War Birds

As a reporter, Jacques Peretti has spent his life investigating important stories. But there was one story, heard in scattered fragments throughout his childhood, that he never thought to investigate. The story of how his mother survived Auschwitz. In the few last months of the Second World War, 13-year-old Alina Peretti, along with her mother and sister, was one of 13,000 non-Jewish Poles sent to Auschwitz. Her experiences there cast a shadow over the rest of her life. Now 90, Alina has been diagnosed with dementia.

Tokyo, 1940. While Japan's war against China escalates, young Yuji Takano clings to his cocooned life: his beloved evenings of French conversation at Monsieur Feneon's, visits to the bathhouse with friends, his books, his poetry. But conscription looms and the mood turns against foreigners, just when Yuji gets entangled with Feneon's daughter. As the nation heads towards conflict with the Allies, Yuji must decide where his duty - and his heart - lies.

October, 1952. The war is over, but for CIA officer Miriam Becker, memories of the horrors she witnessed remain jagged in her mind. While vacationing in Argentina, recovering from a mission that nearly killed her, she's seeing more ghosts from the past than the sights. When a longtime family friend and fellow operative, Jake Devlin, tracks her down, Miriam is forced to push everything to the back of her mind for the next mission: help a highly prized and heavily guarded rocket scientist defect from Soviet-controlled East Berlin—right out from under the KGB's nose.

Iraqi microbiologist Thamer Abdul Rahman Imran has information vital to stopping the unthinkable: a biological attack on the US. When he learns that the new Iraqi government wants to arrest him and the insurgents want to kill him, he goes into hiding. Racing against time, ex-Secret Service agent Steve Monteiro and his team set out on a mission to find the missing scientist and learn what he knows. The journey takes them from the White House to the Middle East as they fight bureaucrats in Washington who want them to fail. Why? And what is this vital information that Thamer possesses?

Despite Germany’s stranglehold on the French, Benjamin Cohen, an introverted but musically talented adolescent, alters the course of his life when he defies his father to study the 55-bell carillon in the Catholic cathedral. Can Benjamin’s budding mastery of the carillon and his love affair with the troubled novitiate nun Marie-Noëlle give him le courage he needs to perform the one act that can save his people from Nazi arrest and earn back the respect from his father he craves? Or will it doom them all?

On his first combat mission of the Vietnam War, US Air Force pilot Sol Rall is shot down over the jungles of Laos. Stranded in a valley teeming with enemy troops, Sol scrambles to survive and evade capture. Pararescueman Bo Bolick has been given just twenty-four hours to find Sol before a US carpet bombing destroys every living thing in the valley, friend or foe.

During the Vietnam War, GIs who managed to survive their tour of duty in one piece - more or less - were flown home in chartered airliners. They called those planes "Freedom Birds". This is the story of three young men - from wildly different backgrounds - who meet on such a plane and make a pact to spend three days together in San Francisco. Their goal: to spend every cent of their mustering out money in a party of a lifetime.

Londres, 1940. Emmeline Lake hace todo lo posible para implicarse en esta época de guerra en la que vive, ofreciéndose como operadora telefónica de los Servicios Auxiliares de Bomberos. Cuando Emmy ve una oferta de trabajo para el diario London Evening Chronicle, sus sueños de convertirse en corresponsal de guerra parecen ser de repente alcanzables. Pero el trabajo, finalmente, resulta para ser mecanógrafa para la reputada columnista de consejos feroces Henrietta Bird. Emmy está decepcionada, pero se da por vencida y acaba aceptando la situación.

The clandestine Ground Division has a single mission. They exist for the sole purpose to take on tasks the United States government doesn’t want to be implicated in. They work in the shadow of the Central Intelligence Agency, but the men of the Ground Division are not CIA agents. Many of them come from the ranks of America’s greatest war fighters - soldiers, airmen, sailors, and Marines, but the men of the Ground Division are not military; they are ghosts. They are off the books of any official government roster.

When it comes to flying gliders, ace pilot Breeze Callaghan is as smooth as they come. He perfects a skill that will prove vitally important for decades to come - even into the jet age, as demonstrated by Captain Sully Sullenberger, who famously landed his disabled passenger plane on the Hudson River.

