FREE/BARGAIN - Non-Fiction - August 2014

[Fbone]

Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff [Random House] is $1.99 at your favorite retailer.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/v-ra...=9780307781765

Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for biography and hailed by critics as both "monumental" (The Boston Globe) and "utterly romantic" (New York magazine), Stacy Schiff's Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) brings to shimmering life one of the greatest literary love stories of our time. Vladimir Nabokov--the émigré author of Lolita; Pale Fire; and Speak, Memory--wrote his books first for himself, second for his wife, Véra, and third for no one at all.

"Without my wife," he once noted, "I wouldn't have written a single novel." Set in prewar Europe and postwar America, spanning much of the century, the story of the Nabokovs' fifty-two-year marriage reads as vividly as a novel. Véra, both beautiful and brilliant, is its outsized heroine--a woman who loves as deeply and intelligently as did the great romantic heroines of Austen and Tolstoy. Stacy Schiff's Véra is a triumph of the biographical form.

[Lynx-lynx]

Anyone here read any of the HMSO published Official Histories books? (HMSO = Her Majesty's Stationery Office) eg

The War at Sea
Stephen Wentworth Roskill

What do you think of them?

(By the way, a number of the titles are going very cheaply on Kobo India at the moment)

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Smartie

The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough Amazon.ca is 2.99

From Amazon
On December 31, 1999, after nearly a century of rule, the United States officially ceded ownership of the Panama Canal to the nation of Panama. That nation did not exist when, in the mid-19th century, Europeans first began to explore the possibilities of creating a link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the narrow but mountainous isthmus; Panama was then a remote and overlooked part of Colombia.

All that changed, writes David McCullough in his magisterial history of the Canal, in 1848, when prospectors struck gold in California. A wave of fortune seekers descended on Panama from Europe and the eastern United States, seeking quick passage on California-bound ships in the Pacific, and the Panama Railroad, built to serve that traffic, was soon the highest-priced stock listed on the New York Exchange. To build a 51-mile-long ship canal to replace that railroad seemed an easy matter to some investors. But, as McCullough notes, the construction project came to involve the efforts of thousands of workers from many nations over four decades; eventually those workers, laboring in oppressive heat in a vast malarial swamp, removed enough soil and rock to build a pyramid a mile high. In the early years, they toiled under the direction of French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps, who went bankrupt while pursuing his dream of extending France's empire in the Americas. The United States then entered the picture, with President Theodore Roosevelt orchestrating the purchase of the canal--but not before helping foment a revolution that removed Panama from Colombian rule and placed it squarely in the American camp.

The story of the Panama Canal is complex, full of heroes, villains, and victims. McCullough's long, richly detailed, and eminently literate book pays homage to an immense undertaking. --Gregory McNamee

Still on sale at amazon.ca for $ CDN 2.99, so probably a similiar deal elsewhere - I got mine at kobo last week. Today is the centenary of the first transit of the Panama Canal. This is an excellent book, one of McCullough's best. The audiobook is also very good.

[pendragginp]

Still at Amazon US too.

[issybird]

Churchill: A Life, Martin Gilbert's one-volume abridgement (it's still over a thousand pages) of his eight-volume biography, is $1.99 at Amazon, Kobo (perkopolis works) and B&N.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Anyone here read any of the HMSO published Official Histories books? (HMSO = Her Majesty's Stationery Office) eg

The War at Sea
Stephen Wentworth Roskill

What do you think of them?

(By the way, a number of the titles are going very cheaply on Kobo India at the moment)

Just found some info on HMSO published works - the info came from the Kobo India blurb and book hereunder:


The Royal Air Force at War 1939 - 1945: The Fight at Odds
Dennis Richards
Price: 3 Indian Rupees (approx AUD 5 cents)
Price: Kobo Aus - AUD3.00
perkopolis works for a 40% discount on the HMSO titles

'The Fight at Odds' is the first volume of the definitive three volume series 'The Royal Air Force 1939 to 1945'. If you want to know about the RAF in WW II - you read this book.

Unfortunately, the scale of the book, three large volumes with its many illustrations and diagrams meant that it was never going to sell as popular book and it was too expensive to reprint.

It, like all the other books of the HMSO Official History of WW II are largely confined to academic libraries and the general public rarely make contact with them.

The HMSO Histories are the British counter parts to the US Army 'Green Book' series and of a similar size, breadth of vision and depth of content.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Anyone here read any of the HMSO published Official Histories books? (HMSO = Her Majesty's Stationery Office) eg

The War at Sea
Stephen Wentworth Roskill

What do you think of them?...

