This book tells gripping stories of death-defying operations and daring surgical strikes, the intense training soldiers have to undergo to become battle-fit, what life is really like on the LoC and the lives of the young men who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Page-turning, thrilling and heart-breaking, you will see the Indian Army and our soldiers close up, like you have never seen them before.

    

    Book by Rocky Bleier, Terry O'Neil

    The American icon was the backbone of the New York Yankees through ten World Series Championships, managed the National League Champion New York Mets in 1973, and had an ingenious way with words that remains an indelible part of our lexicon. But no one knew him like his family did. My Dad, Yogi is Dale Berra's chronicle of his unshakeable bond with his father, as well as an intimate portrait of one of the great sports figures of the 20th Century.When Yogi wasn't playing or coaching, or otherwise in the public eye, he was home in the New Jersey suburbs, spending time with his beloved wife, Carmen, and his three boys, Larry, Tim, and Dale. Dale presents -- as only a son could -- his family's history, his parents' enduring relationship, and his dad's storied career. Throughout Dale's youth, he had a firsthand look at the Major Leagues, often by his dad's side during Yogi's years as a coach and manager. The Berra's lifelong family friends included Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford. It's no coincidence that all three Berra sons were inspired to play sports constantly, and that all three became professional athletes, following in their dad's footsteps.Dale came up with the Pittsburgh Pirates, contributing to their 1979 championship season and emerging as one of baseball's most talented young players. After three strong seasons, Dale was traded to New York, briefly united with his dad in the Yankee dugout. But there was also an extraordinary challenge developing. Dale was implicated in a major cocaine scandal involving some of the biggest names in the sport, and his promising career was ultimately cut short by his drug problem. Yogi supported his son all along, eventually staging the intervention that would save Dale's life, and draw the entire family even closer. My Dad, Yogi is Dale's tribute to his dad -- a treat for baseball fans and a poignant story for fathers and sons everywhere.

    They built lavish villas designed by the best Beaux Arts–style architects of the time, including Richard Morris Hunt, Charles McKim and Robert Swain Peabody. America’s elite delighted in referring to these grand retreats as “summer cottages,” where they would play tennis and polo and sail their yachts along the shores of the Ocean State. The coachman had an important role as the discreet outdoor butler for Gilded Age gentlemen—not only was he in charge of the horses, but he also acted as a travel advisor and connoisseur of entertainment venues. From the driver’s seat, author and guide Edward Morris provides a diverse collection of biographical sketches that reveal the outrageous and opulent lives of some of America’s leading entrepreneurs.

    Upon graduation from high school, I enlisted in the United States Air Force, not knowing where my travels would take me. I volunteered for flying duty and was sent to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey in 1963. From there, I traveled all over the world transporting troops.In 1973, I volunteered and was accepted into the 89th military airlift wing, special air missions organization at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, which required a top secret clearance, and was the home of Air Force One.After experiencing my first Air Force One backup trip with President Nixon to Europe and the Middle East, I set another goal to become a permanent member of the Air Force One flight crew; but it did not happen right away.Meanwhile, I was privileged to fly missions that included a 33 day presidential goodwill trip with the Apollo 17 astronauts, (the last men to walk on the moon), around the world, the prime minister of India, premier of China, Chancellor of Germany, President of Turkey, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, President Carter's mother, Ms Lillian, cabinet level officers, members of congress, high ranking military officers, Vice President's Ford and Mondale.On September 1, 1979, I was selected as a permanent member of the Air Force One flight crew, during the last 16 months of the Carter administration, 8 years with President Reagan (19 months of which were served as his Chief Steward), 3 1/2 years as chief steward for President Bush SR. To quote President Bush Sr., "It was great to travel with the First Team".The Presidents I was privileged to serve were ordinary folks like you and I, who did extraordinary things to be elected. Personally, I had the time of my life, fulfilling my dreams of world travels, and it truly was a privilege and pleasure to serve the Presidents aboard Air Force One.

