Ardent, gregarious British naval officer Jack Aubrey is elated to be given his first appointment as commander: the fourteen-gun ship HMS Sophie. Meanwhile-after a heated first encounter that nearly comes to a duel-Aubrey and a brilliant but down-on-his-luck physician, Stephen Maturin, strike up an unlikely rapport. On a whim, Aubrey invites Maturin to join his crew as the Sophie's surgeon. And so begins the legendary friendship that anchors this beloved saga set against the thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars. Through every ensuing adventure on which Aubrey and Maturin embark, from the witty parley of their lovers and enemies to the roar of broadsides as great ships close in battle around them, O'Brian "provides endlessly varying shocks and surprises-comic, grim, farcical and tragic.... [A] whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit" (A. S. Byatt).

From the moment they met in 1940 in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Milena Jesenska and Margarete Buber-Neumann were inseparable. Czech Milena was Kafka’s first translator and epistolary lover, and a journalist opposed to fascism. A non-conformist, bi-sexual feminist, she was way ahead of her time. With the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, her home became a central meeting place for Jewish refugees. German Margarete, born to a middle-class family, married the son of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. But soon swept up in the fervor of the Bolshevik Revolution, she met her second partner, the Communist Heinz Neumann. Called to Moscow for his “political deviations,” he fell victim to Stalin’s purges while Margarete was exiled to the hell of the Soviet gulag. Two years later, traded by Stalin to Hitler, she ended up outside Berlin in Ravensbrück, the only concentration camp built for women.

Milena and Margarete loved each other at the risk of their lives. But in the post-war survivors’ accounts, lesbians were stigmatized, and survivors kept silent. This book explores those silences, and finally celebrates two strong women who never gave up and continue to inspire. As Margaret wrote: “I was thankful for having been sent to Ravensbrück, because it was there I met Milena.”

Winter of the World is the second novel in Ken Follett's uniquely ambitious Century trilogy. On its own or read in sequence with Fall of Giants and Edge of Eternity, this is a spellbinding epic of global conflict and personal drama during World War II.

A Battle of Ideals
It is 1933 and, at Cambridge, Lloyd Williams is drawn to irresistible socialite Daisy Peshkov, who represents everything that his left-wing family despise. But Daisy is more interested in aristocratic Boy Fitzherbert, a leader in the British Union of Fascists.

An Evil Uprising
Berlin is in turmoil. Eleven-year-old Carla von Ulrich struggles to understand the tensions disrupting her family as Hitler strengthens his grip on Germany. Many are resolved to oppose Hitler’s brutal regime – but are they willing to betray their country?

A Global Conflict on a Scale Never Seen Before
Shaken by the tyranny and the prospect of war, the lives of five families become ever more enmeshed. As an international clash of military power and personal beliefs sweeps the world, what will this new war mean for those who must live through it?

Continue the captivating Century Trilogy with Edge of Eternity.