In the tradition of Jack London, Gary Paulsen presents an unforgettable account of his participation in the 1,100-mile-long dogsled race called the "Iditarod". For 17 days, Paulsen and his team of dogs endured blinding wind, snowstorms, moose attacks, and more--yet relentlessly pushed on to the end. "The best author of man-against-nature adventures writing today".--Publishers Weekly.

Perfect for readers of Last Stop Auschwitz, The Volunteer and The Tattooist of Auschwitz 'This is an extraordinary biography. A gripping narrative that opens as derring-do wartime escape drama rapidly turns into a horror story about man's inhumanity to man...Important and unforgettable' JONATHAN DIMBLEBY The awe-inspiring and gripping true story of the young man who survived not one, but three concentration camps, only - in the final days of the war - to be bombed while aboard a Nazi prison boat. Stowed away on top of a train, twenty-year-old Wim Aloserij escapes the obligatory work camps in Nazi-ruled Germany in 1943. The young man from Amsterdam then goes into hiding on a farm - sleeping in a wooden chest hidden underground. But it's not to last. In the cover of night, Wim is captured during a raid and transported to the infamous Gestapo prison in Amsterdam. There, his life changes forever as he is thrown into the nightmare of the Holocaust and transported to Camp Amersfoort - the first of three concentration camps he must endure. Drawing on the lessons he learned as a child as the victim of an alcoholic and abusive father, Wim is forced to adapt quickly and urgently to his hellish surroundings. However, it is with the end of the war in sight, that Wim must draw on every last strength he has when he finds himself caught in the very centre of Allied-Nazi crossfire. At the age of 94, Wim finally felt ready to tell his incredible story, which he kept secret for most of his life. A true story of bravery, courage and resilience, The Last Survivor will leave you amazed by one young man's determination - against the odds - to survive.

'By eating my food, you come into my family. You are sitting with me, with my grandparents, parents and cousins, talking, sharing and enjoying the feeling of being together.' Hamed Allahyari cooks to connect - for that joyful moment you can say salamati (Persian for 'health' and 'cheers') around the table. A restaurateur in Iran, it was natural for Hamed to gravitate to food after a long and perilous journey to settlement in Melbourne. He road-tested his dishes at hundreds of cooking classes, eventually launching his heartfelt cafe and SalamaTea restaurant. With every swipe of warm pita through herbed dadami dip, every bite of braised lamb with dried lime and saffron rice, every sip of homemade sour cherry tea, Hamed shines a light on his past in his native Tehran and continues to build an optimistic Australian future. This book is a gateway to Persian culinary culture, with recipes that are simple, celebratory and appealing, flexible and full of flavour. Wherever you live and whatever your background, you are invited to join the feast.

An uplifting true story from Sunday Times bestselling author, Angela Hart.

Why has no one given Jasmine the safety and care she desperately needs? Foster carer Angela is determined to find a solution.

Jasmine is a little girl with a difficult upbringing whose current foster carers have refused to keep her on as they can no longer handle her 'off the wall' behaviour. Social Services place her with specialist foster carer Angela Hart. Angela does her best to provide a secure environment for Jasmine in the hope that she can begin to move on, but it proves challenging as Jasmine often breaks out in bursts of anger and sometimes physical violence. Can Angela show Jasmine what safety looks like? And can she help Jasmine's beloved grandparents – who have been campaigning to become her full-time guardians – persuade social services that they are best placed to look after this troubled little girl?

The Girl with the Saddest Secret is the eighth book from well-loved foster carer and Sunday Times bestselling author Angela Hart. A true story that shares the tale of one of the many children she has fostered over the years. Angela's stories show the difference that quiet care, a watchful eye and sympathetic ear can make to those children whose upbringing has been less fortunate than others.

