Objects that make the past feel real, from a stone axe head to a piece of John Brown's scaffold—includes photos.History isn't just about abstract "isms"—it's the story of real events that happened to real people. In Touching America's History, Meredith Mason Brown uses a collection of such objects, drawing from his own family's heirlooms, to summon up major developments in America's history.The objects range in date from a Pequot stone axe head, pr...

First published in 1944, this book by former USNF Lieutenant John Mason Brown is an account of the invasion of the coast of Normandy. As in his earlier book, To All Hands (1943), this narrative includes excerpts from broadcasts from the bridge to the men below decks. The result is a gripping personal experience story, as well as a survey of the implications of invasion: from the moods of the British forces; the U.S. response; the morale of the waiting troops; to the first impressions of Fr...

Finally, a book for guys that solves the riddles of pregnancy.Do you think that newborn babies can eat Doritos? That they can't scream very loudly since they just have tiny little baby lungs? That you will still be able to golf on weekends after your baby is born?If so, you need this book!Breathe takes guys misstep-by-misstep through the stages of pregnancy and the early days of childhood. Considered by many to be the unofficial pregnancy hand...

Who Cut the Cheese? uses a delightful little fable to encapsulate the fundamental rule of modern American management and the new economy: "Survive change by shifting blame."The fable revolves around two malevolent rats and two spiteful "Punypeople" who find themselves trapped together in a maze, fighting over a dwindling supply of constantly moving cheese. Some characters adapt readily to this treacherous, shifting environment -- blaming the weak and overpowering the helple...

The name Daniel Boone conjures up the image of an illiterate, coonskin cap-wearing patriot who settled Kentucky and killed countless Indians. The scarcity of surviving autobiographical material has allowed tellers of his story to fashion a Boone of their own liking, and his myth has evolved in countless stories, biographies, novels, poems, and paintings. In this welcome book, Meredith Mason Brown separates the real Daniel Boone from the many fables that surround him, revealing a man far mo...

Near the end of his life, Roger Williams, Rhode Island founder and father of American religious freedom, scrawled an encrypted essay in the margins of a colonial-era book. For more than 300 years those shorthand notes remained indecipherable......until a team of Brown University undergraduates led by Lucas Mason-Brown cracked Williams' code after the marginalia languished for over a century in the archives of the John Carter Brown Library. At the time of Williams' writing, a trans-...

Dan Floyd, a retired and widowed lawyer, is doing his best to fill his timeattending church, keeping in touch with his two adult sons, and reading up on epidemics.When he comes down with what seems like garden-variety flu, he amuses himself by studying plagues, both modern-day varieties and the biblical kind. Dan and his sons, one of whom is a doctor, share information and speculate about epidemics. Meanwhile, in the community around him, he begins to hear of people dying from comp...

While capturing anacondas in the jungles of South America, adventurer Wandering Smith spies an orchid hunter fleeing from a troupe of angry natives spewing poisoned arrows. But when this orchid hunter joins the hunting expedition, it becomes clear that he thirsts for something other than rare orchids - he is also collecting the jewels used to adorn shrunken heads.Elmer Brown Mason is largely forgotten today save for aficionados of pulp magazines. His great contribution to the genre...

Adventurer Wandering Smith is hunting anacondas in the jungles of South America when he spots an orchid hunter, who is fleeing from a group of natives. The two join forces, but it soon becomes clear to Wandering Smith that the orchid hunter is after something much more adventurous than rare flowers.'The Golden Anaconda' is one of five stories written by entomologist Elmer Brown Mason about the swamp-guide Wandering Smith. They were originally published in 'The Popular Magazine' and...

"Without question this is the best popular account of the last war fought between the United States and Great Britain. . . . In a gripping narrative the author not only explains the importance of the War of 1812 but vividly recreates its exciting land and sea battles." —Robert V. Remini, author of The Life of Andrew JacksonAlthough frequently overlooked between the American Revolution and the Civil War, the War of 1812 tested a rising generation of America...

"Comprehensive and deeply sympathetic. The thoroughness and authority of [this biography of Daniel Boone] are beyond dispute." — Washington Post Book WorldThe story of Daniel Boone is the story of America—its ideals, its promise, its romance, and its destiny. Bestselling, critically acclaimed author Robert Morgan reveals the complex character of a frontiersman whose heroic life was far stranger and more fascinating than the myths that surr...

Urban Fantasy meets Future NoirOnce people have messed with a man's DNA, what can he do but become a private eye? And when a gorgeous thing like Elizabeth Savoy comes gliding into his office and blinks her big baby blues, what can PI Mike Heller do but say sure—even though he sees just what she is, and knows what a bad idea it could be? Not that Heller has a clue just how bad. But by the time he suspects that Lizzie's troubles might bring the end of life as he knows it, he's already...