In October 1934, the Chinese Communist Army found itself facing annihilation, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Nationalist soldiers. Rather than surrender, 86,000 Communists embarked on an epic flight to safety. Only thirty were women. Their trek would eventually cover 4,000 miles over 370 days. Under enemy fire they crossed highland awamps, climbed Tibetan peaks, scrambled over chain bridges, and trudged through the sands of the western deserts. Fewer than 10,000 of them would survive, but remarkably all of the women would live to tell the tale. Unbound is an amazing story of love, friendship, and survival written by a new master of adventure narrative.
"Susan Williams reveals there was huge popular support for King Edward and that many ordinary people were happy for him to marry Wallis - even though Prime Minister Baldwin claimed that public opinion would never allow it. She shows how the king was rushed into abdicating, against the good advice of his loyal champion, Winston Churchill. We find out who fomented the crisis and why neither parliament nor the people were consulted. We discover, too, the continuing repercussions within the Royal Family of an event so momentous that it changed the face of the British monarchy."--BOOK JACKET.
Both poignant and inspiring, these are the moving stories of men and women who met amid the chaos of the most devastating war in history and became the loves of one another’s lives. Many are now enjoying their seventies and eighties together after more than fifty happy years of marriage. They met in many remarkable ways, some in the briefest of chance encounters, and their love endured heart-rending ordeals of long separation and the constant threat that a husband or lover might not return. As these couples reflect on the profound experience of the war, the stories they most like to tell are of the deep bonds they forged during that tumultuous time, bonds so strong that they lasted a lifetime. As one man put it, “We’ve all got war stories. Some of us like to tell them and some don’t. But the story of how we fell in love with our wives, well, that’s still with us every day, and I know a lot of us can still get a little choked up over it. The war was a long time ago, one part of our lives. But we’re still living the love stories.” Bestselling author and master interviewer Larry King tells the stories of these love affairs just as the couples recalled them, capturing the special feeling of those times in their own words. The stories are complemented with a wealth of personal photographs and reproductions of touching memorabilia, including V-mail letters, cartoons, cards, newspaper accounts, and even the ticket stub from the movie seen on a first date. The stories reflect a wonderful range of experiences, from couples who met and got married within a few weeks to those who waited years after a brief first meeting to see each other again. There are stories of falling in love at first sight, stories of tragedy transformed by love, and stories of the remarkable resourcefulness that can be exercised by two people determined to be together. A treasure trove of unique reminiscences,Love Stories of World War IIoffers an unprecedented view into this personal side of the World War II experience and celebrates the incredible legacy of remarkable relationships forged in the midst of tragedy.
Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady is Florence King's classic memoir of her upbringing in an eccentric Southern family, told with all the uproarious wit and gusto that has made her one of the most admired writers in the country. Florence may have been a disappointment to her Granny, whose dream of rearing a Perfect Southern Lady would never be quite fulfilled. But after all, as Florence reminds us, "no matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street."
When an older sibling with a flair for the dramatic shares her kingdom with a baby tyrant, can there be a happily ever after? Every big brother and sister is sure to relate to this satisfying tale of usurped attention. Full color.
Named a Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 by Esquire A sociological study of reality TV that explores its rise as a culture-dominating medium—and what the genre reveals about our attitudes toward race, gender, class, and sexuality What do we see when we watch reality television? In True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, the sociologist and TV-lover Danielle J. Lindemann takes a long, hard look in the “funhouse mirror” of this genre. From the first episodes of The Real World to countless rose ceremonies to the White House, reality TV has not just remade our entertainment and cultural landscape (which it undeniably has). Reality TV, Lindemann argues, uniquely reflects our everyday experiences and social topography back to us. Applying scholarly research—including studies of inequality, culture, and deviance—to specific shows, Lindemann layers sharp insights with social theory, humor, pop cultural references, and anecdotes from her own life to show us who we really are. By taking reality TV seriously, True Story argues, we can better understand key institutions (like families, schools, and prisons) and broad social constructs (such as gender, race, class, and sexuality). From The Bachelor to Real Housewives to COPS and more (so much more!), reality programming unveils the major circuits of power that organize our lives—and the extent to which our own realities are, in fact, socially constructed. Whether we’re watching conniving Survivor contestants or three-year-old beauty queens, these “guilty pleasures” underscore how conservative our society remains, and how steadfastly we cling to our notions about who or what counts as legitimate or “real.” At once an entertaining chronicle of reality TV obsession and a pioneering work of sociology, True Story holds up a mirror to our society: the reflection may not always be pretty—but we can’t look away.
"Wonderful!” (Grace Paley). “Heartwarming and smart and wonderfully written” (Detroit Free Press). “Provides edifying advice, intimately given, like the best-selling Tuesdays with Morrie” (the Dallas Morning News). “Altogether original” (Dr. Laura Schlessinger). “This story will speak to the humanity of the reader” (Jewish Book World). The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness is that rare, magical book—a book that tells a good story but also shows us how the tales we learned when we were children shed light on our adult lives. Joel ben Izzy had the unusual opportunity to relive those lessons when he lost his voice and reconnected with his old teacher, Lenny, a retired storyteller. Through his meetings with Lenny, Joel rediscovers the wisdom of ancient tales and takes us on a journey into a world of beggars and kings, monks and tigers, lost horses and buried treasures—and in the end tells us the secret of happiness.
A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by Peter Dainty. All he wanted to do was to marry the woman he loved. But his country said 'No!' He was Edward VIII, King of Great Britain, King of India, King of Australia, and King of thirty-nine other countries. And he loved the wrong woman. She was beautiful and she loved him - but she was already married to another man. It was a love story that shook the world. The King had to choose: to be King, or to have love . . . and leave his country, never to return.
The newly crowned King Arthur has yet to win the support of the people. Merlin must do something before the king is betrayed, or murdered, or--worst of all--gets married. So Merlin creates a trick: a sword magically placed into a slab of rock that only Arthur can withdraw. Then he lets it be known that whosoever removes the blade will rule all of England, and invites any man who would dare, to try to pull out the sword. But then someone else pulls the sword out first. . . .
