Titanic: Voices From the Disaster

The Loss of the S.S. Titanic

Lawrence Beesley · 125 pages

The circumstances in which this book came to be written are as follows. Some five weeks after the survivors from the Titanic landed in New York, I was the guest at luncheon of Hon. Samuel J. Elder and Hon. Charles T. Gallagher, both well-known lawyers in Boston. After luncheon I was asked to relate to those present the experiences of the survivors in leaving the Titanic and reaching the Carpathia.

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

Nathaniel Philbrick · 320 pages

In 1819, the 238-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage to hunt whales. Fifteen months later, the Essex was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale.

Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessop Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters

Violet Jessop, John Maxtone-Graham · 238 pages

"Violet Jessop was probably the only rescued person with a toothbrush after the Britannic struck a mine and sank. But then she had been on the Titanic four years earlier and remembered what she had missed...". "In 1934, she wrote her memoirs. After a childhood in Argentina and formative years in England, she became a stewardees aboard a variety of passenger ships. She was there when Titanic sides

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand · 514 pages

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Se

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Alfred Lansing · 282 pages

Bound for Antarctica, where polar explorer Ernest Shackleton planned to cross on foot the last uncharted continent, the Endurance set sail from England, in August 1914. The ship became locked inside an island of ice, and was later crushed. This tale of survival by Shackleton and all 27 of his men for over a year on the ice-bound Antarctice seas defined heroism.

How to Survive the Titanic: or, The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay

Frances Wilson · 328 pages

This book is a brilliantly original and gripping new look at the sinking of the Titanic through the prism of the life and lost honor of J. Bruce Ismay, the ship's owner. Books have been written and films have been made, we have raised the Titanic and watched her go down again on numerous occasions, but out of the wreckage Frances Wilson spins a new epic: when the ship hit the iceberg on April 14,

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and The Endurance

Jennifer Armstrong · 139 pages

A very comprehensive account of one of the most important scientific and cultural expeditions in the western world--the third exploration of Antarctica, in 1914. This text captures the emotions, strengths and weaknesses of the 28-man crew as individuals, their trials and conflicts, and gives an excellent account of the difficulties that through collective will they conquered. The conditions they f

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

Erik Larson · 464 pages

It is a story that many of us think we know but don't, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Barbara Demick · 314 pages

A remarkable view into North Korea, as seen through the lives of six ordinary citizens Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years--a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape most of us have nev

Hiroshima

John Hersey · 118 pages

Describes the effect of the bombing of Hiroshima on six survivors of the atomic blast.

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

Ann Fessler · 358 pages

In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade. An adoptee who was herself surrendered during those years and recently made contact with her mother, Ann Fessler bril

Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier

Joanna L. Stratton · 272 pages

The Greatest Generation

Tom Brokaw · 412 pages

"In the spring of 1984, I went to the northwest of France, to Normandy, to prepare an NBC documentary on the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, the massive and daring Allied invasion of Europe that marked the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. There, I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked the beaches with the American veterans who had returned for this anniversary, men in

Congo: The Epic History of a People

David Van Reybrouck · 656 pages

Van Reybrouck reviews some of the most dramatic episodes in Congolese history -- from the slave trade to the ivory and rubber booms; from the arrival of Henry Morton Stanley to the tragic regime of King Leopold II; from global indignation to Belgian colonialism; from the struggle for independence to Mobutu's brutal rule; and from the world famous Rumble in the Jungle to the civil war over natural

Overboard

Elizabeth Fama · 159 pages

Escaping from a sinking ferry in the waters off Sumatra, fourteen-year-old Emily fights for survival for herself and a young Indonesian boy, who draws courage from his quiet but firm Islamic faith.

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community

Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Madeline D. Davis · 434 pages

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold traces the evolution of the lesbian community in Buffalo, New York from the mid-1930s up to the early 1960s. Drawing upon the oral histories of 45 women, it is the first comprehensive history of a working-class lesbian community. These poignant and complex stories show how black and white working-class lesbians, although living under oppressive circumstances, nev

Exploring the Titanic: How the Greatest Ship Ever Lost—Was Found

Robert D. Ballard · 64 pages

Describes the large luxury liner which sank in 1912 and the discovery and exploration of its underwater wreckage.

The Lion's Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War

Steven Pressfield · 430 pages

"We are being bullied, my father said, and the only way to handle a bully is to punch him in the face. "What would you do?" I asked. "Strike now. As soon as possible. Meet the enemy straight-up and destroy him. There is no other way." -YAEL DAYAN, daughter of Moshe Dayan, to Steven Pressfield June 5, 1967. The nineteen-year-old state of Israel is surrounded by enemies who want nothing less than he

When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection

Norman R. Yetman · 157 pages

We Who Are Alive and Remain: Untold Stories from the Band of Brothers

Marcus Brotherton

From Marcus Brotherton, co-author of Call of Duty, comes a new collection of untold stories from the Band of Brothers.They were the men of the now-legendary Easy Company. After almost two years of hard training, they parachuted into Normandy on DDay and, later, Operation Market Garden. They fought their way through Belgium, France, and Germany, survived overwhelming odds, liberated concentration c

The Longest Day

Cornelius Ryan · 304 pages

A clear, well-researched, and very readable account of Operation Overlord as told by survivors. Skip the Ambrose book and read this instead.

To Be a Slave

Julius Lester · 160 pages

A compilation, selected from various sources and arranged chronologically, of the reminiscences of slaves and ex-slaves about their experiences from the leaving of Africa through the Civil War and into the early twentieth century.

Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak

Jean Hatzfeld · 256 pages

"In the late 1990s, French author and journalist Jean Hatzfeld made several journeys into the hilly, marshy region of the Bugesera, one of the areas most devastated by the Rwandan genocide of April 1994, where an average of five out of six Tutsis were hacked to death with machete and spear by their Hutu neighbors and militiamen. In the villages of Nyamata and N'tarama, Hatzfeld interviewed fourtee

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

Piers Paul Read · 318 pages

True story of a plane that crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains with 45 persons on board, only 16 survived!! The few who survived for 70 days did so by means of cannibalism !!! Very graphic, but an extremely good read to find out what us humans will do to survive !! God puts these young people to the extreme test!!