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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Historical, political & military
The extraordinary untold story of Ernest Hemingway's dangerous
secret life in espionage A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A finalist
for the William E. Colby Military Writers' Award "IMPORTANT" (Wall
Street Journal) - "FASCINATING" (New York Review of Books) -
"CAPTIVATING" (Missourian) A riveting international
cloak-and-dagger epic ranging from the Spanish Civil War to the
liberation of Western Europe, wartime China, the Red Scare of Cold
War America, and the Cuban Revolution, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy
reveals for the first time Ernest Hemingway's secret adventures in
espionage and intelligence during the 1930s and 1940s (including
his role as a Soviet agent code-named "Argo"), a hidden chapter
that fueled both his art and his undoing. While he was the
historian at the esteemed CIA Museum, Nicholas Reynolds, a longtime
American intelligence officer, former U.S. Marine colonel, and
Oxford-trained historian, began to uncover clues suggesting Nobel
Prize-winning novelist Ernest Hemingway was deeply involved in
mid-twentieth-century spycraft -- a mysterious and shocking
relationship that was far more complex, sustained, and fraught with
risks than has ever been previously supposed. Now Reynolds's
meticulously researched and captivating narrative "looks among the
shadows and finds a Hemingway not seen before" (London Review of
Books), revealing for the first time the whole story of this hidden
side of Hemingway's life: his troubling recruitment by Soviet spies
to work with the NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB, followed in short
order by a complex set of secret relationships with American
agencies. Starting with Hemingway's sympathy to antifascist forces
during the 1930s, Reynolds illuminates Hemingway's immersion in the
life-and-death world of the revolutionary left, from his passionate
commitment to the Spanish Republic; his successful pursuit by
Soviet NKVD agents, who valued Hemingway's influence, access, and
mobility; his wartime meeting in East Asia with communist leader
Chou En-Lai, the future premier of the People's Republic of China;
and finally to his undercover involvement with Cuban rebels in the
late 1950s and his sympathy for Fidel Castro. Reynolds equally
explores Hemingway's participation in various roles as an agent for
the United States government, including hunting Nazi submarines
with ONI-supplied munitions in the Caribbean on his boat, Pilar;
his command of an informant ring in Cuba called the "Crook Factory"
that reported to the American embassy in Havana; and his
on-the-ground role in Europe, where he helped OSS gain key tactical
intelligence for the liberation of Paris and fought alongside the
U.S. infantry in the bloody endgame of World War II. As he examines
the links between Hemingway's work as an operative and as an
author, Reynolds reveals how Hemingway's secret adventures
influenced his literary output and contributed to the writer's
block and mental decline (including paranoia) that plagued him
during the postwar years -- a period marked by the Red Scare and
McCarthy hearings. Reynolds also illuminates how those same
experiences played a role in some of Hemingway's greatest works,
including For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea,
while also adding to the burden that he carried at the end of his
life and perhaps contributing to his suicide. A literary biography
with the soul of an espionage thriller, Writer, Sailor, Soldier,
Spy is an essential contribution to our understanding of the life,
work, and fate of one of America's most legendary authors.
Bruce Catton, whose name is identified with Civil War history, grew
up in Benzonia, Michigan, probably the only town within two hundred
miles, he says, not founded to cash in on the lumber boom. In this
memoir, Catton remembers his youth, his family, his home town, and
his coming of age. With nostalgia, warmth, and humor, Catton
recalls it all with a wealth of detail: the logging industry and
its tremendous effect on the face of the state, the veterans of the
Grand Army of the Republic who first sparked his interest in the
Civil War, the overnight train trips on long-gone sleepers, the
days of great resort hotels, and fishing in once clear lakes.
Although he writes of a time and place that are no more, his
observations have implications that both underline the past and
touch the future.
This is the extraordinary true story of how a former British
soldier turned extreme adventurer set out to run marathons in the
world's most dangerous countries. In 2018, Jordan Wylie trained and
ran in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan to raise awareness of the
plight of children suffering in war zones as well as the funds to
help provide education. Risking his life in some of the most
hostile places in the world, Wylie defies suicide bombers, official
advice, dehydration and exhaustion, as well as his own mental and
physical health issues in an incredible tale of endurance and
tenacity against the odds. His first race, in Somalia, is moved to
Somaliland after a suicide bomber kills 600 people. Running the
Baghdad half-marathon brings back painful memories of friends and
colleagues he lost when he served there. Finally, at the
Afghanistan marathon, he provides a high-profile target for the
Taliban, who murder seventeen people the day before he arrives.
What makes these three runs even more challenging is the fact that
Jordan is affected not just by mental health issues from his own
experiences, but also with epilepsy. Alongside the more extreme
obstacles, Jordan has to overcome self-doubt - and the doubt of
others - to show what can be achieved with belief and fortitude.
An amazing woman from Bourne, Collyweston and Maxey who had a
profound impact on history but has been virtually forgotten in our
Lincolnshire locality. Read tales of her survival from the
traumatic birth of her son (Henry VII) when aged only thirteen, her
ever-changing fortunes in the Wars of the Roses, being condemned as
a traitor by Richard III and her eventual triumph, which saw her
become the matriarch of the Tudor dynasty. As the only blood link
from the Normans to our present Royal Family (documented here), her
legacy through her symbols and academia is still far-reaching
today.
Few escapades of the Second World War have captured the public's
imagination more than the successful abduction of German General
Kreipe from enemy-occupied Crete in 1944. It was an operation
instigated and daringly executed by two British SOE officers -
Patrick Leigh Fermor and William (Billy) Stanley Moss. The war
didn't stop for Billy Moss after this operation though, and it is
his continuing story that is told here. He reflects movingly on
what it means to fight and deal in death, how the success of
operations behind enemy lines in a foreign country is dependent on
the goodwill of local inhabitants, and, surprisingly, on moments of
high humour that punctuate the turmoil of war. War of Shadows is a
book in three parts - each displaying differing aspects of World
War II and its eventual conclusion, and all told with that
tell-tale blend of poignancy and humour so characteristic of the
time.
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