World Tragedies

In the wake of two foiled assassination attempts while Donald Trump was campaigning for President, many of his supporters claimed Trump's survival was an act of Divine intervention, and a sign that Trump was favored by God. In his victory speech, Trump alluded to this. But his survival prompts other questions: Why did God spare Trump, but not the retiree sitting behind him? Why couldn't God have spared everyone that day? And if God is truly omnipotent, why do so many children die in gun violence every year?

En 1987, Franz-Olivier Giesbert publiait une biographie de Jacques Chirac, éclairage documenté et percutant sur le plus imprévisible des hommes politiques français. Depuis cette date, Giesbert n'a cessé d'enquêter, d'observer, de prendre des notes sur la conquête du pouvoir par Chirac et sur ses deux mandats. Il livre ici le récit complet de vingt années d'une vie au cœur de la politique française, dont douze à la présidence.

In a moment of historic threat and uncertainty in mainland Europe, this collection, makes the case for the 'small countries' of Central Europe as the nucleus of European values and a lightning rod for its potential dangers, where language and culture play an active role in affirming national identity and democracy is under continued threat from the threat of Russian oppression. However, these countries have been historically overlooked by the major powers of Western Europe.

More people traveled internationally in 2019 than in any year in history. After COVID began its rapid spread throughout the world, though, international travel plummeted, and nations across the world hardened their borders. For the first time, governments took the same tools that have been used against less privileged migrants and asylum seekers and turned them on citizens from countries that had long enjoyed relatively unfettered travel—and sometimes on their own citizens.

Lusitania: She was a ship of dreams, a microcosm of the last years of the waning Edwardian Era and the coming influences of the 20th century. When she left New York on her final voyage, she sailed from the New World to the Old. Yet an encounter with a primitive German U-Boat sent her and her gilded passengers to their tragic deaths.

Shortly after 9/11, Norman, a national director for World Vision's poverty reduction program in Mauritania, and his daughter, Hannah, were driving to the beach when an Arab man opened fire on his parked car, severely wounding him and his daughter. After their recoveries, the family made the extraordinary decision to stay in Mauritania, to maintain their commitment to the poor in their community, and to forgive the man who had hurt them.

Life is going well for Maria. Welcomed into the Saward family, she has secured herself a job as a maid for Queen Alexandra and is living with her family in a beautiful cottage on the Royal Sandringham estate. The luxuries and privilege associated with the royal family are a far cry from the poverty and suffering she endured before, though the royals, like the nation, are tightening their belts. But when a mysterious relative turns up, seemingly on the run from the law, Maria's new-found happiness could be under threat.

The rural town of Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: No one was born there, no one died there, nothing of any historical import at all has ever happened there, which is why Solomon Kugel, like other urbanites fleeing their pasts and histories, decided to move his wife and young son there. To begin again. To start anew. But it isn't quite working out that way.

St. Paul, Minnesota, 1946: Introspective Shannon Malone and her more popular sister Eliza are Irish twins and best friends. As little girls, they relied on each other for companionship and affection as their mother remained distant, beating back the demons of her own mysterious childhood. As womanhood approaches, both look forward to promising - though different - futures. But when tragedy rocks the Malone family, secrets bloom and one sister leaves, possibly forever. The other, physically and emotionally scarred, vows to hold the invisible thread that runs deeply between them.

Step into a world of ancient wonders and heart-wrenching drama with "Escape from Pompeii: A Journey of Love and Tragedy." This captivating historical novel transports you from a quaint Bavarian village, where Anya, a young Celtic beauty, is brutally ripped from her loving home and family, captured by soldiers, and marched into Rome to be sold in the city’s slave market. Follow her plight as she’s purchased and enslaved by a powerful aristocratic family where she’s determined to survive the degradation and humiliation of slavery and servitude.

Jane Hamilton, award-winning author of The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, is back in top form with a richly textured novel about a tragic accident and its effects on two generations of a family. When Aaron Maciver's beautiful young wife, Madeline, suffers brain damage in a bike accident, she is left with the intellectual powers of a six-year-old.

There were few experienced swimmers among over 1,300 Lower East Side residents who boarded the General Slocum on June 15, 1904. It shouldn't have mattered since the steamship was only chartered for a languid excursion from Manhattan to Long Island Sound. But a fire erupted minutes into the trip, forcing hundreds of terrified passengers into the water. By the time the captain found a safe shore for landing, 1,021 had perished. It was New York's deadliest tragedy prior to September 11, 2001.

Preston, an Oxford-trained historian, brilliantly captures the political and personal impact of the 1915 sinking of the British liner Lusitania by a German U-boat. This "captivating and conscientious narrative" is riveting, offering new insights into the controversial event, which helped draw America into World War I.

A deeply moving story of the beauty and brutality of life, and death, on the world's most unpredictable and perilous mountain. Sitting just lower than Everest at 8,611 meters above sea level on the China-Pakistan border, the Savage Mountain claims the lives of even the most experienced climbers. Alongside severe altitude, the weather is notoriously volatile and the climb relentlessly steep. A staggering one in four attempts result in death on the mountain.

By the author of Ashes Under Water, here is one of the great untold stories of World War II. The Hidden Hindenburg at last reveals the cause of aviation's most famous disaster and the duplicity that kept the truth from coming to light for three generations. It also finally catches up with a German legend who misled the world about the Hindenburg to bury his own Nazi connections.

On a cold winter morning, Jeff Power was lighting a fire in his remote Arizona cabin when he heard a noise, grabbed his rifle, and walked out the front door. Someone in the dark shouted, “Throw up your hands!” Shots rang out from inside and outside the cabin, and when it was all over, Jeff’s sons, Tom and John, emerged to find the sheriff and his two deputies dead and their father mortally wounded. Arizona’s Deadliest Gunfight describes an impoverished family that wanted nothing to do with modern civilization.

The murder of a young Tibetan nun at the hands of Chinese border guards at the rooftop of the world offers a unique parable for the tale of modern Tibet. Chinese police are instructed to take any measures necessary to protect the border of Tibet. When a group of climbers witness the murder of a young Tibetan nun who is fleeing to India, two men have a choice: turn a blind eye and preserve their climbing careers or alert the world to the grand scale of human injustice played out daily in Tibet.

Set in the Deep South, The Fallen Star of Dixie follows a family as they navigate the trials of love, loss, and addiction. Narrated by the older brother, the story charts the turbulent journey of his sister, Gemma.

Author Jeff Spevak was confronted with a dilemma: How do you tell the story of a man who can’t bring himself to talk about the most epic moment of his life? A clever fellow who’d scrapped to survive in a fashion that seems quaint today, Coleman tested himself as a teenager by swimming across lakes, building homes from foraged lumber, and running a navy carpentry shop as though he were a member of the scamming crew of McHale’s Navy. He was a self-taught sailor who’d become a legend on Lake Ontario. At age 96, Ernie was still sailing.

The Battle of Stalingrad, a turning point in World War II, was a relentless and harrowing struggle fought between German forces and Soviet defenders from August 23, 1942, to February 2, 1943. Stalingrad, a strategically vital industrial city on the Volga River, witnessed intense urban warfare and became a symbol of resilience and sacrifice.