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A magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.
From prize-winning, bestselling author Colson Whitehead, a magnificent, wrenching, tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hellish for all the slaves, but Cora is an outcast even among her fellow Africans, and she is coming into womanhood; even greater pain awaits. Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, and they plot their escape. Matters do not go as planned--Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her--but they manage to find a station and head north.In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is not a metaphor--a secret network of tracks and tunnels has been built beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, where both find work in a city that at first seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens--and Ridgeway, the relentless slave-catcher sent to find her, arrives in town. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing journey, state-by-state, seeking true freedom.Like Gulliver, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--Whitehead brilliantly recreates the unique terrors for black people in states in the pre-Civil War era. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage, and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.

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Willow Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by 7s. It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents, but that hasn’t kept her from leading a quietly happy life...until now.

Suddenly Willow’s world is tragically changed when her parents both die in a car crash, leaving her alone in a baffling world. The triumph of this book is that it is not a tragedy. This extraordinarily odd, but extraordinarily endearing, girl manages to push through her grief. Her journey to find a fascinatingly diverse and fully believable surrogate family is a joy and a revelation to read.

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Willow Chance is introverted and a genius. She obsesses over two things: plants and medical conditions. Her adoptive parents have allowed her to build an incredible sanctuary of plants in their backyard. They also have her transferred to a different school in the hope that Willow can find a teacher to challenge her. They also hope that she will finally make a friend.

Willow is suspected of cheating on a standardized test because she finished it perfectly and in just a few minutes. She is sent to receive counseling from Dell Duke, a man who never wanted to become a school counselor and is not quite sure how to do his job. Dell has his own method of labeling the kids he counsels into categories such a loners and weirdos, but he soon realizes that Willow is in a category all her own. She is a genius, and he wants to get her know her better in hopes of exploiting her intelligence for his own benefit.

Willow makes her first friend in Dell's office. Nguyen Thi Mai is two years older and accompanies her younger brother, Quang-ha, to his counseling sessions. Willow is immediately drawn to Mai and begins to learn Vietnamese so she can communicate with her without Dell understanding them.

Willow wants to reach Dell's office early so she will have time to talk with Mai, so she begins taking a taxi to her meetings. The first time she does this, she asks for the driver's papers. Jairo Hernandez, the driver, thinks she may be some kind of undercover agent. But when Willow steps out of the cab and gives him some sage advice, Jairo sees her as a kind of angel.

He begins to think about going back to school so he can become more than a taxi driver. The following week, Willow requests Jairo specifically from the taxi service. He has cut his hair, and Willow notices a mole on the back of his neck. Willow writes a note telling him to go at once to a doctor and have a biopsy performed on the mole.

That afternoon, Dell takes Willow, Mai and Quang-ha for ice cream. When he arrives at Willow's house to drop her off, they find a police car parked in the driveway. Willow's parents have been killed in a car accident.

Mai convinces the police that she and her family have been close friends with the Chances for years so Willow can stay at their home for the night. Mai's mother, Pattie, owns and runs a nail salon. She escaped Vietnam when she married an American serviceman, who later abandoned her and their children.

Pattie recognizes the grief in Willow's eyes and agrees to take custody of her for the night. The family lives in the garage behind the nail salon. The children must share a queen-sized mattress on the floor. Pattie cooks dinner with two hot plates and a microwave.

The following afternoon, Willow is taken to an emergency foster care facility. She sees a newspaper with a picture of her parents' demolished truck. She passes out and hits her head. After receiving nine stitches, Willow evades the social worker and sneaks away from the hospital. She calls the taxi service and asks again for Jairo.

When he arrives, she explains that she cannot pay him, but will get money to him soon. He tells her she does not need to pay. He considers Willow his guardian angel, as he had his mole removed just that morning and the doctor told him it looked cancerous.

Willow asks him to drop her off at the library where she takes refuge in a corner behind a large chair. She soon falls asleep. The police call Dell and ask for his help in finding her. Dell takes Mai out of school, and she guides him to the library and Willow. Before they head back to the authorities, Mai comes up with a plan.

She convinces Dell to let her mother put down his address as their own. Then Willow can stay with the Nguyens in their garage until the social worker can find a proper home for her. Dell is supposed to supervise her home schooling until she feels up to returning to public school.

The plan goes well for a month, but then the social worker requests a home visit. In a panic, Pattie calls Dell and convinces him to let them pretend to live there. Unfortunately, Dell has lived as a hermit. His home is furnished with lawn furniture, and he sleeps in a sleeping bag on a mattress. Pattie and her children buy furniture and cooking utensils from a thrift store. Then they clean and scrub the place until it sparkles. After they pass the inspection, Pattie suggests the family stay in the apartment since there will be several more home visits until Willow is placed in a proper foster home.

Dell reluctantly agrees. He moves in with a neighbor in the complex, and Pattie takes over his bedroom. The girls share a room and Quang-ha sleeps on the couch. Dell eats dinner with them and watches television with Quang-ha.

Mai and Quang-ha are thrilled to be in an actual apartment. Dell finds himself losing weight because he is eating better. He starts jogging to get in better shape. At the same time, Willow begins to engage in life again.

Willow does not return to school, but she helps Quang-ha with his homework. She does such a good job writing his papers that he is put into an honors English program. Willow also helps Pattie rearrange her nail salon so they can add another technician and still have room to maneuver. She also shows Pattie the best disinfectants to use, and the rules the technicians should follow to avoid infections.

When they post a sign proclaiming their standards, new clients start pouring into the spa. Although their apartment complex is called Gardens of Glenwood, there is no garden. Willow begins a campaign to create a sunflower garden. She gets Dell and the Nguyens to help her plant various sunflower seeds in pots to start them growing. She then creates a binder filled with facts and plans.

Dell goes to the bank that owns the complex to gain their approval for a garden. Willow's binder impresses the bank. They grant permission and make Dell the building representative. He is thrilled to be given such authority. Willow and her friends plant the flowers and, in the process, make even more friends in the complex.

Jairo decides to return to school. While buying his books at the store, he is shocked by a swirling light and buzzer. He is the one-millionth customer and wins $20,000. It is a year's salary for him. After he drives Willow on an errand, he stops at the salon so Pattie can meet him. She gives him her phone number in case he ever needs to talk to her.

Willow finds this strange and realizes that Jairo is the first person Pattie has not tried to boss around. Jairo tells Willow about his good fortune in winning the money and how he will go back to college.

A court date is set for a judge to decide if Willow should be placed in a long-term foster facility. Meanwhile, her sunflowers have bloomed and will soon die. She decides to plant a more permanent garden in the courtyard. She talks to a friend at the local nursery. The following day he comes with a large truck filled with trees and plants for Willow's garden. Another friend donates solar lights to illuminate the garden at night.

Willow's court date arrives, and she reluctantly goes with the social worker. She is surprised when she is called to see the judge in her chambers. Inside is Willow's new family: Mai, Quang-ha, Pattie, Dell and Jairo. Pattie and Jairo have asked to have guardianship of Willow. Pattie and Jairo have begun a relationship.

Also, Pattie has been hoarding money. She is quite wealthy. She has made an offer to the bank to buy the Garden of Glenwood apartment building. Willow leaves the courthouse in the company of those she has come to love. Her new, wonderful family is made up of broken, caring people. She will never stop loving and missing her parents, but she is ready to restart her life.

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Twelve-year-old Willow may be a genius when it comes to medicine and plants, but she must learn to connect with people when her parents die in an accident.

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Life in the community where Jonas lives is idyllic. Designated birthmothers produce newchildren, who are assigned to appropriate family units. Citizens are assigned their partners and their jobs. No one thinks to ask questions. Everyone obeys. Everyone is the same. Except Jonas.

Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community. Gradually Jonas learns that power lies in feelings. But when his own power is put to the test—when he must try to save someone he loves—he may not be ready. Is it too soon? Or too late?

