On August 6, 1945, 22-year-old Kaleria Pachikoff was doing pre-breakfast chores when a blinding flash lit the sky over Hiroshima, Japan. A moment later, everything went black as the house collapsed on her and her family. Their world, and everyone else's, changed as the first atomic bomb was detonated over a city.From Russian nobility, the Palchikoff's barely escaped death at the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries until her father, a White Russian officer, hijacked ...

On August 6, 1945, 22-year-old Kaleria Pachikoff was doing pre-breakfast chores when a blinding flash lit the sky over Hiroshima, Japan. A moment later, everything went black as the house collapsed on her and her family. Their world, and everyone else's, changed as the first atomic bomb was detonated over a city.From Russian nobility, the Palchikoff's barely escaped death at the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries until her father, a White Russian officer, hijacked ...

Here are overlooked or forgotten tales from the world's greatest conflict. These are stories of courage, daring, and stupidity, some of which would challenge the imaginations of Hollywood scriptwriters.Some of the many true tales that author Donald Aines recounts include:● He would never be cast as a dashing war hero, but a cast member of The Addams Family television show volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs the Army Air Force had to offe...

The award-winning history of twelve million German-speaking civilians in Europe who were driven from their homes after WWII: "a major achievement" (New Republic).Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between twelve and fourteen million civilians, most of them women and children. And...

Upon retirement at the age of sixty-two, and grieving his deceased wife, renowned journalist Bernard Ollivier felt a sense of profound emptiness: What do I do now? While some see retirement as a chance to cash in their chips and settle into a comfy armchair, Ollivier still longed for more. Searching for inspiration, he strapped on his gear, donned his hat, and headed out the front door to hike the Way of St. James, a 1400-mile journey from Paris to Compostela, Spain. At the end of that roa...

Winner of the Maine Literary AwardShortlisted for the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for WritingListed as a “Best Book of the Month” by Apple BooksIn 2009 Rachael Cerrotti, a college student pursuing a career in photojournalism, asked her grandmother, Hana, if she could record her story. Rachael knew that her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and the only one in her family alive at the end of the war. Rachael also knew...

The Stunning and Emotional Autobiography of an Auschwitz SurvivorApril 7, 1944—This date marks the successful escape of two Slovak prisoners from one of the most heavily-guarded and notorious concentration camps of Nazi Germany. The escapees, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, fled over one hundred miles to be the first to give the graphic and detailed descriptions of the atrocities of Auschwitz.Originally published in the early 1960s, I Escaped from Ausch...

Neal Bascomb, New York Times best-selling author, delivers the spellbinding story of the downed Allied airmen who masterminded the remarkably courageous-and ingenious-breakout from Germany's most devilish POW camp In the winter trenches and flak-filled skies of World War I, soldiers and pilots alike might avoid death, only to find themselves imprisoned in Germany's archipelago of POW camps, often in abominable conditions. The most infamous was Holzminden, a land-locked Alcatraz of sorts th...

A must-read prisoner memoir for fans of Orange is the New Black“A fascinating look into a world many of us never see, and a powerful story about one woman’s journey to find her own strength, with a clear message of the importance of books and information for all.” —Booklist (American Library Association), starred reviewShortlisted for the 2020 Social Justice & Advocacy Book Award by In the Margins Book Awards.In De...

Robert Parrish’s childhood obsession with series books like the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift inspired him to become an author. Just as his debut novel becomes a bestseller, his relationship with his girlfriend, Rebecca, begins to fall apart. Robert realizes he must confront his secret demons by fulfilling a youthful promise to solve a mystery surrounding his favorite series—the Tremendous Trio.Guided by twelve tattered books and an unidentified but tantalizing fragment of a story, Robe...

Walking to Samarkand is journalist Bernard Ollivier's stunning account of the second leg of his 7,200-mile walk from Istanbul, Turkey, to Xi'an, China, along the Silk Road—the longest and perhaps most mythical trade route of all time.After crossing the final mountain passes of Turkish Kurdistan, Ollivier sets foot in Iran, keen on locating vestiges of the silk trade as he passes through Persia's modern cities and traditional villages, including Tabriz, Tehran, Nishapur, an...

Bestselling author Stephen L. Carter delves into his past and retrieves the inspiring story of his grandmother’s extraordinary life.She was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s—and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted. When special prosecuto...