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The Last Gangster: My Final Confession
by Charlie RichardsonCharlie Richardson, one of Britain's most notorious gangland bosses, sheds light on his extraordinary life story completed just weeks before his death in September 2012.Notorious Charlie Richardson was the most feared gangster in 1960s London. Boss of the Richardson Gang and rival of the Krays, to cross him would result in brutal repercussions. Famously arrested on the day England won the World Cup in 1966, his trial heard he allegedly used iron bars, bolt cutters and electric shocks on his enemies.The Last Gangster is Richardson’s frank account of his largely untold life story, finished just before his death in September 2012. He shares the truth behind the rumours and tells of his feuds with the Krays for supremacy, undercover missions involving politicians, many lost years banged up in prison and reveals shocking secrets about royalty, phone hacking, bent coppers and the infamous black box.Straight up, shocking and downright gripping, this is the ultimate exposé on this legendary gangster and his extraordinary life.
The Last Genet
by David Homel Hadrien LarocheThe final decades of Jean Genet's life were preoccupied with the struggles of the disenfranchised: the Black Panthers, Baader-Meinhoff, and the Palestinians. Laroche's book is a careful philosophical and historical reading of these groups and Genet's relation to them.
The Last Gentleman Adventurer: Coming of Age in the Arctic (Charnwood Large Print Ser.)
by Edward Beauclerk Maurice"This is a great book about life at remote bases in Canada's far north as seen by a young English boy who went there by himself to see the world and got more than he could have bargained for. Beautifully written." --Sir Ranulph Fiennes"As spare, gleaming, and exhilarating as the Arctic wastes and the gentle, stoic Eskimos who had mastery of this realm . . . The book evokes the frozen seas, whale hunts, snow plains and storms that intimidated those rash enough to brave this world, and the traditions, myths, and hunting skills that contoured a bygone way of life . . . His translucent prose is a sparkling and moving record." -- Times (London)At sixteen, Edward Beauclerk Maurice impulsively signed up with the Hudson's Bay Company -- the Company of Gentleman Adventurers -- and was sent to an isolated trading post in the Canadian Arctic, where there was no telephone or radio and only one ship arrived each year. But the Inuit people who traded there taught him how to track polar bears, build igloos, and survive expeditions in ferocious winter storms. He learned their language and became so immersed in their culture and way of life that children thought he was Inuit himself. When an epidemic struck, Maurice treated the sick using a simple first aid kit, and after a number of the hunters died, he had to start hunting himself, often with women, who soon began to compete for his affections. The young man who in England had never been alone with a woman other than his mother and sisters had come of age in the Arctic.In The Last Gentleman Adventurer Edward Beauclerk Maurice transports the reader to a time and a way of life now lost forever.After serving in the New Zealand navy during World War II, Edward Beauclerk Maurice became a bookseller in an English village and rarely traveled again. He died in 2003 as this, his only book, was being readied for publication. "If you like reality, The Last Gentleman Adventurer will be your cup of tea: a delicious quaff of it. Savor it!" -- Edward Hoagland"Maurice's memoir supplies a fascinating elegy to a vanishing world." -- Telegraph"One of those rare writers who will be remembered for turning out one great memoir/travel book . . . He relates these events in a beautiful prose that is quaintly elegant in tone but never archly so . . . Not only a gentleman but a wonderful writer who limited his output to one book, and perhaps that is why it reads so beautifully." -- Sunday Tribune (Dublin)"Maybe he was exceptional, but the charm of his book lies in its modesty; he makes no claims for himself. His concern was to make a record of some amazing adventures and a vanishing way of life; these are woven into an eye-opening narrative that is suffused with kindliness and an attitude to growing up more restrained but more humane than that prevailing today. A gentleman adventurer indeed." -- Times Educational Supplement"A deceptively simple account of how he grew to manhood, shaped on one hand by the brutal elements of the Arctic, on the other by the compassionate communities of Inuit who understood them . . . This is a beautifully unadorned, homespun tale with a lack of self-consciousness rare in travel literature . . . I was charmed." -- Benedict Allen, Independent on Sunday
The Last Gentleman of the SAS: A Moving Testimony from the First Allied Officer to Enter Belsen at the End of the Second World War
by John Randall M J TrowIn 1945, John Randall was the first Allied officer to enter Bergen-Belsen – the concentration camp that would reveal the horrors of the Holocaust to the world. Randall was one of that league of extraordinary gentlemen handpicked for suicidally dangerous missions behind enemy lines in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany throughout the Second World War. He was a man of his class and of his times. He hated the Germans, liked the French and was unimpressed by the Americans and the Arabs. He was an outrageous flirt, as might be expected of a man who served in Phantom alongside film stars David Niven and Hugh Williams. He played rugby with Paddy Mayne, the larger-than-life colonel of the SAS and winner of four DSOs. He pushed Randolph Churchill, son of the Prime Minister, out of an aeroplane. He wined and dined in nightclubs as part of the generation that lived for each day because they might not see another.This extraordinary true story, partly based on previously unpublished diaries, presents a different slant on that mighty war through the eyes of a restless young man eager for action and adventure.
