Recommendations based on "Biografi"

Each year, the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps selects one book that he believes is both relevant and timeless for reading by all Marines. The Commandant's choice for 1993 isWe Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young.In November 1965, some 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediately surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. Three days later, only two and a half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped to pieces. Together, these actions at the landing zones X-Ray and Albany constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War.How these men persevered--sacrificed themselves for their comrades and never gave up--makes a vivid portrait of war at its most inspiring and devastating. General Moore and Joseph Galloway, the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, have interviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the North Vietnamese commanders. This devastating account rises above the specific ordeal it chronicles to present a picture of men facing the ultimate challenge, dealing with it in ways they would have found unimaginable only a few hours earlier. It reveals to us, as rarely before, man's most heroic and horrendous endeavor.

Just as Norman Maclean writes at the end of "A River Runs through It" that he is "haunted by waters," so have readers been haunted by his novella. A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs through It and Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx.Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiences—the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father.By turns raunchy, poignant, caustic, and elegiac, these are superb tales which express, in Maclean's own words, "a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by." A first offering from a 70-year-old writer, the basis of a top-grossing movie, and the first original fiction published by the University of Chicago Press, A River Runs through It and Other Stories has sold more than a million copies. As Proulx writes in her foreword to this new edition, "In 1990 Norman Maclean died in body, but for hundreds of thousands of readers he will live as long as fish swim and books are made."

Jack London's semiautobiographical critique of individualism that touches on contemporary issues like socialism and mental illness, now two major motion pictures―one directed by Pietro Marcello, the other by Jay CravenThe semiautobiographical Martin Eden is the most vital and original character Jack London ever created. Set in San Francisco, this is the story of Martin Eden, an impoverished seaman who pursues, obsessively and aggressively, dreams of education and literary fame. London, dissatisfied with the rewards of his own success, intended Martin Eden as an attack on individualism and a criticism of ambition; however, much of its status as a classic has been conferred by admirers of its ambitious protagonist. Andrew Sinclair's wide-ranging introduction discusses the conflict between London's support of socialism and his powerful self-will. Sinclair also explores the parallels and divergences between the life of Martin Eden and that of his creator, focusing on London's mental depressions and how they affected his depiction of Eden.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

In this remarkable book, 103-year-old George Dawson, a slave's grandson who learned to read at age 98, reflects on his life and offers valuable lessons in living as well as a fresh, firsthand view of America during the twentieth century. Richard Glaubman captures Dawson's irresistible voice and view of the world, offering insights into humanity, history, hardships, and happiness. From segregation and civil rights, to the wars, presidents, and defining moments in history, George Dawson's description and assessment of the last century inspires readers with the message that-through it all-has sustained him: "Life is so good. I do believe it's getting better."

This classic captures the endearing relationship between a man and his grandson as they fish and hunt the lakes and woods of North Carolina. All the while the Old Man acts as teacher and guide, passing on his wisdom and life experiences to the boy, who listens in rapt fascination.

Rusty Travels Abroad To Fulfil His Dream Of Becoming A WriterRusty Goes To London Is The Fourth Book In Puffin'S New Series Of The Complete Escapades Of Rusty; This Is The First Time That All The Rusty Stories Are Available In Chronological Order. In His Early Twenties Now, Rusty Finally Severs Ties With Dehra And Books A Passage To England, With The Dream Of Writing And Selling His Novel Abroad. First In His Aunt'S House In Jersey, And Then In Rented Lodgings In London, He Works As A Clerk By Day And Writes Away In The Evenings. Eventually The Novel Is Finished And Rusty Even Finds A Publisher. But This, He Discovers, Does Not Mean That His Book Will See The Light Of Day Soon ...While In London, Rusty Has Myriad Adventures, Each More Incredible Than The Last. Strolling Down Baker Street, He Runs Into Sherlock Holmes, Who Gives Him A Few Lessons In Investigative Techniques. At The Victoria And Albert Museum, He Is Accosted By Rudyard Kipling. And Then, Of Course, There Is The Strange Incident At The Chinese Quarter, The Calypso Christmas In His Lodgings, And The Story Of The Vietnamese Girl Vu-Phuong. After Three Years Abroad, However, Rusty Realizes That He Wants To Make India His Permanent Home; All He Really Needs Is A Room Of His Own To Live And Write In, As The Vibrant World That He Has Known And Loved All Along Unfolds Outside. Returning To Dehra, He Renews Some Acquaintances And Makes A Few New Ones, And Settles Into His Role As Full-Time Author. Full Of Interesting Stories And Memorable Characters, Rusty Goes To London Is A Book That Will Delight All Of Ruskin Bond'S Young Fans.

"Gipson again has given us a purely wonderful trunk of Americana, and one of those rare books to be enjoyed on many latitudes of brow elevation."--Chicago Sunday Tribune

A brief biography of the slave who escaped to freedom with his family and other runaway slaves on a captured Confederate gunboat.

George MacDonald Fraser's famous Flashman series appearing for the first time in B-format with an exciting new series style, ready to please his legions of old fans and attract armies of new ones. The Flashman Papers 1849--50 and 1875--1876 Vol. Seven What was Harry Flashman doing on the slopes of the Little Bighorn, caught between the gallant remnant of Custer's 7th Cavalry and the withering attack of Sitting Bull's Braves? He was trying to get out of the line of fire and escape yet again with his life (if not with his honour) intact after setting the American West by its ears. Here is the legendary and authentic West of the Mangas Colorado and Kit Carson, of Custer and Spotted Tail, of Crazy Horse and the Deadwood stage, gunfighters and gamblers, eccentrics, scoundrels and, of course, Indian belles, dusky beauties, enthusiastic widows and mysterious adventuresses; this seventh volume of The Flashman Papers shows the West as it really was. Terrifying

Thomas L. Kane (1822-1883), a crusader for antislavery, women's rights, and the downtrodden, rose to prominence in his day as the most ardent and persuasive defender of Mormons' religious liberty. Though not a Mormon, Kane sought to defend the much-reviled group from the "Holy War" waged against them by evangelical America. His courageous personal intervention averted a potentially catastrophic bloody conflict between federal troops and Mormon settlers in the now nearly forgotten Utah War of 1857-58. Drawing on extensive, newly available archives, this book is the first to tell the full story of Kane's extraordinary life. The book illuminates his powerful Philadelphia family, his personal life and eccentricities, his reform achievements, his place in Mormon history, and his career as a Civil War general. Further, the book revises previous understandings of nineteenth-century reform, showing how Kane and likeminded others fused Democratic Party ideology, anti-evangelicalism, and romanticism.