Book picks similar to
Tales of Old Prague Houses by Magdalena Wagnerová
prague
travel
czech-republic
european-history
Fifty Years on the Trail:: A True Story of Western Life
John Young Nelson - 2014
Born in Virginia in 1826, Nelson ran away from home as a young teenager to escape a domineering father and to seek adventure in the west. He took odd jobs along with way working on farms, serving as a cabin boy on a Mississippi steamer, and becoming an apprentice with a group of traders traveling west from Missouri. After meeting a band of Sioux, he decided that the nomadic life of an Indian was the adventure he was looking for and got himself adopted into the tribe. Here he learned how to live off the land and acquired the skills of a Sioux warrior. His adopted father was the Chief Spotted Tail and his brother-in-law was Red Cloud—Chief of the Sioux Nation. As a young Sioux brave, Nelson participated in Indian raids and skirmishes. Later, he guided Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, worked as a military scout with William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), fought in the Indian Wars, and served as a lawman in North Dakota. In his many escapades he often narrowly escaped death from bullets, arrows, and knives. Nelson’s story is a fascinating view of the early American west in all its glory. This pre-1923 publication has been converted from its original format for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the conversion.
Without Warning
Thomas C. Sanger - 2017
It had become a silhouette barely distinguishable against the darkening twilight sky, but Lemp was close enough to see the foaming white wave thrown up by its bow. He smiled when the spray arched higher, signaling the ship had begun changing course again.“You’re right on schedule,” he said to the image in his eyepiece.Lemp’s pulse quickened with the knowledge that his war was about to begin . . .On September 1, 1939, the passenger liner Athenia set sail from Glasgow for Montreal by way of Belfast and Liverpool. She carried 1,100 passengers, nearly three-quarters of whom were women and children. On September 3, Athenia was torpedoed by a German submarine. In Without Warning, author Thomas C. Sanger tells the harrowing story of the sinking of the Athenia from the perspective of eight people: six passengers, Athenia’s chief officer, and the commander of the German U-boat.Based on accounts written by passengers, personal interviews with survivors and descendants of survivors, books, newspaper stories, and original documents, Without Warning honors the memory of Athenia’s passengers, both living and dead.
Loving Her In The Shadows: Sovereignty
D.J. Parker - 2020
But here I was, on the last day of the year, staring into the eyes of a man who held all my nerves hostage.This was wrong.But I wasn’t looking to be right. Especially not to a husband who doesn’t deserve my loyalty.Still, I should be miles away from here on a yacht circling the Potomac river. My body should’ve been pressed into my husband’s hard chest while his arms held me close as we counted down the last ten seconds of the year. It should’ve been him staring at me like a snack, his eyes slowly undressing me. But it wasn’t my husband, Keith, staring at me.It was this stranger.How could I be so reckless?If anyone saw me walking hand in hand with a man who was not my husband, I could lose more than just a husband. I could lose my opportunity to enact change to New York City’s criminal justice system as a district attorney. Yet, I swatted the red flags away and continued following this stranger into the penthouse suite.Why was I willing to risk it all for a man I didn’t even know?>b>Nicolai:I had one rule. One rule only. Never bring a woman near my home. Yet, here I was, breaking another rule tonight all in the name of the beautiful woman sitting all alone in the grand room of Camilla’s Cuisine.Sixty million dollars was riding on this meeting; yet, my eyes kept roaming over to her. I was supposed to be studying the man sitting across from me—calculating his every move, screening for any deception. Yet, my eyes remained on her, following every graceful move she made.She hadn’t noticed me at first. Hell, I hadn’t realized how long I’d been staring at her until her dark brown eyes rose from her plate to stare into mine. Unlike most women I encountered, she wasn’t intimidated by me openly staring at her. She stared back; yet offered no flirty smile or invitation for me to come over to her. The more I stared at her, the more intrigued I became.Why was she staring back at me?As the acting boss of the Balducci crime family, I’ve spent the past two years restoring order from the chaos left behind when the former Don walked away from the life and family we’d been born and bred into.La Cosa Nostra, this thing of ours, was a matrimony that could never be intercepted or broken. Everything was second to the La Cosa Nostra. It was an oath that my father prepared me to take. It was an oath that authored all decisions that I made.Organizing crime to become a multi-billion-dollar corporate industry, I played every move with careful configurations. Nothing stood in the way. Not a pretty face, friend, foe, or family. Yet, tonight, I ended my meeting before it even started, just so that I could stop her from leaving Camilla’s Cuisine.What was it about her?AUTHOR’S NOTE: This novel is part of the Balducci Family Saga. There are events and characters mentioned in this novel that appeared in previous installments.Please follow the sequence of the Balducci Family Saga listed below:BOOK ONE - Dipping Into SinBOOK TWO- Dipping Deeper Into SinBOOK THREE- Loving Her In The Shadows - Sovereignty
The Smell of Kerosene: A Test Pilot's Odyssey - NASA Research Pilot Stories, XB-70 Tragic Collision, M2-F1 Lifting Body, YF-12 Blackbird, Apollo LLRV Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (NASA SP-4108)
Donald L. Mallick - 2012
