Escaping Has Ceased to Be a Sport

Escaping Has Ceased to Be a Sport
Author: Frank Unwin
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2018-01-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1526714957

After being taken prisoner at Tobruk and transported to Italy, the author was determined to escape and learnt Italian by talking to the sentries. His first escape lasted just one week. He then joined a tunnel party and escaped again. After six weeks on the run he was offered shelter in a Tuscan hilltop village, Montebenichi. There he enjoyed five months of freedom, living the lifestyle and ancient customs of these peasant people.While attempting to re-join the Allied armies, Frank and two fellow POWs were re-captured and sent to a brutal work camp in Germany. His defiant attitude exacerbated an already difficult situation. In March 1945, with the Allies closing in Frank took part in The Long March, walking for several weeks before being released by American troops. The title of this remarkable and moving memoir results from a notice posted to Franks amusement in all POW camps saying Escaping has ceased to be a Sport.' This is an exceptional Second World War POW account by a man who refused to accept captivity.

Surgeon at Arms

Surgeon at Arms
Author: Lipmann Kessel
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2011-12-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1783830506

Surgeon at Arms is without doubt one of the most interesting and dramatic personal memoirs to come out of the Second World War. The author, a surgeon, was parachuted into Arnhem with the First Airborne Division. His professional skill was at once tested to the limit and the modest detachment with which he describes serious operations performed under appalling conditions would alone be enough to merit the reissue of the book. But of equal significance is the authors account of his unceasing efforts to stop the Germans evacuating the hospital, a struggle which must inevitably be seen against his Jewish background. Add to this the authors hair-raising escape and the heroism of the Dutch Resistance and you have all the ingredients of a truly remarkable book.The flame of Arnhem has lately been rekindled by Cornelius Ryans book and the thirtieth anniversary ceremonies. But Ryan was an historian; Kessel was a participant; and it is only through the eyes of the participants that the reader can honestly assess the validity of the historians viewpoint. Lipmann Kessels book has lost nothing of its freshness or its drama in the thirty years since the events it describes took place. Now republished after being unavailable for many years, it warmly deserves to find a new generation of readers.

The Last Girl

The Last Girl
Author: Nadia Murad
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2017-11-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1524760455

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE • In this “courageous” (The Washington Post) memoir of survival, a former captive of the Islamic State tells her harrowing and ultimately inspiring story. Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon. On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia’s brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade. Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten. Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety. Today, Nadia's story—as a witness to the Islamic State's brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi—has forced the world to pay attention to an ongoing genocide. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war.

Unbroken

Unbroken
Author: Laura Hillenbrand
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Total Pages: 530
Release: 2014-07-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0812974492

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. In boyhood, Louis Zamperini was an incorrigible delinquent. As a teenager, he channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when World War II began, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to a doomed flight on a May afternoon in 1943. When his Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean, against all odds, Zamperini survived, adrift on a foundering life raft. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will. Appearing in paperback for the first time—with twenty arresting new photos and an extensive Q&A with the author—Unbroken is an unforgettable testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit, brought vividly to life by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand. Hailed as the top nonfiction book of the year by Time magazine • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and the Indies Choice Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year award “Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] one-in-a-billion story . . . designed to wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby adjectives we normally try to avoid: It is amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing, chilling, and inspiring.”—New York “Staggering . . . mesmerizing . . . Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.”—People “A meticulous, soaring and beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.”—The Washington Post “Ambitious and powerful . . . a startling narrative and an inspirational book.”—The New York Times Book Review “Magnificent . . . incredible . . . [Hillenbrand] has crafted another masterful blend of sports, history and overcoming terrific odds; this is biography taken to the nth degree, a chronicle of a remarkable life lived through extraordinary times.”—The Dallas Morning News “An astonishing testament to the superhuman power of tenacity.”—Entertainment Weekly “A tale of triumph and redemption . . . astonishingly detailed.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “[A] masterfully told true story . . . nothing less than a marvel.”—Washingtonian “[Hillenbrand tells this] story with cool elegance but at a thrilling sprinter’s pace.”—Time “Hillenbrand [is] one of our best writers of narrative history. You don’t have to be a sports fan or a war-history buff to devour this book—you just have to love great storytelling.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2015-07-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0679645985

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

The Devil in France - My Encounter with Him in the Summer of 1940

The Devil in France - My Encounter with Him in the Summer of 1940
Author: Lionel Feuchtwanger
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2011-03-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1446547027

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Stolen Years

Stolen Years
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 157
Release: 2002
Genre: Prisoners of war
ISBN: 9781877007156

The German Defense Of Berlin

The German Defense Of Berlin
Author: Oberst a.D. Wilhem Willemar
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2015-11-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1786251469

Often written during imprisonment in Allied War camps by former German officers, with their memories of the World War fresh in their minds, The Foreign Military Studies series offers rare glimpses into the Third Reich. In this study Oberst a.D. Wilhem Willemar discusses his recollections of the climatic battle for Berlin from within the Wehrmacht. “No cohesive, over-all plan for the defense of Berlin was ever actually prepared. All that existed was the stubborn determination of Hitler to defend the capital of the Reich. Circumstances were such that he gave no thought to defending the city until it was much too late for any kind of advance planning. Thus the city’s defense was characterized only by a mass of improvisations. These reveal a state of total confusion in which the pressure of the enemy, the organizational chaos on the German side, and the catastrophic shortage of human and material resources for the defense combined with disastrous effect. “The author describes these conditions in a clear, accurate report which I rate very highly. He goes beyond the more narrow concept of planning and offers the first German account of the defense of Berlin to be based upon thorough research. I attach great importance to this study from the standpoint of military history and concur with the military opinions expressed by the author.”-Foreword by Generaloberst a.D. Franz Halder.

Corps Commanders

Corps Commanders
Author: Douglas E. Delaney
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2011
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 077482090X

Corps Commanders explains how five very different Second World War British and Canadian generals fought their battles, and why they fought them in similar fashion.

The Real North Korea

The Real North Korea
Author: Andrei Lankov
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199390037

In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state. Based on vast expertise, this book reveals how average North Koreans live, how their leaders rule, and how both survive