The Last Girl: My Story Of Captivity, And My Fight Against The Islamic State
by Amal Clooney Nadia MuradIn this intimate memoir of survival, a former captive of the Islamic State tells her harrowing and ultimately inspiring story. Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon. On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended. <P><P>Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia’s brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade. <P><P> Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten. Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety. <P><P>Today, Nadia's story—as a witness to the Islamic State's brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi—has forced the world to pay attention to the ongoing genocide in Iraq. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war.
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State
by Nadia Murad Jenna KrajeskiWinner of the Nobel Peace Prize'Those who thought that by their cruelty they could silence her were wrong. Nadia Murad's spirit is not broken and her voice will not be muted' Amal Clooney'Offers powerful insight into the barbarity the Yazidi suffered alongside glimpses into their mystical culture . . . this is an important book by a brave woman, fresh testament to humankind's potential for chilling and inexplicable evil' Ian Birrell, The Times'Courageous . . . Anyone who wants to understand the so called Islamic State should read' The Economist'The pope also recommended reading Iraqi Yazidi Nobel Prize winner Nadia Murad's book, The Last Girl, which he said he had read, commenting that "everything that the world thinks about women is concentrated there . . . However, the world cannot function without women," he insisted' La Croix InternationalWith a foreword by Amal Clooney A Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the first Goodwill Ambassador the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations and winner of the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize, Nadia Murad is a courageous young woman who has endured unimaginable tragedy (losing eighteen members of her family) and degradation through sexual enslavement to ISIS. But she has fought back. This inspiring memoir takes us from her peaceful childhood in a remote village in Iraq through loss and brutality to safety in Germany. Courage and testimony can change the world: this is one of those books.
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State
by Nadia Murad Jenna Krajeski`Telling my story of first, surviving genocide and then, as a captive of ISIS is not easy, but people must know.' <p><p>The remarkable and courageous story of Nadia Murad, a twenty-three-year-old Yazidi woman who is working with Amal Clooney to challenge the world to fight ISIS on behalf on her people; with a foreword by Amal Clooney. <p><p>A Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the first Goodwill Ambassador the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations and winner of the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize, Nadia Murad is a courageous young woman who has endured unimaginable tragedy (losing eighteen members of her family) and degradation through sexual enslavement to ISIS. But she has fought back. <p><p>This inspiring memoir takes us from her peaceful childhood in a remote village in Iraq through loss and brutality to safety in Germany. Courage and testimony can change the world: this is one of those books.
The Last Girl: द लास्ट गर्ल
by Nadia Muradनादिया मुराद एक साहसी यज़ीदी युवती हैं जिन्होंने आईएसआईएस की कैद में रहते हुए यौन उत्पीड़न और अकल्पनीय दुख सहन किया है। नादिया के छह भाइयों की हत्या के बाद उनकी माँ को मार दिया गया और उनके शव कब्रिस्तान में दफ़ना दिए गए। परंतु नादिया ने हिम्मत नहीं हारी। यह संस्मरण, इराक में नादिया के शांतिपूर्ण बचपन से लेकर क्षति और निर्ममता, और फिर जर्मनी में उनके सुरक्षित लौटने तक का प्रेरणादायक सफ़र है। नादिया पर एलेक्जैंड्रिया बॉम्बाख़ ने ऑन हर शोल्डर्स नामक फ़िल्म बनाई है, उन्हें नोबेल शांति पुरस्कार से सम्मानित किया गया है और वह संयुक्त राष्ट्र के डिग्निटी ऑफ़ सरवाइवर्स ऑफ़ ह्यूमन ट्रैफिकिंग की पहली गुडविल एंबेसेडर भी हैं। इस किताब का सबसे बड़ा संदेश है: साहस और प्रमाण के साथ अपनी बात कहने से दुनिया को बदला जा सकता है।
The Last Girls
by Lee Smithbeautiful June day in 1965, a dozen girls classmates at a women's college- launched their homemade raft (inspired by Huck Finn's) on a trip down the Mississippi.