This book puts the reader in the pilot's seat for a "day at the office" unlike any other. It recounts the tragic 1966 mid-air collision with the XB-70; describes flights of the lifting body and YF-12 blackbird, and details work with the Apollo Lunar Landing Research Vehicle.The Smell of Kerosene tells the dramatic story of a NASA research pilot who logged over 11,000 flight hours in more than 125 types of aircraft. Donald Mallick gives the reader fascinating firsthand descriptions of his early naval flight training, carrier operations, and his research flying career with NASA and its predecessor agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).Mallick joined the NACA as a research pilot at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory at Hampton, Virginia, where he flew modified helicopters and jets, and witnessed the NACA's evolution into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.After transferring to the NASA Flight Research Center (now NASA Dryden Flight Research Center) at Edwards, California, he became involved with projects that further pushed the boundaries of aerospace technology. These included the giant delta-winged XB-70 supersonic research airplane, the wingless M2-F1 lifting body vehicle, and the triple-sonic YF-12 Blackbird. Mallick also test flew the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) and helped develop techniques used in training astronauts to land on the Moon.Excerpt: " I was onboard an airliner, on 28 January 1986, when I heard the news that the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded 73 seconds after launch that morning. Even knowing the complexity and risk involved in Shuttle operations, I was shocked by the news. The shuttle commander, Dick Scobee, had been an Air Force test pilot at Edwards and flown a number of research missions at NASA Dryden. I grieved for all the crew, but especially Dick, who I knew best. I can still recall his broad grin when he visited the Dryden pilot's office following the announcement of his selection as an astronaut. He showed great pride in his selection, and I congratulated him heartily. The results of the accident review board were hard to accept. The commission that investigated the accident blamed the Shuttle loss on poor management decisions. Challenger had been launched against the recommendations of knowledgeable technical personnel who insisted that low temperatures that day increased the chance of hot gas leakage around the seals of the solid rocket boosters. The commission found that the decision making process leading to the launch was flawed and that launch temperature constraints were waived at the expense of flight safety. It was a black day for NASA. I could sense a change in people's attitude concerning the space program. After the Challenger accident report was released, the public's pride in and respect for NASA diminished. At Dryden, we had always striven not to allow the desire to "get a flight off" to interfere with good judgment on flight safety. It was a cardinal rule. There were occasions when visiting Headquarters personnel and other VIPs were on hand to witness a test flight and we had to cancel the event due to some technical problem. We forced ourselves to avoid the desire to "press on" just to meet a schedule or impress a visiting VIP."
The House in Prague: How a Stolen House Helped an Immigrant Girl Find Her Way Home
Anna Nessy Perlberg - 2016
Little Anna huddles with her doll in the corner of a train car while a German officer shrieks, “You are Jews!” Fleeing for their lives, her family has abandoned their elegant house near Prague Castle, bringing their life of privilege to an abrupt halt.In this memoir that reads like a novel, we meet Anna’s shining and beautiful opera singer mother, her prominent lawyer father, and their circle of friends that includes Albert Schweitzer and the family of Czech President Thomas Masaryk.Through Anna’s eyes, we relive magical Christmases, summers in the country, and a terrifying trip to Nazi Dresden that changes everything. We experience the family’s escape, their voyage to Ellis Island, and Anna's struggle to become an American girl in a city teeming with immigrants and prejudice. Post-war life brings cherished Holocaust survivors and their harrowing stories.After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Anna’s family sues for the return of their house in Prague. But will they prevail? And if they do, what then?The House in Prague is richly illustrated with pictures and artifacts from the author’s family archive. Written with straightforward, lyrical clarity, the members of her family and the many famous musicians, authors, and poets that pass through their lives come alive for the reader. A gripping story on its own merits, this tale of war, love, and loss dares us to think about the immigrant experience in fresh ways.Index included."An exquisite rumination on history, loss, and love. Anna Perlberg's voice is a luminous guide to the heart of home - hers, but also, as is true of all great stories, ours." (Caroline Heller, author of Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts)
Why Israel is the Victim
David Horowitz - 2009
David Horowitz’s classic Why Israel is the Victim, updated by the author, sets the record straight about the basic truths of the Middle East conflict. In addition to restoring the authentic history of the region – a history of obsessive aggression first by Arab countries determined to physically annihilate the Jewish State and later by terror groups determined to destroy its will to survive and right to exist—this booklet brings the story up to date by showing the systematic way in which Hamas and Hezbollah, under Iran’s direction, have subverted peace in the Middle East. As Shillman Fellow Daniel Greenfield notes in his insightful introduction, this pamphlet “tells us why we should reject the “Blame Israel First” narrative that has so thoroughly saturated the mainstream media… It confronts the myth of Palestinian victimhood… and it delivers a rousing restatement of the true history of the hate that led us to all this.” America should be Israel’s protector. Instead, as David Horowitz notes, under the leadership of Barack Obama, it has become its prosecutor.