Bear Grylls knows what it takes to survive. But he's not the first. Take the American bombardier Louis Zamperini, who survived 47 days stranded at sea by catching and killing hungry sharks and drinking the warm blood of albatrosses ? only to be captured by the Japanese and horrifically tortured for years in their most brutal POW camps... Or Marcus Luttrell, a Navy SEAL who single-handedly took on a Taliban regiment before dragging his bleeding, bullet-ridden body for days through the harsh mountains of Afghanistan... Or Nando Parrado, one of the survivors of a horrific air-crash high in the ice-bound Andes, who only lived because he was willing to eat the flesh of his dead companions... In this gripping new book, Bear tells the stories of the adventurers, explorers, soldiers and spies whose refusal to quit in the most extreme situations has inspired him throughout his life. Some of them make uncomfortable reading - survival is rarely pretty. But all of them are tales of eye-watering bravery, death-defying resilience and extraordinary mental toughness by men and women who have one thing in common: true grit. What readers are saying about True Grit: ***** 'Exhilarating . . . It kept me gripped throughout.' ***** 'Inspirational stories of survival and endurance . . . kept me interested till the end.' ***** 'To keep going, to keep hopeful, to never quit these are lessons in life that all of us need to hear.'

The extraordinary true story of the unlikely friendship between three women - Mussolini's daughter, a German spy, and an American socialite - who conspired to assist the Allies. In 1943, Edda Mussolini, daughter of the fascist dictator, gave her father and Hitler an extraordinary ultimatum: release her husband, Italy's former foreign minister, Galeazzo Ciano, from prison, or risk her leaking her husband's incendiary diaries to the press. Instead, Hitler and Mussolini vowed to do everything in their power to destroy the diaries - even if it meant killing Edda. They ordered Hilde Beetz, a German spy, to seduce Ciano in prison in order to learn the diaries' location. But Beetz fell in love with Ciano, and joined forces with Edda to try to save him from execution. When this failed, Edda fled with Hilde's assistance. Upon learning of Edda's escape, US intelligence sent in socialite Frances de Chollet to find Edda and get her to hand over the diaries to the Americans. Against all expectations, what developed was a rich and humanising friendship. With all the twists and turns of a spy thriller, this is the story of three women whose lives were drawn together in one of the most unlikely rescues of the Second World War.

When Sky and her older sister Avril were taken into care, the social workers knew this was a case like no other. Raised by troubled parents who hoarded compulsively, creating horrific conditions no child should live in, the two girls arrived at foster carer Louise's home, neglected, malnourished, and indoctrinated. Louise had to draw on all of her experience as one of Britain's leading foster carers to rehabilitate and change the course of their lives. But with constant attempts to thwart her work, Louise ends up under siege in her own home. Will she succeed or is their fate sealed forever?

'There will be an avalanche of books about the pandemic. None will be as eye-opening or humane or moving as Lamb's' DAILY TELEGRAPH A story of poverty, generosity and worlds colliding in modern Britain When Covid-19 hit the UK and lockdown was declared, Mike Matthews wondered how his four-star hotel would survive. Then the council called. The British government had launched a programme called ' Everyone In ' and 33 rough sleepers - many of whom had spent decades on the street - needed beds.The Prince Rupert Hotel would go on to welcome well over 100 people from this community, offering them shelter, good food and a comfy bed during the pandemic. This is the story of how that luxury hotel spent months locked down with their new guests, many of them traumatised, addicts or suffering from mental illness. As a world-leading foreign correspondent turning her attention to her own country for the first time, Christina Lamb chronicles how extreme situations were handled and how shocking losses were suffered, how romances emerged between guests and how people grappled with their pasts together. Unexpected and profound, heart-warming and heartbreaking, this is a tale that gives a panoramic insight into modern Britain in all its failures, and people in all their capacities for kindness - even in the most difficult of times.

