The great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig confided in his autobiography: “I have a pretty thorough knowledge of history, but never, to my recollection, has it produced such madness in such gigantic proportions.” He was referring to Germany in 1923, a “year of lunacy,” defined by hyperinflation, violence, a political system on the verge of collapse, the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, and separatist movements threatening to rip apart the German nation. Bestselling author Volker Ullrich presents a riveting chronicle of one of the most difficult years any modern democracy has ever faced.

Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required listening for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.

In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.

Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey. These classic epics provided the basis for Greek education and culture throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education through the birth of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.

In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. “Ink is a generative fluid,” she explains. “If you don’t mean your words to breed consequences, don’t write at all.” A Memoir of My Former Self collects the finest of this writing over four decades.

January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest’s maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques—all killed at Auschwitz. Fifteen years after the postcard is delivered, Anne, the heroine of this novel, is moved to discover who sent it and why.

It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo’s new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling “the Congo crisis.”

Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges was madly in love when his life was shattered by painful heartbreak. But the breakdown that followed illuminated an incontrovertible truth—that love is necessarily imbued with loss, that the one doesn’t exist without the other. German physicist Werner Heisenberg was fighting with the scientific establishment on the meaning of the quantum realm’s absurdity when he had his own epiphany—that there is no such thing as a complete, perfect description of reality.

Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before.

New York Times bestselling author Laurence Leamer reveals the complex web of relationships and scandalous true stories behind Truman Capote's never-published final novel, Answered Prayers—the dark secrets, tragic glamour, and Capote's ultimate betrayal of the group of female friends he called his "swans."

In 1990, a country disappeared. When the Iron Curtain fell, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the German Democratic Republic presented a radically different Germany than what had come before and what exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics. Acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer sets aside the usual Cold War caricatures of the GDR to offer a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country.

Malcolm Macarthur was a well-known Dublin socialite. Suave and urbane, he passed his days mingling with artists and aristocrats, reading philosophy, living a life of the mind. But by 1982, his inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing, a desperate threat to his lifestyle. Macarthur hastily conceived a plan: He would commit bank robbery, of the kind that had become frightfully common in Dublin at the time. But his plan spun swiftly out of control, and he needlessly killed two innocent civilians.

In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires.

At once a careful contemplation Proust's masterwork and an exploration of the rich sensory and impressionistic tapestry of a lived world, Living and Dying with Marcel Proust addresses such disparate Proustian obsessions as insomnia, food, digestion, color, addiction, memory, breath and breathing, breasts, snobbism, music, and humor.

Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era.

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.

Across six revealing lectures, Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson will introduce you to one of the 20th century’s most fascinating and divisive writers in Flannery O’Connor and the Scandal of Faith. Beginning with an overview of her brief but remarkable life, Professor Wilson will then take you through an exploration of themes in O’Connor’s work and the hallmarks of her literary style. You’ll get a clearer picture of O’Connor’s historical and geographical context while digging into how her stories can transcend time and place.

In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.

This searing audio documentary brings listeners deep inside the unforgettable story of MOVE, gaining unprecedented access to surviving MOVE members, elected officials from the era, eyewitnesses, and historians to create an indelible portrait of an American tragedy.

Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....

Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the 20th century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? Now available for the first time in unabridged audio, the gripping story of this famous and haunting crime is brought to life by acclaimed narrator Scott Brick.

Fingerprints of the Gods is the revolutionary rewrite of history that has persuaded millions of listeners throughout the world to change their preconceptions about the history behind modern society. An intellectual detective story, this unique history audiobook directs probing questions at orthodox history, presenting disturbing new evidence that historians have tried - but failed - to explain.

Christmas is the single biggest annual event on the planet, a time for merry-making, over-indulgence, peace, goodwill, and the occasional family row. It’s as comfortable and familiar as a pair of old shoes and yet still glittery and exciting. But what do you really know about it? It’s stuffed full of traditions and rituals that most of us have been observing all our lives without having the slightest idea of where they come from.

This is a nine-book bundle on the Pacific War, the theatre of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean and Oceania. The Pacific War saw the Allies pitted against Japan, aided by Thailand and its Axis allies, Germany and Italy. Fighting included some of the largest naval battles in history, and the war culminated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.