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The Lilac People A Novel [electronic resource] : by Todd, Milo.aut; CloudLibrary;
YOUR NEXT BOOK CLUB PICK: "Reminiscent of Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See . . . Its propulsive narrative, at times heart-stopping in its suspense and dramatic reveals, is interwoven with rich descriptions and historical passages that give context to a society held in the brutal grip of fascism." —The Boston Globe A moving and deeply humane story about a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of prewar Berlin to survive first the Nazis then the Allies while protecting the ones he loves "reclaims a powerful piece of trans history" (Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Orphan Train) In 1932 Berlin, a trans man named Bertie and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin’s thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond. But everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The Institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation. In the final days of the war, with their freedom in sight, Bertie and Sofie find a young trans man collapsed on their property, still dressed in Holocaust prison clothes. They vow to protect him—not from the Nazis, but from the Allied forces who are arresting queer prisoners while liberating the rest of the country. Ironically, as the Allies’ vise grip closes on Bertie and his family, their only salvation is to flee to the United States. Brimming with hope, resilience, and the enduring power of community, The Lilac People tells an extraordinary story inspired by real events and recovers an unknown moment of World War II and trans history.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Sagas;
© 2025., Catapult,
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Rose in chains / by Soto, Julie,1988-author.;
"The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead. Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, Briony Rosewood knows that the world as she knows it is changed forever. The dark forces have won and her people face imminent servitude, imprisonment or death. Stripped of her Magic and her freedom, Briony and the other survivors are quickly sold off to the highest bidders in an auction -- and as Evermore's princess, she fetches the highest price. After a fierce bidding war, she's sold to none other than Toven. Scion of a family known for their cruelty. Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost. Help -- and hope -- may yet arise in the most unlikely of places ... "--
Subjects: Romance fiction.; Novels.; Enemies; Imaginary wars and battles; Magic; Man-woman relationships; Princesses; Women prisoners;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Night of the Cobra : a sniper novel / by Coughlin, Jack,1966-; Davis, Don,1939-;
"Top-ranked Marine sniper Kyle Swanson was a promising young Marine on a dangerous peace-keeping mission in Mogadishu when he first captured "the Cobra", and it could have cost him his life--had it not been for the schoolteacher who risked her own to save him. Now Swanson is sent on a mission to track down two targets--one is the Cobra, the warlord who spent twenty years in prison after Swanson captured him and is now back in charge of the strong Somali underworld, vowing vengeance on the Marine; the other is the grandson of the schoolteacher who once saved his life, who has joined the Cobra's army of terror. The boy had been swept up in a Detroit-based Somali gang that terrorized the American Midwest and Canada before fleeing back to the protection of the Cobra. His grandmother swears he's innocent, but the CIA tells Kyle to kill him before taking out the Cobra. To find the truth and accomplish his mission, Swanson must return to the one place he had hoped he'd never see again, the daunting hovels of Mogadishu--where the Cobra lies in wait"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Adventure stories.; Suspense fiction.; War stories.; Snipers; Special operations (Military science); Terrorism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Humankind : a hopeful history / by Bregman, Rutger,1988-author.; Manton, Elizabeth,translator.; Moore, Erica,translator.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."If one basic principle has served as the bedrock of bestselling author Rutger Bregman's thinking, it is that every progressive idea -- whether it was the abolition of slavery, the advent of democracy, women's suffrage, or the ratification of marriage equality -- was once considered radical and dangerous by the mainstream opinion of its time. With Humankind, he brings that mentality to bear against one of our most entrenched ideas: namely, that human beings are by nature selfish and self-interested. By providing a new historical perspective of the last 200,000 years of human history, Bregman sets out to prove that we are in fact evolutionarily wired for cooperation rather than competition, and that our instinct to trust each other has a firm evolutionary basis going back to the beginning of Homo sapiens. Bregman systematically debunks our understanding of the Milgram electrical-shock experiment, the Zimbardo prison experiment, and the Kitty Genovese "bystander effect." In place of these, he offers little-known true stories: the tale of twin brothers on opposing sides of apartheid in