The Last Good Funeral of the Year
by Ed O’LoughlinFrom Ed O’Loughlin, author of Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Minds of Winter, a pensive and poignant recollection of love, loss, marriage, and the life events that have shaped his identity. Soon, the lockdown would start. People would die alone, without any proper ceremony. Charlotte’s death would be washed away, the first drop in a downpour. Nobody knew it then, but hers would be the last good funeral of the year. It was February 2020 when Ed O’Loughlin unexpectedly heard that Charlotte, a friend from the old days, had just died young and before her time. He realized that he was being led to reappraise his life, his family, and his career as a foreign correspondent and novelist in a new, colder light. This search for meaning becomes the driving theme of O’Loughlin’s year of confinement. The result is a haunting examination of the author’s early life and love, the journalists and photographers with whom he covered wars in Africa and the Middle East, the suicide of his brother, his new work as an author, a family home on the edge of a graveyard, and the mysteries of memory, aging, and loss. He was suddenly faced with facts that he had been ignoring, that he was getting old, that he wasn’t what he used to be, that his imagination, always over-active, had at some point reversed its direction, switching production from dreams to regrets. Moving, funny, and searingly honest, The Last Good Funeral of the Year takes the reader on a circular journey from present to past and back to the present: “Could any true story end any other way?”
The Last Good Funeral of the Year: A Memoir
by Ed O'LoughlinSoon, the lockdown would start. People would die alone, without any proper ceremony. Charlotte's death would be washed away, the first drop in a downpour. Nobody knew it then but hers would be the last good funeral of the year.It was February 2020, when Ed O'Loughlin heard that Charlotte, a woman he'd known had died, young and before her time. He realised that he was being led to reappraise his life, his family and his career as a foreign correspondent and acclaimed novelist in a new, colder light. He was suddenly faced with facts that he had been ignoring, that he was getting old, that he wasn't what he used to be, that his imagination, always over-active, had at some point reversed its direction, switching production from dreams to regrets. He saw he was mourning his former self, not Charlotte. The search for meaning becomes the driving theme of O'Loughlin's year of confinement. He remembers his brother Simon, a suicide at thirty; the journalists and photographers with whom he covered wars in Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, wars that are hard to explain and never really stopped; his habit of shedding baggage, an excuse for hurrying past and not dwelling on things.Moving, funny, and searingly honest, The Last Good Funeral of the Year takes the reader on a circular journey from present to past and back to the present: 'Could any true story end any other way?'
The Last Good Funeral of the Year: A Memoir
by Ed O'LoughlinSoon, the lockdown would start. People would die alone, without any proper ceremony. Charlotte's death would be washed away, the first drop in a downpour. Nobody knew it then but hers would be the last good funeral of the year.It was February 2020, when Ed O'Loughlin heard that Charlotte, a woman he'd known had died, young and before her time. He realised that he was being led to reappraise his life, his family and his career as a foreign correspondent and acclaimed novelist in a new, colder light. He was suddenly faced with facts that he had been ignoring, that he was getting old, that he wasn't what he used to be, that his imagination, always over-active, had at some point reversed its direction, switching production from dreams to regrets. He saw he was mourning his former self, not Charlotte. The search for meaning becomes the driving theme of O'Loughlin's year of confinement. He remembers his brother Simon, a suicide at thirty; the journalists and photographers with whom he covered wars in Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, wars that are hard to explain and never really stopped; his habit of shedding baggage, an excuse for hurrying past and not dwelling on things.Moving, funny, and searingly honest, The Last Good Funeral of the Year takes the reader on a circular journey from present to past and back to the present: 'Could any true story end any other way?'(P)2022 Quercus Editions Limited
The Last Goodnights: Assisting My Parents with Their Suicides
by John WestA husband and wife, both medical professionals, are gravely ill. Rather than living in pain, they choose to end their lives, and they turn to their son for help. Despite the legal risks and certain emotional turmoil, he agrees—and ultimately performs an act of love more difficult than any other.The Last Goodnights provides a unique, powerful, and unflinching look inside the reality of one of the most galvanizing issues of our time: assisted suicide. Told with intensity and bare honesty, John West's account of the deaths of two brave people is gritty and loving, frightening and illuminating, nerve–wracking and even, at times, darkly humorous. As West's story places him in one of the most difficult experiences anyone can endure, it also offers a powerful testament to the act of death by choice, and reveals the reasons why end–of–life issues are far too personal for government intrusion.Intimately told, The Last Goodnights points out the unnecessary pain and suffering that is often forced upon dying people and their families, and honors the choice to die with purpose and dignity. In the end, this story is not just about death—it is also about love, courage, and autonomy.
