For the US Navy’s elite team of SEALs, the mission seemed straightforward enough: take control of a towering, 10,240-foot mountain peak called Takur Ghar, a key post in their plan to smash Taliban al Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan. But the enemy was waiting, and when the Special Forces chopper was shredded by enemy fire, a red-haired SEAL named Neil Roberts was thrown from the aircraft. Roberts’ fellow SEALs were determined to bring him out—no matter what the cost. This harrowing true accoun...

Part Fistful of Dollars, part The Martian, The Exile is set 150 years in the future as Mars, a barely habitable world, struggles with widespread corruption and brutality. In a desperate bid to find a way home to Earth, Bryce—a disgraced federal agent exiled from Earth—finds herself forced to join the local police force, while navigating dangers from every angle as she discovers there is little difference between criminals and law enforcement in this frontier worl...

The obituary page of The New York Times is a celebration of extraordinary lives. This groundbreaking audiobook includes 300 obits of the most important and fascinating obituaries the Times has ever published.The obituary page is the section many readers first turn to not only see who died, but to read some of the most inspiring, insightful, often funny, and elegantly written stori...

When John and Jean Silverwood, both experienced sailors, decided to give their four children a taste of life on the high seas, they hoped the trip would offer important learning experiences, not only about the natural world but about the beauty of human life stripped down to its essence, far from civilization. But the adventure that awaited them would surpass anything they could have imagined. Aboard their fifty-five-foot catamaran, the Silverwood family found its bonds tested as never bef...

What defines Boston? Its history? Its landmarks? Its sports teams and shrines?Perhaps the question should be, who defines Boston? From Henry David Thoreau to Dennis Lehane, Boston has been beloved by many of America's greatest writers, and there is no better group of men and women to capture the heart and soul of the Hub. In Our Boston, editor Andrew Blauner has collected both original and reprinted essays from Boston-area writers past and present, all celebrating the city...

At dawn on March 2, 2002, America's first major battle of the twenty-first century began. Over two hundred soldiers of the 101st Airborne and Tenth Mountain Division flew into Afghanistan's Shah-i-Kot valley—and into the mouth of a buzz saw. They were about to pay a bloody price for strategic, high-level miscalculations that underestimated the enemy's strength and willingness to fight.Now, award-winning journalist Sean Naylor, an eyewitness to the battle, details the failures of mi...

During the height of the blizzard of 1978, a tanker foundered on the shoals off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard dispatched a patrol boat that was soon in trouble, too.A pilot-boat captain, Frank Quirk, heard of the Coast Guard’s plight on his radio. He gathered his crew of four, readied his forty-nine-foot steel boat, the Can Do, and entered the maelstrom of the blizzard soon to be known as the Storm of the Century.Encountering one of the ...

In early May 2005, Captain Tom Tighe and first mate, Loch Reidy, of the sailboat Almeisan welcomed three new crew members, two men and a woman, for a five-day voyage from Connecticut to Bermuda. While Tighe and Reidy had made the journey countless times, the rest of the crew were paying-passengers learning about offshore sailing and looking for adventure. Four days into their voyage, they got adventure—but not the kind they had expected or had any training to handle. A massive sto...

In a remote, enemy-held valley in Afghanistan, a Special Forces team planned to scale a steep mountain to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them . . .The team was caught in a deadly ambush that not only threatened their lives, but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought huddled for hours on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire rained down on them. With total disregard for their own...

The gripping memoir of Navy Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart recipient SEAL Lieutenant Mark L. Donald, Battle Ready.As A SEAL and combat medic, Mark served his country with valorous distinction for almost twenty-five years and survived some of the most dangerous combat actions imaginable.From the rigors of BUD/S training to the horrors of the battlefield, Battle Ready dramatically immerses the listener in the unique life o...

In Jawbreaker Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA’s most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.With his unique mix of clandestine knowledge and paramilitary training, Berntsen represents the new face of counterterrorism. Recognized within the agency for his aggressiveness, Berntsen, when dispatched to Afghanistan, made annihilating the enemy his job description....

This expansive book chronicles the true story of twelve American sailors who were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa in 1815, captured by desert nomads, sold into slavery, and subjected to a hellish two-month journey through the perilous heart of the Sahara.The western Sahara is a baking hot and desolate place, home only to nomads and their camels, and to locusts, snails and thorny scrub—and its barren and ever-changing coastline has baffled sailors for centuries....