A Conspiracy of Crowns: The True Story of the Duke of Windsor and the Murder of Sir Harry Oakes


Alfred de Marigny - 1990
    Its portrayal of the Duke of Windsor as a Nazi sympathizer--who would stop at nothing to hide it--is sure to make headlines. Black-and-white photographs.

A Wink from the Universe


Martin Flanagan - 2018
    They were the rank underdogs and they swept to victory on an unprecedented tide of goodwill that washed over the nation. Only Martin Flanagan could bring to life this particular miracle. The club's two guiding spirits - captain Bob Murphy and coach Luke Beveridge - welcomed him in, Beveridge making available his match diaries, pre-match notes and video highlights. Flanagan interviewed every player, watched every match, talked with the trainers, the women in the football department, the fans who never miss a training session, the cheer squad.What Flanagan shows is that the Bulldogs found a new way to play partly because they found a new way to be a team - a new way to support each other, even a new way to be. A Wink from the Universe takes us into the heart of the community Luke Beveridge and Bob Murphy dreamt into being with the support of the Bulldog people around them. This is a classic of sportswriting - a book for fans of the club, and of the game, but also a book for anyone who wants to know how a group of people can will a miracle to happen.

Battle on the Lomba 1987: The Day a South African Armoured Battalion shattered Angola’s Last Mechanized Offensive - A Crew Commander's Account


David Mannall - 2014
    

Home Below Hell's Canyon


Grace Jordan - 1962
    "Cut off from the world for months at a time, the Jordans became virtually self-sufficient. Short of cash but long on courage, they raised and preserved their food, made their own soap, and educated their children."-Sterling North, New York World-Telegram "Home Below Hell's Canyon is valuable because it writes a little-known way of life into the national chronicle. We are put in touch with the kind of people who set the country on its feet and in the generations since have kept it there. . . . Primarily it is a book of courage and effort tempered by the warmth of those who trust in goodness and practice it."-Christian Science Monitor "The thrilling story of a modern pioneer family. . . . An intensely human account filled with fun, courage and rich family life."-Seattle Post Intelligencer

The Queen's Pirate: Sir Francis Drake


Kevin Jackson - 2016
     But Drake’s exploits in his earlier years, though less well known, are even more remarkable. Born into a poor, obscure family, he worked his way rapidly up in the maritime world to his first captaincy. Before long, he was the most successful of all English pirates, admired by his countrymen, hated and feared by the Spanish. Queen Elizabeth and her ministers saw the potential in this rough-mannered but enterprising young man, and gave him their blessing for the first British venture into the Pacific Ocean. This success of this voyage, which lasted for three years, exceeded their wildest hopes. Not only did Drake come home with a vast treasure of captured gold, silver and jewels; he became the first man ever to circumnavigate the globe in a single mission, and bring most of his crew home alive and well. Soon after his triumphant return, Elizabeth knighted this newly rich adventurer, and gave her blessing to his acts of pillage. It was a gesture that made war with Spain inevitable. And Drake’s part in the coming war changed the course of world history. SIR FRANCIS DRAKE: THE QUEEN’S PIRATE tells the extraordinary story of Drake’s early years and his journey around the world on his famous ship, the Golden Hind.

Human Monsters: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World's Most Vicious Murderers


David Everitt - 1993
    Presents 100 gripping case studies of the worst killers of all time.

The Second World War, Vol. 3: The War at Sea (Essential Histories Book 1)


Philip D. Grove - 2003
    The war at sea was a critical contest, as sea-lanes provided the logistical arteries for British and subsequent Allied armies fighting on the three continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe. Land forces ultimately won World War II, but the battles at sea fundamentally altered the balance of military power on the ground.

The Game of Their Lives: The Untold Story of the World Cup's Biggest Upset


Geoffrey Douglas - 1996
    The Americans were outsiders to the sport, the underdogs of the event, a 500-to-1 long shot. But they were also proud and loyal men -- to one another, to their communities, and certainly to their country. Facing almost no time to prepare, opponents with superior training, and skepticism from the rest of the world, this ragtag group of unknowns was inspired to a stunning victory over England and one of the most thrilling upsets in the history of sports.Written by critically acclaimed author Geoffrey Douglas, and now a film directed by David Anspaugh (Hoosiers), The Game of Their Lives takes us back to a time before million-dollar contracts and commercial endorsements, and introduces us to the athletes -- the Americans -- who showed the world just how far a long shot could really go.

Inferno: The Fall of Japan 1945


Ronald Henkoff - 2016
    atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the ensuing death and destruction that led to the end of World War II. The events that culminated in the fall of Japan - which forever changed the course of diplomacy, geopolitics, and warfare in the twentieth century - are vividly recreated through dramatic first-hand accounts of the major participants on both sides of the Pacific. They include: Harry Truman, the inexperienced American president who made the decision that would lead to unprecedented death and destruction; the war-mongering, but mysterious, Japanese Emperor Hirohito, who ultimately presided over his country's surrender; General Leslie Groves, the no-nonsense director of the Manhattan Project; and Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane, the Enola Gay, which dropped the very first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945.