South Africa who came together with Nelson Mandela to create peace; a group of six shipwrecked children who survived for a year and a half on a deserted island by working together; a study done after World War II that found that as few as 15% of American soldiers were actually capable of firing at the enemy. The ultimate goal of Humankind is to demonstrate that while neither capitalism nor communism has on its own been proven to be a workable social system, there is a third option: giving "citizens and professionals the means (left) to make their own choices (right)." Reorienting our thinking toward positive and high expectations of our fellow man, Bregman argues, will reap lasting success. Bregman presents this idea with his signature wit and frankness, once again making history, social science and economic theory accessible and enjoyable for lay readers"--
Subjects: Human beings.; Philosophical anthropology.; Human behavior.; Civilization; World history.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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D-Day Girls The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II [electronic resource] : by Rose, Sarah.aut; cloudLibrary;
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The dramatic, untold history of the heroic women recruited by Britain’s elite spy agency to help pave the way for Allied victory in World War II “Gripping. Spies, romance, Gestapo thugs, blown-up trains, courage, and treachery (lots of treachery)—and all of it true.”—Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was on the front lines. To “set Europe ablaze,” in the words of Winston Churchill, the Special Operations Executive  (SOE), whose spies were trained in everything from demolition to sharpshooting, was forced to do something unprecedented: recruit women. Thirty-nine answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France. In D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose draws on recently de­classified files, diaries, and oral histories to tell the thrilling story of three of these remarkable women. There’s Andrée Borrel, a scrappy and streetwise Parisian who blew up power lines with the Gestapo hot on her heels; Odette Sansom, an unhappily married suburban mother who saw the SOE as her ticket out of domestic life and into a meaningful adventure; and Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent member of French colonial high society and the SOE’s unflap­pable “queen.” Together, they destroyed train lines, ambushed Nazis, plotted prison breaks, and gathered crucial intelligence—laying the groundwork for the D-Day invasion that proved to be the turning point in the war. Rigorously researched and written with razor-sharp wit, D-Day Girls is an inspiring story for our own moment of resistance: a reminder of what courage—and the energy of politically animated women—can accomplish when the stakes seem incalculably high. Praise for D-Day Girls “Rigorously researched . . . [a] thriller in the form of a non-fiction book.”—Refinery29 “Equal parts espionage-romance thriller and historical narrative, D-Day Girls traces the lives and secret activities of the 39 women who answered the call to infiltrate France. . . . While chronicling the James Bond-worthy missions and love affairs of these women, Rose vividly captures the broken landscape of war.”—The Washington Post “Gripping history . . . thoroughly researched and written as smoothly as a good thriller, this is a mesmerizing story of creativity, perseverance, and astonishing heroism.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Subjects: Electronic books.; Women; World War II; Intelligence & Espionage;
© 2019., Crown,
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The Paper Birds A Novel [electronic resource] : by Lynes, Jeanette.aut; CloudLibrary;
Imagine you have only a pencil and paper, and your puzzle-solving skills to help end the war Gemma Sullivan lands a coveted office job in the summer of 1943, only to discover that she’s been hired to work in a top-secret codebreaking office in an unsuspecting house along the lake in Mimico, Ontario. The ‘Cottage’ – run by the brilliant, eccentric Miss Fearing, who was trained at England’s Bletchley Park – pulls Gemma in with its urgent lure and mystery. But along with this job comes a lifelong oath of secrecy. Gem can’t tell anyone what she does for work, not even her elderly Aunt Wren, who has raised her since the age of three after the tragic death of her parents. Her aunt harbors of a deep love of crosswords and Tarot cards and an equally passionate hatred for war since the death of her own fiancée in WWI. The last thing she'd want for her niece is a job that involves anything to do with the war.  The codebreaking is intense, mind-numbing, at times, but as Gem is pulled deeper into wartime intelligence work, she becomes an integral part of the codebreakers’ circle. The Cottage codebreaking unit is small but determined, but in order to be successful, they must learn to work together. But when Gem begins fraternizing with a handsome prisoner at a POW camp nearby - who later disappears - she risks losing everything. The Paper Birds is a WWII love story that reveals the struggles and sacrifices of every day working women during the war and highlights the previously unknown codebreaking work undertaken by women in Canada during the war.    
