Search:

Results 221 to 230 of 246 | « previous |

Agent Josephine : American beauty, French hero, British spy / by Lewis, Damien,author.;
"Prior to World War II, Josephine Baker was a music hall diva renowned for her singing and exotic dancing, her beauty and sexuality; she was the most highly-paid female performer in Europe. When the Nazis seized her adopted city, Paris, she was banned from the stage, along with all "negroes and Jews." Yet, instead of returning to America, she vowed to stay and to fight the Nazi evil. Overnight she went from performer to Resistance spy. Drawing on a plethora of new historical material and rigorous research, including previously undisclosed letters and journals, Agent Josephine transforms the scarcely known story of Josephine Baker in wartime. As a member of the French Nurse paratroopers, a cover for her spying work, Baker participated in numerous clandestine activities and became a formidable spy. In turn, she was a hero of the three countries in whose name she served: the US, the nation of her birth; France, the land that embraced her during her adult career; and Britain, the country from which she took her orders, as one of London's most closely-guarded secrets. Baker's secret war is a true story of unbounded courage, passion, devotion and sacrifice, and of deep and bitter tragedy, fueled by her own desire to combat the rise of Nazism and fight for a more just future"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Baker, Josephine, 1906-1975.; Dancers; African American entertainers; Spies; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Loyalty [sound recording] / by Scottoline, Lisa,author,narrator.; Ballerini, Edoardo,1970-narrator.; Penguin Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by Lisa Scottoline, Edoardo Ballerini."Loyalty can save a soul--or destroy one. Franco Fiorvanti is a handsome laborer toiling on the estate of a baron. He dreams of owning a lemon grove, but the rigid class system of Sicily thwarts his ambition. When the baron asks him to kidnap a little boy, Franco makes a decision that will change his life--and the history of Sicily. Gaetano Catalano is an idealistic young lawyer whose devotion to justice is tantamount to a calling. He's a member of the Beati Paoli, a real-life secret society of aristocrats who investigate crime in Palermo, a city riddled with graft. Gaetano sets out to find the kidnapped boy, but his mission leads him to a darker place than he had ever imagined. Meanwhile, Mafalda Pancari is a new mother rejoicing at the birth of her daughter, Lucia, when disaster strikes. And Alfredo D'Antonio is a reclusive goatherd under constant threat of being discovered as a Jew. How the lives of these unforgettable characters collide makes Loyalty an epic tale of good versus evil. Readers will be transported to the dramatic and ruggedly beautiful island of Sicily, where lush lemon groves and mouth-watering cuisine contrast with a turbulent history of colonization and corruption - and they will not be able to put down this riveting masterpiece"--
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Kidnapping; Mafia; Missing persons; Nobility; Orchards; Organized crime;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Loyalty [text (large print)] / by Scottoline, Lisa,author.;
"Loyalty can save a soul--or destroy one. Franco Fiorvanti is a handsome laborer toiling on the estate of a baron. He dreams of owning a lemon grove, but the rigid class system of Sicily thwarts his ambition. When the baron asks him to kidnap a little boy, Franco makes a decision that will change his life--and the history of Sicily. Gaetano Catalano is an idealistic young lawyer whose devotion to justice is tantamount to a calling. He's a member of the Beati Paoli, a real-life secret society of aristocrats who investigate crime in Palermo, a city riddled with graft. Gaetano sets out to find the kidnapped boy, but his mission leads him to a darker place than he had ever imagined. Meanwhile, Mafalda Pancari is a new mother rejoicing at the birth of her daughter, Lucia, when disaster strikes. And Alfredo D'Antonio is a reclusive goatherd under constant threat of being discovered as a Jew. How the lives of these unforgettable characters collide makes Loyalty an epic tale of good versus evil. Readers will be transported to the dramatic and ruggedly beautiful island of Sicily, where lush lemon groves and mouth-watering cuisine contrast with a turbulent history of colonization and corruption - and they will not be able to put down this riveting masterpiece"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Large print books.; Novels.; Kidnapping; Mafia; Missing persons; Nobility; Orchards; Organized crime;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Mother of strangers / by Amiry, Suad,author.; translation of:Amiry, Suad.Storia di un abito inglese e di una mucca ebrea.English.;
"Set in Jaffa in 1947-51, this fable-like novel is a heartbreaking tale of young love during the beginning of the destruction of Palestine and displacement of its people. At times darkly humorous and ironic but also profoundly moving, this novel based on a true story follows the lives of a 15 year old engineer, Subhi, and the 13 year old girl, Shams, he hopes one day to marry. It brings Jaffa vividly to life as a beautiful city by the sea where Jews, Palestinians and Christians lived peacefully just before it was destroyed by the November 29, 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution 181 that would partition Palestine into two states and the end of the British Mandate on May 14, 1948. The first part of the story conveys the prosperous life of this cosmopolitan city on the Mediterranean--with its old cinemas, lively cafes and brothels, open air markets, a bustling port and orange groves on the hills behind--through the lives of the families of Subhi and Shams, but particularly through Subhi, a gifted engineer. As the novel evolves, the bombing and displacements of families begin, and we get a fascinating though dark close-up of how those who were left survived which we see more through Shams and her sisters. This novel is a cinematic, though devastating account of an important moment in history of the Middle East and portrait of a city irrevocably changed"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Teenagers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

