Kirjahaku

A full-blooded, pacy biography of one of the most charismatic writers of the century, whose life and work were to inspire Hemingway, Steinbeck, Kerouac and Mailer. ‘We cannot help but read on’: TLS. ‘The energy, dynamism and sheer bursting life-force of Jack London bowls you over’: Scotsman. Jack London’s life story (1876–1916) is as dramatic as any of the fiction he wrote. Born illegitimate in San Francisco, he was (in his teens) an oyster pirate, seal-hunter, hobo, Klondike goldminer – and spectacular drinker.On publication of The Call of the Wild in 1903, he became the most highly publicised writer in the world. Subsequent books, including Martin Eden, White Fang, The Iron Heel, The People of the Abyss, John Barleycorn, The Sea Wolf, continue in print as world classics in many languages.Apart from writing 50 books, he lectured for the Socialist Party in America; was a war correspondent in Korea and Mexico; introduced surfing to the West Coast; sailed the seven seas in his yacht, the Snark…

New York Times bestselling author Alex Kershaw has written the first full biography of one of the most remarkable men to have outwitted Hitler - Raoul Wallenberg, the young Swedish diplomat who almost single-handedly saved the lives of countless Hungarian Jews, at unimaginable risk and great cost to himself.

From the invasion of Italy to the gates of Dachau, no World War II infantry unit in Europe saw more action or endured worse than the one commanded by Felix Sparks. A maverick officer - and the only man to survive his company's wartime odyssey from bitter beginning to victorious end. This book tells his story.

An intimate account based on interviews, letters, and diaries traces the stories of twenty-one young men from Bedford, Virginia, who died on D-Day in Normandy, noting how their lives and deaths continue to impact their families and their community. Reprint. 75,000 first printing.

Robert Capa, one of the finest photojournalists and combat photographers of the twentieth century, covered every major conflict from the Spanish Civil War to the early conflict in Vietnam. Always close to the action, he created some of the most enduring images ever made with a camera- perhaps none more memorable than the gritty photos taken on the morning of D-Day.But the drama of Capa's life wasn't limited to one side of the lens. Born in Budapest as Andre Freidman, Capa fled political repression and anti-Semitism as a teenager by escaping to Berlin, where he first picked up a Leica camera. He founded Magnum, which today remains the most prestigious photographic agency of its kind. He was a gambler and seducer of several of his era's most alluring icons, including Ingrid Bergman, and his friends included Irwin Shaw, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and John Huston.From Budapest in the twenties to Paris in the thirties, from postwar Hollywood to Stalin's Russia, from New York to Indochina, Blood and Champagne is a wonderfully evocative account of Capa's life and times.

On the morning of December 16, 1944, eighteen men of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon attached to the 99th Infantry Division found themselves directly in the path of the main thrust of Hitler's massive Ardennes offensive. Despite being vastly outnumbered, they were told to hold their position "at all costs." Throughout the day, the platoon repulsed three large German assaults in a fierce day-long battle, killing hundreds of German soldiers. Only when they had run out of ammunition did they surrender to the enemy. But their long winter was just beginning. As POWs, the platoon experienced an ordeal far worse than combat-surviving in wretched German POW camps. Yet miraculously the men of the platoon survived-all of them-and returned home after the war. More than thirty years later, when President Carter recognized the platoon's "extraordinary heroism" and the U.S. Army approved combat medals for all eighteen men, they became America's most decorated platoon of World War II. With the same vivid and dramatic prose that made The Bedford Boys a national bestseller, Alex Kershaw brings to life the story of these little-known heroes-an epic tale of courage, duty, and survival in World War II and one of the most inspiring episodes in American history. The Longest Winter is an intensely human story about young men who find themselves in frightening wartime situations, who fight back instinctively, survive stoically, and live heroically.

The Few tells the dramatic and unforgettable story of eight young Americans who joined Britain's Royal Air Force, defying their country's neutrality laws and risking their U.S. citizenship to fight side-by-side with England's finest pilots in the summer of 1940-over a year before America entered the war. Flying the lethal and elegant Spitfire, they became "knights of the air" and with minimal training but plenty of guts, they dueled the skilled and fearsome pilots of Germany's Luftwaffe. By October 1940, they had helped England win the greatest air battle in the history of aviation. Winston Churchill once said of all those who fought in the Battle of Britain, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." These daring Americans were the few among the "few." Now, with the narrative drive and human drama that made The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter national bestsellers, Alex Kershaw tells their story for the first time.

In the early morning hours of October 24, 1944, the legendary U.S. Navy submarine Tang was hit by one of its own faulty torpedoes. The survivors of the explosion struggled to stay alive one hundred-eighty feet beneath the surface, while the Japanese dropped deadly depth charges. As the air ran out, some of the crew made a daring ascent through the escape hatch. In the end, just nine of the original eighty-man crew survived. But the survivors were beginning a far greater ordeal. After being picked up by the Japanese, they were sent to an interrogation camp known as the Torture Farm." When they were liberated in 1945, they were close to death, but they had revealed nothing to the Japanese, including the greatest secret of World War II. With the same heart-pounding narrative drive that made The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter national bestsellers, Alex Kershaw brings to life this incredible story of survival and endurance.