A few of these have been digitised at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/index.html with the HMSO ones at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/index.html if you want an online preview of what is in them. It is possible that these have been the source of the ebooks that are appearing. It also may be that there are better sites with the HMSO documents, it would seem strange if the UK Government has not digitised their war histories in the manner that some other countries have; but if so I have not found them???

There is much other WII material on the above site especially with respect to American operations and, for example, direct links to digitised books in other collections such as our own extensive Australian (Australian War Memorial site) and NZ (NZ Electronic Text Collection) ones.

While I mention HMSO Hyperwar ones in case you want to preview them, also if there is anyone around interested enough it is easy enough with the expenditure of a little time to create ones own ebooks from the online source. Open the source of each chapter, etc of the online book (in Internet Explorer menu View>Source and save that as .htm. Two example options to get to epub (or whatever); 1. copy the htm files to Calibre (in which they will appear as .zip) and convert each to epub, then merge them all into a book with epub merge plugin, or 2. build the ebook with the .htms in Calibre's Editor. My understanding is that HMSO copyright is fine being publication plus 50 years with just a credit needed in the book created.

John

[Lynx-lynx]

@Anothercat, thanks for that info

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

A few of these have been digitised at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/index.html with the HMSO ones at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/index.html if you want an online preview of what is in them. It is possible that these have been the source of the ebooks that are appearing. It also may be that there are better sites with the HMSO documents, it would seem strange if the UK Government has not digitised their war histories in the manner that some other countries have; but if so I have not found them???

There is much other WII material on the above site especially with respect to American operations and, for example, direct links to digitised books in other collections such as our own extensive Australian (Australian War Memorial site) and NZ (NZ Electronic Text Collection) ones.
. . . .
John

Great resources! Thanks for posting!

[AnemicOak]

The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss has dropped to $3.26
Amazon US | Google

The Spartacus War is the extraordinary story of the most famous slave rebellion in the ancient world, the fascinating true story behind a legend that has been the inspiration for novelists, filmmakers, and revolutionaries for 2,000 years. Starting with only seventy-four men, a gladiator named Spartacus incited a rebellion that threatened Rome itself. With his fellow gladiators, Spartacus built an army of 60,000 soldiers and controlled the southern Italian countryside. A charismatic leader, he used religion to win support. An ex-soldier in the Roman army, Spartacus excelled in combat. He defeated nine Roman armies and kept Rome at bay for two years before he was defeated. After his final battle, 6,000 of his followers were captured and crucified along Rome's main southern highway.

The Spartacus War is the dramatic and factual account of one of history's great rebellions. Spartacus was beaten by a Roman general, Crassus, who had learned how to defeat an insurgency. But the rebels were partly to blame for their failure. Their army was large and often undisciplined; the many ethnic groups within it frequently quarreled over leadership. No single leader, not even Spartacus, could keep them all in line. And when faced with a choice between escaping to freedom and looting, the rebels chose wealth over liberty, risking an eventual confrontation with Rome's most powerful forces.

The result of years of research, The Spartacus War is based not only on written documents but also on archaeological evidence, historical reconstruction, and the author's extensive travels in the Italian countryside that Spartacus once conquered.

Whispersync for voice add on $3.99

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

A few of these have been digitised at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/index.html with the HMSO ones at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/index.html if you want an online preview of what is in them. It is possible that these have been the source of the ebooks that are appearing. It also may be that there are better sites with the HMSO documents, it would seem strange if the UK Government has not digitised their war histories in the manner that some other countries have; but if so I have not found them???

MR user mrmikel has added a number of these books to the MR library. I've picked up quite a few and they are nicely done.

[bfisher]

"The Hornet's Sting: The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum " By Mark Ryan
got it for CDN$ 0.99 at Kobo Canada
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebo...y-thomas-sneum

the blurb:
"Assassination by crossbow, refueling homemade planes in mid-air, mother and daughter seductionAllied spy Tommy Sneum has done it all. The exploits of Tommy Sneum, the Danish-born spy who died in 2007, made him a legend in espionage circles. But until now, the full extraordinary story of Sneums action-packed career as a British-run spy had never been told. Working with hundreds of hours of interviews with Sneum, Mark Ryan describes how Tommy made an incredible escape from Denmark in a battered old Hornet Moth aircraft which he had to refuel in mid-air by climbing out on the wing. Later, he escaped from Denmark again by walking across a treacherous frozen sea on which two of his companions died. Tommy brought over precious intelligence about the Nazi radar installations in Denmark and their atom bomb- his reward was to be imprisoned in Brixton as a suspected double agent and threatened with execution. He cheated the hangman but it is only with the publication of this enthralling book that Sneum can be celebrated as, in the words of Professor R.V. Jones, Churchills chief of scientific intelligence, one of the true heroes of World War II. According to Major General Richard Eyre Lloyd, Sneums Kings Medal for Courage should have been the prestigious Victoria Cross."