Told with deceptive simplicity, this is the provocative story of a boy who experiences something incredible and undertakes something impossible. In the telling it questions every value we have taken for granted and reexamines our most deeply held beliefs.

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n the dark years of the First World War, radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright. Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive — until they begin to fall mysteriously ill. And, until they begin to come forward.
As the women start to speak out on the corruption, the factories that once offered golden opportunities ignore all claims of the gruesome side effects. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come. A timely story of corporate greed and the brave figures that stood up to fight for their lives, these women and their voices will shine for years to come.
Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

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The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.

Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive - until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.

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For more information, please visit www.theradiumgirls.com

The New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller

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Winner of the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History

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Named a Notable Nonfiction Book of 2018 by the American Library Association

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Voted U.S. librarians' favourite nonfiction book of the year 2017

Voted U.S. booksellers' no. 1 recommended book for reading groups, summer 2018

Selected for Emma Watson's My Shared Shelf feminist book club

An Indie Next pick and Junior Library Guild selection

Published in ten foreign editions

Audiobook read by the author

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Young readers' edition also available

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"Like Dava Sobel's The Glass Universe and Margot Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures, Kate Moore's The Radium Girls tells the story of a cohort of women who made history by entering the workforce at the dawn of a new scientific era... Moore sheds new light on a dark chapter in American labour history; the 'Radium Girls', martyrs to an unholy alliance of commerce and science, live again in her telling."

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The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.

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Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her enslaved ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

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In this essential autobiographical account by one of the Civil Rights Movement’s most powerful figures, Melba Pattillo Beals of the Little Rock Nine explores not only the oppressive force of racism, but the ability of young people to change ideas of race and identity.

In 1957, well before Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Melba Pattillo Beals and eight other teenagers became iconic symbols for the Civil Rights Movement and the dismantling of Jim Crow in the American South as they integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in the wake of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education.

Throughout her harrowing ordeal, Melba was taunted by her schoolmates and their parents, threatened by a lynch mob’s rope, attacked with lighted sticks of dynamite, and injured by acid sprayed in her eyes. But through it all, she acted with dignity and courage, and refused to back down.

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In this essential autobiographical account by one of the Civil Rights Movement's most powerful figures, Melba Pattillo Beals of the Little Rock Nine explores not only the oppressive force of racism, but the ability of young people to change ideas of race and identity.

In 1957, well before Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, Melba Pattillo Beals and eight other teenagers became iconic symbols for the Civil Rights Movement and the dismantling of Jim Crow in the American South as they integrated Little Rock's Central High School in the wake of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education.

Throughout her harrowing ordeal, Melba was taunted by her schoolmates and their parents, threatened by a lynch mob's rope, attacked with lighted sticks of dynamite, and injured by acid sprayed in her eyes. But through it all, she acted with dignity and courage, and refused to back down.

Warriors Don't Cry is, at times, a difficult but necessary reminder of the valuable lessons we can learn from our nation's past. It is a story of courage and the bravery of a handful of young, black students who used their voices to influence change during a turbulent time.

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Warriors Don't Cry (Abridged / Mass Market)

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In this essential autobiographical account by one of the Civil Rights Movement's most powerful figures, Melba Pattillo Beals of the Little Rock Nine explores not only the oppressive force of racism, but the ability of young people to change ideas of race and identity.

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he Anthropocene is the current geologic age, in which humans have profoundly reshaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his groundbreaking podcast, bestselling author John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale—from the QWERTY keyboard and sunsets to Canada geese and Penguins of Madagascar.

Funny, complex, and rich with detail, the reviews chart the contradictions of contemporary humanity. As a species, we are both far too powerful and not nearly powerful enough, a paradox that came into sharp focus as we faced a global pandemic that both separated us and bound us together.

John Green’s gift for storytelling shines throughout this masterful collection. The Anthropocene Reviewed is an open-hearted exploration of the paths we forge and an unironic celebration of falling in love with the world.

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“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.

At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both.

A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be.

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Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Muad'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family—and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. Frank Herbert's death in 1986 was a tragic loss, yet the astounding legacy of his visionary fiction will live forever.

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DUNE: PART TWO * THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE NOW IN THEATERSDirected by Denis Villeneuve, screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert * Starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Léa Seydou

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The first and most terrifying monster in English literature, from the great early epic Beowulf, tells his own side of the story in this frequently banned book. This is the novel William Gass called "one of the finest of our contemporary fictions."

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"An extraordinary achievement... very funny, original and deft, altogether lovable, poignant, rich with thought and feeling...immensely enjoyable. John Gardner has become a major contemporary writer."- "A marvelous novel-absolutely marvelous: witty, intelligent, delightful... a celebration and a conservation of what we most need in one of the greatest poetic myths we have... I cannot recommend it too highly." - "It deserves a place on the same shelf as Lord of the Flies, Cat's Cradleand Catcher in the Rye."- Christian Science Monitor

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Grendel by John Gardner: 9780679723110 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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This classic and much lauded retelling of Beowulf follows the monster Grendel as he learns about humans and fights the war at the center of the Anglo Saxon classic epic. "An extraordinary achievement."-New...

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A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

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Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force.

Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He’s left with only two choices: betray everyone and everything he loves—or use his position to creatively undermine the most notoriously evil dictator in Eastern Europe.

Cristian risks everything to unmask the truth behind the regime, give voice to fellow Romanians, and expose to the world what is happening in his country. He eagerly joins the revolution to fight for change when the time arrives. But what is the cost of freedom?

Master storyteller Ruta Sepetys is back with a historical thriller that examines the little-known history of a nation defined by silence, pain, and the unwavering conviction of the human spirit.

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#1 New York Times Bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal!New York Times

A gut-wrenching, startling historical thriller about communist Romania and the citizen spy network that devastated a nation, from the #1 bestselling, award-winning author of Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Gray . Praise for I Must Betray You : I Must Betray You [is] it doesn't just describe the destabilizing effects of being spied on; it will make you experience them too."

Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren't free to dream; they are bound by rules and force.

Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He's left with only two choices: betray everyone and everything he loves-or use his position to creatively undermine the most notoriously evil dictator in Eastern Europe.

Cristian risks everything to unmask the truth behind the regime, give voice to fellow Romanians, and expose to the world what is happening in his country. He eagerly joins the revolution to fight for change when the time arrives. But what is the cost of freedom?

Master storyteller Ruta Sepetys is back with a historical thriller that examines the little-known history of a nation defined by silence, pain, and the unwavering conviction of the human spirit.

"As educational as it is thrilling...[T]he power of

- New York Times Book Review - The Wall Street Journal

"A historical heart-pounder...Ms. Sepetys, across her body of work, has become a tribune of the unsung historical moment and a humane voice of moral clarity." - Kirkus Reviews , starred review

* "Sepetys brilliantly blends a staggering amount of research with heart, craft, and insight in a way very few writers can. Compulsively readable and brilliant." - Booklist , starred review - School Library Journal

* "Sepetys once again masterfully portrays a dark, forgotten corner of history." , starred review - Publishers Weekly , starred review

* "Sepetys's latest book maintains the caliber readers have come to expect from an author whose focus on hidden histories has made her a YA powerhouse of historical fiction...Sepetys is a formidable writer, and her stories declare the need to write about global issues of social injustice. For that reason and her attention to detail, this is a must-read." I Must Betray You demands a full investment from its audience--through poetic writing, sympathetic characters, revolutionary plot and pacing, it grips the heart and soul and leaves one breathless." - Shelf Awareness, starred review

* "Cristian's tense first-person narrative foregrounds stark historical realities, unflinchingly confronting deprivations and cruelty while balancing them with perseverance and hope as Romania hurtles toward political change." - BookPage

"Sepetys keeps readers riveted to this vivid, heartbreaking and compelling novel, locked into every meticulously researched detail.

"A master class in pacing and atmosphere."

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Amazon.com: I Must Betray You: 9781984836038: Sepetys, Ruta: Books

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This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.

What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.

In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.

