"Recruited from small Southern towns and posh New England colleges, 10,000 American women served the U.S. Army and Navy as code breakers during World War II. While their brothers and husbands took up arms, these women moved to Washington and, under strict vows of secrecy, learned the meticulous work of breaking German and Japanese military codes. Poring over reams of encrypted messages, the women worked tirelessly in makeshift facilities in Washington,...

"On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists on April 3, when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre 'Tania'. The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishing...

"Richard Rothstein explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation -- that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes it clear that it was de jure segregation -- the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments -- that actually promoted...

On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot. Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did? Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men...

The triumphant true story of a woman who rode her horse across America in the 1950s, fulfilling her dying wish to see the Pacific Ocean, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Horse and The Eighty-Dollar Champion The gift Elizabeth Letts has is that she makes you feel you are the one taking this trip. This is a book we can enjoy always but especially need now. Elizabeth Berg, author of The Story of Arthur Truluv In 1954, sixty-three-year-old...

"From legendary writer Bill James, in collaboration with his daughter, Rachel, a compelling, dramatic, and meticulously researched narrative about a century-old series of unsolved axe murders across America, and how the authors came to solve them"--Jacket. "Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Jewelry and valuables were left in plain sight, bodies were piled together, faces...

Beth Macy, master chronicler of life in the South, combines exhaustive research, exclusive interviews and sources, and attention to detail in this riveting American story about race, greed, and a mother's love. George and Willie Muse from Truevine, Virginia were two little boys born in a brutal time, sharecropping a field in the segregated South, stolen away by a white man offering candy, and set on a path of events that would forever change their...