I read this as a pbook years ago - excellent story.

[BelleZora]

Free at Amazon: Nineteen Weeks: America, Britain, and the Fateful Summer of 1940 by Norman Moss. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2003.

‘Nineteen Weeks’ is Norman Moss’s riveting account of the events in 1940 that changed Britain and America forever.

The weeks between May and September 1940 saw Hitler’s stunning conquest of France, Britain’s struggle against the threat of invasion and conquest, and a passionate debate in the United States over the proper response to these events.

Two battles raged in that summer, both vital to Britain’s survival: the battle for Europe and then for mastery of the skies over Britain, and in America the battle for public and political opinion, between those who thought that America had a stake in the defeat of Hitler and the isolationists.

Author Moss moves swiftly between the battlefields of Europe and the halls of Congress, between struggle in the air and in American political convention halls. He gives us a fresh view of “our finest hour.”

When President Roosevelt and the movements of events turned the tide of popular opinion in America from isolationism towards help for Britain, the balance of world power was altered forever.

As Moss shows, the “special relationship” between Britain and America began in that brief, crucial period, setting the tenor of future American foreign policy. His lucid history offers a fascinating window on current world events.

“Vivid…a gripping account of the historic opening months of World War Two.” – WASHINGTON POST

“Engaging . . . a must for anyone supposing that American involvement in World War II began with Pearl Harbor.” — BOOKLIST

“A terrific history of a little-understood moment when freedAom faced its darkest hour.” — NEW REPUBLIC

AU: http://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00MA5O4WS

CA: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00MA5O4WS

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MA5O4WS

US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MA5O4WS

[bfisher]

I got Nevil Shute's autobiography at Kobo at a decent price; $CDN 3.99 - the PERKOPOLIS discount (about $2.50)
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/slide-rule-4

The downside is that the version I got was downloadable to a device only (reading it on a Galaxy Tab), and may possibly be available only in life+50 or less countries. There is also an AdobeDRM version available, but much more expensive and probably non-discountable at $14.99

[Little.Egret]

And a dozen more of the Osprey guides, all with maps

The Punic Wars 264-146 BC (Guide To...)
The three Punic Wars lasted over 100 years, between 264 BC and 146 BC. They represented a struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean between the bludgeoning land power of Rome, bent on imperial conquest, and the great maritime power of Carthage with its colonies and trading posts spread around the Mediterranean. This book reveals how the dramas and tragedies of the Punic Wars exemplify many political and military lessons which are as relevant today as when Hannibal and Scipio Africanus fought to determine the course of history in the Mediterranean. *About the Author*Nigel Bagnall was born in India in 1927, the son and grandson of Army Officers. He was educated at Wellington College and joined the army in January 1946. Commissioned a year later he saw service in Palestine, Malaya, the Canal Zone, Cyprus, Borneo, Singapore and Germany. He was Commander in Chief of the British Army of the Rhine and ended his career as Chief of the General Staf. He was a Defence Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, and is now an Honorary Fellow. His previous book on the Punic Wars has been published in both English and German.

The Rise of Imperial Rome AD 14-193 (Guide To...)
In this book Duncan Campbell explores the course of the wars that ensued as successive emperors sought to extend the empire, from Claudius' conquest of Britannia, Domitian's campaigns on the Rhine and the Danube, through Trajan's Dacian Wars and Parthian War, to Marcus Aurelius' Marcomannic Wars, as well as the Jewish Wars, ending with the consolidation of the Roman frontiers along the Rhine and Danube. This book provides a summary of the strengths, limitations and evolving character of the Roman army during the first two centuries AD, as well as those of the forces of Rome's enemies across the Rhine and Danube in Germany and Romania, and in the East, in the form of the Parthian empire of Iraq/Iran. This is the epic story of the wars waged by a succession of emperors during the period in which Imperial Rome reached its zenith.

The English Civil Wars 1642-1651 (Guide To...)
The period 1642-1651, one of the most turbulent in the history of mainland Britain, saw the country torn by civil wars. Focusing on the English and Welsh wars this book examines the causes, course and consequences of the conflicts. While offering a concise military account that assesses the wars in their national, regional and local contexts, Dr Gaunt provides a full appraisal of the severity of the wars and the true extent of the impact on civilian life, highlighting areas of continued historical debate. The personal experiences and biographies of key players are also included in this comprehensive and fascinating account.

