Aviation History

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The definitive history of combat aviation and fighter aircraft, from World War I to present INCLUDES 32 PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS AND 12 MAPS Lords of the Sky is the “dramatic, fast-paced, and definitive"" (Michael Korda) history of fighter pilots and aircraft and their...

Boarding an airplane strikes at least a small sense of fear into most people. Even though we all have heard that the odds of being struck by lightning are greater than the odds of perishing in a plane crash, it still doesn't feel that way. Airplane crashes might be rare, but they do happen, and they’re usually fatal. David Soucie insists that most of these deaths could be prevented. He’s worked as a pilot, a mechanic, an FAA inspector, and an aviation executive. He’s seen death up close and personal - deaths of colleagues and friends that might have been prevented if he had approved certain safety measures in the aircrafts they were handling.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of New York Times best sellers including Talking to Strangers and host of the podcast Revisionist History, uses original interviews, archival footage, and his trademark insight to weave together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in Central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard. As listeners hear these stories unfurl, Gladwell examines one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.

#1 MULTI-MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER A one-of-a-kind portrait of a true American hero: General Chuck Yeager “The secret of my success is that I always managed to live to fly another day.” General Chuck Yeager was the greatest test pilot of them all—the first man to fly faster than...

From Kevin Maurer—the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning coauthor of No Easy Day—comes the true story of a World War II bomber pilot who survived twenty-five missions in Damn Lucky, “an epic, thrillingly written, utterly immersive account of a very lucky, incredible survivor of...

Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Thousands of fans flocked to multi-day events, and cities vied with one another to host them. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Fly Girls recounts how a cadre of women banded together to break the original glass ceiling: the entrenched prejudice that conspired to keep them out of the sky.

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. 

The astonishing untold story of the WWII airmen who risked it all in the deadly race to become the greatest American fighter pilot. "A heart-pounding narrative of the courage, sacrifice, and tragedy of America's elite fighter pilots." —James M. Scott, New York Times bestselling author of The...

Ken Follett follows his bestsellers Jackdaws and Code to Zero with an extraordinary novel of early days of World War II. It is June 1941 and the war is not going well for England. Across the North Sea, 18-year-old Harald Olufsen takes a shortcut on the German-occupied Danish island of Sande and...

In 1942, Norman Hanson learned to fly the Royal Navy's newest fighter: the US-built Chance Vought Corsair. Fast, rugged, and demanding to fly, it was an intimidating machine. But in the hands of its young Fleet Air Arm pilots, it also proved to be a lethal weapon. Posted to the South Pacific aboard HMS Illustrious, Hanson and his squadron took the fight to the Japanese. Facing a desperate and determined enemy, Kamikaze attacks, and the ever-present dangers of flying off a pitching carrier deck, death was never far away.

The untold story of five women who fought to compete against men in the high-stakes national air races of the 1920s and 1930s - and won.  

Military drones have been part of wars for more than 100 years. Today’s military unmanned aerial vehicles are packed with sensors, high-quality cameras, and even weapons. With each UAV flight, military members are kept safe away from war zones. Young listeners will learn how both aerial and underwater military drones operate and get inside details about some of the missions they’ve completed.

With the Soviet Union's launch of the first Sputnik satellite in 1957, the Cold War soared to new heights as Americans feared losing the race into space. The X-15 Rocket Plane tells the enthralling yet little-known story of the hypersonic X-15, the winged rocket ship that met this challenge and opened the way into human-controlled spaceflight. Drawing on interviews with those who were there, Michelle Evans captures the drama and excitement of, yes, rocket science.

This revealing history explores Hermann Goering’s desperate creation of twenty-two Luftwaffe Field Divisions—air force personnel hastily repurposed as infantry and sent to the Eastern Front with disastrous results. Michael J. Stout delivers the first full account of these ill-fated units...

Why Planes Crash offers an exciting and compelling look at the critical moments which define an aviation accident, explaining both the how and the why of catastrophic accidents in modern times. From disintegrating airliners to in-flight suicide to maintenance shortcuts, the author looks critically into each factor that might have lead to the crash. Her investigations and deep insight aim to make the listener into a witness to the investigation, and, yet, it is comprehensive enough for anyone with no aviation knowledge to understand.

In 100 Years of Air Power and Aviation, Robin Higham, regarded by many as the dean of aviation historians, presents a critical history of British, American, Soviet, German, Italian, French, Japanese, and Israeli aviation. He moves easily from theory to concrete example and back again, in the process discussing the social, economic, and political components of air power, the major wars and police actions in which aircraft have been employed, the composition of air forces, and the creation of aviation industries.

“A GRIPPING CLASSIC. Exhaustively researched, The Hunter Killers puts you directly into a Wild Weasel fighter cockpit during the Vietnam War. Dan Hampton lets you feel it for yourself as no one else could.”--Colonel LEO THORSNESS, Wild Weasel pilot and Medal of Honor recipient At the height...

The empowering true story of a group of spirited stewardesses who “stood up to huge corporations and won, creating momentous change for all working women.” (Gloria Steinem, co-founder of Ms. magazine) It was the Golden Age of Travel, and everyone wanted in. As flying boomed in the 1960s...

A New Yorker Best Book of 2025 An NPR Book We Love 2025 A History Best Book of 2025 A Smithsonian Magazine Best History Book of 2025 A New York Post Best Book of 2025 A New York Times Editors' Choice CBS Sunday Morning Summer Book Report Pick New York Times “Books...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Your ultimate guide to unlocking the secrets of aviation! For millions of people, travel by air is a confounding, uncomfortable, and even frightening experience. When you go behind the scenes, however, you can see that the grand theater of air travel is actually...