The Last Governor: Chris Patten and the Handover of Hong Kong
by Jonathan Dimbleby1 July 1997 marked the end of British rule of Hong Kong, whereby this territory was passed into the hands of the Peoples Republic of China.In 1992, Chris Patten, former chairman of the Conservative Party, was appointed Hong Kong's last governor, and was the man to oversee the handover ceremony of this former British colony.Within the last five years of British rule, acclaimed journalist Jonathan Dimbleby was given unique access to the governor which enabled him to document the twists and turns of such an extraordinary diplomatic, political and personal drama.As Governor, Patten encouraged the necessary expansion of Hong Kong's social welfare system, striving to reconcile the basic rights and freedom of over 6 million people with the unpredictable imperatives of Beijing.Drawing on the insights of a host of senior figures, the author places the crisis in both its human and historical contexts, and presents some startling arguments about the conduct of British foreign policy on Hong Kong before and during Patten's tenure.
The Last Great Cavalryman: The Life of General Sir Richard McCreery GCB KBE DSO MC
by Richard MeadDick McCreery was commissioned into the 12th Royal Lancers in 1915 and served on The Western Front, winning the MC and surviving wounds.In 1938 he joined the staff of 1st Division under Alexander before being given command of 2 Armored Brigade. He won the DSO for his leadership during the retreat to Dunkirk Man/June 1940.In North Africa McCreery was sacked by Auchinleck, with whom he had major differences, but, while waiting for a plane home, he was spotted by Alexander who made him his Chief of Staff. He is credited by many (but not Montgomery the two did not get on) for the solution to the El Alamein victory.He was promoted to command X Corps at Salerno which he commanded during the advance to the Gothic Line. He relieved Leese as Commander 8th Army in September 1944 and it was his brilliant plan that seized the Argenta Gap and drove the Germans back across the River Po into Austria.He became British High Commissioner in Austria, C in C British Army of the Rhine and British Military Representative at the UN, retiring in 1949.Although not a public figure, McCreery was key figure in the development of armored warfare, a brilliant tactician and among the most important British fighting generals of the Second World War. This is an overdue acknowledgment of his contribution to victory.
The Last Great Days of Radio
by Lynn WoolleyIf you've ever wanted to be in radio--or ever wondered what was happening on the other side of the dial, then this book is for you. You'll find out what it's like to get that first job, to work in Texas's largest newsroom, to cover a major murder trial, to cover the President of the United States, to follow the Dallas Cowboys to the Super Bowl, and to create top-rated comedy routines. Full of inside information about the radio business, this book touches on the careers of dozens of well-known broadcasters. Long time radio personality Lynn Woolley introduces you to the laughs and times of Texas radio in its heyday. A mixture of humor, wit, and nostalgia, this book follows the career of Woolley from the smallest station in a small market to the largest radio newsroom in Texas, and back again.
The Last Great Fight: The Extraordinary Tale of Two Men and How One Fight Changed Their Lives Forever
by Joe LaydenMeticulously researched, wonderfully written; The Last Great Fight tells the untold story of a legendary fight and the two warriors who would never be the same againIt is considered by many to be the biggest upset in the history of boxing: James "Buster" Douglas knocked out then-undefeated Heavyweight Champion Mike Tyson in the 10th round in 1990 when the dominating and intimidating Tyson was considered invincible.The Last Great Fight takes readers not only behind the scenes of this epic battle, but inside the lives of two men, their ambitions, their dreams, the downfall of one and the rise of another.Using his exclusive interviews with both boxers Tyson and Douglas, family members, the referee, the cutmen, trainers and managers to the commentators and HBO staff covering the fight in Tokyo, Joe Layden has crafted a human drama played out on a large stage. This is a compelling tale of shattered dreams and, ultimately, redemption.
