True Survival

In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel". They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an eccentric and stubborn old woman called "witch" by the nearby villagers.

Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away? Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But Maurice began to study nautical navigation. Maralyn made detailed lists of provisions. And in June 1972, they set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank.

A collection of 13 award-winning short stories concerning the true adventures of California fish and game wardens and the wildlife-destroying outlaws they pursue. These stories illustrate the wide variety of wildlife-related problems wardens face in California, which has a greater diversity of wildlife and wildlife habitat than any other state and is second only to Alaska in its vast expanses of wilderness.

Lithuania, 1941. As the Nazi forces invade the capital city of Vilna, its Jews’ lives are forsaken. Death lurks beyond every corner, not only at the hands of the German invaders, but mainly at those of local killing gangs collaborating with the new regime. Sarah Shimonovitz is not spared from this threat of death. When the Nazis round up Vilna’s Jews in the ghetto and sentence all those without essential professions to death, Sarah’s life is in grave danger. But she manages to survive the selection, moving between hiding places and evading her pursuers.

On April 14, 1989, for reasons still debated today, Mexican immigrant RamÓn Salcido went on a violent rampage in the idyllic Sonoma Valley wine country where he lived and worked. In the course of just two hours, he killed his wife, Angela, her two younger sisters, his mother-in-law, and the man with whom he suspected Angela was having an affair. He then slashed the throats of his three young daughters - four-year-old Sophia, three-year-old Carmina, and twenty-two-month-old Teresa - leaving them for dead.

From the star of Bravo’s hit reality show Below Deck comes the “Stud of the Sea”'s first-ever memoir recounting his journey from landlocked Saginaw, Michigan to the high seas, where he has spent more than 25 years as a superyacht captain. You don’t have to be one of Below Deck’s 1.5 million weekly viewers to appreciate Captain Lee’s story, which offers a glimpse behind-the-scenes at the luxury yachting industry and one of Bravo’s biggest franchises.

When her husband passed away after a long, trying illness, Annie Dodds was forced to sell almost everything to settle his estate. Homeless, with little money, she wondered if it might be time to pursue a decades-old dream of living a quiet, self-sufficient life alone, off-grid. One day, when her son told her he knew of an old house on 50 acres, she knew it was time.

King Louis Philippe II created the Foreign Legion in 1831 as a way to rid France of penniless immigrants and others considered a liability to the French establishment. The Foreign Legion still exists today as an elite army of modern mercenaries from around the world, in the service of la France. Considered a haven for the dregs of society, joining the Foreign Legion was rumored to be simple, but it wasn't.

With four years in the Parachute Regiment, 10 years in the SAS and two Everest summits to his name, no one is better equipped than Jay Morton to reveal what it takes to become the best of the best. Soldier is Jay Morton’s masterclass in mindset, strategy and excellence. Drawing on his extraordinary personal experience, it provides in-depth, comprehensive lessons and practical takeaways.

When a forty-seven-foot sailboat disappears in the Gulf Stream in the throes of a disastrous storm, it leaves behind three weary passengers struggling to stay alive. This middle-grade adaptation of an adult nonfiction book tells the story of the four intrepid Coast Guardsmen who braved this ruthless storm in the hopes of saving them. A spellbinding tale of courage and survival from the author of The Finest Hours.

One misty evening, Jennings Michael Burch's mother, too sick to care for him, left her eight-year-old son at an orphanage with the words, "I'll be right back." She wasn't.... Shuttled through a bleak series of foster homes, orphanages, and institutions, Jennings never remained in any of them long enough to make a friend. Instead, he clung to a tattered stuffed animal named Doggie, his sole source of comfort in a frightening world. Here, in his own words, Jennings Michael Burch reveals the abuse and neglect he experienced during his lost childhood.

Entertainment Weekly calls acclaimed author and essayist J. Maarten Troost a "funny, candid, and down-to-earth travel companion". Both witty and poignant, Headhunters on My Doorstep follows Troost as he retraces Robert Louis Stevenson’s path through the South Pacific. Somewhere between AA meetings in Tahiti and discovering how the Island of Merrymaking got its name, Troost reconnects with himself, his family, and the beauty of life.

In 1990, David Muller set sail to Mozambique with his wife and two young children, to fulfil a boyhood dream of sailing to the tropics on the yacht he had spent ten years building. The dream holiday came to a shocking end when the yacht ran aground on a beach near Bazaruto Islands. While waiting for high tide to refloat the yacht, a patrol of Renamo child soldiers, armed with AK47’s, arrive, along with two adult captives.

Sophie Crockett spent most of her childhood suffering from crippling anxiety. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, she became a virtual prisoner in her own home, afraid to venture outside. After battling with depression, eating disorders and self-harm, Sophie had the courage to re-enter society in her late teens.

This is the true story of Yasmeena, a bright and beautiful young Lebanese woman who was imprisoned in Kuwait during the first Gulf War. Yasmeena's shocking journey is a tale of the madness of war, of the sexual brutality unleashed by chaos, and of one woman’s courage to stand in danger’s way to aid her fellow sufferers.

Poland, 1940. Moshe and his family flee their hometown of Warsaw in a desperate bid for survival as Nazi forces advance on the city. Hiding under false identities, they hope to wait out the end of the war, which must surely be near. But nowhere is truly safe for Poland’s Jews, and soon Moshe and his brother find themselves en route to Auschwitz, from where no one returns. Separated from the rest of their family, they hold on to each other with everything they have.

True Raiders tells the untold true story of Monty Parker, a British rogue nobleman who, after being dared to do so by Ava Astor, the so-called “most beautiful woman in the world,” headed a secret 1909 expedition to find the fabled Ark of the Covenant. Like a real-life version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, this incredible story of adventure and mystery has almost been completely forgotten today. Using recently uncovered records from the original expedition and several newly translated sources, True Raiders is the first retelling of this group’s adventures.

Relli, a Jewish girl in Poland, was denied a normal childhood. When Relli was just a baby, the Nazis occupied Poland and she, together with her parents, were imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto, a way station before death. Her parents correctly assessed the new situation and decided to act heroically in order to save their only child. They succeeded in smuggling her out of the Ghetto and entrusted her to a Gentile Polish couple who agreed to hide her for the duration of the war under a false identity.

At some point in the course of Paul and Mark’s friendship, Mark acquired—legally and with required permits—five firearms. Those weapons lived with them in their college apartment. It was a non-issue for the two best friends. They were inseparable. They were twenty-two-year-old boys at the height of their college experience, unaware that everything was about to change forever. The bullet ripped through two walls before it struck Paul’s skull.

Leaving behind friends, family, and life as they know it, the Wards embark on a journey into the Alaskan wilderness that will change them forever. Winds of Skilak traces a young couple’s adventurous move from the suburbs of Ohio to a remote island on ill-tempered Skilak Lake. As Sam and Bonnie adapt to a life without running water, electricity, and telephones, the unforgiving, desolate environment tests their courage early on.