    They were already used to a simple life, having spent the last three years living on their boat in France for the summer seasons, and returning to the UK and their caravan for the winters. This tiny cabin would now be their new home for the winter months, taking them a step further along the road to self-sufficiency. They had no electricity, no kitchen, no bathroom or bedroom and the loo was a bucket in a shed, but the property came with five acres of field and woodland.From now on their lives would be simple, pared back to the basics, but they found that an off-grid lifestyle was by no means an uncomfortable experience. Responsibilities didn’t disappear but they changed, becoming less onerous. There was more time to think, and to appreciate the natural world around them. Living in such rural isolation, each day brought something new to marvel at: deer browsing in the field at dusk, salamanders on the doorstep, owls calling by night.If their own world felt increasingly magical, the outside world was far from it. They had moved to a foreign country at an historic time, living through a pandemic and adapting to the day-to-day implications of Brexit.A Simple Life doesn’t just follow Mary-Jane and Michael as they settle into their new lives, it also raises questions about what really matters to people. What makes us happy? How does it feel to have few possessions? Will life become unbearable without a flushing toilet?Thought-provoking and amusing, this book opens a window onto a different way of living. Mary-Jane shares a wealth of information and, if you have ever found yourself longing for a simpler life, this might tempt you to take those first tentative steps on the journey.

    Although it is usually seen as an unqualified success, the Battle for Normandy was actually a much more closely fought affair. In The D-Day Deception the author and journalist Alex Gerlis explores whether it would have been won at all without the Allied deception operation. It was not until the 1970s that details began to emerge the Allies’ top secret and audacious deception plan. Operation Fortitude succeeded in confusing the Germans about where the Allies were going to land: would it be Normandy, or the Pas de Calais? The D-Day Deception looks at the part the deception played in the eventual Allied victory and asks to what extent it may have been helped by those in the German High Command and intelligence organizations who by 1944 wanted to see a swift end to the war. Alex Gerlis was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire and now lives with his family in West London. He was a BBC journalist for over 25 years, leaving in 2011 to concentrate on his writing. He is the author of The Best of Our Spies, a highly acclaimed espionage thriller based on D-Day and especially the deception operation that played a big part in its success. The Best of Our Spies was published in December 2012, since when it has featured prominently in the Amazon Kindle Spy best-selling lists and has over 180 Amazon reviews.

    The truth is: politics and innuendo clouded that story from the very beginning, with the result that few people really understand who The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were and what forces propelled them to their infamous fate. The Royal W.E. examines the individual and intertwined lives of Wallis and Edward – or “W.E.” as they referred to themselves – and provides readers with unique glimpses of the real people, as opposed to the sensationalized characters, that were The Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Through careful study of more than 75 years of rhetoric and scholarship, Victoria Martínez takes on the most controversial charges lodged against the couple (Was Wallis a hermaphrodite? Were the Duke and Duchess Nazi sympathizers?) with candor and evenhandedness. In analyzing the early lives of Wallis and the ex-king and their later relationships with other members of the Royal Family, her approach is to deal with all parties as human beings, whose true faults – though significant – were far less sinister than history has led us to believe. Ms. Martínez also addresses the ever-popular subject of the Duchess’s jewels, including new research on the famous 1946 Ednam Lodge jewel heist to dispel the long-held rumors that the Duke and Duchess committed jewel theft and insurance fraud. The subjects in this book are not always mainstream, well-known, or even consistent with “popular” opinion, and the objective is not to make anyone “like” the couple. Instead, readers will find refreshingly honest and accurate portrayals of W.E. that will help them understand the real people behind the myth and hype. “Prejudice and preconception are difficult things to set aside, particularly after so many years of negative stories and sordid rumor, but I think readers here will discover an alternative and convincing look at the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. I am sure they would approve and perhaps, just perhaps, the future may be a little bit kinder to Edward and Wallis because of the efforts of people like Ms. Martínez.” -Greg King, author of The Duchess of Windsor: The Uncommon Life of Wallis Simpson

