***SOON TO BE A MAJOR HOLLYWOOD FILM*** 'This is aerial drama at its best. Fast, powerful, and moving.' Erik Larson Devotion tells the gripping story of the US Navy's most famous aviator duo - Tom Hudner, a white New Englander, and Jesse Brown, a black sharecropper's son from Mississippi. Against all odds, Jesse beat back racism to become the Navy's first black aviator. Against all expectations, Tom passed up Harvard to fly fighter planes for his country. While much of America remained divided by segregation, the two became wingmen in Fighter Squadron 32 and went on to fight side-by-side in the Korean War. Adam Makos follows Tom and Jesse's dramatic journey to the war's climatic battle at the Chosin Reservoir, where they fought to save an entire division of trapped Marines. It was here that one of them was faced with an unthinkable choice - and discovered how far they would go to save a friend.

This is the story of Lili Pohlmann's incredible childhood and survival. During the Second World War she was helped by many people, sometimes by simply 'looking the other way'; but of especial significance were two remarkable non-Jews: a German woman working for the Nazi occupying forces in Lemberg, and a Greek Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop. After the war Lili came to London in the first of three transports of Jewish children from Poland. She arrived in the British capital on her sixteenth birthday. She still lives in London. The book consists of interviews with Lili, revealing her own voice, which is vivid, colourful and engaging. The conversations focus on Lili's childhood, wartime experiences, her arrival in London and years shortly after the war. They are accompanied by historical commentaries, as well as more personal pieces from the author, Anna Blasiak, framing and contrasting Lili's story and experiences with the story of somebody from a different generation, growing up years after the war in Poland, a place where the vanished Jews left a painful, gaping hole. Introduction by Philippe Sands Historical Context by Clare Mulley Illustrated with photographs throughout

In 1914, an expedition headed by Sir Ernest Shackleton set out to be the first to cross the continent of Antarctica. Shipwrecked and marooned for months on end, their ill-fated voyage became a triumphant story of indomitable courage and faith in the face of astounding obstacles.

A bestseller since it was first published in 1959, Alfred Lansing's "Endurance" now features a foreword and afterword from Dr. James Dobson--inspiring every reader to persevere no matter how impossible the challenge.

Nine days that set the course of a nation... Johannesburg, Easter weekend, 1993. Nelson Mandela has been free for three years and is in slow-moving power-sharing talks with President FW de Klerk when a white supremacist shoots Mandela's popular young heir apparent, Chris Hani, in the hope of igniting an all-out civil war. Will he succeed in plunging South Africa into chaos, safeguarding apartheid for perhaps years to come? Or can Mandela and de Klerk overcome their differences and mutual suspicion and calm their followers, plotting a way forward? In The Plot to Save South Africa, acclaimed South African journalist Justice Malala recounts the riveting story of the next nine days - never before told in full - revealing rarely seen sides of both Mandela and de Klerk, the fascinating behind-the-scenes debates within each of their parties over whether to pursue peace or war, and their increasingly desperate attempts to restrain their supporters despite mounting popular frustrations. Flitting between the points of view of over a dozen characters on all sides of the conflict, Justice Malala offers an illuminating look at successful leadership in action... and a terrifying reminder of just how close a country we think of today as a model for racial reconciliation came to civil war.

