At the beginning of November 1942, it looked as if the Axis powers could still win the Second World War; at the end of that month, it was obviously just a matter of time before they would lose. In between were el-Alamein, Guadalcanal, the French North Africa landings, the Japanese retreat in New Guinea and the Soviet encirclement of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. It may have been the most important thirty days of the twentieth century. Peter Englund...

"In this book, Klinenberg uses seven people's piercingly vivid reflections to examine how communities across the globe reckoned with the profound tragedy and loss of 2020--and how they built networks of solidarity in an attempt to survive. We move from the gross negligence in Canadian for-profit nursing homes, to England's gradualist approach to instating robust Covid safety protocols, to early policy innovations in Australia, South Korea, and Taiwan,...

On July 17, 2009, Chanel Reynolds' husband, José, was struck by a car while cycling near their home in Seattle. In the wake of her husband's untimely death, Reynolds quickly realized that she was completely unprepared for what came next. What was the password to his phone? Did they sign their wills? ... Could she afford the house? And what the hell was probate anyway? Simply put, when life went sideways she didn't have her shit together. As it turns...

"At the age of sixteen, Edith Eger, a trained ballet dancer and gymnast, was sent to Auschwitz. Hours after her parents were killed, the 'Angel of Death,' Nazi officer Dr. Josef Mengele, forced Edie to dance for his amusement--and her survival. He rewarded her with a loaf of bread that she shared with her fellow prisoners--an act of generosity that would later save her life. Edie and her sister survived multiple death camps and the Death March. When...

"Seven million people worldwide suffer from Parkinson's-- with sixty thousand new cases diagnosed each year in the U.S. alone-- and it remains an enigma, with doctors, researchers, and patients hunting for a cure. In Brain Storms, award-winning journalist Jon Palfreman tells their story, a story that takes on urgency when he is diagnosed with the debilitating illness. Palfreman chronicles how scientists have labored to crack the mystery of what was...

A tense real-life thriller follows a group of retired Green Berets as they worked together to save a former comrade, along with five hundred Afghans, right before the ISIS-K suicide bombing at Kabul airport amidst the chaos of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

"In March 1942, twenty-five-year-old kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger was among the first Jews to be sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The SS soon realized that if they put prisoners in day-to-day charge of the accommodation blocks, they could deflect attention from themselves. Magda was one such prisoner selected for leadership, put in charge as Blockälteste of hundreds of women in the notorious Experimental Block 10 and, later, as Lagerälteste...

Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-stargeneral. Black Ops is the story of Ric's legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age...

A vivid narrative of a life in intelligence and special operations, from the Cold War to the war on terror. In 1984, Michael Vickers took charge of the CIA's secret campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Inheriting a strategy aimed at imposing costs on Russia, Vickers transformed the campaign into an all-out effort to help the Afghans win their war. More than any other American, he was responsible for the outcome in Afghanistan that led to the...