There Is a Generation: Kids Of "The Greatest Generation"


W.H. Buzzard - 2015
    Hunting rabbits loses its appeal for a game of war with their .22 rifles. The fun abruptly ends as their boyish prank goes awry. They set fire to an empty shack which turns out to be home to a hapless drifter, or so they believe.Hect has the idea to set fire to the shanty. Tim readily agrees, although he thinks the target is a wasp nest in a mesquite bush. Hect fills a bottle with fuel from a wrecked truck and hurls the Molotov cocktail at the shed. The sun-dried wood bursts into a fireball. Shocked at his friend’s aim, Tim gapes as a blazing figure peers out a fiery window. He and the human torch gaze at one another for a long moment until sirens from town interrupt. The boys, believing their prank will land them a seat on “Sparky,” the pet name for the electric chair in Gatesville Prison, become fugitives from the law.Armed with a forehead-slapping sense of naiveté, the two run into the harsh desert. Because of pampered lifestyles, they could not be less prepared to endure hunger, an unforgiving sun, life on the road, con artists, wily street people, and a world of poverty and slums, plus the mean streets of Juarez, Mexico.

Augustus: First Emperor of Rome


Adrian Goldsworthy - 2014
    Thrusting himself into Rome’s extremely violent politics while yet a very young man, Augustus skillfully maneuvered his way through twisting alliances during years of civil war. Named heir to the murdered Julius Caesar, he outwitted and outlasted far more experienced rivals like Antony and Brutus. Ruling supreme, he reinvented himself as a benevolent man of peace and created a new system of government.   In this highly anticipated biography Goldsworthy puts his deep knowledge of ancient sources to full use, recounting the events of Augustus’ long life in greater detail than ever before. Goldsworthy pins down the man behind the myths: a consummate manipulator, propagandist, and showman, both generous and ruthless. Under Augustus’ rule the empire prospered, yet his success was never assured and the events of his life unfolded with exciting unpredictability. Goldsworthy captures the passion and savagery, the public image and private struggles of the real man whose epic life continues to influence Western history.

Sigmund Freud: A Life From Beginning to End


Hourly History - 2018
    And if you have ever had a "Freudian slip," you know full well that the concepts and theories of Mr. Freud are well ensconced in the modern lexicon. But as much as many of us are familiar with his work, what about the man? What do we know about the person? Just who was Sigmund Freud? Inside you will read about... - A Jewish Family in Vienna - The Talking Cure - The Wednesday Society - Working for Potatoes - The Cancer and the Monster - Freud During World War II And much more!

Beautiful Bodies: A Memoir


Kimberly Rae Miller - 2017
    And trying. And trying some more. She's been at it since she was four years old, when Sesame Street inspired her to go on her first diet. Postcollege, after a brief stint as a diet-pill model, she became a health-and-fitness writer and editor working on celebrities' bestselling bios—sugarcoating the trials and tribulations celebs endure to stay thin. Needless to say, Kim has spent her life in pursuit of the ideal body.But what is the ideal body? Knowing she's far from alone in this struggle, Kim sets out to find the objective definition of this seemingly unattainable level of perfection. While on a fascinating and hilarious journey through time that takes her from obese Paleolithic cavewomen, to the bland menus that Drs. Graham and Kellogg prescribed to promote good morals in addition to good health, to the binge-drinking-prone regimen that caused William the Conqueror's body to explode at his own funeral, Kim ends up discovering a lot about her relationship with her own body.Warm, funny, and brutally honest, Beautiful Bodies is a blend of memoir and social history that will speak to anyone who's ever been caught in a power struggle with his or her own body—in other words, just about everyone.

Hogs in the Shadows: Combat Stories from Marine Snipers in Iraq


Milo S. Afong - 2007
    In Operation Iraqi Freedom, there is a special breed of marine for whom the prey is the enemy-and every day is hunting season. This marine is a HOG-a Hunter of Gunman. These are the gripping, gut-wrenching true stories of those marines in Iraq whose sole purpose on the battlefield is to take out the enemy-one combatant at a time. Every time a HOG puts his eye to the glass, it means death for whoever is unlucky enough to end up in his crosshairs. No warning shots. No disabling wounds. No regrets. That's what a HOG does. Here, former Scout/Sniper Team Leader Milo S. Afong reveals what it takes to be a Hunter of Gunmen. He describes the intensive training that turns expert infantrymen into one-shot life-takers, building Marine Scout/Sniper teams and how they operate in the field-and under fire-and how HOGs get the job done under any conditions. From sniping from a rooftop in Baghdad, to unknowingly being surrounded in a palm grove in the city of Hit, these stories will transport you right into the heat of the desert war, where one squeeze of the trigger can make all the difference.

Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior


Rorke Denver - 2013
    Navy SEALS of today. Rorke Denver trains the men who become Navy SEALs--the most creative problem solvers on the modern battlefield, ideal warriors for the kinds of wars America is fighting now. With his years of action-packed mission experience and a top training role, Lieutenant Commander Denver understands exactly how tomorrow's soldiers are recruited, sculpted, motivated, and deployed.Now, Denver takes you inside his personal story and the fascinating, demanding SEAL training program he now oversees. He recounts his experience evolving from a young SEAL hopeful pushing his way through Hell Week, into a warrior engaging in dangerous stealth missions across the globe, and finally into a lieutenant commander directing the indoctrination, requalification programs, and the "Hero or Zero" missions his SEALs undertake.From his own SEAL training and missions overseas, Denver details how the SEALs' creative operations became front and center in America's War on Terror-and how they are altering warfare everywhere. In fourteen years as a SEAL officer, Rorke Denver tangled with drug lords in Latin America, stood up to violent mobs in Liberia, and battled terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Leading 200 commando missions, he earned the Bronze Star with V for valor. He has also served as flag aide to the admiral in charge and spent the past four years as executive officer of the Navy Special Warfare Center's Advanced Training Command in Coronado, California, directing all phases of the basic and advanced training that prepare men for war in SEAL teams. He recently starred in the film Act of Valor. He is married and has two daughters.Ellis Henican is a columnist at Newsday and an on-air commentator at the Fox News Channel. He has written two recent New York Times bestsellers, Home Team with New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton and In the Blink of an Eye with NASCAR legend Michael Waltrip.With all the SEALs' recent successes, we have been getting a level of acclaim we're not used to. But something important has been missing in this warm burst of publicity . Correcting that is my mission here.My own SEAL dream was launched by a book. My hope is that this one teaches lessons that go far beyond the battlefield, inspiring a fresh generation of warriors to carry on that dream.-Lieutenant Commander Rorke Denver

To Hell and Back


Audie Murphy - 1949
    More than fifty years later, this classic wartime memoir is just as gripping as it was then.Desperate to see action but rejected by both the marines and paratroopers because he was too short, Murphy eventually found a home with the infantry. He fought through campaigns in Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. Although still under twenty-one years old on V-E Day, he was credited with having killed, captured, or wounded 240 Germans. He emerged from the war as America's most decorated soldier, having received twenty-one medals, including our highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. To Hell and Back is a powerfully real portrayal of American GI's at war.

Subaltern on the Somme


Max Plowman - 1927
     Subaltern on the Somme is a record of his daily life, and ranges across different aspects of his war in the trenches - including fear, shellfire, drunkenness, mud, frustration and his views about his fellow officers and British army commanders. Subaltern on the Somme is for anybody who wonders what trench warfare was like for a junior officer.

Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History


Bill O'Reilly - 2018
    A few were swiftly caught, including the notorious SS leader, Heinrich Himmler. Others, however, evaded capture through a sophisticated Nazi organization designed to hide them. Among those war criminals were Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death" who performed hideous medical experiments at Auschwitz; Martin Bormann, Hitler's brutal personal secretary; Klaus Barbie, the cruel "Butcher of Lyon"; and perhaps the most awful Nazi of all: Adolf Eichmann.Killing the SS is the epic saga of the espionage and daring waged by self-styled "Nazi hunters." This determined and disparate group included a French husband and wife team, an American lawyer who served in the army on D-Day, a German prosecutor who had signed an oath to the Nazi Party, Israeli Mossad agents, and a death camp survivor. Over decades, these men and women scoured the world, tracking down the SS fugitives and bringing them to justice, which often meant death.Written in the fast-paced style of the Killing series, Killing the SS will educate and stun the reader.The final chapter is truly shocking.

From Manassas To Appomattox


James Longstreet - 1896
    According to some, he was partially to blame for the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg; according to others, if Lee had followed Longstreet's advice, they would have won that battle. He has been called stubborn and vain; and he has been lauded as one of the greatest tacticians of the Civil War. All agree, however, that Longstreet was not only a dependable fighter but completely devoted to Robert E. Lee, who relied on him the most out of all his officers. He acquitted himself bravely in many of the war's bloodiest battles, including those at Antietam, Chickamauga, and the Wilderness. And his staunchest defenders were always the men who served under him. Longstreet's memoirs reflect the combative style of the old soldier. Their tremendous historical interest lies not only in his personal account of the progress of the Civil War, and in the many fascinating anecdotes about Lee and his officers, but in the insight they afford into the mind and character of one of the bravest and most loyal of southern generals.