Based on the powerful true story of Auschwitz prisoner number 3444 Wilhelm Brasse, whose photographs helped to expose the atrocities of the Holocaust. 'Horror in sharp focus... important, because the world must know.' John Lewis-Stempel, Daily Express __________ When Germany invaded Wilhelm Brasse's native Poland in 1939, he was asked to swear allegiance to Hitler and join the Wehrmacht. He refused. He was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp as political prisoner number 3444. A trained portrait photographer, he was ordered by the SS to record the inner workings of the camp. He began by taking identification photographs of prisoners as they entered the camp, went on to capture the criminal medical experiments of Josef Mengele, and also recorded executions. Between 1940 and 1945, Brasse took around 50,000 photographs of the horror around him. He took them because he had no choice. Eventually, Brasse's conscience wouldn't allow him to hide behind his camera. First he risked his life by joining the camp's Resistance movement, faking documents for prisoners, trying to smuggle images to the outside world to reveal what was happening. Then, when Soviet troops finally advanced on the camp to liberate it, Brasse refused SS orders to destroy his photographs. 'Because the world must know,' he said. For readers of The Librarian of Auschwitz and The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz, this powerful true story of hope and courage lies at the very centre of Holocaust history. __________ 'A remarkable tale of survival against the odds... an enthralling book.' The Sydney Morning Herald 'Brasse has left us with a powerful legacy in images. Because of them we can see the victims of the Holocaust as human and not statistics.' Fergal Keane

A profound rumination on the concept of freedom from the bestselling author of The Perfect Storm 'Sebastian Junger bears witness to a hard-won and an uncertain new world, framed in vital and brilliant prose: a true and honest accounting of everything that underlies the frantic performance of life' Philip Hoare, author of Albert and the Whale Throughout history, humans have been driven by the quest for two cherished ideals: community and freedom. The two don't coexist easily: we value individuality and self-reliance, yet are utterly dependent on community for our most basic needs. In this intricately crafted and thought-provoking book, Sebastian Junger examines this tension that lies at the heart of what it means to be human. For much of a year, Junger and three friends-a conflict photographer and two Afghan war vets-walked the railroad lines of the east coast. It was an experiment in personal autonomy, but also in interdependence. Dodging railroad cops, sleeping under bridges, cooking over fires and drinking from creeks and rivers, the four men forged a unique reliance on one another. In Freedom, Junger weaves his account of this journey together with primatology and boxing strategy, the role of women in resistance movements and apache renegrades, and the brutal reality of life on the Pennsylvania frontier. Written in exquisite, razor-sharp prose, the result is a powerful examination of the primary desire that defines us.

The Dive is a thrilling narrative nonfiction in the tradition of The Perfect Storm and Apollo 13. They were out of their depth, out of breath, and out of time. It was 1973. Two men were trapped in a crippled submarine 1,700 feet below sea. They only had enough air to survive for two days. On the ocean's surface there was a hastily assembled flotilla of rescue ships from both sides of the Atlantic. The world held its breath to await word of a rescue. In a routine dive to fix the telecommunication cable that snakes along the Atlantic sea bed, their mission had gone badly wrong. There was a catastrophic fault on board the Pisces III, and Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson's mini-submarine went tumbling to the ocean bed almost half a mile below. The crippled sub and its crew were trapped far beyond the depth of any previous sub-sea rescue. They had just two days' worth of oxygen. However, on the surface the best estimates for a rescue of these men was a minimum of three days' time. The Dive is brilliantly researched by veteran journalist Stephen McGinty. Stephen adeptly reconstructs the race against time as Britain, America and Canada pooled their resources into a 'Brotherhood of the Sea' dedicated to stopping the ocean depths claiming two of their own. Based on previously undisclosed records, maritime logbooks, and exclusive interviews with all the key participants, The Dive takes the reader on an emotional and thrilling ride from the depths of defeat to a glimpse of the sun-dappled surface.