Taken: The Agonising True Story of My Missing Sister


Sharon Hamilton - 2009
    Taken is Sharon’s story of the long years between her sister Vicky’s disappearance and the discovery, seventeen years later, of her body in the garden of a house once occupied by Peter Tobin, who will stand trial for her murder.

Fantastic Facts about the Oregon Trail


Michael Trinklein - 2012
    Read all about these fantastic facts--and dozens of others--in this fun-to-read book.Did you know that some pioneers took a "shortcut" to Oregon that took them perilously close to Antarctica? Or that ferryboat operators on the Oregon Trail could earn nearly $2,000 per day? Or that many pioneers found ice in the middle of the blazing hot desert? It's all true! An entertaining read for young people or anyone interested in the great western journey.

The Murder of Dr Muldoon: A Suspect Priest, A Widow's Fight for Justice


Ken Boyle - 2019
    Three local women notice the couple's suspicious behaviour and apprehend them. The two are handed over to the police, charged and sent for trial. A month later, a young doctor is shot dead on the streets of Mohill, Co. Leitrim. The two incidents are connected, but how? In the days following the shooting of Dr Paddy Muldoon, the name of a local priest was linked to the killing and  rumours abounded of a connection to the events in Dublin a month earlier and also that an IRA gang had been recruited to carry out the murder. However, despite an investigation at the time, the murder remained unsolved for almost 100 years. Now, newly discovered archive material from a range of sources, including the Muldoon family, has made it possible to piece together the circumstances surrounding the doctor's death, and reveals how far senior figures in the Church, State and IRA were willing to go to cover up a scandal.

The Wright Brothers: by David McCullough | Summary & Analysis


aBookaDay - 2015
    The Wright Brothers is an historical narrative that draws on extensive archival materials, personal journals, and public records to tell the story of the Wright brothers as men of incredible character and determination along the road towards their significant contributions to aviation history. The summary parallels the structure of the book which is divided into three parts. The first part explores the period of the boys’ childhood through their work on flight testing various models of gliders. The second part picks up with the addition of the engine to the Wright planes and traces the brother’s work through the early stages of powered flight, roughly 1903 to 1908. Part three follows the brothers, now globally famous, through the years when they captured the most attention for their accomplishments. A central aspect of this historical account is the development of Orville and Wilbur Wright as individuals who showed fierce determination in the face of relentless setbacks. It also sheds light on their private nature and their deep bond as brothers. McCullough is a two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for other historical works, Truman and John Adams. He also won the National Book Award twice and is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His educational background includes a degree in English Literature from Yale University. He is also a well-known narrator, as well as previous host of American Experience. Read more....

Tragedies of Cañon Blanco: A Story of the Texas Panhandle (1919)


Robert Goldthwaite Carter - 1919
    Carter would participate in a number of expeditions against the Comanche and other tribes in the Texas-area. It was during one of these campaigns that he was brevetted first lieutenant and awarded the Medal of Honor for his "most distinguished gallantry" against the Comanche in Blanco Canyon on a tributary of the Brazos River on October 10, 1871. He became a successful author in his later years writing several books based on his military career, including On the Border with Mackenzie (1935), as well as a series of booklets detailing his years as an Indian fighter on the Texas frontier. Carter writes: "IT IS nearly fifty years since these tragedies occurred. There are few survivors. The writer is, perhaps, the only one. This is written in the vague hope that this chronicle of the events of that period may possibly prove of some lasting and, perhaps, historical value to posterity. "The country all about the scene of these tragical events—the Texas Panhandle—was then wild, unsettled, covered with sage brush, scrub oak and chaparral, and its only inhabitants were Indians, buffalo, lobo wolves, coyotes, jack-rabbits, prairie-dogs and rattlesnakes, with here and there a few scattered herds of antelope. The railroad, that great civilizing agency, the telegraph, the telephone, and the many other marvelous inventions of man, have wrought such a wonderful transformation in our great western country that the American Indian will, if he has not already, become a race of the past, and history alone will record the remarkable deeds and strange career of an almost extinct people. With these miraculous changes has come the total extermination of the buffalo—the Indians' migratory companion and source of living—and pretty much all of the wild game that in almost countless numbers freely roamed those vast prairies. Where now the railroads girdle that country the nomadic redman lived his free and careless life and the bison thrived and roamed undisturbed at that period— where are now the appliances of modern civilization, and prosperous communities, then nothing but desolation reigned for many miles around. "In the expansion and peopling of this vast country, our little Army was most closely identified. In fact, it was the pioneer of civilization. The life was full of danger, hardships, privations, and sacrifices, little known or appreciated by the present generation. "Where populous towns, ranches and well-tilled farms, grain fields, orchards, and oil "gushers" are now located, with railroads either running through or near them, we were making trails, upon which the main roads now run, in search of hostile savages, for the purpose of punishing them or compelling them to go into the Indian reservations, and to permit the settlers, then held back by the murderous acts of these redskins, to advance and spread the civilization of the white man throughout the western tiers of counties in that far-off western panhandle of Texas."

Mosquito Point Road: Monroe County Murder & Mayhem


Michael Benson - 2020
    There’s Killer of the Cloth, The Baby in the Convent, Mosquito Point Road, Death of a First Baseman, The Blue Gardenia, and Pure/Evil. Three of the killers are female.