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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (2007) is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah, an author from Sierra Leone. The book is a firsthand account of Beah's time as a child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone (1990s). Beah was 12 years old when he fled his village after it was attacked by rebels, and he wandered the war-filled country until brainwashed by an army unit that forced him to use guns and drugs. By 13, he had perpetrated and witnessed numerous acts of violence. Three years later, UNICEF rescued him from the unit and put him into a rehabilitation program that helped him find his uncle, who would eventually adopt him. After his return to civilian life he began traveling the United States recounting his story.

Ishmael Beah: At the beginning of the book, he is a young boy whose parents are separated and loves performing rap with his elder brother and friends. After armed forces attack his home village, he, his brother, and friends are left orphans and wander around seeking shelter. Ishmael is eventually claimed as a child soldier for the Sierra Leone Armed Forces at age 13. After being rescued by UNICEF at 16, he is rehabilitated and begins to live with his Uncle Tommy. While there, he is recruited to travel to the United States to speak at a United Nations event about child soldiers. Returning to Freetown after his speaking event, he eventually made his way back to the United States. After a time, he was able to forgive himself and love once again.

Junior Beah: Ishmael's older brother by one year. He is eventually separated from Ishmael during the attack on the village of Kamator, where they were seeking refuge in.

Alhaji: One of Ishmael's closest friends. Alhaji was part of the group of boys from Mattru Jong that Ishmael met in the wilderness. Alhaji and Ishmael formed a close bond during their years as soldiers and were part of the same squad. Alhaji was nicknamed " Little Rambo" for his combat skills that were heavily influenced by the film. Alhaji and Ishmael were eventually taken by UNICEF and put into a rehabilitation shelter in Freetown. He apparently moved from foster home to foster home following the events of the book.

Kanei, Musa, Saidu, Jumah, Alhaji, and Moriba: Ishmael's friends from his home village whom he meets in the wilderness after being separated from his initial group. Saidu is the first of the group to die; he dies suddenly two nights after he and the other boys eat a crow that fell from the sky. Kanei is the oldest of the group by three years, although Alhaji is confused as being older because he is taller. He becomes a junior sergeant and later is chosen to stay behind because he is older while Alhaji and Ishmael are sent to rehabilitation. It is unknown what happens to him. Musa is the group's storyteller. He is killed in the first battle that Ishmael and his squad fight in. Jumah and Moriba also become part of the army. Jumah is assigned to another squad in a different village and is last seen preparing for another village raid. Moriba is killed in a fight sometime during Ishmael's time as a soldier.

Talloi, Gibrilla, Kaloko, and Khalilou: Ishmael's initial traveling companions. Talloi is Junior's friend and follows them to Mattru Jong for the contest. The three meet up with old friends, Gibrilla, Kaloko, and Khalilou there. They escape the attack of Mattru Jong by RUF forces, but are later split apart by another attack in a different village. Ishmael found Kaloko hiding as well, but Beah subsequently left him once he grew tired of hiding, and Kaloko was unwilling to follow him. It is unknown what happened to the four boys.

Uncle Tommy: Ishmael's Uncle. Uncle Tommy is a carpenter with three kids and a wife, all of whom welcome Ishmael as their new brother. They all love Ishmael irrevocably, and unconditionally. Uncle Tommy and his wife are the only ones who know about Ishmael's past. However, they forgive him and take him in as their own son right away. Ishmael truly feels like he belongs when he is with them. Uncle Tommy later dies of sickness.

Esther: A nurse at the shelter whom Ishmael develops a friendship with. Ishmael tells parts of his war stories and dreams to Esther and soon comes to fully trust her. Esther gives Ishmael a Walkman with a Run-D.M.C. cassette and later buys him a Bob Marley cassette. Esther does regular check-ups on Ishmael's mental health during his period of rehabilitation at Benin Home. Ishmael admits that he loves her, but never sees her again after he leaves Freetown.

Mambu: Another child soldier with the Sierra Leone Armed Forces. Mambu and Ishmael meet at the shelter for the first time. They become close friends. He later goes back to the front lines after his family rejects him.

Mohamed: Ishmael's best friend from his home village, whom Ishmael is reunited with at the UNICEF rehabilitation center where Ishmael has already been for several months. Mohamed was meant to go with Ishmael to the talent show in the beginning of the story but had to stay behind to help his father work.

The book starts with Ishmael Beah, his older brother Junior, and their friend Talloi traveling from their village of Mogbwemo to Mattru Jong in order to perform in a talent show. Ishmael, Junior, and their friend dance and sing rap music. Thinking they would return the following day, they tell no one of their leaving.

During their stay in Mattru Jong with Gibrilla, Khalilou, and Kaloko, the RUF attacks. The three are able to flee the village without the rebels following them. They decide to head back home. On the way, it turns out that their village was also captured by the RUF. According to an old man who was sitting outside the village, most of the people had fled to a village on the Sierra Leone coast.

Ishmael, Junior, and their friend decide to travel there in order to locate their families. On their way, they encounter multiple other villages. They are accepted into another village on the grounds that they help with the farming. After months, the village is attacked. Caught by surprise, Ishmael, Junior, and their friend split up and run into the swamps.

It is unknown what happens to his friends afterwards. Ishmael roams around the wilderness by himself for a while, until he meets up with another group of traveling boys whom he recognizes from his home village. The boys then travel together to another village on the coast. Many refugees fled to this village because the Sierra Leone Armed Forces occupied it. In search of safety, the group of boys and Ishmael go to that village, but soon leave.

Ishmael then learns from a woman from his hometown that Junior, his younger brother Ibrahim, and his parents are safe in another village with many others from Mattru Jong. Just before they reach the village, the boys meet a man named Gasemu whom Ishmael knew from Mattru Jong. Gasemu tells them that Ishmael's family are indeed safe in the village, and ask the boys to help him carry bananas back to that village. However, moments before they reach the town, it is attacked by the RUF.

Although their bodies are not found among the dead or in the burning house where they lived, Ishmael assumes that his family is dead. Devastated, and believing that Gasemu is to blame for his not being able to see his family on time, Ishmael attacks Gasemu but is stopped by the other boys. They are then chased into the forest by remaining RUF soldiers, and Gasemu dies from being shot, leaving Ishmael more saddened.

The boys then settle into another village protected by the army. After many uneventful days, the lieutenant in charge of the troops in the village announced that the RUF was beginning to assault the village. The lieutenant said that in order for the people to survive, they must contribute to the war effort by enlisting in the army; escape was not an option. By doing this, the lieutenant secures many child soldiers, the weapon of choice for both the RUF and the Sierra Leone Armed Forces.

Ishmael becomes a junior lieutenant for his skill in executing prisoners of war and is put in charge of a small group of other child soldiers. As a child soldier Ishmael is exposed to extreme violence and drug usage. The drugs he used are described in the book as " brown brown", "white pills", cocaine, and marijuana.

In January 1996, during one of the roll calls, a group of men wearing UNICEF shirts round up several boys and takes them to a shelter in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, where they and several other child soldiers are to be rehabilitated. However, the children cause much trouble for the volunteer staffers at the facility, with Ishmael experiencing symptoms of drug withdrawal as well as troubling memories of his time as a child soldier.

Despite the violence caused by the children, one of the staffers, Nurse Esther, becomes interested in Ishmael, learning about his childhood love of rap music and purchasing him a rap cassette and Walkman, when she takes Ishmael and his friend Alhaji to the city. It is through this connection and his numerous counseling experiences with Esther that Ishmael eventually turns away from his violent self and starts to heal from his mental wounds.

Eventually, Ishmael becomes adopted by his Uncle Tommy in the city and settles down with him and his family on the outskirts of Freetown. It is during this time that Ishmael is chosen to speak to the United Nations (UN) in New York City about his experiences as a child soldier and the other problems plaguing his country.

While at the UN meeting, Ishmael met several other children who were also experiencing problems in their countries. There were 57 children present at the meeting, and each told his or her story to the UN. Ishmael also meets Laura Simms, his chaperone, who is a storyteller and his future foster mother.