National Book Award winner Neal Shusterman presents a graphic novel exploring the Holocaust through surreal visions and a textured canvas of heroism and hope. Courage to Dream plunges readers into the darkest time of human history - the Holocaust. This graphic novel explores one of the greatest atrocities in modern memory, delving into the core of what it means to face the extinction of everything and everyone you hold dear. This gripping, multifaceted tapestry is woven from Jewish folklore and cultural history Five interlocking narratives explore one common story - the tradition of resistance and uplift Internationally renowned author Neal Shusterman and illustrator Andres Vera Martinez have created a masterwork that encourages the compassionate, bold reaching for a dream

Christopher Award Winner Los Angeles Times Bestseller Washington Post Top 100 Books of the Year SelectionA stunning literary survival story of three young Sudanese boys, two brothers and a cousin,hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a moving, beautifully written account, by turns warm and tender."Between 1987 and 1989, Alepho, Benjamin, and Benson, like tens of thousands of young boys, took flight from the massacres of Sudan's civil war. They became known as the Lost Boys. With little more than the clothes on their backs, sometimes not even that, they streamed out over Sudan in search of refuge. Their journey led them first to Ethiopia and then, driven back into Sudan, toward Kenya. They walked nearly one thousand miles, sustained only by the sheer will to live. They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is the three boys' account of that unimaginable journey. With the candour and the purity of their child's-eye-vision, Alephonsian, Benjamin, and Benson recall by turns: how they endured the hunger and strength-sapping illnesses,dysentery, malaria, and yellow fever how they dodged the life-threatening predators,lions, snakes, crocodiles and soldiers alike,that dogged their footsteps and how they grappled with a war that threatened continually to overwhelm them. Their story is a lyrical, captivating, timeless portrait of a childhood hurled into wartime and how they had the good fortune and belief in themselves to survive.

The true story of a 6-year-old boy with a dreadful secret. Oskar's school teacher raises the alarm. Oskar's mother is abroad and he has been left in the care of 'friends', but has been arriving in school hungry, unkempt, and with bruises on his arms, legs and body. Experienced foster carer Cathy Glass is asked to look after him, but as the weeks pass her concerns deepen. Oskar is far too quiet for a child of six and is clearly scared of something or someone. And who are those men parked outside his school watching him?

John Stanley Plaskett was Canada's pre-eminent astronomer in the first half of the twentieth century. His legacy lives on in the observatory he founded in Victoria, British Columbia, and the reputation he built for Canada as a nation making vital contributions to basic science. Plaskett's pioneering work with the most massive stars and his definitive determination of the rotation of the Milky Way Galaxy earned him international recognition of the highest order. Northern Star explores Plaskett's unorthodox and fascinating life from his rural roots near Woodstock, Ontario through his days as a technician at the University of Toronto to his initiation in astronomy at the Dominion Observatory in Ottawa. His greatest achievements followed after he persuaded the government of Canada, in spite of the strictures of the First World War, to finance what was then the world's largest operational telescope. Peter Broughton's accessible and engaging prose illuminates Plaskett's numerous achievements and the social, political, economic, and religious milieu surrounding them. This richly illustrated volume invites readers to understand the pull that Plaskett's passions, personality, and motivations exerted on him during his lifetime.

Soldier Magazine's Book of the Month Fascinating... Incredibly dangerous. The Times Gripping. Adrenalin fuelled true-life account with all the makings of a military thriller. The action unfolds like a Le Carre novel. Soldier Magazine 'If there are young women with children trapped in that hell and we can get them out, don't we have a duty to do so?' Hearing terrifying stories first-hand from naive young girls who'd been tricked, abused and enslaved by ISIS, ex-British Army soldier John Carney set up a high-risk operation to rescue as many as he could. This is the breath-taking true story of how he repeatedly led his men behind enemy lines into the Syrian lead storm to liberate women and children, delivering them to de-radicalization programmes and fair trials. Believing that 'every person we can bring back is living proof that ISIS is a failure', Carney tackles the complex issue of Jihadi Brides head on, as he and his men endanger their lives, not always returning safely home.