In July 1944, thirty-two-year-old Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest on a mission to rescue the last Jews of Europe.Over the next six months, he repeatedly risked his life to save tens of thousands of Jews, defying mass murderer Adolf Eichmann and crazed Hungarian fascists while enduring one of the bloodiest sieges of World War II. Tragically, when Budapest was finally liberated, the Holocaust's greatest hero had disappeared into the Soviet gulag to this day, his exact fate is unknown.

The untold story of the bloodiest and most dramatic march to victory of the Second World War--now a Netflix original series starring Jose Miguel Vasquez, Bryan Hibbard, and Bradley James "Exceptional . . . worthy addition to vibrant classics of small-unit history like Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers."--Wall Street Journal Written with Alex Kershaw's trademark narrative drive and vivid immediacy, The Liberator traces the remarkable battlefield journey of maverick U.S. Army officer Felix Sparks through the Allied liberation of Europe--from the first landing in Italy to the final death throes of the Third Reich. Over five hundred bloody days, Sparks and his infantry unit battled from the beaches of Sicily through the mountains of Italy and France, ultimately enduring bitter and desperate winter combat against the die-hard SS on the Fatherland's borders. Having miraculously survived the long, bloody march across Europe, Sparks was selected to lead a final charge to Bavaria, where he and his men experienced some of the most intense street fighting suffered by Americans in World War II. And when he finally arrived at the gates of Dachau, Sparks confronted scenes that robbed the mind of reason--and put his humanity to the ultimate test.

Raised in poverty as an illegitimate child, Jack London dropped out of school to support his mother, working in mind-deadening jobs that would foster a lifelong interest in socialism. Brilliant and self-taught, he haunted California's waterside bars, brawling with drunken sailors and learning about love from prostitutes. His lust for adventure took him from the beaches of Hawaii to the gold fields of Alaska, where he experienced firsthand the struggles for survival he would later immortalize in classics like White Fang and The Call of the Wild. A hard-drinking womanizer with children to support, Jack London was no stranger to passion when he met and married Charmian Kittredge, the love of his life. Despite his adventurous past, London had never before met a woman like Charmian; she adored fornication and boxing, and willingly risked life and limb to sail and explore. She typed his manuscripts while he churned out novels, serving as his inspiration and his critic. Lover, fighter, and onetime hobo, Jack London lived large and died before he was forty. This is a rare biography, from bestselling historian Alex Kershaw, that proves the truth can be more fascinating--and a far greater adventure--than a fiction.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Alex Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of Against All Odds, returns with an utterly immersive, adrenaline-driven account of D-Day combat. "Meet the assaulters: pathfinders plunging from the black, coxswains plowing the whitecaps, bareknuckle Rangers scaling sheer rock . . . Fast-paced and up close, this is history's greatest story reinvigorated as only Alex Kershaw can."--Adam Makos, New York Times bestselling author of Spearhead and A Higher Call Beginning in the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944, The First Wave follows the remarkable men who carried out D-Day's most perilous missions. The charismatic, unforgettable cast includes the first American paratrooper to touch down on Normandy soil; the glider pilot who braved antiaircraft fire to crash-land mere yards from the vital Pegasus Bridge; the brothers who led their troops onto Juno Beach under withering fire; as well as a French commando, returning to his native land, who fought to destroy German strongholds on Sword Beach and beyond. Readers will experience the sheer grit of the Rangers who scaled Pointe du Hoc and the astonishing courage of the airborne soldiers who captured the Merville Gun Battery in the face of devastating enemy counterattacks. The first to fight when the stakes were highest and the odds longest, these men would determine the fate of the invasion of Hitler's fortress Europe--and the very history of the twentieth century. The result is an epic of close combat and extraordinary heroism. It is the capstone Alex Kershaw's remarkable career, built on his close friendships with D-Day survivors and his intimate understanding of the Normandy battlefield. For the seventy-fifth anniversary, here is a fresh take on World War II's longest day. Praise for The First Wave "Masterful... readers will feel the sting of the cold surf, smell the acrid cordite that hung in the air, and duck the zing of machine-gun bullets whizzing overhead. The First Wave is an absolute triumph."--James M. Scott, bestselling author of Target Tokyo "These pages ooze with the unforgettable human drama of history's most consequential invasion."--John C. McManus, author of The Dead and Those About to Die

*The instant New York Times bestseller* The untold story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War II--all Medal of Honor recipients--from the beaches of French Morocco to Hitler's own mountaintop fortress, by the national bestselling author of The First Wave "Pitch-perfect."--The Wall Street Journal - "Riveting."--World War II magazine - "Alex Kershaw is the master of putting the reader in the heat of the action."--Martin Dugard As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice "Footsie" Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy. In the campaign to liberate Europe, each would gain the ultimate accolade, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Tapping into personal interviews and a wealth of primary source material, Alex Kershaw has delivered his most gripping account yet of American courage, spanning more than six hundred days of increasingly merciless combat, from the deserts of North Africa to the dark heart of Nazi Germany. Once the guns fell silent, these four exceptional warriors would discover just how heavy the Medal of Honor could be--and how great the expectations associated with it. Having survived against all odds, who among them would finally find peace?

