first scholar to chart a path through the hundreds of books, articles, and little-known manuscripts that recorded the oral narratives of the Hawaiian people. Her book has become a classic work of folklore and ethnology, and the definitive treatment of Hawaiian mythology.With an introduction by Katherine Luomala.

    So when an introverted wizard and a troublemaking witch cross paths, what could possibly go wrong? Lily Singer is a conscientious librarian who just wants to practice her wizardry and be left alone. Sebastian Blackwell is a ne’er-do-well witch for hire who enjoys getting under peoples’ skin but always gets the job done in the end. When circumstance forces them to band together against a common enemy, there’s no telling how the dice will fall. A prequel to the Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus series, this meeting of opposites—and the mischief that follows—is a roller coaster of laughs and life lessons. The only question left is, what's a girl to do when she finds out her arch rival isn't so bad after all?

    Driving this revolutionary publication were two improbable newcomers united by single-minded ambition. S. S. McClure was an Irish immigrant, who, despite bouts of mania, overthrew his impoverished upbringing and bent the New York media world to his will. His steadying hand and star reporter was Ida Tarbell, a woman who defied gender expectations and became a notoriously fearless journalist.The scrappy, bold McClure's group—Tarbell, McClure, and their reporters Ray Stannard Baker and Lincoln Steffens—cemented investigative journalism’s crucial role in democracy. From reporting on labor unrest and lynching, to their exposés of municipal corruption, their reporting brought their readers face to face with a nation mired in dysfunction. They also introduced Americans to the voices of Willa Cather, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, and many others.Tracing McClure’s from its meteoric rise to its spectacularly swift and dramatic combustion, Citizen Reporters is a thrillingly told, deeply researched biography of a powerhouse magazine that forever changed American life. It’s also a timely case study that demonstrates the crucial importance of journalists who are unafraid to speak truth to power.

    And all her spells ever brought was trouble. Since her death, with no power of my own, I’ve stayed far, far away from magic . . . In a San Francisco struggling to recover from earthquakes and rising seas, and where technology can do things that are close enough to magic anyway, Maggie Lachlan is a computer whisperer. The one they call when no one else can find the elusive bug bringing a complex system to its knees. They call her the Techwitch. But she knows there’s nothing magical about what she does. It’s just hard-earned skill. So when Damon Riley, owner of the world’s biggest virtual reality gaming company comes calling with a problem that his entire empire of geeks can’t fix, Maggie leaps at the job. Riley Arts is the kind of place she feels at home. Wall-to-wall tech. No magic. Except, perhaps, for the unsettling chemistry she has with the man in charge. But she never imagined stepping into one of Damon’s games would reveal her mother lied about Maggie’s magic. Or that technology could break a spell she never knew she was under. Now she has a demon hunting her and a whole world she knows nothing about to navigate. To save herself—and the world—she needs to learn fast. Because, when it comes to magic, too many games are wicked. And if you lose, the price can be very, very high . . . The intriguing start to a new dark and sexy Urban Fantasy series from M.J. Scott, RITA® Award nominated author of The Four Arts series and the Half-Light City series. The TechWitch series Book 1 - Wicked Games What people are saying about M.J. Scott “Exciting and rife with political intrigue and magic…” RT Book Reviews “everything I love about Urban Fantasies, kick butt action, fantastic characters, romance that makes the heart beat fast…” Seeing Night Reviews “Scott’s writing is rather superb” Bookworm Blues “Strong and complex world building, emotionally layered relationships, and enough action to keep me up long past my bedtime.” Vampire Book Club “The story’s real strength lies in the web of intrigue Scott creates around her characters.” Publisher’s Weekly

    While visiting her ancestral Italian town, Gwen is caught in a violent earthquake and inexplicably thrust through time. At first refusing to believe what has happened, she nevertheless uses her wits to survive, donning a monk’s cowl to hide her identity as a woman. Ripped apart from all she has ever known, Gwen finds herself in the midst of brutal territorial battles in an era she once blithely called “The Dark Ages.” When the golden Italian summer of 951 emerges from the strife and gloom, Gwen joins forces with a cadre of gallant men, allies in the struggle against the evil nobles, Willa of Tuscany and Count Berengar, kidnappers of Italy’s rightful queen, Adelaide. Along with Father Warinus and Lord Alberto Uzzo, Gwen seeks to rescue Adelaide and restore her kingdom. In the midst of this great adventure, Gwen falls in love with the complex and passionate Alberto, to whom she reveals her identity as a woman. But can Alberto learn to love her strong and independent nature and help Gwen in her quest to discover her rightful place in time?

    The book contains Churchill's letters written as a child, as a boy at Harrow, as a cadet at Sandhurst, and later as a subaltern in India.