'Merriman excels at recreating the physicality of their experiences: the smell of dense clay, the click-clack of a woman walking down the street above in high heels... Merriman has burrowed her way deep into interviews, news reports and Stasi files to fashion an impressive real life page-turner.' Guardian 'An audacious and compelling tale, told with narrative tension and novelistic drive, creating a fascinating portrayal of life in Berlin in the early days of the Wall.' Observer 'A fantastic story, exceedingly well told...more gripping than a thriller. The story arc, through betrayal and disaster to triumph, is perfect...a cracking tale that deserves retelling.' The Times 'Helena Merriman's book is a tour de force... The chapters on the day of the escape are possibly the most suspenseful I have ever read, in fiction as well as nonfiction.' Scotsman 'its skilful blend of a dynamic protagonist, intrigue, spooks, deception, and a love divided imbues Tunnel 29 with all the qualities of a taut Cold War spy thriller.' Sunday Business Post 'Captivating... Ms Merriman's well-crafted book does justice to the extraordinary bravery of her characters.' Economist 'This new book... allows readers to slip into Joachim's shoes as if living this extraordinary experience... This is a remarkable tale, beautifully told and utterly compelling.' BBC History Magazine ------------------------- He's just escaped from one of the world's most brutal regimes. Now, he decides to tunnel back in. It's summer, 1962, and Joachim Rudolph, a student, is digging a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin - dozens of men, women and children; all willing to risk everything to escape. From the award-winning creator of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 podcast, Tunnel 29 is the true story of the most remarkable escape tunnel dug under the Berlin Wall. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with the survivors, and thousands of pages of Stasi documents, Helena Merriman brilliantly reveals the stranger-than-fiction story of the ingenious group of student-diggers, the glamorous red-haired messenger, the American News network which films the escape, and the Stasi spy who betrays it. For what Joachim doesn't know as he burrows closer to East Germany, is that the escape operation has been infiltrated. As the escapees prepare to crawl through the cold, wet darkness, above them, the Stasi are closing in. Tunnel 29 is about what happens when people lose their freedom - and how some will do anything to win it back. Acclaim for the TUNNEL 29 podcast: 'Combining the fun of a thriller that we know will end happily with grim perspective on history and tyranny... stunning.' New Yorker 'Reminiscent of a savvy Netflix block buster series.' Evening Standard 'A truly exciting yarn... creates a sense for the listener of being right there in the tunnel, experiencing the dangers.' Observer

Learn Resilience Through These Survival Stories #1 New Release in Disaster Relief Extreme Survival is the long awaited followup to New York Times best-selling author Michael Tougias's The Finest Hours. This thriller will have you mentally on the edge-of-your-seat as you read these true survival stories and learn useful survival techniques! Explore the stories and the causes of manmade disasters. To answer the question of why disasters happen and how some survive, Tougias interviewed over 100 people who survived against all odds, first chronicling their harrowing survival stories, and then discussing in detail the lessons learned. Both an exciting and informative read, this book provides the entertainment and exceptional research fans expect. Learn resilience through the mindset of a survivor. Tougias shares what a person is capable of when under pressure and facing different types of disasters. Surviving disasters requires extreme survival techniques to kick in at just the right time! All of Michael Tougias books have a level of deep survival laced within the pages. Learn how to rise against the odds in your personal and professional life. Inside, you'll find: Captivating and narrative survival stories told in true Tougias' trademark style Analysis of major man-made disasters and the faulty decisions that led to them First-person accounts and detailed survival tactics that can be utilized in your day-to-day life If you like non-fiction survival books like The Gift of Fear, Deep Survival, or If I Live Until Morning, you'll love Extreme Survival.

The gripping, vividly told story of the largest POW escape in the Second World War - organized by an Australian bank clerk, a British jazz pianist and an American spy. In August 1944 the most successful POW escape of the Second World War took place - 106 Allied prisoners were freed from a camp in Maribor, in present-day Slovenia. The escape was organized not by officers, but by two ordinary soldiers: Australian Ralph Churches (a bank clerk before the war) and Londoner Les Laws (a jazz pianist by profession), with the help of intelligence officer Franklin Lindsay. The American was on a mission to work with the partisans who moved like ghosts through the Alps, ambushing and evading Nazi forces. How these three men came together - along with the partisans - to plan and execute the escape is told here for the first time. The Greatest Escape, written by Ralph Churches' son Neil, takes us from Ralph and Les's capture in Greece in 1941 and their brutal journey to Maribor, with many POWs dying along the way, to the horror of seeing Russian prisoners starved to death in the camp. The book uncovers the hidden story of Allied intelligence operations in Slovenia, and shows how Ralph became involved. We follow the escapees on a nail-biting 160-mile journey across the Alps, pursued by German soldiers, ambushed and betrayed. And yet, of the 106 men who escaped, 100 made it to safety. Thanks to research across seven countries, The Greatest Escape is no longer a secret. It is one of the most remarkable adventure stories of the last century.