*The instant New York Times bestseller* The untold story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War II--all Medal of Honor recipients--from the beaches of French Morocco to Hitler's own mountaintop fortress, by the national bestselling author of The First Wave "Pitch-perfect."--The Wall Street Journal - "Riveting."--World War II magazine - "Alex Kershaw is the master of putting the reader in the heat of the action."--Martin Dugard As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice "Footsie" Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy. In the campaign to liberate Europe, each would gain the ultimate accolade, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Tapping into personal interviews and a wealth of primary source material, Alex Kershaw has delivered his most gripping account yet of American courage, spanning more than six hundred days of increasingly merciless combat, from the deserts of North Africa to the dark heart of Nazi Germany. Once the guns fell silent, these four exceptional warriors would discover just how heavy the Medal of Honor could be--and how great the expectations associated with it. Having survived against all odds, who among them would finally find peace?

From Alex Kershaw, author of the New York Times bestseller Against All Odds, comes an epic story of courage, resilience, and faith during the Second World War General George Patton needed a miracle. In December 1944, the Allies found themselves stuck. Rain had plagued the troops daily since September, turning roads into rivers of muck, slowing trucks and tanks to a crawl. A thick ceiling of clouds had grounded American warplanes, allowing the Germans to reinforce. The sprint to Berlin had become a muddy, bloody stalemate, costing thousands of American lives. Patton seethed, desperate for some change, any change, in the weather. A devout Christian, he telephoned his head chaplain. "Do you have a good prayer for the weather?" he asked. The resulting prayer was soon printed and distributed to the 250,000 men under Patton's command. "Pray when driving," the men were told. "Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate rains, for good weather for Battle. . . . Pray for victory. . . . Pray for Peace." Then came the Battle of the Bulge. Amid frigid temperatures and heavy snow, 200,000 German troops overwhelmed the meager American lines in Belgium's Ardennes Forest, massacring thousands of soldiers as the attack converged on a vital crossroads town called Bastogne. There, the 101st Airborne was dug in, but the enemy were lurking, hidden in the thick blanket of fog that seemed to never dissipate. A hundred miles of frozen roads to the south, Patton needed an answer to his prayer, fast, before it was too late.

The best-selling author of The Liberator brings to life the incredible true story of an American doctor in Paris, and his heroic espionage efforts during World War II. The leafy Avenue Foch, one of the most exclusive residential streets in Nazi-occupied France, was Paris's hotbed of daring spies, murderous secret police, amoral informers, and Vichy collaborators. So when American physician Sumner Jackson, who lived with his wife and young son Phillip at Number 11, found himself drawn into the Liberation network of the French resistance, he knew the stakes were impossibly high. Just down the road at Number 31 was the mad sadist Theodor Dannecker, an Eichmann prot g charged with deporting French Jews to concentration camps. And Number 84 housed the Parisian headquarters of the Gestapo, run by the most effective spy hunter in Nazi Germany. From his office at the American Hospital, itself an epicenter of Allied and Axis intrigue, Jackson smuggled fallen Allied fighter pilots safely out of France, a job complicated by the hospital director's close ties to collaborationist Vichy. After witnessing the brutal round-up of his Jewish friends, Jackson invited Liberation to officially operate out of his home at Number 11--but the noose soon began to tighten. When his secret life was discovered by his Nazi neighbors, he and his family were forced to undertake a journey into the dark heart of the war-torn continent from which there was little chance of return. Drawing upon a wealth of primary source material and extensive interviews with Phillip Jackson, Alex Kershaw recreates the City of Light during its darkest days. The untold story of the Jackson family anchors the suspenseful narrative, and Kershaw dazzles readers with the vivid immediacy of the best spy thrillers. Awash with the tense atmosphere of World War II's Europe, Avenue of Spies introduces us to the brave doctor who risked everything to defy Hitler.

In the summer of 1940 a handful of volunteer pilots defied their country to fight when we needed them most. This is the story of their Battle of Britain.In the early days of World War Two when Britain stood alone against the terror of Hitler's all-conquering Third Reich, her future hung in the balance; her defence in the hands of the Spitfires and Hurricanes of the Royal Air Force's Fighter Command. They were Churchill's Few. This is their story - and a fresh perspective on the greatest air battle the world has ever seen.'Fine, deeply movingm scintillating...in the battle scenes this book soars heavenward like one of the Spitfires.' - Andrew Roberts, Sunday Telegraph