Subjects: Electronic books.; 20th Century; Contemporary Women;
© 2025., HarperCollins Canada,
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The last million : Europe's displaced persons from World War to Cold War / by Nasaw, David,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In May of 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, effectively putting an end to World War II in Europe. But the aftershocks of this global military conflict did not cease with the signing of truces and peace treaties. Millions of lost and homeless POWs, slave laborers, political prisoners, and concentration camp survivors overwhelmed Germany, a country in complete disarray. British and American soldiers gathered the malnourished and desperate foreigners, and attempted to repatriate them to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the USSR. But after exhaustive efforts, there remained over a million displaced persons who either refused to go home or, in the case of many, had no home to which to return. They would spend the next three to five years in displaced persons camps, divided by nationalities, temporary homelands in exile, with their own police forces, churches, schools, newspapers, and medical facilities. The international community couldn't agree on the fate of the Last Million, and after a year of fruitless debate and inaction, an International Refugee Organization was created to resettle them in lands suffering from labor shortages. But no nations were willing to accept the 200,000 to 250,000 Jewish men, women, and children who remained trapped in Germany. In 1948, the United States, among the last countries to accept anyone for resettlement, finally passed a Displaced Persons Bill - but as Cold War fears supplanted memories of WWII atrocities, the bill only granted visas to those who were reliably anti-communist, including thousands of former Nazi collaborators, Waffen-SS members, and war criminals, while barring the Jews who were suspected of being Communist sympathizers or agents because they had been recent residents of Soviet-dominated Poland. Only after the passage of the controversial UN resolution for the partition of Palestine and Israel's declaration of independence were the remaining Jewish survivors finally able to leave their displaced persons camps in Germany."--
Subjects: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.; International Refugee Organization.; World War, 1939-1945; Refugees; Refugees; Jewish refugees; Political refugees; Jews; Humanitarianism; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Your presence is mandatory : a novel / by Vasilyuk, Sasha,author.;
"A riveting debut novel of family secrets, based on real events, about a Jewish, Ukrainian veteran with a secret that could land him in the gulag, and his wife and children who are forced to live in the shadow of all he has not told them. Yefim Shulman, husband, father, grandfather, and war veteran, was beloved by his family and his coworkers. But in the days after his death, his widow finds an old letter to the KGB in his briefcase. Yefim had a lifelong secret, and his confession letter reveals what he'd hidden from all who knew him. Your Presence Is Mandatory moves between Yefim's struggles as a Ukrainian Jew in Hitler's Germany, his years concealing from the Soviet authorities and his family the choices he made to survive the war, and the effect his coverup had on the lives of his wife Nina and two children in Donbas, Ukraine between WWII and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. From Germany's prison camps and forced labor system to the Soviet culture of pride and paranoia, Sasha Vasilyuk grapples with the crushing weight of history on one family, and what grace they find in the course of their survival"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Novels.; Families; Family secrets; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Veterans; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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God bless you, Otis Spunkmeyer / by Thomas, Joseph Earl,author.;
"After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University, and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round the clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory rape of his then-teenage mother. Meanwhile, he and his best friend Ray, a fellow vet, are alternatingly bonding over and struggling with their shared experience and return to civilian life, locked in their own rhythms of lust, heartbreak, and responsibility. Balancing the joys and frustrations of single fatherhood, his studies, and ceaseless shifts at the hospital as he becomes closer than he ever imagined to his father, Joseph tries to articulate vernacular understandings of the sociopolitical struggles he recounts as participant-observer at home, against the assumptions of his friends and colleagues. GOD BLESS YOU, OTIS SPUNKMEYER is a powerful examination of every day black life-of health and sex, race and punishment, and the gaps between our desires and our politics"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; African American men; Fathers and sons; Interpersonal relations; Veterans;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Tiamat's wrath / by Corey, James S. A.,author.;
"Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper. In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay. At the heart of the empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to take on the burden of her father's godlike ambition. The sociopathic scientist Paolo Cortazar and the Mephistophelian prisoner James Holden are only two of the dangers in a palace thick with intrigue, but Teresa has a mind of her own and secrets even her father, the emperor, doesn't guess. And throughout the wide human empire, the scattered crew of the Rocinante fights a brave rear-guard action against Duarte's authoritarian regime. Memory of the old order falls away, and a future under Laconia's eternal rule -- and with it, a battle that humanity can only lose -- seems more and more certain. Because, against the terrors that lie between worlds, courage and ambition will not be enough ..." -- Dust jacket flap.
Subjects: Science fiction.; Life on other planets; Space colonies; Space warfare; Imaginary wars and battles;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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