In October 1972, Nando Parrado and his rugby club teammates were on a flight from Uruguay to Chile when their plane crashed into a mountain. Miraculously, many of the passengers survived but Nando's mother and sister died and he was unconscious for three days. Stranded more than 11,000 feet up in the wilderness of the Andes, the survivors soon heard that the search for them had been called off - and realise the only food for miles around was the bodies of their dead friends ... In a last desperate bid for safety, Nando and a teammate set off in search of help. They climbed 17,000-foot-high mountains, facing death at every step, but inspired by his love for his family Nando drove them on until, finally, 72 days after the crash, they found rescue.

'Exquisite, powerful . . . I can think of no better way of commemorating British exploration's culminating triumph.' Simon Winchester? Coronation Everest offers a breathtakingly intimate evocation of the most famous of all mountaineering exploits - and of perhaps the last great old-fashioned Fleet Street scoop. 'It was Morris who broke the news that a British-led expedition had conquered Mount Everest the day before the Queen's coronation in 1953 . . . Allied to physical courage in getting down the mountain and a dogged resourcefulness in getting the news home, Morris scooped the world and was launched on one of the most remarkable literary careers in the second half of the twentieth century.' Guardian Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Venice, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain, Manhattan '45, A Writer's World and the Pax Britannica Trilogy. Hav, her novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

The Hachette Essentials series comprises a collection of titles that are regarded as modern classics. A carefully and lovingly curated selection of distinctive, ground-breaking fiction and non-fiction titles published since 1950. Timeless. Relevant. Passionate. Unified as a series - distinctive as books. A good book is great. A great book is essential. In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy-drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. This is the extraordinary story of Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, a compassionate angel of mercy. Thomas Keneally's novel first brought the story of Oskar Schindler to international attention in 1982, when it won the Booker Prize. It was made by Steven Spielberg into the Oscar-winning film Schindler's List in 1993, the year Schindler and his wife were named Righteous Among the Nations.

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.

'It will be seen in these pages that I have lived several lives in one: first, the life of slavery; secondly, the life of a fugitive from slavery; thirdly, the life of comparative freedom; fourthly, the life of conflict and battle; and, fifthly, the life of victory, if not complete, at least assured.' First published in 1892, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass Written By Himself is the final autobiography written by Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), a man who was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland. Securing his self-liberation at twenty years of age in 1838, he went on to become the most renowned antislavery activist, social justice campaigner, author, orator, philosopher, essayist, historian, intellectual, statesman, and liberator in U.S. history. A powerful literary work, Douglass' final autobiography shares the stories of his 'several lives in one.' Beginning with his war against 'the hell-black system of human bondage,' Douglass bears witness to his personal experiences of mind-body-and soul-destroying tragedies. Living a new life as a 'fugitive from slavery,' he tells his audiences of his decades-long labours as a world-leading freedom-fighter. Ever vigilant in his protest against the discriminatory persecutions endured by millions of 'my people,' he testifies to the terrible reality that his 'life of comparative freedom' necessitated a lifelong fight against the inhumane injustices of 'American prejudice against colour.' Living a death-defying 'life of conflict and battle' during the Civil War, Douglass celebrates the 'life of victory' promised by post-war civil rights legislation only to condemn the failures of the U.S. nation either to exterminate slavery or secure equal rights for all. All too painfully aware that the 'conflict between the spirit of liberty and the spirit of slavery' was far from over and would become the unending struggle for 'aftercoming generations' in the ongoing war against white supremacy, Douglass remained a fearless fighter against the 'infernal and barbarous spirit of slavery' 'wherever I find it' to the day that he died. This new edition examines Douglass' memorialization of his own and his mother Harriet Bailey's first-hand experiences of enslavement and of their 'mental' liberation through a 'love of letters'; his representation of Civil War Black combat heroism; his conviction that 'education means emancipation'; and finally, his 'unending battle' with white publishers for the freedom to 'tell my story.' This volume reproduces Frederick Douglass' emotionally powerful and politically hard-hitting anti-lynching speech, Lessons of the Hour, published in 1894. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.