The First World War (2): The Western Front 1914-1916 (Guide To...)
More than 80 years on, the Great War - and particularly the great battles such as the Somme and Verdun - continues to fascinate us and to cast long shadows over the world in which we live. For Britain, the effort and sacrifice involved in creating and sustaining its first-ever and biggest-ever mass citizen army, and in helping to defeat the main enemy in the decisive theatre of operations, left deep emotional and psychological scars that have influenced much of the nation's subsequent history and that are still felt today. In this volume Peter Simkins reexamines the struggle and sheds an interesting new light on the nature, course and effects of the fighting in France and Belgium from 1914 to 1916.


The First World War (3): The Western Front 1917-1918 (Guide To... Book 22)
In this, the second volume covering the war on the Western Front, Peter Simkins describes the last great battles of attrition at Arras, on the Aisne and at Passchendaele in 1917. Then he moves on to relate the successive offensives launched by Germany in the spring and summer of 1918 in an effort to achieve victory or a favourable peace before American manpower proved decisive. Again, questioning and correcting several myths and longheld assumptions about the nature and conduct of war on the Western Front, the author also looks at the aftermath and legacy of the 'war to end wars'.

The First World War (4): The Mediterranean Front 1914-1923 (Guide To...)
WWI in the Mediterranean represented more than just a peripheral theatre to the war on the western front. This engaging volume includes details of allied attempts to capture Constantinople, bloody campaigning in Northern Italy, the defence of the Suez Canal and the defeat of the Turkish army in Palestine. The Arab revolt, skirmishes in North Africa and the entrapment of a huge allied garrison in Greece - 'the world's biggest prison camp' as the Germans described it - are also covered. The result was the fall of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires and the birth of nations unknown in 1914.

The Second World War (6): Northwest Europe 1944-1945 (Guide To...)
This book examines the seminal Northwest Europe campaign of the Second World War. This hard-fought campaign conducted by the Western Allies against the Germans during 1944-45 represented, for the former, the decisive theatre of WWII. From the desperate and risk-laden D-Day landings on 6 June 1944 to the rapid charge through western and central Germany in the last weeks of the war, American, British, Canadian and French military forces took on and defeated the German military. This victory ensured that the scourge of Nazism was finally expunged from the face of Europe.

The Second World War (4): The Mediterranean 1940-1945 (Guide To...)
This book explores the idea that the Mediterranean theater of the Second World War was the first truly modern war. It was a highly mobile conflict, in which logistics were a critical and often deciding factor, and from the very beginning a close relationship between the land, sea, and air elements was vital. Victory could not be achieved by either side unless the three services worked in intimate cooperation. Each side advanced and withdrew across 1,000 miles of desert until the Axis forces were decisively defeated at El Alamein in 1942.

The Second World War (2): Europe 1939-1943 (Guide To...)
While many of the participants were the same as the First World War, this conflict was far more than a rematch of 1914-1918. The Second World War was even more destructive than the first and the added ideological element meant that this war was far crueller. This book details the first four years of the war in Europe. It discusses how and why Hitler's resurgent Germany plunged into war, and examines the German successes against Poland, France and the Low Countries.

The Second World War (3): The War At Sea (Guide To...)
This volume provides a comprehensive guide to three major theatres of combat, the battles for the Atlantic, the war in the Mediterranean and the contest in the Indian Ocean. The war at sea was a vital contest, which if lost would have irreversibly altered the balance of the military forces on land. The sea lanes were the logistical arteries of British and subsequent Allied armies fighting on the three continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Second World War was ultimately won by land forces but it could always have been lost at sea.

The Second World War (5): The Eastern Front 1941-1945 (Guide To...)
In 1940, fresh from the success in France, Hitler turned his attention to the East. In this volume Geoffrey Jukes explains what led to Hitler's decision to instigate the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) and offers a concise account of the campaign that followed. The Germans expected to conquer Russia in only four months, but at Stalingrad and then Kursk the Russians fought back. At a human cost of 27 million Soviet lives Hitler was forced into a humiliating retreat and Russia emerged from the war as a super power ready to take on the capitalist world.

The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988 (Guide To...)
The Iran-Iraq War, which ended in August 1988, one month short of its eighth anniversary, was one of the longest, bloodiest and costliest Third World armed conflicts in the twentieth century. Professor Karsh addresses the causes of the Iran-Iraq War, unpacking the objectives of the two belligerents and examining how far objectives were matched by strategy. He assesses the war's military lessons regarding such key areas as strategy, tactics and escalation and in particular the use of non-conventional weapons, Finally, he examines the utility of armed force as an instrument of foreign policy.


List them all with

http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-...blisher=Osprey

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=searc...blisher=Osprey