Inspired by the old African proverb: "When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground," high-school student Morgan Rielly sought to preserve as many Maine libraries as he could by interviewing men and women from Maine who served in World War II and preserving their stories. All of these veterans taught him something, too, not just about how to fight a war, but how to live a life. They were never preachy, never full of themselves. Each of them knew they had participated in something great and special, but none of them thought that they, themselves, were great or special. There was Fred Collins, the sixteen-year-old Marine who used his Boy Scout training to clip a wounded soldier's chest together using safety pins from machine gun bandoliers while under withering fire on Iwo Jima. Or Inex Louise Roney, who served as a gunnery instructor for the Marines, hoping she could end the war sooner and bring her brother home. Or Harold Lewis, who held onto hope despite being shot down out of the sky, nearly free-falling to his death, and spending four months behind enemy lines in Italy. Or Jean Marc Desjardins, whose near-death experiences defusing German bombs with his buddy Puddinghead, taught Rielly the value of a good friend.

The shocking first-hand account of one man’s remarkable fight for freedom; now an award-winning motion picture.

‘Why had I not died in my young years – before God had given me children to love and live for? What unhappiness and suffering and sorrow it would have prevented. I sighed for liberty; but the bondsman's chain was round me, and could not be shaken off.’

1841: Solomon Northup is a successful violinist when he is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Taken from his family in New York State – with no hope of ever seeing them again – and forced to work on the cotton plantations in the Deep South, he spends the next twelve years in captivity until his eventual escape in 1853.

First published in 1853, this extraordinary true story proved to be a powerful voice in the debate over slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. It is a true-life testament of one man’s courage and conviction in the face of unfathomable injustice and brutality: its influence on the course of American history cannot be overstated.

Game Over tells the harrowing true story of teenager Breck Bednar, who was groomed over the internet and brutally murdered on 17 February 2014 by a supposed 'friend' that he met online. Breck's story is told in Mark's potent verbatim style, using the words of his family, friends and the killer. It's a shocking but deeply powerful play, with a unique 21st-century message. The play is particularly suitable for 'socially distanced' or online performances in students' own homes and can be easily adapted to suit this medium. Suitable for: Key Stage 3/4, GCSE, BTEC, A-Level to adult Duration: 75 minutes approximately Cast: 24 characters total. 8 male, 9 female and 7 male or female. The play is suitable for a large cast and multi-roling is also possible. "[A] chilling and harrowing tale, skilfully written using the words of Breck's family, friends and his killer. It deals with the potentially disastrous effects of social media and how to keep safe online by recognising the signs of grooming and exploitation." Vivienne Lafferty, Trustee National Drama

'A lyrical, fascinating, important book. More than just a family story, it is an essay on belonging, denying, pretending, self-deception and, at least for the main characters, survival.' Literary Review 'Simon May's remarkable How to Be a Refugee is a memoir of family secrets with a ruminative twist, one that's more interested in what we keep from ourselves than the ones we conceal from others.' Irish Times The most familiar fate of Jews living in Hitler's Germany is either emigration or deportation to concentration camps. But there was another, much rarer, side to Jewish life at that time: denial of your origin to the point where you manage to erase almost all consciousness of it. You refuse to believe that you are Jewish. How to Be a Refugee is Simon May's gripping account of how three sisters - his mother and his two aunts - grappled with what they felt to be a lethal heritage. Their very different trajectories included conversion to Catholicism, marriage into the German aristocracy, securing 'Aryan' status with high-ranking help from inside Hitler's regime, and engagement to a card-carrying Nazi. Even after his mother fled to London from Nazi Germany and Hitler had been defeated, her instinct for self-concealment didn't abate. Following the early death of his father, also a German Jewish refugee, May was raised a Catholic and forbidden to identify as Jewish or German or British. In the face of these banned inheritances, May embarks on a quest to uncover the lives of the three sisters as well as the secrets of a grandfather he never knew. His haunting story forcefully illuminates questions of belonging and home - questions that continue to press in on us today.