Billy Flynn always wanted to fly. An attractive young man, a patriot, he is also an artist with pencil and paint and has an abiding affinity for nature. It's 1970 and he cannot resist the call to serve in Vietnam. A year later he is the only survivor when his helicopter is shot down. A Catalog of Birds is the story of a family and a community confronted with a loss of innocence and wounds that may never heal. The legacy of war and its destruction of nature is seared onto the memories of a small American town.

Vlad flea is with his friend Crisp VC, the carrier pigeon. They are on a mission to deliver a secret message. It is March 25, 1918, and the friends are behind enemy lines. They must dodge the dog-fights, survive the trenches and seek help from the staff of the hospital tent as they race to reach Britain safely.

In their rise to fame over the course of the war, Bea Herron, Ivy Sparrow and Rainey Bird have faced down bombs and looked tragedy in the eye. They have also found love, created their own families and had careers that they never thought possible. With peace finally on the horizon, what will the new world hold for them?

The Vietnam War put a once-proud nation in turmoil. During the height of the conflict, the antiwar movement caused civil unrest in America. Young men evaded the draft by fleeing to Canada, claiming conscientious objector status, homosexuality, or marriage with child. But author Rick R. Garcia, the only son born to Hispanic parents, got caught up in the 1969 lottery draft. Pop Smoke, Birds Inbound chronicles Garcias story as he was shipped far away to the land of hush-a-bye to fight in the most controversial war in which the United States ever participated.

An American Combat Bird Dog Pilot is a compelling look at the life and times of a member of the Silent Generation. Mike Leonard’s story chronicles not only his breathtaking combat adventures, but the unforeseen perils that nearly sidetracked him during his time as an international sales executive. This spellbinding narrative paints a vivid portrait of a man, as the Chinese proverb clearly states, "living in interesting times".

Endlich sind alle drei Rabengeschichten in einer Hörbuchedition versammelt. Zu den zwei Bilderbuchklassikern "Als die Raben noch bunt waren" und "Der Rabe, der anders war", die vom wundersamen Farbwechsel der zerstrittenen Vögel und dem ungewollten Buntraben erzählen, gesellt sich nun eine neu veröffentlichte Geschichte. In "Wer will den blauen Raben haben?" vertreibt ein Feuer den Blauraben aus seiner Heimat. Eine Reise ins Unbekannte beginnt, die ihn über's Meer und an fremde Ufer führt.

In einer Sommernacht des Jahres 1941 beobachtet die 18-jährige Sofieke, wie ein Fallschirmagent in den besetzten Niederlanden landet. Der Student Gerhard soll für die Engländer spionieren. Er wird jedoch sofort festgenommen. Gerhard entgeht der Hinrichtung nur, indem er sich zum Schein bereiterklärt, als Doppelagent für die deutsche Spionageabwehr zu arbeiten. Arthur Seyß-Inquart, der mächtigste Nazi in den Niederlanden, ist Gerhards Nennonkel. Seine fröhlich-naive Tochter Dorli zeigt ihm den Palast, in dem sie jetzt wohnt.

Bryan Hale is a damaged man. The stresses of combat flying in England's summer skies during the Battle of Britain, and night-fighting in the icy darkness of the Blitz, together with the loss of friends and a shattered heart, have left him broken and grounded. Fortress Malta, and the unrelenting Nazi siege that aims to grind it away, will be the furnace that forges him anew.

1943, and The Bluebird Girls are at the top of their game. They are touring with ENSA, visiting army bases across the world in order to boost the morale of the brave boys fighting in the desert and the jungle. The hours are long and the travelling uncomfortable, but Bea, Rainey and Ivy wouldn't be anywhere else for the world. Then tragedy strikes the group and their little show business family. Their manager, Blackie, and Rainey's mother, Jo, find themselves with heavy new responsibilities, and the change in circumstances causes the girls themselves to reconsider their lives.  

When Germany invades France in 1940, Cecily Lefort can’t imagine how the aristocratic comforts of life as a French doctor’s wife are about to disappear. A return to native England eventually leads Cecily back to France, this time as a secret agent. Cecily is one of 13 female special operations executive (SOE) spies who do not survive to tell their story. But a 100-year old family-owned photograph of Cecily inspires author Elizabeth Sloan to travel to Paris and investigate the story of Cecily’s life - and death.