In 1996, when Ishmael returns to Sierra Leone, Freetown is invaded by a combination of the RUF and the Sierra Leonean government army, causing many civilian deaths, including the death of Uncle Tommy from malady. Believing that he can no longer stay in Freetown for fear of either becoming a soldier again or of being killed by his former army friends if he refused, Ishmael decides to get in contact with Laura Simms. He then escapes Sierra Leone and crosses the border into Guinea, where he eventually makes his way to the United States and his new life abroad.

A Long Way Gone was nominated for a Quill Award in the Best Debut Author category for 2007. magazine's Lev Grossman named it one of the Top 10 Nonfiction Books of 2007, ranking it at No. 3, and praising it as "painfully sharp", and its ability to take "readers behind the dead eyes of the child-soldier in a way no other writer has." The book was also included in Amazon's 100 books to read in a lifetime list.

Accuracy dispute

In 2009, The Australian reported that aspects of Beah's account of his life story did not match other evidence. The report claimed that Beah's village was destroyed in 1995 rather than 1993, and that given the more compressed time frame, he could not have been a soldier for more than a couple of months, rather than the years that he describes in his book. He would also have been aged 15 when he became a soldier, rather than 13. Questions were also raised about Beah's description of a battle between child soldiers at a UNICEF camp, in which 6 people were said to have been killed. Witnesses interviewed by The Australian said that such an event in a UNICEF camp would have drawn significant attention in Sierra Leone, but no independent verification of such a battle could be obtained. Investigations by other publications also failed to discover other evidence of such a battle, and UNICEF, while supportive of Beah in general, also said that it had not been able to verify this aspect of his story.

The Australian's claims were subsequently denied in a statement issued by Beah, in which he called into question the reliability of the sources quoted. The statement also cited the fact that during the early stages of its research, the newspaper had investigated the possibility that Beah's father was still alive, a possibility that was based on mistaken identity by an Australian mining engineer. The Australian's published articles stated that they had established that the man in question was not Beah's father.

Beah's adoptive mother also reaffirmed her belief in the validity of the dates, quoting two Sierra Leonean sources who corroborated the chronology of events given in his book. However, the publisher amended this statement after The Australian objected that it seriously misrepresented the newspaper's report. The source cited by the publisher, Leslie Mboka, National Chairman of the Campaign for Just Mining, was in fact quoted by The Australian. The newspaper quoted him as saying that Beah "was a young child who had been through terrible things so he could easily have got things mixed up." Mboka, when subsequently contacted by the publisher, reported to them that he had vigorously supported Beah's chronology when interviewed by The Australian, and had challenged the paper for bias. However, Mboka had not met Beah until after the disputed events had taken place, and so was unable to provide firsthand verification of his account. The other correction involved the newspaper's publication, not of Beah's foster-mother's address but of her publicly listed website address; hate mail had indeed been received, but via the Internet. While the publisher made note of these, it stood by the accuracy of the book.

The dispute over Beah's credibility arose at a time when the exposure of some "fictional" memoirs, such as Margaret Seltzer's account of growing up in a Los Angeles crime gang and James Frey's account of drug addiction, had led to debate over the nature of the genre. The controversy was followed up in international publications including the British Sunday Times, , and the Village Voice.

Beah had claimed to have a "photographic memory", which enabled him to have perfect recall of the events he described, leaving him "less room to maneuver" than if he had allowed room for human error. However, some of his defenders as well as his critics allowed for the possibility that his account was not entirely accurate, stating that the main point was that he had drawn attention to an issue that was of vital importance. Possible explanations for any inaccuracies include the trauma of war as experienced by a young child, the drug use described in his account, and the possibility that Beah was tacitly encouraged by outsiders to compile stories from multiple sources into a singular autobiographical account.

Despite the detailed descriptions that Beah provided in terms of the people he killed and the violence he engaged in; he makes no references of personally engaging in sexual violence. In fact, Beah makes little reference to witnessing rape throughout his memoir which is unusual considering the overwhelming evidence that systematic rape was used as a tool of war in Sierra Leone at the time. Various international reports confirm that while Beah was a child soldier, rape was commonly used within armed conflicts.. It is possible, however, that Beah downplayed discussions of rape due to external pressures that threaten persecution; on September 15, 2000, the government of Sierra Leone ratified the Rome Statute in the International Criminal Court (ICC) acknowledging systematic rape as amounting to a crime against humanity. This is significant because Beah published his memoirs in 2007, and therefore was at risk of being charged with international war crimes by the United Nations (UN). The 1999 Peace Agreement ( Lomé Peace Agreement) in Sierra Leone was overseen by the UN and it was pronounced that amnesty would not be granted to anyone found guilty of serious violations to International Human Rights Law, including anything that amounts to Crimes Against Humanity. Therefore, Beah was at risk of international legal repercussions if he admitted to engaging in wartime rape and other forms of violence against women.

Neil Boothby, an academic who has undertaken extensive research into children and war, said that while all of the atrocities described by Beah have occurred at various points, it would be highly unusual for one child to have experienced them all. Boothby criticized the mentality that provided attention only to those with the most horrific stories to tell, thus encouraging exaggeration. "I've seen it over and over. Whether by psychologists or journalists, they are encouraged to tell the sensational stories...The system is set up to reward sensational stories. We all need to look at why does something have to be so horrific before we open our eyes and ears and hearts?"

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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (2007) is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah, an author from Sierra Leone. The book is a firsthand account of Beah's time as a child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone (1990s).

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The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

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The memoir spent a total of 261 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. By late 2007, The Glass Castle had sold over 2.7 million copies, had been translated into 22 languages, and received the Christopher Award, the American Library Association's Alex Award (2006) and the Books for Better Living Award.

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In a hilariously charming domestic memoir, America’s celebrated master of terror turns to a different kind of fright: raising children.

In her celebrated fiction, Shirley Jackson explored the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America. But in Life Among the Savages, she takes on the lighter side of small-town life. In this witty and warm memoir of her family’s life in rural Vermont, she delightfully exposes a domestic side in cheerful contrast to her quietly terrifying fiction. With a novelist’s gift for character, an unfailing maternal instinct, and her signature humor, Jackson turns everyday family experiences into brilliant adventures.

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Life Among the Savages is a collection of short stories edited into novel form, written by Shirley Jackson. Originally these stories were published individually in women's magazines such as Good Housekeeping, , Mademoiselle, and others. Published in 1952, Life Among the Savages is a moderately fictionalised memoir of the author's life with her own four children, an early work in what Laura Shapiro calls "the literature of domestic chaos".

Jackson-speaking as the nameless mother who serves as narrator-relates a period of roughly six years in the life of her family, focusing particularly on her attempts to keep peace and domestic efficiency despite her increasing number of children. As the book's primary incidents begin, the family has "two children and about five thousand books" when they are abruptly given notice to vacate their city apartment. After a frantic last-minute search, they come upon the perfect home in the country and prepare to adjust to their new quiet-but-quirky life as newcomers to a small, insular New England village. The book relays a series of small comical adventures largely contrasting the children's natural acceptance of the change with their parents' struggles to keep up with them, such as eldest child Laurie's introduction to kindergarten (and his daily reporting of troublemaker classmate Charles' antics); middle child Jannie's insistence that her seven imaginary daughters (who all have the same name) be taken into account on every family outing; the comedy of the family's third child, Sally, whose lengthy delay in being born throws the whole family into chaos; and the night the entire family came down with grippe and the ensuing mix-ups. The book closes with the birth of a fourth and final child, Barry, who is again a fictional stand-in for Jackson's youngest child. The book was followed by a sequel, Raising Demons.

The Narrator: A stay-at-home mother who is never identified by name, she maintains the role of detached, amused observer. Despite several attempts to hire domestic help, she is invariably the only force that can make her family's gears mesh smoothly. The narrator is assumed[by whom? ] to be Shirley Jackson herself.

