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      • Graphic novels
        2020

        Wooden Crosses

        by Roland Dorgelès, JD Morvan and Facundo Percio

        In 1919, Albin Michel publishes Les Croix de bois, a novel written by Roland Dorgelès which forever revolutionized the war novel genre. Inspired by the author’s time as a soldier in the trenches of WWI, the book is immediately met with wide acclaim from critics and surviving soldiers alike. It is awarded the Prix Femina and narrowly misses the Prix Goncourt to Marcel Proust. Terrible, appalling, unforgiving but also light and funny at times, the novel tells of the harsh reality of what can only be described as hell on earth. JD Morvan and Facundo Percio deliver a brilliant adaptation of this masterpiece by connecting the fictional novel written by Roland Dorgelès and events of his own life, thus demonstrating the thin line between truth and fiction.

      • Biography & True Stories

        A Nurse's Story

        Medical Missionary in Korea and Siberia, 1915-1920

        by Delia Battles Lewis

        ​Delia Battles left her small town in Ohio to train as a nurse in New York City and then went on an adventure of a lifetime. She found fulfillment in her work as a medical missionary in Korea, training native nurses at the mission hospital in another small town, Haeju. Her life of service there was interrupted by WWI, when she was called to be part of a Red Cross unit on the Eastern Front. She traveled on the Trans-Siberian railroad, encountered fleeing refugees in Harbin, and then worked in a typhus hospital and helped establish a Red Cross hospital in Omsk. At the end of the war, she returned to Korea to work in a hospital in Seoul, just in time to witness the first stirrings of the Korean Independence movement.

      • General & world history

        WWI - A Concise History

        by Pat Morgan

        On 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo, a Bosnian Serb student shot the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The assassination plunged the world into a global conflict that was to scar human history and redefine the meaning of the word war .

      • Biography: general
        June 2018

        Knight: Yorkshireman, Storyteller, Spy

        by Greg Christie

        Biography of best-selling novelist, Eric Knight whose work was praised by the literary establishment of the 1930s, but whose greatest acheivements were overshadowed by his biggest hit - he was the author of  'Lassie Come-Home'.  A child immigrant to the USA, Eric Knight enlisted in Canada and returned to England to face the horrors of WWI, having already escaped once from the deprivation of the Yorkshire mill towns His biography is an epic account that spans some of the key historical moments early in the last century. With a creative mind, and a formidable spirit that sustained him from the trenches of Ypres, and through the Depression, to literary success and acclaim, he did not shy away from defending his native England once more – as confidant to the US President, he supported the efforts to bring the US into WWII which led to his untimely death in the service of the OSS, the forerunner to the US Central Intelligence Agency.

      • Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2020

        PEACE ON OUR TERMS

        The Global Battle for Women's Rights After the First World War

        by Mona Siegel

        In the watershed year of 1919, world leaders met in Paris, promising to build a new international order rooted in democracy and social justice. Female activists demanded that statesmen live up to their word. Excluded from the negotiating table, women met separately, crafted their agendas, and captured global headlines with a message that was both straightforward and revolutionary: enduring peace depended as much on recognition of the fundamental humanity and equality of all people—regardless of sex, race, class, or creed—as on respect for the sovereignty of independent states.

      • Fiction

        Like a Sword Wound

        by Ahmet Altan

        Volume 1 of the Ottoman Quartet A powerful, beautifully written saga set during the fall of one of history’s greatest empires. Altan’s “Ottoman Quartet” spans the fifty years between the final decades of the 19th century and the post-WWI rise of Atatürk as both the unchallenged leader and visionary reformer of the new Turkey. The quartet tells the gripping stories of an unforgettable cast of characters: an Ottoman army officer, the Sultan’s personal doctor, a scion of the royal house whose Western education brings him into conflict with his family’s legacy, and a beguiling Turkish aristocrat who, while fond of her emancipated life in Paris, finds herself drawn to a conservative Muslim spiritual leader. Intrigue, betrayal, love, war, progress, and tradition provide a colourful backdrop against which the lives of these characters play out. All the while, the society that spawned them is transforming and the Sublime Empire disintegrating. Here is a Turkish saga reminiscent of War and Peace, written in lively, contemporary prose that traces not only the social currents of the time but also the erotic and emotional lives of its characters. Altan is a fearless, caustic writer, who is not afraid to hide in plain sight a critique against arrogant, anti-democratic leadership that exploits religion and bigotry, letting the reader hear in this historical novels an echo of Turkey’s contemporary politics.

      • Fiction

        Marie Blanche, a family saga

        by Jim Fergus

        A sweeping family historical novel covering the entire 20th century, and three continents, Marie-Blanche is based on the lives of Jim Fergus’s French mother and grandmother — a troubled and finally tragic relationship.

