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  Shadow Commander - The Epic...

  Mike Guardia

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  The true story of the US Army legend who organized “Blackburn’s Headhunters” against Japan in WWII and went on to initiate Special Forces operations in Vietnam. The fires on Bataan burned on the evening of April 9, 1942—illuminating the white flags of surrender against the dark sky. Outnumbered and outgunned, remnants of the American-Philippine army surrendered to the forces of the Rising Sun. Yet US Army Captain Donald D. Blackburn refused to lay down his arms. With future Special Forces legend Russell Volckmann, Blackburn escaped to the jungles of North Luzon, where they raised a private army of 22,000 men against the Japanese. His organization of native tribes into guerrilla fighters would lead to the destruction of the enemy’s naval base at Aparri. But Blackburn’s amazing accomplishments would not end with the victory in the Pacific. He would go on to play a key role in initiating Army Special Forces operations in Southeast Asia, spearheading Operation White Star in Laos as commander of the 77th Special Forces Group and eventually taking command of the highly classified Studies and Observations Group (SOG), charged with performing secret missions now that main-force Communist incursions were on the rise. In the wake of the CIA’s disastrous Leaping Lena program, in 1964, Blackburn revitalized the Special Operations campaign in South Vietnam. Sending reconnaissance teams into Cambodia and North Vietnam, he discovered the clandestine networks and supply nodes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Taking the information directly to General Westmoreland, Blackburn was authorized to conduct full-scale operations against the NVA and Viet Cong in Laos and Cambodia. In combats large and small, the Communists realized they had met a master of insurgent tactics—and he was on the US side. Following his return to the US, Blackburn was the architect of the infamous Son Tay Prison Raid, officially termed Operation Ivory Coast, the largest prisoner-of-war rescue mission—and, indeed, the largest Army Special Forces operation—of the Vietnam War. During a period when US troops in Southeast Asia faced guerrilla armies on every side, America had a superb covert commander of its own. This book follows Blackburn through both his youthful days of desperate combat and his time as a commander, imparting his lessons to the new ranks of Army Special Forces.

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  The Best New True Crime Stories:...

  Mitzi Szereto

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  “Here be monsters! This brilliant collection of gruesome small-town misdeeds . . . will have you running for the comfort and safety of the big city.” —Peter Houlahan, author of Norco ’80 
   
  We’ve been told nothing bad happens in small towns. You can leave your doors unlocked, and your windows wide open. We picture peaceful hamlets with a strong sense of community, and everyone knows each other. But what if this wholesome idyllic image doesn’t always square with reality? Small towns might look and feel safe, but statistics show this isn’t really true. 
   
  From the vicious murderers of the Clutter family to Ted Bundy and his small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story—they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe. Discover how unsolved murders, kidnapping, shooting sprees, violent robbery, and other bad things can and do happen in small towns all over the world. 
   
  “Mitzi Szereto has assembled a group of today’s brightest and best authors for this truly extraordinary anthology. Brilliant!” —Dan Zupansky, author and host of True Murder 
   
  “Chills. Endless chills.” —Cup of Books 
   
  “These well-researched, globe-trotting, bite-sized tales are perfect for a lazy summer afternoon?especially at a time when it’s much safer to travel through the pages of a book.” —Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

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  Leah Day's Goddess Quilts -...

  Leah Day

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  This is the story of Leah Day’s goddess quilts. 
  Leah’s creative journey began with the birth of her son and the conception of her first goddess quilt in 2007. While making that quilt, she found the vehicle for change and self-discovery she’d been searching for her whole life. 
  This is Leah’s story of transformation and how each goddess quilt in this series pushed her to become a better woman, wife, mother, and quilter. 
  This is not a book about any known goddesses from myth, legend, or religion. Leah’s goddess quilts are fantasy self-portraits that represent who she wished she could be and how she wanted to feel. 
  Exquisitely illustrated with dozens of detailed, full page photographs, quilters, artists, and anyone with an eye for bright color and gorgeous art quilts will find limitless inspiration inside this book. 
  By focusing on these powerful images through the many months, sometimes multiple years, it took to create each quilt, Leah found the wisdom and courage to change her life, her habits and even her thoughts. 
  Leah Day’s Goddess Quilts is an artist’s memoir that shows how you too can embrace courage and cultivate gratitude. Leah openly shares her personal struggles with self-criticism, the danger of dwelling on past pain, and how she overcame many obstacles blocking her path. 
  This is the story of a creative entrepreneur following a childhood dream. A story of success and failure and the struggle to remain humble in an egotistical social media fueled world. This is the story of a wife and mother embracing her creativity and releasing it to the world. 
  The goddess on the cover is called Release Your Light. 
  This is the light of your creativity. 
  It is not a spark or a flickering flame. 
  It’s an explosion of light more powerful than the sun. 
  Are you ready to release YOUR light?