The Children's Father: Referred to only as "my husband", the children's father is assumed to be a representation of Jackson's own husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman (once his initials are given as S.E.H.). Although the children's father can be motivated to involve himself in such manly pursuits as shooting at stray rodents with an air gun and cheering at Laurie's Little League games, he is mostly a stereotypical hands-off father who makes domestic proclamations from behind his newspaper. He is also shown to be deeply interested-nearly obsessed-with his coin collection.

Laurie: A good-natured, athletic little boy, Laurie enjoys a variety of typical all-American pursuits including baseball, Cub Scouts, horses, and getting into scuffles. Like any small boy, he resents when his mother shows him too much affection in public, and he frequently expresses embarrassment of his younger sisters (whom he refers to collectively as "the kids"). One of the major points in the story comes when Laurie is struck by a car and injured; although this is played off for comedy in the book, this incident actually occurred with the real Laurence Hyman. He is five when the major action opens and about nine when the story ends.

Jannie: She is roughly three years younger than Laurie. She is presented as an imaginative yet extremely traditionally feminine little girl who enjoys playing games of make-believe with her dolls and her seven imaginary daughters. While Jannie often deliberately sets herself up as the winsome "good girl" to Laurie's more frequent naughtiness ("Was Laurie bad? I'm good, aren't I? Did Laurie do something new bad?"), the two older children often work in collusion to frustrate their parents.

Sally: Referred to for much of the book as "the baby" (until the prospect of another infant usurps her status), Sally is about three years younger than Jannie. While occasionally joining forces with her older siblings, Sally is more often described as living in "a form-fitting fairyland". She is highly imaginative, to the point of baffling her parents, and is often stubborn and self-assured beyond her years.

Barry: The youngest of the children, Barry appears only as a baby newly arrived from the hospital. The other children admire him briefly ("I guess we figured on something a little bigger") before dismissing him as something to keep their mother busy now that they "are all grown up."

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Life Among the Savages is a collection of short stories edited into novel form, written by Shirley Jackson. Originally these stories were published individually in women's magazines such as Good Housekeeping , , Mademoiselle , and others.

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Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.

Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.

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Description

Title: Just Mercy | A Story of Justice and Redemption

Author: Bryan Stevenson

A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice-from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn't commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship-and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.

Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer's coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.

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Just Mercy - New Cover Movie tie-in Edition - Josephite Pastoral Center

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Title: Just Mercy | A Story of Justice and Redemption Author: Bryan Stevenson A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice-from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he [...]

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A collection of the best short stories from a writer with "an ingenious imagination, a fascination with odd and ordinary detail, and a lust for its thorough exploitation" (The New York Times Book Review).

If Stephen King could write with murderous concision, he might have come up with "The Landlady," the story of a boarding house with an oddly talented proprietress and a small but permanent clientele. If Clive Barker had a sense of humor, he might have written "Pig," a brutally funny look at cooks and vegetarianism. And a more bloodthirsty Jorge Luis Borges might have imagined the fanatical little gambler in "Man From the South," who does his betting with a hammer, nails, and a butcher knife.

But all these stories in this volume were written by Roald Dahl, whose genius for the horrific and grotesque is unparalleled and entirely his own.

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Includes the story "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" now an ACADEMY AWARD®-winning short film from Wes Anderson on Netflix

A collection of the best short stories from a writer with "an ingenious imagination, a fascination with odd and ordinary detail, and a lust for its thorough exploitation" (The New York Times Book Review).

If Stephen King could write with murderous concision, he might have come up with "The Landlady," the story of a boarding house with an oddly talented proprietress and a small but permanent clientele. If Clive Barker had a sense of humor, he might have written "Pig," a brutally funny look at cooks and vegetarianism. And a more bloodthirsty Jorge Luis Borges might have imagined the fanatical little gambler in "Man From the South," who does his betting with a hammer, nails, and a butcher knife.

But all these stories in this volume were written by Roald Dahl, whose genius for the horrific and grotesque is unparalleled and entirely his own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:

9780679729914

Publisher:

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Publication date:

07/14/1990

Edition description:

Reissue

Pages:

528

Sales rank:

158,147

Product dimensions:

5.23(w) x 7.91(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

ROALD DAHL (1916-1990) was born in Llandaff, South Wales, and went to Repton School in England. His parents were Norwegian, so holidays were spent in Norway. As he explains in Boy, he turned down the idea of university in favor of a job that would take him to 'a wonderful faraway place'. In 1933 he joined the Shell Company, which sent him to Mombasa in East Africa. When World War II began in 1939 he became a fighter pilot and in 1942 was made assistant air attaché in Washington, where he started to write short stories. His first major success as a writer for children was in 1964. Thereafter his children's books brought him increasing popularity, and when he died children mourned the world over, particularly in Britain where he had lived for many years.

Date of Birth:

September 13, 1916

Date of Death:

November 23, 1990

Place of Birth:

Llandaff, Wales, England

Place of Death:

Oxford, England

Editorial Reviews

"Dahl has the mastery of plot and characters possessed by great writers of the past, along with a wildness and wryness of his own. One of his trademarks is writing beautifully about the ugly, even the horrible." - Los Angeles Times

"An ingenious imagination, a fascination with odd and ordinary detail, and a lust for its thorough exploitation are the ... strengths of Dahl's storytelling." - The New York Times Book Review

"The mind of Roald Dahl is quintessentially nasty and wicked." - The Washington Post

From the Publisher

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Includes the story "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" now an ACADEMY AWARD®-winning short film from Wes Anderson on NetflixA collection of the best short stories from a writer with "an ingenious imagination, a fascination with odd and ordinary detail, and a lust for its...

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Now celebrating its 75th anniversary, a trove of iconic horror stories from the legendary Shirley Jackson, “the master of the haunted tale” (The New York Times Book Review). Featuring an introduction by A. M. Homes.

One of the darkest, most nightmarish stories of the twentieth century, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” created a sensation when it was first published in 1948. This lucid tale of a sleepy town’s annual lottery―and the monstrous desires it awakens―endures as an essential classic of American fiction.
The Lottery and Other Stories unites “The Lottery” with twenty-four wonderfully strange and equally terrifying short stories from the legendary Shirley Jackson. Together they demonstrate Jackson’s remarkable range―from the hilarious to the horrible, the unsettling to the ominous―and showcase a true master at the height of her haunting powers.

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Here are the stories that have endured the test of time: masterworks by such writers as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Saroyan, Flannery O'Connor, John Cheever, Eudora Welty, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Cynthia Ozick, and scores of others. These are the writers who have shaped and defined the landscape of the American short story, who have unflinchingly explored all aspects of the human condition, and whose works will continue to speak to us as we enter the next century. Their artistry is represented splendidly in these pages. THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series has also always been known for making literary discoveries, and discovery proved to be an essential part of selecting the stories for this volume too. Collections from years past yielded a rich harvest of surprises, stories that may have been forgotten but still retain their relevance and luster. The result is a volume that not only gathers some of the most significant stories of our century between two covers but resurrects a handful of lost literary gems as well.

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A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?

In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.

When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself.

Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win.

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Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine” (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New World likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

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John Green, the award-winning, international bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed, returns with a story of shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.

Aza Holmes never intended to pursue the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

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In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

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Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. Rainy, an endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs and remote islands of the inland sea. Encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure and a lawless society. Amidst the Gulliver-like challenges of life at sea and no safe landings, Rainy is lifted by physical beauty, surprising humor, generous strangers, and an unexpected companion in a young girl who comes aboard. And as his innate guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his strengthening wake.

I Cheerfully Refuse epitomizes the “musical, sometimes magical and deeply satisfying kind of storytelling” (Los Angeles Times) for which Leif Enger is cherished. A rollicking narrative in the most evocative of settings, this latest novel is a symphony against despair and a rallying cry for the future.