All ships follow me : a family memoir of war across three continents / by Eerkens, Mieke,author.;
"In March 1942, Mieke Eerken's father was a ten-year-old boy living in the Dutch East Indies. When the Japanese invade the island he was interned in a concentration camp, where he is forced to do hard labor for three years. Meanwhile, across the globe, police in the Netherlands carry a crying five-year-old girl out of her home, abandoned and ostracized as a daughter of Nazi sympathizers. This was Mieke's mother. It was the post-war period of reckoning, referred to in Holland as the so-called 'hatchet day,' where Nazi collaborators were beaten in the streets and sent to the same concentration camps where the country's Jews had recently been imprisoned. Many years later, Mieke's parents meet and move to California, where she and her siblings are born. But though her parents are far from their families and the events of the past, the effects of the war are still felt in their daily lives and in the lives of their children. All Ships Follow Me moves from Indonesia to the Netherlands to the United States, as Mieke recounts her parents' stories and journeys with them to the important places of their childhood, in an attempt to understand their experiences on two different 'sides' of the war and bring to light events and experiences often overlooked in WWII histories. All Ships Follow Me is a deeply personal, sweeping saga of the wounds of war and the way trauma is often inherited through generations"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Eerkens family.; Eerkens, Mieke; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Miracles and wonder : the historical mystery of Jesus / by Pagels, Elaine H.,1943-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From a renowned National Book Award-winning scholar, an extraordinary new account of the life of Jesus that explores the mystery of how a poor young man inspired a religion that reshaped the world. Over the past two thousand years, countless personalities have been projected onto the enigma we know as Jesus: a first-century rabbi, capable of miraculous healing, or a magician faking cures; a Prophet, or a deluded visionary; a heretical Jew, or God in human form. In this groundbreaking work of accessible scholarship, Princeton University professor and bestselling author Elaine Pagels explores a wide range of sources -- including the Bible, the earliest reports of Jesus's life, and the secret "gnostic gospels," discovered in the 20th century -- to break down these contradictions and paint a richer and more complex portrait of Jesus in his own time than ever before. As Christians became the largest community of any religious tradition in the world, Pagels argues, people have constructed and reconstructed Jesus through the lens of imagination, his image shaped by the social, political, and economic challenges of their own time. But the most fascinating years of all were the early ones when a young Jewish man with a scanty following, executed humiliatingly as an insurrectionist, was transformed by his followers into the Jesus of Christianity. Powerfully written and drawing on decades of research, Miracles and Wonder is an essential history for anyone looking for a deeper understanding of Jesus and his monumental afterlife"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Jesus Christ;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

