Historical Survival

In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel". They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an eccentric and stubborn old woman called "witch" by the nearby villagers.

Roman Halter was a spirited, optimistic schoolboy in 1939 when he and his family gathered behind the curtains to watch the Volksdeutsche (German Polish) neighbors of their small town in western Poland greet the arrival of Hitler's armies with kisses and swastika flags. Within days, the family home had been seized, 12-year-old Roman had become a slave of the local SS chief, and, returning from an errand, he silently witnessed his Jewish classmates being bayoneted to death by soldiers at the edge of town. So began his remarkable six-year journey through some of the darkest caverns of Nazi Europe....

Helen Colijn's account of her wartime experiences is a window into a largely overlooked dimension of World War II, the imprisonment of women and children in Southeast Asia by the Japanese and how these prisoners of war responded to their dire circumstances. The conditions were harsh, terrible. Food was scarce, medicine unavailable. Held in captivity for three and a half years, more than a third of the women in Helen's camp died of disease or starvation.

Jackson Lee is a well-known adventure vlog influencer. He and a small support crew have been cashing in on the video craze with phenomenal, hair-raising exploits for years. Their latest undertaking is way beyond anything they've ever done. It's extremely dangerous and, worse, highly illegal. Never would Jackson have imagined those risks to be the least of his worries.

In September 1943, as America began advancing from its foothold on Guadalcanal, a young American airman was lost in heavy weather over the South Pacific on what was expected to be a routine flight. In examining that loss and the events leading up to a rescue attempt on an island in the South Pacific, and bringing together societies utterly alien to each other, Survival in the South Pacific brings together the big themes of the Pacific War.

'I would be most unhappy to think that any part of this memoir should be cut on grounds of 'decency', for those bits are essential....' So begins the lively true story of aristocrat and travel writer Roderic Fenwick Owen. Born in 1921, Fenwick Owen had an extraordinary life, which careered between some of the biggest moments in history and took him to the ends of the earth, meeting (and even living with) some of the 20th century's most well-known people along the way, including Eisenhower, Jackson Pollock, Christopher Lee and Sean Connery.

Bloodied and barely conscious, a teenage boy wakes up at the side of a railway track in the middle of nowhere. It’s night and the dead of winter–bone-chillingly cold. Where he is and how he got there, he doesn’t remember. Nor does he remember anything else for that matter–not even his own name. The only clue left behind is a backpack covered in a foot of snow lying next to him. The one thing he knows for sure is that if he doesn’t get up and start moving, he’s going to freeze to death.

In 1810, Matthew Flinders made his final voyage home to his beloved wife, Ann, his body ravaged by the deprivations of years of imprisonment by the French. Four years later, at the age of just 40, he would be dead – a premature, tragic end to one of the world’s greatest maritime adventurers who circumnavigated and mapped the famed Great Southern Land, and whose naming of the vast continent would become its modern title: Australia.

Caught in a storm one night, The Dundonald sunk after hitting the rocky coastline of a tiny subantarctic island known as Disappointment Island—arguably the dingiest bit of rock in the Auckland Islands archipelago, or Motu Maha (“Many Islands”) in Māori. This volcanic archipelago lies 500 km below Aotearoa New Zealand. Twelve on-board The Dundonald drowned that stormy night, 7 March 1907, including the captain and the captain’s son Jimmy, who accompanied his father on a sea voyage for the sake of his health. He was about to turn sixteen, three days later.

Margaret "Peggy" Thomas and her husband, James, lead a simple and peaceful life; she tends to the farm while he works as sheriff in the nearby town of Bleak Knob. Their evenings are spent doing the thing they love most - being together. One afternoon, after picking up fabric at the general store, Margaret watches helplessly as James is gunned down on the sidewalk in front of her. Days of mourning turn into weeks and then years, filled with little more than grief and alcohol.

Eighteen-year-old Constance is not interested in marriage or in being a “young lady”. But for a young woman coming of age in the early 1800s, that’s just about all that’s available to her. When her parents arrange her a marriage with a man more than twice her age, she’s powerless to resist. Stance couldn’t possibly find her newfound husband less appealing, but what can she do? Here’s what: Four months into the marriage, she can slip out of their bed in the middle of the night, and she can put on his clothes.

The walls around Catherine Benedict were growing ever closer. She had to find a way out. A way to be free. To have an adventure of her own. She sees from the window in her chamber, the ships coming and going in the port. Perhaps she will find her chance.

It was November 1806. The explorers had gone without food for one day, then two. Their leader, not yet thirty, drove on, determined to ascend the great mountain. Waist deep in snow, he reluctantly turned back. But Zebulon Pike had not been defeated. His name remained on the unclimbed peak-and new adventures lay ahead of him and his republic. In Citizen Explorer, historian Jared Orsi provides the first modern biography of this soldier and explorer, who rivaled contemporaries Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

Speed Kyle is a master-builder of the hottest, fastest planes around. Cal Bradley’s a daredevil test pilot who pushes those planes to the limit. Add in Speed’s blond bombshell daughter who fears that Cal will go too far—and you’ve got a winner. And as far as Speed and Cal are concerned, winning is everything. Speed’s company is bleeding cash, and they need money quick. They’re competing in the upcoming National Air Meet, and to the victor goes the spoils—some extremely lucrative contracts.

Snub is a young gorilla, living in the heart of what will eventually be known as Africa. She is jealous of her mother's new baby and restless in her need to explore. When a natural disaster shakes up her family, Snub finds herself as the guardian of her young sibling and lost in a reshaped world. Snub may feel orphaned, but she's not alone. There are other creatures stalking through the woods - a new form of predator, walking on two legs.

One bright spring morning in the woods of France, a soldier, blinded by the war, is found by a little girl named Coco, and her older sister Marcelle. In return for their kindness, the soldier tells the sisters marvelous tales, each story connected to the keepsake he carries in his pocket: a perfect, tiny, silver donkey.

From award-winning author Elizabeth Byler Younts comes a luminous and heartbreaking historical novel about resilience, friendship, and the search for belonging--perfect for readers of Susan Meissner and Katherine Reay. "Younts's successor to The Solace of Water (2018) has an enthralling...

Entzückt von dem mysteriösen Tagebuch, das die junge Katja übergeben hat, befiehlt der oberste Befehlshaber der Roten Armee, den Autor des Buches und eine seltene Büste ausfindig zu machen. So kommt es, dass aus geflohenen Todeskandidaten eines Arbeitslagers eine Kompanie geformt wird, die sich diesem Auftrag annehmen soll. Doch schnell wird der Gruppe so einiges klar: Ihre Aufgabe erweist sich als viel schwerer, als Katja und ihre Begleiter gedacht haben.

She was known for what she lost She lived by the courage she found "Find Polaris" When the SS Titanic set sail, Captain Edward John Smith became a legend – and when tragedy struck he was a hero to some, reckless to others. But in the shadow of his infamy stood his daughter, left behind on the...

Charlotte has spent her whole life fighting the British Empire, following in the footsteps of her parents and their group of rebels. But when her reunion with her mother laid bare horrible truths about the rebellion, Charlotte knew she had to escape. Now she is on the run, with no idea who the enemy is - or which of her compatriots is truly on her side.