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Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker who became a heroine of the Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's concentration camps, and one of the most remarkable evangelists of the twentieth century. In World War II she and her family risked their lives to help Jews and underground workers escape from the Nazis, and for their work they were tested in the infamous Nazi death camps. Only Corrie among her family survived to tell the story of how faith ultimately triumphs over evil.

Here is the riveting account of how Corrie and her family were able to save many of God's chosen people. For 35 years millions have seen that there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still. Now The Hiding Place, repackaged for a new generation of readers, continues to declare that God's love will overcome, heal, and restore.

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A sprawling, evocative, and groundbreaking autobiographical novel told in the unforgettable and hilarious voice of a young Iranian refugee. It is a powerfully layered novel that poses the questions: Who owns the truth? Who speaks it? Who believes it?

"A patchwork story is the shame of the refugee," Nayeri writes early in the novel. In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family's history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel's story of how they became refugees—starting with his mother's vocal embrace of Christianity in a country that made such a thing a capital offense, and continuing through their midnight flight from the secret police, bribing their way onto a plane-to-anywhere. Anywhere becomes the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy, and then finally asylum in the U.S. Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore.

Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights in a hostile classroom, Daniel spins a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE (a true story) is a tale of heartbreak and resilience and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard.

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Mere Christianity explores the core beliefs of Christianity by providing an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear a powerful, rational case for the Christian faith. A brilliant collection, Mere Christianity remains strikingly fresh for the modern reader and at the same time confirms C. S. Lewis’s reputation as one of the leading writer and thinkers of our age.

The book brings together Lewis’ legendary broadcast talks during World War II. Lewis discusses that everyone is curious about: right and wrong, human nature, morality, marriage, sins, forgiveness, faith, hope, generosity, and kindness.

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When Death has a story to tell, you listen.

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.

Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

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John Lewis, who at age twenty-five marched in Selma, Alabama, and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, was a visionary and a man of faith. Drawing on decades of wide-ranging interviews with Lewis, Jon Meacham writes of how this great-grandson of a slave and son of an Alabama tenant farmer was inspired by the Bible and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., to put his life on the line in the service of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” From an early age, Lewis learned that nonviolence was not only a tactic but a philosophy, a biblical imperative, and a transforming reality. At the age of four, Lewis, ambitious to become a minister, practiced by preaching to his family’s chickens. When his mother cooked one of the chickens, the boy refused to eat it—his first act, he wryly recalled, of nonviolent protest. Integral to Lewis’s commitment to bettering the nation was his faith in humanity and in God—and an unshakable belief in the power of hope.

Meacham calls Lewis “as important to the founding of a modern and multiethnic twentieth- and twenty-first-century America as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Samuel Adams were to the initial creation of the Republic itself in the eighteenth century.” A believer in the injunction that one should love one's neighbor as oneself, Lewis was arguably a saint in our time, risking limb and life to bear witness for the powerless in the face of the powerful. In many ways he brought a still-evolving nation closer to realizing its ideals, and his story offers inspiration and illumination for Americans today who are working for social and political change.

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In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams–which are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him. He embarks on an epic journey through a land of tribal superstition and modern prejudice where he will learn the power of words, the power to transform lives, and the power of one.

“The Power of One has everything: suspense, the exotic, violence; mysticism, psychology and magic; schoolboy adventures, drama.”
–The New York Times

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Americans have lost touch with their history, and in Lies My Teacher Told Me Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past.

In this revised edition, packed with updated material, Loewen explores how historical myths continue to be perpetuated in today's climate and adds an eye-opening chapter on the lies surrounding 9/11 and the Iraq War. From the truth about Columbus's historic voyages to an honest evaluation of our national leaders, Loewen revives our history, restoring the vitality and relevance it truly possesses.

Thought provoking, nonpartisan, and often shocking, Loewen unveils the real America in this iconoclastic classic beloved by high school teachers, history buffs, and enlightened citizens across the country.

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Nineteen Arab women journalists speak out about what it’s like to report on their changing homelands in this first-of-its-kind essay collection, with a foreword by CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour

“A stirring, provocative and well-made new anthology . . . that rewrites the hoary rules of the foreign correspondent playbook, deactivating the old clichés.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

A growing number of intrepid Arab and Middle Eastern sahafiyat—female journalists—are working tirelessly to shape nuanced narratives about their changing homelands, often risking their lives on the front lines of war. From sexual harassment on the streets of Cairo to the difficulty of traveling without a male relative in Yemen, their challenges are unique—as are their advantages, such as being able to speak candidly with other women at a Syrian medical clinic or with men on Whatsapp who will go on to become ISIS fighters, rebels, or pro-regime soldiers.

In Our Women on the Ground, nineteen of these women tell us, in their own words, about what it’s like to report on conflicts that (quite literally) hit close to home. Their daring and heartfelt stories, told here for the first time, shatter stereotypes about the region’s women and provide an urgently needed perspective on a part of the world that is frequently misunderstood.

*Note* Some of these essays are quite heavy and include accounts of violence and sexual violence.

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The extraordinary story of the women who took on the Islamic State and won.

In 2014, northeastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centered on women’s rights. But that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of: Kobani. By then, the Islamic State had swept across vast swaths of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it. From that unlikely showdown in Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria alongside the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women’s equality a reality by fighting—house by house, street by street, city by city—the men who bought and sold women.

Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world’s best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews, bestselling author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace. In helping to cement the territorial defeat of ISIS, whose savagery toward women astounded the world, these women played a central role in neutralizing the threat the group posed worldwide. In the process they earned the respect—and significant military support—of U.S. Special Operations Forces.

Rigorously reported and powerfully told, The Daughters of Kobani shines a light on a group of women intent on not only defeating the Islamic State on the battlefield but also changing women’s lives in their corner of the Middle East and beyond.

Trigger warning contains accounts of violence and sexual violence.

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The Dramatic Story of a Palestinian Christian Working for Peace in Israel

As a child, Elias Chacour lived in a small Palestinian village in Galilee. The townspeople were proud of their ancient Christian heritage and lived at peace with their Jewish neighbors. But early in 1947, their idyllic lifestyle was swept away as tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and nearly one million forced into refugee camps.

An exile in his native land, Elias began a years-long struggle with his love for the Jewish people and the world's misunderstanding of his own people, the Palestinians. How was he to respond? He found his answer in the simple, haunting words of the Man of Galilee: "Blessed are the peacemakers."

In Blood Brothers, Chacour blends his riveting life story with historical research to reveal a little-known side of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the birth of modern Israel. He touches on controversial questions such as "What behind-the-scenes politics touched off the turmoil in the Middle East?", "What does Bible prophecy really have to say?", and "Can bitter enemies ever be reconciled?"

Originally published by Chosen Books in 1984 and now expanded with a new introduction by the author, a new foreword by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and a "Since Then" epilogue by writer David Hazard, this compelling book offers readers hope-filled insight into living at peace in the most volatile region of the world.

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What Mother Teresa Taught Me About Meaningful Work and Service

"Find the sick, the suffering and the lonely right there where you are. . . . You can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have the eyes to see." --Mother Teresa Lifelong educator Mary Poplin, after experiencing a newfound awakening to faith, sent a letter to Calcutta asking if she could visit Mother Teresa and volunteer with the Missionaries of Charity. She received a response saying, "You are welcome to share in our works of love for the poorest of the poor." So in the spring of 1996, Poplin spent two months in Calcutta as a volunteer. There she observed Mother Teresa's life of work and service to the poor, participating in the community's commitments to simplicity and mercy. Mother Teresa's unabashedly religious work stands in countercultural contrast to the limitations of our secular age. Poplin's journey gives us an inside glimpse into one of the most influential lives of the twentieth century and the lessons Mother Teresa continues to offer. Upon Poplin's return, she soon discovered that God was calling her to serve the university world with the same kind of holistic service with which Mother Teresa served Calcutta. Not everyone can go to Calcutta. But all of us can find our own meaningful work and service. Come and answer the call to find your Calcutta!

