American Marines

James A. Warren's battle-driven history shows how this elite culture has produced the best warriors in the country, through six decades, several open wars, and many smaller interventions. From their heroic performance in the Pacific War, against Japanese troops on god-forsaken islands, to their "tip-of-the-lance" leadership in key operations in the two Gulf Wars, the Marines have proven again and again that elite men with elite training are worth entire armies.

Dale Maharidge’s father, like many World War II veterans, never talked about “the good war”. There was just one clue to his dad’s experience as a US Marine - a portrait with a close friend that hung permanently in their home. In The Dead Drink First, Dale, now a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, recounts his 18-year quest to find and repatriate the missing remains of his dad’s buddy, Herman Walter Mulligan, 73 years after he was killed in action.

Since 1935, roller derby has thrilled fans and skaters with its constant action, hard hits, and edgy attitude. However, though its participants’ athleticism is undeniable, roller derby has never been accepted as a “real” sport. Michella M. Marino, herself a former skater, tackles the history of a sport that has long been a cultural mainstay for one reason both utterly simple and infinitely complex: Roller derby has always been coed. 

This dynamic collection of Black voices, performed by Tony and Grammy Award-winning actor, rapper, and producer Daveed Diggs and Emmy Award-winning writer, creator, producer, and actor Lena Waithe, works like an incantation of origin, healing, and imagination. Born from a series of conceptual art exhibitions, the perspectives gathered here are nowhere near monochromatic.

Claire Griffith has it all, a thriving career, a gorgeous boyfriend, glamorous friends. She always knew she was destined for more than the life her conservative parents preached to her. Arriving in Los Angeles flat broke, she has risen to become a popular fitness coach and social media influencer. Having rebranded herself as Cleo Ray, she stands at the threshold of realizing her biggest dreams. One summer day, Cleo and a woman named Beck Alden set off in a canoe on a serene mountain lake. An hour later, Beck is found dead in the water, and Cleo is missing.

With an executive order from President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, the United States Marine Corps - the last all-white branch of the U.S. military - was forced to begin recruiting and enlisting African Americans. The first black recruits received basic training at the segregated Camp Montford Point, adjacent to Camp Lejeune, near Jacksonville, North Carolina.

One of World War II's most crucial struggles happened in the realm of the unseen, inside the human mind, and amid the invisible flow of radio waves. Every war is a battle of wits as intelligence-gathering, tactics, and strategies clash, from the level of individual action up to the grand, overarching schemes of generals and statesmen. Intelligence took on a freshly urgent aspect in World War II, however, as the fate of nations came to hang on the struggle to decrypt vital enemy communications.

As a young man, Arthur left school to enlist into the Marine Corp. During his tour of duty, he was stationed in the villages near Mt. Fuji. It was there that Arthur realized just how lucky he was to live in a country where he had freedoms and privileges that those villagers would never possess. He decided right then and there, that he wouldn’t waste those opportunities. He took inventory of what he wanted out of life and set out to achieve his great American dream.

Christmas is almost here, and guys are the last thing on personal shopper Ainsley Garrett's list. But her icy resolution melts when she sees an incredibly hot marine shopping for toys. A man in uniform with a hot bod and a heart of gold? Maybe a gal can believe in Santa after all.

It is Super Bowl Sunday in the year 2022. Five people are due to have dinner in an apartment on the east side of Manhattan. The hosts are a retired physics professor and her husband; they are joined by one of her former students and await the arrival of another couple, delayed by what becomes a dramatic flight from Paris. In the apartment, talk ranges widely. The opening kickoff is one commercial away. Then something happens, and the digital connections that have transformed our lives are severed.

The fighting prowess of United States Marines is second to none, but few know of the Corps' humble beginnings and what it achieved during the early years of the American Revolution. That oversight is fully rectified by Jason Bohm's eye-opening Washington's Marines: The Origins of the Corps and the American Revolution, 1775-1777.

Much of the history written about the Vietnam War overlooks the US Marine Corps Combined Action Platoons. These CAPs lived in the Vietnamese villages, with the difficult and dangerous mission of defending the villages from both the National Liberation Front guerrillas and the soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army. The CAPs also worked to improve living conditions by helping the people with projects, such as building schools, bridges, and irrigation systems for their fields. 

Criminal Investigator Braylon Wexler has arrived in Hilton Head Island to dutifully serve his country on Paris Island Military base. As soon as he arrives the calm he's been longing for is pleasantly shattered by the tantalizing stormy presence of Sandella Summers. She is an unexpected surprise that stirs a hot longing in him, like a hot poker through blazing coals.

Tenacity chronicles the evolution of entrepreneur Ron Coury, a major business figure in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the surrounding Western states. As Coury, a former US Marine, climbed the ladder toward his success, he faced a barrage of constraints, including political and police corruption, bribery, coercion, and even death threats. Coury details the struggles he faced and the losses he endured in this eye-opening look behind the curtain of business during the “good ol’ boy” days of Southern Nevada.

Olivia Kirkland had a body made for sin and Ivan had known that she was going to be trouble ever since she'd started to bloom before his very eyes years before. But Olivia was practically his family, and he could never think of anything more happening between them. Olivia had other ideas... She'd been in love with Ivan ever since she knew what the word meant. And even if it meant seducing him, she was going to find a way to make her every desire come to life in his arms.

In this extraordinary audiobook, Robert D. Kaplan lets listeners experience up close the American military worldwide in the air, at sea, and on the ground. Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts provides a riveting ground-level portrait of the Global War on Terrorism on several continents.

Amy McGrath grew up in Edgewood, Kentucky, a childhood shaped by love of country, baseball (the Cincinnati Reds), and, from the age of 12, a fascination with fighter jets. Her devastation at learning that a federal law prohibited women from flying in combat fueled her determination to do just that - and then, to help change the laws to improve the lives of all Americans.

This is the exciting story about how the young American Republic established the United States Navy, Marine Corps and Revenue Cutter Service (the predecessor to the Coast Guard), designed and built the most powerful class of frigate in the world, trained its seamen in gunnery and naval warfare and gained battle experience in the Quasi-War with France in 1798-1800 and the Barbary War ("Shores of Tripoli") in 1801-1805.

Although we rely on physicians, calling on them at birth and death and every medical event in between, rarely do we consider the personal challenges faced by doctors-to-be. In 2005 author Jacqueline Marino and photojournalist Tim Harrison had the unprecedented opportunity to chronicle the experience of three students as they learned to become doctors at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Stella is happy as a clam in fourth grade. She's the president of the Sea Musketeers conservation club, she starts taking swim lessons, and she joins a new art club at school. But as her schedule fills up, school gets harder, too. Suddenly the tides have turned, and she is way too busy! Stella will be in an ocean of trouble if she can't keep her head above water. But with her trusty Sea Musketeers by her side, she hops to make her big dreams come true!