Fifteen gripping tales of determination, strength of mind, perseverance, and fortitude. Although survival is often taken for granted - something every human strives to achieve on a daily basis - it is just this everyday imperative that makes for the most exciting stories. When something goes wrong, when survival is threatened, often by something as simple and sudden as a boat overturning or a traveler losing his way, this is when the necessity of survival is no longer just another daily chore. This is when something as intrinsic as breathing or swallowing becomes the most essential need and the most sought-after desire. Great American Survival Stories includes contributions from Jack London, Theodore Roosevelt, John Wesley Powell, Owen Chase, John Muir, Osborne Russell, Stephen Crane, Francis Parkman, Henry David Thoreau, Richard Henry Dana Jr., and others.

THE SUNDAY TIMES NO.2 BESTSELLER Like A Streecat Named Bob before it, Finding Gobi is a truly heart-warming story for animal lovers worldwide... In 2016, Dion Leonard, a seasoned ultramarathon runner, unexpectedly stumbled across a little stray dog while competing in a gruelling 155 mile race across the Gobi Desert. The lovable pup, who earned the name 'Gobi', proved that what she lacked in size, she more than made up for in heart, as she went step for step with Dion over the treacherous Tian Shan Mountains, managing to keep pace with him for nearly 80 miles. As Dion witnessed the incredible determination of this small animal, he felt something change within himself. In the past he had always focused on winning and being the best, but his goal now was simply to make sure that his new friend was safe, nourished and hydrated. Although Dion did not finish first, he felt he had won something far greater and promised to bring Gobi back to the UK for good to become a new addition to his family. This was the start of a journey neither of them would ever forget with a roller coaster ride of drama, grief, heartbreak, joy and love that changed their lives forever. Finding Gobi is the ultimate story of hope, of resilience and of friendship, proving once again, that dogs really are 'man's best friend.'

The Award-winning International Bestselling Story of One Man's Six Year Detention in Australia

In 2013, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani sought asylum in Australia but was instead illegally imprisoned in the country’s most notorious detention centre on Manus Island. He has been there ever since. This book is the result.

Behrouz Boochani spent nearly five years typing passages of this book one text at a time from a secret mobile phone in prison. Compiled and translated from Farsi, they form an incredible story of how escaping political persecution in Iran, he ended up trapped as a stateless person. This vivid, gripping portrait of his years of incarceration and exile shines devastating light on the fates of so many people as borders close around the world.

No Friend but the Mountains is both a brave act of witness and a moving testament to the humanity of all people, in the most extreme of circumstances.

'A brilliant book. No Friend but the Mountains can rightly take its place on the shelf of world prison literature . . . It is a profound victory for a young poet who showed us all how much words can still matter.' - Richard Flanagan, Booker Prize winning author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North

DON'T MISS THE MAJOR FILM INSPIRED BY CHASE'S NARRATIVE, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA On 20 November 1820, just south of the equator, the whaling ship Essex, spotted and pursued a shoal of sperm whales. As the crew started harpooning, the largest whale - some 85 feet long - rammed the Essex twice and 'stove in her bows'. What followed was an epic three-month voyage in open boats across storm-tossed seas. Only eight men survived, sustained by eating those who died. This edition includes Owen Chases's famous account, as well as memoirs by two other crew members and a facsimile of Herman Melville's notes on Chase's narrative.

'That's what happened, I think, struggling to stay afloat as the ocean pummels me from all sides. I must have blacked out -- exhausted, dehydrated, even a little delirious -- and hit the water. And no one saw it happen.' 'When I heard Brett had fallen overboard, after twelve hours I said, "There's no way anyone can survive longer than that in the ocean - I certainly couldn't do it." This is an incredible, incredible story.' Oscar Chalupsky, Twelve times Molokai Paddleboard World Champion In April 2013, fifty-year-old Brett Archibald was on board a surf-charter boat, making a night-time crossing of the Mentawai Strait off Sumatra, Indonesia. In the middle of a storm, ill with severe food poisoning, Brett was being sick overboard when, for a moment, he blacked out. When he came to, he found himself alone in the raging sea, being spun as if in a washing machine. Sixty miles from shore, Brett saw the lights of his boat disappearing into the darkness. It was very quickly clear that no one had seen him fall, and that no one would hear his shouts for help. He was alone in the ocean. It would be eight hours before his friends realised he was missing. At that point a frantic search began, for a single man hopefully still alive somewhere in thousands of square miles of heaving waves. The Mentawai Strait is remote and the rough weather meant that no planes or helicopters could assist in the search. This is the remarkable story of Brett's ordeal, and his miraculous rescue after twenty-eight hours alone in the ocean; also of his family and friends back home and around the world and the Australian skipper whose sheer doggedness and instinct played such a key role in saving Brett.