The Last Great Road Bum: A Novel
by Héctor TobarOne of the Los Angeles Times Top 10 California Books of 2020. One of Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Fiction Books from 2020. Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence and the Joyce Carol Oates prize. One of Exile in Bookville’s Favorite Books of 2020. In The Last Great Road Bum, Héctor Tobar turns the peripatetic true story of a naive son of Urbana, Illinois, who died fighting with guerrillas in El Salvador into the great American novel for our times.Joe Sanderson died in pursuit of a life worth writing about. He was, in his words, a “road bum,” an adventurer and a storyteller, belonging to no place, people, or set of ideas. He was born into a childhood of middle-class contentment in Urbana, Illinois and died fighting with guerillas in Central America. With these facts, acclaimed novelist and journalist Héctor Tobar set out to write what would become The Last Great Road Bum.A decade ago, Tobar came into possession of the personal writings of the late Joe Sanderson, which chart Sanderson’s freewheeling course across the known world, from Illinois to Jamaica, to Vietnam, to Nigeria, to El Salvador—a life determinedly an adventure, ending in unlikely, anonymous heroism.The Last Great Road Bum is the great American novel Joe Sanderson never could have written, but did truly live—a fascinating, timely hybrid of fiction and nonfiction that only a master of both like Héctor Tobar could pull off.
The Last Great Senate
by Ira ShapiroJournalists have called the U.S. Senate an empty chamber; politicians have lamented that the institution is broken-yet the Senate was once capable of greatness. Senators of the 1960s and '70s overcame southern opposition to civil rights, passed Great Society legislation, and battled the executive branch on Vietnam, Watergate, and its abuses of power. The right's sweep of the 1980 elections shattered that Senate, leaving a diminished institution in its wake. Ira Shapiro spent 12 years working for Senators Gaylord Nelson, Abraham Ribicoff, Thomas Eagleton, Robert Byrd, and Jay Rockefeller. The Last Great Senate is his vivid portrait of the statesmen who helped steer America during the crisis years of the late 1970s, transcending partisanship and overcoming procedural roadblocks that have all but strangled the Senate since their departure. The Last Great Senate is necessary reading for all those who wonder how the Senate used to work and what happened to the world's greatest deliberative body.
The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis
by Ira Shapiro"The Last Great Senate" is Shapiro's vivid portrait of the statesmen who helped steer America during the crisis years of the late 1970s, transcending partisanship and overcoming procedural roadblocks that have all but strangled the Senate since their departure.
The Last Greatest Magician in the World: Howard Thurston Versus Houdini & the Battles of the American Wizards
by Jim SteinmeyerHere is the seminal biography of the magician's magician, Howard Thurston, a man who surpassed Houdini in the eyes of showmen and fans and set the standard fro how stage magic is performed today. Everyone knows Houdini-but who was Thurston? In this rich, vivid biography of the "greatest magician in the world," celebrated historian of stage magic Jim Steinmeyer captures the career and controversies of the wonder-worker extraordinaire, Howard Thurston. The public's fickleness over magicians has left Thurston all but forgotten today. Yet Steinmeyer shows how his story is one of the most remarkable in show business. During his life, from 1869 to 1936, Thurston successfully navigated the most dramatic changes in entertainment-from street performances to sideshows to wagon tours through America's still-wild West to stage magic amid the glitter of grand theaters. Thurston became one of America's most renowned vaudeville stars, boldly performing an act with just a handful of playing cards, and then had the foresight to leave vaudeville, expanding his show into an extravaganza with more than forty tons of apparatusand costumes. His touring production was an American institution for nearly thirty years, and Thurston earned a brand name equal to Ziegfeld or Ringling Brothers. Steinmeyer explores the stage and psychological rivalry between Thurston and Houdini during the first decades of the twentieth century- a contest that Thurston won. He won with a bigger show, a more successful reputation, and the title of America's greatest magician. In The Last Greatest Magician in the World, Thurston's magic show is revealed as the one that animates our collective memories.
