This is an amazing history of how the University of Washington rowing 8 formed the US team that won gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
It tells how a group of working-class young men were molded into a winning team that triumphed against the odds. No knowledge of rowing is needed to understand this great story of human endeavor. Extremely well written, it reads like a novel but is based on massive research.
I found it absolutely gripping, so much so that I did not want to say goodbye to the real-life characters who can teach us the values of putting team above individual ambition and working hard for each other.
The #1 New York Times-bestselling story about the American Olympic rowing triumph in Nazi Germany-from the author of Facing the Mountain.
Soon to be a major motion picture directed by George Clooney
For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times-the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant.
It was an unlikely quest from the start. With a team composed of the…
This is a superbly plotted novel about the Cold War that begins in 1950 but whose main developments take place in 1969.
It brilliantly weaves fiction into real history and places entirely believable characters into its very well-paced, suspenseful narrative. I loved it for dealing with events around the time I was born and then focuses on developments that shaped my youthful view of the world at age 21. But it is more than a trip down memory lane.
It is very moving on father-son relationships, has believable male and female leads, gives a very good account of life in Cold War Prague, and gets readers into the mindset of the spy. I found it unputdownable and would wake in the night wanting to read a bit more of it.
It is 1950 and communists are being hunted across America. When Walter Kotlar is accused of being a spy by the House Un-American Activities Committee, his young son Nick destroys a piece of evidence only he knows about. But before the hearing can conclude, Walter flees the country, leaving behind his family...and a key witness lying dead, apparently having committed suicide. Nineteen years later, Nick gets a second chance to discover the truth when a beautiful journalist brings a message from his long-lost father, and Nick follows her into Soviet-occupied Prague for a painful reunion and the discovery of a…
This historical thriller, set in New Orleans in 1919, features a black female detective and Louis Armstrong appears in the beautifully plotted fictionalized events.
It has a great sense of place and time, its biggest selling feature for me as a historian. The interlinked rise of Jazz and the Mob at the heart of the action was also riveting.
When I finished reading the novel, I wanted to begin all over again because I did not want to let go of the characters, but they all reappear in three follow-up books in the brilliant City Blues Quartet – Dead Man’s Blues (set in Chicago in 1928), The Mobster’s Lament (New York 1947) and Sunset Swing (Los Angeles 1967). I read them all one after the other – and will reread them all in the coming year!
"Ray Celestin skillfully depicts the desperate revels of that idiosyncratic city and its bizarre legends in his first novel, THE AXEMAN." - The New York Times Sunday Book Review (Marilyn Stasio, Crime Columnist)
The Axeman stalks the streets of New Orleans...
In a town filled with gangsters, voodoo, and jazz trumpets sounding from the dance halls, a sense of intoxicating mystery often beckons from the back alleys. But when a serial killer roams the sultry nights, even the corrupt cops can't see the clues. That is, until a letter from the Axeman himself is published in the newspaper, proclaiming that…
This non-fiction history book explains how Franklin D. Roosevelt transformed the office of president to bring America through the challenges of the Great Depression and World War 2. It explains why he has very few rivals for the title of greatest ever president, with only Abraham Lincoln coming close. It can be read as a backdrop to understanding what is going on in the contemporary United States.