'The wartime spy career of Mathilde Carre - aka "the Cat" and "Agent Victoire" - is so extraordinary it almost defies belief' The Times 'A truly astonishing story, meticulously and brilliantly told' Philippe Sands, author of The Ratline RESISTANCE, COLLABORATION AND BETRAYAL Occupied Paris, 1940. A woman in a red hat and a black fur coat hurries down a side-street. She is Mathilde Carre, codenamed 'the Cat', later known as Agent Victoire. She is charismatic, daring, and a spy; her story is one of heroism and survival against the odds. These are the darkest days for France, half-occupied by Nazi Germany, half-governed by the collaborationist Vichy regime; and dark days for Britain, isolated and under threat of invasion. Yet Mathilde is driven by a sense of destiny that she will be her nation's saviour. With little training or support, Mathilde and her Polish collaborator, Roman Czerniawski, create a huge web of agents in a matter of weeks to form the first great Allied intelligence network of the Second World War. They risk torture and execution to deliver their coded reports, London's sole source of reliable information about the Occupation. But the 'Big Network' is threatened at every turn and when the Germans inevitably close in Mathilde makes a desperate compromise. She enters a hall of mirrors in which any bond is doubtful and every action could be fatal. Nobody is certain where her allegiances lie - her German handler, the founder of the Resistance she ensnares and the British who eventually succeed in extracting her on a fast boat all have to make their own calculations. Is she a double, possibly even a triple agent, and, if so, can she be trusted to turn yet again? Victoire is the story of a passionate, courageous spy but also of a fragile hero, desperate to belong - a portrait of patriotism and survival in momentous times. Drawing on a wide range of new and first-hand material, Roland Philipps has written a dazzling tale of audacity, complicity and the choices made in wartime.

Darkly funny, shockingly honest, Brothers in Arms is an unforgettable account of a soldier's tour of Afghanistan, the brutal reality of war - every scary, exciting moment - and the bonds of friendship that can never be destroyed. 'If you could choose which two limbs got blown off, what would you go for?' Danny said. 'Your arms or your legs?' In July 2009, Geraint (Gez) Jones was sitting in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan with the rest of The Firm - Danny, Jay, Toby and Jake, his four closest friends, all junior NCOs and combat-hardened infantrymen. Thanks to the mangled remains of a Jackal vehicle left tactlessly outside their tent, IEDs were never far from their mind. Within days they'd be on the ground in Musa Qala with the rest of 3 Platoon - a mixed bunch of men Gez would die for. As they fight furiously, are pushed to their limits, hemmed in by IEDs and hampered by the chain of command, Gez starts to wonder what is the point of it all. The bombs they uncover on patrol, on their stomachs brushing the sand away, are replaced the next day. Firefights are a momentary victory in a war they can see is unwinnable. Gez is a warrior - he wants more than this. But then death and injury start to take their toll on The Firm, leaving Gez with PTSD and a new battle just beginning. 'Jones writes of his brothers and their Afghan experience, from its adrenalin-filled highs to the many lows, with passion and candour.' - Major Adam Jowett, bestselling author of No Way Out 'A gritty, brutal book about men at war. Raw and real. Brilliant.' - Tom Marcus, author of Soldier Spy