The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral-And How It Changed the American West
by Jeff GuinnA New York Times bestseller, Jeff Guinn&’s definitive, myth-busting account of the most famous gunfight in American history reveals who Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons and McLaurys really were and what the shootout was all about—&“the most thorough account of the gunfight and its circumstances ever published&” (The Wall Street Journal)On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot in Tombstone, Arizona, a confrontation between eight armed men erupted in a deadly shootout. The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral would shape how future generations came to view the Old West. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons became the stuff of legends, symbolic of a frontier populated by good guys in white hats and villains in black ones. It’s a colorful story—but the truth is even better. Drawing on new material from private collections—including diaries, letters, and Wyatt Earp’s own hand-drawn sketch of the shootout’s conclusion—as well as archival research, Jeff Guinn gives us a startlingly different and far more fascinating picture of what actually happened that day in Tombstone and why.
The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron
by Howard BryantIn the thirty-four years since his retirement, Henry Aaron's reputation has only grown in magnitude: he broke existing records (RBIs, total bases, extra-base hits) and set new ones (hitting at least thirty home runs per season fifteen times, becoming the first player in history to hammer five hundred home runs and three thousand hits). But his influence extends beyond statistics, and at long last here is the first definitive biography of one of baseball's immortal figures. Based on meticulous research and interviews with former teammates, family, two former presidents, and Aaron himself, The Last Hero chronicles Aaron's childhood in segregated Alabama, his brief stardom in the Negro Leagues, his complicated relationship with celebrity, and his historic rivalry with Willie Mays--all culminating in the defining event of his life: his shattering of Babe Ruth's all-time home-run record. Bryant also examines Aaron's more complex second act: his quest to become an important voice beyond the ball field when his playing days had ended, his rediscovery by a public disillusioned with today's tainted heroes, and his disappointment that his career home-run record was finally broken by Barry Bonds during the steroid era, baseball's greatest scandal. Bryant reveals how Aaron navigated the upheavals of his time--fighting against racism while at the same time benefiting from racial progress--and how he achieved his goal of continuing Jackie Robinson's mission to obtain full equality for African-Americans, both in baseball and society, while he lived uncomfortably in the public spotlight. Eloquently written, detailed and penetrating, this is a revelatory portrait of a complicated, private man who through sports became an enduring American icon.
The Last Hill: The Epic Story of a Ranger Battalion and the Battle That Defined WWII
by Bob Drury Tom ClavinBob Drury and Tom Clavin's The Last Hill is the incredible untold story of one Ranger battalion's heroism and courage in World War II.They were known as “Rudder’s Rangers,” the most elite and experienced attack unit in the United States Army. In December 1944, Lt. Col. James Rudder's 2nd Battalion would form the spearhead into Germany, taking the war into Hitler’s homeland at last. In the process, Rudder was given two objectives: Take Hill 400 . . . and hold the hill by any means possible. To the last man, if necessary. The battle-hardened battalion had no idea that several Wehrmacht regiments, who greatly outnumbered the Rangers, had been given the exact same orders. The clash of the two determined forces was one of the bloodiest and most costly encounters of World War II.Castle Hill, the imposing 1320-foot mini-mountain the American Rangers simply called Hill 400, was the gateway to a desperate Nazi Germany. Several entire American divisions had already been repulsed by the last hill's dug-in defenders as—unknown to the Allies—the height was the key to Adolf Hitler's last-minute plans for a massive counterattack to smash through the American lines in what would become known to history as the Battle of the Bulge.Thus the stalemate surrounding Hill 400 could not continue. For Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, there was only one solution: Call in Rudder's Rangers. Of the 130 special operators who stormed, captured, and held the hill that December day, only 16 remained to stagger back down its frozen slopes. The Last Hill is replete with unforgettable action and characters—a rich and detailed saga of what the survivors of the 2nd Ranger Battalion would remember as “our longest day.”
The Last Hindu Emperor
by Cynthia TalbotThis fascinating new study traces traditions and memories relating to the twelfth-century Indian ruler Prithviraj Chauhan; a Hindu king who was defeated and overthrown during the conquest of Northern India by Muslim armies from Afghanistan. Surveying a wealth of narratives that span more than 800 years, Cynthia Talbot explores the reasons why he is remembered, and by whom. In modern times, the Chauhan king has been referred to as 'the last Hindu emperor', because Muslim rule prevailed for centuries following his defeat. Despite being overthrown, however, his name and story have evolved over time into a historical symbol of India's martial valor. The Last Hindu Emperor sheds new light on the enduring importance of heroic histories in Indian culture and the extraordinary ability of historical memory to transform the hero of a clan into the hero of a community, and finally a nation.