Other books that might interest you

• 

  Guy Gibson: The Life and Legacy...

  Charles River Editors

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Given the RAF’s importance, it should come as no surprise that some of the pilots ranked among Britain’s most recognized war heroes, and Guy Gibson remains one of the most famous and highly decorated British soldiers in World War II. His exploits in the RAF as the leader of the audacious raid to blow up German dams in May 1943 remain renowned, and for generations of British boys after the war, he served as the benchmark of a legendary hero. His tragic death at the young age of 26 only served to deepen his mythology, but his war record was impressive even before his most famous missions, with three operational tours of duty under his belt. 
  The mythmaking aside, Gibson was a complex and controversial character, probably caused, in part, by a turbulent and disrupted upbringing. Although his bravery, self-sacrifice, and leadership in battle were undeniable and highly impressive, he could be demanding and difficult to get along with. It is probably fair to say he was not universally loved by the crews and service personnel who served alongside him, and he after the Dam Busters raid, he embarked on a months-long tour of the United States and Canada that many (including Air Officer Commanding Bomber Commander Arthur “Bomber” Harris) felt had gone to his head slightly. After the raid and the fame, he drifted somewhat, having been forbidden from flying in further operations (which he bypassed in the end). He wrote a book about his exploits as a bomber pilot, Enemy Coast Ahead, and was interviewed on radio programs. He flirted with politics, applying for and succeeding in becoming the Conservative Party’s prospective candidate for Macclesfield in 1944 before withdrawing, claiming the war still required his attention. After D-Day on June 6, 1944, Gibson seemed to feel an urgent need to get back into operations for fear of missing out.

  Show book

• 

  Victorian Anthologies: Ghosts -...

  Charles Dickens, Edith Nesbit,...

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Few ghost stories are as chilling as the ones written by Victorian writers. Featuring work by M.R. James, Edith Nesbit, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Atherton and many more, this enhanced-audio collection of eight enduring stories - some well-known, others less familiar - transport you to a candlelit fireside to hear tales of lonely coastlines, deadly rivers, dark, creaking corridors, horrific, everlasting love and unknown entities lurking in black velvet shadows. Listen if you dare!

  Show book

• 

  How Can Half the Country Be So...

  Julie Ethan

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Julie Ethan and her husband, Larry, were religious conservatives raising five children and running a family business. Their closest friends and allies were a mixed-race couple with liberal political convictions. As a mini-memoir, Julie narrates this unlikely, yet exquisite friendship spanning more than three decades and several election cycles. As a guide, learn practical ways to depolarize and build bridges in your politically opposite relationships. 

  Show book

• 

  Standing at the Water's Edge - A...

  Janice Post-White

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Janice Post-White was an oncology nurse who thought she knew what life with cancer was about--until her four-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia. While he drew pictures to process his emotions, she buried her feelings and threw herself into managing a dual role as a medical professional and mother. Her memoir shares her son's perspective as a young cancer patient and teen survivor and explores her own personal and professional insights on survivorship, resilience, healing and what facing death can teach us about living.

  Show book

• 

  The White Sharks of Wall Street...

  Diana B. Henriques

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  It almost seems that Thomas Mellon Evans was a man so far ahead of his contemporaries that he had moved into the shadows before the full force of his business style had dawned on the rest of corporate America. At every step in his career, he was barging in where few would follow -- at first. But follow they did, at last."  -- from the PrologueThe first in-depth portrait of the life and times of the trailblazing financier Thomas Mellon Evans -- the man who pursued wealth and power in the 1950s with a brash ruthlessness that forever changed the face of corporate America. Long before Michael Milken was using junk bonds to finance corporate takeovers, Thomas Mellon Evans used debt, cash, and the tax code to obtain control of more than eighty American companies. Long before investors began to lobby for "shareholder's rights," Evans was demanding that public companies be run only for their shareholders -- not for their employees, their executives, or their surrounding communities. To some, Evans's merciless style presaged much that is wrong with corporate life today. To others, he intuitively knew what was needed to keep America competitive in the wake of a global war.  In The White Sharks of Wall Street, New York Times investigative reporter Diana Henriques provides the first biography of this pivotal figure in American business history. She also portrays the other pioneering corporate raiders of the postwar period, such as Robert Young and Louis Wolfson, and shows how these men learned from one another and advanced one another's takeover tactics. She relates in dramatic detail a number of important early takeover fights -- Wolfson's challenge to Montgomery Ward, Young's move on the New York Central Railroad, the fight for Follansbee Steel -- and shows how they foreshadowed the desperate battle waged by Tom Evans's son, Ned Evans, to keep the British raider Robert Maxwell away from his Macmillan publishing empire during the 1980s. Henriques also reaches beyond the business arena to tally the tragic personal cost of Evans's pursuit of success and to show how the family dynasty shattered when his sons were driven by his own stubbornness and pride to become his rivals. In the end, the battling patriarch faced his youngest son in a poignant battle for control at the Crane Company, the once-famous Chicago plumbing and valve company that Tom Evans had himself seized in a brilliant takeover coup twenty-five years earlier. The White Sharks of Wall Street is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary man, whose career blazed across the sky and then sank into obscurity -- but not before he had provided the template for how American business would operate for the next four decades.

  Show book

• 

  Thornton Wilder - A Life

  Penelope Niven

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  "Thornton Wilder: A Life brings readers face to face with the extraordinary man who made words come alive around the world, on the stage and on the page." —James Earl Jones, actor"Comprehensive and wisely fashioned….A splendid and long needed work." —Edward Albee, playwrightThornton Wilder—three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, creator of such enduring stage works as Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and beloved novels like Bridge of San Luis Ray and Theophilus North—was much more than a pivotal figure in twentieth century American theater and literature. He was a world-traveler, a student, a teacher, a soldier, an actor, a son, a brother, and a complex, intensely private man who kept his personal life a secret. In Thornton Wilder: A Life, author Penelope Niven pulls back the curtain to present a fascinating, three-dimensional portrait one of America's greatest playwrights, novelists, and literary icons.

  Show book