      • Biography & True Stories
        January 2018

        Ordinary Heroes

        The Story of Civilian Volunteers in the First World War

        by Sally White

        Ordinary Heroes is the first book to focus on the staggering achievements of hundreds of thousands of civilian volunteers and charity workers, the majority of them women, during the First World War, both at home and abroad. It shows what a mass of untried and frequently untrained women and men from all backgrounds achieved through their innovation, adaptability, bravery and dogged commitment. As Lloyd George said, the war could not have been won without them. As the country was swept by patriotic fervour and a belief that it would all be over by Christmas, many women were as keen as the men to get involved. Organisations were all but overwhelmed by the initial tide of volunteers. They rushed to register for overseas service without knowing the devastating reality that would confront them. Others devoted their time to fundraising, collecting salvage, caring for refugees, working in canteens or helping in any other way they could. Conditions, particularly in the Balkans and Russia, were often appalling and yet the volunteers coped with and even relished the challenges. They came under fire, advanced or retreated with their respective armies, evacuated their patients through baking heat, mud or bitter cold, battled epidemics, performed operations by the light of a single candle, worked through the Russian Revolution and joined the Serbian Army on its Great Retreat. Several groups were taken prisoner. Wherever they worked, they were met with respect and gratitude −and sometimes incredulity that British people, especially gentlewomen, would help foreigners.

      • Religion & beliefs

        Building The Goodly Fellowship Of Faith

        A History of the Episcopal Church in Utah, 1867-1996

        by Frederick Quinn

        Fred Quinn's elegantly written and meticulously researched book brings the history of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah alive. This is no dry institutional history but a lively story of growth and change, buzzing with people and places: female missionaries, colorful bishops, vibrant parishes, and dedicated clergy. Quinn tells us about the interactions between Episcopalians, the native populations, and the majority religion—the LDS—in Utah, and therefore relates a story about religion and culture in the West over the last 150 years. His engaging style kept me reading to the late hours wanting to finish the tale! —Jane Shaw, Dean of Divinity, New College, Oxford University As this critical, independent history, which ends with the ordination of one of the first women bishops in the nation, shows, Utah Episcopalians have had, despite small numbers, a remarkably eventful and significant history, which included complex relations with Mormons and Native Americans, early experience of women and homosexuals in the ministry, and a fascinating set of bishops. Among the latter were Daniel Tuttle, a leading figure in Episcopal history; Christian socialist and Social Gospel proponent Frank Spencer Spalding; and Paul Jones, forced to resign because of his pacifism during WWI. Frederick Quinn, an Episcopal priest and historian, is adjunct professor of history at Utah State University and adjunct professor of political science at the University of Utah. His previous books include Democracy at Dawn, Notes From Poland and Points East, a TLS International Book of the Year, and African Saints, Martyrs, and Holy People, a Black Catholic Congress Book of the Month. A former chaplain at Washington National Cathedral, he holds a doctorate in history from the University of California at Los Angeles.

      • March 2020

        No Small Shame

        One wrong choice will change her life forever

        by Christine Bell

        Australia, 1914. The world is erupting in war. Jobs are scarce and immigrants unwelcome. For young Catholic Mary O’Donnell, this is not the new life she imagined.   When one foolish night of passion leads to an unexpected pregnancy and a loveless marriage, Mary’s reluctant husband Liam escapes to the trenches. With her overbearing mother attempting to control her every decision, Mary flees to Melbourne determined to build a life for herself and her child. There, she forms an unlikely friendship with Protestant army reject Tom Robbins.   But as a shattering betrayal is revealed, Mary must make an impossible choice. Does she embrace the path fate has set for her, or follow the one she longs to take?   From the harshness of a pit village in Scotland to the upheaval of wartime Australia, No Small Shame tells the moving story of love and duty, loyalty and betrayal, and confronting the past before you can seek a future.

      • Biography & True Stories
        March 2018 - May 2018

        Cellini-Freedom Fighter

        This is his true story.