    The chafing restrictions of a typical upbringing in upper-class, small town Alabama simply did not apply to Zelda, who was described as an unusual child and permitted to roam the streets with little supervision. Zelda refused to blossom into a typical 'Southern belle' on anyone's terms but her own and while still in high school enjoyed the status of a local celebrity for her shocking behavior. Everybody in town knew the name Zelda Sayre. Queen of the Montgomery social scene, Zelda had a different beau ready and willing to show her a good time for every day of the week. Before meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda's life was a constant pursuit of pleasure. With little thought for the future and no responsibilities to speak of, Zelda committed herself fully to the mantra that accompanied her photo in her high school graduation book: "Why should all life be work, when we all can borrow. Let's think only of today, and not worry about tomorrow." But for now Zelda was still in rehearsal for her real life to begin, a life she was sure would be absolutely extraordinary. Zelda Sayre married F. Scott Fitzgerald on the 3rd of April 1920 and left sleepy Montgomery behind in order to dive headfirst into the shimmering, glamourous life of a New York socialite. With the publication of Scott's first novel, This Side of Paradise, Zelda found herself thrust into the limelight as the very epitome of the Flapper lifestyle. Concerned chiefly with fashion, wild parties and flouting social expectations, Zelda and Scott became icons of the Jazz Age, the personification of beauty and success. What Zelda and Scott shared was a romantic sense of self-importance that assured them that their life of carefree leisure and excess was the only life really worth living. Deeply in love, the Fitzgeralds were like to sides of the same coin, each reflecting the very best and worst of each other. While the world fell in love with the image of the Fitzgeralds they saw on the cover of magazines, behind the scenes the Fitzgerald's marriage could not withstand the tension of their creative arrangement. Zelda was Scott's muse and he mercilessly mined the events of their life for material for his books. Scott claimed Zelda's memories, things she said, experiences she had and even passages from her diary as his possessions and used them to form the basis of his fictional works. Zelda had a child but the domestic sphere offered no comfort or purpose for her. The Flapper lifestyle was not simply a phase she lived through, it formed the very basis of her character and once the parties grew dull, the Fitzgeralds' drinking became destructive and Zelda's beauty began to fade, the world held little allure for her. Zelda sought reprieve in work and tried to build a career as a ballet dancer. When that didn't work out she turned to writing but was forbidden by Scott from using her own life as material. Convinced that she would never leave her mark on the world as deeply or expressively as Scott had, Zelda retreated into herself and withdrew from the people she knew in happier times. The later years of Zelda's life were marred by her detachment from reality as, diagnosed with schizophrenia, Zelda spent the last eighteen years of her life living in and out of psychiatric hospitals. As Scott's life unraveled due to alcohol abuse, Zelda looked back on the years they had spent together, young and wild and beautiful, as the best of her life. She may have been right but she was wrong about one thing, Zelda did leave her mark on the world and it was a deep and expressive mark that no one could have left but her. Zelda Fitzgerald: The Biography

    It is the story of two nurses who witnessed the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic from the frontline. It focuses on their lives and their experiences. Some of the story is raw, sometimes graphic, but familiar for people with HIV infection, family members, friends, and other nurses and medical professionals such as Ellen and Valery. There were hundreds of nurses who went through what Ellen and Valery experienced. They want to tell this story to give a voice to a generation lost, encouraging the world to remember one simple thing: this history cannot be repeated.

    But they could not protect her from her neglectful mother and violent father. Jenny was adopted and grew up in Newcastle. Neither woman knew of the other's existence until, in her 50s, Jenny went looking for her birth family and found she had a sister.

    It wasn't until she was an adult, practicing law in Boston, that she discovered her parents were Jewish--Holocaust survivors living invented lives. Not even their names were their own. In this powerful memoir, Helen Fremont delves into the secrets that held her family in a bond of silence for more than four decades, recounting with heartbreaking clarity a remarkable tale of survival, as vivid as fiction but with the resonance of truth.Driven to uncover their roots, Fremont and her sister pieced together an astonishing story: of Siberian Gulags and Italian royalty, of concentration camps and buried lives. After Long Silence is about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about families; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets.What Fremont and her sister discover is an astonishing story: one of Siberian gulags and Italian royalty, of concentration camps and buried lives. AFTER LONG SILENCE is about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about families; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets. -->

    

    In Bingo Night at the Fire Hall, Holland recounts her adventures and misadventures adjusting to life in a rural community, as her small town adjusts to the inevitable encroachment of suburbia. Whether writing obituaries for the local paper or learning how to handle a chainsaw, Holland shares the triumphs and travails of being a newcomer to an old land with a rich history, a beautiful place sadly losing ground to subdivisions and four-lane highways. Filled with wonderful anecdotes, humor, and insight, Bingo Night at the Fire Hall is a fascinating portrait of a paradisical yet disappearing world.