The Malay Dilemma
Mahathir Mohamad - 2012
First published in 1970, the book seeks to explain the causes for the 13 May 1969 riots in Kuala Lumpur.Dr Mahathir sets out his view as to why the Malays are economically backward and why they feel they must insist upon immigrants becoming real Malaysians speaking in due course nothing but Malay, as do immigrants to America or Australia speak nothing but the language of what the author calls “the definitive people”. He argues that the Malays are the rightful owners of Malaya. He also argues that immigrants are guests until properly absorbed, and that they are not properly absorbed until they have abandoned the language and culture of their past.
Blue Poppies
Jonathan Falla - 2000
Jamie Wilson, a young Scottish wireless operator and veteran of the war, has just arrived in the remote Tibetan village of Jyeko. He has come on business--to establish a radio outpost--but his journey will resonate much more deeply. Like those who have traveled to this place before him, Jamie, the Ying-gi-li, is mesmerized by the majestic mountain ranges and enigmatic people, but he will also find an uncommon refuge in its unyielding beauty and in the arms of the willful Puton, a young widow cast out by the people of Jyeko. Inexorably drawn together by a shared loneliness, Jamie and Puton discover a rare passion and the promise of reconnection and belonging--until the voice of Radio Peking crackles over the airwaves, announcing the imminent advance of the Chinese army. Amid the ensuing violence and tumult, Jamie and Puton must embrace their fate and that of the remarkable land that has brought them together. What lies before them and the people of Jyeko is a harrowing journey across a breathtaking landscape...and an extraordinary tale of pride and loyalty, survival and awakening.
Qur’an and Cricket: Travels Through the Madrasahs of Asia and Other Stories
Farish A. Noor - 2009
In attempting to make sense of it all, he ends up confronting his own demons and nightmares. He visits locations where most traditional media cannot and will not go, and most of us would like to avoid even in our worst nightmares. Although he writes with his sense of humour firmly in place throughout, that does not obscure the seriousness of the subject. Quite scary.
The Three Golden Keys
Peter Sís - 1994
He finds the way to his old home, but the house is dark, with three rusty padlocks on the door. A black cat with eyes of fire appears and leads him through Prague's silent streets and monuments in seach of the three golden keys that will open the door of his boyhood home and restore the city to life. In this reissue of one of his most personal works, Peter Sís recaptures the wonder of his own lost childhood in Prague and celebrates the city's wonderful cultural heritage, reborn after forty-five years of Communist rule. He wrote it for his young daughter, Madeleine, who is growing up in the New World, so that when she is old enough to understand it she will have a record of the strange and wonderful heritage that is her birthright. An utterly magical book on every level.
Legion
William Altimari - 2003
Centurion Quintus Flavius Rufio returns to Gaul near the Rhine to finish his career with the Twenty-fifth Legion. An invasion by the Germans is imminent, and the veteran Rufio takes command of a century with many recruits whom he must train on the eve of the German onslaught. Rufio's return to Gaul has a wider significance as well. Twenty years earlier, he accidentally killed a young Gallic woman in battle. Still haunted by this, he is confronted by her daughter, orphaned as an infant and now an adult, and his search for redemption takes an unexpected turn in his relationship with her. Legion climaxes with the outnumbered Romans attacking the Germans in a savage battle as the barbarians storm into Gaul in a war of annihilation.
The Low Countries: A History
Anthony Bailey - 2016
Here, from British historian and New Yorker senior writer Anthony Bailey is the dramatic story of the Low Countries - Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg - from the early days of nomads and barbarian invaders to the birth of towns and cities to the rise and decline of world prominence and finally to the dark and tragic days of World War II.
Epic Continent: Adventures in the Great Stories of Europe
Nicholas Jubber - 2019
The Song of the Nibelungen tracks the collapse of a Germanic kingdom on the edge of the Roman Empire. Both the French Song of Roland and the Serbian Kosovo Cycle emerged from devastating conflicts between Christian and Muslim powers. Beowulf, the only surviving Old English epic, and the great Icelandic Saga of Burnt Njal, respond to times of great religious struggle - the shift from paganism to Christianity. These stories have stirred passions ever since they were composed, motivating armies and revolutionaries, and they continue to do so today.Reaching back into the ancient and medieval eras in which these defining works were produced, and investigating their continuing influence today, Epic Continent explores how matters of honour, fundamentalism, fate, nationhood, sex, class and politics have preoccupied the people of Europe across the millennia. In these tales soaked in blood and fire, Nicholas Jubber discovers how the world of gods and emperors, dragons and water-maidens, knights and princesses made our own: their deep impact on European identity, and their resonance in our turbulent times.
77 Prague Legends
Alena Ježková - 2006
A city with a thousand years of tradition. A city where you encounter history at every step. The pavement under your feet, the walls of the houses, churches and palaces you pass, the squares and hidden corners, are all imbued with a fascinating past you may often not even begin to suspect. Prague abounds in folk stories and historical legends and myths, some recorded by ancient chroniclers and some collected more recently by enthusiastic scholars. 77 Prague Legends is designed for all visitors to Prague who love to listen to mysterious stories.