The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team Three Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi


Kevin Lacz - 2016
    Col. Dave Grossman, bestselling author of On Killing), The Last Punisher is a gripping and intimate on-the-ground memoir from a Navy SEAL who was part of SEAL Team THREE with American Sniper Chris Kyle. Experience his deployment, from his first mission to his first kill to his eventual successful return to the United States to play himself in the Oscar-nominated film directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper.The Last Punisher is a “thoughtful, funny, and raw…always compelling” (Bing West, New York Times bestselling author of No True Glory) first-person account of the Iraq War. With wry humor and moving testimony, Kevin Lacz tells the bold story of his tour in Iraq with SEAL Team THREE, the warrior elite of the Navy. This legendary unit, known as “The Punishers,” included Chris Kyle (American Sniper), Mike Monsoor, Ryan Job, and Marc Lee. These brave men were instrumental in securing the key locations in the pivotal 2006 Battle of Ramadi. Minute by minute, Lacz relays the edge-of-your-seat details of his team’s missions in Ramadi, offering a firsthand glimpse into the heated combat, extreme conditions, and harrowing experiences they faced every day. Through it all, Lacz and his teammates formed unbreakable bonds and never lost sight of the cause: protecting America with their fight. “A rare glimpse into the mind of a Navy SEAL,” (Clint Emerson, New York Times bestselling author of 100 Deadly Skills) Kevin Lacz brings you onto the battlefield and relays the tough realities of war. At the same time, Lacz shares how these experiences made him a better man and how proud he is of his contributions to one of this country’s most difficult military campaigns. The Last Punisher is the story of a SEAL and an “honest-to-God American hero” (Mike Huckabee, #1 bestselling author) who was never afraid to answer the call.

Boots on the Ground: A Month with the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq


Karl Zinsmeister - 2003
    Signed flat (without inscription) by author; Stated First Edition and first printing. See scans and description. New York: Truman Talley Books (St. Martin 's Press), 2003. 'Boots On The Ground: A Month With The 82nd Airborne In The Battle For Iraq', by Karl Zinsmeister. Octavo, illustrated jacket, black boards with copper spine imprinting, buff endpapers, author-signed on first free endpaper ('flat' signed, i.e. without inscription - see scan), 255 pp. ( x + 213 + 32 pp. color photographic section). New, and immaculate, cover to cover, including jacket. An example for the collector. A first-hand account of the title experience, by the editor-in-chief of American Enterprise magazine, who was, in 2003, a frontline reporter embedded with the 82nd Airborne. Ships in a new, sturdy, protective box, of course - not a bag. L202

Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief


James M. McPherson - 2008
    McPherson provides a rare, fresh take on one of the most enigmatic figures in American history. Tried by War offers a revelatory (and timely) portrait of leadership during the greatest crisis our nation has ever endured. Suspenseful and inspiring, this is the story of how Lincoln, with almost no previous military experience before entering the White House, assumed the powers associated with the role of commander in chief, and through his strategic insight and will to fight changed the course of the war and saved the Union.

The Exceptionals: How the Best Become the Best and How You Can Too


Kumar Mehta - 2021
    They are the 1% of the 1%. They have reached seemingly unreachable heights. They may be athletes or entertainers who are household names, or they may be people who have invented life-saving drugs or won a Nobel Prize by making fundamental advances in knowledge. Or they may have changed the world through science or music or business by influencing millions or perhaps billions of lives.They are the people who have succeeded in being able to draw out the best talents they have within themselves and have maximized the physical, mental, and social potential available to them.The Exceptionals is their story, and it provides you with the blueprint to advance yourself from good to great—and from outstanding to elite.

The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle


J. Glenn Gray - 1959
    Glenn Gray entered the army as a private in May 1941, having been drafted on the same day he was informed of his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University. He was discharged as a second lieutenant in October 1945, having been awarded a battlefield commission during fighting in France. Gray saw service in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany in a counter-espionage unit. Fourteen years after his discharge, Gray began to reread his war journals and letters in an attempt to find some meaning in his wartime experiences. The result is The Warriors, a philosophical meditation on what warfare does to us and an examination of the reasons soldiers act as they do. Gray explains the attractions of battle—the adrenaline rush, the esprit de corps—and analyzes the many rationalizations made by combat troops to justify their actions. In the end, Gray notes, “War reveals dimensions of human nature both above and below the acceptable standards for humanity.”