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  Forged On The Frontier...

  Chirag Patel

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  A wryly humorous telling of the British colonialisation in South Africa, told from the point of view of a not-very-successful family and the child that would become Emperor, thousands of miles away.Long before he became Emperor of the United States, Joshua Norton won his place in history as one of the 1820 Settlers, in the British colonialisation of the Cape Colony, in today's South Africa. 
  Many think the patron saint of Discordianism a myth, or his life absurdly exaggerated, but they are wrong. Reality is far stranger than fiction could ever be, and Joshua Norton is the absolute proof, a real-life Don Quixote formed in tragedy and triumph, scarred into a delusion of a better world by the violence of this one. 
  This volume covers Joshua's upbringing as an 1820 settler in the newly-formed Albany region, in what would become the Eastern Cape. It brings to life one of history's most turbulent periods, as Dutch, British, Xhosa, Khoi and Fingo all try to build a life on a land riven by constant war. 
  Read on for a tale of heroes and villains, but mostly of people trying to survive where they can when all the odds are stacked against them and great political winds tear through their desperate lives. 
  The first volume of the definitive history of Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Told with with a wry dramatisation, it contains the most accurate and complete information on Joshua's early life in any book to date.

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  Thai Stick - Surfers Scammers...

  Peter Maguire, Mike Ritter

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  The untold history of the underground marijuana trade in Thailand—from surfers and sailors to pirates.Located on the left bank of the Chao Phya River, Thailand’s capital, Krungthep, known as Bangkok to Westerners and “the City of Angels” to Thais, has been home to smugglers and adventurers since the late eighteenth century. During the 1970s, it became a modern Casablanca to a new generation of treasure seekers, from surfers looking to finance their endless summers to wide-eyed hippie true believers, and lethal marauders left over from the Vietnam War. Moving a shipment of Thai sticks from northeast Thailand farms to American consumers meant navigating one of the most complex smuggling channels in the history of the drug trade. Many forget that until the mid-1970s, the vast majority of marijuana consumed in the United States was imported, and there was little to no domestic production. Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter are the first historians to document this underground industry, the only record of its existence rooted in the fading memories of its elusive participants. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with smugglers and law enforcement agents, the authors recount the buy, delivery, voyage home, and product offload. They capture the eccentric personalities of the men and women who transformed the Thai marijuana trade from a GI cottage industry into a professionalized business moving the world's most lucrative commodities, unraveling a rare history from the smugglers’ perspective.“Highly recommended for anyone who loves adventure, cannabis, surfing, or all of the above. It’s every single bit as heady, energetic and captivating as the title implies.”—Cannabis Now

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  The Raging Skillet - The True...

  Rossi

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  “[A] juicy memoir about growing up, becoming a chef, and working as New York’s most unconventional wedding caterer.” —BUST magazine   When their high-school-aged, punk, runaway daughter is found hosting a Jersey Shore hotel party, Rossi’s parents feel they have no other choice: they ship her off to live with a Chasidic rabbi in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Within the confines of this restrictive culture, Rossi’s big city dreams take root. Once she makes her way to Manhattan, Rossi’s passion for cooking, which first began as a revolt against the microwave, becomes her life mission. The Raging Skillet is one woman’s story of cooking her way through some of the most unlikely kitchens in New York City—at a “beach” in Tribeca, an East Village supper club, and a makeshift grill at Ground Zero in the days immediately following 9/11. Forever writing her own rules, Rossi ends up becoming the owner of one of the most sought-after catering companies in the city. This heartfelt, gritty, and hilarious memoir shows us how the creativity of the kitchen allows us to give a nod to where we come from, while simultaneously expressing everything that we are. This “moving, witty memoir” (Nigella Lawson) includes unpretentious recipes for real people everywhere.   “A humorous and witty chronicle of a woman’s pulling-herself-up-by-her-bootstraps rise through the culinary ranks.” —Kirkus Reviews

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