'Combines elements of In Cold Blood and Black Hawk Down with Apocalypse Now as it builds towards its terrible climax...Extraordinary' New York Times Iraq's 'Triangle of Death', 2005. A platoon of young soldiers from a U.S. regiment known as 'the Black Heart Brigade' is deployed to a lawless and hyperviolent area just south of Baghdad. Almost immediately, the attacks begin: every day another roadside bomb, another colleague blown to pieces. As the daily violence chips away, and chips away at their sanity, the thirty-five young men of 1st Platoon, Bravo Company descend into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality -- with tragic results. Black Hearts is a timeless true story of how modern warfare can make or break a man's character. Told with severe compassion, balanced judgement and the magnetic pace of a thriller, it looks set to become one of the defining books about the Iraq War. 'Black Hearts is the obverse of Band of Brothers, a story not of combat unity but of disharmony and disarray' Chicago Sun-Times 'A riveting picture of life outside the wire in Iraq, where "you tell a guy to go across a bridge, and within five minutes he's dead."' Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Modern scientific discoveries often challenge biblical teachings and the long-held beliefs of many Christians. To Adam about Adam is a serious yet lighthearted autobiography of the author, who has known Jesus since his childhood but drifted for many years while on his quest for science. Only while searching for answers to his son's question about Creation did the author find his way back to the Word of God. Through his journey, the author was able to bring his passion for science and love for God together into a more holistic understanding of God's plan for mankind. In a very personal way, he uses an open, bantering approach throughout the book to establish a friendly relationship with the reader. This personal relationship is used to guide the reader through a number of biblical stories to show how God acted as both a loving and caring Father and as a scientist in teaching mankind lessons related to overcoming sin. To Adam about Adam may improve the reader's understanding of God's plan for mankind and show how science is instrumental to that plan. For example, the author details how the fall of Adam and Eve was an important and preconceived part of God's plan, not merely perfection gone awry. Science can explain the basis for the sin we see in the world today, whereas the Bible describes the only cure. Thus, the Bible and science are both integral to the fulfillment of God's plan.

"This story by Robert Jenkins of his four decades in North Korea represents a rare opportunity to view life in one of the most reclusive societies in the world, offering unprecedented insights for both specialists and the general reader."--Robert Scalapino, University of California, Berkeley
"This is an incredible story of betrayal, love and the search for redemption. Robert Jenkins is a modern-day Robinson Crusoe, isolated from the outside world, and relying on his wits to survive in a nightmarish parody of a nation where nothing is as it seems. Living in constant fear and violence, Jenkins's efforts to grow food, dig a well, heat his home, generate electricity and to find companionship, trust and ultimately love, lend this rough and ready narrative an unexpected depth. Set within the bizarre and Orwellian surroundings of North Korea during the late 20th century, Jenkins's account is like no other I've ever read."--Jasper Becker, author of "Rogue Regime: The Continuing Threat of North Korea"
"Charles Jenkins' memoir is a genuinely unique account of the only American ever to live in North Korea for most of his life and return to write about it. Part biography, part eyewitness testimony, part apology, this book takes Mr. Jenkins from a childhood in the segregated South to a U.S. Army ruling the roost in South Korea in the 1950s, to a North Korea that saw him as a real-life Martian, but a valuable one for use in Cold War propaganda."--Bruce Cummings, Chairman of the History Department at the University of Chicago

In January of 1965, twenty-four-year-old U.S. Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins abandoned his post in South Korea, walked across the DMZ, and surrendered to communist North Korean soldiers standing sentry along the world's most heavily militarized border. He believed his action would get him back to the States and a short jail sentence. Instead he found himself in another sort of prison, where for forty years he suffered under one of the most brutal and repressive regimes the world has known. This fast-paced, harrowing tale, told plainly and simply by Jenkins (with journalist Jim Frederick), takes the reader behind the North Korean curtain and reveals the inner workings of its isolated society while offering a powerful testament to the human spirit.

This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment--a unit known as "the Black Heart Brigade." Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq's so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the country's most dangerous location at its most dangerous time.
Hit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks, suffering from a particularly heavy death toll, and enduring a chronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heart platoon--1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion--descended, over their year-long tour of duty, into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality.
Four 1st Platoon soldiers would perpetrate one of the most heinous war crimes U.S. forces have committed during the Iraq War--the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. Three other 1st Platoon soldiers would be overrun at a remote outpost--one killed immediately and two taken from the scene, their mutilated corpses found days later booby-trapped with explosives.
"Black Hearts" is an unflinching account of the epic, tragic deployment of 1st Platoon. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with Black Heart soldiers and first-hand reporting from the Triangle of Death, "Black Hearts" is a timeless story about men in combat and the fragility of character in the savage crucible of warfare. But it is also a timely warning of new dangers emerging in the way American soldiers are led on the battlefields of the twenty-first century.

"From the Hardcover edition."

Modern scientific discoveries often challenge biblical teachings and the long-held beliefs of many Christians. To Adam about Adam is a serious yet lighthearted autobiography of the author, who has known Jesus since his childhood but drifted for many years while on his quest for science. Only while searching for answers to his son's question about Creation did the author find his way back to the Word of God. Through his journey, the author was able to bring his passion for science and love for God together into a more holistic understanding of God's plan for mankind. In a very personal way, he uses an open, bantering approach throughout the book to establish a friendly relationship with the reader. This personal relationship is used to guide the reader through a number of biblical stories to show how God acted as both a loving and caring Father and as a scientist in teaching mankind lessons related to overcoming sin. To Adam about Adam may improve the reader's understanding of God's plan for mankind and show how science is instrumental to that plan. For example, the author details how the fall of Adam and Eve was an important and preconceived part of God's plan, not merely perfection gone awry. Science can explain the basis for the sin we see in the world today, whereas the Bible describes the only cure. Thus, the Bible and science are both integral to the fulfillment of God's plan.