The spectacular, true story of a scrappy teenager from New York's Lower East Side who stowed away on the most remarkable feat of science and daring of the Jazz Age, The Stowaway is "a thrilling adventure that captures not only the making of a man but of a nation" (David Grann, bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon). It was 1928: a time of illicit booze, of Gatsby and Babe Ruth, of freewheeling fun. The Great War was over and American optimism was higher than the stock market. What better moment to launch an expedition to Antarctica, the planet's final frontier? Everyone wanted in on the adventure. Rockefellers and Vanderbilts begged to be taken along as mess boys, and newspapers across the globe covered the planning's every stage. And then, the night before the expedition's flagship set off, Billy Gawronski-a mischievous, first-generation New York City high schooler, desperate to escape a dreary future in the family upholstery business-jumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard. Could he get away with it? From the soda shops of New York's Lower East Side to the dance halls of sultry Francophone Tahiti, all the way to Antarctica's blinding white and deadly freeze, author Laurie Gwen Shapiro "narrates this period piece with gusto" (Los Angeles Times), taking readers on the "novelistic" (The New Yorker) and unforgettable voyage of a plucky young stowaway who became a Roaring Twenties celebrity, a mascot for an up-by-your bootstraps era.

These Are Our Stories is a collection of women's stories, thoughts, and poems about the domestic abuse they have experienced throughout their lives. Transcribed directly from Jan Rosenberg's interviews with eleven women in the Florida panhandle, their histories embody the epidemic of domestic violence in America. The eleven survivors are lower to middle class women of various ethnic orientations, and range in age from their late twenties to mid-sixties. The survivors' stories are clarified with the use of diagrams from The Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP), and examined as the women re-build their lives hours and days at a time. These Are Our Stories provides two resource guides following the women's interviews. The first guide is adapted for use in north Florida to assist an abused woman in identifying her situation using these eleven women's stories as a thread. The second resource is a brief bibliography of literature and resources for domestic violence victims that can be used throughout the U.S.

A devastating disaster at sea . . . an officer who refuses to hide the truth. . . a courtroom confrontation with far-reaching implications . . . "The Perfect Storm meets "A Civil Action in a gripping account of one of the most significant shipwrecks of the twentieth century.
In 1983 the "Marine Electric, a "reconditioned" World War II vessel, was on a routine voyage thirty miles off the East Coast of the United States when disaster struck. As the old coal carrier sank, chief mate Bob Cusick watched his crew-his friends and colleagues-succumb to the frigid forty-foot waves and subzero winds of the Atlantic. Of the thirty-four men aboard, Cusick was one of only three to survive. And he soon found himself facing the most critical decision of his life: whether to stand by the Merchant Marine officers' unspoken code of silence, or to tell the truth about why his crew and hundreds of other lives had been unnecessarily sacrificed at sea.
Like many other ships used by the Merchant Marine, the Marine Transport Line's "Marine Electric was very old and made of "dirty steel" (steel with excess sulfur content). Many of these vessels were in terrible condition and broke down frequently. Yet the government persistently turned a blind eye to the potential dangers, convinced that the economic return on keeping these ships was worth the risk.
Cusick chose to blow the whistle.
"
Until the Sea Shall Free Them re-creates in compelling detail the wreck of the "Marine Electric and the legal drama that unfolded in its wake. With breathtaking immediacy, Robert Frump, who covered the story for the "Philadelphia Inquirer, describes the desperate battle waged by the crew against the forces ofnature. Frump also brings to life Cusick's internal struggle. He knew what happened to those who spoke out against the system, knew that he too might be stripped of his license and prosecuted for "losing his ship," yet he forged ahead. In a bitter lawsuit with owners of the ship, Cusick emerged victorious. His expose of government inaction led to vital reforms in the laws regarding the safety of ships; his courageous stand places him among the unsung heroes of our time.

"From the Hardcover edition.

From special duties selection to an earthquake on the side of Mount Everest, from a gunfight in Afghanistan to a year of endurance challenges, Tim Bradshaw has had to develop a robust toolkit and mindset to enable him to overcome serious challenges in hostile circumstances. What's remarkable is that he achieved these feats in the face of imposter syndrome and depression. Tim's mantra is 'Because I can', because whatever you're facing, you can do so much more than you think. This is a toolkit to help you take on any challenge. Whether you're making an attempt on Everest or taking the next big career step this toolkit will make you more effective. Tim attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst aged just 19. His first job was to lead 37 soldiers. Since then, he has served as a surveillance and target acquisition patrol soldier and covert human intelligence officer. In 2015 he attempted to climb Mount Everest to persuade mental health sufferers to ask for help. After a year of physical endurance challenges, he is now a Director of Sandstone Communications, an international leadership and team building consultancy.