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In 1652 a small group of Dutch farmers landed on the southernmost tip of Africa. Sent by the powerful Dutch India Company, their mission was simply to grow vegetables and supply ships rounding the cape. The colonists, however, were convinced by their strict Calvinist faith that they were among God s Elect, chosen to rule over the continent. Their saga bloody, ferocious, and fervent would culminate three centuries later in one of the greatest tragedies of history: the establishment of a racist regime in which a white minority would subjugate and victimize millions of blacks. Called apartheid, it was a poisonous system that would only end with the liberation from prison of one of the moral giants of our time, Nelson Mandela.

A Rainbow in the Night is Dominique Lapierre s epic account of South Africa s tragic history and the heroic men and women famous and obscure, white and black, European and African who have, with their blood and tears, brought to life the country that is today known as the Rainbow Nation.

Trigger warning includes violence and some sexual references.

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Lost and alone in a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica.

Decades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together. And ultimately, pulled by the invisible thread of destiny, their suspenseful solo stories converge in an orchestral crescendo.

Richly imagined and masterfully crafted, Echo pushes the boundaries of genre, form, and storytelling innovation to create a wholly original novel that will resound in your heart long after the last note has been struck.

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Lost and alone in the forbidden Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica.

Richly imagined and structurally innovative, Echo pushes the boundaries of form and shows us what is possible in how we tell stories.

Awards and Honors

The Newbery Honor - The Kirkus Prize - New York Times Editors' Choice - ALA Notable Book - New York Historical Society Book Prize - National Parenting Publications Gold Award - Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year - Washington Post Best Books of the Year - NPR 2015 Great Reads - New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing - New York Times Notable Book - SCIBA Middle Grade Book of the Year - The Audie Award - International Literacy Association Notable Book for a Global Society - Booksource Scout Award - NCTE Notable Book in the Language Arts - ILA/CBC Children's Choice - The Américas Award - The New Jersey Garden State Teen Book Award

Discussion Guide

Author Interview

Listen to a Reading

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Lost and alone in the forbidden Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica. Richly imagined and structurally innovative, Echo pushes the boundaries of form and shows us what is possible in how we tell stories.

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The VirtNet offers total mind and body immersion, and the more hacking skills you have, the more fun it is. Why bother following the rules when it’s so easy to break them? But some rules were made for a reason. Some technology is too dangerous to fool with. And one gamer has been doing exactly that, with murderous results.

The government knows that to catch a hacker, you need a hacker. And they’ve been watching Michael. If he accepts their challenge, Michael will need to go off the VirtNet grid, to the back alleys and corners of the system human eyes have never seen—and it’s possible that the line between game and reality will be blurred forever.

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It’s the start of a new year at Snow Hill School, and seven students find themselves thrown together in Mr. Terupt’s fifth grade class. There’s . . . Jessica, the new girl, smart and perceptive, who’s having a hard time fitting in; Alexia, a bully, your friend one second, your enemy the next; Peter, class prankster and troublemaker; Luke, the brain; Danielle, who never stands up for herself; shy Anna, whose home situation makes her an outcast; and Jeffrey, who hates school.

They don’t have much in common, and they’ve never gotten along. Not until a certain new teacher arrives and helps them to find strength inside themselves—and in each other. But when Mr. Terupt suffers a terrible accident, will his students be able to remember the lessons he taught them? Or will their lives go back to the way they were before—before fifth grade and before Mr. Terupt?

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Read 3,941 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. It's the start of fifth grade for seven kids at Snow Hill School. There's . . . Jessica,...

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On a May afternoon in 1943, an American military plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary sagas of the Second World War.

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. As a boy, he had been a clever delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and stealing. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a supreme talent that carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when war came, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

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Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption is a 2010 non-fiction book by Laura Hillenbrand. Unbroken is a biography of World War II veteran Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash in the Pacific Theater, spent 47 days drifting on a raft, and then survived more than two and a half years as a prisoner of war (POW) in three Japanese POW camps.

Unbroken spent more than four years on The New York Times best seller list, including 14 weeks at number one. It is the 5th longest-running nonfiction best seller of all time.[non-primary source needed ]

Inspired by the story Come on SeaBiscuit in childhood, as an adult Hillenbrand wrote Seabiscuit: An American Legend (2001). While researching that novel, Hillenbrand came across a 1938 newspaper article about Louis Zamperini. The discovery led Hillenbrand to tell the story of Louis Zamperini's experience as a prisoner of war (POW) during World War II. "Unbroken" (2010) became a New York Times Bestseller[citation needed ] and formed the basis for a feature film.

Louis Zamperini grows up in a Christian home. In his youth he is a troublemaker in his hometown of Torrance, California. Louis steals and stashes food, liquor, and cigarettes. Louis is also bullied for his Italian background.

Louis is caught by law enforcement and returned to his family. Although his father disciplines him with beatings, Louis' behavior does not improve.

Louis is led to pursue running by his older brother, Pete. Pete rides a bicycle alongside Louis as he runs home from school, ringing the bike bell as encouragement. This positive reinforcement changes Louis.

Louis joins his high school track team, begins to win races, and becomes known as the Torrance Tornado. Training at a college track facility, Louis becomes acquainted with James Sasaki, a man he presumes to be Japanese-American.

Louis earns a place on the U.S. Olympic Team to compete at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Pete walks Louis to the train station for his departure to Germany. At the station Louis says that this first Olympic Games will just be a "try-out" for the next Olympics 4 years later in Tokyo, Japan. Pete tells Louis to never forget that "a moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory".

At the Olympics, Louis participates in the opening ceremonies as the Olympic Torch is lit, and notices a Japanese contestant who politely nods at him. Competing in the 5,000 meter race against more experienced athletes, Louis first seems to fall behind. As the second lap bell rings, Louis remembers Pete's words and rallies to place 8th with a time of 14 minutes, 46.8 seconds.

Louis' running career ends abruptly as World War II begins. Louis enlists in the United States Army Air Corps where he becomes a bombardier. He is assigned to the Pacific theater to a squadron based in the Hawaiian Islands. Louis and his crew grow close during this time.

When Louis' plane, the Super-Man, bombs a Japanese target, it is hit over five hundred times. Despite failed brakes, the crew is able to crash land at their air field. All but one of the crew survive the ordeal.

As he awaits his next mission, Louis continues to train, trying to beat his own record. His crew's aircraft is replaced with a less reliable plane, the Green Hornet. While Louis' crew understands that the Green Hornet is an unreliable plane, his superiors insist that it is flight worthy.

When his crew is assigned a search mission, Louis observes that their mission involves "a lot of ocean". The Green Hornet crashes due to mechanical difficulties 850 miles (1,370 km) south of Oahu, killing eight of the 11 men aboard.

The survivors, Louis, Phil, and Mac, are wounded and face a grave future. Phil becomes seriously depressed. Mac goes through various mental breakdowns and eats all the chocolate rations.

The survivors also become creative, devising ways to obtain fresh water and food. After the first day at sea, they attempt to signal a plane with no luck. The men are able to capture an albatross. When they attempt to eat it, they become ill. Instead, they use the meat of the bird for fish bait. When they catch and eat a fish raw, Phil remarks that the Japanese eat their fish raw.

Aware of past records for survival at sea, the survivors carefully track the passage of time. Phil recalls that another air crew that was stranded at sea for 24 days. To pass time and maintain sanity, Louis talks about his mother's cooking.

By Day 18, Louis and Phil both seriously question their unfortunate fate. During a terrible storm, Louis prays, promising God that he will dedicate his life to Him.

On their 28th day at sea, the survivors signal a plane. The enemy plane makes two strafing runs, damaging both life rafts. Louis and Phil manage to repair a life raft. Mac dies soon after.

Louie and Phil survive 46 days at sea and are captured by the Japanese. They are first taken to what is a small base camp, given an insufficient meal, and subjected to interrogation.