A fever in the heartland : the Ku Klux Klan's plot to take over America, and the woman who stopped them / by Egan, Timothy,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them. The Roaring Twenties -the Jazz Age -has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he'd become the Grand Dragon of the state and and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows-their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman-Madge Oberholtzer-who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees"--
Subjects: Oberholtzer, Madge, 1896-1925.; Stephenson, David Curtis, 1891-1966.; Ku Klux Klan (1915- ); Ku Klux Klan (1915- ); White supremacy movements;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The death of democracy : Hitler's rise to power and the downfall of the Weimar Republic / by Hett, Benjamin Carter,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Hitler promised to fix the economy, to create jobs, and to make Germany great again How did Hitler happen? Germany's Weimar Republic was a state-of-the-art modern democracy, with a proportional electoral system and protection for individual rights and freedoms, expressly including the equality of men and women. Germany had the world's most prominent gay rights movement. It was home to an active feminist movement that, having just won the vote, was moving on to abortion rights. The death penalty had virtually been abolished. And workers had won the right to an eight-hour day with full pay. Jews from Poland and Russia flocked to Germany's greater tolerance and openness. Hitler came to office in January 1933 with the largest number of seats in the Reichstag, Germany's parliament. Like the three chancellors before him, Hitler had been put into office by a small circle of powerful men who sought to take advantage of his demagogic gifts and mass following to advance their own agenda. They assumed they had Hitler squarely under control. Hett's book is a short history of how Adolf Hitler, once elected, used the levers of power to destroy the Weimar democracy and replace it with a Nazi dictatorship. The parallels to current politics are clear and disturbing. Hett examines the political and social context in which the Nazis rose to power and how Hitler himself was a shrewd and intuitive political player. Hett writes with the drama, detail, and pacing that makes his account read like a compelling political thriller."--
Subjects: Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945.; Political culture;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Girl at the edge of sky / by Nattel, Lilian,1956-author.;
"From the bestselling author of Web of Angels comes a unique and thrilling novel based on the life of Lily Litvyak, a female Soviet fighter pilot shot down behind German lines in the Second World War. Lily Litvyak is no one's idea of a fighter pilot: a tiny, dimpled teenager with golden curls who lied about her age in order to fly. But in the crucible of the air war against the German invaders, she becomes that rare thing--a flying ace, glorified as the White Rose of Stalingrad. The real Lily disappeared in combat in August 1943, and the facts of her life are slim, but they have inspired Lilian Nattel's indelible portrait of a courageous young woman driven by family secrets to become an unlikely war hero. Nattel takes another big leap, asking the compelling question: what if Lily survived that crash and became a prisoner of the Germans? Lily lives in a world of horrifying risk, where the stakes are high in the air, but also on the ground. In the Soviet system, everyone is an informer, even your best friend. Lily lives in constant fear that she will be found out, as a Jew and as the daughter of a dissident, and either grounded or executed. When she ends up a German prisoner, the need for deception becomes even more desperate. Girl At the Edge of Sky is a masterwork of the imagination, bringing us deep into the precarious life of a remarkable woman who lies to fight for the country that would disown her, and then lies to survive the enemy that would annihilate her."--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Litvyak, Lidiya Vladimirovna, 1921-1943; Family secrets; Fighter pilots; Women air pilots; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The Goddess of Warsaw : a novel / by Barr, Lisa,author.;
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Woman on Fire, the harrowing and ultimately triumphant tale of a Jewish WWII assassin turned Hollywood star. In 2005, Siena Hayes is Hollywood's latest It Girl, but she has her sights set higher than the screen, she wants to be behind the camera. So when Siena meets Lena Browning, the enormously mysterious and famous actor from decades past, Siena sees her big break. Siena wants to direct Lena's biopic-but Lena's past may turn out to be more than Siena bargained for. Before she was a "Living Legend," Lena Browning was Bina Blonski, a member of Warsaw's Jewish elite whose life and family were destroyed by the Nazis. In 1943, in the ghettos of Warsaw, Bina lives with her husband, Jakub. Determined to fight back against Nazi rule, beautiful, blonde Bina acts as a spy on the Aryan side fearlessly protecting the remaining Warsaw Jews, gaining intel, and stealing weapons. Along the way, her feelings grow more complicated as she falls in love with Aleksander, an ally to her in resistance ... and Jakub's brother. But the cause prevails-and Lena accomplishes amazing feats of bravery, though she can't help but sacrifice so much in the process ... Over a decade after escaping the ghetto, Bina, who now goes by Lena, has risen to fame in Hollywood. She sees her old life at every turn and hungers for revenge against the Nazis who are still everywhere around her. This is Lena's chance to right the past's wrongs and perhaps even find the happy ending she never had."--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Novels.; Actresses; Man-woman relationships; Nazis; Revenge; Secrecy; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
unAPI

Results 221 to 230 of 246 | « previous |