Adult

2014 marks the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation from the White House, and no book has captured the extraordinary upheaval of America during the Watergate years better than Elizabeth Drew’s WASHINGTON JOURNAL. The book that established Drew’s reputation as one of the shrewdest and sharpest writers on American politics, WASHINGTON JOURNAL took in the emerging scandal with tremendous clarity and force.

Like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, the burning of Washington was a devastating national tragedy that ultimately united America and renewed its sense of purpose. THROUGH THE PERILOUS FIGHT recreates the thrilling six-week period when Americans rallied from the ashes to overcome their oldest adversary --- and win themselves a new birth of freedom.

THE SAVIOR GENERALS is a set of pocket biographies of five generals (Themistocles, Belisarius, William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgway and David Petraeus) who single-handedly saved their nations from defeat in war. Their dramatic feats of leadership are vital slices of history --- not merely as stirring military narrative, but as lessons on the dynamic nature of consensus, leadership and destiny.

REAGAN AT REYKJAVIK is the dramatic, first-hand account of the historic 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Iceland --- the definitive weekend that was the key turning point in the Cold War --- by President Reagan’s arms control director, Ken Adelman. Scrupulously researched and based on now-declassified information, Adelman's book tells the gripping tale of this weekend that changed the world.

In the mid-19th century, the Paris we know today was born, the vision of two extraordinary men: the endlessly ambitious Emperor Napoléon III and his unstoppable accomplice, Baron Haussmann. PARIS REBORN is the vivid and engrossing account of the greatest transformation of a major city in modern history. It's a must-read for anyone who ever wondered how Paris, the city universally admired as a standard of urban beauty, became what it is.

LINCOLN'S BISHOP is Gustav Niebuhr's compelling history of Abraham Lincoln's decision in 1862 to spare the lives of 265 condemned Sioux men, and the Episcopal bishop who was his moral compass, helping guide the president's conscience. Bringing to life this little known event and this extraordinary man, Niebuhr pays tribute to the once amazing moral force of mainline Protestant churches and the practitioners who guarded America's conscience.

In 2003, 85 years after the end of World War I, Richard Rubin set out to see if he could still find and talk to someone who had actually served in the American Expeditionary Forces during that colossal conflict. Ultimately, he found dozens, aged 101 to 113, from Cape Cod to Carson City, who shared with him at the last possible moment their stories of America’s Great War.

Now illustrated with an extraordinary collection of over 125 photos, Stephen E. Ambrose’s D-DAY is the definitive history of World War II’s most pivotal battle, June 6, 1944, the day that changed the course of history. Drawing on more than 1,400 interviews with American, British, Canadian, French and German veterans, Ambrose reveals how the original plans for the invasion had to be abandoned, and how enlisted men and junior officers acted on their own initiative when they realized that nothing was as they were told it would be.

At the time of his tragic death in February 2013, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the top sniper in U.S. military history, was finishing one of the most exciting missions of his life: a remarkable book that retold American history through the lens of a hand-selected list of firearms. Kyle masterfully shows how guns have played a fascinating, indispensable, and often underappreciated role in our national story.

Modern life can seem like being lost in a jungle. With distractions and dangers emerging from every direction, it's easy to lose focus. Combining historical, cultural and personal examples with biblical insights, Bishop T. D. Jakes outlines how to re-discover your natural aptitudes and reclaim the wisdom of your past experiences. When attuned to divinely inspired instincts, you will become in sync with the opportunities life presents and discover a fresh abundance of resources.