After a few days, both men are made to strip. Their guards hose them down and shave their hair in preparation for transfer to POW camps. Phil and Louis are separated. Placed on a bus blindfolded, Louis speaks to another POW named Tinker, Louis asks "Is this Tokyo, I've always wanted to go to Tokyo". Tinker replies "Be careful what you wish for".

At the POW camp, a camp leader nicknamed "The Bird" introduces himself to the new arrivals. The Bird states that the POWs are enemies of Japan and shall be treated accordingly. Louis glances at the Bird who then orders Louis to look at him but beats Louis whenever he does so.

In their barracks, the other POWs recognizes the wounds on Louis as the work of the Bird. The POWs explain that the nickname "The Bird" refers to their tormentor's way of constantly watching and listening.

During one of their morning "trainings", the Bird calls out Louis as an Olympic athlete and forces him to race against one of the camp guards. When the weakened Louis loses, he is beaten and called a failure in order to demoralize him.

In a talk with a senior POW, Louis expresses that he would rather be killed than watch others be tortured. The reply is that "the only way to beat them would be to make it out alive".

Japanese officers tell Louis that everyone in America thinks he is dead. Louis is offered a deal: in return for speaking on the radio to announce that he is alive and well, Louis could spend a day outside the camp. During this time Louis recognizes one of the Japanese officers as none other than James Sasaki, an acquaintance during training as a track athlete at a college in the USA.

After Louis goes through with the initial broadcast, the Japanese offer him an opportunity to take part in propaganda broadcasts in exchange for a more comfortable life outside of the camp. Louis experiences profound discomfort at the sight of other clean and well-dressed American personnel taking part in this kind of collaboration with the Japanese.

When Louis declines, he is sent back to the camp. The Bird sets out to punish Louis. One punishment involves other prisoners punching Louis in the face.

When the camp comes under attack, the prisoners are moved to a coal production facility and told to work or be killed. Louis spends weeks at the camp, but when he rests briefly, he is taken away to be punished.

The Bird orders Louis to hold a large beam over his head under threat of death. Louis endures for 37 minutes and stares down the Bird until the Bird snaps and severely beats Louis.

As the war comes to an end, the camp guards scatter and American planes drop food and other supplies to the POWs. Eventually, Louis returns to the United States. Upon his return to the United States, Louis kisses the ground.

Louis is reunited with his family. He meets Cynthia Applewhite; they marry after knowing each other for two months. They have a daughter. However, traumatized by his wartime ordeal, without a career, and unable to pursue his love of running, Louis becomes an alcoholic. Cynthia seeks a divorce.

When evangelist Billy Graham comes to town, Cynthia convinces Louis to attend a revival meeting. There Louis recalls his bargain while lost at sea and the bargain that he made with God. Louis is inspired to turn his life around, which saves his marriage.

Over time, Louis forgives all who wronged him during WWII. Louis returns to Japan where he locates and makes peace with many of his former tormentors. When the Bird refuses to meet him, Louis sends him a letter to express his forgiveness.

Louis takes part in the torch relay for the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano. As a gesture of reconciliation and resilience, Louis carries the torch past one of the locations where he was once imprisoned.

Louis Zamperini: Olympic middle distance runner (1936) who becomes a POW during World War II.

Pete Zamperini: Louis Zamperini's older brother, his role model and first running coach.

Louise Zamperini: Louis' mother, who refuses to give up on Louis for dead.

Anthony Zamperini: Louis' father, depicted as a disciplinarian.

Sylvia Zamperini: One of Louis' two sisters.

Virginia Zamperini: One of Louis' two sisters.

Glenn Cunningham: An athlete who serves as one of Louis' biggest role models.

James Kunichi Sasaki: Sasaki is a Japanese man who becomes friends with Louis in the United States long before his POW capture. Dasani reappears at the Ofuna camp, as a head interrogator.

Russell Allen Phillips: Russell / "Phil", a survivor of the Green Hornet crash alongside Louis and one of Louis' best friends. Initially they were both imprisoned at Ofuna but Phil was relocated. He survives the war and marries.

Francis McNamara: Francis / "Mac", the third survivor of the crash of the Green Hornet, buried at sea.

Gaga: Gaga was a pet duck of the Ofuna POWs killed by the guards.

The Quack: An unnamed Japanese officer who beats Bill Harris for creating a map of the camp and a Japanese-English dictionary.

William Harris: William / Bill, one of the first people Louis meets at Ofuna camp, known for his photographic memory and language skills.

Mutsuhiro Watanabe: known as "The Bird", a sadistic guard at Ofuna, intent on breaking Louis down.

Cynthia Applewhite Zamperini: Louis' wife, who meets Louis in Miami Beach after the war and marries him against the wishes of her parents after two months. Cynthia leads Louis to seek spiritual guidance when he succumbs to alcoholism.

Billy Graham: the evangelist who inspires Louis' post-war spiritual reawakening that lifts him out of alcoholism and despair.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption was officially published on November 16, 2010 by Random House Publishing Group. Soon after its publication, the book was praised on the New York Times Bestseller list and remained on the list for a consecutive 160 weeks; To this day the book has sold well over 4 million copies.

A feature film based on the book was adapted by Universal Pictures and Legendary Pictures. Angelina Jolie directed this film while the Coen brothers, Richard LaGravenese, and William Nicholson wrote the screenplay. Jack O'Connell portrays Louis Zamperini and the film had its general release on Christmas 2014 to mixed reviews but was a box office success.

A subsequent movie, Unbroken: Path to Redemption was made as a sequel in 2018 to this first movie, to less success than the first one.

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Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption is a 2010 non-fiction book by Laura Hillenbrand. Unbroken is a biography of World War II veteran Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash in the Pacific Theater, spent 47 days drifting on a raft, and then survived more than two and a half years as a prisoner of war (POW) in three Japanese POW camps.

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Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

This book brings to life the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson, who lived through the Civil Rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the movement for gender equality, and whose work forever changed the face of NASA and the country.

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Discover the dark side of Charles Lindbergh--one of America's most celebrated heroes and complicated men--in this riveting biography from the acclaimed author of The Family Romanov.

First human to cross the Atlantic via airplane; one of the first American media sensations; Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite; loner whose baby was kidnapped and murdered; champion of Eugenics, the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding; tireless environmentalist. Charles Lindbergh was all of the above and more. Here is a rich, multi-faceted, utterly spellbinding biography about an American hero who was also a deeply flawed man. In this time where values Lindbergh held, like white Nationalism and America First, are once again on the rise, The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh is essential reading for teens and history fanatics alike.

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Teeming with ideas and imagery, and with its extraordinary intensity sustained by mischievous irony and moments of exquisite beauty, Moby-Dick is both a great American epic and a profoundly imaginative literary creation.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an afterword by Nigel Cliff.

On board the whaling ship Pequod a crew of wise men and fools, renegades and seeming phantoms is hurled through treacherous seas by crazed Captain Ahab, a man hell-bent on hunting down the mythic White Whale. Herman Melville transforms the little world of the whale ship into a crucible where mankind's fears, faith and frailties are pitted against a relentless fate.

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When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone.
Outside the towering stone walls that surround them is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive.
Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying: Remember. Survive. Run.

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From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Plane in the Sky and Pulitzer Prize finalist for Watergate comes the most up-to-date and complete account of D-Day—the largest seaborne invasion in history and the moment that secured the Allied victory in World War II.

D-Day is one of history’s greatest and most unbelievable military and human triumphs. Though the full campaign lasted just over a month, the surprise landing of over 150,000 Allied troops on the morning of June 6, 1944, is understood to be the moment that turned the tide for the Allied forces and ultimately led to the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II. Now, a new book from bestselling author and historian Garrett M. Graff explores the full impact of this world-changing event—from the secret creation of landing plans by top government and military officials and organization of troops, to the moment the boat doors opened to reveal the beach where men fought for their lives and the future of the free world.

Fascinating, action-packed, and filled with impressive detail, When the Sea Came Alive captures a human drama like no other, and offers a fitting tribute to the men and women of the Greatest Generation.