        by Vito "Tutuc" Cellini and Mick J. Prodger

        Born in New York and raised in Italy, Vito “Tutuc” Cellini went from street gangster to soldier to resistance fighter to secret agent – all before he was twenty-one years of age. Drafted into the fascist Italian army against his will and sent to the front line, he deserted and joined Tito’s Yugoslavian Partisans fighting the Nazis, returning to Italy to join the Allies amid one of the biggest cover-ups of the European war. He ended the war working covertly with the American OSS (forerunner of the CIA) hunting down criminals and undesirables. Sailing home to New York in 1948 with a forged Italian passport and just 12 cents in his pocket, he was arrested at Ellis Island. Since then, Cellini’s inventiveness, reputation and irrepressible sense of adventure have taken him all over the world, often putting his life in great peril. Respected by the New York Mafia, Cellini later negotiated with some of the most feared organized crime syndicates in Italy. Nicaragua’s President Somoza sought his advice on guerilla warfare and weapons tactics, and while in Nicaragua he was embroiled in the assassination of a high profile journalist and had to flee for his life. Cellini has kept Federal Agents informed of credible plots to assassinate known enemies of the United States. He even served for a short time, albeit inadvertently, as bodyguard for a notorious drug lord in Mexico. He has never been afraid of taking the law into his own hands because, he says, sometimes that is the only way to survive. His inventions, including the Cellini muzzle brake, have earned him 19 patents and the undying respect and gratitude of members of the U.S. Special Forces and Law Enforcement. He has been privileged to count some of America’s most revered and decorated military heroes among his closest friends. Cellini is, more than anything, a patriot; a man who puts honor above all. And while some of his adventures make fictional spies and secret agents pale by comparison, unlike his fictitious counterparts, Cellini always remained faithful to one woman. Now in his 90s, he finally feels comfortable talking about his life, and he isn’t pulling any punches. The good. The bad. The ugly. The truth. Includes more than 75 photographs.

      • Technology, Engineering & Agriculture

        Technical Guide: Japanese Aircraft of World War II

        1937-45

        by Thomas Newdick

        Illustrated with colourful artworks of Japanese aircraft and their markings, JapaneseAircraft of World War II is a detailed guide to all the aircraft deployed by the Japanese military from the Second Sino-Japanese War to the surrender in the Pacific in August 1945. Organised alphabetically by manufacturer, this book includes every type of aircraft,from fighters to seaplanes, bombers, reconnaissance aircraft, torpedo bombers andcarrier aircraft. All the best-known types are featured, such as the Mitsubishi G4M‘Betty’, Nakajima B6N2 Tenzan, Aichi B7A2 Ryusei torpedo bomber and the worldfamous Mitsubishi A6M ‘Zero’ fighter. The entries are accompanied by exhaustive captions and specifications. The guide is illustrated with profile artworks, three-views, and special cutaway artworks of the more famous aircraft in service, such as the Aichi D3A1 ‘Val’, Mitsubishi A6M2 Reisen, and Nakajima Ki.27 ‘Nate’. Illustrated with more than 120 artworks, Japanese Aircraft of World War II is an essential reference guide

      • The Arts
        October 2020

        The Elements of Song Craft

        by Billy Seidman

        An effective new songwriting vocabulary supported by ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. The Elements Of Song Craft does for songwriters what William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White’s The Elements Of Style did for English language students and writers alike; gives an all-in-one definitive manifesto for contemporary songwriters in every genre to organize, understand, and practice the rules, principles, definitions, forms, and song craft needed to create good songs, songs of undeniable creative power and beauty, songs that last.The Elements of Song Craft beelines directly to the most important aspect of writing good songs—identifying the key emotion living at the heart of the song—then offers a step-by-step process to harnessing that singular emotional power. Additionally, a dozen other strategies, formulas, perspectives, and exercises are offered in the book.The Elements of Song Craft introduces, for the first time to a general songwriting audience, an effective new songwriting vocabulary utilized by songwriters taught in the SONG ARTS ACADEMY method and supported by ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, the world’s leading Performance Rights Organizations at the heart of the songwriting business, as well as at NYU Steinhardt’s and The New School’s songwriting programs, for over sixteen years. Thousands of song arts participants, including hit songwriters and The Voice and American Idol contestants, have been trained in this method.

      • June 2022

        I Only Cry With Emoticons

        by Yuvi Zalkow

        I Only Cry with Emoticons is a story about the many superficial ways we connect in a world full of communication devices, and how one guy learns how to connect with the people he cares about in real life. Saul’s the kind of guy who hides in the bathroom at his high-tech day job in order to write a novel about his dead grandfather, and then he wonders why his boss wants to fire him. Saul tells his almost-ex-wife about a blind date and then wonders why she slams the door in his face. When Saul gets drunk and tells his new girlfriend that he wants her to meet his ex-wife, he doesn’t understand why his girlfriend leaves him. While Saul’s career and love life crumble, he tries not to let that mess up his precious relationship with his seven-year-old son, who’s more comfortable living with Saul’s ex and her new boyfriend. When the pieces of Saul’s life crash into each other, we find out if he can wake up and cobble together a more connected life, a life as a decent dad in a decent relationship, while still finishing that novel about his bankrupt, drunk grandfather who struggled with the very same things. I Only Cry with Emoticons is about the ways that we try to connect with each other in a time when we’re sometimes more connected to our devices than our friends and family.

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