Abducting a General

Abducting a General
Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2015-11-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1590179390

One of the most daring feats in Patrick Leigh Fermor’s daring life was the kidnapping of General Kreipe, the German commander in Crete, on April 26, 1944. Abducting a General, now published for the first time in the United States, is Leigh Fermor’s own account of the kidnapping. Written in his inimitable prose, and introduced by the acclaimed Special Operations Executive historian Roderick Bailey, it is a glorious firsthand account of one of the great adventures of the Second World War. Also included in this book are Leigh Fermor’s intelligence reports sent from caves deep within Crete, which bring the immediacy of SOE operations vividly alive, as well as the peril under which the SOE and Resistance were operating, and a guide to the journey that Kreipe took, from the abandonment of his car to the embarkation site, so that the modern visitor to Crete can relive this extraordinary trip.

Kidnap in Crete

Kidnap in Crete
Author: Rick Stroud
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2015-05-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1632861941

This is the story of how a small SOE unit led by Patrick Leigh Fermor kidnapped a German general on the Nazi-occupied island of Crete in 1944. For thirty-two days, they were chased across the mountains as they headed for the coast and a rendezvous with a Royal Navy launch waiting to spirit the general to Cairo. Rick Stroud, whose Phantom Army of Alamein won plaudits for its meticulous research and its lightness of touch in the telling, brings these same gifts to bear in this new project. From the adrenalin rush of the kidnapping, to the help provided by the Cretan partisans and people, he explains the overall context of Crete's role in World War II and reveals the devastating consequences of this mission for them all. There have been other accounts, but Kidnap in Crete is the first book to draw on all the sources, notably those in Crete as well as SOE files and the accounts, letters, and private papers of its operatives in London and Edinburgh.

Ill Met By Moonlight

Ill Met By Moonlight
Author: W. Stanley Moss
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2014-03-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1780228805

NOW WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY W. STANLEY MOSS'S DAUGHTER GABRIELLA BULLOCK AND AN AFTERWORD BY PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR Ill Met By Moonlight is the true story of one of the most hazardous missions of the Second World War. W. Stanley Moss is a young British officer who, along with Major Patrick Leigh Fermor, sets out in Nazi-occupied Crete to kidnap General Kreipe, Commander of the Sevastopool Division, and narrowly escaping the German manhunt, bring him off the island - a vital prisoner for British intelligence. As an account of derring-do and wartime adventure, made into a classic film starring Dirk Bogarde, Ill Met By Moonlight is one of the most brilliantly written, exciting and compelling stories to come out of the Second World War.

Patrick Leigh Fermor

Patrick Leigh Fermor
Author: Artemis Cooper
Publisher: John Murray
Total Pages: 506
Release: 2012-10-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 184854670X

Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was a war hero whose exploits in Crete are legendary, and above all he is widely acclaimed as the greatest travel writer of our times, notably for his books about his walk across pre-war Europe, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water; he was a self-educated polymath, a lover of Greece and the best company in the world. Artemis Cooper has drawn on years of interviews and conversations with Paddy and his cloest friends as well as having complete access to his archives. Her beautifully crafted biography portrays a man of extraordinary gifts - no one wore their learning so playfully, nor inspired such passionate friendship.

A Time of Gifts

A Time of Gifts
Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2011-09-14
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1590175174

This beloved account about an intrepid young Englishman on the first leg of his walk from London to Constantinople is simply one of the best works of travel literature ever written. At the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off from the heart of London on an epic journey—to walk to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the rich account of his adventures as far as Hungary, after which Between the Woods and the Water continues the story to the Iron Gates that divide the Carpathian and Balkan mountains. Acclaimed for its sweep and intelligence, Leigh Fermor’s book explores a remarkable moment in time. Hitler has just come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon to be forever changed—through the Lowlands to Mitteleuropa, to Teutonic and Slav heartlands, through the baroque remains of the Holy Roman Empire; up the Rhine, and down to the Danube. At once a memoir of coming-of-age, an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, A Time of Gifts is also a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs of the holocaust to come.

A Time to Keep Silence

A Time to Keep Silence
Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Publisher: John Murray
Total Pages: 65
Release: 2011-12-08
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1848547021

From the French Abbey of St Wandrille to the abandoned and awesome Rock Monasteries of Cappadocia in Turkey, the celebrated travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor studies the rigorous contemplative lives of the monks and the timeless beauty of their monastic surroundings. In his occasional retreats, the peaceful solitude and the calm enchantment of the monasteries was passed on as a kind of 'supernatural windfall' which A Time to Keep Silence so effortlessly records.

The Cretan Runner

The Cretan Runner
Author: George Psychoundakis
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2015-11-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1590179056

A witty, thrilling, and “effortlessly poetic” account of the Cretan resistance during World War II—with a map and 32 black-and-white photographs (The Guardian) George Psychoundakis was a 21-one-year-old shepherd from the village of Asi Gonia when the battle of Crete began: “It was in May 1941 that, all of a sudden, high in the sky, we heard the drone of many aeroplanes growing steadily closer.” The German parachutists soon outnumbered the British troops who were forced first to retreat, then to evacuate, before Crete fell to the Germans. So began the Cretan Resistance and the young shepherd’s career as a wartime runner. In this unique account of the Resistance, Psychoundakis records the daily life of his fellow Cretans, his treacherous journeys on foot from the eastern White Mountains to the western slopes of Mount Ida to transmit messages and transport goods, and his enduring friendships with British officers (like his eventual translator Patrick Leigh Fermor) whose missions he helped to carry out with unflagging courage, energy, and good humor.

A Stolen Life

A Stolen Life
Author: Jaycee Dugard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2012-07-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451629192

A revelatory memoir about a young woman whose life was stolen when she was kidnapped in 1991 and remained an object of captivity for 18 years.

Between the Woods and the Water

Between the Woods and the Water
Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Publisher: John Murray
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2010-10-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 184854524X

The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania. The trip was an exploration of a continent which was already showing signs of the holocaust which was to come. Although frequently praised for his lyrical writing, Fermor's account also provides a coherent understanding of the dramatic events then unfolding in Middle Europe. But the delight remains in travelling with him in his picaresque journey past remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges.

A Father's Love

A Father's Love
Author: David Goldman
Publisher: Penguin Group
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2012-04-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0452297915

What would you do if your four-year-old son was abducted—by your spouse? In June, 2004, David Goldman took his Brazilian wife, Bruna, and their son, Sean, to the airport. She told him that they would be returning to New Jersey after a two-week vacation. Once there, however, Bruna informed Goldman that she was staying in Brazil—and keeping Sean. In the courts, Goldman found himself outmaneuvered by the legal machinations of Bruna’s new husband, a member of one of Brazil’s most powerful families. But Goldman never gave up, appealing to the media and the highest levels of the U.S. government for help. A Father’s Love is the story of Goldman’s incredible five-year battle to reunite with his abducted child—and an inspiring celebration of an ordinary man’s love for his son.